Legend of the Liquid Sword

cover

AKA: Liquid Sword

Year of release: 1993

Genre: martial arts

Directors: Yueng Wai-Yip, Wong Jing

Action director: Lau Shung-Fung

Producer: Wong Jing

Writers: Lam Wai-Lun, Wong Jing

Cinematography: Ko Chiu-Lam, Yim Wai-Gwaan

Editing: Robert Choi

Music: James Wong, Mark Lui

Stars: Aaron Kwok, Chingmy Yau, Cheung Man, Deric Wan, Gloria Yip, Winnie Lau, Wong Wan-Si, Loletta Lee, Norman Chu, Gordon Liu, Anita Yuen, Lau Ji-Wai

Rated II for violence and language

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Legend of the Liquid Sword  Legend of the Liquid Sword

Legend of the Liquid Sword  Legend of the Liquid Sword

1993 was a busy year for Wong Jing, with around twenty pictures carrying his name in some way, whether it was as a director, producer, writer, or actor. Even for a film-maker known for his blitzkrieg style, this breakneck pace resulted in many half-ass productions, of which the middling martial arts movie Legend of the Liquid Sword is a prime example.

A major facet of Wong Jing's style is his "flying paper" technique. Basically, his scripts are quickly written and are often changed on the set. Surprisingly, many times, this results in a cohesive story, but that is not the case here. In fact, there really isn't a story at all. Aaron Kwok plays a smirking swordsman who travels around with his three sisters and meets up with Chingmy Yau, who, in one of the lamest Hong Kong movie traditions, is disguised as a man. Yet still Aaron is turned on. Hm. That's one to grow on, I guess.

Anyway, the group also encounters the incredibly annoying Deric Wan, who is supposedly the comic relief, but just comes off like a wannabe Stephen Chow while he does so-called hilarious bits where he dresses up as Jesus and proclaims the strength of his Jesus punches -- or, rather, "Jusus paunches" as the craptactular subtitles on the terrible Xenon DVD bring across. Eventually, our merry band of mentally disabled martial artists join forces to take on some low budget goth villain named Batman. Yeah, Batman.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, there's not a single liquid sword presented during the proceedings, much less any sort of legend around it. Really, this whole movie just comes off like Wong Jing dropped every martial arts movie cliche into a word processor and hit the randomize button. There is a sort of schizophrenic charm to the proceedings which holds the audience's interest for a bit, and the usual Wong Jing casting method of stuffing the film full of buxom young ladies was much appreciated.

Ultimately, though, Legend of the Liquid Sword is the sort of movie that adds to Wong's poor reputation. It was obviously cranked out to make a quick buck, to the point that there's no real ending. Supposedly, this was supposed to be the first entry in a trilogy, but since this film tanked, Wong scrapped those plans and went on to make the somewhat related release Holy Weapon. After sitting through Legend of the Liquid Sword, one can at least thank Wong that he didn't have the delusion that anyone would want to see part two of this.

RATING: 5