One of the first releases from the Fox World Cinema label, director Wuershan's debut feature The Butcher, the Chef, and The Swordsman takes your usual martial arts film, throws it into a blender, and adds in a couple of hits of acid for good measure. This movie isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but audiences who enjoy having a healthy sense of quirkiness thrown into their viewing output will want to check this out.

Based on the short story Legend of the Kitchen Knife written by An Changhe, the movie is roughly divided into three parts, each concentrating on one of the titular characters and how their lives are affected by a cleaver that was forged by the iron from the weapons of the world's greatest martial artists.

Besides the divided nature of the story-telling, Wuershan goes one step further and employs heavy use of flashbacks and over-lapping timelines. This sort of film-making can quickly devolve into self-indulgent twaddle, but Wuershan still manages to keep everything coherent and flowing smoothly, giving the audience a new and interesting take on your usual martial arts story without losing them in the process.

Actually, Wuershan's cinematic jam style of directing doesn't stop there. Like Wong Jing hopped up on speed, he changes up the style and tone of the picture from scene to scene, going from drama to comedy to action at the drop of a hat, even going so far as to add in animated sequences and musical numbers. Again, this sort of thing might come off as pandering to the beret and birkenstock clad arthouse crowd, but there is really never a sense of pretentiousness present here.

All of the cinematic gimmicks are done in the spirit of good clean fun, or at least it came off that way to this reviewer, who is admittedly getting tired of Mainland productions that offer little in the way of true emotion, instead depending on rehashing the same old stories mashed up with new stars and bigger budgets or simply resorting to pro-Chinese propagandistic pandering to bring audiences in.

The Butcher, the Chef, and The Swordsman isn't a film trying to be incredibly deep or hit you over the head with a message. It just simply offers up ninety-odd minutes of well-made film-making that is one of the more unique takes on the martial arts genre you're likely to ever see from this year or, for that matter, any other.

RATING: 7