Seven Swords

Set in China during the early decades of the Ching dynasty, Seven Swords depicts a land where the new Manchu rulers have banned the study and practice of martial arts, punishing offenders with death. General Fire-Wind, a mercenary commander, turns the prohibition into profit by collecting bounties on those who defy it. When his campaign threatens Martial Village, a frontier settlement known for its defiant spirit, the former officer Fu Qingzhu decides to intervene. He gathers a small group of skilled fighters, among them Yang Yuncong, Wu Yuanying, Han Zhibang and Chu Zhaonan, to stand against the general's forces.

Tsui Hark directed the film and co-wrote it with Cheung Chi-Sing and Tin-Nam Chun; he also produced it. It is the twenty-first of the thirty-one features he has directed in chronological order, arriving between 1:99 Shorts and Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. The cast includes Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung, Lu Yi, Lau Kar-leung, Donnie Yen and Sun Honglei, with fifty-four credited performers and sixty-two credited crew members. The production drew on companies and funding from Hong Kong, mainland China, Korea, Australia, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles.

Released in 2005, the film runs 152 minutes. Its worldwide box office came to about 3 million US dollars, a modest return for a production of this scale and international reach. Audience responses have been middling: on IMDb it holds 6.1/10 from 9,853 votes, and on TMDB 6.2/10 from 205 votes. A critics' rating of 4.8/10 from 16 reviews sits below those audience scores, suggesting reviewers were less receptive than general viewers.