Swordsman

During China's Ming dynasty, a scroll containing prized martial arts secrets is taken from the imperial library. Officials, eager to keep the theft quiet, hunt down anyone who might know where it went, and suspicion soon falls on a former official named Lam. Two students from the Wah Mountain sword school, Ling Wu Chung and Kiddo, are at his residence when soldiers close in and are pulled into the pursuit. As they flee, they encounter samurai, a secret sect, a tribe of snake charmers and rival martial arts schools, all determined to claim the scroll for themselves.

The film is based on Jin Yong's novel "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer." It was released in 1990 and credited to several directors: Tsui Hark, Tony Ching Siu-Tung, King Hu, Ann Hui, Raymond Lee Wai-Man and Andrew Kam Yeung-Wah. For Tsui Hark it was the sixth of the thirty-one films he has directed, following A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon and preceding Once Upon a Time in China. The screenplay was written by Yiu-Ming Leung, Lau Tai-Muk and Jason Lam Kee-To, with Tsui Hark and Ann Hui producing, and the cast includes Sam Hui, Cecilia Yip, Jacky Cheung, Sharla Cheung, Fennie Yuen Kit-Ying and Lau Siu-Ming.

Made for about two million dollars, the film runs just under two hours. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.8 from roughly 2,800 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7 out of 10 from a much smaller base of around 96 votes.