Seven Swords Beyond the Sea

Welcome one and all to the official Movie Club blog site! Apparently there was already a blog site with the address movieclub.blogspot.com, so I had to settle for the original and totally imaginative title of melbournemovieclub. Woo its party time!

I have not yet had a chance to check this rival blog spot and club so please any harsh and "oh your reviews are so much better" comments will be most welcome. Until I have a chance to check it out and sigh with melancholy at the plethora of better writers writing about movies there are.

Alright...so! I must be off cause some people have to work you know and not sit around watching movies, talking about movies or writing about movies you dole bludgers...so lets get down to business...

Seven Swords

Well I must admit that my butt got sore during this 3 hour epic tale set in ancient China, butt (ta ha) I was swinging me pretend sword around slashing a head off my Matchu Pitchu (boyfriend) and Ninja-ing Tim into a corner afterwards. So that sort of reaction is always promising.

Not much character development (or as we in industry *chokes slightly* say 'character arc' or according to Christopher Whatshisname a 'Hero's Journey') and so motivation was a bit skewed. Fight scenes were good but there were too many and they were too long...now before you sword swishing weirdo's strike back with "but this type of film is about the fight scenes". This film wasn't! It was trying to be more. It was trying to be deep and introspective and meaningful...at the same time as grusome and gory and thrilling. The combination meant that the goodness of some had to make way for the tasty bit of another and so things became a bit confused (generically speaking of course!).

The translation was a bit suspect as well. It felt as if the poetics of the language got a bit lost between Chinese and Australian (post-production was done in Oz). It was an adaptation of a Chinese novel...sorry! I keep saying Chinese but its actually a Hong Kong production...total apologies!...Now I am unsure whether it was a Chinese novel or a novel written in Hong Kong...lets forget this point and move on to the next.

It was the Australian Premiere and due to the late start time the audience had to run out the door as the final scene began cause of the whole "last tram" deal, I felt bad for the film makers. The film looks really beautiful: the colours and costumes and the landscape! Ph-sheesh! really in tune with the genre and created an exciting canvas on which to play out this epic tale. But a bit too long and slightly unconvincing at times due to story issues otherwise performances were very great!

Rushed for time sorry!

Next week:


Beyond the Sea @ 9:05 @ nova

See ya then!

P.S any spelling or grammer issues please post a comment!