In the year of 927, the prince of Balhae, an acient Korean kingdom, has been assassinated. So-ha, a female warrior is sent to find and escort Dae Jeong-hyun back to Balhae, a prince who has been in exile for 14 years. He has to be returned to Balhae to claim the throne and to restore order to the kingdom. But there are forces who don't want to see the prince take the throne, and their journey back to Balhae is anything but easy.
I read up on Shadowless Sword a little before watching it and I was afraid that there would be too many names, characters, places and stuff to keep track on, at least it seemed like that from what I read. I'm happy to say though that the movie proved to be quite the opposite as this was an easy movie to get into and that was not the least bit hard to follow. I'm not a big fan of fantasy, but I must say that this movie looks really cool and had some nice fantasy elements to it. The history part of the movie is absolutely great, that it takes place back in ancient times and add to that the fantasy elements as well, in the end both these things makes it pretty cool. But of course everything's not great...
This is Kim Young-Jun's second film after Bichunmoo, a movie that was somewhat similar and that I found to be pretty cool but not great, and the same goes for this one. Even the main character in Bichunmoo stars in this movie as the evil blood-thirsty villain, and he's quite cool, perfect for the part. If you've seen Bichunmoo, you'll recognize a lot of things, it's not similar but they both have a lot in common, taking place in the old days, the fantasy, the battles, some of the characters etc.
Now the story is really simple, and to break it down completely; The kingdom of Balhae needs someone sitting on the throne and that someone is a prince who has been in exile for a long time. A female warrior is sent to get the prince and make her way back with him to Balhae, but of course there are people out there who doesn't want this to happen. That's it, simple but entertaining.
 
One thing this movie has going for it is that it's f**kin stunning to say the least. Everything looks so darn good it's amazing, so even if you won't get a kick out of the actual story or things that occur in the movie, you'll always have the visuals. South Korea has a tendency to make their films look visually great and Shadowless Sword is definitely no exception.
The story is quite interesting but way too predictable, and I hated the fact that there where no twists at all. From the very start you know how it's gonna go down so that leaves you with one questions; Are the things that happen in the movie so good that it's actually worth watching it? The answer is both yes and no. Personally I would say yes, being a big fan of Korean films I feel that I have to see most of their films even though they might not turn out to be so good. Then there are a lot of things that makes this movie good, but at the same time there are a lot of things that makes it not so good as well.
Fights and battles. A movie like this should have a lot of fights and battles, and while it does offer the viewer a whole lot of swordplay and martial arts, some of the fights are somewhat brutal and cool to watch, while some has nothing to them at all except for being stylish (that means boring). The very first real fighting sequence in the movie is really great, and I got all excited and hoped that every fight for the next 110 minutes would be like that, unfortunately that wasn't the case. In the first fight we get to see the female warrior fight a bunch of gang members or whatever and you get to see her break their arms and legs which was awesome to watch. But then there are a lot of fights that had nothing to them except for them looking very good, but that wasn't very helpful nor entertaining.
Another thing is that this movie has borrowed a lot from some other movies. At times in the movie you can't help but to think of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon when they jump in the air over builings and fly in the air through a forest etc. There's a little bit of Hero in it, and towards the end you get a big old scene taken straight out of BraveHeart. So that kinda sucked, ok that a movie can be influenced by some other movies, but when it shows this much it's not very good at all. The acting is great though and so is the choreography. The score is also very good and makes the history and fantasy feel become even stronger.
While Shadowless Sword has a lot of positive sides, it also has a lot of negative sides as well. Action lovers will probably not be disappointed as there are plenty of action scenes in this flick, and if you wanna see a stylish movie, Shadowless Sword would be a great choise. Although, the story is a bit too predictable and that makes it a bit boring, and some of the fights has nothing to them, plus the rip-off parts kinda suck as well. But in the end it's still a decent fantasy film. Also even though it's nearly 2 hours long, it won't feel that long at all since there are so much happening and so many action scenes, so at least the viewer won't get bored.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Moo-yeong-geom
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Kim Young-Jun
WRITING CREDITS: Kim Tae-kwan, Sin Joon-hee
GENRE: Action, Fantasy, History, Swordplay, Martial Arts
CAST: Yun So-Yi, Lee Seo-Jin, Shin Hyeon-Jun
COUNTRY: South Korea
RUNTIME: 115 min
RATING: 6/10
Shadowless Sword Website/IMDB Click here
Shadowless Sword Trailer Click here
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