Have Sword, Will Travel

This, in my opinion, is one of the better blood splattered Chinese swordsplay movie by the director considered The Godfather of this genre of movies from Hong Kong. Some people make fun of the male lead David Chiang being extra small and skinny, but he is one of the most nimble, as well as the fastest and swiftest sword fighter I have seen. He may not be classically handsome, but there is something cute and charming about him, especially when he smiles. The lead actress Li Ching is lovely, and the other lead actor Ti Lung is very striking and handsome (even though he wasn’t given too much opportunity to act in the screenplay). The love triangle is quite understandable and touching. I am moved by the scene where the penniless Chiang sold his beloved horse for very little money and Li Ching bought the horse back for him. And for that, she won his heart — enough for him to be willing to sacrifice his life to save the man to whom she was betrothed.

Terrific story: action, drama, and performance. There's more here than just a typical kung-fu movie. The tower recollects Bruce Lee's Game of Death. I thought this was a quality film. Sort of a Western, and probably influenced by John Ford. Akira Kurosawa was also influenced the American Western.

This is a good old-fashioned movie in the style of wu-chia, full of sword fighting, flying, and, needless to say, a bit of romance. With these kinds of films, it may take a little while to catch on to the plot; I don't know whether it would be easier to view it in the original language and not have to rely on captions. But give it twenty minutes, and the states of affairs will become clear. Without giving away anything obvious, the plot centers on the transportation of a rather sizeable amount of money, the various people whose mission it is to protect it, and the robbers who want to make off with it. If by the second half you have already figured out the most likely ending, you're probably right, but it isn't really obvious for the characters of the script, and I won't tell you what it is. The fight scenes are great. Of course, they're improbable, if not impossible. That's what wu-chia is all about. The highly improbable must becomes the possible after all. In this connection, it might be helpful to point out that, although the characters refers to their skills in martial arts as "kung fu," films in the wu-chia goes far beyond the venerable style of of the original Shaolin methods of unarmed go far beyond fighting without weapons. Wu-chia is the style that was most dominant for Hong Kong films prior to the advent and hey-day of strictly Kung Fu films, spearheaded by Bruce Lee. Jet Li and Jackie Chan, among others, continued that style, but with the advent of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and the re-issue of Iron Monkey, wu-chia has made a big comeback. Once you've caught on to the plot, it seems to be pretty straight-forward, but there are a sufficient number of scenarios to keep you on your toes and not take anything fro granted. Defying all medical odds, injuries that you and I would consider to be fatal wounds , will not inhibit a central character to continue to fight his heart out. The subtitles aren't perfect, but not to far from the ideal. I've seen a few reviewers of Hong Kong films refer wu-chia as "wire fu," a really ignorant description and that's revealing of the character of some of the reviewers. If you spend an entire rainy Sunday afternoon going through a Hong Kong film trying to find the one place where a wire might actually show up, I wish you the opportunity to make a little bit more your life. Overall a very nice film though not in the class of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li. A wu-chia director and easily make use of wu-chia devices to get a character out of a spot of trouble without exerting his fighting techniques. Overall, a nice addition to the ever-increasing wu-chia films, but don't a Crouching Tiger.

I can watch this title a zillion times and never miss the excitement throughout right until the climatic epilogue. I’ve loved this film since I’ve first watched it with many other films since the early 70’s. What’s also impressive is the clarity and quality that Amazon Prime delivered it in.

this movie starts out pretty straight forward, bandits, yada yada yada.. the main hero is pretty moody, softens up, moody, soft, moody, annoyed, moody.. the ending was great, and true to the Chinese kung fu hero genre seriously a good movie to watch with the significant other.

I struggled with the decision to even write this review... the fact that it almost feels sacriligious to rate such a highly respected Shaw Brothers film with 3 stars, not to mention all of the well-written positive reviews for it already make it even harder to explain my viewpoint. For me this was just a good swordplay film, none of the characters are very likeable or memorable (although I thought the henchman known as "The Pestilence" was cool) including our leading man who is the type of character who refuses a piece of silver because of his pride but instead is willing to sell the horse he loves (not that way!) for next to nothing (all while wearing a bow on his forehead)? David Chiang became a huge star for Shaw Bros. pictures after this but I've never really been completely sold on him as a lead, which probably helps explain why I thought the film was just decent. The fighting is far from impressive here and normally deteriorates into semi-organized chaos with Chiang leading the way flailing around with even less style than the extras (if you thought Jimmy Wang Yu couldn't fight...). Chang Cheh still manages to make it a worthwhile time and breaks out the trampoline jumps (that characters often use to enter an exit scenes) and buckets of red paint (err, blood I mean) for the big finale. I think 3 stars fits this movie perfectly as it's not bad but never really leaves much of an impression either (especially compared to his best like The One-Armed Swordsman, Chinese Super Ninjas, and 5 Deadly Venoms). "Have Sword, Will Travel"... great title, okay movie.

I found this movie to be somewhat slow moving at first but then the film progresses into some appealing fight scenes. Overall, I really disliked it because of one character in particular, that person would be Yun Piau-piau played by Li Ching. I found her to be very shallow; she goes from speaking of marriage to Siang (Ti Lung), in one scene and then a few later she is mesmerized by David Chiang's character Yi Lo who she eventually falls in love with rather quickly not because he is kind to her or that she has known him as long as Siang. Instead, she falls in love with Yi Lo because his kung fu or swordsmanship is slightly better than Siang's. From what I perceived from the movie was that the Yi Lo character was supposed to be this loner and from his dialogue, he was not forthright in divulging his past willingly. Yun Piau-piau did not have any in-depth understanding of him so how could she fall for him over someone she trained with for years and was her famed aunt's apprentice? The only true justice that I found in this motion picture was the death of Yi Lo, not because I disliked the character but for the very reason that Yun Piau-piau received what she deserved. That is why I prefer other Shaw Brothers films such as "One-Armed Swordsman" and "Return of the One-Armed Swordsman". For in the first film the main character (Fang Gang) had to make a choice between two women. One his master's spoiled daughter, Pei-er (who was the cause of him losing his arm) who would bring Fang Gang wealth and influence or the simple caring country girl (Hsio Man) that nursed him back to health and provided him with the means to develop his one hand sword style. He rightfully chose the latter of the two and overall the both films ended happily, which we hardly ever see currently. Ultimately, these two pictures promoted the honorable course of action, which "Have Sword, Will Travel", failed to accomplish.

Even though I had to read dub titles this movie was awesome. Keep in mind that you have to have a love for this type of movie