What is the best martial arts DVD you’ve seen over the last 10 years or so? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Iron Monkey? Once Upon A Time In China? How about one of Jackie Chan’s more recent films? Most of the people I have talked to about this all say they liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I recently saw a fantastic film from Korea which in my opinion surpasses Crouching Tiger for a couple of different reasons.
The name of the movie is ‘Bichunmoo (Dance With Sword)’ (2000). It was directed by Kim Young-jun and stars Shin Hyun-Junen and Kim Hee-seon. The film is not rated, but Im sure it would have gotten an ‘R’ rating in the United States due to the slicing and dicing and the romantic theme of the movie.
This movie surpasses Crouching Tiger mainly due to the fact that the story line is a bit more polished and clear cut. Where Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon kind of picks up in the middle of a story, Bichunmoo is completely self contained. Aside from the martial arts action, the story lines are what makes these movies so good. Bichunmoo is the best martial arts DVD I have seen in a long, long time. It not only has the high quality fight scenes and choreography that rivals Crouching Tiger, it also delivers with a good romantic plot line. For someone like me to say that this is a plus in a movie, it has to be good. I usually hate having to sit through all that boring romantic crap they always seem to inject into movies these days. The character development and history that they give about the people in the movie does a lot to pull you into the movie. This is one of those movies that you feel a little depressed at the end of the movie because it’s over.
Bichunmoo also happens to be the biggest budget film in Korean history to date. You can tell by some of the computer generated special effects, specially when they are delivering the early storyline between the two main characters.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you absolutely MUST see Bichunmoo. Its a Romeo and Juliet meets Kung Fu flick with amazing martial arts action fused with a bunch of sword play.
A little side note: if you get the DVD, change the language setting to Chinese and watch the movie with English subtitles. If you watch it the way it comes, it will be in Korean, with the actors mouthing in Chinese, with English subtitles. This is the best martial arts DVD I have seen since first watching some of the old Bruce Lee movies!
I used to think that only the old movies had good story lines, but it wasnt until I started paying attention to the films coming from other countries that I noticed that some of the best martial arts DVD movies are still being produced despite mainstream Hollywood’s destruction of the martial arts genre by limiting it to cheesy fight scenes and special effects.