Not a bad film, but not a great one either. THE LEGEND OF THE SHADOWLESS SWORD is a historical romp from South Korea that sees a princess and a warrior travelling through a land inhabited by lots of different people who want to kill them. It's essentially a journey narrative that meanders between moments of lively action and dull, drawn-out sequences of would-be romance and talk. Lots of talk. I wanted to like it, but the lack of vitality makes this a somewhat plodding affair in places.Films like this seem to be ten a penny these days, and indeed the wushu genre has been alive and kicking in China since the early 1990s. I was looking forward to seeing what a Korean spin on the story would bring to the table, but sadly LEGEND OF THE SHADOWLESS SWORD has little character and style all of its own. In fact, it feels heavily indebted to other productions in places, with half the cast at times made to resemble Johnny Depp in the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies.The good news is that it's not all bad. The action, when it hits, is well handled and explosive, literally so when it comes to the various death scenes; I liked this touch of originality, as it's an example of something we haven't seen before in a film that feels slightly over familiar. In fact, the whole look of the film is great: it's colourful, with bright costumes, fine-looking sets and also some fine-looking women to boot; it seems the producers went out of their way to cast the most beautiful actresses they could find. It's just a shame, then, that's there's no more substance behind what turns out to be a fairly superficial outing.

The movie is revolved around 2 characters Gun-Hwa pyung and Yeon So-Ha,but that doesn't take away from any of the other martial artists.They managed to make comedy that made you laugh while inputing some KICK ARSE scenes of action. They even put a scene where they're fighting in WATER so you can only imagine the beautiful visuals and effects. The only thing I was a bit skeptical about was the *explosion* of action going on, it made me look at it as a sort of crappy effect,but over-all it has beautiful laid-out action scenes along with an okay plot. It will have you laughing for sure and wanting to play swords as well as exploding crap up!!!!!!!!!!

Well, what can I say -- great movie. The comparison to House of Flying Daggers of course is inevitable ;-) Shadowless Sword is more humorous (but not comedy-fun), there is a bit of adventure theme, the story is simpler (so there is less who-is-who guessing), and has two dazzling beautiful (!) women as leading characters. I almost would say I like Shadowless Sword more if only director didn't made special effects awkward.Maybe it is just me, but I expect that after hitting objects can explode, but not after cutting. And here some objects fall apart (with great speed and energy) what looks amazing (with proper music) but some... explode, which is not funny, not spectacular, not magical, not mysterious -- it is simply bizarre. It is so out-of-place that it spoils every fight scene when director decided to put explosion after sword cut. Pity...

This movie could've been a lot better in many aspects. For one, why must many Korean action movies insist on injecting comic relief in some of the more serious scenes. Some fight scenes were obviously meant to make the audience laugh even though the series of actions leading up to it are extremely serious. For example, when the hero fights with the monk (who is out to assassinate him), they were practically fighting Jackie-Chan style until finally the monk dies. WTF?!? If it's a serious movie, then keep it so.Besides the identity crisis issue, this movie has no plot. Unfortunately, this is true for many Asian movies. The director must've be hoping that the action or cgi will make up for the lack of storyline because the strongest hint of a plot in this movie is that a Prince must be brought back to his village alive so that he can rule his people. That's it! I've basically spoiled the whole movie with that line. Asian movies disappoint me because they have no story. Until they start incorporating movies with a plot, their film industries will never be up to par with Hollywood (classic Hollywood anyway).Thirdly, there is absolutely no character development. All you see is the same facial expression on these characters and short flashbacks that are suppose to make you either feel pity for them or despise them. This is a 2 hour long movie of talking, fighting, talking, fighting, talking, etc. You get the point. Anyway, when you get to the end of the movie, the hero supposedly knows a special move perfectly which is used to kill the villain. How corny is that? There is no mention of how that move is performed or how he learned it or who taught him. It just came out of nowhere and kills the villain in a flurry of fast camera moving scenes.Here are other things that are wrong with this movie. It is too long (it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't boring). It doesn't give off a genuine feeling of an adventure of epic proportions (ei. lord of the rings, narnia, crouching tiger, etc). Also the characters are one dimensional and only wear one or two expressions through out the movie at most. The dialog was weak. Lastly, the picture quality was a letdown at certain points. Some scenes would look like it was taken from old stock footage.The movie wasn't a complete letdown. The goods include thundering fight scenes (you gotta watch it on DTS), good choreography, and sometimes good scenery.