Swordsman I

(Dao Ge: Short Saber Story)

"Short Saber Story" is part of a three part series in "Saber Song". The main casting includes Dicky Cheung Wai Kin and Tiffany Lau Yuk Ting. The plot follows that the leader of the martial world, Shum Yuk Men (Dicky Cheung), is killed by the villain, Chan Shi Yuan, of the "evil" clan. Fearing that the martial world would be in danger of getting wiped out by Chan Shi Yuan and his clan, Shum Yuk Men's three followers, under circumstances, find a newly mastered cook who looks exactly like Shum to pose as a fake leader. This cook, Mong Siu Fa (also Dicky Cheung), is involuntarily brought into the cruel struggles of the martial world and also finds himself tied up with several lovers, including a wife, who all think he's Shum Yuk Men.

While the story set-up seemed very captivating at first glance, the series does not carry on well the rest of the way. Most of the series concentrated on the love triangles that the helpless Mong Siu Fa finds himself in, playing as Shum. Too many scenes showed a torn Mong who wanted his own identity back as a cook while on the other hand, also falls for a woman, Ki Hong Mui, who claims to love Shum Yuk Men. Though Mong Siu Fa is certainly the nicer character than the reputed Shum Yuk Men, he is also your typical martial arts hero--someone who doesn't know martial arts at first, who hates bloodshed and killing, and who prefers to talk things out instead of fighting. One can not help but wish the series was about Shum instead.

The antagonists in the series are also part of the martial arts cliche where there is one major evil clan versus the so-called good clans. Some common themes include how the "good" are not always as good as they cut out to be and how the person who claims to be the most righteous would turn out to be the most evil. The fighting cheoragraphy was bad at first--it usually is the case when the character is really strong--because it just consisted of some special effects and clanging of weapons but it does get better later on.

Dicky Cheung's performance is hot as usual and is one of the aspects that makes the series worth watching. It is also the case where when TVB or ATV isn't coming out with any good martial arts series that having anything to watch is better than nothing. Taiwanese films are definitely the way to go nowadays to watch a decent martials arts series.