Who cares about being in the minority As long as you stick up for your tastes, that's a good thing! I enjoyed Against the Blade of Honor even though it's not a popular series.Hi Ken, I know, I'm a bit of a minority here (perhaps massively so!) but I do think the script tries to give some context to the characters-
Like you mentioned, I loved Swordsman II and Bride with White Hair. I thought the fight scenes in Swordsman II were absolutely amazing, particularly Jet Li's Dugu 9 Swordplay. I liked how they rotated the sword and the made the sword circle around Jet Li's body. That looked really amazing at the time. I also liked how they introduced the ninja character as DFBB's sidekick. So we get to see some Japanese swordsmanship. The romance between Jet Li's LHC and DFBB also made the series stand-out. The theme of falling in love with a "man-women" was pretty deep and heavy stuffHi Ghaleon, you think I qualify as a HSDS fan? What are your favorite wuxia movies of all time?
I enjoyed Bride with White Hair because it was so exotic and dark. I never seen a wuxia movie portray the Evil Sect as demonic as this series (with the Siamese Twins and the Gender-Changing Tribal Dancer). I also liked the "laid-back" and "give-no-shit-about-wuxia-politics" main character played by the late Leslie Cheung.
I enjoyed TXDY because of the grand storyline and cast. I liked how they developed each of the 4 heroes showing their past histories and fleshing out their characters. All the mini-stories and side-adventures really added to the main plotline (like the Samurai side-story and the Evil Sabre side-story) making the series feel really "grand". In some ways the series reminded me of the Wind and Cloud Tinha comics because of all the side-stories, adventures and cast of colorful characters.PS I do really like Tian Xia Di Yi (actually rewatched it a few times), and SOD 2001, though the former had a little too weak acting from the younger leads (as much as love as I do the characters of Hai Tang and Yi Dao) plus a bit oddly paced storyline. SOD 2001, was amazingly grand, had superb action- great wire work with none of the gimmicky CGI's so popular today, solid storyline and of course Zhou Xun was in this... but I couldn't get over the lackluster LHC from Li Ya Peng and somehow grand and well-scripted as it was, the story never engaged me. It's a bit of a mystery to me still why not but I absolutely see where people who put it as their top 5 of all time are coming from.
Yeah i would actually rank XAJH 2001 in my top 5. It's not TVB but i think its the best mainland wuxia series yet. Although LYP was no Jacky, the storyline and atmosphere was really mature. When LHC's sifu learns Pixie Swordplay, the series changes gear and became more dark and unsettling. I'm a fan of dark wuxia so i loved this aspect of XAJH. It's probably the most "realistic" wuxia series i've seen. I also thought the fight scenes were absolutely amazing especiallly the DFBB one.