"The Roving Swordsman" (not to be confused with the earlier Shaw Brothers opus "The Wandering Swordsman")is a curious hybrid of genres: fantasy wuxia and 1960s spy movies! The Evil Woman of the piece not only wants to dominate the world of martial arts, the very sort of ambition one would expect in one of these movies, but after doing that, she wants to conquer the world! She has a great Secret Lair deep in a mountain with an intruder alert worthy of Thrush.
She has lots of Faithful Lieutenants, including a guy who manages to look mildly malevolent while wearing pink. That is not easy. Except for Evil Woman's annoying Evil Laugh, it is otherwise hard to sort out why she is evil and the other guys aren't.
The sets are up to SB fantasy standards, with lots and lots and still more clouds of dry ice, colorful costumes, ponds, mirror mazes, explosions. This is not profound story telling. Just sit back and enjoy Ti Lung Thwarting Evil.
She has lots of Faithful Lieutenants, including a guy who manages to look mildly malevolent while wearing pink. That is not easy. Except for Evil Woman's annoying Evil Laugh, it is otherwise hard to sort out why she is evil and the other guys aren't.
The sets are up to SB fantasy standards, with lots and lots and still more clouds of dry ice, colorful costumes, ponds, mirror mazes, explosions. This is not profound story telling. Just sit back and enjoy Ti Lung Thwarting Evil.
