Shen tui tie shan gong

I have been watching martial arts movies in chronological order from 1967 to the present. This movie is a masterpiece of fight choreography, direction, and execution. It caused me to take pause and ask myself why. Watching a 1967 movie I counted how many moves in a single take and I considered sixteen moves before a cut to be a really good fight. I counted the moves before a cut in this movie and was surprised that most of the time there were less than ten moves. Yet this movie is far superior to anything made in 1967. Other factors have changed the criteria for a good fight. In this movie the fight sequences have almost effortless smoothness and continuity. The cuts don't even seem to be stops in the action, instead it's as if the fighters kept fighting but the view simply changed to another camera angle. To prove my point take a close look at the fight sequence where John Liu grabs the sword with his foot. It might seem he sticks his foot into the hilt guard during a kick but he does no such thing, it's all in the edit. The more I watch these movies the more I learn and respect the people that made it happen. At first I was rating it an 8 out of 10 but I raised it to a 9 out of 10 because of one more reason - the white guys were good too.