I must tell you that i'm a little bit shocked and really can't believe that nearly no one has fully grasped this one of the most meaningful and prominent films of our time. Everyone criticizing the surface and the effectiveness but in fact truly missing the point what this film is actually about! A little bit of analysis: At first i have to point out that THE BLADE is enormously similar to Sam Peckinpah's shocking masterpiece from the 1971 STRAW DOGS (and a bit to his companion A Clockwork Orange) both films depicting violence as a natural element or something habitual, in other words the film is implying resonating message that we're just animals with big brains and endless violence we can not be rid of. Blade, SD and ACO are fictitious, ambiguous, allegorical and shocking but in reality are very symbolical and showing the true face of humanity that we are all so scared of! I strongly believe there's also somewhere in those films actually the answer if the peace in the world is even feasible. The Blade has so many symbolical meanings that even the fictional violent world the movie takes place in, only prompting us to apply it to ours. Why? Because the world we're living in is also about the survival like in the film (where is everything only simplified and exaggerated for us just to see the true reality of our world, that's the whole trick). The paradoxical, inadvertent and sometimes very futile violence in the film breeding and producing another violence (e.g. On's revenge for his dead father (where's no redemption) or those exposed little kids watching the bloody fight between that monk and bandits, which is if you think about it enormously provocative vestige of how the world must be so cruel when even a monk has become such a violent beast who then will only manifest that little hint of his smile at those small kids as some kind of a symbol of an inspiration for them - which is very morally inverted). Very common thing in our world is also an involuntary or unconscious act that only brings about another killing and death to others - examples: Ding On inadvertently kills the prostitute Iron Head brought to himself, Ling's father is in fact responsible for a lot of hurt to come when he told Ding On the truth about his father. Chiu Man Cheuk's Ding On initially was against the revenge (mind you the scene after the monk is dead) but Iron Head was all for it who also inadvertently divulged the place where they are from to bandits which would lead to another killing at the end at the Foundry, and etc.. The film even mentions things like buying and selling and at the same time showing the dog approaching some chunk of meat planted right in the big bear jaggy trap which ultimately kills him, the scenes like this are only exaggerated just to give us an idea and feeling of how hard it is to make it through in this world but Tsui Hark de-facto made it clear enough when increased or leveled up the whole hardness of the life in this film and showed us the way how to survive which systematically should be only motivating and inspiring for the viewers of this film. Every time you watch this movie you can find more and more connections between this demented world and ours, which is also the powerful and timeless element of The Blade.
Not Ding On or Iron Head, it was in fact Ling all along who's the most important character (not so strange that the whole film is also off her point of view) as she was also the only one left at the end of the movie still feeling the love for other people but as we see it's late because there's already no one to return her love. What is so paradoxical is that everyone (save for her) in the film was actually neglecting the most important and powerful weapon for this violent world "love", what they were doing was absolutely futile, fruitless, nothing for anyone things which means they ended up as individuals with the complete lack of affection and love for anyone and by this ended up only producing another ceaseless violence that would lead only to downfall of the whole mankind, there was no end to this. So everyone could take the film Blade as the warning or advice - what is virtually the most important for our world!!
I have a more extensive analysis (too long for these comments) of this masterpiece, check out my thread here on The Blade message board!
