How Tsui Hark, Brigitte Lin revived the Swordsman series with The East Is Red, a chaotic gem of a martial arts film

The unplanned final part of Tsui’s successful Swordsman trilogy saw Lin return as evil villainess Asia the Invincible, despite being killed off in part two

The chaos of the shoot heralded the future decline of the Hong Kong film industry, Tsui said, referring to the film as the industry’s ‘doomsday toll’

Reading Time:4 minutes

Brigitte Lin in a still from Swordsman III: The East Is Red (1993), produced by Tsui Hark.

Published: 5:00am, 5 Jul 2020Updated: 5:53pm, 6 Jul 2020

Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark is well known for his bold visual style and free-ranging approach to storytelling. The wild and vivacious Swordsman III: The East Is Red, the final part of his highly successful Swordsman trilogy, takes both of these qualities to extremes.

Visually, the 1993 film is an explosive assault of colour, noise, martial arts and action that mixes Spanish galleons and Japanese ninjas with more typical examples of Tsui’s “mythical China”. Imagination is not lacking, even if the model galleons and special effects are creaky. There are sea battles, sails which turn into flying carpets, and even a galleon that becomes a submarine.

The crazed storyline seems to be based more on the availability of its busy star, Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, than the needs of plot and character development. Lin was such a big star at the time that producers would allow her to shoot more than one film at once, and she would shuttle between characters and shoots, splitting her screen time between projects.

But the resulting chaos, co-directed by Ching Siu-tung (who directed part two) and Raymond Lee Wai-man (who co-directed part one) – with producer Tsui dipping in when he felt like it – is mind-numbingly enjoyable, especially on a big screen.

Hong Kong director Tsui Hark had not planned to make a sequel to Swordsman II. Photo: Edward Wong

The East Is Red was made quickly to capitalise on the box office success of 1992’s Swordsman II , a big hit that used special effects to update the fantastique genre of wuxia films. Fantastique wuxia films, which date back to 1928 in Shanghai, allow their martial arts characters to possess magical powers.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x