The Legend of the Shadowless Sword is an epic swordplay drama from South Korea, very much in the vein of House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. However, while it is a great looking film, it fails to live up to the expectations put in place by its Hong Kong counterparts. While I felt entertained for the nearly two-hour long film, I did not feel that I was involved in the story.
The title implies some level of mystical content (at least for me it did), but the closest you get are your standard flying fighters who glide over the water and skip along trees. This is a movie whose bottom line is entertainment with little to offer in terms of greatness, which really a problem because sometimes all we need is a movie that entertains us.
No time is spared to set up the plot. It is 926 A.D. Balhae, the capital city, comes under siege by the neighboring Georan. The scattered people of Balhae are not about to give up their land without a fight. The warriors come together but they need a member of the royal line to unite the people under a single banner. The problem is that the only remaining member of the royals is a prince who had fled into exile years earlier.
This initial set-up is delivered in bloody fashion as the last royal still in the capital is murdered by the Georan's Killer Blade Army as they attack in the black of night. This sends the people into a panic as they need to find someone to unite the people in their battle. Meanwhile, the Georan leaders know there is one left, and that the Balhae leaders have sent a lone warrior to find him and bring him back. So what do they do? They send their own warrior to find him first... and kill him!
All of this is done in the opening minutes. The story picks up in earnest with So-ha (So-yi Yoon) traveling to a remote village where the exiled prince is living under the name of So-sam (Lee Seo-jin). Of course, this would-be king shows no interest in leaving his comfortable life. His opinion soon changes when Mae-yeong-ok (Lee Gi-yeong), the Georan swordswoman arrives. Her mission is both professional—to kill the prince—and personal—to become the best swordswoman by defeating So-ha.
The next 90 minutes or so follow this format: So-ha and So-sam flee the oncoming Killer Blade Army, then stop and talk about protecting what is precious, the Army catches up, they fight, repeat. There is little to no variation upon that for the middle chunk of the film. It actually does get a little repetitive and only serves to keep one at arm's length from any sort of emotional involvement.
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