Eye For An Eye : The Blind Swordsman
China | Mandarin, English dubbed, English subtitles
2022 | 78 Minutes
Director: Bingjia Yang
Cast: Miao Xie, Weiman Gao, Hao Xiang
Fans of martial arts films, especially extremely violent ones, are in for a treat as Eye For An Eye : The Blind Swordsman makes its way to home video.
While the concept of a blind swordsman isn’t new, having been done to perfection in the 2003 film Zatoichi, for example, but none the less, Eye For An Eye : The Blind Swordsman finds its own merit on familiar ground. Of course, there are unique elements to this film that help it stand apart from those that came before it, and we’ll get into that momentarily.
See Also: Ransomed at Fantasia Festival 2023
Set around a blind swordsman named Blind Cheng or knife-catcher, a bounty hunter who accidently stumbles upon a murder while in pursuit of good wine, for himself and his horse, and decides to take umbrage and dig into the situation. Bringing with him an abused young girl, Ni Yan, after her family was massacred, he initially doesn’t want to get involved, but driven by rage and guided by justice, he intervenes.
The deeper he delves into the killing, the more he wants to right the committed wrongs and goes from a bounty hunter to a avenging the slain victim and he goes on a rage fueled rampage against all involved, slicing and dicing his way through a plethora of bad guys and anyone that stands in his way. Through fits of, well, blind rage, the blind swordsman dispatches foe after foe in some gloriously violent fashion.
Spoilers upcoming : tread carefully from this point on.
Up until this point, Blind Cheng had been taking on bounties to earn enough funds to be able to afford a procedure to correct and restore his vision, but soon finds himself battling his own inner conflicts which lead him on his bloody path to avenge Ni Yan and her family. All he wanted to do was get, um, blind drunk, on his way to bringing in an arsonist on a bounty, whom he had stuffed into a burlap sack after breaking his arms and legs.
The cinematography is beautifully done, throughout the film, especially during a winter fight scene that has a barrage of swordsman battling in a courtyard as snow gently falls around them. With sparks flying off his blade, to the stylized bloody massacre that ultimately results from the battle, the entire segment is breath takingly gorgeous.
While most traditional martial arts films rely on the fighting to set the tone, Eye For And Eye : The Blind Swordsman really establishes itself in its violence and scenes that would make the most hardened horror aficionados cringe and look away ( I know, because I am one). At one point, Blind Cheng severs an Achilles tendon of a foe, after having chopped up a whole bunch with swords, but my favorite killing of the whole film is a sadistic and elaborate trap that Cheng sets up using a wire garrote and as much as I really want to describe the scene here in detail, I really don’t want to ruin it for any potential viewers. It’s worth watching the movie for that one brutal scene alone. Trust.
Despite its relatively short running time of seventy-eight minutes, director Bingjia Yang manages to squeeze a solid amount of fast-paced action, while still taking the times to grow characters and give reason to care about what becomes of them. As far as I can tell, this is the directorial debut from Bingjia Yang as well, which makes this that much more impressive. With films constantly growing in run time, perhaps a return to the shorter, sweeter ninety-odd minute benchmark should come welcomed with opened arms. With films like Killers Of The Flower Moon that hit theatres last month hitting a massive running time of three hours twenty-six minutes, or the three hour long Oppenheimer that released July passed, perhaps shorter run times should become the in thing once again.
Read More:
>> The First Slam Duck at Fantasia Festival 2023
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While the premise for this film isn’t anything original or new, it still manages to find its place in the martial arts genre and as a nice, albeit gory period piece. While I didn’t know what to expect going into this film, I certainly enjoyed it for its gorgeous camera work and for the over-the-top use of sheer violence to get its message across. Something of a 70s revenge romp, set in China several centuries ago, Eye For An Eye : The Blind Swordsman is a fun ride down a somewhat far-fetched story arc that deserves to be seen.
I’ll leave off with this: I have yet to see a Hi-Yah! feature that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy, and while I haven’t seen them all, I recommend checking out their films.
