00:00The legendary fight choreographer The Matrix and Kill Bill returns to the director's chair with the martial arts epic Blades
00:07of the Guardians.
00:08Wu Jing plays a former member of the Left Valiant Cavalry turned bounty hunter who rides with his nephew after
00:14his sister's death.
00:16Wu is the second most wanted criminal in the land, but he's hired by village chief Tony the Young Ka
00:20-Fi to transport Sun Yizhou, a masked revolutionary who has become its most wanted criminal to Chang'un.
00:27Accompanied by the chieftain's daughter Chen Li Jun and joining forces with fellow bounty hunter Yu Shi, Wu must keep
00:34ahead of the various parties on their trail.
00:36Director Yun Wu Ping is a legend in action cinema. He directed two of Jackie Chan's earliest breakout hits Snake
00:42in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, as well as Iron Monkey.
00:47He's also a prolific fight choreographer from the original Matrix trilogy to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Kung Fu Hustle, and
00:54several collaborations with Jet Li,
00:56like on Unleashed, Fearless, and Black Mask.
00:59Yun even has a cameo during the credits here, and this is a proper old-school martial arts period epic
01:05that proves even at the age of 80, Yun has still got it.
01:09Speaking of Jet Li, he makes a prominent early guest appearance playing a town governor, his first film role in
01:15six years.
01:16Li only has a pair of scenes and is out of the movie by the 20-minute mark, but one
01:20of them is an extended three-way fight scene,
01:22and it's great to see Li back in action for the first time in a very long while, which sets
01:27a high bar for what follows.
01:30Blade of the Guardian's Wind Rises in the Desert, to give its full title, is based on a Chinese manhua
01:35comic book,
01:36and it does suffer somewhat from having an overly convoluted story from trying to cram too many subplots and characters
01:42into just two hours.
01:44This is the kind of movie where nearly every major player is accompanied with an on-screen caption,
01:49but you will still have trouble keeping up with all of them and their motivations, from Wu's former cavalry members
01:54out to kill him,
01:55to a would-be tyrant who has designs on Chen.
01:58Speaking of Chen, her role was entirely reshot Christopher Plummer's style when the original actress fell into controversy.
02:04But the action scenes are so plentiful that it largely doesn't matter, even if you might not always understand why
02:10they're fighting.
02:11The choreography in these sequences are truly spectacular, with lots of wire work and intricate staging.
02:17It's some of the best action I've seen in recent memory.
02:20If you're a fan of Iron Monkey, Yun is back to his flame-throwing ways,
02:24often using fire as a backdrop, from a scrap in an oil field to the village-burning climax.
02:29And it's often as beautiful as it is brutal, with blood and limbs often spilling through the air.
02:35There's also a sequence where they're chased by various clans on horseback into a sandstorm,
02:39which owes an obvious debt to a similar sequence in Mad Max Fury Road, but is no less exciting.
02:44As the slightly cumbersome title indicates, it's clearly intended to be the first in a franchise,
02:49but is dizzying stuff.
02:51Not just keeping up with the plot and characters, but the fight scenes too.
02:55It's easily a contender for one of 2026's best action films.
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