Director: Yuen Woo-ping
Screenplay: Yu Baimei, Chao-pin Su, Chan Tai Lee, Larry Yang
Starring: Wu Jing, Nicholas Tse, Ci Sha, Sun Yizhou, Chen Lijun, Yosh Yu, Li Yunxiao, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Kara Wai, Max Zhang, Zhang Yi, Jet Li
Country: China
Running Time: 130 min
Year: 2026
BBFC Certificate: 15
Yuen Woo-ping is a legend in the world of martial arts cinema. He’s been involved as a director or fight choreographer on a wealth of classic titles, from his directorial debut Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, which made Jackie Chan a star, to Iron Monkey, to Fist of Legend, to The Matrix, to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, to name but a few. His inventive choreography and ability to make fights look as exciting and dynamic as possible on camera are virtually unparalleled.
From a personal point of view, Yuen Woo-ping is the reason I got into martial arts movies. I’d seen the butchered UK cut of Enter the Dragon when I was a teenager and loved it, but it wasn’t until The Matrix came out that I started to look further into the genre. I read about the man behind the film’s fight scenes, picked up a copy of Drunken Master on DVD, and I’ve never looked back since.
Yuen Woo-ping is now at the ripe old age of 80, but he hasn’t settled into retirement yet. Whilst his output has slowed down since his early years in the then-booming Hong Kong film industry, he’s still kept his foot in, directing the odd title here and there and lending his choreography skills to films such as Ip Man 3 and 4.
This year, however, he’s gone all out, directing and choreographing a star-studded wuxia epic called Blades of the Guardians. It’s proved to be a big hit too, becoming the highest-grossing wuxia of all time in China and ranking second among wuxia films worldwide.
It’s coming to UK screens on 17th April, but I was lucky enough to be sent an online screener to check it out a little earlier, so I can share my thoughts.
Allow me to quote the press material to sum up the plot of Blades of the Guardians, “Set during the Sui Dynasty, the story follows Dao Ma (Wu Jing), a bounty hunter who accepts a job escorting a man on the long road to the city of Chang’an. However, he discovers the person in his custody is the empire’s most wanted bounty, with every greedy faction in pursuit.”
There’s more to the story than that, as there are quite a lot of characters involved, but that’s the main crux of it all. There are perhaps too many characters, to be honest, meaning few are developed all that successfully and some of the minor strands get in the way of those that matter.
This is nitpicking a little, though, because Blades of the Guardians absolutely delivers what fans like me came for – epic wuxia action.
Yuen may be well into pension age, but this does not show in his fight choreography. Fast, fluid and inventive, the action is thrilling, and there’s a lot of it. It’s quite bloody and brutal in places too, adding a flavour of Chang Cheh to the carnage. There’s an avoidance of messy fast-cutting, too, and, whilst VFX are used to enhance the backgrounds and for arrows and knife-throwing, they are rarely used to enhance the fights themselves. These are still largely done for real, albeit with some wirework. There’s a particularly impressive fight that takes place on horseback, adding an extra dimension to the stuntwork.
It’s not just the choreography that makes the film such an exciting experience, though. Yuen makes great use of the elements. One fight is set amidst a blazing inferno and another in the centre of a violent sandstorm. This adds visual drama to a story that is, admittedly, lacking a little drama in itself.
The film looks fantastic, too. Yes, there’s a little ‘enhancement’ going on in the visuals, as mentioned, but the settings look magnificent and there’s a great sense of grandeur to it all. Yuen makes good use of camera movement too, bringing added energy to the production.
The cast is solid. Wu Jing makes a fine hero. Nicholas Tse has one of the more memorable roles in the film as the mysterious Diting. The young Yu Shi holds his own as a badass bounty hunter who ends up befriending Dao Ma. Ci Sha makes for a deliciously nasty villain, and Chen Lijun gets to do some of the dramatic heavy lifting as our chief heroine, Ayuya.
Then you’ve got Jet Li making a welcome return to the big screen as Chang. His character is only in the opening portions of the film, but it’s a vital role and, despite being in his 60s and suffering from hyperthyroidism, he can still move. He’s in a fantastic fight scene.
Overall then, whilst the writing could have been improved, as an action-packed wuxia, Blades of the Guardians remains top-tier. Yuen Woo-ping has still got it, and hopefully he has some more films up his sleeve. The film is actually titled on screen as ‘Blades of the Guardians: Wind Rises in the Desert’, which possibly suggests this is just the first part of a series. Here’s hoping.
Film: 
Trinity CineAsia presents Blades of the Guardians in UK and Irish cinemas from 17th April