‘Blades of the Guardians’
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In “Blades of the Guardians,” Dao Ma (Wu Jing) and his young nephew Xiao Qi (Charles Ju) are clever bounty hunters who are asked by the chief of the Mo clan to transport the wanted rebel leader Zhi Shi Lang (Yi-zhou Sun) to Xian. To do so, Dao must fend off a corrupt local governor (Jet Li) and a cagey mercenary (Nicholas Tse).
Yuen Woo-ping, who is best known for the wire-fu fight choreography in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “The Matrix,” brings his Chinese martial arts expertise to directing this film. He assembles scenes of invigorating swordplay and staging, like a horse chase that sees Dao flipping on and off his stallion as he fights off a horde of killers. Wu aptly performs the kind of free-flowing gracefulness common to wuxia, narratives that prominently feature gravity-defying, sword-based fights, and it’s heartening to see Li return to the genre.
From an early age, Nila (Preity Mukhundhan) was taught by her father, Rajaraman (Arjun Sarja), to defend herself. That’s because both Nila’s father and her mother, Neelaveni (Abhirami), are karate masters. Their family is plunged into a deadly scheme when a goon enters Nila’s family pharmacy to buy pills for the wounded assassin Abraham (Arjun Chidambaram). The hired gun was employed by the shady corporate head Varun Dhayalan (John Kokken) to deliver a bribe that will allow him to drill illegally into a mountain with a force that could harm a nearby village.
Rather than give in, Nila does what she has been taught: She defends herself. That spurs Nila and her family to band together against a barrage of goons in a series of cleanly choreographed karate showdowns. The director Subash K. Raj imbues these fights with urgency by allowing each family member’s style to complement one another, using these showdowns to demonstrate a visual kinship between parent and child that transcends the apathetic killers they face off against.
Park Gyu-tae’s “Husbands in Action” is an ingenious action comedy that lovingly pokes fun at the genre’s clichés. The film begins with the arrest of Ma Do-jun (Kim Ji-suk) by the narcotics detective Hwang Choong-sik (Jin Seon-kyu) for selling high-tech synthetic drugs. In retaliation, Ma’s wife (Lee Da-hee) kidnaps Hwang’s ex-wife, Si-nae (Kang Han-na), and their only daughter (Oh Eun-seo) to demand that Hwang frees Ma. To save them, Hwang teams with Si-nae’s new dweeby veterinarian husband Lee Min-seok (Gong Myung).
While “Husbands in Action” initially leans into the masculine rivalry between Hwang and Lee, it comedically undermines it with a deliberately circuslike score during a car chase. Park also adds the tattooed Kim Yong-gang (Yoon Kyung-ho) to the mix. Recently released from prison, Kim takes aim at Ma for occupying his territory. But Kim’s bumbling old-school gangster ways further proves the film’s point: Hyper-masculinity is a joke.
Set in Japan in 1924, Isao Yukisada’s “Revolver Lily” is a stylish period piece about Yuri Ozone (Haruka Ayase), a female assassin who comes out of retirement to protect Shinta (Jinsei Hamura), the only son of her former boss, who was killed by army officials in search of his embezzled money. Now, it’s up to Yuri and her gang to protect Shinta from a greedy army and navy, and the vicious killer Minamishi (Hiroya Shimizu).
As you’d guess from the title, Yukisada’s film is filled with smartly composed shootouts, including one at Lily’s hide-out between herself and two dozen army officials and a climactic one that tests the limits of her skills. Another, toward the film’s end, stands out: Navigating through a dense fog, Yuri designs easy deaths by manipulating her pursuers into friendly fire. Ayase’s gunplay choreography in this moment is smooth and elegant, and her cunning expressions keep viewers captivated and guessing.
An ambitious historical epic, Jacob Schwarz’s “Tamerlane: Rise of the Last Conqueror,” is based on the true story of Timur, a 14th-century ruler who founded the Timurid Empire, which covered Greater Iran. In this origin story, Timur (Christian Mortensen) is the loyal soldier to the recently assassinated Qazaghan, whose death causes instability in Central Eurasia. Consequently, Timur is caught between his loyalty to his tribe, which includes his power-hungry brother-in-law Hussayn (Mahesh Jadu), and to Ilias (Joshua Jo), the son of the Mongol leader Tugluk (Maruf Otajonov).
In a turn that somewhat recalls “Gladiator,” Timur is thrust from the level of ordinary fighter to a leader capable of uniting an entire region. He accomplishes this by earning respect in several battles, many of which are exactingly executed by Schwarz. Soldiers like Timur display incredible physicality, leaping and slicing without fear. Bygone weapons give these conflicts a period-appropriate kick, and this realism elevates the entire film.
