THE SUPREME SWORDSMAN is a late-stage martial arts swordplay epic from Shaw Brothers. Derek Yee stars as the youthful hero and for once it must be a pleasure for him not to be directed by the ubiquitous Chor Yuen. As such, THE SUPREME SWORDSMAN is much more of a straightforward movie, one which tells of an arrogant swordsman who travels the countryside, challenging and beating rival masters in his bid to collect 100 swords from his vanquished opponents.Jason Pai Piao is the villain of the piece and as imposing as ever; he has decent support in the form of underrated Yuen Wah playing an underling called Crow. The film also features Lee Hoi San as one of a trio of mystical holy men who bring some welcome comic relief to the story. Ku Feng plays an old smith who makes the best swords around. The action bits aren't quite top tier, but the story is brisk and never confusing or boring; rather, straight and to the point. The latter parts have a supernatural atmosphere familiar from all late Shaw films.

I think the other reviews already touched on the awkward change of pace and story that occurs roughly an hour in. I really liked the story early on, and even at that point it was a bit different. The villain had certainly killed many but was painted as more of an ambitious swordsman than someone ruthless. He was given a bit more focus early than I was expecting. But then you also had the great Ku Feng, who is by far one of my favorite actors from the Shaw era. Things were going pretty well and it felt like things could be wrapped up and the film length would be rather short, yet still be satisfying, but then things change. It really messes up the momentum, and though you still get the expected encounter at the end, it was a very odd detour that makes me pull back on my support a bit. Also, these are talented action actors -- why did they bother to speed up their movements in post production? It looks rather strange.

The wuxia genre had become quite stagnant by the time this film was made. It had also split into a separate genre which emphasised magic and crazy wire driven fight scenes that defied logic. This film is an odd attempt to mix the two genre back together.The first 55 minutes is actually a rather interesting, but very typical, wuxia plot as the the main character, Chin Wu-hsin, goes on his quest to kill 100 hundred swordsmen to become the top swordsman in China. He finally reaches 99 but fails when he goes against "The Supreme Swordsman". Despite being told that he doesn't have the right mental clarity to beat the Supreme Swordsman, Chin Wu-hsin decides that he failed because his sword was no good. He tries to bully an elderly sword smith into forging a new sword but he suddenly hears of the special "Cold Eagle" sword. Complications ensue as the sword smith and his son are drawn into the quest for the legendary Cold Eagle sword. It's old school but a better than average movie at this point.That's the interesting part of the movie, the next half hour is interesting as well but for different reasons. Suddenly the sword smith's son, while battling Chin Wu-hsin, falls off a ledge that we never see and crash lands in the home of three old martial artists. Here we enter crazy kung-fu land where the masters exit the scene by yelling, "Hu-wa!" and flying straight up into the air. Chin Wu-hsin is forgotten as the sword smith's son receives healing from the fall and kung fu training. He eventually has to go thru a kung fu gauntlet before facing up with Chin Wu-hsin.This film is certainly paced fast so it's never boring. The change of genres is off putting and by the end I didn't really care about the story anymore. There are better wuxia films and better crazy kung fu films out there.

THE SUPREME SWORDSMAN (1984) was part of the final wave of swordplay films to come out of Shaw Bros. before it wrapped up feature film production in 1985 to focus on television series production. This one's surprisingly focused on its theme and has a relatively small number of main characters. It has the usual hyperactive swordfighting, but few of the fantastic flourishes found in most Shaw costume pictures from that period. Jason Pai Piao plays a swordsman who wants to be Supreme Swordsman and acquire 100 swords from other heroes by killing them in duels and taking their swords. Early on, he reaches 99 and sets his sights on a particular sword and swordmaster. However, the real Supreme Swordsman (Wang Jung), handily defeats Jason, sending him on a quest for a better sword and, in the course of it, finding another key swordmaster (Ku Feng) leading a reclusive life and keeping hidden the treasured Cold Eagle sword of Jason's own Black Magic Clan. Jason, furious at being kept out of the loop on the clan's treasures, now wants that sword. Ku Feng's son, played by Derek Yee, gets into the act and at about the one-hour mark goes off for some needed training in order to take on Jason. And then Jason comes back into the film for the final set of duels.The first hour had a great deal of momentum, but goes off on a tangent when Derek undergoes new training with a trio of crazy old monks (including kung fu regular Lee Hoi-sang), one of whom has a pretty granddaughter (Li Tien-lang) who becomes Derek's companion. By the time Jason comes back into the fray for the final battle, the initial momentum has dissipated and the film never quite picks it up again.Still, Jason and Derek have good parts and Ku Feng has one of his best late Shaw roles. Yuen Wah has a good part as well, playing a defeated opponent who becomes Jason's reluctant assistant. The film's got a lot of well-staged action and is one of the few martial arts films made at Shaw after 8-DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER that focused on a distinct martial arts theme to the exclusion of other plot elements, in this case Jason's pursuit to be the best in his field and defeat all others. The director, Li Pai-ling (aka Keith Li),was making his directorial debut, having been an assistant director beforehand. It's not among the best of late Shaw swordplay films (I'm quite partial to BASTARD SWORDSMAN and RETURN OF THE BASTARD SWORDSMAN myself), but it's a bit different from the others and does have its distinct pleasures.