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Seven Swords is a 2005 wuxia film produced and directed by Tsui Hark, starring Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung, Sun Honglei, Lu Yi and Kim So-yeon. An international co-production between Hong Kong, China, South Korea and the Netherlands, the story is loosely adapted from Liang Yusheng's novel Qijian Xia Tianshan and is completely unrelated to the novel except for some characters' names. Seven Swords was used as the opening film to the 2005 Venice Film Festival and as a homage to Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai.
Fu Qingzhu, a retired executioner, feels an urge to stop Fire-Wind so he sets forth to save Martial Village. He brings with him two young villagers, Han Zhibang and Wu Yuanying, to Tian Shan to seek help from Master Shadow-Glow, a reclusive swordsman and sword-forger. Shadow-Glow allows his four apprentices – Chu Zhaonan, Yang Yuncong, Xin Longzi and Mulang – to accompany the trio on their quest. He also gives each of them a special sword he forged. The seven of them call themselves "Seven Swords". The Seven Swords return to Martial Village in the nick of time and successfully defeat and drive away Fire-Wind's soldiers. In order to buy time for the villagers to prepare for an evacuation, the Seven Swords head to Fire-Wind's base and cause damage by burning down their barn and poisoning their horses. During the raid, Chu Zhaonan encounters Fire-Wind's Korean slave girl, Green Pearl, and brings her along as they make their escape.
As the villagers evacuate Martial Village and make their way into the hills, strange things start happening along the way. Their food and water supplies are poisoned and their trail is marked by signs leading the enemy to them. The Seven Swords realise there is a spy among them and agree they must root out the spy before Fire-Wind catches up. Green Pearl immediately becomes the suspect because she does not speak their language. The situation is further complicated by a romantic affair between Chu Zhaonan and Green Pearl. At one point, Green Pearl and Chu fall into a trap set by Fire-Wind. Chu uses his sword to free Green Pearl from a net cast by Fire-Wind's men but loses his weapon. While Chu is captured by the enemy, Green Pearl manages to escape and convey her message that Chu has been captured to the other swordsmen before she succumbs to her injuries.
The other six swordsmen travel to Fire-Wind's base and engage him in battle to rescue Chu Zhaonan. During the Seven Swords' absence, the spy, Qiu Dongluo, sets fire to the entrance of the cave to inform the enemy of the villagers' whereabouts. After Qiu is discovered by the village chief Liu Jingyi and his daughter Yufang, he kills Liu Jingyi and proceeds to murder the unsuspecting villagers systematically. While the children distract Qiu, Yufang manages to kill him. However, the experience traumatises her so much she becomes hysterical. Meanwhile, the Seven Swords defeat and slay Fire-Wind, and force his army to retreat temporarily. The swordsmen return to the hideout, only to find that all the villagers have been killed, except for Yufang and the children. Han Zhibang calms Yufang down, while the other six swordsmen realise the only way to save the wulin is to persuade the Qing emperor to withdraw the ban on martial arts. They depart towards the capital, but Han Zhibang decides to stay behind and protect the survivors. Yufang tells Han she and the children can be strong by themselves and persuades him to rejoin the other swordsmen, so he rushes and catches up with them.
During the shooting of the ending fight scene, Donnie Yen accidentally injured Sun Honglei near the eye after mistakenly assuming that Sun was trained in martial arts. Sun was rushed from Xinjiang to a hospital in Beijing on the night of 7 December. His eyesight was not affected so he returned to the set a day later and insisted on finishing his scenes.
Lu Yi, who portrayed Han Zhibang, once said that he would never act in wuxia or martial arts films again. However, when he saw the all-star cast tied to the project, he immediately accepted the offer to join because he felt it was a rare opportunity for him to work with such a strong cast.
The role of Prince Dokado was initially offered to Hu Jun, who rejected it for reasons unknown. It was later offered to Wang Xueqi, who similarly turned down the offer. The role eventually went to Michael Wong.
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