Starring Michelle Yeoh and directed by John Woo and Chao Bin Su is a great sword oriented Kung Fu movie. Rachel and I have enjoyed this movie a few times because it combines our favorite actress, Michelle Yeoh, swords, a great plot with two romances and sword lore. Without blowing the plot for you completely, in case you might enjoy watching this movie, I’d like to share a few favorite parts of the movie and explain a few details of lore.
One of my favorite scenes is when Michelle Yeoh’s character is receiving a lesson from her monk teacher. His lesson is that her previous teacher did not teach her all of the techniques. Because her teacher did not teach her all the techniques,
she will be defeated by any true master who knows them and all. And furthermore, her previous teacher did this so he could retain the ability to defeat and kill her if he needed too. She doesn’t believe her monk teacher and a fight ensues to test his assertion. This is a great scene. The fight itself has great sword moves and action as the monk shows each missing technique by skillfully executing them on her.
The theme of a master withholding vital techniques to be able to latter control unruly or evil students is an old one
in the martial arts world. Teachers could be held liable for the misdeeds of their students and be expected to deal with them if local authorities were unable too. The idea is only a teachers most trusted and sincere students would receive all of the skills, tricks, and secrets from the teacher. Often some of the best parts of any martial art would be hidden until the student had passed various tests of their character. This is all a bit romanticized in regard to the real world, but there is truth in it. People also think this level of secrecy has led to the loss of the most important parts or even entire martial arts and various specialty skills.
Learning a complete set of fencing techniques is part of the concept of the sword form. The forms work as libraries of techniques organized in a pleasing manner to aide memory. To use any technique if your life were in danger would require practicing each move individually with partners and sparring too. With few exceptions modern advanced or expert level sword forms contain a greater number of techniques and perform more unusual, difficult, or unexpected transitions between each movement. The longest and most complete sword forms may have twice the number of movements as a shorter or easier form. All sword forms share many common techniques and then have a few less common techniques
and a few unique movements. When I learn new sword forms, I love seeing how familiar techniques are linked in new ways. I also love discovering those new movements that are unique to that form.
Our 46 Style Tai Chi Sword Form is a great example of a comprehensive sword form with a large variety of techniques and a beautiful sequence linking them all together. In the name of this form the word “styles” is used to indicate individual sword techniques or tactical sword movements. 46 is a large number of individual techniques, much higher than many other Tai Chi Sword forms. When preforming the form there are more than 46
movements because a few of them are repeated a couple of times. This is a higher number of movements than many other Kung Fu and Tai Chi sword forms and is one reason I like this particular Tai Chi Sword Form a great deal. The other reason I love this form is it simply it’s beautiful. The individual movements and postures are all works of art each worthy of our admiration and enjoyment by itself and even more so in a group. 46 Style Tai Chi Sword does contain those 4 missing techniques and not all the sword forms I know do.
Other favorite scenes:
Polishing a sword – love this scene, rarely do we see a sword being polished, especially in such a timely fashion!
Evil Unique Character is Creepy – Not too creepy though, just the right amount of creepy. Evil eunuchs were a thing in Imperial China for centuries because they were servants in the Forbidden Imperial Palace City and many rose to become administrators and officials with wide powers. The last Eunuchs were still in service to the last Emperor of China at the beginning of the 20th century. I think we are all glad this tradition has ended!
Zen Monk is wise scene – it is good too!
Your mission should you choose to accept it is to watch this movie, identify the missing four movements and see if you have learned them in any of your sword forms and report back in the comments below. Have Fun!!!