Swordsman III: The East Is Red (1993)

Absolutely the worst movie.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Since Asia the Invincible (Brigitte Lin) seemingly died at the end of part 2, several impersonators try to rule in her name. When a Spanish conquistador and a masked Japanese warlord attempt to conquer the land during this chaos and confusion, the real Asia returns with a vengeance. It seems at first that a villain of the previous part turned hero for this sequel, but Asia's rage is not under control, she says love is gone and hate is all that remained."Swordsman III" is - even more than "Swordsman II" - a celebration of Brigitte Lin, larger than life, a goddess of war. You find less sense of humor than before in the final part of the trilogy, but a stunning lesbian love scene involving Joey Wang from "Chinese Ghost Story" - actually it's about a woman pretending to be a man with a man pretending to be a woman... read that twice - is thrown in for compensation. The European version is about 10 minutes shorter than the Asian one, and probably one scene was cut for blasphemy when Asia humiliates the Spanish priest, forcing him to worship her instead of their catholic god. I voted 8 of 10 for each part of the trilogy, because on one hand, they all have too many little narrative flaws to get near a perfect 10, but on the other hand, they are all highly entertaining and equally recommendable.

I wanna rate it 1. but I gave it 5 stars. Only because the soundtrack is great. actually one of the best that year. Sarah Chen sings a great song here (The Mundane World aka Xiao Hong Chen). She sang two theme songs for Hong Kong movies that year. actually both Hark Tsui's movies. this one and Green Snake (Dance of Sunlight aka Liu Guang Fei Wu). both songs are classics. you could still hear the music for these two movies featured in many TV serial nowadays. Brigitte Lin is OK in this movie, and has some memorable scenes. but Rongguang Yu is such a terrible actor, you just wanna hit him on his face~ and the script is really bad, no one could rescue it from that. of course, if you just wanna see some action, it's a OK movie for you. buy it on sale or just go buy the soundtrack.

First disregard all negative comments, written by people who couldn't even follow the story.This movie is perfect example of movies created during the golden age of Hong Kong. It's an amazing combination of romance, action, comedy and drama and it features beautiful women as deadly fighters. What more could you want? Koo - a Chinese officer risks his life to meet Asia the Invincible (a man turned woman, played by a woman - Brigitte Lin) the greatest fighter alive, who has retired from the world of martial arts. He wants her to stop other "Asia the Invincible" imposter's. She decides to help him at first, then to claim back her lost power. Now Koo has to stop her. But that's not all, there's also a love triangle involving Koo, Asia the Invincible and Snow (a woman pretending to be a man, played by a beautiful woman - Joey Wang).The action is very over the top, it's unlike anything you've seen before, with people wielding cannons and throwing ships around, killing people with just their chi. There are lots of romantic, even erotic, moments, some of them involving two women, and the end is very dramatic.Don't miss this great movie!

I am fluent in Chinese and have watched dozens of Chinese movies, from Taiwan, the Mainland, and Hong Kong. I've watched martial arts movies, love stories, comedies, tragedies, historicals, social commentaries, and "slice-of-life"'s. While this wasn't the worst movie I've seen, I definitely didn't like it. While I don't regret the time spent, I wouldn't watch it again. This featured the worst of HK Action Flicks: too much wire work, too much "magic" force shots that do nothing but spray water or smash flooring, too much triumphant laughter, opaque plot lines, two-dimensional characters.My good friend who lives in Mainland China didn't like it much, either. But my native-Chinese ex-wife loved it. Go figure.