Reviews & Ratings for
Yellow River Fighter More at IMDbPro »Huang he da xia (original title)

4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
among the best of its genre, 17 July 2006

Author: (winner55) from United States

A film approaching epic status - and with a little better cinematography, it would surely have made it. As it stands, it is still a marvelous martial arts story on a grand scale, about three corrupt kings and the one swordsman who can bring them down, but who suffers from grief for his murdered family, alcoholism, and blindness.

The craftsmanship is solid, the performances all very charismatic. the film is steeped in Chinese culture, and glows warmly with its humanism. The pace is fairly rapid, political intrigues are never allowed to get talky, yet remind us of the historical implicates of the tale. There are enough twists to pulls us along the story-line, and not too many that we get confused. The story is solidly anchored in its blind-swordsman and his beggar-acrobat sidekick, who also provides us with comic relief.

And there is plenty of swordplay-kung-fu, brilliantly - and believably - choreographed, with very little wire-works.

Very entertaining film that is among the best of its genre, and could have transcended it with just a little extra thought and effort in its cinematography. Highly recommended.

1 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Best Chinese Sword play, 1 August 2006

Author: haohaiyu from United States

Yu's the master of masters in Chinese sword.

I watched it on CCTV-6 around 1994. I was absolutely happy with it. Before that, I was bored by various Shaolin/Hero titled stories. The sword play in this movie is the closest match to the real : bottom line is that when one has a sword in his hand, you do not jump around and kick him. I believe it's the most practical sword play of Chinese sword. Here, I am not talking about various long knifes : Japanese swords, Chinese long knifes. They probably more practical and more powerful for real fights.

I remembered Yu forever because of that movie.

Besides fights involving swords, it have some colorful fight with long stuffs (long wide knifes like the one used by Guan Yu). The story line is fairly modern. Yu as a hero is cheated and utilized by a looking-nice king to conquer and kill, but how he wanted was peace to people. Eventually, he killed the king and hidden in "Jiang Hu".

On last word, Yu was not a champaign, he was a coach and before that he was a factory worker. Master from people. :)

0 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Another Chinese made martial arts flick, 12 December 2003

Author: zzmale

that capitalizes on the success of the first Chinese made (Not Hong Kong or Taiwan) martial arts flick Shaolin Temple in 1979.

This film gave a somewhat a fresh look on Chinese martial arts flicks because it has a totally different story, while most others martial arts flicks of the time always has something to do with Shao Lin Temple.

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