Swordsman II

Swordsman II
Directed by	Ching Siu-Tung Stanley Tong
Written by	Jin Yong
Starring	Jet Li Brigitte Lin Rosamund Kwan Michelle Reis
Release date	1991
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese

Swordsman II (traditional Chinese: 笑傲江湖之東方不敗; simplified Chinese: 笑傲江湖之东方不敗; pinyin: Xiào Ào Jiāng Hú Zhī Dōng Fāng Bù Bài; Cantonese Yale: Siu3 Ngou6 Gong1 Wu4 Ji1 Dung1 Fong1 Bat1 Baai6) is a Hong Kong action film made in 1991. It was directed by Ching Siu-Tung and Stanley Tong and written by Hanson Chan, Jin Yong, Tang Pik-yin and Tsui Hark. This movie was the second in a trilogy of films. It stars a young Jet Li, Brigitte Lin, Rosamund Kwan and Michelle Reis.

Swordsman II is one of the most popular adaptions of a series of books by Jin Yong called The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. Many earlier and later adaptations of the book exist, including several tv shows and movie versions.

This movie adaptation barely followed the actual book series. The movie created a love affair between the main character and the antagonist, which never existed in the book. The main character in the movie seemed to chase women all the time, which is not how the main character in the book series was characterized. The role of the antagonist, Dongfang Bubai (東方不敗), was greatly expanded in film. Finally, the ending in the movie is different than the book series. The movie ends with the main character and his lover sailing to Japan, while the book series ends with the main character becoming the most powerful Wuxia, retiring from the worldly affairs and spending the rest of his days having an instrumental duet of the song Xiao Ao Jiang Hu with his lover.

The speech of Ren Ying Ying and Lan Feng Huang in the movie belongs to the China Sichuan local dialect. Their pronuciation is far different from the Mandarin, and this Sichuan accent / pronunciation is supposed to bring a Miao Race flavour.

Alternate versions

• The US version released from Dimension is cut by 9 minutes.It's dubbed in English and still contains the original music score from the Hong Kong version.It is entitled Legend of the Swordsman.

• The H.K version released from Mei Ah contains the original Cantonese dub and it has already restored 9 minutes of extended footage and gory violence.

• The Taiwanese DVD released from Long Shong T.W contains an additional 4 minutes of rare extended and gory footage which was cut from the US and H.K releases.The run time is 112mins

Some cut scenes from the H.K version cut from the US R-Rated version:

1.After Asia the Invincible takes the guys head off the title sequence is written in Chinese instead of English.

2.The scene where Ling Wu Chung and Kiddo burn the dead horse is cut from the U.S version.

3.Ren Ying Ying sings Heroes of Heroes.

4.Invincible Asia's blood spurting is totally gone from the U.S version.

5.A head rolls down the stairs.

Some more additional scenes from the Taiwanese version cut from the H.K versions.

1.Instead of Hattori (Waise Lee)chopping the soldiers in half at 2 minutes and 30 seconds past the film in the H.K and U.S versions.There is an alternate scene where hattori and his army are charging to the soldiers and killing them.The Director didn't keep this scene in his version he put this scene in the Taiwan version even though he originally first shot this scene instead of the chopping in half scene in the HK & US prints that he re-shot.

2.A scene of Invincible Asia taking a guys head off was trimmed from this version for print damage and gore.

3.The title sequence Swordsman 2 was shown two times.First it shows the Opening Tile in Chinese without the English title Swordsman 2 underneath it.

4.When Ren Ying Ying sings her song in Mandarin the subtitles are all Chinese characters.

5.Ling cooking his scorpion he caught earlier and asking one of his brothers to try it.

6.A scene when one of Lings brothers is naked in the shower which was omitted from this version for nudity.

7.After when Asia kills Chimp.A short shot of Ci Ci looking whats on the floor then cuts to CiCi being scared.

8.A very long and rare deleted scene is shown.Ling plays his guitar for a little while then cuts to Ren Ying Ying thinking about Ling,then cuts to Ling and remembering how he secluded.It shows a cameo from Swordsman 1 with Ling,Kiddo and their brothers.Instead of Jacky Cheung playing his role of Ling.The master gets angry then fights with the students.Ling shouts "Master"!.Ling,Kiddo and the rest of the brothers come to the masters grave and decided to retreat,a shot of Kiddo and the brothers putting their swords down and yelling "To retreat"!.,Then cuts to Ling having his eyes closed and guarding the house.This is how the Director originally intended it to be in the Taiwanese version he saw that the scene was too long so he cut it out and the scene was lost and nowhere and rarely to be found for a few years so Long Shong received this scene from the Director in a roll of 35mm film then they decided it to convert it to a Laser disc.

9.While Asia was thinking about CiCi there are few shots of Ling resting beside CiCi during this sequence some scenes were re-arranged.

10.Master Wu squeezing or sucking blood from Hattoris head by Wu's hand was totally gone for gore and print damage.

11.After Ling's brothers were dead.Ling finds out they were dead,an extended shot of him of putting his brothers corpses falling in the dirt.A deleted shot of Kiddo sitting,a little shot of one of the corpses then cuts to her riding her horse.

12.Invincible Asia's blood spurting was shown in the H.K version but one shot of Asia's blood spurting out even more was cut from the H.K version and is only present in the 4 minute longer Taiwanese print which is currently out of print.

The Taiwanese version has some different music scores and contains Jet Li's original Mandarin voice.

Cast

• Jet Li - Ling Huchong
• Brigitte Lin - Asia the Invincible (Dong Fang Bu Bai)
• Michelle Reis - Kiddo
• Waise Lee - Hattori
• Rosamund Kwan - Ren Ying Ying
• Chin Kar Lok - Saru
• Fennie Yuen - Lan Feng Huang
• Yen Shi-Kwan - Wu
• Bill Yan - Yi Qun

Box office

The film's Hong Kong gross was HK $34,462,861

External links

• Swordsman II at IMDb