Sword (review)

Instead of being greeted by a matchmaker on her fifteenth birthday, as is the custom in her small Chinese village, Miu Miu is introduced to her destiny: she must avenge her father’s death by killing the emperor. Before she was born, her father fashioned a sword from magical iron for the emperor, who rewarded him by killing him to prevent an equal from ever being made. Her father had foreseen this response, so he had already fashioned a sister sword, and it is with this weapon and the skills she has secretly learned from her kung fu master over the past seven years that Miu Miu must go to face what she is certain will be her doom. Along the way, she meets the man betrothed to her since birth, and, after a near-fatal, let’s-get-acquainted fight, they take on the task together. The taut lines of folktale are embellished here with the fantastic lore of the martial arts, making for a highly visual plot that cries out for illustrations, crammed as it is with action, suspense, and magic-infused hand-to-hand combat in the style of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The moral that traditions, especially those that result in honorable death, ought to be challenged, aptly places these peasant characters in the triumphant trickster tradition, although the emperor has some sinister and nearly fatal tricks up his elaborately embroidered sleeves as well. Both established fans of martial arts film and lore and those who applaud folktales with strong female heroines will enjoy this quick taste of Tang Dynasty fantasy.