Seven Swords is a 2005 Hong Kong wuxia film adapted from Liang Yusheng's novel Qijian Xia Tianshan. It was produced and directed by Tsui Hark, and starred Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung, Sun Honglei, Lu Yi and Kim So-yeon. It was used as the opening film to the 2005 Venice Film Festival and as a homage to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954).
In the mid-17th century, the Manchus take over sovereignty of China and establish the Qing Dynasty. While nationalistic sentiments start brewing within the martial artists' community (jianghu), the Qing government immediately imposes a ban forbidding the common people from practising martial arts. Fire-Wind sees the new law as an opportunity to for himself to make a fortune and offers to help the government execute the new rule. Greedy, cruel and immoral, Fire-Wind ravages northwest China with his army, killing thousands of pugilists as well as innocent civilians. His next goal is to attack Martial Village, which houses a large number of martial artists.
Fu Qingzhu, a retired executioner who served during the previous Ming Dynasty, feels an urge to stop Fire-Wind's brutality, and he sets forth to save Martial Village. He brings with him
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