Notable Cast: Xie Miao, Gao Weiman, Xiang Hao, Liu Ben,
Zhang Di, Gao Yi, Zhang Haosen
“It’s a life for a life. You don’t need to take 10,000
lives. Don’t you understand that?”
In a sequence prior to the final showdown with the film’s
nemesis in Eye for an Eye, our hero Cheng is informed that one of his
cohorts has fallen. The manner in which Yang Bingjia shoots it is caked in deep
black shadow, Cheng’s back to the woman telling the story through her tears, as
he sits on his knees. The moment is intercut with the villain, Yuwen Ying,
preparing his team for the eventual showdown with a ritual in falling snow as
drums beat heavily and dancers in all-white costumes move swiftly around.
The juxtaposition between the deep black of Cheng’s pre-war
ritual and the bright whites of the Yuwen’s personal guard in the snow,
partnered with the stillness of our hero and the scattered movement of the
enemy, makes for a fascinating contrast of ideology, invoking a yin-yang style
of interconnectedness with its color scheme, and how each character is treating
how their roads will intersect. Cheng, a blind swordsman and bounty hunter,
pulls his sword from his cane while still kneeling in the darkness and opens
his eyes for the first time in the film; the paleness of his eyes pops like the
metal of his sword in the blackness. He only closes them as he sheathes the
sword once again. He might be blind, but his sword sees the truth of this
moment, opening his eyes in this split second, before being closed again. The
moment ends as it cuts to black, then cuts to Yuwen, his eyes closed, only to
open upon Cheng's arrival at his front door. No words are exchanged, and the
final bloody conflict commences.