When Yuen Woo-ping needed horses, he used real horses. When he needed desert landscapes, he shot in actual deserts. And when he needed actors who could perform Hong Kong-style wirework and martial arts sequences without relying on digital enhancement, he assembled a cast of wushu champions — led by Wu Jing and Jet Li — who could deliver the physical authenticity his vision for “Blades of the Guardians” required.
“Getting shots in camera has always been my way of working,” the director tells Variety. Yuen’s influence on martial arts cinema spans decades, from choreographing Jackie Chan’s “Drunken Master” to defining the visual language of “The Matrix” trilogy and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” For “Blades of the Guardians,” that meant returning to practical filmmaking methods. “In Hong Kong filmmaking, many stylistic choices were born from necessity and limitation. We invented wirework because we didn’t have visual effects and that became a hallmark of Hong Kong filmmaking. For this film we knew we wanted to shoot it on location because we could not replicate the desert or working with actual horses and skilled stunt people using visual effects.”
Well Go USA Entertainment released the historical action film in North America. The cast also includes Nicholas Tse (“Raging Fire”), Yosh Yu (“Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms”), and K-pop artists Jun (Wen Junhui) of Seventeen and Winwin of NCT. Based on Xu Xianzhe’s graphic novels, the film follows a skilled mercenary named Biao Ren navigating the harsh deserts of the Western Regions during the Sui Dynasty under the rule of the oppressive Emperor Yang Guang, who becomes entangled in a perilous scheme while completing what initially appears to be a simple escort assignment.
The filmmaker’s approach to choreography emphasizes what he calls clarity, weight and consequence. “Fight scenes to me are a kind of dialogue between characters,” Yuen says. “There is a back and forth and there are consequences with every movement. In a dialogue if a line doesn’t need to be said, it should be cut out. The same applies to fight scenes. Every move should advance the story.”
The film’s road movie structure allows this storytelling approach to unfold across different encounters and locations. “‘Blades of the Guardians’ is in some ways a road movie: we meet various characters, see different locations and get into all sorts of trouble along the way,” Yuen notes. A key storyline centers on Dao Ma and Di Ting, former brothers in arms now pitted against one another. “Their ending fight is a spectacular sequence but in the final moments, we suddenly see their differences in completely different light,” he reveals. “The journey that started a physical journey through the desert culminates in an emotional character journey and in a split second we are taken back to where the journey started.”
Assembling the ensemble presented unique challenges. “Casting was a very big part of this film,” Yuen says. “Firstly because this is an adaptation of graphic novels, we wanted to capture the spirit of those characters created by Xu Xianzhe. Being an action actor doing real stunts is not easy work. On top of that they have to be good actors, which is even more difficult. Every generation produces a small handful of talented actors and I tried to match the best actor to every role from the graphic novels.”
Working with Jet Li again brought together decades of shared martial arts cinema history. “The challenge with casting Governor Chang is since Wu Jing is Dao Ma, Governor Chang must be Jet Li to make it believable that he can even be Wu Jing’s adversary,” Yuen explains. “Jet Li is such a skilled martial artist all the other actors bring their best to set every day. Even though Wu Jing, Jet Li and Max Zhang have dozens of injuries between them, they gave their best every day because it is rare to be able to work with such skilled performers.”
Wu Jing, Jet Li and Zhang are all wushu champions, which Yuen says creates a particular physicality on screen. “Wu Jing is a wushu champion like Jet Li and Max Zhang, so they all ‘speak’ the same language when it comes to martial arts,” he says. “There is a gracefulness in the movements and physicality of wushu that is perfect for a period film like this.”
Tony Leung Ka-fai, known for his versatility across genres rather than martial arts expertise, brought different strengths to the production. “Tony is a very professional actor. Even though he is not a trained martial artist, he was ready to learn,” Yuen says. “Hong Kong is a small film industry, but Tony and I never had the chance to work together until this film. He was able to bring emotional weight to Chief Mo’s character, who is the emotional core to Ayuya’s storyline.”
For younger cast members who underwent extensive physical training, Yuen emphasizes the importance of finding individual voices within the genre rather than simply replicating what has come before. “I think the most important thing I can pass on is that every filmmaker and every actor should find their own voice in this genre. That is the only way we will come up with new ideas and new stories,” he says. “When I first started directing, I realized my specialty was mixing action with comedy. It wasn’t a proven combination but it became very popular. In my experience trying to repeat what works usually doesn’t work.”
After shaping action cinema across Hong Kong and Hollywood for decades, Yuen views the film as establishing the world of Xu’s graphic novels for potential future installments. “I am always looking to do something new and I also try not to think too far ahead,” he says. “With this film, I think we were able to establish the world of the graphic novels. There are so many books and so many characters; there are many ways to continue the story. This film took four years to put together, so first I will take a break for a few months!”
Peace Film Production produced the project, with the screenplay written by Yu Baimei, Chao-pin Su, Chan Tai Lee and Larry Yang.