Eye for an Eye: The Blind Swordsman
Over the past few years, I find myself appreciating action movies that keep things lean and mean over films that go overboard on the spectacle, and pad the plot with complexity it doesn’t really need. One of the thing I loved about Bingjia Yang’s “Eye for an Eye: The Blind Swordsman” is that it is the definition of this type of action film, and while some complexity exists, the narrative is very streamlined, to the point where it moves at the blink of an eye. This film grabbed me from the first moments, and I was satisfied.
When a film introduces voiceover that is not of the main character, you can expect it to probably be someone whose life was important to the main character. Here, it is a young woman who was brutally assaulted and murdered. When we first meet Cheng Yi (Tse Miu), he is in a casino on a rainy night. He is doing well, but the owner will not let their money go easily. He is then confronted outside as he’s leaving, which is when we get the flashback to a month earlier, and get to know Ni Yan (Gao Weiman), our narrator, whose death will force the swordsman into action.
There is not a lot of fat at all on the 74-minute “Eye for an Eye,” which likely carries the subtitle “The Blind Swordsman” in America to distinguish it from countless other films with that title here. The part about this being about a “Blind Swordsman” might be confusing, as well, if you remember 2003’s “Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman” at all, which was a new film in that iconic samurai franchise. Cheng Yi is not Zatoichi, but he’s every bit as lethal. Yang’s action sequences are strikingly shot with some great choreography that brings the requisite spectacle to this film. We get a sense of time and place, and the era in history this film takes place in, but that’s only for the setting, not the story. This is about Cheng exacting revenge on behalf of the friendly woman who helped him; that’s all we need for this film to succeed, and the goods are delivered in spades.
At the end of the day, there’s not a lot more that can be said for “Eye for an Eye.” Terrific production design, exciting action, and straightforward storytelling at the service of a narrative where we want to see the good guy kick the bad guy’s asses. That’s all I needed out of it, and if you like action filmmaking, this is a pretty great example of it.
