Invincible Swordsman (2025) Review

“Invincible Swordsman” Theatrical Poster

Director: Luo Yi Wei
Cast: Kitty Zhang Yuqi, Tim Huang Xiyan, Xuan Lu, Terence Yin, Sammo Hung, Yun Qianqian
Running Time: 118 min.

By Paul Bramhall

When Brigitte Lin was cast as the character Invincible Asia in 1992’s Swordsman 2, few could have predicted the role would become so iconic, leading Lin to spend the last 3 years of her acting career as a mainstay of the new wave wuxia genre. In just a few short years she appeared in more than 10 new wave wuxia’s, and her role in each is probably reason enough why, even with the technological advancements in the 30 years since, few directors have been bold (or dumb, depending on your perspective) enough to try and remake any of them. The last to try was Jacob Cheung, who in 2014 helmed The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom, a re-make of Ronny Yu’s 1993 classic The Bride with White Hair, which was mostly met with negative reviews.

Now in 2025, for his sophomore feature director Luo Yi Wei decided to take a crack at remaking the very movie that made Lin such an iconic presence in the new wave wuxia genre, with Invincible Swordsman tackling the same story as Swordsman 2. Debuting in 2022 with Swords Drawn, Yi Wei admittedly has a convenient out of any potential comparisons, thanks to the fact the source material is one of wuxia writer Jin Yong’s novels, The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. While it’s almost impossible to count the number of time Yong’s The Condor Heroes has been adapted for the screen, comparatively The Smiling, Proud Wanderer is one of his lesser adapted stories. Apart from the Tsui Hark produced trilogy of the early 1990’s, there’s been a couple of TV adaptations in the 2000’s and that’s it, so the source materials relative scarcity of appearing onscreen make the comparisons to its last big screen adaptation all the more inevitable.

While The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom saw Fan Bingbing step into the role that Brigitte Lin originally played, in Invincible Swordsman the honours go to Kitty Zhang (The Mermaid, Legend of the Demon Cat) who’s tasked with stepping into the shoes (or should that be billowing silk?) of Invincible Asia. In the role of Lunghu Chong (played by Jet Li in Swordsman 2) is Tim Huang (Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms, Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force), whose biggest problem is his friendship with Xuan Lu (Midnight Hair, Battle: The Insidious). She plays the daughter of a power-hungry clan leader played by Hong Kong mainstay Terence Yin (New Police Story, Special ID), so naturally Huang’s own clan doesn’t approve of their budding relationship, ultimately leading to him bring expelled.

Lucky for him, he’s taken under the wing of a martial arts master who’s been living in seclusion played by Sammo Hung (God of War, The Bodyguard), who trains him up on such awesomely named techniques like the Sword Nourishing stance. While Huang lives in isolation on the (equally awesomely named) Cliff of Contemplation, Zhang defeats Yin and becomes the leader of the Sun Moon Cult, imprisoning him by blocking his vital points, and vowing to take over the martial arts world. When Huang gets wind that his former clan is also in danger from her plans for world dominance, he decides to return to the world of jiang hu, using his new skills to go into battle with members of the cult. It’s in the midst of a fight that he mistakenly believes he saves Zhang, not realising who she is, beginning a doomed love story as the truth is bound to eventually reveal itself.

It goes without saying that Invincible Swordsman is a much more straightforward affair than its last iteration on the big screen. The whole element of how Invincible Asia is actually a man, who after making himself a eunuch has transitioned into a woman, is here not given a mention (despite being more culturally relevant today than it was in the early 90’s!). The only slight reference it gets is in a throwaway scene where Zhang admires the female servants she’s surrounded by, implying a feeling of physical attraction, although in a stark contradiction she then falls for Huang minutes later. There’s also understandably a lack of the political subtext that Tsui Hark is known for, but considering China’s current cinematic climate that’s to be expected. Instead we’re left with a relatively pedestrian re-telling of the source material, one that gets by on the goodwill of seeing the likes of Sammo Hung back in a wuxia production again.

More an extended special appearance than a supporting role, Hung’s main duty is to pass on his martial arts skills to Huang in a CGI rendered clifftop setting, and it’s always a pleasure to see him onscreen. The last time he was in a wuxia you have to go back to 2010’s 14 Blades, but his role here as a white bearded martial arts master is more likely to recall his role in Wong Jing’s 1993 slice of wuxia madness Kung Fu Cult Master (speaking of which, it’s Wong Jing who’s on script and producer duty for Invincible Swordsman). Hung’s always been able to evoke a sense of authority when his performances call for it, something we saw last in the previous year’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, and it’s a joy to see the elder statesman of kung-fu cinema supplant that same authority from a contemporary setting into a wuxia one.

Others fare less well. As the main character Huang is decidedly one note, appearing in every scene like he’s just been told to “smoulder for the camera”, and little else. Sure any wuxia flick requires a degree of posing in a variety of heroic martial arts stances, but when the entire performance feels like posing, it becomes a problem. Similarly Zhang struggles to make the role of Invincible Asia her own, too often feeling like she watched Swordsman 2 on repeat for a few weeks, then attempted to emulate Brigitte Lin’s performance as best she can. Inevitably, the scenes they share together which are intended to carry the most dramatic weight land with a resounding thud, devoid of any chemistry.

Regardless of performance quality though, the one aspect of Invincible Swordsman that nobody can escape from is a painfully pretentious script. Almost as if ChatGPT had been asked to create a script consisting entirely of fortune cookie pondering, lines like “Gain and loss are but two sides of the same coin” and “How long is an inch of justice? How long is an inch of longing?” are commonplace. It kind of feels like there was an unspoken rule that if a character was going to speak, they had to come out with something deeply profound, but the result is one that leads to plenty of eyerolling fairly early on. If anything, it came as a relief when there was a scene involving one of the clans throwing a celebration, and the song they decided to belt out consisted purely of a bunch of men chanting “raa raa raa!” on repeat.

That leaves the action, which sees Wu Yue (Paradox, The Brink) stepping into an action director role for the first time since 2016’s The Adventures of Wei Bao, and he does a serviceable job. Invincible Asia’s threaded needles benefit best from the CGI enhancements, with one particular scene involving a character getting one of them straight through his eyeball, which is then used to pull him forward. The appearance of a trio of villains – named Greed, Anger, and Ignorance – also feels like a call back to the crazed wuxia’s of yesteryear, with the use of a lute and oversized butchers knives providing both variety and energy to the action beats. There’s nothing really on display that hasn’t been seen before though, and there’s a distinct feeling we’re watching the go-to action beats from the ‘Wuxia Wirework for Non-Martial Artists’ playbook, meaning there’s no standout moments to separate Invincible Swordsman from its contemporaries.

As it stands, for his sophomore feature director Luo Yi Wei shows just how far the Chinese web movie industry has come in the last 15 years, as Invincible Swordsman received a theatrical release despite being funded by the likes of iQIYI and Tencent, production companies that once exclusively made movies for streaming. Indeed the budget may be higher, the CGI locations now mixed with actual location shooting, and the runtime much longer, but is Invincible Swordsman likely to stay in the memory any longer than the average 75-minute web movie wuxia? Honestly, probably not.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10