Zen of Sword (1992)

Big Swordsman II vibes from this, it manages better than most of the post-SWORDSMAN wuxia that came out every other week in 1992 to recapture that sense of the tragedy and folly of the pursuit of power, and the awesomeness of flying around making other people explode.

It seems to be a low budget production, as most of it is filmed in a rather anonymous section of forest somewhere and features a small cast. That cast includes Michelle Reis, Cynthia Khan and Kara Hui though, so size is not a worry.

The low budget doesn't particularly mean low quality, the film makes good use of its limited locations with accomplished cinematography and stages some quite spectacular action scenes, choreographed in the Ching Siu-Tung style that defined the early 90's by Philip Kwok, not normally known for that sort of action but apparently perfectly capable of delivering it.

So many of these films were made, many of them stone cold classics, that it's hard to call ZEN OF SWORD essential viewing. It's a good mid-tier entry though, one that fans of the genre are unlikely to regret watching.