Judge Archer

[GeneChing]

Follow the link for the trailer.

Indie Trailer Sunday: Xu Haofeng’s Martial Arts ‘Judge Archer’ Trailer
by Alex Billington
November 11, 2012
Source: Vimeo
Judge Archer Trailer

“An archer left behind by history…” Whoa, this looks awesome. Today’s trailer is for an upcoming martial arts film called Judge Archer, written and directed by up-and-coming Chinese filmmaker Xu Haofeng, also behind the epic The Grandmasters. As described by Twitch, where I came across this, “Xu approaches his films with a unique blend of grounded pragmatism - you’ll never see anything in his fight sequences that wouldn’t actually work - and philosophical rigor.” Yea, it is badass. It stars Song Yang, Yu Chenghui, Li Chengyuan, Yenny Martin and Zhao Zheng. Just give this trailer a watch, it’s impressive, check it out.

Watch the first official trailer for Xu Haofeng’s Judge Archer, from Vimeo (via Twitch):

Judge Archer resolves disputes between various martial arts schools, but cannot settle his family issues and romantic affairs. When he is entrapped in a failed assassination plot his own ethics are put to the test.

Judge Archer is the second film directed by Chinese filmmaker Haofeng Xu, following The Sword Identity in 2011, who also wrote The Grandmasters screenplay. It was written, directed and edited by Xu Haofeng, based on a story by Haofeng, who is also responsible for the martial arts direction. It’s premiering at the Rome International Film Festival in November, and received three Golden Horse Award nominations, but otherwise doesn’t have a US distributor or actual release date set. Stay tuned.

[GeneChing]

wo shi jiang hu

There are two more scenes if you follow the link below.

THE SWORD IDENTITY Director Returns With JUDGE ARCHER: Watch A Trailer And Two Scenes
Todd Brown, Founder and Editor

Director Xu Haofeng is an unusual one. Soon to be best known to audiences around the globe as the screenwriter of Wong Kar Wai’s long anticipated The Grandmasters, Xu has a whole lot more in his repertoire. An acclaimed novelist and serious student of martial arts, Buddhism and Taoism, Xu approaches his films with a unique blend of grounded pragmatism - you’ll never see anything in his fight sequences that wouldn’t actually work - and philosophical rigor. While Chinese martial arts film are increasingly moving towards flash and style over substance, Xu is moving in the opposite direction, blending a deep love and knowledge of film with an even deeper knowledge and respect for the practice and philosophy of martial arts.

Xu’s sop****re film, Judge Archer, is premiering at the Rome International Film Festival and the first trailer and two clips can be seen below.

        Judge Archer resolves disputes between the various martial arts schools, but cannot settle his own family issues and romantic affairs. When he is entrapped in a failed assassination plot, his ethics are put to the test.

        This is a martial arts film set in the early days of the Republic of China. It explores the traditions and customs of various martial arts schools and the philosophy behind the art of archery. It is a story about "telling right from wrong". The protagonist acts as an arbitrator amongst the rival martial arts schools. Every day, he judges who is right and who is wrong; however, he himself is confronted with the most crucial question - should he himself be subjected to social conventions? This is a story that praises personal integrity.

        Judge Archer is the latest film by Xu Haofeng, one of the most promising young directors in China. As in his debut film, The Sword Identity, Xu takes a realist approach to the martial arts genre. Xu himself has practiced martial arts for years and clearly understands the difference between real fighting techniques and the artistic choreography presented on the screen. As a result, he does not indulge his audiences with fast pace and physical sensation. Instead, Xu shows the viewers the true nature of each fighting style. The moves demonstrated in the film are realistic yet original and incredibly powerful.

Song Yang, Yu Chenghui, Li Chengyuan, Yenny Martin and Zhao Zheng star.

[GeneChing]

A review

Sounds promising…

Judge Archer
18 November, 2012 | By Dan Fainaru
Dir: Xu Haofeng. China. 2012. 95mins

An art house kung fu movie may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it is the only fair way to describe this ambitious production, with its remarkable art work, spectacular locations, fine cinematography, lively musical score and featuring a number of interesting themes, all of it bogged down by a broken narrative that defies all the rules of continuity. Some may appreciate the challenges writer-director Xu Haofeng takes on – as well as his partial achievements - but even they will finally have to concede he does not succeed completely.

Similar to the approach of Westerns portraying the end of the Wild West era and everything it symbolised, Judge Archer, which takes place in the early part of the 20th century, deals with the end of the martial arts age, when the highly sophisticated ancient traditions where brutally pushed aside in China by the introduction of gunfire and explosives. No longer a necessary art or science, its usefulness obliterated by more radical means of destruction, kung-fu lost its significance only to be resuscitated by the movies towards the end of that century in a far more flamboyant version through the work of such stars as Bruce Lee and other.

Xu, a novelist and a researcher on this subject goes back to what, according to him, is the authentic kung-fu, a minimalist version far removed from the show-off performances of his screen predecessors. Taking place in the early days of the Chinese republic, the plot follows a young man (Song Yang) who escapes from his village after being cruelly beaten up and witnessing the rape of his sister by the local Landlord.

He finds refuge in a monastery where he is calmed down and on his being released, he lands the riskiest job of them all – he becomes the Judge Archer, the arbitrator whose role is to settle down the conflicts between the various Martial Arts Academies, each one of them serving a different war lord. Needless to say, this means not only must he be wise, just and impartial but also able to defeat anyone who might dispute his decisions.

Though the film never makes it clear how interested this Judge Archer is in any aspect of justice, it certainly explores his fascination with the opposite sex. Erdong (Yenny Martin), no mean fighter herself, using such varied weapons as a piece of string and a dagger, wants him to revenge the death her father, while another, Yue Yahong (Li Chengyuan), a Chinese opera singer and no fighter at all, just flashes happy and sad smiles, but also proves to be as deadly dangerous as the other.

How all these elements link together remains pretty much of a mystery all through the film, and why some people are fighting others is rarely clear, but at least Judge Archer and several of his opponents are given ample chance to display their dexterity at kung-fu duels, and once in a while they are even allowed to use their lances. The techniques of archery are mentioned, but any great displays of sheer acrobatic virtuosity is strictly banned. Explosions at the end suggest martial arts have outlived their purpose, but why this should happen is never clear.

The truth is that many of the answers can be found in the press book accompanying the film, providing ample explanations about the political and military strife in the country. But since press books are not distributed along with the admissions to the paying audience, placing them in a press book is not good enough. Though there could be no complaint with regards the look of the film and the way each individual scene is staged and directed, the final job of putting it all together still remains unpolished with even the performers seemingly rather stunned by the roles they perform.

Production company: Beijing MTM Cultural Media
International sales: Golden Networks Asia, www.goldnetasia.com
Producer: Xie Run
Cinematography: Tony Wang
Production designer: Xie Yong
Music: An Wei, Wang Fan
Main cast: Song Yang, Yu Chenghui, Li Chengyuan, Yenny Martin, Zhao Cheng

[GeneChing]

Then again…

…maybe not so promising.

Judge Archer
China
Period martial arts drama
2012, colour, 1.85:1, 90 mins
Directed by Xu Haofeng ()
Judge Archer
By Derek Elley
Fri, 23 November 2012, 12:00 PM (HKT)

Another obscure, academic riff on martial-arts films from the maker of The Sword Identity. Festivals, especially Asian and genre.
Story

China, the warlord period, 1917. Traumatised by the rape of his elder sister in the countryside, Shuangxi (Song Yang) goes mad and is cared for in a temple. A monk suggests that he starts a new life by adopting the name of the first person he meets in the outside world. This turns out to be an old man who is known as “Judge Archer” - because of his skill with the bow and arrow and in settling disputes between rival martial arts schools. Before dying, Judge Archer spends three years passing on his skills to Shuangxi, who then also adopts his name despite the fact it has been cursed for 16 generations. The new Judge Archer (Song Yang) meets Erdong (Yenny Martin), who asks him to avenge the murder of her father, a member of the revolutionary Tongmenhui, by a warlord, General Yang Naixing; Judge Archer agrees to take on the case but rejects Erdong’s sexual advances. He sets himself up as a fruiterer opposite the house of Yang, who is now in exile. Yang’s bodyguard is Kuang Yimin (Yu Chenghui), a veteran, onetime prominent martial artist, whose young wife, opera singer Yue Yahong (Li Chengyuan), gets to know Judge Archer after regularly visiting his fruit shop. Judge Archer becomes enamoured of Yahong, drops Erdong’s case, and plans to elope with Yahong. He then discovers that both Yahong and Erdong have been separately stringing him along, the first under the orders of Yimin and the second under the orders of Guo Decheng (Zhao Zheng), a former pupil of Yimin with nefarious plans of his own.

Review

Pretty much every criticism that went for The Sword Identity also goes for writer-director XU Haofeng 's second feature, Judge Archer . Xu’s film-making technique shows marginal improvement and the black humour behind the straightfaced displays of martial arts is still present; but there is still an obstinate refusal to let the audience engage in any way with the characters, emotions or even the storyline — all of which are perversely obscure and sap the viewer’s concentration in an exasperating way. In Sword, Xu’s oblique approach to narrative could perhaps be excused as a tyro film-maker’s bravado; repeated in Judge, however, it starts to smack of intellectual arrogance.

Quite simply, without a detailed printed synopsis the film is incomprehensible. The constant script ellipses, the shortage of dialogue, the lack of any backgrounding to the characters — all make watching Judge Archer an exhausting process: the mind is more busy trying to work out what is going on than appreciating Xu’s clever riffs on accepted formulae. A novelist and martial artist himself, the polymath Xu still desperately needs a more seasoned collaborator to help him realise his particular vision, as what may well work on the printed page or in his imagination does not necessarily work in the more exacting medium of cinema. The detail of weaponry, the period artefacts, the rituals and rules — they’re all on screen but unexplained and unexploited in cinematic terms.

Judge is all the more frustrating as it contains some interesting elements that cry out for clearer exposition: the fault-lines of loyalty in the martial arts code, the way in which martial artists became dinosaurs in the 20th century, their inability to express themselves except through action, their lack of emotional development, and so on. The title hero (again played by SONG Yang , the mysterious swordsman in Sword) has adopted the name of a veteran martial artist but not all of his wisdom: he’s progressively hoodwinked by two women (one gawkily played by Chinese-American Yenny MARTIN, the other more vampily played by TV actress LI Chengyuan ) and is more concerned with showing off than actually becoming a sagacious judge. Song shows the same easy charm as in Sword but again gets little chance to develop either the character or humour that lie beneath the movie’s perplexing surface. The same goes equally for other lead players like YU Chenghui (the veteran in Sword) and TV drama actor ZHAO Zheng .

Overall, the film is technically more accomplished than Sword and just as playful — especially with its music score, which shifts from delicate fretted music to thunderous organ chords, and often in its fight scenes. Staged by Xu himself, the latter are again brief, only half-glimpsed, and physically contained — sometimes just between two men on chairs sitting face to face. Tony WANG 's photography is more warmly lit, and at 90 minutes the movie is much tighter than Sword. But until Xu stops being a one-man band, locked in his own rarified world, his ideas are going to remain just ideas, not blossom as movies.

The Chinese title translates as Archer Liu Baiyuan.

[GeneChing]

I thought this came out already…

Promising Martial Art Director Xu Haofeng Talks on His Judge Archer
2016-03-02 09:38:11 CRIENGLISH.com Web Editor: Xu

Actor Song Yang (left) and actress Li Chengyuan portray their roles in the film Judge Archer, which is scheduled to hit the big screens around China on March 11, 2016. [Photo:CRIENGLISH.com]

Anchor: Long-anticipated Judge Archer, another martial arts film has been rescheduled to hit the big screens around China on March 11th, one week ahead of the original date for release.

Director Xu Haofeng has explained why there’s years of delay in releasing the film. He also disclosed the elements of romance in this flick. Xu Fei has the story.

Xu Haofeng made a name for himself by writing the screenplay for Wong Kar-Wai’s Yi Dai Zong Shi or The Grandmaster.

In 2012, the director shot Judge Archer, known as Jian Shi Liu Bai Yuan (“”) in Chinese. And Judge Archer marks Xu’s third collaboration with young actor Song Yang, following Song’s portrayal in the director’s 2011 film “The Sword Identity” and The Master which was released late last year.

Xu Haofeng explains the reason behind years of delay:

“We have an almost two-year long delay because we are waiting for Song Yang to become more famous. I reckon Song Yang has the potential to be cultivated into a Kungfu star. He’s unaffected and pure at the start since he has never acted in a Hong Kong-style Kungfu film. Then I decided to send him to learn traditional martial arts.”

Judge Archer is as much a martial arts movie as an art film, with a complex plot, inscrutable characters and oblique, often classical dialogue.

Its main character Liu Baiyuan, a master of archery, is nicknamed “Judge Archer”, who resolves disputes between the various martial arts schools, but cannot settle his own family issues and romantic affairs.

When he is entrapped in a failed assassination plot, his ethics are put to the test, as director Xu reveals:

“There are three females who have close ties with the main character Liu Baiyuan. One is his elder sister, to whom he, at the beginning, failed to live up to. He has an experience of romance in which a woman is aggressive in occupying his emotions. After this, he also courted another girl and actively expressed his emotion to her.”

In addition to being this film’s director, Xu Haofeng also works as the action director since he began learning Kungfu when he was still a child.

Xu’s third martial arts film “Shi Fu”, or The Master, which came out last year, has won Xu the Best Action Choreography at 52nd Taiwan Golden Horse Film Award.

But being asked whether he thinks he’s already a successful film maker, the director appears very modest saying there are still lot of difficult things that he has yet to overcome.

Also, Xu Haofeng is a novelist with his first novel published at 33 years old. Both films, The Master and Judge Archer, were adapted for the big screen on the basis of Xu’s own novels.

Today the novelist-turned director has attracted lots of loyal fans who now anticipate checking his Judge Archer in cinemas on their own.

For Studio Plus, I’m Xu Fei.

The Grandmaster
The Master
His next film should have been ‘The Student’

Also 52nd Golden Horse