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Daniel Eagan

It has been more than seven years since Yuen Woo-ping last directed a feature film.
Opening for Lunar New Year 2026, Blades of the Guardians marks a return to the kind of martial arts blockbusters that the Hong Kong cinema icon helped define with works such as Drunken Master (1978) and Wing Chun (1994).
Based on a popular comics series, the new film follows bounty hunter Dao Ma (Wu Jing), the “second most wanted fugitive” in the Sui dynasty (581-618), as he tries to lead a rebel leader across the western desert to safety in Changan.
In the sprawling plot, Dao Ma fights rival bounty hunters, soldiers from several clans, former friends and allies, and Shu the “Jade-Faced Ghost” (Yosh Yu Shi), a notorious swordsman who eventually joins him on his journey.
Biao Ren (or Blades of the Guardians in English), the source material, first appeared in 2015. Now collected into a dozen volumes, the series has been seen by millions on apps and streaming platforms, adapted into an animated television series and translated into Japanese and German.


“The graphic novels are rich with details and characters,” Yuen tells the South China Morning Post. “We tried to stay true to the characters and major plot points in the series, but due to [the runtime constraints of a film], there could be a lot more to explore.”
The plot of the film, subtitled Wind Rises in the Desert, leaves the door open for sequels. With a story teeming with subplots and locations, future films could easily branch out as Dao Ma encounters more adventures and adversaries.
Yuen explains that Dao Ma is both a skilled swordsman and a bounty hunter. The film’s world of outlaws and fugitives fits nicely with the wuxia storytelling he has mastered over decades.
“The core of Blades of the Guardians is justice, brotherhood and sacrifice,” he says. “These are universal values in all of my stories. Chinese wuxia gives me the opportunity to provide a very stylised rendering of this kind of story.”

Several of Yuen’s past collaborators, including Max Zhang Jin (2018’s Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy) and Jet Li Lianjie (1993’s Tai-Chi Master), have significant roles in the film. Li stars as the villainous Lord Chang, who first tries to bribe and then to kill Dao Ma in a spectacularly choreographed sword-fight.
Li is, of course, one of the top martial artists of his generation, while Wu is the action hero of the colossal Wolf Warrior franchise. Chen Lijun, who plays Ayuya – a headstrong warrior joining Dao Ma on his mission – trained in Yue opera, and Yu is an archer and equestrian. How did Yuen blend their backgrounds?
“Everyone has their own style and way of working, which is what makes Wu Jing different from Jet Li and different from Max Zhang,” the director explains. “What they have in common is that they are skilled martial artists. Bringing them together makes for very exciting sequences.”

Yuen had his performers undergo several months of training – not just physical workouts, but weapons drills, classes in wire techniques and horsemanship, and lessons in taking falls.
“A film like this is both physically and mentally challenging,” Yuen notes. “Having months to get ready made it easier for the actors. We were shooting in the desert during summer, which is exhausting. But being on location made the film much more real and helped the actors give convincing performances.”
Location shooting took place in breathtaking desert landscapes near Karamay, in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, where Yuen marshalled chases involving more than 100 horses. Blades of the Guardians unfolds on an enormous scale, with more than 1,500 people involved in some sequences.
“We shot from summer to early winter in Karamay,” Yuen says. “It would have been nice to do some scenes in actual winter there, but the weather is just too challenging with a crew this size.
“We moved to soundstages in Beijing, which is where we did the snow fight in the flashback with Wu Jing and Nicholas Tse Ting-fung. That sequence is one of the emotional high points in the film for me.”

Yuen says that the climactic fight at Mojia Village, the protagonists’ hometown, was the most difficult to execute. The village is set ablaze by Heyi Xuan (Cisha), an unhinged soldier determined to wed – or kill – Ayuya, meaning the performers had to work against a backdrop of raging fire.
The sequence is broken into several separate set pieces, some of them involving horses – animals notoriously averse to fire. It ends with a prolonged fight between Dao Ma and disgraced soldier Di Ting (Tse) that stretches from the village square to the crumbling ramparts of a castle.
“Yes, Tse did many of his own stunts,” Yuen acknowledges of the actor renowned for his action work. “So did many of the other actors. When you are dealing with heavy hitters like these, everyone wants to do their own stunts. It helps to be working with real kung fu actors.”

Few figures have been as influential in martial arts films as Yuen. He started directing in 1978, working with Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung Kam-bo, Michelle Yeoh and many others. Films such as the Donnie Yen Ji-dan vehicle Iron Monkey (1993) became worldwide hits, boosting the entire genre in the process.
Yuen’s work as an action choreographer may have had even more impact in Hollywood. Working with the Wachowskis on The Matrix series and then with Ang Lee on the Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) helped introduce his style of action to a global audience.
Since then Yuen has worked with Quentin Tarantino (2003’s Kill Bill) and Keanu Reeves (Man of Tai Chi, 2013), among others. His style of stunt work has spread throughout the industry, from franchises such as Mission: Impossible and Avatar down to old-school action thrillers like The Expendables.
Yuen is open to influences as well. The leads in Blades of the Guardians joke around like Star Wars characters, while the massive desert chase in the middle of the film recalls the warring tribes converging in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road.
Today’s action choreographers can rarely match Yuen’s work; few have the experience he has amassed over decades in the industry. His stunts are precisely calibrated and flawlessly executed. The geography within scenes – how characters move and interact – is always easy for viewers to follow.

That focus and dedication make demands on performers and add expensive days onto shooting schedules. Tony Leung Chiu-wai once described the opening scene in Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster, which was choreographed by Yuen and took 30 consecutive nights to shoot, as “a nightmare”.
But according to Yuen, it is never just about the time required to perform a sequence. “It’s more about the clarity of your vision,” he offers. “When I started making films, we simply couldn’t afford to shoot many angles or takes. We had to think scenes through before shooting.
“Nowadays with digital [cameras] it’s easy to shoot a lot – but shooting a lot doesn’t guarantee you’re getting the right shots. Sometimes, the best results come from working with limitations.”
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Wu Jing (left) and Nicholas Tse in a still from Blades of the Guardians (category IIB, Mandarin), directed by Yuen Woo-ping. Chen Lijun co-stars.

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Hong Kong martial arts choreographer and director Yuen Woo-ping returns with an epic wuxia, starring Wu Jing and Nicholas Tse


Hong Kong martial arts choreographer and director Yuen Woo-ping returns with an epic wuxia, starring Wu Jing and Nicholas Tse.


Director Yuen Woo-ping revives the wuxia blockbuster with Blades of the Guardians

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Hong Kong martial arts choreographer and director Yuen Woo-ping returns with an epic wuxia, starring Wu Jing and Nicholas Tse

Hong Kong martial arts choreographer and director Yuen Woo-ping returns with an epic wuxia, starring Wu Jing and Nicholas Tse