“14 Blades” is a lavish, award-winning, martial arts adventure movie along the lines of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “House of Flying Daggers”. Set at the dawn of the Ming Dynasty (around the 14th Century), this epic yarn follows Qinglong (Donnie Yen – “Ip Man”, “Kill Zone”), once commander of the Emperor’s elite guards, now a hunted rebel seeking to restore dignity to his ruler and himself.

Armed with an amazingly compact and versatile, not to mention deadly box of 14 blades (imagine Batman’s utility belt but in spring-loaded box form), Qinglong must call on his immense kung fu and weapon-wielding abilities, and build new alliances to help him return the Imperial Seal to its rightful owners, defeating those who have betrayed him and are seeking to usurp the Emperor. 

Hoping to catch the wave of interest in family-friendly martial arts films generated by the new remake of “The Karate Kid”, this movie features an extended cameo by genre hero Jackie Chan. The star of the piece, however, is Yishan Zhang who, in an inspired bit of script writing, plays Zhang Yi-Shan. Yi-Shan is a sixteen-year-old school boy who is utterly obsessed with Chan, and dreams about becoming his disciple.

Ridiculed at school by his peers for failing his grades, Yi-Shan vows to seek Chan out, be taught kung fu by him and then return to punish those who have teased him. On a trip to supposedly stay with his grandparents in Beijing, he instead opts to blindly wander off in search of his idol. Along the way he encounters a dangerous gang who believe he really is associated with Chan, and consequently kidnaps him for a huge ransom. This film, directed by Gangliang Fang and Ping Jiang, is what I would term “kung fu light”, much like the original “The Karate Kid”. It is aimed squarely at teenagers and consequently features no blood, guts or limb-snapping. That does not mean it is without merit and of no interest to adults, though.