Hi-Yah keeps coming out with the hits.

There’s a timeline out there where a genie grants me the wish of having the McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish endlessly on sale for $3, and all he asks in return is that I pick the only genre of film that’s allowed to remain in existence. And while I’d like to imagine that I’d have some reservations on exactly what genre to save, I probably wouldn’t take too long to land on the obvious. I’m talking about Wuxia films.

This genre has everything you could want out of movies; action, great cinematography, fantastic soundtracks, comedy, romance, beautiful women, gorgeous men, butt cheeks, drinking, swordfights, people who can jump fifty feet vertically without much of an effort, boobs, I could go on just about forever. You’ve got double cross, triple cross, quadruple cross. You can learn a lot about Chinese culture and history. I’m sure at least one person has worked on their Chinese speaking from watching these movies.

Nine Ring Golden Dagger is a fantastic film that teaches us a very important lesson in life; if you live in a Wuxia film never drink the wine. The wine will be poisoned roughly 85% of the time. And the other 15%? Extra poison. Also generals of the army achieve that rank because of their higher health pool and even when poisoned are capable of taking on multiple hero characters at once. Until the poison gets to them.

Directed by Xiaojun Feng, Nine Ring tells the story of a general who goes by Yang Ye and his golden sword. After he is dramatically cut down in battle after single handedly fighting and defeating dozens of enemy soldiers, Yang’s golden sword is stolen and falls into enemy hands. His daughters go on a journey to find the sword and bring it back home, ensuring well over an hour and a half of really cool action sequences that will make western movie-goers say “you know it’s been a really long time since I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Michelle Yeoh was really good in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.”

I have no clue what the budget for this film was, but it looks expensive meaning it probably cost less than an Adam Sandler production. I don’t want to come off as degrading and say that if you’ve seen one Wuxia film you’ve pretty much seen them all, but if you’ve seen one Wuxia film you know what to expect in terms of the fight sequences. And by that I mean expertly crafting fights with ridiculous acrobatics and over-the-top battles. In no way to I point to the homogeny of Wuxia films as a bad thing.

There are also some great moments of comedy in this movie. Nine Ring is probably a bit more brutal than you may be used to in a Wuxia film, there’s a lot of blood and graphic blood at that. They spared no expense in showing wounds and people bleeding through their armor. It adds to the impact of the fights in a genre where people mostly just shed about ten pounds of dust during fight sequences.

Genuinely I loved this film. I can’t say that it does anything particularly unique, however there’s a good amount of creativity in the weapon department and the fight sequences, with characters making use of the environment in their battles as well as the flexibility of their weapons. It does feel particularly long even though it’s only 90 minutes, which is strange. I loved the main characters. There may be a few too many fakeout deaths.

Rating: A-