Swordsman III: The East is Red

Well, Swordsman III: The East is Red certainly provided me with a unique WLW film. The quality and quantity of the queer content in the film is rather iffy. As we’ll get into, there’s a whole bunch of questionable lore that renders the character both female and subsequently queer. And some of this lore probably plays into queerphobic tropes. But on the other hand, I absolutely love how powerful and evil the lead character is! She can kick my ass any time.

Obviously, Swordsman III is a the third in a film series. I’ve not seen the first two because they don’t have any lesbians in them. That makes trying to discern what’s going on in the film all the harder. The Swordsman series deals with sacred scrolls that grant the user powerful abilities. One of these scrolls is acquired by Invincible Asia. Despite seemingly dying at the start of the film, Asia lives on. But after Asia’s seeming “death”, there’s a power vacuum which several people try and fill. Numerous imposters claim to be Invincible Asia with all her supernatural powers. So obviously, Asia has to kill these pretenders. But one of the pretenders, Snow is a former student and lover of Invincible Asia. Snow really just wants to be close to Asia, however she can be.

So heres’ where the lore gets a little spicy. The sacred scroll granting Asia her powers required that Asia castrate themself. Invincible Asia was assigned male at birth and until acquiring the scroll, lived as a man. Obviously, castration is not the same as being trans. But for this film or this character, the two are connected. Once Asia castrates themself, she also begins living as a woman. The sacred scroll demanded Asia castrate herself for supernatural powers. But serving all those glamorous looks? That’s just for her. This all means that technically, Swordsman III: The East is Red is a trans film, I guess?

As far as trans representation goes, the film is far from perfect. I mean, it already conflates castration with a trans femme identity. Also these sacred scrolls are in fact, a demonic force. So, that does suggest that transing your gender makes you demonic. And Asia is happy to be demonic. She is definitely the villain of the piece. On the other hand, Asia is a powerful badass. She can rip the hearts out the hearts of five men without even touching them! I can’t speak for whether this is empowering trans representation. But as broader queer female representation, I’m happy for Invincible Asia exists. The niche of queer, supernaturally powerful martial arts murderess would go completely unrepresented without her.

Snow, as played by Joey Wang provides most of the lesbian content. Whatever subtext was in the script, Wang took and ran with. It’s impossible to read her interest in Asia as anything other than sexual. She’s also entirely untroubled by Asia’s female presentation. In fact, Snow has female concubines of her own. But one of them turns out to be a ninja. And in this movie, ninjas are naked, grey demons? Alright. Asia’s a little too evil to feel much tenderness. She’s very possessive over Snow, however. But we don’t see any affection from Asia until it’s too late. Snow dies at the end of the film. Because would it really be a 90’s lesbian movie if nobody dies? The last shot is Asia cradling Snow’s body, wishing they could both start over. In the background, a man explodes.

Outside of the queer representation, Swordsman III is an absolute blast to watch. Admittedly, it drags a bit in exposition scenes. But there’s a whole lot of absolutely insane action in this movie. This is a Hong Kong action movie, so the fight scenes have some crazy fight choreography. It’s also just accepted that people in this universe can fly. Because we’ve gotta show off all this cool martial arts wire work. The action scenes show off the talents of their performers as opposed to hiding their shortcomings like you might see in an American film.

Swordsman III: The East is Red is also ridiculous, especially with its action scenes. But it’s clearly intention. At one point, Asia rides a swordfish through the air on the way to kick someone’s ass. She also catches cannonballs thrown at her and chucks them right back. The film is exaggerated to the point of intentional comedy. And I really liked it. This is an action comedy where the action is comedy. And it’s just so absurd that it is properly funny.

Swordsman III: The East is Red is pure entertainment. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun with a WLW movie. The film has many action sequences, which are both absurd and show a lot of talent. The queer representation here definitely a mixed bag. Try not to think about it too hard. Both because the representation might be problematic, but also because it’s just confusing. Not everyone will feel this way, but despite some very dated attitudes towards gender and sexuality, I’m happy to welcome Invincible Asia to the canon of queer cinematic badasses. I love queer villains and I love powerful queer characters. Asia is both. She’s a character with a lot of agency and a lot of ways to kill people. I really enjoyed watching her confusing, lore-heavy murder spree.

Overall rating: 6.7/10

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