Siu-Tung Ching

Asia the Invincible, the demon who metamorphosized into a woman in Swordsman II, was thought dead at the end of the previous adventure. Navy Official Koo discovers her in her old hideout, and tells her that many have been assuming her name and forming cults. Knowing this division will destroy the country, she vows to destroy them all. She finds that her former lover, Snow, is also one of the imposters. What begins as a patriotic endeavor soon becomes a bloodbath as her destructive nature consumes her. Unable to control her fury, she unleashes her powers on Snow and Koo.

Swordsman tells the tale of happy-go-lucky swordsman Ling (Sam Hui), who endeavors with his sidekick Kiddo (Cecilia Yip) to deliver a message from his master to another swordsman. But the road through the World of Martial Arts is treacherous, as the two become embroiled in the search for the "Sacred Scroll", a legendary document which will grant its reader supernatural powers. Evil eunuchs, and a variety of nefarious types (including Yuen Wah and Jacky Cheung) are after the scroll, and Ling's master may also be involved.

Nearly four decades before Kill Bill, the groundbreaking Shaw Brothers classic Come Drink with Me set the bar for sword-wielding kung fu heroines. "A revelation in martial arts filmmaking" (Ross Chen, LoveHKFilm.com), it stars legendary fight queen Cheng Pei-pei (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as Golden Swallow, a deadly agent sent to rescue a kidnapped official from a bandit clan. To take down the clan's five ruthless leaders, she teams up with a hard-drinking martial arts mentor, who helps her to cut a path of destruction through her enemies.

It's not necessary to see the first Swordsman before you see Swordsman II--though some of the characters are the same, the cast is almost completely different. Into the thick of a clan feud in long-ago China comes young swordsman Ling (Jet Li), who has a romantic attachment to the leader of one side of the feud (Rosamund Kwan). However, on the other side is an evil sorcerer, Asia the Invincible (Brigitte Lin), who has found a magical scroll that will give the user formidable powers if the user castrates himself.