Lunar New Year 2026: Blades of the Guardians

Just for fun, let's look at the first day of Lunar New Year at the box office in China!

Whoa, the movie that's getting the biggest push for the first few days, Blades, made a respectable $19M, but the movie that's getting the second-biggest (and looks like it's sticking around more during the weekend), Scare Out made #34.4M! And the number one film in China for this day was Pegasus 3, pulling in a staggering $92.5M and as near as I can tell is not opening in Boston (I've seen dates of the 23rd and 27th, so maybe AMC's waiting to figure out where to put it). Panda Plan: The Magical Tribe is supposed to open mid-March, and I'm as shocked as anybody that China demanded a second Panda Plan.

Of course, the other thing is that the Lunar New Year movies in China fluctuate like crazy over the first month or so, like the country of over a billion collectively decides to see one movie first, then catches another a few days later, and then a third the next week, so the top three wind up making the same amount. That doesn't happen in the USA very often - something has a bad first couple days and it's not even getting evening shows on Thursday - and I must admit, I do kind of envy that China has the sort of situation where things can build word-of-mouth that way.

But, enough about box office - the important thing is that we seem to be off to a fun start of the festivities!


Biao ren (Blades of the Guardians)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 17 February 2026 in AMC Boston Common #11 (first-run, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available), or buy the manhua at Amazon

Fair warning: The title that displays during the opening credits for this movie includes a colon, meaning that 81-year-old director Yuen Woo-Ping, directing his first full feature in about eight years, apparently intends at least one more episode and you're not necessarily going to get a full conclusion with this one. You get enough, though, as Yeun presents a big-budget wuxia adventure with swordfighting and charm to spare.

It starts with bounty hunter Dao Ma (Wu Jing), late of the Left Valiant Palace Guards, and his seven-year-old traveling companion Xiao Qi (Ju Qianlang) tracking down a fugitive but offering to let him go if he pays triple the bounty. He's after bigger prey in Two-Headed Snake (Max Zhang Jin), but also gets offered a job as a general by local lord Chang Guiren (Jet Li Lian-Jie), but prefers the freelance life and his home in Mo Village. Returning there, he's given a mission by elder Mo Lao (Tony Leung Ka-Fai) to deliver China's most wanted fugitive, face-painted revolutionary Zhi Shiliang (Sun Yizhou), to Chang'an. Also along for the ride are Mo's spirited daughter Ayuya (Chen Lijun), just extricated from an arranged betrothal to the heir to another clan, Heyi Xuan (CiSha), and Ayuya's guardian Ani (Xiong Jinyi). They'll be pursued along the way by every mercenary in the land, most notably Dao Ma's old comrade in arms Ting Di (Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung) and his partner (Liang Biying), eventually forming an uneasy alliance with Jade-face Shu (Yu Shi), who has his own prisoner Yan Zinang (Li Yunxiao) to deliver to the capitol.

That's a lot going on, but, some of these folks in the long list of cast members are basically guest stars so that Yuen and his action team can mix and match opponents and have Dao Ma face new challenges regularly rather than and endless series of rematches, and will exit in relatively short order (it's not uncommon for someone to have their name and position put up in subtitles and then be dead less than ten minutes later). The action kicks off in earnest with a three way swordfight between Wu Jing, Max Zhang, and Jet Li, and while they've all maybe lost a step compared to ten years ago, it's a heck of a great battle that establishes the way Yeun and his team are going to stage things: There's a fair amount of wire-fu going on, but they won't be defying gravity nearly as much as the likes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or The Matrix. There are three or four more standout action set pieces after that, including a fantastic centerpiece in the middle of a sandstorm and a finale big enough to get past when it's holding things back.

What makes it better is that while Yeun Woo-Ping's fight choreography tends to be imaginative and brilliantly-executed, what he, choreographer Dang Shan-Peng, and action director Ku Heun-Chiu do here really manages to give it solid emotional beats: Early on, it's easy to take Dao Ma preferring to extort than kill for just wanting money, but as the film goes on it becomes clear that he would really rather not, to the extent that a particularly striking and vicious kill indicates that he's angry and done messing around; at another point you can see that a typically capable character is swinging her sword too broadly and that this will cause her downfall. In some ways, Ayuya's arc is entirely told through action, from the cheery trick archery of her first appearances to the angry stabbing at the finish. Perhaps the only real flaw is that Dao Ma and Ting Di look too similar on first glance; yes, they're meant to be reflections of each other, but when the camera gets too close or the motion too quick, it can take a half-second too long to recognize which tall bearded guy in matching black armor we're looking at.

Wu Jing is the charismatic one, at least in this film; though he gained attention among action-movie fans for his martial-arts prowess in Hong Kong, he's spent much of the past decade in China becoming a more versatile leading man, with even his action roles being more military or science-fictional. Here, he's able to give Dao Ma a light enough personality that the darker turns the action takes later aren't revealing that as a facade but showing a guy who has been trying to live a good life and hates being forced into this much violence. He plays especially well off young Ju Qianlang, and fits into a fine ensemble: Chen Lijun is an enthusiastic princess with room to grow, CiSha really nails the charming prince who has a sadistic streak underneath, Yu Shi and Li Yunxiao have a chemistry that suggests Shu & Yan could be more than captor and prisoner but doesn't insist upon it. Sun Yizhou kind of feels like a placeholder as Zhi - the character never feels like someone who can be the threat to the emperor through sheer force of personality - and one wonders if the filmmakers are kind of hedging so they can define him better in later installments. On a more positive note, "Big Tony" Leung Ka-Fai and Jet Li deliver different kinds of gravitas in their roles as elders.

The scenes that Wu Jing and Jet Li share early, whether talking or fighting, put a big grin on my face, and not just because Jet Li is a presence too seldom seen on-screen since some health problems and a turn toward philanthropy (this is his first film in six years). Wu is the closest thing there is to being Li's heir, a screen fighter who burst on the scene with sheer punching ability but developed a genial screen presence along the way, and it's nice to see the torch passed on-screen without getting maudlin about it. I'm not sure how many more adventures there are for Dao Ma in the original manhua, but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more on future Lunar New Years. It's got the soul of a western (right down to the stagecoach) and the action of a wuxia.