In 1917, a time when warlords clashed and martial arts schools were countless, the arbitrator among the schools was named “Judge Archer”.
As a young monk climbs over a wall to start a new life, he hears his sister call to him, telling him to take the first words that he hears as his new name. He soon comes across a bleeding man in the woods and hears someone call out “Judge Archer”, and so he takes on this name, unaware of the duty he just signed up for. The bleeding man explains that his name is “Judge Archer”, and that the name has cursed his family for six generations. He tells the young man that they can share the name, and as he heals, he trains the new Judge Archer (Song Yang) in archery and the ways of delivering justice.
While out on a mission to resolve a dispute between two men, Judge Archer gets drunk and passes out. He awakes in the bed of a woman who explains that her father had died in conflict two years ago and wants justice/revenge on the man responsible. So Judge Archer poses as a fruit salesman in order to get close to and observe his target. However, his mission is soon derailed when he is distracted by a beautiful woman who may have been sent to kill him. He struggles with ideas of ethics and morality, and has flashbacks to demons from his own past as he tries to complete his mission.
I’m not sure if its just my inexperience with this genre, or just the film itself, but I found this film to be quite difficult to follow, and overall quite slow and boring. It’s not your typical fast-action martial arts film. Instead, much of the fighting seemed to ether be sparring with poles, ropes, knives or arcery. There was also quite a bit of this odd close-quarter fighting that involved two men sitting in chairs across from one another and then resorting to what resembled a slap fight. I think it was supposed to be serious, but to me it looked more comical. While others may be drawn to this type martial arts film, which is more about this man’s moral and ethical journey rather than about the fighting, it definitely was not for me.
The film is only being released on DVD and Digital HD, but the digital copy included with the DVD is only standard definition. I found the overall presentation of the DVD to be quite poor. The picture lacks detail and sharpness, and while the audio track was perfectly fine, providing clear dialogue, there wasn’t anything remarkable about it. (For the sake of this review I watched with the English soundtrack rather than the Mandarin option.) Unfortunately the only bonus material included on the disc are trailers for this and five other films. Since there are no bonus features on the DVD, if the film is offered in Digital HD, that may be the better route to go for better picture quality.
What’s Included:
Film: (1:31:18)
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DVD:
- 480p / Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1
- Audio: Mandarin Dolby Digital 5.1, English Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Closed-Captioned
- SD UltraViolet Copy redeemable via Vudu, Flixster or CinemaNow
- Judge Archer Trailer (1:30)
- Also From Lionsgate (7:55)
Trailers for The Four Warriors, Kingdom of Blood, Pay Back, The Guardsman, and The Master.
Digital Copy (Redemption Deadline 11/1/2019):
Extras:
Final Thoughts:
or Skip It
Judge Archer didn’t hit the target for me. I found the film to be quite slow and lacking in exciting martial arts action. I read up on writer/director Xu Haofeng afterwards and learned that this film follows a similar style and tone to his first film, The Sword Identity. So perhaps fans of that movie will enjoy this film as well, but those looking for an action-packed, fast-paced martial arts film may be better off looking elsewhere—I suggest a rental before a blind buy.
