Heavenly Sword: How Not to Kill Your Heroine (in the movie)

Heavenly Sword begins with its heroine in agony, convulsing on the battleground, her tangled red hair swirled in the dirt. Nariko still clings to the cursed sword that had gotten her so far. As searing scripture snakes up her arms, branding her the doomed property of this mystical blade, she wonders: Why now? Why, on the verge of victory, does the sword claim my life?

That glimpse of Nariko, unable to dodge the sword's fatal toll, forever lingers over the action game that follows. Instead of a plotted ascent to power, with sharp, assured victory in hand, we play through a dreaded descent. With every new chapter, Nariko comes closer and closer to the end of her strength.

Nariko's decision still sparks in memory. When the god-fearing King Bohan jostles the kingdom, in a cruel attempt to root out "pagan beliefs" and anything that might threaten him, Nariko steps between him and her clan. Even after a lifetime of veiled rejection – for being a woman born when a man was expected, for being a red-haired substitute for the warrior promised in prophecy – Nariko does the right thing. She resists legend and creates her own, even knowing that the ending will almost certainly suck.

Compared to the new movie, in which villains bubble out backstory while they sink into a watery grave, Heavenly Sword – the game – is a lesson in focused storytelling. The Heavenly Sword movie also kills Nariko, but it does so in a different, insidious way.

In its new form, Heavenly Sword poisons the heroine in a haphazardly paced story, failing to see the power inherent in its own protagonist. This time, when King Bohan and his war machine come to claim the Heavenly Sword, Nariko is forced to take up the legendary blade and ... deliver it to her brother, Loki. (And you thought games had too many delivery runs.)

The movie is just as much a slave to legend, using Nariko as a bridge to her brother, the supposed hero of prophecy. Meanwhile, her father, Shen, is painted as a quiet fanatic. Though stopping just short of calling him a rapist, the film suggests Nariko has many more siblings among Shen's repeated and failed attempts to father a son. And before Loki there was Kai, a wild-eyed, childish girl who doesn't even seem to realize her killing prowess with a crossbow.

Nariko has a quiet and guiding demeanor with Kai, and their relationship is nearly the only thing left intact from the game. But to see the sisters helping each other in a quest centering around Loki seems demeaning in the movie, turning the plot into generic action-fantasy attached to the hilt of a magical sword.

Heavenly Sword's world hints at so much more substance, with its Eastern-inspired architecture and fluttering fabrics placed in the path of modern catapults and barbed armies. King Bohan's attempt to stamp out deviant religions and any magic – just in case that stuff's real – hints at encroaching modernity in an old kingdom, but the film skips over most of it in favor of glossy but stiffly composed action.

It's hard to even root for the film's production, which you'd expect to be of a higher quality than a video game from 2007. It looks like the game, but the lipsyncing is lousy, the characters are robotic in their motions, and much of the delectable weirdness is scrubbed off. Bohan is a boring villain here, having gone from an odd Andy Serkis to Alfred Molina on autopilot. Thomas Jane is also reportedly involved in the movie, if you consider it work to be woken up in the middle of the night to say a few lines. There's another new character too, but the only thing I remember about him is that he's played by Nolan North.

None of this oddness makes it into the movie.

Anna Torv also seems to have lost her passion for Nariko, though this is largely to blame on the movie turning her arc into a FedEx delivery. Only when Loki is flat-out murdered does Nariko realize the legends are a load of bunk, after which she begins resembling the person that made Heavenly Sword's story more enduring than its action. Heavenly Sword may have been an inelegant action game, but its script was smarter and more respectful than this.

Nariko was always going to suffer a tragic end, but it was part of her beauty and choice. Sadly, the Heavenly Sword movie assassinates her character between the lines of the script in an attempt to fill out its ninety minutes. It misreads the drive and decisions that made her heroic, resulting in a film that's sure to be forgotten with all the other game adaptations. If anything, it's made Ninja Theory's game more memorable.

This review is based on a Blu-ray review copy of Heavenly Sword, provided by Cinedigm Entertainment.