Everything just jumped right at you. Chinese Ghost Story did the same but at least things made sense. I mean the 50 days of searching for the swords felt like 3 days. The humour was good and the cheesy effects made me nostalgic. I can understand why it was such a milestone effects wise but the story structure was horrible.
It's not a good movie, period. The whole thing just breezes by with no proper sense of pacing or character development. They shove concepts up your ass faster than a 90's Spider-Man episode, with each plot point being rushed to get us through to the next special effects sequence (which didn't even look good at the time). Even the fight scenes are horribly cut with its excessive use of jump cuts, the lack of any discernible geography in between shots, and the sheer abandonment of the 180 degree rule in places.
I know this film is important for how it started the fantasy wuxia craze in Hong Kong and how it paved the way for HK filmmakers to use Hollywood style special effects to bring classic Chinese fables to the big screen but upon having just seen this for the very first time today, it hasn't aged well at all.