Highlander: The Source Butterfly Swords

[DavidS]

Im sure most folks on this forum have heard of or seen Highlander...... fewer are fans.... and even fewer have seen the latest YET TO BE RELEASED Highlander movie ; The Source....
its been "finished" for well over a year and earlier this year a version of the film was released in Russia and obviously leaked to the internet...
Anyway, I wont give away many spoilers, but the point is Our Hero, Duncan, uses a set of unique Butterfly swords in the film.
It appears as though the production modified some exisiting chinese made butterly swords, by painting the guards black and adding some chinese writing to the blade.

A while back the production company auctioned off alot of film used props including this set of butterfly swords. I was able to grab a few pics off ebay.... heres what i got:

 

[DavidS]

......... As you can see....... not the greatest pictures, but they were enough for me to embark on a project: REPRODUCTIONS!
I have become pretty picky about my swords over the years , i like um functional! No more stainless steel stuff for me.... no thanks.....
So I was discussing this project with a bladesmith friend of mine, Earl Blackmore, and he decided to take on the project......

below are some "in progress pics"

we tried to stay as close to the original design as possible and still make them functional and useable in Forms work...

These progress pictures show it from a rough forged shape on up thru its etching stage.
The blades were finished off.... then coated in black resist, and the resist was "scratched" away to make the Kanji...

On behalf of myself and Earl let me APologize to ANYONE who speaks or understands this form of writing.... i beleive its chinese, but I have been told its not even that.....
We are just two white, english speaking guys trying to replicate a prop.... I have no idea what the blades say, we are just going off of a VERY grainy picture (seen above) and trying to make them as accurate as possible)
So again if it says something like "Son of a motherless goat" then, im sorry if I offend...

 

[DavidS]

Here are a few more of the finished blades...

We were orignally going to blacken the lettering, but i sorta like the way it looks here...

 

[shiningwater]

Nice, I agree, if your going to make the effort, you may as well make them functional. choppy chop chop!!

 

[amish]

The butterfly swords are great! The film was...... ummm... not that great.

 

[DavidS]

well now now..... lets be fair ...... we havent seen the "finished" version yet...


prehaps..... JUST PREHAPS they have gone back and reedited it.... cut out every single line of dialogue and acting that we saw in the russian version and put it back together with a completly different story line, actors and special effects and we will have a great movie llol

 

[Apollo]

Poor Adrian, looks like he is still having no luck on the big screen with the franchise.

I was wondering what ever happened with this Movie, but I guess it is so bad they won't even release straight to Dvd! :lol

 

[mobius303]

They do Wing Chun (Ving Tsun) in the movie???
That writting looks Korean to me.
How much for the set without writting?

That is the design of the original knives used in Wing Chun 300years ago.

 

[DavidS]

Hung Gar...

Adrian practices hung gar style kung fu that also uses the butterfly swords

 

[Neuro_mason]

Wow.. i know this is an old thread but does anybody know where the Leather/Suede 3/4 length coat went that Adrian Wore in the source? The one with the Fur around the COllar? I was about to buy it when they auctioned it off but i BARELY missed it by a minute on ebay!!! I could have Killed myself! lol.. Anybody know where it is? Thanks

Brad

 

[CTF]

Ah, Baat Jaam Do.

Never thought I'd hear that they were using them in a Highlander movie!

Nice work on the reproductions!