A martial-arts movie landmark, as strong in its performances as it is spectacularly novel in its violence.

This is a filmmaker in total command of every visual element — his compositions more compelling than ever, the production design almost verging on steampunk, and a special mention has to go to the extraordinary costumes — but it doesn’t feel stifling or precious either.

The real star of the show here is the strikingly gorgeous, often almost bi-chrome visual universe, inspired by the tai chi diagram — more commonly known in the West as yin-and-yang symbol — and traditional ink-brush painting, with its distinct combination of rich blacks and fluid shades of gray.

Every supremely controlled stylistic element of Zhang Yimou’s breathtakingly beautiful Shadow is an echo of another, a motif repeated, a pattern recurring in a fractionally different way each time.

Shadow brings heart and spectacle together, and the result is a bombastic martial arts wuxia replete with duels of breath-taking beauty that will please longtime Zhang acolytes and newbies alike.