“Invincible Swordsman” is a slick, beautifully-designed Chinese action fantasy that never escapes the trap of “time suck” that so many Wuxia thrillers fall into.

That’s the period piece martial arts genre that revels in flying fighters and supernatural skills, polished by the centuries and — so the saying goes — lost to the mists of time in our modern age.

Swords spin like power-drills and a hailstorm of needles and threads are as much a menace as any blow delivered by foot or fist. Mystical powers are learned from a “Sunflower Manual,” sought and sucked-up by one shaman/fighter when he or she wins a fight with another.

This film, based on a book by Louis Cha, gets buried early on under exposition, characters, prologue and prosaic lists of arcane Chinese martial arts skills, passed down from master to student.

It’s a tale of intrigues and trickery and murderous battles for supremacy between an ever-expanding “demonic” The Sun Moon Holy Cult and that the Mount Hua Sect, one martial arts/religious group to oppose their domination.

Invincible East (Yuqi Zhang) seizes power from the murderous cult leader Ren Woxing (Terence Yin) in a mountaintop battle. Things promise to be just as murderous under new management as they were under the old regime.

Star Mount Hua student Linghu Chong (Tim Huang) would rather lose himself in his music on the Cliffs of Contemplation than do battle. He’s become friends with the deposed Ren daughter (Lu Xuan) and her pal/confidante Blue Phoenix (Cai Xiangyu) via music. But other members of the Mount Hua sect recognize this for the threat that it is.

Only the intervention of Master Feng, played by the venerable martial arts choreographer and star Sammo Hung, keeps Linghu from utter banishment.

But when he meets the fair Ms. Invincible East by “chance,” he is smitten. The fact that she won’t tell him her name lets us know where all this is going.

There is a lot of movie, filled with preliminary flirtations, bouts, debates and betrayals, before we get to the inevitable third act showdown. Things turn tedious and repetitious early and director Yiwei Luo’s pacing is right up there with the slowest and most sluggish “Harry Potter” movies.

One set-piece scene is illustrative of this film’s can’t-get-us-to-the-(Black)-forest-because-it’s-distracted by-the-trees problems. Master Feng teaches Linghu the nine “stances” one must master with a sword in a fight by flinging black and white discs from the ancient game “Go” at him.

“Sword swinging stance! Sword falling stance! Sword evading stance! Sword disorder stance! Sword defeating stance!” On and on this goes, a cliched “training” scene that has a lot less purpose than its inclusion in the script lets on.

Linghu must learn that “Loneliness is not the same as solitude,” (in Mandarin Chinese with subtitles). But must he? Dude’s never alone. Women like the handsome lad’s company, some more than others.

Fights erupt, body parts are occasionally hacked off, often returning to their owner via magic. And somebody covets the “Three Corpse Brain Pill” as a reward for getting his hands on the Sunflower Manual.

It’s all played at a humorless pitch, a pretty cast in a pretty-looking movie that plays as pretty pointless.

Rating: unrated, action/fantasy violence, dismemberment

Cast: Yuqi Zhang, Tim Huang, Sammo Hung, Lu Xuan and Terence Yin.

Credits: Directed by Yiwei Luo, scripted by Jin Wong, based on a novel by Louis Cha. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 2:00