Chronicles the history of swordplay from its shadowed and legendary past to today. Includes interviews and demos with the world's leading sword masters, Hollywood stars, academics, practitioners, private collectors and sword-smiths. The documentary delves deep, systematically exploring the Medieval and Renaissance blade, a profound and beautiful object handcrafted by master artisans of old. An object of great complexity, yet one with a singular use in mind--it is designed to kill. The truth of the sword has been shrouded in antiquity, and the Renaissance martial arts that brought it to being are long forgotten. The ancient practitioners lent us all they knew through their manuscripts. As gunslingers of the Renaissance they were western heroes with swords, and they lived and died by them.