Jim Liebich—-fencing coach, competitive fencer, and founder of Santa Rosa's En Garde Fencing Academy—-likes a good sword fight whether he's participating in it or just watching it on screen.

So, based on its theatrical movie ads showing a sword-wielding mouse engaging in rodent combat, Liebich and I have met this cold and overcast afternoon to see The Tale of Despereaux, an artfully animated new fairy-tale film about a tiny mouse with Dumbo-sized ears who prefers to read books instead of eat them, who dreams of being a gentleman rather than cowering like a rodent, and who employs a standard sewing needle as a weapon.

Sadly, he doesn't use the needle all that much.

"Yeah, I was kind of hoping for a little more sword fighting in the movie," says Liebich (www.egfencing.com), as we leave the theater in search of a warm beverage. "What sword fighting there was, was kind of fun, though," he admits.

An early sequence in which a storybook comes to life--in bold, medieval illustrations that pop off the page--knights skirmish with other knights, a prince fights off a fire-breathing dragon, and animated swords clang and clatter happily.

When Despereaux, who can't seem to learn to cower and hide the way the other mice do, sees an illustration of a kitchen knife, he draws suspicion from the other mice when he not only doesn't shrink away in fright, he mistakes it for a sword, and declares it to be "beautiful!" And near the climax of the film, finally armed with the needle, Despereaux engages in battle with a band of murderous rats, his needle raised against the shards of metal used by the bad guys. But as far as sword-fighting goes, that's pretty much it.
Still, Liebich liked the film.

"You know how kids are always picking up sticks and pretending to sword fight?" he says, sitting down with a cup of tea at a nearby coffee shop. "This is exactly the type of movie that could inspire that kind of play, even though sword-fighting really isn't a focus of the film, necessarily. There's just enough sword fighting to be exciting. In a movie like this, you can't have a character who believes in chivalry and honor and all that without having him pick up a sword at some point—-even if the character is a mouse with big ears, and his sword happens to be a needle."

Based on the popular novel by Kate DiCamillo, the film was released among a huge pile of films over the holidays, and despite competing with Disney's technically superior 3-D action comedy Bolt, has carved out an audience among families, fans of the book, and aficionados of gorgeous animation.

As a fantasy film, with its whimsically detailed kingdom of Door—-a town obsessed with soup until the Queen suffers a soup-related fatality—-and its co-existing kingdoms of Mouseworld and Ratworld, the movie delivers plenty of visual kicks, and a surprising amount of heart and soul.

"This mouse, Despereaux, " Liebich observes, "he's an inspiration to the characters around him, or he becomes one, eventually. And I could see him being an inspiration to a certain kind of real-life kid as well. These kinds of stories, the classic good versus evil stuff, appeal to some people on a very deep level."

The 37-year-old believes people are drawn to tales of chivalry and courage.

"The reason why people like to play with swords, it all has to do with wanting to be part of an adventure, wanting to be part of story where courage and honor matter," he says. "We all want to be the hero, in our imaginations at least, fighting incredible odds yet still winning out in the end, and what's wrong with that? These stories teach the beauty of always telling the truth and being a good person. I think that's a positive thing. It always has been for me."

Growing up, Liebich loved to read, with a special fondness for science fiction and fantasy. Never the athletic type—-"I was always the geeky kid," he laughs—-Liebich didn't find his way to the sport of fencing until his mid-20s.

"If I had been introduced to fencing when I was a kid," he says, "I would have loved it, because it would have been right up my alley. When I finally started fencing, when I was 25—-which is late for a lot of people—-I loved it from the start. Growing up, I never did any sports at all. But then, when I discovered fencing, my whole world changed. I think that, unconsciously, part of the charge I got from fencing came from those kinds of books and movies and that I loved so much. I was doing something, for real, that was in some ways close to something I'd loved as a kid. I'm sure that had a lot to do with it, somehow."

One early influence on Liebich—-an influence he says he still sees working on his youngest students—-is the Star Wars films.

"They told stories that resonated with the things I was thinking about at the time," he says, "so the Star Wars films had a huge impact on me. They tell the same sort of stories. They have the moral center, there was conflict and resolution, following the same formula that has been around since, probably, the beginning of humanity--and also, those are some of the best sword-fighting films ever made!"

Light sabers count as swords?

"Absolutely! Light sabers are swords. It's so easy for a kid to jump from doing a lesson or a drill in fencing class to suddenly doing Star Wars light saber duels, complete with sound effects. The transition can be instantaneous. Everyone is doing the drills, and if one kid starts making the light saber sound, instantly the whole class is doing it and the room turns into something from Return of the Jedi."

Doesn't all of that, um, Jedi-behavior, throw off the rhythm of class?

"Sure," Liebich laughs. "But I love fencing so much that I want my students, the younger ones anyway, to have fun and to love fencing too. If that means letting them mess around a little now and then, that's OK, because I know I can always bring them back around."

With his older students, Liebich explains, it's important to stress adherence to the rules of formal fencing.

"The person who is the greatest threat to you, in a bout, is the person who has no clue what they're doing," he says. "They are just completely unpredictable. They do things that are utterly reckless and stupid and suicidal—-and that can be incredibly dangerous to someone who knows what they're doing. The experienced person might let their guard down when they see that their opponent has no skills, and then that opponent, because he doesn't have any skills or experience, does something totally surprising."

Perhaps that explains how Despereaux can just pick up a needle and, with no training whatsoever, thwart the better-armed rat enemies.

"They probably didn't expect that a little mouse would be any threat at all," Liebich says, playing along. "So they were lured into feeling over-confident—-and then he just goes crazy waving his needle at them—-and they make a fatal mistake. I've seen it happen."

Asked to name a few other great sword-themed movies, Liebich suggests a little-known television show from the early 2000s.

"Samurai Jack!" Liebich smiles. "An animated series. It's this crazy samurai legend melded onto futuristic...everything! They threw the kitchen sink at it. There's a lot of great sword-fighting in Samurai Jack. That was a fantastic series."

And for his favorite sword-fighting movie of all time, Liebich names 1987's The Princess Bride.

"That movie has some pretty good sword-fighting," he laughs. "It also has all of the things that Despereaux is talking about in this movie we saw today, that code of honor he was so inspired by. It's hard not to watch The Princess Bride and not want to pick up a sword and fight somebody."

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