Eureka Video
Blu-ray Release: December 10, 2024
Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color
Audio: Mandarin LPCM Mono (all films)
Subtitles: English
Run Time: 108:51 (Four Riders), 100:47 (The Pirate), 108:19 (Marco Polo), 143:15 (Boxer Rebellion)
Directors: Chang Cheh, Pao Hsueh-Li, Wu Ma
King Hu and Lau Kar-leung helped set the standard for Shaw Bros. martial arts movies, but no other director had a bigger impact on the studio’s output and reputation than Chang Cheh. Chang wrote and/or directed nearly 100 films for the studio, producing hit after hit over four decades, creating enduring franchises, such as the One-Armed Swordsman series, and cultivating the team of superstar actors known as the Venom Mob.
Chang’s films were steeped in a formula now known as ‘heroic bloodshed,’ which emphasized the love between men, redemption, and violent sacrifice, but his style evolved with the times and helped usher in the Hong Kong New Wave styles that, in turn, took Hollywood by storm in the mid-to-late ‘90s. While he was not the first of his kind and while he may have borrowed from other great filmmakers, Chang is still be the single most influential wuxia/kung-fu director of all time.
Among his martial arts costume dramas, literary adaptations, and bone-crunching Venom Mob vehicles, Chang made a series of historical epics, each with a Shaw Bros. wuxia/kung fu twist. Four of these (or more like three historical epics and another vaguely historical movie) have been collected by Eureka Classics under the heading Horrible History: Four Historical Epics by Chang Cheh. Note that I am covering them here in release order, rather than Eureka’s disc order.
Four Riders (1972)
A Korean War Chinese veteran enlists three comrades to help him escape the South Korean Military Police Command after he is falsely accused of murdering an American soldier. (From Eureka’s official synopsis)
Four Riders (aka: Hellfighters of the East and Strike 4 Revenge during its 1983 American release) is a bleak, violent stew of tried & true clan warfare traditions, gangland intrigue, Men on a Mission riffs, and a little romantic subplot for flavor. It is the least historical movie in the Horrible History collection, as it doesn’t really adapt any specific historical event, and takes place in a nebulous combination of the early ‘50s and late ‘60s. I suspect that Cheh and co-writer/frequent collaborator Ni Kuang wanted to do a contemporary film, but that the Vietnam War was still too controversial, so they moved the action to Korea, similar to Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H (1970).
The swinging ‘60s interior aesthetic works in beautiful contrast to the austere outdoor locations, giving Four Riders a real sense of place, even if that ‘place’ might not have existed. The easiest comparison is to Chang and Pao Hsueh-li’s The Boxer from Shantung, which was also released in 1972, takes place in a contemporary environment, was co-written by Ni, and starred both Chen Kuan-tai and David Chiang. Four Riders’ production crew included master choreographers Lau Kar-leung and Tang Chia-chuan, and a young John Woo as assistant director. The fight scenes, shootouts, and vehicular mayhem are all surprisingly unobtrusive, slowing, but not halting the narrative momentum, as they would throughout Chang’s later career. The choreography has a raw, naturalistic quality, like the desperate scraps seen in yakuza movies and spaghetti westerns. Well, at least up until the gory climax, where our heroes use gym equipment to take on a small army.
Chang did a more straight-forward rendition of the Men on a Mission movie (right down to the Dirty Dozen-esque numbered title) with 1976’s WWII adventure 7 Man Army and, arguably, he and Ni reused some of these ideas for the wildly successful Venom Mob ensemble kung fu series of movies. Shades of what would become Woo’s patented bullet-based, heroic bloodshed formula can be seen throughout the film, as well, especially during a major gun fight, which leaves an innocent woman dead. As a matter of fact, a lot of women die in this movie, including the nurse and prostitutes that help our male heroes and a fashionable, dart-wielding psychopath that is literally shot in the back. Chang’s films are well known for their misogyny and Four Riders might be the apogee of his career in this regard.
Video/Audio
Four Riders wasn’t previously released on official North American home video. There was a Hong Kong DVD, a 2018 German Blu-ray from Black Hill (which included the shorter German cut), and, as is often the case, there was an HD version streaming on Amazon and iTunes. Eureka’s 2.35:1 Blu-ray likely features the same 1080p transfer, straight from Celestial Films. The image is soft and can appear somewhat flat depending on the sharpness of focus and the degree of smoke on-screen, but typically vivid, which is important, given all of the colorful late ‘60s costumes and set dressings. There are some halo and noise issues as well, though these tend to be location based problems (harsh landscape shots, for instance). Anamorphic lens effects also distort some sequences.
The only audio option on any of the films in this collection is Mandarin LPCM mono, which is disappointing from the standpoint that Hong Kong movies of this era tend to benefit from multiple language options, given the combination of Mandarin, Cantonese, and English performances. In the case of Four Riders, there are a few notable bits of English and Korean dialogue. The actual sound quality is fine, however, featuring little distortion or cramping. Chen Yung-yu’s jaunty jazz/rock score sounds especially fresh, minus a handful of minor dropouts. Note that I’m not sure if Chen is an actual composer or just the guy that oversees Shaw’s music archive.
Extras
Commentary with Frank Djeng and Michael Worth (2024) – Everyone’s favorite festival programmer and Hong Kong movie expert, Djeng, is once again paired with martial artist/filmmaker Worth for a fast & furious exploration of the film, its production, its release, locations, themes, Chang’s filmography, the wider careers of the cast & crew, and martial arts and filmmaking techniques.
The Pirate (1973)
The infamous nineteenth-century raider Cheung Po Tsai (Ti Lung) must evade agents of the Imperial Court while attempting to aid the downtrodden residents of a coastal village. (From Eureka’s official synopsis)
Also known as The Four Assassins, this often jovial swash-buckler that mixes Chang’s prized heroic bloodshed antics with pieces of everyone’s favorite Errol Flynn movies, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Captain Blood (1935). Unlike Four Riders, it is based on actual historical events and figures. The accuracy of the depiction is up for debate, of course, but, regardless, the maritime theming offers a nice change of pace from a number of sometimes interchangeable kung fu movies that take place in the mid-to-late 1800s.
The Pirate was such a massive project that Chang shares directing credits with Pao Hsueh-Li and Wu Ma (aka: Wu Ma-feng). Pao had just co-directed the previously mentioned Boxer from Shantung (1972) and later solo-directed The Battle Wizard (1977), while Wu is probably better remembered as an actor whose career ran from 1964 to 2015, when his final film was released posthumously. As a trio, they also directed the 1972 wuxia epic The Water Margin. There’s no credited choreographer on the print and the fisticuffs are a step down from Chang’s best, but the fights tend to take a backseat to the aforementioned swashing/buckling, plotting, and character dynamics, anyway. Still, the film ends with a stylish beach showdown between Ti Lung and David Chiang, and staging the opening fight on a moving boat must have been a nightmare for seasick cast & crew members, so it's still worth celebrating the effort.
The Pirate’s most amusing connection to Four Riders isn’t its shared cast members (of which there are several), but its villainess’ penchant for throwing knives, matching the previous film’s villainess’ use of darts. Chang and Ni were definitely excited by the idea of a cruel woman who was very good with throwing weapons.
Video/Audio
The Pirate is another film that wasn’t previously available on US VHS or disc, but was available on HD streaming and German Blu-ray from Black Hill and, again, this 2.35:1, 1080p transfer matches those. One giveaway that this is an older Celestial HD transfer and not a 2K or 4K remaster is the opening titles, which have clearly been digitally added and, in this case, even feature noticeable combing effects. Other digital artifacts, like noisy film grain and DNR effects, are worth noting, but rarely get in the way of the viewing experience. Colors are bright, consistent, and rarely bleed.
The uncompressed LPCM Mandarin mono track is big and brash where it counts, mainly the explosive sea battle. Chen Yung-yu’s string-heavy score (almost certainly catalog music) suffers from some minor distortion at higher volumes, but I suspect this is a problem with the original mix, because overlapping dialogue usually doesn’t distort alongside it.
Extras
Commentary with Frank Djeng and Michael Worth
Rewriting History: Chang Cheh’s International (21:14, HD) – Jonathan Clements, the author of A Brief History of China: Dynasty, Revolution, and Transformation: From the Middle Kingdom to the People's Republic (Tuttle Publishing, 2019), compares the rise of Shaw Bros. kung fu movies and civil unrest, discusses Shaw’s international success and various tax-dodging practices, and runs down the historical accuracies and anachronisms of all four films in the collection (I’d recommend watching it last).
Marco Polo (1975)
Venetian explorer Marco Polo (Richard Harrison) finds himself embroiled in a thirteenth-century battle between the Mongol Empire and Chinese rebels. (From Eureka’s official synopsis)
Marco Polo might initially appear to be Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) type attempt at combining Chang’s brand of action with more Westernized genre tastes, but it is actually just another of the director’s standard-issue ensemble pictures (it’s very similar to the next year’s Shaolin Temple, which was also directed by Chang and co-written by Ni Kuang). Despite his name on the marquee, Polo is merely along for the ride, playing a mostly silent witness to martial arts feats of strength and skill. Where it fails as a historical account, however, Marco Polo excels as a kung fu movie, shoving a not insignificant amount of political intrigue off-screen in order to give more time to the fights, training sequences, and scatalogical antics. The choreography is credited to Hsieh Hsing and Chan San-Yat, though, given that Gordon Liu has a sizable role, I can’t help but assume that his adoptive brother Lau Kar-leung wasn’t also involved in some capacity.
The titular trade merchant is played by B-movie titan Richard Harrson, hot off of a long line of pepla and spaghetti westerns he made in Italy. He’d soon return to Italy to make poliziotteschi movies and spent much of the ‘80s appearing as Richard, Gordon, or Harry in Godfrey Ho’s famously slapdash ninja movies. The real stars (and Four Assassins mentioned in the alternate, preferred title), Chi Kuan-chun, Philip Kwok, Tang Yan-tsan, and Alexander Fu Sheng don’t show up until about the 26-minute mark. Kwok’s participation, combined with a supporting appearance from Lu Feng, marks Marco Polo as the first on-screen teaming of any of the actors that would go on to become the Venom Mob. Carter Wong, who would play Thunder in John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986), also has a small, but pivotal role as the fighter whose death kicks off the plot.
Video/Audio
Marco Polo didn’t get a stateside home video release on VHS or DVD. The only English-friendly DVD was from IVL in Hong Kong and, of course, Celestial did their own HD scan, which showed up on streaming services and has been recycled here for its Blu-ray debut. This is one of the collections’ grittier and (occasionally) muddier transfers, and it shares softness and minor edge haloes in wide-angle shots, but it also has a natural quality missing from the more processed transfers. Also, be aware of more anamorphic lens artifacts.
There definitely was an English dub recorded and it was available on some home video releases (I assume UK VHS, but couldn’t verify), so I’m a little disappointed that the LPCM mono soundtrack is strictly Mandarin dubbed, not an occasional English hybrid, like the Four Riders track. That said, I don’t know if Richard Harrison took the time to record his own dub and his character barely speaks. Otherwise, the track sounds just fine, exhibiting only minor hiss during aspirated consonants. Chen Yung-yu is credited with the music, but it’s made up of recognizable lifts, including extensive swipes from Akira Ifukube's Daimajin (1966) score.
Extras
Commentary with Mike Leeder and Arne Venema – Casting director/stunt coordinator/producer Leeder and Venema, the critic and director/co-writer (with Leeder) of the upcoming doc Neon Grindhouse: Hong Kong, take a typically lighthearted and jokey approach to a nonetheless very informative discussion. Subject matter covers the real Marco Polo story, the careers of the cast & crew (including blink-and-you-miss-’em cameos), Richard Harrison’s experience making movies in Hong Kong, and the film’s general accuracy.
Boxer Rebellion (1976)
An underground group of Chinese patriots use kung fu to protect their nation against invading forces at the turn of the twentieth century. (From Eureka’s official synopsis)
If ever there was an historical event tailor-made for Chang Cheh and Shaw Bros., it was the Boxer Rebellion – an anti-imperialist, ultra-nationalistic uprising of a secret society of martial arts practitioners. It was a serious, world-altering, multi-year event, but it also sounds like something Chang and Ni Kuang made up. And in a certain respect, they did, because Boxer Rebellion (aka: The Bloody Avengers) plays pretty fast and loose with the facts, utilizing history as a stage for decisive hand-to-hand battles and extraordinarily long demonstration sequences. That said, Boxer Rebellion successfully establishes a natural sense of place and time, it utilizes period photographs to provide wider context, and features actual historical figures as characters.
Alexander Sheng Fu, Chi Kuan-chun, and Tang Yan-tsan are cast as outsiders joining the rebellion, which helps Chang and Ni Kuang quickly dole out loads of exposition and frame the conflict as yet another patented ensemble drama that includes all of the usual suspects, some as leads, some in cameo (even Richard Harrison shows up as Field-Marshal Count von Waldersee). I don’t think Chang was as good at depicting grand scale siege warfare as some of his contemporaries (Cheng Kang, director of The 14 Amazons [1972], for instance), but he sure was great with the intimate details and tragic aftermaths. Boxer Rebellion might be his magnum opus, in terms of the sheer quantity of sacrificial violence. Leung Ka-Yan’s death via gatling gun alone is an all-timer. Choreographer extraordinaire Lau Kar-leung designed the fisticuffs, which are a step up from The Pirate and Marco Polo.
Video/Audio
Boxer Rebellion had zero VHS or DVD support here in North America. As per usual, it could be imported from Hong Kong on DVD and Celestial’s HD scan showed up on streaming platforms. It also made its Blu-ray debut in Germany, this time via Koch. Eureka’s 2.35:1, 1080p utilizes the same transfer. This is a slightly smoggy transfer with weak grain texture, shimmering edges, and somewhat milky black levels. Part of the issue is that cinematographer Kung Mu-to is utilizing a lot of soft focus, diffusion, short focus, and other in-camera effects that soften, smear, and even double-up hard lines. I believe a remaster could probably strengthen shadows and bring out stronger textures, but that would cost a lot of money and, unfortunately, I’m not sure this collection would sell enough copies to justify the expense.
Fortunately, the LPCM mono Mandarin soundtrack has been well-maintained, featuring decent dynamic range and tidy separation for a single channel mix. Like Four Riders, this is a hybrid track and foreigners speak English, Japanese, and German throughout, though, amusingly, the English characters seem to have been dubbed by Mandarin speakers with strong accents. Chen Yung-yu once again takes the musical credit, but most cues are recognizably taken from other sources (Shazam recognized Bernard Ebbinghouse’s “Free Wheelin’” and “Country Home” from the Bosworth Ensembles collection).
Extras
Commentary with Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
National Defence (19:13, HD) – Hong Kong cinema scholar Wayne Wong breaks down the real Boxer Rebellion, the wars that surrounded it, the making of the film, Chang Cheh’s prevalent themes, the authenticity of Lau Kar-leung’s choreography, the purpose of mythologizing kung fu, and Boxer Rebellion’s general accuracy and critical commentary.
Bibliography:
Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition by Stephen Teo (Edinburgh University Press, 2009)
Fighting without Fighting: Kung Fu Cinema’s Journey to the West by Luke White (Reaktion Books, 2022)
The images on this page are taken from the BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.
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