Arrow Video
Blu-ray Release: November 26, 2024 (as part of Shawscope: Volume 3)
Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color
Audio: Mandarin and English LPCM 2.0 Mono (Hong Kong cut), Korean LPCM 2.0 Mono (South Korean cut)
Subtitles: English, English SDH
Run Time: 98:21 (Hong Kong cut), 104:53 (South Korean cut)
Director: Kuei Chih-Hung
The deeply, even obsessively dedicated Chief Court Constable, Leng Tian-Ying (Chen Kuan-tai), relentlessly pursues a homicidal robber-chief (Ku Feng), who has stolen gold from the Imperial treasury. (From Arrow’s official synopsis)
Best remembered for his psychedelic Grand Guignol horror/action hybrids Hex (1980), Hex vs. Witchcraft (1980), Bewitched (1981), Corpse Mania (1981), Hex After Hex (1982), Curse of Evil (1982), and, of course, The Boxer’s Omen (1983), director Kuei Chih-Hung was a multi-genre talent and workhorse who produced dozens of films for Shaw Bros. and originally worked under the studio’s most prolific filmmaker, Chang Cheh. Despite the near-perfection of The Boxer’s Omen (a film that every cult movie fan owes it to themselves to see), many critics and fans still refer to his sole straight wuxia flick, Killer Constable (literal Cantonese title: Beheader of Ten Thousand Persons; aka: Karate Exterminators, Lightning Kung Fu, Blood Brothers, and Karate Warrior, 1980), as Kuei’s masterpiece.
Technically a remake/reworking of Chang’s The Invincible Fist (1969), The Killer Constable is less of a costume drama than an extension of Kuei’s contemporary crime thrillers and preview of the over-the-top fantasy horror to come, Killer Constable can be considered the wuxia answer to morally murky Hollywood vigilante cop movies, like William Friedkin’s The French Connection (1971) and Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1971), though it also draws from the revisionist westerns that informed those films. It’s interesting seeing the tropes from a Hong Kong point-of-view, because the general themes are the same, but it’s also deeply rooted in tradition, as opposed to its postmodern American and European counterparts.
Kuei doesn’t obfuscate his antihero’s cruelty, characterizing his actions as plainly brutal, while his enemies, though brutal in their own right, aren’t craven murderers or amoral heroin traffickers, like the villains of Dirty Harry and The French Connection. This makes it harder to justify his savagery, especially in light of his superiors’ corruption and grotesque luxury. Kuei’s opulent direction offers the perfect backdrop for Huang Pei-Chih and Lu Chuan’s furious action choreography. Additionally, he emphasizes the film’s downer political themes, not just with nihilistic, graphic violence, but with the spooky settings and moody lighting of a horror film. It is as if Leng’s bloody adventures are constantly haunted by increasingly surrealistic depictions of abject poverty and futile warfare.
Lead Chen Kuan-tai was a genuine martial arts expert, who trained from a young age and began acting shortly after winning the lightweight division championship at Singapore's National Skills Competition in 1969. His breakthrough role was the titular protagonist of Chang’s The Boxer from Shantung in 1972, though he was regularly cast in supporting roles throughout the ‘70s, even directing a handful of features, including Iron Monkey (the 1977 film, not the 1993 one), which allowed him to show off the monkey style kung fu he’d been learning since childhood. Killer Constable is perfectly tailored to his natural intensity and stoic, smoldering acting style.
Bibliography:
Mondo Macabro: Weird & Wonderful Cinema Around the World by Pete Tombs (St. Martin's Griffin, 1998)
Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition by Stephen Teo (Edinburgh University Press, 2009)
Video
As one of the more popular films in the third Shawscope volume, Killer Constable has been released on VHS and DVD in the US, albeit on some iffy, grey market tapes and discs. It also had a 2017 UK exclusive Blu-ray release from 88 Films, though it utilized an earlier Celestial Films HD scan, which was also used for streaming releases. This Blu-ray, which shares disc space with Sun Chung’s The Avenging Eagle (1978), is another Arrow-exclusive 2K remaster. Killer Constable’s most direct connection to Boxer’s Omen is probably Li Hsin-Yeh’s cinematography. For both films, he utilized a lot of diffused lighting, smoke effects, and high glare reflections, all of which make this one of the collection’s messier transfers. I don’t consider any of these inconsistencies or upticks in noise Arrow’s problem. Even a full 4K scan and release would likely appear quite grainy at times. Colors are nice, though, and details are tight without oversharpening issues.
Audio
Killer Constable is presented with Mandarin and English dub options both in uncompressed LPCM mono sound. As per usual, the film was shot without sound and dubbed for multiple language releases. The English dub has a lot of character that makes up for some volume issues and rough lip sync. Certain incidental effects are sort of loud on both tracks, but only ever overwhelm dialogue on the less consistent English dub. The rain-battered climax actually sounds quite impressive for a single channel mix on both tracks. Eddie Wang is credited with the music, but I noticed more than a handful of recognizable library cues, one of which I’m almost positive was used for George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978).
Extras
Commentary with Tony Rayns – The first of three commentaries (the most of any film in the third Shawscope set) features the respected critic and historian exploringr the logistics of the Hong Kong and South Korean co-production, Kuei’s career, politics, and style, the film’s fictional and historical inspirations, its meanings and themes, its increasingly ‘apocalyptic’ tone (a wonderful way to describe the look), and the use of real weapons over props.
Commentary with Frank Djeng – This second track is also the second of three Djeng tracks included with Shawscope: Vol. 3. Here, everyone’s favorite festival programmer and Hong Kong movie expert discusses the Killer Constable’s release history, its place as a transitional film between established martial arts movies and the oncoming New Wave, Kuei’s career and the wider careers of the cast & crew, connections to other films and Kuei’s horror films, and larger cultural contexts.
Commentary with Brian Bankston – The Cool Ass Cinema critic closes out the commentaries with a celebratory look at the film. There is, of course, overlap between all three tracks, but Bankston brings his own tone and perspective, and includes a number of behind-the-scenes anecdotes not heard on the other two tracks.
Additional and alternate scenes from the South Korean cut of the film (34:15, SD, in Korean with English subtitles) – These sequences, some of which make substantial changes to the plot, were mastered from a pan & scan VHS copy. The quality isn’t fantastic, but it is watchable.
Alternate Lightning Kung Fu English credits (1:40, SD)
Two Mandarin language Hong Kong trailer and one English language trailer
Additionally, Disc 9 of Shawscope: Vol. 3 includes:
The complete extended South Korean cut (104:53, HD with SD inserts) – Again, the Korean-specific footage was mastered from a pan & scan VHS.
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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