Arrow Video
Blu-ray Release: November 26, 2024 (as part of Shawscope: Volume 3)
Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color
Audio: Mandarin and English DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
Subtitles: English, English SDH
Run Time: 129:51
Director: Cheng Kang (aka: Cheng Gang)
In the aftermath of his shocking death, General Yang Tsung-pao’s widow, Mu Kuei-ying (Ivy Ling-po), and the Yang family’s other skilled women warriors organize an against-the-odds attack on rival general Wang Wen (Tien Feng), his sons, and his powerful army.
In 1966, King Hu’s Come Drink with Me set the quality precedent for Shaw Bros. wuxia movies and the popularity precedent for a wave of movies starring female knight-errants throughout the early 1970s. These included Hu’s own post-Shaw films – Dragon Inn (1967), A Touch of Zen (1971), The Fate of Lee Khan (1973), and The Valiant Ones (1975) – as well as Shaw’s own attempts to recapture Come Drink with Me’s success with an official sequel, Golden Swallow (directed by Chang Cheh, 1968), a collection of other star vehicles for actress Cheng Pei-Pei, and unrelated films from the studio’s best directors, like Lo Wei’s Vengeance of the Snow Girl (1971).
Cheng Kang’s The 14 Amazons, based on the popular saga of The Yang Family (a somewhat historical story that was largely mythologized over a thousand years*), is a superstar ensemble version of a female knight-errant picture, featuring basically every name actress with a studio contract (outside of Cheng Pei-Pei). In the tradition of The Dirty Dozen and Guns of Navarone, the Amazons must depend on guts, guile, and teamwork to infiltrate a fortress and take on superior forces. The 14 Amazons is a full-scale war film, adorned with battlefield clashes and magnificent seas of extras, as well as a road adventure, enriched with grand widescreen vistas. Like the best American, European, and Japanese historical and biblical epics, it satisfies the elusive balance between frothy melodrama, chest-thumping heroism, and bloody spectacle.
Some sources, including IMDb, cite two directors: the credited Cheng Kang and uncredited Tung Shao-Yung. Tung was a busy cinematographer and it makes sense that, in a production this big, he would give the DP some directing responsibilities. Cheng had been writing and directing for various studios since the early ‘50s and continued making movies until the early ‘90s. I don’t know a lot about his career outside of The 14 Amazons, but his son, Ching Siu-tung, who acted as co-choreographer here, went on to be a respected stunt performer and filmmaker, having directed all three of the original Chinese Ghost Story films (1987, ‘90, ‘91) and The Swordsman (1990), among others, and having served as action director on Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer (2001) and Zhang Yimou’s revamped female knight-errant fable Hero (2002).
* Lau Kar-leung’s masterful kung fu classic The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (aka: The Invincible Pole Fighters, 1984) – arguably the greatest movie he ever made for Shaw Bros. – was based on the same Yang Family legend.
Bibliography:
Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition by Stephen Teo (Edinburgh University Press, 2009)
Video
I’m guessing that the One-Armed Swordsman movies are the most anticipated films in Arrow’s third Shawscope collection, but I’ve been waiting for a nice copy of The 14 Amazons for a while now. There weren’t any North American DVDs or Blu-rays, but it was included with a Celestial Films Shaw package that found its way onto HD streaming services over the years and there were importable BDs from Europe. This 2.35:1, 1080p transfer is, according to specs, a new, Arrow-exclusive 2K restoration of the original negatives. I would’ve preferred a 4K remaster, because the One-Armed Swordsman transfer included in this set is such a noticeable upgrade, but, still, some restoration is preferable to the sort of mushy-looking streaming version. The eclectic palette is beautiful and elemental separation is strong, as is the overall dynamic range, though some white levels are blasted. There’s room for improvement in grain structure and finer textures (a few frames go missing here and there as well), but not a lot of the fuzzy, DNRy look seen from Celestial’s original, now quite old, transfer.
Audio
The 14 Amazons is presented with English and Mandarin dub options, both in uncompressed LPCM mono. As per usual, the film was shot without sync’d sound and likely dubbed into English, Cantonese, and Mandarin for its Hong Kong debut. The English track is one of the better ones of the era, performance-wise, even if the actress dubbing Lily Ho’s character overdoes the childish voice during the opening act. A direct quality comparison is pretty even with the Mandarin dub exhibiting a slightly better dialogue to music balance. Wang Fu-ling & Zhou Lan-ping’s score does a pretty good job matching the large cinematic scope of similar Hollywood epics (given that this is Shaw, they probably stole some cues), giving both tracks their best workouts.
Extras
Commentary with 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) explores the true and fictionalized versions of the Yang Family (he gets delightfully pedantic about some of the inaccuracies), the greater history of China during the era, the wider careers of the cast & crew, invasion themes throughout Shaw Bros. movies, and the state of the studio at the time.
Sharon Yeung on Her Career and The 14 Amazons (12:40, HD) – A 2004 interview with the stuntwoman and actress from the Frédéric Ambroisine archives. Yeung discusses her early life and training, working in the industry, getting the stunt job in part because she couldn’t read the Mandarin script, and enjoying her time on The 14 Amazons, despite the stressful on-set atmosphere.
Bede Chang on The 14 Amazons (10:34, HD) – A 2005 Frédéric Ambroisine interview with the critic and expert, who looks at the true and fictional Yang Family histories, major themes, the cast & crew, and gender roles in Hong Kong cinema.
Law Kar on The 14 Amazons (16:04, HD) – Another 2005 Frédéric Ambroisine critic interview, in which Law covers similar ground to Chang and Clements, but focuses a bit more on writer/director Cheng Kang and technical aspects of the production.
Hong Kong Mandarin and English trailers
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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