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 Mono
Subtitles: English, English SDH
Run Time: 101:11
Director: Chor Yuen
Rival swordsmen Fu Hung Hsieh (Ti Lung) and Yen Nan-fei (Lo Lieh) battle it out with a power-hungry villain for possession of the Peacock Dart – a secret weapon which must never fall into the wrong hands. But that is precisely what happens and the rivals must unite to wrest the magic blade from their common enemy. (From Arrow’s official synopsis)
During the ‘60s and ‘70s, Hong Kong filmmakers had a clear affinity for the (largely) Italian-made westerns of the same period, movies we now tend to refer to as spaghetti westerns. The wuxia and spaghetti genres shared inspiration from classic Hollywood westerns and Japanese samurai films, but there was also something about the intrinsic feel of these movies – the way they’re framed, the familiarity of their recycled sets, their postmodern relationship with older pulp fiction and cinema, and so on. Some Hong Kong action films even share story sources with their Italian counterparts, like Chung Sun’s The Kung Fu Instructor (1979), which is, like Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (Italian: Per un pugno di dollari, 1964), is based on Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961).
Chor Yuen’s The Magic Blade (1976) is an example of a mainstream martial arts film released several years after westerns had peaked in Italy, but had still been gaining (or at least maintaining) popularity outside of Europe and North America. It isn’t a direct adaptation of a western or Japanese source, but it does tweak the otherwise traditionally Chinese cultural elements (not to mention Shaw studio sets) in ways that make them feel connected to spaghetti westerns. A few dusty tumbleweeds here, a couple of crash-zooms there, a poncho-clad antihero, and voila. What really makes The Magic Blade special, though, is that it is a relatively fantastical story and its mythological elements are often represented by dark environments, long shadows, and color gel highlights, all of which would be right at home in a Mario Bava Gothic chiller.
The screenplay was based on the novel Tianya Mingyue Dao (pub: 1974) by prolific wuxia author Gu Long (aka: Ku Lung), which was later adapted into a television series in 2012. It was Chor’s second Gu Long adaptation, after The Killer Clans (also 1976), and was followed by Clans of Intrigue (1977), Jade Tiger (1977), Death Duel (which I believe is a direct sequel to The Magic Blade, 1977), The Sentimental Swordsman (1977), Legend of the Bat (aka: Clans of Intrigue 2, 1978), and Clan of Amazons (1978). Not all of these films share The Magic Blade’s spaghetti western-isms or fantastical mood, but grinding a popular trend into the ground definitely fits the Italian filmmaking ethos. While The Magic Blade is among the series’ more obscure entries, at least outside of Hong Kong, its colorful characters, one-thing-after-another plotting, and breakneck pacing more or less fits the formula.
The son of veteran actor Cheung Wood-Yau, Yuen was among Hong Kong’s most productive filmmakers. He made his co-directorial debut in 1957 and worked across genres, before finding a real niche at Shaw Bros. making martial arts pictures and costume melodramas, several of which starred Li Tung and were based on stories by Gu Long. So many of these have been included in Arrow’s third Shawscope collection that they must have considered releasing an all-Yuen/Li collaboration set at some point in its production.
Yuen, who is also credited as Chu Yuan, was not related to the famed Yuen Clan or actor/stunt star Yuen Biao. Curiously, however, multiple clan siblings (Corey, Wah, Brandy, and Cheung-yan) and Biao all appear in The Magic Blade as unnamed extras. Expert Samm Deighan claims on her commentary track that Tang Cha and Huang Pei-Chih, who also appear as extras, were responsible for the martial arts choreography, but the extensive use of wirework, trampolines, reverse photography, and pyrotechnic tricks – all before they were fashionable – makes me think that members of the Yuen Clan were cutting their teeth here as well. The fight scenes aren’t as wild as those seen in Yuen Woo-ping’s The Miracle Fighters (1982) or as intricately designed as director/choreographer Lau Kar-leun’s best Shaw work, but they are consistently creative and acrobatically impressive.
Bibliography:
Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition by Stephen Teo (Edinburgh University Press, 2009)
Video
The Magic Blade didn’t have an official stateside VHS release, but Image Entertainment did put out an English-friendly anamorphic DVD in 2008. As often happens with the Shaw Bros. films owned by Celestial Entertainment, The Magic Blade also showed up on streaming services in HD. This 1080p, 2:35:1 Blu-ray features a new 2K restoration of the original negatives, overseen by Arrow. While it’s not perfect, it does make key improvements over the streaming transfer, which had that familiarly, overly-soft Celestial look to it. There’s a nice sense of texture and clarity without oversharpening problems. The grain seems accurate and isn’t drowned out by DNR or compression noise. Colors are punchy, particularly when set against dark backdrops, and black levels are pretty rich where it really counts. Print damage artifacts are limited to a handful of blotchy stains.
Audio
The Magic Blade is presented with newly restored Mandarin and English dubs, both in uncompressed LPCM audio. Again, most of these films were shot without sound and dubbed into Mandarin, Cantonese, and English for release, but, unlike spaghetti westerns, the cast was typically speaking one language on set. There’s little difference between the two dubs in terms of overall sound quality, outside of the English track being a little louder. There is no credited composer, leading me to assume all of the music is recycled from other Shaw films, though, of course, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for the filmmakers to have stolen a few cues from other sources.
Extras
Commentary with Samm Deighan – In this new Arrow exclusive track, the co-editor of the recently published Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960 - 1990 (PM Press, 2024) celebrates The Magic Blade, its place in the era’s wuxia revival, its function as an early entry in the fantasy/horror fad, Chor Yuen’s greater career, the careers of other cast & crew members, and visual/tonal nods to spaghetti westerns, samurai cinema, and horror movies. Towards the end of the track, she credits Tang Cha and Huang Pei-Chih as choreographers, which was incredibly helpful for me in completing my review.
Mandarin and English Hong Kong 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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