5 Star

Wuxia Film Binge Time!

Arrow Video bring us the Shaw Brothers, Shawscope volume 3, packed with cult wuxia films with heroes and heroines, some with disabilities, some out for revenge. All fourteen films, directed by legends of the Hong Kong action genre. All-new exclusive restorations, in this amazing limited edition boxset, that would grace the bottom of any Festive tree this year… Don’t forget that it is a limited edition, the set includes hours of insightful bonus material (see below) and a CD of music from Shaw Brothers classics.

Well, what can I say about a package like this from Arrow Video, it is a smorgasbord of blood, greed and revenge, with lots of death all done with swords. Awesome stuff, for the subtitle people and the dubbed people. Enjoy at your leisure, and be amazed at the prowess of the 14 Amazons.

Thanks to Arrow Video for their overview.

Before Hong Kong’s mightiest film studio mastered the art of the kung fu film, Shaw Brothers hit box office gold with a very different kind of martial arts cinema, one that channelled the blood-soaked widescreen violence of Japanese samurai epics and Italian spaghetti westerns into a uniquely Chinese form: the wuxia pian. With their enthralling tales drawn from historical myth and legend of sword-wielding (and often gravity-defying) noble heroes, the wuxia films housed in this next instalment of Arrow Video’s best-selling Shawscope series demonstrate the sweeping stylistic evolution of the genre, from the righteous stoicism of the late-60s Mandarin period, right through to the wild-and-weird anarchism of the early-80s Cantonese explosion.

The iconic One-Armed Swordsman trilogy, directed between 1967 and 1971 by wuxia cinema godfather Chang Cheh (Bao chou, Ninja in Ancient China), made household names of stars Wang Yu (One-Armed Boxer II, Dragon) and David Chiang (Five Shaolin Masters, In Broad Daylight) and set the gory template for many of the films to come. Contrary to Chang’s tales of loyal brotherhood, many wuxia films focused on female protagonists, three very different examples of which we see next: Ho Meng-hua‘s (The Lady Hermit, The Human Goddess) with the great Cheng Pei-pei (Come Drink with Me, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as a virtuous swordswoman called upon to stop a vicious warlord; Chor Yuen‘s (scandalous Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, Sun, Moon and Star: Part 1 &2) in which the titular lady of the night masters every deadly skill she can to get revenge on those who enslaved her; and Cheng Kang‘s (The Sword of Swords, Palace Carnage) all-star epic The 14 Amazons, in which Shaws’ finest starlets play the real-life women of the Yang dynasty, avenging their fallen menfolk in battle.

Next, Chor Yuen adapted several beloved novels by consummate wuxia storyteller Gu Long to the big screen, four of which are collected here: The Magic Blade, Clans of Intrigue, Jade Tiger and The Sentimental Swordsman, all starring the redoubtable Ti Lung (Drunken Master II, A Better Tomorrow). As kung fu overtook wuxia at the box office, the genre evolved into unexpected new directions, with its chivalrous knights-errant replaced by conflicted anti-heroes, as seen in Sun Chung’s breathlessly exciting (The Avenging Eagle and Boxer’s Omen) goremeister Kuei Chih-hung‘s fatalistic masterpiece (Killer Constable, Curse of Evil). Finally, just when it seemed the wuxia film had nowhere left to turn, Eighties excess reigned supreme in the special-effects-soaked, fourth-wall-breaking fantastical delights of Taylor Wong‘s (Buddha’s Palm, Tragic Hero) and Lu Chun-ku‘s (Bastard Swordsman, The Dragon Fighter).

Back with all-new exclusive restorations and hours of insightful bonus material, if you thought the previous two Shawscope sets showed the Shaw Brothers at its strongest, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Stars were made from these films, and deservedly so, this may be the third instalment from Arrow Video, but it stands out on its own as a cracking release of martial arts supremity from the late nineteen-sixties, to the nineteen-eighties.

SHAWSCOPE VOLUME THREE! It is available from Arrow Video

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY COLLECTION CONTENTS 

 

● High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of all fourteen films, including thirteen new 2K restorations by Arrow Films from the original negatives, and a new 4K restoration of One-Armed Swordsman by Celestial Pictures

● Original uncompressed Mandarin mono, plus Cantonese and/or English (where applicable) lossless mono options

● Newly translated English subtitles for each film

● Illustrated 60-page collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by David West, Jonathan Clements and Dylan Cheung, plus cast and crew listings and notes on each film by Ian Jane

● New artwork by Tony Stella, Ilan Sheady, Tom Ralston, Jolyon Yates, Kung Fu Bob and Chris Malbon

● Hours of illuminating bonus features, including feature commentaries on each film, several cast-and-crew interviews from the Frédéric Ambroisine Video Archive, and the rare alternate Korean cut of Killer Constable

● Exclusive CD of music from the De Wolfe Music Library, as heard in The Avenging Eagle and other Shaw Brothers classics