4 Star

Fantastical Martial Arts Comedy.

From Eureka’s Special Edition releases comes two films from Hong Kong’s most popular writer, director and producer during the 90s, Jing Wong (The Man from Macau, Step Into the Dark) martial art’s comedy farces. With amazing wire work, martial arts, and ridiculous storyline over the two films, you are in for a great time over the two-hundred and eight minutes. Enjoy the tale of hatred, revenge and a man with the gift-of-the-gab.

In the Qing dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor is not old enough to rule, so four regents are appointed to govern in his place, but one Oboi (Elvis Tsui, Dragon Inn, The Grandmaster) is a tyrant and massacres the Han people with extreme prejudice, provoking rebellion.

But leagues away from those events, Wai Siu-bo (Stephen Chow, From Beijing with Love, Shaolin Soccer) sits upon a makeshift tower, telling stories to the clients and ladies of the local whore house. He tells tales of the leader of The Heaven and Earth Society leader Chan Kan-nam (Damian Lau, Duel to the Death, Legend of the Red Dragon) who fights the Qing regime. Unbeknownst to Wai, there is a secret meeting of the Heaven and Earth Society going on below his tower, when Obio’s troops raid the brothel looking for Chan. As the fighting breaks out, Wai spots Chan, who has lime powder all over his face and is in deadly trouble.

A real man is adaptable.

He manages to get Chan away and into hiding. Once the trouble is over, Wai pleads with Chan to be his teacher. Chan indoctrinates Wai into the Heaven and Earth Society, even marking his foot with their mantra, but he is so ticklish that he only gets half of it done.

Oppose Qing, Restore Ming!

Legend has it that the Qing dynasty has a huge cache of gold, taken from the oppressed Han people, and the secret location is rumoured to beheld within the four copies of the Sutra of forty-two chapters. If Wai can retrieve all four copies Chan will teach Wai the much coveted Transcendent martial arts.

Heroes truly spring from youth.

Two copies are kept in the royal palace and Wai must infiltrate the palace and retrieve them, and to do this he should get a menial job, so he can search for them. But Wai, being Wai, he ends up in the non-existent queue to become a eunuch. Thankfully, he is rescued by the head eunuch before the deed can be done. Now he has access to the royal palace as a much trusted manservant.

There will be dominant princess’ (Chingmy Yau, Hold You Tight, Legend of the Red Dragon) flying one-armed nuns, a shapeshifting Dragon sect lady (Sharla Cheung, God of Gamblers, Fight Back to School), twin bodyguards (Fennie Yuen, The Swordsman, The Swordsman II), (Vivian Chen, Once in a Lifetime, The Twin Bracelets)  and a huge pile of gold.

They say ‘go big or go home’ well Jing Wong certainly took on the mantle of going big, very big. Very violent and very funny, well worth a purchase.

THE ROYAL TRAMP COLLECTION (Royal Tramp & Royal Tramp II) (Eureka Classics) Two Disc Special Edition is available on Blu-ray

SPECIAL EDITION TWO-DISC BLU-RAY FEATURES:

Limited Edition O-Card Slipcase (First print run of 2000 copies only) featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling | Brand new 4K restorations of both films, presented in 1080p HD across two Blu-ray discs | Original Cantonese audio tracks | Optional English dubbed audio | Optional English subtitles newly translated for this release | Brand-new audio commentaries by Asian film expert Frank Djeng, and Mike Leeder & Arne Venema | A career spanning interview with veteran Hong Kong actress Helene Law Lan, courtesy of the Frédéric Ambroisine Video Archive | Two archival interviews with Wong Jing about Royal Tramp and the Jin Yong novel the story is based on | Trailers | PLUS: A Limited Edition Collector’s Booklet (First print run of 2000 copies only) featuring new writing on the films