Boxer Rebellion, Four Riders, Marco Polo, The Pirate (1972, 1973, 1975, 1976)
Directed by: Chang Cheh, Pao Hsueh-Li, Wu Ma
Written by: Chang Cheh, Ni Kuang
Starring: Alexander Fu Sheng, Chen Kuan Tai, David Chiang, Leung kar-yan, Li Hua Li, Richard Harrison, Ti Lung
HORRIBLE HISTORY: Four Historical Epics by Chang Cheh [1972, 1973, 1975, 1976]
AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY: NOW, from EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT
DISC ONE
MARCO POLO [1975]
AKA MA GE BO LUO, THE FOUR ASSASSINS
RUNNING TIME: 103 mins
Italian explorer and trader Marco Polo returns from a three-year mission to Kubla Khan, the Mongol Emperor who’s currently ruling China. He witnesses two Chinese rebels attempting but failing to assassinate the Khan; one is killed, the other, Zu Jianmin, manages to escape though is injured and can’t move too quickly. Kubla asks Marco Polo and his three personal bodyguards – Abulahua, Caldalu and Dulldan – to follow Zu and kill him and any allies when he reaches his home. Zu and his brother are killed and his wife captured, but his sworn brothers Li Xiongfeng, Zhou Xingzheng, Huang Zonghan and Chen Jie are also around….
Ah, the old “movies vs history” debate. I like my history, and I love it when films depict things accurately, though of course they often don’t. I used to get rather annoyed at the latter, but have mellowed considerably on the matter since. This means that it’s surely a good thing that I’m watching the four films in Eureka’s latest set now, rather than back in the day. After all, I don’t expect much accuracy from them, though to be honest I’m not well up on the historical characters and events shown in them. In any case I’m going to avoid the temptation of doing some research, something that should surely help me to judge them far more as movies. And this first [though not chronologically] is a real corker. Its title suggests, perhaps, that it will be a somewhat fictionalised biography of the Italian merchant and traveler who wrote of his travels in Asia for a fascinated public which knew very little of the continent. But on the other hand the martial arts movie fan will probably recognise that the film features no less than six of Shaw Brothers’ top fighting stars, which would signify that a lot of brawling will be the order of the day. In fact it does something that’s sort of in-between, and does it pretty successfully, even if I have my doubts as to whether much of it actually happened. As is common with the genre, it’s about heroic rebellion against a tyrannical government, here the lesser used Manchu leadership, and rewards the fan with some cracking training and fighting footage, but it also brings Polo into the story in a rather interesting way, allowing for some commentary about a character who may have exaggerated his importance at the court of Kubla Khan and who in the film mostly just stands around doing nothing but undergoes a real journey.
It’s Polo who we begin with, arriving near the Khan’s palace but stopping to look at a puppet show, a magician and a painter on the street. It’s an important little couple of moments, because already we have Polo being somewhat “distracted by the “real” China. Kubla has heard all about Polo and invites him to a banquet, a strange affair where everyone is sitting at their own little table rather than at one big long one. Polo doesn’t really seem too likeable right now, a bit of a sycophant. Kubla asks for a martial arts display to entertain both his guests and himself, and certainly gets what he ordered. In fact he gets more, because he recruits blade maestro Abulahua, Caidalu who possesses the “Iron Palm”, and hand to hand combat expert Dulldan as his personal bodyguards, though they don’t actually end up being much like bodyguards because Kubla keeps sending them off to do things. Anyway, it’s a nice change from the norm that we’re introduced to our main bad guys before we meet our main good guys, and it does immediately create tension because we see what our heroes will be up against. Kubla sends Polo off on some rather vague three-year “scouting mission” and Polo returns with a report, but Kubla suddenly notices that two men he doesn’t know have got through the ten check points which all visitors have to pass, and his guards pounce on them but meet their match with these skilled guys, one of them possessing the Golden Bell Armour which makes him invulnerably to weapons, until Kubla’s deadly trio is killed but mentions “Yangzhou” just before he perishes, which must mean that’s where Zu has fled to and where more rebels might be; yes it’s a rather forced way to move the plot on. Kubla makes Polo Royal Inspector and Polo sets off with the trio and some soldiers.
Zu is able to get just a bit of time with his wife when the baddies show up. He and his brother fight heroically but are killed and Zu’s wife captured after Polo stops her from killing herself. Polo and the others are traveling along a road with Mrs. Zu bound and being dragged along by a guard, when they encounter Zu’s blood brothers Li, Zhou, Huang and Chen, who are all pushing carts loaded with salt bags. Dulldan harasses Li, who after a stern look from Zhou, feigns not knowing Kung Fu to protect himself. The four are ordered to carry Mrs. Zu on one of the wagons. Now we get the film’s major comic scene, which is still pretty brief, where the group arrives at an inn and Li wees in the soup that’s then served to Polo etc. by an amused waiter. Li and his companions plot to rescue Mrs. Zu who’s being told by Polo that she’ll be fine as long as she identifies her accomplices, though it doesn’t work out, our heroes seriously needing some training. It’s illegal to instruct somebody in the martial arts, and indeed to own a weapon, but Mrs. Zu’s father Chief Wang seems happy to teach them indirectly. We’ve already seen the Golden Bell Armour and the Iron Palm technique, but wouldn’t have thought that wrapping bamboo around yourself makes you get the latter. Super strength is developed by carrying rocks while your teacher burns your back with his pipe, while acrobatic improvement is achieved by jumping in and out of deep manure puddles. These scenes take up a lot of screen time, as does when Polo comes to visit and Wang tried to talk him round, though we’re involved in both the suspense of these rebels being possibly discovered and as to whether Polo will change his mind about things not to be bothered by there being no fighting for quite a while. And we know we’ll eventually be rewarded.
The choreography of long-time Shaw Brothers and Cheh stagers Lau Kar-Leung and Tang Chia is a nicely balanced mixture of empty handed and weapon combat, with care taken to showcase the different skills of the performers and make authentic martial arts cinematically thrilling without losing much of its essence. The opening “display” immediately shows the specialities of the guys who play our villains, with Gordon Lui [in a bad guy role], Bryan Leung and Johnny Wang fighting opponents. Delaying our introduction to the heroes is unusual but quite refreshing. In fact much of the earlier part of the film is from the points of view of our villains until it changes, with Kubla not even appearing any more. Casanova Wong gets to bust some great moves as he battles loads of guards and one of our deadly trio, but despite his character having the Golden Bell Armour [aka Iron Skin], Caidula’s Great Palm breaks through and he’s killed despite giving a very good account of himself. And that’s largely it in terms of action for quite a while, the training and Polo visiting the Zu household taking over, but then again the attitude of Polo to the Chinese people is just as important as the familiar vengeful rebels, while it seems more believable that our good guys need so much training to deal with these experts. The climax has lots of the familiar Chen “heroes fighting against impossible odds” stuff, and Huang [Yen-Tsan Tang] is now strong enough to pull boulders from walls and smash opponents with them [lots of the usual Cheh blood here], not to mention move some pillars Samson-style so a roof crashes [rather too realistically for comfort] on top of loads of people. The acrobatic pre-Deadly Venom Philip Kwok vs Johnny Wang is more acrobatics than fighting but delightful, though my favourite fight is Leung vs Fu Sheng, who’s assisted by his humour. He really hasn’t been credited enough for virtually being a precursor to Jackie Chan.
Shih Tzu, probably seen most by westerners in the Hammer / Shaws collaboration The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires, has a small role; I wonder why she didn’t become a major female fighting star? As for Polo himself, he’s played by Peplum and Italian western veteran Richard Harrison, and it’s quite odd the way he goes around shaking people’s hands rather than doing as the Chinese do, wearing a costume with a flipping zipper, and just watching everybody else fight, the sole bit of action he does being to slash somebody’s arm with a sword, though I’m rather glad that Cheh and his frequent screenwriter and screenwriting collaborator Ni Quang don’t make him into a martial arts expert, and it feels right that Polo remains a kind of outsider, interfering in things yes, but without understanding what’s really going on, even though the character sometimes can’t help but come across as an odd addition – which is of course as he should do. Something that was odder to this critic was the musical score. The credited “composers” of these films usually just went off and found existing tracks, often from other film scores, to use, but here the majority of the music, supposedly written by Frankie Chan, is from a Japanese movie entitled The Wrath Of Daimajin. Even if you haven’t seen that film, if you’re familiar with Kaiju movies you’ll recognise the unmistakable sound and harmonies of Akira Ifukube, who scored most of the early Godzilla movies. The dramatic and atmospheric cues used, even the endlessly repeated ones, do work well for the material, but it’s mostly variations of stuff Ifukube used in other Toho Studios movies so it was an odd experience for me.
As usual, the outdoor Shaw sets are almost dreamlike, even if they clash with the real exteriors including those very familiar hills just outside of Hong Kong. I found Marco Polo to be quite an interesting martial arts effort from Shaw Brothers. Its action is mostly great, yet its centre is a person changing his viewpoint, something it does surprisingly subtly. It balances its elements and pulls off what it tries to do rather well. A most enjoyable piece.
Rating: 
Brand new audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
And it seems that Leeder and Venema feel similarly, judging by the enthusiasm with which they talk about this movie, perhaps or perhaps not energised by discussing less widely known movies about which there usually isn’t much information. Leeder tells us that the original American poster called Richard Rex Harrison, that Harrison turned down the part of the lead in A Fistful Of Dollars, and that Fu Sheng was offered the lead role in Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow but Shaw wouldn’t allow it [both their careers could have been much bigger], while Venema fills us in on Marco himself – apparently back then it took three years to get to Venice and back, and Polo approached Kubla with his brother a and his dad rather than on his own as the movie shows] and generally lets Leeder lead and give responses, though they both joke, among other things, about Beardy going on a romantic weekend with Cheh, which won’t seem out of place if you’re used to these two, and have a good chat about training [Venema is trying to lose weight]. These tracks have become an essential part of the enjoyment of these releases. Oh, and Leeder loves Fantasy Mission Force! Well that’s two of us.
THE PIRATE [1973]
AKA DA HAI DAO
RUNNING TIME: 96 mins
Renowned pirate Cheung Po Tsai escapes the English one more time and heads for a shoreline village disguised as a rich trader. There, the villagers live in poverty due to Zheng Yi, their criminal boss of a ruler. Cheung attracts the attention of merchant Xiang You-lin and his sister, who are keen on killing him for a bounty offered on Cheung. Cheung then agrees to expedite funds to them in the form of cash and goods stolen from foreign invading colonists. However, one of his former crew member Hua Er-dao has captured his ship, goods and his crew and seeks further vengeance on him, and General Hu arrives looking to capture Chang…
Unlike Marco Polo which of course is a name that many will have heard, I hadn’t known of Cheung Po Tsai at all prior to watching this movie, and I doubt that many readers will have done either, unless they’re really up on Chinese history. However, I doubt very much that he was the patriotic hero depicted in The Pirate, battling the English and aiding the poor. Nor does this film really fulfill the promise of its opening battle which suggests that it will be largely set at sea. Instead, it becomes a landlocked affair set in a small town a la Then Devil-Ship Pirates, but that doesn’t at all mean that the result isn’t engaging; in fact it’s rather more than that. We’re presented with various factions, some of whom we’re not even sure if we should consider them to be good or bad, who all have ambitions which usually involve money, while our pirate hero is surrounded by threats in what could just be a typical couple of days for him in this film which sees to take place over a very short period. Occasionally it may get a bit confusing for some, but it’s great fun seeing everyone plotting against each other – this is definitely another one of those ones where it’s not just about the fights – which evolve fairly naturally out of the narrative rather than suddenly coming along over and over again. They show choreographers Lau Kar-Leung and Tang Chia at the top of their game, culminating in a superb duel which is truly great martial arts cinema even if we’re not sure who we want to win – and this was just before Shaw’s Kung Fu films reached their peak. This was Ti Lung and David Chiang’s eighteenth collaboration and, while I’ve only seen a few of their other ones and Chiang only turns up a third of the way through and has no proper interaction with Lung until the final act, said final act is a perfect way to see both their timing together and their chemistry.
So we begin with shots of an English ship at sea, quietly sailing along until a pirate ship, which they know to be captained by the notorious Chang because its red flag has his name written on it, approaches with clear intent to attack. Cannons from both crafts fire and the Chinese one is damaged more from this, so what do Chang and his men do? They swim under the burning warship and grapple onto the boat from the opposite side thereby surprising the English. Now I’m not entirely sure whether this would be possible, at least in the very quick period of time that we’re shown here, but then again I can’t swim so I can’t really talk. Anyway, a nice battle ensures, with Chang being nice and heroic and Errol Flynn-like such as leaping from one sail to another and pulling the latter down, lines like “you stabbed him in the back, you’ll never rest in peace”, and the English ending up either dead or thrown overboard. These pirates can’t be bothered with captives, at least at this moment in time. After returning to his real pirate ship, Cheng brings the substantial booty to the hold where his crewmen discover a massive leak. Meanwhile in the town which is very nearby, pirate Hua Er-dao has been arrested and is being paraded down the street, but Hua is laughing at his captors and even asked them to bring more people so they can watch his head being cut off. Two officials go and tell and tell Madam who runs the local brothel and who also likes to throw daggers at the pictures of wanted men hanging on her wall, and she asks them to hand Hua over to her so she can tale him to Macau for the bounty; they agree to do so, though it’s not clear whether an actual deal is made [free sex for the men?]. However, that night Lau breaks out of his cell.
The next morning a group of villagers are begging Madam’s husband Xiang You-lin, the town’s ruler, to not let his men search the English ship because they’ll take anything and leave the townsfolk nothing. Xiang, with the help of a corrupt magistrate, rules the place cruelly, raising prices so that some people can’t afford to keep their children and have to sell them. Forced to bring his ship into an isolated cove, Chang tells his men not to go into the town except for himself and a few others, though two are only really interested in women and gambling rather than clothes and repair materials. Chang pretends to be the representative of an important prince and ingratiates himself with Xiang, who wants to recapture Hua because he knows that Chang is now in the area and that this will lure him, though quite how he’s come to this conclusion I don’t know. Perhaps more sensibly, he sends two men to masquerade as fishermen and infiltrate the pirate group, but Hua is already heading there and wants to take charge. But more than anything, we’re waiting for Chang to help these poor townsfolk who are virtually being robbed and starved to death. After all, he has the loot with which to do it. First of all he gives some money to people who need their boats fixed and can’t afford the price that Xioang’s second in command Zeng Guo-xiong, played by Dean Shek with one of those moles which have hair growing out of them you often see in such films, is demanding. And then, after some time, he stops a father from selling his daughter, beating up a few nasties as he does. We later get a rather emotional scene between the two, even though they’re very minor characters. Oh – and then there’s General Hu, who’s just arrived and who wants to capture Chang and therefore get promoted back at the capital.
After the pretty impressive ship battle, we really do get the martial arts element held back for some time, but we’re never bored as we’re introduced to and then follow the factions, us soon being caught up in their mechanisms. Both of the major stars eventually get to do a few moves at usually multiple opponents, though for some time they’re cut quite short, as if the filmmakers were toying with fans, raising the suspense higher and higher. While the other main characters are all important and interesting enough for us to always be happy when they’re prominently featured in scenes, Ni Kwang’s often knowing screenplay plays on the Lung / Chiang connection by having their characters narrowly miss and even briefly impersonate each other, plus just glance at each other in one brief moment. And then we finally have a big melee on a beach, where Liu Wai gets to do some stuff including throwing darts at people, and Lung gets to fight Tin Ching before a quick break, after which he battles Chiang on a different beach. Their characters are not trying to kill each other; it’s more sparring, with both commenting on the fact that the other person is holding back, one of them even thanking the other for killing somebody else who violently interrupts them. They go at it for some time, the sky eventually darkening, the differing styles of the two melding into a simply brilliant ballet of movement and skill which moves from the beach into the water, then a boat. Things then end differently to the norm, and that’s absolutely fine, us more being left with both two fictional characters, and also two stars, who have great respect for each other.
I’ve only very recently realised how much John Woo must have been influenced by Cheh, most notably with his emphasis on male bonding, the “brotherhood of man”, though of course in Cheh’s case there certainly is a homosexual element to it [albeit subtle], whereas I’ve always disagreed with those who see it in Woo’s work. In any case, greed and morality are really the central themes themes, and are looked at quite believably. Of course Chang is a very romantised pirate who seems like a pretty nice guy even before he becomes a Robin Hood-like character, very involved with these beleaguered townsfolk even though he should be focusing on mending his ship and then getting the hell out of a place where lots of people are after him. Wu is noble throughout something that Chiang has an ability to evoke very well. Cheh and his two cinematographers Han Lu Kuang and Yuan Ting-Bang perhaps overdo the zooms and the slow motion, but a lot of the time they’re employed very well, especially when we’ve just cut from one scene to another and a rapid zoom into someone or something occurs; editor Kuo Ting-Bang should also take a bow for his smooth work. Cheh actually shares directorial credit with Wu Ma and Pao Hsueh Li, but apart from the shortage of blood the film does seem like Cheh’s work. There’s no doubt that Cheh, despite the number of films he had to cram in, was a much more adept filmmaker than most of the others working at Shaw, but he also used skilled technicians. We can forgive certain things such as a modern building appearing in two shots in the distance, because it probably wouldn’t have been noticeable in celluloid; high definition is mostly a gigantic blessing but it can on occasion be a curse. This one has barely any humour, except maybe for the scene where two guys see a woman’s legs which are sticking out of a corner struggling, and go to investigate, then getting their asses kicked by some men.
This time around I didn’t recognise any of the music credited to Frankie Chan. There’s not actually much used, especially in the second half; what there is seems reasonably appropriate, with even a bit of soaring pirate-style music at the beginning, but probably mostly comprises some of another movie score. In any case The Pirate is rather unusual, involving and suspenseful even before it eventually becomes a cracking Kung Fu flick. So that’s two quality movies on Disc One; will Disc Two maintain the high standard?
Rating:
Brand new audio commentary by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist / filmmaker Michael Worth
This pair had their work cut out for them considering the quality of the Leeder and Venema commentary above, but in its own way it’s just as worthwhile, if different. As usual there’s less jokiness, but things never get hugely serious and there’s usually more information; I love it – for example – when Djeng is able to say how a film performed at the Hong Kong box office and what was top of its year. He also fills us in about Chang, who was bisexual and once kidnapped a man whom he fancied, only for his wife to fancy him too. Djeng’s talk track commentators tend to have far less to say than Djeng but Worth usually contributes a lot, and he certainly does here, talking a lot about Cheh’s style and themes and pointing out the way some scenes are shot. For example, he’s noticed that quite often in a Cheh film we see the person giving another person some information before we see the recipient. And he reckons that it’s often best to see his lesser known work to truly appreciate Cheh as a filmmaker. I haven’t seen nearly enough of his films to properly agree or disagree, but he could be right.
History Making – Chang Cheh’s International 1970s – Jonathan Clements [47 mins]
This featurette is best watched after you’ve seen all four films; it’s especially heavy on Boxer Rebellion which is on Disc Two. though does go into the others as well as filling in on background – for some time over 70 movies coming out of Hong Kong were martial arts ones. Clements speculates that these historically-based films may have been made as an attempt to appeal more to westerners as well as educate them about Chinese history. It seems that – for example – later switched sides – while he also talks about the breakdown of the friendship between Lung, Chiang and Chen Kuan-tai, as well as the falling out between Chiang and Kar-Leung over choreography during Men From The Monastery. Overall an informative and observant essay, though I could have done with a bit more detail on some things.
DISC TWO
BOXER REBELLION [1976]
AKA GUO LIAN JUN, THE BLOODY AVENGERS, SPIRITUAL FISTS
RUNNING TIME: 137 mins
It’s 1899, and more and more Chinese people have had enough of Western encroachment and a national bureaucracy that serves the interest of foreign speculators far more than citizens, even though Tzu Hui the Empress Dowager dislikes non-Chinese folk. A man called Li Chung-ching is gathering men to fight, and, aided by Chang Chung Jian who’s Golden Bell armour means that his skin can’t be pierced by weapons, promises that his magic will make the Boxer armies invulnerable; he knows this is nonsense but it swells ranks. Recruits Shuai Feng-yun, Chen Chang and Tseng Hsien-han get swept up in the uprising, and Li talks the Empress into giving him her blessing, though the casualties are huge….
There haven’t been many films about the Boxer Rebellion, an event that climaxed with The Eight-Nation Alliance, a multinational military coalition from Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Austria-Hungary, which invaded Northern China with the stated aim of relieving the foreign legations in Beijing which was being besieged, even though no declaration of war was actually announced. The Alliance then pillaged the country for around a year as “punishment” I don’t think it’s talked about very much, and the only film that I can think of which depicts this subject is 55 Days In Peking from 1965, a Hollywood production which, of course, relates events from the point of view of some of those westerners who were trying to keep control of a country that they were essentially ruling, the Chinese being depicted as a faceless mass of violence, though the film, an exciting-enough action-orientated piece, stops short of properly supporting the foreign powers who were acting in a truly dreadful fashion, only interested in what they could get out of this country. Boxer Rebellion tells matters from the point of view of the Chinese. I’m sure that the special features will confirm this, but I get the strong impression that this was a real passion project for Cheh, who was clearly able to obtain a sizeable budget to put his vision up on the screen. Working again with an often nuanced script by Ni Kuang, it has a fine first three thirds, especially strong on the varied ideas which came together to create and continue the nationalist explosion, including revenge, patriotism, religious fanaticism, opportunism, mass hysteria and trickery, and mixes in well its three youths who become involved in these events. However, it struggles a bit afterwards, as Kuang and Cheh bring in more personal material and c0nventional martial arts movie stuff to avoid things becoming a nonstop series of atrocities perpetuated on the Chinese, though it remains engrossing,
Real photographs from the time and place are seen under the credits, which state the essential seriousness of what we’ll about to see, and every now and again thereafter we’ll cut to stills, a device which will either be intrusive of provide the film with added weight to the viewer; I go for the latter. We begin with a very lengthy, not to mention leisurely, section set in the Empress Dowager’s palace in Peking, which may drag a bit but which shows, more than in any other films of his that I’ve seen [his filmography is huge which makes it amazing that, as far as I know, he was usually able to maintain a certain quality], that Cheh had genuine artistic ambitions which perhaps he was never totally able to fulfil, while giving us a real sense of a place and person which seem locked in the past. Two guys arrive at the palace to tell the Empress what’s going on in “her” country, but have to wait while she undergoes a series of rituals such as placing jewellery in her hair and putting on a jacket, where the most important thing is whether she’s in a good mood on this day; the fact that she is is happily passed around. Then, full well knowing that Prince Duehn and Lord Kong are waiting for her, she and her huge entourage relocate to the “Sau Fong Room” to watch an opera while enjoying a banquet – though she kindly sends a few dishes over to the performers. Eventually she lowers herself to meeting these underlings who inform her about the restlessness of the natives, this rebellion where many say the rebels are invulnerable to harm from weapons. The Empress doesn’t seem that concerned but tells them to “go and observe”. We return to the palace a few times later and I personally could have done with even more footage inside it; the contrast with the reality elsewbere, emphasised by the gliding cinematography and the lush colours, works really well.
Anyway, we then meet our three heroes Shuai, Cheng and Tseng, and we immediately get a good sense of their characteristics which play to the advantages of each of the individual performers who are playing them. One is extremely patriotic but perhaps to a fault, with an inability to see the bigger picture. One wants more to enjoy life, his good nature partly disguising the fact that he’s rather selfish. And one is the real thinker, the one out of the three who best understands what’s best for the country and its people. The three witness the supposed “Iron Armour” [already seen in this set] of Chang, which gets people all excited, gut he’s merely a tool for Boxer leader, a charlatan named Li who indeed promises that his magic will make the Boxer rebels invulnerable. They’re soon painting their faces because they think it will scare their enemies, and drinking normal water that they think is “holy water”. Things het up when an English magistrate shows no interest in rectifying an injustice which isn’t speciefied but which clearly involves an injured kid,; he shoots an attacker who’s wife places the kid on him and Tseng shoots another attacker; soon after he sneaks aboard the magistrate’s carriage and annoys him by doing things like twisting his nose and pulling his cheeks. Around this time I was thinking to myself that this film was fantastic, insightful about how folks can get caught up in things, ambiguous as to whether such rebellions are a good thing while understanding their allure, very dramatic while allowing Fu Sheng’s knack for comedy to shine, showcasing great chemistry between its three leads etc. And all without any Kung Fu! Tseng is doubtful about the “spells” but Chen is in favour of them even if they don’t actually work. As for Shuai, he’d rather they all follow the ” moderate” Sun Yat-Sen, but decides that he’ll go along as well. After all, Chang wang to avenge his brother!
Up to now we’ve only seen a bit of sparring, but now we get our main battle scene as Li, despite Chang’s unsureness against the idea because the Japanese that they’re attacking [the majority of the people throughout that they fight being Japanese because it’s far easier in terms of extras] are numerous, leads the rebels. It’s hard to properly manage the transition from conventional warfare – of any period or locale – to martial arts, but Boxer Rebellion manages it here as loads of extras fighting in open countryside becomes several small groups running around woods and paths, we believe it. Our three stars are able to properly showcase their skills against multiple opponents, though they start off just watching the battle and seeing loads of brainwashed Boxers mown down by rifles and gatling guns. One character does an amazing feat; he charges a machine gun nest, takes a burst full in the chest, wrestles the weapon away from the machine gunners, taking another burst full in the chest as he does so, and then proceeds to beat them to death with their own automatic weapon. Hell yeah! Li shooting a few people is quickly turned into “Li killed 90 Japanese soldiers on his own”, then “he just pointed his finger at them”, and it soon becoming “900”. Not long after that, Beardy Leung gets to fight loads of bayonet-wielding Japanese, for a while wielding a trident, and a bit later the other two get to fight some groups of Germans and Russians. The finale has Fu Sheng battle and easily defeat Richard Harrison [Marco Polo himself], before going on to fight Someno Yukio while Chi [who throughout is able to look cool with a ponytail wrapped around his neck] seems to randomly find Wang Lung-Wei’s character [who could be the real villain] on those extremely familiar hills just outside Hong Kong and fight him. We’re given both a Big Boss-like conclusion for one character and a happy, victorious one for another.
For almost two thirds of the running time, Boxer Rebellion is great, even though it avoids showing the centre-point of the Boxer Rebellion, something that can partly be attributed to the budget which was probably high by Shaw Brothers standards [and equivalent to lunch money for Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and David Niven on the set of 55 Days In Peking] but which still couldn’t stretch to depicting too many mass crowd scenes. However, it may also may have been a deliberate decision, so that the focus was kept primarily on Tseng, Chen and Shuia. But then it gets to the aftermath, which wasn’t pleasant for the Chinese at all, and we’re show some of this, with mass executions and women being carried off to no doubt be raped, though Cheh holds back here; we’re meant to feel the horror of said events, not wallow in over the top, cool, bloodletting, though I was surprised that we didn’t see any real sexual violence at all . Did Cheh restrain himself because he felt that this film was important and needed to be seen? The movie also introduces a new set of characters including a new villain very late in the day – Harrison’s General Waldersee. Romantic material makes itself known, with Tseng reuniting with a lady named Xiao Jui he used to know from his village, who’s now working [ as a prostitute?] for Sai Chin-hua, who’s in a relationship with none other than Waldersee but who also likes Shuai. This material looks condensed and, despite Frankie Chan employing “love themes” [and a few seconds of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite] in another probably borrowed score that emphasises drama though isn’t quite strong enough for the material, we’re involved but slightly less so than we perhaps should be.
In fact I wonder if the whole film was originally much longer, even though for many years even this 137 min cut was hard to see, two considerably shorter versions being the main ones in circulation. Nonetheless Boxer Rebellion, despite doing the opposite thing to 55 Days In Peking – treating all the whites and Japanese as cruel oppressors – remains a highly impressive production with a lot of food for thought. It makes one wonder what different glories Cheh could have gone on to if he wasn’t largely stuck in the martial arts genre.
Rating: 
Brand new audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
Leeder and Venema are less jokey than usual here, generally focusing on providing as much information as they can fit in, even though we still the occasional detour into subjects such as Chinese medicine. Of course we learn more details about the actual Boxer Rebellion and characters; Venema tells us that the Dowager Empress would have messengers killed if they brought had news so she often wasn’t brought bad news, that the scene involving the magistrate and the two shootings was modified from a factual incident, and that seemingly the most contrived thing in the film – the Sai / Waldersee affair – really happened. Meanwhile Leeder certainly does make his own contributions on this subject but also goes into how the film went overbudget and became controversial, with factions on both political sides taking exception to Cheh and Kuang’s handling of the material, repeats a bit of stuff about Harrison’s diary but adds things, including that he mentions sleeping with an unnamed actress and shooting love scenes for this film – which leads me to say that they also think the film was originally intended to he considerably longer, maybe even a two-parter. Another fine track from this duo.
FOUR RIDERS [1972]
AKA SI QI SHI, HELLFIGHTERS OF THE EAST
RUNNING TIME: 109 mins
Just after the Korean War in 1953, Chinese soldier Feng Xia hands in his badge and takes off for Seoul in a stolen jeep, on the way picking up fellow trooper Gao Yin-Han, who wants to visit his former Lt., Li Wei-Shi who’s recovering from wounds in hospital. Nearby is a nightclub which is frequented by Jin Yi, another soldier just seems to want to get drunk. The place is also the headquarters for a criminal gang headed by American Mr. Hawkes who uses GIs to transport drugs into the US. Hawkes’s latest mule doesn’t work to work for him any more, so he orders him to be killed. However, Feng witnesses him being beaten to death and is framed for the killing and imprisoned. Gao and Chen know he’s innocent and want to rescue him; Jin Yi decides to help too….
Is the title Four Riders intended to echo the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, considering that at one point one character recites from the book of Revelations and we see some events depicted in fairly minimalist from as if they were set in the past in China? It’s hard to tell, seeing as our four heroic fighters don’t particularly seem like the Four Horsemen, but then Cheh and perennial collaborator Kuang must have included the scene I’ve just described for a reason. Maybe we’re meant to assume that this is how Gao sees himself and his three fellow ex-soldiers, though on that case we should probably have had this aspect continued, with Gao, who’s in hospital for unspecified reasons, perhaps continuing to mention it. However, I’m glad that I’ve got this out of the way, because Four Riders might be my favourite of the four films in this set. Now that of course certainly doesn’t mean that it’s the best, though I can see the rather nihilistic thriller appealing to “heroic bloodshed” fans, and, while being obviously a far less “prestigious” production than something like Boxer Rebellion, it was was also clearly made with considerable personal investment, and watching it gave me the feeling that Cheh and Kuang would have been perfectly happy making a film about soldiers recovering from fighting in Korea without any martial arts in it at all – but would Shaws have funded that? Probably not, yet as usual Cheh is able to make sure that the Kung Fu aspect doesn’t feel like an intrusion. Despite some obvious studio alleyways, the plentiful Korea filming gives this one a sense of realism even Boxer Rebellion couldn’t achieve, until we switch to a so obvious but always pretty outdoor Shaw set!
We open unusually with over two minutes of footage of the Korean landscape, even behind the credits, us taking a variety of snowy landscapes and four men walking in the distance, before we pan from an icy lake to zoom into a lone red flower, after which we get a blurry transition to the green leaves of a tree, the camera now zooming out to reveal a lush spring landscape. Was Cheh going for some symbolism here [the winter maybe representing the war which eventually ended], or just trying something out? Anyway, we then alight on a military camp, where we see Feng sitting there in a group, until his superior officer drives up in his jeep. He stands up and rips off his badge before attacking his boss; the latter seems out of order but it conveniently starts a mass brawl so that Feng can steal said jeep and head off to Seoul and have some fun. Now we meet Gao, playing with some native kids; he seems really fun-loving and only takes a few seconds to convince Feng to take him along. And now we get a great shot where the camera pans left from a very old bridge in the countryside to a modern bridge with cars driving over it; okay it probably won’t seem like a great shot to any viewers who know Seoul, but it perfectly transmits the contrast which Cheh is trying to show. And now we get another lengthy passage of the two driving in Seoul, us taking in all these sights which Feng and Gao would have been awed by. It’s now when we’re introduced to Jin Yu, who’s clearly struggling with what he’s experienced and just wants to get pissed, something which causes him to clash with nightclub boss Lei Tai who gets some guys to attack him with no success, while prostitute [I assume – this is the second film in this set which seems coy on the issue!] Wen Hsi takes a shine to Jin Yu, even paying for the damage he’s created which include the destruction of the music player. And finally we meet Li, listening to Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony and forming a bond with nurse Song-Hwa.
We get a real understanding of these four characters via unforced screenwriting, and I’d have been content with the film spending even more time with them and not getting into a conventional plot, maybe just showing random adventures that they have in Seoul. We soon realise what the baddies are up to, moving large quantities of drugs into the USA via GIs; one of them changes his mind but second in command and Lei tells him “we won’t force you to do it”. Hmmm. Feng is casually wondering about one evening, rather restless but certainly not expecting to see a guy being beaten bloodily beaten to death with spiked knuckle dusters. He intervenes but is overcome, knocked out, and has one of the knuckle dusters put into his hand. It’s little surprise, then, that he’s blamed for the crime and hauled off to military jail with execution being the probable outcome. Jin Yu notices what’s going on and has no hesitation in confronting Mr. Hawkes and demanding that one of his men take the blame instead. Was censorship or pre-release cutting the reason for the vague scene which follows, where Jin Yu is knocked out and the female of the criminal gang Yin Hua takes her clothes off? Gao asks Lei if he can buy a gun, and Lei insists that he can only have it if he kills Feng for him, though in actual fact Gao wants it to aid him, Li and Jin Yu in rescuing Feng. Gao seems pretty dumb here, but then much of what these guys attempt is rather hairbrained. I don’t see this as showing bad screenwriting; these men just aren’t very bright and their ability to make rational decisions has clearly been diminished by what they’ve been through. They formulate a plot to rescue Feng, but a cost, and the ex-soldiers find themselves on the run. The military police foolishly believe the wanted men are part of the gang run by Mr. Hawkes and declare to bring them in, dead or alive, while Hawkes’s gang is also on their trail.
The fight choreography is by Lau Kar-Leung on his own. No doubt influenced by the more recent setting, it’s rougher and looser. Ti Lung gets to fight a few people when his character sees the killing of the unnamed GI; he seems to be winning until Yasuaki Kurata as Lei Tai kicks him down a flight of steps. The film showcases David Chiang rather more than his co-stars, his character getting to fight off assailants a few times with great force before the others really get a chance to do their thing, though his first one-on-one fight, with Kurata in an office, takes place mostly on a TV screen watched by others, which we don’t even much of a look at. Obviously this decision was certainly not made because the participants couldn’t fight couldn’t, so either the money ran out to stage all of the planned fighting, or Cheh was just playing with his audience. Chiang gets to hang on the side of a car, then truly lets loose in an even more vicious manner [though it makes sense in terms of his character]than before; I’ve never seen him this intense, kicking right through a barrel to still knock down the guy holding it and ripping off somebody’s hair including some bloody skin.. He always seems to be lighting a cigarette too; in fact the amount of smoking which goes on in this movie is astonishing even by ’70s standards. Eventually the others are battling lots of opponents in great style, much of it in a gymnasium where Lung beats up people with a flipping weight, though it’s perhaps disappointing that neither Kurata nor Andre Marquis as Hawke are given proper climactic fights to be defeated in. The presence of John Woo as one of the assistant directors may not have been the reason that the film really does resemble one of his towards the end. And then we have a strange final shot which bookends one we saw at the beginning. It’s probably intended symbolically.
There’s a comedic section that sounds like it’s out of place but which oddly doesn’t stick out too much, where four hookers, the ringleader being Wen who’s extremely easily convinced to do dangerous things by Jin Yi because she likes him, have to steal four army uniforms off soldiers in what’s a rather complicated process, then wear said uniforms to get others past a checkpoint which makes the military police seem rather stupid, all to eventually assume the role of basically playmates for our ex-soldiers, all of whom seem to get some “action” though it’s mostly just suggested. Indeed restraint is sometimes seen elsewhere; Cheh is well known as a blood spiller, but he was certainly able to hold back when he felt like it. For example, here one of our villains throws a dart in somebody’s eye, but we don’t see this person and others with this person then being killed; instead the bodies are just discovered, which increases the tragedy. Cheh sometimes indulged his love for zooms and sometimes didn’t; here, he doesn’t, while cinematographer Mu-To Kung sometimes employs a shakier camera than normal for parts of the action, though it doesn’t even approach the chaotic, eye-hurting camerawork that we see in a lot of modern day screen fighting. Kuang does present us with a rather pointless macguffin quite late in the day, while the keen eyed will notice a wall wobbling. But, on the other hand, one of several things that Four Riders has enabled me to do is see how good an actor Chiang was, but Lung and Chen Kuan-Tai, who would appear together in other films, perhaps most notably in the terrific Blood Brothers, are impressive too. Lily Li as Yin is having great fun acting cruel, though she’s eventually restricted to just firing a rival which never seems to need reloading. And is that Fu Sheng dancing with a girl in the night club?
Four Riders has a fatalistic power to it which I think will make it seem even better in a second viewing, even if Frankie Chan’s probably selected musical accompaniments, while evoking the time and locales with beaty, jazzy sonorities, sometimes seem too upbeat. One track seems right out of an Italian western, but on the other hand the music that backs the drive into Seoul is very well chosen. Oh – and is that the opening chords to Pink Floyd’s Echoes [for some reason a frequently heard piece in Hong Kong martial arts films of the period] heard when – oh just listen out for it.
Rating:
Brand new audio commentary by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist / filmmaker Michael Worth
Actually recorded before their track for The Pirate, this is another excellent recording from the two, with Djeng only slightly leading the conversation; I think that with other co-commentators they get intimidated by Djeng’s immense knowledge, but Worth holds his own. Djeng tells us about Chiang getting involved in a fight while shooting the film by helping some hostesses get into a taxi which infuriated a Korean guy who hated the fact that women, especially hostesses, were having a door opened for them – not to mention the Korean director who smoothed things over getting kidnapped along with his actress wife by Kim Joon-Il. He also reminicies about wanting to see Shaw movies as a kid but only being allowed into Inframan. Meanwhile Worth typically talks more about the way the film is shot such as Cheh’s liking for ending scenes on a kind of cliffhanger, sees the film as a possible for PTSD, and has a good chuckle at things such as villainous characters supposedly not trying to look suspicious.
National Defense – Wayne Wong on “Boxer Rebellion” [20 mins]
This is a rather enlightening piece by Wong, who begins by saying that the actual Boxer Rebellion began because of numerous previous events which had badly affected the Chinese people, before moving on to the movie, which he believes is “highly critical of the spirituality of the martial arts”, with the Kung Fu myth – an exaggeration of the art’s power and skill – being something which “strengthened national identity”. Wong even informs us that the shrieks performed by Leung Ka-Yan in his character’s display are authentic, a way to control bodily energy. He also tells us when the movie was accurate, such as the depiction of the Dowager Empress.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Limited Edition [2000 copies]
Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju) [2000 copies]
1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from masters supplied by Celestial Pictures
All four films look stunning. Celestial Pictures are simply experts in film restoration.
Original mono audio tracks
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
A limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on all four films in this set by writer and critic James Oliver [2000 copies]
I really enjoyed all four films in this set, films that seem to have been particularly well chosen in the way that they contrast each other yet share a lot of the same cast and crew, and combine history with martial arts. Chang Cheh is truly revealed as a diverse, intelligent filmmaker with things to say while never forgetting that he has to entertain, while the audio commentaries seem to show some of our favourite participants trying to better themselves in providing context, information and appreciation. Highly Recommended!
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