Shaolin Boxers (1974)
Directed by: Ta Huang
Written by: Tien Huang
Starring: James Tien, Mi Tien, Min-Lang Li, Tien Ying Li
AKA FU JIAN LON QUAN, THE SHAOLIN BOXER
HONG KONG
AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY: 24th March, from EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT
RUNNING TIME: 78 mins
REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera
In the town of Fuquan, the people are terrified of the local Security Chief, He Rong, who gained his position by bribing the referee in an annual martial arts tournament held between four villages and now rules with an iron hand. However, he also wants a nearby harbour in Dragon Village which is unfortunately owned by Master Zhuang, who also runs the local martial arts school, and is willing to threaten and bully to get it. One of Zhuang’s students Lin Zhi-gang enters the next competition to free the villagers from their obligation to pay for He’s protection. But He has a corrupt referee in his pay, not to mention mysterious Kung Fu expert Lei Biao….
Despite being a prolific martial arts actor and just actor for some time and in a fair few films of note. the name of James Tien will forever be linked with that of Bruce Lee. Tien, of course, was the star of The Big Boss until a few day into shooting when it was noticed that there was something rather special about the little Chinese-American who’d failed to make it big in the United States. Tien’s role was reduced and Lee’s increased so his character became the hero. Would the film still have been a success if the original plan had been followed? Probably, though not nearly as much. Would Lee still have become a huge star because of it? Probably, though not nearly as much, but I’m sure he’d have played the lead in Fist Of Fury so it would have still eventually turned out amazingly for him. More to the point, would Tien have made it big if he’d remained the film’s lead? I think it would certainly have propelled his career, but Lee and others would have soon eclipsed him. The thing about Tien was – he was solid. He was decent. he was even good. But he lacked uniqueness and that movie star quality, things that especially showed when he was given a lead role. Chinese Boxers, a film that was never released on video or DVD, was his first, and he does a solid, decent, even good, job. The film is a standard affair, a King Boxer-style tournament-centred tale with typical elements of competing schools, evil villainy and revenge surrounding it. But sometimes there’s nothing wrong with “standard”. With hissable baddies, fights which go for the more realistic approach except for the occasional moments when they don’t, and a very short running time which means that things are kept simple and tight, this is a pleasant viewing experience, hard to dislike.
A somewhat strange opening shot has sand bags being thrown at a tree. They’re being thrown by a group of martial arts students who are then trying to bust them. Our hero Lin shows his prowess by smashing one to bits, and his master Zhuang Tai, who’s been watching along with his daughter Ru Yu, is suitably impressed so tells him to lead the next round of practicing, though Ru has to wake up Jun Ping, who’s fallen asleep against a tree. So we know who’s going to provide the comedy relief then, though it’s not as overt as you might expect, the character undeniably goofy but also somebody to be taken seriously and one that we care about. Titles and pauses occur as various training activities are taking place, with Lin showing off by jumping over a door frame and panel twice. Zhuang doesn’t feel well so leaves Lin to it, whereupon we cut to a rather lengthy scene of a few men walking through the countryside to a house. It’s odd how long this takes seeing as the rest of the 78-minute film moves so quickly. “Daio Gui, is everything here”? “Of course, Mr Lu. gave us instructions to bring all the merchandise to Dragon Village as soon as possible”. “So tell me, you know where it is”? “Not very well, but the head of the martial arts school is a very good friend of mine, I think he can help is, they’ll be no problem. Got to love cliched introductory bad guy talk, especially when one of said bad guys walks right into the camera [we get a closeup of his neck] as they set off to do their wicked business and a very loud musical note pervades the air. Daio and his companions are off to see He, head of security in Fuquan, who’s been bribing the referee of an annual martial arts tournament for the North Village lot, headed by his son, to win, though things got difficult last year, Lin only losing because of the dodgy referring.
Of course Daio doesn’t just want to continue winning, he wants to get rid of Zhuang’s school altogether and take over North Village’s harbour! So pressure needs to be put on, and a certain Lei Biao leads two others into an intrusion into the school, beginning with the kicking down of its banner. Zhuang, who has some injury in his chest, doesn’t want to fight, but won’t be bribed into leaving either. Violence ensures, leading to an amusing exchange, especially considering that Lei doesn’t even finish his presumably insulting sentence, “No, I know, the style you teach your students” which is answered by Pin, “what did you say? – but its good it’s very good” – which admittedly might not sound funny but imagine Pin’s voice in the English dub+ being really whimpish, that may help. Lei says that he wants him out of the way in two days, which concerns Zhaung so much that he promotes Lin to fighting in Grade A – he was Grade B in the tournament last year. “If they have their way martial arts won’t progress”! Then three of our main baddies threaten and attack an elderly couple who haven’t been paying He their tough taxes. The son shows up just as the daughter Chu is being sexually assaulted by Lei and is beaten up for his efforts, then our secondary hero Shao Xiong, Zhuang’s son, who’s in love with Cui Ying, arrives on the scene. The tournament goes ahead, but villainous cheating ensures a draw, with a rematch to occur in two days time. We’re also soon to learn about Zhuang’s injury which links him with Lin via a brutal flashback and propels the plot in familiar yet still dramatic fashion.
The fights occur frequently but don’t allow the film to become “just one long unarmed hassle” as Lee would say. There’s a move away from grace and elegance in Ching Siu-tung’s [this was his first credit] choreography, it looking rough and awkward at times. Complicated techniques aren’t frequent, though we still get the occasional crazy feat; it’s hilarious when a guy fighting on the tournament stage jumps some feet on to the sand in front of a row of audience members and breaks his leg. Tien gives a – well – solid, decent, even good fighting performance despite some very obvious doubling. There appears to be an attempt to evoke Lee without really trying to be him unlike most of the Lee impersonators; certain bits of choreography do recall him but this doesn’t take over the fights, though it would have helped if Tien had a notable style of his own. He gets a few minor chances to defeat some nasties, but it’s Lai Sing Yin who gets the best action until tournament number one begins, the legend that’s Mars gets to fight someone, and Shao faces off against an arrogant ruffian before Tien gets to fight Tsai Shui-Ching, and elsewhere the guy playing silly Chun Ping gets to fight on a couple of occasions and Tien’s character has to rescue somebody from a group of villains,, though we don’t get the big “man against many” showdown. However, this is more than atoned for by the climax, where Tien battles Li Ming-Lan as Lei for a very long time . It might not be technically notable, but there’s an odd realism and desperation when, after the action has teleported from the stage to the countryside, Tien is so outmatched by Lei’s Double Dragon Claw and Piercing Kick that he resorts to fleeing and twice hides to suddenly attack Li with weapons [one or them grass], and we don’t dislike Tien for this! Eventually he needs the assistance of two mates, and we’ve seen this before, and don’t mind!
The melding of several typical narratives is done quite well by screenwriter Tien Huang. except for when he tries to cram in too much. This is most notable in the case of Shao, who we see in love with Chu and she supposedly with him. He says that he’ll take her away while the tournament is on, which seems like the setting up of an important plot point that will probably result in some action too. Then he returns to save her again from an unpleasant fate a bit later, but then, after fighting a few bad guys, flee and, while we can certainly understand it if he feels outmatched, he presumably leaves her to be raped, which might be okay if we later heard about it, even perhaps spurring him on to take revenge, but the offscreen but very probable event is never mentioned again! Huh? Still, the main revenge angle involving our main hero and villain is well handled; when they finally meet after a great many years, I had slight Once Upon A Time In The West vibes [if you’ve seen this brilliant movie than you’ll know the scene to which I’m particularly referring], which is very high praise from myself. Tien fails to really evoke his character’s obvious pain, but thankfully Li Ming-Lang is rather magnetic yet also properly hissable as Lei, who seems to be especially into rape. Director Ta Huang does an okay job, though it’s probably cinematographer Wong Tat-Lung who we have to thank for some nice tracking shots, though he obviously didn’t care about modern buildings being seem clearly in the distanc. I liked a very Hollywood scene where judges talk around a table but we only hear the soundtrack music. The rather ’80s – even though we’re in the ’70s and still the early ’70s at that – synthesiser score by – I really don’t know – is actually more notable, the seriously groovy main title music setting a nice mood and there being plenty of fun pieces thereafter, including a semi-version of the Jaws theme!
Shaolin Boxers is short and sweet and lacking in much finesse. It doesn’t have a single review on the IMDB, which is a real shame and certainly shouldn’t be taken as a sign of how enjoyable a watch it should be to lovers of this kind of film. It’s certainly a minor work, but sometimes they can still somewhat satisfy, can’t they?
SPECIAL FEATURES
Limited Edition Set [2000 copies]
Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling [2000 copies]
1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray from a new 2K restoration
This gets the usual very fine restoration. The colours impress though blacks aren’t often as deep as they’ve been in similar recent releases. However some shots being grainier than others shouldn’t really be something to complain about; this is celluloid of no doubt rather low quality and has probably looked better. Detail is strong.
Original Mandarin mono and English dubbed audio options
Checking out a few bits of the Mandarin soundtrack reveals that it has a different score. Credited to Eddie Wang, and with a bouncy opening track which is quite clearly a ripoff / variation on the theme from The Six Million Dollar Man. From the other bits that I had, the mostly orchestral score is more classical in style for the most part, though sometimes in an atonal fashion, and obviously still cobbled together from existing material.
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
New audio commentary with East Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival)
Djeng goes solo for this one, but, as we know, Djeng going solo is usually just as good as Djeng commentating with somebody else. Beginning, as usual, with how the film ranked in the Hong Kong box office charts [it only ranked number 90] and what was top, Djeng then takes us through very potted biographies, remarks on certain shots and tells us strange facts such as it being okay to say words like “motherf*****” Mandarin onscreen but not in Cantonese, not to mention that the son of Ji Woo, who played the village boss, was at school with Djeng, who recalls him being “a rather spoilt brat”. He also doesn’t understand why Tien keeps running away in the final fight. Djeng tends to be less rushed these days, and therefore providing tracks that are very hard to criticise.
New audio commentary with Hong Kong cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
Leeder and Venema provide their usual humorous, banter-filled chat. Leeder does most of the biographies – it’s interesting hearing ones that Djeng also did and comparing the approach and the information – worries about a scene where a young boy seems to be obviously watching a rape scene rather than it being cut together from two different places, and goes into the subject of nudity, where filmmakers in the day would often hire real strippers and prostitutes because very few actresses would be prepared to shed clothes. Venema says as much as or more than Leeder in this one, thinking that Huang and Ned both shot different scenes, thinks that they just didn’t bother dubbing the dialogue in the “deciding the outcome of the fight” scene as opposed to Djeng who thinks it was a creative decision, and tells us a bit about Bamo [illegal rooftop fights in Hong Kong].
Shaolin Style – new interview with Wayne Wong, editor of Martial Arts Studies [17 mins]
Wong, who sees the film, a film made at a time when both Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers were trying different ways to deal with the death of Lee, as both Bruceploitation and not Bruceploitation, tells us what he likes about it, from Tien’s acting, which was helped by him having trained in Cantonese opera which emphasised actual acting over martial arts, to his combining of traditional martial arts and realistic fighting He also talks of how it links with Lee films but also tries some new stuff, and doesn’t think that the flashback scene wouldn’t be allowed to be made in China today.
Original theatrical trailer
A limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Hong Kong cinema scholar Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park [2000 copies]
Eureka have chosen a pretty obscure and rarely seen film this time round, but it should provide enough enjoyment nonetheless despite being no neglected classic. Recommended!
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