King Boxer
(1972/aka Five Fingers Of Death) + The One-Armed Swordsman (1967/Dragon
Dynasty)
Picture:
B- Sound: C+ Extras: B/C+ Film: B/C+
Two of
the most important of all Shaw Brothers Martial Arts films, King Boxer (1972/aka Five Fingers Of Death) + The One-Armed Swordsman (1967) are very
key. The former launched the Martial
Arts Cycle in the United States and the later helped launch a subgenre of such
films where the protagonist is (like Zatoichi) seemingly disabled. They are being released at the same time as The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin and My Young Auntie separately by Dragon
Dynasty/Genius Entertainment and you can read about those two at the following
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5579/The+36th+Chamber+Of+Shaolin
Boxer holds up incredibly well with
some of the best fighting in the genre.
The story is better than most in the genre, the camerawork exceptional
and the fighting sequences some of the best in martial arts cinema
history. The tale of two men fighting to
win a national tournament was told before, but was always phony, stale, too
documentary like and even stillborn. Chang
Chang Ho (aka Chang-Hwa Jeong) took the material, made it follow like an
intense fight, even when there was no fighting, and created a classic.
Yes,
there are people flying in the air, but it does not have phony on-wires look
that the current cycle usually had. When
the group fighting takes place, it does not look rehearsed, badly timed or like
a bad series of dancers taking turns. It
is raw, still ahead of its time and a gold standard for all such films that
most of them miserably fail to live up to.
The violence can be stylized, but can also be surprisingly graphic for
its time. The later imitators exchanged
realism for formula slickness that was more interested in being hip than real,
smart or entertaining.
Swordsman is key as noted and has its
moments, but does not hold up as well, but is as important as the other three
releases (picked by Quentin Tarantino himself) and is an original. The typical “wiseguy Freudian connection”
made about the disabled protagonist doing Martial Arts is about “castration”
and you then hear a stream of foolishness by said person who usually does not
like film or even know much about psychology.
The real reason for the success of such films is the audience
identifying with the lead and the “disability” becomes incidental, expressed by
the fact they surprise all by being able to fight. During the counterculture period such films
arrived, they certainly hit a chord.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on both films look good, upgraded from
the original camera materials for the most part and showing much improved color
and depth. Detail is also improved, but
it is going to take HD to bring out the best of these ShawScope films. Yuan Chen San and Kwan Han-Le shot Swordsman with atmosphere and some
memorable moments, while Wang Yung Lung went all out on Boxer in a way that reminds one of the groundbreaking work Sergio
Leone and Tonino Delli Colli did on their famous Spaghetti Westerns. Compositions, choreography and set-ups are
exceptional, with all kinds of visual surprises that even broke ground for the
Action genre overall. The Dolby Digital
2.0 Mono sound on both films are fine for their age, dubbing or original sound,
though they show their limited fidelity.
Extras on
both editions include commentator biographies, stills, trailers and on camera
interviews with David Chute and Andy Klein.
Swordsman also offers an
interview with Jimmy Wang Yu and a decent feature length audio commentary by
Chute and Klein. Boxer brings back Chute for another audio commentary, this time
joined by critic Elvis Mitchell and Quentin Tarantino, who was supposed to be
on both according to the back of the Swordsman
box but is not. That disc also has an on
camera interview with the director and action director Lau Kar-Wing.
Needless
to say King Boxer/Five Fingers Of Death is the biggest must-see
of all the Dragon Dynasty films we have covered, which is beyond the latest
four. In addition, we have other Martial
Arts reviews including one of the many One-Armed Swordsman films, this one with
Zatoichi at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5655/Zatoichi+Meets+The+One-Armed
Plus,
those who can’t wait for these films to come to an HD format can check out the
HD-DVD for the Bruce Lee classic Enter
The Dragon at this link for our review:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4194/Enter+The+Dragon+(HD-DVD)
Let’s
hope Dragon Dynasty gets to issue more Shaw Brothers classics and we find some
hidden martial arts gems too.
- Nicholas Sheffo
