Heroes Of The East (1979/Dragon Dynasty/Weinstein DVD)
Picture: C+ Sound: C Extras: C+ Film: B-
By the
late 1970s, too many of the Martial Arts films had plummeted into desperation and
too much comedy, Lou Kar-Leung’s (aka Chia-Liang Liu’s) Heroes Of The East (1979) is a big surprise and one of the last
great films of that original cycle that began in the 1960s. A Chinese man (Gordon Liu) is trying to live
peacefully with his Japanese wife when conflict arises and gets so out of
control that he has to fight seven Japanese weapons experts as part of some
crazy test.
The good
news is, Kuang Ni’s script is so well thought out that the backstory works, the
situation works, the conflict between people pre-fighting works and when the
last few reels of the film are nothing but martial arts action, not only does
it work, but it is some of the best fighting in the genre’s history. It never looks fake, phony, rehearsed,
over-choreographed and has a pace that is more than worth of the best action
genre filmmaking around. The cast gives
great performances, exceeding the usual genre acting and it shows that Martial
Arts films could have remained serious and effective into the 1980s without an
overabundance of humor. It is at least a
minor classic of the genre as a result.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is pretty good, though this is not as
color complex as some of the older Shaw releases, this still looks very good
and seems to have been fixed and cleaned up.
Compositions by Director of Photography Arthur Wong are also impressive,
enough to make a future Blu-ray worth the wait.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono in English, Chinese and original Mandarin is
all aged and limited, which is odd for a newer Shaw film, even when older
English dubs have been 5.1 presentations.
They are all a bit weaker than they should be. Extras include two featurettes (Spotlight On A Legend, Shaolin vs. Ninja,) trailer gallery,
audio commentary with by martial arts film scholar Bey Logan and an interview
with lead male Liu.
- Nicholas Sheffo
