Shawscope Volumes

[cdnchris]

Sorry to be a shameless consumer but Chris: are there any hints of titles for Volume 3 in the booklet like Volume 1 did for some of Volume 2 titles?

I've only skimmed the booklet so far and can't say there's anything that has popped out I'm sorry to say, but once I'm able to actually sit and read it I'll do what I can.

[yoloswegmaster]

I don't think that would have mattered since I recall certain newly released titles not being a part of the July B&N sale this year.

I didn't shop the sale this year, so I didn't know that. Everything that was out was discounted during the previous sales

Edited to add, I seen you mention over at the Blu-ray.com forum Tenebrae not being on sale during the B&N sale, and the reason for that not being part of the sale is because it is a Synapse title in the US, not Arrow.

Whoops, it definitely wasn't Tenebrae but it was definitely a newer release that for some reason I can't recall (I'm probably thinking about True Romance though). Thanks for the catch though.

[Finch]

Mike from Grindhouse explained on the other forum that he got copies early and started shipping them because he hadn't been told by Arrow not to. So a few people got lucky with their pre-orders (he's now holding everything else back until the revised December date). Though, frankly, if they were that fussed about B&N sales, they could have either not provided anyone with any units this early or surely told B&N to exclude that particular set from their sale.

[tenia]

Edit : skip that, too big of a delay to be some pallets not being delivered yet.

[feihong]

My Volume II set arrived today. I never thought I'd see a high-quality blu ray, with film grain and everything, of The Barefooted Kid. Amazing.

As others have said, the 36th Chamber of Shaolin remaster is a mix of qualities. Lots of shots are beautifully sharp, with good grain––and then others look pretty de-grained. These de-grained shots still look sharp around the edges, but you can tell something's amiss. And there are a lot of these shots, so far as I can see––but just the same, there are tons of absolutely great shots. Everything I saw of the final fight looks spectacular. What really comes through in this remaster is greater depth, and a rangier contrast and color palette. Most of the Shaw Bros. restorations have looked very bright, very high-key. This remaster of 36th Chamber has a wider gamut of different lighting, color and contrast than in previous versions I've seen, including the IVL Hong Kong blu ray. It's interesting to muse on whether the other Shaw movies could look like this?

Every disc I've looked at looks good-to-great so far, with a couple slight exceptions. Mercenaries from Hong Kong, Boxer's Omen and The Bare-Footed Kid look phenomenal. My Young Auntie looks very cinematic, with a lot of grain, as does Ten Tigers of Kwangtung. Mad Monkey Kung Fu looks solid, but not quite as spectacular to my eyes––maybe a little softer? I haven't watched The Kid With the Golden Arm or Magnificent Ruffians yet––honestly, I doubt I'm really going to see those, except maybe for the commentaries. Martial Arts of Shaolin is one that goes not look as good as you feel it should. The whole affair looks de-grained, with the thin, soupy-look that results when the dial is turned up too high on the noise reduction. The film is very colorful, but I can't help feeling like it's missing the mark. I've always thought of this one as an unbearably shrill and un-funny movie, so it's no big loss for me. It is full of wonderful settings, and a beautiful boat, and of course Jet Li moves like a madman in it. He acts terribly, though. I only quickly scanned the 36 Chambers sequels. Return had a very thick, grungy look at first, and the picture seemed intermittently soft––though there were lots of sharp parts. Disciples looks razor-sharp from frame 1.

It's already an amazing set, like the first one. I'm really looking forward to seeing Mercenaries from Hong Kong for the first time. Scrubbing through the disc, it looks really dynamic, and a lot more visually involving than in many of Wong Jing's later movies. And I'm curious to hear Frank Djeng's commentary on The Bare-Footed Kid. In his other Johnnie To commentaries, Djeng has insisted that To is making a statement that Hong Kong residents shouldn't be ashamed of chasing after money--he says this first in reference to the scene in Throwdown where Louis Koo and Cherrie Ying are running from the gambling joint, trying to grab all the money floating away, and he also says Life Without Principle has the same theme. I never ever felt these were the themes of that scene in Throwdown or in any part of Life Without Principle––to me it seemed To was extremely critical of the profit motive in his characters. But maybe I think this primarily because of The Bare-Footed Kid, which is so condemning of labor exploitation––or maybe it's the scene in The Big Heat where Waise Lee lets the loose dollars of the bribe the villain offers him slip away in the wind. Or perhaps it's...I don't know...all of Sparrow, which celebrates a nostalgia for a city and a vanished profession (the common street pickpocket) over the villainous pickpocket who's made it big, or maybe it's Election 2, where we watch Louis Koo mortgage every ounce of humanity to win the election, just so he can build a shopping center when it's all done. I don't know. Does anyone see any sense in what Djeng is saying there? Did I misinterpret what he was talking about? It seems to me that in movie after movie To keeps insisting that money is fleeting, that the chase for it rots the moral interior of virtually anyone who pursues it, and that it leads the profit-minded to treat their fellow humans horribly. I feel like that's the point of the scene in Throwdown––to show the moral depths Szeto has sunk to––and I'm sure that's the point of The Bare-Footed Kid. It would have been better for the kid and for everyone around him if he never coveted a pair of shoes in the first place. Anyway, to me The Bare-Footed Kid is a maybe the best of To's early movies (neck-and-neck with The Big Heat, I think). Even though it's street scenes are a little too tidy, a little too well-swept, this disc shows how rich the color is in the movie, underlining the sometimes storybook-like visuals. It's an exceptional movie, to my mind. And the set is packed with other great movies, like Mad Monkey Kung Fu and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, My Young Auntie, 10 Tigers of Kwangtung...so cool.

[Mr Sausage]

Martial Arts of Shaolin is one that goes not look as good as you feel it should. The whole affair looks de-grained, with the thin, soupy-look that results when the dial is turned up too high on the noise reduction. The film is very colorful, but I can't help feeling like it's missing the mark. I've always thought of this one as an unbearably shrill and un-funny movie, so it's no big loss for me. It is full of wonderful settings, and a beautiful boat, and of course Jet Li moves like a madman in it. He acts terribly, though.

Shrill? Really? The movie where Jet Li minces around in a Pippi Longstocking dress and pigtails and throws squealing temper tantrums in the dirt?

It's interesting to watch these early Jet Li movies and see just how astonishing his martial arts skills were in his prime. Makes an odd contrast with his work even ten years later, where he seems to be doing fewer and fewer moves. It's really apparent in the new blus of the OUATIC movies how much he relied on doubles. I get he was injured in 1, so it makes sense he wasn't doing as much. But why was he relying on doubles so much for the sequels? Had he still not fully healed? The moves we see are for sure in his wheelhouse. Weird he never went the Donnie Yen route of doing most things himself.

[colinr0380]

And I'm curious to hear Frank Djeng's commentary on The Bare-Footed Kid. In his other Johnnie To commentaries, Djeng has insisted that To is making a statement that Hong Kong residents shouldn't be ashamed of chasing after money--he says this first in reference to the scene in Throwdown where Louis Koo and Cherrie Ying are running from the gambling joint, trying to grab all the money floating away, and he also says Life Without Principle has the same theme. I never ever felt these were the themes of that scene in Throwdown or in any part of Life Without Principle––to me it seemed To was extremely critical of the profit motive in his characters. But maybe I think this primarily because of The Bare-Footed Kid, which is so condemning of labor exploitation––or maybe it's the scene in The Big Heat where Waise Lee lets the loose dollars of the bribe the villain offers him slip away in the wind. Or perhaps it's...I don't know...all of Sparrow, which celebrates a nostalgia for a city and a vanished profession (the common street pickpocket) over the villainous pickpocket who's made it big, or maybe it's Election 2, where we watch Louis Koo mortgage every ounce of humanity to win the election, just so he can build a shopping center when it's all done. I don't know. Does anyone see any sense in what Djeng is saying there? Did I misinterpret what he was talking about? It seems to me that in movie after movie To keeps insisting that money is fleeting, that the chase for it rots the moral interior of virtually anyone who pursues it, and that it leads the profit-minded to treat their fellow humans horribly. I feel like that's the point of the scene in Throwdown––to show the moral depths Szeto has sunk to––and I'm sure that's the point of The Bare-Footed Kid. It would have been better for the kid and for everyone around him if he never coveted a pair of shoes in the first place. Anyway, to me The Bare-Footed Kid is a maybe the best of To's early movies (neck-and-neck with The Big Heat, I think). Even though it's street scenes are a little too tidy, a little too well-swept, this disc shows how rich the color is in the movie, underlining the sometimes storybook-like visuals. It's an exceptional movie, to my mind. And the set is packed with other great movies, like Mad Monkey Kung Fu and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, My Young Auntie, 10 Tigers of Kwangtung...so cool.

I'm still very much a Johnnie To novice, but I would agree with your assessment of the money floating away scene in Throw Down, mostly because from what I remember about that scene it is filmed in a rather comic manner where going on the run from the thugs at the gambling joint with money before dropping it all over the street leads to both Mona running back into danger to pick it up and the thugs abandoning their chase to start picking the money up themselves. Which leads to both sides edging closer together from either side (whilst the thugs shout threats but don't actually run at Mona; whilst Mona runs off then comes back again, at least until her partner (who himself is perhaps too casual about throwing money away!) finally manages to drag her away from the scene!) that reminded me a bit of the staging of the dogs eating that strand of spaghetti in The Lady and the Tramp!

So that scene never really struck me as seeming as if it is celebrating the mercenarily driven profit motivation of the characters but rather displaying it, and how much the society is in thrall to money even when it blinkers them and puts individual people in personal danger in their pursuit of it. And as you say runs the risk of morally corrupting the main characters (mostly shown through Mona's wandering aspiring actress character). But that's the only To film amongst those you talk about above that I have seen, so I am not yet in a position to be confident in saying that its a primary characteristic of his films, although you make a convincing argument to suggest that it may be.

[feihong]

Martial Arts of Shaolin is one that goes not look as good as you feel it should. The whole affair looks de-grained, with the thin, soupy-look that results when the dial is turned up too high on the noise reduction. The film is very colorful, but I can't help feeling like it's missing the mark. I've always thought of this one as an unbearably shrill and un-funny movie, so it's no big loss for me. It is full of wonderful settings, and a beautiful boat, and of course Jet Li moves like a madman in it. He acts terribly, though.

Shrill? Really? The movie where Jet Li minces around in a Pippi Longstocking dress and pigtails and throws squealing temper tantrums in the dirt?

It's interesting to watch these early Jet Li movies and see just how astonishing his martial arts skills were in his prime. Makes an odd contrast with his work even ten years later, where he seems to be doing fewer and fewer moves. It's really apparent in the new blus of the OUATIC movies how much he relied on doubles. I get he was injured in 1, so it makes sense he wasn't doing as much. But why was he relying on doubles so much for the sequels? Had he still not fully healed? The moves we see are for sure in his wheelhouse. Weird he never went the Donnie Yen route of doing most things himself.

Around 2002 I got to meet Sammo Hung because a group I was working with was screening Pedicab Driver in L.A., and I got to hang out with the younger members and hangers-on of his stunt team for a couple of weeks. They were all fiercely critical of Jet Li, not so much for the doubling, but for the way in his on-camera fights of the time, he often didn't come close to hitting the stunt guys he fought with (later a friend invited them to a screening of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and they were trashing that film afterwards, too...this taught me a lot about the stunt-fighter's aesthetics of film––they were looking for the speed and accuracy of hits, without any real concern for the qualities of the movie overall). This was around the era of Kiss of the Dragon and Romeo Must Die (Sammo was ghost-directing The Medallion and getting screwed out of credit for it, which seemed awful at the time, but which turned out to be a good thing after the movie debuted), and it was clear in a lot of those scenes from the time Jet would flail his arms furiously but not really connect with the stuntmen at all. So Jet's peculiar "laziness" was a reputation he's had for other reasons as well (still, it was dispiriting to see him getting his ass handed to him in Jack Ma's disgusting vanity video––I hope he got a good paycheck for selling his legacy like that). I think the difference between Jet and Donnie here is that Donnie has been in charge of his later movies––as a star, he's had the ability to influence a lot of what has happened on the set, whereas Jet's career was far more dominated by strong filmmaking personalities like Tsui Hark and Wong Jing (and by triads as well), directors and producers with their own way of doing things––he was, I think, signed with Film Workshop, and then later signed with Wong Jing--so he was being sent to this set for this movie, that set for that one, told what he was expected to do, and then he had to figure out for himself whether it was something he felt up to or not. The back injury did apparently dog him for years––though that could have been his excuse to get out of doing something he thought was unsafe. I remember an interview with Anthony Wong where he was asked why, since he studied kung fu, he didn't do his own action on set. Wong said that, if the stunt crews knew he knew martial arts, they would have him do all his own action––and he found it all uncomfortably risky. Reuben Langdon, one of Sammo's stuntmen at that time, told me about how cavalier Sammo's more old-school crew was about safety––he had a story where he insisted on padding an actor they had rigged for wirework, and the crew didn't want to do it, and the wire ended up ripping through 5 layers of padding, almost cutting the actors' leg off. The picture I'm painting is one of safety concerns, danger from overwork, etc., are constant, in an environment where, even though you are the star of the show, there are still larger concerns at play, and the buck does not stop with you. So my impression is that, in that environment, Jet's reliance on doubles could be a way to protect himself, or control his surroundings somewhat. In that same era, Donnie was known as a brittle prima-donna, rather than the relentless professional we know him as today. There is a lot in interviews to suggest he was just as professional in the past, but I wouldn't be surprised if Donnie's attitude in the past was his own way of controlling what went on on the set, his own way to give himself some space and some autonomy in a crazy environment, full of competing concerns.

In addition, Jet was being paid differently from a stuntman like Hung Yan-yan. Jet was contracted for a group of pictures, with obligations for the movies and the promotion of the movies, but not necessarily with the expectation he would do every stunt. Hung Yan-yan and the other stuntpeople were paid only for the stunts that made it to screen––so they had a much greater incentive to do crazy, risky stuff than Jet did. Jackie had his career built on the crazy stunts, and couldn't really get out of that once he wanted to. Donnie, I think, is the only one of them who really came into larger stardom with a certain amount of autonomy. Frequently Donnie does his own action direction, or gets to choose which action director he works with. He gets to produce his own films. He gets to set out the standards for how he works, and the aesthetics of how it all gets portrayed. So I think he's in a much different place from where Jet was when he was making big movies, and I think that Jet might have used his doubles as a sort of a backstop to keep from getting overworked or made to do stuff on set he didn't want to do, or just to back out of situations where he wasn't confident things were going to be safe. There were also different aesthetics of the action directors Jet worked with. Lau Kar-Leung liked to have performers in long shot, doing long sequences of moves uninterrupted. He didn't do a lot of aerial stuff, but he wanted these unbroken sequences demonstrating real skill and endurance. Yuen Wo-Ping, Ching Tsiu-Tung and Cory Yuen all worked more with doubles to begin with, cutting the action into sequences of quick shots, highlighting moves from different angles. I don't get the sense that Jet really liked Lau Kar-Leung's style in the first place––and I wonder if the interruption in Once Upon a Time in China when Jet hurt his back in the teahouse fight––followed by Lau getting replaced with Yuen Wo-Ping––wasn't because Jet wasn't working well with Lau Kar-Leung? That's my pet theory. I wonder if Jet wasn't even in 1991 thinking about how to get out of this career with his body still intact, and looking for ways to have more control over his environment.

[feihong]

I'm still very much a Johnnie To novice, but I would agree with your assessment of the money floating away scene in Throw Down, mostly because from what I remember about that scene it is filmed in a rather comic manner where going on the run from the thugs at the gambling joint with money before dropping it all over the street leads to both Mona running back into danger to pick it up and the thugs abandoning their chase to start picking the money up themselves. Which leads to both sides edging closer together from either side (whilst the thugs shout threats but don't actually run at Mona; whilst Mona runs off then comes back again, at least until her partner (who himself is perhaps too casual about throwing money away!) finally manages to drag her away from the scene!) that reminded me a bit of the staging of the dogs eating that strand of spaghetti in The Lady and the Tramp!

So that scene never really struck me as seeming as if it is celebrating the mercenarily driven profit motivation of the characters but rather displaying it, and how much the society is in thrall to money even when it blinkers them and puts individual people in personal danger in their pursuit of it. And as you say runs the risk of morally corrupting the main characters (mostly shown through Mona's wandering aspiring actress character). But that's the only To film amongst those you talk about above that I have seen, so I am not yet in a position to be confident in saying that its a primary characteristic of his films, although you make a convincing argument to suggest that it may be.

There's also the early sequence in Vengeance where Anthony Wong gets handed a big packet of money to kill Simon Yam's mistress, and then he, Lam Ka-Tung and Lam Suet go and kill the mistress and her lover as they sex each other up in bed at some ritzy hotel. The sequence is very alive with the moral compromise these characters have made for the money they're making. The reason To stages the assassination while the woman and the man are making love isn't exploitative in the traditional western mode, isn't just to throw nudity in the movie; it's to obliquely humiliate the three hit-men. Their job, their need for money, compels them to abase themselves in this way, killing these people in a moment of passion and vulnerability, killing them when they are naked and literally helpless. When Johnny Hallyday shows up and offers them a job with honor, a job that conforms to the romance of the code they believe in for themselves, they go to their deaths for him--because this job ennobles them once more. To makes it very clear that the money Hallyday offers is quite remote from their motivations. How will they take ownership of the Paris restaurant he offers them? They take the job because they don't care about the money, but they do care they are doing something they can live with.

Meanwhile, there's Life Without Principle––the title itself is a clever play on words, which seems to explicitly set up a contrast between principle as ethic and principle as cash. It can't be an accident that the three "winners" of that movie are the three people in the film who sit on their money while everyone else panics. They are, each of them, more concerned with something else besides money. Denise Ho just wants to get out of the job which is eating her soul––which is, not coincidentally, the literal selling and exchanging of money. Richie Jen is trying to solve crimes, trying to keep his marriage intact, even though his wife's desire for a posh apartment is threatening to rip his marriage apart. And Lau Ching Wan is interested only in honor, in doing right by friends. He is fascinated with the stock market––but only as a game, with a "tell" he becomes obsessed with tracking. The fact that he exits the movie rich as a result of playing the market is incidental to his finding the tell, playing the game to the end. His friend, Philip Keung, comes to a bad end, because he sees the stock market not as a game, but as money; he dies because he cheats at the game, rather than patiently finding the tell Lau Ching Wan's Panther eventually discovers.

Septet, To's latest and least movie (next to Chasing Dream, which is a dog's breakfast all its own), depicts a trio of friends meeting in a diner over several eras, trying to trade stock tips, winning big, only to get screwed again in the next economic downturn. The characters are hopeful at the end, desperate for profit...but it's interesting how bleak a picture this film paints. The trio of protagonists are like Jules, Jim and Katherine––except that they have no animating passions besides money. One appears to be the leading man, another the ingenue, another the comic relief––but all are too preoccupied with making money to play their roles, or to be brought to life, brought into any connection with one another beyond money. The hope to make it rich does seem to be a Hong Kong cultural value To is identifying in the film, but while the music is wistful as they walk on their separate ways at the end, one gets a sense of ambiguity here. These three have entirely failed to play roles that captivate or grab us. There is the sense that, while they dream of money, that the more intense and meaningful experiences of life are passing them by.

I keep wondering if I have a Western socialist's outlook too deeply ingrained to see the To movies the way Djeng explicates them. But it seems to me that To's attitude towards money is rigorously consistent throughout his filmography, and that it's in contradistinction with Djeng's reading of To's philosophy. That, and I don't see any place where Djeng really explains his reasoning here. He just says "this is what the scene means; don't feel ashamed of chasing after money," and then he says that's the point of Life Without Principle, as well. There was a little dissociative skirmish in my brain when he said it, as my mind rebelled against what it was being fed. I think your read of the scene where the money floats away in Throwdown is right, and the Lady-and-the-Tramp illusion is very funny. It underlines the way To sees this pursuit of money as a game the characters are sunk too deep into. Ultimately, Cherrie decides to risk it all without the monetary support of her parents, and all of Szeto's lenders are happy to let the money ride so long as he does judo with them. In every instance I see, To is deliberately downplaying the importance of money, and playing up the human interconnections that make life worth living, and that the pursuit of money can obscure.

[Finch]

So, I worked my way through the vast majority of Vol 1 films and was wondering, on the basis of which films I responded to the most, whether Vol 2 would be worth getting eventually (I got Vol 1 at a heavily discounted price at Amazon a few weeks ago)?

The standouts in the first set, for me, were in order of their placement in the set:

The Boxer from Shantung
Executioners from Shaolin
Heroes from the East

Very good:

Five Shaolin Masters
Challenge of the Masters
Crippled Avengers
Dirty Ho

Good:
King Boxer
Shaolin Temple
The Five Venoms

Disappointed by:
The Chinatown Kid

Haven't watched as not really interested: Mighty Peking Man

I've already seen 36th Chamber a few years ago and didn't love it then but I want to revisit with an open mind, especially since I responded strongly to the other non-Heroes of the East films by Kar-Leung in Vol 1. Of the remaining set titles, I'm most curious about Mad Monkey Kung Fu and My Young Auntie. The overall selection strikes me as perhaps weaker compared to Vol 1 (I wasn't a fan of the opening 20 minutes of The Boxer's Omen, to be honest. Maybe one to watch with a midnight crowd instead of on your own? Mercenaries doesn't sound like something I'd re-watch annually).

[feihong]

I think the Venoms films in the new set (Invincible Shaolin, The Kid with the Golden Arm, Magnificent Ruffians) are on the whole weaker than in the first volume (Crippled Avengers, The Five Venoms, Shaolin Temple, Chinatown Kid). The best of these on the new set is Ten Tigers from Kwangtung, which is certainly worth your time. I've written up my take on 36th Chamber a few pages back, and I still find it pretty great. The 2nd sequel, Disciples of the 36th Chamber is also really interesting, casting revolutionary San Ta as the somewhat more orthodox figure, trying to hold an unruly young Fong Sai-Yuk back from using his kung fu to go crazy on the Yuan officials. The films aren't all related really, but I like the ways the various movies gathered around the burning of the Shaolin temple are fun to see in relation to one another. Shaolin Temple offers the most bird's-eye view of the legend, but the laymen come to study kung fu at the temple are recruited in 36th Chamber by San Ta, and the uprising at the end of Disciples of the 36th Chamber seems to precipitate the burning of the temple. Then there's Executioners of Shaolin and Five Shaolin Masters, that focus on the aftermath of the burning of the temple––along with Invincible Shaolin, The Men from the Monastery, Heroes Two, and a couple of other Chang Cheh movies. Each tell different tales, focusing on different characters and either writing out or considerably altering different characters, blending in fictional characters like Fong Sai-Yuk with real historical figures like Hong Xiquan. I like to think of them as varied legends, piled on top of one another in a Shaw-flavored gulash. But it's fun to imagine the various continuities that could be linked between the different films.

Mad Monkey Kung Fu and My Young Auntie are some of Lau Kar-Leung's best movies, and Martial Arts of Shaolin is not great, but it boasts a lot of impressive locations and really fantastic choreography in very large-scale kung fu scenes. The Bare-Footed Kid is a great movie, one of Johnnie To's best. Personally, I fall asleep every time I watch Boxer's Omen, but there are remarkable, grotesque visuals later on in the picture. It's probably really cool to watch if you're high. Mercenaries from Hong Kong looks fun, but yeah, probably not a rewatch at all. I've never seen Return to the 36 Chambers or Five Superfighters, so, yeah, it's probably a 50-50 set more than a 80% good-20% not sort of thing. For me it was worth it because Mad Monkey Kung Fu, 36th Chamber and My Young Auntie are movies I rewatch frequently, and the ones I haven't seen or haven't watched all the way through, really intrigue me.

I kind of hoped the 2nd box would branch out into some of the other Shaw filmmakers, like Hua Shan (Bloody Parrot, Portrait in Crystal), Sun Chung (Deadly Breaking Sword, Avenging Eagle, The Kung Fu Instructor, Rendezvous with Death, Big Bad Sis), or Chor Yuen (Killer Clans, The Magic Blade, Clans of Intrigue, The Sentimental Swordsman)––or even branch more into Chang Cheh's earlier, pre-venoms movies, like Vengeance, The Duel, Four Riders, or Blood Brothers. The Venoms movies specifically are so repetitive, that a second box feature them doesn't make great sense to me––especially when the best of the Venoms movies––House of Traps, The Daredevils, Legend of the Fox, The Rebel Intruders, Shaolin Rescuers, Sword Stained with Royal Blood, Ode to Gallantry––are not here. I kind of started this trying to convince you the 2nd box was worth it, but now I'm not so sure.

[Finch]

It is a bit more of a trickier proposition, this new set, isn't it? Other people who watched Five Superfighters were disappointed by it. I was quite happy that Vol 1 had three films that I'll be re-watching annually and another four that I got a great deal out of. I couldn't even finish Chinatown Kid; I was so bored by it. I find Alexander Sheng such a charisma-free actor and his boyish shtick got old for me well before I even got to his film as lead.

I agree with you that the Kar-Leung films are generally more all-round satisfying (and compassionate) than the Chang Cheh ones though the latter ones can sometimes be more exciting in the moment of watching them compared to Kar-Leung's more restrained (and perhaps more patient?) style, so KL's films would be the main attractions in Vol 2 for me as well. Thank you for your reply, feihong!

[What A Disgrace]

I couldn't pick between volumes 1 and 2, either, for most of the reasons listed above, but I do find the deviations from the kung fu formula in volume 2 more interesting than those of volume 1. The kung fu films in volume 1 just feel like they're from a more diverse stock, and as they dominate both volumes, I think I ultimately come down on the side of volume 1. The relative lack of early Chang Cheh films is the greatest oversight; The Boxer From Shantung is so much more fun and interesting than the Venoms, and it seems that the general consensus is that his earlier work is his best.

[therewillbeblus]

I still haven't made it past the first film in vol 1 (which I had already seen before, as well as a few films from vol 2) but I'm picking up these sets on principle because a) supporting releases like these giant boxes feels like a worthwhile project for longevity, and b) the price per film is so low if you get them at a discount, that why not? I've blind-bought enough of 88 and Eureka's output at over double the price point per film, to wildly inconsistent returns. Purchasing these sets feel like the easiest call for HK cinema blind-buys compared to everything else

[Orlac]

Chang Cheh is defeintly a filmmaker who sacrified quality over quanitity. Although the Venoms films are fun, they suffer from having too many characters with not enough characterisation between them.

[feihong]

I think with Chang Cheh, there are so many films that the quality comes back again and again for another round––and I keep finding films I like. Recently I got to see Attack of the Goddess of Joy, and it was different than any other Chang Cheh film I'd seen, and quite interesting––from a later point in his career than the Venoms films. And I enjoyed Shanghai 13. But I do get the sense that Chang's success ran ahead of his inspiration a lot of the time. There is the famous story of the Shaolin Temple movies, where he asked Lau Kar Leung if there was a story they hadn't done yet, and Lau gave him the story of the burning of the South Shaolin temple (often conflated with the North temple in Chang's movies, a kind of John-Ford-ian touch that seems appropriate as a comparison with Chang). But in those movies and the Jimmy Wang Yu films and the David Chiang/Ti Lung films, Chang is mostly driving the storytelling in the film, and I think what happens in a lot of the Venoms movies is that the Venoms themselves are driving the picture, so to speak. They aren't very charismatic guys––compared to the movie stars Chang worked with in the past. I think those films become dull and repetitive because of the lack of charismatic stars and Chang's frequent seeming to just be going through motions with some gimmick––a la Masked Avengers, Flags of Iron, Kid with the Golden Arm, etc. Still, every few movies Chang seems to come back with another gasp of inspiration. I feel like he had a higher average of that inspiration during the David Chiang/Ti Lung films––those films feel very guided from story beat to story beat. I feel like the Venoms movies sometimes just settle into endless slo-mo backflips. But I think you're right as well––not so many distinctive characters or situations. Even the Venoms films I really like, I can hardly remember the storylines (I think Legend of the Fox and The Daredevils are the most unique to me in that regard).

Still, the more vivid material of Vengeance, Have Sword Will Travel, The Duel, The Anonymous Heroes, The Heroic Ones, Chang's funk-tified Water Margin, Duel of Fists and The Angry Guest, and Four Riders just don't come through in the later work with such a sure hand. I think I'd probably rather see an earlier film I haven't seen, of suspect quality––like The Singing Killer or Young People––than I would a Venoms movie I haven't seen (not sure there's one of those left, though).

Finch, I find Alexander Fu Sheng a charisma vacuum as well; but I did see one film that adjusted that opinion a little bit, a lesser-known Lau Kar-Leung movie called Cat vs. Rat. That picture pits Fu Sheng against Zu Warriors' Adam Cheng, as opposing martial arts masters with an intense, almost Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd––level rivalry going. I normally don't enjoy much Hong Kong humor, but that film got to be so obnoxious, it actually passed back around to be clever again in my mind, and there was a kind of a folk-tale-like quality to the two characters––intensely incompatible, always outdoing and outsmarting one another in turn. Fu Sheng was very good in it––though I don't think he would have come across if it had been another actor opposite him, like Ti Lung or someone. Adam Cheng is exactly deadpan enough to make the situation very funny. There is also a Sun Chung film I think is kind of a masterpiece––Deadly Breaking Sword––in which Fu Sheng is quite good. He is also okay in Return of the Sentimental Swordsman, as an opponent of Ti Lung's titular swordsman, who hides a sword-arm covered in runes, which moves so fast and so mercilessly he has to constantly hold it in check. Last good Fu Sheng movie I can recall is a movie with a bunch of the Venoms called Life Gamble, which is sort of like a kung fu version of Casino Royale. Fu Sheng is the James Bond of the film, and surrounded by the far less charismatic Venoms actors, Fu Sheng actually shines pretty brightly. It helps that he seems to be taking the movie a little more seriously, as well. As for Chinatown Kid, I thought he was pretty awful. But seeing the longer release in the Arrow collection did really improve that movie for me––partly by seriously upping Sun Chien's role in the movie, and by giving Fu Sheng's character more of an arc towards being a cynical gangster *sshole. The ending is a completely different affair, in which, instead of Fu Sheng whining at Sun Chien to stay in school and not get into trouble, Fu Sheng just fights the other gangsters to the death to save Sun Chien (I think that's how it goes...I don't remember entirely). There are more differences between the two versions, and it really changes the complexion of the film entirely.

[dwk]

Per an MVD leak, Arrow is going to be breaking up the first set into three smaller releases:

Shaw Brothers Presents Four Films by Chang Cheh
Five Shaolin Masters / Shaolin Temple
The Five Venoms / Crippled Avengers

Shaw Brothers Presents The Basher Box
King Boxer
The Boxer from Shantung
Chinatown Kid

Shaw Brothers Presents Four Films by Lau Kar-Leung
Challenge of the Masters / Executioners of Shaolin
Heroes of the East / Dirty Ho

These are every film in the first set except Mighty Peking Man.

[Matt]

DiabolikDVD has some "dinged" copies of Shawscope 1 at $60