Overview: Often described as the “Godfather of Hong Kong Cinema,” Chang Cheh made nearly a hundred films during a long and storied career spent at the Shaw Brothers Studio, where he directed such landmark films as The One-Armed Swordsman, Five Deadly Venoms and The Heroic Ones.

Many of his films drew upon Chinese history for inspiration – and many of them were based on real people and events. Eureka Classics presents four of his best historical epics in this limited-edition set: Marco Polo, The Pirate, Boxer Rebellion and Four Riders.

In Marco Polo, the eponymous Venetian explorer (Richard Harrison) becomes embroiled in a battle between the Mongol Empire and Chinese rebels in the thirteenth century. In The Pirate, the infamous nineteenth-century raider Cheung Po Tsai (Ti Lung) must evade agents of the Imperial Court while attempting to aid the downtrodden residents of a coastal village.

In Boxer Rebellion, a group of Chinese patriots use kung fu to protect their nation against invading forces at the turn of the twentieth century. Finally, in Four Riders, a Chinese veteran of the Korean War enlists three comrades to help him escape the South Korean Military Police Command after he is falsely accused of murdering an American soldier.

Marco Polo, The Pirate, Boxer Rebellion and Four Riders are all fascinating examples of the rewriting of history common in popular genre cinema, directed with aplomb by a veteran of Shaw Brothers in Chang Cheh – one of the most celebrated and prolific filmmakers in Hong Kong.

All four films are presented on Blu-ray from HD masters supplied by Celestial Pictures.

Blu-ray Verdict: Known as The Four Assassins, but retitled Marco Polo [1975] on the Eureka release of Chang Cheh’s 1975 thunderous actioner, this sees the titular Venetian explorer caught in a battle between the Mongol Empire and a band of Chinese rebels that of course has absolutely nothing to do with any form of historical accuracy whatsoever.

In fact, Polo (Richard Harrison) is barely involved, Cheh delivering a fairly traditional tale of young warriors training to overcome their insurmountable odds – in this case, the Mongol Khan’s army and his three most feared guards.

After the Khan survives an assassination attempt (by Carter Wong of all people), the four brothers of the now dead assassin attempt an ambush in retaliation. However, their skills are no match for Polo and the Khan’s guards, so they retreat to the home of Wong’s wife, where they are trained in secret to be able to finally gain their revenge.

The narrative is threadbare, with Polo cropping up only really to shift allegiances whilst admiring everyone else getting stuck into each other. But the superb action scenes drive most of the film, from start (the Khan’s guards are chosen following a series of brutal fights to the death) to epic finish (the four brothers taken on the entire Mongol army), and whilst the pace sags in the mid-section – the Mr. Miyagi-esque training via chores goes on way too long – it’s frenetically fun from start to finish.

Up next is The Pirate [1973], where there is a really rather excellent opening action scene involving two ships firing at each other with cannons and then a boarding party fights with those on the opposing ship in fine style, but outside of that there isn’t much else that could be considered to be pirate orientated; as the rest of this is a solid martial arts film albeit one with a slightly convoluted plot the more it progresses.

That said the fight scenes are overall superb, it is well-paced, the production is solid especially when it comes to that opening scene, the score is good and it is on the whole engrossing to watch throughout!

Then we get Boxer Rebellion [1976], which to my mind is one of the studio’s most illustrious and extravagant retellings of one of the most notorious periods in modern Chinese history. Beautiful production design, an all-star cast (including Sheng Fu, Liang Chia-jen and Jenny Tsang) and a budget most other Shaw Brothers films could only dream of deliver a handsome but oddly drawn-out and at times horribly ponderous affair; extended scenes of the Empress Dowager entertaining bafflingly nestling alongside huge scale action scenes, such as the storming of the Japanese camp, that are stunningly staged.

The story hints at interesting notions of the importance of belief and how it can be weaponized (an example of one man being able to withstand impalement from some bamboo is spun horribly into a rhetoric of tribal invincibility against the mechanized weapons of the European invaders), but between the superb action set pieces and the dreary internal politicking it just gets lost.

Trying to balance the macro with the micro in honing its third act in on a handful of the remaining Boxer brothers and their loves feels the sensible move to humanize the conflict, but it loses the vibe of the entire film, ending on a strange sense of ambiguity as to the outcomes for all its characters.

Worthy for those epic scenes of huge scale skirmishes, but at nearly two and a half hours, there’s simply too much unnecessary padding to detract from its more overt merits; and yet the film most definitely stays with you long after the final credits have rolled.

Lastly, we are brought forth Four Riders [1972], and which is a definitive must-see for fans of the Shaw Brothers. It’s essentially a proto-heroic bloodshed offering about four Korean War GI’s who find themselves without much direction or purpose now that the war is over; no sooner than Ti Lung steals a jeep to drive to Seoul do most of them become embroiled in a drug smuggler’s schemes.

On a personal note, the film also has a little bit of a late 60’s/early 70’s Bond vibe here too, with all the martial arts action and a big bad drug boss who has a secret room to his nightclub front. Which is never a bad thing.

An early scene where a bunch of bouncers try to kick David Chiang out of a bar and he immediately turns into the Tazmanian Devil, tearing through their ranks like sheet paper, sets the tone for the entire film: an almost placid surface that is disrupted by bouts of frenetic violence at unexpected moments — Cheh will even sometimes harshly cut to a fight that’s already in progress, jolting the viewer with the sudden sight of a goon being smashed by a barbell.

Limited Edition Special Features:
1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from masters supplied by Celestial Pictures
Original mono audio tracks
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
Two new commentaries by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist and filmmaker Michael Worth
Two new commentaries by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
National Defence – A new interview with Hong Kong cinema scholar Wayne Wong on Boxer Rebellion
Rewriting History – A new video essay on Chang Cheh’s historical films by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of China
Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju)
PLUS: A Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on all four films in this set by writer and critic James Oliver
Limited edition of 2000 copies only

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