Movie	Extras
Audio	Video

This is the Celestial release from Hong Kong.  It’s region 3.

Movie
So, this movie has a rooftop chase, a teahouse-clearing brawl, poisoned darts, has Cheng Pei-Pei in it and the villain is called Jade (well, Jade-face Tiger).  Why isn’t it called ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ (here)?  Well, for starters, it wasn’t directed by Ang Lee.  Also, the plot is a little more scattered.  Most movies go from A to B.  This movie starts out at A but ends up in the vicinity of 3 ½.  The plot starts out with Cheng Pei-Pei looking for a kidnapped officer of the Emperor and ends up with a beggar and an abbot, both kung-fu masters, fighting to the death.  It’s kind of like that episode of ‘The Simpsons’ that starts with Marge take a job at the church’s help-line and ends with Reverend Lovejoy fighting off a pack of monkeys to save the Flanders’.  You never really know what’s going to happen.

I mentioned ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ and you can really see that this movie’s influence that one a lot.  Right down to some individual shots and camera angles, you can see the similarities.  Indeed, Ang Lee even mentions King Hu in the ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ commentary.  It’s actually quite interesting to see Mr. Lee pay homage to Mr. Hu, right down to his casting of Cheng Pei-Pei, having a strong woman as a lead and having graceful, almost operatic movements during the fights.

The fights are pretty nice.  They look like ballet.  In the commentary, Mrs. Cheng mentions its like Chinese Opera.  Oh, you know the old kung fu movies where only one person attacks at a time?  That doesn’t happen here.  Many times, two or three or more people jump onto Mrs. Cheng’s daggers.  That’s quite nice to see.  Mrs. Cheng, by the way, is very able to fight everybody.  She, like Michelle Yeoh (‘Magnificent Warriors’, here), didn’t really take martial arts lessons, but took ballet lessons before coming to movies, so the movements are very fluid and graceful.  The action is nicely done.  You have many instances of fighting all of them are exciting.  There’s a lot of buildup, but the payoff is good, so everybody’s happy.

The style is very nice.  Many, many shots look like paintings.  The camera moves in and out of places, and, just like the fighting, is very graceful and fluid.  Mr. Hu was a master of movement – if anybody thinks Michael Bay is a master of movement, then take a look at this movie.  He can’t hold a candle to King Hu.  Many techniques that would later be normal are used here, and are quite new.  You get just a little bit of wirework, but only at the end; you also get blood splatter and a few other things.  The editing is also great.  You get to see everything you need to see, and it’s done in a very intelligent way.  The first action sequence, my favorite, is the teahouse-clearing brawl.  If you watch it, you’ll know what I mean.

The acting is handled very well.  It’s not a very hard job for anybody but everybody handles their role very nicely.  In the commentary they keep pointing out everybody in the movie, and Bey Logan says, ‘he’s in real estate in Vancouver now’, or, ‘he was in ‘Fist of Fury’ with Bruce Lee’, or some such thing.  Many of these actors did a few movies for Shaw in their career, so if you know Shaw, you can play spot the actor.

This is a short but important movie.  It’s a nice ride and moves quite quickly.  The fights are quite nice, visually, and the style is just incredible.  If you’ve seen many martial arts flicks, you won’t see anything new but they say in the commentary this movie showed them for the first time.  Watch this flick like you’d watch ‘Destry Rides Again’.  It’s the original that was copied many times, but, in my opinion, it’s still rather exciting.

Commentary by Bey Logan, actress Cheng Pei-Pei and Mrs. Cheng’s daughter, Marsha Yuen
The track is very nice and relaxed.  Mr. Logan seems to know more about the movie than both ladies.  He asks Mrs. Cheng some questions, some of which she can answer.  They give out some nice information.  They point out the people in the movie.  Now I know what Yuen Woo-Ping’s father looks like.  They even tell you where to find Ching Siu-Tung (a very young Ching Siu-Tung).  They talk throughout the entire movie – Mr. Logan always finds something to say or ask.  They even talk about Bruce Lee (he apparently smelled like incense).  The Hong Kong studio system and suchlike are also talked about.  Mrs. Cheng mentions the importance of the beggar character in Chinese folklore, how King Hu liked to work and many other interesting things.  They keep things moving throughout the movie and always find something interesting to say.  Mr. Logan says more than once that he finds Mrs. Cheng gorgeous in this movie (which gets kind of silly as the track goes on but I will say that the cover of the DVD does not do Mrs. Cheng justice at all).  Good listen and it’s a shame Celestial doesn’t have more commentary tracks on their DVDs.

Trailers
You have the original trailer, almost 4 minutes long.  Looking at this one, you really get to see how much work Celestial did with the picture quality.  You also have the new trailer, only a minute.  Both are basically the same, there’s just more in the original trailer.  Lots of action and some funny lines here and there.  Good couple of trailers.

New Releases
‘The Warlord’ (1:30), ‘Love in a Fallen City’ (1:14) with Chow Yun-Fat, Chang Cheh’s ‘The Heroic Ones’ (1:07, here) and ‘Hong Kong Nocturne’ (1:10), a musical featuring Cheng Pei-Pei all have great trailers here.  You can see the care that went into making them.  They’re not just to sell the movie, they’re to show you the movie.  Cheesy but true.

Interviews
Cheng Pei-Pei
This is an 18 ½-minute interview and is quite informative.  Mrs. Cheng is quite energetic and friendly.  She first talks about the movie, then about the fights.  Most of the fights took a long time.  The first fight in the movie took about a week.  She also talks about King Hu, who was very good at what he did, she says.  She also talks about the Shaw Brothers studios.  They signed girls to really-long-term contracts (7 or 8 years).  She also talks about martial arts.  She likes doing martial arts movies but watching dramas.  If she’s in a drama, she thinks, ‘there’s no fighting, why do they need me in this movie?’, which is a cute and funny thought.  She finishes by talking about her co-star Yuen Hua, who was very nice to her.  It’s a good interview and has a lot of nice information.  Mrs. Cheng also laughs a lot.

Yuen Hua
Well, this on is all in Mandarin so I understood zilch.  I can tell you that his name is written as ‘Yueh Hu’ in the menu, that this interview is 4 minutes and 47 seconds, and he talks about the same things as the others, based on the intertitles.  Also, unfortunately, but not surprisingly, there are no English subtitles.

Marsha Yuen
Mrs. Yuen talks about her career first; how she got into the business and what she did.  Then she talks a little about ‘Come Drink with Me’ and what her memories of the movies were before the DVD came out.  (She only remembered that one scene of the coins falling on the fan from the teahouse fight at the start of the movie.)  She next gives an anecdote about her mother.  She also talks about martial arts and the sequel that is apparently being written.  She’s interesting and it’s a nice interview.  It’s 6 minutes 44 seconds long.  (By the way, her name is misspelled ‘Marasha’ in the English menu, and her last name is spelled ‘Yuan’ (alternate spelling not misprint) in the captions during the interview).

Paul Fonoroff
Mr. Fonoroff is a critic and gives an almost-10-minute interview.  He starts off talking about the movie – he likes it, no surprise – then moves on and talks about the director and finally Mrs. Cheng.  What’s nice is that he talks about the people’s careers.  Some of what he says about Mr. Hu is repeated in the biography section, but it’s mostly new.  He also gives the rise-to-stardom biography for Mrs. Cheng.  It’s very interesting but you get the impression this guy could have talked for much longer.

Bey Logan
He once again, mentions his total attraction to Cheng Pei-Pei from the movie in this interview.  He also talks about the movie and King Hu.  Nothing new is in here, as he’s said everything in the commentary.  It’s a shame it’s only 4 minutes 42 seconds because I’m sure he could have gone on for a much longer time.

Movie Information
‘Color Stills’ Has far too few film frames, but a nice selection nonetheless. ‘Original Poster’ is the… original poster.  ‘Production Notes’ is the same as the back of the DVD box.  ‘Biography and Selected Filmography’ informs you about actors Cheng Pei-Pei, Yuen Hua and director Hu King Chuan’s careers.  You get some nice information in here, like Mr. Yuen got sloshed before shooting every scene, to get in character, of course; also, Mr. Hu was ‘reportedly’ working on a collaboration with John Woo right before he died.

Audio
The sound is nothing special.  It’s in 5.1 but the rears aren’t used much.  Most of the sound comes from the front, and not only that it comes from the centre.  The dialogue is always clear, though, as are all the clangs and swooshes.  The score come through very well, also.  Everything is quite nicely balanced, and nothing drowns out anything else.

Video
2.35:1 letterbox.  Unfortunately, it isn’t anamorphic but it’s still a very good picture.  It’s free of streaks, scratches and specks.  The detail is quite nice and the contrast is very good.  Even the colours don’t change very often.  The only problem with the print is that sometimes it looks kind of streaky or smeary.  The colours do look a bit faded, but a movie from the 1960s, from Hong Kong, it’s miracle it looks this good.  The picture is quite good for the movie.

23/4/2004