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| Images courtesy of Eureka Entertainment |
Chinese film director and actor King Hu best known for his
Hong Kong and Taiwan based wuxia films made through the 1960s and 1960s was at
creative crossroads by the time he landed on his 1975 independent
writing-directing effort The Valiant Ones. After the commercial failure of A Touch of
Zen in 1971 and prior to its critical reevaluation at Cannes 1975, King Hu
generated two films quickly with his own independent production company,
starting with The Fate of Lee Khan before culminating in what many
devotees consider to be Hu’s last true unadulterated wuxia film. Overlooked compared to some of his other
efforts but picked up by Eureka Entertainment in a newly restored 4K UHD
special edition release, The Valiant Ones and Hu’s aesthete in general
is the elegant and ornate antithesis of Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest
efforts, so painterly and beautiful you’re watching for the pleasure of the
filmmaking and choreography. Proof positive
of the heights the wuxia film could actually reach.
At the height of Jiajing Emperor’s (Zhao Lei) reign, China
finds itself under attack by wokou or Japanese pirates led by none other than
the nefarious Hakatatsu (legendary choreographer Sammo Hung). Under assault, the Emperor hires a renowned
general named Zhu Wan (Tu Kuang-chi) to assemble a ragtag group of warriors and
assassins to counter the Japanese pirate invasion. Led by General Yu Dayou (Roy Chiao aka Lao
Che from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) as well as husband-wife sword
warriors Wu Ji-yuan (Pai Ying) and Wu Ruo-shi (Hsu Feng), the band of assassins
set out to extract the burrowed pirate leader Hakatatsu in a succession of
stunningly beautiful and elegantly staged battle sequences that all but dazzle
the eyes while maintaining a classiness about itself which, again, sets itself
apart from the pack of Shawscope or Raymond Chow.
Written, produced and directed by King Hu in one of his few
productions he maintained full total creative control over, The Valiant Ones
is as much an action fighter film inspired by real historical events as well as
an unfurling of the expectations of the Beijing opera. The kind of film so expertly and beautifully
crafted we’re enjoying the exercise purely for its visual splendor and
brilliant use of editing (again by King Hu himself), it manages to achieve the
same kind of modestly sized cool mastery of a Jean-Pierre Melville or John
Frankenheimer piece where you know you are in the hands of a grandmaster
storyteller and not the usual cheaper grungier wuxia fare.
With an elegant period score by Yun-Dong Wang in their only
known musical composition credit and graced with ornate, picturesque and
painterly cinematography by Fist of Fury cameraman Ching-Chu Chen, the
look of the film brilliantly preserved by the Hong Kong Film Archive based on
personal elements donated by the director is absolutely stunning in its subtle
wonderment. Going for a more naturalistic
look rather than a heightened or exaggerated subset of vistas, the world of The
Valiant Ones feels at once grounded in reality but ethereal and mystical in
many ways also. The ensemble cast of
characters across the board are good though the film mostly boils down to the collected
cool reserve of the husband-wife fighter team Pai Ying and Hsu Feng. A standout sequence involves the couple
sitting calmly in the proverbial hornet’s nest surrounded by enemies and
without their pulse rates rising systematically do away with every adversarial
obstacle thrown their way.
One of the most beautiful wuxias ever made, one less
interested in arterial spray across the screen than spectacularly crafted
action showdowns, The Valiant Ones arrives on 4K UHD from Eureka
Entertainment replete with plentiful extras such as newly recorded interviews
with Tony Rayns and David Cairns, stuntman Billy Chan and a newly constructed
essay bookley featuring the writings of Jonathan Clements. Presented with Dolby Vision and HDR10 compatibility,
the film looks and sounds pristine and represents another important 4K UHD disc
release for the boutique label. While
Criterion and Arrow Video have made considerable efforts to bring King Hu’s
works to the United States as close to their original theatrical exhibition as
possible, Eureka Entertainment have successfully given both labels a run for
their money with this spectacular disc release!
--Andrew Kotwicki
