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| Images courtesy of Eureka Entertainment |
Hong Kong based action-choreographer and film director Yuen
Woo-ping is one of the world’s most renowned fight choreographers and star
makers, launching the career of Jackie Chan with Drunken Master as well
as landing projects for Sammo Hung, Donnie Yen, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh. Attracting the attention of Hollywood, Woo-ping
was also hired to work on The Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
and both Kill Bill volumes. With
a propensity towards action comedy and only seven films into his tenure as a
director, the director working for Raymond Chow’s Golden Harvest company concocted
one of the most dazzling and mesmerizing magical realist supernatural Taoist fantasy martial arts epics with the phantasmagorical and hyperactive The
Miracle Fighters from 1982.
Amid the Quing dynasty, marriage between the Manchu and Han
people is banned which proves problematic for high-ranking official Kao Hsiung
(Eddy Ko) when it arises he has a Han wife and he is tasked with executing her
to maintain his position. When he refuses
to comply, the nefarious Sorcerer Bat (Yuen Shun-yi) appears and does the dirty
deed for him, murdering her in front of him and spawning a lifelong grudge
between the two as Kao narrowly escapes capture. On his way out of the temple, however, he
kidnaps the Crown Prince who dies and a changeling is swapped in who grows into
an adult, Shu Gut (Yuen Yat-chor) who soon is in the middle of a major battle between
two Taoist priests intent on training him in the ways of Taoist magic and
Sorcerer Bat who intends to turn the youth over to the dark side.
Almost as outlandish and powerfully absurdly surrealist,
fully committing to the idea of Taoist magic with gleeful conviction with more
than a few indescribable visually arresting feats playing out onscreen, The
Miracle Fighters though cribbing vistas and music cues from Raiders of
the Lost Ark in a couple scenes is perhaps one of the greatest martial arts
fantasy epics of the 1980s if not Hong Kong altogether. A playful, ridiculous romp with eye-defying stunts
and eccentric, weird-offbeat comedy, the film penned by Peace Group with
original music by Tan Siu-lam and sharp colorful cinematography by Ma Koon-wah,
from start to finish the film exists in a reality and dimension that seems
faintly familiar but utilizes magic as a real-world part of the story. Despite some occasionally grisly deaths and
fake outs, the overall tone of this thing is like escaping into a carnival.
A marvel for the eyes with constant introduction of untold
magical powers including radical disguises on the part of Sorcerer Bat, The
Miracle Fighters like the cover suggests is a feast for the senses and one
of the fastest forward-thinking martial arts action comedies. A movie you almost exit your body over while
watching, the film was a box office hit in Hong Kong and was nominated for Best
Action Choreography. Making its blu-ray
debut through Eureka Classics in a brand new 2K restoration supplied by Fortune
Star, this goofball action-fighter magical mystery akin to Sammo Hung’s Encounter
of the Spooky Kind finds a way to mix action and supernatural fantasy
together into one eclectic martial arts kung fu cocktail. Even if you’re not really into martial arts
action fighter films, this one blasts through all the presupposed expectations
of the genre by bending the rules in ways we never thought of before.
--Andrew Kotwicki
