Eureka Entertainment: Martial Law: Lo Wei's Wuxia World (1968 - 1971) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Eureka Entertainment

I don’t profess to be an expert or authority on Hong Kong ShawScope or Golden Harvest wuxia pian films in spite of how many I’ve seen now thanks to boutique outfits like Arrow Video, 88 Films and especially lately Eureka Entertainment.  Like it or not, I’ve been formally introduced to many number of these including but not limited to all of ShawScope volumes 1 and 3 which each contain a wide assortment of films from the legendary Hong Kong film studio empire.  Having said that, knowing a rough idea of the ShawScope terrain having seen dozens of offerings from the company, you become accustomed to when the genre film is proceeding business as usual or if it is ascending rarely seen artistic heights never thought possible within the Shaw Brothers picture. 
 
Such is the case with Eureka’s new triptych of films Martial Law: Lo Wei’s Wuxia World consisting of three of the writer-producer-director’s films The Black Butterfly, Death Valley and Vengeance of a Snow Girl ranging from 1968 to 1971.  Made right before he’d embark on a multi-picture journey with Bruce Lee throughout the 1970s including but not limited to The Big Boss and Fist of Fury as well as kicking off the Bruceploitation wave with Jackie Chan in New Fist of Fury, this two-disc set of films includes three of the filmmaker’s top polished offerings featuring newly minted digital restorations as well as a collector’s booklet, audio commentaries and an extended video essay on the career of Lo Wei.  Having seen Lo Wei’s wildly entertaining A Man Called Tiger, another unlikely standout in the Eureka Entertainment Hong Kong catalog, all three of these films excelled as wuxia pians that pushed the envelope and didn’t compromise their way to the silver screen.
 
In the first one The Black Butterfly, a purple cloaked and masked thief takes it upon herself to rob from the rich to bestow to the poor Robin Hood style, leading towards an eventual confrontation with nefarious miscreant sitting on a fortune of pilfered gold at Five Devils Rock.  Operating in daylight as an innocent defenseless woman only to turn into a lethally trained martial artist at night, the ruse eventually comes to a head when she comes face to face with her father who hasn’t been filled in on her nightly robberies yet.  Featuring lush scope widescreen photography by Encounter of the Spooky Kind cinematographer Cho-Hua Wu including a striking fight sequence that follows an armada of fighters from one room to the next via crane shot and a rousing score co-written by Eddie Wang and Fu-Ling Wang, it starts out the trilogy of series with a bang in perhaps one of the best Shaw Brothers offerings not in any of the Arrow Video boxes.

 
Next up is Death Valley which features the same crew and even includes Lo Wei himself in a bit part as the Lord of Chao Manor who gets murdered right away by his scheming power hungry niece Chao Chien Ying (Angela Yu Chien).  However, her efforts to try and pit friends together as foes, namely hired swordsman Chin Hu (Chen Hung-Lieh) and the Lord’s actual heir Chao Yu Lung (Yueh Hua), come back to haunt her and at one point she even tries seducing her hired gun to sway influence over his friendship with Chao Yu Lung.  Full of scheming double crossing, wild swordplay and epic scope vistas of the twosome fighting to the death in mountainous terrain amid long stretches of desert plains, its the one film that plays up the conniving seductive femme fatale tropes as well as the chivalrous hero trying to right a tide of wrongdoing.

 
Lastly in the set Vengeance of a Snow Girl is at once the most fantastical and the most uncompromising from start to finish following a seeming crippled young woman Shen Ping-Hung (Li Ching) who hobbles her way about the area on two jade crutches when she isn’t sneakily murdering her way through guardsmen and soldiers, flying and gliding about.  However, in her path of vengeance following the murder of her parents, taking out many adversaries in her path, light begins to appear at the end of the tunnel when a trip to a volcano and a frozen tundra may hold the key to reviving feeling and movement in her otherwise crippled legs.  As time goes on amid many stunning battles and sneaking around, everything eventually culminates on a frozen ground over the legendary Tsui Feng sword in a glacier covered battle with inarguably the trilogy’s most emotionally affecting picture yet.

 
With all three films presented in scope 2.35:1 supplied by new transfers overseen by Celestial Pictures who have handled most of the Shaw Brothers home video catalog of releases, Martial Law: Lo Wei’s Wuxia World is a taut, scenic, excellent trilogy of martial arts wuxia pictures representing not only some of the best examples of the genre but of director Lo Wei’s canon as well.  Eureka Entertainment’s Blu-ray disc set includes a limited slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gokaiju and newly revised English subtitles.  For anyone familiar with Shaw Brothers’ output or uninitiated with it altogether, this trilogy of films curate some of the very best and most complex if not layered wuxias which stood tall and proudly above most of the rest.  Buy with confidence!

--Andrew Kotwicki