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| Images courtesy of 88 Films |
Just a few years after making film history with The Angry
River as the very first Golden Harvest production, director Huang Feng
reteamed with his leading lady Angela Mao for a scenic and heightened martial
arts epic choreographed by Sammo Hung called The Himalayan. Released in 1976 and co-authored by recurring
ShawScope and Golden Harvest screenwriter Ni Kuang, the film sets itself apart
from the usual widescreen scope film instead favoring a more traditional 1.85:1
palette. Shot in Nepal with majestic
vast images of grand landscapes with a good portion of the action taking place out
in the great wide open, the revenge actioner comes to Blu-ray disc in the
United States for the first time under exclusive license from 88 Films in a new
collector’s edition replete with a collectible slipcover and poster as well as
plentiful extras and an arrestingly good 2K digital restoration of the original
camera negative.
Tseng Ching Lam (Angela Mao from The Angry River and The
Invincible Eight) who resides in Tibet in a small village with her
respected noble family has been framed for adultery by her nefarious and
scheming brother-in-law Kao Chu (Sing Chen) who wants her to marry his younger
sibling so he can gain control of her family’s wealth and power. Cast off into the ether bound to a boat with
her hands and feet bound before being sent downriver towards a waterfall where she
is later rescued, she quickly begins plotting her revenge which includes
extensive training including but not limited to carting heavy bags of rocks up
and down mountainsides to maintain particular breathing and muscular exercises. From here it becomes an elegantly
breathtaking battle up in the mountaintops forecasting the eventuality of later
Golden Harvest aerial wonderments like Duel to the Death.
Picturesque and even tranquil at times despite a wealth of
hand-to-hand combat and extended training sequences with an appropriately
strained and mournful score by Wang Wei, The Himalayan is the polar
opposite of the ShawScope film with many outdoor sequences in the wide open
that achieve a kind of heavenliness.
Angela Mao is a formidable femme fatale at the top of her martial arts
game while Sing Chen brings a formidable menace and conniving to the
picture. Mostly though Raymond Chow’s
production of Huang Feng’s film is a showcase for Sammo Hung’s choreography and
fighting sequences captured elegantly by Danny Lee’s 1.85:1 widescreen
camera. The result is one of the most
epic and grandiose 1.85:1 films to come out of Asia next to Akira Kurosawa’s Ran
which could still be the grandest of all films shot in that aspect ratio.
Released on Blu-ray through 88 Films in a deluxe limited
edition, it comes with original slipcover and reversible sleeve art, a
double-sided fold out poster, audio commentary with Frank Djeng and Michael
Worth, an interview with Dorian Tan and an original trailer. An obvious companion piece to the recently previously
released The Angry River and The Invincible Eight, The Himalayan
remains a visually stunning, ethereal and ultimately enthralling exercise
in Hong Kong based martial-arts driven action-adventure cinema. The disc release is splendid and makes
another integral addition to the ShawScope and Golden Harvest collectors’
libraries and offers a striking alternative to the usual 2.35:1 panoramic scope
widescreen offerings of that time period.
While for me personally not as strong as The Angry River, it
comes close with its own measure of grandiosity.
--Andrew Kotwicki
