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| Images courtesy of 88 Films |
Lo Wei originally started out as a working director for the
ShawScope empire including such genre classics as Angel with the Iron Fists before
jumping ship and migrating over to Golden Harvest where he’d eventually catch
up with Bruce Lee on The Big Boss and Fist of Fury. His last ShawScope appeared in 1970 with Brothers
Five before finally making the transition over to the rival competitor
company with 1971’s The Invincible Eight.
Effectively the third official studio release
from Golden Harvest and coming on the heels of the company’s debut film The
Angry River, The Invincible Eight is an ensemble action thriller
spoken of the same breath as Seven Samurai or The Thirteen Assassins concerning
a ragtag group of rogue fighters who band together against a common enemy. Boasting choreography by future acting-directing
martial arts legend Sammo Hung and co-starring Angela Mao from The Angry
River, this Dyaliscope widescreen effort written and directed by Lo Wei
represents Golden Harvest still in the throes of figuring things out while
ascending uncharted martial arts action heights across the 2.35:1 scope
panorama.
Eight warriors comprised of five men and three women from disparate
families find kinship over mutual hatred of a military general who murdered the
father figures from each of their groups.
Among the riders are Nora Miao, Tang Ching, Angela Mao from the Golden
Harvest debut film The Angry River as well as James Tien. Forming a pact, they’ll stop at nothing to
take on the General Xiao who unfortunately is also a formidable adversary armed
to the teeth with a group of bodyguards donning sharp cracking whips who give
our heroes a run for their money in more than a few hand-to-hand combat
fights. Among the whipping boys is Sammo
Hung who in early Golden Harvest pictures tended to play bit parts or
supporting roles as a villain before becoming a box-office draw himself. The stage is set for a huge spectacular
battle with many characters engaged in warfare at the same time as the Imperial
Army threatens to torpedo their cause.
Full of arresting widescreen visuals by Lam Kwok-Cheung,
original music by Wang Fu-Ling and martial arts choreography by both Sammo Hung
and Hang Ying-Chieh, The Invincible Eight while not as wild or memorably
for me as The Angry River nevertheless is an important follow-up release
proving to ShawScope they were a force to be reckoned with. While the story of the band of outsiders
coming together to take on an army singlehandedly isn’t exactly new, Lo Wei was
inarguably a grandmaster of the subgenre with his work appearing across many
Arrow and Eureka Entertainment releases and his craft compounded with the
martial arts choreography helps it to stand apart from the pack. While Eureka Entertainment released the film
on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom, 88 Films handled the North American release
rights to The Invincible Eight with their own subset of extras including
reversible sleeve art, a limited slipcover and commentary by Frank Djeng and Michael
Worth. Both releases are restored in 2K
from the original camera negative in 2.35:1 scope widescreen and they look
splendid.
Early in the company’s tenure predating their work with Bruce
Lee and Jackie Chan, The Invincible Eight is a colorful and stylish wuxia
vengeance fable built around the ensemble cast of characters with their own
forms of fighting. Golden Harvest would
have a long way to go before debatably usurping their arch enemy ShawScope but
the resulting films are absolutely distinguishable from Shaw Brothers in terms
of the look, feel and outdoors-set fighting sequences compared to everything
being on a soundstage. The revival of
the Golden Harvest logo clearly designed to look like a riff on the Shaw
Brothers logo before finding their own box logo years later is a welcome
addition to the slipcover design by 88 Films and further educates fans on just
how far the initial competition between these two Hong Kong kung fu wuxia
industry giants were.
--Andrew Kotwicki
