1103 Once Upon a Time in China: The Complete Films

[beamish14]

I wish this set had included some comments from Lisa Morton, who was the first and still only person in the West to write a book on the scope of Tsui Hark's career. She singles out Green Snake as her favourite of all of his works, and that's one I truly hope is next on the docket from Criterion or MoC.

[yoloswegmaster]

Irongod also revealed that there were discussions about including a couple of episodes from the OUATIC TV show for the boxset but since they didn't have much time to work on it, they had to skip it.

[feihong]

Irongod also revealed that there were discussions about including a couple of episodes from the OUATIC TV show for the boxset but since they didn't have much time to work on it, they had to skip it.

Now that would have been appreciated. I used to see the series for sale on VCD in some of the places I used to shop for Hong Kong movies, but they never had English subtitles, so I didn't take the plunge.

I wish this set had included some comments from Lisa Morton, who was the first and still only person in the West to write a book on the scope of Tsui Hark's career. She singles out Green Snake as her favourite of all of his works, and that's one I truly hope is next on the docket from Criterion or MoC.

Thanks for turning me on to Morton's book. Green Snake might be my favorite Tsui Hark film, as well––I go back to it, The Blade, and Peking Opera Blues the most. Too bad Morton wasn't a contributor to the boxset.

The Jacky Cheung character—an action movie superstar named Frankie Lone who's actually a lazy coward that doesn't do his own stunts and doesn't know martial arts—is primarily a parody of Chan. The character's Chinese name (龍威, which was also incorporated into the film's Chinese title) is an inversion of Chan's (成龍) with a slightly different character, and the roles played by Wu Ma and Charlie Cho are clearly modeled on Chan's father and manager, respectively. Wong Jing had feuded with Chan during the making of City Hunter, and Kirk Wong ghost-directed much of High Risk after Chan fired him from Crime Story. Jet Li was originally set for the lead in Crime Story, but in some tellings (there are different versions of this) was elbowed out by Chan.

Wow, I didn't know Kirk Wong ghost directed a lot of High Risk. I wonder if that's why I like it so much more than most Wong Jing movies? I met Kirk Wong briefly at a screening of Pedicab Driver. When I told him how much I liked The Big Hit––my enthusiasm was un-ironical at the time––he looked at me like I was the moron that I was. Nowadays, I can hardly blame him for it. I though in retrospect that it was neat he showed up to Sammo's big night at the Egyptian theater, even at a time when Sammo's career seemed to be at an end. As usual, The Fanciful Norwegian is right on the money; you can see it pretty clearly throughout the final film. Jacky Cheung's character is a pure hit-job on Chan (though, interestingly, he becomes one of the heroes at the end of the picture). Interestingly, this Viking Samurai guy on Youtube has been doing an interview with Ron Smoorenburg, who was one of the villains in the fight at the end of Who Am I? Smoorenburg was famously humiliated in the Jackie Chan documentary, My Stunts, which shows Jackie getting frustrated because Smoorenburg seems not to be able to get the timing of the choreography down. The point in the documentary is to show how seasoned and professional Jackie and his stunt crew are, versus your regular movie martial artists, but in the interview Smoorenburg recounts the moment from the documentary as being entirely staged. In the final fight Smoorenburg very obviously has no problem with the timing, which I think lends a little credence to Smoorenburg's account. But maybe someone else knows more about it.

But yeah, I hope this release augers more Criterion releases of Jackie Chan films. Green Snake, The Blade, Peking Opera Blues, and Shanghai Blues are all sorely in need of a hi-def version. So is We Are Going to Eat You, for that matter.

[knives]

My crazy dream release, though this is probably more a Shout thing, is a stacked release of Tsui’s first three films detailing how they helped shake things up in the extras.

[Glowingwabbit]

My crazy dream release, though this is probably more a Shout thing, is a stacked release of Tsui’s first three films detailing how they helped shake things up in the extras.

I'd love to get The Butterfly Murders. I assume we can count out any UK label doing Dangerous Encounters given the amount of animal cruelty in it (which actually ended up being too much for me which was a first)

[feihong]

It would be great to see those three together as a set. It would take a really cool restoration to get Don't Play with Fire ready for a hi-def release, though, right? I thought I heard there were original elements missing for that film.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The original cut (which is far superior to the theatrical version) only exists as a terrible analog video copy. The French DVD that came out ages ago reconstructed it by substituting 35mm footage whenever possible, so most of the film looks fine, but very big chunks came from the tape. The theatrical cut was transferred entirely from a 35mm source. When I inquired about a screening a few years ago I was told that the rights are now owned by some guy in Canada (the son of one of the producers, I think).

[feihong]

That's distressing. I can't really tell which version of the film I saw. I remember not being as impressed by it as I thought I would be based on what I'd read about the film. Probably I saw the theatrical version.

[ftsoh]

Am I right to assume that there will be no future UHD upgrade for this set since the last three films are 2K scan only? Just want to see if I should buy now or wait for the possible future upgrade.

[swo17]

I wouldn't expect one anytime soon, especially if this doesn't sell well because it's "only on Blu-ray"

[tenia]

I would also suspect (and hope) that newly announced releases are going to be straight-away announced on UHD if any, like Citizen Kane or Menace II Society. So if the OUATIC were to be released on UHD, I'd hope it would have been announced simultaneously.
But then, indeed, some movies are only 2k anyway (but it's another interesting question : would Criterion release multi-movies set as part UHD / part BD, or is it a structural no, possibly refusing UHD releases to movies that could have been released as such ?).

[dwk]

Tenia is correct, if a new release is going to get a UHD, it will be announced as such. A bigger risk is buying a Lynch title or 8 1/2, Seven Samurai, etc.

Two other things. First, I'm not sure I'd expect any multi-film boxsets on UHD this early. It is too expensive to take that risk. Second, I do not think any of these Hong Kong films were done in HDR. I know Criterion has said that some releases will be in SDR, but I think that is mostly for when they are dealing with someone like Barry Sonnenfeld, who isn't a fan of HDR.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

That's distressing. I can't really tell which version of the film I saw. I remember not being as impressed by it as I thought I would be based on what I'd read about the film. Probably I saw the theatrical version.

I've seen both cuts multiple times and have had the pleasure of seeing the theatrical cut once on 35mm. The original cut of the film is more implicit with its political undertones. The theatrical version portrays the three male youths as being sort of bumbling idiots who accidentally fall into a grave situation, while the original cut portrays them as socially disconnected bourgeois who take amusement in their destructive behavior. The biggest difference is that they're amateur terrorists detonating homemade bombs around Hong Kong, an element completely (and sort of sloppily) removed in the theatrical cut. I believe it was thanks to the editor of the film who saved a copy of the original film onto VHS that we're lucky to have that version at all and knowing how Hong Kong cinema treats archival material, I doubt the 35mm negative of the cut parts exist. I also sort of can't conceive of any label putting this film out on any format as it the original cut has THREE acts of unsimulated animal violence. I do hope someone gets around to releasing this as it's one of my favorite Tsui films and the perfect example of the cynicism that underlines his early career. After those first three incredibly grim Tsui Hark films, it's insane to think he followed this up with All the Wrong Clues, a comedy with one of the most cartoonish bar fights in any movie. It seems like his transition from his Seasonal Film Corporation to Cinema City had him abandon the Marxist undertones and adopt a much more populist sensibility.

I'm glad people are talking about the Lisa Morton book. This might be a hot take, but the book sort of appropriately ends at the point where Tsui's career loses that spark of his earlier, pre-Hollywood work. If anyone is looking for a copy and lives in the Los Angeles area, The Iliad bookstore out in North Hollywood always has a copy of this book as Morton works there herself. She's very nice and will share thoughts if you ask!

[pistolwink]

I have to admit I stopped following Tsui's career -- or at least stopped watching his movies -- around the time of Flying Swords of Dragon Gate. I'd be curious to know what passionate fans of his 80s/90s stuff, like Morton and David Bordwell, think of his recent CGI-laden wu xia fantasy films. It seems like those folks, and others, have greeted his recent movies with polite silence. The only interesting things I've read about them are in Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's reviews.

Depressingly, Tsui's most recent project is a Main Melody patriotic war film -- an omnibus project w/ Dante Lam and Chen Kaige. I actually read about this going into production around the same time I was listening to Tony Rayn's commentary on Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, where he recounts Tsui's days as student radical and iconoclast. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[knives]

I’m only just getting into his work, but at the very least the Detective Dee films strike me as some of his best and that they really push the envelope compared to most others in the mainstream I’ve seen.

[swo17]

I have a 3D Blu-ray of Flying Swords I still need to watch at some point...

[feihong]

Flying Swords felt overlong and repetitive to me, but it does sustain an air of endless menace which is kind of impressive. I like the original Detective Dee very much, and I find Taking of Tiger Mountain, in spite of its' propagandistic aims, to be a blistering comic-book-like action movie with a lot of excitement and the kind of vivid characterization Tsui is so quick and effective in creating.

I see more searching in Tsui's later movies and less finding of meaning, I suppose, but I think there are still exciting movies and he's still capable of the same kind of interest he could create in the 80s and 90s. I thought Seven Swords was hugely underrated when it came out––it seems forgotten now. It's a very cool movie, with performances of unexpected depth from sometimes wooden actors like Leon Lai and Donnie Yen, a moving role for Lau Kar Leung, a genuinely awesome performance from Sun Honglei, and a beautiful one from Charlie Yoeh, making it clear she deserved so much better parts than she commonly received. The idea of trusting about half of the character development in the movie to the qualities of the swords themselves (each sword reflects the personality of its' wielder, and is meant to provide for them what they personally lack in most cases) was clever. The villains in the film were extraordinarily vivid (just as in The Blade and Time & Tide, and Taking of Tiger Mountain does this again), and the scope of the film was enormous, especially for a Hong Kong movie; it was a genuine, El Cid–sized epic. It was a shame that they didn't follow up upon this film, as Tsui has had a tendency over the course of his career to create immediate sequels which expand upon their original and which are often thought of as better than their predecessors, and Seven Swords was gearing up for what looked like a gangbusters sequel (Tsui told the actors to keep their swords ready for the sequel, and there were intimations that the Donnie Yen character would go insane and become the main villain of the series––which I guess is how it goes in the novel––but the film apparently didn't make enough money to justify a sequel). I don't think Tsui has really lost his edge––since so much of his energy has always come from re-envisioning past classics, and he always seems to shine in period detail and in the trappings of fantasy––but I do think that the opportunities he has had to make films are fewer than in the past. In the 90s, Seven Swords would have been at least a 3-movie series. Apparently the Chinese army funded Tiger Mountain, and thought Tsui would do a follow-up film, and they were supposedly shocked Tsui wasn't interested––but if that's what it would take for Tsui to make an epic series the way he used to, I think the price is probably a little too high, creatively.

For me, though, between Seven Swords, Taking of Tiger Mountain, and Detective Dee, I think Tsui's been doing pretty good. In that same time Wong Kar-Wai has released, what, 2 films total? Even Johnnie To is having problems making movies these days.

[swo17]

I don't know what you're talking about, WKW released seven completely brand new features just this last year!

[feihong]

That's true! I must have forced myself to forget all about him doing that.

[Lemmy Caution]

Wong Jing had feuded with Chan during the making of City Hunter, and Kirk Wong ghost-directed much of High Risk after Chan fired him from Crime Story. Jet Li was originally set for the lead in Crime Story, but in some tellings (there are different versions of this) was elbowed out by Chan.

Goodness. I was rather new in China and ventured with an American friend to a screening during one of the very early Shanghai Film Festivals. We made our way to the Grand Theater on Nanjing Road, a musty rundown old movie palace in the heart of the city, a good distance from the university area on the NE fringe of the city we were worked. I'm trying to remember what we intended to see ... something like a Fellini film perhaps(?). All posters and info at the once Grand Theater were in Chinese, but the SIFF logo was visible. We bought two tickets and wound up in a fairly small theater subjected to this very goofy Jackie Chan film City Hunter.

I was familiar with Jackie Chan from a retrospective Doc Films did at the U of C a couple years earlier. But I don't like martial arts films, and didn't care much for even Chan's quality films. City Hunter is apparently a live action adaptation of a Japanese anime, so the goofy/silly quotient is pretty high, with Chan doing his usual shtick, but with more mugging and foolishness built into the fight and non-fight scenes. It was a somewhat surreal experience, with us making occasional comments to each other, such as "I'm not sure this is Fellini ..." (or whatever we were trying to see). Maybe 10 minutes in, I strolled out and popped my head into the other theaters to see if our film was playing elsewhere, without luck. Since the other films didn't have English subtitles, City Hunter was our fate. I'm still trying to figure out why a film called City Hunter takes place almost exclusively on a cruise ship. Badness.

[Orlac]

Damn, I thought from the main forum menu that Criterion was releasing City Hunter...

[colinr0380]

At least Lemmy Caution got the chance to see Jackie cosplaying as Chun-Li, amongst other characters, from the Street Fighter arcade game in a fight scene against Gary Daniels who would a couple of years later play the role of Kenshiro in the live action film version of Fist of the North Star!

Apparently, and this is cribbed yet again from one of Bey Logan's commentaries, Jackie put City Hunter into production because there was a magazine poll or something similar that said that his fans most wanted him to play the character of Ryo Saeba! So it was a bit of a fan service project in that sense. It is a silly film, but that's part of its charm as well - I kind of like that the three love interest leading ladies (one a young skateboarder; one a surrogate daughter; one a duplicitous thief) are kind of similar in tone to the three ditzy love interests in Operation Condor: Armour of God II. And its one of those films that shows that Under Siege really influenced Hong Kong film for a couple of years after: the other boat-set hijack film being Red Wolf.

(I have not managed to see the 2018 French take on the City Hunter material yet, but I think I may just stick with the late 80s anime series instead! Because in the end its all about the anime A E S T H E T I C S!)

[pistolwink]

For me, though, between Seven Swords, Taking of Tiger Mountain, and Detective Dee, I think Tsui's been doing pretty good. In that same time Wong Kar-Wai has released, what, 2 films total? Even Johnnie To is having problems making movies these days.

I really appreciate the appreciation(!) of some of Tsui's later films. As I said, I've barely read anything interesting about them and some of his biggest boosters have been conspicuously silent on them. Your post makes me want to give them a try (when I'm in the mood for something manic).

That said, I didn't mean to imply that Tsui's career was in the doldrums. As you note, he keeps busy, and probably more people have seen some of his recent films than any of the other ones he's made—because several of them were hits in a Chinese market that is many times the size of the market for most HK films in the 1980s and 1990s. But I sensed a divergence between the commercial success of his films and his critical profile outside of China; he wouldn't be the only Chinese filmmaker that's happened to in the past 10–20 years.

[feihong]

I agree with that for sure. He definitely hasn't been the filmmaker with the Midas touch since the mid-90s. I think the era of the auteur-producer in Hong Kong cinema is mostly over by about 1994-1995, when the financing starts falling out from under the HK film industry as a whole. I remember an interview with Clarence Fok when he was making The Cheap Killers where he complains that in the "old days" he could stage 6 action scenes in a movie, and in Cheap Killers he's having to settle for something like 3, because they can't afford the production costs anymore. The filmmakers you see doing better post-handover are filmmakers like Johnnie To and Gordon Chan, former lifelong jobbers who can make a film at a very reduced rate from the blockbuster spectacle-heavy filmmaking of Tsui Hark and Wong Jing. And the costume epic where Tsui Hark thrives became so much harder to make after that era. I think you see Hark pivoting constantly after the handover, trying to find a lane. He tries urban thriller (Time & Tide), romantic comedy (All About Women), whatever The Missing was––even the period martial arts pieces have a great range to them. I suppose in the glory days he was similarly restless, moving from subject to subject and making a broad range of different kinds of films. But in the 21st century he really seems to be searching for a heat he can't quite create––as far as the audience is concerned. For Hark the artist, though, I find The Blade and at least Seven Swords to be some of the most accomplished and inspired movies he's made.

Serdar Yegalgup (I think that's how his name is spelled?), who used to go by The Gline in asian dvd collecting circles, published an article on his website about Seven Swords I really liked. I can't find it on the internet anymore, but I remember he pointed out how the film had been greeted by this bizarre and unmerited across-the-board slamming by everyone from casual critics to Tsui Hark fans, with people dunking on the music, the acting, and especially the writing and direction. The supposed lack of character development was a common theme in a lot of criticism. I do think there was something in the air at the time that led to people's extraordinary dislike of the movie. It was not merited. The film is full of interesting stuff, full of dynamic acting and really cool action. The characters really are supported by the legends of their swords, which contribute to and modify their wielder's individual characters. So I don't see the issue mid-aughts critics saw in the film.

[justeleblanc]

I haven't seen any of the OUATIC series, but I was wondering why OUATIC&A was treated much like an afterthought, that is it is included as a special feature and not as its own featured film. Is it an inferior film? Is it very different from the other films? Just curious. Thanks in advance, and my apologies if this has already been answered somewhere else on the forum.