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Come Drink With Me
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Arrow Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (1st March 2022). |
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The Film
 While escorting a bandit to prison, governor's son Chang Pu-ching (The Ninja Pirates's Chung Wang) is captured and held for ransom by Jade-faced Tiger (The Invincible Sword's Chen Hung-lieh) to negotiate the release of the gang's leader Smiling Tiger (The Magnificent Trio's Yunzhong Li) . The governor instead sends his deadly daughter Golden Swallow (Lilting's Pei-Pei Cheng) to the local inn to negotiate, and she gives the gang an ultimatum to surrender in the same time period they have guaranteed for her brother's survival. Although Golden Swallow is a skilled fighter, she is impetuous and finds unexpected protection and assistance from a singing beggar known as "Drunken Cat" who is actually Fan Da-Pei (Princess Iron Fan's Hua Yueh) who has been fighting the more formidable and corrupt Liao Kung (Disciples of the 36th Chamber's Ying-Chi Kuan) over the successorship of their dissolved order. After Fan Da-Pei helps her out of an ambush when she tracks the gang down to a local monastery and then subsequently helps arrange for her brother's release, Golden Swallow is conflicted over making sure her brother gets back home safely and returning the favor when Fan Da-Pei finally faces off against his arch nemesis. Although his six feature film A Touch of Zen was a Cannes sensation and put actor/art director/editor-turned-director King Hu's name on the international map after the commercial failure of the now-acclaimed Dragon Inn, his fourth feature as a director and third for his contract with Shaw Brothers Come Drink with Me was an equally pivotal work not only for the director but for the wuxia (martial heroes) genre, setting narrative and visual trends as well as being instrumental in the resurgence of swordswomen characters who had fallen out of favor in Chinese cinema around the 1930s. While the notion is comical that we and the villains are not supposed to realize that Golden Swallow is a woman until she literally lets her hair down, and the fight scene choreography is more concerned with composition than quick cuts, the film's balance of humor and violence is as refreshing as its brazenness to stage a fight inside a Buddhist temple in which both hero and villain chide each other for such behavior in a holy site while thoroughly demolishing it. The climax also surprises by throwing in an entire army of swordswomen up against the gang in a large scale outdoor battle while the final showdown dips into the fantastic with the mystical powers of Drunken Cat and his enemy. Pei-Pei Cheng also appeared in the sequel Golden Swallow by the more prolific Cheng Cheh.
Video
Released theatrically stateside by Frank Lee International, Come Drink with Me was hard to see legitimately until the nineties when Tai Seng flooded the home video market with Hong Kong imports in fair to middling quality before Miramax got their hands on the film for their Dragon Dynasty DVD line sporting an improved anamorphic transfer. Japan and Germany but the Japanese release was not English-friendly and the German release came from a sped-up 1080i50 master. In the UK, 88 Films put out a Blu-ray in 2020 featuring one of the better-looking Celestial Pictures remasters of a Shaw Brothers title. Arrow Video's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen transfer comes from the same master with more vivid colors, and a brighter and sharper image than the Dragon Dynasty release (sadly, the same cannot be said for restorations of Hu's Legend of the Mountain which had an hour chopped away for theatrical release that had to be restored from trims in poorer condition than the negative, and Raining in the Mountain whose negative had to be patched with an interpositive and a 35mm print from which burnt-in subtitles had to be digitally erased).
Audio
As with the British Blu-ray, Arrow's disc features original Mandarin and English-dubbed mono options – albeit in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 while the British disc has 2.0 tracks to negligible difference – the latter track of which had only previously been available with the same gimmicky music and effects alterations of the 5.1 upmixes prepared for DVD. Optional English subtitles are available for the Mandarin tracka and SDH subtitles are provided for the English dub.
Extras
The British Blu-ray featured a commentary track by Samm Deighan while Arrow has recorded a new audio commentary by film critic and historian Tony Rayns in which he discusses the film in the context of Hu's decision to leave Shaw for a production company in Taiwan, starting with the opening credits which lack Hu's mood-setting landscape shots and calligraphic credits – Rayns notes that the credits also disguise the presence of Japanese technicians with Chinese pseudonyms – and Sir Run Run Shaw's vetoing of Hu's intention to play Drunken Cat himself. Rayns observes that Hu was dissatisfied with having to train Hua for the role but later found that it prepared him for working with Taiwanese unknown actors for his later films. He also notes that the vignette at the inn anticipates Hu's favorite scenario of intrigues taking place in an inn and that the film was actually inspired by a Peking Opera play titled "Crossroads" with a similar setting. Other topics of discussion include Shaw's delaying the release of Dragon Inn to knock off a quick "sequel" to Come Drink with Me, and the martial arts literary and cinema genre pre-World War I, its banning in Mainland China, and its resurgence after the end of the Japanese occupation. As with Arrow's other recent Shaw releases, extras also include a trio of interviews shot by Frédéric Ambroisine. First up is an interview with actress Cheng Pei-pei (51:55) who had studied dancing in Shanghai but as told she was too tall, so she went to Hong Kong where she enrolled in Shaw's training school, learned martial arts and speaking Mandarin for film, performing on stage with Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, signing a contract with Shaw for seven years, and her early film roles. She recalls Hu's touches on the film as an art director immersing the cast in the world of the film, how they did not initially have choreographers for the fight scenes until there was an injury, Hu asking her to come with him to Taiwan to be in Dragon Inn but Shaw would not allow it (they instead allowed her to go to Japan for nine months to study dance), and Cheng Cheh convincing her that Golden Swallow was not an actual continuation of Hu's film. There is also an interview with actor Yueh Hua (30:15) who also came from Shanghai and enrolled in Shaw's Southern Drama Group, his early roles, and his first lead in Monkey Goes West, and briefly touches upon the year-long shoot for Come Drink with Me. In the interview with actor Chen Hung-lieh (43:33), the actor recalls running into Yueh Hua on the street when both were asked if they wanted to be actors and taken to the Southern Drama Group anticipating a scam. He got his role in the film directly after graduating and describes Hu's wuxia as innovative in its historical accuracy, and that his tailored look for Jade-faced Tiger became iconic in his casting in later films. He also notes that they had no training for the fight scenes, and that he depended on his own athleticism while putting more effort into the acting. The disc also includes "Talk Story with Cheng Pei-pei" (10:47), a 2016 Q&A at the University of Hawaii moderated by George Chun Han Wang in which she recalls being the only female in the film, Hu's feelings about female characters, and Run Run Shaw's insistence that they add the female fighters at the end, as well as her reticence to discuss the Golden Swallow "sequel". "Cinema Hong Kong: Swordfighting" (50:21) is one of several video featurettes produced by Celestial Pictures for their DVD extras, with this one Cheng Pei-pei, Gordon Liu, Lau Kar-leung, John Woo, Sammo Hung, Kara Hui, David Chiang and others. Besides an image gallery, there is also a trailer gallery with a Hong Kong theatrical trailer (3:49), digital reissue trailer (1:09) produced for the DVDs, and a trailer for Golden Swallow (3:39).
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella. The first pressing includes an illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Anne Billson, and a 2010 essay by George Chun Han Wang about the relationship between director King Hu and producer Run Run Shaw, neither of which were provided for review. A limited edition with a theatrical artwork O-card can be ordered directly from Arrow Video.
Overall
Arrow Video's Blu-ray of Come Drink with Me may not be a brand new 4K master, but it is a well-equipped special edition for Region A-locked King Hu fans.
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