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The Miracle Fighters
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Eureka Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (24th June 2024). |
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The Film
 1663: The Qing Dynasty ruler Prince Shu has outlawed marriages between Manchu and Han people. When he discovers that General Kao Hsing (The Butterfly Murders' Eddy Ko) has a Han wife, the prince demands that he kill her. When Kao refuses, the prince has his soldiers execute her and tasks Sorcerer Bat (Iron Monkey's Yuen Shun-Yi) with killing him. Kao manages to fight his way out of the palace, taking the prince's son hostage. In escaping, however, Kao accidentally strangles the child. Years later, Kao is a broken drunk looked after by his adopted nephew Shu Gan (The Postman Strikes Back's Yuen Yat-Chor) - named after the prince's son whose medallion he now wears who has ambitions to learn fighting skills to join the army in order to better provide for his uncle. When Kao wonders the streets in a drunken stupor, he accidentally reveals his identity to passing Manchu soldiers; whereupon, Sorcerer Bat sends his assassin (The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires' Tino Wong Cheung) to kill Kao so that he may attain the promotion long promised to him by the prince. Kao is not as helpless as he seems but is nevertheless blinded by the potion, and the assassin is distracted when he noticed the young prince's medallion on Shu Gan's neck. Shu Gan hides his uncle away and seeks medicine at a remote Taoist temple whose sole worshipers and caretakers are cantankerous, bickering duo Old Witch (Taoism Drunkard's Yuen Cheung-Yan) and Old Devil (The Last Hero in China's Leung Kar-Yan) who first mistake him for a thief and frighten him with childishly malicious demonstrations of their powers. Old Devil provides Shu Gan with potions to restore his uncle's eyesight whereupon Kao reveals Shu Gan's true origins but is killed by Sorcerer Bat who abducts Shu Gan. When he discovers that Shu Gan is not the missing prince, Sorcerer Bat tattoos the young man in order to pass him off and promises him a life of luxury paving the sorcerer's own way to the throne. Escaping Sorcerer Bat's lair, Shu Gan seeks shelter in the temple where Old Devil and Old Witch must reluctantly share him as a disciple when he unintentionally prostrates himself before the shrine of their founder (a posthumous cameo by Yuen family patriarch Simon Yuen). There may or may not be a method to their madness, however, as it may take a combination of their skills for Shu Gan to figth Sorcerer Bat before he is ready when they both enter a deadly Taoist sorcery competition. While for many a casual Western, the likes of Tsui Hark's A Chinese Ghost Story and Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain were their first exposure to the more comedic and effects-heavy wuxia Hong Kong fantasy films. Director Yuen Wo-Ping of the famous Yuen family of actors and stuntmen better known in the West in the nineties as action choreographer on films like the original The Matrix trilogy, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the Kill Bill films tacked the genre in a quartet of films scripted collaboratively with his brothers as "Peace Group" seemingly as much following the trends of Hong Kong filmmaking as expanding and innovating his action staging following the hit Jackie Chan duo Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and The Drunken Master, the Sammo Hung vehicle The Magnificent Butcher, and the Yuen Biao vehicle Dreadnaught. Like most Hong Kong films, the tone is scattershot, veering quickly from tragedy to utterly juvenile comedy. Sorcerer Bat's seemingly most powerful weapon he deploys against the Kao is a child (Brandy Yuen Jan-Yeung who has another role as an assassin and would The Champions the same year and later In the Line of Duty III) with a clay urn for a body and paper swords that are as flexible as they are razor sharp, and scenes in which Shu Gan is potentially in danger of attack from Sorcereer Bat or his assassins in disguise ultimately turn into comic rather than suspense set-pieces. The supporting characters become endearing while somewhat wooden lead and youngest Yuen sibling Yat-Chor is as agile here in a rare lead as in his final film to date In the Line of Duty 4, Ko provides some effortless gravitas, and Yuen Shun-Yi not only sports an outrageous look but also elicits some chuckles when vexed. While the fights are impressive, the effects as a combination of primitive opticals, wire work, and various in-camera tricks are not only quite clever and ambitious, but when their seams do show quite clearly they are analogous to the powers of the Taoist sorcerers here which is as much "real" magic as theatrical trickery we discover that the rainmaker played by Mr. Vampire's Huang Ha that Old Devil shows up and humiliates is not a charlatan but a disreputable colleague who has the power but is withholding the rain so as to solicit more and more donations from the suffering villagers and Old Witch and Old Devil delight in revealing that artifice even if Yuen Wo-Ping might not have the same intent with his tricks. The film's follow-ups Taoism Drunkard, Shaolin Drunkard, and The Young Taoism Fighter, although marketed in some territories as numerical sequels to Miracle Fighters, are more "spiritual" sequels with some recurring elements, mostly magic as fodder for laughs. 
Video
Unreleased in any legitimate form in the United States until the 2019 New York Asian Film Festival although the English-subtitled Hong Kong non-anamorphic Universe DVD and the PAL-converted Joy Sales Fortune Star remaster did make their way into import shops The Miracle Fighters did secure a U.K. theatrical release in 1983 and Made in Hong Kong VHS release in 1988. Eureka's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen U.S. and U.K. Blu-ray releases come from a brand new 2K restoration boasting richly saturated colors from the red title card to the bloodshed. There is no real damage evident and only the usual optical degradation during the film's few optical effects including the credits some light beams in the climax and the depiction of the temple founder's painting consuming the offering made by the caretakers. Cut into the negative are the opticals titles that introduce actors by name as they appear onscreen which the commentary explains was commonplace on earlier Shaw Brothers titles but here on this Golden Harvest title it was used in homage. 
Audio
Audio options include uncompressed 24-bit Cantonese and English LPCM 2.0 mono tracks. The English track is fine in a goofy, nostalgic sense but the Cantonese track with optional English subtitels conveys more nuance and detail, especially with regard to the wisdom of the comical Old Devil and Old Witch characters. 
Extras
As usual for Eureka Hong Kong titles, this release is accomanpanied by dual commentary tracks. The first is an audio commentary by Asian film expert Frank Djeng who notes the success of the film in relation to the other box office hits that year in Hong Kong and also provides plenty of information on the Yuen clan including the late Simon Yuen and particularly his "live" appearances in his later years before this context for the Manchu versus Han conflict, as well as which rituals in the film are authentic and which are completely made up by the filmmakers. The second audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder & Arne Venema also discusses the Yuen family, this brand of comical, overtly fantastic wuxia as well as a less-than-flattering assessment of the bigger-budgeted "remake" The Thousand Faces of Dunjia and references to the other sequels. They provide some additional background on the cast including Leung Kar-Yan who famously did not study martial arts but was a master at mimicry. In discussing the Yuens, they observe that Yuen Shun-Yi had more lead roles than the more conventional-looking leading man-type Yuen Yat-Chor and ponder why he left the business completely after In the Line of Duty 4 (also noting that Brandy Yuen went back and forth between the film business and being a Buddhist monk).  "Action Master" (21:23) is an interview with director Yuen Woo-ping by Frιdιric Ambroisine in which he surveys the different types of action during different eras of his career and his preference to follow trends when working as an action director but wanting to set trends when he was directing. He discusses working with Jackie Chan versus Jet LI quite literally as action director and executive producer of The Forbidden Kingdom as well as Donnie Yen and their atypical collaboration with the breakdancing film Mismatched Couples which came just before the Tiger Cage trilogy. He also touches upon his more mainstream Western credits. In "At the Service of the Great Magician" (17:20), assistant director Fish Fong recalls staring out as a photojournalist and getting to meet Yuen Woo-ping through a friend who had been the poster desinger for some of his films. He also reveals that he generally assisted Yuen Woo-ping on the films on which he directed, working in television commercials when the director was serving as action director, although he did assist him on some of the more recent American films. He also reveals that there were multiple contributors to the Peace Group scripts in addition to the Yuen brothers including himself, and that The Miracle Fighters was originally going to be about Tibetan sorcerers but they could not get funding for it until it was changed. "The Shakespeare of Yuen Woo-ping" (16:56) is an interview with filmmaker John Kreng who interviewed the director for a magazine article while he was working on one of the Matrix films. What was intended to be a single thirty minute session turned into several days as the director was pleased to talk about his films which were less known in the West at the time and allowed Kreng to visit and observe during his training of the stunt performers as well as the main cast. He discusses Yuen Woo-ping's assessment of the abilities of the actors and the characters in order to give each of them standout moments in the film. Kreng also discusses some of the ideas the director solicited from him during early discussions of the remake of The Miracle Fighters. The disc also includes a still gallery and the Hong Kong theatrical trailer (4:31). 
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible cover while the first pressing of two thousand copies comes in an O-Card slipcover featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling with a collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by James Oliver providing background on Simon Yuen's showbiz family, director Yuen Woo-ping and his brothers, and the film in the context of his earlier works as well as the Hong Kong horror comedies of the period.
Overall
The action director of The Matrix Trilogy Yuen Woo-ping reveals his zany side in The Miracle Fighters.
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