|
|
|
The Champions
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Eureka Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (5th October 2024). |
|
The Film
 Hong Kong Film Award (Best Action Choreography): Yuen Cheung-Yan and Yuen Shun-Yi (nominees) - Hong Kong Film Awards, 1984 Tong Lee (The Prodigal Son's Yuen Biao) is a poor Chinese village fisherman whose feet tend to get him in trouble. His only ambition is to win the prize at the competition commemorating a local saint. Wealthy Master Sam (Drunken Master's Tino Wong Cheung) is also interested also wants the prize but he does not feel like expending much effort so his lackey (Mimic's Ho Pak-Kwong) bribes the rest of the competitors. Tong, however, refuses the money and it turns into a two-man competition with the rest of the competitors attempting to impede Tong. During the struggle for the prize, Master Sam suffers a fatal accident and his family blame Tong. Tong's crippled uncle (The Bride with White Hair's Eddy Ko) gives him money and sends him to Hong Kong to stay with distant relatives. Upon arriving in the city and tracking down the address, however, he discovers that the entire neighborhood has been condemned. His feet get him in trouble again when he accidentally kicks a football into the face of Suen (Eastern Condors' Cheung Kwok-Keung) who coaches an amateur team of fellow laborers and then he he meets cute with lottery ticket seller Hung (Fighting Madam's Moon Lee Choi-Fung) when he gets pick-pocketed. In the skirmish, he accidentally kicks a watermelon on the windshield of football star King (Project A's Dick Wei) and then further inadvertently humiliates the blowhard when King tries to show him up in front of his mistress. Hung, who just happens to be the daughter of the late relative Tong's uncle sent him to visit, gives him shelter and her brother turns out to be Suen who is excited about Tong's untapped talent for kicking a football. When a game on the beach turns into a brawl that leaves Tong and Suen bruised and battered, Suen suggests that he and Tong try out for the professional Dragon football club. Unfortunately, King is judging the contestants and turns down Suen who has the potential of showing him up. King recognizes Tung but when his assistant (Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars' Chang Ching-Po) mistakes the nature of their association and signs Tung to the team without a tryout, King realizes that he can put the younger man in his place, first as a punching bag for demonstrating egregious fouls and then appointing him as ball boy who has to "learn the ropes" before he can even get a chance to kick a ball. Tong does not realize he is being humiliated until Suen and his friends discover just what he does on the field, and the two practice during his free time with Tong hoping to show King his abilities. When the club's boss (Corpse Mania's Gam Biu), who also runs an illicit football gambling syndicate on the side, tells King that his team must lose the next game, proud King fakes an injury and sends hastily-appointed Tong as a substitute not realizing Tong's abilities until he wins the game to the excitement of the fans (particularly the gambling ones). Upon learning of the corruption of King and the team owner, Tong quits but is quickly recruited by the owner of the rival Tiger club (Golgo 13's Tong Tin-Hei) along with Suen. As Tiger club makes its way up the leader board, King grows jealous of Tong and tries to sabotage him in the public eye while his boss and the team's triad associates become murderous. For those of us who are not "football crazy" as the literal translation of the Cantonese title goes, Brandy Yuen – better known as an actor and stunt performer in his director/action director brother Yuen Wo-Ping's films and who would later co-direct In the Line of Duty III with cinematographer Arthur Wong – and his Hong Kong Film Awards-nominated brothers and action choreographers Yuen Cheung-Yan and Yuen Shun-Yi (along with the editor and cinematographers) manage to inject fighting into the game while keeping the actual moves of the players coherent. Aside from the athletics, Yuen Biao and Cheung Kwok-Keung are a charming duo, Eddy Ko makes the most out of another embittered, crippled uncle role – the same year he played a similar part in The Miracle Fighters – and it is quite funny to see Dick Wei vexed and humiliated. As per usual with Hong Kong comedies, the tone is scattershot with the scenes between the matches ranging from a brutal fight with triad thugs that includes several onscreen deaths and one being set on fire to a particularly hilarious and impressive is a fight during a tango. Nothing, however, will prepare the viewer for the incredibly tasteless ending which nevertheless concludes on a "comical" freeze frame (although this is the country that made a comedy featuring a transsexual character who practices "AIDS Kung fu"). The film proved highly influential on actor-turned-director Stephen Chow who put a supernatural twist on it with Shaolin Soccer. 
Video
Unreleased in the United States and released theatrically in the United Kingdom but apparently not on video, The Champions was accessible to English-speaking viewers through Hong Kong and South Korean imports that included English subtitles – a mainland Chinese DVD also had English subtitles but only a Mandarin dub – but they made use of the non-anamorphic laserdisc master. An anamorphic edition turned up in Japan but it had no English options. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen transfer on Eureka's Region A/B-coded U.S. and U.K. discs comes from a much-needed new 2K restoration. The opening animation looks a tad faded and it appears that the opening credits have been digitally-recreated on a textless version of the action background but the film itself sports richly-saturated colors. Textures are variable in hair, costumes, and the urban settings due to the camerawork which focuses on rapid movement and is also subject to the aberrations of the older anamorphic lenses. Skin tones can look a bit bronzed in some shots, possibly as much the grading as the optical work. 
Audio
Audio options are comprehensive starting with the original post-dubbed Cantonese mono track in LPCM 2.0 mono along with a "restored" LPCM 2.0 mono option that has been cleaned up, but not to a really appreciable degree. Also included is the Japanese theatrical track which retained the Cantonese dialogue and effects track but made several musical alterations to make the film feel a bit more "eighties" with more pop music – Yuen Biao contributed a theme song for the original but its really no match for the infectious recurring instrumental main theme – as well as the English LPCM 2.0 mono dub (both the English and "Japanese" tracks are 16-bit while the former two are 24-bit). Optional English subtitles are free of errors. 
Extras
Extras start off with a pair of commentaries. First up is the audio commentary by East Asian film experts Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) & F.J. DeSanto in which DeSanto notes the parallels between the title sequences of martial arts films where the leads demonstrate their abilities in front of a solid background with the title sequence here in which Yuen Biao and Cheung Kwok-Keung demonstrate their football "foot work." He also discusses the cinematographic staging of the football scenes. Djeng discusses the Yuen clan – Brandy Yuen in particular, as well as noting that Yuen Biao is not related and did not work with them again – and Cheung Kwok-Keung's professional football career, his films, and his continuing work as a sports commentary (he also was the first host of a long-running children's show where he proved unpopular and was replaced by Stephen Chow). They also discuss the atypical casting of Dick Wei in a comedic role along with the notorious ending. Next up is an audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema who discuss the Yuen clan, point the startling blink-and-you'll-miss-it Jackie Chan cameo, and also discuss some of the surprising credits of the supporting cast like Tino Wong as well as the actor playing his assistant who made appeared in some mainstream films shot in Canada in the late nineties. They also ponder the casting of Moon Lee who had already become popular and in-demand after Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain who barely qualifies as a love interest and disappears for the entire middle of the film. They also have the more dramatic and entertaining reaction (revulsion?) to the ending.  In James Mudge on The Champions" (14:51), filmmaker and critic Mudge discusses the popularity of football in Hong Kong in the seventies and eighties, how a sports movie with martial arts fit into the context of the transition from seventies martial arts to eighties action. He also discusses how well the fighting is integrated into the sports scenes while also noting that it could have been any sport, not specifically football. He also ponders why Yuen Biao did not have the same success as his "brothers" Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung as a lead, the lack of a directorial "signature" in the Yuen Clan's films – noting that the sports and action setpieces were always a collaborative effort of the brothers in terms of action choreography – as well as the failure to utilize Moon Lee's presence in the film. In "Superstar Football HK" (18:41), CFK discusses the popularity of football in Hong Kong and the circumstances by which Wynners singer-turned-actor Alan Tam (Armour of God) founded the Hong Kong celebrity football club and its lineup throughout the years that included Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Cheung Kwok-Keung, among not only many of their regular film collaborators but also a number of popular Hong Kong actors. After the brief introduction, the film clip-heavy piece focuses less on the history and more on the host's "dream team" line up of the various members and their positions (based more on their athletic abilities demonstrated on film rather than specifically on the field). The disc also includes the Hong Kong theatrical trailer (4:44) and the Japanese theatrical trailer (1:58). 
Packaging
The disc is housed with a reversible sleeve featuring original poster artwork while the first pressing of 2,000 copies includes a limited edition edition O-Card slipcover featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling and a collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by James Oliver (not supplied for review).
Overall
Only in Hong Kong would kung fu and football (don't call it soccer) footwork come together in the zany mix of laughs and bad taste that is The Champions.
|
|||||
|