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Martial Law: Lo Wei’s Wuxia World: Black Butterfly/Death Valley/Vengeance of a Snow Girl - Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Eureka Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (15th October 2025). |
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The Film
 "A prolific writer and director, Lo Wei found fame in the 1970s following the enormous international success of The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, his collaborations with the inimitable Bruce Lee. In the years before he kickstarted a kung fu revolution, though, he had been working on an accomplished series of wuxia pian for Shaw Brothers. Presented here are three standout films drawn from Lo Wei’s wuxia world: The Black Butterfly, Death Valley and Vengeance of a Snow Girl." Black Butterfly: In the aftermath of a devastating natural disaster, the people are losing faith in King Ping-Liang. While respected teacher Golden Sword Kwan (The Trail of the Broken Blade's Tien Feng) is unsuccessfully soliciting donations from the wealthy to help the poor and Lord Fang (The Lady Hermit's Fang Mian) of the Court of Censors is trying to gather evidence of the King's corruption, their efforts are seemingly undercut by the Drunken Beggar (One-Armed Swordsman's Yang Chi-Ching) who mysteriously has enough money to give away rice to starving families and the mysterious thief Black Butterfly has not only robbed several wealthy business leaders and "donated" their goods to Lord Fang to distribute to the poor but has also robbed the chiefs of the Five Devils Rock school of the money gifted to them by the King to overthrow any opposition. While Lord Fang appoints Xi-liang (The 14 Amazons' Yueh Hua) to try to discover the identity of Black Butterfly, the village leaders hire Kwan to protect them from further heists by Black Butterfly even though Xi-liang suspects that he might be the thief due to his renowned abilities. When Xi-liang and Kwan both fail to capture Black Butterfly, Kwan recognizes a golden arrow that wounded Xi-liang as the signature weapon of Swordsman Loong who was supposed to have died ten years before at the hands of Five Devils Rock's first chief Gai Tian Lui (director Lo Wei)Upon learning of Black Butterfly's activities in the area, Five Devils Rock's third chief Jade Face (Come Drink with Me's Chen Hung-Lieh) and fourth chief Smiling Devil (Killer Darts' Chang Yu-Chin) challenge Kwan who humiliates them; whereupon Gai Tian Lui steals Lord Fang's official stamp and challenges Kwan to brave the various traps of Five Devils Rock in order to retrieve it or lose face and stand by as Five Devils Rock massacres his people. Fearing for the lives of her father and love interest Xi-liang, Bao-zhu (The Eunuch's Lisa Chiao Chiao) may have to reveal her identity as Black Butterfly and the secret of her training. Coming just before his international fame as the man behind Bruce Lee's international stardom, director Lo Wei's Black Butterfly is a hybrid of Shaw Brothers' early martial arts films and their mid-sixties spy films like Lo's The Golden Buddha with Black Butterfly's Robin Hood-esque rootop scaling antics not unlike those of The Singing Thief and Angel with Iron Fists – all three films are available from Eureka in Super Spies and Secret Lies set – combined with wuxia wire work and more loosely choreographed swordplay in which little contact is actually made and the blood is not spilled onscreen until about ninety minutes into the film when Black Butterfly and the other good guys can no longer honor their oath not to kill anyone. Black Butterfly's identity is not really a spoiler since the film has about as many female characters as a Chang Cheh film, Chiao Chiao is top-billed, and the only other prominent female role is the fourth chief (Princess Iron Fan's Chang Yu-Chin) who does not even warrant a proper name. Being a Lo Wei film, there is very little actual suspense since we know none of the forthright heroes will die but it does boast some elaborate production design, richly colorful scope photography by Wu Cho-Hua (The Mighty Peking Man), and good performances by actors given rather flat characters. The climactic battle at Five Devils Rock has an impressive scale even if some characters get lost in it, and we at least get gratifying scenes of defeat for the "love to hate" Chen Hung-Lieh and Lo Wei in one of his better roles embodying a character rather than calling attention to his presence in front of the camera as well as behind.  Death Valley: Chiu Chien-Ying (Coffin from Hong Kong's Angela Yu Chien) is incensed when her uncle Master Chiu (Lo Wei again) reveals to her that he intends to leave distant cousin Chiu Yu-lung (Yueh Hua again) in charge of his affairs. She convinces her lover Lam Hung (Duel for Gold's Wong Wai) to murder him and seduces favorite student Lau Yuan-He (Five Fingers of Death's Chao Hsiung) into helping. Chien-Ying then convinces her nanny Aunt Chin to write to her son Chin Hu (The Devil's Chen Hung-Lieh) to "avenge" her uncle, doctoring the letter into identifying Yuan-He as the murderer and sealing his fate. With the help of the Snow Devils bandits, Lam attempts to get rid of Yu-lung but a case of mistaken identity allows Yu-lung to infiltrate his uncle's school as Hu and become convinced of his cousin's duplicity before she reveals she knows he is not Chin Hu and ambushes him. While the injured Yu-lung is nursed back to health by child Little Doggie – who he defended when the boy was being harassed by bandits – and his blind mother, Chien-Ying tries to convince the real Hu to kill Yu-lung, using his mother as leverage, but shockingly it is Yu-lung who challenges him to Hu to a duel at noon in Death Valley. While Black Butterfly and Angel with Iron Fists had great female leads, Lo Wei's "femme fatale" depiction of Chien-Ying seems retrograde in comparison; although this may have something to do with the greater influence of Chang Cheh's The One-Armed Swordsman in the film's emphasis on the bonding through fighting of the two male characters, the reductive role of female characters, and the greater graphic violence on display including plenty of blood being thrown around from off camera and more than a few lopped limbs. Chien-ying can fight but she is not a formidable swords woman, and Yu Chien seems to be having fun switching between tough and flirtatiously sweet as needed, resorting to both figurative and literal backstabbing with relish and visibly delighted at the effects of her manipulation on others. The stoic leads seem almost dull in comparison while the male villains are almost comically evil and sadistic and the most vulnerable characters fare badly. Lee Kwan (Fist of Fury) has a comic relief role as Er Toe Chi who wants to become Yu-lung's student and calls himself the "Lone Ranger" when he claims the bounty on the bandits Yu-lung kills in the pre-credits sequence, but despite overhearing important conversations and relaying that information to Yu-lung, he ultimately has little impact on the action. Photography and production design are handsome as usual but the titlular "Death Valley" location is as generic as the title.  Vengeance of a Snowgirl: While Master Ge Hung (Way of the Dragon's Huang Tsung-Hsun) is staying at the residence of brother Kao Hung (Tien Feng again) for the latter's birthday celebration, a skilled thief steals one of his golden claw gloves right out from under him. When his men discover the crippled homeless drifter Ping-Hung (Clans of Intrigue's Li Ching) offering the glove for sale at a nearby temple, they harass "him" until Kao Hung's son Tien-Ying (Yueh Hua again) intervenes and proposes a more peaceful resolution whereby Ping-Hung accompanies him to the Kao residence to negotiate a price for the glove. While Tien-Ying is distracted, Ping-Hung makes her way to Ge's bedroom and reveals herself to be Shen Ping-Hung avenging the murder of her parents. When Kao Hung, Tien-Ying, his other son Tien-Wei (Duel to the Death's Paul Chang Chung), Master Tong (Five Deadly Venoms' Ku Feng), and his daughter and Tien-Wei's fiancee Ming-Zhu (Lisa Chiao Chiao again) discover Ge's headless body and a letter daring them to come to a long abandoned temple to meet the killer, they realize that Shen Dun's surviving daughter has marked Kao Hung, Tong, and Xiemen Chong (Lee Kwan again) for death for killing her father and mother when they refused to hand over the Jade Sphinx Sword which they feared would fall into evil hands since Shen Dun was not a skilled swordsman. Tong and Ximen feel no remorse for their actions but Kao has lived for years with remorse for their rash actions. While the latter two want to kill the girl, Kao hopes to meet her and make peace. When Ping-Hung bests Tien-Wei in a fight and she spares his life, Ming-Zhu becomes jealous and further exacerbates the disagreement between her father and Kao, intimating that Kao wants the Jade Sphinx Sword all for himself. Kao Hung's fighting skills prove formidable even to the possessor of the Jade Sphinx Sword but he spares Ping-Hung and shows his sincerity by telling her how she can heal her crippled legs, sending his sons to accompany her to a snow field that never melts where there is a miraculous hot spring. In order to enter the forbidden terrain, however, they need to retrieve a special pearl from a volcano and can only do that by "borrowing" special heat resistant armor owned by the Prince of Ping Nan (The Enchanting Shadow's Liu Kei) and his expert swordsman son (Righting Wrongs' James Tien). These side missions allow Tong, Ming-Zhu, and other "heroes" with which Tong has offered to share ownership of the sword to catch up with Kao Hung trailing them hoping to avert disaster. Lo Wei's last film for Shaw Brothers before going over to Golden Harvest, Vengeance of a Snowgirl is at all at once once epic, moving, shoddy, and cheap-looking in spite of the budget. The basic revenge plot is set into motion only to then introduce complications that create a story arc for what could have been a flat protagonist as she goes from arrogantly showing mercy upon inferior fighters to receiving it from one of her betters and then sparing increasingly more enemies who are sincerely contrite upon being disarmed by her (even after the main villain is dispatched, the others who are spared are believably ashamed of their actions). She is torn between her mission and the help she receives from the family of one of her enemies and her sacrifice at the end is noble even if the script had not shoehorned in a romantic relationship. While the production values for the usual costumes and Shaw Brothers standing sets is dependably lavish, the realization of the film's more fantastical elements is not, with the Jade Spinx Sword's hilt and Ping-Hung's jade crutches looking like molded plastic, her wire work and dolly-assisted movements seeming less wuxia and more yurei (Japanese vengeful ghost), and the heat-resistant armor and alternately volcanic and icy locations looking more like they belong seventies Doctor Who or in one of Shaw's seventies answers to Japanese sixties science fiction along the lines of Super Inframan, particularly the freezing effects befalling those who enter the snow field without the protection of the pearl (robbing the ending of some of its emotional resonance). Apart from a few severed heads seen after the fact, violence is once again toned-down but Li Ching gets an even more compelling female lead than Lisa Chiao Chiao in Black Butterfly (although the latter does seem to be enjoying playing a character as bratty as she is lethal). 
Video
Not available in English-friendly form even during the early days of Celestial Pictures remastering the Shaw library in standard definition, Black Butterfly comes to 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray in what Eureka only describes as a "1080p HD presentation" and even if this might be an older HD master of a film not picked up other boutique labels when initially made available, it is one of the two good-looking transfers in the set with richly-saturated colors – as striking as it is, Black Butterfly's purple shinobi shozoku is not good camouflage against white walls, black roofs, and forest greenery – and no damage. There is some softness from the anamorphic lenses but the presentation is consistent even during some slightly bumpy tracking shots.  Also unavailable in English-friendly form until now, Death Valley's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray transfer is a close second, only seeming lesser due to the more muted color schemes with some saturated colors in the villainess' clothes and boudoir more as subdued as the reds of titles and the bloodshed. The older anamorphic lenses once again exhibit a falloff in sharpness at the edges of the frame but the middle of those wide shots and edge to edge in closer shots looks quite nice by Shaw standards of the late sixties.  Vengeance of a Snowgirl was one of the early Celestial Pictures Shaw remasters done in standard definition PAL and converted to NTSC for Intercontinental Video Limited's Hong Kong import DVD which offered English subtitles. Sadly, the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray transfer may itself have been an earlier HD remaster as well, looking generally waxier than the other two transfers in the set and much more so during a location sequence roughly seventy-eight minutes into the film in which some sports some extremely bumpy tracking movements and possibly some poor image stabilization technology compared to the second half of the sequence set in the same location (the former part of the sequence does not seem like a patching of dupey material). Close-ups fare better overall but the HD resolution as a whole does not favor the production values including grass in the Kao family courtyard that looks like AstroTurf – more so when Ping-Hung and Tien-Wei are dashing across it during their fight – and the "freezing" effects look like sheets of clingy clear vinyl shower curtain molded to the actors or their mannequin doubles. At first it appeared as if the sliding opening credits had been recreated digitally but they look identical to those on the DVD transfer (although even those might have been digitally redone). 
Audio
All three films have Mandarin LPCM 2.0 mono soundtracks – Shaw Brothers and Hong Kong cinema in general not returning to filming and domestic releasing in the Cantonese-language (and Mandarin for other Asian territories) until 1973's successful comedy The House of 72 Tenants – and all three tracks sound clean with post-dubbed dialogue, clanking foley effects for the sword play, and anachronistic scoring (while Hong Kong cinema is full of unauthorized usages of popular soundtracks, the commentators only point out the recurring use of a sting from John Barry's On Her Majesty's Secret Service throughout Vengeance of a Snowgirl. The English subtitles do not have any glaring errors but there are a couple where punctuation and capitalization are a minor issue. 
Extras
All three films are each accompanied by an audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema. The two have repeatedly rehashed the story of Lo Wei's Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest tenures and his supposed discoveries on various other Blu-rays of Lo Wei titles but having three films in a set on which to provide commentary allows for the discussion to be spread out with some overlap while sounding less redundant. In Black Butterfly, they discuss the influence of Japanese ninja films, particularly the Shinobi no mono series from earlier in the decade along with the transposing of some aspects of Shaw's mid-sixties James Bondian spy films, Lo Wei casting himself in prominent roles – having been a leading man earlier in his career – Shaw Brothers' habit of early on of not crediting action directors and their guesswork that the film's choreography was likely the work of Han Ying-Chieh (Broken Oath) – who has nothing prominent to do as the Five Devils Rock's fifth chief but stand around – as well as the presence of Sammo Hung in all three films, this one a year before he would start working himself as a martial arts director and a decade before he stepped behind the director's chair. As usual, they provide background on some of the familiar faces (if not names) in the cast including bit parts along, recollections of meeting some of them later in life, as well as the changing landscapes of the new territories which were once suitable for period filming.  Of Death Valley, the pair speak more favorably as a more consistent experience compared to the moments of brilliance in the former film, the Chang Cheh-esque elements post-The One-Armed Swordsman, aspects of the western – including the generic title – along with the somewhat raunchier sexuality, the typecasting of "scarlet women" in respect to Angela Yu Chien doing more nudity than most Shaw contract actresses during the sixties, the more "lived-in" look of the Shaw sets compared to their artificiality in Black Butterfly, as well as Lo Wei's artistic flourishes and the contribution of cinematographer Wu Cho-Hua.  Of Vengeance of a Snow Girl, they note that it was the last Lo Wei film for Shaw Brothers and was actually released two days before his Golden Harvest debut The Big Boss, and suggest that some of the more out there touches might have jarred with the studio in light of the popularity of Chang Cheh's grittier approach. They also discuss the film as a hybrid of wuxia and chanbara and Hong Kong cinema's treatment of characters with disabilities, particularly protagonists somewhere "between affirmation and exploitation." The film offers a few more opportunities to discuss interesting supporting cast including Ku Feng who would become a regular main villain in later Shaw films, Li Ching who started out at Shaw's training school at age fifteen and had already one a best actress award at the Asian Film Festival at seventeen, Yueh Hua who was not a martial artist but was capable of memorizing and mimicing complex routines, and theatrical actor Huang Tsung-Hsun who was married to Lisa Chiao Chiao who was an actress in their native Taiwan who came to Hong Kong when her husband was in a bad car accident in 1967 and ended up being signed by Shaw Brothers only to be widowed when Huang Tsung-Hsun was in a subsequent fatal motorcycle accident after which she married Kenneth Tsang (The Killer).  "A Dish Best Served Cold" (20:07) is an interview with Hong Kong cinema scholar Wayne Wong focusing solely on Vengeance of a Snowgirl and distinguishing Lo Wei from Chang Cheh and King Hu in his approach to narrative and the use of melodrama and moral character at the expense of the brisk pacing of the latter filmmakers and rewarding audience patience with spectacle. He discusses the film as the bridge between the director's Shaw wuxia and Golden Harvest kung fu, the film's fully-realized female character – once again in contrast to the male bonding of Chang Cheh – the film's reflection on the consequences of revenge, and the use of male characters as the compassionate healers.
Packaging
The first pressing includes a limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju) and a collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Hong Kong cinema expert Camille Zaurin who focuses on Lo Wei's Shaw Brothers years working in various popular genres and directing the first of the new wave of sixties wuxia films before his colleagues, his use of female leads, and his more traditional visual style. 
Overall
While Lo Wei's filmography in general and not just wuxia and later kung fu is hit-and-miss, this triple bill of Black Butterfly, Death Valley, and Vengeance of a Snowgirl finds the director at his Shaw Brothers peak. 
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