Sammo Hung was one of the most important figures in Hong Kong cinema during its golden age in the 1980s.
He came from a family already firmly based in the performing arts and film worlds. However, his rise to the top must still have been difficult, particularly as an actor, given that his looks weren’t exactly those of a typical movie star.
Sammo worked hard to get where he did and continues to do so. What helps him retain his status is that he likes to do something different with each film, helping push Hong Kong cinema in fresh new directions. For example, he helped bring comedy to kung-fu films, with The Iron-Fisted Monk, and he added ghosts and vampires into the mix with Encounters of the Spooky Kind, creating a whole new genre.
He pushed boundaries with his direction and fight choreography too, and later worked as a producer. His production companies were behind a number of hugely successful and highly influential films that he didn’t necessarily direct or star in. His Bo Ho Films company was behind the Mr Vampire series, for instance, and his D & B Films produced the In the Line of Duty franchise. As such, even if he wasn’t as big an international star as Jackie Chan, you could argue that he had more of an impact on the Hong Kong film industry than his ‘little brother’.
We’ve seen a lot of great Blu-rays and even some UHDs of much of Sammo’s work. However, there are still plenty of his films that haven’t had a decent release (will anyone ever talk Warner Brothers into putting Pedicab Driver on disc?). Looking to patch up a few gaps in one fell swoop is Eureka, who have put together a collection of diverse titles featuring Sammo, entitled Triple Threat: Three Films With Sammo Hung. This includes the films The Manchu Boxer, Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai.
My thoughts on the films and release follow.
The Manchu Boxer (a.k.a. Qi sheng quan wang)
Director: Wu Ma
Screenplay: On Szeto
Starring: Lau Wing, Tao Min-Ming, Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Wilson Tong
Country: Hong Kong, South Korea
Running Time: 86 min (HK theatrical), 93 min (extended international cut)
Year: 1974
The Manchu Boxer is actually a vehicle for Lau Wing, who Golden Harvest (unsuccessfully) wanted to make into a star. Lau plays Gu Ruzhang, a talented martial artist who is disowned and cast out by his father after he kills the son of an important nobleman (who, it must be noted, was attempting to kill the honourable Gu).
On his lonely travels, Gu is attacked by a desperate man. He fends him off but takes pity on him, after realising he is seriously ill. Despite previously being attacked by the man, Gu looks after him in his final moments. The man tries to give a message for Gu to pass on to his family, but dies before finishing it.
Gu finds the man’s family and tells them about his death, but lies and says that he owed the man money and wants to work to pay it back to the family.
Whilst working in the town, he grows ever more angry at the bullying Qian family, whose master is attempting to cheat his way into winning an important martial arts tournament. Gu wants to step in but has vowed never to fight again, in case he kills anyone else.
Another honourable fighter, Wei Qi, can see that Gu is secretly holding back his skills, and begs him to help stop Qian. As tensions build, it’s not hard to guess what will happen by the end.
As that synopsis alludes, this is not a Sammo Hung movie, really. He only plays one of Qian’s Japanese goons. However, Sammo did the fight choreography too. The film is considered a ‘basher’, so it doesn’t display some of the more elaborate, acrobatic skills of Sammo’s later martial arts movies, but the action is pretty good for the era. The finale is particularly strong, and I loved an early fight where Gu keeps his hands in his pockets but still fends off his attackers.
The film is enjoyable, generally, if not particularly memorable. It’s solidly constructed, moving along nicely with a straightforward but effective story. This borrows from The Big Boss but adds enough drama to make you genuinely care about the outcome of the final act fight scenes.
I also liked the fact that the fights have repercussions within the story. People don’t just fight for the sake of it, as in a lot of earlier kung-fu movies.
The film was shot in South Korea and makes great use of some dramatic locations. It must have been cold though, as you can see the breath of the actors, even in interiors!
Overall, The Manchu Boxer is a generic basher, but one that’s easy to watch and will prove enjoyable to fans of the genre.
Film:
Paper Marriage (a.k.a. Guo bu xin lang)
Director: Alfred Cheung
Screenplay: Hing-Siu Leung, Keith Wong
Starring: Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Maggie Cheung, Joyce Godenzi, Alfred Cheung, Billy Chow, Meg Lam, Phillip Ko, Dick Wei
Country: Hong Kong
Running Time: 92 min
Year: 1988
Paper Marriage was made much later, when Sammo was a big star. He takes the joint lead role here, as Bo Chin, a Chinese boxer living in the US who’s struggling for cash due to escalating gambling debts. In an attempt to hold off the loan sharks, Bo accepts an offer of a ‘paper marriage’, a paid union with a Hong Kong immigrant, Jade Li (Maggie Cheung), with the aim of granting her US citizenship.
However, when Jade’s actual fiancé, Peter (Alfred Cheung), disappears with the money, Bo and Jade are stuck with each other without the financial backing or support they’d hoped for.
Whilst the pair wait for immigration to get off their backs (there’s a certain ‘grace period’ in cases like these, to attempt to check the marriage is not a sham), they must learn to live with each other and earn enough money to get back on their feet.
One of the ways Bo decides to get out of debt is to get back into the ring. This seems to be going well until he is asked to fight a skilled Muay Thai fighter (Billy Chow), who also happens to be dating his ex-wife (Joyce Godenzi, who would later marry Sammo and the pair have remained together for several decades).
Once again, Paper Marriage was not shot in Hong Kong (other than a number of the interiors) but in Canada, standing in for the USA. This gives the film a slightly different vibe and an amazing location for the final act – an enormous mall with a water park in its centre!
Hong Kong comedies can be an acquired taste, and Paper Marriage, like many other examples of the genre, is filled with politically incorrect gags (what’s with all the rape jokes?) and toilet humour. I often enjoy Hong Kong comedies, despite their flaws, but I didn’t find this one particularly laugh-out-loud funny, despite it having a certain goofy charm.
Thankfully, there are some excellent action scenes to make up for the lacklustre comedy. There’s not much action in the first half, but once Sammo gets in the boxing ring, we get a nice build in quality and scale of fights. His face-off against Billy Chow is great, and the finale in the mall is fantastic.
Also helping boost the film are its lead performers. Sammo’s character can be a real dick, but the actor’s charisma helps him just about get away with it. Maggie Cheung is delightful though and, whilst she doesn’t get to show her acting chops quite the way she does in her Wong Kar-Wai roles, she adds some much-needed heart and sympathy to the film. She even manages to make her mud-wrestling scene (yep) work as a surprisingly moving moment, rather than the exploitative sequence it was likely intended to be.
Overall then, whilst the comedy and drama can be a little clunky, the film comes into its own in its action-packed final act and is bolstered by a strong pair of leads.
Film:
Shanghai, Shanghai (a.k.a. Luan shi er nv)
Director: Teddy Robin Kwan
Screenplay: Raymond To
Starring: Yuen Biao, Anita Mui, George Lam, Sandy Lam, Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Lawrence Cheng, Tien Niu
Country: Hong Kong
Running Time: 88 min (HK theatrical), 93 min (extended international cut)
Year: 1990
Shanghai, Shanghai is a period action-adventure set in 1930s Republican-era Shanghai. The story follows Little Tiger (Yuen Biao), a wide-eyed young man arriving from the countryside in search of opportunity. He reconnects with his elder brother, Big Tiger (George Lam), an honourable police captain-cum-inventor who has become entangled with the city’s criminal and political underworld.
Little Tiger takes a shine to an acrobat named Pao (Sandy Lam). After Little Tiger causes trouble during a gang hit, he, Pao and the rest of the acrobat troupe get into trouble with Chin Hung-Yun (Sammo), a powerful organised crime boss whose reach extends through Shanghai’s streets and nightclubs alike.
Discovering Little Tiger’s skills, however, Chin talks the young man into joining his organisation. This causes problems between the two Tiger brothers, as their conflicting values come to the surface, forcing them to confront who they have become and what they stand for.
Meanwhile, Big Tiger finds himself in the centre of a love triangle between his old flame and now secret revolutionary, Mary (Anita Mui), and the prominent socialite Ting Ting (Tien Niu).
What is instantly noticeable when watching the films in this set in chronological order is that Shanghai, Shanghai is a more lavish production than the rest. Or at least it looks that way, as most of the sets were recycled from productions like Miracles and Project A II.
Regardless of where the sets came from though, the film looks fantastic. The period setting and some gorgeous, atmospheric cinematography provide a feast for the eyes.
However, the pacing is a little off, though it must be noted that I watched the extended international cut, which might be a bit baggy. The central love triangle takes up more time than Hong Kong action fans might want. This aspect of the story is fairly well done, aided by two strong female performances (particularly the great Anita Mui), but it never quite has the emotional weight it’s aiming for, so it feels a little redundant once the revolutionary and gang warfare elements kick in.
The action set pieces are fantastic though. Sammo didn’t choreograph these. It was fellow ‘Little Fortune’ Corey Yuen, but he does a first-rate job. There’s a lot of gun-fighting, but Yuen Biao still gets to show off his incredible flexibility in some eye-popping stunts. Plus, he gets a cool one-on-one fight against Sammo towards the end.
Speaking of Sammo, he makes a great villain here. What I liked was that he’s not a pantomime-like, ‘boo-hiss’ bad guy. He has charm and charisma and can be quite friendly much of the time. However, he has a great presence, which makes his character suitably imposing.
So, overall, whilst there are wobbles here and there, Shanghai, Shanghai is a handsome period piece with some exciting action scenes. It’s my favourite film in the set, ending the trio on a high.
Film:
Triple Threat: Three Films With Sammo Hung is out on 8th December on Blu-Ray in the UK, released by Eureka as part of their Eureka Classics series. The Manchu Boxer shows its age with a slightly softer look and colours that can look a touch ‘off’ in places. However, it’s a clean print with a natural look. Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai both look fantastic though, with clean, sharp images and lovely, rich colours. I had no issues with the audio, watching with the Mandarin and Cantonese tracks.
SPECIAL FEATURES
– Limited Edition Set [2000 copies]
– Limited edition exclusive bonus disc [2000 copies]
– Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Sam Gilbey [2000 copies]
– Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Sammo Hung [2000 copies]
– 1080p HD presentations from brand new 2K restorations of the original Hong Kong theatrical cuts of all three films
– Bonus Disc exclusive to this set only – 1080p HD presentations from brand new 2K restorations of the extended international versions of The Manchu Boxer and Shanghai, Shanghai
– Original mono audio tracks
– Optional English dubs on Paper Marriage and the theatrical versions of The Manchu Boxer and Shanghai, Shanghai
– Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
– New audio commentary on The Manchu Boxer with East Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist & filmmaker Michael Worth
– New audio commentary on Paper Marriage with genre cinema experts Arne Venema and Dominie Ting
– New audio commentary on Shanghai, Shanghai with Frank Djeng and producer/writer F.J. DeSanto
– Happily Ever After – new interview with Paper Marriage director Alfred Cheung
– Trailers
A big selling point in the extras is the inclusion of the extended international versions of both The Manchu Boxer and Shanghai, Shanghai. I haven’t had time to watch both cuts of both films, but I watched the extended versions in both cases, and no scenes stood out as looking notably different in terms of picture quality, so it all seems to have been restored to the same standard.
Frank Djeng and Michael Worth provide a commentary for The Manchu Boxer. They do a great job of digging up information about this relatively obscure title, whilst offering up a little analysis too.
There’s a commentary by Arne Venema and Dominie Ting on Paper Marriage. It’s an enjoyably high-energy track, packed full of facts and insight. It might be my favourite of the three tracks, but they’re all first-rate.
Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto provide a commentary over Shanghai, Shanghai. I’ve reviewed so many of Djeng’s commentaries that I’m running out of things to say, but he and DeSanto do a great job of discussing the production’s background, what they love about the film, and also throw in some illuminating facts about Chinese history to set the film’s story in context.
On the Paper Marriage disc, there’s also an interview with director Alfred Cheung. I enjoyed this a great deal. He talks about his background, the different process of working in Canada on the film, and even throws in some fun anecdotes. Who’d have thought that Sammo was afraid of heights and was frightened of going down the big slide at the end!
In the booklet, there’s an essay by James Oliver about Sammo’s career in general and how the three films in the set fit within it. This provides a strong overview and makes for illuminating reading.
So, Eureka have put together an enjoyably eclectic collection of films featuring (and often produced by) Sammo Hung. They may not represent the strongest examples of his work, but they’re all entertaining and show the range of his talents. The films are also backed up by a trio of excellent commentaries and a strong interview. As such, it makes for a worthwhile purchase if you’re a fan of the filmmaker.
Disc/Package:
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