The Shaw Brothers Collection: Heroes Two DVD Review:

Pros: Fabulous martial arts action, great first role by Chen Kuan Tai, Interesting look at history.

Cons: Slightly poor plot with some really daft plot holes

When the Manchu army burn down the Shaolin Temple, the home of Kung Fu, all the monks inside are killed and only Hung Hsi Kuan, (Chen Kuan Tai) a young fighter, manages to escape, defeating all the Manchu’s in his way. Only the legendary hero, Fang Shih Yu (Alexander Fu Sheng) can stop him, after being tricked into thinking that Hung is a criminal by the Manchu’s. When Fang learns the truth he sets out to rescue the wrongly accused man, and with his help they take on the Manchu General in a fight to the death.

It’s always interesting to see how cinema takes a historical tale and put it’s through the lens of the big screen projector, with films such as Titanic, Braveheart and Pearl Harbour all adjusting history to suit themselves. Unsurprisingly, Hong Kong cinema has done the same thing for years as well, as seen in this 1974 Shaw Brother classic.

Taking the historical era of the birth of Kung Fu from the legendary Shaolin Temples, what we get is a classic piece of chop socky action that is so familiar to fans of the genre, complete with characters who can move as fast as lightning, bad guys with expert timing and a fair amount of typically daft Hong Kong plot holes, just as fans expect and, indeed, want from their films.

Coming from the well-known genre studio, Shaw Brothers, this film work so well due to the screen presence of its two stars. Best known is the extremely talented Chen Kuan Tai as Hung, who shows his considerable skills with great style whilst young newcomer to the genre, Alexander Fu Sheng as Fang, proves that even someone with no martial arts training can look good with the help of a great choreographer and another legend, Liu Chia-Ling. Both stars are made to look fantastic in their fight scenes with his help and martial arts fans will be happy with what is on offer here.

Unfortunately the film is let down by the slightness of the storyline (it’s riddled with clichés, the tricked good guy, the rescue mission, the fight to the finish with the bad guy) and some very daft plot holes that take a lot away from the film as you wonder how they can explain things away (look at the size of the escape tunnel, how big?!) but then fans of the genre are well used to this sort of thing and will no doubt still enjoy the film anyway, I know I certainly did.

Star Rating - ****

Picture and Sound

Aaaaaagh, why do companies have to get things so right and yet so wrong! As the first DVD on a new label, Momentum Asia have got a great looking picture that belies its age in many ways. It’s both colourful and vibrant with very little image defects to complain about, but it royally spoiled by being non-anamorphic. Not so bad you think, a good picture will stretch out fine. Sadly this is ruined by the subtitles being placed in the black bars, meaning that if you stretch it, you can’t read what’s being said. So near, and yet so far.

Thankfully the sound is somewhat better. All we actually get is a simple 2.0 Stereo mix in Chinese only, no “comedy” English dub here, thankfully. It’s nothing outstanding, by any means, but does the job well enough. The audio is always clear and the only real fault is the somewhat lacking bass track. Other than that, it’s a very serviceable track.

BONUS MATERIAL

Nothing, nada, zilch. Well, a few trailers for other films in the series, but that’s your lot.

OVERALL

Well, as a film, this is a great addition to the collection of any fan of classic kung fu cinema. With two good actors who can really move and a brilliant choreographer, the action sequences are excellent. As a new label though, things are somewhat unimpressive. Most people who love the genre already know about the always-outstanding Hong Kong Legends label and this disc falls far short of that. To improve it, Momentum need to fix the anamorphic issue, move those subtitles and add some extras, and then things might start to fly with this label.



Steve Ducker