Opening a review of Eureka’s latest King Hu movie by touching upon film restoration probably isn’t the most winning of writing tactics, yet the Valiant Ones opens with a text card explaining how this print came to be. It’s relevant for us fans of movies from that corner of the world to bring up restoration and preservation as its so counter to their status quo. Take the Japanese film industry, they are regularly shocked by labels halfway around the world that are interested in putting out obscure oddities that their own country has forgotten. And Hong Kong is a wild west where anything from Construction Firms to law practices owns rights or prints, making re-release for some titles a literal impossibility. The anecdotal example that prefaces King Hu’s 1975 movie states that the director walked into the Hong Kong film archive and handed over his own personal (messy but ostensibly good) print – and several years later, here we are with this new Blu-Ray.
Following the Fate of Lee Khan (1973) and some years before diving into ancient fantasy with Raining in the Mountain (1979), the Valiant Ones adds a fascinating note to the world of wuxia – pirates, a rarity appearing in a smattering of martial arts movies, notably Project A (Jackie Chan, 1983). Rare their appearance may be (due to budget and Hong Kong’s studio-based model), these are no derivative of Western pirates – these are Wokou, an ethnically diverse group of East Asian ethnicities often led by Ronin. We follow a prefecture that is having an arduous time dealing with this pirate threat, so the local chief charges Ray Chiao to mastermind the end of this menace. To do this, he is joined by husband and wife martial artists, Hsu Feng (regular King Hu collaborator) and Pai Ying (Royal Warriors, Hapkido and a Fistful of Talons), to front an effort that sees them face off with a young Sammo, complete with ornamental Samurai paraphernalia and kabuki style face-paint (not to mention a cameo for the equally young Yuen Biao). Along the way, there are numerous battles, tricks and twists that lead to the pirate base and – unlike material made for Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest – things don’t end so well for anyone involved.
Cornered on the beach, we get a fight between Sammo and Pai Ying, and it is everything you would expect – even at this early phase of the former’s career.
King Hu does not make kung fu movies – it would be more accurate to say he values stories first and foremost, and they eventually escalate into fights, but only at the end. As such, there is no rhythm whereby every 10/15 minutes someone will be throwing down. Unfortunately, the Valiant Ones doesn’t have a script of the calibre of Touch of Zen or Dragon Inn. The narrative arc here isn’t much more than a basic plan-fail-plan-fail-plan-fail-plan-big battle structure, all fronted by two charisma vacuums and a mute woman. For sure, fans of movies like this don’t watch for characters, story or depth, and if this was by anyone other than King Hu, I would have no issue either. But it is, and having no interesting characters or strong personalities means this flirts with boredom a little too regularly for my liking.
Ironically, for such a traditionally strong storyteller, the action is where the Valiant Ones is at its best – especially the last twenty to thirty minutes. The third act starts with Hsu Feng and Pai Ying plotting, which leads them to the pirate base where the higher-ups of the pirate force ask the duo to teach their rank and file and in these face-offs we see how physically impressive the duo are at hand-to-hand combat, swordsmanship and archery. Little contained fights that capture lighting in a bottle, over and over again. Obviously, the arrogant pair showing the “pirate military” up time and time again ensures that the meeting breaks down, forcing the big boss, Hakatatsu (Sammo Hung) to appear, and simutaenously revealing himself to be a coward by running off with all the gold. Cornered on the beach, we get a fight between Sammo and Pai Ying, and it is everything you would expect – even at this early phase of the former’s career. Maybe the cinematography isn’t up to capturing the electrifying kineticism of Sammo’s choreography – but that’s the point, Chris Chen Ching-Chu’s isn’t merely observing, it is telling the story that these two men exist on an altogether higher level.
There is a lot of good to be had here, but most of it comes through Sammo’s involvement in the action-heavy third act. It speaks volumes that this is the last time King Hu worked with wuxia. 4 years later, he camps in rural South Korea for a series of deeply mythic movies – fantasy epics about cultivation, ghosts and supernatural energy with a transcendental visual style. If I were to surmise The Valiant Ones in any way, it is one for the completionists. And that is the point of these movies being restored from abject obscurity, for the completionists and collectors to ensure that they live on for future generations to enjoy. And while this is a good movie by most metrics, to come from a man who produced two of the greatest in this register, this simply feels tepid by comparison. Which is quite a contradiction for a movie so beautifully restored to 4K.
This Eureka release is completed by handsome new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju), an audio commentary by Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival), an interview with Tony Rayns, stuntman Billy Chan, actor Ng Ming-choi and Roger Garcia (of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society). There’s also a video essay, Tsar of all the Wuxia, by David Cairns, and new writing on the film by Asian cultural historian, Jonathan Clements.
The Valiant Ones is out now on Eureka, Masters of Cinema Blu-Ray
