The Valiant Ones

If you thought the well had run dry on undiscovered martial arts films, Eureka’s new release of 1975’s The Valiant Ones will quickly change your mind.  Produced at the tail end of popularity for the wuxia film, whose elegant style and period settings were soon replaced by kung fu street fighters and gratuitous bloodshed, director King Hu had was already responsible for the best entries the genre had to offer (Come Drink with Me, Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen).  Here he bends conventions a bit to produce a crowd-pleasing mix of textbook wuxia iconography with the elevated action modern audiences had come to expect.

With the coastal regions of China under attack by Japanese pirates – wokou – the leaders call in a special anti-terrorist squad to push the bandits out of their country once and for all.  Led by General Yu Dayou, this dirty-half dozen quickly uncovers a conspiracy within the government itself and spring a trap using their best soldier – nicknamed the Whirlwind – to act as a double agent and destroy the next of vipers from within.

 

The Valiant Ones might be a period piece, but its fight sequences utilize the latest kung-fu trends, including some stunning ladder-style combat between the Whirlwind (Ying Bai) and assorted bad guys out to prove their skills.  Even Sammo Hung, in full white make-up as a Japanese villain, goes down swinging – or perhaps leaping – in a nihilistic finale worthy of Tarantino’s best.  King Hu balances the brutality with gorgeous backdrops – tranquil forests and quiet mountain lakes – proving that the wuxia genre still had quite a bit more life left in it.  But in film, perhaps more than any medium, commercial interests take priority over artistic taste. Still…The Valiant Ones makes one hell of a tombstone.

 

Part of Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Series, the 4K restoration here is a real thing of beauty.  Extras include new interviews the actors, stunt team, film historian Tony Rayns and an audio commentary from Frank Djeng.  This goes along with several archival interviews and a collector’s booklet.

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