The Angry River / The Invincible Eight

Beginnings are tricky. Is it better to peak early or set yourself up for the long haul? When it comes to Golden Harvest, formed by three veterans of the well-established Shaw Brothers studio, the trick wasn’t topping their rival studio right out of the gate, but establishing a more talent-friendly home base to build upon. And their first two productions – 1970’s The Angry River and The Invincible Eight – might have lost the battle…but won the war.

The Angry River leans into wuxia fantasy territory, overstuffed with myths, monsters and all the trappings of a Nordic fairy tale. It even does the unthinkable: sidelining star Angela Mao as a damsel in distress after trading her skills to save her sick father. It’s a rush of ideas and genres that never quite clicks but always entertains, even when switching protagonists at the halfway point. Meanwhile, The Invincible Eight pivots to straightforward swordplay, gathering a team of fighters for a “Men on a Mission” adventure to settle an old blood feud. The parts all are installed correctly, but it’s more dutiful than exciting.

Released just months apart, both films feel caught between eras. You can sense Golden Harvest trying to shake off the polished, assembly-line formula while still relying on many of the same ingredients that made those
movies successful in the first place. In fact, if you went in blind, both could be mistaken for late-period Shaw programmers with slightly rougher edges (even fight choreographer Sammo Hung seems to start slow before gaining momentum as things move along). But there’s a looseness to the pacing, location shooting and performances that suggest better things to come. And the real fascination for martial arts fans comes from what the films represent: a studio looking for a toehold on its way to the top.

Sold separately, both of these newly restored titles from 88 Films are worth the shelf space, adding on audio commentaries, trailers, stills and a fold-out poster to go along with the handsome slipcase packaging.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Terminus

Image
Road Warrior   rip-offs are legion. After the success of George Miller’s post-apocalyptic actioner, every two-bit producer with access to a stretch of desert and a box of leftover shoulder pads scrambled to cash in. In the U.S., Roger Corman unleashed   Battletruck , Charles Band gave birth to   Metalstorm   (in 3D, no less), while Italy cranked out so many copycat productions it’s a wonder the Colosseum didn’t wind up with a gun turret and a flamethrower. But France—ah, France—they just might have delivered the most bafflingly sideways homage of them all: 1987’s   Terminus . Set in a near future where a tricked-out truck must pass through hostile territory to reach a predetermined “terminus,” the story begins with its hired driver (Karen Allen) captured and killed by rival gangs. That leaves Stump (Johnny Hallyday), a mysterious ex-con, to complete the journey—accompanied by a mute 8-year-old named Princess. Their mission is guided by an AI system called Monste...
Read more

School in the Crosshairs

Image
A pop-music confection of psychic powers, first love, and invaders from Venus, 1981’s School in the Crosshairs is a mainline rush of anime aesthetics and pre-MTV aspirations. And if you think that’s a mouthful, wait’ll you get a look at the film itself! Director Nobuhiko Obayashi ( House ) stacks plot devices like Jenga pieces, relying on the charisma of super-producer Haruki Kadokawa’s handpicked pop princess to keep it from collapsing under its own weight. That secret ingredient is star Hiroko Yakushimaru, the cherub-faced schoolgirl who’d break out later that same year in Sailor Suit and Machine Gun . Here she plays Yuka, the most popular girl in school, who discovers her telekinetic abilities have drawn the attention of a power-hungry alien bent on enslaving her fellow students. With help from a mysterious new girl on campus, the villains drain all the fun from Daii Academy, transforming it into a fascist state devoted entirely to academics.   Based on an oft-adapted novel by ...
Read more

The Tattooed Dragon

Image
In the world of 1970s martial arts cinema,   The Tattooed Dragon   (1973) stands out not for reinventing the genre, but for digging its heels in and delivering a gritty, street-level brawler with just enough pathos to land a punch beyond the fists. Written and directed by Lo Wei, best known for launching Bruce Lee’s Hong Kong stardom, the film stars Jimmy Wang Yu in a rare modern-day role. He plays “The Dragon,” a wandering tough guy who gets wounded after stealing back federal aid money from a gang of bandits.  Taken in by a kindly farmer and his fiancée, he learns that the local village has been swallowed up by a corrupt casino syndicate—run by those  same  bandits—and steps in to defend the innocent, dismantling the operation from the inside. Unlike the gravity-defying wuxia entries that dominated the era,   The Tattooed Dragon   is all boots-on-the-ground brutality. Wang Yu trades elegance for efficiency, relying on sheer force and street braw...
Read more