The Jimmy Wang Yu Collection - Shout Factory

[Tex Killer]

Well, whatever he was on, he made some damn entertaining films....:-)

And loads of them. I believe although not checked out all there is loads of garbage too Lets forget them.. But great ones 1st come to mind onearmed boxer, return of onearmed swordsman, chinese boxer, the sword, golden swallow, magnificent chivalry blah blah....

Edit; and love "red lotus" trilogy also

[paimeifist]

I watched One Armed Boxer from this set last night, a shame the dun isn't included; but the PQ is fantastic.

[Tex Killer]

I think "invincible sword" was darn fine too. Very pessimistic and props for that.

[Killer Meteor]

I watched One Armed Boxer from this set last night, a shame the dun isn't included; but the PQ is fantastic.

It's one of my fave English dubs, partly because it uses a great theme tune - the Mandarin version just loops a cut from the Shaft theme.

[paimeifist]

Yeah I'll be keeping my bootleg just for the dub

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

Beach of the War Gods to me was simply fantastic.

The final fight was magnificently directed by Jimmy himself.

That was one of the greatest end fights I think I ever saw.

From HKMDB.

戰神灘

Beach of the War Gods (1973)

Country: Hong Kong

Language: Mandarin

Genre: Martial Arts

Release Date: 07/13/1973

Director

Jimmy Wang Yu

Script

Jimmy Wang Yu

Action Directors

Kwan Hung

Siu Bo (3)

Producer

Raymond Chow Man-Wai

Cast

Jimmy Wang Yu ... Hsiao Feng

Lung Fei ... Shinobu Hashimoto

Tin Yau ... Leng Ping

Sit Hon ... Chao, the Iron Bull

Shan Mao ... Plays a Japanese

Tsai Hung ... Plays a Japanese

Kwan Hung

Man Man (2) ... Villager

Cheung Yee-Kwai ... Sword-wielding Thunder Fist

Su Chen-Ping ... Japanese

Hsieh Hsing (1) ... Japanese

Wong Wing-Sang ... Japanese

Shih Ting-Ken ... Japanese

O Yau-Man ... [Cameo]

Cho Kin (1) ... Japanese prisoner

Lui Jun (1)

Jack Lung Sai-Ga ... Japanese

Ng Ho (1)

Yeung Lit ... Villager

Tsang Ming-Cheong

Dung Gam-Woo ... Villager

Poon Chuen-Ling ... Japanese

Ying Kei (1) ... Villager

Yip Fei-Yang ... Japanese

Unknown Taiwanese Actor (2) ... Villager

Ma Chin-Ku ... [Extra]

Ho Wai-Hung ... [Extra]

Lee Keung (1) ... [Extra]

Blacky Ko Sau-Leung ... [Extra]

Production Company

Golden Harvest Productions

Sound Recordist

Chow Shao-Lung

Lin Ting-Kuei

Art Director

Wang Yu (5)

Script Supervisor

Wang Mei (1)

Lighting

Pai Huai-Chen (3)

Makeup

Chao Yu-Chen

Li Mei-Hua (3)

Cinematographer

Chiu Yao-Hu

Special Effects

Li Yi-Chih

Editor

Peter Cheung Yiu-Chung

Wong Chun-San

Costume Designer

Lee Koi-Yuen

Assistant Director

Chan Man-Ping

Dung Gam-Woo

Composer

Wong Mau-Saan

Summary

Japanese pirates are invading Chinese villages in 1565. Fortunately the super patriot Hsiao Feng swaggers into town, not unlike Mifune did in Yojimbo. The Japanese demand an extortionate amount of money from the villagers, and considerately give them ten days to come up with it, or be slaughtered. Hsiao suggests the villagers gather the young men from nearby villagers, while he travels inland to get help. With another nod to Kurosawa, Hsiao Feng gathers a band of skilled fighters. Chao Iron Bull, with his sword of toughened steel and an even sharper tongue. Knife thrower Leng Ping. Shield-weilding Thunder Fist Hung and Spearman Li. And they'll need all these skills and some trickery and lots of luck to boot, against their fearsome opponent, Captain Hashimoto.

GD Y-Y

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

his taiwan movies can be looked over as trash to the layman but if one were to recognize jimmy's sheer genius irl trolling one would see these movies for the masterpieces that they are

can't seam to get the youtube embed to work...

I agree 100% w/ U his period piece classic weapons films do show many flashes of genius.

Here is a few of my fav's I never get tired of watching.

And Killer Meteors where we find Jackie Chan in a, very rare role as a villain.

The ending was a we bit of a let down but the film to me delivered the goods.

GD Y-Y

[thankyouforfu]

ANOTHER JIMMY WANG YU FILM WAS RELEASED ON DVD TODAY!

TRAIL OF THE BROKEN BLADE [1967] on Amazon, directed by Chang Cheh & starring Jimmy Wang Yu.

[shukocarl]

So...no English dub on ONE ARMED BOXER in this set? :-(

[masterofoneinchpunch]

The Tattooed Dragon (1973: Lo Wei)

I am hoping this is the worst film in the box set of the recently released Jimmy Wang Yu Collection from Shout!. I am a fan of The One-Armed Boxer so I have two more to go to find this out. The best aspect of this film is that it is coherent. It is not particularly fun though. It is overly didactic (gambling is bad), treats everyone as imbeciles (almost no one has control over there gambling addiction habits, in fact the whole plot is based on this fact), overwrought (the suicide was a bit much) and unfortunately there is not enough fighting. Well the fighting is not particular good either and the ending is under-cranked. I do blame Lo Wei’s script (or lack of one) the most though. I do wonder if Wang Yu’s fighting ability gets worse as he gets older.

Wang Yu stars as the stoic Tattooed Dragon a wandering hero who seems to have a bit of trouble at first in fighting to retrieve some stolen money and gets himself injured. How he fights better later on in the film I’m not sure, though Sam Hui does help. He luckily gets rescued by a Lassie-like dog (it gives a good performance) and finds himself into the hands of Sam Hui’s character and his too-nice girlfriend (Sylvia Chang.) In the meantime local crime boss (James Tien), who is also looking for the Tattooed Dragon, sets up an evil gambling casino in a remote region to legally steal (they do not appear to cheat that much) all the houses from the locals. Obviously there is going to be a showdown.

The whole film was unfortunately a chore to sit through.

There is a Zatoichi reference when Jimmy Wang Yu’s titular character goes in gambling with dark shades on and a Zatoichi ear twitch which he uses to know, sight unseen, what values the dice have landed on. Interesting connection because Wang Yu played in Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman (1971). It is nice seeing the future director Sylvia Chang in her first Golden Harvest role and her second film overall (the first seems to be The Flying Tiger (1973) is not even mentioned in IMDB and is a movie I know nothing about.) Like Golden Harvest’s The Big Boss (1971: Lo Wei) and The Skyhawk (1974: Jeng Cheong-who) it takes place in Thailand and like The Tournament (1974: Huang Feng) it features a Muay Thai fight.

IMDB Review: surprisingly this is a good review there, better than the HKMDB ones. A few mistakes in it though like saying Sam Hui is a kickboxer which is something he does once and doesn’t even keep the money that was bet on him and saying Sylvia Chang is his wife (he will not marry until he makes his fortune off his ducks which he will sell for other animals etc…, yes he is stubborn in this as well.)

[paimeifist]

No fear man, Beach of the War God is a classic.

I haven't seen the other film.

[KUNG FU BOB]

So...no English dub on ONE ARMED BOXER in this set? :-(

Correct. Unfortunately it is not on this set.

The Tattooed Dragon (1973: Lo Wei)

I am hoping this is the worst film in the box set of the recently released Jimmy Wang Yu Collection from Shout!.

Yes, this film is the weak link.

No fear man, Beach of the War God is a classic.

I haven't seen the other film.

Indeed!

As I've said earlier in the thread, A MAN CALLED TIGER is an entertaining basher, and both BEACH OF THE WAR GODS and ONE-ARMED BOXER are classics.

[Killer Meteor]

The Tattooed Dragon (1973: Lo Wei)

I am hoping this is the worst film in the box set of the recently released Jimmy Wang Yu Collection from Shout!. I am a fan of The One-Armed Boxer so I have two more to go to find this out. The best aspect of this film is that it is coherent. It is not particularly fun though. It is overly didactic (gambling is bad), treats everyone as imbeciles (almost no one has control over there gambling addiction habits, in fact the whole plot is based on this fact), overwrought (the suicide was a bit much) and unfortunately there is not enough fighting. Well the fighting is not particular good either and the ending is under-cranked. I do blame Lo Wei’s script (or lack of one) the most though. I do wonder if Wang Yu’s fighting ability gets worse as he gets older.

Wang Yu stars as the stoic Tattooed Dragon a wandering hero who seems to have a bit of trouble at first in fighting to retrieve some stolen money and gets himself injured. How he fights better later on in the film I’m not sure, though Sam Hui does help. He luckily gets rescued by a Lassie-like dog (it gives a good performance) and finds himself into the hands of Sam Hui’s character and his too-nice girlfriend (Sylvia Chang.) In the meantime local crime boss (James Tien), who is also looking for the Tattooed Dragon, sets up an evil gambling casino in a remote region to legally steal (they do not appear to cheat that much) all the houses from the locals. Obviously there is going to be a showdown.

The whole film was unfortunately a chore to sit through.

There is a Zatoichi reference when Jimmy Wang Yu’s titular character goes in gambling with dark shades on and a Zatoichi ear twitch which he uses to know, sight unseen, what values the dice have landed on. Interesting connection because Wang Yu played in Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman (1971). It is nice seeing the future director Sylvia Chang in her first Golden Harvest role and her second film overall (the first seems to be The Flying Tiger (1973) is not even mentioned in IMDB and is a movie I know nothing about.) Like Golden Harvest’s The Big Boss (1971: Lo Wei) and The Skyhawk (1974: Jeng Cheong-who) it takes place in Thailand and like The Tournament (1974: Huang Feng) it features a Muay Thai fight.

IMDB Review: surprisingly this is a good review there, better than the HKMDB ones. A few mistakes in it though like saying Sam Hui is a kickboxer which is something he does once and doesn’t even keep the money that was bet on him and saying Sylvia Chang is his wife (he will not marry until he makes his fortune off his ducks which he will sell for other animals etc…, yes he is stubborn in this as well.)

I haven't seen this, but Lo Wei's other GH '73 flicks (Kung Fu Girl, Seaman No. 7, Man Called Tiger) are boring as sin. I mean, what happened? His Shaws are good, his Bruce Lee flicks are clunky masterpieces, and heck, I love Spiritual Kung Fu, but he seemed to just totally give up in '73.

[Tex Killer]

and BEACH OF THE WAR GODS is classic/

[KUNG FU BOB]

[masterofoneinchpunch]

I haven't seen this, but Lo Wei's other GH '73 flicks (Kung Fu Girl, Seaman No. 7, Man Called Tiger) are boring as sin. I mean, what happened? His Shaws are good, his Bruce Lee flicks are clunky masterpieces, and heck, I love Spiritual Kung Fu, but he seemed to just totally give up in '73.

The following is complete speculation, but you notice how his films like The Tattooed Dragon and Man Called Tiger deal with gambling while he was getting more and more into gambling himself instead of paying attention to the directing . A bit ironic considering that The Tattooed Dragon is completely against gambling (or maybe horse racing is good and other games are evil.)

[masterofoneinchpunch]

taken from a mini-review I did a year ago with more than a few changes and spelling fixes:

The One-Armed Boxer (1972: Jimmy Wang Yu) Hong Kong/Taiwan

I am a big fan of the sequel Master of the Flying Guillotine (aka One-armed Boxer vs. the Flying Guillotine (1976)) which is one of my favorite martial art films of the 1970s. I finally got around to rewatching this one as finally a good release of this came out with the Shout! Jimmy Wang Yu set. This was made in Taiwan, but co-produced and distributed by Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest who were doing quite well during this year (Bruce Lee’s beloved Fist of Fury had already been out earlier that year). Wang Yu’s directed films do not always contain good martial artists nor exquisite story or direction, but there is always something fascinating and fun about them even though I notice he does repeat himself quite often.

The weakness of some of the martial artists is evident, especially with the “Thai” fighters (compare the Thai fighters here compared to the later Yu film Return of the Chinese Boxer) and Wang Yu’s kicks (and punches) but with a coherent storyline, a large body-count and a plethora of fighters with various fighting styles this is a fun film. Wang Yu is Yu Tien-Lung the star pupil of his martial arts school who gets into fights to protect the weak (annoying his current sifu which then annoys me because there is a strain of sifus that just do not want to stir any trouble -- nowhere near as bad as Kwan Tak-hing in some of his films though), but also antagonizes a neighboring school of martial artists that want to take over the whole territory where they can operate their drugs and prostitution without resistance. Yu’s embarrasses the thugs by beatdown and ultimately it leads them to outsource to a variety of hired fighters from Tibetan monks, several Japanese fighters including one with fangs (Lung Fei), Thai fighters and a yogi who fights on his hands. They are a surly lot. This leads to one of the basic patterns in martial art films: humiliation (of teacher and/or self), recovery, training and then revenge. Oh but what revenge.

I'm still not sure why Lung Fei has fangs though. I'm also not sure he has them in all his scenes either. One might wonder how lucky Yu Tien-Lung was to just happened to stumble bleeding upon a brilliant sifu who just happened to have all the knowledge to not just strengthen his arm, but to also defeat the lama version of Violet Beauregard. But we can ignore the logic as we fast forward through a quick montage so we can get on with the fighting.

Recommended for kung-fu fans. This is my favorite release of the Shout! set and the second time I have seen the film. There are two strong releases with this and Beach of the War Gods (funny enough I watched this right before seeing the battle-centric The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.) There is no English dub for this though the rest of the films have one. Not a negative for me since I'm just happy this is out and the Mandarin release sounded good to me.

Sources:

Unfortunately the link ahead is now defunct. I wish I copied the article. If anyone has this, or if there is another link please tell me: ONE ARMED LEGACY : How Wang Yu single-handedly created an icon. By Bey Logan

Dr. Craig D. Reid has a nice little write-up of the film in his The Ultimate Guide to Martial Arts Movies of the 1970s though I'm not sure he is correct stating this is Wang Yu's first directed film after leaving Shaw Brothers (IMDB has it as such; HKMDB has two films between; OK HKFA has The Brave of the Evil listed as 1971 as well.) He states this film has about 40 percent of fighting throughout the movie.

[Secret Executioner]

Sounds like a really good one.

[paimeifist]

Good review. This is a good film, and if you like Master of the Flying Guillotine you will like this. GHW, go watch Master of the Flying Guillotine now, dammit!

Lung Feis fangs always puzzled me too, the first time I saw the film, I thought some werewolf aspect would come in to play(not a stretch considering its a Wang Yu flick), lol.

Is there a good release of Return of the Chinese Boxer?

[Secret Executioner]

Got MOFG (as well as the Jimmy Wang Yu Collection) ready for order on yesasia. How can't you love a movie with the words "flying hat of death" in the description ? (it was actually for the VCD, but still, I love this phrase)

[paimeifist]

You won't be disappointed!

[KyFi]

Just watched "A Man Called Tiger"---very fun movie!

Watching more of Jimmy Wang Yu's movies, I'm still not very impressed with his on-screen fighting. He's kind of stiff and awkward, and he doesn't kick that well above his waist. But that being said, he's got great screen presence, and I have to say I DO believe that he would be a pretty badass fighter in real life.

[Tosh]

This is a great collection for me to get as a haven't seen a single film in it! Bob's art is icing on the cake - ordering now.

EDit - I'm going ahead with the Mao Ying collection too, Bob you knocked this one out of the park! That close up of Angela in (I think) the Himalayan(haven't seen his movie) would make an awesome stand alone poster, maybe a can get a custom one off

[KUNG FU BOB]

This is a great collection for me to get as a haven't seen a single film in it! Bob's art is icing on the cake - ordering now.

EDit - I'm going ahead with the Mao Ying collection too, Bob you knocked this one out of the park! That close up of Angela in (I think) the Himalayan(haven't seen his movie) would make an awesome stand alone poster, maybe a can get a custom one off

Thanks man!

And yes, you can! My pleasure for the guy that helped me learn new techniques to do art, and got my drawing of Chen Kuan-Tai to the man himself. You rock brother!

[Secret Executioner]

Speaking of your art, I think I saw a Jimmy Wang Yu artwork similar to the cover of the set over at shaolinchamber36 - looks pretty badass. Not sure if you're also offering an Angela Mao artwork like the one on her DVD set, but this one is really sweet.