Cinema of Vengeance DVD 1994 The Greatest Genre in Fistory! / Directed by Toby Russell / Starring: Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, John Woo

UPC 649107409929

REGION 1 NTSC DVD 

MADE IN USA

AUDIO:  English 2.0

Total Runtime: 90 minutes

English Summary:

The biggest names in the Hong Kong film industry reveal the ongoing history of the action genre.

An action-packed study of martial arts films from their crude beginnings, through the Bruce Lee era, to the recent works of Jackie Chan and John Woo. Contains interviews with some of the top names, including Bruce Lee, plus behind-the-scenes footage.

Cribbing its title from Verina Glaessner's 1974 book Kung Fu: Cinema Of Vengeance, this whirlwind summation of the major trends of Hong Kong action filmmaking since the seventies is an entertaining but sometimes maddeningly cursory introduction for the neophyte fan.

After a quick history lesson on the evolution of early martial arts films--including a short clip of Kwan Tak Hing and snippets from a few of his almost 100 black & white films as legendary hero Wong Fei Hong--the first modern kung fu star, Jimmy Wang Yu, is interviewed about his trend-setting early films for the Shaw Brothers studio. Several athletic demonstrations by Bruce Lee follow, after which Ho Chung Tao commiserates about being packaged as Bruce Li. Former Lee clone Jackie Chan has his career summarized and is shown behind the scenes working on CITY HUNTER (1993), followed by a quick look at his former classmate at Peking Opera school, the multitalented Samo Hung. The subjects of ninja and kickboxing movies are covered, as well as the Taiwanese connection to HK filmmaking. Finally, a handful of crossover action stars from outside Hong Kong comment on techniques of film fighting, and filmmaker John Woo is shown working on HARD TARGET (1993).

Directed by Toby Russell (son of director Ken Russell) from England's influential "Eastern Heroes" magazine/store/video label, this cheaply-made documentary is well-intentioned and contains some exciting action sequences. However, a seminal topic such as the influential wave of 1980s/ 90s Hong Kong directors is dismissed with barely a passing reference, and the devastating effects of criminal triad involvement in the HK film industry is only tangentially alluded to by popular leading man Simon Yam in a cryptic admission that sometimes one has to make movies for "friends" even when one doesn't want to.

There are several more significant problems in CINEMA OF VENGEANCE. First of all, the compilers clearly had to settle for whatever footage they could acquire given their limited budget: Jackie Chan is represented primarily by sequences from a number of minor vehicles rather than his Golden Harvest classics, and during the Shaw Brothers segment not a foot of Shaw Brothers film is shown. When Lau Kar Leung is praised on the soundtrack, the filmmakers never inform us that the film excerpted, FISTS AND GUTS (1979), is actually by his brother, Lau Kar Wing. Likewise, while singing the praises of John Woo, instead of his celebrated movies, we're shown the Taylor Wong film TRAGIC HERO (1987), with the implication that it's by Woo. Adding to the disinformation, the titles are a mess: names are spelled wrong or given in Mandarin even as the narrator refers to them in Cantonese, while clips and behind-the-scenes footage sometimes lack identification. On top of this, a bad sound mix renders the narration difficult to hear at times.

As a further caveat, the titles given are the British release names, meaningless to America viewers. To find STORY OF THE GUN (1992), for example, one would have to look for LETHAL GIRLS 2; for DEATH CAGE (not coincidentally a film made with Toby Russell's participation) seek out the misleadingly titled MORTAL COMBAT 2: DEATH CAGE (1989). And finally--the 1997 handover notwithstanding--Hong Kong filmmaking, as the film itself attests, is a fast-lane business dictated by rapidly changing public mood swings and circular trends. This makes CINEMA OF VENGEANCE, a 1993 film (first released in the US on home video in 1997) 28 years old in dog (or HK action) years.