88 Films released three early Angela Mao films on Blu-ray this week. In my martial arts fandom I was late to hearing about her, so I’m still doing a lot of catch up. These three are great showcases for her grace and power, in stunning Blu-rays.
The Angry River stars Mao as the daughter of a master who crosses the Angry River to find a healing herb to help her father combat the evil King Hell (gotta love that name). Her adventure is full of hazards and fights until she herself levels up for the final battle.
The scene of her crossing the river is how you do it without CGI. There’s a low angle where she and the camera are probably on solid ground, a close-up of feet on the rope and a cheesy composite of her on top of the rope in a long shot. Edit it all together and we believe she crossed.
This film alos uses music from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, as many old Kung Fu movies pilaged the James Bond audio vault.
On Blu-ray the vivid cliffs and river give The Angry River unique terrain to the usual studio-bound Kung Fu movies.
In The Invincible Eight, Mao joins seven other fighters teaming up to kill an evil general. This general really is hard to kill. It takes the eight of them 98 minutes. With 10 stars plus the supporting cast, these fights have a lot of people going at it. The general has a bull whip squad, with Sammo Hung as one of the members. This film has its own score.
The Blu-ray of Invincible Eight highlights closed in-interiors, like the torch lit chambers of the general’s palace.
The Himalayan has the Golden Harvest logo we all know from Jackie Chan movies. The first two movies had an earlier logo with Diyaliscope to contend with Shawscope.
On the surface, this is another movie about Mao training to defeat the villain, but it doesn’t get to that until about 80 minutes in. The film takes its time establishing all the different martial artists and a plot about seducing and marrying into nobility.
Mao joins Dorian Tan to team up and when it gets to the training, it is distinct from the usual Drunken Master/36th Chamber techniques. Their master makes them carry bags of rocks in a way that look far more difficult than water buckets, and teaches Mao’s character to use her breath as a weapon. Mao and Tan really complement each other in the final fight with inventive choreography.
Set in Nepal, The Himalayan boasts gorgeous HD to show the mountains above the clouds and the green plains too. Their training path in a rocky forest is also lush.
They interviewed Tan for The Himalayan. He forgets some details but recalls fight scenes mishaps involving a kick to the head, and wardrobe malfunctions.
Frank Djeng and Michael Worth give commentaries on each film. In addition to the usual box office and cast credits, they add movie-specific detail. Angry River was Golden Harvest’s first movie, though released pretty much simultaneously with Invincible Eight. They explain the aspect ratio details which is appealing to us tech nerds.
On Invincible Eight, they also explain the early Golden Harvest logo and how they keep everyone appearing active in those multi-fights. With more technicalities, they explain why some of those Diyaliscope shots go out of focus.
On The Himalayan, they point out when production went back to China to film some scenes. Djeng explains esoteric Buddhism and they point out Jackie Chan as an extra. They also rate the fight scenes, building up to the climax.