Saga of the Phoenix came out in December too while I was working on the Shawscope Vol. 4 set. It is more special effects than martial arts but Yuen Biao still gets some kicks in. I didn’t realize it was a sequel to The Peacock King which I haven’t seen, but I followed along fine with Hell princess Ashura (Gloria Yip) and her bodyguards (Biao and Hiroshi Abe) enter modern day Nepal.
Biao and Abe fight demon beasts, which are stuntmen in bulky suits, but it works. Ashura has a friend, Tricky Ghost, which is an adorable puppet, with some stop motion sequences too. The heroes and villains shoot lots of light beams out of their palms, which is fun to see optically and rendered nicely in the slipcover art on the package.
The Blu-ray showcases these optical effects and techniques well with no degradation in the transitions to previous formats. It still looks analog, but brought to live vividly.
Golden Harvest executive Albert Lee talks us through the studio’s business and coproductions like Peacock and Phoenix with Japanese studios.
Frank Djeng corrects some of his Peacock King inaccuracies and ups his came for the sequel commentary, his 32nd with F.J. De Santo. De Santo agrees about the lack of martial arts but compliments the choreographed scenes we do get to see.
The booklet included in this set includes essays about manga adaptations and an exploration of the collaboration with Japanese filmmakers that gets specific about the below-the-line Japanese crew members.