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As much as I was initially influenced by the American ninja flicks of the 80's, and am now obsessed with the Japanese stuff from the 60's, there's still a special place in my heart for what the Shaw Brothers and other Hong Kong and Chinese film studios did with ninja. (Check out N80's main site here for a rundown of the various flavors of Chinese shinobi cinema)
The apex of Shaw's ninja-sploitation, perhaps the Citizen Kane of Kung-Fu vs. Ninja cinema, was FIVE ELEMENT NINJA (aka "Chinese Super Ninjas") depending on the werewolf circuit or grindhouse venue, or low budget video release you saw.
Shaw's stalwart VENOMS battle an invading shadow army both literally on-screen, and metphorically, as the studio's 70's mainstay kung-fu product was being pushed off screens by ninja flicks, which were increasingly the flavor of the 1980's.
FEN was a block-buster, epic-length amalgamation of the best of the 70's and 80's together on screen, with a steady stream of exploitve gore that ensured the film's success in American video stores.
BUT what we've been stuck with for over two decades is abysmal full-screen prints, some that look bumped from 16mm film. Others were better, but not by much. Now, however, thanks to Celestial and importers like Drunken Master in Hollywood, we have the original film on DVD, remastered, complete, WIDEscreen and in color more vibrant than ever imagined.
Here's a series of comparitive screen caps that illustrate the true superiority of this new release:
The title cards - which used to be three jump cuts to cover the panorama of the poison ring and the blood flowing into the kanji. Note the typo on 'emement'...
The heroic defenders of both China, and Hong Kong's box office dominance. Many prints of the dubbed American release didn't even bother to pan-and-scan this, they just center weighted the shots and you had no notion of the numbers of participating fighters...
...which in a movie based on a series of 4-on-4 duels, can really hamper the story telling and action flow!!!
FEN was the debut of these gold lamé ninja get-ups, seen again in flicks like NINJA IN THE DEADLY TRAP.
This bridge battle against the Water ninja is a great example of how butchered scenes were before, and the true glory of "Shaw Scope" in the form it was intended to be seen. Shaw flicks used the full panorama available to them as much as Italian western directors ever did.
This attack via rope web looks amazing now! This new print also reveals graphical call-outs of certain 'historical' ninja techniques and weapons that no American release ever retained. Shaw was intensely proud of how well researched the martial arts were in this film, and indeed some of the weaponry and espionage tricks seen in supposed 'secret scrolls' are reproduced. Of course, these are right alongside absurdities like golden sun ninjas and red fire ninjas and wood ninjas using trees as armor suits! God bless the Shaw Brothers and their hot-and-cold-running "historical accuracy"!
Even close-ups on exotic weapons that didn't necessarily need to be wide screen are vastly improved on the new disc. Poison-laced steel claws like these are right out of Japanese ninja museums.
One of the best kills in either ninja or kung-fu cinema history is this quartering of the head Wood ninja. He's trapped by four chain and sickle, susepended in mid-air for several torturous seconds, then yanked into bloody pieces by the vengeful Venoms, who quite honestly are having WAY too much fun slaughtering Japanese by the movie's end.
I could go on-and-on about this must-own release -- the endless fights, the brutal kills, the sexy kunoichi's bearing all under mesh suits -- but the Sox are about to win the World Series again, so I'm out of here!
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| | Posted 10/28/2007 10:19 PM - 8 views - 0 comments
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