My review was written in December 1983 after a screening at Empire theater on Manhattan's 42nd St.
"War of the Wizards" is the U. S. release version of a 1978 Taiwanese film originally titled "The Phoenix". Picture is a colorful, but silly juvenile fantasy adventure, rendered very difficult to watch (and listen to) by poor U. S. dubbing and editing.
Period tale concerns a young fisherman named Thai, who finds a treasure chest underwater containing the legendary Magic Vessel of Plenty and Bamboo Book. The golden Vessel creates material wealth whenever he wishes, and attracts the attention of various villains and wizards. Ultimately Thai falls in with two beautiful sisters, marrying one and setting up a menage a trois.
The sisters are stooges for their evil aunt Flower Fox, who steals Thai's Vessel and demands the (still underwater) Bamboo Book from him. Thai escapes aboard that mythic bird The Phoenix to Fairy Mountain, where he acquires super powers from the Sun and Moon and battles with Fox and her huge henchman (played by U. S. guest star Richard Kiel).
Truncated film is of interest mainly for its gaudy costumes and sets, saturated with bright red and other primary colors. Special effects are cheap animated rays, poor miniatures and sloppy optical printing, with the Phoenix a stiff papier mache creation on the level of U. S. junk monsters such as the Giant Claw of the 1950s. The hero, credited as "Charles Lang", mugs incessantly while Kiel is embarrassing.
