News

Beijing born Hu Jin Quan, better known as King Hu, worked as an actor, scriptwriter, set decorator and assistant director after joining the Shaw Brothers Studio in 1958. Hu slowly worked his way up as the director of “Sons of the Good Earth” (1965) under the influence of director Li Han Hsiang. Besides launching the film career of its star Cheng Pei Pei, Hu’s highly acclaimed wuxia film “Come Drink with Me” (1966) would put him on the world map. After leaving Shaw, he directed “Dragon Inn” (1967) in Taiwan which became a phenomenal cult classic in Southeast Asia.

Hu continued to achieve more fame with films like “A Touch of Zen” (1971), “The Valiant Ones” (1975), “Raining in the Mountain” and “Legend of the Mountain” both in 1979. Although his later films were less successful commercially, he returned from California to direct “Swordsman” (1990) and “Painted Skin” (1992). Actually, producer Tsui Hark‘s team had to finish...

Cited as King Hu’s last pure wuxia film, 1975’s The Valiant Ones is set during the Ming Dynasty of the 16th century in a time when China’s coastlines were under constant harassment from Japanese wokou. As an opening narration explains, these pirates operate nearly unchallenged thanks to their fighting prowess and the corruption of Japanese consuls, Chinese officials, and even the Ming emperor (Chao Lei) himself. Despite the collusion, the monarch must keep up appearances of solving the problem, and so he commissions General Zhu (Tu Kuang-chi) to assemble a group of warriors to combat the pirates. Zhou in turn hires a brilliant captain, Yu Da-you (Roy Chiao), to lead the unit, along with a handful of fighters that includes a husband-wife duo (Wing Bai and Hsu Feng) who could each take on an entire platoon of bandits.

Whether or not Hu felt he was leaving behind the wuxia genre,...

The general consensus is a pirate movie will contain lots of epic sea battles and hidden treasures. Well “The Valiant Ones” may contain treasure of the stolen kind but there is barely a sighting of a ship throughout, despite the coastal setting. Yet this is a King Hu feature so put that initial concern to one side and prepare to rediscover one of his less prominent works as Eureka entertainment release it in a new 4K scan.

on Terracotta by clicking on the image below

Pirates are attacking the coast of China and the Emperor (Chao Lei) tasks General Zhu Wan (Tu Kuang-chi) to assemble a small group to defeat them. Under the command of General Yu Dayou (Roy Chiao), they include the husband and wife sword fighters Wu Ji-yuan (Wing Bai) and Wu Ruo-shi (Feng Hsu). As they learn more about their opponents, it becomes evident...