Seven Warriors released domestically on Blu-Ray and DVD on April 22 from Well Go USA.
Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) is rightly regarded as one of the all-time greats: a masterful epic which effortlessly melds drama, action, and comedy into an explosive mix which succeeds brilliantly as both art and entertainment. By the time Seven Warriors came around in 1989, Kurosawa’s classic had already been remade at least twice — as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and its sequels, and the sci-fi reinvention Battle Beyond The Stars (1980), not to mention similarly plotted but unrelated films like Eiichi Kudo’s 13 Assassins (1963). Expecting an obscure remake to match the greatness of the Kurosawa’s original is a fool’s errand, so realistically what we’re looking for here is a film that manages to be good while bringing its own unique spin.
Seven Warriors takes us to the rural “Warlord Era” China of the 1920s, where marauders — not mere bandits in this telling, but roving soldiers — wreak a maelstrom of pillaging and abuse on a poor village. The villagers pool all their money and resources to hire protectors to defend against the unwelcome horde, and manage to convince seven heroes to come to their aid.
Tonally, the film is a bit of a mess, and can be divided pretty cleanly into two disparate halves: the first half being the setup and the second being the conflict. The first half just isn’t that great. After a brief opening action sequence to set the stage (and the stakes), it settles into a weightless execution. The tone is jokey in that corny Chinese fashion of the era which doesn’t translate well to Westerners (if you’ve watched your share then you probably know exactly what I mean). This isn’t helped by the rather “cute” musical score which is at odds with the material.
The gathering of the Seven, which was an exciting and character-driven sequence in previous takes on the story, feels lethargic here. It’s a breezier affair, lacking drama since they’re apparently all old army buddies who seem pretty ready to help. On the plus side, we get introduced to the agreeable cast, which includes young and fresh-faced Tony Leung and Jacky Cheung, who hadn’t quite achieved stardom yet and would appear together in John Woo’s Bullet In The Head almost immediately after. The rest of the cast includes several character actors like Wu Ma, Shing Fui-On, Lieh Lo, and Philip Kwok, whom genre fans will recognize from dozens of films, despite perhaps not knowing their names. Even after the Seven are assembled, there’s a lack of urgency as they work with the villagers to prepare for the next attack.
When that finally happens, the second half takes off in a whole new direction. A somewhat toothless comedy is transformed completely into an action-packed bloodbath. From here the film gets considerably better, though it’s unfortunate that it takes half the movie’s runtime and a gigantic tonal shift to get there. The action takes many forms: hand-to-hand, machine guns, pistols, swords, knives, bombs… even a massive spiked mace that Karl, the “heavy” of the Seven, uses to cave some heads in. The violence is frenetic, bloody, and surprisingly merciless to characters on both sides of the conflict, going a long way to make up for the film’s uneven start.
THE PACKAGE
Seven Warriors is available in a new Blu-Ray (or DVD) edition from Well Go USA. As far as I can tell, the film doesn’t have much, if anything, in the way of previous domestic release history, so this will certainly be a welcome disc for fans and seekers. I was quite impressed by the picture quality, which really looks stellar — almost impossibly good. From what I know of the Hong Kong film industry of yesteryear, they typically treated films more disposably than Hollywood or Europe, so it’s nice to see such a clean and well-defined print for what I perceive as a relatively obscure movie.
The film is presented in Cantonese with English subtitles. It is not rated, but in practical terms can be thought of as an “R” for bloody violence and a very brief rape scene which occurs during the villains’ marauding.
Special Features
This is a pretty barebones release, although in its favor the low price point seems to already take that fact into account.
Trailers
The original trailer, presented in SD, is the only special feature. It’s not a particularly good one; more of a three-minute highlights reel. The disc also contains promotional trailers for Well Go USA releases Badges Of Fury, Special ID, and The Wrath of Vajra.
Lest it go unmentioned, while I haven’t been overly kind to this particular film, I think it’s a major cause for rejoicing that distributor Well Go USA is dipping its toes into older catalog titles. They’re a terrific and consumer-friendly company that’s been a major blessing to fans of current Asian films, and I’d love to see them fill the giant void of quality catalog releases that has been botched and half-assed for years by other distributors. Here’s hoping!
A/V Out.