First the facts:
Directed by Hong Kong cinema legend Tsui Hark,
fantasy adventure martial arts film Zu Warriors
(1983) was one of the early players in the
1980s regeneration of Hong Kong cinema.
OK, so that's not so much a fact as an observation,
but the influence of Zu on future films and
directors is undeniable. After Big Trouble
in Little China was released, its director John
Carpenter said of Zu warriors:
"I was always a fan of kung fu movies. I had seen Five Fingers of Death and the
Bruce Lee movies in the Seventies. Zu (Warriors) gave me a lot of ideas with regard to
depicting the nature of Chinese monsters and the supernatural in Big Trouble."
Filmed in the studio in Hong Kong, and on
location in
Taiwan, Zu Warriors took a gruelling
year to film. The film's substantial budget allowed for exceptional special effects,
enriched by the expertise of some Hollywood
folk with an effects CV that included
Star Wars,
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and
Tron. A cast of
stars was assembled, including Hong Kong legend
Brigitte Lin, appearing alongside
Sammo Hung,
Yuen Biao,
Adam Cheng, and
Man Hoi, alongside newcomer
Moon Lee,
a 16-year old making her film debut; schoolgirl
by day, hot sword-wielding
fairy by evening's
light.
The film received four nominations1at the
Hong Kong film awards. Sadly, resentment of the involvement of the Western effects artists
led to political pressures that ultimately meant the film missed out on all four awards.
Enough facts, on with the story:
Set in ancient China, Zu Warriors
tells the perfectly normal everyday tale
of an army scout, Dik Mingkei, who saves the
world from the tyrannous and evil rule of the blood monster,
with the help of an old man with exceedingly
long and powerful facial hair and a shareware
sky mirror that only works for 49 days, some
fairies, defeating his wicked-cool gone sadly
bad teacher in the process.
Already I can see that I've skipped a few
story details, so I'll try to fill in the
gaps. Scouting for the blue army loses its
appeal for Dik when his two leaders disagree
on a course of action, leaving him unable
not to disobey at least one of them. So,
he flees on his horse, and meets and ultimately befriends
a counterpart from the red army. Together
they attempt to avoid involvement in the
conflict, which by now has escalated into
a four-way battle. After fighting each other
so as not to draw attention to themselves
(and in the process fighting all four sides,
in some deftly choreographed comically adept
fight scenes) they play dead, only to find
that everyone around them is employing the same trick.
Retreating, Dik is pushed over a cliff by his fleeing friend.
Sensibly, he seeks shelter in the
first menacing looking cave he comes across, without realising that he's stumbled upon Zu
Mountain. Inside, strange beasts with bright eyes attack him,
but hurrah! his enigmatic future master Ding Yan (Adam Cheng) of the Nam Hoi school arrives
to rescue him with some dazzling swordplay. The interplay between the
two, and in fact between many of the characters
in the film, is reminiscent of the Wes Craven
/ Scream self-referential school, with the hero complaining to himself
that "These heroic types always appear and disappear unexpectedly",
or being lambasted for his stupidity in asking
which side Sammo Young is on, with the retort "Of course I'm good. Do bad guys wear
white? Look carefully!"
In the cave, Ding Yan bickers with Buddhist
rival Hiu Yu, leader of the Kwan Leun school, who has turned up with his "idiot student"
to fight the powers of evil and claim some glory at the same time. The pair reluctantly team up, until Hiu is poisoned.
The fellowship seek help from the ice queen, who
can cure him, but not without tiring herself
or falling in love with Ding in the process, while
Dik finds time to fall for Moon Lee.
Returning to their quest, Ding is poisoned,
becomes evil, and the ice queen freezes her palace after failing to cure him,
trapping Hiu, but not Dik, the "idiot student" or Moon Lee's fairy (hooray!). The three set
off to find the twin green and purple swords that
will save the world, have a chat with an
old man who's chained himself up outside
the entrance to the evil world. the idiot assistant
proves his courage, they meet Lei Yikkei, become guardians of the swords, and head off to
fight Dik's evil ex-teacher, remembering not to cross the
beams let the swords touch
until their thoughts are as one.
I won't tell you who wins, though. To see whether
good or evil triumph, watch the film (or
read this section more carefully.)
It's a superb film. I watched it once years
ago, one Christmas eve, so there's a little personal
nostalgia in all this, but I still love it. Granted, it's uneven in
places, but the fight scenes are superbly
manoeuvred, and the comedy is well-executed.
One story becomes two: Zu: Time
warriors.
What really makes Zu Warriors special is the remade cash-in version, designed to bring the film to a wider
audience (or make more money, you decide.) To make a ghastly messy goo of the original, strip the whole armies railing
against each other story line, the good versus
evil debates, and much of the mythological
grandeur of the original, and replace them
with the following story line:
Yuen Biao plays a champion fencer who piques one of his
rivals with startling ability, and because he makes a
fool out of him in the first scene. He writes
an essay on the Ming Dynasty, which is received favourably by his tutor, who nonetheless sends him to an exhibition
on the subject, which is conveniently showing
at the local gallery. On visiting the gallery,
our hero is particularly drawn to a mural featuring
a pretty hot looking chick, who happens to
look more than a bit like Moon Lee. Also,
every time he gets in his car, he sees a
hot chick who looks a lot like the hot chick
who looks like Moon Lee. He eventually gets to meet and spend the night with her, but only after he cuts
his lip fighting off the rival and his
two goons. Suddenly Yuen, or someone who
looks a lot like him anyway, is in the mural
standing heroically besides the girl who
looks... and so on.
A Tarot reading reveals that he
must bring his past and present lives together.
A girl is important. He's a desperate man, and
tears off to find the girl again, only to
see her standing in the middle of the road
on a dangerous bend, such is the folly of youth. Rather than run her
over, though, he swerves, crashes his car and falls into a
coma. Luckily its the kind of coma in which
you are transported to... ancient China, where he meets, and wins over Moon
Li in scenes from the original film that
weren't by this stage in the cutting room
bin.
He wakes up (hooray!), he's almost unscathed
by the accident (hurrah!), the girl is outside
(huzzah!). And they all lived happily ever
after.
Happier than anyone involved in the taking of a fine fantasy comedy action adventure and turning it into a below-par Hollywood
love story, I expect. It's just as well the acting and dubbing in the remake are so weak, or it might not have been laughable enough to be worth bothering with.
1.
Best Action Choreography, Corey Yuen;
Best Actress, Brigitte Lin;
Best Art Direction, William Chang;
Best Film Editing, Chi Kwong Shek
John Carpenter quote, and useful background appears at www.hongkonglegends.com