88 Films
Blu-ray Release: November 12, 2024
Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color
Audio: Mandarin and English LPCM 2.0 Mono
Subtitles: English
Run Time: 104:18
Director: Chung Sun
In this bitterly divided town, there's no middle ground; you're either with one side or the other – cross the line and face dire consequences. One clan hires a kung fu master (Ti Lung) to break the stalemate, but he's nobody's servant and his loyalties can’t be bought so easily... (From 88 Films’ official synopsis)
Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 pop samurai feature Yojimbo drew inspiration from American westerns and was also based loosely on Dashiell Hammet’s Red Harvest (pub: 1929) and The Glass Key (pub: 1931). Following the highly successful release of Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (Italian: Per un pugno di dollari, 1964), which reimagined Yojimbo as an actual western (albeit one made by Italians, instead of Americans), a remake tradition arose and spread Kurosawa’s tale across genres and the world. Other key adaptations included Sergio Corbucci’s Django (1966, along with several other Italian western rip-offs), Albert Pyun’s Omega Doom (1996), Walter Hill’s Last Man Standing (1996), Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django (2007), and, from Shaw Bros. studios, Chung Sun’s The Kung Fu Instructor (1979).
Ni Kuang’s script makes some notable changes to the source material, most of them pertaining to the character of its hero. Typically, the Sanjuro/Man with No Name archetype is an antihero who feigns moral malleability in order to play the two sides of an immoral conflict against each other. The titular Kung Fu Master, Yang Wang, is an almost arrogantly virtuous man, whose moral fortitude is never questioned. Instead of wandering into town and inserting himself into the situation, he is a known community figure who is essentially blackmailed into participation. He’s also sought by each clan as an instructor who will train their fighters, not a mercenary fighter, bodyguard, or assassin meant to turn the tide. In the end, I prefer the antihero version, but this fits the Shaw Bros. formula much better.
Chung was a Taiwanese-born director who made a number of films for Shaw Bros., though his work tends to be overlooked, due to the studio’s sheer quantity of output during the 1970s and early ‘80s. Some of his better received films including The Devil’s Mirror (1972), The Avenging Eagle (1978), and To Kill a Mastermind (1979), but his most enduring achievement was Human Lanterns (1982), a brutal, exploitative, yet beautifully-shot slasher-inspired wuxia horror flick. The Kung Fu Instructor is grounded in the semi-reality of the Shaw backlot and largely naturally lit, but otherwise matches Human Lanterns’ use of virtuoso camera work, slow motion, and dramatic still frames, giving energy to the script, which is bogged down in too many characters and minor subplots to be an entirely effective Yojimbo riff.
Stunt coordinator Tang Chia’s fight sequences are tightly choreographed, but have a repetitive, overstuffed quality that doesn’t match the creative camera choices and playful qualities of Ti Lung’s wire-assisted acrobatic demonstrations and the Lau Kar-leung-esque training sequences. With Chung’s other films in mind, I’m a little surprised by The Kung Fu Instructor’s relative lack of violence (there’s basically zero gore and the rape scene is entirely implied off-screen), but I suppose one has to build up to something as blood-thirsty as Human Lanterns.
Video
It doesn’t appear that The Kung Fu Instructor has ever been officially available on home video in North America. There have been a number of DVDs released in other countries, as well as a Blu-ray from German studio Koch, but none of them had English audio or subtitle options. 88 Films’ new English-friendly Blu-ray was created using another Celestial Films scan and the 2.35:1, 1080p transfer more or less matches expectations set by similar releases. Some of the wider-angle details can appear a bit fuzzy (sometimes due to focus choices and anamorphic lens effects) and there isn’t a whole lot of grain texture, but the scan is clean and elements are neatly separated. The daylight scenes feature bright, consistent colors and the moody interiors aren’t too dark to discern.
Audio
The Kung Fu Instructor is presented with Mandarin and English dub options, both in uncompressed LPCM mono sound. The English dub has a bit more range and volume, but the Mandarin track is also quite clean and free of the high-end distortion and muffled dialogue problems heard from lesser Celestial-based discs. Eddie Wang’s lively score runs a little low on original cues, but the major themes have the fun vibe of the title track of first-run American television series.
Extras
Theatrical trailer
Still gallery
The images on this page are taken from the BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.
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