Heralded as King Hu’s last great masterpiece of wuxia-based action, ‘The Valiant Ones’ might not be held in the same regard as his genre classics ‘Come Drink with Me’ and ‘A Touch of Zen’, but really it should be as it’s a bonafide martial arts classic.
Japanese pirates, known as the wokou, have been rampaging up and down China’s coasts spreading fear and havoc. The feared leader of the pirates, Hakatatsu (Sammo Hung), shows no sign in relenting his reign of terror, so the Jiajing Emperor sets his most skilled general Zhu Wan (Tu Kuang-Chi) to assemble a group of warriors to go after and hunt down the wokou, drawing out Hakatatsu for a final deadly showdown.
And that’s essentially the plot, as the streamlined narrative (group of skilled fighters hunt down marauding pirates) is the set up for King Hu to unleash a near never-ending series of beautifully choreographed fights and showdowns. The film is crammed with superior fight action, overseen by Sammo Hung, as Zhu Wan and his band of soldiers use their various fight skills and duplicitous trickery to weed out the pirates and eradicate them. A lot of the action is sword based but it is all crisply choreographed, excitingly executed, and all shot and mounted with King Hu’s technical expertise.
The focus may be action and character development threadbare but the film looks incredible with care and skill given to composition and the use of real locations give the film a distinct and majestic look. Considering the film is almost 50 years old it looks incredible, in part due to Eureka’s excellent restoration but also to Hu’s keen eye for composition and camera movement. Creativity abounds also as the action is never repetitive and tension is cleverly built in several scenes before the battles erupt: including a cool scene where Zhu Wan’s men use a game they’re pretending to play to communicate to one another where the pirates are positioned and how they’re going to attack.
The simplified plot may irk those needing more character development and motivation, Tu Kuang-Chi’s Zhu Wan does come across as a little too superhuman and untouchable, and Sammo Hung doesn’t turn up until the final act with his big showdown fight not quite living up to the action that proceeded it: but these are minor quibbles for what is a beautifully constructed wuxia action epic. ‘The Valiant Ones’ really does deliver on its promise of a group of gifted fighters going after a never-ending swarm of rampaging pirates and fighting them all to the death.
Eureka Entertainment recently released ‘The Valiant Ones’ on UK/US Blu-ray and 4K UHD, and you can order it now from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
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