Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers Studio will always be most closely associated with their immense output of kung fu films, but they were always keen to cash in on whatever was popular regardless of genre. With the rise of spy films in the wake of James Bond’s 1960s success, Shaw Brothers pivoted to produce their own take on the phenomenon, resulting in three of their best efforts compiled in this new box set.
Buy Super Spies and Secret Lies Blu-rayThe Golden Buddha follows a businessman who runs afoul of a criminal gang when he picks up the wrong briefcase on a flight to Singapore, ushering him into a treasure hunt revolving around three small buddha statues with clues to a jackpot in Thailand. The stars are forgettable, but the Thailand locations and feverish hunt for the MacGuffin buddha statues make for some lighthearted fun. The film is also stuffed with fistfights, erupting into chaos for little reason at nearly ever turn.
Angel with the Iron Fists is notable for its female-centric cast, with lovely star Lily Ho facing off against an elite team of female assassins and their lady boss. This one has spy gadgets aplenty, an evil lair complete with trapdoors and other deadly features, and a jazzy score. It feels at times like a Seijun Suzuki film, as if veteran Shaw Brothers director Wei Lo was filtering the British spy genre through the stylized Japanese criminal night life to arrive at a deliriously derivative and entertaining Hong Kong mashup. Its only real fault is its two-hour runtime, with it rapidly running out of steam after the one-hour mark, but Lily Ho is magnetic enough to make the slog to the finish worth the effort.
The Singing Thief is never quite sure what it wants to be, featuring a flamboyant lounge singer (Jimmy Lin Chong) who moonlights as a master jewel thief. It’s not really a spy movie at all, but it has similar swinging ’60s energy, especially as it leans toward more explicitly druggie subculture with its Nehru jackets, long-chain jewelry, and dark nightclubs. It also has multiple musical numbers by Chong, with two back-to-back songs opening the film. The singer claims he wants to go straight and just pursue his entertainment career, at least until he meets the lady with the most jewelry in Hong Kong (Lily Ho again) who challenges him to try to steal her treasure. Chong and Ho contribute memorable performances, even as the wisp of a plot becomes increasingly muddled in the second half.
All three films are presented in 1080p HD from masters supplied by Celestial Pictures, with varying results in image quality. The Golden Buddha is the worst, immediately evident from the first scene that reveals artificial smoothing filters that completely eliminate film grain and distort background images so badly that shapes appear to be blobs of CG paint rather than actual filmed content. The other two films are much better, with grain still evident and smoothing greatly toned down, although artifacting swirls appear sporadically early on in Angel with the Iron Fists. Original mono soundtracks are clear of defects, and newly translated English subtitles are fully competent.
Two bonus features are provided, one focusing on the impact of global Bondmania in the 1960s and the other featuring an interview with a Hong Kong cinema scholar. Original trailers are also included, but no other archival material is available. A limited edition collector’s booklet also contains new writing on all three films.
All three movies are fun in different ways, but Angel with the Iron Fists is my favorite of the set and the film most closely affiliated with the Bond craze. It’s always interesting to take a side trip away from Shaw Brothers’ kung fu films, although their logo and fanfare at the start are disconcerting when attached to other genres. The films are more aligned with the cartoonish antics of Bond copycat series than the more serious stakes of early Bond, mirroring franchises such as Matt Helm, Flint, and OSS 117. They’re also all oozing style, worth it just for the cool fashion and interior design, and while none of them will win any writing awards, they’re Shaw Brothers entertainment at its finest.
