Horrible History sounds like a collection of serious dramas cataloging atrocities. A sober reflection on the brutal world of the past. That’s not this. Instead, it’s a collection of movies from Shaw Brothers productions, which means the history is mainly window dressing to get groups of people to do cool martial arts stuff at each other.
Buy Horrible History: Four Historical Epics by Chang Cheh Blu-rayThe Shaw Brothers, for the uninitiated, were the biggest film production company in Hong Kong for nearly a century. They made over a 1,000 films but were most famous for their Kung Fu movies. These often had rather bare bones plots which were an excuse to get talented athletes and martial artists to fight on camera. And that holds true to the four films in this collection. Made by one of the Shaw Brothers most prolific directors, Chang Cheh (with some collaborators for the often wildly over-populated martial arts sequences), these films from the early to mid ’70s take historical subjects, and shove as much kung fu into them as possible.
Marco Polo, the first film in the set, has an extremely tenuous to actual history. It opens with the intrepid explorer greeting the Khan. The Khan holds a feast, which means 15 minutes of martial arts action. Then the Khan hires Marco Polo to travel his kingdom and writes an assessment of what he sees. This takes three years real time, two minutes screen time, and Marco grows a mustache. Then the real meat of the story begins: endless martial arts sequences.
After an assassination attempt is made on the Khan, Marco and the three greatest Mongol warriors are tasked with hunting down the men behind it. They find and dispatch the would-be killer and his little brother. While taking the man’s wife hostage, Marco and the warriors run into four men who just happen to be the assassins’ sworn brothers, but are also the real protagonists of the film, over 30 minutes in.
These four hide out with the wife’s father. He just happens to have a mansion housing secret kung fu masters. They train these four in exactly what they need to defeat the warriors. Marco Polo keeps them under observation, and eventually becomes sympathetic with them. So much so he allows them to capture him and allows a martial arts extravaganza to end the film.
The Pirate (for my money, the best of these films) has a stronger connection to real history. It involves naval battles, skirmishes on land, and corrupt officials. A grudging respect builds between an undercover general, and the noble pirate.
Pirates generally aren’t noble. We meet this one in the midst of a pitched battle with an East India Company merchantman. The battle looks lost until the pirates use an unconventional trick. They dive overboard, swim beneath both ships, and board from the water in a surprise attack. I doubt this is a real historical tactic, but it looks neat.
The pirate ship is damaged, and they have to go into town for parts. The shipyard, and the entire town is run by a corrupt magistrate who squeezes everything he can from the fisherman who come to port. And then forces them to sell their girls to his brothel when they can’t pay his exorbitant fees. The pirate takes in upon himself to help the town, which leads to many martial arts contests. The best of these takes place on the beach, where the pirates face off against essentially every bad guy in town. The pirate in question is a real historical character, and clashes with the East India company prefigure the conflict of our next film.
Boxer Rebellion is about an uprising of the same name that took place in China around the turn of the previous century. A group of fanatic martial artists who believed they could develop a technique that made the invulnerable to bullets sought to free China from the occupying Western and Japanese forces. Three martial arts brothers are skeptical but join the movement anyway.
What follows is a series of brutal combats and slaughters as the Boxers lose their rebellion and are overtaken by the foreign invaders. Of all these films (styled by the packaging as “epics”), the Boxer Rebellion is the only one epic in scope and length, being nearly two and a half hours long. It also has the most elaborate costuming, set design, and the largest cast, with some battles featuring dozens of participants.
Four Riders is a bit of an odd man out in this collection. It’s a historical film, set just in the aftermath of the Korean War. But it was shot in the ’70s and once the titular four riders make their way to Seoul, looks like the ’70s. There’s little in the way of set design or costuming that makes the film seem in the least period accurate.
It’s also a pretty standard action film. Four guys, veterans of the war, are looking for something to do now that they’re out of the army. One hangs around a hospital because he’s in love with a nurse. Another hangs around a bar because he’s in love with a bar girl, who in turn is in love with his American currency. The other two are just tooling around. They become involved with a local drug-smuggling gang when one of them is framed for a murder the gang commits. This leads to no prizes for guessing, lots of martial arts fighting. The best sequence is in the end, in a gym, where trampolines and barbells are employed as weapons.
Every one of these movies looks great, especially considering their age. The transfers look fine, but more so the entire productions are beautiful. Everyone has elaborate camera set-ups, interestingly choreographed martial-arts sequences, and (with the noted exception of Four Riders) terrific period costuming.
What might be missing for most viewers is deep characterization and intricate plotting. Marco Polo, with its protagonist showing up at the 40-minute mark, is the most extreme example. There’s no real reason to be on the four brothers’ side except the film spends time with them. The Pirate has the best characterization, but it’s still pretty thin.
Horrible History is not enjoyable because of its history. That’s thin on the ground. It’s not filled with great characters and engaging plots. It’s fun because it looks great, and there’s a lot of neat punching. Anyone familiar with Shaw Brothers martial-arts movies knows what they’re in for. The real-life historical backgrounds are fun, but that’s mostly what they are: background. Up front is often bloody kung fu action.
Horrible History: Four Historical Epics by Chang Cheh has been released on Blu-ray by Eureka. There are two discs, with two films on each. Each film also has an audio commentary: Marco Polo and Boxer Rebellion are commented on by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema; The Pirate and Four Riders have commentaries by Frank Djeng and Michael Worth. Video extras include History Making (21 min), a video essay on the Chang Cheh’s historical films by Jonathan Clements, and “National Defence” (19 min), an interview with Wayne Wong, editor of Martial Arts Studies.
