Heroes of the East (1979)

Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 05/27/2008 Run time: 100 minutes Product Description

Great Move

If you like fighting, the use of wepons, fights between husband and wife this is your move. A Japanese woman marries a chinese man and they argue about there fighting steyals and the fight is on. November 17, 2008

Heroes is a must have

seriously from the get go this vehicle starring Gordon Liu takes off and never stops til the end of the movie. What's interesting is how this all done but you'll need to see it for yourself. He takes on many different master of Japanese martial arts and weapons. All of this is brought about due to his marriage with a best friend that was pre-arranged and she's Japanese. So they have fights about who's style is better and hold's more merit.

I would say more but it kind of gives away a good part of the movie itself. I will say that for its price and considering all the legends in this movie. Heroes of the East is another excellent one done by the Shaw Brothers and should watched by any fans of the martial arts.

October 18, 2008

GET IT PERIOD

this was originally titled Shaolin VS Ninja, but it's a classic by any name, buy and watch it a bunch of times. Great flick September 22, 2008

A marvelous film

This is a marvelous film. Awesome fight sequences. It goes to show that you can make a quality kung fu film without wire work. August 17, 2008

Keep the Shaw classics coming

It's a beautiful thing to see a Shaw Brothers film get the five star treatment, but it's even better when the movie itself is a five star film, like this classic from Liu Chia-liang (Lau Kar-leung). His movies rarely disappoint, in fact, some of his failures are superior than other's successes. My personal fave from him is "36th Chamber of Shaolin", but this is just a tiny notch below that one. It's a totally unique take on the familiar topic of Chinese vs. Japanese. Instead of it being down the line & doing a "virtuous" Chinese avenging themselves against "wicked" Japanese, Lau crafts a very subtle & realistic story. The cause for the combat is over miscommunication & misunderstanding, not because somebody is a nefarious villain. Get this, nobody gets injured in this film, much less killed; all the martial bouts are tests of skill, not duels to the death. I like that aspect, and this is coming from a huge Chang Cheh fan.

Lau's half-brother, Gordon, does a great job (as usual) portraying the lead Ho Tao, as does Yuka Mizuno as his somewhat immature Japanese wife. The culture clash seems absolutely authentic. Lau made a very smart move employing real Japanese fighters to play Gordon's combatants, and the bouts are appropriately matched up; gim vs. katana, karate vs. kung fu, spear vs. yari, 3-sectioned staff vs. tonfa/nunchaku, butterfly knives vs. sai, culminating with the Japanese crab technique vs. Chinese crane style. Gordon takes on everybody, Yasuaki Kurata gives an incredible performance as the ninjitsu expert leading his team. Many familiar Shaw actors can be seen like Norman Chu, Wilson Tong, Ching Miao & Cheng Kang-yeh. Director Lau also shapes up the awesome fu and even plays the Drunken God expert Gordon tries to learn from. That character looks like a younger version of the drunk sifu Simon Yuen (who plays Gordon's sifu here) portrayed in "Drunken Master". Not only did Dragon Dynasty remaster the picture with it's widescreen Shawscope ratio (Arthur Wong's cinematography is stunning), but you can watch the movie either in Chinese with remastered subtitles (which emphasizes the language barrier better) or in a decent English dub. Don't miss the tribute to the man himself, Lau kar-leung or the awesome interview with Gordon Liu in the special features. July 14, 2008

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