Chang Cheh is noted for being a major director at Shaw Brothers during their international boom period. He was behind the wuxia and martial arts masterpieces One-Armed Swordsman, The Brave Archer, Five Venoms and Crippled Avengers. Cheh wasn’t exclusively into fictional action. He also made films based on real events. Horrible History: Four Historical Epics has movies he made during this era about other times. The is a limited edition of 2,000 Blu-rays are shipping out in December. Here’s the press release from Eureka! with all the details:
EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF
HORRIBLE HISTORY: FOUR HISTORICAL EPICS
BY CHANG CHEH
2-DISC LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FROM ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED AND PROLIFIC FILMMAKERS IN HONG KONG
12/10
Eureka Entertainment announces the Dec 10th release of Horrible History: Four Historical Epics from Chang Cheh (Marco Polo, The Pirate, Boxer Rebellion, and Four Riders) on Blu-ray in a two-disc set.
The Limited Edition set (2000 copies per territory) will exclusively featuring an O-card
slipcase and collector’s booklet.
Often described as the “Godfather of Hong Kong Cinema,” Chang Cheh made nearly a hundred films during a long and storied career spent at the Shaw Brothers Studio, where he directed such landmark films as The One-Armed Swordsman, Five Deadly Venoms, and The Heroic Ones. Many of his films drew upon Chinese history for inspiration – and many of them were based on real people and events. Eureka Classics presents four of his best historical epics in this limited-edition set: Marco Polo, The Pirate, Boxer Rebellion, and Four Riders.
In Marco Polo, the eponymous Venetian explorer (Richard Harrison) becomes embroiled in a battle between the Mongol Empire and Chinese rebels in the thirteenth century. In The Pirate, the infamous nineteenth-century raider Cheung Po Tsai (Ti Lung) must evade agents of the Imperial Court while attempting to aid the downtrodden residents of a coastal village. In Boxer Rebellion, a group of Chinese patriots use kung fu to protect their nation against invading forces at the turn of the twentieth century. Finally, in Four Riders, a Chinese veteran of the Korean War enlists three comrades to help him escape the South Korean Military Police Command after he is falsely accused of murdering an American soldier.
Marco Polo, The Pirate, Boxer Rebellion, and Four Riders are all fascinating examples of the rewriting of history common in popular genre cinema, directed with aplomb by a veteran of Shaw Brothers in Chang Cheh – one of the most celebrated and prolific filmmakers in Hong Kong. All four films are presented on Blu-ray from HD masters supplied by Celestial Pictures.
Special Features:
• Limited edition of 2000 copies
• Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju)
• 1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from masters supplied by Celestial Pictures
• Original mono audio tracks
• Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
• Two new commentaries by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist and filmmaker Michael Worth
• Two new commentaries by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
• National Defence – A new interview with Hong Kong cinema scholar Wayne Wong
on Boxer Rebellion
• Rewriting History – A new video essay on Chang Cheh’s historical films by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of China
• PLUS: A Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on all four films in this set by writer and critic James Oliver
View the trailer here:
