Search - Ten Tigers of Kwangtung on DVD

If you're actually on this page, you should see this movie.

Jeremy Peterson | Naperville, IL USA | 06/09/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I just finished the new Tokyo Shock dvd, and this is definitely a must-see for any fan of Shaw Brothers movies. There's a really high quantity of action spread throughout involving a huge cast, even if they often fought for dumb reasons. No way I could keep track of all those names. I hadn't seen a story presented like this yet. The tale of the titular Ten Tigers was like a short, 50-60 minute movie of its own. It's told as what had happened in the past, perhaps 20 years earlier, by the students/children of the Ten Tigers who are now being hunted for revenge as the result of actions of the past. I feel terrible for not knowing these names but there's a fight about 70 minutes in that might be the best I've ever seen in a Shaw Brothers movie, at least for one on one. The main villain for the "future" part of the film uses maybe 4 weapons, all hidden on him somewhere, and his opponent could turn anything into a weapon and has a counter for everything. Ti Lung anchors the cast in the "past" and Philip Kwok spans both eras, showing some amazing weapon skills early on. The Alexander Fu Sheng character would have been unbearably annoying if anyone else played him, but he was perfect.

The dvd actually has mono tracks in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, plus a 5.1 English dub. There's a documentary on director Chang Cheh that I liked but had already seen on another of these dvds somewhere... There are also 6 trailers, 2 for this movie and 4 for other Shaw Brothers movies."

Alexander Fu Sheng's injury...

Fang Shih-yu | Mercer, PA USA | 09/04/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"According to more than one website, an on-set injury that waylaid Alexander Fu Sheng for a long time pretty much halted work on "Ten Tigers". Subsequently, a framing plot device (with many new actors, naturally) was used to complete the film. That said, this is still very good, and let it be noted on the bonus Chang Cheh "Elegant Trails" documentary that Tokyo Shock's translation is the BEST version of all those that are currently out on DVD: even BLURBS from old Cheh film reviews are translated! No commentary track, but, still, another great TS DVD, for fans of Fu Sheng and the Venoms."

Another great Shaw release

Michael W. Jaworski | Fairfield, NJ USA | 07/21/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Although some critics have called this 1980 movie a Cheh mess make no mistake; this film is a classic~Ten Tigers of Kwangtung (Guangdong Shi Hu Xing Yi Wu Xi)~****. It was supposed to be about the original ten Kwangtung Tigers and production originally started before "Five Venoms". All the original Venoms, including the absent Wei Pai, Lo Mang & Wang Lung-Wei, are here, along with Ti Lung & Fu Sheng (both in lead roles and going toe-to-toe with the entire Venom team). However, it's my guess that the completed footage was a little less than an hour, and that's why it was shelved.

Perhaps the reason why Chang decided to finish this film two years later was as a tribute to past performers Robert Tai, Ti Lung, Fu Sheng, Wang Lung-Wei, Tu Lung a.k.a. Ti "Dick" Wei, Ku Feng, Wei Pai, Lo Mang & Robert Yang who all left Chang's gang to work with other directors and other studios. Chang completed it by making the 1978 footage a flashback, culminating in an awesome climatic martial duel between Ti Lung & Wang Lung-Wei (which was the original end fight, no doubt) who busts out a real esoteric weapon called the "Mermaid's Tail". The footage that padded out the running time to 90 minutes involved the new Opera guys playing the descendants of the Kwangtung Tigers. The story concerned their feud with the cousins & son of the Wang Lung-Wei character.

The final fight, which took place in a casino, was an excellent free-for-all displaying the talents of Lung Tien-Sheng, Chien Hsiao-Hao, director Lo Mar regular Kuan Feng and Wang Li. Kuo Chui & Lu Feng drop by to add to the martial mayhem which had plenty of bloodshed & heroism. Here was a movie that combined the original & "new" Venoms (Baby Venoms), and contained all of Chang Cheh's vintage traits including revenge, brotherhood, patriotism, loyalty, copious bloodshed and having heroes die in battle.

Robert Tai Che & Liang Ting choreograph the flashback stuff (mostly hand to hand), while Lu Feng, Kuo Chui & Chiang Sheng choreograph the "present day" stuff that bookends the movie (mostly weapons). I use the term "present day" with a grain of salt, it's a period piece. Tokyo Shock did a superb job with the Celestial transfer. Remastered picture & subtitles (hey Shaw fans, isn't this awesome), Chinese audio or the decent English dub, the original HK trailer, the new Celestial transfer & an informative (and long overdue) documentary on the "maestro" himself, Chang Cheh, which can also be found on "The Water Margin" & "The Heroic Ones" DVDs. Just one tiny flaw; although the English mono dub is the way it should be, the English 5.1 track has a different (and vastly inferior) music track. It's as if some idiot made an attempt to re-do the original stock music. Oh well, like I said, it's a tiny flaw. Shaw/Venom/Fu fans, you know who you are, buy this. Can't wait for "Flag of Iron"."