Crippled Avengers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Crippled Avengers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 28, 2021

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Shawscope Volume One.

If the Shaw Brothers' logo is intentionally reminiscent of the Warner Brothers' logo, there are a number of other connective tethers between the two sets of siblings. The Warners founded what would become one of the "Big Five" studios in the American filmmaking industry in 1923, after having had some success as exhibitors. They went on to create one of the crown jewels of the "studio system" in the United States, eventually matriculating pretty forcefully into the television side of things, even when some of their American competitors were not in such a huge rush to "help the enemy". Somewhat similarly, the Shaw Brothers formed the first version of their moviemaking empire just two years after the Warners, in 1925, though admittedly it took until 1958 for the organization to be called Shaw Brothers. Like the Warners, the Shaws had begun as venue owners, though in their case they dealt in both film exhibitions (courtesy of their father) and live theater. Kind of interestingly, given one of the Warner's technological triumphs, the introduction of sound with 1929's The Jazz Singer, the Shaws are credited with having brought the "talkie" era to Chinese cinema in 1932 and 1933. The Shaws took a while to develop what many think of as their stock in trade, the kung fu films that started appearing in the seventies, but there's little disagreement that their involvement in that genre massively helped to popularize it, much as the Warners had helped to make the so-called "gangster film" must see cinema in the 1930s. Again, understandably somewhat later than the Warners ventured into television in the 1950s, the Shaws ultimately actually forsook the bulk of their movie output to concentrate on productions for the small screen. But Arrow is concentrating on some of the studio's feature films from its perceived heyday, with the Volume One of this set's title hinting that fans may be just at the beginning of an exciting viewing adventure. As is often the case with these deluxe Arrow releases, the packaging is impressive and the supplemental features are bountiful and outstanding.

There may initially not be a quintet, but the fact that one of this film's alternate titles is The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms may give at least an inkling of what's going on. Rather interestingly, though, while the film offers some of the stars of the so-called "Venom Mob", it's its own standalone story, which involves a number of "differently abled" (some might just come out and say handicapped) fighters who are of course able to overcome their disabilities in order for truth, justice and the Chinese way to triumph. The film has some disturbing subtext, as a little boy named Du Chang (played by Lu Feng as an adult) has his arms chopped off by the bad guys, and that only after the bad guys have killed the boy's mother (by chopping off her legs).

Du Chang is fitted with metal arms by his grieving father, Du Tiandao (Chen Kuan-tai), and the two set out to avenge the death of Tiandao's wife and Chang's mother, which turns out to not be enough for them, leading to basically unprovoked attacks against innocent bystanders. It's here that Crippled Avengers manages to achieve something of a twist, where a seemingly sympathetic duo is revealed to be murderous, and some of their victims turn out to be the titular heroes of the film.

That leads to a quartet of "differently abled" men training in order to be able to take on the two Du's, which of course ultimately leads to the film's climactic showdown. This is a really interesting effort which manages to subvert expectations and play upon the audience's assumed sympathies for characters who have experienced some kind of horrible tragedy.

Crippled Avengers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Crippled Avengers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Arrow's nicely appointed insert pamphlet sized booklet contains quite a bit of information, though all of the films have been lumped together on one page, as follows:

All twelve films in this boxset are presented in their original 2.35:1 aspect ratios [sic] with their original Mandarin, English and Cantonese (where applicable) monoaural soundtracks. Every effort has been made to present these films in their original and complete versions using the best materials available.

Five Shaolin Masters, Shaolin Temple, Mighty Peking Man, Executioners from Shaolin, Heroes of the East and the shorter Alternate Version of Chinatown Kid were remastered by Celestial Pictures in 2003-2007, as part of an initiative to digitally restore the entire Shaw Brothers library. The High Definition masters of these restorations, which included the original Mandarin and English mono soundtracks, were supplied to Arrow Films by Celestial Pictures.

King Boxer, The Boxer from Shantung, Challenge of the Masters, The Five Venoms, Crippled Avengers, Dirty Ho and the longer international cut of Chinatown Kid have all been newly restored by Arrow Films in 2021, in collaboration with L'Immagine Ritrovata, Hong Kong Film Archive and Celestial Pictures.

The original 35mm negatives for King Boxer, The Boxer from Shantung, Challenge of the Masters, The Five Venoms, Crippled Avengers and Dirty Ho were scanned at L'Immagine Rittrovata Asia and restored in 2K resolution at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The Films were graded at R3Store Studios, London. These restorations have used the entire film negative without resorting to the practice of "frame cutting" resulting in the loss of film frames at each negative splice point.

The mono mixes were remastered from the original sound negatives at L'Immagine Ritrovata. Additional sound remastering was completed by Matthew Jarman/Bad Princess Productions. The audio synch will often appear loose against the picture, due to the fact that the dialogue and sound effects were recorded entirely in post production, as per the production standards of the period.

A 35mm internegative of the International Version of Chinatown Kid was scanned at L'Immagine Ritrovata Asia and restored in 2K resolution at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The film was graded at R3Store Studios, London.

The mono mix was remastered from the original sound negative at L'Immagine Ritrovata. Additional sound remastering was completed by Matthew Jarman/Bad Princess Productions.

An additional scene from Chinatown Kid missing from the original elements was scanned from a vintage 35mm print and graded in 2K resolution at American Genre Film Archive (AGFA).

All original materials supplied for these restorations were made available from the Hong Kon Film Archive via Celestial Pictures.

While Crippled Avengers is another 2K scan off the original camera negative done for this release by Arrow Films, it doesn't quite attain the same consistent levels of clarity and detail levels that some of the other Arrow transfers in this set do, though it may be only by a matter of degrees. This is one of several films where the widescreen lenses may show signs of faults or at least anomalies, with typical bugaboos like anamorphic squeezing at the edges of the frame, but perhaps less expectedly, some outright fuzziness in some midrange shots (see screenshot 18 for one example). While the palette pops quite agreeably throughout, I found things to be slightly oily looking at times, with a noticeable green-yellow tint in some interior scenes in particular. As with the other Arrow transfers in this set, grain resolves naturally and there are no signs of aggressive digital tweaking.

Crippled Avengers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Crippled Avengers features DTS-HD Master Audio Mono tracks in either Mandarin or English. This is an outlier in the audio department in this set in that to my ears it's the English track on this disc which sounds a bit hotter and brighter, the reverse of what many of the other discs offering either Mandarin or English tracks offer. That said, the differences are slight, and both tracks deliver dialogue, effects and score with reasonable fidelity and clarity. Optional English subtitles are available.

Crippled Avengers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Arrow has packaged this release with The Five Venoms and Crippled Avengers on the same disc. Arrow has rather nicely authored the disc so that when choosing either film, a specific set of supplements is accessible, albeit with some shared content (as with regard to the Lo Meng and Chang Cheh pieces, below, which are available under both films' Special Features submenus).

• Interview with Lo Meng (HD; )19:12 is a 2003 interview filmed by F A. Subtitled in English.


• Chang Cheh: The Master (HD; 17:32) is a biographical piece produced by Celestial Pictures in 2003. Subtitled in English.


• Trailer Gallery

  HK Theatrical Trailer (HD; 3:42)

  
  

  Digital Reissue Trailer (HD; 1:10)

• Image Gallery (HD)

Note: All of the discs in this set feature some supplemental material that is in 720 rather than 1080, notably some of the trailers.

Crippled Avengers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Crippled Avengers is a really interesting film in that it seems to be setting up one character as a "wounded hero", when in fact that character turns out to be one of the chief villains. Some PC minded folks may object to the whole depiction of people with supposed disabilities, but those folks may be missing the whole point that the heroes of this film don't accept any limitations due to their afflictions. Technical merits are generally solid, and as usual with Arrow's releases, the supplements are very enjoyable. Recommended.