Four Riders Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Four Riders Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 24, 2025

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of the Horrible History: Four Historical Epics by Chang Cheh collection from Eureka! Entertainment.

The back panel of the slipcover offered with this release states that Chang Cheh is "often described as the 'Godfather of Hong Kong Cinema',” and anyone who has seen any of the nearly hundred films Chang Cheh made during his long and storied career with the venerable Shaw Brothers would most likely be prone to agree. Chang's Shaw Brothers filmography is perhaps unexpectedly varied, at least given the renown his wuxia and general martial arts outings have achieved. Those include such well remembered opuses as The One-Armed Swordsman and The Five Venoms among scores of others (many of which are out in rather resplendent looking high definition transfers courtesy of a number of labels, including Arrow). This collection aggregates four of his so-called "historical epics", and rather interestingly two of the films in this set have at least one Hollywood (or perhaps more strictly accurately American) counterpart. Chang's Marco Polo can therefore be compared to a number of big screen efforts, including The Adventures of Marco Polo, Marco Polo and perhaps just slightly hilariously Marco (if you're unaware of this last one and have a taste for really bad musicals, check it out). Boxer Rebellion follows in a rather interesting tradition of depicting this epochal showdown in the annals of Chinese film (this fascinating article I found online in doing background research for purposes of writing this review suggests the Boxer Rebellion actually more or less gave birth to martial arts films), but might remind some trivia fans of the now largely forgotten Samuel Bronston production 55 Days at Peking. The title of The Pirate may unavoidably recall the Judy Garland film bearing the same name, with the last of the quartet, Four Riders , perhaps being the outlier, at least in terms of familiarity of plot machinations and recycled titles. That said, Four Riders is also distinctly different in terms of presenting a somewhat more contemporary story that may not seem quite as "historical" (at least in terms of how recent the era depicted is) than the rest of the films in this collection.

As mentioned above, Four Riders is probably the outlier in this set for a variety of reasons, with one of the most notable being its time frame being set in the wake of the Korean War. That of course gives this story a much more contemporary feel than the rest of the films in this set, and that "modern" aspect is mirrored in both general production design but also things like the underscore, which actually sounds more sixties than anything. This is a rather interesting tale in any case, as a Chinese soldier named Jin Yi (David Chiang Da-Wei) attempts to escape from South Korean police custody after he's accused of having killed an American soldier.

Four Riders Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Four Riders is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.36:1. As usual with their releases, Eureka really doesn't provide any meaningful technical information aside from their arguably unnecessary "viewing notes" and calibration advice, but I'm assuming all of the transfers in this set are the result of the well publicized restoration efforts of Shaw Brothers material by Celestial. I'm scoring this just a bit lower than the rest of the films in this set, but the differences are admittedly minor. This presentation offers a prime example of what I've termed a "parallelogram anomaly" when reviewing any number of other productions by the Shaw Brothers in particular, where what I'm assuming is a lens issue results in the rectangle of the frame being "twisted", making everything look bent toward one direction or the other (see screenshot 3). There's also a bit less consistency in densities and suffusion here, though again the difference between this film's presentation and the others in this set are minimal. Detail levels are generally excellent and some of the outdoor material in particular has real vibrancy. Grain resolves without any issues.

Four Riders Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Four Riders features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track in the original Mandarin, that can at least occasionally have a bit of stridency on the high end, but which actually delivers some of the appealing ambient environmental effects, as in long, lingering vistas with wind blowing in the film's opening sequence, without any issues. Scoring and other sound effects encounter no real problems, and dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Four Riders Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Note: Eureka has packaged Boxer Rebellion and Four Riders together on one disc, with the following supplements:

• Audio Commentary on Boxer Rebellion by Mike Leeder and Arne Venema


• Audio Commentary on Four Riders by Frank Djeng and Michael Worth


• National Defence (HD; 19:13) offers Wayne Wong's thoughts on Boxer Rebellion.

Four Riders Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While probably not at the apex of Chang Cheh's filmography, this is still an undeniably entertaining film, and its emphasis on a ragtag group of soldiers working together keeps it completely in line with any number of other Chang Cheh outings, even if the time frame is considerably more contemporary. Technical merits are generally solid, even if video isn't quite as consistent as in some of the others in this set, and the supplements are enjoyable, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.