Magnificent Ruffians Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Magnificent Ruffians Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 22, 2022

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

The good news is if you have a martial arts fan you've been worried about finding an appropriate holiday present for, your prayers have been answered (for the second year in a row in fact), by the thoughtful folks at Arrow Video, who are returning to the evidently bottomless well that gave lovers of a certain Hong Kong studio one of 2021's most impressive releases, Shawscope Volume One. The bad news is, if you're a martial arts fan intrigued by this new release, you're going to have to put the rest of your life on hold to make it through not just a glut of Shaw Brothers films, but an immense assortment of supplemental material. As with the first volume of Shawscope, there's probably no doubt that some films will appeal to some viewers more than others, but the sheer variety of films in this set, along with an authoritative set of bonus features, will almost certainly make this a marquee item for genre aficionados.

Simon Abrams, who contributes some fun background and trivia data points on various films in this set in the information packed booklet Arrow includes with this release argues that Magnificent Ruffians is a "strong candidate for the most underrated Venom Mob movie", while also mentioning that it serves as director Chang Cheh's "most affecting ode to masculinity". What might be termed the traditional masculine values of loyalty, honor and brotherhood often suffuse Chang Cheh's Shaw Brothers opuses, but kind of interestingly in that regard, Magnificent Ruffians tends to also dissect what might be termed in modern day parlance "toxic masculinity" in the form of this film's chief villain, Yuan Ying-fei (Lu Feng).

Yuan is a patrician with a nasty side, and he is ruthless about taking on anyone he feels threatens his Alpha dominance. While he might be the ancient Chinese version of a serial killer, he initially approaches Guan Yun (Lo Meng) with a business proposition, which is not met with approval, something that, given Yuan's reputation, might not be a good idea. Even more unfortunately for Guan, Yuan has his sights set on Guan's sister Guan San (Annie Liu), and therefore decides Guan is disposable. This is another Shaw Brothers effort where supposedly "warring" sides actually end up learning to work together to defeat a common enemy. There's some great fight choreography in this piece, including several well staged battles with poles and other long objects.

Magnificent Ruffians Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Magnificent Ruffians is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. Arrow's insert booklet lumps all the films together on its page devoted to the restorations, as follows:

All fourteen films in this boxset are presented in their original aspect ratios (2.35:1 for all films except 1.85:1 for The Boxer's Omen and The Bare-Footed Kid) 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.

Return to the 36th Chamber, Disciples of the 36th Chamber, My Young Auntie, Martial Arts of Shaolin and The Bare-Footed 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, Cantonese and English mono soundtracks, were supplied to Arrow Films by Celestial Pictures.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin was restored by Celestial Pictures and L'Immagine Ritrovata in 2020. Additional grading was completed at R3Store Studios, London in 2021.

Mad Monkey Kung Fu, Five Superfighters, Invincible Shaolin, The Kid with the Golden Arm, Magnificent Ruffians, Ten Tigers of Kwangtung, Mercenaries from Hong Kong and The Boxer's Omen have all been newly restored by Arrow Films in 2021 and 2022, in collaboration with L'Immagine Ritrovata, Hong Kong Film Archive and Celestial Pictures. The original 35mm negatives for these films were scanned at L'Immagine Ritrovata 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.

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

Excerpts from vintage 35mm feature print elements for Return to the 36th Chamber, Disciples of the 36th Chamber and My Young Auntie and vintage 35mm trailer prints for Disciples of the 36th Chamber, Mad Monkey Kung Fu, Mercenaries from Hong Kong and The Boxer's Omen were scanned and graded in 2K resolution at American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) and R3Store Studios.

Additional print materials were made available from American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), Harry Guerro, Scott Napier, King-Wei Chu and Howard Zinman.

Magnificent Ruffians is another generally nice looking presentation that frankly may just not have the inherent pop of some of the more opulent historical productions in this set, with a palette that tends to favor a few more neutrals than usual, but one which can still provide generally good saturation. Things can look just slightly purple intermittently, something that can occasionally skew flesh tones toward cool territory, and this film also has a prevalence of opticals including quite a bit of on screen text and even what might be termed a "ghost ninja", and in moments like that the image understandably encounters both deficits in detail as well as an increase in grain. Grain is generally nicely resolved throughout the presentation. Once again there are occasional focus pulling issues and some noticeable anamorphic squeezing toward the edges of the frame.

Magnificent Ruffians Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Magnificent Ruffians is another film in this set offering only two audio options, Mandarin or English, both delivered via DTS-HD Master Audio Mono. I toggled between the tracks as I watched, and while once again there aren't any epochal differences between them, I felt the Mandarin has a bit more amplitude and better midrange than the English, but arguably not by a huge amount. Dialogue, effects and score are all rendered without any major issues. Optional English subtitles are available.

Magnificent Ruffians Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Arrow has packaged Magnificent Ruffians and Ten Tigers of Kwangtung together on one disc. However, after selecting Choose Film on the Main Menu, the Special Features then also change to reflect that choice. This film features the following supplements:

• Rivers and Lakes (HD; 22:34) is an interesting new video essay by author Jonathan Clements dealing with how the Shaw Brothers depicted Chines myth and history. This is accessible under the Special Features menus for both films on this disc.


• Trailer Gallery

  HK Theatrical Trailer (HD*; 4:01) is actually a reconstructed trailer sourced kind of quaintly from an old cassette of the audio of the trailer with the visuals from the German trailer, with some black screen interspersed.

  
  

  German Theatrical Trailer (HD*; 2:58)

• Image Gallery (HD)

*720

Magnificent Ruffians Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's kind of an interesting socioeconomic subtext in Magnificent Ruffians where the "simple folk" (that would be the ruffians) are actually arguably much happier with their lot in life than the insanely wealthy Yuan. But this is another film that is obviously at least as much about the martial arts as it is about any narrative wonderment, and in that regard, Magnificent Ruffians delivers the goods quite winningly. Technical merits are generally solid and the Rivers and Lakes supplement is one of the outstanding extras in this set. Recommended.