Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

The 7 Grandmasters Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 18, 2022

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Cinematic Vengeance: 8 Kung Fu Classics from Director Joseph Kuo.

The hits (and/or kicks, smacks and whacks) keep on comin', with this set from Eureka! Entertainment following releases like Shawscope Volume One from Arrow and a number of offerings from 88 Films like The Chinese Boxer and Disciples of Shaolin in my review queue. The big difference between those films and the ones featured in this huge collection is that these were the handiwork of one Joseph Kuo, a name which may frankly not be all that familiar even to lovers of the "kung fu" genre. Kuo was, as they say, a "multi-hyphenate" who frequently wrote, produced and directed his films, which tended to be independently financed far, far away from the riches and "studio system" of facilities like the Shaw Brothers. As commentator Frank Djenge mentions on more than one disc, that meant Kuo often tried to film outside, where he didn't have to pay for things like sets, which can give these films a kind of distinctive ambience at times. According to the press sheet Eureka! sent with the (check) discs, seven of the eight films in this set are making their worldwide debuts on Blu-ray.

None of the Kuo films in this collection are probably going to be deemed overly innovative in terms of their general narratives, and in fact several of them tend to traffic in at least some of the same plot points, repeatedly. That includes the martial arts film standby of several different fighting techniques being part of a series of combats, which tend to give this film, and some others in the set, almost the feeling of a nascent video game, as, in this case, elder teacher Sang Kuan Chun (Jack Long) embarks on a "greatest hits" tour (in more ways than one), taking on a variety of nemeses, each with their own "particular set of skills", before he retires.

There's a simultaneously unfolding subplot revolving around a would be acolyte of the elder master, a kid named Shao Ying (Simon Li Yi-Min) who wants to learn from the teacher. A third element involves missing pages from a kind of training manual the master has used, with the hint that the perceived "boss level" fight may involve someone who has those pages. The 7 Grandmasters really is a series of fight vignettes strung together with just a bit of narrative tether to get the cast to the next showdown. It's patently goofy at times, but the fight scenes are generally exciting and well staged.

The 7 Grandmasters Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The 7 Grandmasters is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This presentation features many of the pluses and minuses that fans will see in all of the transfers in this set, with the major pluses being a really splendidly suffused palette and generally really commendable detail levels, and the minuses being some of the same anamorphic oddities that seem to hobble many martial arts films that used some variation of the vaunted "Shawscope" lenses. You can see a couple of examples of some of these anomalies in screenshot 5 in particular, where not only do things look squeezed, there's a lack of clarity in the center of the frame. These are typically passing issues, though, and the bulk of this transfer has good clarity and a really beautiful palette. Damage is limited to relatively minor issues like occasional nicks. Grain resolves naturally throughout.

The 7 Grandmasters Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 7 Grandmasters features LPCM Mono audio in either Mandarin, Cantonese or English. I toggled between all three as I watched the film, and to my ears, the Mandarin track is the best balanced, with the Cantonese coming in second and the English a probably distant third. Both the Cantonese and English tracks have pretty strident high ends (the treble side of things on all the tracks in this set struck me as being way too hot and brash at times), and the English track in particular sounds close to distorting at times. All three tracks have the boxy, overly reverberant sound that fans of this genre have almost come to expect. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The 7 Grandmasters Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Frank Djeng and Michael Worth

The 7 Grandmasters Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The 7 Grandmasters gets this set off to a promising start not because it's any great innovation in martial arts filmmaking, but simply because it's so breathless, barely pausing between fights to give a tad more narrative information. Technical merits are generally solid, and The 7 Grandmasters comes Recommended.