Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.0

The Crippled Masters Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 22, 2024

Any number of completely bizarre martial arts films have passed through my review queue over the many years I've been doing this, including in the recent release of The Game of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection Vol. 1, Severin's massive compendium of so-called "Brucesploitation" efforts (that Volume 1 portends more "goodies" coming in the future, which will no doubt also be bizarre). That said, nothing quite matches the gonzo and potentially problematic antics offered by The Crippled Masters, a film's whose very title leads commentators Will Sloan and Justin Decloux to pre-apologize in advance should they use any disparaged terms for those "differently abled".

Suffice it to say that the film's title, however objectionable it may be, provides a more than apt summary for what's in store, as two disabled fighters, one without arms and the other without legs, team together to take down the villain who disfigured them. The very "status" of the two titular characters can give the fight scenes in this effort an unavoidable ingenuity, but there's still such a feeling of exploitation (and not that "typical" kind) running through this film that some may feel a little "dirty" watching it. The narrative here is strictly by the numbers in a variety of ways, not just with regard to the central revenge scenario, but also with regard to two "wounded" people learning to work together to take down a common enemy.

The Crippled Masters Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Crippled Masters is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Masters with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The back cover of this release reveals that this was "sourced from the collection of author and film curator Jack Stevenson in Copenhagen, Denmark", a source which is further clarified in the insert booklet essay as being an archival 35mm print. This is an intermittently problematic transfer, with a wider than usual gamut of quality in terms of virtually everything we try to address in our reviews, from color timing to clarity to detail levels to grain resolution. The raw scan of the element provided as a supplement on this disc shows how really badly damaged things started out, and so the restoration efforts here need to be applauded insofar as huge scratches, blemishes and even emulsion bubbles have been largely if not completely eliminated. Unfortunately in the zeal to remove some admittedly major damage, it looks like filtering also at least occasionally removes grain. There are still scratches in abundance and other damage to be spotted with regularity, and this is yet another Asian production that suffers from the anamorphic oddities I discuss in several of my reviews of Severin's Brucesploitation set linked to above, where it almost looks like the rectangle of the film frame has been "twisted" to be a parallelogram, leaving the imagery "tilted" strangely. There are also several scenes that feature still seriously degraded imagery, where certain bands of color almost "disingegrate" (look at the speckled arrays in screenshots 6 and 7).

The Crippled Masters Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Crippled Masters features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono tracks in either English or Mandarin that fare considerably better than the video side of the equation, though there's the same kind of boxy and overly thin high end here that seems to afflict a lot of productions from China from this same general time period. That thinness is most noticeable in some of the actually rather interesting scoring choices, which feature some authentic ethnic instrumentation. Sound effects can be just a bit on the hollow side, though not overly so. The Mandarin track has a bit more background noise than the English track (which is pretty clean sounding overall), and arguably a bit more of a general boxy sound than the English language track. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Crippled Masters Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Kings of Kung Fu: Releasing the Legends (HD; 30:48) is a really interesting piece by the venerable Chris Poggiali focusing on the early distribution (and distributors) of kung fu films in the United States.


• Kung Fu Film Trailer Compilation from Something Weird (HD; 18:31) may remind some of two other similar efforts from Severin, Kung Fu Trailers of Fury
and Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury.

• 2024 re-cut trailer for The Crippled Masters (HD; 3:57)


• Original raw scan of The Crippled Masters feature film (HD; 1:31:33) shows just how badly damaged the original element was. Interestingly, this seems to have burnt in subtitles in French, which have somehow been eliminated from the restored presentation without cropping the lower portion of the frame.


• The Crippled Masters Original Theatrical Trailer (HD: 4:05)


• The Crippled Masters Before / After Restoration (HD; 2:21)


• Audio Commentary by Will SLoan and Justin Delcoux is accessible under the Setup Menu.

Additionally a nicely appointed insert booklet has a rather thoughtful essay by Philip Elliott Hopkins.

The Crippled Masters Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Insert booklet essayist Philip Elliott Hopkins attempts to make the case that if some viewers have a "problem" with the depictions of disabled folks in this film, it's their "problem" and not one inherent to the film itself. I'm not sure I completely agree, though the film does at least provide a showcase for those missing various limbs still managing to achieve some amazingly athletic feats. The "narrative" here is frankly rote from virtually every angle. Technical merits are definitely highly variable, especially in the video realm, but both the commentary and main "distribution" supplementary featurette are worthwhile, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.