The Wrath of Vajra Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

The Wrath of Vajra Blu-ray Movie Review

The grates of 'Wrath'.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 17, 2014

Many Westerners tend to equate the term “Japanese aggression” to the attack on Pearl Harbor and what would ultimately become the Pacific Theater of World War II. Chinese nationals of course have a much longer and perhaps even more personal definition of the term, as Japan had been setting its sights on its mainland neighbor for quite some time before it turned its gaze to the rest of the world. There are several Japanese-Chinese battles that have played a part in many films through the years, at least as tangential elements, and The Wrath of Vajra is but the latest to frame a basic martial arts drama within the context of the long simmering disputes between these two nations. What’s perhaps most notable about The Wrath of Vajra is the wrath of the filmmakers, for this is an often pretty screed like outing that paints the Japanese not just as marauding invaders but also kidnappers and brainwashers of hordes of innocent children. As the film explains in a brief textual prelude:

In the 1930s, a Japanese death cult called the Hades bought poor kids from both China and around the world and trained them as assassins within China, believing that the latter could be destroyed spiritually from within. During WWII, the Hades was disbanded because its invasion strategy against China clashed with the objective of the Japanese military. Its founder and spiritual leader Amano Kawao was imprisoned and its members were exiled. Later when Japan met strong resistance in China, the Japanese military decided to revive the cult to facilitate the conquest of China.

This fanciful setup may not have much actual relationship to true historical events, but it at least gives The Wrath of Vajra a distinctive point of view, though it's a perspective laced with a decidedly anti-Japanese sentiment that is obviously geared to appeal mostly to Chinese nationals who may still be nursing a grudge decades after the last vestiges of a long ago conflict had finally withered away and died. Oddly, this is following in the footsteps of another recent Well Go USA release, Young Detective Dee: Rise of The Sea Dragon, another Chinese film that may not seem to have a lot in common with The Wrath of Vajra, other than some martial arts mayhem. But both of these films were released theatrically in 3D and have failed to make the transition to 3D Blu-ray, at least domestically. This is especially noticeable on this particular film, as many of the fight sequences were obviously designed with 3D in mind.

"Wouldn't this be easier if we went inside where it's not raining?"

As the film’s credits play out, the camera follows a snarky looking Japanese official who approaches the inner sanctum of a prison where Amano Kawao (Yasuaki Kurata) is being held. The official laments that despite an obvious military superiority, the Japanese have yet to crush the Chinese spirit. It’s obviously time to resuscitate the Hades project, despite the fact that it was the military itself that put the kibosh on the project some twelve years previously, jailing Kawao in the process. The official dangles freedom in front of Kawao, at least if Kawao can build Hades up to its previous levels of nastiness, and Kawao, on a kind of parole, drops by to inspire one of his main acolytes, a young man named Daisuke (Steve Yoo), who vows to make Hades the—well, hell on earth it was before. The fact that Kawao takes a Devil headed totem off of a shrine and hands it to Daisuke during this meeting is some indication that this film is not exactly a model of subtlety.

Kawao also reminds Daisuke about a “lost” acolyte, one known simply as K-29 (Xing Yu) who has forsaken the villainous ways of Hades to become a Shaolin monk (it’s notable that Xing Yu was himself a Shaolin monk before becoming an actor). Daisuke vows to get back K-29 into the fold by hook or by crook. Meanwhile, a bunch of international POWs, including a German and some Americans, all of whom had been fighting next to the Chinese in Burma, are delivered to the now renascent Hades with a number of equally distasteful choices set before them, including fighting, dieing or signing up for a supposed two year “tour” with Hades to fight the Chinese.

Everything in The Wrath of Vajra plays out pretty much as expected, with K-29 of course coming back to not just wreak a little havoc but to free a new gaggle of children who have been taken captive, including one with whom he has a special connection. It also turns out that some of the captured POWs are, like K-29, former Hades members now bent on revenge, setting up a kind of Great Escape showdown between prisoners and their captors. The final showdown boils down expectedly to Daisuke and K-29, with a none too surprising outcome. There is some supposedly heartstring tugging moments thrown in courtesy of a doomed love affair involving Kawao’s journalist daughter Eiko (Ya Mei), though the film shirks on the development of this element, thereby depriving it of much emotional heft.

The Wrath of Vajra ends up being a series of relatively well choreographed fight scenes desperately in search of a real story. It’s kind of odd in that the basic premise is unusual enough to warrant some interesting plot machinations, but the film simply sets these pieces in place and then resolutely refuses to do much of interest with them. Things at least look rather nice most of the time, with a really interesting production design that keeps almost all of the action within the confines of the Hades encampment.

The Wrath of Vajra Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Wrath of Vajra is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Though quite a bit of the film is dark, and even the sequences that aren't have been variously color graded to at least slightly desaturate the color, contrast remains quite strong and shadow detail is well above average. Director Wing-Cheong Law utilizes a lot of extreme close-ups, and those offer excellent fine detail. While some of the film's CGI isn't especially well done, when the film ventures out of doors in the bright sunlight, colors are really vivid and nicely saturated. There is some very minor banding on display at times (you'll notice an example in the film's final moment during a crane shot out over an immense horizon).

The Wrath of Vajra Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Wrath of Vajra features a pair of DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, in a combination of Mandarin, Japanese and English as well as a totally English dub, and another mirroring pair of Dolby Digital 2.0 mixes. The 5.1 mixes are really robust, with some fantastic LFE in the fight sequences and other nice surround elements as well, including things like the wash of waves when the POWs are being transported by boat or a drenching rainstorm that surrounds the fighters in the film's climax. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, and the English dub is not quite as problematic as is often the case. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is extremely wide.

The Wrath of Vajra Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (1080p; 25:46). Though this is ostensibly split into several short featurettes, it plays sequentially as one longer piece with focuses on things like the martial arts fight choreography.


• Trailer (1080p; 3:00)

The Wrath of Vajra Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Martial arts genre enthusiasts may well find enough here to warrant checking out The Wrath of Vajra, but this film squanders an at least passable (if patently cartoonish) premise without ever delivering anything other than some decent fight sequences. The production design here is rather handsome, helping to at least provide some amazing sets to surround the less than visceral performances. Technical merits here are also excellent for anyone interested in adding this Blu-ray to their collection.