In Marco Polo, the eponymous Venetian explorer (Richard Harrison) becomes embroiled in a battle between the Mongol Empire and Chinese rebels in the thirteenth century. In The Pirate, the infamous nineteenth-century raider Cheung Po Tsai (Ti Lung) must evade agents of the Imperial Court while attempting to aid the downtrodden residents of a coastal village. In Boxer Rebellion, a group of Chinese patriots use kung fu to protect their nation against invading forces at the turn of the twentieth century. Finally, in Four Riders, a Chinese veteran of the Korean War enlists three comrades to help him escape the South Korean Military Police Command after he is falsely accused of murdering an American soldier.
What We Thought:
2024 was a big year for Shaw Brothers releases and Horrible History: Four Historical Epics By Chang Cheh is the latest. This features four films from director Chang Cheh who was a wildly popular director at Shaw Brothers Studio. Those films are Marco Polo, The Pirate, Boxer Rebellion and Four Riders spread over two discs.
Richard Harrison stars as Marco Polo during his time in Asia. He finds himself caught between Chinese rebels and the Mongol empire. The Pirate is about infamous pirate Cheung Po Tsai, a sort of Robin Hood who is trying to evade authorities while helping the locals of a small town he enters while trying to get his pirate ship repaired. Harrison makes another appearance in Boxer Rebellion as a German. This is about a group of martial artists defending their homeland. Four Riders is about a Chinese soldier who is falsely accused of killing an American during the post Korean War time.
All four films use real people or real situations in an adapted story. They are fictional with touches of non-fiction characters or events. They all have martial arts and action sequences that were pretty solid for the time period. You won’t compare these films to The Raid or Ip Man, but as someone who grew up watching kung-fu flicks on TV, I have a soft spot for them. Most are under two hours long and get right to the point which makes them an easy binge. I watched Marco Polo and The Pirate one night then Boxer Rebellion and Four Riders the next. I had recently watched a Shaw Brothers collection so I was still in a pretty good mindset for these films. If you are a fan of the studio and/or the director, you’ll enjoy this.
Horrible History: Four Historical Epics By Chang Cheh is a solid collection of Cheh films. You don’t have to watch them in any particular order since all four are very different. They are historical, but take place in much different eras with one being the 20th Century and others being hundreds of years old story wise. If you like martial arts films and historical epics you’ll like this grouping.
Special Features:
- Limited edition of 2000 copies
- Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju)
- 1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from masters supplied by Celestial Pictures
- Original mono audio tracks
- Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
- Two new commentaries by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist and filmmaker Michael Worth
- Two new commentaries by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
- National Defence – A new interview with Hong Kong cinema scholar Wayne Wong on Boxer Rebellion
- Rewriting History – A new video essay on Chang Cheh’s historical films by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of China
- PLUS: A Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on all four films in this set by writer and critic James Oliver
The Nerds Templar 