Well Go U.S.A. has tabbed June 2 as the street for both DVD
and Blu-ray editions of Vietnamese-born and now Hong Kong-based filmmaker Tsui
Hark’s latest all-action spectacular, The Taking of Tiger Mountain, which
was adapted (quite liberally) from Qu Bo’s best-selling 1957 Red Army tale of
post-war heroics, “Tracks in the Snowy Forest.”
The ARR comes in at 151 days and the domestic box office
take currently stands at $228,984.
World War II has come to end, but civil war in China rages
on. 50 years ago the Chinese government
used to churn out dreadfully-produced propaganda films that showed the noble
Red Army battling the forces of Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT (backed, naturally by the
Americans) for the soul of China.
Those days are gone.
If a frontline filmmaker, such as Tsui Hark (A Better Tomorrow, Once
Upon a Time in China, Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon,
etc.), wants to do a period piece (in this case circa 1946) about the civil war
that raged in the north of China during that period, the result is not some
cheesy rah-rah flick, but a first class film presentation.
The look and feel of what is on the screen
puts you squarely in this tumultuous period in Chinese history … the warlords
and bandits filling the vacuum left by the collapse of the Japanese occupation
forces and the rise of the People’s Liberation Army (united with Chiang
Kai-shek during the war, but now out to claim the country for themselves).
The sinister Master Hawk (Tony Leung Ka Fai — Beijing
Love Story, Lost in Beijing, etc.) is the cunning leader of a gang of
bandits, but unbeknownst to him his crew of cutthroats has been infiltrated by
the noble Yang Zirong (played by Zhang Hanyu — The Chef, The Actor, The
Scoundrel, Back to 1942, etc.), whose job is to ferret-out Hawk’s strengths
and defenses so that his out-numbered band of brothers can overcome them in the
forthcoming battle.
Beautifully mounted, loaded with action and presented in
Mandarin, with English subtitles, once again Well Go U.S.A. has another hit on
their hands with Tsui Hark’s The Taking of Tiger Mountain.
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