Review: Once Upon a Time in China: The Complete Films on Criterion Blu-ray

Part rollicking kung fu epics, part canny investigations into Chinese history, these films now receive the Criterion deluxe treatment.

Once Upon a Time in ChinaTsui Hark’s fingerprints are all over the five entries in the Once Upon a Time in China series. Tsui produced and co-wrote all the films in the series, and directed four of them. Though each can be enjoyed according to its own merits, taken together the series traces out a very specific arc both in terms of historical era and character development. Turn-of-20th-century period pieces, replete with absurdly over-the-top kung fu (not to mention wire fu) set pieces, and characterized by a broad streak of antic comedy, these films are both crowd-pleasers and sly reinterpretations of episodes in Chinese history.

The films, which were released between 1991 and 1994, focus on martial arts master and traditional Chinese medicine practitioner Wong Fei-hung, played by Jet Li in the first three installments and Vincent Zhao in the last two. Wong is a figure drawn from real life, who had been depicted previously in dozens of films and television programs as a venerable old man, so Li’s younger, more dynamic portrayal is part and parcel of Tsui’s tendency toward unconventional recontextualizations. The series’s frequent inclusion of historical figures does double duty as both a comment on a particular moment in Chinese history as well as sociopolitical aspects of contemporary Hong Kong in the leadup to its 1997 handover to China.

The series plays out the often contentious, tendentious relationship between China and the West. On one level, this is embodied at the interpersonal level through the burgeoning romance between Wong and his so-called 13th Aunt (Rosamund Kwan), who returns to town dressed in Victorian garb, fluent in English, and with a newfangled box camera in tow. In the third film, she receives an early movie camera and, in a nifty bit of self-reflexivity, some footage that she shoots is integral to exposing a murderous conspiracy. In this formulation, Wong represents a dogged traditionalism, while 13th Aunt stands for measured assimilation.

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The first film, set in the late 19th century during the Qing dynasty, centers on the still timely issue of human trafficking, with unsuspecting Chinese workers being packed off to the New World for exploitation (and, in the case of the women, prostitution) by a villainous American official, Jackson (Jonathan Isgar). As in the subsequent films, the narrative is careful to balance the external threat with an internal one. In this case, it’s twofold: There’s the Shaho gang who assists Jackson, as well as rival martial arts master Iron Vest Yim (Yen Shi-kwan), who engages Wong in truly jaw-dropping combat in a ladder-filled warehouse.

The second film complicates matters by introducing the rabidly xenophobic White Lotus Sect, whose deadly attacks on Westerners and Western-leaning Chinese alike are shown as crassly terroristic. In an early scene, Wong lectures a mixed group of doctors on the virtues of acupuncture, which is shown as not only complementary to the Western understanding of the human nervous system, but also highly effective. The presence here of Sun Yat-sen, eventually the first president of the democratic Republic of China, points to contemporary democratic protests in China, especially the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The third film returns more or less to the political dynamic of the first, with Wong and his acolytes doing battle—in increasingly complicated fight scenes—against various Chinese factions for first prize in a nationwide Lion Dance competition. The Big Bad here is the Russian official Tomanovsky (John Wakefield), who heads an assassination plot against the Dowager Empress. The kink in the narrative occurs in the finale, where, though he’s won the contest and defeated the plot, Wong throws down his prize in disgust at the infighting among his people.

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The fourth film, directed by Yuen Bun, ups the ante with an international Lion Dance competition, while another nationalistic clan, the all-woman Red Lantern Sect, attempts to purge China of all things Western. Notably, the leader of the Red Lanterns is humanized and given something of a character arc, in sharp contrast to the purely villainous leader of the earlier White Lotus Clan. This installment features several astounding set pieces, especially the sequence where Wong infiltrates the sect’s headquarters. The fourth film also doubles down on the third’s pessimistic finale, ending with the invasion of Beijing by Western forces.

The fifth and final film in the series takes place amid the chaos of the central government’s collapse. The port town from which Wong and company hope to emigrate to Hong Kong is in utter disarray, lacking a municipal court, and beset by a local capitalist who’s charging through the roof for dwindling supplies of rice. As if this weren’t bad enough, it’s also beset by incursions from a band of pirates. The latter leads to another phenomenal action sequence set in the pirates’ cave, which has a vibe that distinctly recalls John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China. Wong’s ultimate decision to stay and rebuild is indicative of his traditional Confucian outlook, and it provides a ruminative conclusion to Tsui’s sprawling, rollicking epic.

Image/Sound

The first three films in the Once Upon a Time in China series are presented in 4K transfers from original camera negatives, while the fourth and fifth come from 2K scans of the interpositives. The films look uniformly excellent, with bold colors popping off all over the place like fireworks, black levels deep and uncrushed, and grain levels finely tuned across the board. Audio options include Cantonese mono and stereo options for the first three films, with the others available only in mono. Generally speaking, the stereo options are more robust, capturing raucous ambient audio effects and rousing scores with equal aplomb.

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Extras

The biggest supplement here is the inclusion of Once Upon a Time in China and America, a sort of epilogue to the series that was directed in 1997 by Sammo Hung. It’s an uproarious oater with Jet Li back in the saddle as Wong Fei-hung that also functions as an exposé of systemic racism and exploitation amid the supposedly gold-paved streets of the Wild West.

In a new interview, critic Tony Rayns places the series in its cinematic and sociopolitical contexts. There are also new interviews with director Tsui Hark, Film Workshop co-founder Nansun Shi, and editor Marco Mak, who discuss their place in the Hong Kong film industry, their working relationships, and the inspirations behind the Once Upon a Time in China series.

Archival video and audio interviews with Li, John Wakefield, Donnie Yen, and Yen Shi-kwan fill in lots of production history anecdotes. An hour-long documentary from 2004 profiles the historical Wong Fei-hung. From Spikes to Spindles is a 1976 documentary by Christine Choy about New York City’s Chinatown that features some uncredited work from Tsui. There are deleted scenes, making-of programs, and deleted scenes for several of the films. Finally, an illustrated booklet contains essays from critic Maggie Lee on the series and novelist Grady Hendrix on earlier media depictions of Wong Fei-hung.

Overall

Part rollicking kung fu epic and part canny investigation into Chinese history, the Once Upon a Time in China series gets the deluxe box set treatment from Criterion.

Score: 
 Cast: Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, Yuen Biao, Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, Kent Cheng, Yen Shi-kwan, Max Mok Siu-chung, Donnie Yen, David Chiang, Zhang Tielin, Xiong Xin-xin, Mike Miller, Lau Shun, John Wakefield, Meng Chin, Vincent Zhao, Jean Wang, Wang Jin-hua, Billy Chow, Chin Ka-lok, Kent Cheng, Roger Kwok Chun-on, Paco Yick Tin-hung, Elaine Lui Siu-ling  Director: Tsui Hark, Yuen Bun  Screenwriter: Tsui Hark, Yuen Kai-chi, Edward Yeung Yui-ming, Elsa Tang Bik-yin, Hanson Chan Tin-suen, Charcoal Tan, Lau Tai-mik, Jason Lam Kee-to  Distributor: The Criterion Collection  Running Time: 659 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1991 - 1994  Release Date: November 16, 2021  Buy: Video

Budd Wilkins

Budd Wilkins's writing has appeared in Film Journal International and Video Watchdog. He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

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