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Martial arts director King Hu’s forgotten film The Valiant Ones was his most action-packed
- King Hu’s 1975 martial arts drama with Sammo Hung was overlooked for 20 years. Film critic Frank Djeng tells the Post why it stands out
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Martial arts cinema maestro King Hu’s lesser known The Valiant Ones is his most action-packed film.
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The 1975 drama, which is set in China’s Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and was shot in Hong Kong’s New Territories, including outlying islands, is based on a true story of Chinese heroes who struggle with corrupt officials as they attempt to rid China’s coast of Japanese pirates.
We talk to critic Frank Djeng, who provided the commentary for the Eureka Films Blu-ray release of The Valiant Ones, about the film.
This was once considered a “lost film”. When was it found?
The Valiant Ones languished in obscurity for around 20 years until 1996, when the Hong Kong Film Archive found a print of it in a film laboratory.
King Hu gifted the reels to the archive, who restored it – this happened the year before Hu died. The latest 4k restoration was done 20 years after that, around 2017.
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