Paula Hammond - Features EditorIn the wake of the superlative Encounter of the Spooky Kind, the Hong Kong film industry realised that it had hit gold.
Combining horror, fantasy, comedy, and martial arts, these colourful period pieces pitted their protagonists against hopping vampires, vengeful ghosts, and evil sorcerers … and in the process created a genre that’s going strong today.
This September, Eureka Classics presents two of the most mind-bending tales of Taoist magic ever committed to film: Taoism Drunkard and Young Taoism Fighter.
Directed by and starring Yuen Cheung-yan (The Miracle Fighters), Taoism Drunkard follows a man with a love for wine who accidentally damages a sacred statue. To atone for this blunder, he is asked by an enraged Taoist priest (Hsiao Hou-tao) to find a virginal boy (Yuen Yat-chor) to aid in defending his temple from a demonic sorcerer (Yuen Shun-yi).
In Young Taoism Fighter (directed by Police Story’s Chen Chi-hwa), a practitioner of Taoist kung fu (Yuen Yat-chor) manages to separate his soul from his body before teaming up with a vengeful young woman (Hilda Liu Hao-yi) to take on a sinister sorcerer (Kwan Chung) and the evil leader of a rival kung fu school (Yen Shi-kwan).
Filled with fantastical imagery– not least Taoism Drunkard’s banana monster – and featuring some of the most jaw-droppingly inventive fight sequences in the history of martial arts cinema, Taoism Drunkard and Young Taoism Fighter are cult classics that no fan of the genre should be without.
Special features include:
- Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling (first 2000 copies).
- Set Includes: Taoism Drunkard & Young Taoism Fighter.
- Both films presented in 1080p HD from brand new 2K restorations.
- Original Cantonese audio and optional English dub tracks (original mono presentations).
- Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release.
- Brand new audio commentaries on both films by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival).
- Brand new audio commentaries on both films by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema.
- Brand new interview with director and actor Yuen Cheung-yan.
- Brand new interview with filmmaker and critic James Mudge.
- Trailers.
- A limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Southeast Asian horror expert Dr. Katarzyna Ancuta, and Daniel O’Brien, author of Spooky Encounters (first 2000 copies).
