Shoeless Wonder: To's Tribute To Chang Cheh

The Qing Dynasty. Innocent country bumpkin Kuan arrives in town, to take a job with Uncle Tuan, friend of his late father, at the dyeing workshop owned by the beautiful wi . His own naiveté gets him into the kind of trouble that reveals his superior fighting skills. Oblivious to external politics or his uncle’s past as a skilled fighter, Kuan’s own abilities and his desire to protect his new home lead to the kind of trouble that ends in tears…

Sometimes what you need from cinema is a violent fairytale, and nothing more. Action fans understand this, as do horror fans, as does Luc Besson. However, in the welter of praise that more considered film-makers can receive, it is sometimes ignored that they too are delivering no more and no less. Michael Mann, for example, has shown he understands this well with the recent one-two punch of Collateral and Miami Vice. Johnnie To, another master of masculine crime pics, has also done so over time, and, more daringly, has worked in far more commercial genres to considerable box-office acclaim: romance and comedy. It was, however, with The Bare-footed Kid, this 1993 entry in the new-wave kung-fu genre, that many western fans first encountered his work, particularly here in the U.K., where this was amongst the first VHS releases from the seminal Made In Hong Kong label, alongside Saviour of the Soul.

What I remember most about the film from that time was the visual splendour of the film; the use of strong colour and lighting; the careful pacing within which the action scenes were expertly spread out throughout the running time, escalating, as they do in the best action films, to the epic final struggle; and finally, the emotion of the piece, a film in which Ti Leung and Maggie Cheung not only give great performances, but in which the latter is the strong beating heart of the film. In a post-Crouching Tiger era it is easy to forget the degree to which strong female characters were an integral part of HK action cinema at a time when such roles were rare in the Hollywood equivalent. Admittedly, Cheung’s own career in the 80s shows that these were rare in HK also, but as times moved on and directors such as Tsui Hark and To worked in different genres, they took tradition by the scruff of the neck and shook it vigorously - compare Tsui’s work with the late lamented Anita Mui in A Better Tomorrow III (a film which received much criticism for making her character effectively Chow Yun Fat’s underworld sifu).

However, looking back from today’s perspective of Milky Way Films and the recent Election two-parter, The Barefooted Kid is interesting as much for To’s individual style that shows him to be more than the journeyman director his career at the time suggested, as for where it sits in his filmography. A remake of legendary director Chang Cheh’s 1975 film Disciples of Shaolin aka The Invincible One, To pays respect to Cheh’s themes and moral framework, while still taking a modernist perspective that makes the relationships and the strength of the female characters the emotional foundation of the film. The fights may not be the most amazing seen at the time, but they are reasonably fresh, with wirework and editing making the most of Kwok’s limited skills in the area, but enhancing the natural talent of the great Ti Lung, and, as mentioned above, are perfectly placed within the narrative. Sets that might be over-familiar from use are dressed, lit and shot in a manner that refreshes them, and the costumes all seem to have received that extra care that makes them stand out. Finally, the ending is very much in keeping with not only 70s films, but also To’s own more recent work.

A terrific Eastern western, just as many 70s fight films were, right down to the style and use of the memorable soundtrack, this film has many fans, and rightly so, as it has heart and style to spare, more so than some Jet Li vehicles of the period. The new DVD from Celestial Pictures is superb, a joy to watch, although one could argue that the colours are too bright, but since it restores the skin tones to more natural colours than older versions, better this rich vision than a faded unrestored one. Thankfully the urge to remix the soundtrack has been resisted, so while we have the strong anamorphic image, we have the mono soundtrack, which does the job as well as it did then. The subtitles are adequate, no more. Minor extras include trailers and the original poster – the DVD cover lists a behind-the-scenes, but I can’t find that listed on any menu. Still, an excellent restoration of a solid entry in To’s filmography, and a must-buy for its loyal fans.