Running Time: 80 Minutes
Starring: Danny Lee, Tien Ni, Lin Chen-Chi, Shih Chung-Tien, Chiang Tao, Keung Hon, Wai Wang, Si Wai, San Shu-Wa
Once the largest film production company in Hong Kong, the Shaw Brothers was a studio that produced over a thousand films and popularised the kung fu genre. The Battle Wizard was released in 1977, an adaptation of Louis Cha's novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils which condenses the epic tale into an 80-minute tale of utter insanity. Come for the martial arts, stay for the fire-breathing, laser-shooting, deadly animal bizarreness.
The story opens with a couple in bed, where their intimacy involves a pregnancy reveal, only for the moment to be interrupted by the woman's husband arriving. Intent on killing the man who slept with his wife, the situation does not go as expected when Duan Zheng Chu (Si Wai) severs his opponents legs by firing lasers out of his fingers. As the victor leaves his pregnant lover in favour of his fiancee, revenge is sworn on the pair that have been left scorned.
Twenty-years-later, the yellow robed man (Shih Chung-Tien) seeks revenge on Zheng Chu by target his adult son, Duan Yu (Danny Lee). Unlike his father, the son is a bookworm that is disinterested with fighting despite being next in line to the throne. He soon embarks on a mission where his paths cross with a young woman who has been trained to keep her face covered, a martial artist with a lethal army of poisonous animals, gangs who are quick to action, and a Red Python whose blood can compensate for lacking fighting abilities.
As you can tell from that summary, one hell of a journey unfolds in the name of the audience's viewing pleasure. It is the kind of work where snakes enter people's bodies via recently made orifices, eroticism comes from a venom sucking sequence, and a teleporting bald henchman is armed with a retractable velociraptor claw. I would say that seeing is believing, but having seen this film, I am uncertain if I can believe what I saw.
Amidst this wackiness is a cautionary tale about one's inability to move on from the past. The actions of Zheng Chun have left many people holding onto their anger, with the toxicity poisoning the following generation, and the cycle of anger affecting many in their wake. But the thematic elements are secondary to the nasty villains, each worth booing and hissing at from vile actions to nasty death scenes.
The cheap budget leaves the effects to either be impressively realised, such as a red python, or endearing, like a green screen and a toy horse depicting a cliffside fall. Add to that top-notch martial arts displays, and The Battle Wizard is another tremendous work from the Shaw Brothers.
The Battle Wizard played at Fantasia Festival 2025
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