A schemer infiltrates a powerful family, leaving the daughter to train in esoteric martial arts for revenge in Feng Huang’s The Himalayan. The 1976 Golden Harvest film is now on Blu-Ray via 88 Films.
What a bounty! In one week, we’ve got three Golden Harvest films, choreographed and featuring Sammo Hung in small roles, and led by the continually awesome Angela Mao. This time, we break from 1971 and jump to 1976, and bring with us Angry River’s director, Feng Huang, and Invincible Eight’s writer Kuang Ni, for The Himaylan. It’s another damned good one with a full-bodied story setting up for another set of fantastic action sequences, along with the sweeping vistas of the titular location.
One would think even with the title, Golden Harvest would skimp and find workarounds for the titular mountain range: other locations, composition, licensed footage. But no! They actually filmed a decent chunk of the film among the Nepalese foothills (so no one fights on a glacier or on K2!; the peaks are off in the distance). Huang also films in Golden Harvest’s studio and in Korea. All over, but it works coming together for a fine film.
The story the vistas hang on – Sing Chen’s Kao Chu is a violent schemer, and he gets himself and his “brother” into a powerful local family by way of the brother showing well at a tournament (with Sammo Hung!). After the marriage, and thus now part of the Tseng family, he starts tearing them up to gain power. Part of this involves removing the marred couple, which means Angel May’s Ching Tsent is sent into exile. There she is trained in Shaolin ways with another person messed over, complete with the long white-haired, withholding master and a ton of impossible tasks (calling Beatrix Kiddo). Then they return for violent revenge! Heck yeah.
I loved Chen as our villain. Scheming and sneering, he might as well twirl his mustache. Angela Mao may be the face of the picture, but he’s pretty much the lead. It’s his actions that drive all the family drama and strife. He’s who we follow most as he schemes and fights. So much to bite into. I also dug Ming Ming as his henchwoman, also reveling in the evil. Angela Mao, as the silenced woman and thus the revenge getter, is wonderful, just as she was in Angry River. And I said it then, but what a fighter. She has such an amazing intensity.
Everyone in this movie slays in the battles, as to happen with Sammo Hung designing the fights. With Mao and Chen, it’s very kick-heavy, especially in the epic climax. It’s so fun to watch them kick their way across the room in a similar way to punches in most movies. Weird to have both this and Angry River involve spitting leaves at an attacker. An odd connection for sure, something Hueng enjoys and wanted to make sure more people saw it by doing it twice
The Himalayan is a fantastic mix of family drama with a ton of great martial arts, marrying the two well. Incredibly well done by Hueng and Ni, The Himalayan is another solid release from the Golden Harvest archive.
The Packaging
88 Films puts The Himalyan in the same style as Angry River and Invincible Eight. As they come out the same day, it’s a choice of design. A simplified version of the poster is impressed on the single Blu-ray, found within a clear black case. The reversible sleeve and the fold-out poster contain the same art: a newly commissioned piece by Aurelio Lorenzo and the original art. The cardboard slipcover has the new art.
The Presentation
88 Films offers a 2k restoration from the original negative. It’s bright and detailed with a great sense of scale of the exteriors in Nepal and the fantastic compound of the family, and the Shaolin temple. However, some of the opening sequences have a blue haze on the left side of the frame for a good while. The audio is in Mandarin 2.0 with an English dub option. Sounds great. English subs.
The Features
Like its release-mates, The Angry River and Invincible Eight, the main feature is the commentary, but this has an additional interview.
Commentary
Like the above-mentioned, the commentary is by Frank Djeng and Michael Worth. A full and fun commentary, really getting into the details with a blast of coming information.
Interview with Dorian Tan
A solid interview with Tan in filming this movie, his career, and martial arts. Many a story, I could hear him go for a while.
English opening and closing titles
Trailer
Final Thoughts
The Himalayan continues my journey into Golden Harvest via 88 Films. I’m really loving heading down this path, with one awesome martial arts picture after another. Feng Huang delivers an excellent picture with more awesome Hung choreography. The features of commentary and interview are good additions to the disc as well.