Marco Polo (1975)

Marco Polo (1975)
aka: The Four Assassins
Chinese Title: 馬哥波羅
Translation: Marco Polo

Starring: Richard Harrison, Alexander Fu Sheng, Chi Kuan-Chun, Kuo Chi, Shih Szu, Bruce Tong, Lu Ti, Leung Kar-Yan, Gordon Liu Chia-Hui, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, Li Tong-Chun
Director: Chang Cheh
Action Directors: Hsieh Hsing, Chen Hsin-I

 

Marco Polo is an interesting movie: it is the first film that Chang Cheh after he and trusted action director Lau Kar-Leung parted ways so that the latter could pursue his own career as a director. As such, it marks the first collaboration between Chang and his “second string” of fight choreographers: Hsieh Hsing and Chen Hsin-I. The partnership would last almost two years, until Chang started working with Robert Tai and the Venom Mob troupe.

It also marked the Hong Kong debut of Richard Harrison, an American-born actor best known for his work in Italian cinema. He played Perseus in the peplum film Medusa Against the Son of Hercules and starred in Italian spy and Spaghetti Westerns like Secret Agent Fireball and Dig Your Grave Friend…Sabata’s Coming. Harrison found steady work in Italy, even if he never reached the level of fame that fellow Americans Clint Eastwood, Steve Reeves and Lee Van Cleef did. He got gigs in Italian films of all genres up through the late 70s. After that, he mainly found work in Hong Kong, dressing up a ninja—usually with a headband that read “Ninja”-- under the direction of Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai in two dozen films produced by IFD Films. Their business model was to take unreleased or unfinished movies, usually from Hong Kong, Taiwan or South Korea, splice in footage of Caucasian actors (and slumming Hong Kong stars) fighting ninja, and then redub it so the disparate stories connected.

Someone looking for true history, or at least a fascinating examination of one of the most well-known explorers of all time, will be advised to look elsewhere. Marco Polo is little more than a typical mid-70s “Shaolin Cycle” film from Chang Cheh, reminiscent of his work the previous year in Five Shaolin Masters and Shaolin Martial Arts. We open with Marco Polo (Harrison) arriving at the Chinese capital, where Kublai Khan (Li Tong-Chun, who played the abbot in Jackie Chan’s Spiritual Kung Fu) dwells. Khan enlists Polo on a three-year expedition to survey the empire and bring him back a report on the local cultures and whatnot. Upon doing so, Marco Polo is promoted to Court Inspector. His job is to track down a network of rebels following a failed assassination attempt on the emperor—one of the killers is played by Carter Wong, of Hap Ki Do and Big Trouble in Little China.

Joining Marco Polo along for the ride are the emperor’s three bodyguards, played by Gordon Liu (Heroes of the East and Fists and Guts), Leung Kar-Yan (Shaolin Martial Arts and My Life is on the Line) and Johnny Wang Lung-Wei (Invincible Shaolin and The Martial Club). They find a few of the rebels, including Carter Wong’s wife, played Shih Szu (Heroes of Sung and The Flying Guillotine 2). Carter and his brother are killed and his wife is taken prisoner. Later, she is rescued by Carter’s sworn brothers: Alexander Fu Sheng (of The Boxer Rebellion), Chi Kuan-Chun (of Shaolin Avengers and Green Jade Statuette), Bruce Tong (of The Shaolin Temple) and finally Kuo Chi (The Five Deadly Venoms and Kid with the Golden Arm), in his film debut. The five hide out at Shih’s father’s house, where our heroes engage in rigorous training in order to prepare them for the eventual stand-off with the Emperor’s army. Marco spends the film watching the bodyguards fight people, and then reporting to the emperor, and then switching sides and watching the heroes fight. He doesn’t actually make any real contribution to the story when it comes right down to it.

I’m sure that most people will point out that last fact as being the biggest flaw of the movie: you made a film about Marco Polo and then failed to have him do anything for the story that couldn’t have been done by the other characters. As some fans have pointed out, Harrison himself joked that the movie should have been named “Marco Polo watches people do kung fu.” There is some brief sexual tension between Harrison and Shih Szu—wanting to get into Shih’s knickers was something that Caucasian men just wanted to do in the 1970s—but it doesn’t go anywhere. Apparently those few, short scenes had to be added at the insistence of others; in Chang Cheh’s vision, Shih Szu’s character would have become a complete non-entity after her introduction.

As it stands, the emphasis of the film is the martial arts. Other than the soldiers wearing Yuan Dynasty armor, there’s nothing here to distinguish the movie from Qing Dynasty-set Shaolin movies that Chang was working on at the time. Most of the second act is made up of training sequences, in which mundane tasks are used to develop powerful kung fu skills. Bruce Tong uses tai chi chuan in order to move heavy rocks. Chi Kuan Chun splits bamboo stalks with his legs to practice the iron vest technique. Fu Sheng fries and grinds beans with his bare hands to develop the jiankang palm technique. Finally, Kuo Chi jumps into pools of manure into order develop “light skills,” a skill he also trains in Invincible Shaolin.

The fighting is quite similar to Chang’s earlier Shaolin films, almost as if Chang himself sat his new action directors down, showed them a reel or two from Five Shaolin Masters, and told them to do the same thing. Meanwhile, Lau Kar-Leung was upping his game and advancing the art of depicting Southern Chinese styles on screen, while Hsieh Hsing and Chen Hsin-I were stuck in 1974. Nonetheless, the two would reach the top of their game the following year with their authentic depiction of choy lee fut in New Shaolin Boxers. The most interesting touch are the villains’ styles: Gordon Liu is a master of the shuangdao, or double saber; Leung Kar-Yan is an iron palm master; and Johnny Wang Lung-Wei plays a wrestling master, so his attacks are more grappling and throw-based. Chi Kuan-Chun and Fu Sheng do their usual hung gar, despite the fact that hung gar as a style wouldn’t exist for another 500 years. I’m disappointed that Bruce Tong, despite his character studying tai chi, doesn’t actually use it to fight; he mainly throws heavy objects at costumed extras like the Hong Kong equivalent of Steve Reeves and Gordon Scott.

Fans of Heroes Two and Men from the Monastery will find a lot to like here, especially when it comes to the action. Nevertheless, in spite of the uncommon subject matter, Marco Polo is business as usual on the story and action fronts. Those wanting real innovation would have to turn to Lau Kar-Leung’s movies instead.