Burning Paradise
The circumstances of the marketing and distribution of any film and its subsequent reception by an audience are never predictable, yet it seems odd that almost thirty years after it was first released, premiering in Honk Kong in March of 1994, that Ringo Lam’s wuxia epic Burning Paradise (Foh Siu Hung Lin Ji, 火燒紅蓮寺, also known in some territories as the more directly translated Destruction of the Red Lotus Temple) performed so poorly it was regarded as a bomb.
Struggling to find an international audience and only released on video in the United Kingdom, that is belatedly rectified by Eureka’s 2K restoration of the original 35mm camera negative for their Blu-ray release, the first time the film has been available in that format which showcases the elaborate and expansive sets of the underground labyrinth of the Red Lotus Temple, stronghold of the insane Elder Kung (Kam-Kong Wong) who regards himself as a god.
Set at an unspecified time during the era of the Qing dynasty, the Manchu government has set its army to purge Buddhists from the land, with Master Chi Nun and his apprentice Fong Sai Yuk (Willie Chi) on the run from the fearsome Crimson Guillotine (John Ching) and his forces; hiding out they find shelter with Dau Dau (Carman Lee) but are captured and taken to the Red Lotus Temple where Sai Yuk is forced to fight for his life against his former friend turned traitor Hong Hei-Kun (Yamson Domingo).
Built almost entirely around the elaborately choreographed and sometimes ridiculously bloody fight scenes, with horses, riders and handmaidens decapitated with outrageous regularity, the exterior and interior of the Red Lotus Temple decorated liberally with skulls, severed limbs, sometimes entire skeletons and a lower chamber of Kung’s former favourites, so well preserved as to imply he moves through them with great rapidity, the action is inventive, energetic and performed with agility.
The labyrinth filled with booby traps, trapdoors, collapsing walkways and bridges, all of them created practically, dropping dozens of performers to the level below, the overall achievement is enthusiastic but Burning Paradise is not without flaws, the suspiciously wobbly spear tips apparent in high definition and the juvenile banter of the characters at odds with a setting in which the villain paints abstract murals in paint pigmented with human blood.
A darker cousin to the likes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which it anticipated with its use of phantom tiger and boundless crane fighting postures, the new edition of Burning Paradise is supported by an archive interview with producer Tsui Hark and a commentary by Frank Djeng, allowing a deserved second chance for a film which might have garnered more attention first time around had it only been released a few years later.
Burning Paradise is available on Blu-ray from Eureka now
