BEACH OF THE WAR GODS.. UNCUT EYECATCHER RELEASE.. ENGLISH LANGUAGE.. HARDBOX.. The Chinese protagonists in Wang Yu's 1972 epic action picture, a prime specimen of mainstream Hong Kong action cinema, all wear pearly white during the final sea-front battle sequence, while their Japanese pirate foes wear inky black. That's proof positive that actor-director Wang (a staple Shaw Brothers star of the 1960s) is a staunch swordplay traditionalist. The style, the pace, and even the music may recall Akira Kurosawa, but here the Japanese are as purely evil as the Nazis in a WWII flick. Wang's stalwart Hsiao Feng is a wandering swordsman (complete with his very own fuzz-tone guitar theme) who returns home to discover a pirate threat to his coastal village. He assembles an assortment of warriors, guys with handles like Spearman Li and Lightning Fist Hung; even a taciturn knife thrower who has to be badgered into helping out, like James Coburn in the The Magnificent Seven. Hsiao and his pals then train the peasant villagers to fend off the Japanese menace. The last 20 minutes of the movie are nothing but bloody sword fighting; Hsiao kills the Japanese commander (who spouts blood majestically, like Tatsuya Nakadai in Kurosawa's Sanjuro) and then keels over himself, a photogenic martyr to the anti-Japanese cause.
