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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: September 27th, 2022.
Director: Clarence Fok
Cast: Yuen Biao, Yuen Wah, Maggie Cheung
Year: 1989
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The Iceman Cometh – Movie Review:
Released domestically as Time Warriors, 1989’s The Iceman Cometh, directed by Clarence Fok, starts way back when in the Ming Dynasty where Fong Sau Ching (Yuen Biao), a member of the Royal Guard tasked with protecting the Emperor, gives chase to the villainous Fung San (Yuen Wah), a dangerous thief who with a self-proclaimed love for hurting and raping women and a penchant for snapping their limbs. The two men get into a chase and then a battle at the edge of a cliff which sees them both topple off. One thing leads to another and they find themselves frozen in time.
Fast forward a few hundred years and their frozen bodies are discovered by a team of scientists that decide that they must bring them, frozen, to the United States to thaw out. That doesn’t happen, because before the bodies can be shipped, some bumbling thieves break into the warehouse where they’ve been stored and, well, they thaw pretty quickly after that.
Ching, who has no idea where he is or what’s going on, essentially picks up where he left off, trying to guard an Emperor who no longer exists. When he winds up inadvertently saving a brash prostitute named Polly (Maggie Chung), she begrudgingly takes him in and tries to teach him about the way things work in modern day Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Fung San has taken to life in eighties Hong Kong quite quickly, returning to a life of crime and learning how modern day weapons work. When Fong Sau Ching finds out that someone has been snapping the limbs of lovely ladies around town, he realizes that Fung San is still alive and he makes it his mission to hunt him down and put a stop to him.
The Iceman Cometh is an entertaining genre mashup, blending action, comedy and fantasy together with surprising effectiveness. It’s a little on the long side and could probably have been trimmed of ten to fifteen minutes or so, but most of the time Fok keeps the moving going at a good pace, with most of the comedic moments landing pretty nicely (a highlight being a genuinely hilarious bit of physical comedy from Yuen Biao after Maggie Chung tries to teach him to be more “in your face”!). The performances are pretty strong here as well. Yuen Biao makes for a great hero, playing the noble guardsman straight and really handling himself incredibly well in the action scenes. Yuen Wah is a scenery chewing blast as the villain, dialing everything up to eleven with his over the top and completely diabolical performance. Maggie Chung’s character is intentionally obnoxious, but she grows on you as the movie progresses and she’s pretty solid here as well.
Of course, the main reason to watch a movie like this is for the action set pieces and The Iceman Cometh definitely delivers in this area. The fights happen often and are expertly choreographed. When combined with some of the genuinely insane stunt work on display in the movie, particularly during the final showdown that takes place at the film’s finale, it’s hard not to walk away from the movie impressed.
Note that this release includes, on disc one, the 115 minute Hong Kong Cut of the movie. The second disc includes the 122 minute Mandarin Export Cut, which, according to the liner notes, would have originally played in Taiwan. Most of the differences come down to the editing (you can read an extremely thorough break down of the two versions here), though the opening credits are longer here, with the shorter cut being quite a bit tighter in a few sequences but it’s great to have both options included here.
The Iceman Cometh – Blu-ray Review:
The Iceman Cometh arrives on a 50GB region free Blu-ray disc with an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.85.1 widescreen taken from a “studio supplied master with additional color grading and restoration performed by Vinegar Syndrome” on the Hong Kong version. Picture quality is decent, if not amazing. Detail definitely surpasses what DVD would have been able to provide while never really reaching the best that the format can provide. The image can also look a little too smooth at times while colors and black levels generally look pretty decent.
The Hong Kong Cut is presented with 24-bit DTS-HD options in Cantonese 2.0, English 2.0 and English 1.0, each track with its own unique set of proper subtitles. The audio is presented as it was given to Vinegar Syndrome by the distributor. The movie plays much better in Cantonese than in English, both dubbing options are rather hokey, but it’s nice to have them here for those who want them. The Cantonese track is pretty solid, with clean, clear audio and properly balanced levels. There are no problems to note with any hiss or distortion. The alternate Mandarin Export Cut is presented with its original mono soundtrack in 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 with newly translated English subtitles and it also sounds fine, on par with the Cantonese 2.0 track in terms of sound quality.
Extras start off with a commentary track with film historian and author Samm Deighan over the Hong Kong Cut of the film. She talks about how the film builds on different wuxia literature and film traditions, details on the film's three leads as well as many of the interesting bit part players that pop up in the movie, why so many of the people involved in this and other Hong Kong action movies of the era use the name Yuen, the different underlying themes in the movie and how they relate to Chinese values, how Golden Harvest had overtaken Shaw Brothers by this point in terms of box office success, how some of the grotesque aspects of the rape scenes would be meant to be comedic given how common genre shifts are in Hong Kong movies, who did what behind the scenes and quiet a bit more.
Frame By Frame, Frame By Frame is a new interview with cinematographer Poon Hang Sang that runs twenty minutes. He talks about how The Iceman Cometh was an early project of his and how his later projects are more mature before then going on to talk about working with Sammo Hung's crew and the leads in this movie, the film's full contact fight sequences, the specifics of shooting some of the stunt and action scenes, how the special effects work for the movie were all done in post, shooting the opening outdoor fight sequence in Korea in the snow, shooting the sequence with the horse racing through Hong Kong without permits and getting stopped by the police, and working with Maggie Cheung.
Warrior Prince is an interview with actor Yuen Biao which runs for eleven minutes and goes over his thoughts on the characters in the movie, filming the opening fight in the cold weather and getting permanent marks on his face from snow burn, seeing tourists skiing nearby while filming, working with Clarence Fok, Maggie Chung's work in the movie, the use of comedy in the movie and how filmmaking in Hong Kong has changed since the movie was made.
Actor Yuen Way is interviewed the fifteen minute in Nemesis where he talks about the difficulty of filming a swordfight in the Korean snow, doing some of the action choreography as well as acting in the movie, what went into preparing for some of the more intense stunt sequences, using firearms on set, the comedy in the movie, spending over three weeks just to shoot the film's final fight sequence and getting along with his co-stars.
Finishing up the extras are an original Hong Kong trailer, an English Language trailer, an alternate English title sequence, menus and chapter selection options.
As far as the packaging goes, Vinegar Syndrome offers this release with a nice embossed slipcover limited to 5,000 pieces and designed by Robert Sammelin if purchased directly from their website, as well as with some cool reversible cover sleeve art. Includes inside the keepcase along with the two Blu-ray discs is an insert booklet containing an essay by film historian and author John Charles that goes over the history of the movie and the two different versions contained in this set.
The Iceman Cometh - The Final Word:
The Iceman Cometh is a ridiculously entertaining mix of martial arts action, comedy and fantasy that features some really fun performances from its three leads and some seriously intense action set pieces. Vinegar Syndrome offers up the film in two different versions and with a strong selection of extra features, making this a pretty solid package overall.