'Magnificent Wanderers' is widely derided as one of Chang Cheh's lowest points as a director. Teamed with Wu Ma - a film-maker who is not incapable of displaying skill behind the lens - Cheh clearly struggles with the mood and pace of this awkward genre flick. That said, there are some elements within the film that do have potential and perhaps the sheer vitriol levelled at this production is a little harsh despite its obvious flaws.

The film starts promisingly. Fu Sheng relishes playing a opportunist hero whose happy-go-lucky sense of adventure lifts the early scenes above the humdrum and next to him are two fine supporting players in Chi Kuan Chun and Li-Yi Min. Each of the trio has a certain characteristic that adds a little something to the overall effect, from Chi's brutish stoicism to Li-Yi Min's perky gymnastics. Such attention to the cast makes the opening half hour thoroughly enjoyable and holds out much promise for the following sixty or so minutes. Unfortunately that is where the film begins to unravel.

Key to the problems that Chang Cheh and Wu Ma fail to address is the woeful lack of direction. There is no attempt to create a storyline that offers a real hook for the full duration and the opposition that the heroes face is more comedic than intimidating. The Mongol hordes are lead by a twitching, stuttering leader who exists mainly for humour and the villains under his command offer no real threat to the protagonists. It almost seems as if the background characters and the main plot were elbowed aside in favour of keeping the stars in the spotlight, a fact that makes the latter stages of the film drag unnecessarily. There are quite a few spurts of fight action, but these are in-keeping with the playful tone of the film and offer little spectacular.

There is a place for humour in the genre and 'Magnificent Wanderers' struts along confidently in its opening act. It takes more than just that energy to keep a story from faltering though and the two directors foolishly ignore this fundamental fact. It's not the nadir of the Shaw Brothers catalogue as some have implied, but the potential it initiates is eventually wasted and the grand finale is a damp squib. That is especially hard to accept when one looks at the talent associated with this production.

Alexander Fu Sheng, Li Yi Min, and Chi Kwan Chun are street merchant con artists who make their living as fortunetellers in the local village. They do this to survive, but their real lot in life is to continually refine their martial arts skills. One day they go to a nearby restaurant and meet the owner, Mr. Chu (David Chiang). He is sympathetic to the Ming cause, and immediately sizes up the three ruffians as possible soldiers in the upcoming fight with the Ching army. As the four of them bond over food and drink, a cadre of Ching guardsmen show up led by the General (Shan Mao). The unwanted visitor informs them that the Emperor has ordered his men to take Mr. Chu into custody. Mr. Chu agrees to go, but his new found friends have other ideas. They attack the Ching troops inside the restaurant, and Mr. Chu, seeing his avenue of escape, joins them in laying waste to the unwanted guests. They escape, and the General commands his men to secure the riches of Mr. Chu and head back to the palace to present it to his leader. When the General gets before the Emperor, the treasure has mysteriously turned to rocks. The Emperor is livid and threatens his men to get the job done or else. The General begs for more soldiers to complete the job. The next day, the General and his troops pass through the town and find Alexander Fu Sheng, Li Yi Min, and Chi Kwan Chun conning the locals again. A great battle erupts in the center of town. Mr. Chu appears and uses his Golden Bow to shoot gold bullets at the Ching soldiers. The four men make a mockery of their aggressors and escape to a dilapidated dwelling where they hide out from their enemies. Mr. Chu goes to the home of one of his allies, to reclaim his fortune, in the form of a cache of sold gold bullets.

The General kidnaps Mr. Chu’s rich associates, and puts out word that he will kill them unless Mr. Chu surrenders. This leads to a major confrontation in the forest outside of town. Mr. Chu shows up firing his golden bullets causing most of the greedy soldiers to abandon their duty and fight each other over the gold. While this is all happening, the trio knock out three of the Emperor’s guards and use their uniforms to impersonate the guards (who are down to a skeleton crew) and enter the castle grounds. Being the con men that they are, they make their way to the central chamber and take command of the cowardly Emperor. After teaching him some manners, the trio flee the palace and hook back up with Mr. Chu, who has embarrassingly defeated the General. The four men steal horses and flee the village, still dressed in the guises of Ching soldiers. Soon, they stumble into a Mongolian outpost, operated by allies of the Emperor. They proclaim themselves members of the Ching army, but the skeptical outpost leaders don’t completely fall for this con job. The leaders figure that if they are who they say they are, they should put on exhibition of martial arts prowess. They challenge the heroes to prove themselves by taking on the best fighters in the Mongol camp. Things get out of hand as usual, and circumstances lead them to another showdown of magnificent proportions.

Even without the Venoms, MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS has an excellent cast. This fact, combined with the direction of Chang Cheh, would leave one to conclude that this film is a "sure thing". But MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS has a wealth of problems within. Chang Cheh, known for this themes of brotherhood, loyalty, and sacrifice really delivers one of the weakest directing jobs of his phenomenal career. Cheh, who usually crafts his movies in a cruel and savage manner, goes completely overboard with cartoonish humor. His best films almost always feature some truly menacing villains and opponents for his protagonists to clash with. These same movies have an ultra serious tone with death being a common outcome (even for the good guys). In MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS, Cheh paints the entire Ching Dynasty as a bunch of fools who trip over own their feet when fighting or when trying to escape. Every character from the lowest soldier, to the General, to the Emperor himself are all depicted as clowns. Maybe this is Cheh‘s political view on the situation (that the Chings were all clowns), but it really detracts from the aura of suspense. With no truly powerful or imposing villains, there is no danger or tension to the narrative, characters, or fight scenes.

Speaking of fight scenes, MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS features some of the most unimpressive choreography ever for a Shaw Brothers movie. David Chiang is especially under-utilized in this area and does little more than use his Golden Bow to take out opponents. Li Yi Min is constantly flipping around all over the place, but the poor editing reveals it to be the work of a stunt double. Alex Fu Sheng and Chi Kwan Chun are good, but only as good as their weak opponents make them out be. There is also a huge lack of characterization to the film. The only thing we know for sure about the principals is that David Chiang, Fu Sheng, and Li Yi Min are all supposed to be charismatic, while Chi Kwan Chun plays the straight man (and Chun really only has one line in the entire film, even though he’s in nearly every scene). The rest of the cast is played for laughs. Even if you look at this film solely as a comedy, ala DRUNKEN MASTER, the humor does not work. Cheh included touches of mild humor in many of his pictures like AVENGEING WARRIORS OF SHAOLIN and TWO CHAMPIONS OF DEATH, but it’s overkill here and it really hurts the movie. So what does MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS have going for it? Well, technically it’s well filmed with good cinematography and an original score. Fans of Fu Sheng, Li Yi Min, and Chi Kwan Chun will be overjoyed to see their favorites as the street savy conmen of the title. MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS will forever be known as the movie that could, because if Cheh had been at the top of his game, this could have been an all-star, dramatic war movie of epic proportions.

SIGHT
It was a real surprise when I loaded up this disc and the Shawscope logo cropped up in widescreen. I was waiting for the picture to go to faded full frame after the cool opening title sequence. Luckily, it never happened—MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS stayed in widescreen for the entire running time. This is a big surprise as there is no mention of it at all on the packaging. Usually these releases from dubious origins tout widescreen all over in the artwork and rarely are the flicks themselves shown that way. Anyway, the ratio presented here is not the full original 2.35.1 ratio; it’s more like 1.85.1. Some picture information goes off the screen. But the best part is that the fights and camerawork are not panned n’ scanned—they are presented as the filmmakers’ intended it. The source print appears to have been transferred from a German video source as some German text accompanies the opening credits. After the opening title sequence, there are very few scratches and blemishes. The widescreen transfer itself lacks clarity and focus, which affects the detail level. For instance, if you are trying to spot the Venom players by faces alone, you’ll never do it because the picture is not clear enough to convey this amount of picture information (as these actors are filmed in the background shots only). You can recognize them, however, by their movements and fighting styles. Despite this lack of overall clarity, the picture is really colorful and the black levels are perfectly calibrated. This allows the viewer to appreciate every little nuance of the set design and classic Shaw Brothers costuming. Coming from PanMedia, a company known for their poor washed-out transfers, MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS is probably their best work to date.

SOUND
Too bad PanMedia couldn’t get the audio right. Like Crash Cinema, Ground Zero, Xenon, etc., all PanMedia martial arts DVDs are presented in Dolby Digital Mono 2.0. Unlike those other companies who use the DD Mono 2.0 spec to produce a clean mono signal, PanMedia never fails to deliver a hissy soundtrack with distorted vocals. This one suffers from breaks in the dialog, with the characters mouths moving and nothing coming out. There is also constant background noise as if you were watching an old flick from the 1930s. The dialog for the most part is audible, with the English voices done by the usual folks who dubbed the Shaw Brothers library. One of the strongest elements to the soundtrack is the score, which helps accentuate what little drama there is in MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS. My only complaint about this pleasing music is the repetitive use of the passages. The music and sound effects elements are heard prominently in the mix, overshadowing the vocals and background noise.

FEATURES
There are no features, but PanMedia has incorporated some fancy menu navigation this time around.

CONCLUSION
In our opinion, MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS is the second worst Chang Cheh film ever, second only to NINE DEMONS. Which is a shame because with a cast like this and the right script, this could have been one of the all-time great Shaw Brothers films. The humor element really ruined the movie; Cheh should leave this stuff to someone who knows how to do it right, like Liu Chia Liang. Some great talents like David Chiang, Li Yi Min, and the Venoms actors are completely wasted here. Even the worst martial arts movies have their fans, so if MAGNIFICENT WANDERERS is your thing, you may want to pick up PanMedia’s DVD, as it is presented nearly in its full widescreen ratio, from a surprisingly serviceable print. But if you haven’t seen it, we would advise spending the money on something else.