The Wrath of Vajra

Martial Media, Culture and Other Arts Martial Media and Popular Culture
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This looks promising. I know Yanneng personally and featured him on the cover of our Shaolin Special 2011.

Wrath launches martial arts reality check
By Patrick Frater
Mon, 18 March 2013, 17:00 PM (HKT)

New Chinese movie The Wrath of Vajra launches this summer in stereoscopic 3-D and aims to reach international audiences as well as mainstream business in China.

The picture, directed by Hong Kong’s LAW Wing-cheong , mixes a story about death squads, Japan’s invasion of China and child trafficking. It claims to revive a more realistic style of martial arts than many other recent Chinese action films.

The film is produced by Kylin Network (Beijing) Movie & Culture Media Co Ltd , one of the companies behind hits Painted Skin (2008) and Painted Skin: The Resurrection .

Financiers include National Film Capital , a Chinese state-backed investment fund. The budget is pegged at $12 million. A summer release is expected, though a Chinese distributor has not yet been finalised.

Hong Kong’s Golden Network Asia Ltd is handling international sales. The company quickly licensed the film to Splendid Medien for Germany and revealed that four companies are currently bidding for North American rights.

The film stars martial artist-turned-actor SHI Yanneng who recently appeared in Stephen CHOW 's Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons who the producers bill as heading the next generation of martial arts star.

Wrath also stars Steve YOO | , breakdancer NAM Hyun-joon , JIANG Baocheng and actress ZHANG Yamei .

Cast, crew and producers were presented today at Hong Kong FilMart where they screened clips and an early trailer.

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Trailer

The Wrath of Vajra (2013 trailer)

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Cool.
Always good to see people getting punched in the face and kicked int he groin.

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Let’s see now, buff dudes in tight leather.
So, this movie is about supporting gay equality?
I mean, that promo shot looks like a sidebar event at the pride parade.
Just saying…

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Wow, the movie described in the article had nothing to do with the movie in the trailer. Did any part of that trailer show a “reality check”?

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Well, I’ve found when summoning dark and elder gods, duels often break out in the pre-madness. So I guess that part’s spot on.

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Twitch has a new trailer…

…with subtitles. :slight_smile: Follow the link below.

Evil Cults And Killer Kung Fu In Second WRATH OF VAJRA Trailer
Todd Brown, Founder and Editor

While the so-called Golden Era of Hong Kong cinema was fueled in large part by its kung fu cinema a major factor in the success of martial arts cinema was the extreme diversity within the genre. Unlike today’s market which is overwhelmingly dominated by period pieces and gritty crime stories, Golden Era Hong Kong had room for far more. And notable among those sub-genres which have since largely disappeared is the horror-kung fu hybrid.

And director Law Wing Cheong is bringing it back with The Wrath Of Vajra.

Shaolin monk turned actor Xing Yu takes his first lead role in the picture, and if the trailers are anything to go by Hong Kong may have a significant new talent on its hands.

    In the 1930s, before the Western powers entered World War II, a Japanese death cult called the Temple of Hades is ordered to work alongside the military to aid in the spiritual destruction of China. The elite warriors belive that the war can be won without the use of man-made weapons. They buy young children from impoverished parents and train them in martial arts to be assassins serving the Japanese Empire.


    When he was 8 years old, Vajrasattva was among the children sold to the Temple of Hades. Forced by his captors to fight for food, he accidentally caused the death of his brother. He made a secret oath to take revenge. Many years later, and now the greatest assassin in the temple, he escapes to China and joins the Southern Shaolin Temple, where he receives spiritual enlightenment and vows to protect his own country against the Japanese.

A sales promo for the film appeared online in March and has now been followed by a brand new, very impressive, and English subtitled trailer. Check it out below.

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Why do I keep picturing the sequel titled as : The Wrath of Viagra? It does look badass.

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vajra??

In the trailer, I see a Japanese guardian statue and Tibetan Phurbu (knife). All of the punches are chambered like Shaolin, not un-chambered as in Tibetan strikes. Several of the knife hands were comparable to specific Tibetan White Crane techniques. Much usage of Shaolin Five Animals. I will not hold my breath waiting for a film about Tibetan martial arts that actually utilizes Tibetan martial arts. Don’t know the script for this film but perhaps they are trying to demonstrate martial arts of Buddhist origin. Muscles mean nothing in martial arts, conditioning does, and you cannot see it. Highly recommend “Sword Identity”, “The Grandmaster”, and soon to be released “Judge Archer”. I already have the first two in my collection. All the best in training and in life.
SKM

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Sep 26, 2013

In 3D no less! My guess is this will be post-prod 3D as it wasn’t mentioned earlier.

China 3-D films enter October holidays
By Kevin Ma
Thu, 29 August 2013, 10:35 AM (HKT)

One of the most competitive releasing periods of the year in China, the weeklong National Day holiday, will see ten films competing for audiences, including a batch of local 3-D films.

LAW Wing-cheong 's 3-D The Wrath of Vajra has a head start with a 26 Sep release date. The martial arts film stars SHI Yanneng , Steve YOO | and IKEUCHI Hiroyuki . Shi had supporting roles in Shaolin (2011) and Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons .

Two days later, 28 Sep marks the belated release of sci-fi basketball film Amazing starring China’s HUANG Xiaoming , South Korea’s KIM A-jung | , Hong Kong’s Stephen FUNG . The film, which started shooting in 2010, competed at the Shanghai International Film Festival in June.

Two 3-D fantasies — TSUI Hark 's Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon (pictured) and NIU Chaoyang 's The Fox Lover — open on 29 Sep. Sea Dragon stars Mark CHAO , Angelababy and William FENG . Fox Lover stars Gillian CHUNG and Kara HUI .

Also opening 29 Sep is road movie Bump in the Road , the only domestic comedy opening during the period. It’s directed by Raymond YIP and produced by Manfred WONG , the duo behind odd-couple comedy Lost on Journey (2010) that inspired the later Lost in Thailand .

The Pang Brothers ’ Out of Inferno 3D is the first of two forthcoming firefighter films; Derek KWOK 's As the Light Goes Out is in post-production and is set for a December release. The Pang film stars LAU Ching-wan , Louis KOO and Angelica LEE .

Daniel CHAN 's Cross starring Simon YAM has recently locked its 1 Oct release date. The psychological thriller already had its Hong Kong theatrical release in Ot 2012. The film co-stars Kenny WONG , LIU Kai-chi and Evelyn CHOI with Nick CHEUNG making a cameo appearance.

Three foreign films will also open in time for the holiday: Steve Jobs biopic jOBS – starring Ashton Kutcher as the Apple co-founder – opens on 27 Sep. French comedy Fly Me to the Moon Un plan parfait opens on 30 Sep. Disney’s The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp, closes out the holiday with a 6 Oct release date.

With such a competitive schedule, distributors may shift release dates at the last minute to get a head start on other films.

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Well Go has it

That’s great. Well Go is one of our advertisers and a frequent provider of prizes for our sweepstakes.

The Wrath of Vajra punches into Asian territories
By Kevin Ma
Mon, 09 September 2013, 03:00 AM (HKT)


Following a private screening for buyers in Toronto, martial arts film The Wrath of Vajra has closed a series of deals in several Asian territories.

Media Asia has sold to the film to Sky Films Entertainment Co Ltd for Taiwan, Westec Media Ltd for Cambodia, Zoom Entertainment Network Ltd for India and Golden Yellow Tree in Myanmar.

The film was pre-sold to Well Go USA Inc for North America during Cannes and has since closed deals with Sonamu Pictures for South Korea and Splendid Film for Germany and Benelux.

The film stars SHI Yanneng as an assassin, trained by a Japanese death cult, who turns on his masters when Japan invades China in the 1930s. It co-stars Steve YOO | and IKEUCHI Hiroyuki .

The LAW Wing-cheong -directed film opens in China on 24 Sep.

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Well Go is advertising this with us

Stay tuned…:wink:

‘The Wrath of Vajra’ Heading to Blu-ray
Thu Feb 13, 2014 at 09:00 AM ET

The Chinese action flick will seek vengeance on Blu-ray in March, and you can pre-order it now.

In an early announcement to retailers, Well Go USA is preparing ‘The Wrath of Vajra’ for Blu-ray on March 18.

In 1930s Japan, a death cult working with the Imperial Army buys children and trains them as deadly assassins. When 8-year-old Vajrasattva accidentally kills his own brother in a fight for food, he makes a secret oath to take revenge. As an adult, he emerges as the cult’s best assassin, returning to China where he joins the Southern Shaolin Temple to protect his people from Japanese invaders. When the death cult opens a branch in China and starts buying local children, he sets out to save them and avenge his brother. But first he must defeat their three greatest warriors in a battle to the death. Starring former Shaolin monk and martial arts action star Xing Yu (‘Shaolin,’ ‘Ip Man’), Steve Yoo (‘Man of Tai Chi’), Poppin Hyun-Joon (‘Fly, Daddy, Fly’), Jiang Baocheng (‘Legendary Assassin’) and newcomer Ya Mei.

The Blu-ray will feature 1080p video and a Mandarin DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, and supplements will include a Making of Featurette.

Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $29.98.

You can find the latest specs for ‘The Wrath of Vajra’ linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it’s indexed under March 18.

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March 6 for HK

Slated for a March 11 video release here in the U.S. according to my Well Go source.

Trailer: Finally Hong Kong Will Witness The WRATH OF VAJRA!
James Marsh, Asian Editor


Originally scheduled for a release back in the summer of 2013, Law Wing Cheong’s martial arts/horror hybrid has finally landed a domestic release date, and is set to screen in Hong Kong from 6 March.

Marking the first lead role for shaolin monk-turned-action hero Xing Yu (Flash Point, Shaolin), the film focuses on a Japanese death cult enlisted by the military to raise assassins to unleash on the Chinese.

Contrary to previous information and earlier screenings of the film overseas, Wrath of Vajra will not be released in Hong Kong in 3D. Check out the film’s official poster and trailer.

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Well Go has released a trailer for KungFuMagazine.com

//youtu.be/LCPtuv9i1xc

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And for that sweepstakes…

Enter to win KungFuMagazine.com’s contest for WRATH OF VAJRA! Contest ends 6:00 p.m. PST on 03/07/14 . Good luck everyone!

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Twitch likes it

Review: THE WRATH OF VAJRA Is Pure Martial Arts Madness
J Hurtado, Contributing Writer

Martial arts films are a dime a dozen in Southeast Asia, however, finding a really good one is pretty difficult these days. Either the film’s action is overly dependent on goofy wire work, or the filmmakers let ridiculous things like plot get in the way of a good ass-whuppping. Thankfully, director Law Wing-cheong has learned from the mistakes of the past and puts his best foot forward in what is one of the most fun martial arts films I’ve seen in years with The Wrath of Vajra.

Any real attempt to describe the plot is beside the point, the film’s action is where the real meat is. There are some bad guys, a secret clan of trained assassins controlled by Japanese occupation forces in the 1930’s, called the Temple of Hades, who have decided that the best way to subjugate the Chinese populace is not through brute military force, but intimidation. Standing against the Temple of Hades is a rag-tag crew of fighters led by a man known as the King of the Vajra, K-29 (Yu Xing in his first leading role). K-29 is tasked with fighting his way through the top fighters of the Temple of Hades in order to earn a battle with the Temple’s leader, K-28, a former friend and fighting brother. It’s your classic tournament fighting set up.

A dozen or so tightly choreographed fight sequences later and you-know-who ends up saving the day and all of China, of course without them even knowing that the battle for their eternal souls was going on. I’m almost tempted to throw a spoiler warning in there, but, come on, would we really expect any other outcome? This film, like any good film, isn’t about the ending, it’s about the journey, and Law manages to cram in a ton of fighting in this 110 minute kung fu-fest. Sure, some fights are better than others, and I think that the film spends far too long on a particular battle between a gargantuan Tetsumaku Rai (Jiang Baocheng), leader of the Violence Clan, and K-29, but that deficiency is more than made up for in the Crazy Monkey fight.

Crazy Monkey. Now THIS is a character. All that we know about Crazy Monkey is that he’s the Vajra (leader) of the Zombie Clan and that he’s like a crazy monkey. The role is performed to ridiculous perfection by “Poppin’” Hyun Joon, a Korean pop-and-lock specialist who just happens to look awesome using his insane dancing skills in conjunction with some mean fighting. A lot of this fight looks like wire work, which fits with the insane momentum the sequence builds, however, most of it was done in camera, no tricks, and it’s incredibly impressive for it. If anyone steals the spotlight from the rather stoic Yu Xing, it’s Poppin’ Hyun Joon. Where’s my Crazy Monkey movie?

If the film has any defects, they are, in my opinion, a result of the viewer looking for something that was never there in the first place. The film is a simplistic slug-fest, designed to get pulses racing, and deliver death-matches galore, and on that score it succeeds mightily. Yu Xing may not have the charisma of a Donnie Yen or a Jackie Chan, but I’ll stand him next to someone like Collin Chou any day of the week. At 35 years of age, he’s just ripe enough to evolve to the next level in China or Hong Kong. Law Wing-cheong has Donnie Yen’s Iceman and Iceman 2 on his plate already, so he’s already made it out from under the shadow of his mentor, the great Johnnie To. This is a team that needs to make more movies like this one, because The Wrath Of Vajra is ****ing awesome.

I hope to get a chance to see this this week. :cool:

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THR review

This is pulling in some good reviews.

Be sure to watch the trailer on our YouTube channel - it is a paid promotion so the more views for us, the better. Your views here add to the view count and support this forum.

//youtu.be/LCPtuv9i1xc

The Wrath of Vajra (Jin Gang Wang: Si Wang Jiu Shu): HK Filmart Review
1:40 PM PST 3/8/2014 by Clarence Tsui


Well Go USA Entertainment
Korean break-dancer “Poppin” Nam Hyun-joon in The Wrath of Vajra.

The Bottom Line
Slick production values prop up smooth action choreography and obscure thin and fantastical premise.
Venue
Public screening, Hong Kong, Mar. 6, 2014
Director
Law Wing-cheong
Cast
Xing Yu (aka Shi Yanneng), Steve Yoo, “Poppin” Nam Hyun-Joon, Jiang Baocheng, Ya Mei
Producer: Pang Hong
Shaolin-monk-turned-actor Xing Yu stars as a Chinese fighter confronting the Japanese death cult who raised him to wreak havoc in his home country during WWII.

For a film set during the second world war and revolving around a Japanese conspiracy aimed at converting POWs and local children into cold-blooded hitmen, The Wrath of Vajra is surprisingly devoid of jingoism: there’s hardly a rising-sun banner or a thin moustache in view, and that’s no big patriotic speech from the hero before his final showdown with the villain either. It could have been a canny move from the filmmakers to circumvent last year’s official clampdown on extremist anti-Japanese fare; whatever the reason, it’s a shift which has allowed the bone-cracking martial arts sequence and slick production values to take centerstage.

Then again, to attach message-heavy seriousness to this fantastical and bordering-on-silly premise is probably impossible in any case. Produced by Pang Hong (Painted Skin: Resurrection) and directed by Hong Kong’s Law Wing-cheong (part of Johnnie To’s Milkyway Image crew), The Wrath of Vajra is more about form: the vividly real action choreography intensified by slow-motion gimmickry, of course, but also playing out these confrontations (as well as taut verbal spars) in noir-like settings.

While Wrath might have disappointed during its short run in Chinese cinemas in September (with takings of just $2 million) - a flop due partly to its lack of big-name stars and the big-budget blockbusters also being released during the same National-Day window - it might find an audience among international kung-fu buffs looking for that mythical dose of unadulterated, VFX-free fights and flights featuring bona fide martial arts practitioners. Opening in Hong Kong on Mar. 6, the film will hit home-video shelves in the US on Mar. 18, and is repped at the Filmart by Media Asia.

Central to the proceedings is the Shaolin-monk-turned-actor Xing Yu (Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, credited here in his monastic moniker Shi Yanneng), who plays a character known in the film simply as K-29 - a handle imposed on him when he was abducted from his parents and then raised to become an assassin by a deadly Japanese cult called Hades. When the film begins, sometime at the tail-end of the second world war, Hades has already been disbanded for 12 years by the Japanese military regime for its fundamentalism, with its leader Kawao Amano (Japanese action-film veteran Yasuaki Kurata) in jail and K-29 leading a new life at a Shaolin temple; as a rogue prince in Tokyo attempts to revive the sect to win the war, the fighter is forced to confront his past in order to save the new batch of children being frog-marched into the cult.

Arriving at the villains’ den - which production designers Liu Jingpingand Liu Xiaoyan have created in the style of a traditional roundhouse in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian - K-29 is greeted by Daisuke Kurashige (the Korean-American pop star Steve Yoo), the top fighter in the cult. An warped idealist who firmly believes in his master’s teaching of conquest through spiritual strength rather than swordplay - a maxim less grounded in logic but more in rationalizing the bare-knuckles mano-a-mano in the age of machine guns - he would unleash his underlings on K-29, including a towering giant (Jiang Baocheng) and a blood-sucking acrobat (the Korean break-dancer “Poppin” Nam Hyun-joon) before, of course, dusting himself for that final showdown.

Padding up the thin narrative is the presence of a group of captured foreign soldiers who are given the choice of joining the cult or die - with some of them, including the Chinese-speaking American squadron leader Bill (US kickboxer and martial arts actor Matt Mullins), revealing themselves to be former Hades trainees readying for some kind of vengeance of their own as well. This, alongside the presence of the cult master’s journalist daughter Eiko (Ya Mei) who disapproves of the plan and files home reports of K-29’s triumphs, are just distractions to the neck-breaking moves on show. It’s not exactly a film set to reinvent the action-thriller wheel - and the acting can sometimes be as painful to watch as the skull-crushing - but what it does is to offer some easy diversion for genre geeks looking for yet another muscular thrash-about.

Venue: Public screening, Hong Kong, Mar. 6, 2014
Production Companies: Kylin Network (Beijing) Movie & Culture Media and co-presented by Ningxia Movie Group, Media Asia Film International, China Film Co., Beijing Kylin Culture, Beijing Huaming Star International Culture Media, Sanz Group, Beijing Daqiao Tang Film Television Media
Director: Law Wing-cheong
Cast: Xing Yu (aka Shi Yanneng), Steve Yoo, “Poppin” Nam Hyun-Joon, Jiang Baocheng, Ya Mei
Producer: Pang Hong
Executive Producers: Guo Li, Yang Hongtao, Peter Lam, Han Sanping, Shang Jin, Rayman Liu, Yan Xiaoming, Lin Zhishan, Wang Liqiao, Blues Li
Screenwriters: Yang Zhenjian, Qu Linan
Director of Photography: Fung Yuen-man
Editor: David Murray Richardson
Production Designers: Liu Jingping, Liu Xiaoyan
Music: Chen Tao, Wang Bei
Action Director: Zhang Peng
International Sales: Media Asia Film Distribution
US Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment
In Mandarin, Japanese and English
97 minutes

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I enjoyed this but I’m biased

FIRST FORUM REVIEW!
Wrath of Vajra has a simple plot - a Japanese death cult kidnaps kids and trains them to be assassins through fighting death matches. Xingyu (billed as Shi Yanneng here) was a product of the cult who grows up, reforms and becomes a disciple of the Southern Shaolin Temple, only to get drawn back into hell…or Hades in this case. The cult is called Hades, pronounce Hah-dis in Chinese. The rest is a lot of blood-spittin fights, which is really all we want to see in a Kung Fu flick. Good stuff overall. Nice scenery. Classic villainous lair atmosphere. Fights, fights, fights. Lots of slo-mos of people getting their face smashed so hard that their flesh wobbles like jello. There are some good villains to oppose Xingyu: a huge giant played by Jiang Baocheng (height 7" 6 1/2’) and Poppin Hyun-Joon, a Korean hip hop dancer, playing Crazy Monkey, who is sort of a Butoh villain, crazy contorted. And there’s a lot of random assassins to kill. There’s also some distracting subplots involving a cute but clueless Japanese reporter (daughter of the cult leader) and a really annoying shami (child monk) who just cries all the time and needs his face smashed so hard that his flesh wobbles like jello. Xingyu does his best to channel Bruce Lee from Fist of Fury with his Mandarin-collared suit and his emotionally-content-full demeanor as he dispatches hordes of Japanese katana-wielding assassins. So yeah, lots of sword-fighting action which always makes me happy.

Make sure you watch the trailer on our YouTube channel

//youtu.be/LCPtuv9i1xc

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Finally saw it, and it’s a pretty good one. I was curious to see how Xing Yu would handle the lead role in a movie, and IMO he brings quite a lot to the table. I enjoyed his style a lot, and the fights have some interesting choreography.

Unfortunately, I had to return two copies of this DVD due to a manufacturing defect that wouldn’t allow them to play. At all. Finally, the third one (from a different store) played fine until during the end fight, when it began freezing and finally became unplayable. So I still haven’t seen how it ends.

I don’t know if this is common or unique to Well Go USA DVDs, but it’s frakkin’ annoying. I have other DVDs from Well Go that work fine…well, my copy of The Man From Nowhere starts skipping/freezing an hour in, but always corrects when I stop/start it again once. I’m wondering if anybody else has had issues with the DVDs of Wrath of Vajra, or any others by Well Go? Or was there just one big defective batch?

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Our winners are announced

See our Wrath of Vajra winners thread.

Jimbo, I’ve never had a problem with Well Go USA DVDs. You sure it’s not your DVD player? Those have become so disposable now. On the flip side, as part of a DVD production company myself, bad batches do happen. Were they helpful with the replacement?