NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Eureka Classics Blu-ray (March 2024): Eureka Classics have transferred two Joseph Kuo films to Blu-ray; 1968's The Swordsman of All Swordsmen and 1979's The Mystery of Chess Boxing. They are on individual dual-layered Blu-rays with max'ed out bitrates. Screens inform us:

For The Swordsman of All Swordsmen, it states that "This film was originally released in 1968, and its digital restoration was completed by Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute in 2021 as part of the “Taiwan Film Classics Digital Restoration and Value-adding Project" commissioned by the Ministry of Culture. The restoration was based on a 35mm original camera negative with 2K resolution. The condition of the film includes flicker and tiny dirt caused by aging and warp, dye fade and defects caused by splices. There are some small scratches and dirt on the right side of the frame. Automatic restoration was used to reduce the instability, warp, flicker, dirt and scratches. The frame-by-frame manual process was carried out to remove the residual defects and restore the artifacts caused by the automatic process. And two Day-for-Night scenes have been corrected according to the director's instructions.

The Mystery of Chess Boxing is presented from a scan of a 35mm release print supplied by Dan Halsted (head programmer of the Hollywood theatre, Oregon). The film's original negatives are lost and most likely destroyed. This print is currently believed to be the best existing material. As this transfer is taken from a release print, subtitles are burned into the film image. We have not attempted to cover or digitally remove these subtitles, as doing so would further damage the integrity of the image. Although the available materials limit the amount of restoration work that could have been done on this title, we have performed some very basic digital cleaning and grading to make this landmark film as presentable as possible on Blu-ray.

NOTE: We have added 68 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-rays, Eureka Classics use linear PCM dual-mono tracks (24-bit.) The Swordsman of All Swordsmen is offered in the original Mandarin with an optional English language DUB. The Mystery of Chess Boxing has the choice of Mandarin, Cantonese or an English DUB. The audio quality is about the same level as the video - also with issues - prominently with the weak English DUBs. There is extensive snappy, crisp - if authentically hollow, aggression in the multitude of martial arts / sword conflict effects. The score on The Swordsman of All Swordsmen was by Szu Li (only film credit) with repurpose music mentioned in the commentary - and on The Mystery of Chess Boxing by Mou-Shan Huang (Beach of the War Gods,, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "Cute Girl", "Green, Green Grass") Sound quality is acceptable if imperfect via the uncompressed tracks. I stick with the original audio and just enjoy. Eureka Classics offer optional English subtitles on The Swordsman of All Swordsmen but they are burned-in, (with Chinese characters above the - sometimes misspelled English - see sample below) in The Mystery of Chess Boxing. Eureka's package Blu-rays are both Region 'B'-locked.

The Eureka Classics Blu-ray offer new commentaries. On The Swordsman of All Swordsmen by go-to Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) who did the commentaries on Mr. Vampire II and Vampire vs. Vampire in Eureka's Hopping Mad boxset with John Charles (The Hong Kong Filmography, 1977–1997.) They are an excellent pairing and the commentary is enjoyable and worth the indulgence for fans keen on the era and genre. We have heard Djeng's expertise on commentates for Eureka's Blu-rays of Slaughter in San Francisco, Magic Cop, Angela Mao: Hapkido & Lady Whirlwind, Knockabout, The Shaolin Plot and Dreadnaught. Included on the The Swordsman of All Swordsmen Blu-ray is a dozen minutes archival interview with director Joseph Kuo.

There are two commentaries on The Mystery of Chess Boxing. Djeng with Michael Worth who always adds important value as someone working in the industry. They call it a 'bona-fide stone cold' classic and discuss some trivia around the film's details including that it was never released in Hong Kong. The second is by action cinema experts Mike Leeder (editor of 100% Jackie Chan: The Essential Companion) and Arne Venema. We have heard Leeder and Venema via excellent commentaries on Eureka's Blu-rays of Odd Couple and The Shaolin Plot - plus 88 Films Blu-rays of The Fearless Hyena, Dragon's Forever plus Vinegar Syndrome's Righting Wrongs and many more. I haven't fully indulged but they seem as competent and complete as ever venturing to tangential films in the genre, what 'real' chess boxing is, the actors and overall details of the productions as well as diverse film culture comparisons to the West. The package has a limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju), an LE collector’s booklet featuring new writing on both films by James Oliver as well as an LE set of facsimile lobby cards and double-sided poster featuring original release posters.

These two Joseph Kuo films, 1968's The Swordsman of All Swordsmen and 1979's The Mystery of Chess Boxing, are hardcore wuxia classics and we should be thankful of the restorations despite the source-related warts. They contain great training / fight scene form and choreography with specific editing techniques. Impressive representatives of the genre. Taiwanese-born film director Kuo was best known for his Hong Kong based kung fu films of the late 1960s through to the mid 1980s. 1968's The Swordsman of All Swordsmen is a revenge-based gem with a few prosaic scenes and 1979's The Mystery of Chess Boxing has 'The Ghost Faced Killer' and an eventual strategic link between chess and kung fu. What fun. Eureka Classics Blu-ray package has supreme wuxia film value and kudos to them boldly releasing them with the a/v imperfections. Great commentaries, booklet and artwork. Almost essential for fans. Recommended. More Joseph Kuo please!

Gary Tooze