THE WRATH OF VAJRA – The Blu Review

Blu-Ray Review by Sam Moffitt

Directed by Law Wing Cheong
Starring Xing Yu, Sun- Jung Yu, Heon Jun Nam

Here’s a kick ass martial arts movie with a dynamite blu-ray presentation, the kind we’ve come to expect from new releases, especially from Asia.

A long title card at the beginning tells us that Japan, in trying to destroy China set up a special temple, the Temple of Hades, to train master assassins. Highly trained killers and turn them loose on the Chinese populace.  They kidnap many young Chinese boys and drill them mercilessly, along with some American and other nationalities.

Years later they round up several prisoners of war, all of whom are graduates of the temple training program.  One graduate in particular, known as King of Vajra comes back to the temple to exact some old fashioned martial arts justice.  It is never really explained if Vajra is this guy’s name or the type of fighting style he uses.  In fact a lot is unexplained in Wrath of Vajra.

Vajra had a brother who he killed while training in the Temple of Hades.  His main grudge is against the Japanese officer who set up the temple and also he plans to get the children out who are currently the new group of trainees.

The Temple doesn’t really make much sense.  The trainees fight many duels to the death, (to the death!)  How this is going to help the Japanese defeat China is never really explained, one would think that every recruit needs to walk out of the Temple ready to do the Japanese’ dirty work.  It’s also never explained how the Japanese plan to get the Chinese prisoners to undermine and help destroy their own country.  Brain washing is never mentioned; in fact the idea of just how the whole plan is going to work is never discussed.  No matter, the fights are the main point of any martial arts movie and the fights in Wrath of Vajra are spectacular.

Vajra has to fight three major opponents to get close to finishing his mission, a giant, a spooky character called Crazy Monkey and his nemesis, the head of the Hades Temple.

The giant is the biggest Chinese I have ever seen, easily almost 8 feet tall and built like an ox.  The film makers use several camera tricks to make it seem like such a big man could be as fast as these professional martial artists who make up most of the cast   Like a lot of recent Chinese action movies most of the fights are in the rain and the giant gets a serious ass whipping.  Especially fun are shots of his head being hit by fists and feet and the blubber on his face jiggling and flopping in super slow motion.

Vajra enters the Temple with a coffin strapped to his back, much like the original Django,( Franco Nero) came to town dragging a coffin.  After the giant gets the piss kicked out of him and is thrown around like a rag doll Vajra body slams him into the coffin, of course he’s too big for it, making for a nice visual joke.

The second opponent,  Crazy Monkey, appears to be a supernatural creature, his looks, body language, everything about him reeks of Ringu, Ju-On and Kairo.  He never is explained, is he a ghost? Zombie?  What exactly?  He appears to feel pain and bleeds and all that but he is presented as some kind of scary monster, but he doesn’t last long either.

Finally Vajra has a big showdown with his Japanese counterpart, the head of the Temple.  And all the prisoners break out and fight the Temple guards.  Of course the good guys win and the bad guys give it up once their leader is laid to rest.

Well Go’s blu-ray disk looks spectacular, beautiful color and the sound design will have you looking all around the room, the surround sound will give your system a nice workout.

There are several previews for other Well Go titles, none of which I have heard of before and all look terrific.

There are several making of featurettes which get a bit repetitious, basically repeating the same information in different ways.

One thing I have to take issue with, the director and Yu Xing, the actor playing Vajra insist they have made a movie about Buddhism. They both say that Vajra is being a bodhisattva and showing compassion by killing his enemies and giving them a chance at a better life in their next incarnation…oh? Really?

I have practiced Nicheren Buddhism with the Soka Gakkai since 1984 and have studied that and other schools of Buddhism for years. If you’ve seen What’s Love Got to Do With It? the Tina Turner movie, you’ve heard it. We chant nam myoho renge kyo and work for world peace. I know from experience and practice a bodhisattva helps people to learn how to practice Buddhism so they can be happy and lead a better life. Killing anyone, for any reason, except possibly self defense, (and what Vajra does has nothing to do with self defense,) would be a major bad cause to make and lead to a very bad effect.

Yu Xing proclaims himself a master of Zen, which leads me to believe, as Nicheren Daishonin himself said, Zen is not Buddhism. Call it a warrior’s code, much like bushido, which was popular among the samurai during Japan’s feudal era, fine, but the concept of killing someone out of compassion is not Buddhism.

But whether you care about Buddhism or not this is one kick ass kung fu movie!

Now I have to go teach someone to chant, (and NOT kick their ass out of compassion.)