Director Ronny Yu took inspiration from a real story of the Yang Clan when he set out to create Saving General Yang. This action/war/drama/tragedy runs just over 100 minutes and features some of Asia’s best young acting talent as there are literally about a dozen key roles in this film. Adam Cheng stars as the father figure. A war veteran himself, he serves his emperor fully and has no fear when the Khitan forces, whom he has repelled on several occasions before, challenges the Song Empire yet again.
Only days before, though, his seventh and youngest son, inadvertently killed the son of Lord Pao. The two are actually meeting with the emperor to discuss the matter when a watchmen alerts the emperor that a new Khitan strike is only hours away. At the request of Pao, the emperor puts Pao as supreme commander and Yang as the commander of the frontlines.
Yang is fine with this decision, as he is a proven warrior. However his wife, while not doubting his abilities, doesn’t feel right about this. She seeks the advice of a local secluded master who tells her that ‘seven will go into battle, six will return.’ She’s torn as to which one of her sons will die in battle, but their father needs assistance against the staggering numbers that the Khitan General, Yelu Yuan (played by Shao Bing) has brought to the invasion. Yuan is actually the son of the previous general who General Yang was partly responsible for killing. So now General Yang is not only out-numbered, but he’s got a ruthless enemy general in Yuan that is determined to kill Yang and his family at all costs, and a “ally” in Pao that, shall we say, isn’t going to go out of his way at all to assist Yang should trouble befall him.
Trouble of course does indeed come to Yang and his men. The overwhelming numbers of Khitan put Yang and a few of his men in retreat, but they’re soon discovered and Yang is taken prisoner. The seven sons of Yang, all skilled warriors in their own right, prepare to lead additional Song Empire forces into battle to save their father. It isn’t long before they get to him, but, he’s badly wounded, having been struck by a poison arrow, and the pursuit of Yuan and his hundreds of men is never far behind. Most of the second half or even two thirds of the movie is a sort of pursuit whereby the brothers are trying to get back to their home with their father, but they’re constantly having to split up or otherwise adjust due to Yuan’s forces. Ultimately, Saving General Yang is a potent tragedy for anyone looking for a safe return for the father and his sons. While tough to watch at times because of the villain’s success, the action and virtues of brotherhood exhibited make it much more than just a somber film — although I’m not sure I’ll go back to watch it again anytime soon. It’s perhaps unfortunate that the movie is only about 141 minutes. The subject matter would have easily worked in a five-hour film such as The Red Cliff.
The Blu-ray release from Well Go USA is pretty straight-forward and is up to the studio’s typical quality. Expect a very crisp and lively image quality that beautifully exhibits both the locations used for filming as well as all of the CG, too. From a directorial standpoint, I thought Yu may have used too much CG. There is one scene with some horses running that was brief, granted, but you could really tell it was CG. CG and green-screening is used liberally in this movie, although most of it is subtle. DTS-HD 5.1 audio suits the image quality just fine, making for a clear and immersive aural experience (best viewed in its native language with subtitles enabled of course).
Three extra features are on disc, too. These include the trailer, in HD (as well as HD trailers for three other upcoming Well Go releases), a ‘making of’ and a surprisingly lengthy cast and crew interviews video. The ‘making of’ is in HD and is compromised of a lot of quick, un-narrated segments showing the production footage. Plenty of wires, green-screen, special effects, set and costume building, fight choreography, etc., are shown, which is always pretty special given the scale of these Asian war films. I half expected the separate feature called “Cast and Crew Interviews” to be even shorter and contain some of what was in the ‘making of,’ but as it turns out, the “Interviews” feature is over ninety minutes, in HD, and it contains interviews with Ronny Yu (roughly twenty minutes), Adam Cheng, and all seven brothers. You can skip between the interviews with chapter select as well.
With that, let’s get to the summary…