User Reviews

You can call this War of the Wizards or The Phoenix but either way, this movie is astounding. It was co-directed by Chang Mei-Chun (Dynasty, Revenge of the Shogun Women) and Sadamasa Arikawa (the director of special effects for films such as Destroy All Monsters; Son of Godzilla and The Mighty Peking Man).

This played in the U. S. with a horrible dub but that doesn't matter. What does is that this movie has fantastic visuals and seems closer to a fantasy children's movie. I have no idea why it doesn't get discussed at all because it's just stunning.

Tai (Hsiu-Shen Liang) is a poor fisherman who reads all he can to become a better person. He finds the Magic Vessel of Plenty and the Bamboo Book of All Knowledge, which allows him to become a rich man, but he shares his wealth by buying his fellow townspeople food. This doesn't impress the woman he's in love with, Jasmine (Hoi Si-Man), who wants nothing to do with him even if he is rich and successful now.

One after another killer comes his way to take his life but end up killing one another first. He's saved by Violet (Terry Hu) and Hyacinth (Chow Chi-Ming), who promise to protect him so he decides to marry them both. That's stopped by two old wizards who claim that Tai is filled with lust and has no idea that fate is coming for him.

The sisters really work for an evil alien called Flower Fox (Betty Pei Ti) and Tai is going to need to transform into a silver-costumed sword-wielding hero if he hopes to break the sisters away and save his people. Then, he fights a rock monster and Richard Kiel, dressed as if he were in a Sinbad movie, which makes this movie so much better as he battles Tai with giant claws.

There's also an incredible looking phoenix that yes, is a puppet, but who cares? Perhaps fantasy doesn't need to look perfect to be perfect. When I read negative reviews of this, it upsets me because the people who feel that way have no joy inside them.

WAR OF THE WIZARDS is the tale of a poor fisherman named Ti, who happens upon some ancient, magical artifacts. One of the objects is a "bowl of plenty", which Ti uses to become the wealthiest man in his village. Word spreads, and some unsavory characters are soon out to relieve Ti of his fortune.

Two beautiful, extremely deadly women named Hyacinth and Violet are the last to remain standing, after the rest of the criminals exterminate each other! Ti, who is very impressed, hires them as his bodyguards. They are VERY good at their new job! Ti marries them both.

Uh oh!

It seems that the eeevil witch, Flowerfox has come to take a certain book that came with the bowl. As it turns out, Flowerfox is no joke, and she really wants that book! The rest is a battle between these principal characters., including catastrophic disasters, a magic laser-emitting sword, a rock monster, and a final confrontation featuring Richard Kiel himself as Flowerfox's henchman, Steel Hand!

Absurd beyond all measure, this movie is entertaining throughout, due to its embracing of its own lunacy!

An outrageously fun viewing experience!...

WAR OF THE WIZARDS is a fantasy epic from Taiwan, made after the world-wide success of STAR WARS saw many local producers scrambling to produce their own versions of that tale. Thus this one is set in period China but features giant beasts and laser-style rays and magical beams which directly reference those seen in the George Lucas classic. Sadly, WAR OF THE WIZARDS is so cheap as to be completely laughable when it tries to be serious, although it does try very hard.

The first half of the film is quite slow and routine, and boring with it. A scholar finds a magical artefact in the depths of the ocean, and it grants him his wish to become a nobleman. However, various evil characters soon get wind of this magical item and try to gain it for themselves. Betty Pei Ti, the Shaw actress from Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, co-stars. Things become a lot more fun in the cheesy and slapdash second half in which a giant phoenix enters the story (it looks more like the creature in THE GIANT CLAW), characters fly around the screen, and BOND villain Richard Kiel turns up to battle our erstwhile hero.

I followed the plot for War of the Wizards as far as the scene in which the hero, young fisherman Tai (Hsiu-Shen Liang), finds himself borne by a massive phoenix (that looks like a peacock) while being pursued by evil supernatural entity Flower Fox, who has a bad case of dragon breath, flames spewing from her mouth. After that, I got a little lost.

The story starts simply enough, with Tai finding a magical vessel of plenty that can produce whatever the owner desires. Tai quickly conjures up himself a fortune in silver and gold, making himself the target of several villains. Luckily for Tai, he is rescued from the violent ne'er-do-wells by a couple of babes, Jasmine and Hyacinth, whom he marries (yes, both of them).

It later transpires that Tai's wives are being controlled by Flower Fox, who is not only after the vessel, but also a bamboo book of all knowledge, the whereabouts of which is known only to the now wealthy fisherman. Tai goes to fetch the book (from the bottom of the lake where he also found the vessel), but will not hand it over-then the stuff with the phoenix begins and I gave up trying to make sense of the rest of the film.

Suffice to say that it is all very silly and incredibly inept: there's an old wise man with really hairy eyebrows; Tai pulls a magic sword from a stone; the sun's rays enable Tai to shoot laser beams from his new weapon (something designed to appease the Star Wars crowd); the wise old man gives Tai a silver disco suit, which he wears to defeat a giant rock monster; and Tai does battle with numerous duplicates of himself, as well as with Richard Kiel, of James Bond fame, who wears metal gauntlets to try and kill the fisherman.

At the very end, Tai falls into the lake naked, leaving me very confused about exactly what I had watched.