A lesser-known film from the 1970s has what Quentin Tarantino regards as one of the greatest battles ever put to the screen. Over the years, cinematic history has witnessed some truly remarkable battle sequences, brought to life by a number of moving parts.
Various genres have contributed in that regard. When it comes to the subject of the best big battles ever made, movies across a wide range of genres come to mind, including World War 2 films like Saving Private Ryan, and historical epics like Spartacus and Braveheart.
A film that rarely finds itself in that conversation is Beach of the War Gods, an often-overlooked gem that adapts an Akira Kurosawa classic and one of the greatest samurai movies of all time.
Beach Of The War Gods Is The Martial Arts Movie Version Of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai
In 1973, former Shaw Brothers actor and martial arts movie star Jimmy Wang Yu teamed up with Golden Harvest – the studio behind many of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee’s movies – for Beach of the War Gods, a martial arts period piece that acts as an adaptation of Akira Kuorsawa’s Seven Samurai movie, but with the story set in ancient China rather than Japan.
Keeping with the premise of Seven Samurai but with a wuxia-inspired twist, Beach of the War Gods follows a sword-wielding hero played by Jimmy Wang Yu, who takes it upon himself to shore up the support of five talented warriors as he looks to defend a small fishing village from an army of Japanese pirates.
Also written and directed by Jimmy Wang Yu, the movie’s story builds up to a long and dramatic clash between the two sides, as the hero’s band of fighters leads the villagers into a giant battle with the movie’s Japanese villains. The fight over the village’s fate plays out for more than a half-hour.
What Quentin Tarantino Has Said About Beach Of The War Gods
During a discussion of Jimmy Wang Yu’s career on the Pure Cinema Podcast, Quentin Tarantino heaped praise on the actor’s work on Beach of the War Gods. Beach of the War Gods technically belongs in the kung fu movie genre, but as Tarantino points out, Wang Yu’s movie “transcends the martial arts genre.”
Tarantino argues that as the movie transitions to its final fight, it’s essentially become a “historical battle movie,” likening its approach to the action to Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. He even went as far as to call the ending of Beach of the War Gods “one of the great battles of all time.”
In an article that Tarantino wrote about Jimmy Wang Yu, he cited Beach of the War Gods as one of the actor-director’s four “masterpieces,” and credited much of its overall quality to Wang Yu’s visual style of directing. He compares it to 300, remarking that the Zack Snyder film “plays like a remake” of Beach of the War Gods.
Beach Of The Gods Is An Underrated Martial Arts Masterpiece
As a lesser-known Hong Kong-Taiwan production, as opposed to a big-budget Shaw Brothers epic, Beach of the War Gods receives far less attention than it deserves. It may not be hailed as one of the best martial arts movies of the 1970s, but it’s definitely an underappreciated classic of the genre.
But as Tarantino points out, it’s so much more than just a martial arts film. 300 and Braveheart are apt comparisons, considering that Beach of the War Gods succeeds in creating a visually immersive atmosphere, aided in large part by the historical costumes of the warriors on the Japanese and Chinese sides of the movie’s central conflict.
This helps Beach of the War Gods suck you into the action, but that’s not the only factor at play. While Jimmy Wang Yu was not necessarily known as an expert martial artist in the same vein as Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee, that wasn’t inherently obvious in Beach of the War Gods, which employs some masterful martial arts choreography.
What makes it stand out so much is that Beach of the War Gods isn’t showing one fight at a time; it manages to juggle dozens of combatants at once; when Jimmy Wang Yu is battling Japanese pirates with his two swords, other fighters can be seen in the background, having their highly choreographed showdowns.
How long Jimmy Wang Yu’s movie was able to keep this up has a lot to do with what makes it so spectacular. And then there’s the diversity of the action, as the main group of heroes is composed of fighters with unique fighting styles. This enabled Beach of the War Gods to consistently mix things up so that its action isn’t limited to just swordplay.
Beach of the War Gods provides a thrilling spectacle of a final battle, one that easily justifies Quentin Tarantino‘s high praise for the movie. A battle that lasts more than 30 minutes naturally risks testing the audience’s patience for a satisfactory conclusion, but Wang Yu brilliantly makes every minute of the fight well worth it.
