While the townsfolk initially support Yang’s decision to put the man to death, the public tide turns as they learn that the killer is Cao Shaolun (Louis Koo, The White Storm), the trigger-happy son of a murderous warlord whose forces plunder and burn everywhere they go. Yang’s authority is soon put to the test by a mysterious man who guns down three people, including a child, upon his arrival in town. Strange beginnings, for sure, as Call of Heroes is in no way a Jackie Chan-style action comedy: Ma is actually not even the main protagonist here, as this ominous tale about survival and compromises centers around Yang Kenan (Sean Lau, Overheard), the militiaman (or “sheriff,” according to the English subtitles) designated to lead Pucheng’s defense since the regular army is away fighting mutinous warlords elsewhere. Cinephiles, meanwhile, can reflect on how Chan (the Cellular remake Connected The White Storm) took cues from Quentin Tarantino - psychopathic villains, talky standoffs and the like - and in effect joins a cross-cultural cinematic bloodline leading back to Chang Cheh, Leone and Akira Kurosawa.īut it’s with the comical swordsman that Call of Heroes begins, as the unseemly Ma Feng (Eddie Peng, Rise of the Legend) is shown waking up from his drooling slumber in a tavern and then giving a gang of robbers a thorough yet completely cheeky battering. International aficionados of Asian action cinema should be overjoyed with Sammo Hung’s cracking, inventive action choreography - the rattan tray you picked up at a self-styled “oriental” souvenir shop won’t look the same ever again. Revolving around a local militia’s efforts to protect a town from the onslaught of a sadist and his army, Call of Heroes could possibly rival Antoine Fuqua’s remake of The Magnificent Seven - which shares a similar premise - in its intensity.
Indeed, Sergio Leone’s specter looms large over Call of Heroes, a film oozing nihilist violence on par with the bloodiest scenes in any of those spaghetti Westerns that have long informed Hong Kong’s wuxiacinema. With its beleaguered lawman, brusque mercenary, and bellicose bandits from out of town, Hong Kong director Benny Chan’s latest martial arts extravaganza is set in a small, forsaken town and boasts a musical score flowing with Morricone-aping motifs.
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