The Movie:

Directed by the late, great and legendary Chang Cheh, 1982's House Of Traps was a tough film to get a hold of until the last little while when IVL released it in Hong Kong in 2007. Image Entertainment continues their Shaw Brothers line with the first ever domestic DVD release of this quirky Venoms picture, their last group effort together (minus Lo Meng who is nowhere to be seen).

When the film begins, a buy calling himself Butterfly (Lu Feng) emerges the victor of a pretty remarkable fight scene where he smokes his opponent and makes off with a rare and valuable jade statue. His employers, some unscrupulous local government types, want his help in taking out a group of pesky rebels who are making trouble for them in their territory. Meanwhile, a local judge (Sun Chien) finds himself mixed up with them and has to hire himself a local swordsman to ensure his life remains safe when he starts looking into the death of a man at the hands of his sneaky relative, a prince. Various fighters show up as the plot becomes more and more convoluted and they take sides in the incident and a list of all who are loyal to the treacherous sneaky relative is put inside a house of traps so that no one can get their hands on it. Eventually everyone winds up doing their thing inside a literal house of traps filled with equal parts treasure and deadly danger as the good guys square off against the bad guys and crazy traps cut people up.

The plot for House Of Traps is pretty messy but once the set up is over and done with and the action starts moving along, you probably won't be bothered by it so much. The basic premise is essentially a good guys versus bad guys fight film, the only real differentiator being the titular house. The costumes are rather crazy - plenty of flash and color here - and the Venoms don't look quite as tough as they have in the past thanks to some rather odd wardrobe choices but it all manages to be good fun. The fight scenes are well done and in typical Chang Cheh action they're pretty bloody, particularly the grand finale and the scenes where the traps come into play. There's a remarkable scene involving an umbrella and some balancing moves but what really catches your attention are the various bars, stairs, nets and assorted sharp instruments that fly from the ceilings and the walls of the house.

A fair bit of bad comedy comes into play throughout the film and there are considerably more dialogue heavy scenes than you might expect from a martial arts film and these do mess with the pacing a bit. That said, in a lot of ways the movie has aged nicely. The colors are garish in an appealing sort of way and the movie really does a good job of making full use of the 2.35.1 widescreen frame. It looks great from start to finish and while the production values may not rival those on display in some of Chang Cheh's more commercially successful films for the studio, there's still obviously been quite a bit of attention paid to detail in the sets and locales used for the picture. The score is effective and does a good job of heightening tension and overall the picture is generally quite well made, even if the plot is all over the place at times.

The Video:

House Of Traps is presented in its original 2.35.1 aspect ratio (in Shawscope, naturally!) in a decent anamorphic transfer. While the picture is quite clean and clear, it is interlaced so depending on your video set up you may or may not notice some combing effects. Aside from that, the picture is decent. Color reproduction is nice and natural looking while black levels stay strong throughout the film. There aren't any major issues with print damage, edge enhancement or mpeg compression and skin tones look lifelike and natural. This isn't a reference quality transfer but it's not a bad effort particularly when you consider how hard to find it has been.

The Audio:

The primary audio track on this release is a Chinese language Dolby Digital Mono mix that comes with optional subtitles available in English and Spanish only. The audio is a little flat in some spots but is otherwise fine. There aren't any problems with hiss or distortion even if once in a while you might notice the occasional pop in the mix. Dialogue stays clean and clear throughout and the English subtitles are easy to read even if there is a typo or two in the text. An optional Dolby Digital Mono English dub is also included and the quality is on par with the Chinese track.

The Extras

Aside from some animated menus and chapter selection, Image has supplied a trailer for the feature and trailers for sixteen of other Shaw Brothers titles that are available on DVD. It should be noted, however, that these are newly created Celestial re-release trailers and not original theatrical trailers - at least they're all anamorphic.

Overall:

House Of Traps isn't the mythical masterpiece that it's elusive reputation would have you believe but it is a fun martial arts film with some seriously impressive scenes of kung-fu carnage. Image's presentation isn't perfect but it's pretty decent overall and it's nice to have a decent copy of this one after a very long wait.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.