| House of Traps | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Chang Cheh |
| Starring | Kuo Chui Lu Feng Chiang Sheng Cheng Tien-Chi Chu Ko |
| Country | China |
House of Traps (Chinese title: 沖宵樓) is a 1982 Shaw Brothers film directed by Chang Cheh, starring the Venom Mob.
Contents |
When a corrupt prince arranges for the theft of a highly valuable jade antique the emperor dispatches his best men to retrieve it. The only problem is that the prince has hidden the antique in the infamous 'house of traps' from which no man has ever made it out alive. Royal investigator Sun Chien and his men mount a daring raid on the prince's birthday which results in the usual mayhem expected from a Venom's film.
House of Traps was previously considered one of the rarest Venom films, as it was only available on poor VHS and VCD formats. However, House of Traps was remastered and released on DVD September 9, 2008 by Image Entertainment [1]. The DVD includes the original Cantonese language soundtrack with subtitles, as well as an English-dubbed soundtrack. The DVD is from the Shaw Brothers Collection series, which is distributed under the Celestial Pictures banner of Image Entertainment.
Despite the DVD release, the film falls under WTO regulations for fair-use and free distribution. Celestial's release is approximately 20 minutes shorter than the VHS and VCD versions, as many of the most damaged frames were cut entirely. The Celestial version of the film, under Chinese law, is materially different enough to be classified as a new work and is copyrighted as such. Only a handful of VHS originals are known to exist, and the only known original form reel version of the film is owned by Jackson Wu of Osaka, Japan. In an article regarding the film in Film Asia magazine, November, 2005, it was implied that he would not sell the film, as it is damaged to the point that it could not be restored in full.