Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Last Hurrah for Chivalry" Chinese Theatrical Poster

“Last Hurrah for Chivalry” Chinese Theatrical Poster

Director: John Woo
Writer: John Woo
Cast: Damian Lau, Wai Pai, Lau Kong, Lee Hoi San, Hsu Hsia, Fung Hak On, Chin Yuet Sang, Ngai Chau Wah, Cheng Lui, Huang Ha, Baan Yun Sang, Chan Dik Hak, Chan Siu Gai, Cheung Ging, Johnny Cheung
Running Time: 107 min.

By Raging Gaijin

“Last Hurrah for Chivalry” has all the elements of a John Woo film: abundant use of slow motion, expertly choreographed action sequences, extreme blood-letting, and a strong theme of friendship. The only difference is, the heroes wield swords instead of guns. And, okay, there aren’t any flying doves – Woo hadn’t developed that particular fetish yet. But everything else is in place and this movie is all the better for it: “Last Hurray for Chivalry” is a John Woo movie for people who like John Woo movies. And with the swordplay and ancient Chinese setting, this is probably about as close as we’re going to get to a John Woo-directed Shaw Brothers film.

The story is a deceptively simple tale of revenge. A man is disgraced and left for dead on his wedding night and he slowly but surely assembles the means to claim vengeance. His closest allies in the upcoming battle also end up being his closest friends. “Last Hurrah for Chivalry” is a movie about men who are devoted to each other, to the point where they would willingly lay down their lives for one another. If you can’t handle that, you might not want to watch it. But you have to admit it has a lot more depth and emotion than your average American ‘buddy’ flick. One thing I’ve always appreciated about “The Killer” is that, beyond the ammo clips and bullet holes, it’s really just a movie about friendship. “Last Hurrah for Chivalry” is much the same way.

One reason I say the story is “deceptively simple” is because it gives way to many plot twists. There are more twists and turns to this movie than any other 70’s-era HK flick I can think of. Heroes become villains or become villains and turn back again, others fake their own death. At some point, it almost becomes *too* much. The film had me on a roller-coaster and kept flinging me in several different directions at once; one minute I was devastated by a particular turn of events, and then a few minutes later I was elated because they reversed themselves. Of course, it speaks volumes for “Last Hurrah for Chivalry” that I was so emotionally involved in it. I came to care about these characters and the conflicts that motivated them. It’s probably a good thing I was so involved too, as I didn’t have as much time to notice the cheap production design and props.

Another thing that distracted me from the low production values was the sword-fighting and martial arts battles. There’s plenty strewn throughout the entire movie and they are often long, complicated affairs with jaw-dropping choreography. This is truly some of the best sword-fighting ever put to film. Most of the characters are memorable so it makes the conflicts more engaging as well. Keep an eye out for the Sleeping Wizard, one of the coolest villains to appear in a Hong Kong flick. He’s at his best fighting ability when fast asleep; you wouldn’t think this would work onscreen but it does. Perhaps he’s a distant cousin to the Drunken Master?

All in all, if you love John Woo movies, chances are you’ll love “Last Hurrah for Chivalry”. The heroes may have traded their guns for swords but everything else is here. While it may not reach the emotional or visceral heights of “The Killer” or “Bullet in the Head”, this is jut as exciting and action-packed as the first two “A Better Tomorrows”. Highly recommended for fans of the director and anyone else looking for an old school epic with plenty of swordplay.

Raging Gaijin’s Rating: 7.5/10

By Numskull

If you think John Woo did nothing noteworthy before A Better Tomorrow, think again. Last Hurrah For Chivalry proves that John Woo movies aren’t about gunfire, they’re about action. And, in an age where all a movie needs to do is have one character throw a single punch to get filed under “action” by bleary-eyed video store clerks, this here, my friends, is the genuine article.

It goes like this. Kao is the scholarly son of a famous warrior who just wants to get married. So he finds a gal at the local whorehouse, buys her, and invites all of his friends over to celebrate the momentous occasion (isn’t true love a grand thing?). The party is crashed, however, by Pai, a bitter rival of Kao’s family, and the would-be groom is disgraced in his own home. A pair of loyal servants help him get the hell out of dodge and the revenge motive is solidified.

Now, here’s the problem. Kao is a nice guy…he treats his servants like friends and his enemies with respect…but he’s also a bit of a wuss. Hesitant to challenge Pai on his own, he begs his Yoda-type teacher to loan him a legendary sword and attempts to enlist the aid of Chang, a swordsman who is less concerned about upholding his reputation as a valiant fighter than he is with seeing his sister get married off and looking after his sick mom. Also figuring into the equation is Green, a hard-drinking assassin who can never seem to get paid; his (Green’s) nameless prostitute friend who has the hots for him something fierce; and Pray, another swordsman who just can’t wait to challenge Chang to a duel in order to prove his skills superior or die trying.

Relax, people…this is not a predecessor of Highlander. Despite the absence of black suits and white doves, this is a John Woo movie through and through. To reveal more of the plot would be criminal; just watch it.

Swordplay fans will just about come in their pants. No wires, no preposterous exchanges between combatants flying effortlessly through the air, no complete domination by one side of the conflict while the slack-jawed opposition just stands there and gets slaughtered like cattle, no cotton candy-colored blood leaking like water from a two-dollar garden hose. Just fast and furious sword fighting the way it oughta be, dammit!

The plentiful action has some great spots that’ll make you say “Hey, cool!” (including a guy getting stabbed in the ass!). If you can look past the occasional Superman-style attack, you’ll find lots to enjoy. The inevitable showdown between Chang and Pray is rock-solid, and the grand finale is a keeper as well. But the best of the action occurs between those two battles. In a sequence which screams “John Woo directed me, motherfucker!”, Chang and Green have a nice conversation in a lush garden with tranquil music accompanied by the sounds of gentle streams and waterfalls…and then they mount a head-on assault against Pai’s stronghold and butcher his 36 warrior servants. Ya ha ha!

Out two heroes fighting off wave upon wave of armed guards is to be expected, of course, but the fun doesn’t stop there. A very cool scene has Chang and Green, separated from their swords, in a bare-handed fight with two baddies within the confines of an iron cage which is just barely large enough to accomodate all four men.

Then, they must confront the crown jewel of Pai’s security force…the Famous Sleeping Wizard. He’s a guy who fights with a sword in each hand while fast asleep! Forget Drunken Kung Fu, it’s no match for Sleeping Swordplay. It’s like somthing out of an acid trip kung fu travesty, but it works splendidly, and the noises the wizard makes are hilarious. Cool music, too.

All of this is small (but tasty) potatoes, though, compared to the climactic battle in a room filled with dozens and dozens of lit candles (yeah, I know what you’re thinking). It may not be the longest or most technically sound fight scene, but in terms of sheer, grueling intensity, it’s beyond reproach. And let’s not forget those neat tricks, either.

The only faults I could find with this movie were some cheap-looking outdoor sets, repetitive “clangs” during the sword fights, and a very abrupt reminiscent of…well, actually, just about all HK action movies have abrupt endings. Never mind any of this, though. If you allow yourself to get distracted by the backgrounds or the sound effects during the fighting, then the whole movie is probably lost on you anyway.

A word to the wise before I sign off here, folks…if you get the DVD, do not, I repeat, DO NOT watch the theatrical trailer before the movie itself! In a mere two minutes, it gives away half of the damn film. Don’t read the description on the back of the package, either…it’s part spoiler and part bullshit (one of the plot points it “gives away” never actually happens!).

Last Hurrah For Chivalry isn’t perfect, but it’s a blast to watch if you’re half the HK movie fan you claim to be, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. You’ll probably accuse me of spewing shameless hyperbole, but dammit, it’s been ages since I’ve seen a movie half as enjoyable as this, and I’ll exaggerate as much as I fucking well please.

(Whip-cracking sound)

GO! Now!

Numskull’s Rating: 9/10

Posted in Chinese, Golden Harvest, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , |

Cheetah on Fire (1993) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Cheetah on Fire" Tai Seng VHS Cover

“Cheetah on Fire” Tai Seng VHS Cover

Director: Chui Fat
Cast: Donnie Yen, Carrie Ng, Sharla Cheung Man, Gordon Liu Chia Hui, Ken Lo Hui Kwong, Fujimi Nadeki, Michael Woods, John Salvitti, Eddie Ko, Shing Fui On
Running Time: 87 min.

By Tyler

In Cheetah on Fire, “Long Hair” (Gordon Liu) leads a violent gang in pursuit of a stolen missile guidance control chip. Donnie Yen and Nadeki Fujimi play CIA agents who are assisted by the HK police (Carrie Ng and Sharla Cheung Man). Eddie Ko and Shing Fui-on have supporting parts as criminals who are out of their league – attempting to sell the chip over the heads of Long Hair’s gang. After a series of quite graphically violent confrontations has thinned out the field, the action shifts from Hong Kong to Thailand. As the gang teams up with the forces of a warlord (Michael Woods), the pursuing law enforcement team seeks the assistance of the Thai army.

This great cast was wasted in this luke-warm sister film to Crystal Hunt. It falls flat on its back. The action looks horrible and the fight scenes were incredibly slow. Even the fight scene between Donnie Yen and Gordon Liu can’t save the film. We also can’t forget Michael Wood’s overacting as always (firing a machine gun in the air!).

The only thing cool about this film is the music, it’s real creepy; but beyond that? No dice. Also, who really wants to see Gordon Liu with a Jerry Curl playing a bad guy. I might as well tell you the ending because only a fool would buy this film knowing it was bad.

Crap.

Tyler’s Rating: 3/10

Posted in Chinese, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , |

Bichunmoo | aka Flying Warriors (2000) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Bichunmoo" Korean Theatrical Poster

“Bichunmoo” Korean Theatrical Poster

AKA: Bichunmoo – Dance with Sword
Director: Kim Young-jun
Cast: Shin Hyun-joon, Kim Hee-sun, Jeong Jin-young, Jang Dong-jik, Choi Yoo-jung, Gi Ju-bong
Running Time: 118 min.

By Alexander

Bichunmoo is essentially a series of set pieces featuring beautiful people, gorgeous costumes and rousing music periodically interspersed with imaginative fight scenes that blend arcade-style action and wire-fu (and the occasional exploding torso and severed head). But despite the thin story (it’s all about the revenge-amins…again), implausible plot twists, enormous-to-the-point-of-confusion cast and choppy narrative, Bichunmoo rocks.

How does it rock, exactly? Let me count the ways:

1. Shin Hyun-joon as the protagonist Jinha absolutely oozes charisma. His character is incredibly complex and kicks serious ass, especially when demonstrating the coveted powers of bichun. The use of close-ups border on the gratuitous, but it’s obvious the director, Kim Young-jun, saw the sexy appeal of Shin peering menacingly at the camera behind flowing, sweat-drenched bangs. (I’d even go so far as to say Shin’s performance is the best I’ve ever seen in a film so heavy on action.)

2. I was riveted awake after a particularly dull interlude by rock music and the emergence of Jinha’s black-clad, super-ninja army. Their appearance was completely unexpected (despite appearing briefly in the opening credits) but entirely welcome as there is nothing — NOTHING — cooler than black clad, sword-wielding, masked martial artists jumping over rooftops and lining up menacingly behind their master.

3. The music is appealingly diverse, shifting from music you’d expect to hear in a 14th century period piece to the aforementioned rock to K-pop ballads. The use of contemporary music never seemed gimmicky (A Knight’s Tale, anyone?), but rather complemented the fantasy elements of the story and the dazzling, obviously fantastic costumes.

4. The costumes are brilliant, from the exotic gowns of Kim Hee-sun’s Sullie, to the appropriately flowing robes of Jinha, to the totally outrageous but super-cool outfits of Jinha’s small army, which were, I’m guessing, inspired by anime, video games and/or comic books. Their black ninja suits with elegant silver embroidery, topped with black conical hats, face masks and flowing raven hair (bangs are big in this film) have the same appeal as the old black Spider-man costume Peter Parker possessed in the classic Secret Wars mini-series.

Anyway.

There are a few things missing from this film, particularly entire story lines that might have better explained where, exactly, some of the major characters came from and what their motives were. As the other reviewers stated below, there are far too many characters and some of them look so much alike it’s almost impossible to tell them apart (for example, the two women in the film look and dress identically, yet to understand events in the story, it’s essential to be able to tell them apart). Also, the recruitment of Jinha’s posse is inexplicably never explained, despite their heavy presence in the second half of the film. Finally, the secret art of bichun, apparently kept in a tattered volume, makes only a brief appearance despite being the sole reason why half of China seemingly wants to capture the elusive Jinha. No explanation is given to its contents or origin.

Regardless, Bichunmoo is a beautiful film, brilliantly shot and expertly performed. It’s ultimately an appealing, entertaining blend of action, drama, romance, suspense and violence.

Highly recommended.

Alexander’s Rating: 8/10

By Reefer

Being billed as the most expensive film in Korean film history is kinda like being the most popular mime in Phoenix. Big deal. I mean aren’t most Korean film budgets comparable to the price of Subway’s Cold Cut Combo meal (with a pepsi and child’s toy of course)?

Alas, Bichunmoo is a rousing success. This film looks great! All the money for production is right up there on the screen. Brilliant cinematography, art direction, and seamless FX push this Korean-martial arts-action-fantasy-love story-tragedy straight to the top of my list of favorite films I have seen this year.

Shin Hyun-june plays Jinha, a poor farm boy who falls in love with Sullie, the illegitimate daughter of a Mongolian commander. Then comes a rich suitor (Jang Dong-jik, who strangely looks like a more menacing Yuen Biao). Jinha is a wonderful character. In the beginning, he is shy and boyish. Later, he grows into a cold and brooding warrior, but because of his subtle and tragic performance, we are not shocked by the transition. The bulk of this movie rests firmly on the actor, Shin Hyun-june’s shoulders. Like Chow Yun Fat in Heroic Bloodshed films, Shin achieves instant credibility. Anything he cares about the viewer cares about.

The rest of the film could be diagrammed as followed: A confrontation. Revenge. A bunch of fights. Betrayal. Reunions. A second generation. More battles. Love story. Another reunion. More betrayal. Some explanation. Love story. Big fight. Bigger fight. Love story. The End. Thus, a major flaw in Bichunmoo is that it’s a three-hour film crammed into a two-hour one. Plus, without much explanation, characters enter and exit the story, sometimes seeming to be in two places at once! Bichunmoo also suffers from having too many characters with similar appearances. I would advise people not to get discouraged if confusion sets in. It will all be clear in the end.

Laced with special FX, the fights, for the most part, are a highlight. You see Jinha also has been taught the bichun secrets, a powerful weapon in martial arts and another reason he is of interest to the bad guys. These bichun secrets allow Jinha to wave his sword and somehow send an explosive force, ripping up the ground, toward his target (similar to powers of some video game characters). Anyway, it’s a pretty cool visual treat among many in this film. There is also a sequence where Jinha and Jang Dong-jik work together to defeat some thugs. While each of them engages a separate group, both steal glances at the other’s progress in the fight until, at one point, there eyes meet and you can see they are both satisfied with the other’s skills. Definite foreshadowing there.

Bichunmoo is a very good way to get yourself acquainted with Korean cinema and before you watch feel free to go to Subway for the Cold Cut Combo meal.

Reefer’s Rating: 8.5/10

By Numskull

So…this is where the biggest budget in Korean film history went? Hmmm. Well, it’s got a lot to offer, and, mercifully, it doesn’t go overboard on special effects and whatnot, but still, “biggest budget in Korean film history” instantly generates some serious hype…hype that the movie, despite being satisfactory entertainment, ultimately fails to live up to.

Bichunmoo can perhaps best be described as a mixture of new wave swordplay, historical costume drama, and Shakespearean tragedy. If all you seek is a “bigger, better” chop socky flick, look elsewhere. Bichunmoo is more ambitious than that. It succeeds admirably in most of what it tries to accomplish, but it does stumble along the way.

In an epic storyline spanning more than a decade in the 14th century, countless battles are fought, romance blossoms and dies, petty nobles engage in relentless behind-the-scenes struggles, martial arts secrets are handed down, children are born predestined to suffer like their ill-fated parents, power changes hands time and again, and, after two of the most “loaded” hours in the history of cinema, the whole sequence of events comes full circle, leaving a bloody swath of pointless death and destruction and a whole lot of misery in its wake.

(Speaking of circles, how about that totally white, featureless “full moon”, eh?)

Bichunmoo’s large cast of characters is led by Jinha and Sullie, two youths (when the film starts, anyway) whose foolish notions of “love” condemn them and just about everyone they encounter to a life of bloodshed. While I am pleased that the whole movie does not rely on some ridiculous “love conquers all” theme, there’s still enough of that sort of shit here to piss me off. Love, in fact, does NOT conquer all…in Bichunmoo, as in real life, it does little more than cause trouble for everyone involved.

Anyway…sword fights aplenty pop up, but none of them lasts very long, and the Bichun secret techniques used by Jinha resemble something you’d see in an anime film like Ninja Scroll, especially with the running on water and other special effects (but at least people don’t constantly fly through the air, contrary to the alternate title “Flying Warriors”). It should be noted that there’s not a whole lot of genuine martial arts talent on display here, as the fight scenes are too fast and have too many cuts to generate any appreciable amount of real excitement. That’s not as bad as it sounds, though, because, despite the large amount of violence in Bichunmoo, none of it is gratuitous. The multitudinous fights are not eye candy for action junkies; they are parts of the story. You can’t skip around, only watching the fight scenes as you might do for “lesser” martial arts films. You just gotta watch the whole thing. Otherwise you’re missing the point.

Bichunmoo has a very intricate storyline involving a cast of many, taking place during several different points in time. It’s fascinating to watch the various characters interact with one another, all for their own reasons, each possessing unique motivations and viewpoints, every one holding some piece of information unknown to the others that influences their actions. Alas, the less-than-expert way in which the chronology of the film is handled can seriously lessen one’s enjoyment of all this. Time passes in big chunks without the viewer’s knowledge. Some characters don’t look any older when this happens (partly because there’s so damn many of them that you’ll be hard pressed to keep track of them all) and there’s certainly nothing as obvious as an “X Years Later” caption. There damn well ought to be, though…one portion of the movie in particular seems designed specifically to confuse the hell out of people, no matter how diligently they pay attention. I won’t name names so as not to ruin it ahead of time, but here’s how it goes: Character A is removed from the main “scene.” Character B is very unhappy about it. Character A, looking the same as before, makes a comeback. Character C is introduced and appears to be perhaps fifteen years old. When Characters A and B meet again, they aren’t delighted to see each other, as one would expect. Through Character B’s dialogue, it is revealed that a decade has passed (and, in the eyes of the audience, the status quo has been maintained) and that Character C is Character A’s child, despite the fact that Character A was never shown boning Character C’s mother, nor did he make any reference to it.

So, we’ve got ten years passing in the blink of an eye, with absolutely no indication to the viewer that this has happened until well after the fact, and the second incarnation of Christ, physically maturing at about 150% the normal growth rate.

Um…yeah.

Acting is a mixed bag, with the kids portraying Alisu and Sung coming off a little awkward, and most of the others staring either at the ground or at nothing at all with varying degrees of conviction (I was reminded of Wong Kar-Wai’s “no eye contact, EVER!” movie Ashes Of Time). Cinematography is a strong point (even on the Deltamac DVD, which is inexplicably devoid of letterbox format), deftly showing off the film’s many beautiful settings. The music consists of both appropriate period music and modern material with electric guitar…which works surprisingly well, at least until the latter part of the closing credits, when it really spoils the mood.

A good film, but not one that will please everyone. There isn’t an iota of levity to be found anywhere, and out of a cast of more than a dozen significant, notable characters, those who survive the movie can be counted on one hand. No doubt some foolish but well-meaning critic will describe this is “Korea’s answer to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Admittedly, the relationship between Jinha and Sullie towards the beginning does reek of Lo and Jen from CTHD (low status fighter falls for rich babe with Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” playing in the minds of the audience, low status fighter and rich babe part ways after considerable amount of time spent together, rich babe gives low status fighter jade trinket to remember her by), but that’s pretty much where the similarities end (unless you count the running time). Bichunmoo is gloomier and more violent than CTHD, and, while not as good as the Chinese film to which it will inevitably be compared, it is good enough to stand on its own merits. Enjoy it for what it is, not for what you or somebody else thinks it SHOULD be.

Numskull’s Rating: 7/10

Posted in Korean, Reviews | Tagged , |

Beat (1997) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Beat" Korean Theatrical Poster

“Beat” Korean Theatrical Poster

Director: Kim Sung-su
Producer: Cha Seung-Jae
Cast: Jung Woo-Sung, Ko So-Young , Kim Bu-Seon, Lim Chang Jung , Yu Oh-Seong, Lee Mun-Shik, Sa Hyeon-Jin, Jang Dong-Jik, Do Ki-Seok, Kim Seong-Su, Park Kyeong-Hwan, Kwon Tae-Won, Jin Bong-Jin, Lee Suk, Kim Yang-Woo
Running Time: 113 min.

By Mighty Peking Man

“Beat” is the story involving a few hoods who lived fast and suffered the consequences of their violent, crime-filled lifestyle. It stars Jeong Wu-Seong (“Musa”), Yoo Oh-Sung (“Friend”) and the beautiful Go So-Yeong (“Love Wind, Love Song”). Since seeing Yoo Oh-Sung perform in “Friend” and “Attack the Gas Station”, I’ve developed a certain respect for his acting abilities. I can see why they keep casting this guy as the no-nonsense tough guy who follows the world of crime – the guy is intense! But all of them play their roles excellent, as expected. The characters are likeable, believable and go through things that we can relate to: sex, school stress, depression, death and the opportunity to choose right or wrong paths. The film makes it a point to show the audience that these characters had a choice in life.

I wouldn’t exactly place “Beat” on my list of the top-10 gangster flicks of all time, but it’s certainly a well-made film with excellent pacing, fantastic story-telling, and as already mentioned, great performances by the cast. A guitar-rockin’ soundtrack would seem very unlikely for a stylish gangster film of this kind, but for whatever reason, it goes great with the visuals. I also like the fact that the film’s plot not only centers around the guys’, but also has some moments with it’s female character as well.

One of the main problems I had with “Beat” was with all the pointless Wong Kar-Wai shit. I’m talking about that slow-motion, frame-skipping nonsense that’s used way too much in the wrong areas. In fact, it ruins the overall film from something that could have been “great” to just “good”. This isn’t nit-picking either, it REALLY did bother me.

I liked “Beat”, but I have spoiled myself with films like Kwak Kyung-Taek’s similar themed “Friend”, which I watched first and several times before I watched this. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this review, even though 70% of it was me nagging about how I wanted to be a gangster – it was all in fun. Or maybe I did it on purpose since “Beat” was one of those neutral movies that’s hard to review since there was nothing too sucky about it, nor was there anything to really rave about. It was just there and it was just “good”.

Mighty Peking Man’s Rating: 7.5/10

Posted in Korean, Reviews | Tagged , |

Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Barking Dogs Never Bite" Korean Theatrical Poster

"Barking Dogs Never Bite" Korean Theatrical Poster

AKA: Dog of Flanders
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Producer: Cho Min-hwan
Cast: Lee Seong-Jae, Bae Doo-Na, Byeon Hee-Bong, Miriam Yeung Chin
Running Time: 106 min.

By Mighty Peking Man

The first time I saw Bae Doo-Na in Park Chan-Uk’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, I knew for a fact I would develop an interest in her right there and then. Not since Faye Wong’s presence in Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express has there been a single performance by an actress who has impressed as much as Bae Doo-Na has. On-screen, she seems to possess the acting talent of Meryl Streep, the style of a casual punk-rocker, and the natural persona of the girl next door; as jumbled as that description may seem, that’s my take on her. She’s definitely one of those rare talents that I love seeing, no matter what type of role she’s playing.

In Bong Joon-ho’s debut feature, Barking Dogs Never Bite, Bae Doo-Na plays Hyun-Nam – a good-natured, perky woman who works in an apartment complex office. After watching an Inside Edition-type program about how a heroic woman fought off an armed robber during a jewelry robbery, something sparks off in Hyun-Nam’s mind: all of the sudden she wants to be famous and recognized on TV for some kind of similar good deed. Little does she know, she’ll soon get her chance.

Enter Yoon-Ju, played by Lee Seong-Jae (Attack the Gas Station), a semi-depressed, unemployed college lecturer who lives in a small flat with his estranged pregnant wife. At the beginning of the film, one thing is made quite clear, Yoon-Ju hates the sounds of barking dogs. So basically, when he hears them bark, he terminates them. Plain and simple.

As Yoon-Ju’s life gets more stressful and complicated, his hate for the sound of barking dogs becomes more intense. His actions on dogs lead to serious mishaps and he soon realizes what he’s doing is not making life easier, it’s just making it more of a living hell. On top of it all, Hyun-Nam witnesses his wrong-doing and she’s on her way to do anything she can to catch him; only if she knew who it was (she saw him from a distance, not seeing his face).

Bong Joon-ho’s Barking Dogs Never Bite is as good a comedy and drama, just as it’s good a dark comedy. Asian myths (?) of human dog-eating are explored and made fun of. Lots of witty angles and intense situations are guaranteed to put you in pure awe.

To simply put it, Barking Dogs Never Bite is a must-see.

Mighty Peking Man’s Rating: 8/10

Posted in Korean, Reviews | Tagged , |

Vengeance is a Golden Blade (1969) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Vengeance Is A Golden Blade" Chinese Theatrical Poster

"Vengeance Is A Golden Blade" Chinese Theatrical Poster

Director: Ho Meng Hua
Writer: Ho Meng Hua, Tu Yun Chih
Producer: Run Run Shaw
Cast: Chin Ping, Yueh Hua, Goo Man Chung, Tang Ching, Li Peng-Fei, Go Bo Shu, Paul Wei Ping Ao
Running Time: 103 min.

By Mighty Peking Man

Li Zhi Shan (Tang Ching), a swordsman in the security business, arrives home to find that a rival company – headed by the evil Long Brothers – is waiting for him. The Long Brothers have a history of robbing what they’re supposed to protect, but since word has gotten around about their dirty operation, they no longer get any business from clients; and they blame Li Zhi Shan for spreading the truth.

To make things even worse, Li Zhi Shan’s malicious wife, Li Yue Shiang (Kao Pao Shu), is not only having an affair with the leader of the Long Brothers (Li Ping Fei), but the two are also teaming up to murder Li Zhi Shan.

With the help of his invincible sword, “The Golden Dragon Blade,” Li Zhi Shan manages to easily outdo entire Long Brothers gang. However, his wife sets up a new plan, which will place the Golden Dragon Blade in the hands of the Evil Long Brothers, leaving her husband in a helpless state. Unfortunately, her plan works, but Li Zhi Shan – along with his loyal servant (Paang Paang) and his daughter – barely manages to escape the situation.

The three seek refuge with Liu An Zheng (Ku Wen Chung) and his grandson, and together they begin a new life growing herbs for a living.

18 years pass, Li Zhi Shan’s daughter, Hsiao Yan (Chin Ping), and Liu An Zheng’s grandson, Liu Ching Song (Yueh Hua), are now grown up sword masters.

Although Li Zhi Shan keeps Hsiao Yan’s mother a secret, fate isn’t on the same side. Li Yue Shiang, and the leader of the Long Brothers, comes back to haunt Li Zhi Shan’s family. In preparation for a possible attack by the Long Brothers, Li Zhi Shan forges a new sword called the Hang Long Sword, which is built to take on The Golden Dragon Blade.

Not knowing anything about the past, Hsiao Yan finds herself confused and torn between her father and her mother. Little does she know, there are more unsettling surprises that have yet to be discovered – even by the audience watching the movie.

Vengeance Is A Golden Blade is yet another fantastic Hoh Mung Wa (Killer Darts) flick. It’s a well-paced, story-driven martial arts tale with a great cast and a surprise ending that definitely caught me off guard.

Once again, Chin Ping and Yueh Hua are teamed up, but unlike their other films together – such as 12 Gold Medallions and Killer Darts – Chin Ping takes more of a lead role this time around. Not to say that Yueh Hua doesn’t get any screen time slicing and dicing the bad guys, he’s just more like a sidekick than being half of a duo.

The character of Li Yue Shiang – played perfectly by Kao Pao Shu – is one of the biggest, two-timing bitches ever put on screen. She cheats on her husband, tries to murder him, and even tries to whore out her own daughter.

Don’t let all the twisted marital drama fool you – there’s plenty of blood and violence to go around. Like Hoh Mung Wa’s other films, which feature unique weapons, we are introduced to The Golden Dragon Blade. Early on in the movie, we witness the sword’s sheer power, as it clashes against other swords, slicing right through ’em, as if they’re made out of plastic.

Highly recommended.

Mighty Peking Man’s Rating: 8/10

Posted in Chinese, Reviews, Shaw Brothers | Tagged , , , , |

Dare You Touch Me | aka Bruce Takes Dragon Town (1974) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Dare You Touch Me" Theatrical Poster

“Dare You Touch Me” Theatrical Poster

AKA: Bruce Takes the Dragon
Director: Liu Hung Sheng
Producer: Chen Wei Ling
Cast: Yuen Si Wo, Chiang Sheng, Lung Fei, Suen Yuet, Lee Keung, Chou Tai-Sheng
Running Time: 90 min.

By Mighty Peking Man

This movie sucks AND here are the reasons why:

1.) The words “Bruce” and “Le” are not a selling point, but that didn’t stop the designer of the video box to use his name when Bruce Le doesn’t even appear in it… Gotta love the Goodtimes® Video staff. Those bastards will use any images they can get their hands on.

2.) The lead character’s name is “Daredevil Alan,” played by some unknown named Yuan Siu Ho who doesn’t resemble Bruce Le, Li, Lo, Lie in any fucking way. If anything, he resembles one of my ugly Filipino uncles.

3.) “Daredevil Alan” is supposed to be around 20-years old yet he looks like he’s about 53! The fact that his teeth are rotting and his hair is partially gray doesn’t help either. At one point, he meets up with his mother (who looks younger than him), his stepfather (who looks like his younger brother) and his girlfriend (who looks like his daughter). WTF?

5.) There is a fight scene where “Daredevil Alan” starts to jump rope for no reason at all!

6.) At one point “Daredevil Alan” is flexing in the mirror. Pay attention to the close up shot. It’s extremely obvious they’re using a body double!

The choreography was about average and that’s being nice. The plot, well, fuck the plot. I’m going to be honest and admit to not watching the whole movie. When I was younger, I was able to sit through any dreadful, low-budget kung fu flick like this. Now that I’m in my twenties and I have better things to do.

Take this review as a warning. I just saved you a few bucks.

Mighty Peking Man’s Rating: 0/10

Posted in Bruceploitation, Chinese, Reviews | Tagged , , , , |

Bruce Le’s Greatest Revenge (1978) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Bruce Le's Greatest Revenge" US VHS Cover

“Bruce Le’s Greatest Revenge” US VHS Cover

AKA: Way of the Dragon 2
Director: To Lo Po
Cast: Bruce Le (aka Huang Kin Long, Wong Kin Lung), Bolo Yeung, San Kuai, Tong Yim Chaan, Lee I Min, Hon Gwok Choi, Michelle Lai, To Siu Ming, Ku Feng
Running Time: 94 min.

By Goldenfist

The official plot, at least according to Amazon’s description, goes like this: “Bruce Le’s Greatest Revenge stars action artist Bruce Le as a man standing up against bigotry and injustice against the Chinese people. ”

Bruce Le’s Greatest Revenge has to be one of the cheapest, most low-budgeted pieces of shit ever. However, it isn’t as bad as “Clones of Bruce Lee.” We even have your Bob Baker wannabe who uses a fencing sword to help kill Ho Yuen Chia (in this version, he went to a dinner with Japanese and they poisoned his drink. He fought all Japanese, including Bolo, a Mongolian fighter) who was portrayed as a bumbling idiot. We also have your Mr. Wu (the guy who had sided with Japanese) wannabe.

The thing that I like about Bruce Le movies is that he uses traditional kung fu. Hell, he’s a better fighter than Bruce Li. Also, I liked the fact that during the Ching Wu/Japanese fight, the Ching Wu students put up a HELL of a better fight than those in the original “Fist.” The Ching Wu students in this movie can ACTUALLY fight!!! Especially Michelle Lai (who portrayed Ho Yuen Chia’s daughter) and Li Yi Min, who tries to act like James Tien in the massacre scene (dies trying to save teacher’s picture). Bruce Le doesn’t kill the main Japanese baddie sss (Ku Feng), he leaves him for 3 Ching Wu students. Oh Yeah, we also have a foolish student with a wandering eye???

Well, you have to see this film to believe it!!!

Cheap, but not exactly terrible.

Goldenfist’s Rating: 5/10

Posted in Bruceploitation, Chinese, Reviews | Tagged , , , |

Bruce Lee’s Secret | aka Story of the Dragon (1976) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Bruce Lee's Secret" US DVD Cover

“Bruce Lee’s Secret” US DVD Cover

Director: Chan Wa
Co-director: William Cheung Kei
Cast: Bruce Li (aka Ho Chung Tao, James Ho), Carter Wong Ka-tat, Hwang Jang-lee, Robert Kerver, Roy Horan, Chin Chi-min, Ng Yin, Lin Hsiao-hu min
Running Time: 90 min.

By Joseph Kuby

A nice slice of friendly Bruceploitation!

While this has been viewed as a biographical picture detailing Bruce Lee’s stay in the West, in actuality it’s really more of a spin-off of Bruce Lee’s classic Way of the Dragon than anything else; complete with Paul Wei Ping Ao resurrecting his portrayal as a wily and weaselly interpreter (though not quite as camp and effeminate this time round) betraying his Chinese culture for the capitalistic Westeners.

The Bruceploitation aspect of the film also comes in the form of James Ho mimicking Lee’s movements and mannerisms an hour into the movie (after he discovers Chieh Chun Dao – Mandarin for Jeet Kune Do), as well as accidentally being referred to in one scene as Bruce (his character’s name in this is Bob) whilst the villains refer to him as Mr. Lee.

One thing that contradicts popular opinion of this being a Bruce-Bio is that when we see Ho training in his room, we can see a poster (or artist’s portrait) of the famous flying kick Bruce Lee performed in The Big Boss, so we’re meant to assume that Bruce Lee is the idol of the main character in this film (people who’ve read Stephen Teo’s Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions will probably tie that in with what the author wrote about narcissism being a trait of Bruce Lee, even moreso that nationalism*).

Come to think of it, the film combines the essence of Bruce’s first three action movies (the workers who find themselves oppressed until the once-reluctant fighter steps in (The Big Boss), the rival schools (Fist of Fury) and Western criminals as oppressors (Way of the Dragon). The opening credit sequence resembles The Big Boss in its compilation of static imagery involving martial artistry.

The structure of this movie recalls Way of the Dragon in that it involves a restaurant (though not as the main focus point), gangsters being cheesed off at how their plans are back-firing and the arrival of professional killers who are highly trained martial arts experts. There’s also a plot device that excuses the use of more contemporary weaponary (the big boss in this movie, Mr. Grace, stops his men from shooting Bob and his students due to not wanting to ruin their own school’s reputation).

Out of all the slight allusions made in some form or other to Lee’s legacy, I appreciated the following tongue-in-cheek exchange made between Bob and his opponent (also called Bob albeit caucasian and who’s referred to as The San Francisco Iron Fist Man) after the former Bob’s workers are oppressed at the shipping yard…

Gwailo Bob: Chinese Boxing?

Oriental Bob: No, Chinese Kung Fu!

There are priceless gems scattered throughout in terms of sheer verbalism, but here’s my all-time favourite…

Paul Wei Ping Ao: Do you know who I brought along with me today, well he’s the No. 1 teacher from Mr. Grace’s school…Mr. Charlie.

James Ho Chung Tao: I don’t care if he’s Charlie or Lassie…just get him out of here.

People buying this movie are more likely to watch it for the same reason I watched it: to entertain the notion of what would have happened had Bruce Lee clashed with Hwang Jang Lee. Hwang, like Bruce, had to slow himself (or the camera) down because he was that fast. He was also very powerful as can be be heard by listening to Roy Horan’s comments on the Hong Kong Legends Game Of Death 2 commentary. While Hwang is obviously the highlight of this particular film, his skill is wasted in comparison to the same year’s Secret Rivals where he was choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping to great effect.

Roy Horan makes an appearance in this movie (as Mr. Charlie) along with unusual occidental thespian/martial artist Robert Kerver. Carter Wong (as Chin Chu Leo) is in this movie too being his typical stern and stoic (basically one-note**) self.

…and of course we have the legendary James Ho Chung Tao playing the role of Bob – Chinese restaurant waiter turned martial arts teacher.

One of the directors credited for this movie is Chang Chee (I’m not sure if this is a misspelling of the Shaw Bros. veteran Chang Cheh a.k.a. Chang Che).

Most of the best fight scenes involve Asians going against each other as a lot of the fight scenes involving Westerners seem somewhat amatuerish; part of the reason why Bruce Lee’s fight scenes in Way of the Dragon worked was that the protagonist was so skilled at martial arts that even the most sluggish of Westerners couldn’t bring him the quality of the fights. Whereas normally in martial arts movies, you need to fight someone who is your equal or even superior in order for you to look good. James, whilst being competent at martial arts, was never excellent as a martial artist like the way Bruce was so we have no choice but to notice the incompetence of the people he’s fighting (save for Hwang Jang Lee & Carter Wong and perhaps Roy Horan & Rob Kerver).

Though to be fair, this was made early on in James’ career before he developed his technique in Bruce Lee: The Man The Myth and before he perfected it in Chinese Stuntman. As it stands, Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death looks like Bruce’s original vision for Game of Death in comparison to this clunker.

Save for the caucasians that James encounters the first few times, in the final reels the majority of people he encounters look like people in their late teens and they don’t give any type of formidable presence, their technique is lacking so as opponents, they leave a lot to be desired (even when they’re armed with long metal batons against James’ nunchaku). I suppose the caucasians in general react badly to techniques (during the restaurant fight scene during the first ten minutes, a black guy reacts to a hit by swinging around with his arms strecthed out as if he was the Russian character Zangief from the Street Fighter computer games); not only that but on some occasions you can see them smiling!

As a matter of fact, unless you’re a hardcore martial arts movie fan or have seen (and were impressed with) James’ performances in Chinese Stuntman and Bruce Lee: The Man, the Myth then you might (or rather must) be advised to stay clear of this (though, quite frankly, he’s done worse).

But there are things which make this worth watching, notably the fight between Carter Wong and James Ho (which parallels, in context if not in content, the challenge match between Wong Jak-Man and Bruce Lee), the bout betweem Carter Wong and Hwang Jang Lee, the two encounters between Hwang and James and the very final duels which shows James coming up against whip-wielding horsemen and the “big boss” himself who manages to have a few multiple kicks up his (trouser) sleeve.

Like many of the Bruceploitation movies, there’s ample amount of unintentional humour, mostly thanks to the dubbing (for instance Robert Kerver sounds like the main kid in that Larry Clark film Kids) and with questionable directorial choices in the form of a black guy who is seen (twice) with a comb in his afro and the peculiar decision to have actors play multiple roles (check out Roy doing double-duty as a hispanic complete with odd tan, cheesy wig and quaint attire) or roles that go beyond their ethnicity (like Sammo Hung’s Enter the Fat Dragon, we see a Chinese guy made up to look black though it’s perhaps not as insulting as Sammo Hung’s Don’t Give A Damn***). The humour also comes from the amateurish acting too, every time Mr. Grace’s cronies get told off, they lower their heads like children practically every time!

I think this film may have been made back-to-back with Dragon Lives (or at least made by the same people) as not only do we have the same guy that plays Bob’s teacher but we have the same stoner that Jeff was referring to in his review for Dragon Lives. In this movie, the stoner (or the hippie with the long hair and moustache) can be seen in the opening restaurant scene and as one of Bob’s students. On the topic of stoners, during one of the many classes that Bob holds, there’s a woman who can be seen who looks like she played one of those drugged-up human guinea pigs in Enter the Dragon!

Bruce Lee’s Secret isn’t completely incompetent, there were quite a few scenes that I thought were well-directed. One scene depicts Bob and his friend working at this new place with Bob doing cool tricks with the bowls & glasses before getting sacked by their boss just by the sheer presence of Rob Kerver and his lackeys (the way it was done with editing, music and no dialogue was pretty effective) and I liked one directorial touch which shows Mr. Grace means business in this groovy shot where we see his office, almost pitch black, except there’s a light behind his desk which is making the retro-looking wall behind him look shiny – creating a silhouette where the only other thing you see is the smoke coming from his cigar, quite artsy!

All in all, harmless fun that’s above average if not completely good!

* Interesting point to make given that just like Way of the Dragon (described in said book as Lee’s most narcissitic film), there is emphasis on Bob’s antagonism towards the view of Chinese being submissively subservient as held by the evil Westerners, plus there’s also a scene where Bob is working out in front of a mirror (Stephen Teo cited a similar scene in Way of the Dragon as a classical illustration of Lee’s cinematic narcissism) along with a couple of scenes of Bob working out (naked to the waist) without a mirror (a scene in Way of the Dragon which Stephen also noted as a narcissistic scene).

** I remember when Bey Logan called Leung Kar Yan one-note in his HKL commentary for The Odd Couple, but Leung had more talent and versatility than Carter ever did.

*** Bobby Samuels was persistent in his refusal for Sammo to go ahead with the ‘blackface’ gags in Don’t Give A Damn but Sammo claimed he was forced to do these scenes due to “Taiwanese investors”.

Joseph Kuby’s Rating: 6.5/10

Posted in Bruceploitation, Chinese, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , |

My Sassy Girl (2001) Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by JJ Bona
"My Sassy Girl" Korean Theatrical Poster

“My Sassy Girl” Korean Theatrical Poster

AKA: Yupgi Girl; Bizarre Girl
Director: Kwak Jae-yong
Cast: Jun Ji-Hyun (Chon Ji-Yeon, Jeon Ji-Hyeon, Joon Ji-Hyun, Gianna Jun), Cha Tae Hyun
Running Time: 137 min.

By Alexander

Gyeon-woo, the main character in “My Sassy Girl,” is a slack-jawed, pink sweater-garbed, whiny little bitch. He falls in love with a rubber-faced, knobby-kneed bully who spends much of the film torturing this hapless loser and making decisions that are so bizarre and counter to common sense that she comes off looking not quirky, but rather psychotic and weird.

I wanted to like “My Sassy Girl.” Really. I’ve seen only a handful of Asian films in the past year so I was hoping to pique my interest in the genre again by watching a film I’d been dying to see based on the many, many glowing reviews I’d read. But Jesus, I haven’t seen a movie with characters this grating since I watched “Closer” and the slightly less depressing “Sideways” back-to-back on DVD. (A lot of loathsome characters in THAT double bill, I tell ya.)

Who are we supposed to root for in “My Sassy Girl”? Gyeon-woo? Um, no. He’s in his mid-20’s; lives at home; gets routinely beaten by his mom; wears pastels and a man purse; frosts his hair; drinks to excess (but calls “sassy girl” a drunk); pouts…A LOT; is a “playa”; and falls for this “sassy” freak despite her abusive behavior (she slugs him in the jaw repeatedly and even pushes him into the ocean and watches passively as he flails away, unable to swim) AND her YEARS-long resistance to his glacier-paced “advances.” I mean, they don’t even kiss. What a pussy.

And “sassy girl”? If we knew anything about this enigma we might possibly care about her. Instead, all we know is that she is in her mid-20s, her father’s an alcoholic, her boyfriend suddenly passed away, she’s rude and sadistic and is an absolute fucking LOON. God, I hope in the impending American remake they dial down this character’s schtick, because it got tiresome after awhile. The film became more a chronicle of the evil shit she does to girly-man Gyeon-woo than an exploration of these character’s “relationship.” (Which pretty much amounts to her making him do progressively humiliating tasks like wearing her high heels in public. And to what end? We’re to believe she’s testing his adoration and being flirtatious, but it’s obvious throughout the film she is not in love with him and is merely using him to overcome her grief, and doesn’t “come around” until years later.)

I’m not even going to bother with the army deserter, the rampant womanizing and alcoholism, the time capsule, the vomit, the contrived conclusion or the lack of any exposition or character back-story. Like everything else about this movie, it’s all pointless.

(For a film that features a quirky lead female, yet handles its relationships and character development far more humorously and adeptly, check out Johnnie To’s “Needing You” instead.)

Alexander’s Rating: 6/10

By Equinox21

What is it about this movie that makes it so endearing to (most) everyone who sees it? I just don’t know. It’s a romantic comedy, but with a twist. Part of it must have to do with the behavior of “The Girl” (played by the beautiful Jeon Ji-Hyun). In a largely conservative South Korea, The Girl (we’re never given her name) is loud, tough, and assertive, far from the norm. When she meets Gyeon-woo (Cha Tae-hyun), she’s drunk and teetering on the edge of a subway platform, about to fall into the path of an oncoming train. Gyeon-woo pulls her back, saving her from a potentially gruesome death. From the beginning he’s quite taken with her, as she’s “his type”, however he’s completely turned off by the fact that she’s so drunk. When, in her drunken stupor, she puts him in another situation on the train it begins their strange, and often funny, relationship.

I’m not sure why the movie works so well, but it does on all levels. The romance aspect isn’t overpowering, nor is it enough to turn away viewers who aren’t interested in a romance type of film. It’s enough to keep you interested, through all the ups and downs of the relationship. The comedy also works extremely well, you will find yourself smiling and laughing the whole way through this one. There are tons of funny situations, and usually you’ll just laugh at poor Gyeon-woo and the messes he finds himself in.

The acting from the two leads was absolutely spectacular. I don’t think I could envision either role having been filled by anyone else. The chemistry between the two, even during times of tension, could be felt. Besides, it doesn’t hurt that Jeon Ji-hyun is so gorgeous.

See this movie because it’s funny, touching, and will make you feel good. Few other movies I’ve seen can instantly brighten your entire day as My Sassy Girl can. It’s a welcome addition to that list.

Equinox21’s Rating: 10/10

Posted in Korean, Reviews | Tagged , , |

Loving You (1995) Review

Posted on January 30, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Loving You" Chinese Theatrical Poster

“Loving You” Chinese Theatrical Poster

AKA: Cop Story
Director: Johnnie To
Cast: Lau Ching Wan, Lee Chung Ling, Carman Lee Yeuk Tung, Tok Chung Wa, Yuen Bun, Wong Wa Wo, Ruby Wong Cheuk Ling, Wong Jan Fai, Chiu Chi Shing, Alan Mak Siu Fai, So Wai Naam, Lam Suet
Running TIme: 83 min.

By Mighty Peking Man

Directed by Johnny To and starring Lau Ching Wan and Carmen Lee… Okay, STOP: Knowing these three things, who wouldn’t want to watch this movie? I’m a little late, I know, but I finally got the DVD and what do you know? It’s pretty good. It’s no A Hero Never Dies, but better than Where A Good Man Goes and Running Out Time (and its sequel). In fact, it’s better than a bunch of shit you could have watched back then, and better than a lot of shit that’s out now. No digital effects, no Thai guys doing circus crap; just a straight up melodrama/cop flick with nice direction and solid performances.

Loving You was made in 1995 under the Shaw Brothers label, just before Johnny To (and his collaborative partner, Wai Ka-Fai) formed Milkyway Image. Loving You isn’t as slick as some of the films he would produce under his new label in the coming years, but it’s easy to notice that it’s a right step towards perfection, at least in the case of his work with his best actor, Lau Ching Wan. It’s not like Johnny To was a stranger to making fine films (See: All About Ah Long and A Moment in Romance), but he tends to outdo (and undo) himself as time goes on.

Bottom line: If you’ve seen and loved most of the Milkway films w/Lau Ching Wan, give this one a try. Besides, it’s a great warm up for the upcoming Johnny To/Lau Ching Wan flick, Mad Detective. Take it from me, because unlike Yi Long, I have fine taste in films.

Mighty Peking Man’s Rating: 7.5/10

By Gwailo

Loving You had accumulated dust an inch thick sitting in my collection for sometime before I finally settled down to watch it. Another collaboration between Johnnie To and Lau Ching-wan, Loving You tempted me for quite a while but I was easily scarred off by it’s Cat II rating and reviews of the film calling it a drama/love story. In terms of such a genre, it’s a mood thing for me and I guess I was finally in the mood. Ready for To’s penchant for melodramatic sap I was pleasantly surprised to see the film not totally void of action. Don’t get me wrong though, sappy pap is the flavor of the day but this time it’s not as unbearable as To’s awful melodramatic bloodshed pic, A Hero Never Dies.

As the story goes, Lau is a hardened, by the book, police officer, as well as a drunk and a womanizer. Hey, nobody’s perfect! He has dug himself a hole with his fellow p.o.’s and his ex (Carmen Lee) by forsaking the lighter side of life with his tough as nails attitude and murky police force duties. This way of life, of course, needs to be changed for the viewer to give a damn about his character, and Lau’s saving grace, so to speak, comes in the form of a bullet to the head. This bullet, once extracted, causes “brain fluid’ to leak through Lau’s nose and causes him to lose his sense of smell and taste! He now must rely on those he has neglected to learn to live again and start over a life he has neglected far too long.

Here, To has fashioned an evenly balanced film that accommodates all filmgoers blending action and melodrama well in yet another awe inspiring effort. He gets the optimum from Lau Ching-wan and Carmen Lee and their performances are played believable enough to hurdle any inconsistencies in plot or flaws in character. While the film may not achieve classic status in To’s body of work, Loving You was a lot better than I expected and worth the watch.

Gwailo’s Rating: 7.5/10

Posted in Chinese, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , |

Enter the Game of Death | aka The King of Kung Fu (1978/1981) Review

Posted on January 30, 2011 by JJ Bona
“Enter the Game of Death” Theatrical Poster

“Enter the Game of Death” Theatrical Poster

Director: Joseph Kong
Co-director: Lee Tso Nam
Cast: Bruce Le (aka Huang Kin Long, Wong Kin Lung), Bolo Yeung, Li Hai Sheng, Lee Hoi San, James Nam, Chu Chi Ling, Kim Wang Kuk, Samuel Walls
Running Time: 90 min.

By Joseph Kuby

Guilty Exploitation Pleasure!

Enter The Game of Death (a.k.a. King of Kung Fu) is really a bad film though one that’s highly enjoyable for Bruce Lee/martial arts/action/Hong Kong movie aficionados! (there’s plenty of references to films such as Fist of Fury, Enter the Dragon and Game of Death for those who care to decipher them such as the sub-plot from ETD about having the Bruce character agreeing to do a secret mission because of his female relative being attacked by would-be rapists)

Guaranteed, it’s not really as good as some of the Bruce Li movies (e.g. The Chinese Stuntman, The Gold Connection a.k.a. Iron Dragon Strikes Back, The Lama Avengers a.k.a. The Three Avengers) nor is at as good as the official Game of Death movies, but nonetheless Enter the Game of Death has its moments and then some!

The film is probably most interesting for utilizing the same location Bruce Lee had intended for his unfilmed magnum opus/tour de force masterpiece Game of Death (which had also been used to good effect in the John Liu actioner Wu Tang Magic Kick a.k.a. The Mars Villa).

Bruce Le, at first, looks nothing like Bruce Lee (he appears in the opening credit sequence like an older Chinese version of Haley Joel Osmond) then as the film progresses there’s certain scenes, shots or rather frames that make you think or even say ‘Is that Brucie?!’ especially during the last fight Le has with Bolo and during his second to last fight scene with this black guy (in particular the beginning of the second slo-mo shot where he performs this kick and if you look carefully his face seems to resemble that of Lee’s).

Bruce Le may lack the acting skills and presence of Bruce Lee (not to mention immaculate performance of martial arts technique) but he manages to capture some of the movements and even the physique of Bruce Lee (physique-wise, he resembles the way Bruce looked when he did Enter the Dragon) even though his facial expressions are over the top (though perhaps not as much as Dragon Lee’s).

After reading the other Joe’s review, it’s very easy to see why the film has a slipshod nature as there’s little consistency in the film’s story (only a very basic plot which is vaguely linear).

The worst example of this consistency (or lack thereof) is the one concerning Bolo Yeung who switches between Japanese and Chinese costumes and is working for both a Chinese boss and a Japanese one without no narrative recourse. This is especially confusing when it’s seen at the beginning of the film when both bosses appear to be in allegiance with one another. A sub-plot would have been nice to explain such a rapid inconsistent moment of storytelling.

Speaking of allegiances, it’s never told comprehensively much less convincingly how Lisa (who faintly looks like Chingmy Yau Suk Ching – former starlet of Wong Jing) had become a double-spy for both the Chinese and Germans (this film is set prior to the World War II despite the fashions of Bruce Le and the Westerners he fights) and it’s never really been stated why she tries to convince Bruce to join both causes (I guess to keep her cover but again it’s not clear so as to make the viewer sure of what’s happening).

Also, when talking about female characters with strange motivations, Bruce’s cousin (for whom he’s avenging) asks for help after being raped but then moments later bites her tongue to commit suicide!… why bother to call for help in the first place? I know there’s this adage of making the audience guess and to figure things out for themselves but this is just ridiculously lazy, inane and virtually insane.

Henceforth, as a result, this movie is the best (or worst – depending on which way you look at it) example of making a film where there is no genuine motivation but to set up a series of fight scenes.

At least in some of the lesser examples of the genre, there’s a fairly substantial reason or reasonable excuse as to why the fights are there but this lacks logic (especially for the first encounter between Bruce Le and Bolo Yeung).

Also there’s a tournament sequence (that has a nice documentary feel to it) which even though features characters from the main storyline, it’s not been properly established as to why Bolo is fighting contenders in the ring. No explanation has been given afterwards, either.

The opening credit sequence features a funny and almost self-mocking portrait of its star Bruce Le which has two funky themes playing throughout (the last one which sounds like a retro version of the James Bond theme which I don’t think was ever used in any of the 70s Bond movies or even the Dr. No inspired Enter the Dragon – a missed opportunity for the latter, would have made it seem less of a rip-off of the former as the usage of the music cue would imply that the similarities were intentional, almost referential).

This credit sequence is strange because when the screen pauses each time a credit pops up, a virtually different music cue pops up (seemingly from different films altogether e.g. Drunken Master and The Hot, The Cool & The Vicious); distractingly, some of the same cues are used to encompass the credits towards the ending duration of the credit sequence.

For the last half of the film, music cues have been ripped off from Enter the Dragon. But for some reason, it never seems all that out of place or shamelessly derivative given the nature of the film (I guess it would have been sloppy if this had been done in a film where there hadn’t been such an exploitative nature and if it didn’t have so many references towards Bruce Lee).

The score features a strange airplane-esque soundtrack (I don’t mean Airplane: The Movie but the actual vehicle itself) which encompasses some of the slow motion segments of the fight scenes, not only is it overdone in their singular segments but just when they’re repeated in other fights.

What made me give this film a 4 rather than a 1 or no rating at all, is that the film is great cheeky fun and the fight scenes are surprisingly very good (especially the pagoda sequence) and are worth a rental alone. Nice use of weaponary and different exponents of different styles.

The snake fist exponent who fights with cobras is a nice tongue-in-cheek inventive touch and the best fight has to be the nunchaku duel which only has 50% of the talent Bruce and Dan had when they shot their nunchaku duel in the real Game of Death.

My favourite fight is the one where Bruce takes on these Westerners in the forest as he’s going for a jog – the choreography is crisp but the unintentional humour of the whole affair (courtesy of the dubbing and Le’s reactions) is priceless and worthy of rewinds.

The only bad thing about the fight scenes is that it’s obvious when the audio changes from the English dub to the Chinese one as the war cries sound more authentic and the sounds have a more crisper and fresh-sounding quality to them.

Of course this film doesn’t have the level of depth and symbolic metaphors which was a part of Bruce’s intended vision for his version of Game of Death, nor does it have the Kubrick standard of perfectionist filmmaking, subtlety and pacing which Bruce would have brought to the finished version of Game of Death.

What’s also noticeable is that rather than Bruce Le climbing onto tougher levels, he graduates through easier ones (the only explanation I can think of is that the filmmakers reasoned that if you wanted to protect something you’d have the toughest fighter on the bottom floor so that IF any intruder had actually passed the first floor then they wouldn’t be able to defeat the most tedious of fighters due to the sheer energy spent on the first floor).

Another reason to seek this film is that it serves as a historical document – not just as a retro reminder of the times but of how widely known the Game of Death project was even before John Little had found the script notes and extra footage that he was to use for his documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey.

For instance, the way Lee Hoi San (famous kung fu actor who also appeared as one of the temple guardians in Tower of Death) had blocked the entrance for Bruce to pass onto the next floor is eerily reminiscent of Kareem’s refusal in the footage the real Bruce had shot.

Also just like Chi Hon Joi, one of the exponents in the pagoda is also lying down on a bed. This should serve as a reminder as to why John Woo and Jackie Chan never use storyboards when they make movies.

Overall, good fun if you don’t take it too seriously. As a piece of trivia, the Game of Death style rip-off called The New Game of Death (a.k.a. Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death) has a theme song called King of Kung Fu (which, if you remember, was the alternative title for this movie).

Joseph Kuby’s Rating: 4/10

By Joe909

This movie proves yet again that Bruce Le sucks, and was the worst “fake Bruce” of them all. Even Dragon Lee had some charm, compared to him. The reason behind Le’s loathsomeness is the audacious levels of “action” he and his producers packed into each of his movies; plot, character development, and even dialog were cast aside whenever possible and replaced by unending kung-fu battles. At least Bruce Le was a good martial artist, with some impressive kicks, but the guy just looks too goofy with his overdone “Bruce Lee” expressions and mannerisms.

The film kicks off with an opening credits sequence which features Le on a blank set, wearing a GoD tracksuit, kicking apart large vases and other inanimate objects. During this some funky music plays that sounds like Kool and the Gang. The credits declare “SUPER STARRING Bruce Le,” and immediately we know we’re in for an exploitative beating.

Reports vary on this flick. Supposedly it was originally going to feature a bunch of clips of Bruce Lee, from his movies, a la “Tower of Death,” even including a bunch of unreleased stuff from Bruce’s original “Game of Death” footage. Filming began around 1978, with Le acting as Bruce’s stand-in. But then apparently Linda Lee/Raymond Chow threatened to sue, and the film was dropped, only to be revived in 1981 by Filipino producer Joseph Velasco, who remade most of the movie and cast Le solely in the lead. This goes to explain why Enter the Game of Death seems so incoherent; characters who were previously shown to be dead will suddenly reappear, and some characters and sets seem to change through the film, giving the impression that this thing was shot over a long span of time.

Whatever the story behind the movie, the only thing that really matters is that it blows. Literally, one fight follows the next, and you have no idea what in the hell is going on. From what I can understand, it’s set in the 1930s, and the Germans and Japanese are planning to do something to China, and it all hinges on a secret document that’s been captured by someone. What this document contains is anyone’s guess. All of us have seen movies where the plot is nothing more than an excuse to set up the next action sequence, and Enter the Game of Death is the pinnacle (or should I say nadir) of such movies. It comes off as if it’s been written by a bunch of kids who’ve watched three straight years of low-grade Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

To give you an idea of the pointlessness behind the fights, Le is introduced to us as he’s taking a leisurely jog through the forest. He stops his jog and proceeds to beat up an innocent tree. Bruce abruptly cuts off this impromptu sparring session, creeps behind a few trees as he goes into a “Bruce Lee” scowl. Then a group of sword-wielders materialize out of the foliage and attack him. Why? It’s never explained. Bolo (he of “Enter the Dragon” and “Bloodsport” fame) is one of the attackers, and Bruce beats him up.

Bruce takes off, and the very next scene features Bolo fighting a bunch of inferior martial artists in a tournament (kids, never follow one action scene with another). But guess who Bolo’s final opponent is? Why, it’s Bruce Le! The guy we just saw kick his ass! And Bruce kicks his ass again! So when does this fight happen? Before the confrontation in the forest? After it? Never explained.

After this tournament, Bruce is offered a job as a bodyguard for a Chinese official who’s a turncoat, working for the Japanese. Bruce denies the offer, and the official warns him that he’d better watch himself. Bruce leaves, and sure enough, gets attacked by this guy’s thugs! Bruce beats them up and runs off with Linda, the Chinese assistant of a German official. She tries to recruit him for the German cause, whatever that is. Bruce turns her down, and she returns forlornly to her employer, who decides that Bruce better be taken care of. Man, this complicated plot is making my head hurt. I hope there’s another action scene, soon.

Next we see Bruce jogging in the woods again, wearing the Game of Death tracksuit! Several scenes begin like this, with Le just jogging through the woods. Maybe he’s training for, oh, I don’t know, a fight or something. Sure enough, he’s attacked again, by another group of thugs who come out of the woodwork. Bruce beats the tar out of them, including a black fighter who shows off some fancy kicks.

After this we actually get a few minutes of action-free dialog, which I guess technically construes “plot advancement.” Bruce learns that Linda is really a double-agent for a group of Chinese patriots, who want Bruce to help them fight the Germans and Japanese, and rescue the document. Bruce refuses, claiming that he’s a free agent. A Chinese guy accuses Bruce of being heartless. Bruce scoffs and runs away. Next we get to see Le laying in bed, reminiscing over how his beloved cousin was murdered by the Japanese. “I hate the damn Japs so much!” Bruce reminds himself, which inspires him to in fact joining the patriots’ cause.

So, boringly-long story short, Bruce pulls on his tracksuit again and raids a pagoda with three of the Chinese patriots. The pagoda, of course, hides the secret document everyone’s looking for, but no one seems to know what in the hell this document is all about. Bruce’s pals get sidetracked outside the pagoda, fighting a bunch of stooges. Bruce sneaks inside by himself, going solo against the bizarre temple guardians.

On the first floor, Bruce takes on a Shaolin monk who uses butterfly swords and small metal balls, which he throws with deadly accuracy. This is the same monk from “Tower of Death,” the one who guarded the second level. Bruce fights him for a while, and the funny thing is, even though this is just the first guardian, Bruce has a harder time beating him than any of the following guardians. Bruce maybe takes a punch or two but he doesn’t get hurt at all, and kills the monk with a savage blow.

The second floor features a guy with a wild beard and crazy, fake hair who hangs out with a bunch of snakes. He also does snake style, of course. Le dodges a few snakes while beating the guy up. Then in what I assume the producers intended to be a “horrifying” moment, the guy bites off a snake’s head and shoots the blood at Le. This scene is hilarious due to the confused expressions Le shows off while the guy’s doing this. Le looks like a robot, he doesn’t even look real. Anyway, Bruce kills the guardian and proceeds upstairs.

The third floor’s guarded by another guy wearing a wig, and a fake white beard. He uses nunchucks, and this of course gives Le the opportunity to reveal his own yellow Œchucks, which previously must’ve been hidden up his ass or something. Le slams this guy around without breaking a sweat, despite the fact that he’s just been in two life-or-death battles, as well as having fought around twenty guys in the previous thirty minutes of the movie.

On the fourth floor, Le faces two guys: Black Tiger and White Tiger. He takes them on one at a time; White Tiger (old, fat, dressed in white, and white-haired) reclines on a bed while Black Tiger (younger, kinda fat, dressed in black, black-haired) tries to fight Bruce with some unimpressive kung-fu. Bruce kills both of them easily, but by this time you’ll be dusting your furniture due to boredom, so you won’t even notice. This scene IS interesting in that it proves that somehow, word leaked out about Bruce’s REAL “Game of Death.” In Bruce’s original story, as shown in “Warrior’s Journey,” Ji Han Jae flips on a red light on the fourth floor of the pagoda, and warns Bruce that the red light means death. White Tiger warns Bruce Le the same thing in this movie, even turning on a red light. So, given that the dialog Bruce wrote for “Game of Death” wasn’t discovered until the Œ90s, and that this movie was made in the very early Œ80s, how did the producers know that this line of dialog was in Bruce’s original?

Finally, the top floor. Le JUST MISSES a Japanese agent who rushes off with the secret document, thereby rendering the entire pagoda raid pointless. So Bruce is left to fight the final guardian, another fat Chinese guy who’s dressed like a mountain man or something. Bruce gets cut a few times in the process. Here the producers give us more bang for the Bruceploitation buck, combining the GoD tracksuit with the “bleeding claw marks” look from the final battle in “Enter the Dragon.” Bruce beats the guy to death in another boring match.

Bruce goes back outside, helps his pals finish off the stooges they’ve presumably been fighting for the past several minutes. Then Bruce goes on to fight the Chinese turncoat’s stooges, Bolo, the black fighter he took on earlier, the Japanese official (who, it turns out, is the same guy who killed Bruce’s cousin), and finally, the German official. Bruce fights ALL of these guys on his own. Keep in mind, this is directly after his raid on the pagoda! Yet he shows no signs of physical exhaustion, and he’s barely broken a sweat. Even Bruce Lee himself looks like he’s about to collapse, after his fight with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s character in the “Game of Death” footage.

This is one of the reasons Bruce Le’s movies suck so much; he’s presented as such a superhuman fighter that you care less than nothing for him. And it also doesn’t help that these fights happen back to back, which is a total beating on the viewer. Parts of the fight with the black guy are even drawn out via slow-motion! How much did the producers expect their audience to take?

This is a long review, which isn’t justified by such a poor movie. Basically I’m just trying to prevent others from making the mistake I made; namely, watching the damn thing. This one only comes recommended if 1). You want to see all of the “Game of Death” rip-offs, 2). You’re collecting Bruceploitation flicks, or 3). You have lost the will to live.

Speaking of the GoD rip-offs, this one’s easily the worst. Even worse than Bruce Li’s “New Game of Death,” and trust me, that’s saying something.

Joe909’s Rating: 2/10 (1 extra point for the sheer stubbornness of it all)

Posted in Bruceploitation, Chinese, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , |

Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave | aka The Stranger (1976) Review

Posted on January 30, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave" Korean Theatrical Poster

“Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave” Korean Theatrical Poster

AKA: Visitor in America
Director: Lee Doo-Yong
Cast: Jun Chong (aka Bruce K. L. Lea), Deborah Chaplin, Anthony Bronson, Steve Mak, Jack Houston, Charlie Chow, Philip Kennedy, Jimmy Sato, Sho Kosugi
Running Time: 85 min.

By Mighty Peking Man

Next to Fist of Fear, Touch of Death and Clones of Bruce Lee, this film is right up there as one of the biggest oddballs of the Bruceploitation genre. The funny thing is, it was never really intended to have anything to do with Bruce Lee to begin with. There have been numerous bits of trivia and accusations behind the making and direction of this film and trying to find the hard facts is like trying to solve a mystery.

First of all, this film was originally titled Visitor in America. Like many exploitation movies sold to shady distributors in the 1970’s, it was later re-titled to Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave to falsely advertise it as a “Bruce Lee” product. To further catch the attention of Bruce Lee fanatics, new footage was filmed for both the prologue and theatrical trailer of the movie. The new footage filmed consisted of “Bruce” popping out of his gravesite. Oddly enough, if you watch this scene closely, you’ll see that the man playing Bruce Lee is an over-buffed, caucasian guy who’s wearing blue jeans.

The trailer for Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave is so funny that it’s an instant classic. The makers of the trailer either: 1) Never watched the film, 2) Never watched the film but said “Screw it, let’s make sh*t up!” or 3) DID watch the film but said “Screw it, let’s make sh*t up!” – I’ll go with 3.

According to the trailer, Bruce Lee pops out of the ground to settle a deal he made before his death… a deal with the Dark Angel of Death! The best part of the trailer comes when the voice-over specifies: “Due to the graphic and excessive martial-arts violence, the producers ask that you be accompanied by an adult….” or something like that. As you can see, the trailer is an entertainment piece all in itself and worth seeking out.

The film’s real plot is about a martial-arts pro named Wong Han (Jun Chong, aka Bruce K. L. Lea) who flies from Korea to Los Angeles to visit an old friend named Go Hok Hung. Upon his arrival, he discovers that Go Hok Hung has committed suicide. After a little investigating, Wong Han speculates if his friend’s death may have actually been murder-related. With the help of a sexy babe named Susan (Deborah Chaplin), Wong Han sets himself on a mission to find the truth behind his friend’s passing, and is down for some serious revenge, if applicable. Since this is a kung-fu flick, it certainly is.

The film is extremely silly, hilariously dubbed and the action scenes are lame. The good thing is that it actually keeps your interest and is paced pretty damn good. The story, although it’s surrounded by extreme cheesiness (all of the villains resemble members of Joe909’s favorite band, “The Village People”), is actually well-done and it’s conclusion definitely caught me off guard. It’s by no means an overall good movie (which explains my low rating), but for what it is, it’s a riot to watch.

There have been numerous reports that Italian cult-filmmaker Umberto Lenzi, best known for his campy actions films and shocker-thrillers, actually directed Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave. Legend has it that Umberto Lenzi loved kung fu films and wanted to try the genre. Also, to give the film a more Asian-feel, some of the names of the Italian production crew were changed to made-up Chinese names to make it sound like an authentic martial arts film. It’s said that Umberto Lenzi even uses “Doo Yong Lee” as an alias under the “director” of the film for possibly the same reason. However, many Umberto Lenzi enthusiasts deny that the Italian cult-filmmaker would make or do such garbage.

This is what Scott Hamilton & Chris Holland of www.stomptokyo.com have to say:

“We have our doubts that Lenzi would have directed a film with such a generic style, but there are even posters for this film that credit “Bert Lenzi” as the director! Perhaps Lenzi was involved in the making of the brief prologue (which shows “Bruce” bursting out of grave), but the main feature is unmistakably an Asian film. It just goes to show that movie rumors die hard.”

As for me, I’m sort of mixed. According to imdb.com, Umberto Lenzi’s alias of “Doo Yong Lee” is an actual Korean director with a few films under his belt like Silent Assassins (a 1988 martial arts b-movie starring Linda Blair and Phillip Rhee). But then again, imdb.com isn’t the world’s most accurate film database when it comes to obscure titles. Hell, they still have Chuck Norris listed in their cast for Enter the Dragon. So, who knows… whoever submitted that information may have mistakened Doo Yong Lee for another director that sounded the same. You know how similar those Korean names are. You be the judge.

Before ending this review, I have to give a special shout-out to Scott Hamilton & Chris Holland for their discovery of Sho Kosugi’s real-life business card in the film. However, I made an even better discovery: Sho Kosugi himself is in the film as well. There’s a samurai guy towards the end of the film that attacks Wong Han, and anyone who knows Sho Kosugi’s face knows that the samurai guy highly resembles a young Sho Kosugi. His cameo makes perfect since and explains why his real-life business card is in the movie to begin with. If you’re not familiar with Sho Kosugi, he’s a famous Japanese martial-artist who made a name for himself in the 1980’s for starring in a string of successful ninja films like Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III: The Domination. He also had a brief TV career by playing the bad ninja opposite Lee Van Cleef in the short lived series The Master. Sho Kosugi may be the man responsible for sparking off America’s “Ninja Craze” in the 1980’s. And of course, there’s his son, Kane Kosugi who’s currently making a name for himself in Asian cinema… but that’s another story.

As for Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave, grab a few friends and I guarantee you’ll have a hell of a time. Mind alterations won’t hurt either.

Mighty Peking Man’s Rating: 4/10

Posted in Asian Related, Bruceploitation, Chinese, Italian, Reviews | Tagged , , |

Dragon Missile, The (1976) Review

Posted on January 30, 2011 by JJ Bona
"The Dragon Missile" Hong Kong DVD Cover

"The Dragon Missile" Hong Kong DVD Cover

AKA: The Guillotine
Director: Ho Meng Hua
Producer: Runme Shaw
Cast: Lo Lieh, Nancy Yen, Lau Wing, Ku Feng, Kong Yeung, Lau Wai-Yue, Lee Sau-Kei, Ouyang Shafei, Norman Chu, Yeung Chi-Hing, Fan Mei-Sheng, Chan Mei-Hua, Kok Lee-Yan, Lai Man, Wang Han-Chen, Ko Hung
Running Time: 82 min.

By Mighty Peking Man

It’s been over a year since I’ve watched The Dragon Missile, so instead of writing a review based on weak memory, let me give you a quick rundown to why I think you NEED to see this movie before you die:

1. It’s directed by Hoh Mung Wa (Killer Darts, Vengeance Is A Golden Blade) – He’s the ‘other’ Shaw Brothers filmmaker who doesn’t get as much credit as Chang Cheh and those others guys. I’ve seen a handful of his movies and he has yet to to disappoint. In some ways, it wouldn’t be totally out of line to say he’s THE most entertaining Shaw Brothers director ever. Yeah, that’s what I said.

2. It’s one whimsical film – Colorful, in more ways than one. It’s interesting and keeps you in check the whole time. The plot doesn’t take itself so seriously, yet we have no nonsense villains (Lo Lieh) doing their no nonsense, double-crossing sh*t. I remember the plot being something Quentin Tarantino would be proud of. Silly, yet straight to the point, and brutal.

3. The weapons that are showcased are fun to watch – This shouldn’t come to any surprise, considering it’s coming from the guy who made a movie called The Flying Guillotine. Here, we get a pair razor sharp boomerangs which are impossible to escape. Effects may be cheesy, but hey, this is why I like old school Shaw Brothers shit more than James Cameron’s blue cock.

4. Features a solid cast – Lo Lieh (if you don’t know who he is, then don’t even worry about it); Lau Wing (aka Tony Liu, aka the Big Boss’s son from the Bruce Lee movie of the same name), who I wish was in a lot more movies. He’s a charming cat, but sadly, he’s going to be stuck as “that one guy in the Bruce Lee movies” forever. There are some other recognizable cast members, but I just suck at names, so forgive me…

The Dragon Missile (what an awesome title!) is one hell of a hidden gem that shouldn’t be missed. Get off your ass and order it, you’ll thank me for it.

Well Go USA®, FUNimation®, Dragon Dynasty®, Image®… are you guys listening?

Mighty Peking Man’s Rating: 9/10

Posted in Chinese, Reviews, Shaw Brothers | Tagged , , , , , , |

Expect the Unexpected (1998) Review

Posted on January 30, 2011 by JJ Bona
"Expect the Unexpected" Italian DVD Cover

“Expect the Unexpected” Italian DVD Cover

Director: Patrick Yau
Producer: Johnnie To
Cast: Lau Ching Wan, Simon Yam Tat-wah, Ruby Wong Cheuk-ling, Hui Siu Hung, Raymond Wong Ho Yin, Yoyo Mung Ka Wai, Bak Ka San, Keiji Sato, Joe Cheng Cho
Running Time: 87 min.

By Joe909

I’ve always hated sitcoms that base their entire narrative upon one character’s hidden desire for another (which pretty much sums up most sitcoms). You know, Guy A secretly yearns for Girl B, and the only people who know of this desire are Guy A’s Platonic Friends 1 and 2. It goes on and on, with no resolution (at least, until the ratings drop). I’ve always wished these sort of sitcoms would just end with each of the bastards getting shotgunned out of their misery. Looks like the Milkyway guys felt the same.

Expect the Unexpected is like a sitcom mixed with a grisly crime story. Office hijinks rub against such horrifying images as a dead baby in a dryer. One officer tries to hook his brother up with a girl that he himself likes, while dark clouds endlessly piss on the city. An older cop tries to figure out if he should stick with his wife or his mistress, while a gang of crooks rape and pillage as they please. Even the bubbly theme song sounds like something you’d more expect to hear in a Hollywood comedy.

Lau Ching Wan and Simon Yam are great in otherwise bland roles as brothers who work in the same precinct; they both like Yoyo Meung, who apparently doesn’t know which of the two she herself likes. Lam Suet is introduced as a down-and-out mainlander who’s gotten into crime to feed his family, before he promptly disappears from the movie. Lam’s screw-up pals barely get a few minutes of screen time, and the film’s other criminals, the stone-faced, mainland rapists, look genuinely dangerous. So, while Wan and Yam try to decide which of them gets to bone Yoyo, the mainland crooks/rapists run rampant across Hong Kong. This proves to be the gist of the entire film.

There’s a little more action on display than other Milkyways I’ve seen, though not up there with “Fulltime Killer.” The opening scene in which Lam Suet runs aimlessly around back alleys is entertaining, as is the sequence where the mostly-naked criminal takes on the cops with his AK-47. But these action scenes are more along the realistic vibe. They aren’t artful shoot-outs, as you’d expect from other HK actioners.

The fact that Lam Suet’s pals are introduced as harmless goofballs, but morph into deadly murderers by the film’s end, does in fact reek of dues ex machina. This could have easily been avoided with a few storyline changes, but these changes were apparently overlooked. As it is, the only hint we receive that these goons might be capable of such destruction is when Jimmy the cop stares hard at the video footage of them robbing a jewelry store: the camera lingers on one of the goons, who holds a gun. This makes an impression on Jimmy, which seems all the more apparent in that he is not with the others in the final battle; perhaps he learned a lesson, while they did not. But then again, maybe I’m just reading too much into the damn thing.

Those of you who want a happy ending, just don’t watch the last ten minutes. The fatalistic, nihilistic last few minutes of film do nothing to leave a lasting impact; rather, the ending just gives you a “they must’ve run out of ideas” type feeling. If fatalism was the desired theme of the film, then the storytellers failed. Again, more of a set-up in the story would’ve helped. In summation, the plot has several bumps and the ending sucks, but it’s still a Milkyway film. Just not as good as most.

Joe909’s Rating: 6/10

By Alexander

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read this review if you are planning on seeing this film in the near future. I shamelessly give away the ending. If you plan on seeing the movie many weeks or months from now, read on, as you will have long forgotten anything I’ve written in the meandering review below.

(Oh, just read the damn thing.)

One of the things that initially appealed to me about Hong Kong cinema was the idea that gun-toting crime fighters are as fragile and prone to danger as the neighborhood grocer or school teacher. Far too many Hollywood films have featured the requisite barrel-chested uber-hero who can seemingly dodge bullets and even take one in the chest while defending a gorgeous damsel to ultimately recover, spending the rest of their chiseled-featured lives sipping fruity drinks on faraway beaches with nary a scar. Nicholas Cage, Eastwood, Arnold, Willis, Stallone, Travolta, Lundgren, Ford and a bevy of other American action “heroes” have walked headlong into waves of automatic fire and lived to tell the tale.

John Woo’s THE KILLER, however, is different. Having been reared on a steady diet of American action films, I watched wide-eyed many years ago as Chow Yun Fat crawled blindly to Danny Lee beneath flocks of pristine white doves and the strains of a Sally Yeh ballad. This hero, so menacing and cool with mammoth pistols clenched in two fists and cigarette dangling perpetually from the corner of a smirk, dies a grisly and decidedly un-heroic death. Jeffrey, a moniker only Chow Yun Fat could wear seriously, perishes in a hail of bullets. Used to seeing our heroes ending their films with a witty aside to their youthful sidekick, a smitten love or a defeated villain, I was completely caught off-guard when the two coolest cats in all of cinema are brutally murdered.

Films like BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, THE KILLER, HEROES SHED NO TEARS, A HERO NEVER DIES, A BULLET IN THE HEAD and A BETTER TOMORROW feature unfortunate consequences for their leads, further proving that Hong Kong cinema is still paying attention to the old Greek dramas and Shakespearean tragedies. The good guys, alas, do not always prevail.

Which brings me to EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED. No, it is not entirely original. Tragedies have been around for centuries. And yes, the buddy cop premise is as cliche here as it is in every other HK and US film. The love triangle between Simon Yam, Lau Ching Wan and Yo Yo Mung is simply silly. And we do need to suspend our disbelief for a few moments when we realize the tame, bumbling idiots in the first few minutes of the film have become, overnight, calculating marksmen capable of slaughtering entire police departments. But there is still something novel about seeing the good guys lose, seeing the bullets riddle their fine suits and muscled torsos. Even though I expected this somewhat ironic twist, I still enjoyed the audacity of the filmmaker to wipe out not just one of our honorable public servants, but the whole damn lot of them. Not quite as unexpected as the title suggests, but intriguing nonetheless.

ETU is also memorable for the believable relationship between the charismatic leads, Lau Ching Wan and Simon Yam. Sure, they could pull these roles off in their sleep, but these two light up the screen regardless, whether bantering inanely about women or plotting their next stake-out.

A nice change of pace from the plethora of TOKYO RAIDERS-like fluff I’ve been drowning in recently.

Alexander’s Rating: 7/10

By Numskull

If you watch this movie, expect it to be great…because it isn’t.

The botched heist. A story that’s been done way too many times. Is it any different this time ’round? Hell yes…but “different” doesn’t always mean “better”!

There are a bunch of cops. Two of them desperately want to fuck a girl who works in the restaurant across the street from the robbery site. This restaurant is located right next to a McDonald’s which is shown unobstructed about 73 times during the movie. Oh yeah, and those two cops are brothers. Two brothers at odds over a woman…golly gee, that’s a new one. The other cops have problems with their own, like adultery, getting shot in the neck, and paying too much for cigarettes. The cast shines in spots, but the story and characters don’t. The main plot is so thin that it seems almost half of this 87-minute movie consists of the cops just driving around and doing Seinfeld-style bitching and moaning. Here’s the biggest problem. You see, humor is supposed to be funny. “Funny” means something you can laugh at. This film either takes itself way too seriously or not nearly seriously enough. First a woman is hospitalized after being raped non-stop for a week; then one brother spies on the other talking to Yo Yo Mung and dubbing their voices in a make-believe conversation. In one scene, the token female cop force-feeds grapes to the bedridden, womanizing Jimmy as punishment for his promiscuous ways; in another, there’s a dead baby in the clothes dryer.

Also, it’s always raining in this movie. I mean always. It’s like they knew it had no substance, so they figured they’d make up for it with style.

SPOILER ALERT!!! IF YOU PLAN ON SEEING THIS PIECE OF CRAP, STOP READING HERE.

The ending is surprising…but again, that doesn’t mean it’s good. I find it more than a little hard to believe that two half-assed robbers who couldn’t rob the jewelery store in the first place could slaughter six trained police officers in a shootout before getting offed themselves. And don’t give me this shit about “That was their master plan.” If they were smart enough to conceive a “master plan” then they would have gotten away with the jewelery store loot in the first place, and, you know, LIVED.

Of course, the cops put up a really valiant struggle, crawling along the pavement after being shot multiple times, in excruciatingly slow motion no less. But by this time I just didn’t give a damn. I didn’t give a damn who lived or who died or who got away. My reaction was “C’mon, c’mon, die already.” I’m not opposed to having endings where things don’t all get wrapped up in a neat little package, but here, the writers just killed everyone to take the easy way out since they couldn’t think of a better finish to this thoroughly uninspired story. Of course they can make reference to the movie’s title afterwards, but the fact remains that this is a really half-assed film with a meaningless publicity stunt ending that seems to have suckered quite a few viewers.

Crap that surprises you is still crap.

Numskull’s Rating: 2/10

By Tequila

I think I’m ready to write this review now, after recovering from the temporary blindness the microscopic VCD subtitles on Expect The Unexpected’s Universe release induces. The subtitles are the smallest I’ve ever come across, I think they just had the usual VCD subs you encounter (white-on-white) downsized. If reading gives you headaches, get the DVD of the movie. Still, at least the words don’t run off the edge of the screen…

I’m going to write a review for those who haven’t seen the movie and those who have, as I have several points to make about the ending of the film, so here goes.

NON-SPOILER REVIEW:

I felt that Expect The Unexpected was a very good film, another quality Milkyway production. Unfortunately for me, I watched it last in a double bill with Needing You – a bad idea when you want something lighthearted after watching this film which is very pessimistic.

The acting is great, especially from Lau Ching-Wan (that wasn’t unexpected) and has nice enough subplots to go along with the main plot of a team of cops trying to track down a gang of psychotic baby killing live-in rapists who are exposed after a bungling robber flees the scene. While the subplot of the two brothers (Lau and Yam Tat-Wah) lusting after the same woman is old and used, it is portrayed well by all involved here. Big Bullet has an old and stereotypical plot but I don’t hear people moaning about that! It was a great film in it’s own right and I feel the same about Expect The Unexpected.

The combat is filmed realistically and fits in with the film. A John Woo-type shoot-out would be out of place; you can’t stylize rape and baby killing. The way the weather plays a part in the mood is good too, this movie is supposed to be depressing which is probably why so many people hated it.

The music is very good and very suitable and there is a good sense of location in the film, as you kind of get to know the area as the film progresses. The ending? Well, I won’t reveal it here but it certainly looked good to me – not unbelievable in any aspect. You may hate it though, a review is just an opinion.

SPOILER REVIEW:

Well then, the ending…I certainly don’t find it unbelievable – it can be quite easy for a bunch of crappy robbers to be psychotics. The cops were getting ready to celebrate the end of the serial rapist case and they weren’t wearing their vests. They expected the robbers to be bunglers yet again. So when Lau Ching-Wan tastes shotgun, it is unexpected. Get the title now? The cops had pistols, the robbers had a shotgun and an MP5 so it is highly likely that the robbers would win, although they do get wasted too. If you look at some of the most twisted men in history you can’t say they look like serial killers; Dahmer just looked like a strange loner – he was only caught due to bungling the handcuffing of some guy, and Rose West was just a middle-aged woman to most people yet she murdered more than a dozen women with her husband.

The ending worked for me, it wasn’t expected to me or the characters involved.

Tequila’s Rating: 9/10

Posted in Chinese, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , |
  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. ...
  5. 465
  6. 466
  7. 467
  8. 468
  9. 469
  10. 470
  11. 471
  12. 472
  13. 473
  14. 474
  15. 475
  16. ...
  17. 490