Interpol 009 (1967) May 11, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, 60's , add a commentDirector: Yeung Shu-Hei Cast: Tang Ching; Lee Kwan; Margaret Tu Chuan Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
There’s an international money counterfeiting gang in town, and Interpol agent 009, Chen Tianhong (Tang Ching) is sent to investigate.
Like Lo Wei’s Golden Buddha from 1966, Interpol 009 attempts to bring a Chinese James Bond to the screen, although the two films are otherwise unrelated.
Agent 009 has much in common with his more famous counterpart – he’s a suave womaniser, heavy drinker (although he prefers brandy to a vodka martini) and is deadly with any form of weapon you can to give him. He’s also got an arsenal of gadgets to get him out of scrapes, such as a watch with several uses (including a listening device), a lighter that can turn into a smoke bomb and chewing gum that can open locked doors. However, that’s pretty much where the similarities end, as Chen Tianhong has the charisma of a housebrick. Perhaps sensing this, he is given a sidekick in the shape of Huang Mao (Lee Kwan – best known for his appearance as Ah Kun in Bruce Lee’s The Big Boss) who runs around Hong Kong in a Beatle suit and provides comic relief.
Chen Tianhong (who proclaims, and I swear to God this is true: “Danger? That’s my middle name”) woos the ladies despite some stinky chat up lines (he even comes out with “do you come here often?” to one lady). This is perhaps the sauciest Chinese film from the 60’s I’ve seen as Agent 009 canoodles with just about every lady he comes into contact with and there’s even a bare bottom at one point. This is a far cry from the previous year’s Golden Buddha, which is extremely coy in comparison.
The story concerns a money counterfeiting gang headed by a beautiful mysterious lady (the tragic Margaret Tu Chuan, who would commit suicide before the decade came to an end at the age of 27) and it’s here that another problem becomes apparent – the villains are all a bit pedestrian and the locations are very domestic, with the action all taking place in Hong Kong. Part of the appeal of the Bond movies is the exotic locations and the overblown villains, and this film is a letdown on both points.
There is some enjoyment to be had from the film, despite its drawbacks. However, I’m not sure all the fun is intentional. There’s a scene where the bad guys are beating up some guy, who manages to get away in an unguarded car. He gets away and then drives his car straight off the nearest quay and into the water. One of the perusing villains just mutters “silly man” and shakes his head – which I found hilariously funny. The final reel mercifully turns up the action a couple of notches, and another Bond device comes into play – the age-old ploy of the bad guys tying up the hero (with sidekick in this case), planning a grisly fate for them and then scooting off and assuming the hero gets splattered across a large area. In this case, the villains leave 009 to stew until the bomb they’ve planted goes off and turns Chen Tianhong into a disgusting red mess.
So how long do the villains give Chen Tianhong to ponder his fate while they make a speedy getaway? Two minutes? Five minutes? Surely no more than ten minutes? Actually, they give him two hours. In that time, Bond would have got out, killed an army of henchmen, downed a couple of vodka martinis, shagged the villainess, killed her and quipped about it to his leading lady while making a witty quip over the radio to an exasperated M. Chen Tianhong barely gets out with his skin intact, and this sums up the film in a nutshell.
Interpol 009 is just too dull most of the time to be enjoyable and suffers from some plot logicalities to boot. It’s not a complete write-off, and the 60’s fashions and sensibilities are always fun to watch, but this is not even on par with the more cringeworthy Roger Moore-era Bonds.
The Big Boss (1971) May 3, 2008
Posted by Cal in : 70's, Kung Fu , 4 commentsDirector: Lo Wei Cast: Bruce Lee; James Tien; Han Ying-Chieh Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Golden Harvest
Cheng Chiu On (Bruce Lee) goes to Thailand to help out in an ice factory. Trouble breaks out in the form of a labour dispute, but Cheng cannot retaliate because of a promise he made to his mother not to get involved in fights. The situation turns sinister, though, when Cheng realises that the ice-packing plant is actually a cover for a drug distribution operation.
Reviewing The Big Boss seems a bit pointless as, let’s face it, everyone’s already seen it. However, it’s been so damn long since I’ve seen the film that I felt compelled to write about it after seeing it again. There are numerous reasons why I don’t watch this one too often, but a couple of reasons stand out. The first is that there doesn’t seem to be a satisfactory version available. The Hong Kong Legends DVD of a few years back had a Cantonese track, which I thought was a step in the right direction, but gone was the funky theme tune and incidental music. In its place was something that seemed really out of place, including, in places, the use of a section of Pink Floyd’s Time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I really love Pink Floyd, but I don’t think it fits a Bruce Lee movie, especially seeing as how it was recorded a good couple of years after the film was shot. The other main reason is that, well, I just don’t like the movie very much.
To solve the audio conundrum, I did a thing you’ll probably never hear from me again – I watched the English dub. It was worth it to hear the theme tune and all the old music again, and I found listening to the corny voices a bit of a novelty – especially when the kindly old uncle slips out a “why, if I was ten years younger…!” when appraising young Mei Lin (Maria Yi). Lecherous old devil! Anyway, I’m not sure if this was the old dub that used to grace the old Rank videos as I seem to recall a place where James Tien was talking to the manager of the ice factory and their dialogue getting so muddled the voice actors ended up swapping characters. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean! And why does the Boss’s son ask to borrow 2,000 Yen from his father? I thought this film was set in Thailand, not Japan!
It is a bit like heresy criticising a Bruce Lee film, but The Big Boss has not aged very well. This is partly down to the curious mismatch of cinematic styles used in the movie. This was 1970, and Hong Kong action movies were undergoing a radical change away the Wuxia Pian style of action involving trampoline jumps and feats of superhuman agility towards a more realistic depiction of fighting. The Big Boss sits uncomfortably between two stools, still using some of the old cinematic tricks while building on the foundations laid by The Chinese Boxer and Vengeance! and the result occasionally looks messy and not a little silly.
The plot is not terribly interesting either. Basically, it involves a drug operation fronted by a ice manufacturing plant (until I watched this film, I had no idea some people actually made ice for a living!) and workers go missing periodically when they’re knocked off by the boss or his henchmen. Cue lots of concerned co-workers running about as one looking for their missing friends and so forth. The acting’s pretty atrocious, too – I love the twin gasps of shock when the manager explains to the two naive workers what the factory actually produces, and look out for a very young Lam Ching-Ying and his attempt at portraying “thoughtful contemplation” in one scene.
But the main problem is the fact that Bruce Lee does nothing for the first 43 minutes. Until then, this is really James Tien’s movie, and decent though the guy is (here his character seems to be a kind of saint-in-waiting), who really wants to see a James Tien movie? This is done partly to tease the audience. The hype over the first Bruce Lee movie was immense and so instead of saturating the movie with Bruce, he is dished out sparingly. Instead of rushing into fights, Lee looks mournfully at his mother’s pendant and remembers his promise to not get into trouble. Of course, the pendant eventually shatters and Lee feels this breaks his obligation to the promise – and he finally springs into action.
After Lee loses his pendant, it’s like the film loses a lead weight around its neck and things definitely take off. It’s just damn shame that it took so long, though. The film’s action is surprisingly brutal for the time, even compared to the glossier Shaw Brothers films. The tone and content is sometimes puzzling, though – even now I’m not sure if that part where Bruce knocks one of the gang through the wooden wall, leaving a perfect, cartoon-like outline behind is supposed to be funny or not.
It’s things like that that definitely draw attention to Lo Wei’s abilities as a director. While there are moments of pure bone-headedness (remember the death of the prostitute, who evidently doesn’t see her assassin coming?), there are touches of subtlety you wouldn’t really associate with the director. I like the moment early in the movie when Bruce nonchalantly steals a glance at Maria Yi, only to find that she is already looking at him, leading him to look uncomfortably away. Also, the scene that juxtaposes Lee’s sumptuous meal with the boss and his apparent “selling out” with the simple fare of the honest workers is surprisingly good and probably allegorical of something I can’t quite put my finger upon. There are also some scenes of effective tension later on when Lee discovers the slaughter of his comrades.
I enjoyed The Big Boss a lot more than I expected this time around, and a lot of that is down to my choice of watching it with the original music. Watching it now, as a UK citizen, it’s ironic that the film seems the least “complete” of the Bruce Lee films now as it was by far the least censored in this territory in the bad old days when even muttering the word “nunchaku” was likely to result in a cut. While it is definitely not a great movie, I can at least understand why it was such an exciting moment in Hong Kong cinema. One thing I’ll never understand, though, is why the bad guys chop up the bodies of the workers and encase them in ice instead of just disposing of them so they can’t be found by a vengeful Bruce…
People’s Hero (1987) April 25, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Drama, 80's , add a commentDirector: Derek Yee Cast: Ti Lung; Tony Leung (Chiu-Wai); Ronald Wong; Tony Leung (Ka-Fai) Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Long Shong Pictures Ltd
A pair of youths (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Ronald Wong) plan to hold up a bank but lose their nerve at the last moment – only to have their hand forced by circumstance and have to carry their plan through after all. Their botched effort to steal the money begins a siege that career criminal Koo (Ti Lung) cannot afford. Koo intervenes and juggles the hostages, the would-be robbers, the police and his former girlfriend - who is imprisoned for a crime he himself is responsible for.
Right from the start, you know this is a little different from the usual Hong Kong action movie with its stark titles and dark, foreboding music. The reason only becomes clear quite late in the movie – this is not an action movie at all; rather People’s Hero is a taut dramatic piece that survives without ever having to throw in a few kung fu moves (even though, of course, Ti Lung is more than capable of such antics). It also avoids many pitfalls of Hong Kong movie plotting and pacing, and the story genuinely moves along at an excellent pace by introducing new elements and problems at precisely the right moment. By that, I mean that the story actually evolves in a remarkably realistic way (some logistical anomalies aside) and what you expect to happen invariably doesn’t happen.
The characters, aside from Ti Lung’s Koo, are introduced at the start, and they do seem horribly clichéd. Basically, the bank’s staff and customers are given a minute or two’s spotlight to give a slight insight to their character – there’s a bankrupt shopkeeper, a spoilt schoolgirl and her vacant mother, an obnoxious, arrogant young man, a rich businessman, etc. These tired old stereotypes (hardly a likeable one in the whole bunch) threaten to drag the film down a level or two but are not given the opportunity because the focus stays quite solidly on the two young robbers and Koo.
The theme of the film is that everyone is a victim, and this is nowhere more evident than in the two youths who are forced to steal to live. Ah Sai (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) is the older, more responsible of the two, while Boney (Ronald Wong – Hong Kong’s Peter Lorre!) is a hopeless liability prone to fits of epilepsy. Both are sympathetic characters, but pale when compared to Koo, who was hoping to skip the country before the robbers decided to rob the bank. Koo is plagued by demons from his cop-killing past and is heartbroken over his girlfriend’s imprisonment (we learn she was jailed for carrying his gun). His interaction with the hostages sets up the character as a practical, reasonable man to whom the hostages quickly like and cooperate with.
Obviously, the police are aware of what’s going on inside the bank, and Captain Chan (Tony Leung Ka-Fai – that’s right, both Tony Leungs for the price of one!) tries to foil the robbery. He has a personal grudge against Koo, and will stop at nothing to get him – dead or alive. This does make the moral message of the film (cops bad, robbers good) a little obvious, but things get more complicated when Koo is forced (once more, through practical necessity) to show why he’s such a wanted criminal, and, without going into too much detail as to spoil the film, the line becomes blurred again.
There’s a lot of talk about this being the Hong Kong Dog Day Afternoon (the IMDB has just one plot keyword for this film – “remake”), but let me tell you right now the similarities are superficial. People’s Hero stands quite nicely on its own merits, thank you very much. I’ve always like the kind of dramatic film that takes place over a relatively short space of time or has one location, and this is a little of both. The characters are memorable, the plot taut and lean (the film runs like a panther for its 82 minutes’ running time) and the whole thing bristles with freshness – even 21 years after it was made.
Unfortunately, the recent DVD edition from Mei-Ah ports the original subtitles – and they are pretty bad. I remember some of them from the first time I watched the movie over ten years ago, and it’s a terrible shame that someone couldn’t have cleaned them up for this release. Unintentionally funny subtitles are usually great, but in a dramatic piece like this, they are glaringly out of place and hampers the tension.
It’s unlikely we’ll see a proper release in the West, as there’s no real action to speak of and it probably isn’t “serious” enough to be classed as World Cinema (whatever that is) and that’s quite a loss. People’s Hero is a great little film with a fantastic performance by Ti Lung, who was really hitting his stride at this point in his career, and an early standout performance by “Little Tony”.
See it.
Masked Avengers (1981) April 19, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Kung Fu, 80's , 2 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh Cast: Phillip Kwok; Chiang Sheng; Lu Feng Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
A band of masked bandits are causing trouble until a small group of heroes decide to stop them for reasons that seem to have passed me by.
I realised quite early on in this film a startling fact – I’ve seen more films by this director than any other. Forty-four films, to be exact. By now, I’m very familiar with his style and have drawn a couple of conclusions. One: by the late 70’s, he really didn’t give a rat’s backside about plot, consistency or plausibility. Two: Chang Cheh seems really uncomfortable with women.
It isn’t really necessary for the viewer to be aware of these facts, and it will certainly not affect the viewing experience, but it’s a shame that the carefully plotted historical epic went out of the window so completely, and a little odd that his world consists entirely of men. Sure, there are a couple of little girls, but as soon as they hit puberty they seem to disappear out of existence. An adult woman does appear in this film and hogs the screen for about 7 seconds - she does a little swoony, fainty dance, opens her mouth to deliver a line of dialogue and is promptly killed before speaking. There is no explanation of why she’s there (other than being a sister of one of the characters) or why she acts in such a peculiar manner. Unlike most, I don’t take Chang Cheh’s evident discomfort of the feminine form as “proof” of his homosexuality – just the opposite, in fact. However, it is quite hard not to notice certain “tendencies” in his films that can be construed as homoerotic, and Masked Avengers has more than its fair share of these tendencies, with bare-chested, muscle-bound men in nearly every frame.
Speaking of Masked Avengers, I think it’s probably about time I got around to reviewing it, rather than musing on whether or not Chang Cheh was gay. My expectations were high – same director as Crippled Avengers, some of the same Venom cast return (sadly, Sun Chien and Lo Meng, my favourite Venoms, do not appear) and the word “Avengers” in the title. Sounds like a sure-fire hit.
It’s evident early on that this is not quite as good as earlier Venom movies. The plot really is non-existent and it doesn’t have the kooky charm of Crippled Avengers. Worse still, there’s a pretty despicable and gratuitous case of animal cruelty near the start that nearly made me switch off. Oh, and the title is somewhat misleading – the Avengers are actually unmasked, it’s the bandits who wear them.
However, animal snuff and minor gripes aside, Masked Avengers has its moments of greatness. It suffers from the exact same problem as the earlier Venom movie Daredevils in that it tries to add intrigue where it’s not wanted or needed, but at least it does not try to be too many things – a major downfall of the latter film. This time, it’s Phillip Kwok who takes centre stage as the cook-with-a-dark-past Gao Yao, and he’s the only character who has more than one dimension. Actually, his story, when he eventually tells it, is quite interesting.
And naturally, the action scenes are outstanding. The bad guys use tridents, which is pretty original. I don’t usually find weapon-work as interesting as unarmed combat, but I have to admit that the displays here are quite exciting. I won’t go and spoil the surprise by revealing who the culprit(s) are, but the showdown is well worth watching and recalls Chang’s glory days. It’s also apparent that some money went into the set design, although it’s possible that they were re-using some sets from earlier films.
So while there’s much to be indifferent or appalled about in Masked Avengers, it can’t be ignored that it’s a pretty impressive action movie. If only there had been some thought given to the plot and characters, it might very well have become a genre classic. My favourite part, though, was when on of our heroes gets slain after buying a glove puppet for a little girl after she fell over on the street (a complete sequence of events that takes as much time to transpire as it takes to read that sentence!). He is killed by a Masked Avenger and the camera zooms in on the forlorn glove puppet on his hand to show the inhumanity of the bandits, which I thought was really funny. It loses something in the telling though, so go and see it for yourself.
Mad Detective (2007) April 14, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 00's , 2 commentsDirector: Johnnie To; Wai Ka-Fai Cast: Lau Ching-Wan; Andy On; Gordon Lam; Karen Lee Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milky Way Image Ltd
Eccentric but brilliant police detective Bun (Lau Ching-Wan) is expelled from the force when, upon his chief’s retirement, he impassively cuts off his own ear as a leaving present. But when a series of murders and robberies involving a stolen police handgun becomes too difficult to solve, Inspector Ho (Andy On) persuades Bun to return and give his insight into the case. What Bun finds is that the crimes are related, and that the killer has seven personalities that Bun can see as separate individuals.
The English language title hints at a madcap comedy, especially given the track record of Lau Ching-Wan. I haven’t really seen any of the Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai collaborations (I switched off the awful My Left Eye Sees Ghosts after about twenty minutes of “comic” screaming) but Mad Detective is definitely not a comedy and Lau Ching Wan is definitely not comic in this role. Indeed, at times, he looks like he’s never done comedy in his life.
Mad Detective is at the outset another detective story, albeit one that feels less noir-ish than has become fashionable. We see Bun solve a case by being thrown down a series of staircases while locked in a suitcase, then his apparent breakdown at his superior’s retirement party. Then we see two police officers trying to capture a thief. After that, it starts to get a little difficult. Well, to be honest, things simply stop making sense.
I don’t want to give too much away and spoil the “gimmick” of the film too much, but Bun has a couple of really remarkable and original abilities. The foremost is the ability to see facets of people’s personalities as separate entities, all with their own appearance (and not necessarily the same sex as the host). This is extremely confusing at first, but when the penny drops, it’s quite an exciting idea. Bun comes into contact with Chi-Wai, who has no less than seven different “facets” of his personality, and watching some of them interact with the host is interesting – for example his decision making is a bossy, confident woman, while his cowardice is a fat, nervous man (Lam Suet – Hong Kong’s Mr Prolific!). The avatar Bun sees depends on what the host is feeling. Bun also seems to be able to gain supernatural insights into the case through near-death experiences, which further clarifies what’s going on.
I’ve written before about mystery thrillers sometimes being a one-shot deal (see The Detective), but Mad Detective has so much more going for it, as well as a thought-provoking ending, that I’m sure this will stand the test of time. Indeed, it’s one of those films you want to watch again straight away so you can watch out for things you might have missed first time and with the benefit of knowledge you didn’t have on the first viewing.
Mad Detective is accessible and unpretentious, exciting and fresh. The roles are all very well acted, but Lau in particular is outstanding as the titular detective. I have to say I’ve not seen him in anything other than comedy (and usually pretty broad comedy at that), and so was a little surprised at how well he pulled it off. The direction is great and Johnny To in particular seems to be on fire at the moment. If you’re after something unusual and a little challenging, this is a must-see – and a great example, along with To’s last (complete) film, Exiled, of what Hong Kong is capable of. I’m pretty excited right now…
Dark Water (2002) April 8, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Supernatural, 00's , 4 commentsDirector: Hideo Nakata Cast: Hitomi Kuroki; Rio Kanno; Shigemitsu Ogi Territory: Japan Production Company: Honogurai mizu no soko kara
A bitter custody battle is being fought by Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) against her husband for their six year old daughter Ikuko (Rio Kanno). Her ex-husband is playing dirty, using tales of Yoshimi’s previous psychological problems to discredit her. Rattled, Yoshimi rents a new apartment for herself and Ikuko and tries to get her life back on track with a new job. But the apartment is old and the ceiling leaks – not to mention noisy, as a child’s footsteps can often be heard from the room above. Yoshimi starts to feel uneasy when a girl’s red bag is found and can’t seem to be thrown away, and then she starts seeing a small child upstairs matching the description of a missing girl…
From the director of Ring, which was probably most casual viewers’ first exposure to Asian horror films, Dark Water continues in a similar spooky style which seems to be everywhere nowadays.
Shunning special effects and gore, the film instead relies on making the mundane seem menacing through implication, music and reaction shots. Which, let’s face it, could easily fall flat on its arse. Dark Water doesn’t quite fall on its arse, but after seeing it I’m not entirely sure why. The imagery seems a little over-used – creepy silent kids and things seen out of the corner of the eye being the order of the day. The red bag that continually turns up to alarm Yoshimi could seem laughable if not handled properly, as can the mounting menace of a water stain on the ceiling. But, to give the film its due, it never does, and a decent sense of quiet menace continues nicely throughout the film.
It’s just that the whole mystery of the film is rather easy to figure out, and by about the halfway mark, you’re well ahead of the game. This is the film’s most disappointing quality, as it is a very watchable experience. The film is very ably acted, and particular mention must go to the performance of Rio Kanno as the six year old Ikuko who spent the majority of the film soaking wet, which couldn’t have been too pleasant.
Although Dark Water is a pleasantly creepy way to pass the time, I really don’t think it has the legs to stand up to repeated viewings. But if you’ve never seen it, it’s well worth the price of the rental.
Bruce Lee Vs Elvis: more “Game of Death” footage found April 1, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Uncategorized , 5 commentsA recently discovered film can containing a mere 10 minutes’ worth of material has already been hailed as the Holy Grail for both action film fans and music fans. The contents show the King of Kung Fu fighting the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll in a life and death struggle set inside a Pagoda.
The footage is believed to be yet more material from Lee’s unfinished film Game of Death, shot in 1972. The project was only in its infancy when Lee was called upon to film Enter The Dragon for Warner Brothers, and Lee died before he could go back and complete the film. However, it has always been claimed that more material was shot than was ever seen, even taking into consideration the newly restored material that surfaced in recent documentaries on the subject.
The idea of Bruce Lee starring alongside Elvis Presley is not as far fetched as it sounds. Presley was a huge fan of Lee, and was himself a Karate practitioner under the tutelage of Lee’s friend Ed Parker. Presley expressed a wish to work with the Kung Fu star on a film project, but it had always been assumed that the two legends never met. However, the footage comes as no surprise to the Presley estate. “We know Elvis went to Hong Kong in 1972 to meet Bruce,” says a spokeman for the singing star, who died in 1977. “He wanted the visit to be very low-key as he was mindful of the hysteria that would follow if the Hong Kong people knew the two were meeting.”
Travelling under the name of Vince Everett, Presley spent a total of two weeks in Hong Kong filming with Lee. Full details of the found footage are being kept secret, but it is believed that the scene starts with Presley singing a musical number while Lee and co-star Nora Miao dance the Cha Cha – Lee was a spledind dancer in his youth and was even crowned the Hong Kong Cha Cha Champion of 1958. Unfortunately, the film was shot without sound, so the song Elvis is singing remains a mystery – for now. “There is dialogue, and it’s in English,” says another spokesman. “We’re working with lip-readers to discover what is being said and sung.”
After the song ends, it appears Lee and Presley have an argument, and the two start fighting, with Presley using Karate against Lee’s Jeet Kune Do. In all, the footage lasts just under ten minutes and contains fight choreography that one privileged viewer has said “will stun fans. It’s simply outstanding stuff, and Elvis is on fine form. When he breaks his guitar over Bruce’s head, it all goes nuclear. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
So why has the world not seen this amazing footage, and why did neither Lee or Elvis mention it? No one knows for sure, but one theory is that Lee was unhappy with the dancing element of the scene and wanted to reshoot it before presenting it to the world. As for why the footage was lost, there appears to be a simple explantion. “We have a large vault in which we store all our films,” explains an employee at the archive vault of Golden Harvest studios, where Lee made all his Hong Kong movies. “This particular reel was in a can where the writing on the label was completely obscured by a substance that looks like hamburger mustard. It was simply left in the vault until we were doing a cleanout and we decided to have a look at what was on it. Imagine our surprise when we found what it contained.”
And what will happen to the film now? Columbia Pictures distributed the Golden Harvest film Game of Death in 1978, five years after Lee’s death using stand-ins and archive footage to seemlessly build a new movie around the footage Lee had shot before leaving for the States to make Enter The Dragon. The result was so astonishingly successful that hardly anyone noticed that Lee was being played by a series of other actors and stuntmen. Columbia Pictures now wants to buy the film outright and insert the found footage – and shoot new scenes to explain the Presley character.
“We have found that we could not simply add the Elvis scene to the Pagoda section of the movie Game of Death,” said one high-ranking Columbia official. “His character needs explaining. We are therefore going to shoot new footage to help the flow of the revised film.” One problem is that many of the cast, and director Robert Clouse, have passed away since making the film, and the aging process makes it impossible to use the services of the surviving cast. “We have already aquired the services of an Asian-American actor who bears an uncanny resemblance to Tai Chung Kim [Lee’s stand in for the 1978 shoot] to play Billy Lo, and we will use archive footage and outtakes to fill in the gaps with the other actors.”
Columbia have gone even further by hiring an unknown actor to direct the new material. Matt Conroy was given the job as he looked eerily similar to Robert Clouse in the late 70’s. Conroy has not directed a single frame of film, and after studying Clouse’s back catalogue, which includes such genre classics as Gymkata and China O’Brien 2, was initially worried he may have been over-qualified. However, he has now embraced the challenge: “There’s no getting around the fact that I look like the guy,” says Conroy, “and the producers are insisting that they want someone as close, physically, to Bob Clouse. I will do my best and try not to let anyone down.”
It is not known at this point who will play Elvis in the re-shoot, but with an estimated 85,000 professional impersonators in the world there shouldn’t be too much trouble finding someone for the role. As for the outcome of the duel, executives are keeping their lips firmy sealed. “You’ll have to wait and see,” says an excited official. “But this is going to be huge!”
The revised version of Game of Death is scheduled to hit cinemas worldwide exactly one year from today – on April 1, 2009.
Mercenaries From Hong Kong (1982) March 29, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, War, 80's , add a commentDirector: Wong Jing Cast: Ti Lung; Chan Wai-Man; Chan Pak-Cheung; Lo Leih; Johnny Wang; Wong Yu Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
A businessman’s daughter contacts mercenary-for-hire Luo Li (Ti Lung) to avenge her father’s murder by an assassin who has fled to Cambodia. Luo assembles his crack team for the journey into war-torn Cambodia: a knife expert, a deadly sniper, a bare-fist fighting expert, a thief and a bomb specialist and heads into the danger zone. But once there, their plan alters when it becomes evident that things aren’t as straightforward as they seem…
Mercenaries From Hong Kong opens with a shot of Ti Lung pumping iron to an anonymous instrumental band’s rendition of Blue Oyster Cult’s Teen Archer, and you immediately know this isn’t going to be a run-of-the-mill Shaw Brothers Kung Fu flick. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the use of so many Shaw players, you may be forgiven for thinking you were watching a Golden Harvest film. For a company that never really moved with the times, Mercenaries From Hong Kong looks amazingly “contemporary” for a late-period Shaw flick, and unlike virtually all other productions from the era, hardly any of it is shot on a claustrophobic sound stage, and outdoor sets and locations are used extensively.
The story is hardly original, and pretty much rips off every war movie where an ensemble cast goes off behind enemy lines. Small band of commandoes against insurmountable odds? Check. Soldier hoping to pay for life-saving operation for sick daughter? Check. Two members of team hating each other’s guts until their backs are against the wall? Check. Backstabbing traitor masquerading as everyone’s friend? Big fat check. And when one of the team asks Luo to look after his child “in case anything happens to me”, you just know he isn’t going to make it. You might as well just shoot him in the face there and then, get it over with and recalculate everyone’s paycheck. Especially when he stupidly forgets his lucky necklace before engaging the enemy.
As well as the hackneyed plot devices and clichés, the direction isn’t terribly good. Wong Jing became infamous for his screwball comedies and exploitation movies, and both genres impose on Mercenaries From Hong Kong to a certain degree. We have a scene of Ti Lung being The Exterminator, while the inclusion of Nat Chan Pak-Cheung brings a little too much light relief for my taste. In fact, humour crops up a number of times and it just impedes the film’s progress and atmosphere.
However, one thing can’t be denied: Mercenaries From Hong Kong is extremely good fun despite (or maybe because of) its cornier elements. There’s a mass brawl in a shopping centre that is really exciting to watch, and features dozens of improvised weapon-wielding stuntmen and extras. The action scenes in general are another aspect that looks decidedly un-Shaw-like and again look more like they came from Golden Harvest’s fight choreographers. The cast includes some of Shaw’s top players as well as their perennial action-man Ti Lung, and it’s fantastic seeing Johnny Wang and Lo Leih given good-guy roles for a change. Immortal bad guys Lei Hoi-Sang and Yuen Wah also turn up to add some weight to the heavies on the other side.
It’s surprising (and a little disappointing) how little of this film is actually set in the jungles of Cambodia, as primarily the action takes place in and around Hong Kong, but Mercenaries From Hong Kong probably exceeded its remit by coming up with a film that still entertains some 26 years after it was made.
Ebola Syndrome (1996) March 24, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Exploitation , 5 commentsDirector: Herman Yau Cast: Anthony Wong; Angel Wong; Lo Meng; Vincent Wan Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Jing’s Production Ltd
There’s a good chance that the Ebola virus will wipe out humanity at some point. It’s highly contagious, incurable and has a ridiculously high mortality rate. Which makes for potentially shocking and inevitably sensationalistic movie material. If the virus does break out on a large scale, though, it’s unlikely we will see the events of Herman Yau’s cult exploitation movie Ebola Syndrome played out for real. At least, I hope not…
Anthony Wong plays Kai, a psychotic rapist and murderer from Hong Kong, who flees the police to make a new life for himself in South Africa working in a Chinese restaurant. His boss (former Venom Lo Meng) has trouble finding merchants to sell him meat, so he does a deal with a local tribe suffering from an outbreak of the Ebola virus to seel him cheap pork. Kai comes into contact with the virus when he casually rapes an infected tribeswoman and becomes a carrier for the disease, which he starts to spread – at first unwittingly, and then deliberately.
Ebola Syndrome is sleazy as hell and pretty much unforgivable on any level. There’s always something nasty being done to someone or something either living or dead (there’s a shot of a dead mouse getting run over which is particularly gratuitous and pointless, and do we really need to see Wong slice up three frogs in one prolonged shot?). All of the characters are inherently unlikeable – even Kai’s boss (the most “normal” of the bunch) only hires him because he’ll work for low wages as he’s a wanted criminal. Oh, and let’s not forget Lily (Angel Wong), who very nearly became one of Kai’s victims in Hong Kong and who accidentally stumbles on him again in South Africa. She can’t be near him without vomiting as she claims she can “really recognise his scent of smell”. Yeah, all right…
With such a crew of amoral and unsympathetic characters, there is little drama. There is, however, what appears like an attempt at gross-out humour throughout the film (Wong Jing is the producer, after all) which, if you like that sort of thing, might raise a few laughs. And fans of Yau and Wong’s previous collaboration The Untold Story are treated to another “human flesh served to restaurant patrons” subplot.
It has to be said that the depiction of the symptoms of the virus are fanciful at best and don’t seem to bear much resemblance to the real thing. The sufferers have a tendency to be right as rain one minute then suddenly fall to the ground in spasms, making for some unintentional hilarity. Later on in the movie things are taken in a more serious direction with the introduction of Sergeant Yeung (Vincent Wan) and his team as they try to track down Kim and evade the virus, and the focus shifts away from Kim for a while.
I can see why Ebola Syndrome has such a cult following, with its gross comedy, gore and so forth, but there is just too much nastiness in there that just put me off – and animal violence in movies is a complete taboo for me (live chickens are killed on screen). I understand that the current Hong Kong version is as uncut as it’s likely to be, but it is clear that some scenes have been trimmed for violent content and the part where Kim slices off a woman’s tongue is quite obviously cut. If a fully uncut version becomes available, I think I’ll pass…
Forbidden City Cop (1996) March 10, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, 90's , 5 commentsDirector: Stephen Chow; Vincent Kok Cast: Stephen Chow; Carina Lau; Law Kar-Ying; Carman Lee Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Wins/Samico Films
The Emperor is guarded by an elite group of heroes known as the Forbidden City Cops. The title is hereditary, so when hapless Ling Ling Fat (Chow) also qualifies to be a guard, he is kept out of the way with menial tasks. One day, the heroes are killed by a group of martial arts masters who are out to kill the Emperor, and only Ling Ling Fat remains. He has no martial arts skill, but he alone must protect the Emperor against his enemies, and find him a beautiful new concubine.
First impressions of Forbidden City Cop indicate that Chow was recycling some of his gags – the opening titles are a rehash of the Maurice Binder spoofery from From Beijing With Love, and Chow’s character’s name is a pun on the Cantonese for “007”. However, the similarities more or less end there. Forbidden City Cop is a pretty funny film, it has to be said, and it is more a parody of the period Wuxia films of the 70’s and early 80’s than another James Bond send-up. In fact, the Wuxia elements are surprisingly inventive and convincing, and if you were to walk in on this film at certain points, you would be forgiven in thinking you were watching the real thing.
The character of Ling Ling Fat is introduced (after a pre-title sequence where he breaks up a duel between two legendary swordsmen) in typical Chow style. The Forbidden City Cops display their immense martial arts skill in front of the Emperor one by one, and then Chow comes running out, crouches down and does a couple of extremely lame forward rolls. It’s hilariously naff, and gets the viewer onside for the rest of the film. He’s a frustrated inventor who comes up with lots of ingenious (but ultimately pointless) gadgets as well as a bored and inept gynaecologist – a job he is given to keep him away from the Emperor’s palace for as long as possible.
Chow’s character is a little different from usual in this film, and unusually for a film that has rom-com aspirations, the two lovers are married even before the film begins and are blissfully happy. Carina Lau is Chow’s wife and sparring partner, and does a decent enough job of it. Chow regular Law Kar-Ying is featured heavily and is his usual crazed self, although he does seem to be unable to keep a straight face at times. What seems like a sub-plot is introduced about halfway through the film where Chow is sent to woo a concubine on behalf of the Emperor. This actually has more of a bearing on the plot than you would realise (for what that’s worth) and introduces Carman (sic) Lee’s concubine character – whose encounters with Chow create much of the humour for the second half.
Like a lot of Chow’s films, the tone is somewhat uneven, but this can be overlooked in Forbidden City Cop as the changes are never as jarring as in, say, From Beijing With Love or King of Beggars. As with all of Chow’s films, though, a strong knowledge of the language is necessary to get the most out of the mo lei tau (makes no sense) dialogue and Cantonese wordplay. However, even without such knowledge, the film’s a hoot and most of the sight gags are universal, making this one of Chow’s more accessible films of the ‘nineties.
The version on review here is one of the old Mei-Ah straight-from-VCD travesties that they were so keen on producing (maybe they thought DVD wouldn’t take off?). It’s rubbish on all fronts and has the old burnt-in subtitles, but there are a load of howlers that mangle the English language to within an inch of its life. I’ve included a screenshot of a couple of the best ones, but there are quite a few in this version of the film. I’m getting the remaster before I watch it again!