The Boxer From Shantung (1972) November 16, 2008
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 1 comment so farDirector: Chang Cheh; Pao Hsueh-Li Main cast: Chen Kuan-Tai; Cheng Kang-Yeh; Ching Li; Ku Feng; David Chiang Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
Ma Wing-Jing (Chen Kuan-Tai) is a penniless (but principled) worker from Shantung trying desperately to make a living in Shanghai. He dreams of wealth and influence, and his dreams start to come true when he defeats a Russian wrestler in a prize bout. He is also watched over by benevolent gang boss Tan Si (David Chiang), who starts Ma on the road to organised crime, albeit a kinder, gentler form of extortion hitherto unseen in Shanghai. But not everyone is happy when Ma extends his empire and impinges on the territory of the Four Champions, who have at their disposal a lethal gang of hatchet wielding killers.
The Boxer From Shantung is a biopic-cum-kung fu movie, and I have to hold my hands up and say I know nothing about the real Ma Wing-Jing, despite his story being told more than once in popular Hong Kong cinema. Even a search on the Internet fails to reveal much. Apart from winning a bout against a Russian wrestler, I’m assuming everything else was made up until someone can tell me otherwise.
Although a bona-fide kung fu classic, The Boxer From Shantung falls down in several places. The main problem is the editing of the non-action scenes, which is pretty dire. There are great pauses between lines of dialogue, making for some very stilted exchanges that are quite uncomfortable to watch. As we’re on the subject of dialogue, it has to be said that the script is pretty awful most of the time and about on the same level of a school play. What really gets my goat is Ma’s continual gazing off into the distance saying something to himself along the lines of: “one day I will be somebody,” every few minutes. Although this is nothing compared with when things finally start falling into place and Cheng Kang-Yeh watches Ma ascend the ladder of the dosshouse and proudly hammers the point home in case you had a head injury earlier in life and miss subtlety: “brother Ma is going up the ladder!”
Childish scripting and bad dialogue aside – I’m really not sure how much involvement Chang Cheh had in this film – there are a couple of neat touches and fight scenes early on. David Chiang’s Tan Si is a mentor/father-figure for Ma and is sadly underused (he was probably shooting fourteen other movies with Ti Lung at the time, so can’t be blamed personally). His character is probably the most likeable of the lot, although I don’t buy the whole “kindly gang boss” thing as a rule. Ma himself is not the most memorable character Chen Kuan-Tai has played. The only attempt at depth is to give him a device – a cigarette holder – as a symbol of his success, much the same as the shoes in the Shaw Brothers-esque film Barefoot Kid twenty years later.
What really makes this film is the final reel. And by that, I mean that everything is forgiven the moment Ma steps into the Green Lotus Teahouse for a friendly chat with his rivals. It’s here that Chang Cheh’s presence is felt as things turn into a bloodbath. It’s worth mentioning that this was Chen Kuan-Tai’s first starring role, and this ending became a bit of a template for a lot of his Shaw films. The action-packed finale is criticised by some as being unrealistic, a fault that seems redundant considering the flights of fancy that the genre usually takes. Chen takes the Teahouse apart and paints the screen red with the blood of his victims in one of the genre’s defining moments. One can only imagine what we would have seen if Bruce Lee had accepted the offer to work at Shaw and made a film under Chang Cheh. As it happens, Chen Kuan-Tai was up to the task and it’s a shame his name isn’t known to a wider audience.
The Boxer From Shantung is an unbalanced film that really hasn’t stood the test of time when there isn’t a fight on the screen. But when the action scenes start up, it becomes truly amazing.
Enter the Dragon (1973) on Blu-ray November 1, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, 1970s films , 4 commentsDirector: Robert Clouse Main cast: Bruce Lee; John Saxon; Jim Kelly; Shih Kien; Ahna Capri; Angela Mao Territory: USA/Hong Kong
Renegade Shaolin monk Han (Shih Kien) has created a fortress on a remote island to produce drugs to sell to the world. Every three years, a martial arts tournament is held on the island to recruit new heavies for the organisation. Lee (Bruce Lee) is sent to bust the operation, and fellow martial artists Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly) join in.
There has probably been more written on Enter the Dragon in the west than on every other martial arts film combined. Yes, it’s overrated, silly and can often be an albatross around the neck of genre fans, but that doesn’t stop it still being immensely good fun and one of the most re-watchable films I’ve seen.
The plot is a thin reworking of Dr No, complete with digitally-disadvantaged villain, but with martial artists instead of James Bond. The premise works surprisingly well – so well, in fact, that the idea has been used ad nauseum with varying degrees of success (see Kill and Kill Again). You can almost smell the fear of the Warner Brothers executives at the thought of using an Asian star to carry the film, and so John Saxon is given co-lead credit and probably has as much screen time as Lee. The unknown Jim Kelly is, by comparison, a much safer bet in third lead.
What makes Enter the Dragon such fun, aside from its horribly dated dialogue, is the island fortress setting and the kind of male wish-fulfilment adventuring us men can’t help but love. We’d like to be as virile and cocky as Williams, as cool and suave as Roper and as deadly at arse-kicking as Lee. The script really goes to town to establish each character, from Roper’s hopeless gambling problem and the debts such a problem entails to Williams’ struggles with racism and his need for flight. Each main character is given a comprehensive and entertaining flashback while they head across the Hong Kong harbour to the vessel that will take them to Han’s Island.
Han himself is a great cinema villain for an unusual reason. Shih Kien didn’t speak a word of English and delivered his lines phonetically and stiltedly, later to be dubbed by an unknown actor. The result is remarkable – his fragmented delivery lends a gravity and menace not normally associated with such throwaway baddies. Remarkably, he was nearly 60 when Enter the Dragon was made and he’s still alive. Regulars to Hong Kong cinema and TV from past decades will of course know him well as an actor equally comfortable in martial arts dramas or screwball comedies.
With all of the characters in place (along with Ahna Capri as the leading lady and love interest of Saxon – interestingly, Lee doesn’t get a look in with any of the ladies in the film), the film focuses on the tournament and Lee’s extra curricular activities in uncovering Han’s operation. This is where Lee finally shines after playing second fiddle to Saxon somewhat during the first half of the film. Lee’s demolition of O’Hara (Bob Wall) is a great scene, and probably my favourite of the film. He expends little energy in finishing his opponent, and his moves are lightning quick. Of course, the real showcase for Lee is the fight in the underground cavern where he takes on so many henchmen it’s pretty much impossible to keep count. He first fights unarmed, then with a pole, two sticks and then with his signature weapon, the nunchaku. It’s probably this scene alone that sealed the film’s fate as a classic in the west, where this sort of thing hadn’t been seen on this scale and with this intensity before.
While the film has a lot to commend it – the score by Lalo Schifrin is simply one of the greatest music scores of the decade – there are things that let it down. The Williams character is killed off too early (I would have preferred it if he hadn’t been killed at all, to be honest) and the fact that Lee seems a little restricted than in his Hong Kong movies let the side down as far as I’m concerned.
It’s interesting that most of the western cast and crew didn’t do much of note after Enter the Dragon. Saxon became the kind of B-movie star admired by Tarantino, Ahna Capri went into TV work and Jim Kelly concentrated on his tennis career after making a series of increasingly bizarre action films. Behind the camera, scriptwriter Michael Allin seemed to virtually drop off the radar and director Clouse was destined to try to emulate the film’s success for the rest of his career. After producing the so-bad-it’s-great Bruceploitation movie Game of Death, he teamed up with another Hong Kong superstar – Jackie Chan – to bring us his first US movie. However, despite another memorable jazzy score from Schifrin, a hit on the scale of Enter the Dragon continued to elude him, and his output outside of these films could never be considered high in quality.
While I must strongly disagree with anyone who says this is the greatest martial arts film of all time (an accusation that is repeated in the press every single time this film is shown on TV here), there’s no doubt it had an impact, and that impact is still being felt today. It’s eminently quotable, silly, fun and entertaining. And now it’s never looked do good.
The Blu-Ray disc from Warner shows us the film in HD, and it looks pretty damn good most of the time. The film looks remarkably good for its age and certain sequences, such as the banquet scene, reveal a lot more detail than standard definition versions. Williams’ flashback scene appears blurred in places, but I’m assuming the fault lies in the source material. Although there is no specific mention of it on the box, the version presented here is the same as the “uncut special edition” that appeared on DVD some time ago. Which basically means the monk scene is included as well as his Obi-Wan-type voice-over near the end. The extras from that release are included as well as a couple more. The real gem is Blood and Steel: The Making of Enter the Dragon, which is fascinating and contains a lot of footage I’d never seen before. Anha Capri’s Super-8 footage is shown, which I’d heard about but never seen, and shows the cast larking about and Bruce warming up. The famous incident with the glass bottles involving Bob Wall and Lee is dismissed almost entirely as a trivial episode hardly worthy of comment, which is interesting seeing as how elsewhere on the disc, Linda Lee Cadwell goes to great lengths to detail the incident and coyly lay blame (“someone didn’t do what they were supposed to do”). It also shows a take of the first scene Lee shot (the scene in his room where the girls are brought in to him) and retells of his nervousness at appearing in the film. The Linda Lee Cadwell interview segments (which, infuriatingly, have to be selected separately and can’t simply be played in order) doesn’t reveal anything if you’ve read her book, but it’s nice to hear the snake story told again. The disc is rounded off with what looks like a promising feature-length documentary entitled The Curse of the Dragon. Narrated by George Takei (John Saxon must have been busy elsewhere), I got as far as the opening voice-over proclaiming: “Before Norris, before Van Damme, before Seagal, there was only one master…” before switching off in disbelief. Nevertheless, after so many releases, remasters and special editions, this is surely the definitive version of the film. At least until the next definitive version shows up…!
(Screenshots taken from standard definition source)
Magnificent Bodyguards (1977) October 19, 2008
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu, Wacko , 6 commentsDirector: Lo Wei Main cast: Jackie Chan; James Tien; Bruce Leung Territory: Taiwan Production Company: Lo Wei Motion Picture Co.
A mysterious woman hires kung fu master Ting Chung (Jackie Chan) to escort her gravely ill brother through the notoriously dangerous, bandit-infested Stormy Mountains. The unseen brother is carried in a sedan chair by Ting Chung and fellow pugilists Tsang (a face-flaying, arm-severing James Tien) and Chang (a deaf super-kicking Bruce Leung). On the way, they encounter increasingly unusual foes and hazards, culminating in a meeting with the ruler of the Stormy Mountains himself, Chu. But is he really who he says he is?
Magnificent Bodyguards is another bonkers tale from Jackie’s early days with legendary director and horseracing fan Lo Wei. It was shot in 3-D, a fact that is impossible to ignore even if you try really hard, what with things coming out of the screen every few minutes. It’s a bit disappointing, then, that the film is still being released on home formats in the usual two dimensions.
The film itself has a nice premise, and is like a kung fu road movie of sorts. The characters are distinctly barmy except for Jackie’s character, oddly enough. He plays it straight, of course, and it has to be said that his character is probably the least memorable of pretty much everyone present. James Tien’s character threatens to skin everyone alive at the faintest provocation, and believe it or not, he’s one of the good guys. I kept expecting him to turn traitor, even though I know he doesn’t, but I’m sure that one of these days when I watch it he will. Sometime Bruce Lee impersonator (even though he looks nothing like him) Bruce Leung plays a deaf leather repairman (?) and is actually a fine kicker and a great addition to the cast. I can’t say I’m that familiar with his work, but he’s great in this.
Jackie Chan co-choreographed the fights and it’s immediately clear which moves are his. There’s a scene where the gang end up in a chamber being attacked by a bunch of fake monks (don’t ask me why, almost nothing makes sense in this film) and the fight that follows is pretty damn exciting, and bares all the hallmarks of Jackie’s style. While all of the other sequences in the film are rather hit-or-miss (and the penultimate battle where Lord Chu fights his impostor is downright dull) the film is worth seeing for this one scene alone.
The production values are typical of Lo Wei – which is to say everything looks pretty cheap and fragile and the considerable wirework is letdown by constantly visible wires. However, the film does have its own rousing theme tune, which struck me as a classy touch. But while we’re on the subject of music, I couldn’t help but give an involuntary giggle when part of the Star Wars score suddenly blasts out. Maybe Lo Wei didn’t think this new-fangled space opera would catch on, but the inclusion of one of the most well-known film scores in a cheap kung fu flick is pretty funny.
I recently criticised Dragon Fist for its Scooby Do-style ending, but if I had remembered the ending to this one, I would have saved the comment for this film. All that is missing is the “I would have gotten away with it as well if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!” line and this really would have felt like a job for Scooby and the gang. Although it does taper off a little, Magnificent Bodyguards is still an interesting little nugget of wackiness, with its Chinese Native Americans, bizarre restaurateurs, sci-fi-stealing theme tunes and face-flaying heroes. I’m quite surprised it wasn’t more of a hit, as I believe this was the first kung fu film in 3-D and the novelty value alone should have put bums on seats. It genuinely tries to be suspenseful, and I’ve seen a lot worse from the period.
The Return of the Sister Street Fighter (1975) October 16, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, 1970s films, Exploitation , add a commentDirector: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi Main cast: Etsuko Shihomi; Yasuaki Kurata; Masashi Ishibashi Territory: Japan Production Company: Toei
Koryu (Etsuko Shihomi) investigates a criminal organisation headed by Oh, a wheelchair-bound crime lord who has kidnapped a young girl’s mother. Koryu uncovers a den of the usual freaks in her search for justice.
Immediately upon putting this into the DVD player, I scrambled for the box – I had inadvertently put the previous film Sister Street Fighter: Hanging By a Thread on instead. However, after a close look, it turns out I had put the right disc in after all. The Return of the Sister Street Fighter is the worst case of movie deja vu I’ve ever experienced.
Starting in Hong Kong, just like the previous films, the action soon shifts to Japan – again, just like the previous two films. Again, the whole plot of the film is explained in a few lines of dialogue right at the beginning and we’re then thrust in at the deep end.
Again, we get an evil crime lord who seems closely related to both Dr No and Han from Enter the Dragon, and again his henchmen are an utterly bizarre bunch of freaks. The best includes a man who appears to be Bruce Lee’s evil twin and Masashi Ishibashi as a killer pimp. One wonders how crime could have got a foothold in Japan in the seventies – if the police simply rounded up everyone who looked abnormal, crime would have been obliterated overnight. Once again, Yasuaki Kurata shows up to audition for the bad guys and turns out to be quite a nice bloke in the end.
There’s a bit about gold smuggling just to give some semblance of story, but most of the time it’s just a series of fights and outlandish characters. The inclusion of a little girl for Koryu to look after while her mother’s being held by Oh is meant to lend some heart to the film, but it’s all too franticly paced you couldn’t connect on an emotional level even if you wanted to.
The evil Oh is quite funny, though, and so is his sideshow of freaks. As an evil genius, he’s never going to make it to the big league though: he sends six men to kidnap a small girl but only one man to kill Koryu. As you might expect, he doesn’t live long enough to work on his people-management techniques.
The fight scenes are pretty typical for the series, although again Yasuaki Kurata’s presence improves the film considerably. There’s also a nice wall-climbing stunt from Shihomi, who gives a fair account of herself again.
But on the whole, The Return of the Sister Street Fighter is just too familiar to be enjoyable, even though the brisk 77-minute running time means you’ll have plenty of time to fit another, more substantial movie into your evening should you wish to. Maybe that’s the best way to serve this film: as an appetiser.
To Kill With Intrigue (1977) October 1, 2008
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 10 commentsDirector: Lo Wei Main cast: Jackie Chan; Hsu Feng; San Yat-Lung; Yu Ling-Lung Territory: Taiwan Production Company: Lo Wei Motion Picture Co.
Sau Lai (Jackie Chan), the son of a clan leader, turns into an arrogant swine overnight – slapping his newly pregnant girlfriend Chin Chin (Yu Ling-Lung) around and insulting the guests at a party held by his father. His motive, however, is noble – he’s trying to turn everyone against him so they all leave before an attack by the remnants of the lethal Killer Bee gang, who had been all but wiped out by Sau Lai’s father many years ago, come to slaughter everyone he holds dear. The plan doesn’t work, and the attack leaves Sau Lai’s parents dead and the Killer Bee gang’s thirst for revenge quenched. The leader, Ting Chan-Yen (Hsu Feng) then begins a very unconventional relationship with Sau Lai. Meanwhile, Chin Chin is in exile and being looked after by Sau Lai’s new best friend Chen Chun (San Yat-Lung). Naturally, no one’s quite who or what they appear to be, and death, pain and permanent and unnecessary disfigurement ensue…
To Kill With Intrigue is probably an attempt to cash in on the Shaw Brothers hit of the same year Clans of Intrigue and is based on a novel by Gu Long (it might even have been the same novel for all I know). It is not quite as wild and frantic as its counterpart, but it’s not far off. I’m somewhat well known as a fan of this film, but for several reasons (which I’ll come to later) I’ve not seen it in a long time. I did write a year or two ago that “I’d probably hate it now”, so I was a little apprehensive of returning to it.
There’s no denying that stylistically, To Kill With Intrigue is a mess. It tries to be several things and ends up being a weird hybrid of wuxia, ghost story, kung fu film, and romantic drama. It’s very much like Lo Wei was throwing everything at the screen in the hope that something will stick (some years before Wong Jing patented the technique). The inclusion of Hsu Feng (who, incidentally, gets top billing) was probably meant to engender a sense of respectability to the project, but Lo Wei is no King Hu by any stretch of the imagination.
The pacing of the film is quite excellent, and the plot itself is quite interesting even if it is a lot harder to fathom than I remember. I kept expecting to go into flashback mode all the time, but it turns out Lo Wei could only afford one flashback scene in the whole movie. Actually, although I’m joking, it does seem as if this movie had a particularly tight budget, as the props and make-up look surprisingly cheap even for a production from Lo Wei. There’s certainly a hell of a lot of library music in the background. One piece in particular, meant to be Chin Chin’s “in love” music, is used a lot and I last heard it in a Shaw Brothers film from about 1971. I’ll be buggered if I can remember what it was now, but it’s bound to have been an Iron Triangle film (unless it was One Armed Swordsman or one of its sequels) and, as always, I’d be grateful if anyone knows what the piece is called and who wrote it – I’ve always been curious for some reason.
On the action front, this is one of Lo Wei’s more restrained films and the fight scenes have plenty of room to breathe. In between the action, there’s a kind of love triangle set up between Chen Chun, Chin Chin, Ting Chan-Yen and Sau Lai. And that’s a triangle with four sides, unless I’m very much mistaken – all at no extra cost! I like the style of the action scenes in this one for some reason and I can never quite put my finger on why. The fighting just seems more dynamic than some other films from this period, but I fully accept that it could just be my imagination. There are some parts I find funny in a rather sick way: Jackie bitch slapping his dippy girlfriend is more likely to provoke a round of enthusiastic applause than the gasps of horror it was intended to, and the wince when Hsu Feng disfigures Jackie had me laughing out loud.
When the mighty Shaw Brothers opened their vaults earlier in the decade, I discovered a lot of classics hitherto unknown to me. When I first saw this, I had no idea films such as Have Sword, Will Travel, The Heroic Ones, The Flying Dagger, The Devil’s Mirror, etc, even existed, let alone King Hu’s classic Taiwanese wuxia films for Union. I couldn’t help making unfavourable comparisons with those films and thought that this one should perhaps be consigned to memory. Another reason I haven’t seen it in a long time is that I was holding out for a decent DVD version.
The Region 1 Columbia DVD is not the answer to my prayers. The transfer’s not too bad (but isn’t remastered and shows quite a lot of wear and tear), but the disc suffers from terminal dubtitle syndrome. Yes, sentences begin with “but still” and end in “though” all the way through the film. Give me honest-to-goodness Chinglish any day. Furthermore, and I know this isn’t Columbia’s fault per se, but whoever thought it was appropriate for one character to bid “sayonara” to another needs shooting. No trial – just swift, violent execution.
Worse than that, the Mandarin audio (billed as Cantonese on the box and on the menu) disappears altogether in three scenes and is replaced with the English track. I can’t explain the confusion this causes when the language shifts, for no apparent reason, into English. I was fumbling about with the remote, thinking I’d switched it over, but no – someone was obviously asleep at the wheel at Columbia when making this disc. I’ve had a thing against Columbia ever since they butchered Gorgeous, but this cements their reputation for me. I’ll stick to the Ocean Shores VCD in future.
To Kill With Intrigue was another flop, and Jackie Chan himself once said that he pitied anyone who sat through it, which I think is a little harsh. I think it’s interesting inasmuch as it’s almost unique in Jackie’s oeuvre in that he plays quite a stern character. It’s also probably the closest Jackie ever came to making a wuxia film, although he only handles a sword once and for a brief amount of time. Watching some classic films of the 60’s and 70’s has certainly taken the shine off this cheap and not-too-cheerful flick, but it will always have a place in my heart. And there’s always the old story (which may even be true) that the name of Jackie’s girlfriend had to be changed in Japan because it was a slang term for penis. Making Hsu Feng’s angry retort when Jackie wakes from his coma whispering her name ever funnier: “All you think of is your Chin Chin!”
They don’t write ‘em like that anymore.
Dragon Fist (1978) September 6, 2008
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 8 commentsDirector: Lo Wei Main Cast: Jackie Chan; Nora Miao; Yen Shi-Kwan; Hsu Hsia Territory: Taiwan Production Company: Lo Wei Motion Picture Co
Dragon Fist starts in an extremely dubious way and promises to be another revenge flick from Lo Wei studios and yet another Jackie Chan film before he found success. Yawn. The opening scene, in which a cartoon villain challenges the upstanding leader of Jackie’s clan to a dual bodes ill, as does the Fist-of-Fury-esque way the winner destroys the plaque of the honourable (are you getting the message yet?) Tang San Clan after killing the kindly Sam Tai. I wanted to scythe my own leg off at the prospect of such tedium.
But, you know what? Dragon Fist is actually a very unusual kung fu flick. In fact, I’ll say it’s quite unique in that it is a revenge film, but completely unlike any I’ve seen before. And I’ve seen a few - oh yes, I’ve seen a few…
After the yawn-inducing opening, it turns out the head of the Champion’s Clan and thoroughly bad guy (Yen Shi-Kwan), has an ulterior motive for knocking off Sam Tai – he once had an affair with his wife. Afterwards, the wife, wracked with remorse because her former lover’s dead by her husband’s spinning kicks, hangs herself. So what does the evil bad guy do? Seek further revenge? Laugh evilly and then stroke his beard before wiping the Tang San Clan off the face of the earth? Surprisingly, no. He is so regretful of the whole incident that he goes into retreat and chops his leg off in penitence. And this isn’t the I’m-feigning-remorse-to-lull-you-into-a-false-sense-of-security-then-hack-you-to-bits kind of remorse, this is the real deal. He even changes the name of his school to the Patience Clan.
So when Jackie shows up at the Patience Clan’s school to take revenge at the death of his master, taking along Sam Tai’s mother and daughter (Nora Miao), he gets the wind completely knocked out of his sails when he finds out the man responsible is a cripple and desperately seeking atonement for his crimes. All is not as it seems elsewhere though, when another Clan, the Ngais, start to headhunt Jackie for odd jobs and this clashes with the Patience Clan’s new policy of non-aggression.
Dragon Fist is a film I’m very familiar with but I’ve seen it with open eyes this time around. While I was expecting the worst (I’ve never been what you would call a “fan” of the film) this was a very pleasant surprise. I also don’t remember the fight scenes being quite as exciting as they are. Jackie again directs the action in this and it’s clear that he was really getting the hang of the job at this point in his career. He really lets rip here and every action scene featuring him are well choreographed, which can’t be said for many of his Lo Wei films.
The only real fly in the ointment (apart from the ultra-lame opening) is the film’s need to explain everything, Scooby Do-style, right near the end – it kills the atmosphere and brings everything to a very embarrassing halt for a while. To make up for it though, Jackie kicks serious arse in the finale, and that’s more important than clumsy exposition scenes in a 70s Kung Fu flick.
The presentation on the recent Hong Kong Legends disc is distinctly better than any other version I’ve seen before (which is more than I care to admit for a film I’ve already admitted isn’t highly regard by me). The sound and video mastering problems I noticed on their DVD of Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin are not repeated here bar a few colour issues that inevitably pop up on the film.
I know this is said by at least one person about every Chan/Lo Wei collaboration, but Dragon Fist really is one of the better Lo Wei films. Honest.
Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin (1978) August 30, 2008
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 10 commentsDirector: Chen Chi-Hwa Main Cast: Jackie Chan; Nora Miao; Kam Kong; Gam Ching-Lan Territory: Taiwan Production Company: Lo Wei Motion Picture Co.
Eight masters of Shaolin mysteriously disappear, apparently taking the secrets of the hybrid “Snake and Crane” style of kung fu with them. When Hsu Ying-Fung (Chan) is seen carrying a book entitled “The Eight Steps of the Snake and Crane”, all manner of interested parties show up wanting the book for themselves.
Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin is seen by many as a bit of a “bridge” in Jackie’s oeuvre, from his straight-faced films with Lo Wei to the comedic films that would make him a star. What strikes me looking at the film now is the difference in tone between the action scenes (choreographed by Chan) and the rest of the film (directed by Chen Chi-Hwa, who would go on to direct Chan’s full-on comedy Half a Loaf of Kung Fu). While the action scenes are quite light and sometimes overtly comic, the rest of the film is drowned in its own seriousness.
The film is a confusing tale of gangs and individuals who all want Jackie’s book, and it would probably have worked better as a farce, instead of this attempt at drama and intrigue. I’ve seen this one perhaps half a dozen times now and I still have trouble working out who wants to do what to whom and why. It all adds up to a bit of a disappointing mess, in truth, although not as bad as some of Jackie’s other films for Lo Wei.
The action scenes are ridiculously plentiful – this is one of the most action packed films I’ve ever seen. While this sounds like a recommendation, it all gets a bit much after a while and ends up like: meet, fight, talk, fight, meet someone else, fight, talk, get betrayed by former friend, fight, fight, talk, meet someone else, fight them for no reason, talk, fight etc, etc. Also, I was amused that the martial arts shown in the opening title sequence (as usual, against a red backdrop in a studio) have no relevance to the film.
Like a lot of Jackie’s Lo Wei films, I’ve held off seeing this again until a better version came along, having had to put up with grainy fullscreen VHS tapes or VCDs for a long time. The “Ultra-Bit” mastering job by the late company Hong Kong Legends is probably the best we’re ever going to get, but the restoration is quite obvious at times, and the colours go completely crazy occasionally. I don’t know if this is the original audio version (I’ve always had to put up with the English dub until now) but I found the Mandarin track quite strange to listen to. The voice given to Jackie is one thing, but the voice given to Nora Miao is nothing short of bizarre – high pitched and girlish – when she’s supposed to be a warrior woman not to be trifled with.
I’ve come to the conclusion I’m never going to like Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin all that much, despite being frequently referred to as one of the better films Jackie made under Lo Wei. It’s too draining on both the eyes and the noggin, and the 96 minute running time becomes more like an endurance test than entertainment.
Cub Tiger from Kwang Tung (c.1971) August 27, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, 1970s films , 12 commentsDirector: Ngai Hoi Fung Main Cast: Jackie Chan; Chan Hung Lit; Shu Pui Pui; Tin Fung Territory: Hong Kong
The widely held belief of Cub Tiger from Kwang Tung is that some of it was shot, the production ran out of money and the whole thing was abandoned and forgotten about until Jackie became a star, whereby some new (Jackie-less) scenes were filmed to create Master with Cracked Fingers (AKA Snake Fist Fighter). Jackie Chan himself, it seems, also holds this belief.
However, the truth is this film was undeniably completed (it has a beginning, a middle and an end), and watching it now is an eye-opener. This is a pre-New Fist of Fury starring role for Jackie (billed as Chan Yuen Lung – “Yuen Lung” being Sammo Hung’s old opera name) and I’m pretty sure it has no precedent. The film itself is almost immaterial when compared to its historical significance, and that’s just as well as it isn’t that good. Following the template made by The Big Boss, Lung (Chan) stands up to a bunch of local hoodlums but is forbidden to fight by his father. Cue lots of agonising “should I fight, or should I do what my father wants?” internal struggles from the young (and I mean young) star. The script tends towards sentiment and melodrama too much for my liking, and I sometimes felt I was being repeatedly hit on the head by moral dilemma after moral dilemma.
But Jackie’s litheness startled me after watching latter-day efforts like The Tuxedo – he flips, gambols and jumps about all over the place like the star he would become. I hadn’t seen this film before, but I had seen Master with Cracked Fingers. I only saw it once, but rather enjoyed it despite feeling that something wasn’t quite right about it (I don’t think I even twigged that it wasn’t Jackie in the newer material – I was very much a novice at that time). Maybe the extra material added another dimension (well, Yuen Siu-Tin was involved, so it’s possible) but Cub Tiger from Kwang Tung is a very forgettable entry in the genre if judged on its own merits.
But if you’re a Chan completist like me, you’ll probably find this movie pretty fascinating. Hong Kong movie information is hard to substantiate, but I think this was made around the time of Not Scared to Die and Police Woman (actually, this film has the same director as the latter) but Chan had relatively minor roles in those films. Even though the movie is less than stellar, the moves and a little of Chan’s impish humour is there. If you’re new to Jackie Chan, get his better films first (anything made between 1978 and 1991 would be a good bet), but if you’ve explored his Lo Wei films and want to know where it really all began, then this is a must.
No review of the film is complete without at least mentioning the state the film’s actually in. Even at its best, the picture quality is pretty rough, and the print has severe wear to it. The screen is cropped (I don’t know why) and this has resulted in the obliteration of some of the original subtitles. To get around this, the option of watching the film with “extra subtitles” is given on the Rarescope DVD – remastered, removable subs that appear every time the originals are at least partially obscured by the cropping. It’s a nice touch (I know a lot of companies wouldn’t have bothered) but it can be a little distracting for the eye to keep switching between two sets of subtitles – especially when you can still read the original text and the remastered subs say something quite different!
The DVD has one surprise up its sleeve – someone’s personal camcorder recording of Jackie’s appearance at a movie screening in Britain around the time of Mr Nice Guy. This footage made me remember why I like Jackie the man and why I’m slowly getting sick of my own countrymen and our loutish behaviour. Jackie is heckled throughout the appearance by catcalls of “let’s see some moves” (are these people really fans?) and is asked by Toby Russell (of “Eastern Heroes” fame - I’m pretty sure it’s him anyway) when he’s “going to make Drunken Master 3” (despite the Jackie-less but definitely official Drunken Master 3 coming out the same year as its predecessor). Jackie smiles and is extremely gracious throughout despite the lack of manners being shown to him and the awkward silences that ensue when it becomes clear he’s not going to start doing his Drunken Monkey routine. He’s a class act, and perhaps the only good thing to come out of his international success later in that decade was that he wouldn’t have to do crap like that anymore.
Le Cercle Rouge (1970) August 13, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 1970s films, Non-Asian , 10 commentsDirector: Jean-Pierre Melville Main Cast: Alain Delon; Gian-Maria Volontè; Yves Montand; André Bourvil Territory: France/Italy
“The Buddha took a piece of red chalk and drew a circle, saying: “When men, though unaware of it, must meet again some day, anything can happen to any one of them and they may follow diverging paths to the given day when, ineluctably they will be reunited within the red circle.”
This quote, attributed to Rama Krishna (but, like the quote opening Le Samouraï, was entirely made up by Melville) starts Le Cercle Rouge, a heist thriller attempting to emulate the great American crime thrillers but with a uniquely French flavour.
Alain Delon is Corey, a man given information prior to his release from prison about a possible heist target. Meanwhile, Vogel (Gian-Maria Volontè) escapes from custody from Le Commissaire Mattei (André Bourvil) and sparks an extensive hunt. The two men don’t know each other, but are thrown together when Vogel hitches a ride in the boot of Corey’s car. Together with Jansen (Yves Montand), an alcoholic sharpshooter with some severe personal demons, they execute a daring jewellery heist. Always one step behind, though, is Mattei.
Melville does another fine minimalist job here. The recurring theme seems to be that all men are guilty. One character opines: “They [men] come into the world innocent but it doesn’t last”. With comments like that, it’s not surprising the film has a very dark, nihilistic feel to it.
All of the characters seem damaged in some way. Corey is obviously nursing a broken heart on release from prison – although he never utters so much as a word on the subject during the entire film, Vogel is on the run from the law and might in fact be innocent of the crime he is supposed to have committed, and Jansen sees a menagerie of nasty creepy-crawlies and reptiles every night coming out of his bedroom cupboard. Even the policeman Mattei seems to have a very limited private life with just his three cats for company.
Again, the film has little dialogue, and whole minutes go by without anyone uttering a single word. Although the film is essentially about a jewellery heist, this does not actually happen until quite late in the film. Until then, it’s all about the characters as they travel from Marseilles to Paris (oh, and there is one shot of the Eiffel Tower in this film!). The actual heist section reminded me for some reason of the underrated John Woo film Once a Thief, although this is obviously a lot darker in tone than Woo’s light comedy thriller.
The performances are top notch, with Delon looking suave despite an ill-advised moustache. Gian-Maria Volontè will be familiar to anyone who has seen the first two films in Leone’s Dollars trilogy, and turns in a fine performance here. The real star, though, as far as I’m concerned is Montand as Jansen, who, after pulling off a spectacular feat of shooting, denies himself a drink but instead is content with a sniff from his hip flask. Le Cercle Rouge is great to look at, with fantastic cinematography and great camerawork. It’s also great to listen to, with a memorable jazzy soundtrack typical of the period that always invokes warm pangs of nostalgia from me even though I didn’t actually live through the period.
Dark, nihilistic, subtle, and oozing class, Le Cercle Rouge is a crime thriller unlike anything I’ve seen before and will probably reveal even more gems on future viewings.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Zero - for now. However, with Johnny To directing a remake, I’d be disappointed if he doesn’t show. With it being an English-language movie, though, I’m not sure how big his role could be. Fingers crossed…
Actually, the prospect of To directing a remake of this film conflicts me a bit. I hate remakes as a rule, but the prospect of To doing it does interest me a bit. I would have preferred it if it was a Hong Kong movie, though.
The Savage Five (1974) August 7, 2008
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , add a commentDirector: Chang Cheh Main Cast: David Chiang; Ti Lung; Danny Lee; Chen Kuan Tai; Wang Chung Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
A small township’s sleepy and peaceful existence is brought to a brutal end when a gang of bandits happen to stop there after raiding a major bank. Their prize - a large safe - is brought in with the idea that someone can open it for them and burn off the seal from the gold bars held within. The bandits terrorise the town with ruthless efficiency, raping and killing with wonton abandon until their wish can be fulfilled. Against this, a few men band together to save the town from a devastating fate: a failed kung fu practitioner (Ti Lung), a woodcutter (Chen Kuan-Tai), a blacksmith (Danny Lee) and a kung fu acrobat from out of town who is recuperating from illness in the town’s inn (Wang Chung). There’s also a petty thief with an elusive past (David Chiang), who seems to have made a home in the township stealing chickens and generally making a minor nuisance of himself. But he’s a coward and can’t be much use to them - unless the secret he’s hiding proves to be the key to the township’s survival…It’s said that the inspiration to the Savage Five lies with Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (which is no bad thing), but this also has a lot of similarities with the Spaghetti Westerns of the early 70’s. In fact, the style of the score of this film is slightly reminiscent of the genre, and wouldn’t have been out of place in one of Sergio Leone’s classics.
The pace of the film is excellent, and is tense and exciting throughout with just one predictable twist along the way. I just love the characters and what they bring to the film, but particular mention must go to Wang Chung’s kung fu acrobat. When we meet him, he’s ill (probably with the ‘flu) and being chucked out of the town’s inn by the bandits (who want the place to themselves). He misunderstands the situation and thinks the innkeeper wants him out because he’s ill. The resulting dialogue between him and the innkeeper really helps the viewer bond and sympathise with the townsfolk’s fate.No-one lets the side down in this film, and I truly believe there’s no more exciting experience in Hong Kong cinema during the early 70’s than to see Chen Kuan-Tai going completely apeshit on a bunch of bad guys with some sharp piece of hardware. And guess what? He doesn’t disappoint!
In amongst all of this you also have some great heroics. For this, you’ve got Ti Lung and Danny Lee, who serve as the film’s underdogs who are willing (if need be) to sacrifice themselves for the town. And then there’s the wildcard – Mr David Chiang – who appears to be a no-good thief from out of town who is content to steal chickens and trick the farmers with a winning smile and a few conciliatory words.There’s your “Five” from the title, and you have to wonder what the bad guys were thinking, going against such a crowd. My only gripe with this is that the townsfolk are rather robotic and unemotional (they tend to “gang” together and don’t really exhibit human behaviour at times). Everything else is just sheer class, from the script to the performances. The action scenes kick in after about the half hour mark – this is mainly a story-driven film up to this point. After that, they are plentiful and damn good for their day (as usual, Lau Kar-Leung is one of Chang Cheh’s choreographers).But it’s simply the few-against-many angle that really satisfies. The good guys are very good, that bad guys are VERY VERY bad, and you are left with no doubt as to who you want to win this clash.Highly recommended!