Virus (1980) June 2, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Thriller, 1980s films , 4 commentsDirector: Kinji Fukasaku Cast: Masao Kusakari, Bo Svenson, George Kennedy, Robert Vaughn Territory: Japan
A horrifying man-made virus is unleashed onto the world – killing everyone except the world’s scientists stationed in Antarctica and the crew of a nuclear submarine which set sail before the outbreak. The stunned survivors gather together, but find that old nationalistic prejudices still apply despite the apocalypse. Then, a final act of human stupidity threatens to destroy the Antarctic base and finally put an end to mankind.
My all-time favourite novel is Stephen King’s The Stand, which has clearly been used as a template for the apocalyptic theme of this film. Both use a man-made flu-like virus which is accidentally unleashed (although I can’t remember now if this was ever explicitly mentioned in the first published version of The Stand, which was the only version available at the time this film was made) and devastates the world. It does then veer off in a different direction, with the survivors at the South Pole trying to resurrect the human race against a Cold War backdrop.
To give it its due Virus has aged particularly well, Cold War references aside. A lot of the themes could well apply today, and, for a film set in the near future of 1982, that is certainly quite a feat. The scope of the film is also extremely commendable – it seems that no sociological issue is left unaddressed. It’s often a downfall of films like these that gloss over certain important issues, whether it be social, sexual, political, national or suchlike.
And that’s where, I think, the film falls down. I feel Virus never really establishes a focus. It can be reasonably said that there is no “star” of this film, and that can be a tad disconcerting. A case could be made that Masao Kusakari is the focus as he has the most screen time, but his character is as broadly drawn as anybody’s, really. And his English is not quite good enough to carry him through the picture – there were several times I found myself struggling to understand him.
I also have trouble with the film’s response to sexual attitude – after the rape of one of the community’s eight women, the response is along the lines of “well, it’s terrible, but it’s bound to happen”. They then rule that the women must, essentially, “service” the 850-odd men on a rota basis. The women, evidently, do not argue against this. Abstinence is not an option, then?
All of the detail that Virus goes into portray the end of the world makes for a pretty plodding movie, and it’s only in the last half hour that it really takes off. I understand the film bombed on release, which is probably why I’d never heard of it until about three weeks ago. But the large-scale international cast and high production values (it was the most expensive film from Japan at the time) do make for a reasonably well-presented project. However, Chuck Connors as an Englishman? I think not! Actually, the best bit of casting goes to the bloke who played Dr Horatio Kane in my old favourite Kill and Kill Again. He even gets a couple of lines!
The version reviewed here is the full Japanese version, which has been remastered and presented in widescreen and runs at about 2 hours 35 minutes. There are other versions available, but they are abridged and usually fullscreen. The full-length version can be obtained on Region 1 DVD on the “Sonny Chiba Action Pack”, which is odd as it’s not an action movie nor a Sonny Chiba movie (he has about thirty seconds worth of screen time and maybe two lines of dialogue). Although it can’t complete with other apocalypse films (one of my favourites is a little New Zealand film called The Quiet Earth) it is rather a shame that the film seems to have fallen by the wayside and largely been forgotten.
Crippled Avengers (1978) May 31, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, 1970s films, Kung Fu , 3 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh Cast: Phillip Kwok, Lo Meng, Chiang Sheng, Sun Chien, Lu Feng, Chen Kuan-Tai Action Director: Lu Feng, Chiang Sheng, Robert Tai Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
AKA: Avengers Handicapped
It all sounds like a sick joke (or an episode of South Park), but Crippled Avengers is a Chang Cheh film reuniting most of the cast from his hit film The Five Venoms.
The plot is easy enough to follow. Towards the late 70’s, Cheh seemed to have given up on complicated, historically based projects and favoured more direct and fast-moving action films. This one’s basically about a rogue lord (Chen Kuan-Tai) who, having had his family killed or handicapped in an attack at his home, becomes obsessed with disabling anyone who stands up to him. He and his son (who had both arms sliced off and replaced with iron prosthetics) basically bully their way around town. Coming up against him results in one man losing the power of speech and hearing, one man losing his sight, another his legs and finally one man is reduced to having a childlike mentality. These men group together and go to Eagle Mansion, where they spend three years training and learning to work together to compensate for each others’ disabilities.
Which sounds pretty run-of-the-mill, not to mention slightly crazy and in bad taste. However, the only truly wacko stuff happens right at the start – after his young son has both arms severed, we immediately cut to him many years later as a grown man with artificial arms and his father saying, “I told you I would give you new arms!”, to which his son says something along the lines of, “Yes, these are the seventh set and by far the best!” That kind of bad scripting to show a passage of time (there’s probably a name for it, but I don’t know what it is) is just embarrassing to watch. We also see these new arms, which can fire lethal darts and extend – which is also a bit screwy. Thing is, all this happens in the first few minutes and I don’t think he ever uses them to any great advantage again in the movie!
Thankfully, the rest of the film is sheer class. The physicality of these men is truly awesome, and their skill is simply breathtaking. The exciting and plentiful fight scenes are peppered with acrobatics we’re probably never going to see again in this digital age, and the training scenes are some of the best that Kung Fu film fans can want for. The four heroes exhibit a great sense of camaraderie and have a very tangible chemistry with each other (although this could be because we know them from The Five Venoms) that at times this enters into “buddy” movie territory.
I don’t know if it was intended, but there’s also some really good, dark humour in this; in fact, it’s riddled with it. Again, I’m paraphrasing, but when Dao’s son meets the soon-to-be-blind Avenger, the dialogue goes something like this:
Dao’s son: Fight me!
Avenger: But you have no arms!
Dao’s son: Well, I have no arms and you have no eyes. It’s a fair fight!
Avenger: Why would you say that? I HAVE eyes!
Poke!
Avenger: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgghh! (Writhes around on floor in agony)
You have to admit, he asked for it.
This is the first time I’ve seen Crippled Avengers, despite its notoriety. I know someone’s going to tell me otherwise, but I just don’t think it was ever available in the UK. Which turns out well in the end because I’ve seen something truly fantastic in the genre for the first time and it gives me hope that there’s still more great films out there for me to discover. It’s films like this that make me proud to be a Kung Fu film fan. And dare I say it - I thought it was better than the Five Venoms. Crippled Avengers: where have you been all my life?
Junk (2000) May 24, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Horror , 2 commentsDirector: Atsushi Muroga Cast: Kaori Shimamura, Shu Ehara, Yuji Kishimoto, Miwa Yanagizawa Territory: Japan
In an old, disused chemical plant sanctioned by a contingent of the US military in Japan, a western doctor is reviving a dead woman using a special concoction called DNX. The woman does indeed return to life, but unfortunately tends to be a bit psychotic and has a taste for human flesh. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a group of amateur jewel thieves and their getaway driver (Kaori Shimamura) are pulling off a heist that will see them comfortably well off for some time. The robbery is successful, although Akira (Shu Ehara) is disabled after being stabbed violently in the foot. The gang arrive early at the rendezvous with their Yakuza fence and his mob and take the time to explore the factory a little. That’s right, it’s the same disused chemical plant where the experiment took place, and there’s a zombie on the loose! Pretty soon, thanks to some totally irresponsible storage of this DNX stuff on a shelf right next to a row of dead bodies, our heroes are overrun with zombies. Things only get worse when the Yakuza show up – they decided to screw over the thieves and take the loot themselves. However, they foolishly ignore the gang’s insistence that the place is swarming with hostile dead and pretty soon you’ve got a situation where the Yakuza are trying to kill the thieves (and vice versa) while the zombies are happily munching on everyone stupid enough to stand still for more than 30 seconds. Then the military send in a team to try to sort the problem out…
Junk is a low-budget shot-on-video Japanese zombie flick. It has some really cringeworthy English language acting – there are a fair few Americans in the film and they don’t seem to be able to carry a line of dialogue. Another problem is one of the Japanese actors is forced to speak in English and he’s unfortunately pretty unintelligible (thankfully, the subtitles are provided for the English language dialogue too, which is usually something I hate but is a blessing here). It’s also a bit on the unbelievable side (even for a zombie movie) and the inclusion of a super-zombie (Miwa Yanagizawa) isn’t really playing by the rules, in my opinion.
However, the main problem I had was that the original zombie is brought back to life with a syringe of this DNX stuff. We see the doctor carefully insert the needle into her arm and administer the shot. One question: how the *censored* is that going to work? Seriously, did anyone think this through? Even the guy playing the doctor should have said, “erm, actually, Mr Director, circulation is a process that ends at the time of death. I don’t think sticking her with a needle is going to do much good.” Anyway, it all kind of redeems itself later when some of the corpses are splashed with the stuff and come back to life, but that lapse in the laws of basic biological science did make me groan.
Anyway. If all this sounds really negative, there are some positives. Despite how it sounds, a couple of the jewel thieves are actually quite likeable, and you can find yourself rooting for their characters. I liked the idea of pitting the Yakuza against both the jewel theives AND the zombies – so that essentially you’ve got three factions trying to kill or eat (or both) each other. Furthermore, there are times when the zombie tension builds quite effectively. These are the slow-moving, brainless variety of zombie, that only gets its way by sheer weight of numbers – later on, there seem to be hundreds of the buggers! The gore effects are also quite good for the budget, and the zombie feeding scenes are suitably nasty.
If you’re willing to put up with a lot of dodgy acting, some rather implausible (and illogical) plotting, and the rather “cold” feel of a film shot on video, you can do a lot worse than Junk. But be warned that it really is just a bit of low-budget fun and no substitute for the truly great zombie films like Dawn of the Dead.
And in case you’re wondering, I’m now all out of Asian zombie flicks (I’m not watching Bio-Cops again for any price!). Normal service will be resumed shortly.
Bio Zombie (1998) May 20, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Horror, Comedy, 1990s films , 4 commentsDirector: Wilson Yip Cast: Jordan Chan, Sam Lee, Angela Tong, Lai Yiu-Cheung, Emotion Cheung Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Cameron Entertainment Co
Long before Zack Snyder made the official Dawn of the Dead remake, Wilson Yip (who would later go on to helm the ultra-slick and ultra-stylish SPL) made his own. Sure, it has more laughs than frights, but the basic premise of a bunch of survivors in a mall over-run with the walking dead remains the same.
The twist here is that the survivors want to get out of the mall as it has become the centre of the zombie activity thanks in no small part to our two heroes. Woody Invincible (Jordan Chan) and Crazy Bee (Sam Lee) are two slackers who run a dodgy VCD stall in the mall (having seen the quality of their stock, I think I may have purchased some of their VCDs in the past), while Woody’s would-be girlfriend Rolls (Angela Tong) is a vacuous beautician who strings along “Sushi Boy” (the wonderfully named Emotion Cheung), a well-meaning chef in the Mall’s Japanese restaurant just to get a discount. Rounding out the crew are Woody and Crazy Bee’s scumbag boss Mr Kui (Lai Yiu-Cheung) and his beautiful but downtrodden wife (Tam Suk-Mui). It is a testament to Lai’s skill as an actor that he pulls off such a vile role so well after playing the kindly, gentle “Piggy” in TVB’s Journey to the West! From this essentially unlikeable cast of characters we have what passes for Bio Zombie’s heroes – but it’s best not to pass judgement on them until they show their mettle in a crisis situation.
There’s a plot in here, but for the first forty minutes you’d hardly know it. A biological agent is stored in a bottle of Lucozade (surely a recipe for disaster right from the start!) and is being sold illegally nearby. This agent can turn people into killing machines – albeit very slow, shuffling killing machines with a taste for human flesh. The deal goes horribly wrong when the test case escapes and eats the weapons dealers. A survivor is picked up by the two slackers when they inadvertently knock him over in their car – and is given a drink from the Lucozade bottle to perk him up! The survivor, left for dead in the boot of Woody’s car, goes on a rampage when they reach the mall and thus kicks off the zombie invasion.
There’s some weird stuff in the first half of Bio-Zombie that has nothing whatsoever to do with zombies and has no place in a horror film. The comedy factor is so high early on that you actually forget what’s going to happen, and when it does, it’s quite a shock. The acting is quite remarkable at times, and much higher than you’d expect in a movie like this. The preliminary scenes setting up the heroes and villains pay off big time come the final reel because of all the goofing around earlier, not despite it. It even conjures up a fair bit of tension at times, particularly when the pair are handcuffed in the Security Guards’ office during an attack. The zombie make-up is not terribly complex or groundbreaking, but this doesn’t hamper the fun in any way. The zombies themselves are straight out of Romero’s world, and the same rules apply: only severe head wounds (preferably a headshot with a firearm) will stop them, and anything else is just going to fail.
The Mei-Ah DVD is a bit of a travesty, it has to be said. There is a US version, I believe, that has a very entertaining dub, but that sort of thing goes against the grain for me and I can’t see myself ever watching it. The problem with the Mei-Ah disc is the sound – it’s probably the worst I’ve ever heard on DVD. The picture is no more than adequate, but the subs throw up some strange “Chinglish” on occasions – such as when Woody and Sushi Boy burst into the gents’ toilet to find Crazy Bee in there. When asked what he was doing, he shouts back, “I am stooling!”. There are quite a few nuggets like that in here. The main selling point seems to be the very short alternate ending, but it is rather pointless and seems to have been filmed without serious consideration of actually being used.
Sam Lee would return (as a different character) in Bio Cops – an unnecessary and unsatisfying sequel that should have taken a headshot in the planning stages.
Versus (2000) May 19, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Horror, Action, Supernatural , 2 commentsDirector: Ryuhei Kitamura Cast: Tak Sakaguchi, Hideo Sakaki, Kenji Matsuda, Chieko Misaka Territory: Japan
AKA: The Forest of Resurrection
A couple of recently escaped convicts (including Tak Sakaguchi) rendezvous with their Yakuza cohorts on the outskirts of a forest. The convict is not too pleased that they’ve brought along a female they’ve kidnapped (Chieko Misaka) for no readily apparent reason. Shots are exchanged, and the convict’s partner goes down. And gets back up again. It turns out that anyone who dies in the Forest of Resurrection (which is placed over the 444th portal to the land of the dead) will return to an undead state. The trouble is, the Yakuza have been using the forest to bury the bodies of their dead victims, and when they return to life they’re not in a forgiving mood. Which in itself is bad enough, but then the boss of the Yakuza shows up and it becomes apparent he’s more than he appears to be, and holds the answer to why the convict and the girl have been brought here.
Versus is a bit of a “difficult” film for a number of reasons, not least because no one is ever referred to by name. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film in which not one name is uttered by anyone for the entire length of a film. Another problem is that I’m sure there are some cultural references I’m still just not getting. The final one I’ve started to come to terms with – Versus has some blacker than black comedy that will leave some completely nonplussed. Comedy is perhaps the hardest thing to translate and put across to a foreign audience, and on first viewing I thought this was as straight a film as you could make. Now, I find it hard to believe I ever had that view – at times, Versus is bloody hilarious.
It’s also one of the goriest films I’ve seen, and the gore effects are pretty damn good. An army of zombies is dispatched early on in a bloodbath that would turn Romero green with envy. And it doesn’t stop there – with Yakuza, immortal swordsmen and zombies about, you can be sure there’s enough of the red stuff thrown around to keep even the bloodiest gorehound happy. It also has a lot of Kung Fu (yes, in a Japanese film) which is pretty effective most of the time, but is let down by poor wirework. Unfortunately, this seems to be the Achilles heel of the action scenes in that the wires are pretty much always visible.
It’s also a little overlong (at just under 2 hours) and the relentless woodland setting (apart from a brief car interior shot and the coda, the entire film takes place outdoors in the forest) can be a bit much. And it can still be a trifle confusing. But I’d have to say that Versus worked a hell of a lot better second time around.
Rouge (1988) May 13, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Drama, Romance, Supernatural , add a commentDirector: Stanley Kwan Starring: Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung, Emily Chu, Alex Man Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Golden Harvest/Golden Way
In 1934, 12th Master Chan (Leslie Cheung) is a son of a wealthy, high profile businessman. He becomes increasingly infatuated with concubine Fleur (Anita Mui), who succumbs to the 12th Master’s charms leading the pair to fall hopelessly in love. However, the match is not blessed by Chan’s parents, who understandably wish for their son to find a more respectable woman to share his life. Meanwhile, in 1987, a news printer runs into a mysterious woman who is searching for her lost love.
ROUGE won a boatload of awards on its release in 1988 with its sharp script, interesting leads and haunting theme. It is often regarded as an “art-house” film (whatever THAT means) but the truth is it’s just a superior film that tells a great story in quite a unique way. Some of the techniques and plot devices are a LITTLE heavy-handed VERY occasionally, but other than that it is free of the usual “arty” clichés that can bog a film down. In fact, it’s refreshingly free of sentiment and melodrama, and moves at a cracking pace.
Alex Man and Emily Chu are brilliant as the modern day couple – with the type of practical relationship characteristic of modern times. The contrast between them and the passion and earnestness of the 12th Master and Fleur is one of the driving points of the film – and definitely one of the elements that really make it work. The lead characters played by Cheung and Mui are, of course, the focal point of the piece, and it has to be said that they make a convincing couple. Obviously these days the film is lent a special kind of poignancy as neither of them survived to reach old age, but it remains that this was a classic well before tragedy struck in real life.
One word of warning to newcomers: if you buy the Fortune Star DVD of this film, do not read the back of the box as it gives everything away. It’s not The Sixth Sense, but this film definitely works better when you know as little as possible about the plot. When I first saw the film, I knew literally nothing about it, and was blown away. What I’ve written in the first paragraph of this review is enough (or indeed too much) for you to enter the world of Rouge and come away from the experience knowing that you’ve seen something truly different.
Love on Delivery (1994)
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Comedy , add a commentDirector: Lee Lik-Chi Starring: Chow Sing-Chi (Stephen Chiau), Ng Man-Tat, Christy Chung Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Cosmopolitan Film Productions
Hapless delivery boy Ho (Chiau Sing-Chi) falls for pretty Judo student Lily (Christy Chung). However, his advances are spurned, as she believes Ho to be a coward. All is not lost though, as Ho makes the acquaintance of a seedy looking kung fu master (Ng Man-Tat), who isn’t all he seems to be. Ho must overcome his innate cowardliness and take on all his love-rivals – and face a brutal showdown with a martial arts master who most definitely IS the real thing!
Stephen Chiau’s comedies from this period (before he found worldwide fame) tend to be very Hong-Kong orientated and some are downright unfathomable to western audiences (take Justice, My Foot for instance). However, Love on Delivery uses no discernable trickery with the Cantonese language as far as I can see, and the jokes work in English quite well (although a working knowledge of Chinese pop-culture is highly recommended).
I’d even go as far as to say that pound for pound, for non-Cantonese speakers, Love on Delivery is probably the funniest film Chiau has ever made.
It may be low budget, but it certainly packs the gags in. Some are obvious (yes, even blindingly obvious), but you’ll be surprised at the subtlety of some of the visual gags. It “misses” more than it “hits” I suppose, but with the sheer amount of jokes thrown at it there’s usually something you can have a chuckle at. Highlights are plenty, but mention has got to be made of the Terminator 2 parody and the scene where Chiau becomes a Garfield-masked superhero. Crazy stuff, but Chiau has never been more likeable than in this film.
Love on Delivery has recently been remastered by Celestial and released as part of the legendary Shaw Brothers catalogue – a move that is long overdue for this classic comedy. The previous release by Mei-Ah was just a VCD port with the customary burnt-in subtitles (which go missing for the fight commentary at the end) and was noticeably worse than my old VHS version. There are a few odd moments (there’s a reference to Brokeback Mountain here – some eleven years before it was made!) but on the whole, they work well.
Funnier than Shaolin Soccer, less pretentious than Kung Fu Hustle, and easily less offensive than some of his 90’s films, Love on Delivery is still worth a look. But beware, the humour is dating fast. See it while it’s still funny.
Black Samurai (1976) May 11, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Action, Blaxploitation, 1970s films, Bad Films , 8 commentsDirector: Al Adamson Starring: Jim Kelly, Bill Roy, Marilyn Joi Territory: USA Production Company: BJLJ International Corp.
Agent of D.R.A.G.O.N Robert Sand (Jim Kelly) is ordered by his shadowy bosses to save his own girlfriend from certain death at the hands of the ruthless drug lord Janicot who has kidnapped her and is holding her hostage in a tower. Although he’s on holiday at the time, Sand grudgingly agrees to save her. What a guy. Blah blah voodoo rituals blah villain has own personal army blah blah blah overwhelming odds etc etc. You know the story.
There certainly are a few revelations in this film. The first is it’s apparently based on a novel by a guy called Marc Olden, and amazingly some of his books appear to be still in print – even after this film. The second is that this Blaxploitation picture is a bit of a departure for the director, who was more at home in the horror/ B movie field. A quick glance at his filmography makes me want to go and see his films, with titles such as: Blazing Stewardesses, I Spit on your Corpse! (You’ve got to include the exclamation mark or the title just doesn’t have the impact), Lash of Lust, Blood of Ghastly Horror, Dracula Vs Frankenstein, Horror of the Blood Monsters and Satan’s Sadists. Sadly, I understand he was murdered and hidden under the floor of his own bathroom in the 90’s.
Anyway, the film. Everyone should know by now I like the occasional “bad film” and I don’t think they come any worse than this. It’s utterly utterly hopeless. The acting is some of the worst I’ve ever seen, with some delightfully bad dialogue thrown in. The open-air end fight is strange, too: the trash talking dialogue between the two combatants seems to have been dubbed on later from a small room. There are also some crazy ideas in here – a couple of wrestling dwarfs and an attack vulture to name but two. But rest assured, there’s more where that came from.
You’ve just got to love an organisation that calls itself D.R.A.G.O.N – you can’t help thinking of the head of the organisation sitting around at a board meeting saying, “I want an acronym, and make it sound TOUGH!” And of course we never get to find out what D.R.A.G.O.N (God, I hate typing that) stands for. Or what it does…
Jim Kelly was expected to be a big star of the seventies after his “introduction” in Enter the Dragon, but when he made stuff like this, it’s not hard to see why it never happened. That being said, Kelly himself is reasonably OK most of the time – it’s just the film itself that’s a stinker.
Sadly, the only currently available version of this film has many problems. The transfer is awful. Sub VHS, even. Secondly, it seems to be quite badly cut (either that or the editing is worse than I thought). There even appears to be some dubbing or obscuring of swearwords in places too. If someone were to remaster this in its uncut form, stick a “Quentin Tarantino Presents” sticker on it and put it out on sale, I think we’d have a winner on our hands. But presumably Jim Kelly will be too busy lookin’ goood on the tennis court to do any promotion for it.
Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) April 24, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Horror, 1970s films, Kung Fu , 3 commentsDirector: Roy Ward Baker Starring: David Chiang, Peter Cushing Action Director: Lau Kar-Leung Territory: UK/Hong Kong Production Company: Hammer/Shaw Brothers
Dracula is visited in his Transylvanian lair by a Chinese man hoping to resurrect his vampires. Instead, Dracula possesses and takes over his visitor (you really can’t trust these evil types, can you?) and travels to a small village in China to escape his exile. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is given a lead to Dracula’s whereabouts by Hsi Ching (David Chiang) and they embark on a trek across China to rid the world of Dracula and his 7 unholy brothers.
By 1974, the once proud Hammer studio was starting to falter. In an obvious effort to latch on to the martial arts “craze” started when Enter the Dragon made it big, they decided to join their usual horror house style with that of the new-fangled eastern type of action. To their credit, at least they went to the Shaw Brothers and tried to do it properly. Hammer and Shaw were quite similar in some respects, and they both eventually went into television when their glory days were over (although the Shaw studios’ decline occurred a few years after Hammer’s).
Unfortunately, Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (AKA Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires and many, many other titles) doesn’t really work. The action scenes seem bolted on, and the horror scenes are pretty ineffective. There’s a fair amount of talent on the Hong Kong end of the production - Lau Kar-Wing has a very visible role, Si Si is lovely as Hsi Ching’s sister, and none other than Lau Kar-Leung directs the action. But it’s David Chiang that’s supposed to drive the film.
I know what’s it’s starting to look like – this is the third David Chiang film in a row I’ve written about. I assure you all that much as I admire the guy, this is all purely co-incidence. It’s not like I’m in love with him or anything.
Anyway. It’s a bit of a shock to hear his real voice, which is higher in pitch than I’d have expected. Although not able to speak English, he learned his lines phonetically, and doesn’t come off as badly as you might imagine (although I strongly suspect he says “destroyded” at one point). It’s quite a novelty to hear him speak in English, and one that doesn’t wear off. Unfortunately, he is given very little to do on the action front, and what’s there isn’t all that thrilling.
The horror aspect is lacking, too. It might have turned out great if Chrispopher Lee played Dracula, but instead you have a guy who really doesn’t look the part. Having said that, the titular seven Vampires actually aren’t too bad. I mean, they look pretty ropey, but there’s a semi-neat plot device linking their powers to their medallions. They also have an evil lair where young ladies are drained of blood and killed, but I’m not sure if this was included for its horror factor or was just an excuse to show some nipple action. Both, probably.
The supporting cast (Julie Ege and Robin Stewart) tries to add a bit of romance and depth to the film, but once again it falls flat on its face, and I found I couldn’t give a toss about any of them. It’s such a shame that the only UK/Hong Kong collaboration didn’t work out, as the mixing of the genres could have produced a real cult classic. Instead, this vampire movie just sucks – and not in a good way.
Blood Brothers (1973) April 22, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, 1970s films, Kung Fu , 3 commentsDiretor: Chang Cheh Starring: Ti Lung, David Chiang, Chen Kuan-Tai Action Diretor: Lau Kar-Leung, Tong Gai Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
Two small-time bandits, Chang Wen-Hsiang and Huang Chung (David Chiang and Chen Kuan-Tai) meet and befriend another by the name of Ma Hsin I (Ti Lung). The three – along with Huang’s wife Mi Lan (Ching Li) overtake a bandit hideout and set up base. All seems well, but Ma aspires to become a Qing officer. Furthermore, he develops strong feelings for Mi Lan, although Huang is completely oblivious to the fact. We find that Mi Lan married Huang when she was young and now regrets the decision, thinking that Huang would grow as a person when in fact he was always destined to be shallow and unambitious. Driving himself hard, Ma achieves his dream and eventually becomes a well-respected general in the Qing army and, mindful of the promises he made to his brothers, enlists Chang and Huang. However, the reunion also means meeting Mi Lan again, and neither party’s feeling have changed. In fact, Mi Lan now thinks she’s found the man she’s always wanted…
This is by far the most widely seen film by western audiences of a Chang Cheh starring his two favourite leads – and for a good reason: it’s fantastic.
Told in a series of flashbacks following the capture of Chang Wen-Hsiang for the assassination of Ma, we are shown the doomed friendship from start to finish already knowing the final outcome. He sits resignedly throughout the movie writing his confession in front of his captors, wanting nothing except the truth of the matter to be brought to the world. It’s a device that works brilliantly, and you find yourself engrossed in the story, wondering why exactly things went so wrong for them.
This film surprisingly flirts with symbolism and shows great restraint – we do not get nearly as many buckets of blood here, the emphasis more on the story and characters. It is excellently scripted throughout (although the subtitles do fall below expectation on a number of occasions on the Celestial DVD) and the pace remains constant with no “flat” moments that can appear in such productions of the time.
This is also the film that won Ti Lung deserved recognition when he received the Golden Horse award for Outstanding Performance. Although none of the main characters are two-dimensional (with the exception of Huang Chung – who is SUPPOSED to be two-dimensional!), Ti Lung really does shine.
SPOILER WARNING FOR THE REST OF THIS REVIEW!
His character is complex as he copes with his inappropriate feeling towards his brother’s wife. Furthermore, does he order Huang to be killed because he wants him out of the way so he can be with Mi Lan forever, or because Huang is a liability as an officer and does not appreciate his wife? Although Ma insists repeatedly that he will crush anything that stands in his way, I find it interesting that he only gives the order after discovering that Huang frequents brothels and bad-mouths his wife.
David Chiang is also superb as Chang Wen-Hsiang. He shows great range as he finds himself between his brothers, faced with almost impossible decisions. After his final confrontation with Ma, rather than gloating over his victory at bringing justice to a brother betrayed, he says to his dying friend: “you can rest in peace. I will not try to escape”, before peacefully giving himself up to the inevitable torture and execution at the hands of the government.
Powerful stuff.