Pedicab Driver (1989) June 18, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Action, 1980s films , 2 commentsDirector: Sammo Hung Main Cast: Sammo Hung; Nina Li Chi; Mang Hoi; Max Mok; Fennie Yuen; John Shum; Suen Yuet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Bojon Films
Pedicab Driver marks the end of Sammo Hung’s greatest period as both star and director with a mighty bang. Although it seems at times to be a little over-ambitious in its storytelling, with several seemingly unrelated threads working parallel with each other, it does actually work most of the time.
The movie’s opening is definitely one of the finest pieces of Hong Kong cinema, and I defy anyone to disagree. The setting is Macau in the 1930s; two rival gangs of pedicab (passenger-carrying tricycles similar to rickshaws) drivers meet in a teahouse for negotiations, divvying up passengers. The discussion is bitter and hostile, but the two parties eventually reach a cordial agreement. Just as they are able to shake hands on their new deal, the teashop owner, chasing a cat not visible to the gangs, leaps into view brandishing a deadly meat cleaver. Both gangs mistake this for an ambush and a fight ensues. The clash is reminiscent of the barroom brawl from Jackie Chan’s Project A, and features breathtaking action and fantastic inventiveness (there’s even a “lightsaber” duel with two fluorescent lighting strips!). This scene, as well as being incredibly exciting, also underlines Sammo’s generosity behind the camera – instead of hogging the limelight, he lets the others take the lion’s share of screen time for the duration.
After such an adrenaline rush, what follows immediately after could seem a huge let-down: baker Fong (Suen Yuet) tries to court his employee Ah Bing (Nina Li Chi) even though he’s old enough to be her father, while Tung (Sammo Hung) has much the same intention. Well, it’s Nina Li Chi - that’s pretty much every man’s intention.
Anyway, there’s also Master Ng (John Shum playing very much against type), a man so thoroughly evil he would make Hitler look reasonable. Seriously, he’s the most snarlingly evil pantomime villain in Hong Kong cinema, and there have been quite a few over the years. He is a pimp, and in one scene one of his workers is giving birth. He and his men kill the girl’s father (Dick Wei – so you know there are going to be a few fireworks before the end) in front of her as the baby’s being born, then tells them to throw the offspring in the river if it’s a boy and to take it back to the brothel if it’s a girl. He then tells the woman to get back to work.
Last but not least, we have fellow pedicab driver Malted Candy (Max Mok) and his romance with Hsiu Tsui (Fennie Yuen). It’s a somewhat melodramatic affair, this relationship, and is your typical Chinese tragic love story, complete with Cantopop song sung over a montage of the couple falling in love. I don’t know what Malted Candy was expecting of the poor girl. After all, he was initially attracted to her because she reminded him of a character from a pornographic novel he was reading.
While these story threads are certainly only diversions from the main spectacle (the fights), they do seem to enhance the film, and I hold this opinion despite my cynical and jaded nature. Actually, the love story between the star-crossed lovers only seems bearable while you’re watching the film – when you think about it before and after viewing the film it all seems so tackily contrived.
The action scenes are scattered sparingly throughout the film, but the one that stands out has no relevance to the plot whatsoever. Sammo crashes a gambling den and is challenged to fight the boss. Big deal, you might think, except the boss turns out to be Lau Kar-Leung and the fight is stunning. The time that passed between this and his Shaw Brothers heyday seems to have been kind to Lau, and no doubt out of respect for the elder, Hung lets Lau’s character win the bout.
The dramatic events that unfold near the end of the film pay off when Sammo and Rice Pudding (Mang Hoi) take revenge on Master Ng. I argue that the reliance on melodrama gives the film the right tone for this climax as Sammo goes apeshit at Ng’s mansion, taking on pretty much his entire gang (including Billy Chow – always worth watching in a Hung directed film) in a way that only Sammo knows how.
Pedicab Driver is one of the finest examples of 80s action in a Hong Kong film, and as many people cite that decade as the most impressive in turns of action choreography, that’s quite a recommendation. It’s frustrating that the movie isn’t out on DVD yet (legitimately, anyway) as it deserves a much higher profile. No doubt it’ll turn up one day, and those action scenes will blow away a whole new generation of fans.
Chokugeki! Jigoku-ken (The Executioner) (1974) June 12, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Action, 1970s films , 3 commentsDirector: Teruo Ishii Cast: Sonny Chiba; Makoto Satô; Eiji Go; Yutaka Nakajima Territory: Japan Production Company: Toei Production Ltd
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a Sonny Chiba film on here. Although it seems like I’ve not been watching them, I have in fact been on a steady diet of Chiba since watching The Street Fighter way back on my first post for this blog. I’ve bought so many boxed sets of Chiba’s films that I now have no less than three copies of Killing Machine, two copies of Bullet Train, and two versions of Virus (which isn’t really a Sonny Chiba film but that doesn’t stop companies including it).
No, the reason I’ve not been writing about them is because so many of them (apart from the Street Fighter films) leave me completely cold. I think it’s something to do with the storylines and the scripts – something always feels a little “off” to me. Chokugeki! Jigoku-ken is no different – a disgraced police officer recruits a bunch of criminals to break up a drug ring – but at least it does have a certain flair.
Chiba is Ryuichi Koga, a trained ninja – although his “backstory” consists of a few short generic training sequences before we see him as a man, leaving his master. Along for the ride is a ruthless assassin (Makoto Satô), an overly horny murderer awaiting execution on death row (Eiji Go) and, to provide eye-candy, Street Fighter co-star Yutaka Nakajima.
The first indication that something’s slightly amiss is the introduction of Makoto’s character, which is borrowed almost directly from the introduction of Lee Van Cleef’s character in The Good the Bad and the Ugly. Well, if you’re going to borrow, I suppose you borrow from the best. However, Ryuichi then springs Eiji Go out of prison with the exact same chewing-gum-in-a-lock gag from obscure Hong Kong movie Interpol 009, which I just happened to have watched a few weeks ago. Odd.
Although the characters are strange (the horny ex-prisoner is particularly annoying and I’m still not sure why Yutaka Nakajima was in the film other than for her considerable beauty) and the story a little dull, it is a cut above a lot of similar fare as it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The comedy, although lowbrow, is actually pretty funny most of the time.
And then you’ve got the action sequences, which Chiba handles as well as you’d expect. They’re the highlight of the film, of course, and in that respect Chokugeki! Jigoku-ken is a winner, with fights breaking out on a regular basis. One pleasant surprise is the inclusion of Kurata Yasuaki, who will be instantly recognisable to every Hong Kong action film fan on the planet. Mr Kurata was the go-to guy for decades when Hong Kong filmmakers wanted a Japanese martial artist, and he even got to play non-villains once or twice. His place in Hong Kong cinematic history is secured with appearances in films such as Heroes of the East, Millionaire’s Express and Fist of Legend, and apparently he’s a really nice bloke too. I don’t know why, but I was actually surprised to see him in a Japanese film!
If you take away the fights, though, you can’t help but think this is all routine stuff. I know great scriptwriting isn’t the thing most people associate with action movies (especially from this part of the world) but it would have been nice to have something interesting to hang the fight sequences on other than some (admittedly funny) comic moments and quite a lot of gratuitous nudity.
This is definitely another example of a great film if you’re in a very undemanding mood. Just don’t expect cinematic gold. Oh, and by the way, does anyone want to buy a couple of copies of Killing Machine?
Forbidden City Cop (1996) March 10, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, 1990s films , 6 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!
From Beijing With Love (1994) March 2, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, 1990s films , add a commentDirector: Lee Lik-Chi; Stephen Chow Sing-Chi Cast: Stephen Chow Sing-Chi; Anita Yuen; Law Kar-Ying Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Win’s Movie Production
A dinosaur’s skull is stolen and retired spy Ling Ling Chat (Stephen Chow), now a pork vendor, is brought in to investigate. He is aided by Li Heung Kam (Anita Yuen) in finding the “Man with the Golden Gun”, the villain behind the theft. But Li has orders of her own, and must ensure that Chat fails in his mission…
From Beijing With Love starts off as a straight parody of the James Bond movies, complete with a Maurice Binder-esque opening sequence and title music that’s so close to the original that it’s quite surprising that EON Productions never sued. Furthermore, Chow’s character is called Ling Ling Chat (which literally translates as “Zero Zero Seven”) and includes a gadget-introduction sequence that at times looks like the real thing.
The gags range from fairly awful (Law Kar-Ying, as an insane “Q” character, demonstrates a solar-powered torch) to the hilarious (I loved Chow’s cockroach infested motel room and his “landlady”), but come thick and fast for most of the film. However, there are some extremely jarring changes of tone from the comic to the serious that From Beijing With Love is sometimes quite uncomfortable viewing. One scene in particular, where a father is repeatedly shot in front of his young son in a shopping mall, is tough to stomach in a film which is supposedly a screwball comedy. The juxtaposition of comic and violent scenes are probably enough to turn off a lot of potential viewers off this film and in this way, it can be seen to be not untypical of Hong Kong movies as a whole.
Nevertheless, consistency aside, there are just about enough funny moments in From Beijing With Love to make it memorable for the right reasons. There are some great jokes and funny scenes in here, and the humour is typical of Chow’s work from the period. One scene is memorable: Chow is wounded in a gunfight and is dragged back to his flat where Yuen is forced to pull the bullet out of his leg. To kill the pain, Chow puts a videotape of a porno film on while Yuen chips away with a screwdriver and hammer. It’s sick, disturbing and gory, but it’s also pretty funny. The use of the word “darkie” in the scene referring to one of the porn actresses raises an eyebrow, but this is just down to bad subtitling (which have been ported directly from the old VHS version); Chow actually just says “black person”.
At around 84 minutes in length, From Beijing With Love is the kind of movie that’s quick and undemanding. It’s a definite no-brainer with less plot than usual for a Chow vehicle from the mid-nineties, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you can stomach the violence and the sudden changes in tone, it’s quite harmless and should elicit a few belly laughs.
The Dead and the Deadly (1983) January 30, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Comedy, Supernatural, 1980s films , add a commentDirector: Wu Ma Cast: Sammo Hung; Wu Ma; Lam Ching-Ying; Cherie Chung Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Golden Harvest
A funeral director’s assistant (Sammo Hung) becomes convinced that his recently deceased friend Lu Cho (Wu Ma) has been murdered and takes steps to prove it. However, it turns out that Lu Cho, along with his accomplices, is faking his death in order to get his hands on a fortune. When Sammo starts getting too suspicious, Lu Cho “appears” to Sammo as a ghost, insisting that his death was by natural causes so that his friend will stop digging for the truth. When Lu Cho is then murdered by his co-conspirators, and the real ghost of Lu Cho appears to Sammo telling him this time that he met with foul play, Sammo doesn’t want to know. So the spirit of the dead man haunts Sammo until he agrees to help him bring the murderers to justice.
What sets Sammo Hung apart from all of his contemporaries is his work in the horror/comedy genre, a little sub-niche that he pretty much made his own and returned to regularly during the eighties and early nineties. While Jackie Chan was busy being the happy-go-lucky everyman hero, Sammo was messing about with chicken’s blood, body painting and Taoist priests. This Wu Ma vehicle is one of the odder entries in the genre, but it does have its moments.
The humour in the first hour of the film is extremely lowbrow and juvenile, something I’ve noticed in other Wu Ma films. There’s a scene where Sammo goes to a brothel and munches on some Qing equivalent of Viagra which is painfully unfunny. The only plus points are a couple of good gags involving an artificially aged Lam Ching-Ying, who needs others to help him with his dynamic showmanship. The scene with the apparent corpse of Lu Cho having his gold teeth removed is funny on first viewing but gets a little tired upon repeats.
Just when things start getting really desperate, a strange thing happens – The Dead and the Deadly actually becomes quite entertaining. Things kick off when Lu Cho gets killed for real and starts haunting Sammo in a scene that feels like a dry run for the film that would be its spiritual successor – 1986’s Where’s Officer Tuba? Things get more frantic when Sammo gets possessed and the robbers are revealed and all manor of spooky goings-on start occurring.
As with other films in this genre, some knowledge of Chinese folklore is a definite advantage to getting the most out of the film. Although the special effects are very crude by today’s standard (and even by the west’s standard for 1983, to be honest) enjoyment isn’t hampered too much. While The Dead and the Deadly isn’t anywhere near the top of my list of spooky comedies, it does have a few neat touches and, taken as a piece of superficial entertainment may give some enjoyment. Personally, though, I’d say you can’t beat the sublime Encounters of the Spooky Kind and the Sammo Hung produced Mr Vampire.
Where’s Officer Tuba? (1986) January 14, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Supernatural, 1980s films , add a commentDirector: Phillip Chan; Ricky Lau Cast: Sammo Hung; Jacky Cheung; David Chiang, Joey Wong Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: D & B Films
Cowardly cop Tuba (Sammo Hung) is content to play in the police orchestra for a living and leave the real police work to others. Unfortunately, his unconventional looks and manner make him an ideal candidate for an undercover mission headed by “Rambo” Chow (David Chiang) to bring down an extortion ring. Chow is promptly killed in action, but not before harassing a promise out of Tuba that he will avenge his death and bring the gang to justice. Tuba reneges on the promise, which makes Chow’s mischievous spirit manifest itself to Tuba, and the ghost (which only Tuba can see or hear) makes a thorough nuisance of itself until he and his over-ambitious rookie roommate Cheung (Jacky Cheung) swing into action. Tuba also tries to woo supermarket manager Joanne (Joey Wong), who thinks he’s a pervert, and whose parents think he’s a deranged idiot.
Where’s Officer Tuba? is Hong Kong Cinema’s best-kept secret. Generally overlooked by Sammo’s fans in favour of more obviously action-packed fare like Eastern Condors or Pedicab Driver, it’s also overlooked by comedy fans put off by the thought of watching a “kung fu” movie. It is a comedy first and foremost, and despite the inclusion of some awesome action stars from both the 70’s and 80’s (Sammo Hung, Hwang Jang Lee, David Chiang, Yuen Wah and Chang Yi all in the same movie?!) it’s the humour that wins the day.
The film’s greatest strength is the excellent script from the late Barry Wong, who certainly could knock together something simple but enjoyable. Here, he comes up something that packs more into its 92-minute running time than you can credit on first viewing, and the humour is very well written. Take the pier scene, for example: Sammo is picked to meet the extortionists and drop off their ransom money. There follows a string of gags that all hit their target as Sammo deadpans through misunderstandings and knowing references to espionage thrillers. And this is all before any of the ghostly shenanigans kick off.
It’s surprising that the main event – David Chiang appearing only to Sammo and ruining his life by manipulating his actions and making him look like an idiot – doesn’t really start until about an hour into the movie, but when it does, it’s hilarious. Sammo refuses to help the ghost of Chow seek revenge, so he runs amok when Sammo visits his prospective parents-in-law. It’s a scene that should write itself, and it does to a large degree, but even on the umpteenth viewing I still find myself laughing out loud at it.
The climax, where Sammo and Jacky Cheung (in his first movie appearance, I believe) take down the bad guys (this time with the help of Chow’s spirit) is as good as any action movie from the 80’s, and the inclusion of Hwang Jang Lee means there’s some mean legwork on display. But there’s not enough of it to really make this a contender as an action movie, and it’s the laughs that are the most memorable.
There are a surprising amount of puns and Cantonese wordplay in this film which obviously don’t translate, but even a passing knowledge of the dialect will be enough for you to get a couple of the more childish jokes. I wish someone would do a proper release of this film with remastered subtitles as, if memory serves, the subtitles on the Universe DVD are identical to the original VHS “Chinese and English” release and are particularly poor. Along with the usual spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical problems, there are some strange translations - such as when two characters talk about someone being “successfully raped”, which is just plain odd. It also helps to have some knowledge of Chinese superstitions, as on first viewing I thought the ending was very Deus Ex Machina, only to find a particular method for dispelling ghosts is all part of Chinese folklore.
Where’s Officer Tuba? was remade in 1990 as Look Out, Officer with Stephen Chow, which seems a mouth-watering prospect but sadly it didn’t realise its potential. And it has to be mentioned that Where’s Officer Tuba? at times bears an uncanny resemblance to Wu Ma’s The Dead and the Deadly, which also starred Hung as a man possessed by the spirit of a dead man only he can see. But for my money, Where’s Officer Tuba? is by far the funniest and most enjoyable of Hong Kong’s “invisible man” comedies.
Police Story 2 (1988) December 26, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Action, 1980s films , 8 commentsDirector: Jackie Chan Cast: Jackie Chan; Maggie Cheung; Bill Tung; Benny Lai Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Golden Harvest; Golden Way
Following the events of Police Story, Chan Ka-Kui (Jackie Chan) is demoted and hauled over the coals by his superiors. The crime lord Chu Tao (Chor Yuen) has been released due to failing health and is once again making Ka-Kui’s life a misery by getting his lackeys to constantly harass his long-standing (and long-suffering) girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung). However, Ka-Kui faces a new threat in the form of a gang of blackmailers intent on blowing up most of Hong Kong.
Police Story 2 is probably my least favourite of Jackie Chan’s starring features from the eighties. The tone always seemed too dark for a Jackie Chan film and it had a tendency to be overly dramatic and not a little melodramatic. Certain scenes always bugged me – such as the scene in a shopping mall under threat from a bomb attack, which I’ve always thought seemed heavy-handed and the people’s reactions unrealistic (and that attempt at tension with the bouncing ball is horrible passé). What I’ve always liked in Jackie’s films is the lightness and good-natured humour as well as all the physical stuff, which is why I’ve given it a miss for a few years. Watching it again reveals that the film does have some great comedy moments which I’d completely forgotten about, and I was surprises how much I enjoyed it.
Like the first film, a lot of the comedy is provided by Maggie Cheung in the role of May, and she still bears the scars of Police Story 2 to this day thanks to a gag with some toppling metal frames going wrong. It’s hard to imagine her taking such a role now, either from a comedic or physical angle, but she did have quite a flair and watching something like this does remind you of the fact. You’ve got to love the scene where she furiously shouts at Ka-Kui into the showers at the Police Station following their aborted holiday to Bali. She is oblivious to the embarrassed nakedness of the cops (and Bill Tung having a private moment in the toilet stalls) to rip into Ka-Kui, and then has another unfortunate incident with her scooter outside. Other comic moments involve Jackie going undercover wearing a fake moustache and glasses to get a lead on the explosives and the usual misunderstandings with his superiors Raymond (Lam Gwok-Hung) and the fantastic Bill Tung. Sadly, Mars, though present, has a much reduced role in this, which is a shame as he always had good comic scenes when sharing the screen with Jackie.
Regular member of Jackie’s stunt-team, Benny Lai comes out of the shadows to play the role of a deaf-mute explosives expert. Although he took one of the pirate roles in Project A Part II, he was usually only a background player in Jackie’s films and usually heavily in disguise. In this he really gets a chance to shine and his physical feats are great. He also apparently spent an inordinate amount of time preparing for the role and consulted a specialist to learn to use sign language, and I have to admit I thought he was for real until I saw him in other roles.
Police Story II does have a tendency towards incoherence and lack of direction, but no more than other films from the era. For example, the return of veteran director Chor Yuen in the role of Chu Tao turns out to be more a red herring than a genuine plot point. It’s as if the filmmakers originally intended to have him being the main bad guy again but changed their minds about a third of the way through. More of a presence is Charlie Cho as Chu Tao’s sleazy PA, John Koo. If you remember, at the end of the first film Ka-Kui punches him in the face and breaks his glasses. This gag obviously proved popular, as in every scene in which he appears in this sequel results in the same result. As a running joke, I suppose it works but on repeated viewings it gets a little tiresome.
However, nothing leaves such a bad taste in the mouth as the disgraceful product placement that goes on. You can’t go ten minutes without some blatant plug for Canon, Citizen and (inevitably) Mitsubishi. The worst offence occurs when a shopping mall is destroyed by an explosion – a Mitsubishi 4X4 (which I’m sure, if memory serves correctly, has adverts for Citizen emblazoned on its side therefore killing two birds with one stone) rolls away from the devastation without the aid of a driver and stops safely outside having smashed a plate glass window in its escape. I’m not sure what they were trying to say – that Mitsubishi cars are sentient? That they can smash windows without losing tyre pressure? It may even be a sly reference to some jokey TV advert at the time or something that I’m not aware of, but otherwise it’s terribly distracting and ruins the illusion of the movie.
On a lighter note, Jackie’s action sequences are as phenomenal as ever from the eighties. He takes on the bad guys single-handedly and comes away a winner as is demanded from the audience. I’ll always remember the first time I watched the stunt with the refuse chute exploding with Jackie still inside it. I literally gasped in shocked surprise, and how many times can you say that about a scene in a movie? I’d say it’s one of his most underrated of stunts and deserves to be seen by all. Also noteworthy are the film’s explosion effects. A shopping mall gets a spectacular bang and a fireworks factory gets blown to smithereens. There was obviously a higher budget following the success of the original film and it looks like it all went on the pyrotechnics.
So while Police Story II does have some major flaws it is still a film very much from his golden age and has much to recommend it.
Osaka Wrestling Restaurant (2004) December 14, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Romance, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Tommy Law Cast: Timmy Hung; Wayne Lai; Ueno Miku Territory: Hong Kong/Japan Production Companies: Same Way Production Ltd; Yes Visions Co
Failed chef Ricky (Timmy Hung) is reunited with his brother Mike (Wayne Lai) upon the death of their father. Mike has “escaped” to Japan, and when Ricky caches up with him, he insists upon using their father’s inheritance to open a new style of restaurant – one when the diners can watch authentic Japanese wrestling while they eat! Helping them to make the restaurant a success is a Japanese reporter stranded in Hong Kong (Ueno Miku) and an unlikely bunch of would-be wrestlers with more enthusiasm than talent.
Funny how these things work out – a couple of weeks ago I’m doing a review on a film with Jackie Chan’s son (the rather topper Invisible Target), and now I find myself, quite by accident, reviewing a film with Sammo Hung’s son Timmy. Which raises an interesting question – does Yuen Biao have a son? Hmm. I’ll get my secretary to do some research immediately, and see if we can get a reunion of the three brothers’ sons as I think this is the only way we’ll get those genes together on screen again. Anyway, I digress – and it’s only the second paragraph…
Osaka Wrestling Restaurant starts off in a pretty naff way with some truly awful acting with Timmy Hung looking like he can’t keep a straight face despite the comedy being aimed at no higher than infant school level. This is zero-budget Hong Kong fare at its worst, I feared. Not even the inclusion of frequent Stephen Chow collaborator Law Kar-Ying as Ricky’s insane and comically evil ex-boss raises the level appreciably.
However, things definitely take a turn for the better when Wayne Lai enters the film. I’ve written about this guy before, so I won’t repeat myself, but he definitely seems to raise everybody’s game in this film - which seems like a wild claim but I urge anyone doubting it to see for yourself. He also has the film’s only dramatic moments when he tries to reconcile with the wife and son he left when he moved to Japan, claiming to be a changed man.
The first smiles are raised, inevitably, when the “Wrestling Restaurant” starts auditioning for performers and we get the usual gathering of oddballs, nutters and misfits. You’d be right to think that from here on in, the comedy pretty much writes itself, but this is not necessarily a bad thing considering the lameness of the early scenes. I’m guessing that the Japanese wrestlers shown or spoofed here (or at least the guy called “Super Delfin”) are “real” Japanese wrestlers, but I have to plead ignorance on the subject. The production does seem to be a Japanese/Hong Kong collaboration and the term “Osaka Wrestling” is used so often that I suspect it’s got to have some basis in fact (and is used to plug the sport I expect). The wrestling action is primarily played for laughs, but if you’re more aware of the subject than me, there may well be some in-jokes in there that went over my head.
We get some romantic comedy thrown in as well for no extra cost, and the inclusion of Japanese Ueno Miku as Kyoko provides some eye-candy for the male viewers. While the story is strictly by the numbers (boy meets girl, boy drops girl in a river for no readily apparent reason, boy courts girl while wearing wrestling mask to avoid girl finding out he was the one who dropped her in a river, girl finds out boy’s identity and dumps him, boy and girl get together again) this kind of thing is never too taxing and everyone can at least relate to it.
Sticking with Osaka Wrestling Restaurant does yield rewards, and by the end I was well into it. There are a few really good laughs (such as Tats Lau’s costume after he comes back from an unexpected trip) and the occasional moment of (light) drama. I suspect it is the kind of film that one can enjoy best with zero expectations and a hankering for some of the less demanding fare coming from Hong Kong. Although initially I was extremely sceptical of the merits of the film, I was eventually won over by two faults and a submission.
The Lady is the Boss (1983) September 12, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Action, Kung Fu, 1980s films , add a commentDirector: Lau Kar-Leung Cast: Kara Hui Ying-Hung, Lau Kar-Leung, Lau Kar-Fai (Gordon Liu), Hsiao Ho, Wong Yu Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
The human mind is a strange thing. Long ago, I’d got it into my head that I’d seen, on some kind of compilation tape, a scene from a movie where the monk San Te (made famous by the legendary 36th Chamber movies) battles alongside Hsiao Ho’s Mad Monkey persona in an early 80’s action flick in a gymnasium. Impossible stuff, to be sure, but I thought I’d seen it. After scouring my tapes, I realised it must have been some kind of demented fantasy, or at best I was horribly mistaken. But more on that later.
The Lady is the Boss seems like the final part of a trilogy of films by Lau Kar-Leung exploring tradition, the change in social attitudes over time and female liberation – themes that were hardly staples of the Shaw Brothers’ (or indeed, any Hong Kong company’s) output at that time. It’s probably entirely unintentional, but this feels like a relative of 1978’s sublime Heroes of the East (a film so good, I even stole the name of it for this blog!) and the worthy 1981 production My Young Auntie. All three have the same underlying theme and share an unusual trait for films of this genre – no one is killed and there’s very little ‘violence’ on screen.
That said, this is definitely a bit more barbed than either of the other two films. The main plot focuses on Mei-Ling (Kara Hui) coming to Hong Kong to run the martial arts school currently being taught by Wang (Lau Kar-Leung). Upon her arrival from the USA (Hui is seen chewing gum throughout and slanging English and Cantonese with a wantonness that leaves the poor Chinese traditionalists reeling), she despairs of the old-fashioned methods of teaching and Wang’s insistence on quality over quantity. You see, the school has just five pupils, and training in stances alone takes one full year! Mei-Ling comes in and revamps the school, getting lots of new students in the process. Among the new recruits are a bunch of nightclub workers, whose boss is not too happy that his ladies are being taught ways of fending off the advances of their clients. As the boss is played by veteran bad-boy Johnny Wong, we’ve got a pretty good idea where things are going to end up.
The Lady is the Boss must have looked dazzlingly modern back in 1983; which is to say it looks horribly dated now. We’ve got neon pink outfits, effeminate men wearing lipstick, terribly tinny disco music and even a few BMX bicycles – all the hallmarks of a true 80’s production! It all serves to make viewing the film all the more enjoyable, and no fan of the decade will be disappointed. Besides, it makes a change from all the period pieces being churned out at the time by the studio.
Comedy plays a strong part in the film, and while the attempts at humour aren’t as bad as other Shaw productions, it still occasionally grates. Like its predecessors, most of the humour is derived from the situations and the views of the traditionally minded versus the radical. In places, the film plays a little too much like My Young Auntie for its own good in this regard, and occasionally you can’t help but feel that you’ve seen it before.
Surprisingly, the kung fu is downplayed for much of the movie in favour of comedy skits and other action scenes (including, as has been mentioned above, a short sequence involving BMX bikes). When it does kick off, though, it’s pretty impressive. With the likes of Wong Yu (Dirty Ho), Lau Kar-Fai, Hsiao Ho et al (not to mention Lau Kar-Leung himself), you know you’re going to get something special. You have to wait a while, but you do get it eventually. And there it is – Lau Kar-Fai playing a man playing San Te, and Hsiao Ho doing his Mad Monkey routine. You’d be wrong to think there’s a good reason, plot-wise, for them doing it, but then there’s not a lot of reason involved in most of this film!
In the final analysis, there’s a feeling that subconsciously Lau Kar-Leung was still siding with tradition in this film, despite the “old guard” being shown as outdated and a trifle ridiculous. The five young men who trained under the old master still have far superior skills than anyone trained under Mei-Ling, and the “fast-track” training employed by her could be seen to be portraying “modern” martial arts training techniques in a derogatory light. But I could be looking into it a bit too deeply, there. It is, after all, an action comedy, and as they go, you could do worse than this 84-minute mini-celebration of 80’s kitsch.
Rush Hour 3 (2007) August 18, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Action, Non-Asian , add a commentDirector: Brett Ratner Cast: Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan, Noémie Lenoir, Max von Sydow Territory: USA Production Company: New Line Cinema
I had a choice of film at the cinema today: Rush Hour 3 or The Simpsons Movie. I was pretty much sure I’d hate the former, and pretty sure I’d like the latter. So the yellow family won. It’s strange, then, that the words that left my lips at the box office were: “Rush Hour 3, please”.
D’oh!
Anyway, I figure I’m going to have to see this film at some point so I might as well get it over with. So is it as bad as everyone makes out?
Well, probably not. But that’s not to say it’s a good film, because it’s not that either. For a start, it’s easily the most predictable film I’ve ever seen. I don’t know whether this was a deliberate ploy by Ratner to engender a feeling of cosy familiarity, but probably not. The plot involves the shooting of the Chinese Ambassador by a group of Triads based in France, or something. There’s certainly some excuse for the two to go to Paris and I’m pretty sure that was it. It makes sense: the first Rush Hour was a fish-out-of-water film about a Chinese cop in the US, the second was a fish-out-of-water film about a US cop in Hong Kong, so in this one they’re both fishes-out-of-water. My bet is Rush Hour 4 will take place on Mars.
The film is basically a series of comedy skits with the odd action scene thrown in, and more often than not, the comedy falls completely flat. For example, there’s a scene where a captured henchman who only speaks French is questioned by Tucker and Chan, using a nun as an interpreter. They trade insults via the nun without using language that might offend her. Sounds like a recipe for hilarity, doesn’t it? You can see the comic potential in such a situation but for some reason it never even raised a smile. Similarly, when Tucker runs into a couple of guys called “Yu” and “Mi”…well you can guess what happens. It’s pretty much the same joke that Mike Myers used in one of his Austin Powers movies with the Japanese girls Fook Yu and Fook Mi. And then you’ve got the pacifistic French taxi driver with fierce anti-American views. His diatribe seems so odd and out of place that you twig it almost immediately: he’s eventually going to turn into a gun-toting, gung-ho badass just like Carter, isn’t he?
The action is pretty much what you’d expect: almost non-existent from Chan, who, unless I’m mistaken, is doubled throughout the film. It says something about the state of the series when you realise that Tucker (who has put on a few pounds since the last picture) pulls a few impressive moves. The Parisian locations look pretty good, though, and there’s the occasional bit of sexiness from Lenoir as the damsel-in-distress/bad girl with a secret. But eventually you’ll be looking at your watch wondering just when the bad guy will be revealed (sadly, there are no prizes for guessing who it is) so that you can watch the outtakes go home.
There are a couple of laughs in here, but they’re few and far between. The outtakes are the best part of the whole film, and when Jackie bursts through a doorway, gun raised, yelling “cheese!” instead of “freeze!”, it provided the biggest laugh of them all. It then descends into a “let’s make the foreigner say naughty things” type of thing, with Chan being given various lines in reference to getting a “dirty movie” – a line that a lot of his hardcore fans will hate, incidentally. He spouts things like “I like hairy women”, “I’m into feet” and finally, “I like hoses”, before tuning off-screen to ask, “what does this mean?” Sad, really. And there’s the customary Tucker out-takes where he’s on a plane and can’t get his words out. He does manage to order the gefilte fish, though.
This film won’t be shown in China. Whether it’s because of some negative racial stereotyping, the inclusion of Roman Polanski in a cameo role, that line about Chan wanting to watch a dirty movie, or just because the film isn’t really very good is the subject of some debate. You can’t help but feel that they’re not going to miss out on an awful lot.