The Big Boss (1971) May 3, 2008
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 4 commentsDirector: Lo Wei Cast: Bruce Lee; James Tien; Han Ying-Chieh Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Golden Harvest
Cheng Chiu On (Bruce Lee) goes to Thailand to help out in an ice factory. Trouble breaks out in the form of a labour dispute, but Cheng cannot retaliate because of a promise he made to his mother not to get involved in fights. The situation turns sinister, though, when Cheng realises that the ice-packing plant is actually a cover for a drug distribution operation.
Reviewing The Big Boss seems a bit pointless as, let’s face it, everyone’s already seen it. However, it’s been so damn long since I’ve seen the film that I felt compelled to write about it after seeing it again. There are numerous reasons why I don’t watch this one too often, but a couple of reasons stand out. The first is that there doesn’t seem to be a satisfactory version available. The Hong Kong Legends DVD of a few years back had a Cantonese track, which I thought was a step in the right direction, but gone was the funky theme tune and incidental music. In its place was something that seemed really out of place, including, in places, the use of a section of Pink Floyd’s Time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I really love Pink Floyd, but I don’t think it fits a Bruce Lee movie, especially seeing as how it was recorded a good couple of years after the film was shot. The other main reason is that, well, I just don’t like the movie very much.
To solve the audio conundrum, I did a thing you’ll probably never hear from me again – I watched the English dub. It was worth it to hear the theme tune and all the old music again, and I found listening to the corny voices a bit of a novelty – especially when the kindly old uncle slips out a “why, if I was ten years younger…!” when appraising young Mei Lin (Maria Yi). Lecherous old devil! Anyway, I’m not sure if this was the old dub that used to grace the old Rank videos as I seem to recall a place where James Tien was talking to the manager of the ice factory and their dialogue getting so muddled the voice actors ended up swapping characters. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean! And why does the Boss’s son ask to borrow 2,000 Yen from his father? I thought this film was set in Thailand, not Japan!
It is a bit like heresy criticising a Bruce Lee film, but The Big Boss has not aged very well. This is partly down to the curious mismatch of cinematic styles used in the movie. This was 1970, and Hong Kong action movies were undergoing a radical change away the Wuxia Pian style of action involving trampoline jumps and feats of superhuman agility towards a more realistic depiction of fighting. The Big Boss sits uncomfortably between two stools, still using some of the old cinematic tricks while building on the foundations laid by The Chinese Boxer and Vengeance! and the result occasionally looks messy and not a little silly.
The plot is not terribly interesting either. Basically, it involves a drug operation fronted by a ice manufacturing plant (until I watched this film, I had no idea some people actually made ice for a living!) and workers go missing periodically when they’re knocked off by the boss or his henchmen. Cue lots of concerned co-workers running about as one looking for their missing friends and so forth. The acting’s pretty atrocious, too – I love the twin gasps of shock when the manager explains to the two naive workers what the factory actually produces, and look out for a very young Lam Ching-Ying and his attempt at portraying “thoughtful contemplation” in one scene.
But the main problem is the fact that Bruce Lee does nothing for the first 43 minutes. Until then, this is really James Tien’s movie, and decent though the guy is (here his character seems to be a kind of saint-in-waiting), who really wants to see a James Tien movie? This is done partly to tease the audience. The hype over the first Bruce Lee movie was immense and so instead of saturating the movie with Bruce, he is dished out sparingly. Instead of rushing into fights, Lee looks mournfully at his mother’s pendant and remembers his promise to not get into trouble. Of course, the pendant eventually shatters and Lee feels this breaks his obligation to the promise – and he finally springs into action.
After Lee loses his pendant, it’s like the film loses a lead weight around its neck and things definitely take off. It’s just damn shame that it took so long, though. The film’s action is surprisingly brutal for the time, even compared to the glossier Shaw Brothers films. The tone and content is sometimes puzzling, though – even now I’m not sure if that part where Bruce knocks one of the gang through the wooden wall, leaving a perfect, cartoon-like outline behind is supposed to be funny or not.
It’s things like that that definitely draw attention to Lo Wei’s abilities as a director. While there are moments of pure bone-headedness (remember the death of the prostitute, who evidently doesn’t see her assassin coming?), there are touches of subtlety you wouldn’t really associate with the director. I like the moment early in the movie when Bruce nonchalantly steals a glance at Maria Yi, only to find that she is already looking at him, leading him to look uncomfortably away. Also, the scene that juxtaposes Lee’s sumptuous meal with the boss and his apparent “selling out” with the simple fare of the honest workers is surprisingly good and probably allegorical of something I can’t quite put my finger upon. There are also some scenes of effective tension later on when Lee discovers the slaughter of his comrades.
I enjoyed The Big Boss a lot more than I expected this time around, and a lot of that is down to my choice of watching it with the original music. Watching it now, as a UK citizen, it’s ironic that the film seems the least “complete” of the Bruce Lee films now as it was by far the least censored in this territory in the bad old days when even muttering the word “nunchaku” was likely to result in a cut. While it is definitely not a great movie, I can at least understand why it was such an exciting moment in Hong Kong cinema. One thing I’ll never understand, though, is why the bad guys chop up the bodies of the workers and encase them in ice instead of just disposing of them so they can’t be found by a vengeful Bruce…
Masked Avengers (1981) April 19, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Kung Fu, 1980s films , 2 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh Cast: Phillip Kwok; Chiang Sheng; Lu Feng Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
A band of masked bandits are causing trouble until a small group of heroes decide to stop them for reasons that seem to have passed me by.
I realised quite early on in this film a startling fact – I’ve seen more films by this director than any other. Forty-four films, to be exact. By now, I’m very familiar with his style and have drawn a couple of conclusions. One: by the late 70’s, he really didn’t give a rat’s backside about plot, consistency or plausibility. Two: Chang Cheh seems really uncomfortable with women.
It isn’t really necessary for the viewer to be aware of these facts, and it will certainly not affect the viewing experience, but it’s a shame that the carefully plotted historical epic went out of the window so completely, and a little odd that his world consists entirely of men. Sure, there are a couple of little girls, but as soon as they hit puberty they seem to disappear out of existence. An adult woman does appear in this film and hogs the screen for about 7 seconds - she does a little swoony, fainty dance, opens her mouth to deliver a line of dialogue and is promptly killed before speaking. There is no explanation of why she’s there (other than being a sister of one of the characters) or why she acts in such a peculiar manner. Unlike most, I don’t take Chang Cheh’s evident discomfort of the feminine form as “proof” of his homosexuality – just the opposite, in fact. However, it is quite hard not to notice certain “tendencies” in his films that can be construed as homoerotic, and Masked Avengers has more than its fair share of these tendencies, with bare-chested, muscle-bound men in nearly every frame.
Speaking of Masked Avengers, I think it’s probably about time I got around to reviewing it, rather than musing on whether or not Chang Cheh was gay. My expectations were high – same director as Crippled Avengers, some of the same Venom cast return (sadly, Sun Chien and Lo Meng, my favourite Venoms, do not appear) and the word “Avengers” in the title. Sounds like a sure-fire hit.
It’s evident early on that this is not quite as good as earlier Venom movies. The plot really is non-existent and it doesn’t have the kooky charm of Crippled Avengers. Worse still, there’s a pretty despicable and gratuitous case of animal cruelty near the start that nearly made me switch off. Oh, and the title is somewhat misleading – the Avengers are actually unmasked, it’s the bandits who wear them.
However, animal snuff and minor gripes aside, Masked Avengers has its moments of greatness. It suffers from the exact same problem as the earlier Venom movie Daredevils in that it tries to add intrigue where it’s not wanted or needed, but at least it does not try to be too many things – a major downfall of the latter film. This time, it’s Phillip Kwok who takes centre stage as the cook-with-a-dark-past Gao Yao, and he’s the only character who has more than one dimension. Actually, his story, when he eventually tells it, is quite interesting.
And naturally, the action scenes are outstanding. The bad guys use tridents, which is pretty original. I don’t usually find weapon-work as interesting as unarmed combat, but I have to admit that the displays here are quite exciting. I won’t go and spoil the surprise by revealing who the culprit(s) are, but the showdown is well worth watching and recalls Chang’s glory days. It’s also apparent that some money went into the set design, although it’s possible that they were re-using some sets from earlier films.
So while there’s much to be indifferent or appalled about in Masked Avengers, it can’t be ignored that it’s a pretty impressive action movie. If only there had been some thought given to the plot and characters, it might very well have become a genre classic. My favourite part, though, was when on of our heroes gets slain after buying a glove puppet for a little girl after she fell over on the street (a complete sequence of events that takes as much time to transpire as it takes to read that sentence!). He is killed by a Masked Avenger and the camera zooms in on the forlorn glove puppet on his hand to show the inhumanity of the bandits, which I thought was really funny. It loses something in the telling though, so go and see it for yourself.
Heaven and Hell (1978) February 2, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, 1970s films, Kung Fu, Wacko, Supernatural , 3 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh Cast: Lee I-Min, Sun Chien, Phillip Kwok, Chiang Sheng, Lo Meng, Fu Sheng Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
A man and woman are kicked out of the Court of Heaven on trumped up charges of bringing shame onto the Kingdom. Reincarnated as a taxi driver, Xin Ling (Lee I-Min) courageously takes on and kills a gangster harassing Chen Ding (Fu Sheng) and his sweetheart (Jenny Tseng), but is himself mortally wounded in the conflict. Now sent to hell, Xin Ling applies for leniency when the annual heavenly Buddha happens to appear pretty much as soon as he gets there. In another stroke of luck, the Venoms themselves are in hell and keen to get out, and the heavenly Buddha allows them all to fight their way out.
The more perceptive of my readership have probably noticed a leaning towards the “spooky” in my Hong Kong film viewings of late, and I’ve always had a bit of an interest in this film as it looked like a wacky bit of fun. The reality, though, is a film just a bit too out there for my tastes.
You can’t fault the film for being different. We start off in heaven in this three act film, a section which of course has a strong fantasy feel to it, and reminded me a little of the film Na Cha the Great. It soon becomes apparent that the first two sections of the film are just setting the scene for the “Hell” part as the “Heaven” section barely lasts ten minutes before switching to modern day Earth. The Mortal World is the most striking part of the film visually, which, for reasons unfathomable to me, is portrayed in a kind of theatrical way as a stage play complete with stylised sets and props (and a couple of musical numbers from Jenny Tseng which are surprisingly not too bad). Fu Sheng takes on a gang of dancers pretending to be thugs in a fight scene without sound effects of any kind and with visible lack of contact. It’s a very brave style choice, and definitely something I’ve not seen before. Unfortunately, I don’t think it really pays off. The film then confusingly switches to a more realistic, external setting for the encounter between Fu Sheng, Lee I-Min and the gang boss played by Kong Do.
The lion’s share of the screen time goes to the Hell sequence, but this is interspersed with flashbacks to various periods in the world’s history when the Venoms’ backstories are told. Hell itself is primarily made up of cheesy sets, cheesy costumes (Hell’s workers are kind of like human pigs) and ultra cheesy lighting. There are a few torture scenes and a little moralising along the way, but basically, the Hell sequence is just a prelude to the introduction of the Venoms and the film becomes a Kung Fu-fest from there on in. While the Venom stories are good, the whole film just descends into a fragmented mess and I couldn’t wait for the whole thing to finish.
You could walk in on Heaven and Hell at various points and think you’re watching a fantasy film, an avant-garde 70’s pop art piece, a comedy, a horror, a period Kung Fu flick, a modern day actioner and a musical variety show. With so many elements involved, it was sure to turn out badly, and Heaven and Hell was a real struggle for me to sit through. You’ll never see another film like it, but that’s meant more of a warning than a recommendation.
Martial Club (1981) January 1, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Kung Fu, 1980s films , add a commentDirector: Lau Kar-Leung Cast: Lau Ka-Fai; Mak Tak-Law; Hui Ying-Hung; Johnny Wang Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
Martial Club opens with a piece to camera by Lau Kar-Leung explaining the etiquette and traditions of the Lion Dance, and then launches into a sequence similar in theme to the previous year’s Jackie Chan feature Young Master. The Lion Dance shown here differs drastically in execution and both scenes really display the differences between Golden Harvest’s and Shaw Brothers’ house styles, with the latter being very labour-intensive and studio-bound but more intricate and showy. Another similarity to Young Master comes when another Lion Dance team from a rival school turns up on the scene and shows disrespect. The school, and its Master, Luk, start to harass Wong Kei-Ying’s school.
Lau Kar-Fai stars as Wong Fei-Hung and portrays him in a similar style to that shown in Yuen Woo-Ping’s Drunken Master. He is friends with Wang Yinlin (Mak Tak-Law) and together they get into various scrapes trying to outdo each other in martial arts displays – often resorting to bribing opponents to lose to show their superiority. But when a northerner by the name of Shan Xiong (Johnny Wang) shows up into town and is given money by Yinlin’s sister (Hui Ying-Hung) to throw a fight, he misinterprets the situation and beats Yinlin badly, leading to more misunderstandings and friction with the Luk school.
This is another Lau-Kar-Leung film about martial arts, tradition and politeness. In a stroke of genius, Johnny Wang, who might as well have the words “bad guy” stencilled across his forehead, is cast as a Master who is on the side of fairness and chivalry, much to the chagrin of Master Luk, who was banking on him to beat Wong’s school so he can claim untimate superiority. Wang strolls into town from the north speaking no Cantonese and trying to communicate in Mandarin (so bear in mind that the Mandarin audio track on the IVL DVD makes all this very confusing), leading to many mix-ups.
Martial Club, like virtually every other martial arts movie made at this time, has many comic moments, and while the comedy isn’t too bad, it isn’t too great either. There are a few smiles to be had at the scene where a fight breaks out at a theatre and the Opera stars remain in character while it’s going on. Hui Ying-Hung is more in the background than other Lau Kar-Leung films of the period, but she moves better in this than in her starring features and is on top form. In fact, the action sequences can’t be faulted at all, and most of the last hour is a fight-fest leading to the inevitable showdown.
As is the case with so many Shaw Brothers films, the ending is a travesty and this ending seems more premature than normal. But Martial Club holds its own with Lau Kar-Leung’s other great works from the period such as Heroes of the East, Dirty Ho, My Young Auntie, et al.
Five Element Ninjas (1982) November 28, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Kung Fu, 1980s films , 4 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh Cast: Ricky Cheng, Lo Meng, Chen Pei-Hsi Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
It’s quite hard to write a great deal about this film, as it’s so brazenly shallow. The plot is the most simplistic excuse for joining a bunch of action scenes together: a clan of martial arts heroes known as the Alliance (who strut about wearing virginal white and not-very-macho little capes), challenge a local bandit gang. If the Alliance win, the bandits must go straight. In amongst the gang is a ringer in the form of a Samurai swordsman. He is defeated, and upon his death by Seppuku, gives the bandit king a note to send to a Ninja master to avenge his supposed disgrace. The Ninja master (Chan Wai-Man) arrives with his troops to finish of the Alliance, incorporating five clans named after the elements gold, earth, fire, water and wood.
Five Element Ninjas is one of those kung fu films that obtained a large fan base in the US, which has kind of blown its reputation out of proportion a little. Seen in context, it’s actually quite a desperate film. The studio was in trouble and this is a pretty cynical attempt to get bums on seats by painting the screen red and throwing action scene after action scene at the viewer. Oh, and a pseudo-naked ninja girl in a fishnet body stocking. Sounds like a winner on paper, obviously, and if anyone could have pulled it off, Chang Cheh could.
The film is outrageous in every respect. The Alliance’s outfits are highly questionable and there’s an air of campness quite unparalleled in films from this era. In many ways, it has the look and feel of a mid-70’s film rather than one from 1982. As with all Shaw movies from this period, it’s entirely shot indoors on the soundstage, and the artificial colours and landscapes add to the comic-book appearance of the film.
However, it’s in the violence that Five Element Ninjas comes into its own, and this is by far the most outrageous aspect. The fight with the “earth element” Ninja clan is too gruesome for words, but the guy tripping on his own entrails was hilarious (OK, so I’m a sick bastard). Mind you, that’s nothing compared to what happens later, but you’ll have to see it yourself to find out…
The only depth aimed for is with Junko (Chen Pei-Hsi), a ninja girl sent to infiltrate the Alliance and ends up on a killing spree. There are hints that she’s a more complicated person, and capable of loving. But then someone kills her. Oh well, easy come, easy go.
It’s a shame that there aren’t more big names on show. The hero by default is Ricky Cheng Tien-Chi, and you’d be forgiven for scratching your head trying to remember where you’d seen him before. It seems he didn’t have such a stellar career in the movies, but he certainly puts on a decent show here. Venom Lo Meng appears as the heroic Liang Zhi-Sheng and has a few great action scenes, but is definitely not the star of the film. It could be said that the star of the film is the Ninja weaponry, which the film takes great pains to explain has been extensively researched for the production. This is one of those films (like Legendary Weapons of China) which puts a caption on screen whenever a new weapon is shown, and I do find it distracting and a little annoying. Nevertheless, the weapons are shown in all their gruesome glory and the fight scenes (of which there are many) are usually quite inventive, albeit somewhat implausible!
Oddly for a film made in 1982, the soundtrack on the IVL DVD is in Mandarin and does not feature a Cantonese track, which, if it was released in this way, would have been another very unfashionable choice for the era. If you’re after something about as challenging as a Peter and Jane book, this could be for you. But it’s nothing to get too excited about.
The Pirate (1973) November 21, 2007
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 4 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh; Pao Hsueh-Li; Wu Ma Cast: Ti Lung; David Chiang; Tin Ching; Fan Mei-Sheng Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
Pirate Chang Pao-Chai (Ti Lung) springs a leak after an otherwise successful raid on a foreign ship. He goes ashore to get materials to patch his ship up, where he encounters corrupt Qing officials and poor, oppressed peasants. Being a good man at heart, he decides to help out and becomes an even bigger outlaw in the process.
Try and guess if you can spot what the problem with The Pirate is going to be from the plot synopsis above. No, I’m not saying it’s unimaginative and formulaic (although it is). That’s right – hardly any of it takes place at sea! Actually, I’d say there are fewer sea scenes than in that other pirate film that never was, Project A. Trouble is, though, that Project A didn’t suffer as a result. This does.
Things start off promisingly enough. There’s a battle between the pirates and a ship full of…erm…rather Chinese-looking Englishmen. The ships are great though, and there are some big explosions going on. However, land is always in sight, which does spoil the effect somewhat. It’s not piracy on the high seas so much as piracy in a bit of a bay somewhere. Never mind, I thought, maybe things will pick up later…
It’s always a welcome change to see Ti Lung take the starring role for once instead of David Chiang (who’s given a “guest starring” credit but does feature quite heavily). It seems like I’ve seen a million of these Ti Lung/David Chiang films, but in truth I’ve probably only seen about five-hundred-and-eighty-thousand or so. For this, Chang is “Jointly Director” (as it says in the credits) with Pao Hsueh-Li (who worked on many other Chang Cheh films in co-directing capacity) and jack-of-all-trades Wu Ma.
The three directors do not improve anything, and were probably only utilised to speed the process up to knock this out as quickly as possible. The story is a real letdown. Ti Lung as Chang is utterly unbelievable as a pirate when he comes ashore because he’s such a compassionate character and always looking out for the peasants, which seems totally at odds with the whole point of being a pirate. Things do improve toward the end when he starts beating up the bad guys, but it’s too little too late and can’t save the movie. When the film ends, we get a little epilogue which tells us that Chang Pao-Chai was a real person and what happened to him after the (highly fictionalised, I suspect) events depicted in the movie. Well, fancy that.
The only other notable element is Dean Shek. In one scene, he appears to be unaware he’s being filmed, and if you watch him later in the film he has a brief background action scene and it is blatantly obvious he hasn’t got a clue what he’s been asked to do and looks incredibly uncomfortable.
There are bucketfuls of historical epics from Chang Cheh during the early to mid 70’s, but I’d say this is probably the worst of the lot. For completists only.
Shaolin Wooden Men (1976) November 7, 2007
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 4 commentsDirector: Chen Chi-Hwa Cast: Jackie Chan, Kam Kong, Doris Lung, Chiang Kam Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Lo Wei Motion Picture Co
A mute and underachieving Shaolin student (Jackie Chan) endures mistreatment and disdain by his contemporaries for his disability while the masters think he’s lazy and lacking in ability. He harbours a secret past: as a child, he saw his father assassinated, and has vowed to find the killer. One day, as he slaves away at the temple, he spots a secret cave within the grounds and investigates it to find a man chained to the walls. Living on scraps provided by the guards, the mute strikes up a friendship with the prisoner and trades extra food for Kung Fu lessons. He also gets some tuition from a Shaolin nun and a drunken monk, and soon he is skilful enough to take the ultimate graduation test – crossing a corridor lined with large wooden mechanical dummies that attempt to pummel the students back to the safety of the temple. Once released to the wide world the mute again meets his prisoner friend, who is now a free man, and seeks the killer of his father.
Back in the day when Hong Kong movies meant Jackie Chan movies and vice versa to me, I thought Shaolin Wooden Men was a pretty great film and certainly one of the best from his time with Lo Wei. A few hundred movies or so later, I have to admit my horizons have been broadened and the shine has been knocked off this particular nugget a little.
For a start, it’s a bit of a knock-off of 18 Bronzemen, which was released the same year and is quite a bit better than this even taking into account its own faults. Furthermore, well, it’s just a bit…naff. The villain (who I’m not going to reveal, just in case there is someone out there who can’t figure it out from my plot synopsis) is pure comic-book cliché and there’s a bizarre scene where a misunderstanding leads to him killing a family in front of Jackie and a restaurant worker (played by Chiang Kam, one of the few familiar faces amongst this nondescript cast). There’s an attitude of: “hey, you shouldn’t have done that. Oh well, never mind. Let’s bury them”. This odd behaviour runs throughout the film and everyone seems to be prone to it at one point or another.
The Shaolin Wooden Men of the title are but a minor part of the film and serve merely as a final test for each student to pass. There’s little sense of drama here, especially seeing as how Jackie takes the test mid way through the film and passes. Even if you’re not looking too carefully, you can see the head of one of the wooden “robots” lifting to give a glimpse of the performer beneath! I actually prefer the first half of the film, where Jackie is being tutored by the three very different masters. His relationship to the chained man is quite unusual for a film of this nature, and it’s a pity their ties to each other wasn’t explored more deeply. Jackie, in his only “silent” role, is surprisingly flexible without the dialogue and shows a decent range of facial expressions.
It’s the second half, where Jackie is let out into the world, that things get a bit haphazard. He is befriended by a family of restaurant workers (including the aforementioned Chiang Kam and Doris Lung, who would go on to feature in Half a Loaf of Kung Fu) and helps them out of a few scrapes with a gang of thugs (which includes a young Yuen Biao). From here on in, it’s a standard Kung Fu movie, and not a very memorable one at that. Jackie finds the killer of his father and the two duel to the death. The action choreography is passable and occasionally pretty good with Chan throwing in some flips and some other impressive acrobatics, but sadly there’s nothing to pump the adrenaline through the veins.
I find these days that I want to like Shaolin Wooden Men a lot more than I do. I guess I’m never going to think of it as fondly as I used to, but it still has a few things going for it. There’s a rousing score and the opening titles are really great. They show the Wooden Men in a series of still silhouettes (even though you can actually see them moving most of the time!), and the effect is quite striking. Maybe if they’d played more of a part in the film, it would have been better. There again, maybe not…
Daredevils (1979) October 28, 2007
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 11 commentsThings have been a bit quiet here for a few weeks for a couple of reasons. I’ve been writing about some non-Hong Kong movies (such things do exist, apparently) and more recent HK releases over at Obsessed With Film. The other is a self-imposed abstention from Kung Fu films which has lasted a good three months. Such fasting is necessary sometimes to keep from becoming blasé about the subject, and it has built up my appetite for this particular film, which I’ve been looking forward to ever since seeing Crippled Avengers. Although I’m looking to get a more varied movie diet in the next few weeks (for example, I’m going to be looking at some more Johnny To films in the near future) I don’t want this blog to die completely and will continue to use it to promote Kung Fu films. So without further ado, I give you this evening’s feature presentation…
Director: Chang Cheh Cast: Phillip Kwok, Chiang Sheng, Wong Lik, Sun Chien, Lo Meng, Lu Feng Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
There’s a plot in here relating to an evil warlord that kills off one of our heroes’ family, but it’s all very strained and perfunctory. Actually, a lot of the movie is quite perfunctory and there’s a general half-arsedness (if that’s a real word) to it all.
A case in point is the whole middle section, which is flatter than an unusually flat pancake that’s been gone over by a steamroller. There’s an attempt at intrigue (I guess this was around the time the Chor Yuen films were popular) involving the sale of a non-existent weapons cache and it just falls on its face. And it seems to go on for months!
This is from the team behind the now legendary Five Venoms and the new love of my life, Crippled Avengers. The Venoms themselves are on fine form, and leap about with great aplomb. But Chang Cheh, as usual, shows he was utterly incapable of consistency. There’s also a worrying turn towards comedy (again, another film that was doing great box-office around this time was Drunken Master) with some of the routines and the Venoms doing comedy just doesn’t feel right at all.
There are high points. Oh yes, there are high points. For example, for connoisseurs of the nunchaku this film is a must-see. We have a couple of blazing scenes involving the weapon, including the best with Lo Meng (who will forever be remembered as the Toad from Five Venoms) who is simply stunning with them. As well as this, the last fifteen minutes are action packed and very compelling.
I am not the type of fan who demands action all the way through a film (and often complain when presented with such), but the unevenness of Daredevils is a hurdle that is simply insurmountable. Were it not for the truly horrid attempt at being a second-rate thriller (and failing) and the lacklustre approach to the story and characterisation (we simply do not know enough about the characters or why they seem to be bonded to each other) there would be much to enjoy. Sadly, though, Daredevils misfires far too often to be truly enjoyable.
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.
Disciples of the 36th Chamber (1985) July 11, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Kung Fu, 1980s films , add a commentDirector: Lau Kar-Leung Cast: Hsiao Ho, Lau Kar-Fai (Gordon Liu), Lau Kar-Leung Action Directors: Lau Kar-Leung, Hsiao Ho, Lee King-Chue Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
It’s hard to believe, but this film was made in the same year as Jackie Chan’s Police Story and is a good indicator of just how out of touch the Shaw Brothers studio had become. It flopped so badly that even some fans of the first film are totally unaware that it even exists.
The second sequel to the 36th Chamber of Shaolin is actually more of a true sequel than Return to the 36th Chamber, in that Lau Kar-Fai reprises his role as (the real) San Te. However, he plays second lead (and second fiddle) to Fong Sai-Yuk (Hsiao Ho), who, along with his two brothers (I didn’t even realise Fong Sai-Yuk had brothers, but never mind), journey to the Shaolin Temple in their own quest to put one over one the Manchu government.
The story is predictable and the script is uninspired. But what’s worse is the ‘humour’ that crept into the first sequel is even more in evidence here – and it’s at least ten times as unfunny. Lau Kar-Leung apparently wrote this himself, and it’s well known that he was having a bad time around this period, which might have contributed to the lacklustre script.
There’s a vague outline of the three-act structure from the other two films, but it’s all very tenuous. As far as I know, Fong Sai-Yuk didn’t exist in the same timeline as San Te, but I could be wrong and I’m prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. His addition to the series is probably an attempt at adding someone familiar to the formula as Lau Kar-Fai had already gone through the training twice before as two different people! In any case, the training is definitely less inspired this time round. This is perhaps not too surprising, as the market had already become saturated with 36th Chamber wannabes. Plus, of course, Fong Sai-Yuk doesn’t need much training, does he?
For all that, though, there’s no denying that the action scenes are pretty damn impressive. For reasons I’ve never been able to fathom, Hsiao Ho only had leading roles in a couple of movies (although he’s visible in many, many others). His acrobatic skill is superb, and his presence saves this from total catastrophe. Right from the opening, we are treated to a blistering display of ability. While I’m on the subject of the opening titles, is it me or does the title sequence have absolutely nothing to do with the film itself? I mean, usually it has some relevance, but if this is the case here, it escaped me totally.
It’s not enough to salvage the film, though, and at times it’s all very tired-looking. The genre needed time to rest, and unfortunately this film helped to make the traditional Kung Fu picture persona non grata for a few years. In a very real sense, this movie marks the end of a glorious age, and taken in this context, Disciples of the 36th Chamber is a little easier to accept. It’s a hard film to like, but it’s impossible to dismiss.