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Just a heads up for anyone who has an extended cable package and gets Robert Rodriguez's El Rey network, they air 2-3 Shaw Brothers movies a week. They tend to repeat them once or twice during the week too. They premiere on Thursdays. El Rey also airs low budget 70s/80s grindhouse/exploitation movies as well if you're into that.
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Apr 11, 2014 16:02
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flv7FMysBMU Last fight sequence from Shaolin Intruders. It's loving great: excellent choreography, dope wire work, and it gets progressively more ridiculous as it goes along.
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Apr 11, 2014 20:04
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Man Dancer posted:Wing Chun (1994) Hey dude! Thank you so much for posting about this movie! Great fights, and super entertaining, but the queerness of it had my mind boggling. Of course everything gets wrapped up in a super conventional marriage plot, but there's a lot of pretty surprising subtext going on around it that was really fun to watch. That footwashing scene is so BLATANT, ha. This is definitely one of my favorites now.
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Apr 15, 2014 04:09
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I grew up with a UHF station showing a mix of Shaw Brothers and Gamera movies on Saturday afternoon in my town (Miami TV39  ) and so I've always loved chop-sockey action.Recently, I got a chance to show Master of the Flying Guillotine to some friends, who all loved it, but I was taken aback by how bad it looked on DVD. Growing up, it was just accepted that OTA broadcast looked bad (especially on our ancient 80s TVs), but no I guess the movies were just filmed on that grainy a stock, with very little attention paid to focusing on a particular depth of field. Has there ever been any attempt to salvage these films, or are the only copies fifth-generation garbage prints? I'm really glad Stephen Chow and Donnie Yen are still making movies because Iron Monkey and Kung-Fu Hustle are much better shot and presented compared to the old Shaw films.
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Apr 22, 2014 21:43
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CloseFriend posted:I thought some people would find this interesting: the back cover copy for Clan of the White Lotus… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwaPA_eQ2aI Not sure how to make a timecode work with the video link parsing the forum does, but skip to 38 minutes in this documentary to see a 'real life' application of magical testicle kung-fu. Probably NWS for the shot of a man dragging around a heavy gardening implement via a chain attached to his scrotum. Al Cu Ad Solte posted:The finale from Thundering Mantis (also called Mantis Fist Fighter for some reason) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynsuaBPDFvo You left out that until the point where "old man" and "kid" are CRUCIFIED and BRANDED WITH HOT IRONS until they die, the film is a breezy and zany Jackie Chan-style comedy about a lazy fishmonger, complete with pratfalls and slide whistles. Then the last 20 minutes are a bloodbath. The totally awesome techno-70s intro sequence alludes to this, at least - "Wow! He's crazy!" How has no one mentioned Fist of Legend  A remake of Fists of Fury, this film features Jet Li dislocating the shoulders of dozens of effete Japanese yuppies. People talked up thread about HK films where the enemy was an external occupying force rather than corrupt government or businessmen, and along with Li's "Born to Defence" this is one of the foremost examples of a Chinese hero raging against the foreign devils. That being said, the film is like 90% fight scene, and all of them are exceptional. The climactic confrontation between Li's character and an evil military boss takes up nearly a third of the runtime and completely destroys a multi-room set. Highly recommended, but pretty much pure aggro from moment one with no comedy and minimal character development. moller fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 23:22
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moller posted:You left out that until the point where "old man" and "kid" are CRUCIFIED and BRANDED WITH HOT IRONS until they die, the film is a breezy and zany Jackie Chan-style comedy about a lazy fishmonger, complete with pratfalls and slide whistles. Then the last 20 minutes are a bloodbath. The totally awesome techno-70s intro sequence alludes to this, at least - "Wow! He's crazy!" This is one of those hilarious quirks of early-mid kung fu cinema. I just watched Prodigal Son (1981), a lighthearted Sammo Hung action-comedy which features a scene where a few dozen sleeping men and women have their throats slashed, which goes on for a solid 5-10 minutes complete with gore effects and torrents of blood. 
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Apr 23, 2014 00:20
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There's always rapes played for chuckles too which I'll never get the stomach for.
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Apr 23, 2014 00:31
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:There's always rapes played for chuckles too which I'll never get the stomach for. They thankfully don't usually pull the trigger on that one, and leave it at "oh this guy wants to rape a lady, what a scamp!" Sex with the wrong person because the room was dark and/or someone was wearing the wrong clothes, on the other hand...
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Apr 23, 2014 00:32
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I wish they'd put Pedicab Driver out proper in Canada/US.
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Apr 23, 2014 00:39
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Mechafunkzilla posted:This is one of those hilarious quirks of early-mid kung fu cinema. I just watched Prodigal Son (1981), a lighthearted Sammo Hung action-comedy which features a scene where a few dozen sleeping men and women have their throats slashed, which goes on for a solid 5-10 minutes complete with gore effects and torrents of blood. I totally feel you on this point - Wong Fei Hung's faithful and stalwart assistant Foon being beaten to death, wrapped in a carpet, and thrown on the middle of the dinner table during a birthday party in the peking opera focused Dreadnaught being another example. But Thundering Mantis really takes this juxtaposition further than most, to the extent that the characters in the film acknowledge it. The main bad guy becomes increasingly horrified as the main character begins to rip and eat the flesh from his exposed limbs in the middle of the final confrontation. Badass Bad Guys: Dreadnaught  Yuen Biao is a bit of a plucky underdog type in real life. He can be said to be the smallest in both stature and fame of the Three Lucky Stars - an Opera school clique comprised of Biao, Jackie Chan, and Sammo Hung. He seems to have spent most of his career typecast in that sort of role as well. In Dreadnaught he plays the "main character" Mousy, a timid launderer who aspires to be a glamorous opera star. He eventually learns washing-up kung fu from his domineering older sister, and that's about all I'm going to say about Mousy. The star of Dreadnaught is inarguably the titular Dreadnaught himself - The White Tiger. I haven't seen the film in a while so I'm a bit iffy on his (possibly sympathetic) backstory but it's not really important either. Under the direction of Yuen Woo Ping, The White Tiger roars into frame in pretty much every scene he appears in, destroying the set and his targets alike. Tiger spends most of the film wearing Opera style facepaint (I think representing a demon character?) which adds to the sheer freakiness of his sudden and unannounced murderous rampages. The final fight also takes place in a Peking Opera setting with pretty trippy sounds and visuals leading up to the point where Mousy finally vanquishes the White Tiger with laundry fu. Oh, and Wong Fei Hung and Foon are in it but I forget why. I think Mousy fucks up their laundry or something. Mystery of Chessboxing  The main character is... well, I can't remember. He's some Chinese guy with a shag haircut who ends up befriending an old man who knows Kung Fu and chess (well, Shogi). With the old man's tutelage, he goes on to challenge The Ghost Faced Killer. Oh man I love the Ghost Faced Killer. I'm pretty fond of Ghostface Killa too, I think he's the most consistently solid in terms of solo releases - Fishscale and Ironman are like two of my all time favorite hip hop albums. Ehr, nevermind. Ghost Faced Killer is essentially a hitman working for himself. He was slighted in some serious way in the past and after several years is back to murderize the hell out of the dentists and second cousins of the people who slighted him. He has a massive head of shockingly white hair tied into a complex updo like a man attending a pain prom. He announces his presence and your impending demise by tossing a metal pendant with a demon's face embossed on it in your path. When this happens the characters in the dub exclaim "Ghost Faced Killing plate!" with the severity of a man who knows he's about to get his face kicked the gently caress off. Ghost Faced's fighting technique is called Five Elements and has five different styles he switches between, paper-rock-scissors style, to counter any opponent. It also leads to him rolling around on the floor while sitting indian style and yelling "Gold absorbs water!" Blah blah blah nameless hero learns the chessboxing technique which has a countermove for every countermove and eventually by teaming up with the old man and fighting 2 on 1 is able to vanquish ghostface by crushing his larynx Road House style while flashing back to doing the same to a walnut while training. Freeze frame. Other Stuff:  It's had many loving words said about it in this thread so far, so I don't feel like doing a full blurb about Snake in Eagles Shadow but it's probably my favorite martial arts film. I will just point out that the VHS copy of it I watched as a kid had a soundtrack made of stolen John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Vangelis, and Brian Eno tracks. The music for the training sequence where he had to catch eggs with the snake fist was from Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene. Also of note is that Jackie Chan's character kills a priest (who is really a FIGHTER! FROM RUSSIA!) by punching him in the balls so hard that he dies standing up. EDIT: Oh, and on the topic of stolen soundtracks the version of Master of the Flying Guillotine I saw had a soundtrack comprised of NEU! and Kraftwerk tracks. moller fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 03:02
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El Gallinero Gros posted:I wish they'd put Pedicab Driver out proper in Canada/US. Jesus Christ this. Pedicab Driver is probably the best, unknown martial arts film of all time. Incredible fights (Sammo vs Chia-Liang Liu), great action (pedicab/car chase), comedy, romance, drama and a star-studded cast (Dick Wei!). This is an absolutely MUST-SEE film. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:There's always rapes played for chuckles too which I'll never get the stomach for. Avoid Sammo's The Iron-Fisted Monk (1977) at all costs!
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Apr 24, 2014 09:52
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moller posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwaPA_eQ2aI 
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Apr 27, 2014 12:50
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I love how you basically can't talk about these movies without Wu-Tang coming up at some point.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:54
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SALT CURES HAM posted:I love how you basically can't talk about these movies without Wu-Tang coming up at some point. would this then be the appropriate thread to bemoan how bad Man with the Iron Fists turned out then?
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Apr 27, 2014 23:57
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Tharizdun posted:would this then be the appropriate thread to bemoan how bad Man with the Iron Fists turned out then? Is it true that Rza's initial cut of the movie was FIVE HOURS long? Did no one really realize it was that long until the last second, causing the huge cuts and massive amounts of voice over narration in the final film? What the heck happened? Nektu posted:"Iron egg skill" "It is also called 'Groin Skill,' or 'Gold Armour.' This is a mysterious skill of soft techniques. It is to practise the testicles." Too good.
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May 1, 2014 05:08
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Tharizdun posted:would this then be the appropriate thread to bemoan how bad Man with the Iron Fists turned out then? Mechafunkzilla posted:This is one of those hilarious quirks of early-mid kung fu cinema. I just watched Prodigal Son (1981), a lighthearted Sammo Hung action-comedy which features a scene where a few dozen sleeping men and women have their throats slashed, which goes on for a solid 5-10 minutes complete with gore effects and torrents of blood. In all the movies I've seen, though, Sammo Hung ranks as one of my favorite stars. By several accounts, he worked haaaaaard to get to where he got. CloseFriend fucked around with this message at 05:18 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 05:13
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CloseFriend posted:Every Sammo Hung film I've seen—Pedicab Driver, Knockabout, and Prodigal Son for sure—starts out lighthearted and then right in the second act, out of nowhere, WHAM. The dark side hits like a punch to the face. Sammo Hung is just one of those absurdly talented people. Dude is a top tier comedy actor, action star, director, and choreographer. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me he did all the editing, scoring, and set design for his films too. Mechafunkzilla fucked around with this message at 08:14 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 08:08
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CloseFriend posted:Man With the Iron Fists disappointed the gently caress out of me. RZA knew so much about the films he wanted to replicate but so little about what makes them tick. I've never seen it. Can you place it on a watchability continuum with, say, Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger? For a comedy option include Kung Pow and What's Up, Tiger Lilly? RZA is a talented musician and producer but in terms of actually bringing any sort of narrative content to Wu stuff, eh. CloseFriend posted:In all the movies I've seen, though, Sammo Hung ranks as one of my favorite stars. By several accounts, he worked haaaaaard to get to where he got. Mechafunkzilla posted:Sammo Hung is just one of those absurdly talented people. Dude is a top tier comedy actor, action star, director, and choreographer. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me he did all the editing, scoring, and set design for his films too. I could be completely off-base here or misled by propaganda but I'm led to hypothesize by reading between the lines of a few books about HK cinema that Sammo's 'hard work' comes from the same root as Jackie's ability to shrug off life-threatening injuries and continue filming. That root being the state-controlled opera school system that essentially kidnapped them and raised them as orphans under constant physical torture and hazing for the purpose of honing their acrobatic skills, like an institutionalized version of Béla Károlyi. moller fucked around with this message at 08:50 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 08:44
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They weren't kidnapped, they were basically sold into indentured servitude to an opera master (not state supported, at least not in HK) for up to ten years, after which time they were free. The contracts were pretty harsh and included signing away your rights to your kids' lives to the teacher. Literally. Like one clause was the teacher could discipline them unto death and you had to say you were ok with that as a parent/guardian. The teacher also was to keep any profits from performances in exchange for providing room and board and instruction. Sammo was indeed Jackie Chan's 'older brother' at the same opera school, and by both accounts a bully towards him. Of course if you read Chan's biography it appears he suffered from some fairly serious ADHD as a kid and his parents just didn't know how to handle him, though they were by no means neglectful or abusive. In fact his mother used to carry bags of hot water for miles on the bus every weekend to bathe him because otherwise he'd have had to wash with cold water from the hose like the other kids. It might have partly been jealousy over this and other things (she'd bring him sweets and candy and such) that led to Sammo's being so hard on him (not that he was any easier on the other kids). Yuen Biao was another of their classmates, and the youngest, and was so naturally skilled in acrobatics he rapidly caught up to their skill level even though he was several years younger, and once actually fell asleep in a handstand (they did them leaning against the wall, sometimes for hours).
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May 1, 2014 15:18
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We can't talk about Sammo, Yuen and Jackie being raised by opera school without talking about the great film Painted Faces, which is a dramatization of their school days with Sammo playing the headmaster.
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May 1, 2014 15:21
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Yep. I wish I could find it on laserdisc (for less than the 50+ up they want on ebay). Ironically enough you can find it in its entirety on YouTube, its just a very lovely VHS copy, complete with wavering frames and static and all.
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May 1, 2014 15:31
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Man, being a LaserDisc collector seems so cool to me for some reason.
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May 1, 2014 15:36
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I just want it for the digitalness so I can transfer it to DVD  Otherwise I'll have to wait for Sammo to have a heart attack before they re-release any of that old crap.
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May 1, 2014 15:39
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Tharizdun posted:Recently, I got a chance to show Master of the Flying Guillotine to some friends, who all loved it, but I was taken aback by how bad it looked on DVD. Growing up, it was just accepted that OTA broadcast looked bad (especially on our ancient 80s TVs), but no I guess the movies were just filmed on that grainy a stock, with very little attention paid to focusing on a particular depth of field. I have the 2 disc anniversary edition DVD and there's a disclaimer before the movie starts that says the print was heavily damaged and this was basically the best they could do with it.
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May 5, 2014 20:15
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moller posted:ability to shrug off life-threatening injuries and continue filming. How is being able to consistently deliver on this not hard work?
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May 5, 2014 21:16
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Neo Rasa posted:How is being able to consistently deliver on this not hard work? I think what he's saying is it's not so much work ethic as he's literally been programmed to work his fingers to the bone to get the desired result that he wants because basically, he knows no other way. I don't think anybody would imply that Jackie doesn't actually work hard for real.
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May 6, 2014 00:55
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Yeah, I wasn't trying to be dismissive of anyone's accomplishments, I was just alluding to the weird and sort of tragic shared backstory of the men, which Oracle explained better than I could.
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May 6, 2014 01:14
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Boinks posted:I have the 2 disc anniversary edition DVD and there's a disclaimer before the movie starts that says the print was heavily damaged and this was basically the best they could do with it.
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May 6, 2014 01:28
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You can see the difference with Chan compared any of his contempararies, even now. There's always those couple of quick light hits building up to the big moves. There's probably a better term for them than that. Chan and his guys sell the hell out of those punches. There's nothing in his movies that's half assed. Everything has to be perfect. You hear a lot of stories about what a lunatic Chan is on set, what a perfectionist, and you can see that's why his stuff is the way it is. He also understands character and narrative better than anyone else that comes to mind. Just a quick question, is there any particular reason no new, stable stars have emerged out of Hong Kong/China? I may be completely wrong about this, but it seems that all the martial arts stars that are leading men now were already big when I was a kid. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen. Have there been big stars that just haven't made it to the West? EDIT: I also got reminded by the mention of Heroes of the East how very few Tonfa fight scenes I've seen. The only other one off the top of my head is the first hallway fight in The Raid, which isn't quite the same thing. Any recommendations? Snowman_McK fucked around with this message at 03:03 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 02:55
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Snowman_McK posted:Just a quick question, is there any particular reason no new, stable stars have emerged out of Hong Kong/China? I may be completely wrong about this, but it seems that all the martial arts stars that are leading men now were already big when I was a kid. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen. Have there been big stars that just haven't made it to the West? Snowman_McK posted:EDIT: I also got reminded by the mention of Heroes of the East how very few Tonfa fight scenes I've seen. The only other one off the top of my head is the first hallway fight in The Raid, which isn't quite the same thing. Any recommendations?
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May 6, 2014 03:05
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CloseFriend posted:Louis Koo is the biggest name I can think of. As for why he hasn't broken through in the west, your guess is as good as mine, but he's a giant star in Hong Kong. I've actually seen him in a bunch of stuff, including his Johnnie To films, which were great. I guess I should have specified martial arts stars. In the way bad movie magazine writers put it, is there an inheritor to the Jackie Chan/Jet Li crown?
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May 6, 2014 03:14
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Is there a way of getting DVDs of the version Asian or European of a lot of the films that have seen US releases? For the longest time I thought the stuff that got released here were the versions released in elsewhere until I read the wikipedia article on a few films and found out a lot of stuff was cut for the US release. Mainly political stuff or character moments.
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May 6, 2014 03:15
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Snowman_McK posted:I've actually seen him in a bunch of stuff, including his Johnnie To films, which were great. I guess I should have specified martial arts stars. In the way bad movie magazine writers put it, is there an inheritor to the Jackie Chan/Jet Li crown? It takes several movies before you could even begin to make the comparison. Someone like Iko Uwais would need a few more Raid-level movies and would also need to show a bit more range or charm. Being a famous actor even without bringing martial arts into it requires a certain presence and charisma I'm not sure Uwais has. He's like Tony Jaa all over again.
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May 6, 2014 03:29
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Lobok posted:He's like Tony Jaa all over again. Woah, woah, woah. Let's not say things we can't take back. Tony Jaa was a good athlete and terrible actor who went insane and hung out with Panthers in the middle of directing Ong Bak 2. Every film of his was worse than the one before it. Ong Bak 2 doesn't even have an ending. The Protector 2 somehow manages to make less sense than the first one. Which is impressive. There's a bit in The Protector where they're hiding at a temple. The fat comic relief guy tells Tony they have to leave. They do. They take a short drive, drop some unimportant information, then head back to find the temple on fire (and of course fight some people). It's one of the most inept sequences I've ever seen in a film. Whoever was writing it had seen movies where the hero returns to find his place of refuge in flames, and so put one in his movie, without bothering to set the place up as a refuge in the first place, or give them a decent reason to leave the place or even come back. The whole film is just a collection of stuff that happens. Anyway, I know Uwais and his team have a long way to go, but the improvement they've shown in just three films is pretty drat impressive. I was asking specifically about Chinese/Hong Kong movie stars. I just realised how old all the old guard are getting and was wondering if there were any new stars.
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May 6, 2014 03:43
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Snowman_McK posted:Just a quick question, is there any particular reason no new, stable stars have emerged out of Hong Kong/China? I may be completely wrong about this, but it seems that all the martial arts stars that are leading men now were already big when I was a kid. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen. Have there been big stars that just haven't made it to the West? Cynical as my response is going to be, it's basically the same reason no new, stable martial arts action stars have emerged out of Hollywood such that even "new" action heroes like The Rock, Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, Hugh Jackman, Terry Crews, Michael Jai White, and so on are actually all in their mid-40s (I dig Scott Adkins but he isn't a "big name" celebrity): Visual effects. In the era of the pre-90s action stars one was cast based on physical ability first, looks and acting ability second. Due to technological advancements in film making, it's now the other way around. A new up-and-comer with Sammo Hung's body type or Arnold/Stallone's line delivery would never be permitted to take the lead role in a modern production because "it's easier to teach actors/pop musicians how to fight on camera after having them work out/take HGH for a year than teach fighters/dancers how to act on camera." The available pool for modern action heroes (AND action directors!) is thus no longer "people who've trained all their lives in martial arts." You cast someone like that, it's now a novelty. That's why for the last 20+ years Asian action cinema leads have been pop singers first and foremost, and Hollywood action stars are increasingly pulled from people who cut their teeth on theater and/or romantic comedies. The heights of success for this method are unprecedented, and it's been this way for so long that you can't even present an alternative approach to a modern movie-going audience without running it through a heavy irony filter. Only a semi-vocal Internet minority cares to make the distinction, the small bunch that took notice of these Thailand/Indonesia productions in the first place: these were clearly operations that hadn't "gotten with the times" that still had people with martial arts backgrounds carrying a lot of the weight in front of and behind the camera such that acting and plot beats were generally regarded as "derivative" in the best case.
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May 6, 2014 05:17
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Snowman_McK posted:Just a quick question, is there any particular reason no new, stable stars have emerged out of Hong Kong/China? I may be completely wrong about this, but it seems that all the martial arts stars that are leading men now were already big when I was a kid. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen. Have there been big stars that just haven't made it to the West? In addition to the answers offered by others, I'd also point to the Hong Kong handover that took place in 1997. Whatever the actual political effects were, an entire generation of veteran directors and actors bailed on HK for Hollywood which gave us The Matrix, Hard Target, Double Team, Shanghai Noon, Sammo's TV show, etc.
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May 6, 2014 07:25
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moller posted:In addition to the answers offered by others, I'd also point to the Hong Kong handover that took place in 1997. Whatever the actual political effects were, an entire generation of veteran directors and actors bailed on HK for Hollywood which gave us The Matrix, Hard Target, Double Team, Shanghai Noon, Sammo's TV show, etc. Hope you're not implying those movies aren't awesome...
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May 6, 2014 10:20
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I think he's more implying that the unique set of circumstances that led to the rise of stars like Sammo et al (e.g. the culture of Hong Kong pre-1997) no longer exists, for better or for worse.
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May 6, 2014 13:51
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Snowman_McK posted:Woah, woah, woah. Let's not say things we can't take back. Tony Jaa was a good athlete and terrible actor who went insane and hung out with Panthers in the middle of directing Ong Bak 2. I'm not saying Uwais is Jaa in any way, shape, or form, just that Jaa is a cautionary tale against saying "Lookee here, we've got our new martial arts superstar!" after some early success.
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May 6, 2014 14:43
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Could you guys recommend any films with female leads?
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May 6, 2014 17:30
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