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 HK audiences love their Robin Hood type heroes from the Black Lizard, the Black Butterfly, to Iron Monkey! A purple garbed bandit known as the Black... | HK audiences love their Robin Hood type heroes from the Black Lizard, the Black Butterfly, to Iron Monkey! A purple garbed bandit known as the Black Butterfly sneaks around robbing the selfish rich and giving to the poor. Who could it be? The drunken beggar who seems to be wealthy (and always smashed), the owner of the inn who is an old master swordsman, his daughter, or maybe the handsome young court officer? Then the real robbers, the Five Devils (who live at Five Devil Rock - big surprise) show up and things get really complicated!
Preferred some of the other titles from this era, like Crimson Charm, and noe of the stars really stand out for me here. For trivia points, director Lo Wei went on to direct Bruce Lee in BIG BOSS and FIST OF FURY and even acts in the film. He also directed another film in 1960 called BLACK BUTTERFLY, but I can't find any info on it... And Han Ying-Chieh who plays the "Smiley Devil" - that's his characters name (!) - was action director on the Lo Wei Bruce Lee films as well as working on the fights for director King Hu. No, Hu was not royalty, but rather the director who influenced Ang Lee to make CROUCHING TIGER! |
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3 years ago
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2 like this review
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 This just might be my favourite Shaw film on Jaman! Great story, complex characters, perverse twists and fantastic swordplay action!... | This just might be my favourite Shaw film on Jaman! Great story, complex characters, perverse twists and fantastic swordplay action!
A young boy sees a man killed by the "King of Swords" inn a duel and the woman by his side kills herself. The face of the "King" is obscured by a the veiled hat that is his trademark. The boy is determined to beat this master and take over the title and grows up with this single minded objective. As an adult (Shaw superstar Ti Lung who would later star with Chow Yun Fat in John Woo's THE KILLER), he wanders the martial world, a man with no name (until he adopts the name of... "Nameless"), challenging sword masters, waiting for the chance to duel with the "King". He is haunted by the specter of the young woman he saw killed and when he falls for a young lass, is he doomed to repeat this vicious cycle the the pursuit of goal?
Nameless starts out as our hero, but turns into an anti-hero when it becomes obvious that his desire for martial arts supremacy has corrupted his nature. Has he comes closer to his goal, the film takes a highly charged erotic twist that darkens the nature of the tale...
There is a poetic beauty that is similar to the works of director Chu Yuan(RETURN OF THE SENTIMENTAL SWORDSMAN - available here on Jaman.com), maybe because it was written by Yau Gong-Kin, who penned the similar INTIMATE CONFESSIONS OF A CHINESE COURTESAN, directed by Yuan. But the man responsible is director Wa Saan (who started as a cinematographer), probably better known for the giant monster bash-a-thon called INFRAMAN, as well as helming FLYING GUILLOTINE PART 2, TALES OF A EUNCH (available here on Jaman.com)
As usual, the craftsmanship of the elaborate sets is incredible, notably the ambush in the bamboo forest, all done on an interior set. Check out the use of the colour of the leaves in the transition between scenes. Its details like this that elevates this from the misconception of these films being simply "chop-socky" (a term I find stems from ignorance).
And in the background, working with master action director Tong Gai (director of SHAOLIN PRINCE - available here on Jaman.com), is a who is who of HK martial arts cinema, men who would go on to become legendary in their own right including Corey Yuen Kwai (director of FONG SAI YUK and action director on TRANSPORTER and X-MEN), Lee Hoi--Sang (who plays the Shaolin monk that Nameless fights), Yuen Wah (who plays the white-bearded defender of the castle that Nameless pins to the wall and was recently seen as the landlord in KUNG FU HUSTLE), plus various members of the Yuen Clan, Yuen Cheung -Yan (brother of Yuen Wo-ping and action director on CHARLIE'S ANGELS); Yuen Bun (who now works as Johnnie To's action director); Brandy Yuen Jan-Yeung, and Yuen Shun-Yi (the baddie from the MIRACLE FIGHTER trilogy). What a dream team!
Extra bonuses?
The Eight Swordsman, who look like a glam rock band of kung fu misfits complete with not one, but TWO hunchbacks!
Plus great lines like:
"There are three kinds of people. Men, women, and dead people..."
"Cold steel knows no mercy"
"A cat has nine lives. Are you a cat or a dog?" - Ouch! You've been zung! |
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3 years ago
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7 like this review  People's favorite
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Flip the switch in the cinema time machine for 1969 and get ready for some classic chivalrous swordplay action.... | Flip the switch in the cinema time machine for 1969 and get ready for some classic chivalrous swordplay action.
Ling Yun plays Chang Qi Lang, a roving swordsman known as The Twin Blades of Doom for in one hand he wields a sword and in the other a dagger attached to a long leather thong. Just as his oppenent manages to parry the sword - whoosh! - out comes the dagger and Doom has won the duel. After defeating an old swordsman, he is overcome with guilt and hangs up his swords to live with his aging parents. When he interrupts an ambush on a rainy night (a well choreographed and shot sequence) set up by the notorious Ghost Gang, they kill his parents. Grief stricken, he grabs his two swords and sets out after the Ghost Gang and their leader... The Ghost King!
After he gets injured, he is rescued by a troupe of wandering acrobats, who later cross the paths of the Ghost Gang. Chang goes to their aid, only to learn that the father of the girl who is sweet on him is the brother of the old swordsman he killed! Will this vicious circle of agony and vengeance never end? Hopefully not because then we have no movie! Meanwhile a vaulable treasure named the 12 Beauties of Jade has been given to the mayor of Qi Dou Town and the Ghost Gang have their eyes on it. Can Chang save the town, lure out the Gang's spies and regain the honour of his family...?
TWIN BLADES OF DOOM was the last film directed by Tao Qin, a writer and director who had worked in the industry since 1948 and was mainly known for his romantic comedies.
He also made the two part melodrama The Blue and The Black in 1966 for the Shaw brothers.Too bad he wasn't able to play more in the martial arts field as there are some great things going on in this film. The fight in the rain drenched narrow alley is handled with skill as the characters leap in and out of passage ways and hide in the shadows. Feels similar to the POV video games of today. |
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3 years ago
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 A lowly and naïve Qing official (Lo Mang from THE FIVE VENOMS and THE KID WITH THE GOLDEN ARM) gifted with sharp fighting skills, teams up with a... | A lowly and naïve Qing official (Lo Mang from THE FIVE VENOMS and THE KID WITH THE GOLDEN ARM) gifted with sharp fighting skills, teams up with a conman (Wong Yu) and they opens a kung fu school together, only to get involved with The Heaven & Earth Society, a band of Ming rebels fighting against the Qing overlords.
Along the same lines as director Liu Chia Liang’s DIRTY HO, where a trickster teams up with a martial arts adept, LION VS LION is a great series of fast and furiously choreographed fight sequences laced with bawdy comedy that might rustle the feathers of the politically correct. Always keep in mind when a joke seems a little out of date or offending, that this is a film from a different time, let alone, a different culture. Try not to instantly judge through the possibly biased view point of your own culture. Okay, enough preaching!
One of the standout pieces is a elaborately drawn out lion dance fight. Lion dancing is a Chinese festival tradition practiced by kung fu schools, as teams in lion costumes fight each other for a prize that dangles from a high point, requiring agility and skill to claim the prize. This dance has also served as a set up of for sequences in the Yuen Wo-Ping film DREADNOUGHT and Jackie Chan’s THE YOUNG MASTER. This film shares two directors, both of whom have had a decent career as action directors with Hsu Hsia involved in Jackie Chan’s breakout films, SNAKE IN THE EAGLE’S SHADOW and DRUNKEN MASTER, while Chin Yuet-Sang worked with a variety of directors from Kung Hu to Tsui Hark. And Johnny Wang Lung-wei, the type cast bad guy bruiser from FIVE VEMOMS, is the beefy thug once again here, making things difficult for our heroes! Great old school action! |
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3 years ago
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(warning to the faint of heart – some spoilers!) More tales of martial arts feuds, this time between the notorious Crimson Charm Gang and the Chung... | (warning to the faint of heart – some spoilers!) More tales of martial arts feuds, this time between the notorious Crimson Charm Gang and the Chung Chow Sword School after the teacher of the school kills the son of one of the gang lords while defending a young maiden. The Charms (you know, like “The Jets” and “The Sharks”) have a motley assortment of thugs sporting names like “The White Faced King of Hades”, and the gangs factions are identified by their clothes: The White Robe Chief, The Yellow Robe Chief, etc. On the sixtieth birthday of the teacher, the gang crashes the party and wipes everyone out. Or so they think… Flash to three years later and some surviving students try their own hand at revenge.
Again, another fine example of the type of adventure flick that the Shaw Brothers Studio was expert in crafting. Director Huang Feng was a strong influence on Sammo Hung (actor/director/producer/stuntman and classmate of Jackie Chan back in Peking Opera) who appears as a fighter in the background of the restaurant fight with Shaw starlet Ivy Ling Po. Feng later went on to direct flicks for Golden Harvest including the Angela Mao films, HAP KI DO, LADY WHIRLWIND, WHEN TAEKWONDO and STONER (starring one time Bond George Lazenby). A master at staging battle scenes, check out the slaughter at the school with long tracking shots that pan around in middle of the action as limbs are chopped off and blood spurts.
The craftspeople at the Shaw Studios where also equally as talented, but often praise went unsung. Witness the beautiful snowy interior set where Chang Yi trains, just one example of how these films influenced Quentin Tarantino with his House of Blue Leaves set piece in Kill Bill (although the homage is shared from the Japanese film Lady Snowblood).
With a good guy nicknamed “Blood Master” who practices “The Blood Palm,” you should get an idea of the kind of fun that THE CRIMSON CHARM dishes out! |
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3 years ago
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7 like this review People's favorite
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The Thundering Sword... | The Thundering Sword
This 1967 Shaw Brothers film has some of their top stars from the period including Cheng Pei-Pei, Lo Lieh, Wu Ma, Chang Yi, Ku Feng, and Tin Feng, all of whom went on to make other films for the studio and other top directors from Hong Kong.
Two students are sent by their master to seek out the dreaded Thundering Sword, that if possessed, will tear apart the martial world - doesn’t that RING a bell? One student, Yu (Chang Yi) meets So Jiau Jiau (Cheng Pei Pei, the first kung fu heart throb who went on to star in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON) a pretty martial artist on a white stallion who dispatches four bandits with her silver whip. It is love at first sight when they cross paths… (WARNING – spoilers below!)
Meanwhile the other student Chang Kwan (Lo Lieh, who starred in a few hundred Hong Kong films and would star in the first kung fu film to come to America, FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH aka KING BOXER) finds the sword in the hidden chamber of a tomb and escapes booby traps that shoot arrows, spears, darts and even a wall of spikes, only to be ambushed by So Jiau Jiau, also after the sword. Unaware of his relation to her new love, she strikes him down with a poison dart. Realizing her error, she impersonates Yu and enlists an escort agency (the Chinese version of Wells Fargo from old American westerns) to take him back to his school to nurse him back to health. The plan seems easy enough until the caravan is attacked by an evil clan looking for the sword, who end up crippling Kwan as they interrogate him for the sword.
Now the plot shifts to a version of Romeo and Juliet, as So Jiau Jiau loves Yu, but hides the secret she is responsible for the crippling of his friend. And her father, the head of the Caterpiller House (I think this is a mistranslation of Centipede, a much more deadly insect) of the Wu Du Clan, is not to happy to have the two opposing houses joined, And when he learns of his daughters dastardly action, he almost disowns her - “You evil scum!”, he shouts at her.
THE THUNDERING SWORD is a great example of how the Shaw films are for almost everyone! They have epic settings, action, violence, fantasy, lush costumes, romance, drama, great production values and more!
The film starts off with a good martial arts based clan struggle with some decent action, then hits some high melodramatic chords as the couple must struggle to do what the martial arts society considers to be the right thing. THE THUNDERING SWORD would surprise most people who have set expectation of what a “martial arts” film is. In the end, it is just a flip on an old Shakespearean plot device, but from the perspective of another culture and historical period. This one has one of the most tragic endings I have seen in this genre. Heck, even a kung fu master likes a good weeper!
If you like this one, check out other films by the director Chui Chang-Wang on Jaman.com:
TEMPLE OF THE RED LOTUS
http://www.jaman.com/a/video/077JVo_oGyWo/
THE SILVER FOX
http://www.jaman.com/a/video/0BDaEsYjwKpw/ |
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3 years ago
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6 like this review People's favorite
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Here is a film that despite having “no balls” has lots of martial arts action!... | Here is a film that despite having “no balls” has lots of martial arts action!
Several of the films from the Shaw Brothers Studio/Celestial catalog are adaptations of popular Chinese language “pulp” novels and this one is an adaptation of “The Duke of Deer Mount,” by a superstar author from HK – Louis Cha aka Jin Yong. Aside from this version, it has been adapted into films three times (including the two part ROYAL TRAMP starring Stephen “Kung Fu Hustle” Chow), there are six different television series adaptations, role playing games and even a book series examining the office politic skills displayed by the characters and their modern day application! The most popular television adaptation was a fifty episode version in 1983 starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau who both became big stars and most recently, were the leads in INFERNAL AFFAIRS, the HK film that Marty Scorcesse adapted into THE DEPARTED. Tony played the DiCaprio role and Andy did Damon.
There is an English translation of the book called “The Deer and the Cauldron” that is in 3 volumes. Read it and you will get an incredible insight into the martial arts genre. Newsweek describes it as, “Martial arts meets Monty Python!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deer_and_the_Cauldron
But back to the movie! Wang Yu plays the son of a prostitute in a brothel, a real rascal, constantly getting into trouble and attracted to gambling. He follows an outlaw swordsman and inadvertently finds himself in the Forbidden Palace (the “White House” of old timey China). He is forced into the situation where he must pose as a eunuch and serve Hai, an old, blind eunuch (the prolific Sahw actor Ku Feng) who is a deadly martial arts master! He befriends a young man who turns out to be the prince (played by Gordon Liu who was Pai Mei in KILL BILL 2) and helps him get rid of a ruthless warlord who has eyes on the throne. Old Eunuch Hai is aware of a sinister plot that that involves the prince’s mom, the Empress Dowger. TALE has the feel of a who-dunnit with kung fu, but laced with some bawdy jokes (like the hooker who gets stuck on… you can imagine what I am getting at…). Some good fights and at times it has a spooky atmosphere (the opening credits feel like you are being set up for a horror film!).
I enjoyed the flick, but partially because I was so familiar with the source material. It was interesting to compare out they pulled out a 90 minute story from original source material that has been turned into a 27+ hour tv series! |
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3 years ago
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4 like this review
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SILVER FOX is a fun, rollicking adventure film, like an Eastern version of Robin Hood, complete with booby trapped underground hideaways, deadly... | SILVER FOX is a fun, rollicking adventure film, like an Eastern version of Robin Hood, complete with booby trapped underground hideaways, deadly blasts of martial arts power from an outstretched palm, poison darts, a kung fu master who hides his scarred face behind a mask and of course, a love story!
Trivia – one of the henchmen of the masked kung fu master is legendary martial arts choreographer and director Liu Chia Liang who directed the cult film 36 CHAMBERS OF SHAOLIN (aka MASTER KILLER)!
A good introduction to classic swordplay romps from the golden age of Hong Kong cinema. |
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3 years ago
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3 years ago
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