9th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Joseph Kuo Edition!
Museum of the Moving Image and Subway Cinema
in association with
Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan)
proudly present
The 9th Old School Kung Fu Fest:
Joseph Kuo Edition!
December 6-16, 2021
Featuring all new 2K digital restorations with new English-language subtitles!!!
Nobody delivers the mighty power of Super Seventies Old School Kung Fu Action like Joseph Kuo. That decade shook beneath the blows of the titanic, decade-long duel between mighty Shaw Brothers studios and their upstart rival, Golden Harvest, who won in the end thanks to their tornado of talent (Bruce Lee, Angela Mao, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung). But away from the fray, independent producers consistently delivered B-features to fill the cinemas and the biggest name of the bunch was Taiwan’s Joseph Kuo, an independent writer, director, and producer who did the most with the least. More importantly, he was his own boss, establishing Hong Hwa International Films in 1973 and writing, directing, and producing dozens of movies under its banner until it shut down in 1992.
FIVE LIVE SCREENINGS!
FOUR OF THEM BEING BRAND NEW 2K RESTORATIONS!
ALL ORIGINAL LANGUAGE WITH NEW ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Friday, Dec 10
7:00pm- THE 36 DEADLY STYLES (1979)
BUY TICKETS for THE 36 DEADLY STYLES
Saturday, Dec 11
1:00pm- 18 BRONZEMEN (1976)
BUY TICKETS for 18 BRONZEMEN
4:00pm- RETURN OF THE 18 BRONZEMEN (1976)
BUY TICKETS for RETURN OF THE 18 BRONZEMEN
Sunday, Dec 12
1:00pm- 7 GRANDMASTERS (1977)
BUY TICKETS for 7 GRANDMASTERS
4:15pm- WORLD OF THE DRUNKEN MASTER (1979)
BUY TICKETS FOR WORLD OF THE DRUNKEN MASTER
(program change: this was Mystery of Chess Boxing)
FOUR STREAMING FEATURES!
AVAILABLE TO VIEW ONLINE ONLY FROM DECEMBER 6-16
ALL ORIGINAL LANGUAGE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
SHAOLIN KUNG FU! (1974)
SHAOLIN KIDS! (1975)
THE OLD MASTER! (1979)
WORLD OF THE DRUNKEN MASTER! (1979)
BUY VIRTUAL TICKETS
Here’s a filmmaker with auteur-level control delivering non-stop martial arts mayhem that adhered to his singular vision? Which was?
“I cannot let down the person who buys my works.”
Kuo learned to deliver maximum impact on minimum budgets and, in doing so, he put his stamp on the genre. Whether you know his name or not, if someone says “Old School Kung Fu” the first image that flashes across your brain is probably from a Joseph Kuo movie.
Jumping on the trends of the day, Kuo started out delivering wu xia pictures during their late Sixties boom, then turned in Bruce Lee/Jimmy Wong Yu-style angry young man movies when they got popular in the early Seventies. When Lau Kar-leung and Chang Cheh made Shaolin Temple flicks huge in the mid-Seventies, Kuo cashed in too, adding his own elements to the Shaolin mystique, and he ended the decade delivering flashy kung fu comedy under the influence of Jackie Chan. His productivity slowly petered out in the Eighties, and these days he’s a gentleman of leisure, but nobody quite owned the Seventies like Kuo.
To make his movies rock the hardest on the smallest budgets he assembled a rotating cast of charismatic action stars that included Wen Chiang-lung (who looks like Bruce Lee with a Cantopop makeover), the musclebound Carter Huang, the puckish Li Yi-Min, the underrated female fighter, Jeannie Chang, and the versatile Jack Long, and Mark Long. Working with action choreographers like Corey Yuen Kwai and Yuen Cheung-yan, brother of Yuen Wo-ping, his flicks feature wall-to-wall fight scenes, and in an attempt to please every single audience member these fight scenes go on, and on, and on, continually changing location or upping the stakes, so that just when you think Kuo’s delivered every variation he possibly can on two guys standing in a field kicking the hell out of each other, somehow he turns up the volume and takes it to another level. Pound for pound, no one delivers like Kuo.
Full of funky editing tricks that momentarily turn his movies into super experimental flicks, Kuo hooks eyeballs with convoluted storytelling structures packed with frenetic flashbacks that force viewers to pay careful attention. Everyone is related to everyone else, everyone has a secret identity, there’s always a last minute revelation popping up out of nowhere, usually with evil laughter on its lips, and every movie single revolves around revenge. While the first half hour of any Joseph Kuo film takes some patience while he clears his throat and gets down to business, once things kick off it’s a non-stop roller coaster ride that ends in an apocalyptic and acrobatic beatdown that leaves the main characters doling out galaxy-shattering finishing moves before bleakly confronting the futility of their quest for vengeance.
Delivering martial arts mayhem and a moving moral message all in 90 minutes or less, Joseph Kuo gets in, delivers the goods, makes his point, then gets out, leaving you hungry for more. And in this year’s Old School Kung Fu Fest we’re offering a whole lot more.
Subway Cinema is deeply grateful for the support of Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan).
We would also like to thank Winnie Chan / Mei Ah Entertainment, Professor Edwin Chen, Frank Djeng, Po Fung, Dan Halsted / 36 Cinema, Jacob Milligan / Eureka! Entertainment, and Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute.
Professor Edwin W. Chen (陳煒智) is a film researcher in Taiwan who worked with Kuo for an exhibition in 2015 showcasing Kuo’s films and collection of historical objects.
Blade Po (蒲鋒) is celebrated author, critic and martial arts movie scholar.
Frank Djeng is a producer/commentator for Eureka! Entertainment and 88 Films.
Links
Old School Kung Fu Fest's Joseph Kuo Retrospective (Screen Slate, December 6, 2021)