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OLD SCHOOL KUNG FU FEST! |
| Remember "Kung Fu
Matinee"? What about "Black Belt Theatre"? Subway Cinema goes back to
our roots, presenting Hong Kong's classic martial arts movies of the 70's
and 80's. Back on the big screen for he first time in 20 years, these
are the movies that once ruled the earth and branded the name of Shaw
Brothers, Angela Mao, and Bruces Lee, Li, and Le into the brains of international
moviegoers forever. Gasp as bare fists smash tables and bend steel. Laugh at the 70's fashions. Cheer as henchmen go through walls, and as a young lady puts down her laundry, pirouettes, and plants her toe square in a baddie's eye. Sigh at the half-naked hunks clad in scraps of wet silk. So get rowdy and come see the sleekest, slickest, dirtiest, sickest, face smacking, knee cracking, punk jacking, five fists thrusting, self-combusting, lean mean entertainment machines ever unleashed on the silver screen. FILMS SCORCHING SUN, FIERCE WINDS, WILD FIRE THE VICTIM CRIPPLED AVENGERS A LIFE OF NINJA MARTIAL ARTS OF SHAOLIN THRILLING BLOODY SWORD |
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SCORCHING
SUN, FIERCE WINDS, WILD FIRE Directed by: Suen Chin-yuen Starring: Angela Mao, Lo Lieh, Flashlegs Tan Tao-liang color, 35mm, in Cantonese with English subtitles | |
| Back
in 1970 when most actresses in the rest of the world were relegated to
the status of window dressing, Angela Mao was cleaning bad guy's clocks
and headlining films with astonishing regularity. Long before Sigourney
Weaver and THELMA AND LOUISE appeared on the cover of Time magazine,
Angela Mao was the world's top action queen, and despite the critical
praise going to CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON for its feminist overtones,
Angela Mao did it firstest and bestest thirty years ago. "SCORCHING SUN, FIERCE WIND, WILD FIRE is a kung fu melodrama with the relentless drive of a Republic serial and the snappy, satisfying taste of a Saturday matinee. It's set in the Twenties, during the political free-for-all known as the Republican Period when China's Emperor was overthrown and warlords chopped out their own bloody fiefdoms all over the country. The rule of law was established by whoever had the most guns - the glorious Democratic Revolution had turned into a head-throbbing morning after - and banditry was the order of the day. Into this chaos strides Mao's Violet, a masked revolutionary (sort of Batgirl by way of Karl Marx), whose father, Master Tung, is one of the biggest and baddest despots around. Tung's right-hand psycho is Master Wu (Lo Lieh), a mad dog whose idea of fun is a rousing night in the torture chamber. Deciding to flush out Violet, the two put in an order for heavy artillery with Captain Mo, who runs a cannibalistic black market off the corpse of the Republican army. Mo, however, is more interested in a treasure map that Master Tung has, and suddenly a white-robed revolutionary shows up and humiliates Wu's men with some paint brush fu, sending Wu into revenge mode. Add in an escaped pair of convicts (one of whom is super-kicker, Tan Tao-liang), a gang of bandits, Violet's sister, and love blooming amidst the bloodshed, and you have twelve episodes worth of plot and incident packed into a tight ninety minutes." Unfolding with unnatural speed, the narrative makes your head whirl as it leaps from climax to cliffhanger, to climax. Fight scenes break out every ten minutes, and the camera style is likely to induce whiplash as it cuts from close-up to long-shot with all the helpless propulsion of a cinematic seizure. Add in a decided taste for the bizarre (at one point General Mo is ridden around like a horse by a hooker, the soundtrack supplying the appropriate effects) and you've got a two-fisted swashbuckler with a decidedly freaked-out edge. Anchoring this amphetamine pulp is the commanding presence of Angela Mao. Able to freeze the screen with a single look she's a warrior queen who can assess a situation and snap into action in the time it takes most of us to pull up our socks. Best known as Bruce Lee's sister in ENTER THE DRAGON, that performance is a far cry from the Angela Mao her fans knew. Suicide? Defeat? Surrender? For Angela Mao those words have no meaning. SCORCHING SUN, FIERCE WINDS, WILD FIRE is a temple to Angela Mao, the world's first Action Queen, and a memorial to the kind of breathless, genre entertainment that once was the hallmark of the martial arts movie. [top] |
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THE
VICTIM (1980) Directed by: Sammo Hung Starring: Sammo Hung, Leung Kar-yan, Karl Maka, Wilson Tong color, 35mm, in Cantonese with English subtitles | |
| Kung
fu? Kung fun! Big, tubby Sammo Hung (MARTIAL LAW) plays a country bumpkin
in a flopsy mopsy haircut with blistering kung fu gifts. Vowing that the
man who can beat him will be his master ("Sifu" in Cantonese - you'll
hear it about a million times in this picture) he sets out to get in a
bunch of fights. Ten minutes, and a dozen high-impact falls, later he's
run through the short list and they're all begging for mercy. Then he
bumps into Beardy (Leung Kar-yan) and is soundly trounced by him. "Sifu!" screams Sammo, falling to his knees. "Leave me alone, fatty." says Beardy Sifu, and strides away. Sammo follows. And the movie swings into motion, Sammo scheming to make Leung Kar-yan his sifu, and Leung Kar-yan doing everything short of killing him (okay, he tries that, too) to get away from the ambling pile of pudge. The student/master relationship is about as sacred as anything is in martial arts movies. The student gives his life to his sifu, and in return his sifu takes care of him and passes on his knowledge. It's a beautiful thing involving delicate rituals, respect, reverence and humility. In THE VICTIM, Sammo gives his master chickens and booze. His master gives him a poke in the nose. "Stop calling me sifu!" he shouts before sending Sammo crashing through a table for the umpteenth time.  The world's finest living action director, Sammo Hung did everything on this movie but serve tea. With its improbable zooms, traumatically racked focus, weird point-of-view shots, and super slo-mo knockout kicks this flick's a chocolate box of hyperkinetic energy as it struggles to keep up with Sammo who scurries, scampers, and breakdances across the screen. The fastest living fat man - one-third of what Sammo does here would give men half his size instant coronaries - Sammo is motion personified. THE VICTIM is only one of three movies (all considered classics) that Big Brother Big (as he's known in Hong Kong) starred in and directed in 1980. Like we said: if he wasn't Sammo, he'd be dead. The comedy is acidic - it eats away everything. Everyone is a fool, even Sammo, in a Sammo Hung movie. Every meaningful relationship - a master and his student, two brothers, a wife waiting for her husband on their wedding night - is spun, hard, and turned into a plateful of weird noodles that inevitably winds up in someone's face. In THE VICTIM Sammo dishes up the dumbest, funnest, funkiest kung fu comedy ever seen, with cherries and whipped cream, and the whole thing splats in your lap off the screen. To Sammo Hung comedy isn't just a section in the video store, it's a higher calling, and THE VICTIM is his New Testament. [top] |
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CRIPPLED
AVENGERS (1978) (aka MORTAL COMBAT; aka RETURN OF THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS) Directed by: Chang Cheh Starring: The Five Deadly Venoms, Chen Kuan-tai color, 35mm, dubbed in English | |
| "Shapes!
Shapes!" the grindhouse audience traditionally screamed as the onscreen
martial heroes performed their geometric forms and stances. Assuming a
nice isosceles horse stance, fingers locked into rigid semicircular hooks,
the martial hero spun around backwards, reached up and under, and squared
the root of PI as they pulled out the Adam's Apple of the villainous reprobate
who'd gotten in their way. Advanced Onscreen Geometry, with a minor in
whupass - nowhere is this course of study more intense than in Chang Cheh's
CRIPPLED AVENGERS starring the Five Deadly Venoms. Chen Kuan-tai (sporting an evil variation of the mustache he will wear five years later in A LIFE OF NINJA) is the invincible Chu Tin-to. The Tinam Tigers show up at his house to teach him a lesson, but he's not in. They debate whether or not to leave a note but decide instead to kill his wife and chop off his son's arms. Severely put out, Chu tells his son he's not handicapped, he's handi-capable, especially with the new bionic arms dad gets him for Christmas. They're better than real arms - why, they even shoot darts. Rather than embark on an inspirational speaking tour of local high schools, Chu and son (Venom Lu Feng) embark on a scary terrorizing mission, strutting around town, pushing people around, and coming up with creative cripplings for those who point out Lu Feng's resemblance to the Venus de Milo. The first four victims of Lu and Chu's armless rage? High-kicking Sun Chien loses his legs; muscle man Lo Mang joins the hearing loss community; Kuo Chi (aka Phillip Kwok, the honorable eye-patched villain from John Woo's Hard Boiled) gets the ol' iron fingers in the eyes treatment; and Chiang "Cutie-pie" Sheng (sensitively billed here as "An Idiot") has constricting metal bands clamped around his skull resulting in traumatic, permanent brain damage. Luckily these are the other four Deadly Venoms. Lucky for us, unlucky for Lu and Chu. The Venoms learn Differently-Abled Kung fu and show up on Chu's birthday, much to the distress of Chu's Martha Stewart-ish major domo, Wong (giving new meaning to the term "the old ball and chain"), who desperately wants the party to go off without a hitch. As insurance he's invited every evil kung fu master to the celebration, and just as you feel the movie is approaching a predictable climax, cylinders seven and eight start firing and things get interesting. Director Chang Cheh had previously directed the Five Deadly Venoms in a movie called, appropriately enough, THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS. The team-up was so popular that they would go on to star in over ten movies together. Chang, god of the legendary Shaw Brothers Studio, specialized in male bonding and brotherhood movies. The Five Deadly Venoms were five men who'd strip off their shirts at the drop of a hat, with Peking Opera training, and martial arts skills that allowed them to spend more time off the ground than on it. The Chang/Venom team-up is as classic a pairing of director and actor as Josef Von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich; Chang Cheh had found his soulmates, the Venoms, and the Venoms had found their visionary, Chang Cheh. The movies they made together represent the best of everything they could do. Filmed entirely on soundstages, CRIPPLED AVENGERS gives us a lurid dreamscape of paper trees and split-level teahouses in which this nightmare of amputation and pain unravels. Exotic weaponry is brought to bear against the seemingly indestructible bodies of the Five Venoms as they are crippled, learn martial arts, and then have their weaknesses exploited by their enemies in an exhausting series of end battles. Spanning 23 years, this movie kindles the flames of hate and revenge until they melt down men into monsters in an unending holocaust of martial glory. Part dream, part nightmare, CRIPPLED AVENGERS oozes out of the id and spreads across the floor like a pool of blood. Satisfying on every level, this is as good as movies get. [top] |
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A
LIFE OF NINJA (1985) Directed by: Lee Tso-nan Starring: Chen Kuan-tai, Yasuaki Kurata, World Wrestling Champion Wong Kin-mi color, 35mm, in Cantonese with English subtitles | |
| He creeps.
He skulks. He stalks. He scurries. He strikes! Ninja - most deadly foe.
Using ways most nefarious and killing arts mysterious ninja will kill
and kill. And kill, and kill, and kill. Sometimes he kills wrapped in
gold foil like a baked potato; sometimes he is a naked lady ninja to confuse
foes before blowing them up! Life of ninja is easy, no? No. Life of ninja is hard. Ninja must learn dancing on ice cubes. Sometime ninja ladies must mud wrestle for no good reason. How do you make a ninja? Are no ninja babies. Must take normal person and beat. Beat until are ninja! A life of ninja is shown in beautiful motion picture A LIFE OF NINJA. At heart of picture is family - they are Cheng family and have family business but no one is happy. Cheng is married to sister and is boss. Bad boss! One sister is boozer - drink lots of cognac. Ha ha! Other wants to be ninja, but can't! So she wear the tight leather trousers and beat up men with wooden sword. Is very sad. Like Douglas Sirk movie, WRITTEN ON THE WIND. Many ninja run around on tiny feet. One ninja creeps up building, take icicle, and stab woman in butt. Woman is Cheng's girlfriend, police come, very suspect of Cheng. No, says doctor, this woman not kill by icicle, kill by poison...ninja poison! Police visit Chen Kuan-tai. He is ninja-pooper: he knows ninja, but poops their parties. Police ask for help, he been in many martial art movie (like CRIPPLE AVENGERS), he must help police. He says yes. Yes, I fight ninja. He fight the ninja?!? Ninja get furious. Use hypno-mind-control killers, flying snakes, tiny bombs, poison ink, swords and knives, even get World Wrestling Champion Wong Kin-mi to wear little red briefs and turn over cars. And stomp! And kill! Big fights! Then Chen Kuan-tai fight the head ninja, Yasuaki Kurata, in secret ninja fort. They use flying knife, exploding statue, flying backward, invisibility, giant jumping, fighting Irish jig, secret ninja spazz dance, is very strange. There can be only one. Is exciting! The movie ends. This is ninja. You must see A LIFE OF NINJA to believe A LIFE OF NINJA! [top] |
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MARTIAL
ARTS OF SHAOLIN (1985) (aka NORTH AND SOUTH SHAOLIN) Directed By: Lau Kar-leung Starring: Jet Li, Yu Hai Color, 35mm, in Cantonese with English subtitles | |
| Step
aside, Clyde, and prepare yourself for an old school high with a Jet Li
twist featuring Northern style kicks and Southern fist. All movie cycles
have to end and old school martial arts went out with a bang in Lau Kar-leung
and Jet Li's gotterdammerung, MARTIAL ARTS OF SHAOLIN, the first Chinese/Hong
Kong co-production - a masterpiece of mutally assured martial arts destruction.
Baby, let me break it down for you: STEP - this is Jet Li's third flick, the kid's already a five time wu shu champ, 24 years old, and beating down audiences in one film after another. STEP - Lau Kar-leung directed this fine madness, he's called Pops and he's a cold kung fu cat who directed DRUNKEN MASTER 2 (wherein his 60 year old bad self beat Jackie Chan's young ass) and about thirty other flicks. And this dude's dad was the student of Wong Fei-hung's hippest student, Butcher Wing. This cat is where it's at! STEP - Hong Kong's tight technical crew came to China filming in the Shaolin Temple and up and down the Great Wall of China, filming these freaked out Shaolin mofos who spin on their heads, run up walls, screech like banshees and decimate their opponents with iron yo-yos.  Dig this: Jet Li's dad gets killed by the Man, Lord Suo, and Jet's sent to Shaolin Temple to forget about it and to transcend the material world. No can do. One word that his pops has been offed and he's a kung fu slinging suicide bomber on a mission of madness. He makes a play for Suo at his birthday party but is foiled by some other assassins. Up with people, everyone wants Lord Suo dead! A rolling brawl-down rumbles across the countryside panoramic as Suo's crew chases the tails of Jet and company - a Southern Shaolin monk and a New Jack chick who knows a thing or two about grrrl-fu. You know what happens at the end (it's a movie, ya'll): Jet Li makes like a kung fu mechanic - he gets up under Lord Suo's hood and fixes him but good. But on the way to that conclusion this movie shows you sights that'll fry your eyes and serve 'em with grits. Ultra-rare, ultra-Jet, grrl-fu, wu shu - this here's the kitty's cream. Jetted out, and way up close, come taste this kung fu overdose. [top] THRILLING BLOODY SWORD (1982) Directed By: Chang Shing-I Starring: Talking Chicken, Flesh-Egg Princess, 7 Dwarfs Color, 35mm, in Cantonese with English subtitles | ||
| Once
Upon a Time... There was a Taiwanese film called THRILLING BLOODY SWORD about a princess who laid a disgusting, fleshy egg. King Gau thought the egg looked very dirty and so he threw it into a river. Now the gross egg floated downstream until it was rescued by seven dwarves who marveled as the egg hatched and out stepped the beautiful Princess Yaur-gi. She was the most beautiful princess in the land and this caused the evil Witch to send many monsters after Yaur-gi: a nine-headed hydra, a one-eyed insect monster, evil spells that turn the nice Prince Yuh into a talking bear. The Princess released a genie who gave the Prince magic armor and together they destroy the wicked witch and her henchmen and lived happily ever after. This hallucinogenic Chinese fairy tale is an epic crafted out of weird sets, double exposures, and paper mache'. From the ManBat Frogs to the talking chickens, Director Chang Shing-i weaves his frantic phantasmagoria out of everyday objects and keeps them unreeling at double time, their motion preventing them from falling apart. Nothing is onscreen long enough to crumble into dull reality before the narrative has leapt nimbly to the next filmic phantasm. The result is an utterly cheap, utterly charming otherworld full of monsters and magic whose lack of realism is entirely in keeping with its handcrafted charm. Effect after effect, monster after monster, come rushing off the screen in THRILLING BLOODY SWORD, the kind of old-fashioned movie that put realism to the knife in favor of entertainment. A fondly remembered retelling of the Snow White story oozing technicolored invention, THRILLING BLOODY SWORD is the movie that warped children all over the world when it first came out, and has since remained totally unseen. Previously existing only as a perplexing childhood memory, this screening marks the first time in over fifteen years that it is being shown in North America. Unavailable on video, THRILLING BLOODY SWORD is a celluloid dream, a phantom empire of the senses that flickers, briefly, on a movie screen, and then goes back into darkness leaving dazed retinas in its wake. [top] |
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© 2000 Subway Cinema. All Rights Reserved.
