Trailer for Flying Swords of Dragon Gate(2011)

Since Futbol(one of many pretentious ways of saying soccer)and primetime season are both in full effect, I haven't really spent much time watching movies over the last couple of weeks. Trust me, it will pass once the new TV shows get weeded out and/or I get bored with re-workings of old favorites, So it shouldn't be very much longer before I'm back in the swing of reviewing trashy movies once again.

Since I still want contribute something to my recently neglected trash cinema blog, I'm going to leave this entry with the just-released trailer of Tsui Hark's epic wuxia The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate(2011) starring Jet Li. Scheduled for a Winter release in China, word on the streets is that Flying Swords is going to be given the 3-D treatment. Typically I could give to shit about modern cinema's most overused technology, but this guy loves him some wire-fu and Chinese fantasy, which can only be made better with the use of 3-D tech. Since IMDB isn't really telling me much of what the film is about, I'm going to have to revisit in a couple of weeks. Until then, feast your eyes on the action-porn.

Wuxia, Superheroes, and Martial Arts Overload This Saturday at Walter Reade for NYAFF

Weekend two of the NYAFF has already arrived and Saturday the Walter Reade Theater is going to be screening some serious excitement folks. keep in mind that I don't list everything that's playing. I'm sure the movie about the autistic kid is great, but that's not really what this blogs about. We like shit that kicks ass and blows shit up.

1:30 PM: Zu: Warriors From The Magic Mountain(1983)



NYFF says - "Understanding ZU is impossible. This is a cinematic experience, a journey into the essence of wu xia and a mad whirl of glorious chaos, savage speed and eye-bursting fantasy. The impact of ZU is hard to over-estimate. Imagine if lightning suddenly struck Hollywood and overnight and teleported it 20 years into the future. That’s what ZU did to the Hong Kong film industry. Determined to give martial arts movies Hollywood-calibre special effects and production values, young director Tsui Hark rounded up a massive budget, built huge sets and shanghaied Hollywood effects technicians from just-completed Star Trek: the Motion Picture and Star Wars and made a movie that dragged stuffy kung fu cinema kicking and screaming into the future with this frenetic whirlwind of special effects and screaming martial arts madness. Moving faster than the eye can follow, ZU is the silk to The Blade’s steel. It gracefully crams in 60 volumes of Lee Sau-man’s 1920′s martial arts novels about the Zu Mountains (“First to revolt, last to surrender.”) where it’s eternally night and the forces of good and evil clash in its abandoned temples and forgotten mountains. Starting with a blast of Saturday matinee music, armies clash pointlessly on dusty plains. Desperate to make it home alive, a hapless scout (Yuen Biao, Jackie Chan’s “younger brother”) seeks refuge in a ruined shrine where he’s attacked by flying zombies. Saved by a powerful swordsman (wu xia stalwart, Adam Cheng) the two of them wind up locked in an eternal battle in which the forces of evil are organized and efficient and the noble martial schools that oppose them are hobbled by moribund rules and dusty regulations.

With its delirious cutting, funky optical effects and breathless action, no wu xia is more surreal, more baroque or more totally bonkers than this one. The first movie to feature true flying swordsmen, it’s packed with cadres of heavily armed handmaidens, killer eyebrows, Blood Devils, Ten-Day Heart Venom, arcane Sky Mirrors, trippy celestial forts and characters who have no use for the laws of gravity. But it’s all used to tell the story of the kids who have to step up and save the world when all their old heroes have given in to despair. A call to revolution, a psychedelic fantasy film, an adrenaline-pumping wu xia movie…ZU: there’s nothing else quite like it."

Director Tsui Hark will be at the screening.

4 PM - Reign Of Assassins(2010) New York Premiere



NYAFF says - "Lady assassin Drizzle (Kelly Lin, Written By) knows better than anyone that it’s a jungle out there in the Ming Dynasty – every friend a traitor-in-waiting, every child ready to shank you. But when Drizzle and her fantastic-elastic “water-shedding” sword steal the sacred remains of a powerful monk whose kung-fu mastery was encoded in his rotting bones, she makes herself a target, and must go under the knife to become…Michelle Yeoh. Sure, why not? That karmic “face/off” is just the first twenty minutes of REIGN OF ASSASSINS, one of the crown jewels of NYAFF 2011 and a wu xia that gives Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon a run for its money.

Reborn as mild-mannered “Zeng Jing,” Drizzle forsakes her murderous past, settles down with a humble messenger (Korean superstar, Jung Woo-Sung) and embraces her existence as the most blade-happy housewife you’ve ever seen (“You really know how to use a knife! I’ve never seen such perfectly cut tofu!”). It’s all going swimmingly until one morning at the bank, when Drizzle’s old pals from the nefarious Dark Stone gang suddenly appear, threatening to drag her secret past screaming into the light.

REIGN OF ASSASSINS was a labor of love for Su Chao-Pin, whose wild-and-woolly career is being spotlit during this year’s festival. Working alongside Hong Kong master John Woo, who served as a close advisor on-set, Su eventually credited Woo as his “co-director,” and their cross-generational collaboration yields an eye-popping, emotionally compelling spectacle. The grotesques of the Dark Stone gang – from Barbie Hsu’s nymphomaniac bride, to Leon Dai’s “Magician” with his Technicolor dreamcoat of death, to soulful daddy-to-be Shawn Yue with his deadly acupressure needles – are a fearsome yet somehow pathetic lot. Every vicious swordsman leads a domestic double life, past sins dog their fleet feet and the shriek of sharp steel being drawn from its scabbard is their eternal soundtrack. Enjoy the action, but stay for the emotions: REIGN OF ASSASSINS is a wuxia with a heavy human heart."

Writer and co-director, Su Chao-pin, will be at the screening.

9 PM - Haunters(2010) New York Premiere



NYFF says - "50% horror movie, 50% superhero film and 100% Korean thriller, this is one dark, super-powered ride that became a big hit when it was released. Seoul, 1991: A little boy with a prosthetic leg is blindfolded, stumbling through the rain, clinging to his mother’s wrist. She orders him not to remove the blindfold, but when they reach home his abusive father begins beating his mother. In response, the boy removes the blindfold and uses his strange, glittering gaze to make Dad snap his own neck. When his mother fails to kill her telepathic spawn in his sleep, he wanders off into the night, a white-suited phantom lurking on the fringes of humanity, with only his model city to keep him company. From his vantage point, the rest of the world simply looks like…toys.

Seoul, 2010: Kyu-Nam (TV star Koo So) is an out-of-work laborer looking for a new gig. He answers an ad from the local pawn shop and everything seems to be going well until, on his first day of work, the silver-haired mystery man (Korean heartthrob, Gang Dong-Won, of Secret Reunion and M fame) walks in and begins robbing the till. Everyone in the store is helpless against his omnipotent glittering eyes – everyone except Kyu-Nam. So begins a mind-bending game of cat and mouse, with an entire city set against our working-class hero, who must band together with his screwed-up, foreign pals to take down an evil, psychic god who uses every single soul in Seoul as his pawns in a deadly hunt to eradicate the one man who can stand against him.

The directorial debut of Kim Min-Suk, the screenwriter behind The Good, The Bad and the Weird, HAUNTERS is the dizzying lovechild of Unbreakable and The Fugitive, a genre beast that mixes pulse-pounding thrills with gut-wrenching moments like a woman forced to toss her helpless baby in front of a speeding train. This box office hit from Korea shows the dark side of the X-men, portraying a world where the only people with superpowers are psychopaths and it’s up the normal folks to step up and shut them down."

and for the Midnite Action Spectacular- BKO: Bangkok Knockout(2010)



This is the kind of shit Midnite was invented for, and the best part about it is you can still wallow in post-work drunkiness for a couple of hours before the film starts. It would actually probably make it that much more exciting.

Time Out New York says - “Somebody was smoking something when they came up with this endearingly goofy Thai action film in which a group of movie stuntpeople are unwittingly recruited for a Survivor-esque competition. The movie begins like a manic Eastern parody of The Hangover, but then the martial-arts goodies come fast and furious: cage fights, dirt-bike fu, men in iron masks wielding flaming swords. There’s even a hospital musical number”

Walter Reade Theater, West 65th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave, on the upper level, Upper West Side

and now for the best part...Trailage!!!

The Man From Hong Kong(1975) In Brooklyn Tomorrow Night

The Man From Hong Kong(1975)was one of the Aussie first movies I sought out when I first became interested in the Ozploitation genre. If I remember correctly, It was the trailer for Not Quite Hollywood that sparked my interest even though it would take me a couple years to see the documentary. I figured it was a good starter movie to immerse myself into the genre, since I was already a seasoned professional with Kung-Fu love. I looked at it as a winning situation in screening. How bad can a movie be starring Jimmy Wang Yu, former Shawscope star and international dickhead extraordinaire? The answer was NO WAY IN HELL could it ever be considered anything but a classic to those of us who are fans of genre cinema. Not only are the martial arts scenes primo, which was my initial draw, but the action was non-fucking-stop and I couldn't keep my eyes off the damn screen. Fights, car chases, and explosions up the wazoo.....The Man From Hong Kong met every expectation I had and then some. I find it to be one of those action movies that I have based all others on since I first watched it a couple years back.

And now you New Yorkers who have never seen it can experience the same enjoyment I have, because it's screening at Spectacle Theater tomorrow at Midnite.

IMDB says - "It's 1975. A time of funky pants. Muscle cars. Ridiculous sideburns. Porn-star moustaches. Bruce Lee still rules the world of action movies (despite being dead), and I haven't even been BORN yet.

Sydney. Jack Wilton (The Laze) is a bad-ass crime lord with a penchant for cravats, orange velvet sofas and all things Oriental. Under the cover of his legitimate import/export business, he runs an international drug-smuggling outfit with connections in Hong Kong. Two federal narcotics cops, Grosse (Hugh Keays-Byrne, Toecutter from Mad Max) and Taylor (Roger Ward, Fifi from - er - Mad Max) manage to catch Win Chan (Sammo Hung), a member of this Hong Kong connection, following a well-staged--yet amusingly pointless--fight sequence atop Uluru (sorry, Ayers Rock). Chan is to be extradited, as soon as he testifies against Wilton. But the Aussie cops hadn't counted on the extradition officer being a certain Inspector Fang Sing-Ling (Jimmy Wang Yu), of Hong Kong Special Branch ("What's so special about Special Branch?" you ask? Watch the movie and find out!). Fang is a loose cannon, to say the least, and is intent on bringing down Wilton's entire operation himself, no matter how much of Sydney he has to destroy in the process."

Did you know (thanks to IMDB)....According to the DVD Audio Commentary and the documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008), the fight scene atop of the elevator between Wang Yu and Brian Trenchard-Smith allegedly involved real fisticuffs, the punches thrown at the latter allegedly being real punches. Reportedly, the two had a strained relationship during the shoot. As Wang Yu is credited as a co-director in some prints, as such, this movie represents an instance where a film's rival two directors have literary fought it out on the set.

Saturday June 18th at Midnight @ Spectacle 124 S. 3rd St., (at Bedford Ave.)Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Kung-Fu at Midnite Tomorrow Night in Brooklyn

I knew it wasn't going to be long before Spectacle started kicking out the kung-fu flicks, seeing that they have been nailing down the Midnite market for a while now. Hopefully it won't be long now before we start seeing some spaghetti western action. Tomorrow night, avenge your master or father, with psychedelics, in Williamsburg with a Midnite screening of The Boxer's Omen(1983).

Spectacle says - "This is one of the strangest, most hallucinatory visions ever put on film, from the legendary Shaw Bros. Epic horror by way of martial arts action, kung-fu mystery, tinged with Buddhist mysticism and nightmarish psychedelia. Hoping to avenge his brother - paralyzed in the ring by a Thai gangster - and lift a centuries-old family curse, a Chinese boxer travels to Thailand and joins with a band of fighting monks in a supernatural odyssey fraught with crazed wizards, ghosts, monsters, rabid bats, and the reanimated corpses of fully naked women."

Saturday June 11th at Midnight @ Spectacle 124 S. 3rd St., (at Bedford Ave.)Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Trailer for French Documentary Tarantino: The Disciple of Hong Kong

These days, there aren't a lot of docs that catch my, even fewer that are worth writing about. Being of the first generation of Americans bombarded with cable television from a very early age, I can honestly say at this point in my life I've seen most of what I need to see in the world of educational programming. When I was younger my inquisitive mind couldn't get enough of Discovery and TLC, especially when the topic discussed had anything to do with the paranormal. After 30 years of documentaries, I can honestly say I'm not learning anything new from 80% of the programs these days. Unless it has to do with crime or ancient civilization, I rarely have an interest. Unless, of course, the doc has to do with genre cinema, and then I'm all over it like a fly on shit.

Grindhouse and Exploitation docs are always worth a watch because, not only do I learn something about the object of my obsession, but I also get a whole new list of movies that I didn't know about and need to see. When I watch Not Quite Hollywood a couple months ago(review here)I practically got a boner over the tons of hours I would spend watching ozploitation films I knew nothing about. It's the same feeling I get when I've watched the handful of docs on Netflix the deal with Grindhouse and exploitation films. When Machete Maidens! becomes available to me, I'm probably not leaving the house for a couple days.

So you can see why I got excited over watching this trailer for a French documentary about Tarantino and the Kung-Fu movies that inspired him. Two of my favorite subjects rolled into one learning experience. I've seen a lot of kung-fu action cinema in my day, but I guarantee there is so much more missing. Not only does this doc give me the ability to know of what films influenced QT (even though I know many of them), but I also get to see interviews with the business itself. Kung-fu cinema being a genre that has been my favorite's for close to 30 years. Awesomesauce!

Unfortunately, the doc is made for French TV so the possibilities of seeing it on Netflix or on the festival circuit are few and far between. Hopefully there are those in the private BT community who can record and translate for those of us who are incapable of getting a hold of an understandable copy.

Thank to Twitch for the video.

Manchurian Avenger(1985)

As a genre movie buff, I am always game to watch a film that doesn't stay within the confines of a single style. Who wouldn't be, it's not like being a trash cinema purist is going to get you anywhere in life besides negative Twitter feedback, if that. So when I first heard of the film Shanghai Joe, a mixed bag kung-fu/spaghetti western, there were no if-ands-or buts that it was something I had to get my hands on. To tell you the truth, if you throw martial arts into any type of film I will probably want to watch it. Unfortunately the copy I procured of Shanghai Joe had a one or two minute delay in the sound, and there is no way in Hell I can watch something like that. So I threw it in the garbage, annoyed and defeated.

Not too long ago I came across yet another cross-genre film of the same variety. Since I am easy to please I figured I might as well give it a shot. Besides the lead actor looks like an Asian Charles Bronson, so I figured it had to be awesome, Right?

Not quite.

Manchurian Avenger(1985) kicks off with Joe, a Chinese "immigrant" heading back to the land of his upbringing. Not that we actually know where Joe is headed back from. Is it China? Is it Frisco? Nobody really knows, probably not even Joe himself. All we know is that he looks like Bronson and doesn't really use his mouth to talk much. He says it all with fists and feet. After a couple of skirmishes with racist whites and Mexican bandits, the latter which results in Joe making a friend, Joe comes back home to find out that the uncle who raised him has been killed, and his "cousin" is bedridden after an improper stomping by a gang of racist white thugs. Despite the crackerness of these dirty thugs, it just so happens they happened to be employed by a local Chinese "Warlord" who happens to go by the name Cheng. Not only does Cheng have most of the townsfolk living in fear, but he is also responsible for the death of Joe's uncle in a quest for hidden gold. By the time Cheng is introduced, Joe has already fought his way, mustache and all, through dozens of crackers and bandidos. How hard can an old Chinese guy be to destroy. You see, Cheng has a secret weapon, and it's magic. Not only is he a wizard but he also employs "The Four Winds", who I can only guess are supposed to be ancient Chinese spirits who live in a western cave. Chinese Spirits who also happen to be multicultural. Apparently the Heavenly Dynasty is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Yay affirmative action!!

I didn't hate Manchurian Avenger but I didn't exactly love it. Let's just say I'm not going to pressure anybody into watching it in the near future, if at all. It is what it is, which is a low-budget, American-made martial arts flick. I'm pretty sure the only reason that it wasn't a full on kung-fu/wuxia movie is probably due to a lack of Asian actors in that part of Colorado during the early 80's. Through in a bunch of whites and latinos while filming in the Western US, and you got yourself a cross-genre spectacular, even if it wasn't. The effort was made, but I don't think there really was any pay-off to Avenger, at least from what I can see on the IMDB page. From the looks of it, the director and writer never made another attempt at filmmaking, which is kind of sad, because this movie wasn't horrible. Sure it takes a special kind of person to find enjoyment in this shit, but it could have been worse. The action was a bit lagging and could have been a lot more prevalent to make up for the lack of acting ability present. The martial arts scenes were actually pretty solid, unfortunately only a couple of the actors possessed actual skills, which probably accounts for the lack of enough fight sequences.

But again, what do you expect out of a kung-fu flick directed and produced by a couple of whiteboys from Colorado? It may not have been perfect for a martial arts connoisseur such as my self, but I can honestly say a good attempt was made. It's just too damn bad the filmmakers gave up after there first try.

Big Screen Big Apple- Legend of the Fist:The Return of Chen Zhen(2010) Friday at 10:45PM

It's the second weekend of The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Film Comments Select mini-festival(information here). Film three of what I deem to be the most interesting genre films in the series kicks off the weekend with Legend of the Fist:The Return of Chen Zhen(2010).Legend of the Fist stars Donnie Yen as Chen Zhen, the masked Chinese hero made famous by Bruce Lee in Fists of Fury.

IMDB says - "Seven years after the apparent death of Chen Zhen, who was shot after discovering who was responsible for his teacher's death (Huo Yuanjia) in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. A mysterious stranger arrives from overseas and befriends a local mafia boss. That man is a disguised Chen Zhen, who intends to infiltrate the mob when they form an alliance with the Japanese. Disguising himself as a caped fighter by night, Chen intends to take out everyone involved as well as get his hands on an assassination list prepared by the Japanese."


Friday February 25th @ 10:45PM Walter Reade Theater, West 65th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave, on the upper level, Upper West Side

Choy Lee Fut trailer starring Kane Kosugi and Sammo Hung

"Big Ups" tenfold to the Blogger Gods over at Twitch for constantly providing me with hope for the future. As I was perusing the latest postings earlier this hour I happened upon this rough trailer for Choy Lee Fut starring both Sammo Hung and Kane Kosugi. Typically I have little interest for martial arts movies set in modern day, but seeing this trailer gave me black belt-level boner. It probably has something to do with seeing Kane Kosugi in a CHINESE martial arts flick with Hung, who apparently happens to be his best friend in real life. Long gone are the days of little Kane fighting gangs of punks with his ninja dad. He's his own badass now.

IMDB does have an entry for it yet, but from what I've read it stars the two as European best friends who happen to be students of Hung Gar style and then head off to learn the Choy Lee Fut style, a Southern Chinese form. The trailer gives it a Bloodsport element, which I'm not the least bit opposed to. I'm not quite sure when I'll get my chance to see this on American soil, but hopefully my dream will be fulfilled before 2012.

Big Screen Big Apple- The Valiant Ones(1975) Sunday Feb. 13th at 4 PM

Let's give it up for the Museum of the Moving Image this weekend for bringing a kung-fu classic to the big screen. Woooo Hooooo!!! After being out of commission for a couple years, it's nice to see that NYC's best museum has an open theatre again. I don't know if this is part of the museum's ongoing Fist and Sword series or not, but it's really nice to see that King Hu's The Valiant Ones(1975) is going to be one of the opening screenings for the new museum.

The Museum of the Moving Image says - " A rarely screened wuxia gem, The Valiant Ones is a meditative yet action-filled movie about a 16th century husband-and-wife swordfighting team hired to protect China from Japanese marauders. King Hu reveals character through the film’s intricate fight scenes. "


Sunday February 13th at 4pm @ Museum of the Moving Image 35 Avenue at 37 Street Astoria, Queens Free with admission

The Kraut Sound of Master of the Flying Guillotine

Second post about the same movie!?! Not to be redundant or anything of that nature, but i felt that it was to late to add an edit to my original post. Besides, this focuses on the OST (original soundtrack) more than the movie itself.

Typically when watching a kung-fu movie, the soundtrack utilizes the sounds of traditional chinese instruments. Simple woodwinds, one-stringed guitar-like things, and other strange looking things I see old asian guys play on the subway platform. Never before have I seen a kung-fu movie from the 70's utilize the sounds of krautrock. The first question that popped into my head when I heard the opening credits was,"Why the fuck is a punk song in the opening credits!" I was completely baffled. The further I got into the movie, the more headfucked I became over the soundtrack. Synthesizer work, avant electronics, rock guitar....what kind of fucking band was rocking like this in Hong Kong during the 70's, and why had I not heard of them? Why are these sounds familiar to me?

Upon further investigation i got my answer. They were indeed songs I had heard performed by bands I knew. Neu!, Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk. Anybody who knows something of underground music knows the names, and probably has an album or two. I know i have multiple discs of Neu! and Tangerine Dream. I wasn't that surpised at Tangerine Dream scoring a movie, since it's something that has been done several. But a cheap-ass wuxia from Hong Kong....How the fuck did they get that gig? It didn't take much more investigating to realize that they didn't get the gig. In fact, none of the bands mentioned realized they scored the movie until many years down the road. When they did finally find out, they wanted some muthafuckin' cashflow. I would too.

Although the original production company is no longer in existence, the rights to the film are still held by several different production international distributors. These distributors were the ones responsible for paying the bands for the use of there intellectual property. Some companies chose just to just re-track the movie themselves. Others, like the American distributor, chose to comply and give credit where credit is due.

Although there has never been an official release of the soundtrack. With a little digging it shouldn't be hard to custom compile it yourself. The music is not exactly rare. In fact, one of the Neu! songs was used in Kill Bill. I'm not surprised, I believe Tarantino has mentioned Master of the Flying Guillotine as an influence. But he's been influenced by lots of shit I like.

New banner

That's right, not just a new banner, this things finally got a fuckin' banner. The heat is finally back on, so I've spent the majority of this post-job evening working on the damn thing. I went through loads of images and experimented via photoshop. After spending hours manipulating images I realized I could use a little more experience with the newer photoshop (I haven't used it since 7). I wouldn't say this banner is permanent, but it will work for the time being. Knowing the way I change my fuckin' mind, it's probably going to be different within a week.

If your not familiar with the image, let me tell ya a little bit about it. It's from one of my favorite Shaw Brothers flicks of all time, Five Elements Ninja. Directed by Chang Cheh, this is one of the bloddiest and fun of the Chinese-style Ninja flicks I have ever laid eyes upon. The scene from the banner is of one of 2 brothers getting slaughtered by the element gold ninja. I first rented this movie back in the early 90's and it has forever been ingrained in my psyche. If I remember correctly, I rented this and 5 Deadly Venoms in the same night, which is one of my top movies of all time. All I can say is I probably felt as if I was touched by god that night, or something close to it......like sober sex.

Anyhoo, if you like the banner or not, leave a comment about it. If you love 5 Elements Ninja or 5 Deadly Venoms, leave a comment. If you don't like any of the 2 movies mentioned, you might as well have "beat me senseless" tattoed on your forehead.

I have heat now. So I am going to relax with a movie for the first time in days.

toodles.