recent purchases

[Jimbo]

I have a VHS tape of My Name is Nobody that I got in Taiwan in the '80s; it’s somewhere around. I actually didn’t like it much at the time. I thought that Chung Fa, an awesome stuntman and supporting bad guy, did not make a good arch-villain. If I remember right, the final fight was gritty, but just lacked the ‘feel’ that great final fights have, at least for me. I also remember that early in the film, Lau Kar-Wing looks at the camera and starts talking to the audience for a bit.

Odd Couple has some of the most incredible weapons fights put to film. It’s easy to forget how good the old-schoolers were at performing complex empty-hand and weapons choreo until you revisit these old classics.

2 Graves to Kung Fu is a decent early-'70s film that I remember seeing on Kung Fu Theater in the '80s. Like you say, the drama was boring, but decent fighting for the time, esp. for an independent(??) film.

I really wish someone would digitally remaster Revenge of the Patriots (aka, The Ming Patriots). Not great, but it is a pretty good film. I really like Chang Yi in this one. I can only think of one other Chang Yi film where the Lau Brothers choreographed, and that is Secret of the Shaolin Poles. It’s also one of the earlier films where Ho Chung-Tao (Bruce Li) was not forced to do the BL impressions. Jimmy Lee looked weak here, and Chan Wai-Man was a good supporting villain, though IMO the filming conditions must have been difficult. Because none of the cast looked particularly sharp, though Chang looked the sharpest. If you look closely early in the film, Kuo Chui can be seen as an extra fighting Carter Wong. The only copy I own is I think the Ground Zero(??) release, which isn’t good quality at all.

Thanks for the report on the quality of the various movies.

I recently spotted another Wu Tang collection-type thing also by Videoasia, and Undaunted Wu Tang was one of the films. But I’d rather buy that film if someone else releases it, if possible. Some Videoasia releases are better than others, but so far the all-time best quality I’ve had from them is the Blood Money release. It would be nice if Videoasia would have upped the quality of all their releases across the board, considering the quality of releases that other companies, like Mediablasters, etc., have achieved, but I guess not.

[jethro]

Chung Fa is a little guy, but he has a mean face and I love him as an actor, so it worked for me having him as the lead villain. And Leung Kar YAn gives a brilliant performance. It’s just too bad they don’t get much hand/foot action.

A good looking wide version of Undauted Wudang has been released, but it has no subs. But I would buy it if I saw it. I already know the story well enough. It would just be nice to have a good version.

[Jimbo]

I have an old VHS tape, again from Taiwan, of Undaunted Wudang. I’d be fine without subtitles as long as the Mandarin is clear. It would be nice in a good widescreen DVD version. But I would not want an English-dubbed version (I think the Videoasia version is dubbed).

I finished watching Duel of the Century. I actually liked it better than Bat Without Wings. Not great but not bad at all. Although again, it seems like a chapter out of a series, because it presupposes the viewer knows the characters, esp. Lu Xiao-Feng (Tony Liu-Yung). I’ve seen various actors portray Lu Xiao-Feng, so was a bit familiar at least with his character.

Too bad Sun Chien and Kuan Feng were so wasted, though I wouldn’t expect a super-kicker and a super weapons man to be used to full effect in any Chu Yuan wuxia film. I would have loved to see those two guys in a good period film by Lau Kar-Leung. Sun Chien did have a part in Lady is the Boss, but as usual had little opportunity to really show his stuff.

I picked up The Crow today. Mainly because I was reading about some odd coincidences between this film and The Dark Knight. For example, both Brandon Lee and Heath Ledger played characters that, although opposite as far as good/evil, both had white face/clown-type makeup; long, scraggly hair; and both stars died before the respective films’ releases at age 28 (I think Heath was still 28). Also, both films are marked by a logo/symbol of a winged animal in a similar shape (compare the “crow” symbol with the “bat” symbol). I saw both films when they were released, but never put those things together. Kinda interesting.

[jethro]

I have to wonder if the makers of dark Knight watched the TV series because there is a scene in the series where Dacascos is acting like Heath Ledger’s Joker spot on. It’s the episode where he is being experimented on and was being held in a lab and he was acting really crazy. And Brandon Lee’s Crow always reminded me of The Joker even before ledger played the part. But I see what you are saying with those similarities between Brandon Lee and Ledger.

[jethro]

I got a bunch of DVDs today at Cd Tradepost. Ground Zero double feature Tomb Raiders aka The Avenging Quartet and Godfather’s Daughter Mafia Blues, Kung Fu Shadow aka Imperial Sword, Roaring Fire aka Hoero! Tekken with Hyoruki Sanada and Sonny Chiba, Ferocious Monk From Shaolin aka Thou Shall Not Kill… But Once, aka Shaolin Warrior and OPIUM AND THE KUNG FU MASTER!!! Only $16 altogether. I’ll list what versions I got and if the movies are any good in a few days.

[jethro]

I finished watching all of them.

Opium and the Kung Fu Master

Great movie. Or at least extremely close to being great. Best of the bunch. I rate it a 4/5. I rated all these movies in the order of how much I liked them. I enjoyed the interviews on Opium (**** how many interviews has Toby Russel done?! I/m pretty sure I’ve seen the Lee Hoi San interview, I just can’t place where). It’s sad that there won’t be more releases from BCI. I guess having a DVD of HK Godfather that is this awesome was just too good to be true.

Roaring Fire- Red Sun, very good pic quality, widescreen, original language.

Good movie, some very good comedy, and great action. And a really good role for Sonny Chiba as a magician. I can’t believe I had never heard of this before. rating- 4/5

Kung Fu Shadow aka Imperial Sword- Saturn, full screen, decent pic quality, English dub

I didn’t know what to expect from ths one. Decent story and good action Judy Lee is always a treat to watch, and Chang Yi rarely disappoints. Roc Tien and Lung Fei look decent. Blackie Ko has some sort of a jerri curl going on (I have no idea how to spell that), but good performance from him. Also nice little performance from Chin Lung. Jack Long is underused, and doesn’t look all that great in the little fight time he has. Overall a good oldschool movie. Rating- 3.5/5.

Ferocious Monk From Shaolin aka Thou Shall Not Kill… But Once, aka Shaolin Warrior- Xenon, full screen decent quality. English dub.

Wow, this one really surprised me. It’s actually a good movie! After that horrble experience of watching Triumph of 2 Arts, I wasn’t too excited about another movie with Kam Kong and Chan Wai Man as the lead actors. But Chen Sing is the 3rd lead actor. I don’t want to give anything away in these reviews in case you haven’t seen the movies, so I will just say it is a good movie with good fights. Rating- 3.5/5.

Ground Zero double feature, Tomb Raiders aka The Avenging Quartet and Godfather’s Daughter Mafia Blues

Godfather’s Daughter- original language with subtitles. Full screen, a little better than decent pic quality. A lot of the subs are cut off.

OK movie. It starts off with a lot of fighting, but then there’s not a lot of action the rest of the way. Abotu a 50/50 mix of fighting and somewhat boring gunplay. Yukri Oshima has a couple good fights, one against Deke Wei. But he has an injury because he got shot and he doesn’t kick. How stupid is that. It’s always nice to see Benny Lai in action, and I didn’t realize Mark Cheng could look good fighting, but man he is really good in this. Also nice to see Fung Fung, Fung Hak On’s dad. Fung Hak On actually directs the movie, and has a decent sized role. Too bad he only gets a few seconds of fight time. Ken Lo looks good, but very little fighting from him too. Rating- 3/5.

Tomb Raiders- Full screen, English dub, very bad pic quality.

Bad movie with the best female fighting cast I have ever seen, not counting oldschool movies, though I can’t think of any oldschool movies right now that can top this- Cynthia Khan, Moon Lee, Yukari Oshma and Michiko Nishiwaki. Some of the fighting is good. While the movie is bad, it’s so stupid that I actually found it kind of fun. Moon Lee is always fun to watch, and Chin Kar Lok had me cracking up quite a few times. And even the drama scenes are so bad they are good, especially the ending. I rate it a 2.5/5. The dub is done by people from oldschool movies, so that added a lot to my enjoyment.

Oh yeah, one more. Journey of the Doomed was in the cheap section not too long ago at CD Tradepost. I watched it, and then I went to Suncoast and traded it the same day. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Jimbo I believe you said it was the worst Shaw movie you have ever seen, and I thought to myself, no way, he has to be wrong. With that cast it has to b at least decent. But I was wrong. It is without a doubt one of the worst kf movies I’ve ever seen. Right there with Raiders of Buddhist kf and Ninja vs Ninja. Rating- 0/5

[Jimbo]

Picked up Dazed and Confused today.

[jethro]

Wow our last posts must have been at almost the same time. Dazed and confused is one of my favorite movies. possibly in my top 20 or so. “Check you later man”.

[Jimbo]

Hey, Jethro. Yeah, I love Dazed and Confused. There’s a lot of things in it that remind me of my school days (daze?) in the '70s. But we never got paddled by the seniors, though. Plus it has a great soundtrack.

Good reviews above. I think it’s a pure shame that BCI is done. Their Shaw releases (Life Gamble and Opium) were very well-done. Hopefully their unreleased Shaws will be taken up by MediaBlasters. And the interviews on the BCI’s were probably the best. Plus, I think it means that Rarescope is also done, as I think that was also part of BCI.

I’d heard of Roaring Fire back in the '80s, but have not seen it yet.

I think I have Fericious Monk. If I remember, Chan Sing is the monk?? If it’s the one I’m thinking about, it is a good film.

I warned ya about Journey of the Doomed! Another thing that annoys me about it is that, although it’s such a bad movie, the pic quality is very good. There are way, waaaaaay better movies that haven’t gotten nearly as good a treatment as this piece of p00p.

You know, I think it would be cool if Toby Russell released a series of DVDs called something like, Kung Fu Cinema: The Interviews. And have in-depth interviews with all the old-school KF stars, interspersed with scenes from their movies, and maybe scenes of them actually training. Unfortunately, I doubt that could sell to the general public. It would only be appealing to hard-core fans.

[jethro]

Yeah Chen Sing is the monk/main character in Ferocious Monk. There’s are a lot of things wrong with the movie, but there’s a lot of small touches that I liked. Like right after Chan Wai Man has agreed to work for the evil government, there’s a very short shot of him in the mass morning prayer, and it seems that he’s struggling with his prayers. Also the scene where he screams and runs and jumps over the temple wall. He always shows great emotion, but I feel this is one of his best performances for fighting and acting. He doesn’t play around in this movie. He looks like he’s really going at it hard in his fights. And while he doesn’t fit the monk role to a T like say Chen Sing or Gordon Liu, it was still cool to see because I don’t think I’d ever seen him play a monk before. Some very good scenes between him and Chen Sing.

Roaring Fire you have to check out, though I don’t know where you would get it. PRobably from Amazon or Ebay. Very nice to see Sanada in a modern day action movie when he was in his physical prime.

That would be a great idea to have a couple interview DVDs done by TOby Russel. great only for people like us, sadly. Speaking of Toby, today I got that Top Fighter Deadly Fighting DOlls you are always talking about. I like how they let you know right away it is going to be a classy doc by showing the huge breasted Amy Yip jumping up and down in a bikini, and the nude fight scene from Ninja the Final Duel. But, this is an awesome doc. I really enjoyed it, from beginning to end. Especially the beginning!

[Jimbo]

This may sound bad, but I actually thought that nude, ninja-fighting lady (as well as Amy Yip) were kinda “uggo”. But it does immediately imply that this is not a docu for little kids. It was interesting that of all the female stars, Elaine Lui was pretty P.O.'d.

What I want to know is, how the heck does Toby track down these people for these interviews? I heard that Polly Shang-Kuan runs (or ran) a restaurant in Los Angeles. And Judy Lee (Chia Ling) had supposedly moved to L.A. with her family and ran a travel agency. I wonder, did he go all the way to to L.A., and also to Queens, NY to interview Angela Mao? I think he himself might be an interesting story. I don’t know of any KF movie fan who is so knowledgeable and obsessive that he’s gotten himself into such a position to get these rare interviews.

Others I’d like (Actually on a DVD):
Lo Rei
Chang Shan
Hwang Jang Lee
John Liu
Hsia Kuang-Li (Ha Kwong-Li)
Wang Lung-Wei
Yen Shi-Kuan
**** Wei
Billy Chow
Kuan Feng
Billy Chong
Chien Yueh-Sheng (Chin Yuet-San)
Lu Feng
Sun Chien
Casanova Wong

I know that several of these have interviews on youtube, and Lo Rei did a good interview in Britain’s Combat Magazine in the late '80s or so, and Wang Lung-Wei did a 2-part Asian movie magazine interview a few years ago. But I’d like them on disk. In 1984, a family in Taiwan that initially hosted me in Taipei introduced me to Hsia Kuang-Li, and she mentioned at the time that she learned Peking (Beijing) Opera at Lu Kuang Drama Academy. Which is different from the Fu Shing Opera school attended by Angela Mao, Chia Ling, and I think also the main Venoms. By that time, she was no longer doing any KF movies, but was a student again attending an art school. She did appear in a few TV series and even directed a non-KF film a bit later. It would be cool if Toby could interview her. And sooner better than later. Some former stars might be less willing to appear on-camera the older they get.

Besides Top Fighter and Deadly China Dolls, there’s another Toby Russell docu, Cinema of Vengeance, but the Fortune 5 DVD release of it suks and is unplayable. I have the VHS and among other things, it has a good Chan Wai-Man interview where he discusses his excellent gangster film, The Club.

[Jimbo]

I got Ten Tigers of Kwangtung today at Best Buy. I was surprised it was there this early. I already have the Red Sun release, but I want the legitimate release. Unfortunately, it looks like the only special feature it has is the same Chang Cheh brief documentary that I already have on 2 other DVDs.

[Jimbo]

The Mighty Peking Man
V, the original miniseries
Battle Wizard
Event Horizon.

So far I’ve watched about 1/2 of Mighty Peking Man, and it’s all it’s claimed to be; a very unintentionally funny movie. It’s a combination of bad acting, cheap special effects and monster suit. It’s obviously inspired by the 1976 King Kong remake, only this is better (which isn’t saying much). Odd to see a Shaw Bros take on the Toho-style dai kaiju films. Some of the effects are beyond bad; an elephant stampede looks like they set up a movie screen, showed film of elephants, and had the actors stand in front of the screen. It stars Danny Lee, Evelyn Kraft, Ku Feng, and Hsu Shao-Chiang (Norman Tsui).

Bad acting aside, MPM has its own Sheena of the Jungle in Evelyn Kraft, IMO the hottest Western babe to ever appear in a Shaw film, or possibly even in a HK film. Suspension of disbelief is essential. We’re to believe her character has lived in a cave in the Indian jungle since she was a child, protected by the wild animals
and the Peking Man. The romantic scenes alone are masterpieces of corniness.
I’m looking forward to watching the rest of this. It’s so bad it’s good!

MPM is released by Quentin Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder films, and he wants you to know it. QT’s face is on the DVD’s front cover, and his name is in larger letters than the movie’s title on the cover. I’m not sure that QT’s name is that much of an endorsement, personally. The coming release trailer was of a film beloved by QT, Switchblade Sisters. I’m betting that in the not-too-distant future, QT will probably want to release Shaw Bros’ Bamboo House of Dolls. He seems to love the really bad exploitation films the most.

[jethro]

I was just about to ask what version of MIghty Peking Man you got before I read the bottom of your post. I’ll have to keep a lookout for it. I love those weird Shaw movies.

I don’t have a computer anymore, so I’ll have to check in sparingly from now on.

[Jimbo]

Actually, IMO the first hour or so is more fun than the last part, which becomes basically a copy of the 1976 King Kong. Another very unbelievable aspect of it is that you have a hot, scantily-clad blonde woman running around Hong Kong, and for the most part, hardly anyone gives her a second look. Which adds to the weirdness of it all. Although Danny Lee has done some good movies, I’ve never really cared for him as an actor, esp. as a lead. His characters often come across as thick or stup!d, and his role in Mighty Peking Man is no exception.

Got a bunch, several free, with gift cards:
Jurassic Park
Jaws
Spider-Man ((1)
V, The Final Battle
Shaun of the Dead
Star Wars IV

I watched Battle Wizard and thought it’s okay. I liked Duel of the Century quite a bit better. Though in BW, the weird villain played by Chiang Tao(?) is cool. There’s a chase scene with him in pursuit that’s almost reminiscent of the chase with the liquid terminator in T2: Judgment Day, which came many years later.

Sorry to hear about the computer issue, Jethro. Hope it all works out for you.

[Jimbo]

Hellraiser (the original movie). Written and directed by Clive Barker, who also wrote the original story, The Hellbound Heart. Still one of the best horror films, in spite of the somewhat dated special effects. I never did watch any of its sequels, as I heard they were all inferior works. Yes, it’s gory, but nowhere near as much as the recent trend of “torture porn” types of films, or seemingly anything directed by Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever). I don’t like Roth’s type of films; I don’t even find them entertaining. I believe Hellraiser was also the first (only?) film ever directed by Clive Barker.

Edward Scissorhands. I must confess it’s the only Tim Burton film that I actually like.

Lady Vengeance. Looking forward to watching this one.

[jethro]

Danny Lee had so many weird roles early in his career. I didn’t like him as a lead too much either. He was ok in SUper INframan, but didn’t really add anything to an extremely fun movie. I liked him in All Men are Brothers where he had a lot of good interraction with Fan Mei Sheng, but I don’t know if that can be considered a lead role. But then he settled down into the cop roles and there’s many movies I thought he was good in. Also, I thought he was great in Brave Archer. I rewatched Duel of the Century recently, and now I think even less of it. It starts out fine, better than I remember, with a lot of fights, but the fights never seem to get better, and I thought the movie got a lot worse as it went along. I found myself paying more attention to some of the beautiful sets since the movie just bored the crap out of me. But Battle Wizard was just so wild. I can’t say it’s a good movie, but I loved it. Kong Do is great. I thought the jumpy editng was really cool in his first fight. I watched it with a friend, and that editing mixed with the way Kong Do weilded that freaky claw hand got a sudden “whoa” out of him. I also liked the main villain played by Shut Chung Tin. If I ever get my legs shot with lasers I hope I can get some of those metal stork legs. And have you ever seen Sleepy Hollow? I thought it was almost as good as Edward Scissorhands.

[Jimbo]

I guess Danny Lee did mature some as an actor when he got into the cop roles. When I saw him in HK near the Star Ferry filming a cop/action film, he seemed cool enough as he finished filming and walked by and greeted bystanders that were standing behind the taped-off area (which indicated the filming area). One of the things that gave me a negative impression of him early on as an actor was the horrible Shaw BL exploitation film, Bruce Lee: His Last Days, His Last Nights, starring Danny as BL and co-starring Betty Ting-Pei (whose bedroom the real BL died in). It was the first movie I ever saw him in, and seemed to set the tone for me from then on. It’s also a movie that gives Journey of the Doomed a run for its money as a worst Shaw film.

Yeah, the fights in Duel of the Century (DOTC) weren’t great, but I wasn’t really expecting great fighting from Tony Liu-Yung or Yueh Hua. Even Pai Piao can be hot or cold. And for a Chu Yuan film, it was one of his lesser efforts, far below most of his earlier wuxias. Tony Liu made an effort, but he always seemed stiff and limited in his movements. I think he probably looked best in Human Lanterns and in the B@stard Swordsman film(s), if I remember correctly. I still liked Chu Yuan’s dream-like atmosphere, though.

I watched Lady Vengeance (aka, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance). As for the inevitable comparison to Oldboy, there isn’t, really. IMO, Oldboy still stands on its own, and I didn’t feel LV could even come close. It’s a fairly good film, and I can follow it, but many parts of the film switch to flashback and back to the present suddenly at odd times, and if you’re half paying attention, it can throw you at first. Esp. as the lead lady’s character, Geum-Ja, doesn’t appear to age a single day in the 13 years she spent in prison, except maybe the way she dressed. It’s a quality movie, but for me, it lacked the intrigue and twists that Oldboy has; therefore, a comparison isn’t really fair. On its own, I’d rate LV just above average.

I also picked up Dragonslayer. This was a favorite of mine when it was released in theaters in 1981, and seeing it again, it still stands up today. It’s highly underrated. It stars (oddly) Peter McNicol as a wizard’s apprentice who accompanies a group of Irish villagers after his master’s death on a quest to free their kingdom from a dragon. The dragon effects hold up today, even with the comparatively “primitive” effects available at the time. IMO, it’s possibly the best cinematic dragon ever. It somehow seems more “alive” to me than the more modern CGI dragons in more recent films (Reign of Fire, etc.). In fact, I think Dragonslayer’s dragon actually was the first computer-generated dragon, combined with life-sized parts shown here and there. It’s only shown in bits and parts until the last half hour or so. And when the dragon appears in all its glory, it is awesome. Some of the scenes of the dragon flying in for the attack are almost reminiscent of scenes in the original Star Wars in the final Death Star battle. If there’s a weak point, it’s a fight scene with Peter McNicol using a spear against a swordsman. McNicol looks like he couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. Otherwise, he does okay in spite of his having an American accent in 6th-Century Britain. (in reality, I’ll bet any spoken English back then would probably be incomprehensible in modern times anyway). The scenery is beautiful, as are the sets. It was filmed at Pinewood Studios in London, and in Scotland and Wales.

I finally found Powder in DVD. Another good old film. Yes, I’m aware of the history of the director, but it’s still a fine film.

[jethro]

I haven’t seen any of those movies. I think I’ve seen Dragonslayer at CD Tradepost, I’ll have to check it out. Danny Lee surprised me with some nice kicks in BL Last Days, but I agree the movie was trash. REALLY bad. I ended up getting Brave Archer 2 from Amazon. The things that happen in this movie are even weirder than in part 1. Part 1 was a bit confusing the first time I watched it, but part 2 was really hard to follow the first time around (it doesn’t help that the Red Sun subtitles flash by the screen really fast about every 10th line, and a lot of lines seem to be missing). Weird, stupid (but fun) stuff happens that didn’t make any sense to me, not much is resolved from pt 1, and various villain and hero characters come and go, like Sun Chien. And then there’s a lot of actors I thought got crappy roles, like Lu Feng and Chiang Sheng. They play beggars and get to show almost none of their skills in their fights. Also there’s a few characters that are played by different actors, like Fan Mei Sheng’s small villain role. But I can’t say that it bothered me. Chan Shen is easily my favorite character in that trio of thugs played by him, Fan Mei Sheng and Suen Shu Pao. Lo Meng gets replaced as one of the Weird 6, but it’s way better to have him as a main villain instead of a character that doesn’t do anything. And the Weird 6 only make a very short cameo. Even though the movie is all over the place, I still felt like I understood most of it. It seems like it would be frustrating to have characters enter the movie, and then afer a little bit of their story is explained, you don’t see them again. But it just felt like a bonus to have these people show up. Plus I’m hoping to get BA 3 soon, and I’ll be able to get more of the story, though I have a feeling this series isn’t going to have the most satisfying ending. But I’m just going into part 3 expecting entertaining fights and characters. I liked part 1, and I liked part 2 even more. The story is anything but tight, but I think you just have to give repeated viewings to fully enjoy these movies. They get better every time I watch them (3 times for me now). And I love the fantasy type fights that use the smoke and the light machines. I’m all about that internal power stuff. I need to learn some of that. Learning kung fu and practicing a horse stance is just too hard.

Also, a couple questions about part 1 and part 2. Maybe I just missed these things. Ti Lung is in the opening credits of part 1, but I don’t remember him being in the movie. And he’s not in part 2. I wonder why he is in the opening credits of part 1. Also, does Fu Sheng ever use a bow and arrow? I don’t rememeber anyone even carrying a bow.

One more thing on the BA series. I was wondering after watchign part 1 if Battle Wizard uses the same story as BA, but after seeing part 2 I think Battle Wizard just combines different stories from Chinese wuxia novels. I imagine a lot of movies are done that way. The reason I was wondering if they were the same story is because of the scene were Fu Sheng/Danny Lee bites the neck of the huge snake. But other than that scene I don’t see any similarities between the 2 movies.

I also got a movie called The Dragon Missile. The story takes a unique twist towards the end that I liked, but other than that everything is predictable. It’s an entertaining movie, but not one you re going to be telling all your friends about trying to get them to see it. I’d rate it a 5 or 6 out of 10. Lo Lieh is the lead actor. He’s a bad guy, and while not nearly as wicked as some of his other roles in his long career, it’s still interesting to see a bad guy as the lead. And I like how he’s not a bad guy who has a good side and ends up trying to make everything right in the end. I’ve seen that story done badly too many times, so I’m glad I didn’t have to see it again. The directing is pretty bad so I don’t think he would have done that story very well. The Dragon Missile weapon seems to hit a lot of buildings and trees while flying to it’s target. They don’t explain if it’s supposed to be hitting these objects, so I didn’t know what was going on. But it’s still a cool weapon. Some nice arm, hand and of course head cutting. I’m a fan of Anthony Lau Wing, but I can’t say he added anything to this movie as the main hero. Mainly it’s the director’s fault. (Also just so you know I can’t call him Tony Liu because I know I would end up mixing him up with the director with the same name. Super director. 3 Evil Masters, Secret service, Tiger Over wall…) Nancy Yen plays other hero in Dragon Missile. There’s even less to her character than Lau Wing’s, but I thought she still managed to give a great performance. The only great performance in the movie.

[Jimbo]

I did see Brave Archer 1 through 4, I believe, and if I remember right, I think part 4 was the best action-wise, but if I remember that right, Fu Sheng had little to no(?) part in part 4. I remember a nice Venoms-style fantasy fight of the quality that was missing from the other BA films. As for Ti Lung, I cannot remember if he did anything in the BA films or not. Prior to the recent release of BA 1, I hadn’t seen any of them since the early '80s. Although I believe the title is misleading, as I don’t think Fu Sheng ever uses a bow and arrow. I’ll have to wait 'til the others are released by a good co. to know for sure.

I’m wondering if biting a giant snake to death to gain its super-powers is some kind of recurring theme in Chinese wuxia legends(?). Or at least, one film would have influenced the other. Battle Wizard seems to be a few years earlier than the BA films.

I would definitely recommend Dragonslayer, if you like that type of film. I like films about medievel Britain, my favorite being Excalibur. DS is different, but like Excalibur, it was beautifully filmed with excellent sets and costumes.

Powder is not a MA movie, but is about a boy with deep insights and paranormal powers, who is alone and misunderstood in a small town. He’s an albino, hence the title. It’s great, IMO, but it’s one of those films that people either love or absolutely hate, depending on your personal views. It co-stars Jeff Goldblum, Lance Henriksen and Mary Steenburgen.

I got Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance to complete Park Chan-Wook’s vengeance trilogy. All in all, I rate it a bit higher than Lady Vengeance. The story can be a bit slow-moving, but I found the characters more interesting than those in LV. The main character is a deaf-mute trying to illegally sell his kidney to trade for one campatible for his dying sister, and gets cheated out of his life savings. The overall message seems to be about how the cycle of vengeance never ends up good. Some might find it depressing, but that’s the nature of the series. If someone wants a movie full of happy-happy-joy-joy, Chan Park-Wook’s films should probably be avoided. But the intensity, and dare I say honesty, of the acting in these films often puts Hollywood to shame.