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Archive for the ‘Martial Arts’ Category

Revenge of the Ninja

Thursday, May 10th, 2007

(aka NINJA II)

REVENGE OF THE NINJA isn’t connected to the story of ENTER THE NINJA. Franco Nero’s White Ninja character is nowhere to be seen, defying the promise of his final freeze-frame wink. Which is bullshit, man. If you’re gonna wink – especially if you’re gonna freeze-frame wink – you better fuckin mean it.

However, Sho Kosugi (who died in part 1) is reborn as a different character, a collector of Japanese antique dolls whose family is killed by ninjas. His white friend convinces him to take his son and mom to AMerica to open a gallery for his dolls. And I don’t think I need to point out that any time in an action or fighting movie where you are discussing the hero’s doll collection you are on some paper thin ice. But I’ll be charitable and accept this as a fulfillment of the Theory of Badass Juxtaposition. (read the rest of this shit…)

Enter the Ninja

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

This week I followed an anonymous tip to take a look at an individual name Sho Kosugi. This guy starred in a series of ninja movies and was said to be a missing link in my badass studies to date. I looked him up and found that ENTER THE NINJA is also known as NINJA 1 because it begins a series, so I started with that.

The movie opens promisingly with the badass in question, Mr. Sho Kosugi, in full ninja uniform, standing in front of a black void, demonstrating every weapon he knows. Nunchakas, throwing stars, arrows, daggers, grappling hook, blow gun. You name it, he spins it around or shoots it. The guy is obviously good and it’s kind of cool how he is basically doing show and tell for you throughout the opening credits. It might as well be some Ninja How-To video. But then all the sudden a ninja in all white flies onto the screen and “kicks” him in the head (although it doesn’t look like he makes contact at all). (read the rest of this shit…)

Jet Li’s Fearless

Thursday, September 28th, 2006

I don’t know if that title means “Jet Li’s” in the sense of BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA or as a less formal way of saying Jet Li is Fearless. Neither one makes complete sense because Jet Li is not the director (that would be the great Ronny Yu) and his character is not named Detective Jack Fearless, he is playing a guy named Huo Yuanjia who it turns out is a real life martial artist (1869-1910) who united the various factions of Chinese martial arts to form “wushu.” He’s the guy who is supposed to be the teacher of the fictional character Bruce Lee played in BRUCE LEE’S FIST OF FURY and the one Jet played in JET LI’S FIST OF LEGEND. This new movie is a very mythology-ized version of the guy’s life but does have many elements that are based on actual historical events. But they are honest enough not to say “BASED ON A TRUE STORY” in the ads, despite the continual lowering of the standards for what counts as a true story. (The latest chapter: the prequel to the crappy remake of a completely fictional movie that was vaguely inspired by what Ed Gein did to dead bodies now counts as a true story.) (read the rest of this shit…)

The Protector

Friday, September 8th, 2006

real title: TOM-YUM-GOONG
should be the title: WHERE ARE MY ELEPHANTS?

Well, I can’t say I didn’t know what I was stepping into. The import DVD of the newest Tony Jaa movie (from the same director as ONG-BAK) has been circling around forever and a day now but I never got around to seeing it. Now those gangsters Bob and Noodles Weinstein have unleashed their bastardized and cut-up version across the screens of America. I knew it was probaly gonna be dubbed, I knew it was shortened (that’s what the Weinsteins do: buy other people’s movies, then cut parts out of them), and I knew it was re-scored.

And it was actually that last part that reeled me in like a sucker fish. Because in the newspaper ads it says in giant letters, almost as big as the title: “MUSIC BY RZA.” (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern explores the bizarre mystery that is Wesley Snipes in HARD LUCK…. and the Snipes-less BLADE tv series!

Sunday, August 13th, 2006

Hey folks, Harry here – with the latest from Vern. This time, Vern tackles the ever evolving career of one, Wesley Snipes. I miss Wesley Snipes. He was never just the muscle action guy and I kinda hate that THAT is what he’s becoming in these cheap straight to DVD flicks. Snipes is a dramatic actor of an immense amount of range. He just needs to calm down and begin straightening out a lot of the bad press he’s had – and just do the work. Put himself in some independent films – showing his range and humility and getting back to where filmmaker’s won’t be taking a “chance” directing him, but taking the OPPORTUNITY to use him. He’s incredibly talented, I just want to see that back on screen again. Here’s Vern to tell us if we see any of that talent in HARD LUCK…

HARD LUCK

Well boys, time for another chapter in the ongoing drama THE MYSTERY OF WESLEY SNIPES, where we explore why a talented individual who starred in the three hit BLADE movies keeps doing nothing but straight to video. This new one, HARD LUCK, comes to video in October. While it’s not a particularly good movie, and it definitely shouldn’t be released theatrically, it’s at least a step up from the generic and sometimes horrible DTV action movies he’s been doing lately. It’s kind of a quirky crime movie with some occasional funny touches and an unorthodox (but not revolutionary) structure. The big news is that it reunites him with NEW JACK CITY’s Mario Van Peebles, who is director, co-writer and co-star of HARD LUCK. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Street Fighter

Thursday, July 6th, 2006

This is Sonny Chiba’s most famous movie, the one that made him an international star, and the one that Christian-Slater-as-Tarantino-stand-in went on about in TRUE ROMANCE. And as a vehicle to show how awesome Sonny Chiba is, it’s great. As a movie though I would argue that it’s not necessarily his best.

Maybe it wasn’t the greatest idea in the world to re-watch it right after enjoying the KARATE BULL FIGHTER trilogy. This one has alot of the same elements. Fights in dojos, dirty fighting on the streets, war time flashbacks, the tragic death of a goofy sidekick. But I don’t think the story is quite as good. It starts out very promising with Sonny’s character Terry Tsugura going into a prison disguised as a priest to bust a guy out. I mean, you know that’s gonna get good. But after that it’s pretty meandering and confusing for a while as he discusses things with various factions and people try to hire him and what not. (I should point out that I haven’t found it in a subtitled version, only dubbed, and that probaly doesn’t help.) (read the rest of this shit…)

Karate Bear Fighter

Monday, June 26th, 2006

The second in Sonny Chiba’s Oyama trilogy is even better than the first one. First of all, no rape scene. Second of all, he becomes more of a classical badass who gets to show off different facets of his badass powers. There’s alot of scenes where he’s in a situation that would make most people nervous – like when a powerful gangster tries to hire him – and he just gives off a Just Don’t Give A Fuck vibe, sometimes even munching on food instead of paying attention to people (always a favorite of mine since Dirty Harry foiled a robbery while eating a hot dog).

Oyama takes the job with the gangster, which is a great chance for him to wear shades, a white suit and a long white coat over his shoulder, and scare everybody without saying a word. (read the rest of this shit…)

Karate for Life

Monday, June 26th, 2006

The third and final entry in the Oyama trilogy starts out in pretty much the most badass way possible. A narrator explains that at this point in his life, Oyama liked to go around to different dojos and make challenges to prove the power of his karate.

So he struts into this dojo wearing his karate clothes, but also with his white gangster coat draped over his shoulders for extra style points. When the students ask who the hell he is he explains that he’s come to challenge their sensei.

I think this sensei is the same guy he’s been feuding with all throughout the series. At any rate, the guy pretty much tells Oyama that he’s an asshole for going around picking fights, because that’s against the whole idea of karate. And it’s a good point. Still, the sensei agrees to a fight, sort of. He’ll fight Oyama, but first Oyama will have to fight 100 of his students. Ha ha ha. (read the rest of this shit…)

Karate Bullfighter

Wednesday, June 21st, 2006

aka CHAMPION OF DEATH or FIGHTING KARATE-ULTIMATE TRUTH FIST

KARATE BULLFIGHTER is the first in a trilogy starring the great Sonny Chiba as his real life mentor Masutatsu Oyama. Apparently it’s based on a comic book called The Fanatical Karate Generation. Despite all the crazy titles this movie is really sort of a fictionalized biography of a visionary karate instructor who causes an outrage by rejecting the notions of the time. He pisses everybody off by saying that modern karate is just “a dance” and lamenting that he wasted his time by training for 3 years. He does win a big trophy in a tournament that supposedly means he’s the best karate man in Japan, but when a guy compliments him he gets all pissed off and throws it down some stairs.

It’s a real interesting story but let’s be honest, you’re not gonna watch it for an interesting story. You’re gonna watch it because it’s called Karate Bullfighter. This is because in the first half of the movie Sonny is practicing karate on the beach when suddenly he hears that a mad bull is loose. He figures maybe he should help so he saves a little girl from being gored and then wrestles the bull. He literally grabs the bull by the horns, then figuratively goes for the jugular by literally karate chopping the bull in the head until a beautiful shower of samurai movie/Dawn of the Dead style bright red blood sprays out. This is actually kind of creepy because they have a real bull for alot of shots and it looks like they somehow forced his mouth shut so he couldn’t bite. (Some of it is also clearly a fake bull.) (read the rest of this shit…)

Enter the Dragon

Friday, June 24th, 2005

BREAKING NEWS: ENTER THE DRAGON is a classic and it’s mainly because of Bruce Lee’s performance. More on this story as it develops.

Okay maybe that’s old news. He’d been trying for years to become a superstar in the US (he only went back to hong kong after being dissed one too many times by the white man). So it was a big deal for him to have his big american co-production. And in the movie he has so much screen presence that they had to build a special type of camera to film him, after going through six different regular cameras that broke because of his power.

Actually that’s complete bullshit, I just made that up. That woulda been cool though. Anyway anything you need to know about why Bruce Lee is such an icon is in this movie: the arrogant persona (his character is actually kind of a dick), the perfect physique, the powerful moves, the cool nunchucks, the occasional philosophy, the greatest theme song of all time (thank you Lalo Schifrin). But everybody knows that. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know if I talk about that. So let’s give some credit to the rest of the movie. For example, co-star John Saxon. (read the rest of this shit…)