Archive for the ‘Martial Arts’ Category
Friday, June 24th, 2005
aka SHAOLIN MASTER KILLER
So you got these fuckin Tartars goin around oppressing people, right? No surprise there. Humiliating people, publicly executing people, fucking with innocent people’s seafood shops and all that kind of crap. I mean let’s be honest here, we all know how these fuckin Tartars are. And in a Shaw Brothers classic like this, we know Gordon Liu is gonna do something about it.
There’s this classroom of kids (played by adults) and they’ve been learning about the importance of their country and standing up to their enemies but they can’t figure out why they’re learning this in the classroom and then watching the Tartars pull this kind of crap. Are those lessons just words or are they concepts they should really live by? They decide on the second one and when they try to stand up and make a difference, they are rewarded with a serious assbeating.
But Gordon gets away, and you know what he always does when he gets away. He finds his way to the Shaolin Temple where the monks patch him up, then he demands to stay and become a monk, and then he asks to learn kung fu. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gordon Liu, Shaw Brothers
Posted in Martial Arts, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 7th, 2005
Well when it comes to the classics of the kung fu genre, who the fuck knows where to start? Not me, but a recent browsing of the book THE WU-TANG MANUAL BOOK 1 by outlaw award winning composer RZA gave me some tips. In one chapter he tells about the three kung fu movies that most influenced him, and this one sounded the best. He tells a story about getting high and watching it late at night with a gentleman named “Ghostface” and some other buddies from the Stapleton projects. Supposedly they all started crying because of its messages of brotherhood. It would be interesting to know which scene got them going.
The movie comes from our friends the Shaw Brothers and it’s apparently considered one of their best. And god damn if it isn’t one of the best martial arts pictures that I’ve seen, anyway. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gordon Liu, Shaw Brothers
Posted in Martial Arts, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Thursday, March 3rd, 2005
Two time Oscar winner Hilary Swank, hailing from Bellingham, Washington, stars in the explosive finale to the Karate Kid quadilogy. This one was Swank’s first starring role and came out in 1994, when movies were just as crappy but not quite as funny as their ’80s counterparts. The director is Christopher Cain, father of Dean Cain and director of The Amazing Panda Adventure.
Swank plays Julie, a pouty, sullen teenage girl who lives unhappily with her grandma after the death of her parents. Anything anybody says to Julie, she takes offense and throws a hissy fit. You know how old people are, they try to be nice but they don’t really understand where your teenage mind is coming from, so they offer you some lemon bars or something and you’re like “GOD DAMN IT WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?!” and run out of the room crying. So then Julie goes in and stabs grandma to death in her sleep, while jerkin off. Or was that a different movie? I can’t remember. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christopher Cain, Hilary Swank, Michael Ironside, Pat Morita, Walton Goggins
Posted in Family, Martial Arts, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Sunday, September 19th, 2004
HERO is no surprise. I knew I was gonna like this movie. I heard enough to know this was gonna be a good one. I mean it’s got that acclaimed director who did all those movies I haven’t seen like THE ROAD HOME. But then instead of doing another movie like that, what he does, he gets Jet Li and Maggie Cheung and Donnie Yen and Zhang Yiyi and he says, let’s do an awesome fucking epic with kung fu and swords and about ten million arrows.
This movie has been making the rounds for years. It got nominated for the foreign film oscar, and it played the seattle international film festival, and it’s been on DVD in Asia forever which is no problem for a worldly dude like me, I’ve been free of the region code shackles for years. Region 2, region 3, bring it on motherfuckers, I go all the way up to region 4, region 5 on a good day. I could do region 10 if they threw it at me, region 11, I don’t give a fuck. Anything. But here in region 1 Miramax was supposed to release HERO in theaters. What they wanted to do was leave it on the shelf for years and finally put it out when there’s less interest. That worked so well with SHAOLIN SOCCER. Unfortunately HERO was sitting on the shelf but then it fell off the shelf and got stuck behind the desk and nobody knew it was there. Then I think Tarantino dropped a pencil back there or something, so he reached back there and he felt HERO. So he pulled it out and dusted it off and he was like, “You guys still have this? You should, like, release it in theaters, where people go to watch movies projected on a screen.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Zhang Yimou, Ziyi Zhang
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 31st, 2004
What if I were to tell you that there was a movie based on a story by Bruce Lee (sort of based on his zen philosophy), starring David Carradine (in multiple roles) but also featuring Christopher Lee, Roddy McDowall and Eli Wallach? And maybe I would also say it takes place in a fantasy world and Carradine plays a flute that he also uses for a weapon, and let’s say that my man James Coburn – well, he’s not in it as an actor, but being a student of Bruce Lee maybe he helped write the story. And then the screenplay was written by Sterling Silophant who wrote THE TOWERING INFERNO and crap like that. But then the director was some guy named Richard Moore who only directed that one movie. But he was cinematographer for THE STONE KILLER with Charles Bronson. But also ANNIE.
Well let’s take the gloves off, you can forget about “what if” and come down to the world of reality because I’m about to tell you that I just saw EXACTLY THAT movie described above. (see above.) CIRCLE OF IRON starts out with a corny statement about Bruce Lee before going into a MORTAL KOMBAT type competition where half naked white dudes with mustaches do karate against each other as some type of a test. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce Lee, David Carradine, Jeff Cooper, Roddy McDowall, Stirling Silliphant
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Sunday, August 15th, 2004
(aka MUAY THAI WARRIOR)
You see, there’s this small town in Thailand somewhere (possibly called Ong-Bak, unless that is only the name of the buddha statue there, but the subtitles led me to believe it was the name of both). Anyway, there’s a young man there named Ting (played by Tony Jaa) who is working hard to prove himself as a master of Muay Thai Kickboxing, or Thai Fist. That’s quite enough bullshit for a young man to have on his mind but then some other asshole has to sneak in and cut off the head of their buddha statue so he can sell it. All the old ladies start crying that the town is not protected anymore so before you know it this little old country boy is headed for big bad Bangkok to get the shit back. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Prachya Pinkaew, Thai action, Tony Jaa
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, November 14th, 2003
Hey folks, Harry here… Vern, being one to only see the arty movies like the ones he mentions below is the perfect choice to review that hero of the Arthouses… I’m of course talking about Steven Seagal and his latest starring success… …ahem… Anyway, lest you get tired of reading about Seagal’s Private Investigator on Drudge-linked stories, now you get the skinny on the top man himself. And if you ever sit down with Seagal for lunch, play the… “How would you kill me” game, where you just continually ask him, once every 4 minutes or so how he would kill you. I hear this is amazingly entertaining as Seagal has an endless variety of ways to kill the annoying fuck sitting across from him. Go on, give it a try!
Vern reviews BELLY OF THE BEAST by Ching Siu-Tung
Boys –
I know you are fans of the hong kong cinema, martial arts, karate, and etc. So I bet you probaly know who Ching Siu-Tung is. Or maybe you know him as Siu-Tung Ching, or Siu-tung Chin, or Tony Tung Yee Ching, or Xiaodong Cheng, or Tony Ching Siu Tung, or just plain Tony Ching. I don’t know, the dude has lots of names. But the point is not what the dude’s name or names is, the point is what the dude does. He may not be as well known in the united states of america as your John Woos or your Yuen Woo Pings or your Tsui Harks. But I bet you’ve seen some of his works before. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ching Siu-Tung, DTV, international co-productions, Seagalogy, Steven Seagal
Posted in Action, AICN, Martial Arts, Reviews, Seagal | 4 Comments »
Monday, November 11th, 2002
Well I’m way behind on this one. The nerds of the internet have been talking about this one forever, more evidence of a vibrant nerd culture thriving out there somewhere. Like the aztecs and mayans with their fancy calendars, the nerds were ahead of ol’ Vern on discovering SHAOLIN SOCCER. But then, I work on my own schedule.
Soon all americans will know about the power of SHAOLIN SOCCER, because Miramax is doing one of their trademark trim jobs on it and releasing it here. But if you haven’t heard of it yet this is what it is. Shaolin kung fu + soccer = this movie. Duh. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Karen Mok, Stephen Chow
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews, Sport | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 19th, 2002
Every so often a picture comes along that is so good as a concept, who the fuck cares if it works as a picture. This is a type of picture that may not be that great to watch, or may even get boring as hell by the end, but you are so happy it exists that you want to own it, memorize it, hang it up on your wall, make it into a t-shirt. You want to tell everybody it’s your favorite movie even though you’d be lying your ass off, because you fell asleep at the end and didn’t even feel compelled to rewind and see what you missed. But still, you loved it.
That picture is, of course, Shaolin Dolemite. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Robert Tai, Rudy Ray Moore
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Martial Arts, Reviews | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
No, my father is not a hero, but that is the name of the movie so in my opinion I had no choice but to write it. The truth is my father was an abusive drunk and a loser* and he is where I get many of my qualities. Maybe that is why this picture starring Jet Li, 1999 Outlaw Award winner for Black Mask, broke my damn heart. True, it is a karate picture, and there are a couple of really great fighting and shooting action type scenes. However what I loved about this movie was the sentimentality in its story of a young boy. It will make you cry.
More than any other karate picture I have ever seen, this is a sad, sad movie. I mean it will grab you by the nuts and pull your heartstrings. You see, this little boy who is a junior martial arts champion idolizes his father, Jet Li, but he hardly ever sees him. Jet is a caring father and has fun with the boy when he sees him, but he’s still a fuck up. He is off getting in spectacular kicking fights and he is always late. He is late for the martial arts tournament, and then after he gets there he gets in a big fight with some criminals. The boy intervenes and gets declared a hero. But then Jet doesn’t even make it on time to see him get a plaque presented for his heroism. But still, the boy forgives him right away. Because to him at this age he will always be dad, the hero. He can be hurt by what dad does but he won’t realize that his dad is a fuck up. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anita Mui, Corey Yuen, Jet Li
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 7 Comments »
