Archive for the ‘Martial Arts’ Category
Thursday, February 16th, 2023
You may be surprised to hear that I had never seen IRON MONKEY (1993) until now. I rented it many years ago but it turned out to be some Miramax dubbed and chopped version, so I decided to hold off, and I guess I got sidetracked. Now, upon the occasion of a new blu-ray release, I finally watched it. So I’m happy to be the last to tell you this is a straight up martial arts classic!
It’s directed by Yuen Woo-ping (he followed it with TAI CHI MASTER and WING CHUN – that’s a hell of a trilogy!) and written and produced by the prolific Tsui Hark. I could also say “the visionary Tsui Hark” or “the lovable weirdo Tsui Hark,” but I said “prolific” this time because THE EAST IS RED and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA IV (which he wrote) and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA III and GREEN SNAKE (which he wrote and directed) all came out that same year.
The titular Iron Monkey (Yu Rongguang, TSUI HARK’S VAMPIRE HUNTERS) is a Zorro-meets-Robin-Hood-meets-kung-fu folk hero known for leaping around on rooftops at night, stealing the ill-gotten gains of corrupt government officials, and leaving his loot as gifts for refugees and the poor. Our story begins with the authorities battening down the hatches to catch Iron Monkey if he comes for the new governor (James Wong, TIGER ON BEAT), who is cowering in a bed with his mistress (Cheung Fung-lei) and a net set up for protection. But Iron Monkey flips in in his black costume and gaiter and defeats the guards and Shaolin monks guarding the governor. (He either implies the monks are imposters or sell outs, I’m not sure which.) He gets the gold and escapes through the ceiling. Don’t fuck with Iron Monkey. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Donnie Yen, James Wong, Jean Wang, Tsui Hark, Wong Fei-hung, Yen Shi-Kwan, Yu Rongguang, Yuen Shun-Yi, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 11 Comments »
Wednesday, February 15th, 2023
THE RED-WOLF (just RED WOLF on the DVD cover) is a 1995 movie directed by Yuen Woo-ping that’s kind of like his take on UNDER SIEGE and/or SPEED 2. Thieves infiltrate a cruise ship and kill the captain in a plot to steal uranium from the boat’s safe; a lone security guard (with help from a waitress/pickpocket) must stop them. It’s far from Yuen’s best directorial work, but of course it has some very good action in it, and I can’t help but enjoy seeing him inject his style into a favorite subgenre of American action.
It takes place on New Year’s Eve (the December one, judging by the number of Christmas trees around) on a luxury cruise ship called the White Whale. That’s a literary reference in my opinion, but most of its influences are cinematic. If you know your important filmic art you know that in the film UNDER SIEGE the captain of an aircraft carrier is killed by one of his underlings, who’s working for a guy who gets on board disguised as the singer for a corny blues rock band. This is kind of a variation on that – the ship’s captain (Steve Brettingham, KNOCK OFF) is a sleazeball who expects to hook up with singer Elaine Wong (Elaine Lui Siu-Ling, THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR), so she gets into his private quarters to whoop his ass and steal his security card. She’s working with the ship’s treacherous first officer (Collin Chou, THE MATRIX RELOADED), who kicks in the door and helps. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christy Chung, Collin Chou, Die Hard on a ____, Digital Native Dance, Elaine Lui, Habby Heske, Hong Kong action, Kenny Ho, Mandy Chan, Mary Hon Ma-Lee, Mike Miller, New Year's Eve, Robert Samuels, Roy Filler, Steve Brettingham, Wu Fung, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 7th, 2023
THE THOUSAND FACES OF DUNJIA is a 2017 FX-laden wuxia movie from the super team of director Yuen Woo-ping (TAI CHI MASTER, WING CHUN) and writer/producer Tsui Hark (A BETTER TOMORROW II, VAMPIRE HUNTERS), their first collaboration since 2002’s BLACK MASK 2: CITY OF MASKS (which was directed by Tsui with Yuen as martial arts director).
This is a type of modern Chinese blockbuster that seems to be very off-putting to some people because it’s absolutely slathered in digital bells and whistles: fiery bombastic credits, virtual camera pulling back from a spider’s leg to an asteroid in outer space, humans morphing into animated monsters, magic shit twirling around all over the place, clearly designed for 3D. Also it has lots of broad humor, cartoon physics, exaggerated facial expressions – the kind of stuff Stephen Chow perfected and nobody else, even these legends, can easily match.
It’s not my very favorite type of movie, but it’s something I can have fun with. The unbridled joy for putting cool and/or preposterous things on screen – fantastical shit for the sake of fantastical shit – always makes me smile, even if I can’t follow all of it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aarif Lee Chi-Ting, Da Peng, Ni Ni, Tsui Hark, wuxia, Yuen Woo-Ping, Zhou Dongyu
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, January 24th, 2023
You know me – I’ve always been fascinated with DTV sequels. One of their endearing qualities is that their modest budgets allow for a different type of crass commercialism than regular Hollywood – they try to cash in on familiar (or even unfamiliar) titles that would never fly on the big screen. That gave us the miracle of the UNDISPUTED sequels, but mostly just stuff where it was funny that it existed – loosely connected followups or branded rehashes of CRUEL INTENTIONS, WILD THINGS, ROAD HOUSE and HOLLOW MAN, for example, many of which I reviewed for The Ain’t It Cool News at the time.
Thanks to Universal’s direct-to-video division, 1440 Entertainment, that tradition is still going strong, and arguably making a comeback. Back in the aughts they brought us SCORPION KING and DEATH RACE sequels, they revived Chucky in the great CURSE OF CHUCKY, they started making JARHEAD sequels for some reason, and brought to life such unlikely part 2s as THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS 2, KINDERGARTEN COP 2 and HARD TARGET 2. In 2018 they even made a DTV sequel to UNBROKEN, that war drama directed by Angelie Jolie, and in 2019 they did BACKDRAFT 2, INSIDE MAN: MOST WANTED, DOOM: ANNIHILATION and UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2. That last one I tried to watch because Michael Jai White is in it, but I gave up when his character went into a coma near the beginning. Still, I appreciate its existence because it keeps me on my toes. It reminds me that any movie, no matter how old, no matter how forgotten, no matter how how-the-fuck-would-you-make-a-sequel-to-that, could suddenly have a DTV sequel. And it would already be filmed and have cover art by the time I found out they were doing it. You gotta be aware at all times. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A.J. Mendez, Aimee Garcia, Alec Puro, Anna Akana, Chris Pang, Dai Tabuchi, Dan Southworth, DTV, DTV sequels, Dustin Nguyen, Eniko Fulop, Joe Hahn, John Swetnam, Mark Dacascos, Mike Moh, Nino Furuhata, Ron Yuan, Teresa Ting, Yoshi Sudarso
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, December 14th, 2022
THE TAPE RAIDER TRIBUTE TO ALBERT PYUN PART 2: HEATSEEKER
Yes friends, here’s another Albert Pyun film that has only been released on VHS in the U.S., HEATSEEKER. It came to us in 1995, #2 of 3 between SPITFIRE and NEMESIS 2: NEBULA. Pyun has a story credit, with the screenplay written by Christopher Borkgren (whose only other credit is SPITFIRE).
Set in the futuristic New America of 2019 A.D. (“After Dollman?”) it’s the story of kickboxing champion Chance O’Brien (Keith Cooke, CHINA O’BRIEN I & II) trying to keep doing his thing in a changing world. Combat sports are beginning to be dominated by new models of cyborgs, including those created by the sinister Sianon Corporation, who try to bait “the greatest human fighter in the world” into entering their imaginatively titled event “The Tournament.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Albert Pyun, Chad Stahelski, cyborgs, fighting tournament, Gary Daniels, John Machado, Keith Cooke, Norbert Weisser, Tape Raider, Thom Mathews, Tim Thomerson, Tina Cote
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 13th, 2022
At the end of last month we lost Albert Pyun, prolific and perhaps infamous b-movie auteur, chronicler of kickboxing cyborgs, mounter of simultaneous productions, and occasional blurrer of lines between drive-in exploitation and abstruse art movie.
I did not always have generous things to say about his films, but something about them kept me coming back, so over the years I’ve reviewed DANGEROUSLY CLOSE, CYBORG, CAPTAIN AMERICA, KICKBOXER 2: THE ROAD BACK, NEMESIS, KICKBOXER 4: THE AGGRESSOR, and MEAN GUNS, and of course I have chapter in Seagalogy about his Seagal movie, TICKER.
When I reviewed KICKBOXER 2 back in 2009 the man himself showed up in the comments and thanked me for the review, even though it included the line, “The director is Albert Pyun, but I never would’ve guessed that because it’s both watchable and kind of good.” He had a very gracious and self-deprecating attitude, promising “I hope I am improving to at least an almost semi-coherent level of competence,” and he came back a few times responding to questions and comments. Too bad he dodged my question about how he made it look like a dead Van Damme in KICKBOXER 2 (claiming it was someone who died from watching the beginning of ALIEN FROM L.A.). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Albert Pyun, cyborg, Gary Daniels, Kathy Long, Kris Kristofferson, Lance Henriksen, post-apocalypse, Scott Paulin
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 5 Comments »
Thursday, May 5th, 2022
RAGE AND HONOR (1992) opens in black and white – first, grainy high contrast footage of the city, maybe 16mm, then camcorder footage with scanlines – following leather-jacketed Kris Fairfield (Cynthia Rothrock) in an empty high school class room, finishing up her day of work and heading home. I assumed this was a reference to the Michelle Pfeiffer tough-and-inspirational-inner-city-teacher movie DANGEROUS MINDS, which also opened in black and white, until I realized that this came out three years earlier. This is another TOP-GUN-coming-out-after-IRON-EAGLE situation. I got one very suspicious and insinuating eye on you, Mr. Bruckheimer. You’re on notice.
The biggest surprise about this movie is that after the opening it’s never relevant or mentioned that she’s a high school teacher. I was so confused by it that I reloaded the DVD two different times thinking I must’ve misinterpreted something. But it’s true – she has a classroom, a chalkboard, she leaves with papers to grade, she runs into a student named Paris (Patrick Malone, THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES) and gives him his paper, she seems to be his history teacher. It’s too bad they didn’t stick with the idea, because a Rothrock version of THE SUBSTITUTE or ONLY THE STRONG would be right up my alley. She really does seem like a cool teacher. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Datcher, Brian Thompson, Catherine Bach, Cynthia Rothrock, IRS Media, Matt O'Toole, Patrick Malone, Richard Norton, Stephen Davies, Terence W. Winkless, Toshishiro Obata
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, May 4th, 2022
TIGER CLAWS II (1996) starts with part I’s Tiger Claw kung fu serial killer Chong (Bolo Yeung) in jail, and ends with him on another astral plane. During that same period the quality of the movie takes a similar journey, going from very promising to something else entirely.
Chong is sitting cross-legged on the floor of his cell when a shithead cop comes in and asks “Who’s the gorilla?” Hearing that Chong has just finished a 9 month psych evaluation and will plead insanity tomorrow, the cop (who didn’t even know who the guy was) insists “He’s not crazy!” and goes into the cell to “teach him some manners” by hitting him with a club and yelling at him.
(I do totally believe this part actually.)
Chong sits and meditates, ignoring him at first, then casually taking the club from him. Unfortunately he doesn’t do anything with it.
Meanwhile our boy Tarek (Jalal Merhi) is busting a gloriously-ponytailed arms dealer named Victor (Evan Lurie, DOUBLE IMPACT, MARTIAL LAW II, AMERICAN KICKBOXER 2). There are fiery explosions, he gets his man, but his partner dies, and while he’s distracted some guys in a white van free Victor. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bolo Yeung, Carter Wong, Cynthia Rothrock, Eric Lee, Evan Lurie, Harry Mok, J. Stephen Maunder, Jalal Merhi, Lazar Rockwood, Loren Avedon, Nicholas Celozzi, Ong Soo Han, Paul Rapovski, Russell Peters, Vinegar Syndrome
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 28 Comments »
Thursday, April 21st, 2022
TIGER CLAWS (1991) is the second film starring the Canadian Dragon (I made that name up) Jalal Merhi. After filming BLACK PEARL, a.k.a. FEARLESS TIGER, he brought along some of his cast and writer J. Stephen Maunder, hooked up with Shapiro-Glickenhaus, and kicked off Film One Productions, which produced 19 movies between 1991 and 2015, almost all of them starring or directed by Merhi.
For this first film, crucially, they hired Canadian TV director Kelly Makin, making his feature film debut. He would soon make a bigger mark directing filmed segments for The Kids in the Hall, and later their movie BRAIN CANDY. I’m guessing he’s the reason TIGER CLAWS has more wit and style than many comparable DTV action movies of the era (including this film’s sequels).
Even more crucially, Merhi was able to co-star with Cynthia Rothrock. She’d already made her mark in Hong Kong with YES, MADAM!, etc., and in the west with NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER 2, CHINA O’BRIEN I and II, the first MARTIAL LAW and even FAST GETAWAY, so I hope he realized how lucky he was to share the lead with her. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Pickells, Bolo Yeung, Cynthia Rothrock, J. Stephen Maunder, Jalal Merhi, Kelly Makin, martial arts killer, Mo Chow, Shapiro-Glickenhaus, Vinegar Syndrome
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, April 19th, 2022
THE FINAL MASTER (2015) is the third movie from writer/director Xu Haofeng, again based on his own novel. I remember seeing a trailer for this and thinking about going to see it – man, I blew it, I could have had these great movies in my life years ago!
This one continues the stylistic and historical progression from THE SWORD IDENTITY (Ming Dynasty) and JUDGE ARCHER (1920s), taking place in the city of Tianjin starting in 1932. It explores some of the same themes of fighters navigating the staid traditions of martial arts to make sure their preferred styles can be passed on to the next generation – aging men trying to secure their legacies and young men trying to prove themselves. This one involves the last Wing Chun Grandmaster Chen (Liao Fan, BLACK COAL, THIN ICE) striking a deal with ready-to-retire Grandmaster Zheng (Chin Shi-chieh, REIGN OF ASSASSINS, THE GUILLOTINES, THE GRANDMASTER) to help him set up a school in Tianjin. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chin Shi-chieh, Jiang Wenli, Liao Fan, Madina Memet, Song Jia, Song Yang, Xu Haofeng
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 3 Comments »
