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…)
SPOILER ALERT !!
Believe it or not it took me this long to arrive in Jamaica on my ongoing journey through World Badass Studies. Sure, I saw that movie THIRD WORLD COP a while back, but I didn’t think much of it. This one is legendary, even has a Criterion Edition, and they say it’s what popularized reggae in the US and other parts of the world. Stars some guy named Jimmy Cliff, a reggae singer, but I didn’t know any of his songs so didn’t know what to expect.
Pretty much every day, somebody comes up to me and asks, “Vern, what in your opinion is the greatest badass ensemble cast of all time?” They expect me to go for a big cast like THE GREAT ESCAPE or THE DIRTY DOZEN. But I throw em a curve ball with the best possible answer: HELL IN THE PACIFIC. There are exactly two actors in the whole movie, and they’re Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. That cannot be topped. The technology just doesn’t exist.
SPOILER ALERT !!
STAR WARS PART 3: REVENGE OF THE SITHS
Right now a thing is going on where alot of Americans hate the French. I’m not talking about any Americans I ever met or saw in person, even from a distance, but I am talking about people I saw on TV. They can do alot with computers now but I think these were real people. It’s hard to explain this feud, it’s like you know, why did Andre the Giant turn evil against Hulk Hogan? I don’t fuckin remember, man. But this one can be traced back to an incident where those fuckin French, man, they were telling us we shouldn’t invade Iraq, that they didn’t pose a threat to us and it would be illegal to invade, etc.
(or DANNY THE DOG if you’re in Europe)
Ahoy, squirts! 
You wanna see a BADASS fuckin movie, you see RIFIFI. That’s what I wish somebody woulda told me a long time ago. Instead all they told me was how excellent it was. Now look, you know how much I care about excellence. But there’s alot of excellence in this world. I think Criterion is on number 300 or something now. How’m I supposed to watch every one of them? It won’t happen.
