What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

[chazgower01]

Hero From Beyond the Boundary of Time (1993, Hong Kong) youtube 1.5/5
Tony Leung as Wai Siu Bo is sent 300 years into the future to find a new virgin queen to cure the king of his impotence. He teams up with a policeman (Dicky Cheung) and they get into sexual 'hijinks'. Lots of sex jokes and crude humor. A from behind shower scene by the lovely Ng Suet-Man. Veronica Yip as a princess. Fight scenes with wire work. Overall pretty forgettable.

[HungFist]

3 Days of a Blind Girl (1993, Hong Kong) internet 3.5/5

Don't remember much about the film except that the shower scene was amazing. Worth seeing for that scene alone!

[HungFist]

Violent Warrior (暴力戦士) (Japan, 1979) [DVD] - 3/5
In 1979 Toei president Shigeru Okada saw the future. More precisely, he saw Walter Hill's The Warriors in the US prior to its Japanese opening. Okada rushed back to make his own version. "Towards the 80! Our era! Now filming!" the trailer exclaimed. The plot is roughly the same as in The Warriors except this time the chased gang has to make it from Kobe to Tokyo and the leader's got the enemy's sister handcuffed to him. The film runs on a logic of its own (gang mates seem to teleport to convenient locations, escapees have time to stop jamming every time they hear music etc.) and one gang in particular, the man eating amazons, make Italian gang and post apocalypse films look like art in comparison. Hardly great cinema, but undeniably entertaining with frantic pacing, loads of music and even a massive roller blade street chase! As a vision of future, it wasn't too far off if the future was defined as 80s rock, bad fashion and comic book films. As for rating, throw the dice, any will do, even 6 out of 5. Teruo Ishii's last theatrical film until the early 90s.



The Hit Man: Blood Smells Like Roses (ザ・ヒットマン 血はバラの匂い) (Japan, 1991) [DVD] - 1.5/5
Teruo Ishii's only V-Cinema film. "Violence and Eros" was printed on the VHS cover. That was true enough, but there's little of the style and excitement of Ishii's better films to be found. The dull storyline is about an avenging hitman going Yojimbo on two gangs. The scene where he loses his suitcase and gun because he leaves it in a cafe when he goes to bathroom, and then has to chase the (irritating) girl who took it, sums up how the film's plot (does not) function. But it's not all bad: the closing credits sequence, which plays like a photo collage from a high quality porn magazine, paired with a rock song, is superb. This film was, btw, Ishii's return to films after more than a decade of TV work.

[chazgower01]

Run and Kill (1993, Hong Kong) haiuken.com 3/5
If you have a list of the best examples of Cat III extremes, it'd be difficult to not include this movie. Kent 'Fatty' Cheung (who goes by his own name in the movie!) catches his hotter-than-he-deserves wife (Lily Lee) in bed with another man. At a bar that night he drunkenly makes a deal to have her killed (they burst in and do it while he's home) and when he can't pay the fee to the triads, they burn his gas station down and he goes on the run.
In the country, he enlists the aid of another criminal, who ends up getting tortured by the triads. He dies in Fatty's care, and this sends his crazy brother (Simon Yam, in an intensely psychotic part) after him, and things get REALLY bad. Great performance by Fatty and Yam throughout.
And of course you may have heard of the 'scene' in this: where Yam burns Fatty's daughter to death in front of him, and imitates her using the charred corpse. If you can handle that scene you can handle most anything...
A crazy, savage movie with a deserved rating that's brutal and sadistic beyond the norm.

[chazgower01]

The Untold Story (1993, Hong Kong) youtube 3.5/5
Leave it to a Hong Kong film to actually show us this stuff... The Untold Story stars Anthony Wong as a psychopath who kills a restaurant owner and his family (including his wife and 5 little kids - quite a grim scene), using their meat for the restaurant's food. He confesses this after the cops arrest him and endlessly beat and torture him. Wong deservedly won a Best Actor award for his role as the deranged killer.
The really strange thing about the movie is it spends a great deal of it on police chief Danny Lee (who is constantly wooing prostitutes instead of working) and his handful of bumbling cops who are just as uninterested in police work as their boss. Maybe this humor was meant to offset the killer's explicit scenes, but since most of them happen later in the movie, it just feels out of place.
One of the earlier scenes we do see is the killer's rape and murder of a waitress, played by Julie Lee (who else would they get to do this scene?) - disturbing in its brutality, and infamous in its own right, but still, nothing compared to the eventual confession scene of the family.
The performances of Wong, the family, Julie Lee - all really top performances - even when Wong is getting beaten in prison (by the restaurant owner's jailed brother and other inmates) it's some pretty intense stuff...
The movie did HK $15 Million at the box office (one of the top Cat III's of all time) and started a trend of psycho crime confession movies.

[chazgower01]

Naked Killer (1992, Hong Kong) youtube/haiuken 3.5/5
Neither the great movie some claim or the overrated dud that others call it, Naked Killer is nevertheless a standout of Hong Kong Cinema. It's interesting to note that it did almost HK $6 Million less at the box office than Untold Story the following year and HK $9 Million less than Sex & Zen a year earlier. The Chinese were obviously less impressed with it than Western audiences.

Despite my feelings on Chingmy Yau, she looks mostly great here, her manishly plain figure dressed to appeal and lit perfectly. Much has been made about her performance, which I did enjoy, but really Carrie Ng steals the show whenever she's on screen, which isn't enough. Yau begins to slow the film down with the Basic Instinct inspired love affair with Simon Yam's impotent cop character. These are scenes that look good, but drag, and it's only when Ng's character invades the third act do things get interesting again.

Wong Jing gets credit for this because he produced it, and wrote it (and came up with the marketing for it, which was key to its success), but the teaming up between him and director Clarence Fok (or Clarence Ford) is important to what the final film was. The sex certainly sells it. But the sex isn't all that prevalent in the movie... its the look, style and the action sequences that really make the movie standout, within the sexualized settings.

[Markgway]

her manishly plain figure

If you think Chingmy looks mannish I don't know what to say...?

[HungFist]

Run and Kill (1993, Hong Kong) haiuken.com 3/5
you may have heard of the 'scene' in this: where Yam burns Fatty's daughter to death in front of him, and imitates her using the charred corpse.

It was that scene that put me off on the initial viewing. And while I still don't like that scene, I have come to think the film is quite good. The craziest stuff may come at the end, but I was most impressed with the first 30 minutes. Kent Cheug is terrific and the girl playing his daughter is totally adorable.

Naked Killer (1992, Hong Kong) youtube/haiuken 3.5/5

I have fond memories of picking up a parcel from my mailbox on my way to school and opening it in classroom and finding the HKL dvd inside. I must have been around 16 back then.

I was less impressed with the film initially. I expected a John Woo meets Basic Instinct but instead I got something closer to Looney Tunes. I've come to enjoy and appreciate the movie more later, though.

I guess it did make some impression at least since I once had a dream about Chingmy Yau when I was a HS student.

[chazgower01]

her manishly plain figure

If you think Chingmy looks mannish I don't know what to say...?

Did I say man-ish? I meant young boy-ish. And they did a great job of covering it up and making her look sexy. They hid that under-chin of hers well too.
It's all just preference.
I could think of any number of women I think are attractive that someone else might not. I just never got the big hoopla over Yau, once I saw her in the movies.

[chazgower01]

Naked Killer (1992, Hong Kong) youtube/haiuken 3.5/5

I have fond memories of picking up a parcel from my mailbox on my way to school and opening it in classroom and finding the HKL dvd inside. I must have been around 16 back then.

I was less impressed with the film initially. I expected a John Woo meets Basic Instinct but instead I got something closer to Looney Tunes. I've come to enjoy and appreciate the movie more later, though.

I guess it did make some impression at least since I once had a dream about Chingmy Yau when I was a HS student.

Yeah, some of the Wong Jing usual touches in it try hard to annoy me (like the sausage/dick mix up), but one that I always liked was when Cindy and Kitty first meet and she's dragging Kitty around trying to avoid the police and hide out in a photo booth and take pictures. That scene always cracks me up, especially Yiu Wai's (Cindy) expressions, even while trying to hold Kitty up for the picture.

[HungFist]

The Viper Brothers: Just Out of Jail (懲役太郎　まむしの兄弟) (Japan, 1971) [DVD] - 2/5
Part 1 in a long running (8+1 films) action/comedy/melodrama series about a pair of short tempered, amoral, but not evil chinpira (Bunta Sugawara and Tamio Kawaji) thinking too big of themselves. Cinematically unspectacular, save for the fine chemistry between Kawaji and Sugawara, it is nevertheless interesting to place this film in the cinematic cannon. Made just prior to the jitsuroku era, before Sugawara established his image as the bad boy of gangster cinema, the direction Japanese cinema was heading to was already evident in how this film frequently portrays its "heroes" in unflattering light. Sugawara and Kawaji may have their comedy moments and emerge as heroes at the end, but only after bullying innocent people, making fools of themselves and even trying to rape a woman.



The Viper Brothers: Cruel Gratitude (まむしの兄弟 お礼参り) (Japan, 1971) [DVD] - 2/5
Part 2. More of the same with a bit less edge to the main characters who behave better this time. There are some energetic club scenes and Noboru Ando has a decent if familiar silent tough guy supporting role, though. The director is Tatsuo Honda, a long time assistant director who only ever directed two films. This was the first, followed by one pink film in 1975. He'd go on to work as writer and producer.

[grim_tales]

Lady Snowblood - Love Song of Vengeance: 4/5

A good movie, but feels more serious than the first one and not as much fun... it has a real historical event as its backdrop and I thought the police/Government were complete bastards They burn slums full of poor people in order to erase all traces of a secret paper that rebels/anarchists want, justifying it by saying theyre wiping out a plague/disease.

Loved the OTT blood in the final fight Before that the action seems a bit slow and stagey where characters seem to walk towards each other very slowly, there's some dodging and then swords clash

[chazgower01]

Fighting Fist (1992, Hong Kong/Japan) haiuken 2.5/5
Overly bloody and violent, this Hong Kong/Japan co-production is as cliched as it gets, and at times unintentionally funny, yet extremely watchable for some reason. It does have a fair amount of HK regulars: Sibelle Hu, Ken Lo and via Japan, Sonny Chiba, but he's more of a smaller part.
Japan's Shiotani Shogo makes a quality kicking opponent for Ken Lo, but when they finally square off in the finale its horribly shot and terribly lame.
Also noticed in one of the versions of the cover, what looked like a swipe of Italian cartoonist Serpieri's Druuna character...and it is!

[chazgower01]

Mr. Canton and Lady Rose (1989 Hong Kong) haiuken 2.5/5
Years ago I bought an original language version of this because I couldn't find a subbed or dubbed copy. When I went to find one recently I couldn't either, so I figured that was what led to my indifference of feelings on the movie, having watched this twice without translation.

No. I finally found a great copy on haiuken.com with perfect subs, and even though I understand better what Jackie was trying to do here, I'm still not really all that interested in it. A reimagining of Frank Capra's 1933 'Lady For A Day' (a film Capra himself remade in 1961 as 'A Pocketful of Miracles' - Jackie's movie sometimes being listed as 'Miracles') it tells the story of a poor nobody (Jackie) who loses all of his money to a scam, but has just enough to buy a rose from a poor street vendor. When he then saves a mob boss, becoming his unlikely successor, he takes it as a good luck charm, buying a rose from her every day. When the street vendors daughter visits from America, Jackie, now a wealthy mobster, helps make her look like she's a woman of wealth to keep up appearnaces.

Jackie acheives what he's going for here - it's a nicely shot, lavish movie that looks good, ephasizing it's brand of morality - it's just not really very funny - which he goes for a lot - or action packed, which he's purposely cut back. Imagine Stallone in his prime, cutting back the action to emphasize his skill in acting. Hunh?

When the fights DO happen, especially the long coming finale (Jackie's vanity project clocks in at 2 hours and 7 minutes), they are vintage era Chan fights. This movie is only a year removed from Police Story II and my personal fighting favorite (though Sammo action directed) Dragons Forever. There's just not enough of it, or interesting replacement for it, to make it worth repeated viewings.

Oh, and Amy Yip has a cameo!

[chazgower01]

Doctor's Heart (1990, Hong Kong) haiuken.com 2.5/5
Mark Cheng as a doctor intern who does it for the love of helping people, he's an overly idealistic prodigy of his father (Bill Tung) who clashes with the corporate head doctor administrator played by Simon Yam.
It's interesting to see Cheng play a good guy for once, but Yam, who's usually great in anything, seems a bit off here (though the glasses are a nice touch). Thankfully, we get Michelle Ries (as Yam's Social Worker girlfriend who Cheng competes for) and Amy Yip (in a NORMAL role as a nurse who dates Cheng's intern best friend) both looking great throughout.
It's nothing special, and like a lot of Hong Kong productions, can't seem to make up it's mind what it is - a serious medical drama, a love story, or a comedy. But I like the actor's and actresses involved in it, so I probably give it more consideration than it deserves.

[HungFist]

The Rapist (続日本暴行暗黒史 暴虐魔) (1967) [DVD] - 2/5
Wakamatsu / Adachi arthouse pink supposedly inspired by the infamous serial killer / rapist Yoshio Kodaira. A traumatized Japanese man attacks young women in a small seaside town and drags their naked corpses to a cave where we get an occasional colour scene in an otherwise b/w film. Wakamatsu fans may be in for a treat; I found this a bit uninvolving and pretentious like many of his other films. There's intermittent, dry artiness without the kind of constant momentum and characterization that the films of his that I like, Shinjuku Mad and A Pool Without Water, have. Note: this is part 2 in the "Dark Story of a Japanese Rapist" series. There were four films in 1967-1970 + one that might be part of the series in 1972. There's confusion about the English titles as there are several of those, none are well known, and parts 1 and 2 both sometimes get called "Dark Story of a Japanese Rapist".

A Pool Without Water (水のないプール) (Japan, 1982) [DVD] - 4.5/5
An absolutely astonishing, almost hypnotic dive into the psyche of a man who becomes a morally corrupted but not downright evil rapist. Yuya Uchida, a rock star turned absolutely fearless actor, is excellent as bored, sexually frustrated family man who discovers he can take advantage of women during their sleep without getting caught using chloroform. Feeling quilt, he actually prepares breakfast and does the house cleaning for his regular victim. It is for its refusal to outright condemn its protagonist that the film is so unique, challenging and thought provoking, tied to Japanese society and its film history of sympathizing otaku, and frankly couldn't exist in almost any other country. It is also darkly humoristic, but strictly labelling it as black comedy would be an attempt to avoid facing the film as what it is. One of Koji Wakamatsu's best films, greatly aided by Katsuo Ono's stunning score and Uchida's amazing performance. He gave fantastic performances in films like Erotic Liaisons (1978), Rolling on the Road (1981) and No More Comics (1986), playing a fallen detective, asshole rock star, and paparazzi, not afraid to show himself in a negative light or sympathize low lives.

[chazgower01]

Fight Back To School (1991, Hong Kong) haiuken 2.5/5
Not very funny, but extremely successful Stephen Chow Cop-Undercover-in-School movie, that was the first of 3. Stephen Chow regulars Uncle Tat and pretty Sharla Yeung are also on board.
For me it was 90 minutes of mostly lame comedy, mixed with some Chow-type ah-shucks romance and ten minutes of inter-mixed action.
At the time it was the highest grossing Hong Kong movie ever and still ranks #16 all time.
Not sure what Chow's Sadam Hussein t-shirt was all about, but this movie was released a few months after the end of the Gulf war.

[chazgower01]

Gigolo & Whore (1991, Hong Kong) haiuken 2.5/5
Sam (Simon Yam) is the top gigolo who teaches an unmade up country bumpkin Chung (Carina Lau) how to be a high-class hooker, as she then blossoms into a beauty. Alex Wong shows up halfway through as a client who's true love died and slowly falls in love with her. But Simon Yam goes against his 'no love' creed to fall for her and try to win her back.
It's all a very cliche, and yet, very watchable mellodrama, though the ending, like a lot of these, is kind of goofy. Sophie Crawford has a small part as a horny psychiatrist.
Very brief nude scene from an unknown actress, but I guess the topic itself helped to earn it a Cat III, when really this is very tame. I kinda enjoyed it though.

[HungFist]

Nippon '69 Sexual Curiosity Seeking Zone (にっぽん６９　セックス猟奇地帯) (Japan, 1969) [DVD] - 2/5
Student demonstrations, plastic surgery, body painting, 8mm porn film shoot, strip joints, underground theatre groups and a man who wishes to be treated as a dog and wants to drink his mistress' pee (this may have been an inspiration to Teruo Ishii's Shameless: Abnormal and Abusive Love, 1969). A commercial shock documentary in the tradition of Italian mondo films, which had been remarkably popular in Japan based on the sheer amount of them that got released throughout the 60s in the land of the rising skirt. The disgusting plastic surgery footage aside this Sadao Nakajima film is quite tame, with sexual content limited to a fair few topless shots. It is a little more rewarding as late 60s time capsule featuring real underground figures and street footage, also the 60s student movement and street demonstrations prominently in presence.

The Four Roughnecks (あばよダチ公) (Japan, 1974) [DVD] - 3.5/5
Four young slackers (three incels and one Yusaku Matsuda) with total disregard for honesty and other people's property retreat to a isolate, riverside hut with a girl (Sayoko Kato) who hooks up with them. This 70s neo-taiyozoku film is stacked with constant cheap sex jokes (Gajiro Sato groping anything that moves, and even trying to rape a goat) but the cast is so good and director Yukihiro Sawada helms with such energetic swing that the film easily wins over. There's surprisingly much sex and nudity, as if Sawada forgot the Roman Porno gear on (this was one of Nikkatsu's few non-Roman Porno films of the 70s) but it's all cheerful and fun rather than pervy and dull.

[chazgower01]

The Four Roughnecks (あばよダチ公) (Japan, 1974) [DVD] - 3.5/5
Four young slackers (three incels and one Yusaku Matsuda) with total disregard for honesty and other people's property retreat to a isolate, riverside hut with a girl (Sayoko Kato) who hooks up with them. This 70s neo-taiyozoku film is stacked with constant cheap sex jokes (Gajiro Sato groping anything that moves, and even trying to rape a goat) but the cast is so good and director Yukihiro Sawada helms with such energetic swing that the film easily wins over. There's surprisingly much sex and nudity, as if Sawada forgot the Roman Porno gear on (this was one of Nikkatsu's few non-Roman Porno films of the 70s) but it's all cheerful and fun rather than pervy and dull.

I might have to track this down...

[chazgower01]

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Hong Kong) DVD 5/5
I'm not one of those that ever joined the backlash in putting this movie down, as I thought it was exceptional from the first time I saw it to now. Sure, there are a whole lot of other Hong Kong movies out there that are good or even great, but that has nothing to do with how great THIS movie is. Ultimately, it wins because it's a timeless love story between two of the greatest Cinema Stars of China (Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh), intermixed with an amazing performance from the (mostly) new and unknown at the time Zhang Ziyi, and topped off with, of course, Yuen Wo-Ping's amazing fight choreography. I haven't tired of this movie, and I doubt I ever will.

Rich and Famous (1987, Hong Kong) haiuken 2.5/5
I'm pretty sure I had seen this before as a lot of it seemed familiar to me, but I just couldn't quite remember where... anyway its an absolutely nutty violent flick with a ton of HK regulars led by Chow Yun Fat but including a young Andy Lau and a young Carina Lau, and even a few appearances from Danny Lee as a cop who still seems to be chasing Chow. NOT a great movie, but a fun watch, as Chow takes a few young wannabe gangsters under his watch and they vary in how they work for him, with one eventually betraying him.

[chazgower01]

Fearless Hyena (1980, Hong Kong) bluRay thru haiuken 3.5/5
One of the more underrated of Jackie Chan’s earlier movies, it was his first directing and followed the success of Drunken Master. Jackie had found a variation on the traditional set-up (adding comedy) and he was going to milk it, though some feel this is one that uses TOO much comedy. Fans seem to either love this movie or hate it.
I like the colorful cast of characters, Dean Shek’s cameo as an undertaker, the amazing training scenes (Jackie is absolutely ripped in this), the fights of course, the classic chop sticks scene… NOT the Jackie in drag scene, which IS a bit too silly for me (Jackie makes for an UGLY female).
Yeah, the themes are the same, revenge, but we all love revenge movies, and Jackie made his mark by becoming the opposite of Bruce Lee (pissed off and serious to Jackie’s pissed off, but goofy) and this movie highlights that as one of the better early ones... and maybe one of my favorite early ones.
I think it's time I visit some of those early Jackie Chan movies again...



New statistic:
Time between the Death Blow and the 'The End': 35 seconds!

[chazgower01]

But first...

The Iron Fisted Monk (1977, Hong Kong) haiuken 3.5/5
Sammo Hung (as Hung Ching-Pao, star, writer, director, and action director) starts off his grim tale with comedy kung fu - something we'd see Jackie do for full movies starting seven months later in Snake in the Eagle's Shadow. Did this influence him?
Here, Sammo gets the comedy out of the way early (though there are a few other gags later) before settling in on your standard revenge flick - his dad is killed by some thugs from the 'Manchus', and so he leaves the Shaolin Temple that took him in to go on a quest to whoops their asses. Sammo and the Iron Fisted Monk (Chan Sing) team up for the worthy finale after everyone else has been clobbered.
There's two harsh rape scenes in this (one displayed, the other covered), as well as a few additional boobie scenes, surprising for a Sammo film (as he and Jackie both shy away from sexualized content), but still lots of fighting reminiscent of his and Jackie's style from this period.
A few things Sammo doesn't have though, are Jackie's charisma, Jackie's smile, or Jackie's physique, and even though he put together quite an amazing career for himself, he wasn't always the best choice as the lead in a movie. So having Chan Sing as an additional co-star (though still a bit of a different choice as he was more known as playing villains), I guess helps somewhat.
Add to that a bevy of 70's Hong Kong talent and familiar faces (Fung Hak-On, James Tien, Dean Shek, Wang Hsieh, Chiu Hung in one of his last roles..) it has more than enough to make it worth seeing.





New statistic:
Time between the Death Blow and the 'The End': 21 seconds!

[HungFist]

Fearless Hyena (1980, Hong Kong) bluRay thru haiuken 3.5/5

Got the HKL disc lying around on the other side of the planet. I recall enjoying the film a lot, too, and were surprised by the hate it's getting from some viewers.

Only seen the film once though. I can only really remember the final fight which I thought was great!

[chazgower01]

The Cub Tiger from Kwangtung (1973, Hong Kong) youtube 2/5
As far as I can tell, this is the original complete movie, not the spliced up Frankenstein thats appeared in various forms over the years.
A 17-year-old Jackie Chan (sources say this was actually filmed in 1971) stars as Ah Lung, a boy whose foster dad tries to keep him from using his kung fu to fight back (naturally) against a local gang terrorizing everyone. His step-sister nearly getting raped, and their house getting burnt down isn't enough to change the dad's mind, but when they try and hang a younger friend of Jackie's the dad finally sets him loose.
The fighting is sometimes pretty basic and raw, but I find that somewhat appealing in a more realistic way, and Jackie's energy is pretty amazing throughout. The copy on youtube almost has a sepia-like look to it's fading, and it at times looks like a much older movie than it is, and the subtitles are mostly cropped.
Yeah, its the same dang story told a million times before, but I enjoy it for seeing Jackie Chan at such a young age.



New statistic:
Time between the Death Blow and the 'The End': 1 minute 13 seconds