Don't let the cynics fool you: imagination is not dead in modern cinema. Oh sure, it seems like every time you turn around, some no talent teeny bopper pop star is making their acting debut in a tired, clichéd piece of formulaic drivel, or another "graphic novel" is getting the big screen treatment, even after a myriad of lesser funny book films proved the genre is in dire straits. The only good horror is apparently something recycled from 30 to 50 years ago (and co-starring that slag hag Paris Hilton) while drama can only be derived from the more 'melo' end of the spectrum. And God help comedy unless it comes directly from the sewers of silliness to gross you out with retarded repulsiveness. Actually, it's easy to see how such a fatalistic sentiment is born. When the movie you're paying good money to view seems forged by committee, micro-managed out of all its magic and meaning by focus groups, and s...Read the entire review

The Movie:
For a Western viewer, Chinese comedy can often seem unapproachable. There's a culture gap between what is considered "funny", and the linguistic puns and cultural references don't always translate. That's not to say that Chinese comedies have no crossover appeal, but in general the broad slapstick performances and intentionally shrill pitch of many of these films seem to carry over best in action-comedy pictures from the likes of Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow, and less so when it comes to the situational humor of families or personal relationships. Director Pang Ho Cheung (of the screwball gangster parody Men Suddenly in Black) skillfully bridges the gap with his dark relationship comedy Beyond Our Ken. The film is hardly at all what you'd expect from a reading of its premise, and should be fairly accessible to viewers from any cultural background.

Karaoke bar...Read the entire review

The Movie

The Hong Kong film Moving Targets is about two childhood friends who became cops with the Hong Kong Police and how their lives begin to unfold after they graduate the police academy. In the beginning of the movie, the main characters Fit (Edison Chen) and Cheung Wai-Kit (Nicholas Tse) and two of their buddies are out celebrating. In midst of a wild night, they run into a group of Triad gangsters. There is a pretty intense action/gunfight scene, followed by a change in the wind. Because of their valiant efforts, the four friends get assigned to a major case squad. Oddly enough, the detail is run by Kit's father (Simon Yam), who doesn't know Kit is his son. Soap opera alert? Kit's father walked out on him when he was a young boy and since then, Kit has c...Read the entire review

The Film: Set during World War II, during the occupation of China by the Japanese. Chen Hsing stars as a boxer who has lived abroad in America for the past ten years, taken a Euro-Asian wife (Irene Ryder), and has decided to return home to his quaint fishing village. While in America, he had become a promising boxer, until he accidentally killed his best friend in a boxing match, subsequently vowing to never use his fists again.

However, the village has changed under the cruel and oppressive hands of the Japanese thugs. While the villagers have secretly tried to fight back, murdering one of the Japanese, they are no match for the gang, who take out their vengeance by hanging one of the fishermen in the town square as a warning. Chen finds it a difficult task to quell his temper in the face of such acts, fights off one of the Japanese easily, and cuts the body down. The Ja...Read the entire review

The Film: Chi Kit has been stealing money from his business, and he can no longer cover it up. Come Monday, the papers will show up, funds lost, and it'll only be a mater of time before they trace it back to him. So, with a bag full of money and a gun between them, Chi Kit and his love Su Sien take off. Flashbacks reveal their romance (under what I do believe was the stolen love theme music from "Last of the Mohicans"), in which they pledge their lives to each other and agree to a suicide pact because, "If we couldn't be born the same day, at least we could die together." However, all is not rosy for the lovers on the run (wouldn't be an interesting film if it was), and tragedy sets in when Chi Kit feels paranoid pressure of the police searching for him and all their money is stolen by a purse snatcher.

Salvation comes in the guise of an heiress, named Moon, wh...Read the entire review

Somewhere. Sometime. In the not too distant future...

The Film: Someone, has been killing members of the Tung Tik Group, a very successful crime family. The killer isn't just some Ordinary Joe off the street, either, but someone with a right hand powerful enough to smash heads and stone. Booze swilling, embittered Officer Kwong (Simon Yam- Man Wanted, Bullet in the Head, Dr. Lamb) is instantly reminded of the mysterious woman who years prior he had seen assassinate the leader of Tung Tik Group and her image has haunted him since. Meanwhile, the lovelorn and airheaded Ko Kit (Anita Yuen- Last Hero in China, Chinese Feast, From Beijing with Love ) and her gang of professional thieves organize their own slight on the Tung Tik Group by setting out to steal the precious Emperor Diamond from the Tung Tik headquarters. This diamond is the supposed key to a hidden f...Read the entire review

Shaolin Kung Fu Mystagogue (1976, aka. 18 Shaolin Disciples, Killer Fists) ispure comic book kung fu. Rapid editing, camera zooming, outlandish weapons, think Swordsman 2, Duel to the Death, Chinese Super Ninjas, or if you want to go way back, a not-so-tame version of the serialized adventure films of the 30's and 40's. A fun, over the top adventure.

The evil Ching government has taken over and is out to rid the land of the remaining Ming rebel patriots, including the still surviving Ming Prince. Hot on the rebels trail is skunk-haired Ma Yuen Ning, a deadly fighter with weapons called the "bloody birds"- a three bladed spinning device that can cut down trees (which the filmmakers never miss an opportunity to show it doing). Unknowingly, the evil Ching overlord and his men capture the incognito Prince and throw him in their jail. Cut to the Ming rebel sympathizing Shaolin Temple, where brother...Read the entire review

The opening credit sequence of Shaolin Ex-Monk is a series of flickering still cutouts of various figures from the film fighting each other on a blue background while a swinging 60's spy movie soundtrack jazzes along. Truly the stuff of old school kung fu wonder.

The Film: The movie opens and we are introduced to the scruffy Chow Li Chin, who is being soundly trounced by some thugs. You see, Chin has been fooling around with the local kung fu masters daughter, and well, the master and his students don't take very kindly to the poor orphan, so they actually decide to hang him for his lovelorn crime. Luckily, a passerby (and excellent martial artist), Lin Shou Fei, saves him from this fate. Chin and Shou Fei eventually form a partnership. In exchange for lessons in martial arts, Chin searches the town and tries to find a deadly ex-monk, who went bad, formed a gang, ki...Read the entire review

I first read about Assassin (1993) in the book Sex and Zen, and A Bullet in the Head, and the synopsis intrigued me; curiously, I had never heard of it before. Despite being out on World Video, who was second only to Tai Seng in HK movies on vhs, it took me a long time to track it down. So, I've owned it on video for awhile, and now I get to review it on DVD.

The Story: Assassin has a great premise, one of my favorites. A simple country man, Tong Po (Fengyi Zhang of Farewell to my Concubine) falls in love with a girl, Yiu (the always reliable Rosamund Kwan), who he is not allowed to marry. They try to run away together, but they are captured and he is thrown into a jail where his eyes are sewn shut. Before the film hits the ten-minute mark, his eyes are opened only to find himself and some fellow prisoners in a gladiatorial ring where its kill or be killed. T...Read the entire review

Master of Zen (1994) is an ambitious attempt to tell about Bodhidharma, the Zen Buddhism prophet who defined many Zen practices, helped with the combination of Zen principle and martial arts, and who as a religious figure is loosely comparable to Muhammed, in that the two reached a level of enlightenment and imparted their knowledge to others.

The Film: Derek Yee, probably best known as a director (Viva Erotica, Full Throttle), takes on the task of portraying Bodhidharma, and director Brandy Yuen (In the Line of Duty 3, Sword Stained with Royal Blood), of the famous Yuen Clan which includes his better known director siblings, Corey Yuen Kwai (Fong Sai Yuk 1&2) and Yuen Woo-Ping (Iron Monkey, Fire Dragon), helms the picture.

The film bounces across some of the highlight stories that are known about Bodhidharma, from his Indian Prince beginning, to his travels in China...Read the entire review

THE INSTANT KUNG-FU MAN

Synopsis:

A mischievous Shaolin disciple, Hsai Hu uses trickery to graduate from the rigorous Shaolin monastery without completing his martial arts training. His mentors, well aware of his deceit, send monk Hui Kang to keep an eye on Hsia Hu, just to keep him out of trouble. Once outside of the monastery, Hu soon discovers that people are mistaking him for his twin brother Hsiao Fu, A hardened criminal and Kung-Fu expert. Relatively incompetent in the martial arts, Hsai begins to relish his "Instant Kung-Fu Man" image and impersonates his brother at every opportunity. While respect and fear have been heaped upon him in copious amounts, hatred and abuse come his way as well. Yi Lan, Hsiao Fu's former accomplice and now sworn enemy, returns to settle a score with his one time friend. Truly unable to adequately defend himself, Hsia receives a lesson in honesty ...Read the entire review

THE HELL'S WIND STAFF

Synopsis:

Two young trouble makers stumble upon a plot to sell their local townspeople into slave labor. While fighting against those who would enslave their neighbors, they accidentally kill one of the architects of the scheme. As a result, revenge is taken on the family of one of the young men as well and in the scuffle the young boy is killed. It seems that the martial artist who killed the young boy and his family is known as "Lu, the Hell's Wind Staff". So named because of his prowess in fighting with this particular style of Kung-Fu. The remaining young men in the village are afraid of Lu yet, they feel he must be defeated. An old master (Dragon) of various styles of Kung-Fu has heard of the situation and offers to teach the boys his particular style of Kung-Fu, "White Dragon Fists". Many years ago, "Dragon" fought Lu and almost defeated him with this techn...Read the entire review

LAST HERO IN CHINA

Synopsis:.

Wong Fei-Hung is a folk hero in all of China. Originally introduced in "Once upon a Time In China" his story is continued in this very well done martial arts film. Wong is an herbalist and martial arts teacher. When the rent on his current location is raised beyond his ability to pay, he sends out two of his assistants to procure new lodging for the school. Within a day or so they return and with grand news! They not only found a spacious and relatively new location but, the owner will make the rent 70% less than what it should be if Master Wong will take him on as a student in the Martial Arts. After agreeing to the terms, Wong moves his students into the new location and with the blessing of the local businessmen they begin to get back to normal. Right next door to the school is a building that's apparently filled with a "mother" and her house full of "...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Although I certainly can not claim to be any sort of expert in the martial arts genre, since I've been reviewing DVDs for the past few years I've had the chance to watch several of the more highly regarded entries. Of all of the genre's stars, Jet Li is one of the most remarkable, providing a mixture of intensity and stunning physical skills - he can do as well with comedy as he does with drama.

I'm still not quite sure what "Kung Fu Master" was, though. One of those martial arts movies where everyone's fighting and you're not quite sure why, the film is one stunt or action scene after another, with many of the action scenes relying heavily on wires. Some of the action scenes are remarkable, but Li's fight skills were far better used in the 1993 picture "Tai Chi Master" (called "Twin Warriors" on Buena Vista's DVD release).

As for the story of Kung Fu Master, my u...Read the entire review

How this DVD landed on my lap I have no idea. The BuddhaAssassinator (great title, by the way) is a 70's kung fu movie,which means lots of fast zooms, choppy editing, manic fights, and insanedubbing, of the "You killed my master! Prepare todie!" variety. If Buddha Assassinator were the only film of itskind it would be required viewing, but the fact isthat there are thousands of movies exactly like this one. Fans of thesophisticated physical comedy of Jackie Chan,or the historical sweep of the grand costume dramas of the 80's and 90'smight be expecting something other than the chop-socky thrills to befound here.

NOTE: A DVD is being released later this year by the name: Shaolin Dolemite Collection - Buddha Assassinator. It seems to be another release of the same film, but this time hosted by Rudy Ray Moore and featuring jive-talkin' dubbing. Someone get me that versi...Read the entire review

THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
Jackie Chan's Drunken Master II helped cement his position as oneof the world's top action-comedy stars. Unfortunately, theoptimistically titled Drunken Master III (1994) has no discerniblerelation to Jackie or Drunken Master II. It doesn't really feature the drunken fightingstyle that was that film's trademark. There's a lot of wine and ampleuse of drunk fist kung fu, a subtle variation on other kung fu styles,but Jackie was smart enough to know that, in order to make a visualimpact, drunk style meant taking it to the next level. (First get sloppydrunk, preferably by pouring a jug of booze over your head. Then, startflailing around like a madman, conquering your opponents as if bychance.) The fighters in Drunken Master III all fight extremelywell, and they do mix humor in with the parrying, but nobody here aimsfor Jackie's brand of lunacy.