by ·Comments Off on New Blood (2002, Soi Cheang)

Dude survives the suicide pact with his now-dead girlfriend thanks to three blood donors: architect Eric, cop Lok, and cute girl with mental illness Joy. Now they’re all seeing blood visions and being haunted by the bald-capped dead girl. This drives them all nuts – Eric throws blood around at the girl’s funeral, a possessed Lok kills his dad, both men (and the surviving lover) die and Joy ends up in an asylum. Grim movie, to the point of stealing the Requiem for a Dream music during the blood transfusion scene.

tfw you have mental illness:

by ·Comments Off on Once Upon a Time in China V (1994, Tsui Hark)

The stupidest, goofiest entry, thanks to the full line of disciples and family members from parts one through four being together for the first time – and also the most shootiest and explosionest. This time they’re fighting sea pirates, led by Elder Paco (a Yes Madam spinoff), Junior Stephen (Hard Boiled), and Elaine (The Bride with White Hair), and fortunately Katy didn’t watch this one (the pirates have an entire crate full of the severed fingers of their victims). It’s not as exciting as it sounds.

The gang:

by ·Comments Off on Burning Paradise (1994, Ringo Lam)

Shaolin monks are made illegal, so all monks have to run or fight or die. Monk Fong (Wong Fei-hung in Drunken Master III the same year) and Carman Lee (between Wicked City and Lifeline) are on the run, get thrown in a trap-filled prison temple and have to fight and scheme their way out. One of the best-looking HK blu-rays around, the blood and intense brutality coming through crystal clear.

by ·Comments Off on Iron Monkey (1993, Yuen Woo-ping)

Doctor Yang (Yu Rongguang of Supercop 2, which is a different movie from Police Story 4 even though Supercop 1 was Police Story 3) goes around in disguise acting like Disney’s Robin Hood, with assistant Orchid (Jean Wang, kicking much more ass here than as 14th Aunt), making mockeries of corrupt governor James Wong (a major songwriter, also in Twin Dragons) and his lead cop Yuen Shun-Yi (of Drunken Master). Wong Fei-hung’s dad Donnie Yen (confusingly, he’ll play the title role in the sequel) is passing through town, the governor holds his son prisoner so he’ll help them catch the righteous bandit. But of course they all team up to defeat the evil master (also the evil master of Heroic Trio the same year).

Twin monkeys:

Much action ensues. I saw this on VHS or something back in the day, but it’s extremely helpful to have seen a bunch of kung-fu movies leading up to this, getting used to their plots and moves and sound effects, to appreciate this one’s particular excellence… in context of the OUATIC sequels going slowly downhill, this feels like the best movie ever made.

Like father like son:

by ·Comments Off on Lifeline (1997, Johnnie To)

Mad Lau stars in a firefighting action film with choreography by Yuen Bun, whose Once Upon a Time in China sequel I just watched. Alex Fong Chung-Sun (The Iron Angels series) is the strict new boss feuding with his ex-wife. Ruby Wong is the female officer trying to put career first until her boyfriend starts poking holes in the condoms. And rookie Raymond Wong Ho-yin (Ruby’s fellow PTU cop) is just a rookie with an embarrassing dad. Mad tries to date suicidal doctor Carman Lee (hot traitor cop of Wicked City). Then all these personal dramas have to be set aside when the team, from a firehouse known for accidents and bad luck, is first on the scene to a massive warehouse fire set by arsonist Lam Suet, and the movie gets extremely, impossibly fiery.

by ·Comments Off on Once Upon a Time in China IV (1993, Yuen Bun)

Pre-credits scene has Vincent Zhao making some very un-Jet-Li awesome moves, then his name is splashed across the screen – good, they’re not trying to hide the new guy. It’s also the first sequel to start directly after the previous one – they’re still celebrating the end of the Lion King festival when friendly Governor Zhiwen Wang (currently of the Infernal Affairs TV series) shows up and they lion-dance together.

Foon, Clubfoot, and Yan are back in the mix, but 13th Aunt is replaced by (Katy guessed it) 14th Aunt: Jean Wang of Swordsman III and Iron Monkey the same year. New director Yuen doesn’t exactly revitalize the series here. The dubbing is bad, and despite having a subplot about a group using wires to appear to fly, the movie itself is full of unintentionally visible wires, especially in the heinous horse-punching scenes (yes, there’s more than one).

14th Aunt starts a newspaper but nobody in town knows how to read – so, technologically we’ve moved from still photography to motion pictures to the printing press. Anti-foreigner sword cult Red Lantern is menacing everyone, and the foreigners have equipped their lion suits with deadly weapons. The nice governor dies, it’s very sad, then Wong takes a measured bit of revenge before withdrawing to prep for the final(?) movie.

Chin Ka-Lok is angry, I’ve forgotten why:

Ze Germans:

by ·Comments Off on Blade of Fury (1993, Sammo Hung)

Due to my copy’s wonky subtitles and my general lack of historical context and, uh, my inability to pay close attention to plots and alliances in movies, I dunno what exactly happened, but I know they all died heroically in the end, for the future of China.

The Big Sword lays waste to the Japanese:

Wang Wu (Yang Fan) is our main furious swordsman, getting his entire Big Sword troop killed by the Japanese in the opening scenes. He meets young masters Ti Lung (A Better Tomorrow) and Cynthia Khan (star of a Yes Madam sequel/ripoff the same year), they team up with some government guys who are trying to “reform” the government (sword-involved reform).

Our Boy Sammo:

Plenty of wire jumps and trampolines, swordfights and beheadings, people getting shot in the face, Sammo over/under-cranking every action scene. Clearly made in the wake of the Once Upon a Time movies, with its mix of action and historical politics – and from the writer of parts II and III, and with a small role for Rosamund Kwan as a rich lady who thinks Wang is quite nice. Sammo gives himself one fight playing a prison guard – it’s great, but all the fights are great. Not sure where James Tien appeared – one of the camel riding raiders? – but this movie notably has the same ending as his Fist of Fury, which I should’ve seen coming from the title.

Nefarious Ngo (Master Wong’s dad in OUATIC3) loses to The Big Sword:

by ·Comments Off on Wicked City (1992, Peter Tai-Kit Mak)

Not good in almost any sense but absolutely a must-see for the bonkers imagination factor. Full of hilariously suggestive images, making a mockery of sex and religion. Tsui Hark cowrote/produced this anime remake, though it feels less written and more like it’s making up its rules as it goes along, with world-building ambition way beyond the league of the physical effects and baby computer graphics teams (there’s a cellophane blob and some mighty morphing). It’s impossible to dislike, or to imagine that we could do any better today.

The aliens invading Hong Kong in human disguises mostly take the form of hot chicks, and mostly they murder hot chicks… the movie is overall a big fan of hot chicks (this is apparently accurate to the original version).

Windy and Daishu:

Human cop Leon Lai likes lightsaber alien Windy (they play the killer and his agent in Fallen Angels) after they save each other’s lives. Half-alien cop Jacky Cheung (lately Bucktooth So in OUATIC 1) likes human traitor cop Orchid (Carman Lee Yeuk-Tung of Burning Paradise and Detective vs. Sleuths), but Sgt Yuen Woo-Ping keeps them apart. Alien boss Daishu is captured by the cops and kept magnetically captive (this is movie royalty Tatsuya Nakadai, star of Harakiri, apparently game for anything) while his evil son Roy Cheung (one of The Mission boys, also City on Fire) runs rampant in the city, plotting to hook the whole city on a drug that will simply kill them in a couple days. As the movie’s nonsense intensifies, the son ends up juiced to death by a jet engine, and the aliens’ vacuum powers reverse the flow of time and a psychokinetic police force lands a plane atop a skyscraper.

Sgt Yuen Woo-Ping orders all men in this movie to wear glasses:

and sometimes glasses get dirty:

by ·Comments Off on Dragon Inn (1992, Raymond Lee)

I realized that Tsui Hark wrote/produced this Dragon Inn remake between Once Upon a Time in China movies, and I proceeded to watch it with the wrong soundtrack selected, wondering why everyone was so badly dubbed, damn it. Beautiful action film, with more people twirling through the air holding swords than I’ve ever seen in a movie before.

Tall Tony 2 is protecting the children of his late superior from the power-mad evil eunuch’s forces. He meets up with fellow fighter/girlfriend Brigitte Lin at the desert inn run by Maggie Cheung, a mercenary whose chef serves previous guests for dinner. They spend half the movie looking for the secret exit door and when they finally escape through it after defending a massive attack on the inn, they only get a three second head start over president eunuch Donnie Yen due to a scarf mishap – they might as well have walked out the damn door. Maggie and her chef choose the righteous side and help the others defeat Donnie during a sandstorm. I saw Iron Vest in there somewhere, guess he did not survive.

Mouseover to see what happens when you hold your battle pose for too long:
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