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 Super Dark Times (2017, Kevin Phillips)

Portentous opening, then we get to hang out with two nerdy boys watching scrambled porn, then they meet some other boys and hang out, with nothing clever to say or do, and my notes just say “I hate teenage boys,” until Glasses Boy accidentally kills Daryl with a sword, then things pick up.

In Glasses’s defense, Daryl was being a total shithead, but understandably all the kids are freaked out and decide to hide the body and sword and never speak of this again. Only, Main Kid Zach can’t seem to shut up with his paranid obsessions, and Glasses Kid Josh goes in another direction, deciding to become a drug dealing sword serial killer. Kinda rare that a movie’s second half is this much better than the first – the mystery/thriller stuff worked better than the hangout Stand By Me stuff – and hilarious to see Mike D’Angelo has exactly the opposite take on letterboxd: “Starkest direction/script divide I’ve seen in a while … the film boasts maybe the lamest third act of 2017, and I saw freakin’ Geostorm.”

Since this came out, the director has made a mid-length movie with Nick Stahl that ties into a Lumineers album, the fourth boy who I haven’t mentioned was in a movie with Chris Walken and Steve Coogan, the Girl in one with Angela Bassett, Glasses in one with Edie Falco, and Kid is in the new Larry Fessenden Frankenstein thing, so maybe one day we’ll look back at Super Dark as a launching pad for stardom, the Tigerland of its time.