The Lone Hero (1973)

Background:  Taiwanese basher starring Tien Wen Chung, Ling Fong Chiao, Chu Chiang Hua, Chang Ping, Sha Lee Wen and Kam Kong.  Distributed by Goldig Films.  Action Directed by Hsieh Hsing.  Produced by Alex Gouw.  This version is fullscreen, with custom English subtitles.

Story (SPOILERS): Fei Hsiung (Chu Chiang Hua) is a rebel fighting against Japanese rule.  He has lost his four brothers and father in the uprising, and carries his mother to safety on his back.

Pfft, family.  All they do is hold yer back.  

They reach his uncle's house, and settle in nicely.  Hsiung is engaged to his cousin, Li Ying, but feels guilty about what has happened to the family.

Meanwhile, a trio of local toughs, led by Kao, steal Uncle's fishing boat and beat up his workforce.

Kao returns to his Boss, Lee Tien Ho (Tien Wen Chung), and informs him that Uncle is waiting to speak with him about the boat-stealing outrage.  Lee is forced to cut short his session with his lass:

Snake fist?

Boss Lee explains to Uncle that the boat has been impounded for ten days, because Uncle has violated some random shipping regulations.  Uncle won't accept this, and they get into a quarrel.  Boss Lee tells Uncle to sod off, and orders Kao to chuck him out and burn his vessel for his impertinence.

The subs can be rather amusing.   

Kao's men give Uncle a kicking, causing the fishermen to rush in to defend their employer.  A brawl breaks out in the courtyard, and spills out into the open.

Despite warnings that he should stay hidden so that no-one informs the Japanese of his presence, Hsiung rushes to defend the fisherman, killing Kao, and attacks Boss Lee in his compound.

Calm down.  Take a seat.

After he dishes out a kicking, Hsiung forces Boss Lee to reveal the whereabouts of the boat.  On the way, he meets Boss Lee's lass, who remembers Hsiung from the past and takes an immediate fancy to him.

Licking his wounds, Boss Lee visits Uncle and offers him a sizeable fee to borrow his boat for ten days, on the proviso that Hsiung is kept on a leash.  Uncle refuses when he finds out that the boat will be used for smuggling.  Boss Lee kidnaps him.

After various threats, Hsuing is powerless to help - or so he thinks.  He manages to persuade Lee's girl to take him to Uncle, on the understanding that he will marry her.  After the rescue, he tells her the truth - he cannot marry her because he is promised to another.

Hsiung decides to hunt down Boss Lee, and persuades a lackey to take him to the smuggler's warehouse.  Boss Lee learns of this, and his two best fighters throw dice to decide which one is going to tackle Hsiung, and which one is going to nob a lass.

This leads to a bizarre scene, where the action keeps cutting between Hsiung and the expert trading blows, and the other fighter getting a mouthful of naked girl.  Hsiung chases the fighter back to the warehouse, and after another brawl they manage to trap him in a wooden crate, nail the top down, and chuck him off a cliff into the sea.

Wave goodbye, rebel scum.

Unfortunately for Boss Lee, Japanese soldiers arrive and demand that he hands over Hsiung.  Boss Lee retrieves the crate from an inlet, and takes it back.  Hsiung bursts out and kills all except Boss Lee, who escapes.  He rushes back to Uncle's house and gathers Li Ying and his mother to escape on the boat.  They are intercepted by more soldiers, who have killed Uncle for hiding the rebel, and Hsiung gets shot while disposing of them.

This is possibly the slowest exchange of blows in the film, with movements that don't run much faster than this still.

Lee is waiting on the boat, and there is a scuffle to the death.

Despite his injury, Hsiung prevails, and the boat chugs off into the distance with Boss Lee's lass watching on longingly from the shore.

No bed kung fu ... for you.

Impressions:  Erm, I'm not sure.  The central conceit of the story is run of the mill - Japanese occupation, smuggling, and a corrupt local gang boss - but the film moves at a reasonable pace.  The locales are grotty and unimaginative, but some interesting camera angles occasionally liven this up.  The sound loses synch at some points - with punch sounds being heard well off the pace.

The main problem lies with the central character.  Chu Chiang Hua, according to hkmdb, only made this single film.  Surely that can't be correct?  Or can it?  He spends most of the film looking bewildered and vulnerable, hardly the double-hard bassa he's supposed to play.  This 'sensitive tough guy' performance would be ok - he has lost most of his family, after all - if his fights weren't so hit and miss.  It speaks volumes that the faster, more energetic fights in this film were between other people.  Any fight scene featuring Hsiung is slow and methodical, and often unconvincing.  It's as if his co-stars had to hang back to deliver very deliberate, measured attacks.  I'd expect a central badass figure to be a lot more powerful, violent, and furious than Chu Chiang Hua presents.  It seems as if the fight choreographer was stifled by the limitations of the lead.  Maybe I'm being unkind.  I'm not even vaguely qualified to comment on stances, posture, etc, of real martial arts, but on screen, the main character's action scenes are, to my mind, not as exhilarating as they should be.  There's no real sense of justice and revenge in the blows.  Shame, as I expect as a dramatic actor he'd be fine.

As such, my enjoyment of this film was limited.  The print is good (bar what-looks-like the same droplets of water on the print in the same position throughout, but that's a minor quibble), the subtitles were fine, and as bashers go, it's not bad.  I feel bad that the central character dampened my enthusiasm for the film.  His shocked good guy routine could have been a winner if his fights were livelier, faster and more powerful.

Only Son For Four Generations (1977)

Background:  This is a film originating from South Korea.  Details on it are sparse.  It stars Bobby Kim alongside Ahn Ku-Soeb, Ahn Kil-Won and Heo Eun-Sil.  The print is in a watchable (though bashed up) condition, and seems to be sourced from an old VHS.  It is English dubbed, with Greek (I think) embedded subtitles.

Story: Bobby Kim lands on a dock and makes for town.  He holes in at a local watering hole, witnessing a young lad get a shoeing from assorted toughs.  After they attempt to humiliate him, he kicks them in good and proper.  The young lad thanks him and flees.  

Later, the kid meets up with his old grandpa.  The boss of the toughs has sent men out to find out what happened (presumably), and the kid hides while Grandpa gets arrested.  He receives a slapping, but refuses to cooperate.  The kid informs Kim that his Grandpa has been taken away, and explains that the area is under the boot of local scumbag bosses.   

Grandpa is strung up on the beach, and the villagers protest.  Kim appears and dishes out some violence.  One of the bosses recognises Kim as a man he wronged twenty years ago.  The story then enters flashback mode, with Kim and said boss driving a truck full of cash.  They are stopped by a rozzer and asked if they can help transport an injured man to town.  They agree, though it is made known to the viewer that the man isn't injured at all.  After a while, the rozzers and the 'injured' man are transferred to a car, and the guys continue on.  Kim goes to see his wife, who is pregnant.  As they leave the hospital after an assessment, Kim is arrested and charged.  The money has gone missing, and his partner (one of the future bosses) has pointed the finger at him.  He is sentenced to twenty years.  To compound his misery, his wife dies during childbirth.

So then, following his release, Kim is clearly on a revenge mission.  There's a sequence on a train where he smashes up one boss, and the other two become increasingly concerned.  The young lad seems to brood on the happenings, and in one bizarre scene tries to rape his lass, before coming to his senses.  Kim accepts an invitation to meet another boss alone, but is doubled crossed, and faces death until the young lad saves him.  That boss is speared by a sword.  

The final boss has a nightmare about Kim, and decides to get someone else to do the dirty work.  He approaches Grandpa, and promises to relax his grip on the town if he challenges and kills Kim.  For the good of everyone, Grandpa accepts.

Kim ends up victorious and the young lad, unaware of the deal, wholly blames Kim.  He challenges him to a fight.  Kim effectively surrenders, and reveals to the young lad that he is his father.  The young lad is furious, and takes out his wrath on the henchmen of the final boss.  He just about stops himself from killing him.  In hospital, Kim and his son reconcile, and they walk off into the sunset with the lad's fiancé.

Comments: OK, first off, the film itself.  It's decent enough, but nothing remotely special.  It's steady away for the most part, with a reasonably-delivered but stilted dub (where sentences are stopped ... to fit ... in with the movements of ... the actor's lips).  The story suffers somewhat due to the film's paltry running time - at just over 70 minutes surely this version is cut?  Nevertheless, it's easy to understand and Kim's performance anchors it well enough.  Scenes where he reflects on his situation and what might have been are wordless, yet his 'nothing-to-lose' attitude is conveyed competently.  

The budget on this film must have been rock bottom.  Bar a few pleasant outdoor settings, everywhere is quite 'everyday' and forgettable.  Perhaps the most interesting scene of the entire film is the flashback scene involving the truck.  The hammering rain makes it more atmospheric than most of the other sequences, but that's just my personal preference.  The train scene is dark, and more confusing than anything.

The martial arts are a mixed bag.  Frankly, it's all mid-level stuff at best.  There's some decent kicking going on, but the camera work is too erratic, and the cuts too fast, to really showcase the skills.  It all looks at bit early-to-mid 70s.   Kim and the young lad open up once or twice and put together some impressive moves, but the film suffers from a lack of confidence on the part of the choreographer.  Even the wire-assisted kicks look funny rather than impressive.  There's not even that much fighting - the film is more like a drama with martial arts sequences.

As for the print - what a mess.  The early parts of the film are cut up badly, with lots of dialogue cut mid-sentence, and the bar fight in particular missing sequences and moves.  I don't know if the print has just degraded, or if someone has removed video rolls, but there needs to be a better copy of this found.  Hell, there isn't even a title card.  Although, Bobby Kim's name is clear enough, albeit in a stange alias:

As mentioned before, the film is very short, and some scenes are so random and obviously chopped that the film is weakened by this.  It's a shame, because as a low-level melodrama it works quite well.  Kim gives a neat performance and I was never bored.  I just wish there was more fighting at the hands of a better choreographer!

  

The Golden Triangle (1975)

Background - HKMDB indicates that there are two films of this name prooduced in the same year.  One starts Lo Lieh and Tien Feng, and is filmed in Thailand.  This one features Yasuaki Kurata, Han Ying-Chieh and Nik Cheung.  It is a Hong Kong production, filmed in the Philippines.  The copy I watched seems to be ripped from a Dutch VHS.  It had Dutch subtitles throughout.  At a guess, I'd say that the Dutch subs are translations of the English dub.

Story - Kurata plays a booze-loving cop who cocks up during a shoot out with some drug scummers.  He accidently shoots one of his own men, and gets kicked out of the force.  He is spotted in a bar by Han Ying-Chieh, the head honcho of the regional drug empire.  He saves Kurata from a kicking and enrolls him in his team.  

Han Ying-Chieh's bossman

Meanwhile, the authorities have sent a LONE MAN into the drug nest, and he's their ONLY HOPE, according to the amusing dub.  Nik Cheung tries to score some drugs from Han Ying's men, but gets rumbled, and tries to flee with an unhappy girl who longs to escape from their clutches.  Later, Han Ying is arranging a deal with an influential buyer.  Cheung sneaks into the compound and tries to steal documentary proof.  Unfortunately, he loses possession of it, and flees empty-handed.  

In an extraordinary scene, he approaches Kurata and other gang members at a football kickabout.  He challenges Kurata to a penalty kick competition.  

Gentlemen, you look RIDICULOUS

Despite winning, he is attacked then hunted on motorbike through the fields and streets.  It's a weird, yet compelling, scene, and totally different to what I'm used to.

Motorbikes in a kung fu film?  Garlic Bread?

Furious with this meddling rozzer, Han Ying orders Kurata to take out Cheung, and he does so at a massage parlour.  The lass is appalled by this.  She is fond of Kurata, but Cheung had tried to help her escape.  Kurata lures her away to explain his actions, where he is attacked by Cheung, who survived the previous knife attack.  Cheung stabs Kurata, but then reveals that they are, in fact, in cahoots, and part of a police operation to infiltrate the drug gang.      

Don't worry folks, he's not dead.  But he is (nearly) bollock-naked.

The final battle sees Kurata and Cheung take on Han Ying's gang.  After a shootout/fight in a warehouse during the drug exchange with the buyer, they chase the drug lord through fields and over a river, where a lobbed explosive blows up the bridge.  

FAIL.  That won't stop our heroes!

Undaunted, the intrepid fighters tear off their tops and run topless to a cave, where Han Ying is hiding.  Cue a fight in an odd shrine, snakes on the floor, and the final apprehension of the boss.  He is dragged into a helicopter, leaving Kurata to run into the arms of his woman.

'Ave it

Impressions - There were many things I enjoyed about this film.  Despite the fact that I had to watch it in three parts, it still held my attention, and retained a level of pace and involvement.  This may have been due to its level of simplicity, but I was thankful for it in the end.  The punch and block work was solid.  Cheung and Kurata put on a decent show, as two very different physiques put on a nice balance of styles.

Certain things I found hilarious.  Not in a mocking way, but in a warm, appreciative manner, for film-making long gone.  Straight away, in the opening shootout, the amount of smoke flying off guns tickled me:

That's from a hand gun

Grab a hose, boy, and douse this mutha

Additionally, the wardrobe department caused a few laughs.  The topless fights were in keeping with the genre, but the fight in the massage parlour, with only a towel hiding Cheung's modesty, was bare fighting at its best.  Reserved for the biggest laugh has to be those ludicrous jumpsuits the drug gang played football in.  It's football, guys.  A strip and a pair of shorts.  It isn't the Space Year 2409.

The dub was decent enough, but the Dutch subtitles provided another source of mirth.  I shouldn't laugh at this really.  But I did.  I make no apologies but, dammit, it just kept cropping up:

Bwahahahahahha

At the other end of the scale, in one vile scene Kurata shoots two strung up piglets for a laugh.   A pointless scene, which left the customary animal-cruelty bad taste I suffer whenever I see this kind of crap.  Thank God we've moved on.

On the whole, though, it's an interesting little diversion.  I've barely watched any films with a modern setting, and for the most part this is a decent little basher with nice action and a strong pace.

I See A Theme Developing

Over on Kung Fu Cinema forum this week, Drunken Monk started a thread about kung fu movie collector cliches.  There's a few amusing observations on there about fans of the genre, but it got me thinking about one aspect of my behaviour that can probably be described as a 'personal cliche'.

The cliche I have in mind is this: I'm a Pokemon collector.

Get a grip, daft lad.  I don't possess a single card, figurine or novelty lunch box adorned with Nintendo's famous cash cow.  What the hell am I on about, then?

I'll elaborate.  Let's use the phrase differently.  I'm a 'Pokemon-style' collector.

By which I mean, 'I gotta catch em all.'

I'm talking about kung fu movies.  Of course, to aim to collect every single martial arts movie ever made is a lofty, probably unachievable aim.  No, I'm not talking about that.  I'm referring to my own personal penchant for thematic collecting.

When I first started out collecting kung fu movies, I would buy or trade almost anything.  I still will.  But my kung fu fandom to date has been characterised by collecting in themed chunks, whereby I identify something I like and try to grab everything related.

The first time this happened was when I discovered Vengeance Video dvd releases.  In little over a year, I had the entire set.  I love the low quality of the covers; the pictures on the front, the shoddy English on the back, and the hit-and-miss nature of the films themselves.  I was like a man possessed -  I just had to have every single release.  That went for the Rarescope releases, too, and the US-only releases.  Even stuff like Born to Fight was sought, bought and placed in numerical order (by the numbers on the box spine) on the shelf.  Normally, I wouldn't buy Born to Fight, but it's a Rarescope - and I gotta catch em all.

The same tale was played out with Hollywood East, Pegasus video and Firefly releases.  There's very few I haven't got.  I was even so lax as to fail to check 'akas' to avoid owning two copies of Cantonen Iron Kung Fu.

Surely that's just me being a weird hoarder of tat then?  Not necessarily.  DVD brand releases aren't the only aspect of kung fu collecting that I acquire in thematic chunks.  I've also gone through phases of ordering blocks of films by style and by star.  I ordered a load of Tien Peng wuxia films in quick succession.  Shapes classics.  Yasuaki Kurata films.  Wilson Tong-choreographed movies.  Shaw Celestial releases.  Recently, I've been enjoying early-to-mid 1970s bashers, so I've been making lists from Hong Kong Movie Database about the 1972-1975 films of Barry Chan, Chen Sing, Charles Heung, Nik Cheung, Chan Wai Man and San Kuai.  I see something, I like it, I want as much as I can related to it.

I'm keen to stress here that if other films from other stars in different styles became available, I'd still get them.  Even in the most intense periods of thematic acquisition, I still received films not related to the flavour-of-the-month.  I'm not that stupid.  However, the phases of interest I go through are most definitely a personal cliche.  If I'm watching a film and enjoy a style, performance or the choreography, I find myself split between excitement at the thought of discovering more of the same, and sighing at my narrow-minded predictability.  I just know that if I watch a Japanese samurai film and enjoy it, that'll be the next Pokemon session.  

There's frustrations too.  Sometimes the object of obsession is incomplete.  During my early Hwang Jang Lee collect-a-thon, I realised that the existing print of Canton Viper is bloody awful, with no English subtitles or dub.  Yet, it's one of his best performances.  Until Houndslow Team finish their project of translating a better print, I'm stuck.  At least with that, though, there's light at the end of the tunnel.  What about if I wanted to collect the complete works of Judy Lee, Carter Wong or Jimmy Wang Yu?  Where the hell am I going to get The Magic Ring, Mr Kwong Tung and the Robber, and Tiger Boy?  I'm really opening myself up here to future angst, yet I can't help it.  Respect for the stars, styles and films of the genre mean that I just want to see everything they did, even when it's not possible.  I can dream, I suppose.

I blame Godzilla.  When I got into those films, they were easy to track down and complete.  It lured me into a false sense of achievability.  Little did I know when I first caught the kung fu bug that there'd be scores of lost, unbelieveably rare, unsubtitled/undubbed, awful-quality-print films out there to tease and taunt me with their inaccessiblity and unwatchability.  
 
In the meantime I'll just have to both enjoy and carefully manage this particular obsessive personality trait.  I don't break down into a blubbering wreck if I can't get a film starring Tien Ho.  It's a bit deflating, but it doesn't matter.  I'll be onto another star next month!  And it never gets in the way of enjoying the films.

Wow, Iron Fisted Eagle's Claw was good.  Now, what else has Bruce Liang done..?

The Death Player (1975)

Background: Acquired from a German collector; this looks like a vhs transfer.  It's fullscreen and custom subtitled.  The film is a Taiwanese basher starring Barry Chan, Tsai Hung, Shan Mao and Kong Ban.

Story: Chan Biu is a crook who decides to rob from his own profession.  Smugglers bring in some items (concealed in a bag) via boat, and he robs the recipient before agreeing with his collaborators to split up and share the loot at a derelict town later on.

Tough Bandit Guy is perplexed at the actions of his fellow criminal

Chan Biu takes the loot

Meanwhile, Captain Chen, soon to be married to Xiao Ching, is preparing for his wedding.

The charming Mother-in-law keeps the locals in the loop

His is interrupted by pisshead associate Koo Tsai, who informs him that the boss wants a word.  Chen is told of the day's scuffles, and tasked with investigating.  His bride-to-be and her mother are outraged that Chen is putting his career first - again.

Nevertheless, he receives information from Tsai that the ne'er-do-well is staying at a nearby inn.  Upon arrival, he releases that it's Chan Biu - his brother.  He searches his truck but fails to find the necessary items.  Later, another bad 'un challenges Chan Biu, and Captain Chen and his men watch as a fight breaks out.  Chen's missus turns up and it all kicks off.  They get involved with the crooks' disagreement, and Chan Biu flees in his truck.

Biu busts the truck out of the building as men fight within

Cap runs after him, and eventually manages to apprehend his brother.

Cap Chen smashes the window of Biu's truck with a rock

What follows is a long, near-relentless game of chase, apprehension, escape and chase.  It happens a few times - Chan Biu manages to escape in the woods before Cap hides behind a cow and leaps out, to recapture him.

These guys seem to have a beef with each other

An ambush from Biu's mates at a rest-stop also involves another fight/chase/recapture.  There's another incidence on a rope bridge above an enormous gorge.

Eventually, Cap takes Biu to the derelict town to flush out the bandits, but is ambushed.  Biu is betrayed, however, and rescued by Brother Cap.  He realises the error of his ways, and vows to change.  However, Cap's whiny bint missus is taken hostage by a bandit, and a fight to the death ensues.

We caught him ... again

Impressions:  To be honest, I can't remember the order of the escapes/fights/chases/recaptures.  It's all a bit of a blur.  It makes for compelling Sunday morning viewing - there's no shortage of action here and the film rarely stops for breath.  There's some super little set pieces, such as the scene where Captain Chen chases after his brother's truck, trying desperately to intercept it.  The rope bridge fight is quite splendid, too - there's a decent sense of peril conveyed with some lively camerawork.  The chasing/fights encompass thick woods, rivers, lakes, the ocean, dusty paths, quarries, a small mine and the bust up bandit town.

The final fight on a little boat

The scenery is lovely - as the two guys jump around a rocky river, swinging punches and kicks, it's difficult to know what to concentrate on.

Captain, there's a miner problem ... he's got away.  AGAIN.

The fights themselves are standard basher fayre.  There's some decent-length cuts and the action is always well-framed, which is a big deal to me.  There's plenty of needless leaps towards a man already lying on the ground (why do they do that??) and one or two daft moments of disbelief (Biu jumps off the rope bridge to retrieve the lost bag.  He falls about 100 feet into 2 feet of water and barely breaks sweat, never mind every bone in his body.)  There's nothing special here - Barry Chan and Tsai Hung put on a solid show but nothing particularly memorable.

However, there's a nice little film here.  The pace, as I've said, is breakneck.  The characters ignore their exhaustion, and demonstrate infectious perseverance.  The camerwork and editing help this - though I'm convinced that this copy is cut - and allow the viewer to sit back and enjoy a compact traditional basher.

Good Old Pisshead