terse reviews (a couple for Halloween
):
Human Lanterns (1982: Hong Kong: ***/****): Continuing on my Shaw Brother horror watching of late I knew that I was going to have to watch this more talked about than seen exploitation flick. This movie is a well done mixture of horror and martial arts directed by Sun Chung (The Deadly Breaking Sword (1979)) whom Siu Yam-Yam calls a very weird man in an interview. However, there is certainly a tinge of misogynistic intent (common in many Asian horror films) that is off-putting in viewing this.
Master Lung Shu Ai (Lau Wing) has a long going feud with Master Tan Fu (Chen Kuan-Tai who certainly is getting more R1 releases these days including recent releases Challenge of the Masters (1976), The Master (1980), Deadly Duo (1983)) and has to beat him or embarrass him in everything. A lantern festival is coming up and Lung Shu has to win. This leads him to use an old enemy Chao Chun Fang (Lo Lieh) to incorporate him to help him with this task. Unbeknownst to him, he still harbors a long standing grudge and of course makes his lanterns out of human skin.
Finally released on an R1 Celestial/Image disc, this makes a fun (if you are disturbed) film for Halloween. The martial arts are done well, the sets and design are also done well. There is also an annoying didactic message though that is common in many of these films: do not be too proud.
Kiss of Death (1973: Hong Kong: **/****): There are more metallic objects stabbing groins that I have ever seen in any other film – one reason several of you might want to see this. Otherwise it is another exploitation film from director Hoh Mung-Wa (Black Magic, Oily Maniac) with sub par plot. It is the typical scared girl (Chen Ping) gets gang raped by thugs (Fan Mei-Sheng amongst them), contracts a rare but deadly VD called Vietnam Rose, gets nightclub job, learns martial arts from crippled nightclub owner (Lo Lieh sporting the best suit in the movie) and gets revenge by piercing pertinent body parts with various sharp instruments on thugs. Quite typical of course.
The martial art parts are a bit small, not performed that well (it is bad when Lo Lieh is the best martial artist you have) and most of the focus is on the exploitation elements which are somewhat effective though not particularly fun to watch (rape, women tricked into porn, leery gynecologist etc…).
The modern day Shaw Brothers films are always interesting to see (even if the film is so-so) with their use of on location shooting on locale.
However, love that deck of cards that is actually a weapon. Be warned there is no kiss of death though.
CJ7 (2008: China: ***/****): An interesting detour of a movie that Stephen Chow directed (and costars in) that he had wanted to make for quite a while and got to make while putting Kung Fu Hustle 2 on hold. It is directly inspired by ET (stated by Chow himself), sometimes a bit too much so, but still has plenty of his mo lei tou (nonsense) humor while keeping it aimed at the family crowd -- the dubbed voice of the huge girl and the poop joke being the funniest. Sometimes I winced on how they treated the space creature, but it was mostly indestructible so I guess no harm.
Dicky Chow (Xu Jiao who is actually a girl as are several of the kids in the film playing boys) is the son of a poor construction worker (Stephen Chow) who has lost his wife and is working hard to put his son through a private school. He wants a toy (the CJ1), but his father cannot afford it. However, while looking for newer shoes at the garbage dump he finds an inflatable green ball to give to his son (I wonder what that is). Dicky soons finds it to be an incredible alien who seems to be a mix of a pet dog, an anime creature and a slug. Of course, things don't work quite as expected for Chow (though there is a funny dream scene that works quite well).
There are a few callback jokes to both Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, but I'll let you find them ï
.
), so I'm wondering if you found a version from another region or something altogether different...
