Seen any good Kung-Fu flicks of late?

[Team Andromeda]

I've seen Tiger Cage 2 and In The Line of Duty 4, both are very similar in terms of casting, director (Woo Ping for both I think) and lead actor Donnie Yen in both. There are some good stunts but I think I've seen better-although they are of a very high level. I would recommend watching both films though and especially if you like the 80s/early 90s modern day HK setting. Tiger Cage 2 was released on VHS in the 90s here but renamed Tiger Cage so there was some confusion about the films, at least to me.

QualityChimp-what was the Police Story box-set like, that you ordered? Any opinions?

Thanks I'll have to check them out

[prinnysquad]

Heroes of the East

Gordon Liu, Norman Chu, Hsiao Ho, Simon Yuen, Lau Kar Leung.

Straight to the point. I enjoyed this immensely. It's storyline is traditional in one sense, but quite awkward and radical in another. A Chinese guy marries a Japanese bird. She starts practicing her Japanese martial arts, and tries to prove that they're superior to Chinese martial arts. Gordon Liu, the husband, owns her at every turn, causing her to strop back to Japan. Liu sends her a message telling her that Japanese kung fu is descended from Chinese, which is superior, and he challenges her to a contest to settle the matter. Her buddies in the Japanese school get wind of this, and 7 are despatched, all experts in various styles, to give him a whupping and teach him a lesson.

It's an allegory concerning traditional Japanese/Chinese cultural tensions (in place of historical racial tensions), which can be quite uneasy to watch. The skill of the director though is that both cultures are handled with respect.

The cast are uniformly excellent, with bags of personality. Lovely to see some new styles and weapons, like the massive judo expert, the crab style, and the sneaky ninjutsu bloke. The most oddball character is the weasel with the moustache, who wiggles his lips in a bizarrely quirky way. The wife is mad, all strops and cusses. Gordon Liu terrific as usual, with plenty of solid skills to make defeating the experts believeable. Lovely cameos from the director, Simon Yuen, and Norman Chu.

[monel]

I have to mention that the nunchaku master in Heroes Of The East is really something else. His speed and skill is amazing.

[QualityChimp]

I love 'chucks, so I might have to check out Heroes of the East!

I'm on a real Jackie Chan fix at the moment and I'm trying to watch all of the classic Golden Harvest era films, especially with Sammo Hung and Yeun Biao.

I watched Project A, which I picked up for £8 from CEX. It's the double-disc version so there's loads of extras on it, including a chunky documentary where Bey Logan revisits some of the filming locations and his obligatory.

I'd not seen this film for ages and remembered the bicycle chase and clock tower jump, but I'd forgotten how amazing some of the fight choreography is. There's a bar brawl near the start where Jackie and Yeun fight and it's so well done and funny. Later on, Jackie and Sammo team up in a tea house after the bike chase and the speed at which they move around each other is astonishing.

Starting watching kung-fu flicks on some of JC's classics means I'd set the bar very high and struggle to find films of this calibre again.

I got to the end and started again with the Bey Logan commentary. What this man doesn't know about kung-fu films isn't worth knowing! It was originally going to be called Pirate Patrol, but knew his imitators would bang out some pirate films before he'd finished his.

Fuelled by this, I put on Project A Part II, which is never going to be as good as the first part and is written off a little prematurely. It's got some amazing scenes, but has real peaks and troughs.

Sadly, Sammo and Yuen are nowhere to be found as they were off filming Eastern Condors. They're not even mentioned!

There's a cracking fight sequence with some of the remaining pirates taking on Jackie, who's handcuffed to his superior. It was actually based on a scene that was cut from the first film, but JC re-used it here.

The finale is great with a chilli pepper-fuelled jackie falling from great heights and making homages to Harold Lloyd, Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

The commentary is great again, but there's a lovely interview where Bey breaks down some of the stunts with a member of the Jackie Chan stunt team.

I'm a bit sad that Hong Kong Legends has gone bust and that Bey is no longer doing commentaries as they were a match made in kung-fu fan heaven.

I'm also annoyed with myself that I didn't buy these films when they were readily available, because the likes of Wheels on Meals, Winners and Sinners, Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars and Dragons Forever are about £30 a pop.

I'm going to take down Police Story next, Shinobi, so I'll let you know my thoughts on that, but besides the commentary, it's nowhere near as chock-full as the platinum edition of Project A.

[monel]

The 3 Dragons (I think that's it) films with Biao, Sammo and Jackie were some of my favourites when I was much younger, and still are. Dragons Forever is my fave of the bunch and Biao's eccentric character really cracks me up in that film.

Bey Logan is now with Dragon Dynasty, a US label who's films are being released in the UK soon, well some of them at least. You'll still be able to hear his commentaries in future.

I purchased the Danish DVD of Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars because I wanted the old English dub. I've ordered My Lucky Stars from a Danish site but they are taking the absolute mickey, I ordered it over 5 weeks ago and they still haven't posted it. I've been told that the HKL Twinkle Twinkle disc also contains the old English dub.

[QualityChimp]

I've still not seen Dragons Forever and I'm trying to rectify that. I just wish I had the HKL versions with all the goodies!

Bey Logan's 3-year contract with Dragon Dynasty expired in 2009 and he's now moved on to producing films. The first film from his new company is Michael Biehn's directorial debut, The Blood Bond! I might also try and find Dragon Squad, which features him, Sammo and Maggie Q (and the Dragon Dynasty copy has a Bey Logan commentary!). I don't have a multiregion DVD player though

So basically, he's not doing any more commentaries. Boo!

I'm going to have to admit defeat and start buying the HKL special editions at inflated prices.

Mind you, I saw Police Story part 2 for £4 at lunch, so that's going to get taken down...

I'm going to get the Lucky Stars Trilogy and Wheels on Meals and then I'll have all the Jackie/Sammo/Yuen films.

[monel]

Oh, I was wrong about Bey Logan and Dragon Dynasty then.

You simply must watch Dragons Forever, it is genuinely funny and the action is top notch. I wish they had made more movies together but at least Sammo and Biao carried on working together.

[prinnysquad]

Nice write ups there, QC.

[QualityChimp]

Thanks, Prin!

You, me and Shinobi will have to meet up one day and watch a kung-fu flick together!

[monel]

Thanks, Prin!

You, me and Shinobi will have to meet up one day and watch a kung-fu flick together!

Sounds cool.

Watched 2 flicks a couple of days ago.

First, Chocolate-

By the director of Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong, Prachya Pinkaew, this is a Thai martial arts flick that I've heard and read a lot about. Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong were outstanding action wise so I was looking forwards to watching this film.

The story concerns an autistic girl who has lightening fast physical reactions and who comes to learn martial arts by watching martial arts films, the clips shown seem to be Ong Bak and TYG, a nice little self-reference. A kid learning how to fight by watching films was a bit implausible to me and I also found it hard to believe that a girl of such a young age and of such a small size could kick the asses of much older and bigger men.

Anyway, her mother who is now seriously ill, is owed money by a lot of people and when her best friend, a young thai boy, finds out how much money she is owed he and the young girl go out to collect the money. This leads to trouble but also a lot of fight scenes.

Action wise, the film has got a LOT. The best fight scene in my opinion was towards the end when she fights a young boy around her age, it was brilliantly filmed and I will have to rewatch it someday.

Overall, the film wasn't as good as the Tony Jaa films (Ong Bak and TYG) partly because of the reasons I mentioned-it's kind of hard to believe this young girl could kick so much grown up ass and that may be why I preferred the fight with the young boy. Also Tony Jaa's fight scenes were often brutal and I felt that the fights in Chocolate lack something compared to Ong Bak and TYG.

I would still give the film a high mark and it was enjoyable viewing. I would recommend it and although I might have been a bit too critical the film is jam packed with fight scenes.

BTW-I hope you guys have seen Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong, they are the kind of films I wish Hong Kong was still making.

Second film was Stone Age Warriors-a 90s HK film, I saw this years ago and decided to rewatch it in case it was better than I first thought it was. I once read a review hyping the film due to it's jungle setting and Indiana Jones-ish vibe, but no, it's complete crap and I wouldn't recommend it at all. I don't even want to waste any words on it, a cameo by Dick Wei and Fan Siu Wong popping up later on couldn't save this film in my eyes, it did have a couple of decent fights but nothing outstanding. Thumbs down. Quite a hard film to get hold of though.

[QualityChimp]

I've seen Chocolate and think the same as you, Shinobi. It's a great film with some blinding fight sequences, but it still feels a little off.

I'm not sure about the lead character being autistic. It's more of a plot device than an opportunity to highlight issues with special needs face. Oh well.

It's odd that we feel critical of a film that we've both enjoyed!

I managed to pick up My Lucky Stars for less than a fiver for the HKL DVD yesteday, so I'm looking forward to that arriving. There's a great fight in an amusement park.

I watched some trailers at lunch and I've realised I've not seen Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars! There's a great sequence where Sammo takes on a sai-wielding bad guy using only tennis rackets!

[monel]

Twinkle Twinke is generally considered to be the best film, action wise, in the Lucky Stars series. I wish that Danish site would post my copy of My Lucky Stars, I'm really p1ssed of about that.

[Arashikage]

I finally got around to watching all of The Streetfighter trilogy with Sonny Chiba last week. The first film is a classic, quite probably worthy of it's X certificate when it was released. Takuma Tsurugi (I did prefer the name Terry Surugy though) is definitely Chiba's best role, he absolutely commands the screen when he is in shot. The subsequent films get more and more ridiculous (answering a telephone from a handstand?) but they never outstay their welcome. I'm definitely interested in checking out more of his films now.

[prinnysquad]

Superb.

The best thing about this thread is you can feel the love and enthusiasm for the genre in all the comments about the films. Even if there's a let-down flick, there's usually some joy to be had with a fight scene or something.

[monel]

I finally got around to watching all of The Streetfighter trilogy with Sonny Chiba last week. The first film is a classic, quite probably worthy of it's X certificate when it was released. Takuma Tsurugi (I did prefer the name Terry Surugy though) is definitely Chiba's best role, he absolutely commands the screen when he is in shot. The subsequent films get more and more ridiculous (answering a telephone from a handstand?) but they never outstay their welcome. I'm definitely interested in checking out more of his films now.

I've got Return Of The Streetfighter (I think that's the title) but have never watched it. It's an old vhs that my mate gave me. I will have to check it out. Also got a couple of ninja films featuring Chiba but again, have still to check them out.