Instant Kung Fu Man

Plot: Instant Kung Fu Man has a simple comedy premise which must be as old as fighting itself: convince people that you are tougher then they are to (a) bluff your way out of trouble and (b) bask in a tough guy image (and the rewards it can bring). In this case our hero Shao Hu (Fang Yeh-Hip) is a kind of Kung Fu Roger the Dodger: he has an arsenal of tricks to bluff his way through various fighting and training situations.

The film starts with an(somewhat confusing) explanation of two brothers, Shao Hu and Shao Tu (both played by Fang) one of whom is a kung fu expert, and the other a devious waster. Shao Hu is sent to the Shaolin temple where his lazy antics do not go over well with our Buddha-loving friends, who decide to allow him to fight his way out past the notorious (and hilarious) Shaolin wooden men, who in this instantiation look like something from 'The Nutcracker. Ingeniously he defeats them with woodworm!

Shao Hu teams up for a robbery with Yi Lan (Hwang Jang Lee, i.e. the main man), which results in them fighting over the spoils and then splitting up. During a bandit attack on his wagon, "The Robber" is introduced as a genuinely skillful fighter, however he too falls for Shao Hu / Shao Tu's hoax and begs to be taken on as a student. Shao Hu then tricks his way into convincing a village police chief that he is a skilled fighter. Polly turns up as a fast kicker, Shao Hu "lets" The Robber get some practice on her (i.e. she beats him up). It appears Polly fancies him and from then on stalks our heroes, who (somewhat rudely) tell her she has an odour problem. Charming!

So far so farcical. What lifts this film above average are the appearances of John Liu and Hwang Jang Lee. John has been stalking our hero since he left the Shaolin temple, and is not fooled by his various Roger the Dodger trickery: and (luckily for all of us) Hwang Jang Lee is also hanging around after revenge for the earlier botched robbery. Cue two terrific showdowns ; one nightime fight between Hwang and John which is all leg-shapes and splits; and the final showdown where our hero's brother finally catches up with him only to be quickly despatched by Hwang. Shao Hu (and confusingly, Shao Tu) and John team up against Hwang's ferocious kicking, a truly terrific leg fight to end on. At last our hero's trickery comes good with inspired use of a metal hoop to cripple Hwang's kicks, and win the day.

Incidentally, the music is truly bizarre: every time Shao employs some trickery to win a fight, we hear a Polka-style version of 'Oh Susanna"!

Fights: Mostly comedy, with Fang Yeh-Hip employing tricks rather tham skill to keep him out of trouble. Corey Yuen and Polly make some decent shapes, but it's the two showdowns with Hwang and John Liu that make this a must. Luckily Yuen Woo Ping choreographs to showcase their incredible flexibility, leg speed and control. If only Flash Legs had turned up too, this would have been leg fighter heaven...

Overall: 4 out of 5, chugs along nicely and has a truly classic finale. A must simply because of the two duels between two of the all time kicking greats.

Dreadnaught

All 130 Yuen Biao films should be watched by everyone, now, and this is one of the best places to start.

Plot: Like his universally acclaimed Prodigal Son, Dreadnaught is an action comedy involving the traditional Chinese theatre. Yuen plays 'Mousy', a milquetoast laundryman who has unwittingly practiced his grandfather's Eagle Claw kung fu technique every day when wringing and hanging the laundry. He is, however, too cowardly to collect payment from the locals, much to the chagrin of his big sister. So it's up to one of Wong Fei Hung's pupils, Fong (Leung Kar Yan, sans beard for once!) to encourage him to stand up for himself. Meanwhile, twitching psychotic White Tiger is on the lam and ends up in town. He teams up with Wong Fei Hung's rivals in an attempt to destroy them.

Fights: This is Yuen Woo Ping at his most inventive: no wire work; just superb, inventive choreography. Highlights include a fight between the incredible Kwan Tak Hing (who plays Wong Fei Hung in his older, respected physician years) and a belligerent patient, whom he cures whilst fighting; and later a demon tailor (the always menacing Fung Hak-On) who is desperate to slice Wong up, but ends up unintentionally measuring him for a suit as Wong evades his attacks. Leung Kar Yan shows minimal chops as he is in a cameo, but at least we get a good dragon race sequence (a la Young Master) that involves him. Also his end fight with the 'twin demons' in the opera house is creepy and pretty original.

Since Yuen's character is no fighter to start with, he is limited to two fights; but both excellent: a chase with White Tiger that is equal to Project A, and the final showdown which also includes Wong Fei Hung: Mousy's laundry technique is used to overcome White Tiger's 'shooting sleeve' and the acrobatics are outstanding.

Trivia: The 'Kung fu laundry' scene was copied (almost identically) by Chris O'Donnell in 'Batman & Robin'

Version watched: HKL print

Overall: 4.5 out of 5, superior pacing and comedy, with inventive acrobatic fights

Chocolate (2008)

Thai producer Prachya Pinkaew's Ong Bak and semi-remake Tom Yum Goong were a huge breath of fresh air for kung fu cinema in the last 5 years: while Jackie Chan continues to produce pockets of brilliance, Jet Li focussed on wire work and wuxia, which to me is a massive waste of his talents, with only Fearless getting back to his wushu roots. Prachya Pinkaew's near-suicidal stunt team have built a reputation for gleefully hurling themselves into real danger: few kicks or punches are pulled, and the scenery becomes a part of the action again in a way not seen since Jackie Chan's heyday. The brilliant (if uncharasmatic) Tony Jaa was the first star to emerge from this formula, with brutal Muay Thai techniques showcasing more unusual kicks (especially knee strikes) and elbows. The plots to his movies are paper-thin (baddies steal something, Tony gets it back), so it's good to see that with Chocolate the formula has been extended to something more complex, and with a different debutante: 22-year old female JeeYa Janin.

The plot: An ex-mob mother is ostracised due to her love of a rival yakuza. He returns to Japan, leaving her to care for their autistic daughter (Zin) who is brought up in a Muay Thai training school. When mother falls ill , Zin and her tubby chum discover an accounts book of people that owe her mother money - they do not realise this a loan shark book from her mob days. Zin has copied the Muay Thai techniques from the school, and avidly consumes Tony Jaa's movies and violent Playstation games.

And so cue a series of fights with the debtors - all of which are set in different factories: ice, packing, meat. Finally the old boss and his transvestite(!) gang get wind of this and we end with two showdowns: one involving the returned Yakuza dad in a restaurant, and then spilling out to the city for the final showdown.

And she's called Chocolate because she collects M&M's.

Treatment: Now, this has caused quite a split among the Kung Fu forums. As mentioned, Jin is autistic (apologies if this is a genaralisation) and her mother is struck with (presumably) leukemia. In my opinion both conditions are treated respectfully, and (as far as I can see) realistically. Zin's mood swings and perception of the world are well realised. Of course, this doesn't have the depth of, say, "The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night" or "Rain Man", but its both good enough for this context and touching in its own right. The point that she could not possibly be such a good fighter without formal training is, well, pointless: Ong Bak and Tom Yun Goong are equally ludicrous but just as exciting.

Fights: Again, controversial: some believe these to be slickly edited to make JeeYa Janin look better, and that she is merely flexible/acrobatic with no real technique. I completely disagree, I've tried some of the kicking combos she pulls off and have got nowhere close. The combos are varied and imaginative, making very good use of kicks/elbows/ad-hoc weapons as well as the scenery. The stunts are superb; especially in the end fight on the side of a building (Harold Lloyd would be proud). Only let down is the swordplay sequence, which is just as weak as the one in Kill Bill.

The outtakes show several meaty smacks in the face, the stunt team really earned their keep.

Overall: 4.5.out of 5, another modern day classic from Thailand with plenty of action, and nice to see that plot complexity is improving.

Return of the Kung Fu Dragon

Plot: Idyllic Phoenix island is ruled by a kindly Emperor and his three Generals, masters of Sunshine Kung Fu. This idyll is shattered by Magic Fox (or at least he should be called Magic Fox), a White Haired Fox so foxy that he has his own attendant beard porter. He takes over the island castle, and the king's wife and daughter are protected by a magic mist that transports them to a nearby mountain and shrouds them for 19 years. This appears to be ample time for our Polly (for it is she) to develop a Jack Douglas-type twitch in her kicking leg, which also invokes a horse-clopping noise. After much betrayal, mistaken identity, andludicrously irritating companions, we come to the training where Polly is taught a form of chess boxing. This style overcomes Magic Fox, and all is well again.

White-Haired Foxiness: 10/10 for style (the aforementioned beard porter), 4/10 for fighting

Fights: Pretty...lazy, to be honest. It doesn't seem to know whether it wants to go for punch-and-block or shapes, and you get a pretty lacklustre mix of the two. Polly can do way better than this (I think there are maybe six kicks in the whole film). The climactic fight with Magic Fox at least features the gimic of being performed on gravel paths over hot rock (well, they pretend it's hot, at least) using Polly's new found chess boxing, but it's really too little, too late.

Overall: 1.5 kicks out of 5, some fun but the intentional humour is weak and the fights are pretty lazy as a whole. Worth watching once for Polly on occasional form.

Challenge of the Tiger

Plot: CIA playboys/agents Bruce and Richard Harrison (the thinking man's white ninja) track down a Mafia gang - apparently consisting of three employees - who have cadged a drug that will render the world infertile (a sort of anti-viagra). After brief match of slow-motion topless tennis, a punch-up with a bull at the bullfights, and a visit to the token martial arts school island where the processing plant for the drug is 'hidden', our heroes beat up all the gangsters and get the drug formula back. Astonishingly, there is a third group involved - Chinese agents Hwang Jang Lee and Bolo Yeung - which immediately means all fanboys must see this.

Dialogue: Jaw-dropping. Harrison is no 'new man', to say the least: in a patio scene, he and Bruce are served tea by a female agent: Bruce: "Smells nice". Richard: "So does she...". Just one lowpoint of scripting, they come so thick and fast it's hard to keep up. "I'll have a Coke" "Sorry we're out of Coke". (pause) "OK, I'll have a beer". One of the oddest parts of the film doesn't involve dialogue: the writer crowbars in an expo at the Macua yacht club, where real-life celebs Jack Klugman (Quincy) and Jane Seymour are swanning around. Bruce actually lines up to shake Quincy's hand!!

Similarity to real Bruce: must try harder. You could easily distinguish between the two due to (a) Le's Johnny Ramone barnet, and (b) the utter facial mismatch. He does a few token Brucie bounce steps between moves, but he may as well be copying Bruce Forsyth. Bruce Le has arguably the best-spelled rip off of Bruce Lee's surname; after all it's missing one out of the two e's. However he loses a point for not rhyming with 'Lee', like 'Bruce Li'.

Fights: Generally pretty disappointing, the 'one v many' stuff is poorly staged and has neither the variety nor technical excellence of, say, Way of the Dragon; nor the imaginative use of the environment that Jackie Chan excels at. Two absurd fights stand out: Bruce's fight againt a bull at the bullfights, where instead of simply making good his escape over the barrier when he has the chance he wrestles the 'bull's' (i.e. model's) horns and then unleashes some sidekicks on our bovine friend. Later Richard Harrison, who has been badly beaten offscreen (probably due to budget cuts) turns up at martial-arts-school-processing-plant-island punch drunk, and proceeds to beat up black-belts with thumps and shin-kicks.

There are, however, three good fights: a sadly short Hwang vs Bolo match, which should have been a highlight but didn't explore "superkicker vs muscle guy". Bruce's final three fights are all one-on-one's and get progressively better until his finale against Hwang, who, as ever is the man to watch. This climaxes in the worst on screen car crash explosion ever, with an impact which would only raise mild glances in a town-centre car park.

Title relevance to plot:Tenuous. There's undoubtedly a Challenge, but it is neither set not undertaken by a Tiger.

Overall: 2 kicks out of 5, some good camp fun and decent fights if you get that far.

Paul Newman 1925-2008

Paul Newman, RIP: one of the few actors I considered a huge screen icon and a magnificent film actor. Whilst Steve McQueen and Alain Delon had the on screen charisma, Paul Newman had the talent to go with it to lead five masterpieces (The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Verdict) and to produce terrific entertainment in Somebody Up There Likes Me, Harper,The Towering Inferno, The Color Of Money and The Sting . Like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven he was able to produce an excellent later years performance with Road to Perdition, and I've not even mentioned his charity work or sporting achievements.

All readers of this eulogy must watch one the aformentioned films tonight, and remember a true Hollywood legend and great guy.

Kongsploitation review: King Kong Escapes (1967)

Kongsploitation is of course nothing new: the orginal King Kong was almost immediately followed by the far inferior Son of Kong and the not bad at all Mighty Joe Young. But what of the big lad himself? Before he was resurrected for the terrible Dino De Laurentiis 1976 production (and its even worse sequel, King Kong Lives , in 1986), the mighty Toho studios had made the match-up that everyone wanted: King Kong vs Godzilla (1962). Of course, Godzilla is about 20 times bigger than Kong, but who's complaining: Willis O'Brien himself even proposed Kong vs Frankenstein's Monster at one point.

But anyway, on to King Kong Escapes, which finds our furry chum peacefully living on Mondo island (presumably a lot funkier than Skull island), with only the occasional dinosaur to wrestle. Meanwhile, the utter dastard Dr Who (yes, Dr Who) is plotting to mine and sell Element X to the Commies by setting up a mine at the North Pole. Note that the North Pole is now mysteriously solid ground, and not an ice sheet. Dr Who has created a robot King Kong to achieve this task, but soon realises he will need the real thing to finish his mining due to sub-standard construction of robo-kong.

Meanwhile a UN task force led by Commander Carl Nelson (Rhodes Reason - Best.Name.Ever.) and token lady Lieutenant Susan Watson (Linda Miller) steam to Mondo Island to find Kong. Of course, Kong soon falls for Susan and wrestles a dinosaur. Meanwhile Dr Who sets out to catch Kong and enslave him in his mine, At this point Dr Who makes Dr No look like employer of the year: any delay in his commands being carried out result in him hurling the poor engineer out of his office chair so that Who can man the controls himself. Kong soon escapes from the mine, and eventually faces off against the newly restored robo-Kong in Tokyo.

Match stats

Size:
Kong: 48ft tall
Robo-kong: 48.5 ft

Powers:
Kong: strength, driven by love
Robo-kong: hypno-lamp on head, searchlight eyes, and according to Dr Who, 'he never tires' (in fact this is ambiguous: Dr Who has such a great, twisted bad guy accent that he may have said 'he has Hoover tyres', which would help him climb skyscrapers I suppose).

Suffice to say Kong wins the day and then cheerfully murders Who and his henchmen aboard their ship, before wandering back to Mondo island.

Verdict: 3 bananas out of 5, fun special effects and enough great dialogue/fights to keep you happy.

Bruceploitation movie of the week: Iron Dragon Strikes Back

You can't beat a slice of Brucesploitation, namely those films so 'inspired' by Bruce Lee that they feature stars with a passing resemblance, and as many of Lee's mannerisms, as possible. The most blatant have stars with homonomic names, the most well known being Bruce Le, Bruce Long, Bruce Ly, and the star of this brutal little actioner, Bruce Li (who scores points for the closest homonym).

Sub-genres: Modern day (well, 1979), Brucesploitation

Plot: A group of chums on a diving trip encounter some bars of gold on the sea bed near an island. These transpire to be from Vietnam (you can tell because it says 'Vietnam' on them in English). The chums, possibly influenced by 'A simple plan' (despite it not being written for another 25 years) decide to wait and see if pirates come back for it; and if not they will spend it. Of course, the greediest of the group simply returns later and blags it all for himself, and his chums find themselves to be hunted men once the real gangsters realise the gold has gone.

There are some great plot curveballs: at one point you think an old Kung Fu film has been spliced in, but it turns out to be a working movie set. And one of the fights appears to be a random mugging with no plot impact!

Title relevance to plot: Zero. Who Iron Dragon is, or whether he is striking back at all, is never revealed.

Ludicrous dialogue: Superb, with many sit-down scenes where the cast provide a Q & A for anyone who missed something (such as family members who have ambled in and decided to watch the film with you). Favourite part: the TV news announcement at the start reveals that the pirates have been smuggling gold using the codename 'auntie' to refer to the gold. Despite the fact that the code has been rumbled, we see various shady phone calls take place with 'Where's auntie'? being the main question. Very secret squirrel!

Fights: High-energy, brutal and 'everything including the kitchen sink': as well as some well-executed combos and weapons work there are desparate scraps where each and every blunt object to hand is used. Bruce concentrates on kicks; some good pressing kicks to block followed by a swift turning kick/reverse turning kick combo is a typical combo. At points the fights look quite traditional ('courtesy kung fu') but a good pace is kep throughout. The other members of the gang rely on as many dirty tricks as they can muster against the barrage of lead pipes, machetes' butterfly knives etc.. And there's a really nasty downward kick to despatch the main baddies head at the end!

Overall: 3.5 kicks out of 5, the plot never drags for too long and the high-energy rate of the action makes up for the weak 'suspense' that the plot tries to invoke.

Kongsploitation: Ape

From the wonderful StompTokyo, here's a terrifying Kong rip-off from Korea. SCREAM as 'Ape' wrestles a Killer Shark!!

See the full review - it has the best plot of any film I can think of: A 36 foot tall ape being taken to Disneyland escapes off the coast of Korea. The giant ape wanders around the countryside, disrupts the filming of two movies, and finally goes on a ramapage in a city. The monster is cornered on a mountain and killed.Apparently the orginal poster states in translation "Not to be confused with King Kong"
. Well, that clears that one up then.

The Stooges - The Weirdness

"You can't go home again" - Thomas Wolfe

Well, as feared, it was too good to be true. Stooges reunion with Ashton back, and Mike Watt on bass? My hopes for Stooges whiplash grinding reigned in with Minutemen precision are dashed: this is the new Iggy album.

It picks up with his Kill City era and then morphs into one of his solo efforts, albeit one of the friskier ones. I think it's firstly his vocals; instead of singing the slow numbers in the style of 'we will fall' from their debut, he's singing in his later-period 'whacky old Iggy' style. And the faster songs don't have that aspirated bite you got on 'TV eye' or 'Search & Destroy'. Secondly the lyrics are the usual Iggy soul-searching/polemics, not the surreal, claustrophobic, sex howls of the original LPs.

At least 'The end of Christianity' sounds like it could have made the track order on 'Raw power'. 'Mexican guy' would get higher marks if it wasn't a retread of '1970'. And on 'Passing cloud' the sax sounds like Kenny G, for crying out loud...Albini must have been gnawing his fist at that point (great drum sound, as always).

Overall, not bad as an Iggy album, but if this is the 21st century Stooges give me Queens of the Stone Age anyday...

Pasta Masters

The Spaghetti Western, (along with live-action ant movies, French Policiers, old school Kung Fu and Surf Music), is one of the perfect genres. Spaghettis (or Macaroni Westerns as they are called in Japan, for some reason) would like to believe they are thematically rich, taking in political theory (Face to Face) and existentialism (The Big Silence), but to be honest we only love them because they feature hilariously ugly heavies getting blown away by heroes with some sort of killing gimmick (Manco/Joe's lightning draw in the Eastwood trilogy, Django's coffin containing a machine gun, etc.). The atmosphere helps too, typically a flyblown, bleached frontier town with scurrying black-cowled grannies, cowardly sherrif's, corrupt judges and shopkeepers. Even the truly terrible examples get by due to their astonishing titles. Here are some of my favourites:

• Heads You Die ... Tails I Kill You (1971)


• Get the Coffin Ready (1968


• Trade your pistol for a coffin, Sartana's in town (1968)


• God forgives - I don't (1966)


• Massacre Time (1965)


• Alive, or Preferably Dead (1970)


• Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears (1969)


• 15 Scaffolds for the Killers (1968)


• Hate Thy Neighbour (1969)


• Light the Fuse, Sartana is Coming (1969)

I'm trying to track down Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears in the hope that Johnny Ears is a guide dog for Deaf Smith...


And the prize for hardest line in a Spaghetti Western, and possibly of any film, goes to Django the Bastard:
There's a fella here got a cross with your name on it and today's date.

Best Graphic Novels

It's feedback time! For this I'm defining a Graphic Novel ('GN') as either a collection of up to 12 continuous issues of an ongoing comic series, or a standalone GN which is not continued in a subsequent GN. So, Bone, Lone Wolf & Cub & Preacher instead fall under 'Epic Series' which has its own thread to vote on (well, it will as soon as I've posted it).

So in (probably incorrect) chronological order, here goes:

Daredevil - Born Again
The fall and rise of Matt Murdoch from Frank Miller. A truly inspiring story, well paced with an intriguing background. Terrific action scenes. If you don't cheer at the denouement then check to see if you actually have a pulse.

Watchmen
Alan Moore's revolutionary script, Dave Gibbons art and John Higgins colours are perfect. One of the few GNs you can read twice a year and still get something new out of it. The psychology and motivation of heroes has never been done better, and the notion of politicians forcing the 'unmasking' of heroes has been borrowed to great effect in Kingdom Come, The Incredibles and Civil War to name but three.

Moonshadow
Heartwarming 12 parter from J De Matteis deals with coming-of-age - except the boy's fate is governed by bizarre sentient moons and a gruff bear-like surrogate father with flatulence. Lavish watercolours from JJ Muth and poetry from P B Shelley are the icing on the cake.

The Bradleys
Terrifying suburban serio-comic drama from Peter Bagge: with inks poured onto the page by the bucketful, this snarling, spitting family bicker, rage and nearly kill each other in each installment collected from anthology 'Neat Stuff'. An inspiration for the Simpsons, apparently. See also: Studs Kirby.

Hardboiled defective stories
Any of Charles Burn's twisted 1950's suburban Sci-fi GN's could appear, but with the crazed drunk mexican wrestler El Borbo as the anti-hero, this is my choice. Hilarious dialogue, gorgeous noir B&W inks, and a tough as nails detective.

Elektra: Assassin
Insane artwork from Bill Sienkiwiwewzczczczc (sp?), flyblown spaghetti-western script from Frank Miller. And not a mention of Daredevil! This was the first surreal superhero comic I read and got me into Gaiman and McKean's Violent Cases, Black Orchid etc..

Sin City
Miller's European inking style, brutal action and snappy dialogue fit him like a glove. You can tell he loved writing it. Not a huge fan of the sequels, though...

Kingdom Come
Maybe it's the stunning Alex Ross painted art, but the future-story with a retired Superman, crippled Batman et al having to cope with ubiquitous, ungoverned superheroes of the future and a false saviour in Luthor is poignant and exciting. If there's a better comics moment than Captain Marvel taking out Superman at the end of part 3, I can't think of it

The Ultimates
Excellent update of the Avengers, with an anachronous Captain America, sleazy wifebeating Ant-man, pacifist cult leader Thor and Nick Fury controlling a budget of billions. All to start a fight with the Hulk so that Bruce Banner can feel a key part of the team!

Identity Crisis
Not just for the cracking storyline from thriller writer Brad Meltzer, or the crisp clean art from Rags Morales which rivals Brian Bolland , but for the sheer importance of making villains dangerous again. For too long villains have been throwaway hams, now they have motivation, intelligence and serious reason for a grudge. Includes a great ethical question on how far justice should go, too.

Right - use the comments link below to rant! Wot, no 300, Maus, Contract with God or Starman??!!