recent purchases

[jethro]

High Kick Girl sounds like I may like it. Might check it out if I see it used some day. Too tight of a budget right now.

I got Into the Fire (1989) from a friend on kfc forum. Wow what a major misfire from Sammo’s company Bojon Films. The plot is horrible, there’s no good fights other than one with Billy Chow, and Chin Siu Ho’s acting is way too over the top. Seems like he's doing his best, but the directing is bad. I think they had the right idea with Colin Chou’s character, but, I can’t really think of anything else good to say about this movie. It doesn’t help that I was hoping the finale would at least partly make up for the rest of the movie, but nope. This one is just a stinker all the way through. I rate it a 1/10. No generousity given.

[jethro]

Just got done watching the new Martial Arts Essentials volume 7. Great set! Here's a review of what it has on it-

Fearless Young Boxer aka Avenging Boxer- running time- 93:16 Full screen, in English, good pic quality.

Hitman in the Hand of Buddha- 81:32 FS, in Korean with subs. More info on the Korean version can be found here- http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID....qx/reviews.htm

Legend of a Fighter aka Secret Master- 88:26 FS, in English, with subs for Chinese signs and other writings, very good pic quality.

Ring of Death- 86:21 FS, in English, very good pic quality.

Dragon Squad aka Four Real Friends- 81:41 widescreen 1.85:1, in English, very good pic quality.

Mission Kiss and Kill- 88:39 FS, in English. A little better than decent pic quality. Still dark in the same places as the Xenon VHS and colors aren’t anything to get excited about, but it looks a lot cleaner than the VHS. Actually the VHS has better colors and is brighter, but I like the DVD more because of how clean it looks. Not 100% clean, but it’s an upgrade IMO from the VHS. The dark print would be a problem for me, but when turning the brightness up all the way on my TV, it looks fine. I’m not too picky. I've noticed that most movies in the recent Videoasia multipacks seem to be darker than the DVD or VHS versions they come from. But on the positive side, they are cleaned up nicely, or at least a lot of them are. 5 out of 6 in this pack.



A couple other minor notes-

I didn’t notice any pixelation problems, except Four Real Friends which has about 2 seconds of pixelation. About 1 second at the start and 1 towards the end. Fearless Young Boxer I don't rate "very" good pic quality because the picture isn't as sharp as the ones I rate very good.

[Jimbo]

Looks like at least 5 of the 6 movies are good (who stars in Fearless Young Boxer?). Very unusual for a multi-pack, most of which have at least a couple what I call "throwaway" or "excess baggage" movies. Though I already own Hitman on DVD. I'd been waiting for Legend of a Fighter to make it to DVD. It's too good a film not to be.

There was another Videoasia multi-pack, forget the name of it, that included Undaunted Wudang, but that was the only one on it I wanted, and $20 for one movie is pretty steep. Plus I think it was English-dubbed. The VHS version I have somewhere was original Mandarin (without English subs). I'd prefer Mandarin with subs.

[jethro]

Yeah it is nice to see Legend of a Fighter in there. It'd be nice if it was widescreen, but it bein full screen doesn't cut off the action much at all, and the pic quality is a lot better than the boot DVD I have. Fearless Young Boxer is aka Method Man too, which had a running time of like 65 minutes when Xenon put it out on VHS. It has Peter Chen, Chia Kai, Chan Wai Lau, Lung Fei, Wong Wing San and Cassanova Wong as the villain. And I also have Hitman on DVD, but it's cool to see this Korean version which has a lot of things different about it.

Undaunted Wudang comes in the Shaolin Against Wutang 10 pack, and before that it came in the Wutang Soldiers of Darkness 20 pack. Both in English dub, but crappy pic quality. There's a version on Amazon that has great pic quality and is widescreen with no subs. I don't speak Mandarin, but, I'm still gonna get it sometime. But that's only because I know the story well enough and it wouldn't be a problem for me.

[Jimbo]

Ah, yes, I know Fearless Young Boxer very well. Except like you say, Xenon retitled it Method Man. When I saw it in a grindhouse theater in the early '80s it was retitled "Bad Dog Fu". Thus my confusion.

I could accept the Mandarin version of Undaunted Wudang w/out subs. Though my Mandarin has deteriorated noticeably since I left Taiwan, I can easily comprehend most of what's said w/out the subs. Only problem is, if someone else is watching.

[jethro]

Only problem is, if someone else is watching.

Yeah that's a reasonable answer. I'm going to allow it.

[jethro]

Found some movies at CD Tradepost in the cheapie section.

Alex Rider Operation Stormbreaker- good kids type spy movie with 2 fights choreographed by Donnie Yen. Also a short interview with Donnie on the DVD. I expected this to be a bad bad movie, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Jawbreaker- good dark comedy about high school beeotches. I first watched this about 10 years ago. It’s even better than I remember it. No fight scenes unfortunately

Death Sentence- great movie. It starts out a revenge story, and then, it turns into a revenge story again. After that, there’s more revenge. I feel like giving this a 10/10, but it’s just not quite there. 9.5/10.

[Jimbo]

Red Cliff.
I'll write some comments on it whenever I can get around to it.

[jethro]

I now own a good copy of Hong Kong Godfather Dam I feel good. Decent movie, until the final fight. The final fight is one of the most amazing scenes ever filmed. Probably the most hate filled fight ever made. I wish there were more fights like this in movies that can keep up the intensity and blood soaked action for the length that they do in the final fight of HKG.

If the final fight in HKG was only on the level or just a bit better than the other fights, the movie would probably only get a 3 or 4/10 rating. But because of the final fight I rate it a 9/10.


A couple others I got-

Rebellious Reign Joy Sales VCD- not as good of pic quality as some of the other JS VCDs, but still very nice to see it in wide.

Mad Detective- very good movie from Milkyway Image film company, directed by Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai, starring Lau Ching Wan as a cop/ex cop who sees other people's inner personalities. 9/10

[jethro]

I got some more Joy Sales VCDs recently.

Invincible- weird movie from Blacky Ko. Some of the stars are Billy Blanks, Jerry Trimble, Blacky, Leung Kar Yan, Cheung Man, and Dave Wong Kit from Legend of the Flying Swordsman, one of the worst movies ever made.

I say weird movie just because it isn't your typical revenge story. Dave Wong is having a really bad time in his life. He's a fugitive in France, and decides to join the French Foreign Legion. After he gets done with his training, he goes to take revenge.

This is a decent movie at best, but I think I enjoyed it because it is something different.

There's a huge shootout at the end which is pretty cool, but not really any hand to hand, which is a shame with the cast on hand. Blacky actually gives himself the best fight and it's not even that good.

Rating- 5/10





Gold Hunters- this is a prety decent movie with a great cast. None of the fights are really great, until the end where they step it up a few notches. Fung Hak On really gets to shine.

Also starring Lee Hoi San, Lau Ga Yung, Wilson Tong, Chu Tiet Wo and others.

The subtitles are very hard to read, but lucky the movie is pretty easy to follow.

6/10






Naughty Boys- Jackie Chan produced movie starring Mars. That's right, Mars gets a leading role. Off the top of my head the only other time he was the lead was lackey and the Lady Tiger.

The story and characters in Naughty Boys are worthless, but luckily there are an insane amount of fights and stunts. This is one of the most action packed movies I've seen in awhile. Very high quality action.

Also starring Kara Hui, Lo Meng and Phillip Ko, all with good sized roles.

8/10





I got Magic of Spell coming soon. I saw a clip on youtube a long time ago where Chang Shan is playing a crazy red haired villain.

[jethro]

I watched Magic of Spell aka Child of Peach 2. Wow what a crazy movie. I can't say it's great or anything, but I had a lot of fun watching it. It probably would have helped if I saw part 1. There's some characters that show up about midway through and they don't introduce them or anything. Chang Shan doesn't have red hair like I thought but a red robe and he is one of the craziest white haired villains I've seen. He's the main villain so you have to wait for the end fight to see him in action. Since he's fighting an actress that looks to be about 15 years old I figured he would be holding back on his punches and kicks, but this is not the case.

[Jimbo]

Jethro,
Is this the one that has these weird characters in the end fight in rubber-looking costumes? If so, I remember one in particular that had long monkey-type arms doing acrobatics. The one I saw had Peach Boy getting the cr@p kicked out of him near the end, and he ended the fight by shooting a chi ball out of his palm. I believe the girl who played the "Peach Boy" is Lin Hsiao-Lou, the same girl who starred in Ma Lu Xiao Ying Xiong (forgot the English title; it's the one where D!ck Wei briefly fights Chang Shan).

[jethro]

That is probably part 1, Child of Peach. The one I have is Child of Peach part 2 aka Magic of Spell. In this one muscleman Yeung Hung uses a huge rock as a weapon. In the end fight he actually turns into a huge rock with a mouth and tries to eat Peach Boy and friends.

[Jimbo]

Red Cliff (again, but this time the original international version).
Hong Kong Godfather.
Fright Night.

I watched Red Cliff and have to say I was very impressed...until I went on amazon to read the reviews AFTER the fact, and realized I had bought the emasculated, "theatrical" version of the movie. What's worse is that there is no indication on the packaging that it's a condenced version. In fact, Magnet has released not only that version, but also the full international version...parts 1 and II, 5-hour, 2-disc version; as well as parts 1 and II, released individually. Needless to say, this can be confusing to those who want to see movies in their complete, original versions. And the separate releases of parts 1 and II have the same cover as the complete 2-disc release, so buyer beware, and check the packaging carefully.

So, when I found the full int'l version of Red Cliff, I had to buy it, too. I've always felt that John Woo made better period films than gangster shoot-'em-ups. His concepts just seem to work better in period costume, not to mention the guns in Woo's gangster films, oddly, never seem to run out of bullets. And since he started making American films, I honestly felt he had lost "it" as a director. Even having only seen the condenced version so far, I still say this is probably Woo's best film ever; certainly better than anything he's done in decades. Though his Last Hurrah for Chivalry is probably still my fave John Woo film, Red Cliff is simply awesome in scope.

I did feel it a bit odd, when watching the condenced theatrical version, that there seemed to be fairly little character development, and that the battle scenes, as incredible a scale as they are, seemed to have very little reason to be fought. I'm sure the approximately 50% of the movie that was cut from the theatrical version will fill in those spots for me.

[Jimbo]

Hong Kong Godfather. It's a fair movie, but very dated. For some reason, lots of modern-day films from the '80s, esp. from HK, generally do not age as well as many from the '70s, IMO. Normal Tsui's (Hsu Shao-Chiang) permed hair (jeri-curl?) (sp?) only adds to that belief. This was obviously one of the very last Shaw Bros films ever made. The 8-minute final fight is extremely brutal, and because of it, I'd give this movie a 7. Without that final fight, I'd give it a 5. I'd seen Shek Kin's performance in a kung fu demo from 1984 that my sifu was a part of, but HK Godfather is the first actual movie I can think of right off where he busts out a set, or part of one, and in those few seconds, he looks physically sharper than ever.