GRINDHOUSE ASIAN STYLE : Checking out some genuinely deathproof guilty pleasures.
The annual TWC party at the American Film Market was enlivened by the presence of the Deathproof girls (Elizabeth Winstead, Tracie Thoms, Zoe Bell). I became friends with Tracie, who later took me to Big Apple comics with her friend Ahmed Best. Ahmed played Jar Jar Binks in the latter Star Wars trilogy. When he was little, my eldest son, Ryan, loved that character, so Jar Jar has a special place in my heart. Ahmed is a great guy, a martial arts enthusiast and can quote every line delivered by Jim Kelly in Enter The Dragon (and, if that’s not an indication of coolness, I don’t know what is.).
In light of this experience, I started thinking about the Hong Kong ‘grindhouse’ experience. Not everyone knows this, but, in the glory days of HK cinema, a film had to have a theatrical release (of some kind) to get a video deal. The Kowloon neighbourhood of Mongkok was littered with picture houses, each a portrait in decaying glory, in which these crowd-pleasing martial masterpiece played, ‘for one week only’. I have fond memories of the rain dripping from the leaky roof, the rats among the fallen popcorn, the sleeping hookers and beggars…
In honour of these long lost theatres of doom, here’s a list of 8 of my favourite guilty pleasure Asian ‘grindhouse’ titles:
1) Prince of the Sun
Cynthia Rothrock, as a blonde Tibetan monkette, travels to Hong Kong to save ‘the little Buddha’ (aka The Golden Child). There she has to duel a possessed American monk (Jeff Falcon) and his lipstick wearing partner, contend with a bumbling loser (Conan Lee) and communicate with the spirit of the late, great Lam Ching-ying (Mr Vampire himself). In the midst of this rather manic mix, producer Wellson Chin (commendably) tries to communicate Buddhism principles to the under-12s…
2) Fatal Contact (Dragon Dynasty)
Kill Zone and Invisible Target bad guy Wu Jing gets a lead of his own as a young martial arts master forced to compete in illegal street matches. Hong Kong has never looked grimier, and the kung fu duels become increasingly vicious. It’s a return to 70s-style Asian action, and you can almost hear the gravelly voice on the US trailer ‘One man against the night, with just his fists and feet of fury…’ The fight in a cargo ship hold, in which our hero fights a line-up of freaky videogame-worthy foes, is alone worth the price of admission.
3) Writing Kung Fu
Directed by and starring the great Bolo Yeung, this low-budget chop socky, filmed in Thailand, is arguably the world’s first existential kung fu movie. Yeung is amazing
agile, for such a big man, and, given the grindhouse quality of the production, a decent film-maker. The lead is John Chang, Jason Scott Lee’s nemesis in Dragon, who was being launched as a kung fu hero at the time. (My pushing hands instructor, Kong Sifu, turns up as a blind martial arts master.)
4) Machine Girl (TWC)
A Japanese schoolgirl falls foul of a weird yakuza family, and has her left arm severed as a result. Naturally, she replaces it with a machine gun. Seems we’ve seen some similar high calibre prosthetics in another grindhouse feature, but, as expected from a Japanese exploitation film, Machine Girl hits new levels of bullet-pumping bizarro action. (Stand out scene, our heroine annihilates a nest of ninjas…)
5) Riki-Oh (AKA Story of Riki) (TWC)
Fan Siu-wong (aka Terry or Louis Fan), the martial arts superstar that should have been, incarnates one of the most extreme Japanese comic book heroes. Those who had last seen Fan as a skinny kid in Yuen Biao’s Above The Law would barely recognize the buff hero of this slick of outrageous jailhouse rockery. Limbs are lost, eyeballs pop and intestines twisted in one of the most faithful manga-to-movie projects ever.
6) Crippled Avengers (TWC)
Maimed, mutilated and mad for revenge, these masters of the martial arts are legless, armless, blind, dumb and brain damaged. This is the kind of premise you’d only find in a kung fu movie and, specifically, in a late era Chang Cheh-directed kung fu movie.
Chang’s earlier Five Venoms was so innovative, fans forever after referred to the ensemble cast as ‘Venoms’ and this is one of their wildest and weirdest hours.
7) Satan Returns
Kung fu hero Donnie Yen takes to the mean and rain-swept streets of Hong Kong in Wong Jing’s spin on Seven (and every other American horror film he’s seen). With his Chow Yun-fat coat and Buddy Holly glasses, Yen makes a striking devil buster, and has a worthy nemesis in the person of Francis Ng. The ever charming Chingmy Yau is a possessed damsel in distress.
8) The Comet Strikes
It’s the closest Golden Harvest ever got to making a Hammer film, as swords and ghouls collide. Bruce Lee’s helmer (and sparring partner) Lo Wei both directs and plays an evil wizard, and his leading lady, Nora Miao, wields a mean blade of doom. An over-looked slice of mixed genre madness.
Comments
- Ian Friedman, USA | 2007-12-21 14:58:53
- J. Mitchell, Delaware | 2007-12-23 00:09:45
- J. Perez, Illinois | 2007-12-30 19:05:49
- ah choung, tacoma | 2008-01-02 20:08:19
- Elmo, TN | 2008-01-08 19:25:14
- Ivan Zhu, Indonesia | 2007-12-19 02:32:52