Tag Archives: hong kong

THE FLYING GUILLOTINE!

Posted on by
Reply

The Flying Guillotine ~ 1975, Meng Hua Ho

the-flying-guillotine-movie-poster-1974-1020377481

Rare is it that a damn prop is able to steal the show like the Flying Guillotine did. It’s basically just a damn murder Frisbee, and it kicked ass so hard that after this movie came out, several additional films had to be produced, for the sole purpose of delivering Flying Guillotine related content into the eager eyes of human beings world wide. This thing is awesome, and you need to know about it.

But just what in the hell is a Flying Guillotine?

I’m glad you asked! Essentially, a flying guillotine is a ranged weapon used to decapitate people from a distance… You know, for the busy decapitator who’s always on the go. Essentially disc shaped, the user throws the Flying Guillotine at his/her target, and attempts to land it perfectly on their head; which is then sliced off using a simple net and blade system. So, it’s kinda like ring toss, only… you know… It decapitates the shit out of people. As an added bonus, the flying guillotine is outfitted with a length of chain, which allows the user to retrieve the weapon, head still in tow, in case they want to keep it for a souvenior or whatever. The outside rim of the weapon is lined in sharp, buzz saw type blades, which allow it to crash through walls, or saw through basically whatever stands between the user, and the righteous decapitation of whoever they toss the damn thing at. Have a look:

The-flying-guillotineFlyingGuillotine+1975-22-bFlying-Guillotine (1)fg18waynes_world

Basically, it’s the most terrifying weapon in the world, there’s no defense against it, and if somebody throws it at you, your head is coming off for sure. The Flying Guillotine is nothing to scoff at, and if two flying guillotines impact one another while in flight, they freakin’ explode. Needless to say, putting this thing in your movie is basically a license to print money, and literally every film ever SHOULD have had a Flying Guillotine in it. Seriously, think about how rad 50 First Dates would have been if Sandler threw one of these things at somebody just ONCE. Also, how does Frisbee-golf work? I think this might be exactly like Decapitation Frisbee golf, also.

So, according to historical record, these things actually existed, although I kinda feel like I need to call B.S. on that one, historians. Anyway, regardless of how many ACTUAL, Chinese people had their heads Frolfed off in real life, I can tell you how many suffer that awesome fate in The Flying Guilotine: Way more than enough for this movie to be super entertaining.

THE PLOT~ When some corrupt ass Chinese emperor dude decides that he needs to be even shadier than he already is, he tasks his court of royal go-geters with the job of designing a newer, sneakier means of killing people without fear of reprisal. It just so happens that one of his more abstract thinking tinkerers comes up with an idea more or less immediately, and he crafts the world’s very first Flying Guillotine, a device which murders people so, so hard, and which is awesome. At first, the Emperor is enraged. “What if this device were turned against me?!” He thinks, but after he calms down a little bit, The Flying Guillotine really starts to grow on him. The decision is then made to round up the Kingdom’s best royal guards and develop a team of Flying Guillotine wielding super assassins, which is exactly what happens. At first, everything seems just dandy, until our troops start to realize that the Emperor is spying on them, and they no longer have any freedom whatsoever. The slightest sign of disloyalty puts you at the business end of a flying guillotine, and your only purpose in life is to basically murder anyone the Emperor wants you to, which often sucks. Ma Teng, our star pupil, isn’t really in love with this idea, so he soon goes awol, which leads to a massive confrontation between him and his former comrades. In the end, China is littered with severed heads, and rivers of thick, bright red, fake looking blood. I love this movie.

At it’s heart, The Flying Guillotine is more or less a cold war allegory, which seems a little weird. The Flying Guillotine itself is basically depicted as being unreasonable power in the hands of a corrupt government, so it becomes a stand in for the bomb; it’s a power no one should have, that will inevitably wind up in the hands of the person least worthy. Furthermore, the controlling, ever invasive environment our central characters find themselves in is very representative of Stalinist Russia, so The Flying Guillotine comes across as being something like a Kung Fu version of Animal Farm… but with like, a thousand headless bodies flailing about. I think it’s an improvement over Orwell’s work, but that’s my opinion.

From a technical perspective, the film makes out okay, but is pretty typical of an early 1970’s Shaw Brothers film, that is to say that it’s heavy on charm, but far from state of the art. The effects throughout are mostly pretty decent, and there is some ambitious use of specialty lenses here and there, although this tends to be more distracting than impressive. It’s pretty bloody, which is would really have to be, given the subject matter, but all the blood looks like bright red acrylic paint, which is at the same time awesome, and painfully unrealistic looking. Oh well, nobody cares, they compensate nicely via decapitations.

I think my favorite scene comes late in the film, when Ma Teng knows his former brothers in arms are likely to strike against him at any time. In a stroke of brilliance, he inlists the help of some local blacksmiths to create a device designed to defend against Flying Guillotine attacks; some kind of weird, metallic umbrella thing. It’s wacky as hell, but don’t laugh too hard, because the freakin’ thing actually works! Not only does it successfully deflect a Flying Guillotine attack, it also kills Ma Teng’s would be assassin in the process. This is clearly a major breakthrough in anti-decapitation technology, but unfortunately, the device wasn’t fully finished when Ma Teng was forced to use it, so it ends up only being good for one use.

Another great scene comes right at the film’s climax, which takes place in an awesome rocky outcropping/waterfall type location, and features a showdown between Ma Teng and a few of his former team mates. It’s a truly fantastic conclusion to the film, and it’s shot really nicely, as well. Like England’s Hammer Studios, The Shaw Brothers were renowned for their use of highly detailed and elaborate sets, and I do love them for this, but taking the camera and actors off the studio soundstages and into a natural environment for the film’s finale makes a huge difference, and really manages to give this last scene an impressive impact. This really takes it to eleven for The Flying Guillotine, but honestly, it’s kinda hard to go wrong when 9/10’s of your cast has no head by the end of the picture. This one was in the bag from day one. I ain’t even mad.

The Flying Guillotine turns up in several more movies, and I highly doubt that we’ve seen the last of it. If you’re new to the world of elaborate, long range decapitations, then I would recommend this movie as a good introduction to the wide, wild world of the o’ T.F.G. One way or the other, this is a solid and enjoyable film, and I recommend it.

A

more movies

THE BIG BOSS!!!!!

Posted on by
2

The Big Boss ~ 1971, Wei Lo and Chia-Hsiang Wu, Hong Kong

big_boss_poster_02

The first thing you need to know about The Big Boss is that it’s basically The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, but with Kung Fu. Yeah, fucking awesome.

THE PLOT~ Somewhere in China, where Bruce Lee is presumably born and raised, on the playground is where he spends most of his days, chillin’ out, maxin’, realaxin’ all cool, and all practicing to get really good at Kung Fu, when a couple of guys (who were up to no good,) Begin to make trouble in his neighborhood. He gets in one little fight and his mom get’s scared, and says “You’re moving with your uncle to a more rural region of China!”

The-Big-Boss-bruce-lee-27601171-1023-663

cn_image_size__s-will-smith-fresh-prince-of-bel-airWhat’s the difference?!

Rather than shacking up with a Chinese Uncle Phil, Bruce is taken to his new home, a run down flop house full of dudes, all of whom are Bruce’s new pals, and who could be seen as Chinese versions of Jazzy Jeff, Carlton, and whatever their Butler’s name was. Bruce’s new buddies get him a  job working at some sort of ice factory, and guess what? The dude who owns it also is a big drug trafficker. This is where the film takes it’s one and only departure from the saga of the Fresh Prince, rather than stay out of trouble, Bruce ends up locked in a brutal kung fu death match with a series of thugs, which culminates with a show down with the Big Boss himself. But other than that it’s straight up Fresh Prince, they just traded the martial arts for sick rhymes.

anigif_enhanced-buzz-15459-1388687332-23

The Big Boss is not Bruce’s best film, but dammit, it’s a Bruce Lee film. That carries weight, son! It’s highly entertaining, and although Bruce isn’t quite at his peak at this point, there are plenty of little moments nestled throughout the picture that illustrate just why this guy was so special. Naturally, the fighting is first rate, but for me, the stuff I appreciate the most is when Bruce ISN’T shrieking like a puma and kicking people in the throat. His personality shines through in every minute detail of his performance, and this is a man who was inarguably born for motion pictures. These movies aren’t very elaborate when you stick them under the microscope, but they’re rewarding in a way that is hard to pinpoint, and it almost has to be Lee that makes that happen.

bigboss1Plus, check out the dude in the maroon shirt- it’s Lam Ching-Ying!

So, The Big Boss is a classic on the strength of Lee’s performance, where it may have been a rather forgettable affair without him. We, as a species, owe this man a lot. He did a lot more for humanity than prove that pixie cuts and high-waisted pants are actually super bad ass. The Big Boss may not be his best movie, but it’s still a great contribution to pop culture from a man who had a tragically short resumé, but who still managed to make an enormous impact.

05eb12be-23a2-4754-b27b-d14ce6472ba4A

more movies

Mr. Vampire!!

Posted on by
1

Mr. Vampire – 1985, Ricky Lau – Hong Kong

mr-vampire-geung-si-sin-sang.17863

We Westerners love our horror comedies. We’re into all the classic, spook-a-minute chuckle-fests, be they Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, An American Werewolf in London, Or Sexsquatch: Legend of Blood Stool Creek, those films are our jam, and thanks to a lifelong cultural indoctrination, we proud people have all come to know that violence is funny, and that the gruesome and the hilarious go together like chocolate and peanut butter.

ndweC

What would you say, however, if I were to tell you that Asia had done us one better, and that they had taken this winning formula and added a third element? That’s right! Prepare yourself, for Hong Kong’s Mr. Vampire, because this film is an open portal to a whole new world, to the realm of the MARTIAL ARTS/HORROR/COMEDY, and friend, those three things go together like chocolate, peanut butter, and wicked sweet karate chops.

MrVampirePoster

The best films of this type came out of the Hong Kong genre film boom of the 1980’s, and while Mr. Vampire isn’t the first movie to meld these three wonderful ingredients together, it’s absolutely my favorite. Americans don’t seem to know about Mr. Vampire yet, but it’s honestly not out of line to call this one of the greatest horror comedies ever made. We need to get familiar with it.

THE PLOT- When a prominent  citizen seeks to dig up and then rebury his father for good luck (Apparently that’s allowed in Hong Kong? Even encouraged?!) he seeks out the help of a cunning priest and his two bumbling assistants to make sure this grave desecration is all done by the book, but lo and behold, something is amiss, and when the grave is exhumed, it’s occupant is found to be a damn vampire. This sets off a freaky Asian vampire chain reaction, and the hijinks which follow are of a most wacky variety indeed.

mr_vampire

First thing I need to clarify- These are not the typical “white guy in a cape” style European variety vampires that most Americans are familiar with. The blood suckers in this movie are the famed Chinese “hopping vampires,” a breed of ghoul which literally hops around in order to move, due to a debilitating stiffness of the body, brought on by rigor mortis. Additionally, these creatures are thought to be blind, and thus must seek out their victims by listening for the sound of a beating heart- meaning that holding your breath and standing still can make you “invisible” to them, at least, until you have to breathe again. Of course, there are one or two vampires in this film who seem to be exceptions to those rules, but I don’t know how the whole Chinese vampire thing works, dude. All I know is that most of these guys hop around, and I love it.

vlcsnap3051231zl8

Conga line- OF THE DAMMED! (Those are all vampires following that dude.)

Mr. Vampire is really, really great. As mentioned above, it’s a martial arts/horror/comedy, but the movie clearly aims for laughs above all else, and in fact, all of the horror and kung fu stuff is done in the service of humor, so even at it’s scariest, or in the heat of it’s most strenuously choreographed fight scene, Mr. Vampire never wants you to be too far away from a smile. The narrative seems to be closely modeled after what you might see in an old-fashioned stage play, it’s all simple, character driven, misunderstanding based comedic routines which largely take place in small, single room spaces, and which are broken down into individual, self-contained chunks. Mr. Vampire could work equally well in a live theater format as it does on the big screen, and this old fashioned style of narrative has a certain specialness built into it which is a woefully absent from movies today. Another factor which helps give Mr. Vampire a classic feel is it’s relatively clean subject matter. It’s not exactly G rated, there are a few suggestive jabs here and there which will raise eyebrows amongst those with more puritanical sensibilities, but Mr. Vampire is more cheeky than it is smutty. It’s a film with an inherent, lighthearted innocence, and even for a deranged and diseased mind like mine, that’s nice once in a while.

The Kung Fu sequences in this picture are all great, too, and they don’t overstay their welcome, we have just enough of them that when one comes around, it’s exciting, and never boring. Part of Mr. Vampire’s recipe for kung-fu success is that even these fight scenes are meant to be humorous, they don’t feel violent so much as wacky, so it’s really easy to have fun watching them even if you don’t have any interest in Kung Fu whatsoever.

There are very few flaws worth mentioning in Mr. Vampire, it has a few hokey special effects, but they’re hokey due to vintage, not laziness or ineptitude, so they end up feeling more charming than embarrassing. There is also a subplot in here about one of the bumbling assistants being seduced by a female ghost which probably would have been written out if this were shot in the west, because it doesn’t really drive the plot forward in any direct way. I don’t count this subplot as a mark against Mr. Vampire, however, because it further contributes to the old fashioned feel of the film, and also results in some really fun sequences I wouldn’t want to lose, regardless of the structural “imperfections.” Let’s not be script Nazis, Mr. Vampire can have its ghost subplot if it wants to.

Maybe the biggest flaw that people tend to point out about Mr. Vampire is that it ISN’T Spooky Encounters, another excellent martial arts horror comedy which preceded this film by five years. Aledgley, this movie is a bit of a retread, which I guess is true… Mr. Vampire probably wouldn’t exist if Spooky Encounters hadn’t been made first, but in my mind, this is the superior movie. I’d call Mr. Vampire ‘The Formula Perfected’ before I called it a rehashing, and to date I’ve never seen a better Martial Arts/Horror/Comedy, and brother, I have certainly tried.

mr vampire

Thematically, there is some stuff in here about Modernization versus tradition; the film takes place in Hong Kong during an era where the British have brought in European customs with modern forms of government and policing, yet by and large, the people of China prefer to operate as they have for generations, and this sets up an interesting conflict for our main characters. As traditional Taoists priests, they find themselves compelled to work toward the good of the people by using traditional methods, exclusively based upon spiritualism, while the newly modernized police force regards their practices, and even the threat of vampirism itself as total mumbo jumbo. As a result, these police function more as an impediment to our characters than anything else, and this is a major source of conflict early on in Mr. Vampire. Later in the film, however, after things have passed the point of no return, vampire style, the police finally accept their inability to deal with the now all-too-obvious ghoul epidemic, and the film switches gears ever so slightly. Suddenly, and for the first time, the vampire threat starts to look a little bit more like a biological plague, as if only now, with things at their worst, does the movie start to consider the notion that perhaps our Priests don’t know what they’re doing, and perhaps spiritualism really has become obsolete in serving the needs of a modernized society? At this point, when even the police have put their faith in religion to save the day, we begin to see our stalwart Taoist in a position of weakness and doubt, and he seems to feel unsure about his ability to combat this threat after all. This short sequence is Mr. Vampire at it’s most introspective, but it’s quite subtle. Still, if you had to point out any specific centerpiece for the film’s chief metaphor, it would be the scene I’m talking about here.

The movie does a good job with these ideas, and we end up with an interesting back and forth that investigates the grey area you get when a culture with deep roots in tradition tries to jump ahead a few centuries overnight, with some areas taking longer to catch up than others. It’s well done, but these sombre and contemplative moments are fairly brief. I know that it may not seem like it after I’ve highlighted them in this way, but these themes are actually explored so casually that they could almost be in here by accident. Mr Vampire, is about those ideas, yes, but it really is about comedy first and foremost. Even at it’s darkest, Mr. Vampire is far from a heavy experience, it stays lighthearted, fun, and is periodically, legitimately hilarious.

This truly is a fantastic example of the mighty martial arts/horror/comedy sub-genre, and damn, it’s super deserving of some long overdue praise from we Western audiences. It would also make an excellent double feature alongside Roman Polanksi’s The Fearless Vampire Killers, but I would suggest you do anything you need to do to see Mr. Vampire asap, because it’s a freakin’ masterpiece.

A+

The Mighty Peking Man!

Posted on by
Reply

The Mighty Peking Man ~ 1977, Meng Hua Ho

Peking

The Mighty Peking Man is sort of like a Chinese King Kong, but with some Tarzan mixed in. It was produced by The Shaw Bros. studio, so it’s a predictably solid production with great sets and a lot of charm. That being said, this film came out the same year that Star Wars did, so take a look and you’ll see it’s not exactly cutting edge.

The Plot: Reports of a bizarre, gigantic ape have come filtering out of The Himalayas. From Hong Kong, a team is organized by wealthy, money grubbing types, eager to drag Peking Man (or so the ape has come to be called) back for display, dead, or alive. Our hero is a capable hunter called Johnnie, who is offered the job of leading the expedition to find the creature, a job he accepts, because he recently walked in on his girlfriend in bed with his brother, and so now he don’t give a ‘f’ about nothin’.

The hunting party undergoes many trials while hunting for Peking Man, who is like, impossible to find even though he’s friggin’ giant, and eventually, they return home defeated, leaving Johnnie behind after he becomes separated from the group. Little do they know, however, that Johnnie would soon find the beast, as well as Samantha, a beautiful white girl who was left orphaned in the jungle after a plane crash and subsequently raised by Peking Man. She is totally buds with all of the jungle animals, and it is with her help that Johnnie survives. Soon, the two are in love, and Johnnie persuades her to travel back to Hong Kong with him, and also to bring Peking Man, who would absolutely be shackled up and jeered at for the rest of his miserable days on Earth, but he leaves that part out.  They make the trip, and things are okay, until they aren’t. The film ends with a giant monkey rampage, which was really the only possible outcome.

So, what’s going on here… Firstly, the movie makes excellent use of thematic repetition to tell a story. The best example of this is how people are constantly walking in on the person they love in the arms of another, and how that inevitably pushes the story into darker and darker territory. First, Johnnie walks in on his brother in bed with his girlfriend, which is the catalyst for him going into the jungle. At the end of the movie, Johnnie and said ex-girlfriend are in the throws of potential reconciliation, at which point Samantha, his new jungle GF, barges in and flips out. That’s sort of what kicks off Peking Man’s tantrum. I’ve saved the best for last, though, around the halfway point, we see that Peking Man is actually in love with Samantha (how’s that gonna work, PM?) And he has his giant, simian heart broken when he peeks into her little cave only to see her gettin’ down to business with Jonnie.

mighty-peking-man-gorille-voyeur_1d2bb359ca5faac59e36fc98e88076d1“….”

This is done to further emphasize the tragic element in Samantha’s unwitting betrayal of Peking Man. The moral here is pretty clear- if what you have is good, keep it, don’t mistreat it, and for heaven’s sake, don’t go running into the arms of whatever fancy hotshot rolls into town. That’s not fair to the one you’re with. That’s treating him/her like James Marsden in X-Men. Or James Marsden in Superman Returns. Or James Marsden in The Notebook. Or James Marsden in Enchanted…. Or James Marsden in… Is James Marsden married in real life? If I were him I’d be nervous. Any man his wife mentions by name is trouble brewing.

Another point that no written assessment of The Mighty Peking Man can fail to explore; Samantha’s wardrobe. Never before has any garment lingered so tenuously on the boundary of a wardrobe malfunction for so long. As a matter of fact, nothing else is the movie captures suspense the same way her left boob does. It transcends human sexuality and becomes less about seeing a woman’s boob, and more about “how in the hell can that possible stay on like that?!?” You will be on the edge of your seat, shaken with disbelief that so shabby a caveman bra could manage to stay in place under such conditions, and in fact, eventually, even this miraculous contraption finally succumbs to the most basic laws of physics, and the inevitable nip slip becomes a reality. Never before has a skimpy top made such a valiant effort to suppress a jungle boob, though, but in the end, those 1977 pasties just couldn’t hack it.

Later in the film Johnnie explains to Samantha that her hyper-sexualized mystery top just isn’t appropriate to wear in mixed company, so on their way back to Hong Kong he presents her with a new outfit; some sort of weird, leather Crocodile Dundee as a hooker costume. It’s the trashiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I own Frankenhooker on BluRay. Even without any idea of what is acceptable clothing for a young woman, Samantha can only handle wearing it for about thirty two seconds, and then she chucks it out of a porthole.

There’s still other fun stuff to be discussed, but the single best thing that The Mighty Peking Man has going for it is that even though it is technically a kaiju film, it manages to be a lot of fun and stays interesting, even without spending that much time with our giant monster. The greatest challenge of the Kaiju movie is making you give a shit about its human characters, who 99% of the time are an unwanted necessity put there to hold the narrative together. The Mighty Peking Man cheats a little bit, it’s Tarzan-Woman subplot jazzes up the time we spend with our humans so successfully that Peking Man himself becomes secondary to the story of Johnie and Samantha. Another important reason that works? Because it’s well written. That, more than anything else, is why The Mighty Peking Man is so enjoyable, and why is stands out against the crowd as being an especially memorable little grindhouse kaiju flick.

B+