Tag: kung-fu

The Princess

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★★★★
“Die Hard in a castle.”

Well, this was a surprise. I was not expecting too much, this being a movie released straight to Hulu or Disney+ (depending on your territory), and starring someone best known for rom-com franchise, The Kissing Booth. Actually, scratch the “too” from that sentence. I went in on the basis that I was contractually obliged to watch it, as the guy running this site. I say this, so you’ll understand how unexpected it is to be writing this: it’s the best action-heroine film of the year so far. This is just thoroughly entertaining, and as the tag-line above suggests, is as close as I’ve ever seen to a genuine, female version of the greatest action movie of all-time. 

The first half structure though, plays more like The Raid in reverse, the heroine having to fight her way down, floor by floor, from the top of a high tower. It opens with the Princess (King) ‐ and that’s her credited name – waking to find herself in a bed-chamber. She’s being prepared for a marriage she very much does not want to happen. Her father, lacking a son and heir, intended to wed her to Julian (Cooper) for diplomatic purposes. She jilted him at the altar, and he then staged a coup, seizing her family and planning a union by force. What he doesn’t know, is that the Princess had been quietly trained by family retainer Linh (Ngo) in fighting skills, and begins working her way down, to rescue her family and stop Julian. Guess he is going to have to “altar” his wedding plans, hohoho.

It’s the kind of film which will stand or fall on its action sequences, and the good news is, these are the movie’s strongest suit. Kiet had previously worked with Ngo on Furie: that was solid, yet it now appears his imagination was bigger than the resources available to him there. Right from the start, when the Princess takes out the two attendants sent to her chamber, the fight scenes are all inventive, well-executed and assembled in a coherent manner. Now, King is no MMA fighter. However, they’ve constructed a fighting style for her character based on speed and agility, rather than strength and power. Her holding her own against bigger (sometimes, far bigger) opponents feels credible as a result. 

This reaches its height in a glorious, extended sequence, with the Princess battling her way down the tower’s staircase. It feels as if it’s 20 minutes long, such is the energy contained in it. There’s even a beautiful moment of tension releasing humour, part of a running gag involving one of Julian’s minions who is too fat for all the stairs he’s ordered to climb. Nothing thereafter, including the inevitable fight against her wannabe husband, quite reaches the same heights. Glover is good value as Julian, staying just this side of a pantomime villain. As Die Hard shows, having a memorable antagonist is an important element. He’s not quite Alan Rickman – though who is? And I do have to question some of Julian’s decisions. 

I mean, if ever I become an Evil Lord, I will choose a more definitive method of execution for my nemesis than defenestration. And if I did chuck them out a high window, it would be on the side of the building over the cobblestone courtyard, rather than the one facing the water. Though I must give credit where it’s due, for his selection of a sidekick, in whip-wielding bad girl, Moira. Kurylenko has a track record of her own on this site, most recently in Sentinelle, and builds further on that here. On the other hand, the Princess’s father is a totally ineffectual pussy, when faced with the brutality of Julian and his crew. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. It makes his daughter’s rebellion feel organic and legitimate, rather than some kind of obvious third-wave feminist statement. I’d rebel in her shoes too.

Speaking of which, my concerns this would end up being some kind of Statement Movie, largely proved unfounded. Indeed, some reviews criticized it for not being progressive enough. [Insert eye-roll] This is largely traditional fairy-story territory, except with a female lead who is capable of rescuing herself, rather than needing a prince to come to her aid. I would say some of the flashback scenes were superfluous, breaking into rather than enhancing the narrative progression. For instance, we know Linh trained the Princess; do we really then need to see it taking place as well? The R-rating, while welcome, seems a little at odds with the atmosphere too, which does feel quite Disney+. If you’re going R, embrace it in all its forms, I’d say. However, these are minor gripes, and this is one Disney princess I’m certainly happy to endorse. 

Dir: Le-Van Kiet
Star: Joey King, Dominic Cooper, Olga Kurylenko, Veronica Ngo

The Supergirl of Kung Fu

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★★
“For some very loose definition of super.”

This is another one of an apparently infinite series of kung-fu films, set during the Japanese occupation of China that took place just before World War II. The heroine is Little Flower (Lee), who gets given a death-bed mission by her martial arts master father: return to Shanghai, and lead his students at the Ching Wu Men school against the occupying Japanese forces. Except, on arriving, Flower finds the school disbanded by force, and its disciples scattered to the winds. She begins to hunt the top students, Rock (Yang) and Mercury – the latter has gone particularly deep into hiding after having killed twenty Japanese soldiers in one night. But Flower’s own activities, protecting the poor, bring her to the attention of the Japanese authorities, because they think she’s part of the rebels, as well as a local Chinese cop (Heung).

Sadly, it’s almost entirely dull, though in the film’s defense, the particularly poor presentation does not do it many favours. The dubbing is terrible, and the slightest movement by any of the characters is accompanied by the same, loud, whooshing noise. To say this gets old quickly, is putting it mildly. It might be forgiven were the action any great shakes: it’s not. While there are a reasonable number of fights, they are generally slow and unimaginative. The final boss is armed with a stick that must be fifteen foot long if it’s an inch. This is an impressive looking weapon, yet in order to render it effective, everyone he faces has to avoid using the obvious tactics against such an oversized monstrosity, which hardly lends itself to swift action. Still, I did genuinely laugh out loud at one point, where he catches Little Flower on the end of it, and whirls her around in the air for a bit, like an act combining plate-spinning and acrobatics from the Chinese State Circus.

On the other hand, the most woeful moment is probably when an arriving shipload of arms is blown up by the rebels. This takes place entirely off-screen, with the authorities simply hearing the sound of its massive explosion. There’s no particular sense of closure at the end, with the film going from the fight against the final boss, to “The End” credit in such an abrupt way, it feels like everyone involved must have had a very pressing engagement elsewhere. Again, however, this may be due to the lack of care in the presentation. Or perhaps not, given how lacking in particular energy or talent most elements of this appears to be. While you can’t entirely extinguish the talent of somebody like Lee, this certainly does a good job of diminishing it. The story spins off a number of threads that never seem to go anywhere, and even as someone entirely unfamiliar with 1930’s Shanghai, I wasn’t exactly convinced by its depiction here. One for Judy Lee completists only.

Dir: Min-Hsiung Wu
Star: Judy Lee, Charles Heung, Yang Lun, Cliff Ching Ching

The Blades Girls

  By

★★
“Not as sharp as I hoped.”

This takes place in early 15th century China, when Zhu Di (Zhang) had taken over the throne from his nephew, Wen Du (also played by Zhang), forcing the latter to go into hiding. Zhu is protected by his all-female Imperial Guard, under the leadership of Qing Lian (Xu). Actually, all seven of them have the surname Qing, which confused the heck out of me at first. But it actually makes sense, as they were taken in as babies, and brought up for the express purpose of protecting Zhu Di. Anyway, he gets word that Wen is to be found in a house of ill-repute, and send the Qings after him. Lian is injured in the raid, but her life is saved by Li Gexiao. When she returns to Zhu, however, he’s having none of it and orders her to kill Li, knowing he is actually the dethroned Emperor Wen. Lian opts not to carry out the emperor’s orders, and so the remaining Imperial Guard sisters are sent out by Zhu, to make her pay for her disloyalty.

As the still at the top shows, they certainly look the part, and are impressive when doing the slo-mo thing, marching around, clad all in black and with their capes flying behind them in the breeze. I also can’t complain about the overall production values to be found here. This looks like a reasonable amount of money was spent on it: period pieces are never cheap, and the costumes, buildings, etc. here look decent. However, this never manages to rise above the level of something you’d have on in the background as eye candy. Firstly, the action is not very good, with a style closer to the Western approach, of fast cuts that appear designed to conceal either a) the participants’ lack of skill, or b) that nothing particularly much is going on. Even in quantity it’s deficient, with large chunks where it’s too chatty. That’s if you can get past the opening narration, which left me feeling as if I should be taking notes for a history mid-term.

It doesn’t help that the other six Qing’s are pretty much interchangeable, with no real personalities to speak off, and only about three expressions between the lot of them. Despite the lengthy flashback to their training as kids, I never got much of a sense of sisterhood, which makes the final act kinda suspect. Not helping matters, and consigning it firmly to the “below average” category, is an ending which comes in the shape of another info-dump, then heading abruptly into the end credits, before even 65 minutes have passed. It thus feels less like a complete movie, than a pilot for a show on the Chinese equivalent of the CW. By which I mean, all style and precious little substance, beyond a romance that never manages to be more than lightly convincing. And like CW shows, it probably looks better in the trailer than the reality.

Dir: Wang Bin
Star: Xu Zilu, Zhang Dake. Hou Meng, Zhu Meixuan

Everything Everywhere All at Once

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★★★½
“I’d have settled for two of three.”

This has been a long, long time coming. I’ve been a fan of Yeoh since seeing her Hong Kong starring debut, Yes, Madam, which came out all the way back in 1985. Over the years since, her career has had its ups and downs, including complete retirement after her marriage in the late eighties. She returned, and is the only actress to have appeared in two movies rated five stars here: Heroic Trio and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But her career in Hollywood has been limited to sterling support roles, in both movies and television, encompassing everything from Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies through Star Trek: Discovery to Crazy Rich Asians. A starring role, appropriate to her talents, never seemed to come along. 

Until now. Thirty-seven years after Yes, Madam, and at the age of 59, this film finally puts Yeoh where she deserves to be: front and centre. Yet, perhaps partly due to how long I’ve been waiting for this, I must confess to being a bit disappointed this is not a classic to match the titles listed above. Oh, it certainly has its moments, and Yeoh is as good as expected. However, its 139-minute running-time feels more a curse than a blessing. The concept at its core is almost infinite in scope, and I did feel the movie was trying to include all of it. Less could have been more, with a targetted approach preferable to the relentless overload adopted by the makers, which left me feeling as if I was drinking from a fire-hose.

The multiverses here literally rotate around Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), who runs a laundromat teetering on the edge of failure, with her husband, Waymond (Quan). Their marriage is also failing, her relationship with her daughter, Joy (Hsu) is on rocky ground, and she has to go to an appointment with hard-ass IRS tax auditor Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Curtis). The last is where things kick off, as she is visited by a Waymond from an alternate universe, who tells Evelyn she is the only hope of foiling the evil Jobu Tupaki. That’s an alternate Joy, who has gone insane and created a black hole-like vortex which could destroy all the multiverses. Fortunately, Evelyn’s abject failings at life give her the ability to tap into all the skills and knowledge of the other, better versions of herself.

Like I said: almost infinite in scope. Apparently, co-writer/director Kwan was diagnosed with ADHD during the creative process: to be frank, it shows. While the imagination on view is admirable, the film bounces about between ideas at a ferocious rate, almost regardless of whether they deserve it. We spend an inordinate amount of time in a multiverse where everyone has long, floppy fingers. Yet there is also buttplug-fu, which is an example of the movie going places you’d never have expected could be so entertaining. Or a lengthy, surprisingly engrossing, scene in which two rocks in an otherwise lifeless multiverse have a conversation in captions. Because why not?

To the film’s credit, it never abandons its characters, and that helps keep it grounded. Albeit only just, on occasion the movie standing on its tippy-toes as it tries desperately to avoid being blown away by its own excesses. It’s perhaps telling that, despite all the film’s visual bluster, the most effective moment for me was among the simplest, one character telling another, “In another life, I would’ve been happy just doing laundry and taxes with you.” As such, Yeoh is the story’s heart, and gets to demonstrate her unquestionable acting talent. It has been fascinating to see the development of that, especially considering her lack of not just experience but any formal training. I mean, she first entered the field close to four decades ago, as a former Miss World contestant. How many of them eventually go on to get talk of an Oscar?

It’s as a result of this that I kept watching the film, because I genuinely cared what happened to Evelyn. I wanted to see her figure it all out and make peace with the various forces trying to tear her humdrum life apart. From that angle, it’s close to soap-opera, albeit an unusually effective one. Except, of course, the means by which that peace is potentially achieved, includes multiverse hopping, and fighting an evil version of your own daughter, who wields a gurgling plughole of doom. It’s the overlap between the mundane and bizarre where this finds its own voice. The problem is, it tries too hard to live up to the title. Sure, give us everything, everywhere. I’d just rather it hadn’t done so, all at once.

Yet, similarly, it leaves an awful lot of potential on the table. Why is kung-fu virtually the only talent Evelyn uses? Tap into a universe where she’s a cab driver, and give us an epic car-chase. Or the one where she’s a cat-burglar, for heist purposes. It’s not hard to come up with a dozen such threads. Perhaps the makers were constrained by their budget, a relatively cheap $25 million – less than Crazy Rich Asians. They do an admirable job of squeezing value out of it; again, the sheer pace probably helps, with your brain trying so desperately to keep up, it’s hard-pushed to pay attention to any of the finer details.

But I’m glad I won’t go to my grave with my final paid cinematic experience being Terminator: Dark Fate. [Though the two Neanderthals beside us, talking loudly and checking their phones throughout, really make me think we are done with theatres] The Daniels deserve credit for the obvious invention displayed, and this is the kind of original property I’m happy to support, over another sequel and/or shitty comic adaptation. I also must mention the supporting cast, who are uniformly great, particularly Hsu as both aggravated daughter and multiiverse threatening villainess [There’s also a cameo by another eighties Hong Kong action actress, Michiko Nishiwaki. Maybe she’ll get her own movie next?]. That it stars one of the most under-rated actresses in Hollywood, finally getting the opportunity she deserves, is alone reason enough to see this. Just don’t expect too much.

Dir: Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis

Scorching Sun, Fierce Wind, Wild Fire

  By

★★
“May the fierce be with you.”

The first thing which will hit you about this 1979 Taiwanese co-production is the utterly shameless way it hijacks John Williams’s soundtrack to Star Wars. 93 minutes later, as the end credits roll, accompanied by more unauthorized liftage… That’s probably still going to be the main element of this you will remember. For the rest is largely a confusingly-plotted and not very well executed bit of chop socky. Despite Angela Mao’s presence, second on the list of participants, she is a long way behind the main character, in terms of both screen time and action.

It’s supposed to be set in the 1920’s, though at least one of the vehicles on display looks extremely post-war. At the time, it appears China was divided into a lot of territories, ruled over in a feudal fashion by warlords. One such man is having a problem with a rebel who goes by the nomme de guerre of “Violet”, and he is desperate to find out who is disrupting his operations. In particular, his plan to acquire some heavy weaponry from Japan, that will end all rebellions. Seems Violet had stolen the guns’ firing-pins, rendering them useless. The cause of his angst is a great deal closer to home than he things, because Violent is actually his daughter (Mao), in a hat and veil. Other plot elements include a pair of escaped convicts, a treasure map which has been split into two halves, and the warlord’s right-hand man, Second Master (Yi), who is plotting a coup.

Unfortunately, it’s much more  the movie of Pai Tien Hsing  (Peng), whose character has an ambivalence a little like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name. He initially appears to be on the side of the warlord, and insists on Violet putting her skills to the test against him. However, the further into proceedings we get, the more aligned he is with her, until the final battle, where they both go up against Second Master and his poisoned knives. I must say, they have a very gnarly effect on the victim, though it’s likely no spoiler to say, the film operates in line with the kung-fu version of the old pro wrestling adage: “He who sets the table, gets the table…”

The fights are only occasionally up to much, and mostly feel like they date from a picture made a decade or more previously. Mao is her usual, reliable self, and shines in the moments she has; there just are not enough of them, and they don’t last for long. There’s a horribly cropped and dubbed version on Amazon Prime, as Dragon Connection, which I got three minutes into before discovering the letterboxed, subbed version on YouTube. Mind you, that had its issues too, not least referring to a mute character on multiple occasions as “a dump.” One for the Mao completists only. Having checked it off the list, let us never speak of it again.

Dir: Sheng-Yuan Sun
Star: Peng Tien, Angela Mao, Yi Chang, Tao-Liang Tan
a.k.a. Dragon Connection or Any Which Way You Punch

Karate Do

  By

★★½
“Do, a dear…”

Firstly, I’m not quite sure whether this is a movie or not. The IMDb lists it with a running time of 98 minutes, but Tubi had it as 4 x 25-minute episodes. I’m guessing the former is just a compilation of the latter, it works about the same either way. The title translates as “The way of the empty hand”, and the emphasis here is very much on the first part: the journey. The heroine is Nicki Wright (G. Niebauer), who has barely got out of rehab for alcohol problems, when she gets involved in a brawl, after seeing a woman being assaulted by a man. Her mother had had enough of dealing with Nicki’s taciturn BS, and dumps her on her father, Cliff (D. Niebauer).

Turns out Cliff was a bit of a karate bad-ass, and agrees to teach his estranged daughter the martial art. However, while Nicki wants simply to learn how to beat people up, Cliff insists on the process, beginning with the simplest of forms, and teaching her as much about the philosophy of karate, as the physical movements. He also introduces her to other martial arts, such as kendo, and Nicki (inevitably) begins to realize there is considerably more to the field than pure aggression. Inspired by her father’s teachings, she seeks to pass it on to high-school girls, so they can defend themselves. Her plan does not meet with unbridled enthusiasm by the local principal, shall we say. Meanwhile, her father finds himself in desperate need of cash, after his stock investments tank.

If you’re a fan of training montages – especially with voice-overs –  boy, is this the movie for you. Normally, that would be a severe problem, but as mentioned above, this is not a film about beating people up. It’s about the spiritual transition which can be obtained through rigourous physical training. As such, it’s likely among the most accurate martial-arts films I’ve ever seen, in the sense of being true to the central ethos and overall philosophy. There’s no rival school with which to duel. No climactic tournament. The biggest battle Nicki faces is with her inner demons, in the form of her alcoholism. You have to respect the film-makers’ adherence to their core beliefs.

That said… There’s a reason why most films introduce such artificial conflicts. Because, truth be told, “real” martial arts is pretty damn dull, as a viewing experience to the casual spectator. As depicted here, it has about the entertainment quotient of watching aerobics. Matters are not helped by the way this seemed to finish after four episodes without any of the threads being satisfactorily resolved. It feels like more were needed to address the story-lines, and the result was unsatisfactory. I did enjoy the familial feel here: I’m guessing Nicki and Cliff genuinely are father and daughter, or something similar, and their relationship is convincing. However, that is not enough to overcome an underwhelming lack of dramatic structure, and unless you’re a karate student yourself, I can’t honestly recommend this.

Dir: Jessie Topsi
Star: Gabrielle Niebauer, Dan Niebauer, Paris Moletti, Heather Alexander

High Kick Angels

  By

★★★★
“Die Hard in a school.”

This was a rather pleasant surprise. I was expecting a pretty naff entity, more interested in titillation than anything else. I actually got a thoroughly entertaining 90 minutes, with considerably better martial arts than I predicted. Sure, the story – as the tag-line above suggests – is hardly original, and the performances are… well, let’s say variable, and leave it at that. Yet this overcomes its limitations with heart and energy. It takes place in a recently abandoned school where a film club have gained permission to make a movie starring Sakura (Miyahara) and Maki (Aono). Shooting of their zombie epic is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a gang of miscreants, led by J-Rose (Morishita). They’re looking for five USB drives hidden in the school, that combine to give access to money embezzled by a previous school head. They lock down the establishment, and won’t let five schoolgirls get in the way.

First off, it helps that at least three of them are genuine martial artists, with a solid background in karate. They’re not pin-up models given a bit of training, and the benefits are obvious. The director has a good handle on making the most of their talents, too. For example, Aono is tall and leggy, so her style involves copious amounts of kicks – including some which appear to border on the physically impossible. Miyahara may be the most well-rounded in terms of all skills including weapons, however. It’s just a shame the bad guys only have one person capable of going up against them in single combat. I was hoping J-Rose would prove a worthy opponent, yet that never happens. Her daughter, a vaguely Gogo Yubari knock-off, is set up as a bad ass; the skills just aren’t there. Instead, let’s praise the slew of faceless minions, who likely endure multiple beatings from the heroines, in a variety of hoodies, caps and masks to disguise their repeat appearances.

Speaking of the villains… what is up with their eyes? Of the three top baddies, two have bizarre make-up on just one eye, while J-Rose is sprouting the most extreme eyelash extensions I’ve ever seen. They’re bright blue. Yet despite my concerns – not least the Amazon Prime poster above – this is refreshingly non-exploitative. Yes, there are certainly panty flashes, yet these feel almost inevitable given the heroines’ costumes and their actions, and certainly don’t appear to be contrived in the service of fan service, as it were.  It’s a shame the film-within-the-film is all but forgotten by the end, save for Sakura’s efforts to channel her inner movie star. I was hoping this might end up being a karate version of the glorious One Cut of the Dead, blending reality and cinematic fantasy. Sadly, that’s not the case. Yet there’s still plenty here to appreciate and enjoy. The makers have made the most what they have, to the point where I was so busy being entertained, I even stopped noticing the limited resources to hand. Can’t ask for more than that.

Dir: Kazuhiro Yokoyama
Star: Kanon Miyahara, Kaede Aono, Chisato Morishita, Mayu Kawamoto

The Vengeful Beauty

  By

★★★½
“Beauty vs. the Beasts”

A court official is killed by the emperor’s minion, Jin Gang-feng (Lo), after discovering evidence linking the monarch to a recent slew of terrorist attacks involving the feared “flying guillotine”. His wife, Rong Qiu-yan (Ping), was out of the house at the time, and is forced to flee for her life. Jin knows that he can’t let the emperor know there was a survivor, and his hunt for her has to remain low-profile, so he sends his three children out after Qui-Yan. However, their target is a renowned martial artist in her own right, and is able to fend off their attacks, with the help of a student who learned under the same master,  Wang-jun (Yueh), and a former member of the flying guillotines, Ma Seng (Chu). Eventually, Jin decides that if a job’s worth doing, you need to do it yourself. Though there’s one further threat to Qiu-yan, coming from an unexpected quarter.

This all unfolds at a brisk pace over 80 minutes, with plenty of action – there’s a fight-scene about every 5-10 minutes. These are mostly pretty good, even if Chen is probably the least effective fighter on display here. Her background is more in adult fare than martial arts, and though she remains fully-dressed here, Jin’s daughter does do a bit of topless martial arts in pursuit of her target. So there’s that… The makers do a good job at disguising any shortcomings, and we also need to cut her character some slack, since she’s supposed to be several months pregnant! On that basis, any activity more energetic than sedately climbing a set of stairs should probably be admired.

Though despite the title, Qiu-yan is really not all that “vengeful”. Although she certainly kills a lot of people, they’re almost entirely dispatched in self-defense after they attack her, with Jin likely the only true qualifier in that category. The number and styles of weapons on view is impressive, each character having a favourite. Of course, the flying guillotine – which does what it sounds like it does – is a stand-out, but I also have to mention Ma’s ability with crockery, presumably a skill picked up during his time as an assassin for the emperor. I’m a bit surprised his character didn’t get a spin-off film, potentially entitled Master of the Flying Bowl Movement.

While there is at least one twist along the way, it ends up as you’d expect, with Qiu-yan facing off against the man responsible for the death of her husband. Though in another imaginative element, she has to find the right person to kill, first fighting her way through an army of doubles wearing Jin masks. This is the kind of element which sustains the film, even if the heroine’s fights are short of what the likes of Angela Mao were providing around the same time. It’s currently available on Amazon Prime in a nice, widescreen print that is definitely the way to go, and despite its age, offers a very acceptable amount of entertainment value.

Dir:  Meng Hua Ho
Star: Chen Ping, Norman Chui, Hua Yueh, Lieh Lo

Lady Detective Shadow

  By

★★★
“CSI: Shacheng”

The heroine of this period piece us Sima Feiyan (Shang), a roaming law officer, currently in the process of tracking down a gang of four criminals. She successfully nails three in the opening sequence, and tracks the fourth to the city of Shacheng. There, she meets up with old friend Wu Jing Ping (Qi) and his son, Jingbin (Zhang R.B.). She gets diverted by the case of a missing person, which takes to a nearby inn, where a host of suspicious figures are gathering. Turns out, there’s a lost city reported to be accessible only once every 49 years, and treasure hunters are gathering for the chase. Unsurprisingly, this ends up being connected to the missing person, the criminal she seeks and even the Wu family.

While more or less shamelessly lifting elements from sources as diverse as Sherlock Holmes, Dragon Inn and Indiana Jones, as well as the TV show noted above, this Chinese TV movie does so with enough energy and invention of its own to make for an entertaining time. Sima is rather like the great detective, though this “Sherlock” is rather more pugilistic than Conan Doyle’s version – or even Robert Downey’s! She is able to look at a scene and “see” in her mind how things rolled out – hence the CSI comparison – and is accompanied by a plucky (but less talented) sidekick, Ye Zi (Zhang P.Y), basically the Watson to her Holmes. There’s no shortage of action, save perhaps at the end, which was a bit disappointing. Much running around a trap-laden underground complex (coughTempleOfDoomcough!), but not the grandstand climax I wanted.

Up until then, however, it has been genuinely a good bit of fun. It takes a little bit of a while for the story to settle down, yet when it does, it’s a genre mash-up that provides decent value, despite the occasionally ropey bit of green-screen work. Shang has just the right approach to the role. She portrays Sima as possessing a calm demeanour, even when provoked, and as someone takes her job seriously; that makes the viewer take events seriously as well. It’s Ye Zi who generally provides the film’s lighter moments, and gets shunted off to one side for the climax. The action is not bad. It does suffer a little from the hyper-kinetic editing, yet is still capable of being followed. There’s enough invention that the viewer should be willing to cut it some slack, and there certainly no shortage, which helps.

It feels like the pilot episode for a TV series, and does a solid job of establishing the general situation and the characters. This kind of “historical crime investigator” seems to be a mini-trend in the Far East, with franchises such as Detective Dee in China, or the Korean Detective K. This is the first I’ve seen which goes with a woman, and while not perfect, it’s sprightly enough that I’d certainly be interested in seeing more of its heroine.

Dir: Si Shu-bu
Star: Shang Rong, Zhang Pei Yu, Qi Jingbin, Zhang Ren Bo

Firecracker

  By

★★★
“Less a damp squib than expected.”

Admittedly, I did have to pause this five minutes in, because I had a strong sense that I’d seen it before. Turns out that wasn’t the case, I was just confusing it with another Cirio Santiago movie. There are quite a few candidates, but I think it was most likely Angel Fist. For both films feature blonde Americans, going to the Philippines in search of an errant sister, and have a kung-fu scene in which the heroine’s clothing proves optional, if you know what I mean and I think you do. So confusion is understandable.

The heroine here is Susanne Carter (Kesner, who ended up becoming well-known as an Orson Welles historian!), whose sister has vanished after getting too close to a criminal gang run by Erik (Metcalfe). They are nothing if not broad in their empire, which as well as the usual drugs, prostitution and gambling, also include martial arts death matches, put on in what appears to be a supper club. Dinner and a show, as they say. This is convenient, since whaddya know, Susanne has a sixth dan black belt in such things. She uses her skills to impress Erik’s similarly kung-fu able henchman, Chuck Donner (Hinton) and get close to the operation, seeking the truth about her sibling’s fate. However, turns out there is already a police operation investigating the gang, and Susanne’s presence puts that undercover case at risk.

The martial arts here are… not great. Kesner just about reaches decent on occasion, although there seems to be clear doubling going on for the more athletic moments. However, the film certainly has no shortage of action, and some of the supporting cast are good enough that the film passes muster as overall entertainment. Easily the greatest sequence is the one where Susanne is pursued on her way home by two street thugs, and through a series of misadventures, her costume is steadily reduced, going from an evening dress and high heels to, by the end of the fight, just a pair of panties. I can honestly say I have never previously seen anyone’s bra be cut open with a scythe in the middle of a fight.

That sequence, along with the villain’s demise – bamboo stakes get shoved into both his eyes simultaneously! – and the quite glorious poster (click on the image to see it full size), are sufficient to make me willing to overlook most of the film’s obvious flaws. This is very much the kind of thing  meant, when people talk about the eighties being a golden age of action movies on VHS. This is certainly not a good movie, fun though it is to see the likes of Diaz – an almost ever-present sidekick, who was to the Philippino film industry, what Michael Ripper was to Hammer Films. Yet if I’d stumbled across this for one of my all-night video sessions during the decade, it would have left me thoroughly satisfied, having given me everything I was looking for.

Dir: Cirio H. Santiago
Star: Jillian Kesner, Darby Hinton, Ken Metcalfe, Vic Diaz