PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 975

The Young Master 1980 Written by Jackie Chan, Edward Tang, Lau Tin-chi and Tung Lu, directed by Jackie Chan. The second film directed by Jackie and the first at Golden Harvest. It's the 5th film in the Criterion set. The Blu-ray has the 106 min cut. Most of the previous US releases are of the 90 min international cut.

Jackie's brother Tiger is kicked out of kung fu school for cheating and Jackie goes after him. Tiger falls in with some scum who set him up during a robbery. Jackie has a series of adventures and fights that end with a big battle with the robber who set Tiger up.

There's all sorts of action, like a lion dance, and plenty of stunts and fights. Golden Harvest gave Jackie a good budget, nice sets and plenty of extras.

There's an info packed commentary by Frank Djeng.

My Lucky Stars 1985 Story by Lo Kin, Barry Wong and Cheuk-Hon Szeto, screenplay by Barry Wong, directed by Sammo Hung. The 6th and last film in the Criterion set.

Jackie is a cop called Muscles, he gathers his childhood friends to help him catch a yakuza crook in Japan. Sammo Hung plays Kidstuff, he's let out of jail to round up the old gang. They spend a good bit of time doing that. Eventually they meet up with the cop in charge of them. He's framed them with a bank robbery and forces them to work with Muscles. Sibelle Hu plays their handler Inspector Woo, she's nicked named Poison Ivy. They take a good long bit of the movie playing pranks on her. She should have punched them more.

There's a nice mix of goofy comedy and action. It's not all fighting, there's a nice car chase with a jump over a truck. There's not enough Jackie. He shows up at the start and then doesn't show up again for another hour. There's plenty of nice locations for the action. I especially liked the fight in the haunted house ride at the fairgrounds.

All the movies in the set look fine and there are some extras for most films.

Friday Night Movies 974

The Fearless Hyena 1979 Written and directed by Jackie Chan. The 3rd and 4th films in the Criterion Jackie Chan set.

Jackie plays Hing-lung, the lazy grandson of Pang-fei. They live in a small village. Hing-lung gambles and fights. Grandfather wants him to keep their fighting ability secret. When Hing-lung meets the sifu of the Everything Clan he's offered a job at the school. The sifu is looking for a new school name and Hing-lung suggests his fighting style, the exact thing that his grandfather warned against bandying about.

Of course, a baddie sees the name and tracks Pang-fei down. Hing-lung comes home to find his grandfather beaten to death. He has to go through the usual sort of training and fighting in order to defeat the baddie.

There's a fair bit of lowbrow comedy and slapstick going on. I got a few laughs but not that many. I did like the chopstick fight over lunch. I thought Jackie dressing up as a lady was some what amusing but didn't think that him dressing up as a cross-eyed handicap man is the sort of thing I want to see. The training sessions were lengthy as was the big fight at the end of the movie.

The only extra is a commentary by Frank Djeng. It was interesting and Frank spoke fast.

The Fearless Hyena II 1979 Written by Lo Wei and directed by Chuan Chen.

A not very funny auctioneer that had Jackie in it before he left Lo Wei  to go to Golden Harvest. After Jackie leaves, the film makers use Jacky Chung as a double. They use clips from The Fearless Hyena and Spiritual Kung-Fu.

No extras on this one. I know I'm be embarrassed to talk about it myself.

Friday Night Movies 973

Half A Loaf Of Kung Fu 1978 Written by Jackie Chan and Tang Ming-chi, directed  by Chen Chi-hwa. The first of 6 older Jackie Chan film in the new Criterion release Jackie Chan - Emergence Of A Superstar.

Jackie plays a guy called Jiang in this kung fu comedy/parody. Jiang fails to get a job as a bodyguard and takes a job as a handyman. He finds out quickly that the place is home to an evil witch. Of course, he peeks into her room, after people have told me to steer clear. He gets spotted by the witch and she wants him dead for interrupting her snake ceremony. Jiang manages to escape and goes on the run.

In the nearby woods, Jiang is witness to a fight between two kung fu masters. It's a fight to the death, in this case, both men die. Jiang takes on the identity of the good kung fu expert and takes the body of the bandit to the town council. There's a 500 tael reward. Jiang will get beat up by the sister of the good kung fu expert because his kung fu is pretty darn poor.

Jiang gets involved with some people who want to move goods from one town to another. Three groups of baddies, including the evil witch, team up to attack the caravan. They believe the rumors of a great kung fu treasure hidden in the chests. Many many die before good triumphs.

As a kung fu movie it's does fairly well, I'm just not as fond of the long drawn out fights and training sequences that were popular at the time. Things were improve in the 80s. As for the comedy part, some of the jokes work better for me than others. The comedy is pretty broad and there's plenty of slapstick and some fart jokes.

Casting Jackie in roles that might have gone to Bruce Lee or other more serious action characters just didn't gel with the audiences back then. Giving Jackie more control, first over the action and later the script, gave him a chance to find his style and the audience liked what they were seeing. In just a few years he was one of Asia's biggest movie stars.

FOUR-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 2K digital restorations of Spiritual Kung Fu, The Fearless Hyena, Fearless Hyena II, The Young Master, and My Lucky Stars and high-definition digital restoration of Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• Alternate stereo and 5.1 surround Cantonese soundtracks
• Classic English-dubbed tracks for Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, Spiritual Kung Fu, The Fearless Hyena, and Fearless Hyena II, plus an English-dubbed alternate track for Fearless Hyena II
• Contemporary English-dubbed tracks for The Young Master and My Lucky Stars
• New audio commentaries for The Fearless Hyena and The Young Master featuring Hong Kong cinema expert and producer Frank Djeng (Enter the Clones of Bruce)
• Interview with author Grady Hendrix (These Fists Break Bricks) about actor-director Jackie Chan
• Archival interviews with Chan, actor-director Sammo Hung, actors Michiko Nishiwaki and Hwang In-shik, and more
• The Young Master promo reel from the 1980 Cannes Film Festival and deleted scenes from the film
• Interview from 2005 with Hong Kong cinema critic Paul Fonoroff about producer-director Lo Wei
• NG shots from The Young Master and My Lucky Stars
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translations
• PLUS: An essay by Alex Pappademas
  
  New cover by Kyle Baker

I'm looking forward to the Frank Djeng commentaries. Frank was the guy behind Tai Seng Video back in the 90s. I rented 100s of their VHS tapes from the nearly dozen Asian rental companies scattered around the Twin Cities. The only thing about the set I wasn't impressed with were the Kyle Baker illustrations. He's got the action poses but fails in the face.

Spiritual Kung Fu 1978 Written by Pan Lei and directed by Lo Wei. The second film in the Criterion Box set.

A more traditional kung fu film produced under Lo Wei's own company. This film and Dragon Fist were temporarily shelved as Lo's company was running out of cash. Lo loaned Jackie out to Seasonal Films where he acted in Snake In The Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master. Both films were directed by Yuen Woo-ping. He'd go onto direct many big hits in the genre, including Magnificent Butcher, Dreadnaught, Iron Monkey, Tai Chi Master and Wing Chun. He was even more active as a fight and stunt choreographer. The popularity of the Season films were enough to convince Lo he should release the two films he had on hold. It wasn't enough to keep the company going and it folded soon after. Jackie signed on with Golden Harvest.

Jackie is a student at a Shaolin Temple. He's the guy who's always in trouble and not that good a fighter. The night he falls asleep on guard duty the temple is robbed and an old fighting manual is stolen. The techniques in the book are banned because they are so deadly. The only manual on how to fight those styles has been missing for 1oo years. Sad, where's your back up Shaolin monks?

Jackie is punished and has to guard the haunted library. Lucky for him a meteor shower releases 5 ghosts from the manual, The book has been hidden in a crack in the wall all this time. Jackie gets trained up by the ghosts and becomes a good fighter. He sets out to find the thief.

The action scenes are more interesting than a lot of the films of the time and despite it's more serious nature the gags are slightly better than the the previous film. Both were fun to watch and I'm looking forward to getting into the rest of the box set.

Friday Night Movies 972

The Rare Blue Apes Of Cannibal Isle 1975 Written by Donn Greer and Peter Scriven, directed by Donn Greer. It's part of the new 10 film box set Lost Picture Show from Vinegar Syndrome. Donn Greer was better known for some of his exploitation films. This was his 11th film. I've only seen one of his other works, the 1969 film Alice In Acidland.

A movie that seems heavily inspired by Sid and Marty Kroff's puppet shows. A kid chases after his duck and the kid's boat washes up on Cannibal Isle. The place is home to two types of creatures, a race of alligator pirates and a race of blue apes. The boy get caught by the pirates and escapes with their blue ape captive. They get chased to the ape half the island.

 

It's also a musical and they are some of the worst songs I've heard. They're rather lack luster and hardly anyone can sing. The boy has his adventure, the boss pirate gets blown up a bit, eventually the boy returns home with his duck. The boy's sister proceeds to step on the poor duck during the welcome home, the duck runs off, stage left.

They tout the film up on the VS promo material but its just a mild diversion that I might not ever watch again. I'm not that likely to order the set. I was the first person to vote for the movie on the IMDb. I gave it a 5 for sheer ludicrousness. It's not that good.

Bikini Drive-In 1995 Written and directed by Fred Olen Ray.

A young woman inherits a drive-in movie theater from her late uncle. Her boyfriend won't help her fix it up so she dumps him. Her best gal pal lends a hand and ropes in her boyfriend. The crew at the drive-in pitch in too. Joining that lot is the son of a local developer who's not that happy with his father. His old man, David F Friedman, wants to turn the drive-in into a big mall and apartment complex.

It's pretty dumb and not every well written. There's plenty of boobs to see but most of them are silicon. Everything works out well enough for the young woman, she even hooks up with the developer's son.

Like some of Fred's movies there's a stack of old stars on offer: Ross Hagen, Peter Spellos, David F Friedman, Conrad Brooks, Gordon Mitchell and Hoke Howell.

Another one that I wouldn't need to pick up.

Friday Night Movies 969

Arsène Lupin Vs Arsène Lupin 1962 Screenplay by Georges Neveux, François Chavane and Édouard Molinaro, directed by Édouard Molinaro. This is the third film in the Lupin collection from Kino Lorber. It's a good trio of films but the set lacks any interesting extras.

 

Poor André Laroche has died, there's a big funeral, attended by many. The local magistrates wife tells her son François that she had an affair with Laroche, the result was a son. She also drops the bombshell that Laroche was Arsène Lupin.

A lawyer asks François to stop by for a message from Laroche, when he does he finds out there's a second son and he's supposed to find him. The magistrate finds out François is a petty thief, stealing small items from the homes of people who have invited the family to visit. There's also a sub plot involving a cache of jewels belonging to the dethroned royal family of Poldavia. The two sons eventually meet and help out the Poldavians.

 

I thought it was pretty entertaining, there's action and danger, a bit of romance and a good amount of comedy. It's a nice trio of films that I know I will want to watch again sometime.

The 30 Foot Bride Of Candy Rock 1959 I watched this a few weeks back. Here's that post.

Friday Night Movies 968

Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis 1987 Based on the 1985 Hiroshi Aramata novel called Teito Monogatari, screenplay by Kaizo Hayashi, directed by Akio Jissoji. The novel was written in 10 parts over two years, two more parts were added in the following two years, the movie adapts the first third of the novel.

The movie is a retelling of Tokyo's history from 1912 to just after the 1923 earthquake but with the premise that the occult and demons are real. Tokyo is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in Japan. Living far below the city is the spirit Taira no Masakado. Supposedly it's a powerful being capable of destroying the city.

Kato wants to release Masakado and destroy Tokyo. He kidnaps a medium to communicate with the spirit. Other folks oppose him and try to stop waking up Masakado. They battle for a while, eventually the 1923 quake happens and the story ends around 1927.

I got most of that from the Wikipedia, the movie isn't very forthcoming with a lot of details. It's a complicated story with plenty of characters coming and going. I thought it a good looking movie but I thought the film makers valued style over story telling. They did a good job bringing the 1920s to life. I still enjoyed it for the most part but I doubt I'd rush to see it again. You can see it on YouTube.

Demon Of Paradise 1987 Written by Frederick Bailey and C J Santiago, directed by Cirio H Santiago. A New Horizon Pictures film that's set in Hawaii but filmed in the Philippines.

Some jerks are dynamite fishing, the explosions awaken an ancient monster that lives in the lake. The jerks are tossing lit sticks of dynamite into the lake when the monster attacks, he causes them to drop a lite bundle of dynamite sricks into the boat. The result blows the boat to smithereens killing at least a couple of the jerks. That was a decent explosion and the first warning against using dynamite in this nearly 90 min PSA on the dangers of mixing liquor, stupidity and explosives.

The local resort owner wants to exploit the monster, the local sheriff wants to evacuate the area, the local scientist wants to find the creature and capture it. The latter team up to try to fight the beast. The sheriff and the scientist have to fight another beast when they want to close the resort for the safety of the tourists. The resort owner goes full on asshole to stay open. It's very Jaws meets The Creature From The Black Lagoon but without the charm of either of those films. More people get killed, two more boats get blown up and the tourists run away. The police fight the monster with bullets and dynamite and barely survive.

There is some nice scenery but many other parts of the film don't rise to the same level. The script is poor as are the actors. The cinematography is fairly good and so is the monster makeup. The music was a bit of a mixed bag, some bits better than others. I enjoyed it somewhat but it's still below average. I'm not likely to watch it again. There's a decent copy of the movie on YouTube that you can watch if you want.

Friday Night Movies 967

Signed, Arsene Lupin 1959 Written by Diego Fabbri, Maurice LeBlanc, Jean-Paul Rapperneau and Yves Robert, directed by Yves Robert.

 

That's the Kino Lorber 3 film Blu-ray collection. They used the French poster from this movie on the case, it's a much more interesting bit of artwork than the poster for the first film.

It's just after the end of WWI and Lupin is resting in a convalescent home in the French countryside. His old accomplice La Ballu comes by to see if he's interested in robbing a nice villa on an island. Lupin goes along and La Ballu sets him up for the police to capture. Lupin manages to escape but not before noticing that La Ballu has stolen a painting.

The painting is part of a triptych, when arranged in a certain way the paintings are clues to a treasure buried on the grounds of the house. La Ballu gets the second painting but the third is stolen before he gets to the museum. Having some good luck Lupin manages to steal the third from the boss of the gang. They join forces, Lupin robs the boss blind and then skedaddles. 

Like the first film there's a nice caper and a good sense of humor. The film looks fine. I enjoyed it and would watch it again someday.

Haunted Samurai 1970 Based on the manga of Goseki Kojima, screenplay by Kiyoshi Hoshikawa, directed by Keiichi Ozawa. Goseki is the artist for the Lone Wolf And Cub manga.

Rokuheita is a samurai working for the Yagyu clan. He decides to give up his enforcing job and lets two innocent people the clan wanted dead go free. The Yagyu ninjas show up pretty quickly to kill him for deserting. There's plenty of chasing about and sword play.

There are a couple of sub plots going on and plenty to keep track of. Rokuheita hides in a small village and takes up farming. He finds to local warlord a brutal murderous man. He sides with the villagers to fight the warlord. The Yagyu ninjas find him and complicate things.

All in all a good solid film with a decent story and characters. There's a bit of humor, a bit of sadness, plenty of fights and topless lady ninjas. There's even a fight underwater, with topless ninja ladies. I'd watch it again sometime.

Friday Night Movies 966

Visitors From The Arkana Galaxy 1981 Written by Miloš Macourek and Dušan Vukotić, directed by Dušan Vukotić. A Yugoslav-Czechoslovak comedic SF production.

That's Andra, Robert and Bibi, Andra is an alien, Robert is a hotel clerk and budding SF writer, Bibi is his girlfriend. Robert neglects Bibi to work on his book. From what we can see he's a poor writer and Bibi's frustrated with him. Unbeknownst to Robert he has the power to create stuff with his mind. The act of writing his book brings the aliens  to life and they come to visit him. Things get worse when Andra and her two children turn up.

 

The alien visit causes havoc in Robert's life, especially when the local citizens learn about them. Things get better when Robert mans up a bit. Weird things happen through out the movie. There's even a monster that kills people. There's some special effects that were about average for the time and place.

I enjoyed it and would watch it again sometime. Not sure I would buy the Blu-ray.

Babylon 5: The Road Home 2023 Screenplay by J Michael Straczynski and directed by Matt Peters. An animated film set in the Babylon 5 universe.

John Sheridan has become the President of the Interstellar Alliance and has moved to Minbar. The opening of a new power station that uses tachyons sends him on a journey through time and space. He visits with various people in his life and some in alternate universes. Some of them help him figure out what's going on and how to get back to his time and place.

I would have preferred more of a story. I thought it was a bit like an intro for people who hadn't seen the series before, it could be used as the pilot for an animated series. I wasn't that keen on the character design but I got used to it. I'd like to see new B5 material.

The Blu-ray has a commentary with J Michael and Bruce Boxleitner and a featurette. I hope to get to those soon.

Friday Night Movies 965

House Of Terrors 1965 Written by Hajime Takaiwa and directed by Hajime Satô. A Japanese ghost story. We watched the Mondo Macabro Blu-ray, it looked very nice. There's a tiny copy on YouTube that's dubbed into Italian, with English subtitles, that's a bit shorter than the Blu-ray. A Japanese version is available on Rarelust but I haven't looked at it to see what it's like.

After the death of Yoshie's husband Chonin she finds out he has another house, known as Satan's Pit, that wasn't mentioned in his will. It's a Western style house on a large plot of land in the countryside. Chonin had bought it about a month before he had an incident that left him crazy and under the care of his doctor and father Keisuke.

Yoshie travels to the house and meets the hunchback caretaker, played by Kô Nishimura whom some might remember from the many films he's made, like Yojimbo, Gorath, The Bad Sleep Well, Bushido and The Sword Of Doom. He also starred as the lead character in the Honzo The Razor trilogy.

Yoshie's joined a bit later by Keisuke, his assistant Takashi and Takashi's girlfriend. The house proves to be pretty haunted, with strange noises and physical manifestations like opening and closing doors. Chonin's mistress turns up looking for a bit of cash and a Medium stops by to tell them that the place is haunted. The mistress gets murdered instead and the Medium gets possessed for her trouble. The house slowly picks off the visitors. You'll have to watch the movie to see who survives.

It's a nice moody ghost story that very much reminded me of the Robert Wise film The Haunting. I enjoyed it and would watch it again sometime.

The Adventures Of Arsène Lupin 1957 Based on the novel by Maurice Leblanc, screenplay by Jacques Becker and Albert Simonin, directed by Jacques Becker. A French film from a three film Blu-ray collection of Lupin films from Kino Lorber.

Lupin robs a rich guy of a couple of valuable sketches, robs a jeweler of a nice lot of diamond jewelry and steals a million Marks from Kaiser Wilhelm II. He nearly gets caught by a manicurist but manages to wriggle free to continue his crime spree.

It's all rather lighthearted and amusing, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'd watch it again and I'm looking forward to seeing the other two films in the set. Glad I picked it up.

Friday Night Movies 964

Castle Of The Creeping Flesh 1968 Written by Adrian Hoven and Eric Martin Schnitzler with an uncredited Jesús Franco, directed by Adrian Hoven. A West German film called Im Schloß der blutigen Begierde. We watched the Severin Blu-ray which looked fine.

A Baron hosts some people at his castle. They ride in the woods. A woman falls while riding alone and is found by a servant of the Count. It's set in modern day but the Count decorates his house like he's in living a couple of hundred years in the past. The Baron and his guests visit the Count and he couldn't be happier.

The Count just happens to need some body parts for the experimentation he's conducting. He's trying to restore his just murdered daughter back to life with those body parts. He's successful but the organ donor dies. It's a common enough sort of plot device but the movie ruins it for me with scene after scene of some sort of open heart surgery. We were thinking that it might have been a pig that was being operated on. It didn't seem like a human operation. Some of that got fast forwarded through, not something that happens very often.

On average the story is barely average and with all the surgery stuff, I sure wouldn't bother seeing  it again.

The Tale Of Tsar Saltan 1967 Based on an 1831 story by Alexander Pushkin, screenplay by Aleksandr Ptushko and Igor Gelein, directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. A Russian film by the same director who directed Sadko and Sampo.

The Tsar marries a young woman and her mother and two sisters are upset. The young woman goes to live with the Tsar and the mother comes along. The Tsar offers the sisters jobs and they come live in the castle. The Tsar goes off to war. Mom and the sisters scheme against the young woman, they kidnap her and her just born son, seal them in a barrel and throw them into the sea.

The young woman and son wash up on the shore of a small island, he rescues a swan who turns out to be an enchanted princess. She magics up a city and makes the son a Prince. Eventually the Tsar comes to visit and finds his wife. The mom and sisters aren't punished enough for my liking.

It was interesting enough but not as entertaining as Sampo and Sadko. I enjoyed it but wouldn't need to pick up a copy for myself.