PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Blood Stained Tradewinds 1990

Blood Stained Tradewinds 1990 Written by Philip Cheng and directed by Yuen Chor. A Hong Kong gangster film with Waise Lee.

Waise is Hung and Alex Fong is Sing and members of a triad, the head of the group is Uncle Lung. He's getting old and his illness forces him to name a successor. He picks Sing but Sing refuses to be head of the gang. He's kicked out of the gang and he goes to work for a fireworks manufacturer. Hung gets the job and the hand of Uncle Lung's daughter Sophia.

Hung has trouble leading the gang because of his violent ways. Other members are unhappy with him. He's also got trouble with a Japanese yakuza gang. The Japanese kill Uncle Lung and kidnap Sophia. Sing has to return to the gang to help fight the yakuza. There's plenty of family drama and some gun battles.

It's an average film, nothing inspired going on here. I enjoyed parts of it but doubt I'll rewatch it in the future. It was Chor's last feature film as a director, he did keep on acting through 2002. I've seen him in a lot of films as an actor but not seen that many of his directed works. He started acting and directing in 1957. He was born in 1934 and died in 2022.

Bionic Ninja 1986

Bionic Ninja 1986 Written and directed by Godfrey Ho. A Hong Kong movie that uses scenes from the 1984 Hong Kong film The Daring Kung-Fu Refugee with some new footage.

KGB and CIA spies battle for a scientific discovery that could save or destroy the world. A Ninja organization has the secret, the CIA sends Agent Tommy to get the discovery back. There's some fighting but no bionic ninjas.

All in all a very poor film that I wouldn't watch again if you paid me. The producers even stole all the music from other films and TV shows. That's movie producers at their worst. They need a mighty punch in their gentleman's sausage from the flaming skull of Paul Naschy.

 

Friday Night Movies 1034

Rumpelstiltskin 1995 Written by Mark Jones and Joe Ruby, directed by Mark Jones. We watched the Terror Vision release. They have an annoyingly loud logo when you pop in the disc. Someone needs a shot of Paul Naschy's flaming skull drilled into their gentleman's sausage area.

The movie opens with a group of villagers chasing Rumpelstiltskin and burning him alive. He curses the villagers, he'll get his revenge in 1000 years. After the fire dies down all that's left of Rumpy is a stone image of him. It gets tossed in some water and we jump ahead 1000 years to Los Angeles.

A cop is killed on the job while his pregnant wife listens to the shooting on the phone. It was a badly written scene, the cop didn't even defend himself, the criminal managed to shot him 3 times before he fell over. The partner managed to shoot the criminal in the noggin. The partner disappears from the film.

Months pass and the baby is fairly big. The wife's friend takes her to a goofy antique shop where she buys the Rumpy lump. She takes it home and unknowingly activates the cursed stone. She had wished her husband would return to her, he does, next morning Rumpy shows up and wants the baby for it's soul. The wife manages to escape and the rest of the movie is her being chased by Rumpy looking to get that soul.

It's got a decent baddie but the script is poor and the actors so-so. It didn't do so well at the Box Office and the IMDb score is 4.7, I didn't think it was worth a 5. Writer director Mark Jones had written and directed the first Leprechaun movie. That was a better film. The only other movie I had seen of his was Triloquist and that was below average. Not one I need to buy for my collection.

The Shaolin Plot 1977 Based on a novel by Kuang Ni, screenplay and direction by Huang Feng. We watched the Arrow Blu-ray release. The movie was filmed in South Korea.

The baddie is collecting Shaolin martial arts books. The Shaolin monks aren't that interested in giving them up without a fight. Sammo Hung is one of the baddies. 

The production looks good with plenty of big sets and nice locations. There's plenty of fights and action but movie is rather slow at times. A good bit of trimming would have been appropriate. I enjoyed most of it but I was struggling to stay awake in the middle of it. I wasn't the only one. I'd still watch it again sometime but would FF during the dull bits. I hope to catch the commentaries at some point. I see they are the same ones as on the Eureka Release.

 

Friday Night Movies 1031

Doberman Cop 1977 Based on the Doberman Deka manga written by Buronson and illustrated by Shinji Hiramatsu, screenplay by Kōji Takada, directed by Kinji Fukasaku. A Japanese cop movie starring Sony Chiba as a small town cop from Ishigaki Island.

Sonny plays Kano, he's come to Shinjuku because of the local police think the burnt corpse in an apartment is possibly Yuna Tamashiro. Kano knows Yuna's mother, she's a noro, a priestesses of the Ryukyuan religion. The mother predicts Kano and Yuna will marry. The Shinjuku police make fun of Kano for being a bumpkin, he brought a pig to give to the chief of detectives as a gift. The pig was turned down so Kano has to schlep the critter around for the rest of the movie.

Kano gets some big time new headlines for rescuing a singer held hostage from an obsessive fan in her 20th floor apartment by rappelling down the side of the building and smashing through the window. Kano believes that the singer Miki might be Yuna but she says she's not. Her manager Hidemori is a yakuza who's also in love with Miki. Things get more and more complicated and violent as Kano bashes his way around town. When the police don't help him he takes some help from the biker who was the burnt woman's friend and his pals. Eventually Kano blasts the real killer.

It's a non-stop riot of color and noise. I though the movie should have been called Saidaigen no sakebi or Maximum Yelling. There's plenty of fights, gun battles and lots of yelling. Everyone is yelling all the time and the volume ramps up the more emotional they get. Bodies pile up and Kano is often responsible. I enjoyed the heck out of it and would watch it again.

Angel With The Iron Fists 1967 Written by Wei Shih and directed by Wei Lo. A Chinese action film with secret agents infiltrating a criminal gang called the Dark Angels.

Agent 009 works for the police, she's infiltrating the Dark Angels. She pretends to be rich and the girlfriend of Baldy, a big time criminal who's locked up. Baldy's gang is after her because she refuses to share a suitcase of cash with them. Agent 009 makes contact with a jeweler who's part of the DA. The DA are a ruthless gang, they like robbing and killing. Cross them and you're dead, try to leave the gang and you're dead.I suspect that's their retirement plan too.

They have a nice underground secret base, imagine something like a James Bond villain might have but cheaper and smaller. There's plenty of sneaking about, some murders, some fights and plenty of driving about in cars. Sadly the movie is too long and the action rather tame. Some of the fights are a bit embarrassing, arms flailing like a windmill of bones. Some of the score was entertaining, not the singing parts, they were way tedious.

I still enjoyed it, it was pretty darn funny, not on purpose for most of it. It's part of a three film Blu-ray set from Eureka, all the films are of the same sort, the other two films are The Golden Buddha and The Singing Thief. I hope to get to that fairly soon.

 

Friday Night Movies 1021

Future Cops 1993 Written and directed by Wong Jing. A Chinese action comedy that's loosely based on the game Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. It's not an authorized adaptation so they can't use the real character names. Wong had already adapted Street Fighter characters in the Jackie Chan film City Hunter. Wong directed that in 1993 along with 7 other films. He'd officially adapt the game in 1994 with the release of Street Fighter: The Ultimate Battle.

The movie starts in 2043, The General is trying to take over the world, the Future Cops are trying to stop him. The General's plan is to go back in time and kill the judge that's sentencing him in the future. The Future Cops use a time machine to go into the past to stop The General's gang members. Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung and Simon Yam are the Future Cops. Ken Lo plays The General, his minions are played by Ekin Cheng, Billy Chow and William Duen.

Back in 1993 the Future Cops contact Tai-hung, the future judge, and stay at the family house. Dicky Cheung plays Tai-hung, Chingmy Yau plays his sister Chun-may, Kingdom Yuen plays the mother Chun-doi and Richard Ng plays her boyfriend Uncle Richard.

Tai-hung gets picked on at school but the Future Cops help him out. There's a lot of stuff going on at the school and some of the gags are fun. Wong is the king of wacky comedy, often called Makes No Sense Comedy. His jokes aren't always funny, some go over my head because I don't get the gag, other are just plain dumb fart jokes and the like. The last half the movie is packed with action and huge set pieces. The sets take a beating as people smash through walls and ceilings. Eventually the baddies are defeated and things get back to normal.

I thought I might have seen this back in the 90s when there was a lot of Asian Martial Arts cinema happening locally. It turns out it was only 2014 when I saw it. It was Friday Night Movies 504 - 11-29-2014. I enjoyed most of the movie and might watch it again someday. 

The People's Joker 2023 Written by Vera Drew and Brit LeRose, directed by Vera Drew. An unofficial parody of The Joker and Batman comics.

It's a dystopian future and Batman is real, once he retired Gotham City has fallen into the control of the baddies. In Smallville Kansas a young boy wonders about his gender, he asks his mother if he was born in the wrong body. Mom's a high strung woman who shouldn't be raising plants. She sends him to Arkam Asylum for some therapy, Dr Crane prescribes Smylex, a vape that gives the user a forced smile and covers up some of the depression and anxiety.

Fifteen years later our young boy is calling herself Vera. She takes a chance and leaves for Gotham City to try to join the cast of UBC Live. It's a sketch comedy show with a program to create jokemen. She works with her favorite jokeman Ra's Al Ghul. Vera becomes a Jokeman because of her mostly male attributes. Sadly in the comedy world of the future, women are assigned to be nameless Harlequins to serve as dancers for the Jokemen. Vera starts her own anti-comedy troupe and takes the name Joker the Harlequin. She sets up in an abandoned theater. I did enjoy some of the stand up here though it's pretty hit or miss.

It's an interesting looking film with plenty of animation and special effects. The movie gets more and more complicated as more characters and concepts are introduced. I can't say I wholeheartedly enjoyed the movie. There were a few bits that made me laugh but many of jokes fall flat. It's not something I would watch again, not because it's bad, mostly because it's just a drama about someone struggling with life, drugs, gender and dating. I'm not really interested in the drama, something I triage from my viewing when possible. Life's too short to spend it watching miserable people telling me their troubles. I mean, who would want to hang out with the Kramers, not this fuckin' guy, I'll tell you that for free.

Friday Night Movies 1018

Corpse Mania 1981 Written by Chih-Hung Kuei and On Szeto, directed by Chih-Hung Kuei. A Chinese police procedural involving murder and necrophilia from the Shaw Brothers. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome release.

A couple of women are murdered and then raped. They remind the cops of an old crime from several years back, turns out the rapist murder has been released from the mental home a month ago. The story uses flashback to fill in the back story. Much of the story takes place at the local brothel or the police station.The killer picks off a few of the women at the brothel. Eventually the police have a suspect and work to track him down. 

It's an average police story with a bit of action and plenty of meal worms. The print looks nice and it's not as gory as you'd think. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would but not enough to buy a copy.

The Ghost Dance 1982 Written by Peter F Buffa and Robert Sutton, directed by Peter F Buffa. Another new release from Vinegar Syndrome. The Wikipedia says the film was the first slasher film to have Native American characters.

An archaeologist, Dr Foster, has excavated a Native American corpse. It turns out to cause all sorts of trouble. The local elders are upset about the desecration. The corpse was a shaman, his unearthing has given him the chance to possess the local shaman. He starts killing people around the university. Dr Foster fights him off with the help of her boyfriend. 

Sadly it's below average and rather dull at times. It's one I wouldn't need to buy for myself.

Friday Night Movies 1015

China O'Brien 1990 Story by Sandra Weintraub, screenplay and direction by Robert Clouse. We watched the Vinegar Syndrome 4K/Blu-ray set.

Cynthia Rothrock plays China O'Brien, she's a cop who quit the force after killing a kid who was threatening the police with a machine gun. She goes home to visit her father in a small town that's being taken over by a criminal gang. Her father is the sheriff and he's fighting a losing battle. After he's killed by the crooks China decides to run for sheriff. There's plenty of fighting, shooting and explosions as the criminals make their grab for the town.

Lucky for China and her new friends the criminals are pretty poor at that. Richard Norton and Keith Cooke are her new pals. They're both decent at martial arts, laying some beat downs on the baddies. Sadly most of the stunt men seem to struggle at lumbering. Back in the 90s when Jackie Chan was trying to gain a hold in the US market he complained that the US stunt men were way too slow. Jackie was throwing 2-3 punches before the US stuntmen could react. That's the problem here, the US stuntmen aren't up to her speed. China and her pals clean up the town with some dubious policing methods.

Golden Harvest backed the film despite it being set in Park City Utah, they wanted to help make Cynthia more famous in the US. I'm not sure how much it helped for the movie to go direct to video and not get played in theaters. I thought I had seen this before but it's not on my watched movie list. After seeing it I doubt I need to see it again.

My Grandfather Is A Vampire 1992 Written by Michael Heath and directed by David Blyth. A New Zealand film with Al Lewis as a vampire grandfather.

A kid travels from California to New Zealand to visit his grandpa only to find he's rather sickly. They have some adventures and a bit of fun but grandpa gets sicker and dies. Surprisingly grandpa rises from the dead and that causes a whole lot of trouble. It eventually get resolved and there's a sort of happy ending.

It's kind of amusing, Al Lewis is fun but over all it's only average. I'm not going to buy it, I doubt I'll have the time to watch it again.

Bloody Beast 1994

Bloody Beast 1994 Written by Jimmy Leung Chi-ming and directed by Richard Yeung Kuen. A Chinese movie about a serial killer psychopath. I'd first seen this movie back in 1997, it was on VHS and rented from one of the many Asian video stores in the area. I watched 2-300 films, I even copied some but I didn't keep the tapes when better copies came along on DVD.

A creepy guy stays home and cooks for his father and sister. He doesn't work, he spends his days mopping around the house or creeping about the small town. He spies on the local women and out of the blue he attacks a woman and her two children. He kills the kids and rapes the mother before killing here.

The rest of the movie is spent watching him murder more people and watching the poorly trained mainland police try to figure out who he is so they can arrest him. They do catch him, part of the movie is told in flashback as he confesses. Creepy guy keeps insisting that they kill him after he confesses and over the end credits you can hear a gunshot.

It's a bit below average, the creepy guy does well portraying a monster but he's no Simon Yam or Anthony Wong. The rest of the cast is fair for the most part. Nothing really exceptional or new. You can check it out on Dailymotion, link above. Not for everyone.

 

Angry Ranger 1991

Angry Ranger 1991 Written by Kam Cheong Chan and directed by Lung-Wei Wang. A Chinese action film produced by Jackie Chan with fight choreography by the Jackie Chan Stent Team.

Peter is home from a stint in prison for fighting. He finds some of the people he knew in the neighborhood are worse villains than they were before he went to prison. He shows interest in a lady who is the wife of a gang leader. Things head downhill after that.

Peter renews old acquaintances, his brother has a car repair shop, a younger friend has a magazine stand. Peter gets a job in a fish market but he can't stop crossing the local gangs in one way or another. Most of his activity leads to a fight, there's plenty of those.

Peter never seems to think he should leave that woman alone, she gets beaten repeatedly by her husband but she's too afraid to leave him. Peter's brother, his young friend and the fish shop owners are all beaten for knowing Peter, intimidation is a common thug practice. Things end with a big fiery battle and plenty of people are hurt and a few are on fire. There's a rather vague ending for Peter and the young woman either. They survive but the police show up just before the credits role. We never find out if he went to jail or was given a medal for burning up some criminals.

I liked the movie, it's got some good action and a bit of humor. It's a good reminder not to fight with gangsters, Peter just doesn't seem to be able to restrain himself. I do find it sad that the local police aren't ridding the streets of the gangster element. No one cares about the poor locals and I'm guessing gangster bribes are too good to give up.

Attack Of The Kung Fu Girls 1973

Attack Of The Kung Fu Girls 1973 Written and directed by Lo Wei. A Chinese film from Golden Harvest. Jackie Chan has a small part playing a Japanese bully.

Cheng Pei-pei pretends to be the long lost sister of a local army Captain so she can find out where the leader of the revolutionaries has been imprisoned. The revolutionaries want to stop Japan from influencing China in their favor. The Chinese President Yuan Shih Ka has let the Japanese become very influential in capital politics as well as on a local level. Because the Emperor likes the Japanese the locals can't say much against them. The revolutionaries spend the movie planning actions and mostly failing and dying.

 

There's a fair bit of action and plenty of dead guys to haul out of the movie. Jackie plays a Japanese guy who causes trouble in a Chinese restaurant. Cheng Pei-Pei beats him and his friends pretty well. They complain to the local Japanese Consul and that gets to the Army leaders. Cheng is told to apologize but gets out trouble when she claims to be the sister of Army Captain Lei. He takes her into his home along with her two friends, an older woman and a young boy. Both are also deep in the revolution, things don't go so well for them either.

 

The Japanese Consul is played by Jô Shishido, some might remember him as the gangster in Seijun Suzuki's Branded To Kill or the Mighty Joe films on MST3K.

It's an ultimately sad story about some revolutionists what come to a poor end. I was mostly interested in seeing it because it was one of the handful of Jackie Chan films I hadn't seen before. I downloaded it from RareLust, there's a really crappy copy on YouTube I wouldn't want to watch. There's a pricey DVD on Amazon that pairs this movie with Whiplash. I enjoyed the film and would watch it again sometime.