Tag Archives: Hong Kong

2024 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: AND THE REST, PART TWO & ONE-HALF

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Montréal 2024

Testing has confirmed that my Fantasia press badge does not, in fact, open up my hotel room door.

8/1: “Lantern Blade”; Episodes 1-3

Stop-motion? Wuxia? Eldritch? Yes, yes, and, oh yes. Ziqi Zhu and his team at Tianjin Niceboat Animation tell a fast-paced story with action, comedy, and mystery. Powerful factions collide in pursuit of an ancient force and the power it holds. An undead Samurai protects a catalyst for peace or destruction, embodied by the Bride who somehow survived her wedding massacre. Also enter: the Hoof gang; a trio of specialized warriors under the command of an unlikely leader; and a mysterious stone carver, hiding in a ramshackle temple. Ziqi Zhu demonstrates a clear sense of action in the many fight-scenes-in-Recommendedminiature. Recommended for any lover of genres listed above.

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In

One of the more violence-filled of the many violence pictures I’ve enjoyed over the festival, Soi Cheang’s Twilight Warriors takes advantage of its locale for many compelling martial arts set-pieces. The action unfolds in Kowloon Walled City, a derelict cluster of city blocks ungoverned by the municipal authority. Instead, it is the turf of master fighter—and capable barber—Cyclone, who oversees this sanctuary of sorts after winning control during a gang war some decades prior. The uneasy peace between the Walled City and a rival gang (headed, of course, by “Mr. Big”) begins to rupture when an illegal migrant seeks refuge within its walls after a boxing match gone sour. There are so many breath-taking fights to witness, with an upward trajectory of epic intensity. That makes sense, though, as Twilight of the Warriors is not only a Recommendedstory of legends, but features a number of Hong Kong’s silver-screen legends of the genre.

8/2: Azrael

E.L. Katz, you very nearly lost me. Thank goodness Azrael ended on a cute & horrible reveal after an hour and a half of action that managed to be both interesting and a bit tedious. Azrael Continue reading 2024 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: AND THE REST, PART TWO & ONE-HALF

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: TAOISM DRUNKARD [GUI MA TIAN SHI] (1984)

aka Drunken Wu Tang, Miracle Fighters 3

DIRECTED BY: Yuen Cheung-Yan 

FEATURING: Yuen Cheung-Yan, Yuen Yat-Chor, Yuen Shun-Yi

PLOT: A bucktoothed alcoholic beggar is ordered by his brother, a temple priest, to round up a group of virginal young men to defend against a powerful villain with supernatural abilities.

Still from Taoism Drunkard (1984)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: The Chinese martial arts genre is rife with insanity, but even by those lofty standards, Taoism Drunkard is pretty zany. No character behaves with any respect to reality as we might know it, factors such as physics are disregarded at will, and the whole film is laced with an undercurrent of naughtiness. It’s consistently unexpected. 

COMMENTS: Taoism Drunkard follows multiple traditions at once. It is, of course, a martial arts film. It also joins the ranks of films utilizing the techniques of drunken boxing, the fighting style that mimics the movements of an intoxicated person to make every contact seem surprising and impactful. In particular, it carries on the tradition of Yuen Clan, the filmed output of actor Yuen Siu-Tien (who played Jackie Chan’s sensei in Drunken Master) and six of his children, including the legendary martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping. And significantly, it’s the third and final entry in the Miracle Fighters series, which gave the Yuen brothers a chance to perfect their blend of fighting, magical elements, and twisted comedy. It’s a lot to live up to, which maybe is why Drunken Taoism is so strenuous in its wildness; it’s almost desperate to stand out amongst so much product, so much tradition. 

Taoism Drunkard has only three of the brothers, but each play their appointed roles, like Chinese Marx Brothers (they even do the famous mirror routine). Cheung-Yan (wearing an absurd pair of buckteeth and pedaling around in his own rat car) is the perpetually inebriated screwup whose drinking fuels his fighting skill. Yat-Chor is practically the straight man as the immature but serious-minded love interest constantly struggling to impress his grandmother. (In drag, Cheung-Yan conveys considerably more dignity in that role.) And then there’s Shun-Yi, gloriously over-the-top as the malevolent Old Devil who exists only to fight and cackle maniacally. If you’ve seen any of their other films (particularly this one’s predecessor, Shaolin Drunkard), then you’ll feel right at home with these cartoonish characters. 

It’s where they put them that makes the difference. On the one hand, the brothers engage in fight scenes with extraordinary combinations of action and imagination. Characters fly, spin through the air like a corkscrewing missile, run up walls, and hurl objects that seem to have minds of their own. (One of the few women not treated as a joke is so skilled at combat that she can use the sleeves of her gown as weapons.) The fight scenes are like glorious dance numbers, casting realism aside, joyful in their inventiveness.

The counterpart to this breathtaking stuntwork is the dumbest of dumb comedy. Everyone behaves with an indignity that Benny Hill would find embarrassing. Fat jokes, shrewish women jokes, drunk jokes, jokes about butts and groins and boobs, a joke with very lengthy setup about drinking urine, and one joke of the literal “g-g-g-ghost” variety. Consider a funeral in which the reanimated corpse interrupts both a graverobber’s attempt to steal his golden upper plate and his widow’s intended assignation with another mourner. Or a confrontation on the street that is suddenly accompanied by a snippet of Howard Jones’ “New Song”, which is the only thing that plants the film in its time. (The 1984 production date is nothing short of astonishing; the ancient-looking film stock and even creakier misogynist mindset seem a decade older at least.)  As though made by 14-year-olds for 12-year-olds, it’s comedy of the most infantile strain, and staging it directly alongside the ridiculous-but-serious fight scenes creates a startling contrast.

Perhaps nothing captures the spirit of Taoism Drunkard better than the craziest thing in it. Yat-Chor’s wise grandmother has created a kind of automaton fighting machine to defend the plot’s MacGuffin, and seeing it in action is unforgettable. The original subtitled release calls it the Banana Monster (a reference to its preferred target, its opponent’s genitals), while the English dub refers to it as the Watermelon Monster (due to its appearance). Whatever you call it hardly matters in the face of what it does. This smooth-skinned, razor-toothed Q*bert speaks in a childish voice, jumps about the room like a rabid frog, deploys spring-loaded satellite dishes that can only be called breast detectors, and snaps hungrily until it finally rolls back into its box. It provokes laughter the moment you see it, and yet the Old Devil’s fear of it is entirely appropriate. It’s utterly absurd, yet believably dangerous. It’s the film in a nutshell — or possibly a watermelon rind.

There’s a reliable streak of weirdness in the martial arts genre, but Taoism Drunkard stands out through its willingness to go bigger, to be sillier and more gross, and to push the boundaries of what makes for a compelling showdown. It has done its legacy proud, and possibly done it one better.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

Taoism Drunkard is, dare we suggest it, their weirdest movie ever. A weird, wiggy explosion of talent and surreal brio….” – Subway Cinema

OTHER LINK OF INTEREST:

WriteUps – Banana monster aka Watermelon monster – This character page for the Banana Monster is useful for all your RPG needs.

(This movie was nominated for review by TheMooCow, who got sick of waiting for us to review it and reviewed it themselves in 2022. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

CAPSULE: ZU: WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1983)

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Yuen Biao, Adam Cheung, Damian Lau, Mang Hoi, Moon Lee, , Sammo Hung

PLOT: In the midst of a civil war, soldier Dik Ming-kei (Yuen Biao) is threatened by generals who want him to follow contradictory orders, and whose solution is to sentence him to death. He deserts and falls in with Master Ding Yan (Adam Cheung) who saves him from supernatural forces. Dik wants to be Ding’s pupil, but Ding isn’t interested; an attack by the Blood Devil and his disciples brings in Master Hsiou You (Damian Lau) and his acolyte Yi Chen (Mang Hoi), but Hsiou doesn’t like Ding and can’t work with him to defeat the Blood Devil. Therefore, Dik and Yi team up after both Masters are poisoned by the Blood Devil and Ding succumbs to the Dark Forces.

Still from Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983)

COMMENTS: 2001: A Space Odyssey lit the fuse for cosmic films where special effects took center stage. Star Wars was the inevitable explosion of the trend. The 80s were a time when technology supported genre-based projects, doing what couldn’t be done before, supported by young directors and technicians who were hungry to show their stuff. That’s why some now consider it to be a golden age of genre film. That spirit wasn’t just limited to films made in the West, as Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain shows.

Calling Zu the “Star Wars of Chinese cinema” is dead on. Tsui Hark may not be George Lucas (thankfully), but he was a film-school brat like Lucas and had previous feature experience: Zu was Hark’s fifth feature, Star Wars Lucas’ third. Both took material that they loved from their childhoods and upgraded/synthesized it for a contemporary audience: Lucas from “Flash Gordon” and other serials, Hark from historical fantasy (“Legend of the Swordsmen of the Mountains of Shu“) and Chinese action films. Hark also imported special effects people from America to assist the production, names familiar to effects geeks who grew up on those post-Star Wars films: Robert Blalack (Altered States, Robocop), VCE Film’s Peter Kuran (Conan the Barbarian, Dragonslayer), Chris Casady (Airplane!, The Empire Strikes Back). (All of them also worked on the original Star Wars.) Like Star Wars, Zu kicked off a huge change in the local film industry. It practically was the flash point for the fertile late phase of the Hong Kong New Wave.

Unless you were a major fan of kung-fu films, often watching 5th generation VHS dubs, most audiences in the U.S. got introduced to this kind of material via Big Trouble in Little China—and most audiences at the time weren’t ready for that. As good as China is, compared to Zu, it’s methadone vs. pure uncut, mainlined heroin. Watching Zu 40 years after it came onto the scene was exhausting—but in a good way. It’s almost non-stop set piece after set-piece, but it does take time to breathe. And while Star Wars only offers brainless entertainment, Zu gives the viewer plenty to chew over along with all the eye-candy action. At the start, Dik is either threatened by those in authority or is dismissed by those who have the power to help and refuse to. It’s when the establishment figures fail that Dik and his allies step up and take control to defeat the evil: “woke” way before woke became a thing.

Eureka Video issued a Region B Blu-ray of Zu in 2020. This year, Shout! Factory brings out a Region A release that ports over quite a bit from the Eureka release and adds some new features. Returning is the 2K restoration with a commentary on selected scenes from Tony Rayns. There’s also the alternate “Export Cut,” Zu: Time Warrior. This English-dubbed version adds a framing story set in Hong Kong that sets things up as a variation of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”; it’s notable mainly as a reminder of garish 80s sweater fashions. Also ported are interviews with actors Yuen Biao, Moon Lee and Mang Hoi from 2002, and an hour long interview with Hark from 2020.

New to the Shout Factory package is a feature length commentary by Gilbert Po and Sean Tierney (a fun listen), two featurettes with academics Victor Fan and Lin Feng, and an interview with Peter Kuran, visual effects consultant.

 

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Shedding the veil of heightened reality to get to the weird, nutty centre underneath serves this martial arts fantasy incredibly well. The madcap silliness of each new character and scenario is liberally slathered with tongue-in-cheek humour that is executed as rapid-fire as the narrative itself.”–Daryl Bär, Battle Royale with Cheese [Eureka Blu-ray]

CAPSULE: DUMPLINGS (2004)

餃子]/Jiao Zi

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DIRECTED BY: Fruit Chan

FEATURING: Miriam Yeung, Bai Ling, Tony Ka-Fai Leung, Meme

PLOT: An aging woman, eager to recapture her lost youth and the attentions of her wayward husband, patronizes a local maker of dumplings whose creations reverse the ravages of time; however, what she learns about how the dumplings are made force her to confront her own desires and tolerances.

Still from Dumplings (2004)

COMMENTS: The big twist is fully revealed exactly halfway through Dumplings, but in truth, we’ve known what was going on all along. Aunt Mei makes dumplings that restore youth thanks to a special ingredient. Mei’s current client, the former TV actress Mrs. Li, is eager for a therapy that will bring about the return of her youthful beauty quickly, to which Mei replies that the best ingredients are hard to come by. We learn that Aunt Mei used to be a doctor, and on her occasional visits to a local hospital to get illicit supplies, she discusses the ramifications of China’s one-child policy and the procedure some have used to bypass it. Meanwhile, a neighbor has brought her pregnant daughter to Aunt Mei for “help.” You’re with me here, right? There’s not really any mystery about what’s in the dumplings, is there?

Director Fruit Chan is a great deal more artful than that, of course. The camera lavishly chronicles the cooking process with loving attention, in the manner of Babette’s Feast or Big Night, so that you might be lulled into thinking you were watching Hong Kong’s answer to Chocolat. All the while, he is careful to avoid featuring anything too gory until the key moment, even if there are suggestions of something untoward throughout. (A special shout-out is owed to sound designer Kinson Tsang, who helps bring the horror by delivering the alluring, disgusting power of every slurp, chop, and bloody plop.) But there’s no getting past the litany of taboos that Dumplings confronts. Pretty it up all you like, but eventually, you’re going to have to face the facts about what’s in your food.

The film is an expansion of Chan’s segment from the horror anthology Three… Extremes, but at 90 minutes it remains taut and effective. The film is buoyed by the pair of stellar performances at its core. Bai Ling cavorts around her kitchen like a mischievous wood nymph, singing and spinning around confidently like a water strider; an Act 3 monologue extolling the virtues of anthropophagy frames her actions as virtually righteous. Meanwhile, Miriam Yeung is the very model of prim propriety pushed to its limits. No Death Becomes Her transformations here; you never once believe she is old or has lost any of her beauty (Yeung is stunning throughout), but you can be certain of her own perception of her failings, and they underline her commitment to the course of action that leads to her ultimate fate.

Dumplings is weird by virtue of its off-limits subject matter, but curiously not weird thanks to its earnest and forthright exploration of said material. A couple key subplots, such as the fate of Mei’s unlucky neighbor or a confrontation between the chef and Mrs. Li’s philandering husband, hint at a greater reckoning that never really arrives. Instead, Dumplings is a sober meditation on what we’re willing to do to get what we think is justly owed to us. No fortune cookie here, but instead this admonition: It’s not what we eat but what we choose to eat that makes us who we are.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Jiao Zi is a never ending cycle of absurdity leading to comedy leading to absurd reactions leading to more horror… the surreal way in which the horror and comedy of Jiao Zi was implemented ending up being too alluring for me to ignore.” – Bill Thompson, Bill’s Movie Emporium

(This movie was nominated for review by Ed. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: RIKI-OH: THE STORY OF RICKY (1991)

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DIRECTED BY: Ngai Choi Lam

FEATURING: Siu-Wong Fan, Mei Sheng Fan, Ka-Kui Ho, Yukari Ôshima

PLOT: While in prison for murdering a gang of drug peddlers, Ricky defies the tyrannical authorities as he pursues his freedom.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA LIST: I’ll get to that; let me gather my severed thoughts first.

COMMENTS: For those hand-wringing types out there, the future will always be filled with violence, drug use, and bizarre minor-coding. Everyone else, take some comfort: this future is already past. Among the details I only gleaned after the fact, Riki-Oh takes place in 2001, in a world where prisons are privatized, and the preponderance of superhuman resilience leaves contemporary (whether now or at the film’s release) witnesses agog. The enthusiasm behind its narrative ambiguity is the very same which renders what could have been a joyless scrap of torture porn into an eminently silly (and occasionally giddy) ride through a dozen-odd stations of the cross, with Ricky as the unflappable messiah preaching justice, hope, and ultra-violence.

Wrongful imprisonment is a well-worn trope, but Riki-Oh demonstrates individuality the moment its hero is processed for triple murder. After some bureaucrats read his sentence, he passes through a metal detector, immediately setting it off. Manhandling Ricky to a nearby x-ray machine, guards discover the alarm was triggered not by weapons, but by five bullets lodged in the murderer’s chest. When asked why they remain, Ricky answers, in his petulantly bad-ass tone, “I wanted a souvenir.”

Riki-Oh has all the finely chopped ingredients for a z-grade gore-house martial arts revengeance nonsense: an evil warden and his flunky, abusive guards, shower fights, yard fights, crack-thwack sound effects, and gallons of blood. But three factors prevent this film from being tossed aside as derivative. First: the tiny oddities that gather to the point of toppling into fully fledged weird. The assistant warden is missing a hand—a cutesy touch, in its way. But in the next shot, what’s this? Why, he’s missing an eye, too. And he drinks from the cup where he stores the glass prosthetic. And, since it’s hollow, this is where he keeps his mints. Not to mention his flanking lapel scorpion cameos, or the tall shelf of pornography behind his work desk that is never mentioned. The second touch brings Riki-Oh more assuredly onto weirder ground: a twist in the final fifteen minutes reveals the evil warden’s backstory, without any hint of reason. I won’t give it away, but it does explain why the bastard is so nonchalant when staring down the prisoner who has dispatched countless prisoners and other goons.

And the third thing. Brief research clarified that Riki-Oh is closely adapted from a manga (no surprises here), and it may be simply mirroring themes from that source. However, the ardor of its twin social justice philosophies manages to outdo its over-the-top violence. Oddly for a martial arts blood piece, it has something to say about the societal evil of drug dealers (with sympathy for users), and has a whole lot to say about treating prisoners humanely. In its way, Riki-Oh advocates for penal rights as fervently as Nagisa Ôshima‘s Death By Hanging did—but instead of ratcheting up sociopolitical surreality into an absurdist climax, Riki-Oh climaxes with the warden ground up into a couple hundred pounds of hamburger. That said, perhaps they’re more alike than I had thought.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…be warned: if blood and guts are not your thing, then avoid this film like ebola – for they do not come thicker, weirder or funnier than here… While not for the squeamish, this film is a cult classic – fast, silly, jaw-droppingly outrageous, and a true original, unlike anything else you will ever have seen.”–Anton Bitel, Projected Figures (DVD)

(This movie was nominated for review by “Horst,” who called it “An absolute must-see, really weird.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)