Through the Looking Glass with Pearl Cheung Ling – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 13
Two Pearls for Part 2!
As usual, we got so many listening choices that even someone who randomly transforms into white haired crazy woman can find a way: downloadable mp3, embedded flash with slideshow, embedded audio player, and iTunes feed link. So many choices, you’ll run away in terror to save your baby!
Download the mp3 (right click, save as)
Watch in slideshow form:
Subscribe to the Infernal Brains on YouTube!
DurianDave returns again in cat form!
SoftFilm
SoftTofu
Fuck yeah, Pearl Chang!
Films Discussed:
My Blade, My Life – Todd Review
Miraculous Flower / Phoenix The Ninja – Tars Review – Todd Review
Matching Escort / Fury of the Silver Fox – Tars Review – Todd Review
Wolf Devil Woman – Todd Review
Dark Lady of Kung Fu – Tars Review – Todd Review
General Invincible – Todd Review
Click the graphic for Podcast Feed:
Prior Infernal Brains:
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 1
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 2
Polly Shang Kuan
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 1
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 2
Dara Singh
Infernal Brains Podcast – 07 – Insee Daeng
Infernal Brains Podcast – 08 – Worst Podcast Ever
The Mummies of Guanajuato – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 09
Jane Bond – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 10
Daigoro vs Goliath – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 11
Down the Rabbit Hole with Pearl Cheung Ling – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 12
Through the Looking Glass with Pearl Cheung Ling – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 13 [ 1:13:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1233)Categories: Movie Reviews, Podcasts Tags: Infernal Brains, Pearl Cheung Ling, Podcast, Taiwan
Miraculous Flower (Review)
Miraculous Flower
aka Phoenix The Ninja aka 蓋世奇花 aka Wolf Devil Woman 3 aka Gai shi ji hua
1981
Script by Godfrey Ho Jeung-Keung
Story by Pearl Cheung Ling
Directed by Fong Ho
It’s Pearl Cheung Ling Time! Another classic Pearl Cheung Ling martial arts cinema masterpiece gets its due. Miraculous Flower (possibly better known as Phoenix The Ninja, as that’s the name I knew it as for years!) is a great piece of cinema that stands on the edge of Pearl-insanity and classic wuxia revenge. Filled with kooky characters, varied and elaborate environments, and plenty of gory action, Miraculous Flower pulls out all the stops and succeeds in being entertaining and fun.
This is her first film where Pearl is actively involved in the narrative construction beyond just a producer role. And while she did come up with the story, it’s obvious that they needed to follow a more traditional kung fu revenge narrative. While it still walks the edge of the volcano, there are moments where things go a bit wild. It is probably safe to say some of the smaller quirks are also Pearl’s doing, and things were added to tailor to her interests. When Pearl is dressed in the all black revenge costume and swooping around like an angel of death, that’s pretty much pure Pearl Cheung Ling. Her transformation sequence in Matching Escort involves her donning a full white costume, while in Wolf Devil Woman the entire character changes constantly through the film. Dark Lady of Kung Fu deals with this by having Pearl’s character having two separate identities. By the time of her final film General Invincible, the Pearl character is torn between two worlds and duty and honor from those worlds, and the consequences thereof.
For more Pearl Cheung Ling background, be sure to check out the Infernal Brains Podcasts on her (Part 1 is here, Part 2 is upcoming!) and check out the other Pearl reviews up – Matching Escort and Dark Lady of Kung Fu.
As we noted before, Matching Escort was retitled during a released as Wolf Devil Woman 2, and Miraculous Flower was retitled Wolf Devil Woman 3, despite being made before either of the other two films! I have two versions of Miraculous Flower, the Hong Kong release that features all the gore but is missing some scenes in the beginning featuring the Happy Fairy, and the international IFD retitle Phoenix the Ninja that has the gore trimmed but doesn’t feature any full cut scenes. I do not know why the early scenes were cut, maybe to make room on a vcd or something? Both versions feature different credit sequences. A good breakdown of the two versions can be found here.
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Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Fong Ho, Godfrey Ho, Gua Ah-Leh, martial arts, Pearl Cheung Ling, Peng Kong, Taiwan, Tsung Hua, Wang Hsieh, Women who kick butt, wuxia, Yip Chiu Yuk
Matching Escort/Fury of the Silver Fox (Review)
Matching Escort
aka Fury of the Silver Fox aka 金粉遊龍 aka Wolf Devil Woman 2
1982
Written by Pearl Cheung Ling and Peng Wei-Wei
Directed by Si Ma-Peng
Planning Director Pearl Cheung Ling
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Dances with Wolf Devil Women
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If you are a fan of wolrd cult cinema, especial cult fantasy martial arts flicks, and are not familiar with the directorial works of Pearl Cheung Ling (aka Chang Ling), then you need to get educated! Luckily, TarsTarkas.NET is there for you! Not only are we working through Pearl’s films that she had her hand in creating, but there are also Infernal Brains podcasts featuring awesome background information about Pearl Cheung Ling and further discussion of her work (featuring fabulous Guest Brain duriandave of SoftFilm!) But if you don’t like hearing people talk, don’t worry, there are plenty of text reviews going around! Beyond the previously covered Dark Lady of Kung Fu, the other major Pearl films are each getting their well-deserved reviews on TarsTarkas.NET.
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We’re putting half the budget into things that go in my hair!
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Matching Escort is considered the second of Pearl Cheung Ling’s auteur films. Pearl Cheung Ling is best known in the west for Wolf Devil Woman, and to capitalize on that fact, one of the many release retitles of Matching Escort was Wolf Devil Woman 2, despite this film being made first! (Even worse, the film Miraculous Flower was made before both films yet also released as Wolf Devil Woman 3!) The hallmarks of Pearl’s style are all present, and she has more creative control for weird side plots that start to blur the traditional wuxia narrative, though it is still more cohesive of a film than Wolf Devil Woman, Dark Lady of Kung Fu, or General Invincible. This is probably due more towards the credited director, Sima Peng (if he’s an actual person!) Pearl is credited at the planning director, but based on her other films she probably was calling most of the shots for Matching Escort.
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My Basement, the Motion Picture
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Besides Matching Escort and Wolf Devil Woman 2, another common retitle is Fury of the Silver Fox. This title makes about as much sense as the others, which is not much. The dubbing, however, is ridiculous, as all of the dub jobs on Pearl’s films are. And I can verify that there are missing song queues in the dubbed version. Most notably, the film’s theme song sung by Pearl is gone. They lyrics were written by Sun Yi, legendary songwriter of classics like The Moon Represents My Heart. Venus the Ninja and Venus the Ninja Wolf are also listed as reissue titles, both seeming to be cashing in on a craze (ninjas or the Wolf Devil Woman film.) I don’t think this was reissued as Wolfen Ninja, though, as I know that is a retitle of Wolf Devil Woman (but I could be wrong, because there is a dearth of information on the reissues!)
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People selling magazine subscriptions are getting pretty aggressive!
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Pearl themes featured here include this being a revenge film featuring her father being murdered (to be fair, that is a fairly common plot devise in martial arts cinema), random bursts of goofy comedy, scenes featuring beggars, scenes featuring crazy old man martial arts masters, Pearl spending some of her scenes wearing fur, a handsome prince with a comic relief sidekick, Pearl “transforming” into a martial arts master, Pearl donning solid color outfits when it’s time to get down to business and slaughter the bad guys, lots of blood and gore, scenes that look suspiciously inspired by recent Western cinema blockbusters, and overly dramatic scenes of Pearl either flying into places or riding with purpose. One thing this thankfully doesn’t have is animal deaths, a sadly too common Pearl theme. In fact, there is a monkey and a parrot who both have minor roles and aren’t killed!
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When Little Boy Blue became a man
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Sadly most versions of Matching Escort are dubbed versions, and I am not aware of a widescreen version at all. Like most of Pearl’s films, it has falled into a state of neglect and forgotten history. Thanks to the awful dubbing, many of the character names are just decriptions as the dubbing decided that giving major characters names was too big of a hassle.
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This spa sucks
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Anyone for handball?
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Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Chan Gwan-Biu, Mang Fei, martial arts, Pearl Cheung Ling, Peng Kong, Peng Wei-Wei, Sek Ying, Si Ma-Peng, Taiwan, Wang Hsieh, Women who kick butt, wuxia
Down the Rabbit Hole with Pearl Cheung Ling – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 12
The films of Pearl Cheung Ling/Pearl Chang are pure awesomeness. Pearl Cheung Ling is a rarity because she not only starred in films, she wrote, directed, and produced martial arts cinema at a time where there were almost no female directors period, much less female directors of action cinema. Pearl’s films have a distinctive style unlike any other films out there. Wolf Devil Woman is a title that almost every cult movie fan is familiar with, while her other pictures also share a large number of fans (and antifans!) But very little is known of Pearl Cheung Ling herself. To all it seemed, she appeared one day, made some awesome flicks, and then vanished off the face of the planet. But there is much more to the Pearl Cheung Ling story. The Infernal Brains are tackling this compelling issue, and Tars and Todd have brought in Special Guest Brain DurianDave from SoftFilm! Join us as we delve into the Secret History of Pearl Cheung Ling, her rise to fame and her acting career, what influenced her to create her wonderful films. Of course a story this big can’t be over in just a few minutes, so this is a two-parter episode! Part 1 deals with Pearl’s career and her early films. Part 2 (to be uploaded soon!) will go into a more in-depth discussion about her five creative features and what happened after she left the film industry. It’s a great topic and has information that’s hard to find anywhere in English.
As usual, we got so many listening choices that even someone raised by wolves can find a method: downloadable mp3, embedded flash with slideshow, embedded audio player, and iTunes feed link. So many choices, you’ll rip chickens in half in joy!
Download the mp3 (right click, save as)
Watch in slideshow form:
Subscribe to the Infernal Brains on YouTube!
duriandave has become Dave the White!
SoftFilm
SoftTofu
Fuck yeah, Pearl Chang!
Films Discussed:
The Protectors / 保鑣 (TV Series)
The Return of the Hero of the Water Front / 小壁虎
Fist of Shao-Lin / 少林高徒
Armed Escort / 保鑣
The Invincible Swordswoman / 冷月孤星針無情
The Heroic Figure aka Men of the Hour / 風雲人物
Witty Hand, Witty Sword / 玲瓏玉手劍玲瓏
The War of the Boundary / 戰天山
My Blade, My Life / 決鬥者的生命
King of Fists and Dollars / 王拳王鍰
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Click the graphic for Podcast Feed:
Prior Infernal Brains:
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 1
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 2
Polly Shang Kuan
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 1
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 2
Dara Singh
Infernal Brains Podcast – 07 – Insee Daeng
Infernal Brains Podcast – 08 – Worst Podcast Ever
The Mummies of Guanajuato – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 09
Jane Bond – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 10
Daigoro vs Goliath – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 11
Down the Rabbit Hole with Pearl Cheung Ling – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 12 [ 56:12 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (763)Categories: Movie Reviews, Podcasts Tags: Infernal Brains, martial arts, Pearl Cheung Ling, Podcast, Taiwan, wuxia
Dark Lady of Kung Fu (Review)
Dark Lady of Kung Fu
aka 蝶無影 aka Di wu ying aka Butterfly Pearl aka Dark Lady of Butterfly
1983
Written and directed by Pearl Cheung Ling
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What happens when you buy cheap drugstore makeup!
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When evil dudes with bad ‘tudes are up to no goods, the Dark Lady of Kung Fu will fly in and rob the crap out of them, and then go all Robin Hood with their money! Yes, Pearl Cheung Ling has the director’s chair and the writing chair, and the world will never be the same! Dark Lady of Kung Fu is a remake of the Shaw Brothers’ film The Black Butterfly, which is a sort of remake of Black Rose and other female noble thief flicks. It’s all about the connections, man!
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Goth Zorro vs the Spray Paint Kid!
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This is one of several films written and directed by Pearl Cheung Ling, one of the few female directors out of Taiwan, who became an auteur force directing and writing three films and being heavily involved in the production of a few more, as well as television series and music. She has a very distinct fantasy style that has garnered her many loyal fans and many shared clips on YouTube. Because this is a Pearl Cheung Ling flick, you can expect lots of goofy things going on. Morons in positions of authority will be humiliated by Pearl Cheung Ling’s character’s brilliance. Pearl will wear crazy elaborate pre-gothic lolita costumes. There will be wirework.
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Someone gave those hands from Labyrinth their own show!
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The worst part of Dark Lady of Kung Fu is I own two versions of it, and they both are either fullscreen or fake widescreen where it’s obvious there is things going on just off camera. Both copies also suffer from the same awful English dubbing. How many of the puns are native to the script vs. made up by the dubbers is a mystery that won’t be solved until we get a proper subtitled verison. So we’ll not know if henchmen Laurel and Hardy are really named those names. Not to mention the guy named Cool Han Look. Come to think of it, there is no way those names are native to the script.
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More Batman than Batman
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How dare you say this movie is hard to follow! Only I may say that!
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Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: martial arts, Pearl Cheung Ling, Taiwan, Tien Feng, Tien Peng, Wang Hsieh, Wong Chi-Sang, Yeung Hung
