Jade Dagger Ninja (Review)
Jade Dagger Ninja
aka Han shan fei hu
1982
Directed by Li Chao-Yung
There are no ninjas here. Jade Dagger Ninja suffers from being brought over to America in the middle of the ninja craze. The dubbing is comedic, with cartoon effects as characters go flying or go to the bathroom (yes that happens.) Some of the lines are laugh out loud hilarious, but I am certain some of them aren’t the actual lines unless Taiwanese cinema has taken to including English puns in their Chinese dialogue.
Jade Dagger Ninja is known by many names: Han shan fei hu, Jade Dagger, Forest Duel, Shaolin Fox Conspiracy, and the Wu-Tang Clan “Liquid Sword Collection” VHS Title Celestial Souljas.
The plot is pretty ludicrous, and most of it isn’t explained until the end (and then only if you were paying attention) so most of the time you will have no idea what is going on. The basic story is everyone wants the Purple Jade Badger, because it has an elixir that will make your kung fu super powerful. There is also a battle brewing between Sunset Villa and the Heartbreak Red gang. Throw into all that an upcoming wedding and Liu Hsiao-Feng arriving hoping the events will draw out the killer of his wife and you have a film with plots so deep you need a flowchart. Everyone has multiple names, which only makes it even more confusing. So you get our best guess from watching the film twice.
|
Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Chin Meng, Chung Wa, Doris Lung Chun-Erh, Gua Ah-Leh, Hulk, Li Chao-Yung, martial arts, Shut Chung-Tin, Taiwan, Tien Peng, Tin Hok, Wang Hsieh, Yun Zhong Yue
Deadly Strike (Review)
Deadly Strike
aka Shen long
1978
Directed by Juang Lung (as Huang Lung)
Written by Tsai Yung
Deadly Strike is a pretty good kung fu film. It follows a pretty average plot, but takes it and runs with it, making the entire film be a whole lot of fun. There is rarely a dull moment, and they only occur when setting up the next cool fight sequence. The basic plot involves a new sheriff taking on a gang of bandits, recruiting some prisoners to help him as the bandit thugs get tougher and tougher. It all plays out like a video game, and Bruce Li does a good new Sheriff who is eager to kick some bandit butt and save the people. And many people die. The plot sounds familiar, and the style is similar to films about the Old West. I am sure there are probably research appears on how old film Westerns influence films from all over the globe, but I am hardly an expert in the matter enough to give more than an outline. Taking basic stories and transplanting them to new settings is not a new event, and it continues to happen to this day in multiple directions.
The plot of the film necessitates that there is a great number of actors and memorable bit parts, so we will have one of the rather large Roll Calls that stretch throughout the film review. We have tried to identify many of the actors, but there is scant information and many are either best guesses or left blank for later. Some of the faces are familiar to fans of the 1970s kung fu film genre, so it is only a matter of time before everyone is properly credited. So we will start out with our main characters:
The Cops:
|
The Prisoners:
|
The Villain:
|
Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Bruce Li Shao-Lung, Chan Sing, Chiang Han, Choi Wang, Chu Lai, David Tong Wai, Juang Lung, Lee Keung, Li Min-Lang, Lung Fei, martial arts, Shut Chung-Tin, Su Chen-Ping, Taiwan, Tsai Yung, Tsang Chiu, Wang Tai-Lang