Fist, Palm, Knife, Sword, Pole, Spear!

[Holymanm]

Heroes Two (Chang Cheh, 1974)







if it ever turns out that something important happened on this day - contact from die marsmenschen, or a new nelly cd - and people ask me where i was on this day... i will tell them: "i cooked up a pie,* and i feasted my eyes on another chang cheh film". yummy!
3.5/5

* pizza pie

[rischka]

killer constable one of the most stunning i've seen since dao. beautifully staged and bloody. #ACAB



this will make both my 1980/wuxia lists. i keep stopping it to watch sections again

[Holymanm]

by the director of mo aka the boxer's omen, and starring my sneaky second-favourite HKKF actor chen kuan-tai... if you think i'm not watching that you're dummer than a constable!! thank you for bringing it up

and what is "dao"?

[rischka]

and what is "dao"?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112800/

tsui hark's 1990 one armed swordsman remake aka the blade

thank you for bringing it up

thank nrh for including it in his 1980 list

[Holymanm]

ooh... i still need to see the original ones first; big blind spot (almost as much as not having seen any of the, erm, zatoichi movies)

and thanks nrh!

[rischka]

for about ten minutes i wondered if this could be the worst chor yuen film i've seen. but i should have had faith

[Holymanm]

need to get in some more classics

The One-Armed Swordsman (Chang Cheh, 1967)



YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5/5

[Holymanm]

Killer Constable (Kuei Chih-Hung, 1980)







lordy someone saw harakiri and thought "i bet i can go bleaker". but somehow something in the execution didn't quite carry this through as the stunner it could've been. not tight or focused enough. but i ain't complaining, when you've got such wonderful colour filters... this would be a treat to see in a nice, empty theatre at midnight!
3.5/5

[Holymanm]

on the other side of the spectrum...

Kids from Shaolin (Cheung Yam-Yim, 1984)







delightful! baby jet li and qiuyan huang are adorable, and all the hyperactive kids with funny haircuts are a treat. might be giving this too low, for what a joy it is!
4/5

(and it has literally absolutely nothing to do with the first movie in the shaolin temple 'series'; can be watched in any order i guess...)

[Holymanm]

The Lady Is the Boss (Liu Chia-Liang, 1983)

Jesus... the universal rule for LCL movies: no matter how absolutely gobsmackingly horrible they may be for some - or most - or almost all - of the running time... they will almost inevitably have a final 20 minutes that go cosmically explosive NUTSO fight choreography madness insanity. Jesus! If the other 70 minutes of this weren't 97% awful, this could've been great! As it stands: 1. at least stare at Kara Hui for most of 70 minutes; 2. the finale!!

Bonus points for the ridiculous Gordon-Liu-as-Monk and Hsiao-Ho-as-Monkey self-parodies within the movie
3/5

The Magnificent Butcher (Yuen Woo-ping, Sammo Hung, 1979)

An(other) early small-town Sammo comedy featuring murder, rape, and the wanton slaughter of innocents as plot devices to further the opportunities for urine- and butt-based antics... I'm not even offended so much as confused. Is this a culture thing that I'm missing? Is treating women like cattle alongside the actual cattle abuse in the movie symbolic commentary?

But all Biao is good Biao, and drunken old kung fu master iteration #5620 here is a great one indeed. And calligraphy kung fu! Wildcat! ...why all that other stuff too? Yeesh!
2/5

[Holymanm]

did i really watch full moon scimitar last night? .....that arcane black magic movie couldn't possibly have been real, could it? must just have been a dream

[nrh]

watched chor yuen's 1983 film the enchantress over the weekend...it's definitely the more extravagant moves in his toolbox pushed as high as they go, almost every scene filled with wild amounts of fog and searing color gels, plus lots of (very graceful) wire work and the addition of people shooting animated colored energy beams out of their hands the whole time. a late film journey into a demon dimension a highlight.

it's also kind of tedious...you basically have a murdered japanese princess turned demon ghost taking revenge on the whole martial world, and the endless push and pull between the two sides. lots of action which i think is not necessarily a good thing for chor yuen, there's really not time for him to pull back into melancholy or reflection or play with melodrama or really even his complicated intrigues.

it's still fun and wonderful to watch just, but almost feel like it's more suited to just putting on in the background at a party or something...

[thoxans]

heroes shed no tears (chor yuen) downright shakespearean in its wheeling-dealing machinations. the villain is the true star here (him, and alexander fu sheng's epic mop), an ubermachiavellian daniel de bosola (i know, i know, i'm getting my authors and plays crossed, but the comparisons just feel right); in a world where heroes exist solely to meet their eventual downfall and demise. greatness is nothing to aspire to; only something to be conspired around. very cynical, and brutal. a man dies, falling against his killer, who shoves off the limp body in frustration, because there are more men to be killed. the melancholy and reflection that nrh alludes to above is in full swing. action takes a backseat (or at least a middleseat) to rumination. graceful's fate one of the sadder storylines in all the shaw bros flicks i've seen thus far. really good, heavy stuff