Chinese Acupuncture Kung Fu (1988)

Chinese Acupuncture Kung Fu (1988)
aka: Miracle Needle; Magic Needle; Damager
Chinese Title: 氣功大師
Translation: Qigong Master

 

Starring: Chen Yu-Shen, Wan Chung-Man, Wong Man-Yee, Ho Pak-Kwong, Chen Qitang
Director: Ding Zhuo Lun
Action Director: n/a

 

Back in the late 90s and early 00s, lots and lots of kung fu movies were released on VHS and DVD as part of numerous collections, all presented or endorsed by the rap group Wu Tang Clan. One of the DVD collections was the “Soul Assassins” collection. Movies on that collection included Secret Message, retitled The Stomp (probably after the popular pop-gospel song by the Reverend Kirk Franklin); Zombie vs Ninja, retitled Gravedigger (after the other group RZA was a part of, The Gravediggaz); The Marvelous Kung Fu, retitled Sandman (after a song from Method Man’s first album Tical); and The Legend of All Men are Brothers, retitled The Secret of the Water Technique. Then there’s this oddity.

Chinese Acupuncture Kung Fu is a Mainland Chinese co-production with…well, I’m not sure. According to the HKMDB, it was produced in China by a Hong Kong production company. However, the Chinese-language movie site Douban says that this was a Taiwan-Mainland co-production. I find it unlikely that Taiwan would have been involved in this, even though at some point, Taiwanese performers did have fluid movement between the PRC and Taiwan (see Shu Qi). I do think this was made principally for Chinese audiences, as kung fu movies (which this film barely qualifies as) had long been an anachronism in Hong Kong by 1988. This is obscure enough that we barely have a cast list or a director. It was released as part of the “Soul Assassins” collection under the title Damager, most likely a reference to an East Coast rapper named Jeru the Damaja.

Okay, so there’s a well-known accupuncture named Dr. Nip (prolific character actor Ho Pak-Kwong, of Knockabout and Choy Lee Fut Kung Fu). When the Qing official’s son gets sick, the official sends for Dr. Nip. Nip, scared that failure will result in the execution of him, his family and his restaurant-clinic’s employees, just gets out of dodge and goes to Shaolin to hide out. The young prince dies and the official blames Dr. Nip, vowing revenge.

At some point, Dr. Nip is in the neighborhood and is attacked by soldiers and rescued by a noble Wong family. The family’s scion, little Wong Shek-Ping, finds Dr. Nip and nurses him back to health. Nip starts teaching young Wong internal martial arts (like tai chi chuan), qigong, and acupuncture. When Nip has to go away on business, he has some Shaolin monks continue the boy’s training. The Qing Dynasty is overthrown and within a few years, former Qing official Yuan Shi-Kai becomes the new “emperor” of China. Shek-Ping grows up to be virtuous young man and a talented acupuncture doctor. He leaves his home and master to become a doctor.

Arriving in the capital Nanking, Wong Shek-Ping gains loads of fame by curing Yuen Shih-Kai himself. This gets him the attention of some German doctors; one of them is curious about the science behind acupuncture, while the others dismiss it as quackery and want to prove Shek-Ping to be a fraud. Meanwhile, the deposed Qing official has gone crazy and now dresses like a ninja, looking for Dr. Nip. Qing Ninja Guy attacks Shaolin and manages to kill the abbot by ramming a cudgel up his rump. He attacks Dr. Nip and his family (his wife and daughter, the latter played by Shaw Brothers actress Wong Man-Yee). They go on the run again, although at some point (we never see when), Dr. Nip dies and leaves his wife and daughter to wander around, looking for Wong Shek-Ping.

Once in Nanking, crazy Qing Ninja Guy attacks Mrs. Nip and her daughter, killing the former. She is able to get away and ultimately is reunited with Wong Shek-Ping. Shek-Ping and the German doctor continue to perform medical miracles with acupuncture, including one operation in which Wong punches a guy in the chest to “get his heart out of the way” before he inserts a needle in the cavity there. The evil German doctors try to frame Nip and his clinic for murder, but they are saved by Yuen Shih-Kai. But those doctors aren’t finished yet…nor is the crazy Qing Ninja Guy.

Mark Pollard of the website “Kung Fu Cinema” infamously gave this film 0 stars out of five. I can understand why: this is the most incompetently edited movie on record. Period. The fight scenes, of which there are few, had their film stock chopped up with a chainsaw, throw into the air, and then randomly reassembled. So, you’ll see characters fighting in a bunch of random quick cuts, and then something like Ninja Guy killing Mrs. Nip with a dart, another barrage of random fight images, and then Nip’s daughter talking to her mom as if nothing happened. It’s completely nonsensical, and scenes like this happen throughout the entire movie.

There is not a lot of action. You have one fight between the Qing Ninja nutcase and the Shaolin monks. A couple of brief fights between Nip’s daughter and the same, plus his lackeys. There is a final showdown between Nip’s daughter, Wong Shek-Ping and Ninja Guy, which was edited with a .50 caliber machine gun. And then, to keep the suspense up, the good guys have to infiltrate a German hospital and save their friend, beating up random doctors hellbent on the keeping them from getting inside. Uh…okay.

So if you want to see a guy talking about acupuncture and occasionally performing Reiki on his patients—complete with little animated energy effects—before jabbing them with a ginormous needle, this is the film for you. If you want to watch a good movie, stay away. Stay the heck away.

Angel II (1988)

Angel II (1988)
aka: Iron Angels II; Angels 2; Midnight Angels 2
Chinese Title: 天使行動II火鳳狂龍
Translation: Angel Action II: Fire Phoenix, Mad Dragon

 

Starring: Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Moon Lee Choi-Fung, Elaine Lui Siu-Ling, Nathan Chan Ting-Wai, Siu Yuk-Lung, Kharina, Lee Ching-Ha, Yuen Tak
Director: Teresa Woo
Action Director: Stanley Tong

Angel is one of my favorite Girls n’ Guns films, if only for sentimental value. Angel II is an interesting case: some genre fans, including author Thomas Weisser, believe this one to be the best in the trilogy. I can sort of see why, since the big finale is well…bigger than any of the action sequences in the first film and it features one of Moon Lee’s absolute best moments. But once more, writer-producer-director Teresa Woo makes some odd decisions when it comes to making a Girls n’ Guns film that bring the film down a rung from the first entry.

The movie opens with a blast: Mona (Moon Lee, of Bury Me High and Beauty Investigator) goes to an abandoned mansion to negotiate a hostage exchange with some shady types. When the kidnappers decide that they want to keep the money and the hostage, a huge gunfight-cum-kung fu battle breaks out, complete with exploding grenades. Fellow Angel Helen (Elaine Lui, of Red Wolf and Once Upon a Time in China 5) and DEA operative Alex (Alex Fong, sort of reprising his role from the first film—the subs state he’s working for the CIA now) join Mona for the madness. Mission accomplished.

Alex then takes Mona and Helen to Malaysia for some R&R. While a questionable cabby—he has no license and makes all sorts of untrue claims about the clunker he drives—is taking the three to their hotel, they drive past a limo belonging to rich businessman/philanthropist named Peter Kam (Nathan Chan, of Love to Kill and Something Incredible – Return of the Devil). Apparently, Alex knows Peter from somewhere, because he comandeers the car and gets into a high speed chase with the limo and its accompanying bodyguard cars. We eventually learn—after another fight scene—that Alex and Peter are old friends, having studied criminal justice (or something) in the USA. Peter graciously invites Alex and the girls to his estate for the remainder of their trip.

Once at Peter’s pad, Mona and Helen just sort of hang around while Alex, Peter, and another colleague, Marco (Siu Yuk-Lung, of Possessed II and The Haunted Madam), go about the town, getting in bar fights and picking up on transsexual women. Peter also begins to spend time with Helen, who starts falling for him. One day, while the three are touring Peter’s palm oil factory and plantation, Marco is caught spying on an arms deal taking place on the other end of the palm forest. He is, in fact, working for the CIA and has good reason to believe that Peter is raising a small army to lead a Leftist coup d’état against the Malaysian government. Marco is captured and eventually executed.

During the time between Marco’s capture and his eventual death, Alex gets a call from the CIA informing him of Peter’s suspected activities. He finds evidence of it for himself and tries to persuade Helen to his side. She initially rejects the idea, but sneaks a ride on her new beau’s helicopter and ends up overhearing the ill-fated agent’s execution. When she’s found out, she puts up a good fight with Peter’s lieutenants, but is ultimately beaten and taken captive. Now it’s time for Alex and Mona, now assisted by a Malaysian Angel (Kharina, who shows up in the next film), to take on Peter’s army before the Malaysian army shows up and kills everyone, including Helen.

The big misstep that Teresa Woo makes in this film is pushing Moon Lee—the best martial artist among the protagonists—to the sidelines after the promising opening set piece. Moon Lee has little to do but lounge around the mansion (occasionally in a bathing suit) until the hour mark, when its time to go to war. Elaine Lui has more to do this time than she did in the first film, or at least is given more character depth (as opposed to her fashion-conscious airhead role in the first film). So the final shots are a bit more emotionally charged for her character than, well, any scene was for Moon Lee in any of the three movies.

Even so, much of the action during the second and third acts ends up going to Alex Fong, who’s not even really one of the Angels. I mean, his fights are reasonably well choreographed and all, but we’re here to see women fight, not Alex Fong. This is especially true for the final scuffle, which pits Alex and Peter in mortal combat. From a narrative perspective, it makes sense that those two would need to have the final showdown. Nonetheless, it’s strange that a female-centric action film made by a woman would end up putting the most important fights in the hands of the men. I’m pretty sure you could have switched Alex’s and Elaine’s roles in that sequence and still have gotten the same emotional impact, while not skimping on the Girls n’ Guns action.

Speaking of which, Tony Leung Siu-Hung did not return for this entry, being replaced by Stanley Tong. Stanley Tong had mainly worked as a stuntman up til this point, with his only prior choreographer credit being the wushu film Zen Master 6. Here he shows LOTS of promise as an action director, both in terms of scale and just knowing how to stage a good fight. The finale is reminiscent of the previous year’s Eastern Condors (and Stanley’s later work on Police Story 3: Supercop), full of machine guns, grenades, rockets, and exploding huts. Moon Lee even gets to use wrist-mounted arrow launchers and a crossbow! Stanley has always been open about his influences from Hollywood, and you can definitely see the traces of Rambo: First Blood Part 2 here, especially at the very end.

The tour-de-force in the action is a pair of fights between Moon Lee and two members of Peter’s rebel army, played by Chan Ming-Ching and Yuen Tak (Three Evil Masters and Hero). The latter appears to have been a member of either Stanley Tong’s stuntman group or Jackie Chan’s Stuntman Association, although I’m inclined to think it was the former. Yuen Tak was one of the Seven Fortunes and an extremely talented action director in his own right. Anyway, Moon’s fight with those two features some killer choreography, including some nice jump kicks from Moon plus a nice bit with a retractable steel baton (17 years before Donnie used it against Wu Jing in Sha Po Lang). However, Yuen Tak ends up stealing the show with his speed and power—he did something similar in both Dragon from Russia and Hero. The man is a martial beast and I wonder why he didn’t spend more time in front of the camera after the old school kung fu movie died out. This section of the climax lasts about three minutes, and you wonder why there couldn’t have been more of it throughout the running time.

Tiger Cage (1988)

Tiger Cage (1988)
Chinese Title:  特警屠龍
Translation: SWAT Dragon Slaying

 

Starring: Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau, Carol Cheng Yu-Ling, Simon Yam Tat-Wah, Irene Wan Pik-Ha, Donnie Yen Ji-Dan, Leung Kar-Yan, Ng Man-Tat, Vincent Lyn, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, Yuen Shun-Yi, Yuen Cheung-Yan, Michael Woods, Stephen Berwick
Director: Yuen Woo-Ping
Action Director: Yuen Shun-Yee, Yuen Cheung-Yan, Yuen Yat-Choh, Donnie Yen, Paul Wong

 

It took several years for Yuen Woo-Ping to really adapt to the modernization of Hong Kong action in the 1980s. Even after Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung (and audiences in general) moved onto more stunt-driven action fare, Yuen Woo-Ping was still doing kung fu comedies (eg. Drunken Tai Chi) and his kung fu-sorcery-comedies (eg. Shaolin Drunkard and Taoism Drunkard). With the exception of the breakdancing oddity Mismatched Couples starring Donnie Yen, it wasn’t until 1988 that YWP really got with the times—the same could also be said about Lau Kar-Leung.

The resulting project, Tiger Cage, is interesting in that it was leagues away from anything he had done since his career as director took off in 1978. In fact, it is easily one of the bleakest action films of that period, even moreso than your typical blood-soaked John Woo bullet ballet. It’s a film in which cops doing their job—busting criminals—throws them into a downward spiral of violence because not even they themselves can be trusted.

We open with a drug deal being brokered between the supplier, Swatow Hsiung (Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, of Twin Dragons and Crippled Avengers), and a trusted buyer of his, Hsiu (Leung Kar-Yan, of The Victim and The Thundering Mantis). Hsiu turns out to be an undercover officer, and tonight’s the night that his team has planned a raid on Hsiung’s operations. A huge gunfight erupts between Hsiu’s team and Hsiung’s lackeys, leaving most of the latter dead, including his brother (Yuen Shun-Yee, of Miracle Fighters and Iron Monkey). Hsiung gets away, but it goes without saying that he’s going to want revenge.

Now, let’s meet Hsiu’s team first: Hsiu himself answers to Inspector Michael Huang (Simon Yam, of Bullet to the Head and Doctor Lamb), whose job it is to take the brunt of his superior’s criticisms while the team does its job. Below him is Inspector Shirley Ho (Carol Cheng, of Operation Condor and Burning Sensation), who is also Hsiu’s fiancée. They’re engaged to be married in a few days, so you know that they’re destined for marital bliss. More or less on Hsiu’s level is department veteran “Uncle” Te (Ng Man-Tat, of Holy Weapon and Heroes Among Heroes). Below Hsiu are the two younger officers, Fan Shun-Yu (Jackie Cheung, of High Risk and Future Cops) and Terry (Donnie Yen, of Ip Man and Iron Monkey 2). Both men are idealistic and impulsive, although Terry is a bit harder to control than Fan, even though his fighting skills are superior.

Anyway, on the eve of Hsiu and Shirley’s wedding, Swatow Hsiung shows up unannounced as Hsiu is getting in his car to go to (presumably) his bachelor send-off and blows the man away with a 12-guage shotgun. Hsiu succumbs to his wounds in Shirley’s arms—she was trying on her wedding dress at the moment—so a bloody wedding dress and an incomplete declaration of “I love you” are her final memories of her beloved. The rest of the team immediate opt for the “police brutality” solution as they put the screws on all the local hoodlums in order to find out where Hsiung is. Finally, a ruse involving blowtorch torture is able to loosen one guy’s lips and they find out he’s about to skip town.

The team converges on the docks and a big fight breaks out before they finally subdue their man and take him into custody. But…Swatow Hsiung has an ace of his sleeve. You see, his mentor in the drug world (the director Yuen Woo-Ping in a cameo) let him in on a little secret: Uncle Te is involved with an American gang of drug pushers in an operation known as “American Ginseng.” Hsiung mentions the operation to Te as he’s leading him to the squad car, prompting him to sneakily empty his revolver, slip it into Hsiung’s hands, and get his colleagues to respond, resulting in some police-assisted murder.

Normally, that would be it and the team would go on to their next case. But when Hsiung started shooting off his mouth, Fan Shun-Yu was in earshot of the conversation. He now suspects Uncle Te of some underhanded dealings and starts tailing him, looking for evidence. He eventually does find it, although he leaves his camcorder in the car that day when he’s out flirting with his girlfriend, Amy (Irene wan). Terry is also in the car, and innocently watches the video in hopes of finding something to make fun of his partner about. What he sees is a drug deal involving Uncle Te, who happens to be Terry’s mentor.

Although Fan’s sense of justice can make him a little unhinged at times, he has some modicum of self control. Not Terry. Terry tracks down his mentor to another drug exchange with some American criminals (Michael Woods and Stephen Berwick, both of In the Line of Duty IV) and tries to arrest both them and Uncle Te on the spot. What he does is get himself killed, at which point the cycle of violence between the good cops, bad cops and criminals really starts to spiral out of control.

This film’s in-name-only sequel has become a Hong Kong action classic for its frequent fight scenes and superior fight scenes involving Donnie Yen. This one reaches similar heights, albeit for different reasons. There is a fair amount of action in it, although Donnie Yen himself only gets one prolonged fight scene in the middle—it is a doozy, though. The rest of the action consists of gunfights, explosions, painful stuntwork, and fighting that can be best described as “choroegraphed brutality.” Of note is a particularly brutal showdown between Ng Man-Tat, Jackie Cheung and Michael Woods in an apartment filled with gas, which involves broken furniture and a baseball bat. There is some limited martial arts at the end, including a brief fight between Jackie Cheung and the lead American drug dealer, played by Vincent Lyn (Blonde Fury and Operation Condor). But the Donnie Yen sequence is the high point in that particular department.

Where Tiger Cage really shines is in its bleak tone, which gradually reveals black and white to be separated by numerous shades of grey. When Uncle Te is forced to orchestrate Hsiung’s death on the fly, it is initially believed to be him protecting his own interests. But as the film progresses, more people on the police force are revealed to be involved in the American Ginseng operation. And because of the rank of those people—and the ignorance of the more righteous cops like Fan and Terry—they are always two steps ahead of the good guys, even once their façade falls. It is only through a mixture of luck and some craziness on Fan’s part that they are able to survive until it’s time for the climax to begin.

The thing is, the film treats police corruption almost like a systemic problem, the natural evolution of one’s initial idealism into something more self-centered because police work pays little and nobody really cares about your well being (unless you get killed on duty and someone wants to make a political speech about it). We even learn at one point that Hsiu himself was on the take, in a scene where Shirley opens his personal drawer and finds a bank statement worth millions and several forged passports. We never learn where he got all the extra money—perhaps he simply kept the money he made posing as a drug pusher--just that even the most honest policemen might have some skeletons in their closet.

Tiger Cage is very much the sort of movie that Sha Po Lang (aka Killzone) was trying to both pay homage to and update back in 2005, when Hong Kong action cinema was in a steep decline. Both films deal with the unending cycle of violence between dedicated cops (who often skirt the limits of the law) and the drug gangs, who have little consideration for human life. Sha Po Lang feels a bleaker film overall because of its ending, but at least its cops are stretching the rules to compensate for holes in the system that allow the evil to thrive.

Tiger Cage has an even more cynical outlook on human nature and the “infallibility” of man’s institutions of law and order. The ability for Good to prevail, especially once evil infiltrates its walls, is simply a matter of chance. Much of that cynicism continues to this very day, both in Hong Kong (where many view the police as tools of the CCP to suppress democracy and render the Basic Law void) and in the United States, where extreme Leftist groups proclaim “Defund the Police” while many on the Right see the FBI as little more than a tool to serve its leaders’ own interests and keep the elites in power. And all this coming from the guy who gave us Drunken Master is nothing short of impressive.

Eastern Condors (1987)

Eastern Condors (1987)
Chinese Title: 東方禿鷹
Translation: Eastern Condor(s)/Vulture(s)

 

Starring: Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Joyce Mina Godenzi, Lam Ching-Ying, Dr. Haing S. Ngor, Yuen Wah, Charlie Chin, Cheung Kwok-Keung, Billy Lau, Yuen Wo-Ping, Hsiao Ho, Chin Ka-Lok, Peter Chan Lung, Ka Lee, Corey Yuen Kwai, Ha Chi-Chun, Chiu Man-Yan, Yasuaki Kurata, Billy Chow, Dick Wei, Phillip Ko Fei, Wu Ma, Melvin Wong
Director: Sammo Hung
Action Director: Sammo Hung’s Stuntman Association

 

Tai Seng Video had a horrible reputation among Asian video importers back in the early and mid-1990s, mainly for their tendency to break regular feature-length movies into two tapes and sell them individually for HORRENDOUS prices, like 80 bucks a pop. Sure, they were also the way that Cambodian, Vietnamese and other SE Asian families had access to their favorite Chinese series, but that is some grade-A thievery right there when it comes selling to collectors. Things began to change in the second half 1990s, thankfully.

They began to sell their catalog for more affordable prices...and on one tape. Although establishments like the former Virgin Megastore would often have the original subbed VHS’s in clamshell covers for 39.95, by the time they reached more conventional retailers like Sam Goody and Suncoast, they were only 19.95. Better still, they also began selling newly subtitled prints of various Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh and other HK action classics, doing away with the infamous burnt-on subtitles that read like “Do you scare of death?” One of the earliest such releases that I got my Jackie-hungry mitts on in the fall of 1997 was The Young Master.

On that tape, there were two trailers that I can recall. The first was for the Shaolin Classic Series, three completely unrelated films (in their dubbed versions) that were sold individually for 14.95 a pop. For the record, the films from that particular series were: Descendant of Wing Chun (1978); Legend of the Drunken Tiger (1991); and Shaolin Avengers (1994). The second trailer was for Eastern Condors, which looked like the Greatest Action Film Ever Made. The VHS reached my local Tower Records probably in the spring of 1998, which I bought at the first opportunity. I watched it the same night I got it. And then watched it again the next night. I showed it to my friends probably a few months later, and it immediately joined the ranks of the Classics.

Eastern Condors is the war movie that Sammo Hung had apparently always wanted to make, but never did because Hong Kong producers were always hesitant to make war movies. Interestingly enough, Taiwan has had a long history of making these sorts of films, but Hong Kong audiences have traditionally been less interested in it. In any case, Sammo had accrued enough hit films by the mid-80s that his studio Bo-Ho films could go to the Philippines and make one. Although the film was reasonably successful (clocking in at #7 at the box office), it was expensive enough that it wasn’t able to turn a profit—sort of the Cleopatra principle.

The film opens in 1976 with two Chinese military officers (for what country?)—Lieutenant Lam (Lam Ching-Ying, of Mr. Vampire and The Magnificent Butcher) and Colonel Young (Melvin Wong, of Righting Wrongs and The Rape After)—being given the mission to destroy a hidden munitions depot in Vietnam. Since America has officially ended the war and left Vietnam, the Armed Forces can’t send in any white guys to perform what is essentially a suicide mission. So, they decide to send in a bunch of Chinese and Vietnamese-Chinese convicts to do the job for them, with the promise of an official pardon and a large cash bonus upon completion (and extraction).

There is a slight snag to the plan: there are actually two groups that are supposed to enter the country. One appears to be made up of regular soldiers (of Asian) extraction led by Colonel Young, while the convicts, under the command of Lt. Lam, are to act as a decoy. The problem is that after all the men have jumped from the plane, a soldier informs Lt. Lam that Colonel Young’s plane has crashed and the mission has been aborted. Not wanting to leave his men to fend for themselves against the Viet Cong, Lam jumps and assumes command of the mission by himself. Joining our ragtag outfit is a trio of Cambodian mercenaries, led by Joyce Mina Godenzi (of She Shoots Straight and Slickers vs Killers).

Although Lieutenant Lam is in charge of the mission, the convicts’ ringleader (and best fighter and shooter and everything else) is convicted murderer Tung Ming-sun (Sammo Hung, of Winners and Sinners and The Odd Couple). He more or less keeps the men together whenever they feel like deserting the mission and putting themselves at the mercy of the Vietnamese. Lam takes Tung and “Joyce” into the nearby Ngau Village to pick up Colonel Young’s uncle, Yeung Lung (Dr. Haing S. Ngor, of The Killing Fields and Heaven & Earth). Yeung is a bit of a nutcase, so they find themselves forced to shanghai him, with the local contraband hustler, Rat Chieh (Yuen Biao, of Those Merry Souls and Kick Boxer), following along. Of course, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, led by Yuen Wah, will be at their heels the entire time.

Eastern Condors is a pastiche of almost every single famous war movie cliché that had been made in the 20 years or so preceding its production. The central premise of sending convicts into combat was oviously taken from The Dirty Dozen, while blowing up a munitions dump can be seen in films like The Mountain Road. There’s a prison camp sequence, complete with Russian Roulette, which will remind viewers of both The Deer Hunter and Missing in Action 2: The Beginning. A traitor is discovered in the group’s midst, which is handled like a similar scene from The Guns of the Navarone. There’s also the Uncrossable Bridge, which was dealt with in classic war films like A Bridge Too Far and The Bridge at Remagen. And of course, there’s an obvious Rambo: First Blood Part II feel to the scene where Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao stalk and kill a platoon of Viet Cong members one by one.

Normally, when a movie so slavishly throws in so many clichés and rips off scenes wholesale from other films like Eastern Condors does, critics immediately dismiss the film as unoriginal. That would be the case here, but it’s the glue holding all these scenes and tropes together—Sammo Hung’s marvelous fight choreography—that transforms Eastern Condors from the Hong Kong equivalent of your average Italian rip-off into something original…into an awesome action extravaganza! The fight scenes are top-drawer, even if a lot of them are a bit on the short side. Said the folks from Stomp Tokyo back in the day: 

“Our favorite part of the film, though, is the climatic kung fu fight between Tung and Rat and the giggling general and a couple of his cronies. Oh sure, there should be a plethora of guns lying around on the floor of the base that the combatants could use against each other, but nobody seems to notice them. Instead we get an amazing display of martial arts prowess. This is pretty much the best kung fu fighting we've ever seen -- and we've seen plenty of Jackie Chan and Jet Li films to compare it to. Yuen Biao is one of the best on-screen fighters ever, and the (slightly) slimmed down Samo Hung is amazingly agile and fast[1].”

Yuen Biao indeed steals the show with his second-to-few bootwork, which includes a vertical front kick to the chin that will make most viewers wince, plus a few aerial spin kicks that are classic Biao. Sammo, who lost a lot of weight for this role, is no slouch in the fighting department, either. Whether it’s a whirlwind kick performed while someone is grabbing his other leg, or a double jump kick (one kick to disarm the opponent and the other to boot him in the neck), that man is simply on fire.

he fighting is complimented by the use of knives and, obviously, guns…lots of guns. The gunplay is staged for in the traditional Rambo or Commando style as opposed to the complex Bullet Ballet that John Woo and Stephen Tung had done the year before in A Better Tomorrow. So, expect lots of people getting mowed down in a single spray of bullets, while the Viet Cong are subject to the Storm Trooper effect. And, of course, expects lots and lots of explosions, including one that destroys an entire mountain at the end. So, for fans of The Expendables, 80s action in general, and those Rambo fans who didn’t care for the fifth and final entry in that franchise, watch Eastern Condors for your fix of machine guns mayhem and martial arts madness!

 

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[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20010302151703/http://www.stomptokyo.com/movies/eastern-condors.html

A Better Tomorrow II (1987)

A Better Tomorrow II (1987)
Chinese Title: 英雄本色續集
Translation: True Colors of a Hero - Sequel

 

Starring: Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing, Dean Shek Tin, Chow Yun-Fat, Guan Shan, Emily Chu Bo-Yee, Kenneth Tsang Kong, Shing Fui-On, Lau Siu-Ming, Ng Man-Tat, Lung Ming-Yan
Director: John Woo, Tsui Hark
Action Director: Tony Ching Siu-Tung

 

I bet there are hundreds of movie reviews out there that start off with the author’s thoughts on sequels that didn’t need to made. This happens all the time, generally on account of the studios being greedy or the main actor (or director) being in a lurch and needing a possible hit to rejuvenate their careers, like Mike Meyers and the fourth Shrek movie. A Better Tomorrow was a smash hit in Hong Kong, becoming one of the top-grossing films of the entire decade, and transforming Chow Yun-Fat from box office poison to box office gold. However, in the eyes of director John Woo, the tragic stories of former Triads Mark Gor and Sung Tse-Ho had already been told.

But that didn’t stop director-producer Tsui Hark from pressuring John Woo into making a sequel. On one hand, another movie would most likely be a guaranteed hit, especially with the newfound fame of both John Woo—he’d enjoyed success before, but not in the action genre—and Chow Yun-Fat. Moreover, Tsui Hark’s friend and Cinema City (the studio that produced the first film) founder Dean Shek was heavily in debt at the time, and another hit could help him get back into the black. On the other hand, the film ended with Chow Yun-Fat’s character dead. This being a semi-realistic gangster film, you can’t just snap Mark Gor back to life, or transport a parallel universe version of him into our reality.

Tsui Hark and John Woo did figure out a way to bring him back, but it’s rather contrived.

We open with Sung Tse-Ho (a returning Ti Lung) in prison after the events of the first film, whose crimes included being framed for the murder of his former Triad boss. He is approached by an Inspector Wu (Lau Siu-Ming, of The Butterfly Murders and A Chinese Ghost Story), who’s on the trail of a gang of counterfeiters in Hong Kong. Wu is about to retire and would like to bring down the gang as the nail in the coffin of his career. He wants Sung’s help because the suspect is Johnny Lung (Dean Shek, of Mantis Fists and Tiger Claws of Shaolin and Drunken Master), Ho’s former mentor. Sung initially turns down the idea, but relents when he finds out that his younger brother, Kit (a returning Leslie Cheung), is now going undercover.

Kit tries to schmooze his way into Lung’s good graces by wooing his daughter, Peppy (Regina Kent, of Project A II). And this, in spite of his wife, Jacky (a returning Emily Chu), being pregnant. What we do learn is that Johnny Lung has actually gone straight, pouring years worth of dirty money into building a legitimate shipping business. Unfortunately, times are tough for Lung, who isn’t making enough money to even pay off his employees. His business partner, Ko (Guan Shan, of The Himalayan and Broken Oath), suggests renting out their ships to a crime boss (Ng Man-Tat, of Tiger Cage and Holy Weapon) for some more lucrative transactions, but Lung is determined to go straight.

Things start coming unglued when Johnny and the crime boss get in an argument, which results in the latter pulling a gun on him. During the struggle, Ko’s hired killer (Lung Ming-Yan, of Triads – The Inside Story and Hero of Tomorrow) shoots the crime boss, although Johnny thinks it was the revolver in his hand that went off. As a result, a horrified Johnny flees Hong Kong for NYC, where his brother lives, now serving the community as a priest. But Ko, who’d been planning a hostile takeover of the business (to serve as a front for his counterfeiting activities) for some time, isn’t done with Lung yet. He has his right-hand-man (Shing Fui-On, of Untold Story and Cheetah on Fire) murder Peppy. At the same time, Ko has his American clients send their enforcers in NYC to kill Johnny. They end up killing his brother and some of his parishioners (including a little girl) instead. At this point, Johnny completely snaps and is committed to a mental institution.

Enter Ken Lee (or Ken Gor), the twin brother of Mark whom nobody ever knew (or talked) about. As you might expect, he’s also played by Chow Yun-Fat. See, they found a way to shoehorn him into the story after all! Ken is a former rough-and-tumble Triad who ditched the business and moved the States, where he opened up a restaurant. When he learns—somehow?—of Dean Shek’s committal to the booby-hatch, he sneaks Johnny out of there and tries to nurse back to health. He’s eventually successful, and the two fly back to Hong Kong to join forces with Sung and Kit to get revenge on Ko, who’s living large with his counterfeit profits.

John Woo has disowned this movie, considering it more of a mercenary project than anything he actually wanted (and now could) to do. The whole “twin brother” plot point is obviously contrived. Moreover, the focus on Dean Shek’s Johnny Lung character ends up robbing the film of much of its emotional impact. I’ll get to that in a moment. Suffice to say, this is one of those cases where it is obvious that director John Woo was on auto-pilot, despite the great care he’d invested in these characters in the previous film.

You see, in the first A Better Tomorrow, counterfeiting was one of the crimes that Sung and Mark’s organization was involved it, but it was mostly a background detail. It could have been drugs, prostitutes or even smuggling pistachios and the story wouldn’t have changed a bit. The film had found its footing in the main characters’ quests for redemption, either in the eyes of his brother (in Sung Tse-Ho’s case), or rising above the subhuman existence that Mark was relegated to after getting his knee blown to pieces. And the friendship between those two men formed the compelling emotional core of the film.

This film lacks that human element. Although Ti Lung and Leslie Cheung share some good scenes together, the fact that both men are undercover limits those interactions. Ti Lung’s Sung Tse-Ho doesn’t even know about Ken Lee’s existence initially, so they can’t play off of each other like they did in the previous film. And although Ken and Johnny Lung’s characters are the focus of the film’s second act, the latter spends that entire section of the movie as a drooling man-baby, which both overstays its welcome and is bereft of any real emotion.

There are other ideas that are not explored in this, although John Woo's original cut ran three hours and the editing was done without his involvement. That suggests that they might have gotten more attention had the film stock been saved. The late Kenneth Tsang returns here as Uncle Ken, but nothing is said about his taxi cab business staffed by ex-cons. His not wanting to go back to his former life was an important theme in the first film, but now he’s our heroes go-between for getting illegal arms. How did that happen? There’s also a character who appears to be an author of serialized gangster stories for magazines who collects Triad memorabilia (like Mark Gor’s infamous trenchcoat), but we never learn what his deal is. It just feels like a contrived way to make a few nods to the original movie.

Most people tend to forgive the faults in the story on account of the action. There are a few gunfights here and there in the first two acts. Act Two closes with a really well-shot, claustrophobic shoot-out in a seedy hotel in NYC, with Chow Yun-Fat blowing people to pieces left and right with a 12-guage shotgun. However, most people will always talk about the finale, in which three of our protagonists storm Ko’s mansion and kill upwards of a hundred people with Uzis, Mac-10s, pistols, shotguns, grenades and katana blades. The old Reel.com review referred to it as a “nitroglycerin-in-a-blender climax.” It is arguably one of the greatest shootouts in the entire history of cinema, although I still prefer the set pieces from The Killer and Hard Boiled to this one, personally. Nonetheless, this is the only John Woo Heroic Bloodshed film whose action got a Best Choreography nod at the Hong Kong Film Awards (it lost to Jackie Chan’s Project A 2), so that definitely says something about the just how good the finale is. The question is, are you willing to forgive its other missteps on account of those last 10 minutes?

Angel (1987)

Angel (1987)
aka: Iron Angels; Fighting Madam; Midnight Angels[1]
Chinese Title: 天使行動
Translation: Angel Action

 

Starring: Moon Lee Choi-Fung, Elaine Lui Siu-Ling, Hideki Saijo, Yukari Oshima, David Chiang Da-Wei, Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Hwang Jang-Lee, Peter Yang Kwan
Director: Teresa Woo San
Action Director: Tony Leung Siu-Hung

 

I don’t know why, but I was often reluctant to rent martial arts movies that didn’t hold a specific interest for me. I think I missed out on a lot of opportunities to enjoy the Classics because I was too busy re-renting John Woo’s Heroic Bloodshed films or The Undaunted Wudang, instead of branching out and taking chances. When I started my own review site back in 2001—a carbon-copy of this place, but for American MA films—I did start watching a few more American films than I was wont to try, but that’s it. It’s only the last decade or so—thanks to Youtube—that I’ve really made a point of “diversifying my bonds,” to quote the GZA.

Once in a while, I did try something new. The Girls n’ Guns genre in Thomas Weisser’s notorious Asian Cult Cinema got talked up enough that I ended up renting this movie from Hollywood video one Saturday afternoon on a lark. I ended up liking it a lot. So much, in fact, that the next time I found it for sale at Blockbuster Video, I just upped and bought it. It’s a fun little action-adventure, even if there are better examples of Fighting Femme Fatale movies out there.

The movie opens with a Thai military raid (led by a Pan-Asian coalition of law enforcement officers) on some poppy fields in the Golden Triangle—a region around the Mekong River that produces much of the world’s supply of heroin. The raid is successful and many of the armed drug planters are killed, and the fields are burned. This doesn’t sit well with The Syndicate, the consortium of criminal organizations responsible for distributing the drug throughout Asia. Although the man in charge (Peter Yang Kwan, of The Golden Lotus and Tragic Hero) wants to cut his losses and move forward, one of his subordinates, Madame Su (Yukari Oshima, of Ultracop 2000 and Book of Heroes) is more interested in revenge. She has one of her computer-savvy men go into the police station, sneak into the computer mainframe, and find out who was part of the coalition.

About 14 or so dead bodies later, the Hong Kong police—where some of the officials were murdered—have no clue as to what’s going on. The police chief receives a visit from American DEA agent Fong (Alex Fong, of Beauty Evil Rose and One Nite in Mongkok), who suggests that they employ the services of  the private detective agency The Iron Angels. The Americans will even foot the bills, so long as the HK police give the Angels permission and leeway to conduct an investigation. The chief agrees, and he and Fong contact John (David Chiang, of The Duel and Shaolin Mantis) to get him up to speed on the case. Since this is a bigger case than most, John brings in three of this “angels” to help with the investigation: Mona (Moon Lee, of Killer Angels and Mission of Justice), Helen (Elaine Lui, of Stone Age Warriors and Bride with White Hair) and Kenji (Japanese pop singer Hideki Saijo).

Kenji starts out staking out the police department—just how inept are HK police that they need an outsider to keep tabs on their own building?—while Mona and Helen sneak into a nightclub owned by one of the Syndicate members looking for information. Mona and Helen find information linking one of the heads of the Nipo-Daijo company, Chang Lung (Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee, of Duel of the Ultimate Weapons and Eagle vs Silver Fox), to the syndicate. Meanwhile, Kenji is able to snuff out the spy and uses a trash compactor to scare him into squealing. The Angels then sneak into the Nipo-Daijo headquarters in Hong Kong and discover the location of the next drug drop-off. After a clever ruse involving Kenji and Mona making out in a car not far from the scene of the drug delivery, they are able to steal a bag of heroin and get away unscathed.

By this point, Madame Su has already murdered the head of the Syndicate and taken power for herself. She contacts John, asking him to make an offer for her to buy back her heroin. He tells her to stop the revenge killings and release those law enforcement officials whom she’s captured—and routinely tortures for shits and giggles—but she balks at the idea of…well…killing less people. So the Angels track her down to the estate where she keeps the hostages and tries to free them. Only that during their escape, Fong and Helen are left behind. Now things are really going to heat up…

Although I’d call Angel a non-stop action movie, it is not a non-stop fighting film, and that may turn some viewers off. The first half does have a few brief displays of martial arts—including an all-too short scuffle between Yukari Oshima and Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee—most of the action is a mixture of Rambo-style gunbattles (the initial raid); spy-and-detective sequences; and tense cat-and-mouse car chases. Only in the second half does the action ramp up with more martial arts sequences and a John Woo-esque bullet ballet set piece. For the most part, however, writer-director Teresa Woo (who also wrote and produced the sequels, plus College Kickboxers) keeps the pace moving a fairly fast clip.

Although not her first role—she’d been acting as early as 1983—Moon Lee puts in her first action performance here, which would continue up through the late 1990s or so. Lee was trained to sing and dance, but was trained in the martial arts by actor-director Tsui Siu-Ming prior to making Angel. She’s a natural in this role and plays it with the right about of glamour and gravitas. She even has some romantic moments with lead hearthrob Hideki Saijo. It’s almost lamentable that many of her other action roles required her to make so many pouty faces (Inspector Wears Skirts IV, I’m looking at you).

Elaine Lui plays her foil as Helen, the flighty-and-flirty member of the trio, with a fixation for fashion and a talent for technology. Her character is very reminiscent of Elsa Yang’s flirtacious character from Book of Heroes, although Helen is more of a tease. Lui does have a few moments of hand-to-hand combat, although that’s not supposed to be her character’s specialty here. For better action from her, try The Innocent Interloper and Stone Age Warriors instead. Lui has stated in interviews—see Top Fighter 2: Deadly China Dolls—that she was resentful of getting pigeon-holed into action roles, even though she was honestly good at it, even when playing the villain.

Capping off the trio is Hideki Saijo as Kenji. Kenji’s “alter-ego” is a karate instructor at the Shaolin Temple in Japan. I’m not sure if Japan has a Shaolin Temple, but the karate style Shorin-Ryu is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the Kanji for Shaolin, so that might be related somehow. He actually ends up being the most able of the three, which is interesting, considering this film was written, produced and directed by a woman. His fights, however, involve more editing than those of Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima, so it’s clear that he wasn’t a skilled fighter. Thankfully, the final fight is given to the girls, while he just gets a second (and brief) rematch with Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee.

Stealing the show, however, is Yukari Oshima as the sadistic villainess Madame Su. She relishes this role as the ruthless drug kingpin who enjoys nothing more than torturing and killing people. Her natural beauty and althetic prowess go in concert with each other in creating one of the great villains of the Girls n’ Guns genre, and 80s Hong Kong action as a whole. She’s cruel enough lick up her victims’ blood as they lay bleeding from vicious whippings; she’s seductive enough to use her sexuality against her opponents as she sees fit; and when it’s time to throw down, it doesn’t matter how many opponents she faces, she’ll take them all on.

The action was staged by Tony Leung Siu-Hung, on something of a high after his bravura job on Magic Crystal. There are a few short fights here and there, but the pièce de résistance comes at the end when Moon Lee and Elaine Lui storm the Nipo-Daijo warehouse, taking on a room full of attackers with a mixture of 007-esque gadgetry and old fasioned kung fu. Moon Lee goes nuts with a steel bar used as a staff, while Lui hurls bombs disguised as dress buttons. It finally ends a brutal fight between Moon and Yukari where the latter justs pounds the snot out of the former with her punches while demonstrating her mean axe kick skills. Moon does have a few acrobatic skills at her disposal, and Yukari is ultimately dispatched in the bloodiest way possible. For such a bloodthirsty (sometimes literally), it’s fitting that she go out like that.

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[1] - This alternate title should not be confused with the 1990 female superhero film Midnight Angel, which also stars Yukari Oshima.

Magic Crystal (1986)

Magic Crystal (1986)
Chinese Title: 魔翡翠
Translation: Magic Emerald

 

Starring: Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Cynthia Rothrock, Nat Chan Pak-Cheung, Bin Bin, Wong Jing, Max Mok Siu-Chung, Sharla Cheung Man, Phillip Ko Fei, Richard Norton, Shek Kin
Director: Wong Jing
Action Director: Tony Leung Siu-Hung

 

Magic Crystal is an exceptionally strange oddity—from a territory known for such—coming out of Hong Kong. One part 80s martial arts film; one part goofy E.T. rip-off; and one part Indiana Jones rip off, this multi-genre concoction may very well cause even the most stalwart Hong Kong cinephile to lift their eyebrow at the weirdness on display. Back at the Bad Movie Message Board, of which I actively participated from 2009 until 2020, it was the crux of a running inside joke regarding soul-crushing movies, the sort of film that one might class with the likes of Sextette and Invasion of the Star Creatures. But then you go to more fight-centric circles, like The Stunt People, and the film gets the highest rating on account of the action.

The hero of our film is Andy Lo (Andy Lau, of Firestorm and Casino Raiders), a high-kicking private investigator who is routinely hired by the police (represented by Enter the Dragon’s Shek Kin) for to help gather evidence for tougher cases. When we meet him, Andy and his partner, Snooker Pan (Wong Jing, the director), are infiltrating a crime boss’s house to get the contents of his safe on the eve a trial. While cooling down afterward, Andy gets a letter from an archaeologist friend (Philip Ko Fei, of Dragons Forever and Shaolin Intruders) whose discoveries in Greece have attracted the unwanted attention of the KGB. He requests Andy’s help in helping him get out of the country alive. Andy, Snooker and Andy’s nephew, Pin Pin, take a plane to Athens for a brief Greek jaunt.

After the basic sightseeing, they run into both Dr. Shen and the KGB, resulting in a running fight between Andy, the KGB’s kung fu killers, and a pair of Interpol agents: Cindy Morgan (Cynthia Rothrock, of Fast Getaway 2 and Yes, Madam!) and Max (Max Mok, of Once Upon a Time in China 2 and Nitelife Hero). Shen is eventually shot and captured by the KGB, but not before slipping his “discovery” into Pin Pin’s suitcase.

Once back in Hong Kong, Pin Pin discovers a glowing crystal (complete with magical powers and a child’s voice) inside his luggage. While Andy is out protecting Dr. Shen’s sister, Winnie (Sharla Cheung Man, of Crystal Fortune Run and Kung Fu Cult Master), Pin Pin is using the crystal’s magic powers to help him fight bullies and torment Winnie’s tag-along would-be suitor Lau Ta (Nat Chan, of Last Hero in China). The KGB, led by Mr. Karov (Richard Norton, of Millionaire’s Express and Mr. Nice Guy), tracks down the crystal to Pin Pin’s house and kidnaps the boy, but not before a big kung fu fight between Karov, Cindy Morgan and Pin Pin’s stay-at-home mother (late-period Shaw Brothers actress Wong Mei-Mei, The Convict Killer and The Boxer from the Temple).

Andy and Snooker Pan ultimately team up with Interpol and follow the KGB back to Greece, where a House of TrapsÔ is discovered beneath the Acropolis (or some other set of Greek ruins). At the center of the House of Traps is a UFO—the origin of the crystal—and an explanation so strange that only a madman like Wong Jing could have dreamed it up.

Magic Crystal is certainly not a movie for the faint of heart when it comes to B-movies. Casual viewers will probably dismiss the nonsensical story, a second act that focuses on the “comic” shenangigans of Wong Jing regular Nat Chan, and a final round of exposition that…well…will assuredly make people reply, “Wait, what!?” I mean, this is the movie where the KGB is represented by one white guy (an Australian), and a bunch of Asian martial artists. This is a movie where Wong Jing touches a crystallized piece of green snot and declares, “I have the power!” before falling face-first out a window. This is a movie where an alien crystal temporarily transforms a little boy into Bruce Lee. If that sounds entertaining to you, then have at it! With regards to the Nat Chan subplot, I did like how it ended: him getting escorted away in a strait-jacket after the crystal convinces him that he has hypnotic powers—he unsuccessfully tries to rob a bank with them.

If you can get past all the silliness, then there is some wonderful action courtesy of Tony Leung Siu-Hung. In fact, I’d venture to say that this is the best gig that Leung has had in all of his Hong Kong career—I exclude the Seasonal movies that were produced for American audiences (No Retreat, No Surrender III; King of the Kickboxers; Bloodmoon; Superfights). And for an action director career that has spanned almost five decades and ninety films, that is definitely saying something. Leung Siu-Hung goes for a pseudo-old school approach to the action, with the characters often breaking out into traditional forms just because…well, that’s what they do.

Andy Lau and his stunt double get all sorts of work outs in their fights, especially the latter when it comes to impressive acrobatics. The movie opens with a fight between Lau and some stuntmen, including Sammo Hung regular Chung Fat. Even better is a later fight between him and a room full of bat-wielding killers at a gymnasium, which is full of crazy jumps and classic 80s fight choreography. He’s even better here than he was in The Lucky Stars Go Places, and that film got the Best Action Choreography nomination at the HK Film Awards!

Overshadowing him, however, are gwailo actors Richard Norton and Cynthia Rothrock. Rothrock had already been in Yes, Madam! and The Millionaire’s Express, so by this point, she was visibly more accustomed to the Hong Kong method of screen fighting. Rothrock had trained in wushu and had championed in forms between 1981 and 1985, and this is the first film to really give those traditional forms an showcase. In her first fight, Rothrock takes on a KGB henchman (played by Leung Siu-Hung himself, wielding a pair of tonfa) with three-section staff that connects into a spear—standard-issue Interpol equipment. Next, Rothrock wields a saber (or broadsword or dao) against Norton, whose Goju-Ryu skills have been adjusted to make him look like a Tiger Claw expert. Joining her is Wong Mei-Mei, who wields a two-edged sword (or jian) like an old school Shaw Brothers wuxia pian.

The finale is a special treat: Rothrock digs deeper into her wushu repertoire with not one, but two animal styles on display. Those would be the Ying Jao Pai (Eagle’s Claw) and Praying Mantis styles, which she looks really good and flexible performing. Once more, Leung Siu-Hung tailors Richard Norton’s skills to look something more akin to traditional Chinese kung fu, instead of Japanese martial arts. But then Leung Siu-Hung allows Norton to dip into his repertoire, which includes Kobudo, of Japanese weapons. He whips out a pair of sai swords and gives a complex demonstration in the context of fight choreography that is one for the ages, ranking up there with Heroes of the East and Tiger vs Dragon. The choreography in this segment is so good that you almost wish that Rothrock and Norton had been cast in earlier kung fu movies that could have given more space for them to shine. And to some, it’s enough for you to forget Nat Chan trying to sexually harrass Cheung Man.