2 Capsule Reviews - Taiwanese oddities

Turbo Dragon (1985)
aka Dragon Gate Fighter; Dragon Rascal -
Director: Ke Cheng-Lin

This obscure oddity is essentially a Brucesploitation comedy made a couple of years after both Dragon Lee and Bruce Le had moved away from the sub-genre. It doesn't really have an actual plot, and about every 20 minutes or so, it becomes a completely different movie in terms of stuff that goes on onscreen.

Lung Tse (Pan Rui-Li, of Kung Fu Emperor and To Catch a Thief) is a talented martial artist who has a hard time landing and keeping a job. When we meet him, he's working as a priest (!?) who officiates weddings. He loses his job after he beats up the groom in order for the bride to run off with her paramour, some borderline idiot fellow. His next job is to work as a janitor for a fat rich guy (Lin Kuang-Chin, of Tiger Love and Deadly Strike). On his first day of work, he rescues the guy's daughter (Fu Chuen, of Chaste Virgin and Madam Yu Ching) from kidnappers. The boss gives him a job as the stuntman on a cheap Brucesploitation flick (with Wei Ping-Ao in the cast, no less). Lung Tse then gets a normal job at the guy's company doing...construction(?)...different things, while he cavorts around with the daughter.

Just as Lung Tse and the daughter are going to elope, the boss shows up with a present for him: a trip to Thailand...because...uh...reasons? I guess it was to give the boss time to think before Lung could run off with his daughter. Anyway, Lung Tse's martial brother is having some problems with the local crime boss, who is pressuring him to take the fall for gambling reasons. After refusing twice to intentionally lose, the brother is beaten up by the gang boss's secret weapon fighter (Chen Te-Wei, of The Idiot Swordsman) in retaliation and the guy, his promotor/girlfriend (Chang Hoi-Lun), her flunkies, and Lung Tse are forced to flee into the jungle and go into hiding. After an interlude involving cannibals, Lung Tse takes on the boss's hyper-muscular fighter as a means of shoring up accounts.

As I said, Turbo Dragon doesn't really have a story. It doesn't really have an ending, either. Stuff just happens until the main opponent is defeated, at which point the film simply just stops. And the movie just jumps around from genre to another: it stars as a modern action-comedy; becomes a send-up of Brucesploitation; a sappy romance; then something about corrupt ring fights; then jungle adventure; and the last reel becomes borderline science fiction as it's revealed that the Thai crime boss has a supercomputer that he uses to train his secret weapon fighter, not too unlike the apparatus that Eric Roberts uses in DOA: Dead or Alive--the subtitles disappear when they're explaining device, but it looks like it analyzes the opponents moves and it's implied that it downloads information into the person's brain during the fight...I think.

There is some fighting here and there. Pan Rui-Li is in Bruce Lee imitator mode in his fights, although he's not as fast or crisp as the real thing. The fight on the movie set is basically a recreation of the earlier fights from Way of the Dragon (the entire movie looks like a remake of that film). The Muay Thai fights are played more or less realistically, as is the case of these films. There is a fight between Lung Tse and the top warrior of the cannibal tribe that involves them chained to each other--how do Stone Age tribes have metal chains--and wailing on each with iron axes and rattan shields. And the final fight feels like a combination of traditional shapes and more modern sensibilities. The fighting on the whole is okay, but the movie is so nonsensical that it's hard to enjoy.

Evil Hits Evil (1983/1985) 
Director: Nam Ki-nam, Lucifer Lai

At first I wondered if this was a cash-in on Mr. Vampire from that same year, but the release date is early enough in the year that I think it was more of a belated cash-in on the likes of Kung Fu Zombie or Encounter of the Spooky Kind. It is also not very good, with its notability mainly being that it was Doris Lung's last role (ignoring cut n' splice films that reused footage from her movies).

The movie opens with the slaughter of Chen Fu (Kwon Yung-moon) and his family by a group of killers working for the evil Mr. Hung (Chan Sing). Mr. Hung is the richest man in the village and has no problem torturing and murdering anyone who displeases him, which was Chen Fu's downfall: Chen Fu was a groundskeeper at Mr. Hung's house and was guilty of ollygagging so he could listen to Hung's daughter (Doris Lung Jun-Ehr) playing the lute. That barbarian.

Some months later, the ghost of Chen Fu possesses the body of Lee Yao (Alan Liu), a woodcutter in Mr. Hung's employ. Meanwhile, Mr. Hung starts getting haunted by ravens. And the local night watchman has visions of ghosts. And some random passerby gets in a fight with a pair of nunchaku-wielding numbskull bandits who take orders from their pet dog. And Mr. Hung randomly tortures a couple to death. And a Taoist Priest (Robert Tai), tries to exorcise the ghost from Lee Yao. And when that doesn't work, they have a sorcerer's battle. And Lee Yao starts killing off the killers who murdered Chen Fu.

If you look at that last paragraph, you'll notice that it feels a little random. That is exactly how this movie feels: random. It never feels like it settles on a main character or plot line. It just jumps back and forth between different characters until the climax. Heck, the film kills off some of the main characters right before the climax, one of whom I thought was the viewpoint character. I thought Robert Tai's Taoist priest was going to be important, but he dies about halfway through and is replaced with some random female Exorcist and a pair of charlatan priests whom the film spends way too much time with. And I still don't know what was up with the passerby and the bandits: he disappears from the narrative, only to show up as a ghost at the end.

There is nothing to really be gained from it. The action choreography was supplied by Peng Gang of Shaolin vs. Lama fame, but this is definitely his weakest work. Kwon Yung-moon throws a few kicks here and there, including a scene where he kicks a monk's head off. But the rest of the fighting is not lit very well (typical Taiwanese movie problem) and just not very interesting. And most of the climax is Doris Lung getting ghost raped, The Entity style. That is NOT a fitting end to the career of one of the major kung fu divas. 

3 Capsule Reviews - Non cut-and-splice IFD films

Raiders of the Doomed Kingdom (1983)
aka: Cobra Man (or แหกนรกเวียดนาม)
Director: Toranong Srichua

A more-or-less straight-forward Vietnam War action-adventure made in Thailand, but later picked up by IFD films for international distribution. And although the usual practice of inserting the familiar names (Godfrey Ho, etc.) into the opening credits, the actual film more or less remained untouched.

Popular Thai actor Sorapong Chatri plays Cobra, a Thai soldier working for the American forces in Vietnam. The film opens as the South Vietnamese--those that supported the Viet Cong--are about to storm the American embassy during the Fall of Saigon. Cobra is given the opportunity to flee along with the American diplomats, but he stays behind because he has been given a mission: rescue a South Vietnamese general, Chu (Peter Ramwa), and smuggle him (or his body) into Thailand. He gets together his commando group to rescue Chu, who has already been captured, and move him. The commando team eventually finds themselves on an island serving as a Leper's Colony, where they have to make a stand against the Viet Cong.

The film starts off as a pretty standard wartime action movie. There is a gun battle at the prison camp. Another gun battle on a bridge--where our heroes ruthlessly mow down female Viet Cong members, although one of them happens to be the General's daughter (Suriwan Suriyong) in disguise. One member of the team stays behind to keep the Viet Cong busy while the others escape alongside thousands of Boat People (whom are fired upon by the Viet Cong). Once they reach the Leper's Island, the commandos start succumbing to battle fatigue while the some of the refugees they picked up start thinking about turning in Cobra and his men in exchange for their lives. Things get graphic is the last half hour, as the Viet Cong murders and butchers the lepers and individual members of the commando squad.

I didn't think the film was bad, it was decent overall. Nonetheless, a remastered version would probably make it easier to enjoy. The film is notable for a random, lengthy, and graphic scene of cunnilingus that pops up out of nowhere while Cobra is wandering the streets of a fallen Saigon. As the version uploaded to Youtube is taken from a Japanese VHS, the full frontal shots (of which there are many) are all pixelated. A second, Thai-language version is uploaded to Youtube if you search for the Thai title. That version just cuts out the sequence entirely.


Commando Fury (Taiwan, 1983)
aka: Training Camp; Women Prison 1991

An IFD release of a Taiwanese WiP (Women in Prison) film that is surprisingly brutal, but without the rampant nudity and lesbianism that defines its European counterparts. The film is set in...I don't know...in the year...I don't know. I mean, one of the guards walks around in a U.S. Air Force outfit, so I'm guessing they did the typical Taiwanese thing of using whatever costumes they could cobble together. As for the location...I guess it's set in generic Asia-land.

The film is about a bunch of women who are in a prison and are routinely brutalized by the guards and the vicious warden (Richard Cui, billed as "Bernard Tsui"). The first 50 minutes revolve around the women being tortured, whipped, murdered, burned at the stake (!), stabbed, shot, worked to death, etc. In one scene, two women are forced into small cages and have iron bars stuck in said cages to force them into a compromising position and stay there for 24 hours. After that, the same women are loosed and made to fight for their food. Eventually, an inmate named Terry Yu (Juliet Chen) and the prison Queen Bee (Chiang Ching-Yen) team up to lead a breakout. Several of the girls go with them, including a political prisoner named Donna (Nancy Wen) who is supposedly in possession of some McGuffin microfilm. They flee into the jungle and are hunted by the guards, including a sadistic female guard named Helen (Liu Chia-Fen).

The entire film is just one long parade of violence against women and general brutality. And until we get to the scenes leading up the breakout, we never really know who the main character is. It turns out to be Terry Yu, who was hired by some mercenary to free Donna from the warden's custody. The last 25 minutes has some hand-to-hand combat and gunplay, ending with a huge betrayal and some major character sacrifices. Whether or not it is cathartic enough to make up for the other hour of general unpleasantness is up to you.


Pink Force Warriors (1985)
aka Women Warriors of Kinmen
Director: Karen Yang

Taiwanese army propaganda film about a contingent of female soldiers being trained in a fishing community off the coast of Taiwan--the English dub (courtesy of IFD Films) makes it clear that they are not on the island of Taiwan. The film focuses on four characters: Mary (Lu Hsiao-Fen, of Black Rose: The Hong Kong Tigress), the serious one whose fisherman father disapproves of her relationship with a frogman (Don Wong Tao, of Secret Rivals); Susan (Shirley Lui, of Devil Fetus), who wants to date the captain of the male platoon, but is stopped by her asshole, overprotective brother; Angela (Ying Hsiao, of Girl with a Gun), the goof-off who is hit on by a daddy's boy rich kid soldier named Peter (Wong Fook-Sat); and Captain Joy (Teresa Tsui, of Pink Force Commando), the hard-as-nails squad leader.

Most of the movie is soap opera revolving around the girls' relationships. Early in the second half, Mary's father is murdered by Chinese spies, causing her to go crazy about finding and killing "Communists." She eventually confronts a pair of Mainland frogman spies and fights them. At the end, there are some war games and Susan and Angela finally take their jobs seriously. The fighting is limited to a couple of friendly scuffles between Lu Hsiao-Fen and Wong Tao, who teaches her how to knife fight. Then she gets to fight the frogmen, ending in a tragic sacrifice. The action is a mixture of Judo and knife-fighting, but nothing special here. Everything else is annoying soap opera and melodrama, plus some mock battles in the last 15 minutes.

Capsule Reviews - 3 Ghost Movies

Ghost of the Mirror (1974)

Starring: Brigitte Lin, Shih Chun, Tuo Tsung-Hua, Chang Ping-Yu, Ku Wen-Chung, Chiang Wei-Min, Pai Lin
Director: Sung Tsun-Shou

This movie feels a bit like "The Magic Sword and the Magic Bag" from Pu Song-Ling's Strange Story from a Chinese Studio. That is, this feels a bit like the story that inspired A Chinese Ghost Story; The Enchanting Shadow; and any other movie based on the material.

Our hero is Young Noble (A Touch of Zen's Shih Chun), a young scholar whose mother (Chang Ping-Yu, of Imperial Tomb Raiders and Shaolin Wooden Men) has recently recovered from a severe illness. So severe, in fact, that it practically took her life. She was able to make a deal with the gods (or directly with Buddha) that her health would be restored in exchange for her (or someone by proxy) copying some Buddhist sutras some fifty times. The task itself has fallen onto her filial son, Young Noble, who finds an abandoned manor some ten miles outside of town to work in peace (and away from the influence of wome).

He settles into the manor with the company of a young apprentice, Qi Tung (Tuo Tsung-Hua, who grew up to play the main henchman whom Donnie Yen kills in Butterfly and Sword). They discover that the well is haunted by a female ghost, Su Su (Brigitte Lin, of Swordsman II and New Dragon Inn). Su Su just lies at the bottom of the well and mesmerizes men who look inside into falling in and drowning. When the Young Noble ignores her, she leaves the well and tries to seduce him outright. But he is too righteous for that and her master, the Poison Dragon, tries to possess her to kill him. That doesn't work and Su Su and the Young Noble start to fall for each other. But will their otherworldly love stand strong against the protestations of his pious mother and the evil of the Poison Dragon.

Ghost of the Mirror is a bit of a slow burner, although it gives you plenty of time to stare at a 20-year-old Brigitte Lin in period garb. The film builds to a tragic finale, although not quite in the way I was expecting. It does involve a giant dragon marionette attacking miniature buildings, so that was unexpected. My main issue with the story is the sub-plot that suggests that the ghost Su Su has an alternate personality, or horcrux (or something), in the form of a mirror that also fell into the well and has its own spirit (or something). Maybe it's Chinese Taoism metaphysics that I don't understand, but I don't think it added anything to the story.

The Ghost Snatchers (1986) 

Starring: Wong Jing, Joey Wong, Stanley Fung, Hsu Shu-Yuen, Joyce Mina Godenzi, Michael Chan Wai-Man, Shum Wai, Charlie Cho Cha-Lee, Tony Leung Hung-Wah
Director: Lam Nai-Choi
Action Directors: Yuen Bun, Wong Chi-Ming

Crazy Ghostbusters-inspired horror-comedy directed by Lam Nai-Choi, who later went on to direct the famous The Seventh Curse and The Peacock King. This sort of over-the-top WTFery is really up Lam's alley. That said, it pairs Wong Jing and Stanley Fung in front of the camera, so I assume that this movie is part of Fung's life's shame.

So, there is a building in Hong Kong that has some very bad Feng Shui. It was built on the execution site of a garrison of Japanese soldiers at the end of WW2 and their spirits are gaining strength from the fact that the building has "too much Yin" (and not enough Yang). In the first scene, a pretty lady (Hsu Shu-Yuen) is at a big office party when she gets assaulted (and stripped nude) by a corridor of "scary hands" (similar to when Sigourney Weaver gets attacked by Zuul). She shows up later on, now possessed by the ghosts.

Our main character is Bong (Wong Jing), a ne'er-do-well who somehow has managed to bag a hot girlfriend in the form of Hsueh (Joey Wong). His friend, Fan (Stanley Fung), manages to get him a job as a security guard at the same building from the first scene. Lots of weird things start to happening: Bong witnesses the pretty lady sucking the blood of the building owner (Shum Wai), a TV sprouts arms and legs and attacks him, his fellow guards start to get killed off, etc. They bring in an interior designer/Feng Shui expert, Ling (Joyce Mina Godenzi, looking her most va-voom-tastic), who is also a ghostbuster of sorts. She figures out that they have until July 14th to stop the Japanese ghosts before their power gets so big that they kill all the Yin individuals, including Bong and Fan.

This is one of those movies that I just have to write a paragraph about some of the weird things that happen and you decide whether or not you want to watch this. Do you want to see a man pull off his own face and rip out his own heart? Do you want to see a climax involving a protracted fight with an animated skeleton? Do you want to see Wong Jing run into a porno theater and stand in front of the screen for 30 seconds while looking for one of Stanley Fung's three (out of ten) souls? Do you want to see Wong Jing win at mahjong with the help of a low-rent Alf-looking imp? If you say "yes" to any of those questions, then Ghost Snatchers is for you.

Split of the Spirit (1987) 

Starring: Pauline Wong, Hsu Shu-Yuen, Wu Hsiao-Kang, Ku Kuan-Chung, Cynthia Khan, Peter Mak Tai-Kit, Chan Lap-Ban, Yang Yuan-Zhang, Yang Tuan-Sun
Director: Fred Tan

Okay, after the nuttiness of Ghost Snatchers, here's a supernatural revenge drama that takes itself quite seriously (for the most part). The film revolves around two women: Lu-Ling and Hwei-Chu. Lu-Ling (Pauline Wong, the pretty ghost in Mr. Vampire) is a huge figure in Hong Kong on the modern (or interpretive) dance scene. She has been dumped by her lover and is contemplating suicide. Hwei-Chu (Hsu Shu-Yuen, who was the possessed girl in Ghost Snatchers) is romantically-linked to a playboy named David Bao (Ku Kuan-Chung, of Web of Death and Clans of Intrigue). Bao has cheated on her before, although he now promises that he will end his philandering ways.

NOTE: This is one of those toxic relationships where he openly has cheated on her. But she tells everyone that she believes he has turned a new leaf and will now be faithful to her. But in private, she acts so suspicious toward him that you wonder why she forgave him in the first place.

Anyway, it is suggested that Lu-Ling was the woman that David Bao was cheating on Hwei-Chu with. And when he goes to Taiwan with Hwei-Chu, Lu-Ling tries to kill herself by overdosing on pills. She is saved by her nosy secretary, Amy (Chow Ai-Lei). While Lu-Ling is recovering, David Bao has Hwei-Chu killed and her spirit "sealed" in her place of death by a sorcerer named Master Li (Yang Yuan-Zhuang). However, their accomplice accidentally break the spirit mirror, meaning that Hwei-Chu's spirit is free to roam. Due to a huge coincidence and happenstance at the Taipei airport, Lu-Ling (who has recovered and is preparing for a special Taiwan performance) is marked for possession by Hwei-Chu. Hwei-Chu uses Lu-Ling's body to execute the men responsible for her murder.

And when Hwei-Chu decides that she wants more from Lu-Ling than just a temporary vessel, it wil be up to an observant photographer (Wu Hsiao-Kang), his spiritualist girlfriend (a young Cynthia Khan in a non-fighting role) and her mentor to save Lu-Ling.

Split of the Spirit will probably be creepy to people who don't watch a lot of horror. And even if it doesn't spook you, it gets points for being a Hong Kong horror that doesn't become a kung fu movie or broad comedy (or both) halfway through. The finale does get a bit crazy, though, with eye lasers and eye flamethrowers and badly-composited scenes of spirits flying through the heavens. And the film ends on an ambiguous note, although I don't like the sort of twists that suggest that everything you just saw did not happen the way you just saw it. When you the viewer are expecting one outcome and the opposite happens, the preceding event needs to be shown in a way that is ambiguous enough that you assume things happened a given way before "X" is revealed. A good example is the surprise ending of the film Life. This one doesn't pull it off like it should have.

Shaolin vs. Black Magic (1983)

Shaolin vs. Black Magic (1983)
aka: Weird Story
Chinese Title: 小和尚捉妖
Translation: Little Monk Catches Demon

Starring: Yu Kuo-Tung, Wang Ryong, Kong Wan-Hsing, Kim Yoo-Haeng, Ma Chin-Ku, Ho Hing-Nam, Chiang Ching-Yen, Lee Eun-Sook, Suen Siu-Ming, Im Eun-Joo
Director: Wu Chia-Chun
Action Director: ???

Another Hong Kong/South Korean co-production from Wu Chia-Chun, the man who gave us the same year's Shaolin vs. Tachi and South Shaolin vs. North Shaolin, plus Bruce Lee Against Supermen and Jackie and Bruce to the Rescue. This one is odd, in that it actually reminded me of a completely unrelated film, Rape of the Sword. It has been debated whether or not that movie is an adaptation of Wang Dulu's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. If it is, then it is doubly fascinating because the story of that film reverses the roles, making the Li Mu-Bai stand-in the villain and the Jade Fox and Jen the heroines. In the case of Shaolin vs. Black Magic, it felt (to me) like a dime store version of Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, but with the Six Schools (mainly Shaolin) being the heroes and the Evil Sect being...well...actually evil. 

The film opens with a woman named Yuen Kee (Lee Eun-sook, of Wild Panther and Ninja vs. the Shaolin Guards) and her female entourage entering a mysterious cave. They are joined by a bunch of fighters who materialize from the cave walls. Yuen Kee performs a spell to resurrect her father, Wu San (Wang Ryong aka Mike Wong). Wu San declares that they, the Moon Worshipper's Clan, must either subject the Six Schools (Shaolin, Wu Dang, Sin Cheng, Kunlun, and two others) to their clan, or destroy them. He also adds that they must do it before Shaolin and Wu Dang can unite the Miraculous Mirror and Golden Buddha. We quickly cut to a scene of Wu San murdering the heads of three of the schools, including Im Eun-joo (Dragon Fist and My Name Called Bruce). Three down, three to go.

We then switch to Shaolin, where two things are going on. First, we have our main hero, Lu Chen (Yu Kuo-Tung, of Shaolin vs. Tai Chi and War of the Shaolin Temple), who works in the kitchen. He has been forbidden (for undisclosed reasons) from learning kung fu, but he has been learning in secret from a (supposedly) mute monk who walks around in leg shackles. At the same time, the head of Sin Cheng School (Ma Chin-Ku, Cantonen Iron Kung Fu and Ninja in the Dragon's Den), shows up at Shaolin to tell the Abbot and senior-most monk (Ho Hing-Nam, of Revenge of the Shaolin Master and A Massacre Survivor), about the murders of the other masters. The three go to Wu San's grave--a flashback shows that he was defeated in combat with the six school leaders 20 years prior--and find that the body is missing.

After some completely random aside about some kung fu master sneaking into the temple to fight the monks, Lu Chen is teamed up with a portly monk (Kim Yoo-haeng, of The Tiger of Northland and The 18 Amazones) to go to Wu Dang (led by Chang San-Feng, the legendary personage played by Sammo Hung in Kung Fu Cult Master and Donnie Yen in New Kung Fu Cult Master) to fetch the Miraculous Mirror. They reach Wu Dang and depart with Brother Kong (Kong Wan-Hsing, of Magnificent Warriors and Lucky Seven 2), the top Wu Dang student. All three of them are carrying the Miraculous Mirror, although only one of them is real. After a fight with the Moon Worshipper's Clan in a restaurant, the three men separate. They are attacked by ghosts, wizards, and jiangshi, and Brother Kong is killed (or captured) by the clan. At the same time, Wu San and his minions are challenging the Sin Cheng leader to a duel while his daughter and her fiancé are fleeing to Shaolin for protection. It all culminates in a big fight at Shaolin between the monks and the Moon Worshipper's Clan.

Shaolin vs. Black Magic, like Shaolin vs. Tai Chi, feels like a movie that was made three or four years too late for the genre. It suffers from all-over-the-place script and too many characters, much like SvTC, and the fight choreography is old school, but anachronistic when you consider what the Yuen Clan, Ching Siu-Tung and Lau Kar-Leung were doing in 1983 in their kung fu films. There is some confusion about the main villain: he is referred to as Wu San by the characters, but in the flashback sequence, they call him "Nan Kun-Jin". Why both names? Was he resurrected into a new body and given a new name? And what is the story about the young fighter with the red nose who sneaks into Shaolin? He fights with Lu Chen and disappears from the narrative with no explanation as to who he was or what he wanted with Shaolin. (EDIT: the inability of director Wu Chia-Chun to give sufficient attention to any one plot point before losing interest and moving onto the next, leaving everything undeveloped, was a liability in both Shaolin vs. Tai Chi and North Shaolin vs. South Shaolin, too)

Several main characters enter the narrative with no real introduction, like Brother Kong from Wu Dang or the portly monk who accompanies our hero. The asshole senior monk (Suen Siu-Ming, of Lady Killer and The Powerful Men) shows up to berate Lu Cheng for learning kung fu in secret, but disappears from the rest of the movie, including the climax at Shaolin. Three of leaders of the six schools show up, are killed, and are no longer mentioned...and we never actually learn who they were or which school each of them represented. And the subplot involving the Sin Cheng leader's daughter and her fiancé never really goes anywhere, although they do participate in the climax. Several main characters are killed unceremoniously, too, which also indicates this movie was just badly directed.

The action is just alright. The traditional shapes aren't bad, but some of the background fights during group melees are just bad. The worst offender is the actress who plays the Sin Cheng daughter, who stiffly walks into the final brawl, stiffly (and slowly) waves a flute around as a weapon, and looks like she isn't taking the fight seriously. There are a lot of supernatural elements: like headless female ghosts (or female sorcerers who can use magic to detach their heads) and one girl who can extend her neck like a rokurokubi (played by a vacuum hose with a papier-mâché head). However, don't go in expecting detailed and disgusting rituals like you'd find in a Shaw Brothers horror film of the same era (i.e. The Boxer's Omen and Bewitched).

The film's resident McGuffins, the Golden Buddha and Miraculous Mirror, can fire colored lights at their opponents and are used a few times. There is also a "Miraculous Staff" that shows up at the end. The latter was described earlier as a dangerous weapon that can kill people indiscriminately, but we just see the heroes using it and stabbing the main villain with it (i.e. there is no reason in what we see in the film for it to be described the way it is). The fact that it can break into two parts makes me wonder if the staff is the "Heaven Sword" and "Dragon Sabre" of the film. Whatever. In any case, this is for completists only.

Capsule Reviews - Early 1980s Asian Horror

The Queen of Black Magic (Indonesia, 1981: Liliek Sudjio)
aka: Black Magic 3; Black Magic Queen; Black Magic Terror 



This one was listed in Thomas Weisser's Asian Cult Cinema as Black Magic 3, included in the same entry as the two Shaw Brothers horror classics directed by Ho Meng-Hua. That would put this is the same bucket as Troll 2, which had nothing to do with the original Troll. It does make for an interesting comparison piece with films like Bewitched and the like from that era.

So, the village Lothario, Kohar (Alan Nuary), is a bit of an asshole. Just a few weeks ago, he was deflowering a pretty young virgin named Murni (Suzzanna, of Samson and Delilah and The Earth Gets Hotter) and promising to marry her. Now, he is marrying Baedah (Siska Widowati, of Escape from Hell Hole) the daughter of the village chief. After all, that would make him a shoe-in for the job as soon as his father-in-law retires. Murni is obviously distraught at Kohar's behavior, but that's only the start of her problems. At the wedding, Baedah starts suffering from hallucinations, including one of Kohar transforming into a walking skeleton and strings of flowers transformed into pythons. 

Kohar and his father-in-law call in the village shaman to fight whatever evil force is causing Baedah's hallucinations. However, the magician behind the scenes is more powerful than the shaman and kills him. The shaman's final word is "West". Kohar leaps to the conclusion that Murni was behind it, as her hut lies to the west and she certainly has a motive for wanting to sabotage the wedding. Kohar leads a torch-wielding mob to her house, burns the place down (with her mother still in it), and throws Murni from a cliff. She is rescued by a black magic magician who convinces her to learn his craft--which includes performing nude backflips--and get revenge on Kohar and the other villagers. Bloody killings ensue...

Different from Hong Kong films from that era, which showed us complex spells and enchantments being performed with live animals, fruits, bodily fluids, etc. this one eschews a lot of that. Whenever Murni or her teacher perform a spell, it is either through a voodoo doll or through gestures and incantations. Early on, we see the black magic magician using a voodoo doll to make Kohar impotent, although that is never revisted afterward. In any case, the results of these spells includes: bodies erupting into blood-spewing boils, a person being attacked by a swarm of bees, a man's neck rotting off to the point he pulls his own head off, and a man sinking into a rice paddy and getting his face eaten off by worms.

The most interesting aspect of the film is that resident "Religious Hero" is the Pious Muslim. To those who do not know, Indonesia is a Muslim-majority country and actually has the largest Muslim population in the world in terms of actual numbers: it is the 4th most populous nation in the entire world at 285 million people. So, Christians give us Catholic Priest Exorcists, Taoists give us their One-Eyebrow ghostbusters, and Buddhists have their enlightened monks. In this film, the ultimate weapon against black magic is "just being a good Muslim community": people should go to the surau and pray, Qur'an verses can protect against spells, and just being a good person is shield enough. It makes for a good contrast with how other religions in these sorts of movies fight the suprenatural: no extra manuals and rituals, or fighting magic with white magic, or monks bleeding golden blood with ghost-repelling properties. Just right living and knowing the basic scriptures. The minimalist take on fighting evil is notable, even if it makes for less visually-compelling cinema.

The Witch with Flying Head (Taiwan, 1982: Chang Jen-Chieh) 



Taiwan's answer to Indonesia's Mystics in Bali is a movie that is equal parts bonkers and melodramatic. Director Chang Jen-Chieh was reasonably well versed in kung fu cinema, having done projects like Eighteen Jade Arhats and Iron Neck Li, but with this particular story, it feels a bit too episodic. And when crazy things aren't happening, the movie is a bit of a slog.

The film opens with a Snake Demon sorcerer, Jia Chu-An (Ma Sha, of Fighting Life and The Nude Body Case in Tokyo), materializing at a nobleman's house and vomiting up a small snake that crawls into the latter's daughter's...orifice (I'm not sure which). This causes the girl, Zhen-Yu (Chen Siu-Chen, of Shaolin Invincible Guys) to go into a lot of pain. The sorcerer shows up with some medicine, which the girl's servants administer to her. Of course, this was all a ruse. The woman is transformed into a monster (or witch) who periodically sheds its head and viscera in order to find victims and suck their blood. This is the Chinese equivalent of pennangalan, or krasue in Southeast Asia. Jia Chu-An tells her and her dad (Hu Hsiang-Ping, Big Boss of Shanghai) that he will give her the antidote if she will marry him.

Instead of going ahead with the wedding, the dad brings in a pair of Buddhist monks (The Invinicble Super-Chan's Ko Yu-Min and Green Dragon Inn's Yueh Feng) to try to exorcise Zhen-Yu. Unfortunately for them, the magic (or poison) bewitching her is too strong and she ends up transforming again and killing the monks. So, Zhen-Yu's two servants, Chun-Hua (Jin Ling-Zhi, of The Fairy and the Devil) and Qiu-Yue (Chan Mei-Hua, of Dragon on Shaolin Tower), take Zhen-Yu out into the countryside so that she can't hurt anybody. On her first transformation, she kills a would-be rapist and draws the attention of a Taoist monk (Shao Lo-Hui, of The Evil Karate and The Death Duel). Although he isn't able to expel the poison, he is able to help her so that she will only transform once a month instead of every evening. He also give her a magic box that she can be sucked into during transformation so that she doesn't hurt anyone.

All of the above accounts for the first third of the film. The second act introduces a wandering scholar, Tang Ming-Kuan (Liu Shang-Chien, of Dragon Gate and Heroes of the Eastern Skies), who is marked for death by a pair of female snake spirits. These girls like to seduce men and then bite and devour them to absorb their Yang Energy (or something). Tang Ming-Kuan escapes from them and finds shelter with Zhen-Yu and her servants. Although the two fall in love, her dreadful secret, the two snake spirits, and Jia Chu-An promise to make their life difficult for them.

Like I said, the film has frequent moments of insanity broken up by the characters being too melodramatic for their own good. This is compounded once the little girl, Xiu-Zhen, shows up in the story and cries "Mummy!" so much that I just want someone to kill her. But if you can get past that, there is a fair amount of weirdness to recommend the film. Obviously, the idea of a flying head with her internal organs hanging from it is not one that anyone will come across in Western horror movies. We also get a grown woman vomiting live snakes, Buddhist monks getting their heads smashed or disemboweled, magical battles, aphrodisiacs turning men into snake-screwing sex machines, bomb-shooting Bagua mirrors, witches that spit lasers and flames, and even a smidgen of wire-fu.

The flip side is that some of the nuttiness comes with some animal snuff footage, like the snake with its head partially cut off (it makes sense in the context of the movie). That made me feel bad for the little guy. If you're willing through a lot of scenes involving crying women and some unjustly-killed reptiles, you'll get some screwy imagery and gore that you may not get in the States.

The Black Magic with Buddha (Hong Kong, 1983: Lo Lieh)



Despite being known mainly as an actor, especially one of traditional kung fu and wuxia films, Lo Lieh also dabbled in directing at times. His most beloved directorial effort is Clan of the White Lotus, although some people argue that it is more Lau Lar-Leung's film, given the quantity of action and his presence as the action director, than Lo's. This horror film, made at a time that films like Bewitched were popular, appears to be all of Lo's effort, as he produced this for his own short-lived production company. This film is a variation on the "Monkey's Hand" story that could be retitled "The Mummy's Brain" (albeit with no relation to Kharis and Tanna Leaves).

The film kicks off on the Indonesian side of the island of New Guinea (geography note: the other half the island is the country of Papua New Guinea), with a Chinese guy named Ben (Chen Kuan-Tai, of Iron Monkey and A Life of Ninja) following a guide to a cave where they find a coffin. Inside is a mummy, which the guide--also a shaman or magician of sorts--extracts the brain. He places the brain in the box and tells Ben that he can use the brain to make some wishes, but to destroy it with holy water as soon as he has what he needs.

Ben flies back to Bangkok--apparently he's a Diaspora Chinese living there--where we learn his plight: he is dating a girl, Annie (Candice Yu, of Death Duel and Buddha's Palm), who dad is a successful business. Ben is anything but, so dad (Boo Wibunnan, of One Way Ticket to Bangkok) and her brother, Kit (Pumi Patanayut), are opposed to their future marriage plans, especially Kit. Ben also lives with his bitchy sister (Choh Seung-Wan, of Revenge of the Corpse and Return of the Sentimental Swordsman), who always berates him for having spent his half of their sizable inheritance (presumably on get-rich-quick schemes gone bad).

So he starts making wishes on the brain, first for his luck to reverse. Then he gets in a fight with his sister over her refusal to lend him some money. After he tells her to go to hell, the sister is attacked by invisible forces and falls to her death from a balcony. His future father-in-law mysteriously changes his mind about allowing the marriage. After after Ben marries Annie, her brother Kit is killed by dozens of brain-like parasites after insulting Ben. It takes a while for Ben to realize that he the Brain acts up whenever it isn't being "worshipped" enough and when he's ready to pursue life without its help, Annie accidentally breaks the recipient of holy water meant to destroy it. Only Annie's growing religious fervor--she buys a statue of a four-headed Buddha when the haunting starts racheting up--and another black magic sorcerer (Lo Lieh) can defeat the Brain...

This is one of those movies that I wanted to like more than I did. I mean, I love a good "killer brain" film and the Hong Kong version of Fiend without a Face (plus a pre-dating dose of Brain Damage) feels like just the sort of random nonsense to hit the right spots. Sadly, the film suffers from some pacing issues and a lack of imagination in the final showdown with the brain, who has transformed one of the characters into a Brain Person. I don't think the film had enough of a budget to have the non-stop parade of sickening effects and campy optical FX that made those late-period Shaw films so entertaining, even when shooting entirely out of Hong Kong (it would seem). But a lot of scenes were hampered by the crappy VHS rip file that I found on the Internet Archive. Perhaps it will be more entertaining if the I watch the HD release from Mondo Macabro coming out next year.

There are some amusing scenes, like the father-in-law decorating his room with pictures of the Virgin Mary and cloves of garlic after he and the help see the brain inside the refrigerator (this came out a year before Ghostbusters). He knows there is something, but not knowing what, he uses protection better meant for a vampire. And it has a nice 1970s "bummer" ending. And if you are grossed out by lingering shots of pulsating brains, this movie has those in spades. It just feels a bit too quaint after having watched The Boxer's Omen earlier that week.


Brutal Sorcery (Hong Kong, 1983: Chan Siu-Pang)



Horror film directed by veteran martial arts choreographer Chan Siu-Pang (The 18 Bronzemen; The Best of Shaolin Kung Fu; Shaolin Kung Fu Mystagogue) is little more than the first act of the Shaw Brothers film Bewitched dragged out to 88 minutes. Moreover, it is notably less graphically violent and exploitative than its inspiration, making one wonder why the undertaking was done in the first place.

The movie starts at the funeral of cabbie Cheung Yau (Newton Lai, of Final Run and The Devil's Box), who is buried in hallowed ground by a Taoist priest (and his devotees in ninja hoods), despite the unsavory rumors regarding his death. A reporter talks to his wife, Anne (On Hei-Lai), and his primary physician, Dr. Kwok (Kwan Hoi-San, of Project A and The Shaolin Disciple), about the circumstances involving his death and that would be the rest of the movie.

One evening, Cheung Yau is doing his rounds when he comes across a woman walking alone at night. Cheung stops her and asks her if she needs a ride. When she turns to face him, Cheung is horrified and drives off: her pale skin and bloody face suggests that she was a ghost. He goes to see a fortune teller after the encounter and things don't look good for him. The fortune teller suggests that his having been born on the 9th hour of the 9th day of the 9th month, not to mention that he's about to turn 27 (i.e. 3 times 9), is a very inauspicious sign and he's destined to have a horrible life and probably die early, too.

Shortly after that, Cheung Yau is one more doing his rounds when he comes across a young couple walking around at night--which happens to be a holiday of sorts for disembodied spirits. He convinces them to let him drive them home, which turns out to be two different cemeteries. Cheung is soon possessed by the two ghosts, which alarms his wife, Anne. She and her parents take him to a medium, Lady Luk (Tong Yeuk-Ching, of Sorrows of the Forbidden City and The Kingdom and the Beauty--she passed on shortly after this movie). Lady Luk is able to get the ghosts to possess her and they explain that they had been lovers and even married, but the girl's parents did not approve of their relationship. They were killed by a black magic sorcerer and buried in separate cemeteries.

The ghost couple promises to leave Cheung Yau alone if he will dig up their bones, bring them back to her sister in Thailand. Cheung Yau does just that and delivers up the bones to the sister, Suzanne (Lily Chan, playing the same role she did in Bewitched). Suzanne doesn't realize Cheung Yau is married (and our "hero" is too stupid to tell her outright) and asks him to stick around for a few days. They end up sleeping with each other and she makes him promise to visit her in three months' time. Of course, Cheung Yau ends up not keeping his promise and if you've seen Bewitched, you can see where this is going...

The film can be broken into three parts. The first part covers Cheung Yau's initial possession by the doomed ghost couple, who are not evil--although they certainly act that way whenever they're possessing him--but just want a decent burial next to each other. The second act covers Cheung's trip to Thailand and his getting cursed. Finally, the last act has Anne and Dr. Kwok travel to Thailand in order to ask Suzanne to call off the curse. When she refuses to, they turn to another magician, King Ping (Ng Hong-Sang, whose name in the dubbing sounds like "Kingpin"). As you can expect, this will ultimately end in a battle of sorcery, complete with flames, little kid devils (who can transform into chickens), wooden swords, yellow paper amulets, maggots, magic capes, and telekinesis. Kinda crazy, but it needed more energy, which is surprising, given Chan Siu-Pang's involvement (he could always direct a lively fight scene).

Like I said, this movie never feels like it went all the way. Lily Chan does get naked when she's performing the first part of the curse, but the camera doesn't linger on her body like it did in Bewitched (slow-motion running and all). Watching a crappy VHS rip also doesn't help. We get to see the one guy stuffing live fish into his mouth and chowing down on raw liver. Another guy's stomach swells and then erupts in a mess of maggots. Nonetheless, it all feels too familiar, with the only thing that this film does better than Bewitched is not forgetting about Lily Chan's character after the initial curse.

Capsule Reviews - Brucesploitation Movies

The Dragon Lives (1976)
aka King of Kung Fu; He's a Legend, He's a Hero 
Chinese Title: 詠春大兄
Translation: Wing Chun Brother

Starring: Bruce Li, Betty Chen Pei-Zhen, Su Hsiang, Hsueh Han, Yam Ho, Lee Wan-Chung, Han Su, Hu Chi
Director: Wang Hsing-Lei
Action Director: Huang Kuo-Chu

Strange biopic from Bruce Li--one of five he made between 1974 and 1976--that jumps around tonally. Bruce heads to San Francisco as a young man and then hitches a ride, hobo-style, to Long Beach for the infamous Long Beach International Karate Championships, which is portrayed like the tournament scene in Master of the Flying Guillotine. Bruce takes on the heavyweight boxing champion and wins, which earns him a place on "The Green Hornet." When Bruce has a dispute with the director of the latter's insistence that he wear a queue, Bruce heads back to Hong Kong and becomes a movie star. He has an affair with Betty Ting Pei (Chen Su-Chen) and starts training himself to death, especially when he gets invited to work on a (fictitious) film co-starring the aforementioned boxer.

Bruce Lee - A Dragon Story was more accurate, but had so little action that American distributors had to splice in fights from Superior Youngster and Little Superman. Young Bruce Lee really just did its own thing. This one pays lip service to events in Bruce Lee's life, and jumps back and forth in tone between happy-go-lucky, somber (whenever he's pondering the treatment of Asians in Hollywood), and even dark (whenever he's over-training himself). The recreations of fights from his movies are better than those in Dragon Story, especially the Fist of Fury dojo scene. Strangely enough, the movie ends with him having sex with Betty Ting Pei: Yep, a kung fu movie whose climax is also the lead actress's.

All that said, you're better off sticking with Bruce Lee's Secret and Bruce Lee - The Man, the Myth.

Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu (1977)
Aka: Ching Wu & Shaolin Kung Fu; Fist and Fury Part 2; Bruce and Shao-Lin Kung Fu
Chinese Title: 達魔鐵指功
Translation: Demonic Iron Finger

Starring: Bruce Le, Chan Sing, James Nam Seok-hoon, Kim Jeong-ran, Bae Soo-cheon, Chiang Tao, Bolo Yeung Sze, Jang Il-shik, Lee Hang, Nick Cheung Lik
Director: James Nam, Cho Seok
Action Director: Tang Tak-Cheung

I think some consider this one of the better Bruce Le films out there, alongside Enter the Game of Death and Clones of Bruce Lee. This is arguably one of the more competent films he made, sticking with the familiar Fist of Fury template. In some territories, the film is known as Fist of Fury Part 2 and is presumably set at a time after the events of the original in which the Ching Woo school has spread beyond Shanghai and is actually doing quite well for itself. Le plays Ching Ling, one of the top students of the Ching Woo School, who has been up in the mountains practicing kung fu with a Shaolin master (Chan Sing, in an extended came). Upon finishing up his training, Ching Ling and his friend, Kang Jin (Nick Cheung Lik), return to Shanghai, where things are heating up under the command of Japanese General Yae Ho (Bae Soo-cheon, in yet another scenery-chewing performance). Yae Ho and his advisors want to eliminate kung fu schools in China in order to put down any possible rebellion. The General has his son, a lieutenant in the Japanese army and a karate master, is tasked with defeating Chinese martial arts.

When Ching Ling comes back to Ching Woo, he finds the school in shambles. He challenges the Lieutenant to a duel and humiliates him, resulting in the latter committing hara-kiri. Now a persona non grata in Shanghai, Ching Ling departs for Korea, which is already a Japanese colony. He hooks up with Master Po Sai Lam (James Nam), a martial brother of Ching Ling’s master. He starts learning Taekwondo and a special fist style. Meanwhile, the Japanese send a group of killers (including Chiang Tao and Bolo Yeung) to Korea to look for Ching Ling. Lots of fights break out. When the General arrives in Korea for a military conference, Ching Ling and Master Po’s daughter (Kim Jeong-ran), try to assassinate him.

There is quite a bit of fighting, staged by Tang Tak-Cheung (best known for Tiger Over Wall and Kung Fu Zombie). As usual, Bruce Le tries to mix his Bruce Lee impression with his own hung gar training. I don’t know why, but his shtick in movies often grows old very quickly. He’s a decent athlete, but if he doesn’t have a good choreographer, his fights easily get repetitive. I think it has to do with the fights themselves often about dodging and evading, instead of complex exchanges of techniques. Obviously, a style like hung gar lends itself out to elaborates shapes fighting, but Le tries to do something a little more “Bruce-y” with it and it just doesn’t work.

Bolo Yeung fights with a strange gorilla style (which I assume is the inspiration for the German title, “Die Gelbe Gorila” – The Yellow Gorilla), but it’s not particularly interesting. Kim Jeon-ran, best known for playing Jackie’s tomboy friend in Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin, does some good fighting, especially when she’s trying to murder a room full of military officials. Nick Cheung Lik’s talents are completely wasted, unfortunately. Chan Sing fares better, getting a fight with Chiang Tao and his goons and showing off both his signature tiger style and a smattering of crane, too. Too bad he didn’t get more fight time in the film.

The penultimate fight pits Bruce Le in a lengthy duel with Chiang Tao, which is broken up by frequent running (almost more than Little Godfather from Hong Kong). He finally defeats him by attacking a bunch of pressure points, which was the basis for his training at the beginning of the movie. His final match is with a pair of white-haired fighters armed with metal poles with detachable claws at the end. It’s at this point that Bruce gets to use nunchaku as we expect in this sort of film. In one loopy moment, the two fighters (I think they’re father and son) stand behind one another and start waving their arms and ducking and weaving in an attempt to confuse Bruce. Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu is a pretty decent, if unoriginal film. On a sliding scale of Bruce Le films, that would put it somewhere as a three (out of five). The film ends in an obvious nod to the original Fist of Fury, but a sequel was made the following year.

Return of the Tiger (1977)
Chinese Title: 大圈套
Translation: Big Trap

Starring: Bruce Li, Angela Mao Ying, Chang Yi, Blacky Ko, Lung Fei, Hsueh Han, Cheng Fu-Hung, Wang Chi-Sheng, Wang Yung-Sheng, Hsieh Hsing
Director: Jimmy Shaw
Action Director: Hsieh Hsing

The film starts off promisingly: the credits are set over the training regimen of a bunch of men inside of a gym. Angela Mao then enters the place and beats everyone up for several minutes, Hapkido-style. We then learn that she's working for Chang Hung (Bruce Li), who has a beef with the owner of the gym, Paul (Paul L. Smith). He says that Paul killed his dad and he wants him to shut down his gym and film studio. Paul has his number one flunkie, Peter Chan (Chang Yi), talk to Chang Hung into switching sides, but to no avail. Chang Hung gets the attention of Paul's rival, the crime boss Sing (Lung Fei), who tries to woo Chang Hung to his side.

He has Chang Hung fight Paul's bodyguard, Tom (Cheng Fu-Hung, who spends the film wearing a sweatshirt with 'TOM' embroidered on it), in order to prove his worth. He sort of joins Sing's gang, but we find out that he is actually a hitman hired by Paul to eliminate Sing, and so the blood vendetta with Paul is just a ruse. But both sides, who turn out to be rival heroin dealers, start to get suspicious of Chang Hung. And Paul tries to sell his unsold heroin stash (to quote Chris Rock: "People don't sell drugs, drugs sell themselves") to Sing, leading in a huge brawl. And then it turns out that Chang Hung and Angela are actually working for the law. A big brawl, replete with double crosses, ensues.

Compared to a lot of kung fu films from the period, it is interesting that there isn't a whole lot of action in this. There is a Yojimbo quality to the plot, with Chang Hung kinda-sorta playing both groups against each other, although even if Chang Hung didn't get involved, both sides would've suffered mutually-assured destruction by the end. It takes about 30 minutes for Bruce Li to have his first fight scene. There was a nice dojo sequence, with Huang Kuo-Chu doing some great kicks. Bruce Li has a brief scuffle with choreographer Hsieh Hsing, who plays an assassin hired by Sing. He then fights some would-be motorcycle assassins, led by Blackie Ko in a mullet. The finale is a huge free-for-all. It is interesting watching Chang Yi, always the intimidating villain, getting manhandled by a burly white guy. Bruce Li's scuffle with Paul L. Smith is long and brutal, full of found objects being used as weapons. Angela Mao is wasted in the finale, unfortunately. She should've gotten a good throwdown with Hsieh Hsing and Lung Fei.

Edge of Fury (1978) 
Aka: Blood on His Hands
Chinese Title: 撈家撈女撈上撈
Translation: Fishing for the family, fishing for the daughter, fishing for the top

Starring: Bruce Li, Michelle Yim, Gam Ming, Dana, Yasuaki Kurata, David Cheng Dai-Wai, Wai Lit, Kao Yuen, Ng Tung
Director: Lee Tso-Nam
Action Director: Gam Ming (Tommy Lee)

One of Bruce Li's lesser films, mainly because the film is kind of dull. There is fighting to be had, thanks to Tommy Lee, but much less of it than your average Brucesploitation potboiler, and of a lesser quality than one might expect. We do get a brief glimpse of Dana's tits, if that's any sort of consolation. Between this, Storming Attacks, Bruce Li in New Guinea, and his sex scene with a hot gwailo chick in Dynamo, Ho Chung-Tao must have been the happiest man working in 1978.

Bruce Li plays Fong Pao (or Ah Fong), a kung fu expert and chaffeur for a tycoon named Mr. Chun (Pak Man-Biu, of The Blade Spares None). One day, Fong is at work when he is visited by the police. Chun has been arrested in Thailand for drug smuggling and the police need to question Fong to see how much he knows about his boss's activities. The answer is "Very little." However, that doesn't stop the neighbors from talking smack about Fong and mistreating his mother, those lazy talebearing bitches. Fong is assaulted by Gau Jai (Tommy Lee), who was Chun's second-in-command. Initially, the question revolves around "What do you know and how much did you tell the police?"

At this point, the film breaks off into three stories. One of them revolves around Fong Pao's travails as people turn their backs on him because he worked for a criminal. A second subplot revolves around Chun's widow (Dana, of Inframan and Storming Attacks)--the guy is eventually executed--and her attempts to get her hands on her husband's will. She wants all of his assets to share with her lover, played by Wai Lit. Finally, Gau Jai and Chun's business partner, Mr. King (Yasuaki Kurata, of Win Them All and The Angry Guest), are trying to find where Chun used to hide "the stuff." They are convinced that Fong Pao knows and Mr. King even goes so far as to employ Ah Fong in order to get the information out of him. When he insists that he doesn't know, Gau Jai kidnaps Ah Fong's girlfriend (Michelle Yim) in order to force him to talk.

Edge of Fury is a very talky film. And there is no real interaction between the two main story threads of the missing "stuff" and Dana trying to get her hands on her husband's wealth. I think most viewers will be impatiently counting down to the next fight scene or wondering if Dana will doff the duds--there is a shot of her from behind a shower box and later where she tries to seduce the guy administering her husband's estate (Kao Yuen, of Fingers that Kill and The Blind Boxer).

The action is just okay. Lee Tso-Nam and Tommy Lee had obviously done some great work together: The Hot, the Cool, and the Vicious and Challenge of Death, to name two. Tommy Lee and Lee Tso- had worked with Bruce Li on Fist of Fury, Part II and did a pretty good job there. Edge of Fury is all three men working below their respective potential. Li's fighting is in Bruce Lee imitation mode, but the way he maintains a pose after punching or kicking someone is just distracting here. Tommy Lee can't seem to decide if he wants to choreograph a Bruce Lee imitation, traditional shapes, or early 70s basher style. His work is all over the place here. The finale with Yasuaki Kurata is brutal, but sloppy. Both men have done far better work in other movies. The entire film consists of talented people working at their most mediocre...not their worst, but their most average.