Every 70s Movie: martial arts

Showing posts with label martial arts. Show all posts

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Bare Knuckles (1977)

A grimy action picture with elements of horror, Bare Knuckles edges into so-bad-it’s-good terrain almost from the first frames, during which funk guitars and twisting synthesizer notes congeal over poorly shot views of a city at night. Then, once the story begins, shoddy filmmaking and stupid plotting merge into crap-cinema bliss. Zachary Kane (Robert Viharo) is a badass bounty hunter with a porn-star perm who spends his downtime playing the flute and practicing karate. When Zachary hears about a big reward for the capture of a psychopath who’s been murdering women all across town, he begins his search. That is, after hooking up with beautiful socialite Jennifer (Sherry Jackson). How do they meet? While picking up dinner at Pizza Hut, Zachary spots Jennifer, who is wearing a fur coat, quarreling with her asshole boyfriend, so he tells the guy to take a hike and then plies Jennifer with a slice of sausage-and-mushroom pie. Faster than you can say “acid reflux,” the movie cuts to Jennifer climbing out of Zachary’s bed with his shirt over her body for modesty. Hilariously bad pillow talk ensues. Lest this detail get overlooked, remember she wore a fur coat to a date at Pizza Hut.

Things get even sillier once the movie introduces the killer, Richard Devlin (Michael Heit). He’s a compact trust-fund kid, recently released from a mental institution, who dresses up on a BDSM-style leather outfit to attack women, and he has the strange habit of hissing like a cat. (Lots of hissing occurs during Richard’s martial-arts practices with his butler/sensei, because doesn’t every good household have one of those?) And then there’s Richard’s mother, a drunken rich bitch who seems oblivious to the ways in which her own depravity exacerbates her kid’s mental illness. When she tries to curtail his homicidal hobby, Richard replies as follows: “You will go on as everything was—Sunday brunch and sex orgies, just like always, won’t you, Mother?” After which he French-kisses her. Bare Knuckles isn’t one of those go-for-broke bad movies where one insane thing after another happens; rather, it’s a laughably wrongheaded attempt at making drive-in pulp. That someone thought any of this would work is amazing.

Incidentally, Bare Knuckles may be the worst-looking movie ever shot by celebrated cinematographer Dean Cundey—not only are some shots out of focus, but half the footage looks like it got fogged in the lab.

Bare Knuckles: FUNKY

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

The Black Dragon’s Revenge (1975)

After Bruce Lee died, shameless producers exploited his likeness and name in every way imaginable, whether that involved repurposing footage from unfinished projects, giving similar-sounding stage names to random performers, or, as in the case of this wretched flick, constructing entire plots around the circumstances of Lee’s death. A mindless Hong Kong/US coproduction, The Black Dragon’s Revenge stars formidable African-American martial artist Ron Van Clief as a kung-fu fighter hired to investigate Lee’s demise. Never mind trying to figure out the identity of the fellow who hires him, or why that fellow is willing to spend $100,000 on the investigation, because the storytelling here is so wretched that very little of what happens onscreen makes sense. In any event, once Van Clief’s character gets to Hong Kong, he hooks up with an old buddy, a martial artist played by Charles Bonet, and they playfully spar before joining forces. Apparently Bonet’s character is a military veteran who lingered in the Far East after his service in Vietnam concluded. Eventually, the dudes begin prowling through Hong Kong and tussling with various nefarious types, including a villain who yanks eyes from sockets, and a villainess who lobs snakes. Van Clief cuts an impressive figure, and he seems quite skilled with all the chopping and kicking and whatnot, but there’s nothing to enjoy here beyond martial-arts exhibitions, because the movie is confusing, disjointed, and schlocky. FYI, Van Clief made several other pictures in Hong Kong—perhaps they were better showcases for his talents.

The Black Dragon’s Revenge: LAME

Thursday, May 4, 2017

A Touch of Zen (1971)

Featuring a steady flow of exquisite images, A Touch of Zen takes the martial-arts genre to places it rarely goes, prioritizing characterization, pictorial wonderment, and spirituality as highly as action and dramatic tension. Produced and set in Taiwan, the picture takes place in the medieval past, with a simple painter drawn into complex intrigue, so even though the narrative inevitably involves martial-arts masters, A Touch of Zen doesn’t follow the usual frenetic template of bridging violent scenes with as little transitional material as possible. Written and directed by King Hu, the epic story sprawls across three hours, and the pacing is leisurely, so some viewers will find their patience tested waiting for the action to begin. Prior to that juncture, Hu creates an intoxicating mood while also building mysteries and illuminating characters. He’s not equally successful in each of these endeavors, and if there’s a major criticism here, it’s that A Touch of Zen is more of an aesthetic and intellectual exercise than an emotional experience. That said, it’s to Hu’s great credit that the picture commands attention as well as it does. The premise is interesting enough to carry things along, the payoff is unusual, and the style is intoxicating.

Gu Sheng-tsai (Shih Chun) is an impoverished daydreamer who makes a meager living doing calligraphy and portraits from a storefront inside a ramshackle fort that several poor families have transformed into a makeshift village. He lives with his hectoring mother, who complains that Gu is over 30 but directionless and unmarried. When a beautiful young woman named Yang hui-zhen (Hsu Feng) moves into a nearby residence, Gu’s mother tries to arrange a marriage, but Yang refuses. Then another stranger arrives in town, and it emerges that the stranger is an agent from the tyrannical East Chamber, sent to find and capture Yang, a fugitive wanted by the despotic regime. Once the stranger discovers Yang’s whereabouts, he attacks her, but she defends herself with a spectacular display of martial-arts prowess, even defying gravity by leaping onto rooftops. Gu is beguiled by her mastery, and, upon learning about her past, he aligns with her cause, so he becomes a companion during her subsequent adventures.

Toward the third hour of A Touch of Zen, the story expands to include wandering monks who use their superlative martial-arts skills to aid Yang, hence the religious connotations of the title. Yet the involvement of the monks isn’t the picture’s only supernatural element, because during the mesmerizing combat sequence that comprises the movie’s centerpiece, Gu cleverly exploits widespread beliefs that the fort is haunted. A Touch of Zen is so long, moving through so many distinct phases, that the plot splinters into abstraction. The movie also gifts certain characters with abilities far beyond those of normal humans, as during the breathtaking fight that takes place in a misty bamboo forest. (The acrobatics of A Touch of Zen were among the influences on Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.)

In some ways, A Touch of Zen is a flight of fancy, seeing as how a goodhearted everyman becomes the consort to a supernatural warrior against a backdrop of demigods waging a titanic battle of good versus evil. And yet in other ways, A Touch of Zen is a meditation on existentialism, as demonstrated by the provocative ambiguities of the final scene and the implication of mortals and immortals communing to deliver a messiah. Therefore, perhaps the most fascinating thing about A Touch of Zen that it offers so much fodder for interpretation amid its visceral and visual delights.

A Touch of Zen: GROOVY

Friday, April 14, 2017

1980 Week: The Octagon

Unlike his friend Bruce Lee, American martial artist-turned-movie star Chuck Norris rarely used his films to explore the spiritual aspects of Asian fighting techniques. Quite to the contrary, Norris made meat-and-potatoes action pictures during his heyday, eventually complementing his signature roundhouse kicks with giant pistols and massive machine guns. Examining Norris’ most ambitious martial-arts flick, The Octagon, reveals why the strategies that worked for Lee didn’t work for Norris. Among other reasons, Norris is, was, and always will be a genuinely terrible actor, though he was able to slide through on charm and stoicism in a few projects.

Throughout The Octagon, director Eric Karson features scenes of Norris’ character deep in thought while echo-laden recordings of Norris’ voice reverberate on the soundtrack, conveying the character’s thoughts. Thanks to the actor’s blank facial expressions and lame surfer-dude line readings, the effect is alternately dull and laughable. At his best, Lee was able to convey depth, intensity, and soulfulness. All three qualities are required to put across the concept of a philosophical warrior, and all three qualities are beyond Norris’ dramatic reach. In the star’s defense, the script for The Octagon is so episodic and turgid that even the best actor would have encountered difficulty creating a dynamic through line. So while the film is redeemed somewhat by a few cool action scenes, including the moderately stylish climax, The Octagon is a slog of a movie that only devoted fans of martial-arts cinema are likely to enjoy.

The mechanics of the story are silly and twisty, but the main thrust is that modern-day ninja assassins have begun operating in the U.S. Professional martial artist Scott James (Norris) suspects the ninja were trained by his estranged half-brother, Sekura (Tadashi Yamashita). Convoluted intrigue ensues. Scott becomes involved with a beautiful woman, Justine (Karen Carlson), who has connections to the assassinations. Also pulled into the situation are Scott’s best friend (Art Hindle) and a mercenary (Lee Van Cleef) with whom Scott shares history. Eventually, Scott learns that Sekura has built a training camp for international killers, so he and his allies mount an assault, leading to a showdown between the half-brothers. Although the dialogue and the storytelling are as poor as Norris’ acting, cinematographer Michel Hugo gives The Octagon a polished look, and every so often, something onscreen has an adrenalized kick—the shots of the ninja scaling a hotel wall at night are creepy, and the staging of the final showdown is suitably grandiose.

The Octagon: FUNKY

Thursday, March 23, 2017

The Warrior Within (1976)

Released three years after the death of Bruce Lee, whose exciting films and charismatic TV appearances helped popularize Asian martial arts worldwide, this solid documentary articulates philosophical concepts of mind-body balance while also showcasing several ’70s martial-arts masters, including Lee’s friend and American counterpart Chuck Norris. Presented with a fair measure of elegance and style by director Burt Rashby and writer Karen Lase Golightly, the film mixes archival footage, clips from competitions, interviews, and stylized visual effects such as slow motion and solarization, all to the purpose of demonstrating that karate, kung fu, tai chi and other disciplines are more than combat techniques. Speaker after speaker explains that hardening the body and sharpening the reflexes is a means of improving the mind and spirit, even though the narration track and the bulk of the film’s final section accentuate the utility of martial arts for self-defense.

As for that final section, it’s probably the weakest part of the picture even though it reflects the anxious era during which this doc was made. Watching the climactic scenes of The Warrior Within, one might take the impression that every resident of an American city in the mid-’70s was doomed to experience violent crime. From this same fearful well sprang a zillion vigilante movies.

In any event, the picture begins by discussing Lee, then moves into explorations of various systems and weapons from countries throughout Asia. Dubious but impressive facts, such as the idea that a nunchaku strike carries 1,600 pounds of pressure, adorn compelling shots of masters demonstrating the use of sais, spears, swords, and, of course, bare hands and feet to deliver deadly blows. After establishing the toughness of the martial arts, the filmmakers shift into a discussion of belief systems, talking about the inner forces from which martial artists draw their strength, while also noting historical ironies. Regarding the four animal-inspired styles of kung fu, the narrator says, “They all began in the Shaolin Temple of China—the deadly product of pacifists.” Whereas many speakers swear allegiance to strict modalities, Norris shares his idea, extrapolated from Bruce Lee’s philosophy, of building a personal system with a little bit of everything, rules be damned.

Some of the most impressive people in The Warrior Within are likely unfamiliar to laypersons, such as Moses Powell, a huge man so in control of his tai chi technique that he deflects attackers with deceptively simple rolling movements and, in one scene, balances his entire frame on his index finger. The picture’s argument for using martial arts to realize physical potential is persuasive, so if the filmmakers get carried away periodically—as with scenes portraying America’s cities as war zones—those excesses can be attributed to the enthusiasm of people with a message they’re burning to convey. Seen critically, The Warrior Within is an ad encouraging every viewer to visit a local dojo. Seem generously, it’s a slick and worthwhile exploration of a subject that captured the public imagination in the ’70s.

The Warrior Within: GROOVY

Friday, January 27, 2017

Kill the Golden Goose (1979)

Prior to costarring in this low-budget thriller, Bong Soo Han applied his martial-arts mastery to movies by training Tom Laughlin to fight for the Billy Jack movies, and by playing the villain in “A Fistful of Yen,” the epic Enter the Dragon spoof that comprises most of The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977). The Billy Jack movies are cult classics, and “A Fistful of Yen” is hilarious, so Master Han should have quit while he was ahead. Playing an American police detective tasked with stopping an international assassin, Han gives a lifeless non-performance in Kill the Golden Goose, creating the impression that he spoke all of his English-language dialogue phonetically. Anyway, the picture’s real star is another martial-arts champion with zero onscreen charisma, the hulking Ed Parker. He plays “Mauna Loa,” a hit man hired to kill three witnesses whose testimony could help a government investigation topple a corrupt oil company. Simply because he has more screen time as well as a love interest, Mauna Loa functions as the story’s protagonist, even though he’s a one-dimensional murderer. And so it goes throughout this thoroughly rotten flick, which trudges through various dull suspense-movie clichés—brutal murders, clandestine meetings, resourceful moves by dogged investigators, blah, blah, blah. Every so often, either Han or Parker gets into a martial-arts fight, but those scenes underwhelm, as does everything else. In fact, only two weird scenes grab the viewer’s attention. In one, characters attend a costume party at a disco (watch for the shot of someone wearing a vintage Planet of the Apes mask), and in the other, a ridiculous ballad underscores a scene of Mauna Lao getting it on with his lady. Dig the lyrics: “I want to climb all over you and crawl inside your mind—I want to caress you like a summer breeze and tickle your body with mine.” Wow.

Kill the Golden Goose: LAME

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Gang Wars (1976)

The best thing about this wretched hybrid of crime, horror, and martial arts is the name of the leading actor, because it’s hard to top “Warhawk Tanzania.” Incompetently cowritten (with four other people!) and directed by Barry Rosen, the flick opens in China circa 200 B.C., with fanatics performing a deadly ritual near a deep pit. Cut to the present, where Luke (Tanzania) is a martial-arts master in New York City. His student, Rodan (Wilfredo Roldan), gets into a hassle with Chinese gangsters in Manhattan before traveling, with Luke, to Hong Kong for advanced kung-fu training. Rodan stumbles onto the pit from the ritual and accidentally releases a demon, which follows him and Luke back to New York and sets up housekeeping in the city’s subway system. If you’re already confused, join the club. The demon starts murdering folks in the subway, which causes police to suspect gangsters are responsible and eventually leads detectives to Luke and Rodan. None of this makes any more sense onscreen than it does on paper, and Gang Wars—also known as Devil’s Express, hence the above poster—has production values commensurate to its storytelling. Scenes smash together without transitions, repetitive funk grooves make fight sequences feel tedious, and the filmmakers periodically replace production sound with voiceover, which merely adds to the overall awkwardness. The demon bits are ridiculous, culminating with Tanzania kung-fu fighting some dude in a rubber suit, and the highlight—as far as horror goes—is a vignette of a fellow ripping off his own skin while the demon possessing him breaks free. Too infrequently, glimmers of droll weirdness poke through the sludge. NYC freakazoid Brother Theodore plays a priest in one scene, and, in the most enjoyable moment, a crazed bag lady (Sarah Nyrick) harangues strangers on the subway before she’s attacked by the demon. You may find yourself wishing the movie was about the bag lady.

Gang Wars: LAME

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976)

Essentially an ultraviolent cartoon, this Quentin Tarantino favorite exaggerates beloved tropes of martial-arts cinema to a ridiculous degree. The title character, for instance, is a blind teacher who travels feudal China on a vengeance mission, and his chosen weapon is the “flying guillotine.” Picture a hatbox that accordions out when snapped into place atop a target’s head. The blind teacher launches the weapon from long distances, and then yanks the chain that’s attached to the device in order to spring the trap. The victim is decapitated instantly, with the head delivered to the blind teacher when he retracts the chain. All patently impossible, of course, but that’s the spirit of this movie. Master of the Flying Guillotine is entertaining in a manic and perverse sort of way, but it’s not to be taken seriously.
Interestingly, Master of the Flying Guillotine is the rare sequel that has achieved more notoriety than the original film from which it was derived. That would be One Armed Boxer (1971), released in the U.S. in 1973 as The Chinese Professionals. Both pictures star and were written and directed by Taiwan’s Jimmy Wang Yu. In the first picture, a character known as One-Armed Boxer (Yu) killed disciples of a martial-arts school. In Master of the Flying Guillotine, the disciples’ teacher, Sheng Wu Chi (Kam Kong), seeks payback. Learning of a national martial-arts competition, Sheng travels to the site of the contest and systematically kills every one-armed martial artist he encounters until squaring off with One-Armed Boxer during the epic finale. As should be obvious, the plot is so thin it can barely sustain an entire movie, and, sure enough, Master of the Flying Guillotine loses the thread partway through.

A good 30 minutes of the picture depict the competition, with one outlandish matchup after another, while the narrative treads water. Yet this storytelling gambit sorta-kinda works, simply because the battle scenes are outrageous. One fighter magically extends his forearms until they’re as long as spears. A brawl takes place with the combatants balancing on poles that rise above a field of sharp metal blades, so the first guy to fall gets perforated. In an unrelated but similarly silly scene, One-Armed Boxer impresses the students at a martial-arts academy by demonstrating his ability to climb walls and walk on ceilings, as if he’s Spider-Man. Perhaps the loopiest moment in Master of the Flying Guillotine is the scene where Sheng detects a one-armed man in a bar, unleashes his weapon, and lops off the schmuck’s head—without triggering more than a few raised eyebrows from onlookers.

Master of the Flying Guillotine: FUNKY

Thursday, August 11, 2016

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)

It’s a rare privilege to discuss existential considerations in the context of an action movie, but that’s exactly why the Hong Kong production The 36th Chamber of Shaolin won a place in the pantheon of martial-arts cinema. The picture has some exciting passages of violent action, and the basic plot takes the familiar shape of a revenge saga, but the storyline also explores notions of dignity and harmony and transcendence. Viewers accustomed to Hollywood’s treatment of martial arts, which often reduce ancient tradition to cutesy “wax on, wax off” slogans, will find something new here. It’s no accident that The 36th Chamber of Shaolin has a significant cult following that even stretches into the world of hiphop—members of the iconic rap act Wu-Tang Clan, including Quentin Tarantino collaborator RZA, have cited this movie as a touchstone.

Set in feudal China, the story follows a young man named Liu Yude (Liu Chia-Hui). He’s a student at a martial-arts academy run by a teacher who agitates against the oppressive Manchu government. When government operatives including a corrupt enforcer invade the school, murdering the teacher and several students, Liu escapes but vows revenge. Determined to increase his martial-arts skills, he makes a harrowing journey to the remote Shaolin temple, where monks are rumored to have perfected almost superhuman fighting abilities. Demonstrating humility and perseverance, Liu eventually wins entry to the Temple and is renamed San Te. (There really was a Shaolin monk named San Te, and the movie’s storyline, though wildly fictionalized, was inspired by his life.)

The moment Liu becomes San is also the moment when The 36th Chamber of Shaolin becomes truly interesting. Fitting the Buddhist principles of patience and serenity, the movie shifts gears from a violent adventure tale to a methodical exploration of personal growth through grueling physical training. Even the simple task of walking from living quarters to the temple’s dining hall is a pivotal test, because the monks install a moat between the two locations and fill it with tethered logs, so acolytes must learn to center themselves in order to glide over the obstacles. San proves his mettle by discovering a new way of moving across the logs, inspiring his teachers and fellow students alike. Then San begins his journey through the 35 chambers of the temple, each of which indoctrinates students in a different martial-arts skill. Some of the chamber sequences are mesmerizing, because the training combines elements of combat, dance, resistance, and other physical disciplines, sharpening everything from eye/hand coordination to mental focus to muscle tissue. Once San completes the 35th chamber and receives an invitation to teach at the temple, he has spent years transforming himself from a headstrong youth to an impressive adult.

What keeps these sequences from seeming episodic is the revenge angle. Through each challenge and trial, we know the protagonist is focused on a singular goal. Hence the 36th chamber of the title, a proposed expansion of the temple’s influence by teaching Shaolin martial arts to outsiders—and hence the film’s exciting final act, San’s adventure outside the temple. Elevated by Chen Yung-Yu’s rousing score and expertly filmed by director Liu Chia-Liang, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is an action film that periodically approaches the level of poetry, even though it has one foot planted in spirituality and the other in violence. The picture was followed by two sequels, Return to the 36th Chamber (1980) and Disciples of the 36th Chamber (1985), though neither is as highly regarded as the original.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin: GROOVY

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Black Force (1975)

My favorite moment in the awful blaxploitation/martial-arts flick Black Force, sometimes known as Force Four (see the above poster), occurs right at the beginning. After an obnoxious disclaimer stating that all the martial-arts action in the film is real, the picture transforms into an interminable exhibition while the members of the titular fighting squad demonstrate their skills one at a time, leaping and punching across the floor of a dojo without opponents or even props, save their weapons. Hence this wondrous line of dialogue: “Hey, bro, lemme see you work those sais.” As opposed to, say, getting on with the story—but then again, once the story finally does commence, it’s a matter of being careful what you wished for, because, incredibly, the stupidity factor rises. Led by Jason (Owen Watson), the badass quartet is a band of mercenaries, or something of that sort, and they’re hired to recover a piece of stolen artwork. Their investigation and accompanying scuffles with bad guys lead them into the criminal underworld, where they confront various thugs interested in the stolen item. Clumsy editing, rotten post-production sound work, and terrible acting combine to make Black Force as confusing as it is uninteresting. Sure, there are some happening funk/soul grooves on the soundtrack, and the down-and-dirty production values mesh with the grimy inner-city locations at which much of the action takes place, but the movie is padded beyond belief, not just with undeservedly lengthy fight scenes but also with a pointlessly long musical performance during a party scene.

Black Force: LAME

Sunday, July 24, 2016

1980 Week: The Big Brawl

Like many American moviegoers of a certain age, I first encountered Jackie Chan in The Cannonball Run (1981), which featured the Hong Kong actor in a minor comedic role. Yet Chan actually made his first big play for U.S. notoriety the previous year, starring in the partially comedic martial-arts picture The Big Brawl for director Robert Clouse, who made Enter the Dragon (1973). After The Big Brawl and The Cannonball Run failed to create excitement around Chan, he returned to making films in Asia until finally conquering the U.S. in the late ’90s. Watching The Big Brawl now, it’s easy to see what 1980 audiences missed—and why they missed it. Clouse has a ham-fisted touch for comedy that undercuts Chan’s meticulously rehearsed illusion of effortlessness, and the marketing materials accentuated violence. Viewers expecting straight-up chop-socky savagery must have been disappointed by all the silliness on display. That said, The Big Brawl is a mildly entertaining adventure that makes sense within the context of Chan’s subsequent career: This flick represents an early attempt at finding the synthesis between fighting and funny bits that distinguishes Chan’s most successful films.

Opening in Depression-era Chicago, The Big Brawl—which is occasionally known as Battle Creek Brawl—concerns Jerry (Chan), an ambitious young man who dates a nice white girl, Nancy (Kristine DeBell), and works part-time in his immigrant father’s Chinese restaurant. Against his father’s wishes, Jerry trains in martial arts with his uncle, Herbert (Mako). After making enemies of a big-time gangster, Dominici (José Ferrer), Jerry is coerced into entering a huge citywide brawl in Battle Creek, Texas, where dozens of combatants box and wrestle until the last man standing wins a cash prize.

Powered by one-dimensional characterizations and predictable twists, the plot is forgettable. What makes The Big Brawl fun to watch, at least periodically, is Chan’s astounding physicality. In a lengthy roller-derby scene, he leaps and rolls like he’s made of rubber, using found objects and lightning-fast strikes to wipe out opponents. And during the brawl—which consumes a good 30 minutes of screen time—Chan runs the gamut from physical comedy to serious ass-kicking, even though the fight scenes all have a certain Hollywood falseness. Among the supporting cast, nobody excels beyond Chan and the always-dynamic Mako. However, the film has some great bursts of energy thanks to Lalo Schifrin’s memorable score. Laying Ennio Morricone-style whistles over a slinky jazz groove that would’ve made Henry Mancini proud, Schifrin locks into Chan’s playful frequency more than Clouse ever does.

The Big Brawl: FUNKY

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Death Promise (1977)

A rotten martial-arts revenge flick set in the urban jungles of New York City, Death Promise concerns a young man who vows payback after someone kills his father. As an indication of how dopey this movie is, the young man cobbles together a list of suspects and then kills each suspect one at a time. Yet during the film’s climax, he learns that none of the folks he murdered was directly responsible for his father’s death, meaning that he killed a bunch of bad people, but for the wrong reason. Anything in the name of justice, right? Whatever. Charles Bonet, a skilled athlete but a not-so-skilled actor, stars as Charley Roman, a martial-arts student who lives with his father, Louis (Bob O’Connell). Together with his fellow martial-arts student Speedy (Speedy Leacock), Charley and Louis repel goons sent by slumlords to force the Romans and their neighbors out of their decaying apartment building. Turns out the slumlords, including corrupt Judge Engstrom (David Kirk), want to raze the building and make way for a lucrative development project. When Charley comes home one day to find Louis dead, he decides the developers are responsible—and then leaves town for six months to study deadly techniques with a martial-arts guru. Huh? After completing his training, Charley reconnects with Speedy and begins his rampage. (Death Promise takes place in an alternate universe where there are no police and where people like Charley don’t need jobs in order to live.) Shot in a haphazard fashion with a meager budget, Death Promise looks and sounds cheap from beginning to end. Every so often, there’s a glimmer of imagination—like the bit in which Charley ties a victim to the back of an archery target, ensuring that the man is mistakenly killed by his own underling. However, most of the movie comprises silly martial-arts fights during which participants scream so much they sound ridiculous. Again, whatever. Oh, and it sure looks as if comic-book legend Neal Adams drew the poster art. Not his best work.

Death Promise: LAME

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Jaguar Lives! (1979)

A dunderheaded take on James Bond-style international espionage with a heavy element of martial arts, Jaguar Lives! is roughly the equivalent of a second-rate television pilot, thanks to adequate production values, a blandly handsome leading actor, several faded stars playing vapid cameo roles, and a nonstop barrage of noisy action. The story is as stupid as it is trite, so not one frame of the picture is likely to lodge in the viewer’s memory. Jaguar Lives! is not even fun to watch ironically, excerpt perhaps for the snarky thrill of noting how many of the film’s macho moments come across as accidental homoerotica. In fact, viewers who enjoy watching leading man Joe Lewis perform martial-arts rituals while his naked, sculpted torso gleams in the sun may be the only ones who can derive uncomplicated pleasure from Jaguar Lives! The movie begins with secret agent Jonathan Cross, code-named “Jaguar” (Lewis), conducting a mission with his buddy, Bret Barrett, code-named “Cougar” (Anthony De Longis). The mission ends in tragedy, sending Jaguar into seclusion. He licks his spiritual wounds by doing martial arts in the desert under the watchful eye of his sensei (Woody Strode), whom the filmmakers helpfully adorn with the character name “Sensei.” Then intelligence operative Anna Thompson (played by onetime Bond girl Barbara Bach) arrives with a new mission, and—oh, forget it. International locations are visited, stuff explodes, and villains get their asses kicked. Beyond Bach and Strode, others collecting paychecks for playing pointless roles include Capucine, John Huston, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasance, and Dr. No himself, Joseph Wiseman. Lewis, who enjoyed a hugely successful career in competitive karate and kickboxing, is impressively athletic, and that may be the only reason to associate any form of the adjective “impressive” with Jaguar Lives!

Jaguar Lives!: LAME

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Death Dimension (1978)

It’s time to put your brain on lockdown once more, because that singular purveyor of low-budget cinematic stupidity, Al Adamson, is at it again. Death Dimension, the title of which has no discernible significance, is a sci-fi/espionage/martial-arts thriller starring the unfortunate Jim Kelly, a skilled athlete whose ascension to stardom following Black Belt Jones (1974) was impeded by his inability to act. Death Dimension—which is also known in some quarters as Black Eliminator, Freeze Bomb, The Kill Factor, among other titles—tells the loopy story of a scientist who hides designs for a weather weapon in a microchip, then surgically implants the microchip into the forehead of his pretty assistant. Once the scientist is killed, the assistant becomes a target. Assigned to protect her or recover the research or whatever—because, really, who cares?—is LAPD detective Ash (Kelly). Portraying Ash’s boss is George Lazenby, who starred as James Bond in one movie, and the 007 connection continues with the movie’s villain, “The Pig,” who is played by ex-Bond villain Harold “Odd Job” Sakata. Sort of. Keen ears will notice that Sakata’s dialogue was dubbed by character actor James Hong. And so it goes. Death Dimension jumps from one pointless scene to the next, stopping at regular intervals for Kelly to effortlessly defeat hordes of opponents; this is one of those dimwitted action movies in which the hero becomes a target for every bad guy in the world the instant he accepts his dangerous assignment. For added spice, Death Dimension contains lots of misogynistic material, including a bizarre scene during which “The Pig” uses a snapping turtle as an interrogation tool by holding its snout close to a woman’s breast. “One bite, and he’ll make you flat-chested!” If you watch Death Dimension after having perused these remarks, you have only yourself to blame.

Death Dimension: LAME

Saturday, February 20, 2016

The Guy from Harlem (1977)

Startlingly amateurish—we’re talking flubbed takes in the final cut, disjointed edits between shots that don’t match, and some of the worst acting ever recorded on celluloid—this late addition to the blaxploitation cycle is nearly a parody of itself. Starring lanky Loye Hawkins as a detective who becomes involved with several cases in Miami, The Guy from Harlem aspires to the attitude of Shaft but instead conveys the bargain-basement awfulness of an Ed Wood movie. The storyline comprises a number of uninteresting and unrelated episodes; the action scenes are spectacularly incompetent, with performers reacting to kicks and punches that didn’t land anywhere near them; and the dialogue is embarrassingly stupid (“You and I have the same color outfit—why don’t we go down to the disco tonight?”). The gist of the piece is that Al Connors (Hawkins), whom we’re reminded several times is indeed a guy from Harlem, is an African-American equivalent of Mike Hammer. Accepting assignments in his small office, which comes complete with a sassy/sexy secretary, Al protects an African princess and delivers ransom money for a mobster whose daughter has been kidnapped. In the first scenario, he sleeps with the princess when he should be guarding her, and in the second, he quits the job halfway through. Say what? Also thrown into this interminable mess of a picture are a couple of martial-arts scenes, which are exactly as incongruous as you might imagine.

The Guy from Harlem: SQUARE

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Dynamite Brothers (1974)

During the first few minutes of the blaxploitation/martial-arts mash-up Dynamite Brothers, it almost seems as if perpetually incompetent filmmaker Al Adamson might surpass his usual low standards by actually manufacturing passable B-movie trash. Following three minutes of enjoyably kitschy illustrated opening credits, the first scene is a straightforward showdown between high-kicking warrior Larry Chin (Alan Tang) and several adversaries. Then, alas, Adamson commences storytelling, and things go south fast. Without belaboring the various dimwitted plot elements, the gist is that Larry travels from Hong Kong to America in order to find his long-lost brother, only to end up handcuffed to Stud Brown (Timothy Brown), a tough-talking African-American arrested on bogus charges. The duo shares a brief, Defiant Ones-style escapade, then break their chains to join forces and fight drug dealers. The action sprawls across San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the plot grows more and more unfathomable as it expands to include a love interest for Stud as well as a corrupt cop played by Hollywood veteran Aldo Ray. Folded into the muck are fight scenes, exploitive female nudity, and a cringe-inducing scene during which Stud seduces a mute girl named Sarah by improvising a song featuring their names. Through it all, Adamson’s filmmaking is so sloppy that it’s often hard to follow screen action within continuous scenes, much less from one scene to the next. Even with fistfights, kung fu, sex, and the reliable character actor James Hong at his disposal, Adamson can’t sustain coherence for more than a few minutes at a time, if that.

Dynamite Brothers: LAME

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Fly Me (1973)

Although it was not produced by Roger Corman, the disjointed and distasteful drama/thriller Fly Me is similar to many exploitation flicks that Corman’s New World Pictures released in the early ’70s. Set in the Far East, the movie follows the format established by New World’s “sexy nurses” films—three attractive young women who share the same profession experience parallel adventures loaded with sex, danger, and more sex. Specifically, three stewardesses travel from L.A. to Hong Kong (even though the movie was shot in the Philippines). Wholesome blonde Toby (Pat Anderson) tries to date a man she met during her flight, even though her pushy mother (Naomi Stevens) tagged along to keep Toby virtuous. Boy-crazy Sherry (Lyllah Torene) sleeps with the wrong guy, ending up the captive of white slavers. And formidable Andrea (Lenore Kasdorf) balances romantic intrigue with martial-arts brawls until she, too, encounters the white slavers—while working alongside law-enforcement officials. Directed by prolific Filipino-cinema hack Cirio Santiago, Fly Me offers campy escapism in one scene, heavy drama during the next, and a steady stream of leering nude scenes. In fact, the movie opens with Toby stripping in the back of a taxicab while she changes into her flight-attendant uniform, even as the driver (played by B-movie stalwart Dick Miller) nearly crashes the car while ogling his nubile passenger. Later, Andrea gets into a martial-arts fight during which her blouse is conveniently ripped, revealing a see-through bra. And we haven’t even gotten to the bondage scenes. Fly Me is crass, dumb, and tedious all the way from takeoff to landing.

Fly Me: LAME

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Melinda (1972)

Something of a blaxploitation sampler platter, the overlong, over-plotted, and overwrought Melinda combines conspiracies, crime, martial arts, romance, revenge, and a whole lot of jive-talkin’, the latter element mostly issuing from the mouth of protagonist Frankie J. Parker, an arrogant Los Angeles DJ. The picture is fairly entertaining on a scene-to-scene basis, and it contains some respectable acting by costars Rosalind Cash and Paul Stevens, among others. Moreover, the sheer excess of the movie is beguiling, simply because Melinda wends through so many different genres during its 109 eventful (and frequently violent) minutes. The film doesn’t hang together, of course, and very little of what happens feels credible from either an emotional or a logical perspective. Nonetheless, copping the right attitude often helps put even the slightest blaxploitation flick over, and every so often Melinda hits a pleasing stance. Even when it doesn’t, the disconnect between leading man Calvin Lockhart’s uptight screen person and the movie’s down-and-dirty milieu is weirdly fascinating.

When the story begins, Frankie (Lockhart) seems like a man in full. In addition to his successful career as a DJ, he struts around town wooding ladies and spends his free time perfecting his martial-arts skills under the tutelage of an instructor named Charles (played by future chop-socky-cinema star Jim Kelly in his big-screen debut). Frankie meets his match in Melinda (Vonetta McGee), a beautiful woman who’s just as self-assured as Frankie. They become lovers, much to the consternation of Frankie’s ex, the mob-connected Terry (Cash). Then things get complicated (to say nothing of contrived and convoluted). It seems Melinda knows the whereabouts of an audio recording that incriminates big-time gangster Mitch (Stevens), so she and Frankie become embroiled in a bloody adventure.

Melinda hits some strange notes along the way. During the lengthy scene of Frankie and Melinda having sex for the first time, director Hugh A. Robertson repeatedly cuts to a thug standing in the hall outside Frankie’s apartment, masturbating while he listens to the couple’s carnal bliss. In a nasty flashback scene, Mitch sits and laughs while his underlings gang-bang his girlfriend. And in the very first scene, Frankie lays down goofy trash talk while coaxing Charles into a sparring session: “I’m ever-ready for some lightweight shit, but you better come with somethin’ heavy—I’m packed with dynamite!” Whatever you say, man.

Melinda: FUNKY

Friday, October 16, 2015

Kung Fu (1972)

“I seek not to know the answers,” soft-spoken Shaolin priest Kwai Chang Caine says at one point, “but to understand the questions.” And that, in a handful of words, captures what made the Western TV series Kung Fu (1972-1975) unique. Superficially, the novelty of the series involved juxtaposing Eastern martial arts with the traditional milieu of the American frontier—and, for that matter, giving Eastern martial arts some of their earliest mainstream exposure in the U.S. On a deeper level, the series was about spirituality, seen through the prism of a soulful young man struggling to reconcile his quest for inner peace with the realities of a violent world. That fascinating paradox infuses the Kung Fu pilot movie, which has aged beautifully. A strong piece of work introducing all of the clever stylistic flourishes of the series while remaining grounded by leading man David Carradine’s compelling performance, Kung Fu works well both as a stand-alone narrative and as a lead-in for the subsequent series.

As did episodes of the weekly show, Kung Fu cuts back and forth between “present-day” scenes of the American West and flashbacks to China, tracking Caine (Carradine) as he makes his way through the U.S. with only the humble rags he wears and the small pack he carries on his back. In flashbacks, we learn that when he was an orphaned child, Caine won entrance to a Shaolin temple by demonstrating endurance and humility. Trained in martial arts and spirituality, Caine left the temple but soon found trouble—after witnessing the pointless murder of a beloved teacher, Caine responded by killing the Chinese nobleman who was responsible. Fleeing China to avoid execution, Caine travelled to America, where his long-lost brother lives. The contrivance of the series is that while Caine searches for his brother, he happens upon a new group of troubled people every week, helping them with his combat skills and his transcendent worldview even as bounty hunters hired by the Chinese aristocracy try to capture or kill Caine.

In the pilot movie, Caine finds work on a railroad crew, eventually leading a rebellion against callous white overseers who endanger Chinese laborers in the name of quick profits. As directed by Jerry Thorpe, who later won an Emmy for directing one of the series’ weekly episodes, the Kung Fu pilot is visually impressive. The Western scenes are crowded and dusty, while the flashback scenes to the temple have a magical quality thanks to image-softening lens filters, moody lighting, and the selective use of slow motion. (The abundance of candles within the temple, as well as the gentle flute music on the soundtrack, adds to the soothing effect.) Playing Caine’s principal mentor, the blind Master Po, Keye Luke gives an indelible performance, making the script’s fanciful analogies and aphorisms sound like wisdom for the ages. Radames Pera is equally well cast as Young Caine, capturing the character’s determination and need for connection, and it’s a kick to see David Carradine’s real-life younger half-brother, Keith Carradine, playing Caine as a teenager.

Not every episode of the ensuing series works as well as this pilot movie, and some of the stylistic flourishes lost their potency through repetition. (Furthermore, the less said about the 1987 TV movie Kung Fu: The Next Generation and the 1993-1997 syndicated series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, both of which are set in the present with David Carradine playing a descendant of his original character, the better.) Nonetheless, the first Kung Fu movie set a high bar in terms of artistic, cultural, and thematic ambition. No surprise, then, that controversy emerged over its authorship—to this day, rumors persist that Bruce Lee generated the idea for the show, although what’s undisputed is merely that Lee was briefly considered for the leading role.

Kung Fu: GROOVY