DISCIPLES OF THE 36TH CHAMBER -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

 

Originally posted on 12/9/10

 

Not quite up to par with the previous entry in the Shaw Brothers' series, DISCIPLES OF THE 36TH CHAMBER (1985) still has a lot of exciting fight scenes amidst a barrage of slapstick comedy.

Hou Hsaiao stars as Fang Shiyu, an incorrigible class clown who's so averse to study that he must be tied to his two brothers during class.  He's so strong and sinewy that any blow directed at him is bounced back against his attacker, making him difficult to punish.  When a dour Manchurian education officer visits the school, Shiyu manages to offend him so grievously (in one of the film's funnier scenes) that the Manchus threaten to close the school. 

Things get even worse when Shiyu offends the entire membership of the Qing Imperial Gym and must seek sanctuary from the Imperial Court by becoming a secular pupil in the Shaolin Temple.  Even under the strict tutelage of Master San Te (Gordon Liu), Shiyu can't stay out of trouble and soon gets mixed up in a plot by the Manchu governor to destroy the Shaolin temple.

The opening titles sequence is fun, with a stylized presentation of how Shiyu gained fame by defeating the terrible Tiger Lei.  He then must take on the beautiful Li Xiahuan who seeks to avenge her husband, and whose skills are great.  Then Li Bashan shows up to avenge his son-in-law in a battle that takes place on upright log poles with steel spikes between them.  As in much of the film, the fight choreography here is intricate and rather dance-like at times, with an emphasis on humor and playfulness but always with an impressive degree of acrobatic skills.

The rivalry between the Hans and the Manchus provides the opportunity for several exciting fight scenes, in addition to the lively Shaolin training sequences.  All of this leads to an intense climactic battle between the Shaolin students and the Manchu governor and his men during a wedding, which becomes a furious free-for-all.  Hou Hsiao and Gordon Liu get to show off their martial arts abilities to the fullest, pulling out every trick in the book as the Shaolins bring all their extensive training to bear against their foes.

As Fang Shiyu, Hou Hsiao is a good comic performer whose acrobatic skills and boundless energy make for a wildly kinetic character.  Gordon Liu, who played San Te in the first film, THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, and then the comedy lead in the sequel, returns to the role of San Te here and is appropriately monk-like.  Lily Li does a great job as Fong Sai-Yuk's mysterious mother, Miao Cuihua, who has had past experiences with San Te and the Shaolin monks and really shines in the big fight finale.  Chia-Liang Liu's punchy, hyperkinetic direction keeps things moving at an almost cartoonish pace at times.

The DVD from Dragon Dynasty is widescreen with Dolby 2.0 mono in Mandarin and English, and subtitles in English and Spanish.  The sole bonus feature is a commentary track by Hong Kong cinema expert Bey Logan, which, as usual, is exhaustively informative.

DISCIPLES OF THE 36TH CHAMBER is a fast-moving and comedic actionfest that should please Shaw Brothers fans. 




Read our review of RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER

DISCIPLES OF THE 36TH CHAMBER -- DVD Review by Porfle

RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

 

Originally posted on 2/15/10

 

 

It's not every day you get to watch a kung fu movie that's as much pure, hyperkinetic fun as RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER (1980), a thrilling fists 'n' feet comedy from the Shaw Brothers that's a sequel to the classic THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN.

The story opens with the shady boss of a fabric mill hiring some Manchurian thugs to intimidate his employees into working harder while giving them a pay cut. Horse-faced worker Chao (sporting a set of buck teeth that would embarrass Mortimer Snerd) enlists his con artist pal Chou Jen Chieh (Gordon Liu, who's most widely-known these days from the KILL BILL movies) to pose as revered Shaolin monk San Te in order to frighten Boss Wong and his men. The ruse works at first, but when the suspicious Wong challenges Chieh to demonstrate his skills, the result is a humiliating defeat that sends him fleeing for his life as the hapless workers are thrashed into submission.

Vowing to help his friends somehow, Chieh resolves to learn kung fu for real and bluffs his way into the Shaolin temple only to come face-to-face with the real San Te (Ching Chia, in the role originated by Gordon Liu himself in the first film). Thus begins the middle section of the film which is a non-stop slapstick delight, with Chien bumbling around like a dervish amidst the solemn monks and apprentices and comically mimicking their training.

 

When San Te orders him to construct bamboo scaffolding around the entire temple in preparation for its renovation, which will take years, Chien thinks he's being shunted aside. As he labors at his task he observes the trainees going through their paces and applies their movements to his own work, thereby eventually learning kung fu without even realizing it. This lengthy sequence is incredibly inventive and endlessly fun, and Gordon Liu displays a boundless energy and natural comic ability that's downright infectious.

His task completed, Chien is expelled from the temple and returns home in defeat, believing himself a failure. But it doesn't take long for him to realize that he's not only inadvertently learned kung fu but has also created his own variation--"Scaffolding Style"! His final confrontation with Mr. Wong and the Manchurians leads to a frenetic 20-minute action sequence that beats the hell out of MATRIX: RELOADED's CGI-laden "Burly Brawl", with no special effects and little or no wirework in sight. The action doesn't let up for a second and the fighting style is dazzlingly inventive, building to the final showdown between Chieh and Mr. Wong on--what else?--a scaffold.

 

The direction (by Liu Chia-Liang), camerawork, and editing are all first-rate for this kind of film, with fight choreography that doesn't always look totally realistic but is lots of fun anyway. The ways in which Chieh's "Scaffolding Style" is worked into the final battle is almost cartoonishly effective as he leaves his opponents hogtied to bamboo poles or wrapped together in bunches with lightning-fast moves. In some ways, the film is wonderfully cheesy and the castmembers overact their roles with abandon, which, in this case, is entirely appropriate.

With his amazing feats of dexterity and comedy timing, Gordon Liu carries the story with a full-throttle performance that never lets up. Pretending to be an experienced kung fu master, he blunders his way through one obstacle course with such artless abandon that one monk marvels, "Your kung fu is incredible! I could hardly follow it." Low comedy rears its head as he tricks another pupil into drinking some laxative-laced tea and then calls after him, "Better find a place to take a dump!" My favorite line, though, comes during the final battle with the evil boss, when Chieh brings things to a sudden halt and states magnanimously, "That's it, Mr. Wong. I will hurt you if we continue."

 

The single-disc DVD from Dragon Dynasty and Celestial Pictures is in widescreen with Mandarin, Cantonese, and English mono. Subtitles are in English and Spanish. With naught but a few trailers at the start, this is surprisingly barebones for a Dragon Dynasty release.

A fast-moving, fun, and colorful romp with lots of old-fashioned kung fu-movie charm, RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER is a must-see for Shaw Brothers fans and anyone else who's in the mood for a hefty dose of thrills and laughs. I had a ball watching it.

Read our review of  DISCIPLES OF THE 36TH CHAMBER

RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER -- DVD Review by Porfle

SHAOLIN MANTIS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/9/10

 

Another one of those Shaw Brothers gems from the 70s, SHAOLIN MANTIS (1978) is an absorbing story with some nice atmosphere and lots of furious fight action from director Chia-Liang Liu of the 36TH CHAMBER series. 

An elder scholar presents his son, Wei Feng (David Chiang, THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN), to the Qian dynasty emperor but lives to regret it when Wei is enlisted in the emperor's plan to infiltrate a rebel clan working to overthrow him.  Wei is given a three-part deadline for returning with evidence against the Tian clan: in three months, his father will lose his title; in six months, his family will be imprisoned; and in one year, they'll be executed.  Real peach of a guy, this emperor. 

Wei manages to enter the Tian household by becoming a teacher to the cute but extremely spoiled Zhizhi (Huang Hsing-hsiu), granddaughter to the Old Master (Chia Yung Liu).  Zhizhi falls in love with Wei and they marry, but he isn't allowed to leave the house after Old Master discovers that he's a Qian spy.  After finding some evidence which the emperor needs to arrest the Tians, Wei must then fight his way out by confronting Zhizhi's uncles in battle and finally facing the Old Master himself. 

The first action scene comes early on as the Qian emperor demands a demonstration of Wei's abilities.  He first defeats a Mongol warrior, then a monk played by Chia Hui Liu, aka Gordon Liu (RETURN TO THE 36TH CHAMBER, KILL BILL), in a lively sequence with plenty of action. Later, when Wei begins teaching the unruly Zhizhi, the story gears down and becomes a romantic comedy for awhile as the young girl flirts with her handsome tutor and begins to fall for him.  The relationship is light and fun, carrying us through a mostly uneventful stretch as we wait for the other shoe to drop.
 

 

Things get serious again around the halfway point when Wei and Zhizhi decide to defy the Old Master and leave the house, at which point the film becomes an almost non-stop series of deadly battles.  Making their way from one room to the next, Wei and Zhizhi team up to fight her three uncles in turn (Huang Hsing-hsiu is impressive) as a myriad of exotic weaponry comes into play.  Each has a different fighting style which proves difficult to overcome.  Last in their gauntlet of foes is the Old Master himself, using his invincible Shadow style which brings the escape attempt to a disastrous conclusion for the young rebels. 

This middle section of the film is a feast for old-style martial arts fans, thanks in large part to Chia-Liang Liu's no-frills directing style which consists mainly of long, carefully-choreographed takes punctuated by a minimum of flashy directorial touches and quick editing.  The familiar whiplash pans and zooms are there but are unobtrusive, while the use of slow-motion is kept to a bare minimum.

After Wei's escape from Five Sun Manor comes my favorite part of the film, in which Wei inadvertently invents the Mantis fighting style while hiding out in the forest.  While toying with a fiesty preying mantis one day, he notices the grace and dexterity of its movements and begins to adapt them to his own fighting technique, which seems to be just the thing for combatting Old Master's seemingly unbeatable Shadow style.
 

 

There are some really beautiful shots of both Wei and the mantis sharing the frame as he prods it with his finger, observing its movements as it defends itself.  More amazing closeup shots of the mantis make it appear as though, like a wise old mentor, it is actually teaching Wei its moves as he imitates them.  This exquisitely shot-and-edited sequence is wonderfully captivating and unlike anything I've ever seen in this kind of film. 

Returning to Five Sun Manor, Wei plunges through the gauntlet with a renewed determination and skill in another series of bouts that culminates with a decisive Mantis-versus-Shadow rematch against the Old Master.  Chia-Liang Liu builds excitement and suspense with increasingly innovative moves which keep the long sequence from becoming monotonous.  Once again the scene is loaded with lengthy takes involving intricate choreography that is expertly performed. 

The DVD from Vivendi's Dragon Dynasty label is in 2.35:1 widescreen with Mandarin and English mono soundtracks.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  There are no extras.

SHAOLIN MANTIS is an involving story which invests us in the characters before thrusting them into a maelstrom of furious and thrilling martial arts battles.  I found it thoroughly enjoyable right up to its startling ending, which comes from right out of left field.  If you're like me, the final freeze-frame will leave you knee-deep in "WTF?"  

SHAOLIN MANTIS -- DVD Review by Porfle

FATHER'S DAY -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 2/24/12

 

I didn't know quite what to expect when I started watching FATHER'S DAY (2011), a condition which persisted throughout the entire movie.  Just when you think you've pretty much figured out what it is you're watching, it turns into something a whole lot weirder and several times nuttier.

Written, directed, and starred in by a group of Winnipeg filmmakers who call themselves Astron-6, it's an unashamedly stupid, gore-drenched grab bag of tongue-in-cheek tough-guy action-horror-comedy antics done in the fake-grindhouse style of PLANET TERROR, but with real grindhouse production values and attitude. 

Most nostalgic of all for me, it's presented as though home-taped sometime during the 80s off a late-night cable station called ASTR-TV, complete with promo bumpers, smarmy announcer, and a mid-movie faux trailer for something really, really cheesy called STAR RAIDERS.

The story begins in semi-sane fashion with corpulent "Father's Day Killer" Chris Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdock) raping and butchering dads, including that of gay street hustler Twink (Conor Sweeney).  This repellent character also killed the father of young Ahab and cut out his right eye in the bargain. 

Now grown up, Ahab (Adam Brooks) is a growly-voiced, eye-patched "Snake Plissken" type out for revenge along with his stripper sister Chelsea (Amy Groening), the addlebrained Twink, and a jittery young priest named Father John (Matthew Kennedy) whose blind, aging mentor also met a horrific Fuchman-related fate. 

What follows makes ARMY OF DARKNESS look like a Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy as this simple revenge flick gets progressively more absurd.  Characters obsess "Monty Python"-style over simple figures of speech, as when Ahab tells Father John that it's time to harvest his maple syrup before it turns bitter and Father John wrongly interprets this as a metaphor for Ahab and his sister Chelsea, after which a confused Ahab spends five minutes trying to figure out why Father John just compared him to a tree.

Twink, meanwhile, begins the film as a deceptively serious character grieving over his dead dad (Billy Sadoo's acting while being murdered by Fuchman is strikingly realistic), making his descent into extreme goofiness even more pronounced.  Elsewhere, Father John's odyssey takes him from a meltdown in the pulpit worthy of Richard Burton on laughing gas (in a scene which may have been inspired by the opening to NIGHT OF THE IGUANA) to a hostage situation in Heaven with the desperate priest holding God (Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman) at gunpoint. 

While all this is going on, Fuchman continues his reign of terror complete with a cornucopia of wet 'n' wild gore effects including entrails, exploding heads, and one shocking moment that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "eat me."  None of this, however, is quite as disturbing as the image of a full-on naked Mackenzie Murdock displaying his eye-watering genitalia and humping everyone in sight. 

Just when you think our heroes have defeated the bad guy and made everything right with the world again, FATHER'S DAY pulls out all the stops and goes totally off the deep end with Ahab, Twink, and Father John descending into Hell to rescue Chelsea, who's been kidnapped by Fuchman to be the bearer of his evil seed or whatever. 

While this may sound pretty horrible, it's all basically just an excuse to ramp up the bizarre off-the-wall comedy to even greater heights (or should I say depths) of calculated idiocy.  Along with even more squishy gore effects, of course.  Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention the extreme incest sequence and the buxom, chainsaw-wielding stripper played by my future wife, Zsuzsi. 

As nastily nostalgic as the more expensive, star-studded PLANET TERROR and packed with more grindhouse-verite' style than HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, the gleefully horrendous FATHER'S DAY will be a riotous romp for some, a nauseating nightmare for others.  You probably know which camp you're in by now. 


Our coverage of the film's premiere

Official website

FATHER'S DAY -- Movie Review by Porfle

MIDNIGHT COWBOY -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 4/20/21

 

Currently rewatching: MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969). The only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture (it was later reduced to an R).

The two great lead performances consist of Dustin Hoffman as skid row denizen "Ratso" Rizzo and Jon Voight as a naive Texas stud named Joe Buck who thinks he can make money hustling rich New York matrons who are "just beggin' for it."

Rarely has this sort of life been portrayed in such a bleak and desolate manner as the two unlikely friends struggle to scrape up a meager buck while living in a condemned building. 

 

Joe's prospects grow dimmer every day, forcing him to engage in the lowest forms of prostitution, while Ratso's physical deterioration mirrors that of their increasingly hopeless living conditions.

John Schlesinger's creative direction and the sometimes free-form editing are amazingly, deliriously experimental.
 
Flashbacks, fantasies, and delusions often combine to turn the narrative into a fever dream that's alternately humorous (Ratso's fantasies of a sunbaked life in Florida) and frightening (Joe's garbled memories of childhood sexual and emotional confusion and warped romantic encounters).

Yet the funny, perversely sentimental, and at times achingly tragic story always remains grounded and strong, leading to a heartrending and overwhelmingly sad ending that is rendered for maximum effect with the skill of a virtuoso by director Schlesinger.

 

The supporting cast includes Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, John McGiver, Sylvia Miles, and Bob Balaban. A dizzying party sequence features some familiar names associated with Andy Warhol and the New York avant garde scene.

I hadn't seen MIDNIGHT COWBOY for quite some time before revisiting it just now, and what I vaguely remembered as a "sad" ending hit me full force this time and I cried pretty much all the way through the closing credits. Some of the most innovative and creatively self-assured films ever made came out of the late 60s, and this is one of the best.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY -- Movie Review by Porfle