88 Films

[feihong]

I suppose it's more accurate to say there's a purposeful class consciousness in Sammo's films that you don't see in Jackie's or Cory's films. To be honest, I'm not sure I agree with Kehr's point. It seems to me Chan is usually racing eagerly towards conformism. To me his most exciting films are primarily animated by other films he's imitating––the pirate movies and the Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd films that inspired the Project A pictures, or the Capra-corn setup for Miracles. True, Sammo has those kinds of movies, too, but his class-consciousness is always there. It just seems amongst these filmmakers very particular to Sammo.

[therewillbeblus]

)Sorry this is so protracted! It's my rough martial arts movie cosmology, just as I constantly experience it: totally disorganized, with different subgenres and experiences clashing for supremacy in my thoughts at any given moment. They're the pools I've waded into and spend some time swimming within? I don't have the best analogy. I don't know if this streamlines your martial arts movie exploration or just complicates it completely? But that's it. Hope this is an okay format for this. I think it might be the best I can do!

It’s much appreciated! I don’t know how or on what basis I’d rank even the ones I’ve seen, for they’re so diverse for reasons you highlight in depth. Maybe one day a list project will exist where people can identify elements they prefer and make an (arbitrary, as always) ranking for fun anyways

[therewillbeblus]

Legendary Weapons of China was a lot of fun- I can't say I was too 'into' the story (though the visual naming of the weapons were fun easter eggs as they came), but the action choreography was strong and there were a few memorable setpieces early on before we landed in typical horizontal wideshots of fights. Those later bits were only disappointing because the added flavors of contextual obstacles in the first act elevated the material into novel terrain, so stripping away those opportunities (of which these filmmakers clearly had a knack for creatively inserting) felt like a downgrade from established potential. Still, the penultimate fight inside the small house was long and exhilarating. For the earlier highlights, I'm thinking specifically of the fight in the attack, which balances multiple stressors and objectives in stealth in anticipating movements to avoid the threats below, aggression to continue the fight without pause, and on-the-fly silly comedy for sensory camouflage (the cat noises had me cracking up, and the subsequent scene's spit-as-rain was clever too).

[Mr Sausage]

I feel like I could do another post entirely on Tsui Hark movies

Please do! He has a whole filmmakers thread now. It's still crazy to me that at the same time he was directing the medium-paced, formally elegant Once Upon a Time in China films he was also producing/shadow directing the careening stylistic madness of stuff like Swordsman II & III or New Dragon Inn. He was really working both ends of the style spectrum in early 90s martial arts.

[Mr Sausage]

Sorry, I missed this discussion when it was happening. I've finally read it through fully. I don't have much to add to everyone's great suggestions, but here are a few films I didn't see mentioned that are worth a look:

The Bride with White Hair. Despite the fact that it's really only half a movie (which the wretched sequel never adequately completes), it's still an affecting and bizarre fantasy with two excellent performances from Brigitte Lin and Leslie Cheung, plus a bonkers villain. Lin in particular gets to run the whole gamut from commanding and ferocious to abject and humiliated to crazed and out of control--one of her best performances. It's more a tragic romance than a martial arts film, with Lin and Cheung falling in love and trying to leave their world of endless clan warfare. Fist of Legend is a politically correct redo of Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury. Its need to be balanced and inoffensive leads to a somewhat dull story. The reason to watch is entirely for the greatest fight scenes Yuen Woo-Ping has ever crafted in his decades long career. They are breathlessly paced, perfectly structured dances that tell miniature stories. The 7-minute finale with Billy Chow is remarkable in that Jet Li actually gets the shit kicked out of him for most of the fight, I mean just brutalized, kicked across rooms, slammed through banisters, thrown through windows, smashed into rocks, limbs dislocated. By-and-large Li was one of those martial arts actors who preferred to dominate fights and come out mostly unscathed, but here he gets messed up as much as Jackie Chan in a fight and has to claw his way to victory. Also Yuen Woo-Ping's wuxia fantasy Tai-Chi Masters/Twin Warriors has Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh working their way through some crazy wire fights. If you like the Yuen Woo-Ping of Iron Monkey or The Matrix, it's a good place to go for more.

They were already mentioned, but I will also never turn down an opportunity to boost Swordsman II and Yes, Madame. The former is maybe my favourite 90s wuxia, and the latter is a perfect 80s action film. But the weirdest part is that even tho' Yes, Madame has some incredible fights with Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock, the most memorable action scene in the whole thing is Tsui Hark being chased around his apartment. It's mind boggling. There's more energy and creativity in that one little chase than most action movies in their entirety.

[therewillbeblus]

Awesome, do I need to see the first Swordsman, or can I just move to the second? And aside from Eureka Classics' The Bride with White Hair, are any of these other films out on decent blu-ray releases?

[Mr Sausage]

Awesome, do I need to see the first Swordsman, or can I just move to the second?

You can move right to the second. Plot coherence is not a priority in the series in general, and anyway all the roles got recast and The Swordsman is a huge mess for internal and external reasons.

[Finch]

I actually asked feihong about the quality of the Korean BD of Swordsman II which is bundled with The East is Red, and he said the underlying source is fine but they put a lot of DNR on it. A Blu-Ray.com user said the 2021 Hongkong BD from CN has better audio and same PQ. I think Swordsman II is owned by the same company or individual that has the John Woo titles which they won't license to Western labels, so I'm still debating whether I want to spend another $30 (shipping included) on a disc that is not ideal but again, currently the only option for English speakers. (I don't know how the subs on the Korean and HK discs are)

[Finch]

Fist of Legend has a pretty decent Cine Asia Blu-Ray (a port of the Dragon Dynasty BD but with better translated subtitles); it has a few seconds missing at the very end, the reasons for which I don't recall right now, but I don't believe there are any English-friendly releases that have those missing frames. I personally didn't think that the more politically correct approach makes the remake a duller story and the fight scenes are definitely among the very best I've seen in the genre. If you are a Jet Li fan, this is a must have, and I also really like the extended cut of Fearless, the Ronnie Yu film; I have the Edko BD but it's been a while since I last watched it and I don't remember the quality of the subs.

Yes, Madame is rumoured to be with 88, I think?

[Mr Sausage]

I personally didn't think that the more politically correct approach makes the remake a duller story

Oh my god, it sounds like I think racism would make the story better! I was in a hurry and not explaining myself well. I meant that in trying to counter the anti-Japanese sentiments of the original, the movie ends up blanching Chen Zen, his girlfriend, and her father of any real personality and reducing the larger topics of nationalism and imperialism into one of those "it's just a couple bad eggs" explanations. I mean, I share the film's sentiments and think it's laudable and sadly uncommon for an HK film to argue for tolerance and cross-cultural communication. But its tactic of being as gentle and inoffensive as possible makes the story a bit limp. Does that make sense? I don't mean to talk the movie down, it is an astonishing action movie and Jet Li's finest hour I'd say. But, you know, it's not exactly the most dynamic character Jet Li's ever played. I'll still take it over the original, tho'.

[therewillbeblus]

Yes, Madame is rumoured to be with 88, I think?

God I hope so, I’m exactly three minutes in and it’s already one of the best action films I’ve ever seen

[Mr Sausage]

Yes, Madame is rumoured to be with 88, I think?

God I hope so, I’m exactly three minutes in and it’s already one of the best action films I’ve ever seen

If you liked that one, you need to immediately seek out Righting Wrongs. It’s another Cory Yuen film in the same style, with similar furious action, even more insane stunts (courtesy of Yuen Biao), and another sudden left turn into negativity at the end. Plus Cynthia Rothrock and Karen Sheperd, two legitimate martial artists who fought actual competitive bouts with each other, have an all-time great fight in a mall.

[therewillbeblus]

Oh I'm planning to- I know it's on the way from 88 films TBD this year, but it's near the top of my list of films to view in the foreseeable future and just moved up another notch thanks to your further praise (and connection to Yes, Madam!, which just might be the best I've seen yet from HK action cinema)

[therewillbeblus]

sudden left turn into negativity at the end

Wow, I really wasn't expecting that hysterically playful dynamic in Yes, Madam! to sublimate its zaniness into collaborative vigilante justice there at the end, offering it up with the same casual shrug as the rest of their organically impulsive choices throughout the film! I could detect that this lighthearted comedy was either a cohesive defense mechanism or inanely ill-fitting internal logic for this milieu, but I never expected it to fatalistically be usurped by the darkness of the sociopolitical undercurrents.

Besides these key Cory Yuens mentioned, is the rest of his filmography worth checking out?

[Mr Sausage]

Cory Yuen's a pretty reliable director of action fests. His other big Girls With Guns entry, She Shoots Straight, is entertaining, and his work with Jet Li I remember being worth one's time: the two Fong Sai Yuks are fun period kung fu comedies, while Bodyguard from Beijing and My Father is a Hero are more contemporary gunplay/martial arts spectacles. The latter has Jet Li tie a rope around his young son and use him as a weapon. It's nuts.

Cory Yuen, along with Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, and Yuen Wah (who you'll remember as the weird-looking villain from Eastern Condors, among other things) were all a part of the famous Peking Opera group, The Seven Little Fortunes, as kids. You'll notice how many of them share a last name--they were required to adopt their master's surname. Jackie and Sammo changed theirs back, but the rest never did. Cory Yuen chose a more behind the camera role than his friends, and for me became second only to Yuen Woo-Ping as a fight choreographer in the 90s.

[therewillbeblus]

Yuen Wah (who you'll remember as the weird-looking villain from Eastern Condors, among other things)

Ha, his broadly comic perf in Dragons Forever was the highlight of the film for me- he somehow stole every moment in an already-jampacked star power affair

[Mr Sausage]

He's in She Shoots Straight, too, which I watched again last night, and goddamn that film is nuts. Wah and co. are criminals from Vietnam, so in one scene they set up a bunch of punji stick traps and shit in a park in Hong Kong for one of the most blistering and bizarre action scenes I've ever seen. Just tone-wise the film pings between taking itself way too seriously to the point of camp, and not seriously enough to the point of callousness...which sort of balances, but in all the wrong places. It's amazing.

Too bad Joyce Godenzi didn't have more of a career. She's got great screen presence and can more than hold her own in action scenes. Looked like she was doing a lot of her own stunts in She Shoots Straight.

[Maltic]

(who you'll remember as the weird-looking villain from Eastern Condors, among other things)

I always assumed that was an anti-Japanese stereotype, like the Tintin-villain Mitsuhirato from The Blue Lotus.

[Maltic]

I suppose it's more accurate to say there's a purposeful class consciousness in Sammo's films that you don't see in Jackie's or Cory's films. To be honest, I'm not sure I agree with Kehr's point. It seems to me Chan is usually racing eagerly towards conformism. To me his most exciting films are primarily animated by other films he's imitating––the pirate movies and the Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd films that inspired the Project A pictures, or the Capra-corn setup for Miracles. True, Sammo has those kinds of movies, too, but his class-consciousness is always there. It just seems amongst these filmmakers very particular to Sammo.

Kehr decides in the end that Chan is less like Chaplin, the Victorian leftist, and Keaton, the cosmic modernist, and more like Lloyd, the striving everyman/company man, so there might not be a contradiction.

https://www.filmcomment.com/article/jac ... g-profile/

[Finch]

irongod, one of the contributors to all the Eureka and 88 HK discs, says we can expect the audio on the upcoming Dragons Forever UHD to be upgraded as well, including Dolby Atmos tracks using the original audio stems. They're also planning a new hybrid English Dub for the longer Japanese Cyclone Z cut of the film and "more surprises".

[therewillbeblus]

He's in She Shoots Straight, too, which I watched again last night, and goddamn that film is nuts. Wah and co. are criminals from Vietnam, so in one scene they set up a bunch of punji stick traps and shit in a park in Hong Kong for one of the most blistering and bizarre action scenes I've ever seen. Just tone-wise the film pings between taking itself way too seriously to the point of camp, and not seriously enough to the point of callousness...which sort of balances, but in all the wrong places. It's amazing.

The first half of this film featured three of the coolest action setpieces I've ever seen (the first one in the nightclub, which was just incredibly creative around staging and weapons use; the second nightclub sting op, with the night vision adding a gonzo variable into the equation, which is shot and edited with precision but also emulating a hyped-up kid flicking a light on and off, which is what Yuen is essentially doing!- and culminating in the pivotal woods scene you mentioned)

I liked the back half too, but as you mentioned the tonal lengths this ventures are very broad- so the extended reveal of the news of death, etc. dragged a bit, and the final action scene was fine but not as singular as those in the first half. I did kinda like how it ended three different times, and it's funny to read how Yuen was the action director for Lethal Weapon 4, since my only real memory of that film is how insane the finale is with Jet Li dying four different ways to just comical heights...

[Mr Sausage]

I love how the scene in the park is meant to be dead serious in dramatic terms, but the way Tony Leung keeps taking hit after inadvertent hit makes his ultimate fate unintentionally hysterical. Just comic bad luck for that poor sap. And on top of all that they go blow up his coffin! There’s no way to describe how blackly funny all this is, and no way to know if the film intends it. But it adds to the general sense of insanity that makes HK action so unique.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah exactly, and the whole business with the matriarch in her final moments made no sense- like, chastising the jerk police captain with violent force as a 'last straw' following a series of vehement disagreements with how he handled everything in the last act, only to initiate the exact same response from an emotionally-fueled rather than neutral and cold space... I mean, I suppose it's fitting within the nonsensical way people emotionally respond to trauma, but I didn't get the sense the filmmakers were going for that

[Mr Sausage]

Righting Wrongs has a similar feel of rushing forward at such headlong speeds that a sense of direction, any direction, stops mattering, just as long as things keep going forward.

[Spoiler]I mean, the film starts with the HK equivalent of an ADA getting into a car chase with some assassins and then killing two of them as they crawl helplessly out of their car in an act so brazen even Dirty Harry and Marion Cobretti would blanche. He then goes from pondering the need for vigilante justice to just straight up murdering a mob boss with his bare hands that same night. In spite of all that, the entire rest of the plot is devoted to a police detective doggedly hunting him for a murder he didn’t commit, while all reference to his behaviour in act one disappears. The film then transforms into a half-ass version of Witness in the third act before everyone, good or bad, just dies because…who knows. [/spoiler]

There’s no way to derive any coherent ethics from this tangle. Everyone’s running as fast as they can, wherever they can, and you’re just trying to keep up. It’s bonkers. It feels like most of the time, HK filmmakers just get together every night after shooting, spitball as many loony ideas as they can, and then next day shoot whatever they came up with. Rinse, repeat. You lose a lot in basic coherence, but you gain a level of imagination and excitement you don’t see anywhere else.

[yoloswegmaster]

Irongod has confirmed a Dolby Atmos track made from the original audio stems for Dragons Forever. He has also confirmed that there are plans to include a hybrid English dub for the longer Japanese Cyclone Z cut, alongside more surprises.