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What's with all the footage of kittens in the final fight in Return of the Dragon?
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Aug 18, 2014 03:49
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 22:34 |
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:Out of curiosity, were Lady Omei/Ermei, Monster, Phantom, and most of the other sifu characters meant to be anyone in particular? Like, what I mean is, the way the film handled them and presented them, I got sort of the impression they were kind of archetypal kung-fu characters like Pai Mei in many films, and whatnot. Yeah, it reminded me a lot of the Soviet films based on Russian fairy tales, where a familiarity with the characters is expected and the film is very elliptical and cursory with how it introduces them. In particular, the necromancer guy and the Golden Snake Boy just kind of come from nowhere. edit: And if you enjoyed Holy Flame, I would recommend Jack Frost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw2DN4335hU
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Jul 25, 2015 02:41
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Watch 5 Element Ninjas.
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Feb 17, 2016 08:24
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Watched Return to the 36 Chambers today. It was pretty good- it's interesting the ways in which it was a response to or subversion of the original, while at the same time not being a sequel, really (at the very least, the temple is not the same temple). For instance, it was clever the way in which the film gives you a false lead by showing you all of these hardships and training regimens that the protagonist, in fact, will be barred from ever encountering. More interesting, though, is the way in which the movie equates work with militancy. As a plot which concerns itself with bringing to justice extortionate bosses at a garment factory, Return is a Marxist film on its face, which is kind of odd; my understanding, limited though it is, is that the Shaw Brothers were typically anti-Party in sentiment, often using the Qing dynasty and the Manchu as a stand-in for the PRC. Return picks up on an odd facet of the imagery of its predecessor, which is that the training devices of the Shaolin temple appear oddly advanced and mechanized, even as effort is made to make them appear antiquated. Return extends this mechanization to industrialization; the Shaolin temple is a factory which produces revolutionary heroes. But the protagonist's journey is a different one. His relationship to labor is not metaphorical, but literal, as he struggles to build scaffolding around the temple while observing the students in training. He is barred from martial training, but has learned to fight and resist in his own way. (It's funny, the way in which the hero's progression as a fighter is mapped- it's curious to see him dodging all of these attacks by the abbot of the temple, but it could just be written off as the flourish and embellishment of a martial arts film. Later, when he displays the skills he's inadvertently learned to his peers, it comes into clearer focus that just because you can only hold your ground against a legendary Shaolin master doesn't mean you haven't become an incredible fighter.) When the protagonist overthrows the Manchu bosses, it's by a very real possession of the means of production: fighting with bamboo scaffolding, binding and lashing them with the cables he used to tie the scaffold, blinding them with powdered dye, etc. Probably the weirdest part, though, is that early in the film, the factory boss displays his martial prowess with something that happens to be at hand, a bench, lifting it with one foot, twirling it around and posing on it. Later, at the end of the film, it's made evident that this was not, in fact, an impromptu display, but rather that the bosses' gang have all mastered fighting with benches.
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Mar 9, 2016 04:33
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What a strange film Come Drink With Me is. There is a lot to like about it! I love the performances of Golden Swallow, Jade Faced Tiger, and Smiling Tiger. I also quite like a lot of the fight choreography. The best fights in cinema concern themselves with presenting a sense of the control of space. The cinematography and choreography is exemplary, in this sense, in the fight at the altar. There are a lot of little considerations and character moments that I enjoyed, from Jade Faced Tiger tearing his robes off and threatening to blind Golden Swallow with them, to the way that characters throw these oddly floaty poison darts and daggers around (this is one Wuxia element I have a soft spot for, though I don't generally care much for its conventions). The plot is engaging and plays to its strong cast of characters. Things go awry, though, when the secondary plot is introduced. It feels as if an entirely different film has been grafted onto Come Drink With Me. The conflict between the abbot and the Drunken Cat is almost entirely ancillary to the rest of the plot, but the final act of the movie is totally devoted to resolving it, with the actual hostage crisis being summarily dismissed shortly beforehand, and Golden Swallow being sequestered off screen. This latter bit is especially disappointing considering that it's fairly rare to have a non-exploitative martial arts film with a female star. The fight between the monks is also where the movie leans most heavily on Wuxia conventions. I'm not a fan of these; I find that they both lack the gravity of more grounded martial arts choreography and don't have the appropriate amount of technical proficiency to pull off the spectacle they're going for, instead relying upon a mere suggestion of what you are seeing. I can often be really forgiving of this, because I love a lot of low-budget fantasy films, so long as the idea behind the symbolic spectacle is engaging. There are some films that manage this, like Holy Flame of the Martial World. That isn't really the case, here.
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Jun 11, 2016 02:04
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 22:34 |
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Five Element Ninja has the best ending of all time.
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Jun 20, 2016 02:42
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