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true.spoon posted:I have been a fan of the subgenre of Hongkong witchery movies for a while now. If you enjoy Boxer's Omen and Bewitched I am pretty sure you'll also like Black Magic, Black Magic 2 and the classic Seeding of a Ghost. The movies are worth it for the massively creative black magic rituals alone. They are even available in pretty nice editions via 88-Films. Which one is your favourite, then? These appeal to me massively (it basically is what I wanted Only God Forgives to be), but I can only afford so many fancy imported dvds.
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Sep 1, 2019 23:22
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FancyMike posted:For anyone who cares about physical media at all a region free player is a must have. If you've got a pc blu-ray drive already, MakeMKV will happily rip discs from any region. And there is no US equivalent right now, if you care about older Hong Kong action films all the good poo poo is coming from the UK. Eureka has put out a ton of great stuff recently. Yeah, Arrow, Eureka and now this. It's gonna be a drat shame when GB finally successfully saws itself off from the main land and drifts off into the ocean.
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Sep 2, 2019 00:31
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true.spoon posted:It has to be Seeding of a Ghost then! Done. What are your thoughts on Hex? It stands out to me for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twWoqZoPotE
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Sep 2, 2019 10:19
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true.spoon posted:Great, tell us what you thought of it after watching! So, I decided to get Bewitched along with Seeding of a Ghost, mainly because I wanted to know if the Boxer's Omen would make more sense afterwards. It does not. Bewitched is pretty cool in its own right for having so many different rituals and curses (all with their own Inglorious Basterds title card). Many scenes are pretty stylish, with sudden red and blue tinting, lens flares and overlapping transition effects. The premise of a father killing his child initially reminded me of The Wailing, which is a good thing. Imo, having two protagonists was a little too ambitious, though. The movie couldn't really get me to care about the cop. Seeding of a Ghost definitely takes the cake, though. When that pregnant woman explodes and her placenta gets lodged in the doctor's face, melting it in the process  The entire finale ripping off the Thing is also incredibly well done. Technically, the puppets look worse, but they are so terrible that they loop around to being pretty nightmarish, imo. It also really differentiates itself by making you root for the taxi driver and his awful demon baby. You want these people to die, and for once that's actually intentional.Of course, fight scenes aren't really the focus of these films, but I still enjoyed the two fights in Seeding of a Ghost. They had kind of a gritty inventiveness to them. The Boxer's Omen also was massively improved by having the boxing matches as a framing device. Maybe they're onto something with that combination. I like how both movies have this weird combination of gratuitous nudity and absolutely grody body horror. Bewitched's final title card is particularly funny in that regard: "Please don't do voodoo, and also stop having casual sex." The quality of these 88-Films Blu-rays is outstanding, by the way. Just really solid image quality for something that seems like it should only exist as a VHS. Might check out the audio commentary later on. And More fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Sep 19, 2019 |
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Sep 19, 2019 21:42
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By the way, Netflix has apparently uploaded tens of Kung-Fu movies in my country, so I got to finally watch: Five Element Ninjas: I love all the different weapons and the absolute mayhem of the first half. Kind of lost me emotionally in the second half, probably when he stabs that ninja lady and gets a bunch of new friends with no personality. Legendary Weapons of China: Surprisingly funny in parts. The extended con artist scene was a bit much, though. Kara Wai is awesome. The Five Deadly Venoms: Aesthetically, this one is unbeatable. The masks, and the general difference of physicality between the venoms just make this movie stand out. I'm not massively into all these outlandish skills, but it's still quite entertaining.
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Sep 28, 2019 09:22
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Mantis42 posted:I recently [re]watched these too! I'm slowly discovering Chang Cheh's filmography. It's amazing how different in tone this movie is from what I'd seen before. The super gritty Vengeance (1970) and Boxer from Shantung (1972) are really great, but nothing like this. It definitely threw me for a loop when most of the clan got wiped out in one scene. You just run the risk of having no characters left after a while, which kind of happened here. The staplers seemed genuinely like a really effective weapon. My favourite moment is when the ninja lady walks on screen with a hat, and you get a caption for it. It becomes kind of a tense Hitchcock scenario for a minute before you find out how the hat works. quote:If you want another film about Chinese kung fu taking on ninja treachery, check out Heroes in the East. If you want something similar to Venoms, watch Crippled Avengers. This film sounds pretty good. Sadly, I can't seem to find a decent release of it. true.spoon posted:Glad you liked Seeding of a Ghost! To be honest I thought more of Alien than of The Thing regarding the ending but I can definitely see that as well. It's certainly got a little bit of both in there. Funnily enough, the catalogue aesthetic puts this movie in line with something like Five Element Ninjas. It's a promise of authenticity, in a way. Not that either film seems particularly believable.
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Oct 14, 2019 07:00
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Daryl Surat posted:Heroes of the East, which is a common pick of mine for "favorite martial arts movie of all time," is quite readily available digitally in its Celestial Pictures widescreen restoration format. You can buy it off iTunes/YouTube/Google Play etc. and it's streaming on Amazon Prime, though I think only the English dub is on Prime. That can slightly confuse you a bit since there are bits in the story where people are supposed to be speaking different languages and so they don't understand what the other person is trying to say to them. Mantis42 posted:Well in addition to the Shaw Bros library being online, if you have cable and live in the US then the El Ray Network marathons Shaw films on weekends. It's how I first got into these movies. Unfortunately, I live in Germany. It's quite easy to import Blu-rays from the UK, but I'm not sure whether I can actually set up a UK Itunes/Amazon account that way without jumping through hoops. I actually started doing Kung-Fu irl, and that's what got me back into watching way more talented people do it (y'know, as "research"). Which is why I recommend Knockabout as a Sammo Hung film with some great monkey style fighting in it. It's amazing to see him really embody the monkey persona. That part's mostly restricted to the last half hour, but it's worth it, imo. And More fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 20:04
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Well, since you're posting, I want to share that The Champion (1973) has been released in Germany on blu-ray. They have done a pretty solid job. There are three different versions of the film included, with the longest cut having some moments in vhs quality that don't exist in the theatrical cuts. Sadly, there are no english subtitles. The film is also not all that memorable. There is a false promise of Russian miners getting in on the fighting action early on, and the protagonist isn't good at kicking (which he does a lot). The highlight of the film is a scene in which Shih Szu defeats an entire karate dojo, and then fights a female samurai. It's quite a fun 10-minute sequence.
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Mar 9, 2020 20:15
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 08:50 |
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Neo Rasa posted:I believe most of the Sho Kusugi Canon Films stuff is on Prime now. Revenge of the Ninja fuckin' rules to this day, just super fun and worth a watch for anyone that even remotely enjoys 80s cheese or like NES Double Dragon and stuff like that, but the cast in it is awesome and having a blast with it which really holds it together. Revenge of the Ninja is the best. I like that it's got Sho Kosugi as the protagonist for once instead of as a bad guy. Also, his kid is equal parts adorable and a complete martial arts badass. The only thing that never works for me is the whole finale including hot tub murder followed immediately by an awkward tennis court battle. What were they thinking?
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Mar 10, 2020 00:06
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