So, yeah. May is 31 days long, and I watched 31 movies. That’s a movie a night, for those of you bad at math. Just about every flick I watched this month was a Shaw Brothers martial arts film, so the list below is populated with lots of swordsmen and shaolin monks.
Best of the Bunch:
Killer Constable (1980) One of the most original and unique martial arts flicks I’ve seen, in a month of watching pretty much nothing but. ‘Moody, dark, and atmospheric’ are not adjectives you normally apply to Shaw Brothers’ garish color spectacles, but director Chih-Hung Kuei created a martial arts flick that looks and feels more like a horror flick at times. He sets the action in foggy, abandoned temples and ruins, and makes great use of shadows to create a dark, scary aesthetic. The film stars Shaw Brothers staple Kuan Tai Chen as the constable of the title, who proudly bears the reputation of having killed every criminal suspect he’s ever questioned. He and his men are sent out in search of the gang who stole 2 million taels of gold from the royal treasury, which inevitably leads to a series of wild sword fights with gangs of suspected heisters. As his compatriots start to get picked off one by one by vengeful criminals, the constable starts to rethink his devotion to murder in the name of law and order. It’s a much more emotionally fraught piece than you would expect, especially once the constable meets a vulnerable blind girl whose father is in his crosshairs. And unlike most Shaw Brothers flicks, which tend to end on wacky freezeframes, Killer Constable wraps up with a haunting, devastating final image that brings home the true cost of the violence that has followed the protagonist everywhere. Really good.
Other high/lowlights:
Boxer from Shantung (1972) As a big fan of old-school gangster movies, I found this early Chang Cheh hit to be really fascinating. It’s basically a very standard retelling of the classic gangster genre flick: outsider from the sticks moves to the big city, gets caught up with criminals, uses his own ruthlessness to rise in the ranks until he’s the kingpin. Except instead of getting in gunfights, they get in huge martial arts brawls. The combination works very well, kinda making me wonder why not many other folks have attempted to meld the two…
Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon (1990) The second of two flicks I saw this month with Sammo Hung playing someone named Fat Dragon. It wasn’t very good, but provided me with one of my best laughs of the month. At one point, a couple are discussing their relationship, and the woman says that her mother keeps asking when they will “tie the knot”. Because of some wacky mistranslation, though, the English subtitles said, “My mother keeps asking when we are going to kill ourselves!”
The Complete List for May (first-time viewings in bold):
Boxer from Shantung (1972, Chang Cheh)
Dance of the Drunk Mantis (aka Drunken Master 2) (1979, Yuen Woo-Ping)
The Deadly Breaking Sword (1979, Chung Sun)
The Deadly Duo (1971, Chang Cheh)
The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984, Chia-Liang Liu)
Five Element Ninjas (1982, Chang Cheh)
Five Superfighters (1979, Mar Lo)
The Five Venoms (aka Five Deadly Venoms) (1978, Chang Cheh)
Flying Guillotine 2 (aka Palace Carnage) (1978, Kang Cheng & Shan Hua)
Full Moon Scimitar (1979, Yuen Chor)
The Heroic Ones (1970, Chang Cheh)
Hot Rod (2007, Akiva Schaffer)
The Invincible Armour (1977, See-Yuen Ng)
Killer Clans (1976, Chor Yuen)
Killer Constable (1980, Chih-Hung Kuei)
Legendary Weapons of China (1982, Lau Kar-Leung)
The Magic Blade (1976, Chor Yuen)
Martial Arts of Shaolin (aka Shaolin Temple 3) (1986, Lau Kar-Leung)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Ode to Gallantry (1982, Chang Cheh)
Opium and the Kung Fu Master (aka Lightning Fists of Shaolin) (1984, Chia Tang)
Paradox (2017, Wilson Yip)
Return of the Bastard Swordsman (1984, Chun-Ku Lu)
Shaolin Mantis (1978, Chia-Liang Liu)
Shaolin Martial Arts (1975, Chang Cheh)
Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon (1990, Chia-Yung Liu)
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978, Yuen Woo-Ping)
The Spiritual Boxer (1975, Chia-Liang Liu)
Swordsman and Enchantress (1978, Chor Yuen)
The Supreme Swordsman (1984, Keith Li)
The Weird Man (1983, Chang Cheh)
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January 2021
February 2021
March 2021
April 2021
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