Vintage Hong Kong action movies on DVD thread

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

I've been sorting through my DVDs over the past few weeks, and I've got a wacking great stack of Hong Kong action movies that I've picked up cheaply on DVD over the years - a number of them that I haven't watched yet.

I also unearthed my DVD copy of Wong Jing's THE LAST BLOOD, which - and I don't care what anyone says to the contrary - I absolutely love.

I thought it'd be nice to have a thread in which we can discuss matters relating to those HK action movies of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that we so adore. This might give me impetus to work the way through my whole collection of these things

Right now, I've got to decide between watching TIGER ON THE BEAT II (which I've only seen via naff VCD before, and which I recently bought on DVD via the Universe disc), THE RED PANTHER (which is a new 'un to me), FINGER ON THE TRIGGER and THE LAW WITH TWO PHASES. Any recommendations?

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

We just watched The Enforcer, the Jet Li movie from 1995, yesterday. The US DVD is dubbed and extra goofy for it and honestly I think the kid steals the show way more than Jet does but it's a fun, if pretty brainless, feature. I find Anita Mui more likeable than average in this movie for some reason. The same kid appeared in Legend of Shaolin with Jet Li too, which is kind of cool I guess.

Oddly enough, I have a pretty sizable stack of HK DVDs that I picked up cheap years back that I've never watched too. Oh, I watched plenty of them, but it's just that I bought so many that I didn't get around to everything.

Good idea for a thread.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

We just watched The Enforcer, the Jet Li movie from 1995, yesterday. The US DVD is dubbed and extra goofy for it and honestly I think the kid steals the show way more than Jet does but it's a fun, if pretty brainless, feature. I find Anita Mui more likeable than average in this movie for some reason. The same kid appeared in Legend of Shaolin with Jet Li too, which is kind of cool I guess.

I like THE ENFORCER, Ian. It's a fun little flick. I've never seen the dubbed version though: the DVD I currently own is the Kam & Ronson disc, under the title MY FATHER IS A HERO.

My favourite Jet Li action picture of that period is probably THE MASTER. I keep returning to that one. It's lotsa fun. (Even the missus, who's not a huge fan of HK movies, enjoys that picture.) I also like HIGH RISK.

I'm currently archiving my HK VCDs, ripping them to my laptop and converting them to mp4 files - I've had all sorts of trouble trying to play them in my DVD player. Again, with those, I bought stacks of them cheaply, over the years, and haven't got round to watching many of them yet.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

I'm halfway through THE RED PANTHER (teabreak!) and it's a wacky mess that oscillates between silly slapstick (the detective offers his mother a banana and she accidentally bites his finger) and grotesque, quite nasty violence. During an autopsy, the detective slaps the head of one of his subordinates for chewing gum, sending the young man face first into the gruesome exposed grue (exposed brain?) leaking out of the slashed skull of a murder victim. It's that kinda film :cuckoo:



Le trailer:

[The Silly Swede Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close The Silly Swede]

The Last Blood is insanely good!

my personal fave of the era though is The Big Heat, which goes way over the top with gruesome violence in a fairly straightforward cop Movie.

[Robin Bougie Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Robin Bougie]

Yeah, THE BIG HEAT is pretty underrated. Good call on that.

[sukebanboy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sukebanboy]

BIG HEAT is good!

I also like HIGH RISK...Wong Jings personal piss take of Jackie Chan apparently....More good stuff!

You cant go far wrong with a WONG JING flick in my book!

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

I remember the first time I saw High Risk not realizing it was intentionally digging at Chan and wondering why the guy in the movie was doing such a goofy Jackie Chan impersonation.

Once I figured out it was intentional it made more sense.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

I'm halfway through THE RED PANTHER (teabreak!) and it's a wacky mess that oscillates between silly slapstick (the detective offers his mother a banana and she accidentally bites his finger) and grotesque, quite nasty violence. During an autopsy, the detective slaps the head of one of his subordinates for chewing gum, sending the young man face first into the gruesome exposed grue (exposed brain?) leaking out of the slashed skull of a murder victim. It's that kinda film :cuckoo:

Having watched the whole film last night, it has to be said that THE RED PANTHER really has to be seen to be believed. A useless middle-aged detective - torn between his overbearing mother and his girlfriend, and who suffers from a posterior ulcer(!!) - is commissioned with the task of tracking down a serial killer who has been targeting people with various medical problems. One of the suspects is a medical student who works as a butcher by day and, by night, sneaks into the mortuary to remove the organs of the cadavers there, so as to use them as ingredients in the meats he sells on his family's market stall(!!) - of course, our wacky cop ends up devouring some of this offal.

Slapstick comedy is offset by fetishistic and often gruesome murder scenes, largely shot from the killer's point of view, that recall those of the 1970s thrilling all'italiana pictures.

I'd say this is a spoiler, but these things are so formulaic that the pleasure isn't in seeing what happens but rather how it's depicted. During the climax, the hero ends up being anaesthetised by the killer and wakes up in the hospital's morgue. He is chased through the hospital by the killer, an scalpel-wielding elderly woman(!!). He is spun around inside an industrial washing machine(!!) Then, whilst unconscious, the killer tries to operate on his posterior ulcer, but the cop wakes up and shoves a scalpel into the killer's brain. The - seemingly dead - killer than suddenly sits up and thrusts said scalpel into the arse of the cop, who runs around the room in a Benny Hill-stylee(!!) I kid you not.

I've discovered that the whole ending is up on Dailymotion. Enjoy!

Anyone else seen this one?

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

Yesterday, I watched the Jet Li film HITMAN (released in the US as CONTRACT KILLER) for the first time. I bought the HKL DVD back when it was first released (in '99 or thereabouts, I reckon) but, for whatever reason, never got round to watching it - various house moves, etc, kept getting it hidden in storage.

It's not a bad little film. I liked Eric Tsang's role as the comic relief. The cast give it their all - Simon Yam is as deadpan as usual. (And doesn't he look young in the interview segments that are part of the DVD's extra features?) The narrative is fairly predictable and formulaic - but that's not too much of a problem as the action, for the most part, is nicely handled. However, I felt that in many of the dialogue scenes, the beats were all wrong - the rhythm of the editing in the non-action sequences seemed askew. Perhaps this perception had something to do with the weak (imo) score - maybe the reason why it was rescored in the US?

The US version, titled CONTRACT KILLER, is said to be six minutes shorter. Anyone know what's missing from that cut of the film?

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

I watched TIGER ON BEAT II the other day, via the Universe DVD. (I'd only seen this on VCD once before.) 'Mediocre' is probably the best word to describe it. There's some good action, but the whole thing is deeply misogynistic - and not in the entertaining way of so many HK flicks. Danny Lee and Conan Lee are likeable, but they don't have much chemistry here. The stunts are about the best thing here, including Conan Lee's nasty stunt-gone-wrong which landed him in the hospital (see the vid below).

Plus the subtitles are a new level of madness, even for a HK flick. I began the film with the intention of transcribing the most amusing subtitles, but I gave up half way through the film because there are just so many. Favourites? 'What are you fucking, have you no eyes, have you gone blind?'; 'Don't argue in there, go out for any annoyment'; 'They want love but not aids, have you any?'; 'You are being charged, badly behaved in the public'; 'Beat no more, police, why are you beating others?'; 'My eyes are in holidays', and the insistence throughout the film that 'damned' is spelt 'dammed'. Curiously, there's also much use of the word 'fuck' in this film - which, in my experience, is quite unusual for HK films of this vintage, even the more extreme pictures. Can anyone think of any other HK films that use the word 'fuck' as much as this one?

[sukebanboy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sukebanboy]

TIGER ON THE BEAT 2...a personal fave for ALL teh reasons you listed there PAUL....

[Jason C Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jason C]

Sounds like I need to track that down.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

Anyone care to comment on the sequels to THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW. I really like the first film (I've just bought it on Blu-ray, in fact) but have never bothered tracking these sequels down. Are they worth my time?

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

Today's watch is FINGERS ON TRIGGER (as the DVD case has it), or FINGERS ON THE TRIGGER (as the print has it), also known variously as FINGER ON TRIGGER, FINGERS ON TRIGGERS, FINGERS ON THE TRIGGERS and any variation thereof!



Anyone else seen this one?