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The Little Black Box (黑匣喋血记)(1986)

 

The Little Black Box (黑匣喋血记)(1986)

 

Dir: Huang Zhong-shu

Cast: Han Zhikai,Wen Xitai, Zhang Anji, Tang Junliang
Plot: Eve of the 1911 revolution, the government is trying hard to kill all the revolutionaries. The rebels from Wu Chang send the martial arts master Jin Biao to Guangzhou in order to deliver some important documents. A traitor will try to stop him and get those papers..

Year: 1986
Country: Mainland China 

Trailer (Source Material: Original Mainland Dvd):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUjlrSJ50M

Notes:  Released in East Germany with the name Das kleine schwarze Kästchen and in Spain on dvd with only Spanish audio, this flick became available recently on dvd in China. A big surprise waited me when I bought the movie: it has English subtitles forced in. Finally, a version with the original dub and accessible to every one. The director just made this action flick, his other works are just not suitable for this blog. On the other hand, Han Zhikai participated in movies like Arhats in Fury (八百罗汉)(1985) and Swords Meet (1988)( 天下第一剑).

Personal Opinion: while back (you can find our first brief review here in the blog, just browse it a little) we saw some scenes from the movie but now I had the chance, thanks to the dvd, to watch the full feature.

The story is pretty classic and simple: the government against the rebels. Most of the Chinese flicks are set during the Qing dynasty and this one is not an exception.

The fighting is pretty good, at least above average, the only thing I didn’t really like was the flying stuff. In my opinion they just didn’t fit there, especially for that stupid sound effect that goes along with them. When the guys (and the girl) are on the ground is price less, but on the air.. damn.

There is plenty of stuff that a martial art aficionado would love but maybe It just didn’t get me.

Overall, the movie is enjoyable and if you are in only for the fights, well, you can FF the dvd.

Deadly Target (刑侦风云)

Deadly Target (刑侦风云)

Dir: Godfrey Ho / Phillip Ko
Cast: Oshima Yukari , Sharon Yeung Pan-Pan, John Cheung, Edu Manzano, Phillip Ko Fei
Plot: The Hk police force and the Mainland police force work together to stop one of the largest arms dealers in Asia.

Year: 1994
Country: Mainland China 

Trailer (Source Material: Original Mainland Dvd): http://youtu.be/vHQk4f9c6XY

Notes:  The movie is considered as a Filipino/Hk co-production by lots of people. On Chinese websites the movie is stated as Mainland production. I don’t know which version is true though. The print I have is the Mainland’s. I will spend some words about the dvd (I will talk about the movie later). The print used was in really bad condition, sometime the video just becomes like somebody peed on it, vintage feeling at its best. The movie was broadcasted on cctv with much higher resolution and quality. I am pretty sure the movie was released in HK on vcd or LD or vhs with English subtitles. Be aware that if you buy the Mainland vers. You won’t have English subs.

Personal Opinion: Here I am reviewing a movie from director Godfrey Ho (famous for Ninja movies) set in Manila. When I bought the movie I did not know anything about it, only that there was Oshima Yukari as one of the main protagonists. Let’s say this straight: the movie is bad. The story is nothing new, the acting is less than average, the action is… pretty decent, I admit that.

Both Oshima Yukari and Sharon Yeung show their skills with weapons and not, but the movie is something you do not want to scream about. I mean ,yeah, you have some good moments (thanks to those 2 girls), you have bullet ballet (cheap special effects), you have stupid comedy (the ladyboy saving the cop? Oh yes!), but the movie just did not take my interest, sometimes I just wanted to fast forward to see how it ended. You wanna skip it? Do it, you will not lose anything. You are a big Oshima Yukari fan? Give it a try, you might like it.

Some snapshots (source: official mainland dvd):

Loyal Hero (侠骨风流)(1992)

Loyal Hero (侠骨风流)

Dir: Hongsheng Li
Cast: Honglin Dong, Fengyi Yang, Honglin Dong, Keming Liu, Jian Zhao, XiaoYi Ding, Haihua Han
Plot:  It’s the end of the Tang dynasty, the country is on fire. Yuchi Gong (Honglin Dong) wants to join the army of Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji. Unfortunately, he was disappointed by them and decided to join their enemy, Liu Wuzhou. The brothers Li heard that Liu’s wife and his sister-in law are two rare beauties so they decide to kidnap them.
Yuchi Gong succeed in rescuing them but Liu’s wife dies... The problems are not finished yet, the Li brothers found out about Yuchi’s wife and son and kidnap them..
Year: 1992
Country: Mainland China 
Trailer (edit by me from the original dvd ): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AbvSRuQlV4
Notes:  The movie is released in China on dvd by Gzbeauty. This version does not have any subtitles and so the flick is really hard to follow without some mandarin knowledge. As far as I know, no other releases are available.
The director, Hongsheng Li, started his career with the great Rescued from desperation (绝处逢生)(1985). It seems that his last movie was Loyal Hero, I couldn't find further information about him.
Honglin Dong is not newcomer in this field, he starred in movies like Kung Fu Hero Wang Wu (大刀王五)(1985).
Fengyi Yang is not new too, this beauty starred in Rescued from desperation (绝处逢生)(1985) (her first movie) and Deathat the Carefree Mansion (索命逍遥楼)(1990).
Personal opinion:  I was wondering what to buy next for our collection and I ended up buying this Loyal Hero, I didn't even know what was it about. Did I get lucky or unlucky? Let’s find out.
First of all, the movie is a historical drama set during the end of the Tang dynasty. The movie is full of names of people I ‘ve never heard about (I m pretty bad at Chinese ancient history), but I’ve been told that those people really existed.
I gotta say that most of the time when there was no action on screen , I got little bored from all those dialogues. Well, let’s not waste time on useless drama and let’s go to the action.
The movie is loaded with martial arts sequences; also the cooks can show a pretty damn good kung fu!
Weapons and fists everywhere, some wires but also a lot of physical skills. The fights are at normal speed although some are speeded up a little. I just loved when I saw the girl fight, her skills with the sword were outstanding.
One more thing before conclude this short review, at the beginning (you can see what I am referring to also in the trailer I made) the whole situation is supposed to be scared but the result was kinda of fun (cheap special effect), still pretty weird though.
Overall, the movie is pretty solid, you have martial arts and a little of history. If you just don’t care about the history part (like me), you will have fun with the action stuff.
Some snapshots from the original dvd:

Holy Robe of the Shaolin Temple (木棉袈裟)(1985)

 Holy Robe of the Shaolin Temple (木棉袈裟)

Dir: Siu Ming Tsui
Cast: Rongguang Yu , Dalu Yu , Xiangdong Xu , Qiuping Lin, Qiuhua Wu, Qin Chen

Plot:  Ming dynasty, the shaolin temple is accused of riots against the government. Qi Tian Yuan (Rongguang Yu), an officer from the gov, is sent to the shaolin temple to take over. After the defeat of the old master , Tian Yuan and the army begin to kill all the monks. Luckily, some of them managed to escape the massacre and run away with the Holy robe, which Tian Yuan needs in order to take over the temple…

Year: 1985
Country: Mainland China / Hk 

Trailer (edit by me from the original dvd ): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9iKZIsi7hw

Notes:  The movie is released in China on dvd by Da Sheng company, it does carry both English and Chinese trad. subtitles, both are burned it (the souce is probably from HK or TW) and mandarin audio. The movie was also released in USA with Cantonese audio (as stated in Amazon, I do not own this version).

The director, Siu Ming Tsui, directed other martial arts movies such as The Buddhist Fist (1980), The Rats (1973). His career was almost HK based with just few co-operation with China.

Rongguang Yu, on the other hand, started his career with this flick and then he managed to act in so many movies both in China and HK (for ex. Red Fists (联手警探)(1990), Iron Monkey (1993) and so on).  

As far as I know almost all the cast were martial artists also in the real life, some even champions of wushu. Rongguang Yu, if I am not mistaken, was just a really good acrobat and he picked up MA skills in a very short time. Impressive !

Personal opinion:  What a gem! I didn’t know what to expect from this flick, never I thought it was DA BOMB!

Even though the plot is pretty traditional, the action scenes were just top notch. Thanks to the skills of the cast (girls and boys) , the movie is packed with superb fights and training sequences. For example I loved the training sequences at the Wu Dang mountain and in the Shaolin Temple, excellent showcase of wushu stuff.

Also the music was great! You gotta love the song played as background of the training sequences.

Overall the movie is awesome. Ok the story is meh, the love story is meh as well, but who cares about those things when you have Wushu campions on screen? Nobody!  Just go and pick it up, you will not be disappointed!

Some snapshots from the original dvd:

Branch Road Hero (歧路英雄)(1994)

 

Branch Road Hero (歧路英雄)

Dir:  Rui Wang
Cast: Rong Chang , Changyuan Li , Bingyan Yan, Fan Liu , Xia Ma, Dekun Yang, Yongming Liu
Plot:  Countless HK dollars and a rotten dead man body are flowing upon the sea area between Shenzhen and HK. Authenticated nu Shenzhen policemen, all the HK dollars which flow from HK are fake . SZ police immediately inform HK counterpart and require cooperation to solve the case.
Year: 1994
Country: Mainland China  

Aka: 英雄血

Trailer (edit by me from the original dvd ): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOB-m5bOVNo
Notes:  The movie is released in China on dvd by Super sense audio & audio Reolutinon (oh yeah that’s what is said on the cover of the dvd). It does not carry any subtitles so, unless you know some Chinese, the movie will be hard to follow.

The director, Rui Wang, started his career with an action movie called Bloody Fight On Tianshi (血战天狮号) and his last action film was the one I am reviewing.

Ron Chang, on the other hand, had a pretty long career with movies such as Meeting of the two heroes (双雄会), Deadend of Besiegers (1992), 'Ming wang xing' xing dong (“冥王星”行动), Sword Brothers (虎兄豹弟). The beautiful Bingyan Yan, according to the Mtime.com, just acted in this flick (what a beauty guys...).

Personal opinion: After a long break, here I am again reviewing another flick from the big red China.

The glorious 90s, a time long gone in both China and HK... well, that’s how things go anyway, our life continues.

This movie is a traditional drama/crime, a genre really popular in HK during the 80s and 90s, a kind of cinema that the mainlanders liked a lot.

The plot is not new if you are into HK flicks: we have a rape and we have revenge, we have bullet ballet, we have fights, we have explosions, we have drama as well.

The rape scene is short and you don't see anything but everything that comes before that is pretty obvious (humiliations, swearing, beating).

I really liked Rong Chang acting, really convincing, especially when he gets angry, he shows the rage every men would have in this kind of situation. And his martial skills are pretty good too.

Anyway, let’s talk about the action scenes. Those are just a few and pretty short as well, but I gotta admit that even though they were not really good, I was cheering for Rong Chang (lol) the whole time.  In the final fight there are a lot of explosions, pity that some were just useless/fake, for ex. the bad guys shoot something on the ground, and this thing explodes, or Rong Chang is running and something explodes without reason.

Overall I was not disappointed by the movie, the action was meh is true but I liked the rest of it, the drama and the vengeance was great. It’s a pity that it is not released with subtitles because it would be worth a try also for people with no Mandarin knowledge.

Oh and before I forget, in Luo Wei‘s room there were a lot of posters of western and Chinese movies. One caught my attention: a really big one, behind the bed. On it some Chinese characters that were saying: Italian blah blah. And I said to myself: Italian?! What the hell was that movie?!? So I asked my girlfriend and we found the original Italian title… another surprise: Bonnie e Clyde all'italiana (1982)! A movie with Ornella Muti and Paolo Villaggio! The movie was released in China at the cinema dubbed in mandarin! Unbelievable…

Some snapshots from the original dvd:

It's coming..

...a new review is coming soon.
I 've been pretty busy recently and not really in the mood for action flicks, but trust me sth is coming..
Hope some of you are still checking this blog once in a while.
Cheers