Heroes of the east: Kungfu war of the roses

AKA: Challenge of the Ninja

One of the greatest teams in martial arts films has been the director and star of the classic martial arts film 36^th chamber of shoalin. Director Lau Kar Leung and Gordan Liu (two roles in Kill Bill) have teamed up for several of the most classic kung fu films of the shaw brothers era. Eight diagram pole fighter, executioners from shoalin, legendary weapons of china and one of their best team ups is Heroes of the east.

While this team had mistakenly taken on too much comedy in legendary weapons and the the 36^th chamber sequels here the comedy all in the first half actually works. Gordon Liu plays a wigged(one of the few movies where he askews the Skinhead look) martial artist whose father arranges a marriage to a beautiful Japanese woman. At first he’s against it but he concedes and soon discovers his wife is a well rounded Japanese martial artist.

The first problem this marriage has is that Liu’s new wife is a nationalist all about the superiority of Japan’s martial skills. One time after another her very sensitive husband stomps on her puny Japanese skills until she runs home to the waiting arms of a hunky ninja expert played by Yasuaki Kurata. Kurata by the way is best known to modern audiences for his small but important role going toe to toe with a much younger Jet Li in Fist of Legend.

So in strange attempt to save the marriage Liu sends his estranged wife a challenge for a duel claiming that if she can best him once in 10 challenges he will concede that Japanese martial arts are superior. Nothing says love like a 10 level challenge.

This letter is intercepted by our ninja expert and a whole group Japan’s finest experts are so offended that they travel to China to challenge Liu. Ok So as you would expect the Chinese guy takes them on one at a time and you can imagine this would not play in Japan any better than Rambo II would in Vietnam. There is a whole sub-genre of ‘Chinese martial arts are better than Japanese martial arts’ films. My favorite Kung Fu movie of all time is Duel to the Death a 1982 spin on the theme by Chinese ghost story director Ching siu Tung.

The fights are great but you really have to dig movie martial arts challenges because after the plot is established in the first hour the second is just non stop fights. They are good fights and the Ninja expert played Kurata almost steals the show with his dirty Ninja tricks. His crab style fighting is also really cool to watch. You dig it. What separates Heores from the east from other ‘Chinese martial arts are better than Japanese martial arts’ films is the PC ending. Liu gives this speech that is supposed restore the honor of the defeated Japanese in what looks like a lame attempt at soothing the egos of Japan’s movie goers. I’m sure that makes them feel better after one Chinese dude ina wig beats all their countries experts.

Is it worth your two dollars:

Fans of old school martial arts movies should consider this crucial viewing. Certainly fans of the Kill Bill movies would benefit from seeing Gordon Liu and finding out why QT gave him not one but two roles. YES!

Shadow Whip: Whips n' swords, and it's NOT a fetish movie!

Devotees to classic Shaw Brothers films are already aware of Pei-Pei Cheng and her work in Kung Fu epics such as Come Drink With Me and Golden Swallow, where she played the titular character. It was released in the seventies in the U.S., dubbed and tagged with the weird title The Girl With the Thunderbolt Kick. Golden Swallow served as one of Director Chang Cheh's bloodiest films, but balances a love story along with the trail of bodies. However, it was her performance as Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that Americans are probably most familiar with.

Pei-Pei also starred in an unusual Shaw Brothers Kung Fu movie called The Shadow Whip. Directed by Lo Wei, who went on to direct the Bruce Lee classic Chinese Connection (or Fist of Fury, depending on who you ask). The film starts off at a snail's pace, and I admit I was about to shut it off after fifteen minutes, which consisted mostly of some strange guy signing as the characters travel on a wagon train across a snow-blanketed Chinese frontier.

Slow start aside, I'm glad I stuck it out. The plot isn't all that important - basically, Pei-Pei and her uncle fight huge groups of sword-wielding bandits with whips, and unconventional weapon in these sorts of movies for sure. There is early wire-fu, which is pretty well done and goes beyond the hidden trampoline backwards filming so common during the era.

According to a brief glance at the IMDB page, Summo Hung was in this, but it must have been a brief cameo, as I didn't notice him.

Is it worth your $2?
Yes - if you've got a hankering for a movie that combines whips and swords (the best of both worlds!), then this may be one of the few that satisfies you. I found it good enough, but if that doesn't cut it, watch Pei-Pei in Golden Swallow, which is really much better.

Super Infra-Man - He has see-through eyes!

We at CF were treated to a rare a wonderful thing a chance to see a bad movie classic on the big screen. This one was barely able to sneak onto American screens, even when it was originally released in 1976. In a well-made and respectable foreign film, we often consider dubbing to be nothing short of annoying on a level that could only be matched by Britney Spears' acting or Jar Jar Binks. Nails on a chalkboard, etc. That being said, the English dubbing in Super Infra-man is not only acceptable, but preferred - only a few movies I can think of benefit from English dubbing. See also: Story of Riki.

Ripping off Ultraman and pre-dating the Power Rangers, Infra-Man is a schlock classic, ranking with the best of the bygone rubber monster craze. Starring a baby-faced Danny Lee years before The Killer made him famous when he went down in a blaze of glory with Chow Yun Fat. He was off to an embarrassing start in the seventies, wearing the tight red rubber Infra-Man suit that also sports antennae.

When a volcano explodes and spits out the secret headquarters of Princess Dragon Mom, a blonde-haired Chinese woman who cracks a giant whip and wants to control the earth, the world's greatest scientific minds leap into action, creating a superhero with see-through eyes (according to the trailer). We know they're scientists because they all wear white coats and hang out in a futuristic-looking room full of randomly-blinking lights, as every B sci-fi scientist seemed to.

Princess Dragon Mom commands a legion of guys wearing bike helmets with skulls painted on them, as well as half a dozen rubber-suited monsters. They also have speedboats and go around tearing down power lines and brainwashing people - EEEEEEVVVVVILLLLL! The story is incredibly simplistic, and really just shuttles Infra-Man from one confrontation to the next. There's a strange scene with the professor and his daughter that's good for some unintentional laughs, and lots of great stuff with PDM hamming it up in her sekrit base.

This movie is a lot of mindless monster fun, but it's got some pacing problems, especially if you try to watch it with subtitles. It's best enjoyed auf English, as the Germans would say, with a big group of acquaintances with senses of humor.

Is this movie worth your $2?

No doubt! The English-dubbed version has enough laughs to leave any fan of bad movies happy. The more people to share the laughter will only amplify your enjoyment of this film!