New York Ninja

Title: New York Ninja
Director: John Liu, Kurtis Spieler
Released: 2021
Starring: John Liu, Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Adrienne Meltzer, Linnea Quigley, Vince Murdocco, Leon Issac Kennedy, Cynthia Rothrock, Michael Berryman

Plot: When his wife is murdered John becomes a vigilante taking on the criminals of New York as his Ninja alter-ego. 

Review: Having started his career starring in low budget Taiwanese Kung Fu flicks were despite not ever getting to starr in the higher budget films being produced by Golden Harvest or the Shaw Bros. John Liu still managed to make a name for himself as one of the top kickers in the industry through films like Secret Rivals 1 + 2 and Snuff Bottle Connection. Setting up his own production company John Liu’s (H.K.) Film Corp in 1981 he would make three films before the company folded with this film being the forth which despite being shot on the streets of New York would ultimately end up in a vault doomed to be a lost film when his production company folded had it not been discovered and edited together by the cult cinema preservation efforts of Vinegar Syndrome. 

This film however is more than a re-edit of the raw footage but a full restoration with Vinegar Syndrome having to create their own audio track for the footage which had long been lost and in doing so here bring together the who’s who of genre cinema royalty to redub the film alongside a fittingly retro soundtrack being provided by Voyag3r. 

Seeing how the film was stored on reels and running between 6-8 hours and with no storyboards and only a shooting script to work from the end result that Kurtis Spieler has created as the films “Re-director” is actually pretty astonishing with Spieler certainly showing alot of respect to the source material which is certainly the right kind of bad movie in that while the film certainly has its moments of perhaps unintentional humour throughout, a healthy dose of slack fu and an even bigger helping of pure randomness no doubt only further added to by Spieler’s attempts to find a plotline in the raw footage.

Playing a soundman for a New York TV News station the fact that his character is also called John either marks a lack of creativity on the part of John Liu or perhaps his vigilante fantasy which considering that this is 1980’s New York there is no shortage of random thugs to beat up as he soon gets to put his Ninja skills to good use though this is clearly the western image of the Ninja seeing how he runs around (and one point rollerskates) in a snow white Ninja-Yori which means he certainly stands out while also throwing his NY Ninja branded shurikens out which soon make him a local hero all while his colleagues at the News Station are trying to figure out the identity of this elusive Ninja while John pulls Hong Kong Phooey style antics usually turning up right after he’s been filmed beating up a group of thugs.

While John Liu is certainly an accomplished martial artist the same can’t be said for many of the actors playing the numerous random thugs who largely demonstrate their best slack fu moves right before being usually kicked in the face. Still the fight scenes are all fun with Liu often working around the limitations of his supporting brawlers. 

Perhaps because of the film being assembled from so much raw footage and having no real script to serve as the guide the film certainly has it’s random moments throughout including thugs which look like they have stumbled out of Streets of Rage and a villain known as the plutonium killer who is running a sex ring while seemingly having radioactive powers as well. Thankfully this is a bad movie in the best sense as while the acting is often as questionable as the directing choices there is so much heart to the film that these moments only add to the fun. At the same time the redub choices are all great and really hit the right notes for the film and often you could be forgiven for not realising they aren’t the voices of the actual cast.

The Seventh Curse

Title: The Seventh Curse
Director: Nam Lai Choi 
Released: 1986
Starring: Chow Yun Fat, Chin Siu-ho, Dick Wei, Maggie Cheung, Sibelle Hu, Elvis Tsui, Ken Boyle, Ni Kuang, Chui Sau-Lai

Plot: After he rescued a beautiful young girl from being sacrificed by her tribe in Thailand adventurer and cop Dr. Yuen finds himself suffering a blood curse which threatens to kill him unless he can find a cure. 

Review: Another dose of Kung fu weird from Nam Lai Choi the director of Erotic Ghost Story, The Cat and of course Ricki-O: The Story of Ricky the live action manga so over the top and comedically violent it earned a CAT III rating for its violence alone. He would also give Takashi Miike an early credit who served as his assistant director on Peacock King before he retired to become a food critic as highlighted in the Eli Roth documentary Fin. Here though he once again throws as many cool / nutty things at the screen as he can with Chin Su-ho playing a doctor suffering a blood curse as he rescues a beautiful girl from being sacrificed by her tribe in Thailand.

Based on the Dr. Yuen series of books by Ni Kwang who also shows up in the film as himself while also serving as the narrator. Chow Yun Fat meanwhile is also on hand to bring another of Ni’s characters to life as he plays Wisely who not only shows up as a supporting character in the Dr. Yuen books but also 160 of his own stories which have been adapted into films and series like The Legend of the Wesley and Nam Lai Choi’s The Cat. However despite the fact that he gets top billing Chow Yun Fat is hardly in the film only showing up to show off his pipe smoking skills and to send Dr. Yuen on his quest before turning up seemingly out of nowhere for welding finale a rocket launcher.

The character of Dr. Yuen much Nam Lai Choi’s style of film making really hits alot of bases as not only is he a doctor and an adventurer who is introduced flirting with a group of Miss Asia constants but he’s also a cop with some very impressive martial arts skills; Somthing we get to see demonstrated at the start of the film as he infiltrates a group of terrorists as a doctor to provide a distraction with a flashbang to allow the SWAT team to enter the building only for reporter and soon to be constant thorn in his side Tsui-Hung (Cheung) to throw the whole plan into chaos when she sneaks onto the operation and leaving Dr. Yuen to kick a whole bunch of terrorist ass himself inside knocking the leader out of the window so he hangs by his feet a scene which also appears to have been shot without a safety cable…gotta love Hong Kong health and safety. 

However when he starts suffering the effects of his blood curse which causes his veins to rise and spectacularly burst he is forced to head back to Thailand were one year earlier while trying to find a cure for AID’s he saved a tribal girl Betsy (Sau-Lai) from being sacrificed by an evil sorcerer (Tsui) also has the ability to throw a killer fetus at his enemies which appear from his side bringing back memories of Evil Dead Trap and the classic X Files episode Humbug. 

As I mentioned already Nam Lai Choi’s style of directing generally consists of throwing interesting ideas at the screen and certainly this also the case here which also is what makes this film so much fun as not only do you get some great martial arts action, but also John Woo style heroic gunplay, a kung fu skeleton which morphs into an Alien knock off when it consumes blood not to mention tribal girl Betsy who seems to constantly be in some state of undress. Throw in some over the top gore which includes one of Dr. Yuens party being consumed by man eating worms all while the tone of the film never for one second tries to take itself seriously and inturn only adds to the fun. 

Unquestionably I really had a blast with this one and if your fan of Big Trouble In Little China which this would certainly make a great double feature alongside and sure the plot might be pulpy, but the fun action set pieces and jaw dropping randomness making it an entertaining and certainly memorable watch.

Roaring Fire

Title: Roaring Fire
Director: Norifumi Suzuki
Released: 1982
Starring: Hiroyuki Sanada, Etsuko Shihomi, Sonny Chiba, Mikio Nartia, Abdullah The Butcher

Plot: When his father dies Joji (Sanada) learns that he was kidnapped as a child and returns to Japan to reunite with his family and learn the truth about who he really while soon discovering that his uncle is the head of a crime syndicate

Review: Initially a film I dismissed early on as it goes through the typical action movie setup during the opening half hour which outside of a bikini stealing pet monkey and a random cameo by wrestling legend Abdullah The Butcher hardly seemed like the kind of movie that was going to provide anything memorable….and then Sonny Chiba appeared as the ventriloquist magician Mr. Magic and things suddenly got a lot more interesting and certainly a lot more random.

Directed by Norifumi Suzuki, a director best known for his contributions to the Pinky Violence genre not to mention directing all ten films in the Truck Rascals series. Here he teams up with Sonny Chiba’s protege Hiroyuki Sanada who like Etsuko Shihomi (Sister Street Fighter) was also a member of Chiba’s Japan Action Club. The pair here crafting a film which combines elements of Jackie Chan comedy with just pure weirdness which somehow only gets the more wacky as it goes on in a film which not only features a fight on top of a moving double decker bus but also features Sanada being pursued by bike riding ninjas dressed like Raiden from Mortal Kombat.

While the film certainly starts off aiming it seems to be a straightforward action film as it opens with Joji’s twin brother (also played by Sanada) being gunned down by a group of triads with the same sort of overkill zeal of the first two Robocop movies. However by the time that Sonny Chiba has less than subtly revealed that Joji’s uncle is a criminal through his ventriloquist act in a weird nod to Hamlet that soon after has his uncle heavies bursting into the dressing room and actually threatening the puppet the film just start throwing weirdness and Jackie Chan style action beats at the screen almost as if Suzuki realised he wasn’t gonna get a decent action movie out of the material but he could at least make the experience memorable one way or another for the audience. This wouldn’t be the first brush with Shakespeare for Sanada who in 1999 and 2000 would go on to perform in their production of King Lear as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company earning him an honourable MBE for helping to spread British culture in Japan.

It’s once the film starts getting wacky that it also gets interesting with Suzuki putting together some great action scenes with the fight choreography being handed by Sonny Chiba and includes such delights as Jiji being thrown into a pit were he has to battle a boxer and a staff fighter or watching him battle a big thug who punches his way through a door like a beat-em up villain while the ending which sees Jiji taking down a helicopter with a tomahawk. Each of these scenes added a little more charm to the film which certainly helped with the enjoyment levels especially when the plot felt increasingly muddled with it’s characters motivation and general plotting. 

Sure this is far from a classic but the general weirdness and comedic beats put in that same group of movies like The Battle Wizard were sure it’s not going to impress the film snobs but the fun your have watching it makes it a great movie to watch with friends and a few beers.

Crippled Avengers A.k.a. Return of the Five Deadly Venoms

Title: Crippled Avengers
Director: Chang Cheh
Released: 1978
Starring: Chen Kuan Tai, Chaing Sheng, Phillip Kwok, Lo Meng, Lu Feng, Sun Chien, Wang Lung Wei

Plot: After they are all crippled in a variety of ways a group of martial arts seek revenge on the man who crippled them Tu Tin-To

Review: Part of a unique trend of kung-fu movies featuring martial arts masters suffering some kind of crippling injury and then having to develop their fight style to work with their handicap. Examples of these movies include the likes of The Crippled Masters, Two Crippled Masters, Master With Cracked Fingers and Crippled Kung Fu Boxer not to mention Cheh’s own One Armed Swordsman films. 

Also released under the misleading title of Return of the Five Deadly Venoms despite not being anything to do with that film but it did feature the Venom mob with the exception of Wei Pai who had left Shaw Bros. for Golden Harvest were he would appear a year after this films release in Chang Cheh’s protege John Woo’s Last Hurrah For Chivalry. Of course the presence of the venom mob alone is enough to make this film worth checking out especially when its once more a fantastic showcase for their talents especially when finding ways to adapt their styles to benefit their handicaps. 

Opening with Tu Tin-To the master of Tiger Style Kung Fu returning home to find that his wife has been murdered and his son has lost both his arms he formulates a plan of revenge which sees him giving his son a pair of metal arms and not only killing the men responsible but thier sons aswell. Not content with having got his revenge he is soon injuring anyone who displeases him leading to the creation of the main group who all fall foul to his wrath with the blacksmith Wei being deafened and turned into a mute, a travelling salesman Chen Shuen (Phillip Kwok) is blinded, another villager Ah-Kue (Chien) loses both his legs and finally their friend Wang Yi (Sheng) has his head put in vice causing him to become mentally handicaped. 

The four men in returning Yi to his master are offered a chance at revenge by training with Yi’s master spending the next three years finding ways to adapt with Ah-Kue receiving a pair of metal legs, Wei learns sign language and to use a mirror to see attacks behind him while also forming an awesome double team with Chen Shuen who develops a heightened sense of hearing so much that he can hear the leaves falling from the trees. Yi meanwhile still retains all his martial arts training despite being reduced to a childstate and generally gets to be the mischievous wild card of the team. Tin-To’s son Do Chang (Lu Meng) with his metal arm equally makes him a great foe as they have the ability to extend and shoot darts. 

Not only does Cheh here give us some really fantastic action scenes but really makes full use of having such talent performers whose skills are showcased not only in the fight scenes but the equally entertaining training sequences such as seeing Phillip Kwok and Chaing Sheng demonstrating their acrobatic skills with metal rings which is such fun to watch especially knowing that they are the ones doing it and there being no camera cheats or cgi it’s pure poetry in motion to watch. 

While the revenge plotline is regular fare for kung fu cinema the real charm of the film comes from Cheh’s direction especially as he includes moments like cutting the sound when Wei is deafened so she can experience what he’s going through. Add to this the brotherhood like bond shared with the group and how only by working together that they are able to finally vanquish their foes especially with Tin-Toe demonstrating a rare villainous cunning so that by the time they show up he’s already developed methods to remove their advantages such as the gong like shields to prevent Chen Shuen’s hyper hearing or a wall of mirrors to blind Wei as they flash him with blasts of light. 

Featuring a dash of kung-fu weird for colour this is an entertaining romp throughout and certainly a step up from the mystery plot line of Five Deadly Venoms as the Venom mob truly shine throughout making this a perfect introduction to their films while featuring enough action and fast pacing to equally make this a great introduction to the Shaw Bros catalogue. 

Fearless Fighters

Title: Fearless Fighters
Director: Mou Man-Hung
Released: 1971
Starring: Chan Hung-Lit, Yik Yuen, Cheung Ching-ching, Chiang Ming, Mo Man-Hung, Ma Kei, Mo Man-ha, Wong Fei-lung, Kwan Hung

Plot: When the Eagle Claw Fighting Clan lead by To Pa plot to steal a shipment of government gold they spark a plot for revenge by a group of fighters called the Fearless Warriors

Review: With Bruce Lee bringing martial arts to the attention of the mainstream, there was of course no end of distributors looking to cash in on this trend, picking up movies from Hong Kong (or Taiwan in the case of this film) to be dubbed and pushed out to the drive-in and Grindhouse theatres. Released for the US market only two years after it’s release somehow this film has managed to survive in pretty decent condition, especially for a more obscure title much less get a re-release with an insightful commentary track from Richard Ellman who handled the films north American distribution and editor Dick Brummer who rewrote the film into a more format more accessible for English language audiences. It’s really a history lesson on a by gone age of cinema were smaller independent companies could get in on the craze much less a crash course in DIY Distribution.

If your a fan of kung fu cinema from this period a lot of its random moments of Kung Fu Weird like the fantastic weapons and random plot elements will be as familiar as the teleport-fu were characters trampoline into the air often landing in a completely different location as memorably seen in Sister Street Fighter which featured a fight made up of these location jumps. Of course for the purest this will be an unwanted distraction while for the rest of us it only adds to the fun.

Plot wise the film doesn’t try anything new with a revenge plot revolving around stolen gold with the villianous To Pa rounding up his own Cobra Command team of outlandish mercenaries to ensure he can maintain his grasp on the gold. The colourful villians including the dual sword welding One Man Army, Soul Picker with his flying sword and Dragon Raiser with his tiger claws. This of course is the kind of randomness I love to see in Kung fu movies and certainly the film delivers the fantastical elements in spades as arrows are plucked from the air and launched by at their owner and this is without mentioning the bionic upgrades one of our heroes gets knocked off a cliff and somehow rescued by his master who up until this point has never once appeared in the film!

At a brief 82 mins runtime there is little time wasted here as the film might be low on character development leading to a couple of plot holes here and there but with the focus instead on the action and showcasing fantastical weaponry no time is wasted. Sure this is far from the best the genre has to offer but as throw away fun this certainly delivers in spades making it hard not to have a good time with this especially if your familiar with the genre quirks such as jerky editing to make certain effects work and questionable dubbing.

Heroes From The East

Title: Heroes From The East aka Shaolin Challenges Ninja
Director: Lau Kar Leung
Released: 1978

Starring: Gordon Liu, Yuka Mizuno, Ouyang Sha-fei, Chan Lung, Ching Miao, Yasuaki Kurata, Yasutaka Nakazaki, Hitoshi Omae, Takeshi Yamamoto, Nobuo Yana, Tetsu Sumi, Manabu Shirai

Plot: Ho Tao (Gordon Liu) is set up in an arranged marriage with the daughter of his fathers’s Japanese business associate and is intially excited to find out that she also a martial artist. However the pair clash over their rival styles leading for her to return to Japan. In a ruse to win her back her sends a letter challenging Japanese martial arts hoping to infuriate her into returning. However when her father instead reads the letter he travels to China with several other Japanese martial arts masters to take up his challenge.

Review: Reuniting the Kung Fu dream team paring of Gordon Liu with director Lau Kar Leung for a film which initially starts as a fun romantic comedy (with kung fu) as the film opens to Liu’s Ho Tao trying to get out of being married to a girl he has never met which of course soon changes when he sees he’s marrying the stunning Yumiko (Yuka Mizuno). Of course it’s not long before the two are clashing over their rival fighting styles with Ho Tao finding her Karate to be unladylike let alone the damage she is causing to the household statues which she has taken to practising on while finding his insistence on changing to a more feminine style of Chinese Kung Fu laughable.

While the pair might disagree on who has the most effective style there is certainly an underlying respect between them even if they are both too stubborn to accept that their chosen style could be deemed inferior leading to a continuous game of one one-upmanship as both continue to highlight the advantages of their chosen style and often providing the mirror counter as memorably seen as a dinner conflict leads to them both pulling out a small pile of weapons they’ve some how been hiding on themselves and bringing to mind the comparing of war wounds between Hooper and Quint in Jaws.

The second half of the film is much more of a traditional tournement movie as Ho Tao finds himself facing five Japanese masters each with a different fighting style to overcome creating a series of demonstrations of Chinese fighting styles and weapons being pitted against their Japanese counterparts meaning we get to see such fun pairings as Japanese Katana vs. Chinese Jian (double edged sword) or Nunchaku vs. Three section staff as the film builds to the final showdown pitting the Ninjitsu style against Kung Fu giving the film it’s alternative title Shaolin Challenges Ninja. Needless to say being a Gordon Liu movie all the fighting styles look incredible with Lau Kar Leung taking the unique approach of not portraying the Japanese as the villains of the film nor having fights be to the death. Instead here the films focus is about fighters finding the mutual respect through combat and for each others fighting style.

Each fight scene really stands out from the last thanks to Lau Kar Leung making good use of locations and keeping the camera pulled back on the action while even throwing in a couple of comedic fights which might take away from the film depending on how you feel about such Slapstick Fu. At the same time some of the fight feel that they end way too soon especially considering that he is supposed to be fighting the masters of these fighting styles. Still the fights are quick and frequently inventive which combined with the variety just really only adds to the general good time.

A fun movie which thanks to it’s quick pacing and suprisingly effective moments of humour doesn’t outstay its welcome while providing a wishlist of fighting combinations and equally skilled actors to make this a worthy addition to your Shaw Bros collection.