Hong Kong Film Binge Watch

Over the last few days of Christmas, I wasn't in any mood to do anything except eat and watch. My own doujin has been on hiatus for nearly two months already when I should have released two chapters by now. Instead I decided to binge watch on old Hong Kong cinema. I picked out 80s and 90s films that I haven't checked out before that had really well known actors like Bruce Lee, Sammo Hung, and much more old favorites. Honestly not all of them were that great. I didn't finish some of them because I lost interest in the story line. I also picked out my childhood favorite cartoon movie, 七彩老夫子, which roughly translates to "Color Old Master Q". I always laugh when watching this cartoon and have only been able to enjoy the two separate ending recently. During the age of VHS tapes, a lot of us watched the version with the Bruce Lee ending. It was only until on Youtube that I found out there was a second version with a different ending. In the second version of Color Old Master Q, some of the MMA fighting matches were cut and the ending explained the the cops and robbers chase. Either way both of them were happy endings.
 Among the films I picked, I picked out 猛龍過江 Way of the Dragon, 鬼打鬼之黃金道士 Mad Mad Ghost, 運財五福星 How to Meet the Lucky Stars, 驅魔警察 Magic Cop, 人鬼神 Spiritual Trinity and 鬼咬鬼 Encounters of the Spooky Kind II. I'm gonna do short reviews of each to give you my impression. They're not very deep films to begin with. Starting off with Way of the Dragon, this was the Bruce Lee film I didn't grow up watching. Tang Lung (Bruce Lee) comes to Rome from Hong Kong to help his uncle whose restaurant is being harassed by local mafia. Lung is from the countryside so he stands out awkwardly in a foreign city and belittled by everyone. It is only when Lung beats up the mafioso when everyone starts recognizing his skill. I didn't finish the movie because I couldn't find a full version online, but it didn't seem necessary because it wasn't my favorite movie to watch. For Lee to do a comedy martial arts film doesn't match his style and the comedy part didn't work out well. There were some moments in the beginning when I giggled a bit like Lung speaking in Cantonese asking for eggs in an English speaking restaurant. It was probably worth a try to do different types of movie for Lee. It is such a shame that he had to leave us so early. The world will never see another Bruce Lee. Way of the Dragon might be the movie for you if you are a diehard Bruce Lee fan, but for me, I prefer The Big Boss.

So after Way of the Dragon, I went for the jiangsi genre. I watched Mad Mad Ghost a long time ago, but didn't quite remember what happened in it. Once I started watching it, I stopped and picked another memory. At first it has good comedy and starts off fresh, but then it gets redundant with its jokes and fighting. Uncle Ying (Lam Ching Ying) works as security and a part-time Taoist priest (though he says he works as a full time Taoist priest and a part time security guard). He moves into a new house with his disciples that is haunted by two ghosts upstairs. These two ghosts are a married couple consisting of a violent wife beater husband Blunt and a slow thinking helpless wife Kuen. Uncle Ying removes Blunt from the household, but he returns always to beat his wife and haunt the house. The rest of the movie consists of a lot of fighting between ghosts and humans. There's also a side story in which two foreigners are scheming to get Uncle Ying's house because they want to find buried gold underneath. It's a lot of mindless writing and nonsense in between. Maybe as a kid you may find it hilarious, but as an adult it's just ridiculous. Lam Ching Ying is also a well loved actor that left the world too early. Known for his roles as a Taoist priest, he was always remembered by other actors on set as dedicated and hard working. He also worked as a stuntman and martial arts director for famous movies such as The Big Boss. Because Lam was such an inspiration for me, I dedicated one of my characters to him and also as a Taoist priest.

The first two movies were kind of a bummer. However I managed to finish the third movie How to Meet the Lucky Stars. Some of the pacing and jokes didn't work out for me, but I think it had a really good story behind it. The King of Gamblers Lui Tin loses to the Gambling Flower Sheung Kung Fei Fa through a crooked scheme and is accused of cheating. Out of despair he commits suicide leaving his distressed daughter Francoise to vow for revenge. Uncle Wah, a friend of Lui Tin and police inspector, gathers the Lucky Stars for their help. They learn to gamble and amass enough funds to attend the international gambling competition in order to take down Sheung Kung Fei Fa. I think what's great in this movie is that in a gambling genre, they have two women in the final showdown as opposed to men. I think it was rare to see this back then, but it wasn't uncommon to see tomboys and independent women portrayed in Hong Kong film. In fact this movie portrayed most of the women as strong and worthy opponents while several male characters acted like cowards for the sake of comedy. Despite being branding as a gambling genre, it has a generous amount of martial arts because they threw in a Shaolin monk in the story. I felt deceived when they put Sammo Hung on the cast list because I thought he was going to be the protagonist only to find out he's actual a minor character. The five actors used for the Lucky Stars are all well known comedic figures in Hong Kong film so it wasn't a total miss.

Since I was so disappointed with Mad Mad Ghost, I decided to rewatch one of my favorite Lam Ching Ying films Magic Cop. In Magic Cop, Lam plays Uncle Feng, a policemen well versed in Taoist exorcism. He gets called over to Hong Kong to collect the body of a stewardess on behalf of an old lady living next door. The thing is that this supposed stewardess is a drug smuggler that was killed many days early. Uncle Feng sees that someone had transformed the body into a living corpse, but his assigned partner Lam thinks he's crazy. Lam's friend (without a name given) however believes Uncle Feng. There's hilarity between this water and fire relationship, but there's also good action and a bit of suspense when they find out there is a Japanese sorceress at play controlling these corpses. A lot of the exorcism rituals were exciting to watch and I think this shows one of the best faces of Lam Ching Ying. In the battle between Chinese Taoism and Japanese sorcery, there is a great push and pull sensation when watching it mixed with some humor.

After Magic Cop, I watched Spiritual Trinity. It is another Lam Ching Ying film, but dealing more with ghosts and family drama. The humor lies in the rivalry between two disciples who haven't seen each other in 18 years as the younger one constantly tries to find ways to get the older one to move out. The family drama is when the younger disciple suspects that his son is not his son, but of the older disciple whom he hates so much. To throw in the mix, an angry demonic ghost disrupts the home and the two disciples have to work together to get rid of it. It's not as action packed as previous films, but it has some good jokes and a lot of ghost busting in the last half hour.

Finally in Encounters of the Spooky Kind II, this one is a stand alone sequel. Sammo Hung plays Abao, who is betrothed to Chu, the daughter of a tea-house owner except one rich guy named Shi keeps harassing Chu. Shi hires a sorcerer to attack Abao so that he can make him look bad in front of his future father in law. Since they used such treacherous means, Abao's master uses his Taoist magic to defeat the evil sorcerer and Shi. It is a mix of comedy and horror, the horror being old school horror using creepy costuming and makeup to create corpse-like characters. Probably the creepiest scene was having roaches crawl all over Abao when the dark magic was beginning to overcome him. There's a lot of good fighting in the film and almost everyone gets a fighting scene.

A lot of the Taoist films are set in the time period after the decline of the Qing dynasty so there's a mixture of old and Western technology at the time. That would include appearances of machinery and catholic priests in the films. Some of them are a mixture of 80s Hong Kong police and crime fiction. I think what captures a lot fans in 80s and 90s Hong Kong cinema is the reflection of the complicated life at the time. There was a big struggle in the middle class reaching for the dream to become super rich and also the common appearance of criminal activity like gangs and drugs. Hong Kong in the 80s was the shining pearl in the rough in all of Asia drawing in all sorts of people from around the world. I seriously think some of these movie posters and DVD covers need better design. Maybe I should do a redesign.