The One Armed Swordsmen

The One Armed Swordsmen
YouTube viewing

You would think a one-armed swordsman would be a rare thing indeed. You would think well, center of gravity is off, balance is tricky, upper body strength would be compromised—it might be possible to go through life that way if you work hard enough at it, but you wouldn’t see very many guys doing it, and certainly not in the same place. You would think that.

But you don’t live in a kung fu movie.

What would a cinematic trip around the world be without some chop-socky fighting action? I remember watching martial arts films on the weekends on TV (I believe Channel 5 here in New York would show them) and they were like superhero cartoons in a way: the over-the-top violence, the exaggerated characters, the outrageous abilities they possessed. And all of it badly dubbed, of course.

No doubt Asian countries see these films differently than we Westerners. Martial arts films speak to their history, their culture, their mythology, and though they may seem alike after so many of these films have been cranked out, one could say the same about American Westerns, with whom they have quite a bit in common. And when it comes to martial arts films, one name stands head and shoulders above the pack: the Shaw Brothers.

Ain't no cure for the summertime links

The second half of The One Year Switch has gotten off to a slower start than anticipated; there's been a bit of a drop-off in pageviews over the past few weeks, but I'm betting that'll turn around this month. I've got three more blogathon posts, plus a return to the #TCMparty. If you look at the sidebar, you'll see that the film I've decided on is the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business, which airs August 14. I don't think I've seen this one, but it is the Marx Brothers, so I imagine one knows what to expect.

Yes, I know I've gone off my tentative Mon-Wed-Fri schedule. It was nice to actually have a schedule again - I had forgotten what it was like! - but the truth is that I had overbooked for August and I needed some breathing room. Also, some rainouts ruined my plans for some outdoor movies. What can you do? I expect to return to three posts a week soon.

I haven't seen very many new movies so far this year. Then again, I haven't paid as much attention to what's new, since my focus has been on the old stuff. I know Spy was a big hit, for one thing, and Ant-Man is doing well, too (another Marvel movie that looked like less than a sure thing on paper). I had thought Batman v. Superman was coming out this year, but it's actually due next year. Must've missed the announcement of the change. I was supposed to see Woody Allen's Irrational Man with friends, but I had to cancel at the last minute because I had to attend my writers group. The other co-captains couldn't make it, so I had to be there to run things.

Did I mention I've become one of the leaders of my writers group? It happened a couple of months ago - I replaced this girl who had to shift down to being a part-timer because of outside commitments. I had filled in as an organizer a couple of times when the others couldn't make it, and while I certainly wasn't campaigning for the job, it made me a viable choice when circumstances in the group changed. I try and be as low-key and laid-back as I can about the job. The regulars know the weekly routine, and they help initiate the newbies as well. There is a commitment on the part of a number of people to actually show up and critique each other's work, which is good. It makes me want to be a part of things.

Your links for this month:

Le takes a comprehensive look at the year 1928 in film. With maps! (Google Translate required.)

Raquel speaks! On video, that is, about her film books.

Will found a comics artist who made posters of classic film stars in superhero movies.

Why does Aurora like Bruce Lee? (Total coincidence that he's on the banner for this month!)

Only tangentially related to movies, but what the heck: Jennifer had a speaking engagement in which she talked about Harper Lee.

Bugs Bunny turned 75.

How do we appreciate the work of Bill Cosby now?

When roller disco movies were a thing, featuring a movie I've always been curious about: Linda Blair's Roller Boogie.

The Street Fighter (1974)

The Street Fighter (1974)
seen @ Spectacle Theater, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
6.15.13

Quentin Tarantino used to work in a video store, and so he's become representative of video store geeks everywhere, and that's understandable. Over the course of his career as a movie director, the stories he's written, for himself and others, have been deeply influenced by the old movies he saw over and over again, movies that are (or were) far off the beaten path.

My seven-and-a-half-year tenure as a video store geek wasn't too different from that. I was deeply into current independent and foreign films during this period, the mid-90s to the early-00s, which was a great period for indy film in general. It led me to seek out other obscure films and recommend them to customers whenever possible.

That said, though, there was always somebody else, another co-worker or two, whose film knowledge ran much deeper and much more obscure. I'd feel proud recommending a film by a director the average customer had never heard of, like, say, Atom Egoyan or Jim Jarmusch, but meanwhile there's this other guy talking about Mario Bava giallo films or some rare Japanese bootleg he picked up in Chinatown.

It felt like a competition sometimes, I admit, especially during the first few years, when I didn't know anything at all and I had to play catch-up so I could justify my position. After awhile, though, I learned to accept that there would always be someone whose cinema skills outweighed my own.

So when I saw True Romance, a film Tarantino wrote, on video, I was curious about these Street Fighter films that Christian Slater's character talked about, but as well-stocked as my video store was, we didn't have those at the time. After awhile I forgot about it - until I saw the original one for the first time at the Spectacle, the tiny screening room in Williamsburg, last weekend. (They're showing the entire series throughout the summer.)

The ultra-violence from star Sonny Chiba wasn't too surprising; one tends to expect that sort of thing in martial arts movies from Asia. Even the "impact" moments, for lack of a better description, struck me as typical bizarro Japanese cinema (when Chiba hits one dude in the head there's a split-second moment where you see a negative image of both fist and head, like an X-ray).

Chiba's character is pretty brutal. He's much more of an anti-hero than Bruce Lee, not above taking liberties with the heroine just because he can, for example. Given that, the presence of a bumbling comic sidekick seems really surprising (one who's not all that funny either). But I suppose even a movie like this felt like it needed some kind of humorous outlet, unlike other action movies I could name (but let's not get into that again).

The audience seemed like they were pretty familiar with the movie, in particular one girl who tossed out the occasional quip. I didn't mind; this is clearly a pure-entertainment movie, not heavy drama. My surprise and delight at seeing an African-American actor speaking Japanese in this movie was slightly mitigated when he turns out to be a rapist. Chiba takes care of him, though, in a way that my uber-feminist friend Jenny would heartily approve of, I think... and that's all I'll say about that!

The Karate Kid (1984)

The Karate Kid (1984)

seen on TV @ AMC

1.16.13

In re-watching the original Karate Kid the other night, I found myself thinking about it in a new context - namely, within today's rise of bullying to near-epidemic proportions. After all, Daniel only takes up karate because he is bullied, and to a pretty harsh degree. I've talked about this before, but when I was a kid, my father told me that I should stand up to bullies, and while one would hope that one wouldn't need to learn karate to do so, intellectually, I still agree with him. But then again, it's been a looooooong time since grade school for me, and things have changed.

I pass by those Tiger Schulmann's martial arts schools all the time and I usually see little kids, some as young as six or seven, perhaps, in their white robes and headgear, rolling around on the floor or whatever, and I wonder whether these classes are for them or for their parents. When I see the parents lined up against the wall, watching little Ashlynn or Braden (don't get me started on modern baby names) throwing punches and kicks around like they're Bruce Lee or something, it makes me whether or not there's a kind of status symbol thing in having your kid learn martial arts. 

What percentage of these kids will continue with their training into adulthood? Ten percent? Seven? See, to me, karate classes for your little kid isn't quite the same as klezmer lessons or playing on the lacrosse team or what have you. If you want your kid to learn martial arts, particularly from a young age, it seems to me the reasons are gonna be slightly different - and I can easily imagine one reason being that you want them to be able to defend themselves against bullies... but fighting back is often discouraged.

In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi stresses to Daniel that violence should only be used as a last resort. The environment of a karate tournament means Daniel can face his bullies in a controlled situation where each side is equalized. (Let's not bring up the sequels.) This isn't always possible, of course, especially these days, when cyber-bullying means one can torment another from afar anonymously and never face repercussions. And beyond that, I suspect standing up to bullies, whether physically or verbally, is simply harder today than when I was growing up.

Would I tell my theoretical child to physically stand up to bullies? I believe so, but maybe I'm old-school. Maybe I don't fully understand how different bullying has become. One more reason why I do not want kids, ever.

Anyway, you don't need me to tell you how awesome this movie is. In looking at Ralph Macchio again, I really appreciated how charismatic and charming he was at such a young age. He never became as big a star as, say, Matt Dillon or Ethan Hawke, which is unfortunate. It was nice to see him on the big screen again in Hitchcock, even if only in one scene. And Pat Morita is godlike in this film.

AMC has been doing this thing lately where during the movie, they have this pop-up factoids that are displayed intermittently, kinda like having a running director's commentary on a DVD. It's kinda interesting at first, but after awhile it gets really distracting. They could just as easily post these tidbits online at their site, or better yet, leading into and out of commercial breaks. At least with director's or actor's commentary on DVDs, you can turn it off if you want to.

The Ghost of Yotsuya

 

The Ghost of Yotsuya AKA Ghost Story of Yotsuya
seen @ Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn NY
10.23.11

I think my first interest in the paranormal began when I was maybe around nine or ten perhaps. I don't remember what it was that sparked it, but I do remember being fascinated with the idea of ghosts and telekinesis and stuff like that, and in particular I remember wishing that I could see a ghost one day. Of course, being a kid, I had no idea what I would do if I were to see a ghost, besides wet my pants, which may be why my initial interest in it didn't last.

My friend Sam actually takes part in expeditions to "haunted houses." I forget how often she and her friends do it, but they go around Central Ohio looking for houses and buildings that supposedly have some kind of supernatural jazz going on. She's posted images on her Facebook page of things that kinda sorta look like a ghost if you look at them long enough and squint your eyes, but they could just as easily be... I dunno, anything else. I think she does it more for fun than for any Agent Mulder-like hardcore belief in the supernatural.

I do believe there are certain things in this world that can't be explained by science - yet. One should remember that we know way more about our world now than we did even a generation ago, and while the gap likely won't be closed within even our grandchildren's lifetimes, it'll be a hell of a lot smaller by then. And the natural world has plenty of bizarre things in it as it is.


I'm told that The Ghost of Yotsuya is a story that dates back to a 19th-century Japanese play and has been filmed over thirty times. It's basically The Crow with swordplay: abused wife of a samurai dies at her husband's hands, comes back as a ghost for revenge. Don't expect any Kurosawa-type sword fights in this one; the few such scenes are lackluster and strangely choreographed. As for gore, there's a little, but by contemporary standards, it's not peek-between-your-fingers bad. What impressed me most about this one was its cinematography and use of color. It reminded me of Powell and Pressburger, the British duo responsible for classics like Black Narcissus and A Matter of Life and Death. I'd recommend this movie for its looks alone.

I saw Yotsuya in a new venue, the Spectacle Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. To call it a theater is perhaps an overstatement; it's basically a tiny screening room - about 25-30 seats. It hasn't been fully renovated and it's very bare bones, but the sound and picture quality was good, and the proprietors clearly have a deep passion and knowledge of movies, if they're showing movies like this (for only five bucks!). I happened to be one of the first to arrive, and I thought perhaps their total audience would be me and the kid across the room from me reading a book, but then more and more people arrived, until the place was almost completely full! Should've known that even a joint as tiny as this would attract an audience in Hipster Ground Zero in New York City.


The seats just barely fit me, and of course, there was no legroom for me at all. I had to twist my legs out into the aisle, which was not all that roomy either. The back was low; another minus. The emcee said that among their upcoming events was a twelve-hour horror marathon, and I couldn't help but shudder at the thought of spending twelve hours in here. Don't get me wrong, though; the Spectacle plays a very eclectic and challenging lineup of films, from what I saw of the trailers they played before the film and the schedule on their website, and anyplace that does that gets a pass from me.

Way of the Dragon

Way of the Dragon
seen online via YouTube
9.1.11

Every time I pass by one of those Tiger Schulmann martial arts schools, I always see a bunch of kids in a class - usually little ones, maybe anywhere from 6-10 years old. I can't help but wonder how many of them are there at their parents' urging, or because they genuinely expressed a desire to learn kung fu. I'm cynical enough to think that for some parents, it's a status thing - maybe it's in the way one often sees the parents on the side, eagerly watching their special little snowflake wrestling on the mat with some other while chatting with other parents about their vacation plans. Yes, you can probably say the same thing about being on the soccer team or taking violin lessons, but I guess I see martial arts differently from stuff like that. Anyway...


I was kinda disappointed at watching a Bruce Lee movie that barely has Bruce Lee in it for my Kung Fu week, so I felt like I oughta pick out another, presumably better, one instead, so last night I watched Way of the Dragon, the only film written and directed by the man himself. I suspect the entire movie was written for the sole purpose of staging a badass fight between Lee and Chuck Norris in the Roman Colosseum, because everything leading up to that was corny as hell.

As a filmmaker, Lee did make Way look like a kung fu movie, though that's not to say he filmed anything as visually breathtaking as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. His story, however, is considerably less than epic. The first twenty minutes or so feel more like a Jackie Chan movie with its ridiculous attempts at humor, the bad guy's motivation is not really given much explanation, and there's an embarrassing gay stereotype as the bad guy's right hand man. Even most of the fights seem beneath Lee somehow. The only one worthy of giving him anything resembling a challenge is Norris, and that, of course, is the climax of the movie. Everybody else comes off as third-rate.


I realize one does not normally come into a kung fu movie looking for depth, but I guess I thought with Lee it'd be different, since his legend looms so large over the genre. Oh well.

Game of Death

It's Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting Week! All this week we'll look at some notable martial arts films, from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Game of Death
seen online via YouTube
4.21.11

And now, five fun facts about Bruce Lee, courtesy of Wikipedia:

1. Young Bruce was a street fighter while growing up in Hong Kong. Gang violence was everywhere, and he was getting quickly caught up in it by the time his father decided Bruce needed to learn martial arts.

2. He taught martial arts in Seattle, opening his own school where he taught his version of the Wing Chun style, which he first learned at the age of 13.

3. The Green Hornet was called "The Kato Show" in Hong Kong because of Lee's immense popularity there. Lee was a child star in a number of short black-and-white films thanks to his opera star father.

4. Lee is believed to have been an atheist. He was influenced by Eastern religions, including Taoism and Buddhism, and read many books on martial arts and fighting philosophy, but he is quoted as having said, "All types of knowledge ultimately leads to self-knowledge."

5. Game of Death was originally conceived in 1972, but production on it stopped when Warner Brothers offered Lee Enter the Dragon. After Lee's death in 1973, the film was completed with stunt doubles and released in 1978, but only fifteen minutes of the real Lee was used.

I did not know that this was Lee's last film, nor did I know that it had so little of him in it. If I did, I would've watched a different movie of his. Still, it certainly has its moments - a fight with Chuck Norris in the beginning, a fight with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar towards the end (the main appeal for me). I knew something was up with this movie by the many ways in which Lee's character's face was either obscured or disguised. For a moment, I thought I was watching Dark Passage again! I noted the Bond-like opening credits and John Barry music; turns out George Lazenby was going to be in the original version. The final sequence, where Lee ascends a pagoda and fights a different guardian at each level, struck me as being a lot like a video game, though I doubt that this was meant to be the "game" implied in the title.

I think I'll hold off talking further about Lee for now, since we don't really get to see him in all his glory in this movie. Perhaps I'll watch a different Lee movie later on.

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Previously in Kung-Fu Week:
Drunken Master
The Last Dragon
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

It's Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting Week! All this week we'll look at some notable martial arts films, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
from my DVD collection
4.20.11

The first time I saw Michelle Yeoh was actually at a kung fu festival. This would've been sometime around 1996-97, I think. Cinema Village, a tiny little theater in the heart of Greenwich Village, was showing a bunch of martial arts films around the Christmas season. I've been to Cinema Village a few times; they show lots of foreign films. Anyway, "A Kung Fu Christmas" was still going on when Jenny and me, along with our mutual friend Abby, went there on New Year's Eve to catch a doubleheader of Asian films featuring this female action star I'd never heard of. It was Abby's idea; she was a fan. It was an unusual way to spend New Year's Eve, but I was game.

I'm not sure what the two films were - looking over Yeoh's IMDB page, I'm pretty sure one of them was Wing Chun, and the other may have been Supercop. I thought the movies were alright, although to be honest, I was beginning to doze off a bit later in the evening and I was kinda looking ahead to midnight, so I was distracted towards the end and ended up not paying as much attention.

So Yeoh eventually came over to America and became a Bond girl, appearing in Tomorrow Never Dies. I saw it on video. I was impressed with her stunts, and I thought it was really cool to see a woman be an action hero, but I still didn't get a full appreciation of her. If I had seen her films to that point under better circumstances - especially if I had seen them on a big screen (the Cinema Village screens aren't exactly wide) - I might've gotten more excited by her, but I wasn't.

Then I saw Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I believe I saw it at the Regal Cinemas E-Walk in Times Square, so it was definitely a wide screen. It was opening weekend, and not late at night, so the circumstances were perfect. From the first time I saw her on the screen, my entire perception of Yeoh changed. For one thing, seeing her face larger than life and close-up, I noticed for the first time how utterly beautiful she was (and is!). I couldn't take my eyes off of her, and she hadn't even done anything yet other than talk with Chow Yun-Fat. There have been plenty of female movie stars, past and present, that I've been hot for, but there are few who have left me as smitten as Yeoh. Certainly part of it was her character, but it was something about her beauty that left me gobsmacked. Still does too.

Oh, and then she starts to fight. And boy, can she fight! Re-watching Tiger on DVD last night, her fights still left me breathless, both hand-to-hand and with swords. Seeing it for the first time, it was like nothing I'd ever seen before - and not just because of the wire work that had everybody floating and leaping great bounds. Tiger was the movie that finally made me sit up and take notice of Yeoh as an all-around movie star.

Last night I watched Tiger with the audio commentary from director Ang Lee and executive producer/co-writer James Schamus for the first time. Among the many things they talked about was Lee's approach to making a kung fu movie for the first time, as well as his ideas about the sub-genre in general. They noted that because Tiger is a period piece set in an Eastern culture, there was a huge challenge in trying to make this movie appeal to modern, Western audiences. As a result, the screenplay had to take some liberties with the time period. There's a lot of talking about feelings, for example, something one would not see in an Asian movie like this and certainly not something that the Chinese of this time period (the 19th century) would do.

Lee compared kung fu movies to musicals, where "anything goes in broad strokes." He acknowledges that he took risks, storytelling-wise, such as the long flashback sequence with Jen and Lo in the desert, or even the simple fact of devoting as much time to drama as to fights, something, he said, that's unusual in most kung fu movies. He said a good fight scene can take months to film.

Lee also talked about the master and student relationship in kung fu movies, which is an important recurring element in Tiger. Jen is Jade Fox's protege, but she learns stuff outside of Jade Fox's realm of expertise, and a big deal is made of how Jen is capable of surpassing her mentor. According to Lee, normally a student is not supposed to surpass their master. There's always a little bit of knowledge that the master keeps to him- or herself.

I admit, even with all of this new information, there are aspects of Tiger that I still don't fully grok, but the more I watch it, the more I'm able to gleam tiny bits of understanding from it. Lee also said that for all of the kung fu conventions that it subverts, there are plenty that it retains as well. Indeed, Tiger is eminently re-watchable in part because Lee approached the fight scenes as an extension of character. Add the love-story element and an outstanding score and you've got one hell of a movie.

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Previously in Kung-Fu Week:
Drunken Master
The Last Dragon

The Last Dragon

It's Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting Week! All this week we'll look at some notable martial arts films, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

The Last Dragon
seen online via YouTube
4.19.11

I vaguely remember seeing The Last Dragon as a kid and I don't think I was all that impressed with it then either. Still, at least it has some camp value. It's produced by Motown impresario Berry Gordy, so the whole thing looks like one big music video, but I wouldn't call it a musical despite the many cheap excuses to insert songs throughout the film. It's also a love letter to Bruce Lee (who we'll look at later this week) to the point where he probably should've gotten credit as a cast member. This movie screams 80s: arcades, day-glo colors, breaking and popping, synth-heavy music - it's embarrassing and yet amusing at the same time.

I knew I wanted to watch one black martial arts movie, and I almost went with Jim Kelly in Black Belt Jones. When I saw this, though, I guess it was my not-even-half-formed memories of it that made me want to see if it was anywhere near as good as I remembered (and like I said, I didn't remember it being all that good anyway). What can I say? I'm a child of the 80s. And besides, I didn't want everything I watched this week to be serious.

Dragon actually reminded me of a completely different movie - Breakin'. They're both very 80s-glitzy, sanitized, Hollywood-friendly versions of sub-genres that have grittier roots. Actually, Dragon has a bit more profanity than I remembered, but between all the little kids who get involved in the big fight at the end, and Taimak's character's virginal innocence and his chaste "romance" with Vanity, it seems as if the filmmakers were trying to appeal to a wide audience.

If Sam Jackson really wants to remake this, as has been reported, he can only improve on it, though I kinda like the idea of having a bad guy dressed like a Klingon in a traveling Star Trek roadshow - again, for purely camp value. But do we really want a grim 'n' gritty, gangster rap, Dark Knight version, like we'd probably end up with? I don't know.

I don't have too much more to say about this, though at some point down the line perhaps I will watch Black Belt Jones after all. Oh! Almost forgot - I was shocked to see a young(er) William H. Macy in a single scene early in the film. That alone made this entire movie worth re-watching!

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Previously in Kung-Fu Week:
Drunken Master

Drunken Master

It's Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting Week! All this week we'll look at some notable martial arts films, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Drunken Master
seen online via Crackle
4.17.11

Bibi and Eric actually have a cat named Jackie Chan. It's one of three cats they own - they're huge cat lovers. One of the cats (I'm not sure if it's JC or not) loves to bat away balls of paper whenever you throw one at him, and he can do this fifteen, twenty times in a row. It amuses Bibi and Eric to no end.

One of the many awesome things about old Asian kung fu movies is that everybody knows kung fu in them. You can be some old woman who only appears for a couple of scenes, or a funny-looking comedy relief character, or even a fat dude, it doesn't matter - everybody in a kung fu movie knows kung fu and has the potential to kick your ass if you're not careful. It's hilarious and amazing at the same time.

I was never that much into them, but sometimes I'd watch one if it was on TV on a Saturday afternoon, back when local TV stations still played Saturday afternoon movies. I talked recently about dubbing versus subtitles in foreign movies and I briefly mentioned martial arts movies as an argument against dubbing in general. However, here in America, an entire generation grew up with dubbing in these films (not to mention Asian monster movies), and for us, it's part of their charm. In recent years, younger generations who have become more familiar with Asian culture thanks to anime and horror films have come to demand a higher standard - for instance, I watched Kamikaze Girls subtitled, not dubbed - but for me, and others like me I suspect, watching an old martial arts film subtitled seems wrong somehow.

That's why I was so happy to watch the Jackie Chan classic Drunken Master dubbed. I'd seen one or two of Chan's Asian films before, so I had an idea of what to expect with this. I still remember when he was being touted as The Next Big Thing in the 90s. I wasn't that impressed with his first starring role in an American film, Rumble in the Bronx, but I did like him - and in watching Drunken Master last night, I remembered why.

Chan is as serious a martial arts master as Bruce Lee, Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li, or any of them, but the comedic element he brings to his fighting style is breathtaking in its elaborateness. I love the way he'll take an object, any object, and balance it, play with it, or use it as a weapon or a shield in the middle of a fight. And his fights take on a level of slapstick that rivals the Three Stooges. While this was a fun movie, I thought it was a little too cartoonish at times. I prefer the humor when it comes from the characters and their personalities, like the early scene when Chan is trying to get a girl to kiss him, and not when it's punctuated with silly sound effects.

The term "over the top" doesn't seem to exist within the Chan oeuvre, but for the most part, that's okay if it means fights like the ones in this movie, of which there are many. That's another great thing about old kung fu movies - they never, ever forget what it is the people pay to see! Plus, it's such a nice change to see a fight filmed in such a way that you can actually follow what's going on, without a bunch of extraneous cuts or peculiar camera angles.

So where would you rank Chan amongst the all-time martial arts movie stars? I'm inclined to put him at number two, right below Bruce, despite the many crappy Hollywood movies he's made.