Hong Kong Godfather Review

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(More customer reviews)The Shaw Brothers have created over a thousand films and with several having been aired on US television and some being released on video, and as most people tend to think of martial arts when it comes to the Shaw Brothers, they have also done several films outside of martial arts. A perfect example is their 1985 film "Hong Kong Godfather" (Jian dong xiao xiong).
"Hong Kong Godfather" revolves around three buddies who are part of a triad gang. Playboy Lung is one of the higher ups in the triad, while Wen is now a sergeant in the police and Wei is the former hack and slash member who has retired from the gang and now living a peaceful life and raising his teenage daughter. Each of these men are loyal to triad leader Uncle Han.
But there is a bit of dissension within the gang as one of their own members who doesn't get along with Playboy Lung is working with the rival gang and planning to kill of Uncle Han, his family and everyone who is a member of their triad.
When the rival gang goes after Playboy and nearly kills him, both Wei and Sergeant Wen know they must help their friend out and avenge their fallen uncle the best way they know how...by machetes.
VIDEO:
So far, each Shaw Brothers release that FUNimation Entertainment has looked quite solid. Thanks to Celestial Pictures going through major remastering and restoration for many of the Shaw Bros. films, "Hong Kong Godfather" looks pretty good for a 1985 film. But where there martial arts film doesn't seem so dated, "Hong Kong Godfather" reeks of '80s fashion and music. From the "Miami Vice" clothing, the Crockett and Tubs hairstyle (yes, the mullet is in full-effect) and more.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
"Hong Kong Godfather" is presented in Cantonese with an optional English stereo dub. As mentioned, this is a 1985 film and for the most part, dialogue is clear but the film sports some major '80s synth music that is more like listening to early '80s music from the old televison show C.HI.P.S. I don't remember music being like this in the mid-80's, probably early 80's but for the most part, the music doesn't hold up all that well over 25 years later. I prefered to watch this film with its original Cantonese language. I briefly listened to the English dub but it wasn't for me.
Subtitles are in English.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
"Hong Kong Godfather" comes with trailers of upcoming releases.
EXTRAS:
The DVD release comes with a slipcase cover.
JUDGMENT CALL:
"Hong Kong Godfather" was definitely an interesting and entertaining triad film.
I use the word "interesting" because I have watched many triad films and I don't think I have seen a film this bloody or violent. In some way, it's like playing a video game like "Resident Evil" or "Dead Rising" in which your constantly hacking and slashing or killing so many zombies. In this case, "Hong Kong Godfather" is a film about exact justice and three men taking on a lot of triad members with machetes and a lot of blood spurting while still maintaining some martial arts during the fight sequences. But for the most part, this is a film that focuses on machete slashing.
So, in many ways, "Hong Kong Godfather" is an "interesting" Shaw Brothers film for its mere content. Granted, today's violent films look more realistic while "Hong Kong Godfather" sports the "Miami Vice" clothing and hairstyles, bad '80s synth music but because of how crazy this film gets, you can't help but be entertained and in awe of what takes place.
The film has violence against men, women, children. Tons of blood and hacking. Many foreign, non-Chinese actors (makes me wonder if the Shaw Brothers was trying to make this film more accessible to a wider audience) as triad gang members (working for the rival gang), full frontal nudity and if your only exposure to Shaw Brothers films was martial arts films, "Hong Kong Godfather" definitely brings something new and over-the-top.
Overall, if you are looking for a crazy, bloody and violent Shaw Brothers film, "Hong Kong Godfather" is definitely for you!

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Masked Avengers (1982) Review

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(More customer reviews)Masked Avengers may be my favourite Shaw Brothers film... certainly it rates highly. I've bought, copied and stayed up late to tape it more times than bear mention. Naturally I was thrilled to see it on DVD... in digital format at last!!
But the product is mediocre at best. It is mastered from a very old video copy with plenty of artifacts, and very clearly not from film. It's not letterboxed, making much of the dialogue literally one-sided (since you can only see half of the screen), and as with other films released by NS and Ground Zero, there are gaps in the sound. To put it bluntly, there are plenty of better copies out there in private collections. Even the uncompleted synopsis on the box ("...a stunning climax at the Mask Gang's"-- what? The Masked Gang's what?!) indicates the level of carelessness that went into this "Limited Collector's Edition."
Still, this is likely to be the one and only digital print of a Chang Cheh milestone, and it's no worse than a 3am broadcast of Black Belt Theatre. Unfortunately, it's no better. Admittedly it's nice to see these old workhorses finally being immortalised and made available for sale. It would be nicer, however, if it could be done professionally, and with a bit of the affection that makes diehard fans buy them

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Item Name: Masked Avengers; Studio:SB

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Bloodmoon (1997) Review

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(More customer reviews)Wait, one more stupid line from the movie. "Ken were cops, we don't do this".
First off if you do not like martial arts movies then this will not be worth your time. If you love Jean Claude Van Damme and all the great b-action movies like 'No Retreat, No Surrender' then you will absolutely love this flick and it will become an instant classic for you. It is actually from the same film company that discovered Jean Claude and did all the 'No Retreat, No Surrender' movies. The owner of the Seasonal Film Company(Ng See-Yuen)actually discovered old school stars like Jackie Chan and Hwang Jang Lee and produced their first successful movies. So when I saw Tony Leung Siu Hung and Ng's name on the back of the box, I had to have it. VERY rarely are American martial arts movies good. Sometimes they end up being a great movie but the fight scenes will be limited and only average. 'Bloodmoon' is the exact reverse. It has spectacular fight scenes, it's badly directed, and it's filled with enough cheese to at least laugh at the stupidness of it sometimes. There is even that part where they go to a strip bar and we get to see surgically enhanced women.
The movie stars out by ripping off 'Beverly Hills Cop' with an Eddie Murphy clone playing the cop. The only thing that makes this character different from Eddie Murphy is that he loves kung fu. This is a down point of the movie since he is certainly not the worst actor but the script could not get any worse. The really good thing though is that he can seriously fight. I thought it was a stunt double at first glance since his first fight is in the dark, but even in the light this guy was doing some amazingly tough choreographed fight scenes. One is a 3 on 1 fight with the killer. If they did double for him at all they fooled me. Then there is a woman fighter who is very good and you will for sure notice the stunt doubling for her. You have to watch for when Rob Van Damme(a wrestler) gets thrown through a window, they show a close up of his double for about 5 seconds. Personally, it was my favorite part of the movie. So Gary Daniels joins this unfunny Eddie Murphy type of cop to find a killer. This guy goes around killing a bunch of tough people. Luckily he doesn't just kill quickly but challenges them and we get these amazing fights scenes. The first fight was awesome but when he stuck his fingers into the guys chest to kill him, I thought for sure this movie would end up being a waste of time. Then you have that one part where the killer posts his murders on the internet and they try to track him down. Of course now the computer geek is saying "OK, he's in Bejing, wait, he's in Berlin, no, he's in Moscow". This may sound like a bad movie and it is but the amount of fights and the quality of them is what makes it good. All great fights and most of them are extended going 5 minutes or so. For a die-hard martial arts movie fan like me it just does not get better than this. The fights are brutal and I have to say that they are some of the best I have seen in a while. There is unfortunately a bit of wirework with the wires clearly seen but that is to be expected from a movie of this type of budget.
Now like all great martial arts movies every actor needs to be somebody who actually looks good fighting on screen and the villian needs to standout as the baddest mother on the block. Darren Shahlavi gets the job done nicely and his steel tipped boots are a nice touch. There is actually metal on the whole bottom of his boots and up the whole heel. He really gets to show off his sklls and how many great kicks he has.
Now I will say it once more so people don't get confused by my 4 star rating. This movie is a cheesy cop drama with a few good comic moments and it has some truly great fight scenes. So it is not for everyone and I warn you all that this movie has one of the stupidest endings of all time. "Ha ha ha ha, this is the endgame Ken". No not the ending sequence fights and Gary Daniel's race to save his family, that was bad, but the very last moment of the movie. It is the finest of cheese that you will ever find in a film.
I have to once again mention how great the fighting was and how great of a job that director/action director Tony Leung Siu Hung did. His choreography and editing of the fights is about as good as it gets. Now I just have to see the other American martial arts movie he directed which is called 'Superfights' and my life will be complete. Seriously, the movie is called Superfights.
I will warn you right now that this DVD from the Weinstein Company is sub-standard. Big surprise huh? Well of course it is not a surprise. These are the same people that edited down every Jet Li and Jackie Chan movie and not only cut it up but never offered their DVD's in the original Asian language. So luckily this is actually an American movie and we don't have to bother with the bad dubbing, just the bad acting. The DVD is presented in full screen and the picture quality is average. The first 2 fights were a bit blurry but it seems to clear up from there. Good sound quality.
There are no special features except filmographies.
One more bad line-"Don't worry honey, daddy's gonna save us".
Just one more line I promise. It does not have anything to do with the movie but you'd think that it would-"Did you notice there's blood on the moon tonight?" the masked killer asks in a dark voice as he has his leg extended in the air showing off his devastating martial arts skills.

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The Legend (1993) Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently saw the english dubbed version of Fong Sai Yuk (The Legend), after watching the original subtitled version.
First, let me say- Disney is way off on the R rating of this film. There is no nudity, coarse language, or blood and guts. There is violence, but it never goes past the point of something you wouldn't see in an action cartoon show on Saturday mornings. It's punching, hitting, and kicking. There's hardly any scenes with knives or swords or other deadly weapons. Not that I'm saying it's cool to beat people up, it's just never used in bad taste.
Overall, I was sorely disappointed with the dubbed version. However, my friends (who never saw the subtitled version) really enjoyed it- so I gave it a higher rating of 4 stars. For me, it's one thing to ruin the dialog and music from the original movie, but deleting scenes goes a step way too far. Here's a few missing scenes from the english dubbed version:
1. Fong Sai Yuk (Jet Li's character) curling his mom's hair. It may seem trivial, but without it my friends didn't understand the close relationship between the two characters. Not to mention, it's a funny scene. 2. The mother's uncontrollable orgasmic interpretive dance reaction to the father reciting poetry. It's an ongoing joke in the film and with these scenes cut out and dialog missing, there is a real confusing part in the end for people who haven't seen the subtitled version. In the subtitled version Fong Sai Yuk and his lovely new bride ride into the sunset. As they ride off, Fong Sai Yuk recites poetry to her. With the dialog changed and without seeing the previous deleted scene, my friends were confused to why Fong Sai Yuk's new bride was going into deadly convulsions on her horse as she rode away. 3. When Fong Sai Yuk's Mom wins the fight to win the daughter's hand in marriage, she is forced to sign a marriage contract with a knife to her throat. When Tiger Lu can't get her hand open to put her thumb print, he just shoves her fist into an ink bowl and just stamps her fist on the marriage contract. Great physical comedy. Later on at Fong Sai Yuk's home, the mother has the palace guard's swords to her throat as ransom- which is how they manage to capture Fong Sai Yuk. A scene that was also deleted. 4. Tiger Lu trying to make friends with Fong Sai Yuk by joining him in making terrible music in the palace courtyard. This is a hilarious scene! Fong Sai Yuk is determined to make his father in law to be (Tiger Lu) hate him. He is doing this to get out of marrying his daughter, or who he believes is Tiger Lu's daughter. At the same time, Tiger Lu is trying to gain acceptance by marrying his daughter to a popular young man from the town (Fong Sai Yuk). To cheese off Tiger Lu, Fong Sai Yuk starts playing pots and pans in the palace courtyard at the break of dawn and chants some terrible off key tune. Tiger Lu awakens angrily but goes into the courtyard Smiling and joins him with a gong. The two try harder to annoy and warm up to each other while the palace servants fall victim to the terrible racket.
There are other deleted scenes not worth mentioning. The dialogue in the original version was highly witty and also the lines between character's were more in depth. Still, although the dialogue wasn't up to par compared with the original, there is some credit due that they didn't make up really terrible dialogue in it's place. For the most part, the story moves along exactly as it does in the original and it's the story that is the real incredible part of this movie. The story contains romance, mistaken identity, traitors, heros, villains, tragedy, and (of course) victory. The storyline of this movie seems almost like one of Shakespeare's plays. Also, the original dialogue was even wittier than what Shakespeare would come up with- which makes me upset it was lost. My friends understood the story though, and loved the movie with it's flaws. As others have stated, it's inexcusable for a DVD release not have both languages and subtitles on it. That's whole point of getting a DVD, those great extra features. I'll wind up buying both versions, it's the kind of movie you want to share with people and some people just can't keep up with subtitles. I suggest you rent or buy the english version "The Legend", and if you like it- check out the subtitled version. You can find the subtitled version on eBay.

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Shaolin Prince (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)I rented this movie because of it's title when I was going through my ninja movie stage. Yes, there are no ninjas in the movie. But thank god for the misleading title or else I probably would have never come across this movie which has easily become my favorite martial arts movie and I've seen probably a hundred of 'em. It's definitely action packed and the martial arts is very good. More importantly it's a lot of fun to watch, theres never a boring moment which is something a lot of the other martial arts films lack.

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Ong-Bak - The Thai Warrior (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)You like Jackie Chan films? Or remember Bruce Lee? If so, don't miss this one from Thailand, where the film industry is thriving more than ever. And remember the name of Tony Jaa, stunt-turned-actor (incidentally, he was a stunt in the second 'Mortal Kombat' film, and his then co-worker was Ray Park, 'X-Men') Jaa's martial arts skills based on Muay Thai (Thai-style fighting) are simply astonishing.
[NO STUNTS, NO CGIs] Strangely titled film 'Ong-bak: Thai Warrior' is, as the title says, an exciting Thai actioner starring Tony Jaa (real name Panom Yeerum), who plays the hero Ting living in an apparently sleepy country in Thailand. Not exactly, you soon see. In this interesting opening scene, you see these scantily dressed guys climing up one big tree, and during the fighting, they fall one by one onto the ground. This is actually a kind of festival, or ritual, of the hero's village, but what you should realize is, the film uses NO CGIs, NO WIRES ATTACHED.
[FORGET THE STORY] Story? Need one? OK, Tony Jaa's hero has to track down the theives who cut off and stole the head of the sacred statue in his village. With this mission, he goes to town, where he meets one middle-aged man George, and his friend (perhaps girlfriend) Muay. Before you know it, they all got in troubles for the thugs start attack them.
[ACTIONS] Then, actions begin, which are simply eye-poping. One example: in the cat-and-mouse chase scene in the market, running away from the bad guys, Tony Jarr jumps over the tables, stalls, and cars (!) with Jackie's comic timing. And look how he slides into UNDER an RV! To add to them, he leaps through a ring of barbed wires (real ones, I suppose), and comes out unharmed, never stopping a moment!
Himself a Muay Thai fighter, Tony Jaa (or his character) joins in several illegal boxing bouts. You might say you have seen this kind of bloody, bone-crunching fight sequences in the past. Not Tony Jaa's high-kicking that strikes the opponent at the speed of lightening. This sounds like cliche, I know, but it is true, his agile movement reminds me of the deadly power of Bruce Lee and the ultra-fast speed of Jet Li.
And that's not the end, for Jaa does many, many other actions, which I refuse to write about here, for you should see them for yourself in theatres. Again, I say, Tony Jaa uses no stunts, no special effects or no strings. Of course, he will not win the Oscar for acting the hero of this film, but when he can fight like Lee, Chan, and Li, who cares?
My advice: 'Ong-bak' is a must for any fans who love action films. Watch it, and be surprised.

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When the head of his village's sacred Buddha statue is stolen, simple country boy Ting (Tony Jaa) is sent to Bangkok to retrieve it. Raised by a monk who has trained him in Muay Thai, Ting has vowed to never use his lethal martial arts skills. But once he arrives in the big city, Ting is forced to fight. It's non-stop action as Ting infiltrates Bangkok's seedy underworld and takes on a series of lowlifes and criminals in his quest to obtain the sacred head.

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