Box of Shaw Pt One: Human Lanterns

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box of shawKungfuology staffer Andy Best recently happened upon a boxed set of 90 Shaw movies in his local store. Follow this feature as Andy 'live-blogs' one a week. Spoiler alert!

 

And we're off. There's 90 movies in this set but glancing at the box I see some strange titles and repeats too. This blog will be as much about the China DVD experience as the movies themselves. As you might be able to catch in the photo, there's about 7 movies per disc. At one a week it's going to take me nearly two years (with holidays). Jia you!

So the first disc is in my machine, it's a typical Shanghai rainy Sunday and I'm ready to go. I must confess, my wife went into the set before to watch a favourite of hers One-armed Swordsman and it had a choice of original soundtracks and English titles too so I'm quite optimistic about the whole project ...

 

... and it's a false start! The first movie on the first disc is a 1988 Wong Jing low-brow comedy calld How To Pick Up Girls (qiu ai gan si dui). It started with the Shaw shield logo and then crudely cut into a typical Wong Jing intro, sassy girls in bright colours and guys with 80s hair. A quick check on the net reveals that this movie somehow got money from Shaw, who were still around and doing TVB. Not on my watch.

And they second movie is a starter, it's Human Lanterns (ren pi deng long). Great, I've not seen this one.

Credits: It's night over an old Chinese house, lightning crackles. There's some bloody wooden machinery and ..a hanging body! It's a horror. Who's in it? Lo Lieh, Chen Kuan Tai, Liu Yung, Tanny, Linda Chu and Lin Hsiu Chin. Directed by Sun Chung. Oh! There a skull masked creature flying all over the place. And, it's in Mandarin with no subtitles or other audio options, poor me.

3.26: Long Gongzi is a flash rich man with an estate, a beautiful wife, and he's handy with that sword too. He's off to a party at Mr Tan's house.

6.05: Tan Sanye and Long don't get on, they've an outstanding dispute over a woman and they jibe each other in front of the guests. Tan jumps down from a balcony landing on some fans then a ruckus almost breaks out.

9.18: Great tracking shot as Long leaves the house and walks the streets, the sets look amazing, just like ancient Chinese towns.

11.42: Long meets Loh Lieh, playing a lantern maker called Zhao Chunfang. We have a flashback to 7 years ago when Long humiliated him in combat and scarred his face. A little later, Chunfang gives us our first Shaw zoom in and sinister laugh/swelling orchestra. Great!

19.28: The demon from the credits is back. He's in the brothel and he's kidnapped the woman that the two guys were fighting about. Perhaps this is where that party was earlier, but then why bring the wife? My Mandarin sucks.

22.51: Now she's tied to a post in the lantern shop basement and ... oh ... he's skinning her! She's still alive too. I think we're pretty certain that it's the wronged lantern seller in a mask.

28.56: Mr Tan's sister is hunting in the woods and here comes the demon. He leaps and bounds in slo-mo and now he's using Kung Fu to put her in a big black bag.

33.07: Struggling in the basement of the lantern shop, the girl rips off the mask to show Zhao Chunfang's face, no surprises there. Now he's got her tied up and he's taunting her by dangling some flaps of skin in her face.

36.44: Tan and Long have both arrived at the police station at the same time to complain about the missing girls. And we have our first showdown. As per the genre, it's a skill face off and not a full fight yet. It's a wine jug challenge and super high jump event! Police chief Fan breaks it up.

46.11: A new challenger enters! We have recently met an assassin for hire, Zhao Chunfang has sent him after Long Gongzi. We get the first real fight of the film in Long's (breath-takingly beautiful) garden. It's the assassin with double hooked tonfas and Long with his straight sword.

46.45: And we get the first amazing Shaw quote of the movie! Friend, your kung fu is really not so bad, it's both fast and fierce, pity you lack accuracy! (pengyou, nide gongfu hen bucuo, goukuai gouhen kexi bugou zhun).

48.00: It's a ruse! While they fight, the demon mask has nabbed Long's wife.

55.43: The assassin has tried to take out Mr Tan and met his end via some hidden blades from Tan's fan.

57.20: Chunfang ambushed Tan's men when they were out burying the assassin's body. It's the morning and their heads are hanging up outside the town teahouse. People in the street are panicing and shouting rentou over and over (severed heads).

1.05.29: Long has been tricked into thinking the assassin came from Tan and now he's round Tan's place for a duel. It's amazing. Long has his sword and Tan has a kind of spear/axe combo. Liu Yung and Chen Kuan Tai go to town ... but really, how can Long Gongzi not have worked out who's the real bad guy yet.

1.07.28: They are still going at it, they get locked up and exchange body blows. Both men are spitting blood. And wait! The demon bursts in and injures Tan, then runs away.

1.12.59: There's Long's wife. She's tied in the basement and still alive ... wait a moment ...oh, he's skinning her. That's the end of her. Meanwhile Long has a flashblack/realization moment, he finally figures out that Zhao is out to get him. To be fair, the character is supposed to be rich, proud and arrogant. It's in character that he'd be blind to the obvious.

1.14.09: There are the lanterns! They are shaped like little female statuettes and painted in bright colours - but made from the skin, of course.

1.16.12: Long is in the workshop. He sees the laterns and blurts out they're beautiful (hao mei). But in the next room, it's his dead, skinned wife hanging from a pole.

1.20.01: It's on! Zhao, in full demon costume, fights Long. A still sickly Tan enters to help ... but he's killed by Zhao! Officer Pan arrives with his men, it's a group brawl but Zhao heads for the basement. Long is wounded.

1.27.30: The house collapsed leaving Zhao and Long trapped in an underground chamber alone. The lanterns crash down and both men are set on fire. Officer Pan is trying to reach them. 

1.28.28: It's all over. It's the next week. Long is clearing out his house, Officer Pan is there. Long is scarred from the fire and still sick. He sees the errors of his lifestyle, he's cancelling all debt that others owe him. He's selling the estate and going out to wander the earth.

This was really good. Great cast, nice sets and shots. I was worried about the relative lack of fights for a Shaw movie and the horror stuff but it was fine. I would have preferred Chen Kuan Tai in the Long Gongzi role for more kung fu, but Liu Yung has the looks for that type of character. See you next week.   

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1 Comments

Quality, loving it.

BTW, 80's Wong Jing - cheesarama you've got to love it all.

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This page contains a single entry by Andy Best published on June 15, 2008 8:12 PM.

Vidcasting: Zhongshan Park Kung Fu (pt two) was the previous entry in this blog.

Box of Shaw Pt Two: Rivals of Kung Fu is the next entry in this blog.

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