B.W.'s Top Twenty Favorite Kung Fu Actors : The Top Ten

We're back, like a former 98 lb martial weakling, fully trained in secret combat techniques and prepared to avenge our father's/brother's/sister's/mother's/sifu's untimely death at the hands of a villainous bastard who's rubbing his mustache and laughing cockily, thoroughly unfazed by this latest challenge; unaware that we've mastered the ancient counter-style, thought lost for years, and he's in for some serious foot-eating, in grueling slo-mo. Movement eight'een, Peacock displays his fancy ass-feathers to Buddha! Here's my top 10.


  10) Liu Chia Hui  The youngest of the Liu's behind Chia-Yung and eldest Chia-Liang, Gordon "Master Killer" Liu's instantly recognizable even to those beyond the HK fight club, appearing in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill series, after having a long and rich career in the Shaw Brothers productions of his older brothers and others; some of his best appearances coming in movies like Martial Club (1981), Heroes of the East (1978), Legendary Weapons of China (1982) and, of course,  The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978).


  9) Ti Lung  One of Shaw Brothers' early stars, the ever noble Ti Lung lends his unmistakable air of class to productions like The Deadly Duo (1971), Five Shaolin Masters (1974), and The Kung Fu Instructor (1979), as well as modern works such as John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) and Liu Chia Liang's Drunken Master II (1994) opposite Jacky Chan.

 
   8) Kuo Chui   Number Four, the Lizard. My favorite Venom, Kuo usually plays a drunk or a wanderer or a beggar...or a drunken wandering beggar... in iconic Shaw Brothers productions for Chang Cheh like Daredevils of Kung Fu (1979), The Flag of Iron (1980), Five Element Ninjas (1982), as well as the aforementioned Five Venoms.


 7) Liang Chia Jen  We've come to "Beardy" himself! Though he's always been technically excellent, dating back to early Shaw flicks like Five Shaolin Masters (1974) and Marco Polo (1975), I prefer repeat viewings of his work in later films like Warriors Two (1978), Sleeping Fist (1979), The Victim (1980), Thundering Mantis (1980),  and Knockabout (1979) these days. All of his stuff is worth checking out, really.



  6) Billy Chong The Indonesian Willy Dozan was often billed as "Bruce Lee of the 80's" and was number one on my list for a long time, too,  often sparking arguments among us before and after many a kung fu class back then, but I stood firm on my choice, using movies like Super Power (1980), Kung Fu Executioner (1981), and Crystal Fist (1979) as visual evidence. Still a favorite.


  5) Liu Chia Liang The mere screen presence of this fight choreographer-turned-director, the elder statesman of the genre bar none,  uplifts any production to a must-see status. Though those appearances numbered ninety-three at the time of his death in 2013, with many glorious fights that instantly spring to mind, one only need bear witness to the spectacle that is the final fight in his own Legendary Weapons of China (1982) vs. his brother, Liu Chia Yung, to see a perfect jaw-dropping illustration.


  4) Fu Sheng  My favorite Chang Cheh regular has to be "Alexander" Fu Sheng, hands down. His comedic abilities, mischievous spirit, and general likability are top notch, and only matched by his prowess as a pugilist, having long trained under the tutelage of none other than Liu Chia Liang. Were it not for a tragic car accident in 1983, his international star would have surely rose to more dizzying heights, transcending the martial arts genre into mainstream comedy, as evidenced by the success of Hong Kong Playboys (1983).


  3) Bruce Lee Undoubtedly the King of the Kung Fu movie, and the Gold Standard by which all cinematic martial artists will forever be compared to. The four movies completed at the time of the iconic little tough guy's death in 1973, are all required viewing, for sure: Big Boss (1971), Fists of Fury (1972), Way of the Dragon (1972), and Enter the Dragon (1973).


  2) Jacky Chan In one instant, this former Peking Opera performer-turned-stunt man rose to the top by single-handedly revolutionizing the kung fu film with his own unique brand of physical kung fu comedy, performing all legendarily inhuman stunts himself along the way. Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978), Drunken Master (1978), Project A (1983), Police Story (1985), Armor of God (1986)...his list of excellent action movies is lengthy. If you've never seen his early classics, you're really selling yourself short as a film fan.


  1) Wang Lung Wei  Johnny Wang, who is without a doubt, the epitome of villainy in Asian action movies, naturally tops my list of favorites. "Who else... coooooooooould be", to quote Hwang Jang Lee. To Kill a Mastermind (1979), Martial Club (1981), Shaolin Temple (1976), and This Man is Dangerous (1985) contain some of my favorite vintage Wang assholery.

B.W.'s Top Twenty Favorite Kung Fu Actors : Twenty to Eleven

Alright, you pious bastards, let's spinning wheel kick off our New Year's Eve festivities here at the Wop with another of my inimitable Top Twenty lists, this time focusing on my favorite performers in martial arts movies, a fast-paced and exciting genre I've been into since the late seventies, thanks to unforgettable Saturday afternoon (and late night) television broadcasts from local channels like WNEW 5, WOR 9, and WPHL17. Keep in mind that this is a list of my favorites, not a pissing contest over whose fighting style is best, or who'd beat who in a real contest, as conjecture of that flavor is best confined to the schoolyard, really. As always, I'd love to see your lists and hear your feedback, so don't hesitate to lay it on me, if you feel so inclined. Right. Now try my double Phoenix Eye...


  20) Cynthia Rothrock  Five time forms champion and holder of seven black belts, Golden Harvest actress and Delaware native, Cynthia Rothrock, is a lot more fun to look at than say, Hwang Jang Lee/Wong Cheng Li, for me. Can't put my finger on it, but she's got that certain something...ahem.


  19) Casanova Wong How about the Korean Tae Kwon Do expert and supreme kicker, Casanova Wong? Check out his undeniable skills in things like Warriors Two (1978) and Tower of Death (1981).


  18) Tan Tao Liang While we're on the subject of great kickers, let's add "Flash Legs" to the mix. The Invincible Kung Fu Legs (1980) and The Hot, the Cool and the Vicious (1976) are good flicks to hunt down for a display of his remarkable abilities.


  17) Hsiao Ho Look for Mad Monkey Kung Fu (1979), Legendary Weapons of China (1982), and My Young Auntie (1981) for Hsiao in a starring capacity, which he most certainly deserved more of, during his long career in movies.


  16) Chiang Sheng  You'll remember "Cutie Pie" as the hybrid venom in Chang Cheh's The Five Venoms (1978), but this acrobatic star also shows off his skills in things like Invincible Shaolin (1978), Crippled Avengers (1978), and Shaolin Rescuers (1979).


  15) Lu Feng  Number one, the Centi-pede! Besides The Five Venoms (1978), you can also check out The Kid With The Golden Arm (1978), House of Traps (1982), and 1981's Masked Avengers for more of this popular member of the Venom gang.


  14) Sammo Hung  You'll most likely recall Jacky Chan's portly Peking Opera mate in his legendary sparring scene vs. Bruce Lee in 1973's Enter the Dragon, but Big, Big Brother has had a gloriously long career in martial arts movies, from Knockabout (1979) and Wheels on Meals (1985) to Pedicab Driver (1989) and Ip Man 2 (2010).


  13) Hui Ying Hung  The lovely and talented Kara Hui figures prominently in the films of Shaw Brothers directors Chang Cheh and Liu Chia Liang, who gave her a start in 1976's Challenge of the Masters. You can admire her skill in movies like My Young Auntie (1981), Martial Club (1981), and 1982's Cat vs. Rat.


  12) Lo Mang Shaw Brothers muscular strongman and long time favorite of Chang Cheh, Lo is best known as The Toad in The Five Venoms (1978), though you owe it to yourself to check out some of his other films, like The Kid With The Golden Arm (1978), Chinatown Kid (1977), aand Ten Tigers of Kwangtung (1979).


  11) Yuen Biao Besides doubling for everybody (yes, even Bruce Lee) in various stunt capacities, Jacky Chan's other famous Peking Opera brother shows off his amazing flexibility and high flying acrobatics in films like Knockabout (1978), The Prodigal Son (1981), Young Master (1980), and Yuen Woo Ping's Dreadnaught (1981).

R.I.P. Ian Fraser "Lemmy" Kilmister

                       12/24/45-12/28/15

"Martyrs" (2008) d/ Pascal Laugier

Sheesh. Martyrs, thanks directly to New French Extreme director Pascal Laugier,  will now forever be remembered as a French term for "women suffering GREATLY". The last time women suffered this much had to be that sexual stuntman stint I pulled in the late eighties when I hooked up a hammock in the Imperial bedchamber. But seriously, folks, there's more than enough hardcore violence against women on tap here in Pascal's 2008 effort. It's the realistic type, not the triggered third wave Tumblr feminist kind that emerges from issues like "manspreading","mansplaining, "eye-raping", or any other such nonsense that a white privileged, misogynistic, toxically masculine, cis-gendered, racist shitlord such as I find mostly hilarious. To Laugier's credit (?), he's crafted one mean sunuvabitchuva movie, unflinchingly serving up the kind of excruciating, realistic gore that'd have Bob Martin crying "Uncle!" and Chas Balun blowing chunks.


"I've left the roast in the oven, scatterbrain that I am!"
We first see young Lucie as she makes a hasty escape from years of imprisonment, abuse, and torture, landing herself in an orphanage where she befriends a girl named Anna, who discovers that her new friend is under near constant psychological siege by memories of a malnourished, disfigured woman she was unable to save when she broke loose from her captors. Fifteen years pass, and we see a grown Lucie (Mylene Jampanoi) as she wipes out an entire family with double barreled shotgun death, while Anna (Morjana Alaoui) waits elsewhere, under the impression that her psychologically effed friend only intends to keep an eye on the couple she believes to be responsible for her awful ordeal all those years ago, except that she walks in on a pulpy crime scene where Luce has to bludgeon the mother to death before her very eyes after her first homicidal swing n' miss. To compound matters, Anna isn't even sure if her pal snuffed the right folks, and she's noticed that when "the one that didn't get away" makes the scene and beats on Lucie, she's naturally doing it to herself, like a mentally balanced dame oughta. Anna tries exorcising Lucie's inner demons, but to no avail, as her friend ungracefully bows out with a self-inflicted fatal throat wound.


Y'alls chicks and yo' kuh-raaaazy hurr-weaves...
The next day, after some rummaging around, Anna discovers a secret passageway under the family's house that leads to another tortured soul named Sarah, whose scars reflect lengthy bouts with the metal contraptions of torture she's long been hooked up to. Anna tries to rescue her, of course, but a carload of bad eggs rolls up and dispatches her with a gunshot in the nick of bad timing. Mademoiselle leads the sadistic pack, which she reveals to be a mystery-shrouded philosophical cult out to learn about the afterlife through the abduction, torture, and suffering of women, who would transcend the pain and suffering to offer a martyr's insight into the group's studies. They own the crimes committed against Lucie as a child, admitting that no woman yet has advanced past the victim stage, though Anna qualifies as their upcoming test subject, since she selflessly stood by her friends in their hour of need. At this point, the average horror movie would start rolling credits, some of the audience would snicker nervously as they exited, content with the belief that they could imagine what she was in for next, but there's nothing average about this one, and nothing much left to anyone's imagination, for that matter.


"What'll it be? Meat tenderizer to your ass or nutcracker on your nipples?" queries Mademoiselle (Catherine Begin).
Sorry about the prolonged delay 'twixt entries, kids, I've been busier than Alan Ormsby's Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972) wardrobe over here (not just hot chicks and hallucinogens, either, I'm still putting finishing touches on my other web endeavors on the horizon). Of course, earlier this year in the category of "news we didn't need to hear", it was announced that an unnecessary American remake of tonight's French New Wave Horror hit that had somehow been on the backburners since 2008, had already been filmed. As worthless as most horror remakes and sequels are, I've noticed a trend within myself to endure one every once in awhile, when possible, if only for the unintentional laughs and opportunity to snark the entire project to death as it rolls. So I can't say I'd never sit through a remake of tonight's review, I'm up for anything, at this point. If you like 'em heavy, this one's for you. Four wops.


I know it seems pretty bad right now, but at least you'll never have to worry about hearing Dave Matthews ever again.

"Ich seh, ich seh AKA/ Goodnight, Mommy" (2014) d/ Veronica Franz, Severin Fiala

To get the aftertaste of the latest overhyped sci-fi dud out of my mouth a few nights ago, I returned to my comfort zone by way of this nasty little Austrian number co-directed by Veronica Franz and Severin Fiala that features unforgettable performances from Susanne Wuest and the Schwarz twins, Lukas and Elias, in effectively delivering the genre goods in glorious 35 mm. After enduring two plus hours of  recycled dialog, characters, and entire scenes in some instances at the theater, all of which were cringingly applauded by the spaz army in attendance all around me (yes, even the trailers of coming attractions, minus The Jungle Book live action remake for some reason that I haven't quite figured out, since it was all shit), it was just what the Dr. (Butcher) ordered, and I was instantly glad I did.


"Are you in here eating tafelspitz after bedtime, boys?"
We meet twin ten year old brothers Elias and Lukas (Elias and Lukas Schwarz) as they carelessly play out an endless summer day in their countryside estate;  trodding through the surrounding fields and forest, sampling the nearby lake and exploring foreboding caverns with their flashlights. That is, until their mother (Susanna Wuest) returns from a cosmetic surgery that's left her looking more than a little like a bloodshot-eyed Amenhotep I. To compound matters, she's suddenly mistaken authoritarian rule for good parenting, demanding the house remains in darkness at all times, turning away any and all visitors, while creepily goosestepping around the shadows, and ignoring poor Lukas altogether, in the process. The boys, convinced that they're in the presence of an impostor, naturally proceed to spy on and prank their sour-pussed mom with hidden baby monitors and hissing cockroaches from Madagascar.


Subconjuctival hemorrhage. Try cold compresses... and no selfies for thirty days.
When a ragged stray cat the boys have adopted turns up dead in the cellar, they blame their gauze-faced matriarch, whose short fuse gets progressively shorter with every new stunt they play upon her. She especially doesn't appreciate the fishtank with the dead stray floating in alcohol they've propped in her bedroom, angrily adding the boy's pet roaches to the mixture amidst their protests.After being locked in, starved, and forced to urinate in jars, they finally run away from home, but are eventually returned unharmed, by the local do-goodnik priest. Then, one morning, she wakes up to find herself bound with ropes and rigidly taped to her bed by her now-bellicose boys, both in papier mache masks and very inquisitive as to the whereabouts of their real mother. It doesn't take a behavioral psychologist to predict the tortures she's about to endure in her sons' hunt for answers, and that's when the real truth begins to make itself apparent, and fittingly, it's a lot worse than any of us might have guessed. See it.


While Elias enjoys spending his days... with cockroaches,  papier mache, Lukas only digs the sport a boy can find in Klagenfurt...what a crazy paiiiiir.
Still working on the podcast and YouTube videos, by the way, should be up and running soon, my ever-patient woprophiles. On the other hand...Beautifully shot, intelligently written, and absorbingly acted, Goodnight, Mommy is a well-crafted, unnerving shocker from newcomers Franz and Fiala, and one you ought to love right away if you like your genre films meticulously executed with artistic flair. I can only hope these two have future collaborations in mind, as such could only result in more excellent movies for the viewers' enjoyment. On the scale, Mommy is a solid three Wop movie, and stands as highly recommended horror fare that you won't soon forget. Grab a copy.


"We're ready for our screen tests, Herr Buchanan..."

"Star Virgin" (1979) d/ Howard Ziehm

This one goes out to those fanatical neck bearded spazoids camped out in front of the local theater for upwards of two weeks or more in anticipation of the latest big budgeted space soap opera from Disney. Never let it be said that Wopsploitation isn't inclusive. I'd have to go back to the video cassette hunting days of the  early eighties for my first memories of this vintage piece of sci-fi pornography, immediately recognizing the luscious blonde Kari Klark from the pages of Hustler on the Betamax box art in the "Adult Room" at the legendary Video World outlet at Kingston Corners. I wasn't nearly old enough to rent it myself yet (I probably shouldn't have had a towering stack of back issues of Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler yet, either, but that never stopped me), so I tossed the box to my old man, a porn hound himself from way back, who obliged my adolescent curiosity. Jealous, you now are, as that ridiculous space muppet might say.


Because...production values.
An inquisitive "space virgin" (Kari Klark) aboard a space ship (or a room inadequately decorated to look like one, complete with obligatory fog machine, if you're less imaginative about these things) discovers the concept of sex from a silver lame' garbage can robot named Mentor ( voiced by Kevin Thompson), through a series of porn vignettes of increasing intensity from that curious planet called Earth. For instance,  there's the innocent Adam (Bud Wise) and Eve (Tracy Walton), tempted by a Snake (J.C. Walton) into some sloppy, gross food sex all over an antique convertible. You've also got star quarterback, Roger Starstruck (Mike Ranger), who goes down with an injury, only to be...nursed back to health, ahem, by his adoring cheerleaders, who cover the unconscious gridiron hero with oil and rape him while he lies unconscious on a locker room bench. Win one for the stripper, buddy.

     
"Get Kissinger on the horn, he can ham slam her in the mouth!", exclaims Igor (Tricky Dicky).
We've also got Count Dracula (Johnny Harden, ha ha.) and his trusty servant-in-a-Richard-Nixon mask, Igor (Tricky Dicky), terrorizing a helpless young blonde in a gothic black and white setting, complete with title cards a la silent films, and by "terrorizing", I of course mean a hot n' heavy menage a trois. Meanwhile, Space Virgin becomes increasingly more hot and bothered by Mentor's illustrations, stripping off her space suit which was barely there to begin with, and furiously masturbating on what looks like bubble wrap. Finally, the robot gifts her a plastic lightsaber from the five and dime, which she naturally inserts into her heavily oiled axe wound, frigging herself until her pussy erupts in orgasmic white froth, as promised by the cosmic one-sheet poster. Battlestar Galactica was never like this.


Eve (Tracy Walton) reaches for a pear, but'll soon be handling a peach.
Director Howard Ziehm, who worked here under the pseudonym Linus Gator,  helmed classic fuck flicks like Flesh Gordon (1974), Honey Pie (1976), Hot Cookies (1977), and even 1990's Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders. Unfortunately, it would seem that Kari Klark, who's the sole reason anybody would ever sit through a mess like this, never appeared in anything else. Her IMDb states that she "is an actress", even though her delivery of dialog in tonight's entry might suggest otherwise. Tracy Walton made several uncredited appearances in things like Teenage Desire (1978), Weekend Lovers (1978), and Sex Mood Ring (1979). Chris Anderson (Jeanette Harlow here) also shows up in 1979's 800 Fantasy Lane and F (1980). Mike Ranger's career in porn spans early seventies loops all the way to feature films in the eighties, from Fantasm Comes Again (1977) and Dracula Sucks (1978) to Rockin' With Seka (1980) and Bad Girls (1981). On the scale, Virgin merits a mere single Wop as one would expect from a low budget porno flick, but Klark is worth a bottle of lotion and an entire box of Kleenex. May the force be with you.


Eat your heart out, "Slave Leia".

"Dragon's Claws" (1979) d/ Joseph Kuo

As Randy "Macho Man" Savage once said in a famous post-Wrestlemania III wrestling promo, the cream will rise to the top. Ooh yeah. In the world of vintage martial arts movies, you can argue whether Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest represents that cream at the genre top for days on end, during which time, Hong Hwa Studios would have churned out three mediocre, low budget movies that copycat the former two studios' box office successes. Take 1979's Dragon's Claws for example, which most resembles a Jacky Chan period kung fu comedy from his breakout era, i.e. Fearless Hyena (1979), Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978), or Drunk Monkey in a Tiger's Eye (1979), except there's no Jacky Chan, the kung fu isn't as good, and the comedy is mostly inappropriate stuff that'll leave you feeling itchy.


"But who else...coooooooould be.",  ponders Ling Ko Fung (Wong Cheng Li).
We meet Ling Ko Fung (Wong Cheng Li), a master of the 'Dragon's Claws' technique, as he bullies his way back from a stint in Manchuria, challenging the sickly current master of the style, Lung Chen Tien (Lin Ho-Nien), for supremacy and a fancy gold tablet saying so, currently in Lung's possession. Lung's illness stems from that time he chloroform hankied Li Hua (Kan Chia-Fong), Cosby-style,  into marriage, forcing the kung fu queen to dragon claw the martial pervert in the chest, leaving him with the tell-tale five fingerprints of eventual death. Though Ling doesn't seem as evil and Lung not as righteous at the outset, the characters soon revert back to the typical straight forward, two dimensional type you'd expect in a movie like this. Ling defeats Lung, who dies, and snags himself the gold tablet, only it's a fake, causing him to send out his two buddies, Red Monster (Chu Tiet-Wo) and Green Monster (Chan Lau), to find Li Hua and her mostly useless son (she calls him a "dickhead" at one point), Lung Hsia (Jimmy Liu), and recover the real one.


Focused chi power or massive fart rip? You decide.
Li's son vows revenge for the murder of his father, but his lack of martial skill earns him the aforementioned five fingerprints of gradual death at the hands of Ling. Luckily for him, the local dirty beggar (Wang Pao-Chien) who peels pears in mid-air just so happens to be his mother's uncle, and the true master of Dragon's Claws technique. After curing young Lung of the kung fu poisons in his system (by forcing him to drink a pot full of little boys' piss...yeah, just let me die in agony, thanks) he toughens him up with a mostly unimpressive, sloppy-looking training regimen, and none too soon, either, as Red and Green have sent his poor mother to meet Buddha. With Lung's training finally complete, the beggar blows the clambake, leaving the young man to discover his mother's lifeless body with Red and Green waiting in the wings. Then it's a Lung v Ling finale, as you might have expected, but less spectacularly so.


Bruce Lee never collected little boys' urine in a pot. Just saying.
Korean leg fighter extraordinaire, Wong Cheng Li/ Hwang Jang Lee deserves much better than this movie, which falls well short of his pugilistic collaborations with Jacky Chan, and places slightly above his numerous big screen square offs against fellow Korean, Dragon Lee. Liu Chia-Liang's nephew, Jimmy, who stars here, is adequate at best,  but no Master Killer, by any stretch of the imagination. The prolific Kuo directed five other movies in 1979, including other cheap Chan rip-offs like Mystery of Chess Boxing and World of Drunken Master. Quantity over quality, I suppose. Tonight's entry is the kind of kung fu movie that people who'll watch anything, ignorant to the integral ingredients that comprise a high caliber example (acting,  fight choreography,  costumes,  sets, soundtrack, etc. ) of the genre, would suggest to you. Not me. One Wop. Hold out for a Shaw Brothers/ Golden Harvest production, instead.


"You'll die!" "You're the one who'll die!" And the 1979 winner for Best Screenplay goes to...

"Two On The Road AKA/ Fearless Dragons" (1980) d/ Li Chao

It's been a minute since we've covered any gung fu, so tonight, to set the Yin and Yang into balance again, we'll be taking a look at the Goldig Films production of a 1980 kung fu comedy directed by Li Chao, the man who gave you 1982's Billy Chong/Willy Dozan vehicle,  Kung Fu From Beyond the Grave, and starring no less than "Beardy" aka/ Liang Chia-Jen and Phillip Ko Fei. If that wasn't enough, Johnny Wang himself dons the grey wig and mustache combo as a mayor who may or may not be on the up and up. I think you can figure out how this is all gonna end up already...


"If boulders were currency, I still wouldn't share with ya.", notes Lively Dragon (Liang Chia-Jen).
At the same time that Lively Dragon (Liang Chia-Jen) reluctantly gives Crazy Horse (Philip Ko Fei) a cart ride, the Mayor (Wang Lung Wei) has dispatched a shipment of coins as relief to local refugees with a large weapon-bearing entourage in tow, to protect it. Is it any wonder that both carts cross paths, just as the donations are set upon by bandits on the road? I wasn't surprised. In the melee, Dragon heists the cart, but finds the money already stolen and the chest filled with rocks upon closer inspection. With wanted posters springing up all over town with depictions of Horse emblazoned on them, and the Mayor's fedora-clad associate (Chiang Tao) leading the investigation, Dragon sets a trap for him, both to warn him of the impending fuzz on his tail, and to collect his cash reward himself, of course. At the same time, Golden Jaws (Siu Gam), the Chinese mutant giant cousin of Jaws (who's off working with James Bond, apparently) has been biting random people to death with his spiffy auriferous teefers.


Beardy and Ko Fei are prisoners of Chiang Tao, who's a slave to that ridiculous hat.
The two men set out to find the true gold thief, robbing each other back and forth and ultimately getting themselves thrown in a cell by Fedora after he threatens to torture them in a red white and blue "games room" that has a seat with obligatory spike that goes where the sun doesn't shine. Our boys name drop 1978's Midnight Express as they bust out the cell wall (what era is this set in, anyway?), only to empty out into the cell of a horse-faced nymphomaniac. There's also a behemoth babe (Tsui Oi Sam) who accidentally crushes her husbands on their wedding night, one turning his toes up while our heroes are hilariously hidden under their honeymoon bed. They pose as travelling scholars to investigate the lame legged Mayor as a potential suspect, and combine to wear out Golden Jaws in a silly fight that ends with the giant pissing himself as he falls unconscious. In the end, it's Dragon and Horse vs. the Mayor (surprise, it was Johnny Wang all along.) in a marathon match of martial skill as they interrupt his sneaky getaway with the stolen loot.


"Movement number three...Chinese strongman carries your mother's ass to bed."
After 65 appearances as an actor in these films, in titles ranging from Bruce Lee and I (1976), Eighteen Jade Arhats (1978), and Challenge of the Masters (1976),  Cantonen Iron Kung Fu (1979) was Li Chao's first film in the director's chair, having earned over thirty credits there in the years since, on films like 1994's Shaolin Avengers, Struggle For Leader (1983), and 1981's Ninja Supremo. Beardy, on the other hand, has appeared in over one hundred and thirty films, and directed only ten. He's still one of my favorites, even though he's nowhere near as prolific as Ko Fei, who acted in over two hundred movies and directed over twenty, himself. The payoff in this one, is obviously the final showdown between these two and Wang Lung Wei, which is lengthy and as amazing as one could expect out of these guys. Three Wops, and required viewing for any Asian action enthusiasts out there. Hunt it down.


Hold on to your sash, it's about to get fightastic out here.