"This Man is Dangerous" (1985) d/Wang Lung Wei

Who's that heavily armed thug in a ski mask, mugging for the release poster for tonight's review, a 1985 HK crime drama of grim and bloody proportions, you ask? As if the mustache of ultimate villainy wasn't a dead giveaway. This Man is Dangerous aka/ Shandong Madman is the second Shaw Brothers feature directed by Wang Lung Wei, starring Chin Siu Ho and Fu Sheng's pipsqueak sibling, Chang Chan Peng, as well as a beardless Beardy (Liang Chia Jen), and a cameo from a very eighties-looking Lo Mang, of Venom Mob fame. There's plenty of execution-style murders, maggot-ridden corpses, Herpes jokes, dated eighties wear, and there's even an obligatory Western extra with zero screen presence, thrown in, for realism's sake, of course. Buckle up, me hearties, it's gonna be another wild one...
 

"Fingerprint this?? Bullshit, Mr Han(dless) man!", exclaims Wei (Chang Chan Peng).
Hao and Wei (Chin Siu Ho, Chang Chan Peng) are roommates who aspire to be undercover policemen in Hong Kong, when Hao isn't undermining Wei's every secret desire, stealing his meticulously maintained roses and giving them to Zhi (Lai Yin Shan), a local girl that Wei fancies, but is either too shy or too short to make a move for. Hao even kicks him out of the apartment while convincing her to sleep with him. With friends like that, you almost don't even need Ku Lung (Wang Lung Wei), a ruthless bastard from the mainland who robs armored vehicles in broad daylight and stomps call girls in the labonza just for kicks. On the job, Wei and Hao are forced to pull fingerprints from a rotting, maggot-infested cadaver in a coffin at a morgue whose floor is nearly untraversable, thanks to a floor littered with sheet-covered bodies. They also roll, ridiculously garbed,  into a gay disco, while hunting for a marijuana dealer named Pink Lady (Elvis Tsui), a randy leatherman who digs Hao's Double Dragon-inspired disguise. Cue: obligatory fight scene.


"Go take a shower, bitch...here's your l-OOFAHH!"
While Hao further strains his friendship with Wei by ducking out on a pregnant Zhi, Ku Lung is busy beating on drunken cops, stealing their service revolvers, and using them in a bullet-ridden bloodbath against a rival gang of Vietnamese, as a favor to Chin Lao Pa (Chang Chuang), a brothel owner and fellow evildoer. When he rubs out Sgt Chen (Phillip Ko Fei) and his favorite prostitute one afternoon, and demands that Chin support him in some upcoming major bank robberies, Chin then sells him out to Beast, the young men's immediate superior, earning himself a brass knuckle beatdown at Ku's ruthless hands,  in one of his own sauna rooms. With the cops, led by Officer Leung (Liang Chia Jen) and Police Chief Luo (Lo Mang), closing in, Ku's brother Biao gets picked off by Hao while trying to dog paddle to freedom in a pond near the gang hideout, and that's something that Ku takes very, very personally, judging by the Uzi he's got stashed away, for just such an occasion. All Hell then breaks the fuck loose, right up to the signature Shaw Brothers final freeze frame.


Looks like The Toad isn't impervious to half-off sales at Chess King, either.
"The Mayor" himself, Johnny Wang, who wrote, directed, starred in, and choreographed fights for tonight's feature, would go on to direct The Innocent Interloper for Shaw Brothers the following year. You've probably caught Chin Siu Ho in things like Ten Tigers of Kwantung (1979), Masked Avengers (1981), and House of Traps (1982), though he's appeared in over a hundred films by now. Less prolific, by far, is Chang Chan Peng, who made his final film appearance here, after roles in Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984), Treasure Hunters (1981), and Wits of the Brats (1984), before retiring from acting altogether. Wang may have caught some slack for his downbeat endings and brutal portrayals of violence as a director over the years, but Dangerous did Top Ten business at the HK box office in 1985, and I was well entertained throughout, as always, by Asian cinema's greatest bad guy of all-time. Perhaps he could have changed out some of the weird comedy for longer, more elaborate fight scenes (the choreography tends to favor Wei's love of kickboxing over a traditional style here), but overall, I'd have to lay three Wops on it, regardless. Seek it out, at once.


 Ku Lung (Johnny Wang) never met someone he couldn't call a "dirty scumbag".

"The Fake Ghost Catchers" (1982) d/ Liu Chia Yung

Tonight's review, a supernatural kung fu comedy from director Liu Chia Yung starring the likes of Hsiao Ho, Chang Chan Peng, and Fu Sheng, has only been on my "to see" list for the past thirty years, having been unable to score a copy anywhere until the glorious advent of all region dvd players finally made it and many other Shaw Brothers films accessible to long time Western enthusiasts like myself. As one would expect, this is a weird and wild ride, packed with cereal-faced zombies, hopping ghosts, spiritual posession, lazy eyes, foot moles, broad physical slapstick comedy, lo-fi special effects, and Chinese mysticism that pre-dates Ivan Reitman's own Ghostbusters by nearly two years, or, in other words, a must-see for any self-respecting fan of martial horror-comedy. Still not convinced? What if we threw in Wang Lung Wei in a friggin' eye patch? Yeah, thought that'd do the trick...


Fu Sheng, at his dramatic finest, as you can clearly see here.
After a man (Lung Tien Chiang) commits suicide with poison over his unrequited love for a beautiful young newlywed (Lily Li), his spirit returns from the afterlife during a bungled grave robbing by a group of starving bumpkins, who are interrupted by a wounded whistleblower (Chang Chan Peng) fleeing the armed henchmen of a corrupt Qing official (Wang Lung Wei) known as "the one-eyed general", who's trying to kill him before he can transport evidence of his treachery to a nearby judge. The vengeful ghost kills the young woman, whose ghost enlists the services of a phony Taoist magician's young assistant (Hsiao Ho), who happens to be the whistleblower's cousin, leading him to also unwittingly involve himself in the deceased woman/ghost's plan to foil her ethereal murderer before he can give her twin sister (also Lily Li, of course) a similar fate. The titular fake ghost catchers bring in an extravagantly garbed and perpetually unlucky opera performer  with nine lucky moles on his foot(Fu Sheng) and carry along the female ghost in a paper spell inside an umbrella for the ride. Nope, not a typo.


"Let's see Linda Blair pull some shit like this off!"
The actor only agrees to help the young men if the female ghost will help him to be more successful at gambling, leading to expectedly ludicrous results at the local gambling house with a lazy-eyed casino owner (Tu Shao Ming), who even has a lazy-eyed mistress. Meanwhile, the plotting, murderous general only has one eye. You with me, so far? One eye captures the whistleblower and tortures him for the whereabouts of the secret list, but the woman's ghost possesses him, making him impervious to blows, weapons, and even flaming sticks of incense, which he chews menacingly (!) before escaping the general's clutches. At the climax, a trap is set at an abandoned house by the judge and the ghost catchers who defeat and arrest the general and his men when Li's ghost again possesses Peng, who subdues One eye while fighting like a Shaolin wooden marionette. Fu Sheng poses in ornate traditional marriage drag as Li's twin sister afterwards, as part of the set up for Lung's ghost, who naturally isn't about to give up hauntings and murders without a knock down, drag out fight to the finish, complete with wire work, lighting fx, cheap horror masks and makeup, and a goodly dose of gung fu magic, luckily for all of us watching from our seats. See for yourselves.


...and Johnny Wang as the evil One-Eyed General. Joke pretty much wrote itself.
1982 was a busy year for Fu Sheng, who showed up in My Rebellious Son, Cat vs. Rat, and The Brave Archer and his Mate all in the same year as this effort, and his appearance here is mostly in a supporting comedic role, with few fights to mention, but he's freaking hilarious throughout the damned thing, so we'll let that slide this time. On the other hand, the acrobatic Hsiao Ho, who never really received the spotlight he truly deserved, is excellent here, and Sheng's younger brother, Chang Chan Peng, who retired from acting altogether after completing Wang Lung Wei's This Man is Dangerous in 1985, has some equally impressive fight scenes, and it can be argued that his possessed wooden man routine vs. Wang here, rivals or even bests his brother's similar sequence (on a physical level if not a comedic one) in Liu Chia Liang's Legendary Weapons of China,  which was also released in 1982, coincidentally. A good time to be had, for sure, and three Wops on the scale. See it now!


(Not very)Special make up tip # 7783: Apparently, ghosts like their Cream of Wheat with strawberry preserves mixed in. 

"The Treasure Hunters"(1982)d/Liu Chia Yung

Tonight we look at a hugely successful Shaw Brothers kung fu comedy, directed by middle Liu brother, Chia Yung, and starring the late Fu Sheng while introducing his own real life brother Chang Chan Peng, as well as third Liu, the venerable Chia Hui and his ever shaved head, Wang Lung Wei, the essential martial bad guy of all-time, paired with high kicking swordstress, Yang Ching Ching, this time around, and even a humorous cameo by the director himself as a cratchety antiques dealer.Especially notable, Fu Sheng had just broken both his legs on another film and worries had arisen whether he'd ever be able to physically perform in front of the cameras again.Judging by this movie, he quickly put everyone's fears to rest, trampolining himself into the air from shop awnings and pole vaulting himself into action from the opening sequences on the lush Shaw Brothers sets.As for the chemistry between Sheng and Peng, they play off each other effectively throughout the film, with Sheng as a sort of Lou Costello to Peng's Bud Abbott.Also notable here is the noticeable difference between Liang and his brother Yung when directing movies.Liang's movies always have a deep-rooted morality at their core, while Yung abandons morals for laughs at every juncture, as is evident here; the main protagonists are a con man/thief and a spoiled rich kid, with nary a moral to share between them, but the audiences are expected to cheer the enterprising criminals on and laugh at their broad jokes.I doubt you'd be asked of the same in any Liang movie.

"Do you take credit cards?" asks Chau Chu Chi(Chang Chan Peng).
At the outset, we see a cross-eyed sheriff(To Siu Ming) escorting his obese wife by horse across the badlands when he's set upon by a masked bandit while his two hundred men lie in wait in the high grass and surrounding cliff ledges.He steals the official's gun, armband, and horse, leaving the lazy-eyed lawman to discover that the thief had only set up dummies and weapons to give the illusion of a crew of villainous henchmen.Worse yet, he's now forced to carry Fatty on his back the rest of the way.Back in town, Chi Ta Po(Fu Sheng) snickeringly relates the story to a number of friends, then demands payment for the laughs he's just provided them.While eating at the restaurant, he notices a self-centered young nobleman(Chang Chan Peng) running up his own bill with piles of extravagant food he'd never finish even if he wanted to.Chu convinces Chi to enter into a partnership with him, where they share everything, including the massive debt he's just entered into and has no cash to pay, leading them both into a massive fight with the restaurant's men.Afterwards, Chi is inadvertently captured by the sheriff, and Chu writes a bad personal check to pay his bail, promising his partner the majority of Chan Po Chu's fabled treasure, once the two men find it.They surmise that a stack of the deceased Chan's letters, now owned by an elderly antiques dealer(Liu Chia Yung), must contain clues to the fortune's whereabouts, so they set out first to buy them, and if that doesn't work, there's always stealing...

Fu Sheng picks on the cross-eyed To Siu Ming every chance he gets.
Also searching for the treasure is Lord Mo(Wang Lung Wei) and his deadly female cohort(Yang Ching Ching), killing anyone who looks for the treasure and blaming the murders on a travelling Buddhist monk(Liu Chia Hui)and his five monk entourage.If you're looking for the motivation for anybody seeking the riches, or why killing those who do is an effective strategy, you're watching the wrong movie.Chi and Chu manage to steal the letters by using the exorbinant value of the dealer's other antiques to their advantage in a late night fight, after being caught breaking into his home.They decide that the monk must know the whereabouts of the treasure, and after trying to get him arrested by the flaccid lawman, they befriend him instead when they become aware of Lord Mo's treachery, leading to another martial battle of epic proportions where Mo and his female sidekick easily defeat Chi, Chu, and the monk, whose leg gets slashed in the process.The student monks rescue the men, but are unable to defeat Mo as their special Five Monk Array technique is ineffective due to their injured master.Away from the melee, the injured monk teaches Chu to join in the acrobatic, pyramid-like technique in his place, while Chi surmises that glue would help him greatly in a square off against the female's swords.What follows is a dizzying free-for-all involving glue cannisters, tumbling monks, and wooden practice dummies that will leave the audience gasping for breath by the time the words "Another Shaw Classic" flash on the screen.

Mo Seung(Liu Chia Hui), the monk, is dragged into the scramble for Chan Po Chu's treasure.
Yung's directorial credits include Dirty Kung Fu(1978),The Fake Ghost Catchers(1982),Wits of the Brats(1984),and Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon(1990), some of which we'll look at later on.If I was gonna list his acting or fight choreographer credits, I could be here all day.I shouldn't have to mention too much about my favorite Shaw Brothers actor here, except that he went on to star in Hong Kong Playboys(1983), Wits of the Brats, and his final appearance in Liu Chia Liang's Eight-Diagram Pole Fighter(1983) after completing this one.Peng seems to have completely dropped off the radar after appearing in only five movies; this being his only starring turn.As for the evil Wang Lung Wei, who's become one of my favorites over the years, we'll be looking at a film of his where he isn't the villain later on.You'll wanna be around for that.The flexible, potent Yang Ching Ching scored herself 11 assistant fight choreographer credits, as well as acting in 36 films herself.If you're into action-packed kung fu comedies, this will be the movie you've been looking for.Amazing martial arts and stunts, some good laughs, and a cast packed with Shaw Brothers stars, it merits the full four big ones on the scale.Look for it!

Lord Mo(Wang Lung Wei) has no problem holding off Chu, Chi, and two wooden practice men.