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Posts Tagged ‘Eddy Ko’

The Bride With White Hair

Wednesday, April 12th, 2023

This is the one. THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR is the movie that put Ronny Yu on the map. Or at least mine. This was 1993, back when people like me were first discovering Hong Kong cinema, and martial artists flying around on wires seemed like the greatest discovery since their primary antagonist, gravity. I remember waiting weeks for a widescreen, subtitled VHS I special ordered from Suncoast Motion Picture company in a mall somewhere. I must’ve watched it several times in the ’90s, but when I revisited it for this series it had been so long that I could only recall the look and feel of it, and basically nothing about the story.

The way I remember it, we all agreed back then that this movie was a masterpiece. But here I am 30 years later, and I don’t think the generation of film fans after mine would necessarily know who Ronny Yu was if I asked, or have heard of this movie. It has recently finally come to remastered blu-ray overseas, so a good transfer was on a streaming service for a while, and now can be bought digitally, but when I started writing this series there was only the old Tai Seng DVD – a pretty rough, non-anamorphic transfer. It made me wish I’d saved that tape. Watching it now, of course, it lacks the freshness and novelty it had in 1993, the thrill of a new world opening up to us. We’ve seen this kind of fantastic martial arts world imagined many more times and in much more detail over the last quarter century.

But I think THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR still packs a punch. It’s a short, sweet, and stylish little tragic love story that speaks about good and evil but refuses to paint even its operatic fantasy world in such easily definable categories. And by looking at it as part of this Uncle Sam Wants Yu series I’m able to see it as a culmination of everything the director had been working on up to that point. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 18 Comments »

The Postman Strikes Back

Tuesday, March 21st, 2023

Ronny Yu’s 1982 film THE POSTMAN STRIKES BACK (or THE POSTMAN FIGHTS BACK in the U.K.) is not a sequel to Kevin Costner’s THE POSTMAN, but it is about a heroic letter deliverer. Courier Ma (Bryan Leung, IRON MONKEY, IP MAN, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS) enjoys his humble life as a messenger in bandit-ridden territory between Canton and Shanghai. Like many of us he has the shadow of technological advancement hanging over him: when the trains come in, people like to tell him, they won’t need guys like him anymore. But he’s still reluctant to take 300 taels of gold for a sketchy delivery-through-the-mountains job offered to him by Hu (Eddy Ko, HEROES SHED NO TEARS, THE EAST IS RED, LETHAL WEAPON 4).

He only delivers letters, he says. And you can see why he likes it. The villages treat him like the ice cream man when he shows up. Now that I think about it it might not be because of the letters – he actually does bring the kids treats. He tries to introduce some kids to chocolate, which he got in Canton, but they refuse it because they say it looks like mud (or dog shit in the dub). I guess that shows you how important it is to experience different parts of the world and learn from different types of people. Those dumb little shits missed out on free chocolate! Back when it was rare!

Ma’s wimpier friend Yao Jie (Yat-Chor Yuen, CHINESE HERCULES, SOUL BROTHERS OF KUNG FU, IN THE LINE OF DUTY 4) really wants to take that job, and he can’t do it alone, so eventually Ma gives in. All they have to do is carry several cases, “a gift for Zhao Long” to deliver by his birthday to keep the peace. They just can’t look to see what’s in the cases. (That’s one of the Transporter’s rules also.) (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 13 Comments »

The Martian

Friday, October 9th, 2015

tn_themartiana.k.a. Get Your Ass From Mars

THE MARTIAN is what you get with old master Ridley Scott working from a good script (by Drew Goddard, director of THE CABIN IN THE WOODS) based on a book with a real solid, simple premise: an astronaut is left for dead on Mars and is intent on surviving. It’s like ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS, but without a monkey! That’s the modern twist. No monkeys.

etAs you know, Matt Damon (HAPPY FEET TWO, HEREAFTER) plays the astronaut, Mark Watney. Just like my boy E.T., Watney is a botanist who’s just minding his own business being on a space mission collecting samples when something bad happens and the crew has to do an emergency take off, and then he doesn’t get on board fast enough. Unfortunately there’s no little Mars boy to hide him in the closet, feed him candy and dress him up as a ghost (or maybe those scenes were cut), but he does use existing equipment to jury-rig a means of communication to let the people back home know to come get him. And then he waits it out.

He has a limited supply of rations, and a long window before any theoretical rescue mission could possibly arrive. So, using seemingly pretty scientifically plausible methods, he figures out ways to use what he has to create more food, water, etc., and to deal with the other problems that arise, of which there are many. He’s in space, for crying out loud. Space is a motherfucker. He doesn’t even have to come across any Ghosts of Mars, there’s all kinds of other problems there. And we learn that a roll of tape is the most important tool anybody could have, followed by clear plastic/construction film.

(read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 34 Comments »

Heroes Shed No Tears

Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

HEROES SHED NO TEARS is not just a great phrase to tattoo on your back or use as an adult recreational softball team name, it’s also a messy pre-A BETTER TOMORROW John Woo picture. We always talk about how the Hong Kong film scene that Woo thrived in was the Wild West compared to the Hollywood that ruined him. Well, then this was Rome or something. This is Woo when he was a straight up exploitation director. He was filming in Thailand, and shit must’ve been even crazier then than in the Tony Jaa era, ’cause they say they were using live rounds in some of these shootouts. Just shoot at stuff behind the actors. Squibs are too much trouble.
(read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Action, Reviews | 24 Comments »

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