THE WEB OF DEATH
Most of Chor Yuen’s film’s can be described as including a web of death, as they are fabulously complex, convoluted mysteries full of murder, betrayal, and secret societies. Web of Death justifies being titled Web of Death by including a literal, rather than metaphorical, web of death. It wouldn’t be difficult to interpret The Web of Death — the third in director Chor Yuen’s long cycle of films adapting contemporary popular wuxia novels — as something of a cold war parable. In it, a Martial World clan by the name of The Five Venoms Clan is in possession of a super-weapon so powerful that the clan’s leader has decreed that it should be put under wraps and hidden away for the good of the Martial World as a whole. That weapon, the Five Venom Spider, is revealed to us in the film’s opening minutes, and that’s a good thing; while definitely kind of neat in a cheeseball sort of way, the Five Venom Spider is not the kind of thing that could live up to an extended build-up. What it is, in fact, is a normal-sized tarantula that, when released from its ornate cage, glows green, emits the roar of a raging elephant, and then shoots a deadly, electrified web to the accompaniment of much billowing of smoke and flying of sparks.
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#1 by lyzard on April 20, 2009 - 4:15 pm
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WANT!!!! And I will hug him, and pet him, and name him ‘George’…
Speaking as a designated “spider remover” (both domestic and professional), it happens, man. It happens.
#2 by Blake Matthews on April 20, 2009 - 6:20 pm
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After I get through the large list of films on my to-watch list (mainly old school and post-CTHD wuxia films), I should make an effort to watch at least a few of these Chor Yuen films.
#3 by Todd on April 21, 2009 - 8:39 am
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Liz: True to form, it’s Ching Li who eventually steps up to deal with the spider while all of the men cower behind her. To her credit, she does so without any eye-rolling or muttering “wusses” under her breath.
Blake: You should at least check out Clans of Intrigue and The Magic Blade. I think you’ll be glad you did.
#4 by KeithA on April 21, 2009 - 2:42 pm
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Yuen’s films are the missing link between the rough and tumble kungfu of the early 1970s and the Hong Kong New Wave. Magic Blade, Clans of Intrigue, and Legend of the Bat are all highly recommended, though I also love Web of Death and Bat Without Wings, among many, many others.
#5 by The Rev. D.D. on April 21, 2009 - 7:47 pm
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“Speaking as a designated “spider remover” (both domestic and professional), it happens, man. It happens.”
True dat.
Although I probably had/have it a lot easier than you do. Aside from the one dead recluse and the one very large wolf spider I’ve run into here, it’s always small inoffensive species. (Along with a couple of scorpions, cicada killers, and a young copperhead). Quite an adjustment from the Midwest, where it was always house spiders and super-cute jumpers. Still, even here we have no super-nasty kill-spiders like you have down Australia way. (Any encounters with those?)
On the other hand, that makes the people I do the removing for that much bigger pansies. I’d totally sympathize if they were making a fuss about a funnel-web scampering around (assuming they wander into houses).
#6 by Blake Matthews on April 22, 2009 - 8:24 am
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Keith: I would’ve imagined that they would’ve been the missing link between the chambara/swashbuckler inspired wuxia films of the late 1960s and the New Wave.
Is there any way to really say when the New Wave itself started? I tend to think in terms of 1987’s “A Chinese Ghost Story” and 1990’s “The Swordsman”, and all of the wire-fu films in between (Shaolin Intruders, Duel to the Death, Bastard Swordsman, etc.) as transitions between traditional wuxia/kung fu and the New Wave. Todd and Keith, would I be wrong to think like that?
#7 by KeithA on April 22, 2009 - 9:44 am
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There’s a somewhat clear(ish) evolution of the films from the early Peking Opera inspired adventures to the Kwan Tak-hing kungfu films, and from there to the early Shaw swordsman films. The bridge from early wuxia to early 70s style kungfu really comes courtesy of Jimmy Wang Yu making the jump from the One-Armed Swordsman series to Chinese Boxer. Whether or not you consider that “the first” kungfu film is, I think, a pointless debate, like determining the first punk band. Then you get the era of Bruce Lee, and of Ti Lung and David Chiang mixing it up with Chang Cheh as director, and from there Ti Lung goes into Chor Yuen’s wuxia revival, surrounded by much more stylized fights and sets than previously. Chor’s own work evolved somewhat from more straightforward films like The Bastard, where you can see his evolution out of straight kungfu and into wuxia start to take place.
I think ground zero for the New Wave happens in…well, no. There are three of them, as the New Wave had three really distinct lines (excluding,f or now, comedies and romantic dramas).
The fantasy/wuxia New Wave hit in 1982 with Zu, which is a combination of Tsui Hark’s own madness, Chor Yuen style wuxia films, and a desire to push Hong Kong special effects into a new realm while emulating the (then) maverick American directors like Lucas and Spielberg.
The second New Wave starts a little earlier, with the jumble of Jackie Chan/Sammo Hung movies like Young Master, Magnificent Butcher, etc. — that’s when you get the evolution of kungfu film choreography into the stunt-and-awe heavy style Chan ruled during the 80s. If you had to pick a flashpoint for that, though, I reckon it’d be Project A, though many will argue for the first Aces Go Places. Those movies have less to do with Chor Yuen, of course, and more to do with taking Chang Cheh’s work with the Venoms to the next (insane) level. And of course Sammo and Yuen Biao were big on paying respects to the really old school by bringing Kwan Tak-Hing back to the big screen.
The third line is the Heroic Bloodshed line, and that really gets its kick-off with A Better Tomorrow. And those grow directly out of Chang Cheh’s old school work and are heavily influenced by John Woo’s years as AD and 2nd Unit for Chang.
The wire-laden 90s were, in the 90s, regarded as the death of the New Wave. Once Upon a Time in China 1-2, Fong Sai-yuk, Heroic Trio, Hard Boiled — those were the films of the last great hurrah for the new wave. After that, what was new became rote, most of the stars were getting old, many had traded in HK for shots of fame in the US, and the revolution was over — with another revolution waiting in the wings. If the 90 were anything, they were the Golden Era of the Cat III film. Looking at an uncertain future and a crumbling industry devoured from the inside by gangsters and greed, HK completely lost its mind, and from Dr. Lamb to July 1997…well, you know.
Opinion, mostly. Sketching out ta family tree of film is, like I said, tricky and often a more subjective undertaking than one might think. For instance, I’ve totally left Liu Chia-liang out of the equation, even though he belongs in it somewhere.
#8 by Blake Matthews on April 22, 2009 - 11:57 am
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Yeah, my vision of the genre has always been a bit different. When I started writing my book in Portuguese, I divided the HK action genre into four major time periods/super-genres – Traditional Kung Fu/Chopsockey (1966 – 1986…although it was practically an anachronism by 1983); Modern action (which included Bruce Lee films, and everything from Carry on Pickpocket until the early 1990s); 1990s Wire Fu (1990 – 1995, although I counted Once Upon a Time in China and America and Tai Chi 2); and Post-New Wave, in which I grouped everything made from 1995 to the present (HK action that tried to mimmick Hollywood; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and whatever came it out in its wake; the films that marked the decline of Jet Li and Jackie Chan; etc.). But then, my book was an analysis of the best fight sequences (I ignored the Heroic bloodshed genre except for a few brief remarks in sections where I talked about the work of specific action directors) of these four periods and not an actual history of the genre itself.
#9 by Blake Matthews on April 22, 2009 - 12:17 pm
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Keith: You mentioned Lau Kar-Leung. Well, he was one of the main choreographers for Jimmy Wang Yu’s wuxia films during the late 1960s and the Ti Lung/David Chiang films in the early 1970s, alonside Tong Gaai. So what happened? Lau Kar-Leung helped Chang Cheh start the whole “Shaolin cycle” of the mid-1970s while Tong Gaai would end up teaming up with Chor Yuen and other directors to be one of the key wuxia choreographers for the rest of the decade. Lau Kar Leung eventually broke off with Chang Cheh and developed the Shaolin Cycle in his own way: movies about kung fu instead kung fu movies about brotherhood and loyalty.
#10 by KeithA on April 22, 2009 - 1:28 pm
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I think all the Shaw Bros. kungfu film directors can be divided into two camps: did they take off Ti Lung’s shirt and stab him in the belly, or didn’t they?