Asia-Pol
Asia-Pol in many ways fits in with the spate of James Bond knock-offs that Shaw turned out between 1966 and 1968, but also exhibits some significant differences that can most likely be chalked up to its Nikkatsu pedigree. For one, while the action of those aforementioned films was largely limited to what could be shot on the sound stages and back lots of Shaw’s Movie Town facility, Asia-Pol is distinguished by a great deal of location shooting set on the streets of Japan, Hong Kong and Macao. This is a style of shooting that the Japanese crew, accustomed to the gritty, street-bound look of Nikkatsu’s violent yakuza thrillers, would have been considerably more at ease with than would the Shaw’s technicians. Likewise, Asia-Pol‘s script gives us an espionage yarn that’s considerably more down-to-Earth than the campy nonsense that Shaw would typically serve up, entirely free of hooded super villains and sci-fi inspired underwater lairs.
#1 by Blake Matthews on February 20, 2008 - 4:10 am
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Does Wang Yu get to flail his arms about madly in this one?
#2 by KeithA on February 20, 2008 - 11:25 am
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Some day, that man is just going to take flight.
#3 by Blake Matthews on February 20, 2008 - 11:36 am
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Maybe that’s how some of old Ming dynasty swordsmen learned how to fly. Their kung fu wasn’t all that great, so they just flailed their arms in combat so much that they started flying around.
#4 by lyzard on February 20, 2008 - 3:11 pm
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Suddenly I feel like it’s way too long since I last saw The Man From Hong Kong.
#5 by Ed on February 20, 2008 - 5:27 pm
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Nice job, Keith. Any chance you’ll revisit some of the older Jimmy Wang Yang reviews from the site’s early days?
#6 by Blake Matthews on February 20, 2008 - 6:48 pm
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Sammo did a pretty good job of choreographing The Man from Hong Kong, from what I saw. And then there’s that comment Wang says about sleeping with white girls only on Thursdays. That’s rich.
#7 by lyzard on February 20, 2008 - 8:04 pm
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“You’re my first Chinese.” That always struck me as classy.
The thing with that film, though, is that when they shot it, it was cutting edge location work….but there isn’t a single place in that film that hasn’t been drastically altered since. If the Harbour Bridge wasn’t sitting in the middle of it all, you’d hardly know where it was set. The other thing that makes it a classic is the, ahem, “car chase” – it’s one to rival Mitchell, I tell ya! – which was shot near where we used to go for holidays when we were kids.
#8 by The Rev. D.D. on February 20, 2008 - 9:20 pm
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Holidays in Hong Kong. Really.
I was born in the wrong country.
#9 by lyzard on February 20, 2008 - 10:09 pm
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Uh, no, not exactly; the central coast of New South Wales. (He’s the man FROM Hong Kong, dontcha know.)
#10 by The Rev. D.D. on February 21, 2008 - 9:32 am
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Probably should’ve read the review before I started flapping my fingers. *slaps forehead*
Still, New South Wales…still better than my travel options as a lad. My closest foreign travel option was Minnesota’s vastly bigger brother to the north. Nowadays I’m close to Mexico, though, and hopefully can make a trip there sometime.
#11 by KeithA on February 21, 2008 - 10:32 am
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Ed: I have plans to review several old Jimmy Wang Yu swordsman movies from the 60s.
I’ve never seen Man from Hong Kong. don’t know why. I did see A Man Called Tiger though, and the less said about that, the better.
Blake: Funny thing is, I too only sleep with white girls on Thursdays.
#12 by Blake Matthews on February 21, 2008 - 10:45 am
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I always thought it cool that “The Man from Hong Kong” seemed to be both a worldwide financial success and had a very successful theme song or something.
#13 by lyzard on February 21, 2008 - 3:20 pm
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Good LORD….I’ve seen something Keith hasn’t!! [*Preen, preen*]