The B-Masters Cabal

Well, not exactly, but this still kicks off Teleport City’s “Cuneyt in June” parade.

NINJA KILLER There are a lot of fights strung together by scenes of Cuneyt doing manly stuff like sneering at the camera, looking sternly at the camera, looking stoically at the camera, walking stoically thorugh the streets and piers of the city, and for some reason I think we can all understand, playing leap frog with a bunch of bikini chicks on a beach — although his version of leap frog seems to be having the girls squat down in the surf while he trots toward them and sort of kicks them over. It’s all pretty awesome, but nowhere in it will you find Bolo, Carter, or ninjas. That’s where Godfrey Ho and Thomas Tang come into the picture.

SHAOLIN INVINCIBLES  At the time, though my friends and I were voracious consumers of any and every kungfu movie on which we could get our hands, we were also operating more or less in a vacuum. Pre-internet days, you know. So while I wanted to know more about the movies I was watching, there simply didn’t exist the resources that would help me complete the task. I learned to recognize various stars and directors, I didn’t have much historical context beyond that I could paste together based solely on movies I’d seen. There was no way for me to tell a Hong Kong film from a Taiwanese film, and no way for me to understand that I should know the difference — I didn’t suspect that the most bizarre kungfu films we were renting were the product of a Taiwanese film industry that seemed to think acid-fueled fever dreams were the best source material for kungfu movie scripts.

… which is, coincidentally, what I say every time I glance at my DVD collection. Presenting, in the center ring:

Following on from Teleport City’s review of the first movie of the series, here’s the movie that stopped the series in its tracks. It takes place in and around a circus — definitely not the kind of Ring these guys are used to — but the circus is a bastion of normalcy compared to the goings-on behind the scenes.

This time, the Champions of Justice meet some Little People who are more than a match for them, while joining forces with an exiled interplanetary genius… as well as the one Earthling of whom it may be said that he could truly tell Uranus from a hole in the sky. It’s a mess… but it’s also one of the few films of its kind to co-star Little People as full and equal participants in the story.

Guest reviewer Carol Borden from The Cultural Gutter takes a look at…

SATAN RETURNS

Satan Returns is a Wong Jing film written for his favorite actress, Chingmy Yau. It’s actually a pretty good role for Chingmy Yau. Before she stopped making films in 1999, Yau starred in a lot of Wong Jing films, many had some variation of “Rape” and “Angel” in the title. In fact, according to the HKMDb, her last film was, Raped By An Angel 4: Raper’s Union. (Which I have never seen, what with my presumption that there would be raping, but I wonder about it. Do scabs get beat up by union rapists? What are the dues?). With no rape, and very little nudity, Satan Returns is mild in comparison to the angel/rape films. Chingmy Yau doesn’t really play the pretty girl and the camera — and the comic relief — don’t leer at her breasts the entire film. So she gets to act.

To my surprise, I learned that none other than William Castle, ere his more famous Vincent Price days, had made this cheapie b-flick about the lives and loves of a midget. Bullies, crooks, femme fatales and circuses are all part of the grand tapestry which proves It’s a Small World.

Who doesn’t like a bit of emphatic contrast now and then?
 
Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (1958), in which a good stomping is ever so much more cathartic than a mere divorce…

The Giant Behemoth (1958), in which Eugene Lourie makes that dinosaur movie of his again…

Time Bandits (1981), in which there’s no way in hell I can adequately sum it all up in one sentence…

and…

Willow (1988), in which George Lucas stripmines the high fantasy genre every bit as thoroughly as he once stripmined sci-fi, but fails to achieve quite the same impact on pop culture at large.

Please note:  This is not the film I intended to review for this Roundtable. Unfortunately, my copy of the actual film has gone AWOL, which I didn’t notice until too late in the game. I will be reviewing that film as soon as I can find my DVD or (groan) buy another copy. In the meantime, please enjoy this cheaty filler!

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DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN (1971)

In an amusement park on Venice Beach, the last of the Frankensteins masquerades as Dr Durea, proprietor of the Creature Emporium. Durea is confronted by Count Dracula, who has dug up the original Frankenstein monster from the cemetery where it was buried by another scientist after he discredited Durea and crippled him. Dracula offers Durea the chance to revenge himself on his enemies by using the monster, in exchange for the miraculous serum developed by Durea from blood taken from people who have been decapitated and then brought back to life. Meanwhile, a Las Vegas entertainer falls for a middle-aged hippie while searching for her missing sister, one of the decapitees.

Confused? Then my work here is done.

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Small pile of stuff that built up like barnacles in the past week…

Story Of Wong Fei-Hong

One of the first true martial arts movies, Kwan Tak-hing assumes the role that would define his entire career, and most of his off-screen life as well.

I Don’t Want To Be Born

Because what Little People round table would be complete without a movie featuring a murderous newborn baby?

Zero Woman: Final Mission

Because what Little People round table would be complete without a movie featuring a sexual deviant midget in cargo shorts and Adidas Sambas?

Devil’s Dynamite

It’s Future Man vs hopping vampires out to get Chinese gambling king Steven Cox in a movie so convoluted and bad that you know it’s gotta be a Godfrey Ho/Thomas Tang production.

Master Of The Flying Guillotine

Jimmy Wang Yu tucks his arm into his shirt and beats up a blind guy in this kungfu classic

BioShock

Not a movie, but a video game that plays like the plot to a b-movie. You find yourself stranded in an art-deco undersea city that was meant to be a free-thinking anarcho-libertarian utopia. Unfortunately, by the time you arrive, everything has gone insane.

The movie I, Madman is evidence to the much-agreed film theory that it is the director and not the screenwriter who determines if a movie ultimately succeeds or not. While the screenplay has an underwritten first third, a lot of unanswered questions, and a fair share of unbelievable and ridiculous moments, director Tibor Takács somehow manages to take this flawed screenplay and make a movie that works.

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What’s the only thing better than a low, low budget Bela Lugosi film? A low, low budget Bela Lugosi film co-starring Angelo Rossitto.

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THE CORPSE VANISHES (1942)

Brides are collapsing at the altar, apparently dead, and their bodies subsequently being stolen. The only clue is a strange orchid, delivered anonymously to each of the victims before the ceremony. A spunky girl reporter follows this lead to the home of one Dr Lorenz, a former horticulturist who has turned to kidnapping and mad science in order to restore the youthful good looks of his screeching harridan of a wife.

Anything for a little peace.

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