Hong Kong action day

[avram]

Erik hosted a Hong Kong action movie festival at his place today, with Josh and Lisa bringing the DVDs. We saw Iron Monkey (great), Drunken Master 2 (really good), and (I think) part of a really awful dub of Drunken Master 6, and something very silly with three ass-kicking women and an invisible robe and a scheme to steal children and make a new Chinese emperor. There was another movie the others watched before I got there, and at the end we saw the first two episodes of Shamanic Princess, a pretty good anime series BSD had brought.

It seemed to me that the martial arts was choreographed at a much slower speed in the earlier movies, with longer pauses after moves. I suspect that audiences have gotten more sophisticated as time has gone on, better at being able to read rapid-paced action.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Ooops -- I was scooped on the title of The Heroic Trio. That's a good movie, I've only seen it on tape, though. I like Iron Monkey quite a bit, even saw it in the theater in a recent rerelease. Yeah!

I hadn't noticed what you mention about the choreography. I HAVE noticed, though, that individual takes and cuts of martial arts choreography have gotten shorter and shorter, which I dislike. I like the longer takes of the early 90s/late 80s movies more than I like the super-edited style of today.

[mneme]

The Heroic Trio is ok -- I kinda liked it despite itself...except for the post-climax fight (anyone who's seen it will know what I mean), which is just silly -- on reflextion, it does work on a mythopeic level [that evil must be defeated in your heart or it will control you -- you can't just have your friends fight its external manifestation], but it just sinks the pacing of the movie, and its attempt to use hollywood-style special effects in what is otherwise a classically Hong Kong look Just Doesn't Work.

The first Chan movie we saw was, indeed, the original _Drunken Master_, dubbed into english, and was -way- embarassing; based on what I saw there, I'm not at all even sure I want to see the original, since it was both the martial arts and the acting -and- the (incredibly bad, but all american) sound that was bad. _Drunken Master II_ wasn't nearly as bad...but it was worse, IMO, than any of the Jet Li classics -- I'm not actually bothered by the fact that it plays things for laughs (though I do find more value in a Wong Fei Hong movie that gives a somewhat credible view of a national hero than one that shows a laughable anti-hero; the Last Hero in China Jet Li version of a Drunken Master handled things much better, with some funny-good martial arts (like the Chicken/Centipede fight), as well as a character who, while he was a master of Drunken Kung Fu, was also credibly an upstanding member of society (and ok, I liked the bondage scene)).

The playlist was:

1. The Tai Chi Master (good martial arts, decent plot, which does have some confused/dead time toward the center -- the finale is good, though. I don't like what it does with time.
   
2. Drunken Master, american dub (bad)
   
3. Drunken Master II (good, not plot related to Drunken Master [more a re-"Master"ing of it; the plot appears very similar; note that this has a much less mature view of Chinese/foriegn relations than the Once Apon a time in China movies, which are also covering the Wong Fei Hong ground, but IMO much better)
   
4. The Heroic Trio (also covered) -- does contain Michelle Yeoh, who contiues to kick ass, but did have some serious weakness
   
5. Iron Monkey (amazingly great, but most people already know that. I do think it's worth it to have a chinese-done translation, which this was, even though the grammar isn't as good as the Tarantino translation, since the flavoring makes more sense in some places; I'll still want to get the Tarintino, though, since it's clearly superior (and the sound track is much better).
   
6. That anime princess thing, that was a lot of fun.
   

I'd have liked to screen some of the better things (aside from The Tai Chi Master) which I'd seen before, all of which were better than Drunken Master, but we kinda ran out of time: Fong Sai Yuk and Wing Chun are both quite good (Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh vehicles, respectively). Other things we didn't see included Fong Sai Yuk II, Once apon a time in China IV (not Jet Li, nor is V, which I don't own), and Once apon a time in China and America (does have Jet Li -- I want to see this one).

So I guess there were 4+1/2 (we didn't watch more than 20 minutes of Drunken Master, but did spend an hour watching the Anime thing) movies watched, which is pretty good.