The Legend Of An Erotic Movie Star (1993) – review

The Legend Of An Erotic Movie Star aka The Ledgen Erotic Movie Star aka 北妹皇后 (1993)

 

Hong Kong LaserDisc cover

Liu Chi-Tak stars as Hung Chan, a typical ditzy Mainlander who leaves her husband in China to go and make her fortune as an actress in HK. She ends up being forced to be a hooker before meeting Amy (Nam Yan) and finally getting an interview with a director. After making a successful softcore VHS movie she tries to move into the film world.

This movie is quite unlike most HK CAT III movies in that it’s quite funny and lighthearted and has genuinely likeable characters and an engaging storyline. Hung comes across as a very likable, cheerful character who avoids being dumb and annoying. Her character’s nativity results in people taking advantage of her good heart but, unusually for a CAT III film, the film has a happy ending.

There are some interesting ‘behind the scenes’ style scenes where Hung learns the ropes. One scene involves her in a threesome with a man and a woman, but they pay absolutely no attention to her. Such scenes are similar to those found in Temptation Summary II, which is also about the making of CAT III movies. One particularly amusing scene late on in the film is when she is kidnapped and the kidnappers decide to try to get her deported, but the police aren’t interested. In their desperation they end up phoning the post office, RSPCA and even the church, none of whom believe that the famous star is an illegal immigrant.

I really liked the character of Amy too. Nam Yan is a total babe. Her character is great. She constantly swears and helps Hung throughout the movie, although at times she goes a bit crazy. Liu Chi-Tak also looks amazing throughout. Some parts of the story are told via title cards, which is quite frustrating as they’re not translated into English. According to my Chinese friend however, there’s not much to them other than “And then her career took off!” which is pretty obvious from watching anyway.

While the movie isn’t mean spirited like most CAT III productions, the inclusion of a rape scene was totally unnecessary and almost ruined the film for me. Thankfully everyone ends up happy, and the end was even slightly heart-warming!

I would have given this an 8.5/10 as I really enjoyed it but the aforementioned rape brings it down to a 7/10.

 

Dreaming the Reality (1993) – Film Review

Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima as highly trained killers who have been trained since they were children by their foster father. After they botch a mission and a bunch of school kids get killed, Moon is haunted by guilt. Yukari, as always is the cool one and although she is sympathetic towards the kids, she doesn’t let it interfere with her work. Meanwhile, in Thailand Hui and her brother (Rocky played by Ben Lam) are struggling to get by and Rocky is forced to become a kickboxer to earn money. Yukari and Moon are sent on a mission to assassinate an Interpol agent who has evidence against their foster father, but Moon becomes separated from her sister after suffering amnesia in an accident and ends up in the company of Hui and her brother.

This film has earned some great reviews online but I must admit I view it as a bit of a miss-fire. After a great set up the film introduces Hui and her brother through a series of long, drawn out and under cranked kickboxing scenes which drag the film to a halt. The time could have been better spent fleshing out the main characters and it feels like a wasted opportunity in that sense as by the end of the movie we really know nothing about Hui or her brother except for the fact that she’s an annoying, greedy loudmouth and he’s a bit slow. Hui annoyed the shit out of me for most of the movie until she becomes a bad ass at the end. She reminded me of one of those market stall women you get here in HK constantly barking orders and cussing people with a cigarette hanging out her mouth.

Yukari and Moon are fantastic as usual and there’s some excellent fight scenes involving the two but the film really could have benefited by spending more time on the two leads rather than the supporting cast. I honestly found myself dozing off during the scenes with Hui and the film would have been much better had they concentrated on action. Disappointing.

5.5/10

Creds to comeuppance reviews for the screenshot

Watch online-

 

ATV World commercial break (1990)

Another one taken from a VHS tape I discovered.

Lethal Panther (aka Deadly China Dolls) (1990) – Film review

Sibelle Hu plays a cop working for the HK branch of the CIA who investigating money counterfeiters operating in the Philippines. Meanwhile, the paths of two female assassins cross when they are ordered to kill one another to cover up two separate assassinations. one from Japan (Yoko Miyamoto) and one from the Philippines (Maria Jo)

This film is basically a rip off of two of John Woo’s most famous movies, The Killer and A Better Tomorrow with elements of Naked Killer thrown in for good measure. The film shamelessly swipes scenes from both films (Maria Jo goes “Mark Gor” on a restaurant full of goons in super slow-mo, her brother is basically a poor man’s Chow Yun Fat who plays harmonica etc) with the plot revolving around the assassination of a gang leader by his bratty nephew who wants to take over his counterfeiting business. Just like in The Killer, there’s even a middle man between the assassin and the gangs who pay her to kill who has trouble holding a gun!

There are some great action scenes in this film, with many shoot outs and some good kung fu. One scene I particularly enjoyed involved both assassins on separate missions, which are inter-cut highlighting their mirrored lives. The final battle in which Jo teams up with her younger brother to take on the nephew is entertaining if uninspired. The film has some very nice camera work, with a heavy emphasis on slow-mo, but is sorely lacking in originality and flair.

There’s also random sex scenes thrown in (hence the Cat III rating) which feel forced and the film is surprisingly gory, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is a B-movie after all and one expects the “three Bs” – boobs, blood and bullets!

The film suffers from a few slower scenes, hilariously bad dubbing and inappropriate use of music from the “Halloween” soundtrack, but at least it actually attempts to make the audience care about the assassins, giving Maria Jo in particular a fleshed out background. Speaking of which, Jo is beautiful and steals every scene in the film. Sibelle Hu however is annoying as the HK cop on the trail of the counterfeiters and thankfully is barely in the movie at all.

Overall an enjoyable girls with guns action film. Not groundbreaking, but nevertheless entertaining.

7.5/10

Watch online –

BBC Newsnight – Hong Kong

First post in 6 months! I scored a huge collection of VHS tapes from a woman and there’s a bunch of Hong Kong related stuff on them. I’m gonna start posting them here.

Lung Yeuk Tao Heritage Trail

A few months ago myself and the Mrs I took the blue line to Fanling and went on the Lung Yeuk Tao heritage trail. We could have gotten a mini bus to the start of the trail but we decided to walk instead. In hindsight this wasn’t such a good idea as the trail was fairly long and it was very hot.

This is definitely the best heritage trail on the Discover Hong Kong website that we’ve done. There was loads of lush grass and overgrowth and beautiful views of the nearby mountains. The historical walls and buildings were cool too although admittedly after a while they all began to look the same.

That said, I’d definitely recommend this hidden treasure.

Tsung Kyam Church

Ma Wat Wai

Low Wai

Tang Chung Ancestral Hall

 

Lethal Panther 2 (1993) – Film review

Lethal Panther 2 (1993) aka 格殺令 aka “Lethal Panther” (UK) aka “Blood and Guts”
(My Way Film Co., Dir. Philip Ko)

Personal favourite of mine Yukari Oshima plays a Japanese Interpol agent sent to Manilla on the case of some Japanese terrorists with ties to a local gang. Quite what the gang actually do aside from randomly killing people isn’t made very clear but its something to do with arms smuggling. Anyway, Yukari teams up with the Hong Kong police (represented here by Sharon Kwok) and a tough guy bad-ass gwailo played by Edu Manzano. Family members are shot, the good guys are betrayed, and it all comes down to a battle between cops and the terrorists.

Man this film was bad. Completely uninspired shite. Shot in the Philippines for what looks like about $10US, the film has some of the worst editing I’ve EVER seen which completely ruins the already sub-par action scenes. The action scenes are hampered even further by the fact they used wire-work (very poor wire-work at that) for almost every fight, making them look unrealistic and dumb. There’s a lot of gun-play too, but it’s so poorly edited you won’t care. But the film really does try to make you care; after the first 10 minute action scene (probably the highlight of the movie) we get scene after scene of boring exposition carried by our hero Edu Manzano. Edu is a terrible actor/fighter who has zero screen presence. The entire time watching I just wanted to skip past his dreadfully boring scenes and get to Yukari, who ultimately has only a small role in this. She has Sharon Kwok was completely underutilized and they look like they couldn’t care less.

The film picks up a bit half way through when the gang order a crazed assassin to start picking off the cops, but then we get back into story telling mode and, oh god, Edu is trying to act again. It seems that every female side-character who meets Edu is doomed. Anyway, there are a few okay action scenes; the fairly decent opening, a supermarket fight (which contains a wince inducing moment where some poor stunt man is thrown out of a window from the 1st floor down to the ground) and the finale which takes place in a house (to the ‘Terminator’ theme!) and has Yukari doing a wire-assisted hurricanrana on some poor sod.

This could have had potential as a “so bad its good” movie but it’s poor story, characterisation, script and editing rob it even of that dubious honour. A pile of turd.

3/10 (1 star for Oshima’s cute haircut)

Watch online here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSGzXX2sVmA

Thanks to hkmdb.com for the pic and the Chinese title.

Trip to Tap Mun

Last weekend a friend was visiting so we decided to go to Tap Mun (Grass Island) as it’s one of the more secluded islands in Hong Kong. We took the ferry from the pier near University MTR (forgot the name) for about 90 minutes and arrived mid afternoon. The island has a very small town consisting of a few seafood restaurants and family-owned convenience stores.

The main sights are Balancing Rock and a lookout post, both of which are easily accessible and require little ‘hiking ‘ to get there. Huge spiders though!

Of course with a name like Grass Island you’d expect some grass wouldn’t ya? Well you’re in luck as there is a ton of it. And cows! Very thin cows, mind you but still. One thing that was lovely was the constant breeze on then hills which allowed us to cool down in the melting heat.

Drinking in the streets (lazy post)

One thing I particularly like about Hong Kong is the ability to legally drink on the street. Don’t want to pay $200 for a whiskey and coke at a trendy bar? NO PROBLEM! Just pop along to Club 7-Eleven and get some drinks for 1/10 of the price, drink them outside the venue and then go inside pissed up and ready to party.

Then again, I rarely ever go to clubs these days.

Last Saturday was the San Miguel beer festival in Tsim Sha Tsui. We had been at work all morning and decided to have an afternoon/evening of decadence. We started drinking in Causeway Bay at a Sichuan restaurant and then proceeded to drink our way to the Wan Chai ferry and continued once we were in Tsim Sha Tsui. All during the day! Waaa! If this was England we’d have gotten dodgy looks or even been nicked…but not in Hong Kong!

The details are a bit blurry but after looking at my phone, it appears we met weird clowns, listened to live music, I engaged in a 30 minute phone call with my buddy in Japan (check out his blog here) and (predictably) we ended up in a darts bar on Hart, Avenue in TST. Oh, I also had a wee in a back alley and took lots of photos of disgusting eggs being disposed in the only way imaginable in Hong Kong….hoy ’em doon the drain.

So yeah, another reason why Hong Kong is great; drinking in the streets!

Killer Clownz From Outer Space

 

Scary Gwailo clown.

Mmmmm salmonella river.

 

“Diven’t worry ‘boot the eggs man. I’ll wash the bas’tads doon the drain wiv the waata, man”

Dare you to drink it.

There was some music at the beer festival but I decided to listen to my iPhone instead.

Smoking area

24 hour McDonald’s. Get in.

Just curious…