Tag: martial arts

Bruce and Shaolin Kung-Fu A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Bruce and Shaolin Kung-Fu (1977) – A Movie A Day 2021 #57

My $1 Bruce and Shaolin Kung-Fu DVD

I’m back with another $1 kung fu DVD, and back with another Bruceploitation movie. If you’re wondering what Bruceploitation is, I wrote a little bit about it in my journal entry for Bruce vs. Bill, so go check that out. If you did read that entry, then you’ll already be little familiar with the star of today’s movie of the day, Bruce Le. Trying to track down the exact date of release for today’s movie, Bruce and Shaolin Kung-Fu, is a little tricky, because I’ve seen multiple dates listed across various sites, and there are at least two movies starring Bruce Le with this exact same title in various markets. It’s another instance of people naming kung fu movies whatever they wanted to in order to try to grab people’s attention.

If I’m looking at the correct information on the Hong King Movie Database, then the Google translation for the original Chinese title is Dharma Iron Finger Skill, but various English titles include Ching Wu & Shaolin Kung Fu, Fist of Fury Part 2, and the title on the DVD I have, Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu. To complicate matters, there’s another movie that is sometimes billed as a sequel to this with multiple similar titles, but some places have its year listed as being released prior to this movie. That’s not completely uncommon. The U.S. releases of Jackie Chan’s Operation Condor I and II were titled backwards from the original release order of the Armour of God movies which they were originally titled. But anyway, back to today’s movie.

Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu stars Bruce Le as Lee Ching Lung. So once again, the title is referencing the actor and not any character in the movie. Lee is a powerful martial artist and one of his master’s top students. One day, the Japanese military invades China and starts shutting down all of the martial arts schools and killing anyone who resists. Lee’s brother is killed, so Lee attempts to get revenge. Lee fights one of the Japanese military leaders and succeeds in defeating him, and the humiliation of defeat combined with his father’s disappointment causes the Japanese fighter to commit ritual suicide. The man’s father, the general of the Japanese troops, gathers a group of the best Japanese fighters to hunt and defeat Lee, so Lee escapes to South Korea where he begins to train with a friend of his master’s. Lee is quickly found though, and that leads to an increasingly dangerous series of battles. 

The story here is very similar to Young Hero which I wrote about yesterday, but I enjoyed today’s movie a little more. Part of that is because I like the main character Lee a whole lot more than I liked the main character of Young Hero. Also, the hero’s female counterpart in Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu doesn’t meet as much of a downer ending as the female lead did in yesterday’s movie. At least, I don’t think she did. The ending of Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu is bizarrely depressing, and it makes me think that the fates of certain characters might not be very good despite seeing them alive in their final on-screen moments.

The fights in Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu are fun mostly from a character perspective. As I’m writing this I can’t recall any specific scenes with neat set pieces of really amazing moves, but overall I enjoyed all the action. Bruce Le seemed to blatantly display lot more of Bruce Lee’s mannerisms in this movie than he did in Bruce vs. Bill, so that was fun. Also, one of the bad guys is Bolo Yeung, and I love that guy. Bolo Yeung is a huge body-builder looking guy, and he tends to play despicable bad guys. If you’ve seen Bloodsport, he’s the main bad guy, Chong Li. He doesn’t have a ton of screen time in Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu, but the time he has is memorable. 

Other than that, this is a pretty average kung fu movie. Fun for a late-watch, but nothing spectacular. It does make me want to check out more Bruce Le movies though. 

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Young Hero (1981) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Young Hero (1981) – A Movie A Day 2021 #55

Young Hero poster

After a brief break, I have rejoined my kung fu marathon. Today’s movie is another of the $1 DVDs I bought over the weekend, and it is titled Young Hero. The movie was distributed by the same company that put out the previous two kung fu movies I’ve written about so I don’t think there’s really a need to discuss the gloriously bad quality of the dubbed VHS they used as their source material. Nor do I really need to say anything about the DVD’s front cover containing images from some movie other than what is actually on the disc. With all of that left unsaid I can get right to the movie itself, and the movie itself is fun for what it is. 

In Young Hero, a group of Japanese fighters are beating up all the local kung fu masters and wrecking their schools. The Japanese fighters think Chinese kung fu is weak, and in the first part of the movie, none of the Chinese fighters have been able to prove otherwise. Master Fok and his family/students take a beating like everyone else, but they’re also determined to train harder so they can get revenge. Master Fok has multiple sons, most of whom are diligent in their training. One of his sons, the “young hero” of the movie, is a troublemaker. He tends to make poor decisions that reflect badly on himself and his family, and he’s really kind of a jerk. Master Fok forbids the troublemaking son from continuing his kung fu practices since he always gets into fights with random people, but as the trouble between Fok and the Japanese fighters worsens, the young hero must grow up and stand up for his family (and really, for Chinese kung fu as a whole). 

Young Hero DVD, not featuring the young hero on the cover.

As with most of these movies, the plot is an excuse to string together multiple fight scenes. It felt like there was an awful lot of fighting in this movie with very little downtime in-between. I’m not complaining though. The fights were mostly quite fun. There were some neat sequences especially towards the end of the movie that I enjoyed a lot. There’s a training sequence with the young hero and a young woman who has been adopted into the Fok family that takes place on a raft, and that’s pretty cool. There were also a good amount of two-on-one fights towards the end of the movie that were some of the best. A lot of the fights early tended to be of groups of people fighting all over that place, and they were fine, but the action was more unique and structured when it was down to just a few people. 

If I have a problem with Young Hero, it’s the young hero himself. He’s a real butt-hole for the first two-thirds of the movie, and even when he started to do the right thing, I still didn’t like him very much. My favorite character was the young woman, but even though it felt like she was being built up for an important role, in the end she was just used for motivation for the young hero and Master Fok. I thought her ending was undeserved, and it bummed me out.

Other than that though, if just for the near-constant action, I enjoyed Young Hero fine. Out of the kung fu movies I’ve watched this week, this one is my least favorite, but I’m sure I’ll watch again sometime.

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Bruce vs. Bill A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Bruce vs. Bill (1981) – A Movie A Day 2021 #53

The DVD I have featuring cover art of a scene not in the movie.

Continuing my multi-day kung fu movie marathon, today’s movie is Bruce vs. Bill. This is another of the movies I found for $1 at my local used DVD store, and like Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards, it’s a cheaply produced, dubbed, full frame, bad VHS rip onto a bare-bones DVD. This version of Bruce vs. Bill even has a fair amount of distortion on the top of the screen for about three-quarters of the movie from the VHS that was used as the source material. Just the way I like it. The cover art on the front of the DVD box and screen grab on the back aren’t even from Bruce vs. Bill, and I’m pretty sure the people pictured aren’t in the film either. But, there’s a guy wearing a yellow and black tracksuit like the one Bruce Lee wore in Game of Death on the front cover, and that’s 100% why they used the image. Though it’s late in the cycle, Bruce vs. Bill is still considered a Bruceploitation movie.

 If you’re unfamiliar with Bruceploitation, the word itself is a portmanteau of “Bruce” (as in Bruce Lee) and “exploitation.” It’s a sub-genre of martial arts movies that emerged in East and Southeast Asia after the death of Bruce Lee in 1973. Bruce Lee was (and still is) an icon, and his impact on the worlds of martial arts, film, and martial arts films cannot be understated. After his tragic death, many filmmakers began to capitalize on Bruce Lee’s worldwide popularity by making movies using actors who looked more or less like Bruce Lee (Lee-alikes), many of whom adopted some variation of Bruce Lee in part or in whole as their stage name. There are a wide variety of Bruceploitation movies out there, some blatant rip-offs of Lee’s movies, some adapting parts of his life whether real or completely fictional, and even movies that have nothing to do with Bruce Lee other than having a guy that looks vaguely like him in one of the starring roles. Bruce vs Bill falls into that last category. 

Bruce vs. Bill stars Bruce Le (not his real name, of course) as Chang, and Bill Louie (which I believe might be his real name) as Wang Chiao. Wang Chiao is a dishwasher at a restaurant, and he is highly skilled in martial arts. One night he stumbles across a man getting attacked by multiple thugs, so, being a good guy, he intervenes. The old man gets killed, but before he breathes his last breathe, the old man hands Wang Chiao a set of keys and asks him to deliver them to a man named Sung Kung. See, the keys open a safe containing one million dollars raised to help the citizens of the country, and the old man was going to pass the keys off to Sung Kung (who I think is in the government) the very next morning. Being a good guy (again), Wang Chiao promises to honor the dying man’s final request, but there are dangerous men who want the money for themselves. That makes Wang Chiao a target.

During one of many scenes featuring Wang Chiao fighting off groups of thugs trying to get the keys, Chang mistakes Wang Chiao for the aggressor. Just like in pretty much every superhero crossover story ever, misunderstanding leads to our two heroes battling over and over until they finally realize they’re actually on the same side. Sort of. Wang Chiao wants to do the right thing and get the money to the people it belongs to, but Chang doesn’t want any part of it. It’s too late though. Now Chang is also a target, and he and Wang Chiao must work together if they want to survive. 

Bruce vs Bill poster

I think it’s funny that the movie is titled Bruce vs. Bill even though neither actor is named Bruce or Bill in the movie itself, not even in the English translation. I Google translated the original Chinese title, and it came out as Fight for Hegemony which makes a lot more sense. But Bruceploitation is all about getting people to pay up to see the movie, and Bruce vs. Bill with a Bruce-Lee-alike on the cover probably worked well on English-speaking audiences. I mean, it worked on me. For $1 and about an hour and a half it worked. 

I thought the movie was pretty good. The two leads are charismatic, and the fight scenes are a lot of fun. The main villain is an ambiguous “foreigner” (as they refer to him in the movie), and he has a wonderfully terrible fake moustache. Like, it’s real bad. I love it. 

All the double and triple-crossing throughout the movie was fun as well. With one million dollars up for grabs to whomever can get their hands on the keys, it seems like almost every character could potentially double-cross anyone at any moment. Many of them do, but some of them don’t. I enjoyed trying to guess who would and wouldn’t turn, and who would live long enough to enjoy the fruits of all their punching, kicking, and some stabbing. 

I also quite enjoyed the villain’s henchman using small axes as their weapons at times. I’m sure the axes were inspired by the real like Axe Gang from Shanghai, but here it reminded me more of movies like the great Kung Fu Hustle. Bruce vs. Bill wasn’t the first movie to have an axe gang in it, and it certainly wasn’t the last, but I always enjoy a good fight scene with an axe gang versus one or two weaponless fighters. 

Overall I give the title of the movie and the artwork for the DVD I bought a good fist shake with a head shake that says “you got me this time,” and for the movie I give it a solid recommendation for fans of cheap and generic kung fu movies. Bruce vs. Bill isn’t a great movie and it breaks no new ground, but I enjoyed it for the whole hour and a half I watched. Oh yeah, the Bruce Lee guy, Chang, also has a pet bird that will occasionally narrate what’s happening with a word or two. So if you were on the fence about checking out the movie, that surely pushed you one way or the other.

I couldn’t find a trailer, but this is the full movie streaming (apparently) legally on YouTube. I’m pretty sure this is the exact same version of the movie I just watched. It even has the same distortion at the top of the screen.

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Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards (1980) – A Movie A Day 2021 #52

A copy of the DVD I now own for $1.

After being forced to stay indoors for the better part of a week because of terrible weather, I got out over the weekend and visited one of my favorite places: a used DVD store. I browsed for a while as usual, but I ended up mostly just raiding the $1 table. Apparently someone off-loaded a bunch of cheap kung fu DVDs recently, and some of them ended up on the dollar table. So, of course, I grabbed them, and the first one I chose to watch is titled Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards. The title immediately brought to mind Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master from 1978, and even though Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards isn’t as polished as Jackie Chan’s film, I quite enjoyed it.

Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards follows a young man named Chang Fung who works with his cousin and uncle at a noodle shop. Chang Fung goes away for a month to learn drunken kung fu from a master, Wu Sing, but when Chang Fung returns home, he discovers that his teacher has many dangerous enemies. When Chang Fung uses his newly-learned skills in public, his style is recognized, and he becomes a target for the many people who want to kill Wu Sing. Chang Fung’s life and family are in danger, and he has to fight his way through a series of deadly encounters before he can find peace.

The movie isn’t necessarily a comedy, but it is a fairly silly and funny movie. I think the nature of drunken kung fu makes it nearly impossible to make a movie featuring it without being at least partially a comedy. Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards may not be especially noteworthy when compared to countless other kung fu movies that came out around the same time, but it’s a lot of fun. The story meanders from scene to scene with the plot lurching in different direction just to get to the next action sequence or comedy bit, but that’s one of the reasons I love these kinds of movies. The characters and fights are fun, and that’s all I really need.

I started watching lots of cheap kung fu movies in my teens, and I definitely have a certain aesthetic I enjoy which is based on some of those movies I saw during that time. This was back in the days of VHS, and tons of kung fu movies were available on poorly produced tapes. That’s what I love. Poorly dubbed, full frame, grainy pictures and all. If I can get the movie on VHS now, that’s even better, but the handful of movies I picked up the other day are clearly just dumped onto a DVD from a bad VHS copy. You can even see a few tracking problems when the movie is starting up. I love it.

Of course I’ll watch kung fu movies in full widescreen with nice picture clarity and subtitles, and I prefer that for a lot of the better kung fu movies out there, but for late-night movie to relax to, cheesy and poorly distributed kung fu movies are a go-to choice for me. I have four more movies I picked up, so don’t be surprised if you see them pop up in some future write-ups sooner rather than later.

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Double Dragon A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Doube Dragon (1994) – A Movie A Day 2021 #47

Double Dragon poster

As a life-long video game nerd, you’d think I would’ve seen Double Dragon before now. I was just barely a teenager when the movie came out, so you would think an action movie based on a game series I was a fairly big fan of would be something I’d jump at the chance to see. Thinking back, I’m really not sure why I didn’t see Double Dragon back then. It could be because I did see Super Mario Brothers: The Movie, and even my young brain didn’t like it very much. Plus, I probably saw the images of how Abobo looks in the movie (he’s one of the bad guys in the game) and said “no thank you.” Whatever the reason, I didn’t see it until now. Was it worth the wait? No, but it is an okay comedy action movie even if it has little to do with what I know about the Double Dragon game series.

Double Dragon is a bout two brothers, Billy (Scott Wolf) and Jimmy Lee (Mar Dacascos), who end up on a mission to protect one-half on a magical double-dragon talisman from getting into the evil hands of Koga Shuko (Robert Patrick). The talisman bestows great power of mind and body to whoever possesses both halves, and he already has the “mind” half. Shuko’s ultimate goal is to rule the city of New Angeles, formerly Los Angeles before the “Big Quake” that wrecked the city and put half of it underwater. For some reason Double Dragon takes place 13 years in the future (which is 2007 for those who don’t want to math), and that allows the filmmakers to do whatever they want with regards to roaming street gangs and big silly fight scenes. So, Billy and Jimmy attempt to fight their way to taking Shoku’s half of the amulet while not losing the half they posses.

One thing I didn’t like about this movie was Abobo. In the games, Abobo is a big muscle man that is almost always a serious threat to the player. In the movie, he starts out as a slightly menacing gang leader, but then he turns into some sort of goofy special effect that has no real bearing on the story and is just there for comic relief. The muscle suit built for him is utterly ridiculous, and not in a good way. It doesn’t fit in with anything else in the movie, and it just looks bad. Abobo is easily my least favorite thing about Double Dragon.

It gets better from there. The cast is quite good with Robert Patrick as the main villain, Alyssa Milano as a nice gang leader and friend to the Lee brothers, and Julia Nickson as Billy and Jimmy’s guardian. They all give varying degrees of silly performances based on the material they’re given, but they’re all very fun to watch. There are also a few cameos from people I guess the director though might still be famous in 13 years. Vanna White, George Hamilton, and Andy Dick all show up in the movie, so that was pretty fun too. Oh yeah, and Al Leong is one of Shoku’s henchmen. Al Leong has a reputation for being a henchman in tons of movies in the 80s and 90s, and I always love seeing him pop up unexpectedly.

I also thought the fight scenes were fun overall. There were big sets and locations for the actors to play around in, so that helped keep the fights fun and varied throughout the movie. It’s not the hard-hitting martial arts action you might expect if you’re a fan of the game series, but I think the director achieved what he wanted to with the action.

The director, Jim Yukich, made a movie directed at kids. He wanted to keep the characters fun and funny, and he wanted the action to be light on overt violence. I think he achieved that, though whether that was the best approach is certainly up for debate. In 1994, I think a lot of adults still saw video games as kids toys despite the demographic being much larger (and older) than that. Also, there was a Double Dragon cartoon going on as the movie was released, so it’s understandable that the people in charge of the movie might want to make something that would appeal to the same demographic as the cartoon. But games like Mortal Kombat were already out there, and the Mortal Kombat movie would read its audience better about a year after Double Dragon had been released. I think the core audience for Double Dragon was misread, and the movie suffered or it.

I mean, it’s not a great movie, and I’m not really trying to debate the awful reviews it’s gotten over the years. But it is kind of fun. Double Dragon is a silly action movie about magic and kicking. If you just cut out the scenes with Abobo, I think it’s fine. Robert Patrick’s performance is definitely a big draw, and although he doesn’t quite reach the levels of exquisite absurdity that Raul Julia did in his own turn as a video game villain in Street Fighter (also released in 1994), Robert Patrick looks like he’s having fun hamming it up on screen.

I do think Double Dragon would have been so much better if it hadn’t tried to complicate things with a post-apocalyptical ancient-Chinese-magic sci-fi-tinged story. The plot of the original game is fight through a bunch of gangs to save her. Simple. Sometimes simple is all you need, and you can let the fights speak for themselves. Instead, they went the Super Mario Brothers route and changed everything which alienated the fans of the games. Like me. It only took me over 25 years to come around and finally give it a watch.

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Firecracker (1981) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Firecracker (1981) – A Movie A Day 2021 #29

Firecracker poster (which has little to do with what’s in the movie)

For today’s movie, I went back to Tubi to scan through some more movie posters. I was in an action mood, so I started my search browsing through their martial arts movies. I didn’t remember Tubi’s selection of martial arts movies being all that great, especially when compared to their fairly deep B-horror-movie choices, but I guess it’s been a while since I looked. I spent a decent amount of time looking through a nicely sized list of martial arts films from my favorite decades for the genre, the 70s and 80s. Once again I let the cover art speak for itself, I settled on a movie from 1981 titled Firecracker, and I might have found another fun rabbit hole to venture down with some of my upcoming movie choices.

Firecracker stars Jillian Kesner as Susanne Carter, a 6th-degree black belt in karate who travels to the Philippines on a mission. Susanne is searching for her journalist sister, Bonnie, who has gone missing while working on a story. A clue leads Susanne to a man named Chuck, a member of an organized crime group dealing in drugs and underground fights to the death. As Susanne gets closer to Chuck in an attempt to gain information about her sister, she becomes entangled in dangerous plot of drug deals gone bad, back-stabbing, and a fair amount of bloody murder. For Susanne, the only way out may be through a whole bunch of punching and kicking.

I had a lot of fun with Firecracker. It’s my kind of b-movie martial arts action. The plot is simple enough, and there are lots and lots of excuses for fight scenes to break out. And sometimes the movie doesn’t even need an excuse. Fights will sometimes just break out for no reason, and I’m not complaining.

If you’ve seen movies like Kickboxer or Bloodsport (and really, about a hundred other movies with the same formula), you’ll know mostly what to expect here. A foreigner (often American) journeys to an east/south-east Asian country, they get mixed up in some local crime, many fights are had, and it all leads up to a climactic battle with everything on the line. Firecracker even has a scene where the American (Susanne in this case) goes out into the wilderness to be trained by a wise old man. It’s classic stuff, and it’s great.

What I didn’t necessarily expect from Firecracker were some of the more brutal and bizarre scenes. To set the tone in the opening scene, we see Chuck fighting in some sort of underground competition (which we learn all about later). The fight is fun, then it takes a turn for the brutal when Chuck stabs his opponent with a spear, murdering him in a violent and bloody spectacle. Not every fight in the movie ends up that way, but there are a few gore effects throughout the movie that would fit right in with any number of b-level slasher movies.

There are some really bizarre scenes as well. Two in particular stand out to me as being either incongruous with the rest of the movie, or just plain weird considering the context of the situation. I won’t spoil them specifically, but I will give a generic description so you’ll know what I’m talking about if you watch it. The first is a scene that feels 100% like the movie was screened for producers or someone else with money, and they said the movie needed more blood and nudity. The scene happens about halfway through the movie, and it has absolutely nothing to with anything else in the story. It features a few more graphic murders, and it’s clearly an overt effort to titillate the audience with Susanne’s clothing being gradually removed as she fights against two attackers. None of the other fight scenes are like that, and it really stands out in a weird way for that reason. The other bizarre scene is a love scene later in the movie. I won’t talk about what happens, but I was just confused because it happens at a strange time for the characters. Plus, I didn’t think one of the characters felt that way to begin with. Oh yeah, and there are knives and a cat involved (sequentially, not at the same time).

So yeah, there’s some weirdness in Firecracker, but maybe that’s a good thing. It definitely helps the movie stand out, and I can’t say I’ll soon forget it. It also makes me want to check out the director’s other work. The director, Cirio H. Santiago, has directed 100 movies according to his IMDB page, and I’ve already seen that he has a few on Tubi. I might just have to check those out.

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The King of Fighters A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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The King of Fighters (2010) – A Movie A Day 2021 #18

KOF DVD cover/poster

I love video games, but I’ve never really gotten into fighting games. I understand the appeal, and I’ve tried to get into certain fighting game franchises over the years, but at a certain point I always get bored and put the game away forever. Even the initial Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat crazes that happened when I was young couldn’t instill a love of fighting games within me. So for me, a movie based on a not-as-popular-but-still-probably-good fighting game franchise such as The King of Fighters holds no nostalgia value nor any particular affection for the characters. To me, The King of Fighters might as well be any other low budget martial arts/action movie, and as such, I think it’s pretty okay.

The thing that really drew me to want to watch The King of Fighters is the cast. Specifically, seeing Ray Park and Maggie Q on the cast list made this an easy decision for my daily movie. I’ve been a fan of Ray Park since he first appeared as Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, and I’ve been watching more and more Maggie Q movies over the past year as I become a bigger fan of hers as well. The rest of the cast is good and fine, but I’m glad Maggie Q and/or Ray Park were in nearly every scene. 

As I understand it, the The King of Fighters game series is based on a fighting tournament. I’m sure the various characters each have their own background stories that play out as you, the player, progress through more and more fights, but at its core the game is about a tournament. That sounds like an easy enough premise for an action movie, but it’s also a premise that has been done countless times. I suppose the makers of the The King of Fighters movie wanted to add more originality to their story, so what we get instead of a tournament is a sci-fi/fantasy adventure with a man named Rugal (Ray Park) trying to take over the world. At least, I think that’s what he’s trying to do. Regardless, Rugal is bad and must be stopped.

Let me back up a bit though. The main character of the movie is Mai Shiranui (Maggie Q). When we first see Mai, she uses a Bluetooth-style headset to transport herself to another dimension where she fights some guy in some friendly competition (judging by their banter). This is the King of Fighters tournament. Mai wins the fight, and she touches a glowing orb which transports her back to our dimension where almost no time has passed. We don’t learn about the alternate dimension stuff right away, and the rules regarding traveling back and forth remain unclear for a very long time, but that’s what’s happening in that opening scene.

Mai’s first fight is technically the only tournament match we see in the entire movie. After that, Rugal steals some ancient artifacts which are tied to the alternate dimension, and he attempts to use the artifacts to summon Orochi, an ancient being of unlimited power represented on-screen by a floating ball of snakes. Rugal’s plan is put on hold when he realizes he lacks an artifact needed to take Orochi’s power. Rugal’s backup plan is to lure other tournament fighters into the alternate dimension so he can take over their minds and use them to help him get the final artifact. Meanwhile, Mai is also on the trail of the artifact, and that leads her to Kyo Kusanagi, the last in line in the legendary Kusanagi clan and the key to defeating Orochi. 

That’s just about enough plot setup. I think you get the idea of where this is headed. Mai ends up assembling a group of people to fight Rugal, then they all end up battling in a climactic, multi-layered fight sequence. The big final battle is very entertaining in a lot of ways, but the trek to get there isn’t nearly as fun. Everything I explained above is only part of the complicated story that unfolds in the first hour of the movie. There’s a lot more going on, mostly interpersonally between Mai and her group, and a lot of it feels unnecessary. That feeling was confirmed for me when I ended up enjoying the final thirty minutes of The King of Fighters. What that tells me is there should have been less mystical mumbo jumbo and more punching and kicking. 

To be fair, there are fight scenes sprinkled throughout the first hour of the movie, and they’re mostly a good time. Ray Park is fun as an over-the-top villain, and he can absolutely fight. There’s a lot of goofiness in Rugal’s personality, but that’s fine. As long as he beats people up and it looks cool, I’m fine with it. All that said, the action doesn’t really kick off until just past the hour mark. By then you might have given up on The King of Fighters, but if you’ve stuck around, then you’re in for a treat. Well, maybe not a treat, but you are in for a neat series of fights. 

One thing I thought was kind of funny is just how much this movie feels like it should have been made in the nineties. And I’m not even talking about the special effects which are just okay. A lot of what I’m referring to has to do with the way nearly every scene was shot. I don’t know if the film crew lost their tripods or what, but it felt like there are almost no level shots in the movie (except near the end when they decided to mimic to look of two fighters squaring off in one of the games). The King of Fighters has Dutch angles for days, and you might find yourself tilting your head in response to the near-constant angling of the camera. And yeah, I know Dutch angles aren’t exclusive to the nineties, but those combined with the cheap effects and fast-motion pans just gave me that feeling.

But now I’m just looking for stuff to pick apart. Overall, The King of Fighters isn’t a great movie, but the final fights were fun. I don’t know how closely the movie sticks to its video game source material, so fans of the games may have a much more extreme reaction than I had to it. I understand that Kyo is quite popular and is one of the main characters from the games, but the way the movie is structured really made me feel like Mai was the main character. I guess Kyo had to be the one to rise up in the final battle and become the focus, but for me, not being a fan of the games, I felt a little cheated that Mai took somewhat of supporting role in the end. But that’s another nitpick. Maggie Q and Ray Park were good, so I was happy enough to watch the movie.

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Velvet Smooth A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal Entry / MoviesLeave a Comment on Velvet Smooth A Movie A Day Journal Entry

Velvet Smooth (RiffTrax version) – A Movie A Day #80

I love Mystery Science Theater 3000. I started watching the show during Mike’s reign as the main host, so Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy became my favorite hosting trio. So naturally, I became a huge fan of RiffTrax when they started up a bunch of years ago. I go to the live shows (via theater), and I regularly watch their streaming movies and shorts online. I also regularly watch old episode of MST3K. And by “regularly,” I mean at least weekly if not more often.

If you’re not familiar with RiffTrax, it’s a site where Mike, Bill, and Kevin do comedic commentary tracks over movies and shorts where they generally riff on the content. They also have guests including former MST3K cast members do riffs. It’s one of the greatest things on the internet, and you should definitely check it out if you haven’t already: https://www.rifftrax.com/

All that said, I’ll watch anything they put out. It’s just a bonus when the movie ends up being something I’d watch without the RiffTrax crew sitting there with me. Velvet Smooth isn’t a good movie, but it is something I would absolutely watch on its own.

Velvet Smooth is the title, and it’s also the name of the lead character. Ms. Smooth is some sort of detective (I think). She’s called in by King, the leader of some sort of crime syndicate, when his criminal activities are disrupted by some other criminals. Guys in masks are going around and kicking and punching all of King’s men, so Velvet Smooth is tasked with finding out who’s behind it. Velvet gathers her small crew of kung-fu-fighting females, and the three of them start shaking down the streets. 

I’ve been intrigued by the blaxploitation era for a long time, but I haven’t seen nearly enough films in the genre. Velvet Smooth isn’t the most well-made movie in that canon, but is absolutely fun to watch. The fight choreography is laughable, and that’s really the biggest draw for me. The plot and acting are fine, standard fare, but the fight scenes are glorious. People clearly miss punches and kicks only to have their opponent take a fall, assailants politely wait their turn in the background before attacking, and the interactions look like a first-time half-speed run-through rather than the final, filmed scene. I love it. 

I also had to roll the movie back at one point, because I saw, for a spit-second, what I thought was a cameraman. Sure enough, in a scene fairly late in the movie, there’s a full shot of a camera guy just standing there. Other movies from the era have had similar production issues, Dolemite being a great example of having the boom mic in what seems like half the shots of the movie. But Velvet Smooth did even better and got a full-body shot of a cameraman in the film while he was holding the camera and shooting the scene. It was great.

As much fun as I had with Velvet Smooth, the RiffTrax crew helped make it even better. I know I’ll be watching this many more times in the future.

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