Schmollywood Babylon

The Second Coming (Herman Yau & Tin Chi Ng, 2014)

I’ve said it many times, if it wasn’t for Jackie Chan I’m sure many people out there never would have discovered Hong Kong (and in general, asian) cinema. The insanity going on in those movies was an eye-opener for me, even if they’re super-mega mainstream and quite silly. But boy, those fights! Those stunts? Crazy ideas flowing from every direction, and none of that silly, boring kill your darlings stuff. Starting with Jackie also made me find out about Chow-Yun Fat and John Woo, Golden Harvest… and maybe most important for this review, Shaw Brothers. If you haven’t seen a horror movie produced by Shaw Brothers you haven’t seen horror. They set of a trend that’s kinda still is going on, black magic - which means larvas, worms, snakes, menstrual blood, skin diseases, sex and violence. Everything mixed into one fucked-up hot and spicy gratin.

I’m not gonna lie to you and claim I’m an expert on neither Herman Yau or category III films from Hong Kong, but I’ve seen my fair share of vintage productions in this genre and therefore I felt I had to buy The Second Coming when I recently found it on DVD. It’s, what I understand, Yau’s return to the genre that made his career (I haven’t seen 2007’s Gong Tau yet). The question is of course, does he still have it in him? That darkness, that gory disturbing darkness? Let’s see…

Maggie Siu and Kenny Wong is Jeng and Ming, a couple with a dark past. A long time ago Jeng was raped and she tried to abort the child herself, but fails. Ming takes a bloody revenge on the rapist, but no one discovers what he did. Now they’re a reasonably happy family with a teenager daughter, Lucy (Joey Leong), the result of the rape, and a slightly older son, Sunny (Donald Li) studying to be a doctor. One day Lucy discovers a buried glass jar not far from their house, and opens it. And that unleashes hell on the family. Lucy behaves more and more bizarre, strange accidents happen and soon they’re all on the brink to disaster! Is it a possession? A ghost? A demon? Well, watch the movie and you will find out!

During my research for The Second Coming (originally released in 3D actually) I found mostly negative reviews, but I guess that’s because they’re all comparing it to Yau’s earlier works in the genre, which all were a lot more violent and sleazy. Here we have a pretty mainstream category III (the 2D version is rated IIB, which states “Level Two-B: Not Suitable for Young Persons and Children. The Government suggests parental guidance when watching the film.”), and it is a lot tamer than I’ve seen before - but I still liked this movie. It’s really nothing special, but the story works fine and Yau is a great storyteller. This also mean it’s not especially graphic, but I’m pretty sure it’s not so tame compared to similar American movies. We still get a nasty abortion, while not graphic it’s still brutal, a rape, a crushed dog and a quite disturbing supernatural entity. Plus blood and cuts.

If there’s something I didn’t like….it’s something I can’t reveal here. But I never liked that specific idea (seen in way too many movies), but it kinda works pretty good here anyway and gives a tragic, touching twist to it all. It’s not bad, it’s fine. But it kinda bugs me.

What really sells the movie is the actors, all are excellent! Totally convincing performances set in a realistic lived-in location and with a nice balance between melodrama, mystery and horror. One of the highlights is veteran Hong Kong actress Siu Yam-Yam, famous for her works in the 70’s. Nowadays she have a very special look, which just adds to the edginess of her persona. I nice surprise seeing her doing a Zelda Rubinstein in Poltergeist (more or less).

The Second Coming might not be an extreme movie, and if you’re a hardcore CatIII fan you might be disappointed. But I found the story good and the cast excellent, so it’s something I really can recommend. Maybe it’s a good starter if you wanna get into the genre but not start with the most extreme production.

Kongsploitation: Goliathon (Meng Hua Ho, 1977)

More known as The Mighty Peking Man, I kinda prefer the Goliathon. I mean, Peking has nothing to do with the story ("Colossus of Congo" is even worse, a titled used in parts of Europe)! Goliathon is a damn fine monster-name, which invokes both Godzilla and Gorilla and just sounding very cool. I've always felt confused while watching it. No, I'm not feeling straight vibes just becaues there's a half-naked women in more or less every scene! It's more because it's so damn cool, but still have the most boring first part every in a movie! EVER! 

It sounds fine. Somewhere in the Indian Himalayas a giant ape lives. His best friend is a stunning blonde, Russian actress Evelyn Kraft - with hardly any clothes on - and they live happily together close to where Evelyn once crashed together with her parents and now is a female Tarzan of some kind. But a couple of Hong Kongnese adventurers have heard about the ape and travels there, captures it and the adventure can being... no, not yet. Because first Evelyn and Danny Lee must fall in love and endless scenes of nothingness. Which goes on forever. In eternity. 

And then the ape is caught, delivered to Hong Kong and the fun can begin!

It feels terrible to say this, but that first half... with the romance... I mean, it shouldn't be there. It should be deleted, destroyed. Movies like this should not be allowed to be boring! But once you get through that, it turns into a helluva fun movie. The special effects, for example, is more or less up there with the Godzilla-films. At least the miniatures, which was supervised with people from Toho. So it's not surprising it looks so good! The monster-suit... it looks okay, but quite freaky. The face looks a bit too human to feel comfortable to look at. It's not a cute ape, like yesterday's King Kong! 

At least there's a lot of action. Buildings and bridges destroyed by angry ape, people running like they starred in a Japanese kaiju movie from the monster... and Evelyn's nipples have  a tendency to escape from their nest when you least expect it. At least when she's running. And she does that a lot.

This time I also watched it with the original language, which I guess is Cantonese or something. It hardly makes the film more serious, but it's easier to accept the craziness than when watching the infamous English version released in the US on DVD, under the Mighty Peking Man title. Maybe the English helped the first half a little bit, because of the cheesy dialogue - but I doubt I'll ever see that version again. Goliathon is just a lot more closer to what the original intention with the movie was suppose to be. 

Not counting the boring parts, Goliathon is a fun, fun, fun rip on the Dino De Laurentiis King Kong from the year before. When it's monster action it's really good monster action. The miniatures look fine and for you dykes and straight men out there, I guess Evelyn can be to some help while watching it!

The Protector (James Glickenhaus, 1985)

It took many years for Jackie Chan to get a break in the US. It started with the very uneven Battle Creek Brawl (why do people think it's a good thing making him fight against heavy, motionless giants - it automatically lacks the energy) and a year later in Cannonball Run and three years later in Cannonball Run II, both produced by Golden Harvest - but featuring Jackie in just glorified cameo roles. But in 1985 it would happen: The Protector! A big budget action film, directed by the successful James Glickenhaus, co-starring professional slob Danny Aiello and shot in both New York and Hong Kong. Once again produced by Golden Harvest, of course, and distributed by Warner. 

Jackie is tough New York cop Billy Wong, who hardly can't speak English. After a violent shoot-out where his partner is killed - and himself takes revenge (resulting him getting a cliché slow-clap tribute from his colleagues at the station) - he's back to patrol, this time with Danny Garoni (Aiello) and gets mixed up in a kidnapping. The traces leads to Hong Kong and he and Danny goes there to finally, once and for all, stop the dangerous heroin smuggler Ko and save the girl! Cue a lot of action and nudity.

The legend says Chan and Glickenhaus didn't get along well. The Protector feels like a very American movie. It's bloody, have some boring nudity, sex-jokes and foul language - stuff that's very uncommon to see Jackie Chan mixed up with. Danny Aiello is also a very unsympathetic character and the whole sequence with him using the blow-job massage bench is possible the most disgusting thing I've seen - and you don't see shit. Just the thought makes me puke. It doesn't help Aiello looks like a typical western paedophile fucking young Asian girls. But Aiello is good. He's a fine actor and he makes the character convincing and terrible, so I blame everything on the writers and director. 

But make no mistake here, when I say it feels like a typical American action movie it's also made in 1985 and have some truly spectacular and violent action scenes. Glickenhaus has an eye for carnage and there's enough blood, explosions, slow-motion stunts and random craziness to make everyone happy. I like it a lot, even if it's far from perfect. 

The Protector has just been released on blu-ray in Sweden and this release also includes the re-edited and slightly re-shot version supervised by Jackie Chan himself. Chan is a star and he was very unhappy by the resulting movie. So he took his crew, shot extra scenes featuring Sally Yeh and Lee Hoi-shan - including two completely new fight scenes, one more funny slapstick-ish sequence in a gym and another one brutal, gritty down at the waterfront. Great stuff. He also used a couple of different angles in the chase scenes - the biggest difference is when Jackie jumps with a motocross from the harbor to a boat, in the HK version there's a much wider angle which also make it look a lot more dangerous. The biggest difference - except the new scenes and characters - is the end fight against Bill Wallance. The US version is good, but quite slow and with low energy. Here Jackie, Bill and the stunt team went back and reshot a lot of it making it a much, MUCH more spectacular and dangerous fight, with better editing and yeah, a whole lotta better! 

The end song is also switched. The US version have one of the worst songs I ever heard, some shitty country and western crap, and the HK version have a more eighties, action-oriented synth-esque end song. 

How's the blu-ray then? It's by far the best version I've seen, but not really perfect. It's a bit murky and sometimes not so sharp, especially in the evening and night-scenes. I guess it's a typical uneven transfer. The bonus HK version looks like one of those cheap DVDs released in Hong Kong years ago and only in standard definition. But I'm very happy both version is there and they'er licensed from Fortune Star, so I guess they're the only versions available. So I'm grateful, very grateful.

The Protector is hardly the highlight of Jackie Chan's career, but for us who enjoy super-violent eighties action with crazy stunts and crappy one-liners, this is it. 

Operation Condor (Jackie Chan, 1991)

I think this might be the first time ever I've written a review of a Jackie Chan film. Really. And that's kinda strange, because Jackie meant a lot to me over the years. I'm sure one of his movies introduced me to Asian cinema - at least after first seeing a photo of Godzilla in an old Swedish encyclopedia - but Jackie was first for real. The sad thing is that most people kinda sees him as this old silly dude who's done some terrible Hollywood movies (I must admit that I have a soft spot for Shanghai Knights, but don't tell anyone!) and always smiles. He's a lot more than that. 

First of all, he's done a couple of the most spectacular action films ever made. Yeah, even compared with those new fancy awesome guys from Thailand and Indonesia (I love them, make no mistake there). Jackie became a star to me when he stopped making historical action films and put the fights and stunts in contemporary storylines. Then all hell broke loose. Just watch what he's doing in Police Story (and also in Police Story 3 and New Police Story), Armour of God, Project A & Project A 2, Heart of the Dragon - yeah, even those ultra-silly Lucky Stars films. Virtually all movies he made in the Eighties are sensational, and up until the end of the nineties he made some fantastic stuff. 

Operation Condor is the sequel to The Armour of God, for god and bad if I can say so. The first one has a couple of the best action sequences I've ever seen - but it also suffers from a quite slow middle part focused on silly romance and slapstick. Now, slapstick in a Jackie Chan film is a fine form of slapstick, but in too high doses it can be quite difficult to handle. Operation Condor has the exact same storyline, but with a different MacGuffin. It even has a spectacular vehicle chase in Spain (which ends in one of the best motorcross stunts I've seen. It's still very impressive!) and the the chase is on until the fat, awesome final in the baddies lair. This time it's an underground (in a desert no less!) nazi base filled with cool stuff to climb and run on - which means Jackie will use all of his talent to battle henchmen in these very cool sets. 

While the fights never become spectacular or hurtful as in Police Story they're very well-made and still looks like they can beat some modern fights I've seen. The stunts is good and the special effects is fine. This is a high class Jackie Chan production. It's interesting how I forgot all of these good things since the first (and until now the only) time I saw it. I remember it to be pretty dull, low on action and with failed visual gags. 

I must have been on drugs at the time.

Both this and the first movie is out on blu in the US, in their international versions. But I'm lazy and greedy and bought the UK DVD of Operation Condor, which has an OK transfer - correct ratio on non-anamorphic DVD. I guess I will upgrade it sooner or later but for now this seemed perfect for my meager budget. 

I'll try to review the first film soon - and also the third one, Chinese Zodiac, when I can lay my hands on it. I'm looking forward to see what Jackie has up his sleeve in his final, big action film. They he'll retired from action cinema to do less physically demanding roles. 

Anyway. Fun film. Underrated. It deserves a revisit from everyone who appreciates a good old adventure romp from a time when Jackie was at the top of his game!