"you've got ninjas..."

Sure signs that you have a ninja infestation? Trails of wasabi in the kitchen....

Check out this jokey short flick "Pest Control"

this one goes out to the The Silver Fox

Looking through my blog stats the other day and found that people search for the strangest things on google, like the number of hits that I get from searches for "are you ready to get your guts kicked out", that pulls up one of my early postings relating to DJ Shadow and a super-8 film in my collection.

This next image goes out to the fella who found my site doing a search for "Silver Fox"! Anyone know where the State was? What a great tagline: "Where The Action Is!" I did a search for that and nothing to exciting came up. Funny how some people's definition of "action" is "computer science as an engineering discipline"...



Note - After posting this, a message came in from Lars Erik Holmquist, high priest of the Göteborg, Sweden chapter of the White Lotus Society of HK Fandom:

It's hilarious that you pick on Paul Dourish's book WHERE THE ACTION IS on your blog! It happens to be a very important book for me and my colleagues but it's also very dense, and very philosphical. A KARATE ACTION EXTRAVAGANZA it certainly is not.

more kung fu monkey news...

From the winner of our first monkey contest, UK blog reader Matt (and your prize CD is in the mail today), come these ape pics from the Shaw Brothers film THE BATTLE WIZARD:

"I've attached a some kung fu gorilla stills from the Shaw Brothers movie Battle Wizard which you might be interested in (I mentioned them in my comments for your first Dirty Apes post). Quality is pretty poor as I nabbed them from my burnt out Arabic (and English dubbed) VHS - but I'm pretty sure the film has been released on DVD by Celestial. Either way, there's got to be better images out there.

No-one comments on the gorilla's apparent kung fu expertise though - perhaps skilled martial arts monkeys once roamed all over ancient China, so it's not a big deal...."

I've only seen the trailer for this one and it looks soooooo crazy! Anyone chime in with comments on this one? I have some downtime coming up this week, so maybe I'll pop this dvd to the top of the pile. Check out the review at kungfucinema.com (where the pics below came from)

The poster and magazine images are via hkmdb.com (three cheers for Ryan and his fabulous reference site!)

I have landed the final fatal blow...

Write ups are done! Procrastination defeated! And the schedule is posted! What is coming soon to the temple that is the Revue Cinema in downtown Toronto? For starters...

image courtesy of The Chucky Lou A/V Club

and if you need some muzik to procrastinate to...

One last thing til I nail these write-ups for the March calendar - let me share this massive and amazing remix project that I discovered on Record Brother's blog, three volumes that adds up to over 4 hours of blaxploitation soundtrack and dialogue! Now there is a soundtrack to write descriptions of bone crunching action! Download, listen, enjoy and drop Record Brother some comments of thanks!

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

lazy sunday surfing...

I'm at the studio in a fit of procrastination as I should be writing the copy for the next two Kung Fu Fridays. Let me justify it by sharing these two links with you.

Every day or so, I have a number of links bookmarked that I pull up and then browse through for new updates (thanks to the "open in tabs" feature). One of my fave spots to go is earnest little cartoon guy, which is a photographic reference to cool spots. Rather than blather on about the content – as I find myself doing now – he just lets the images speak for themselves. Here are two links that he has turned me on to:


a gallery of photographic images from old Beijing


with the handgun frenzy in Toronto right now, maybe looking at the commerical roots of the issue might help with solutions. here are images of the selling of gun culture through the 20th century. If only the white lotus clan WERE impervious to bullets... (earnest guy link)

read the The Telekino Times-Picayune

Let me briefly introduce a new link over to the right of the page - the blog of Toronto based infotainment guru, Jesse Hawken, The Telekino Times-Picayune. Read about his journey into the Chinatown Dollar Mart, that resides under a now closed cinema that was known in previous incarnations as The Victory Burelesque, The Golden Harvest, The Pearl and lastly, The Mandarin.



Another urban exploration is looking back at the long forgotten cinema housed in the Toronto Dominion Centre in the heart of Toronto's financial district.


And yes, Jesse, is a Kung Fu Fridays disciple and his sifu is Tom Vu.

wow! I have all my limbs and can't do a quarter of what these guys do...

I just got two new additions to my poster collection and have been meaning to pop them up, when up pops a new entry on the WFMU blog to compliment my recent acquistions...

In the mid-nineties I went to NYC and managed to see the last gasp of one of the meccas of kung fu cinema, 42nd Street. Most of the cinemas where closed and had strange artsy fartsy poetry on the marquees, but there were still video shops filled with bootlegs of various grade. The guys in the shops could talk up these films like carny barkers, "You want chess boxing? How about this dope pole fight? You seen Silver Fox yet?"

My tastes are pretty specific so I walked away with a a chinese language camcorder dupe of THE BASTARD SWORDSMAN and a true gem, taped off of a Japanese laser disc(?) ... the Taiwanese cult oddity THE CRIPPLED MASTERS.

Don't get this one mixed up with Chang Cheh's CRIPPLED AVENGERS, which, while fun, pales to the mondo shock of seeing two people with real disabilities whup ass with their kung fu skills! And add into the mix, their teacher, a yoga master who can contort his body into small shapes and hide in narrow baskets! Watching the stars of the film, Sam Chung-Chuen and Thomas Hong Chio-Ming, you can't help but feel like a miserable couch potato as the flip and kick, eventually teaming up as a whirling dervish of martial arts mayhem. Above is an insane German edition poster for MASTERS.

I haven't been able to dig up more information on the film's stars (actually, I don't even know which is which!), but they did go on to do three other films, TWO CRIPPLED HEROES, FIGHTING LIFE and RAIDERS OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE.

Last night I watched a rather heady academic doc on lurid revenge films from Taiwan called TAIWAN BLACK MOVIES that reflects on the social realism of titles like "LADY AVENGER and GIRL WITH A GUN (both of which I have posters and lobbycards for so expect them posted in the future) and lo and behold, one of the directors interviewed was Chester Wong Chung-gwong, the man behind FIGHTING LIFE as well as MY LIFE IS ON THE LINE (which was screened in the Kung Fu Fridays series to great success in January). To see a great clip from FIGHTING LIFE, visit the entry by freeform DJ Brian Turner on the WFMU blog. Does anyone have more info on these two "gifted" actors?

For more information on CRIPPLED MASTERS visit these links:
Stomp Tokyo review (also with the Shaw Brothers CRIPPLED AVENGERS)
Bad Movies.org review (with sound .wav files of clips and a video clip!)
Progressive Boink review
5 Minutes To Live - "Priority Seating: A Brief Overview of the Crippled Kung Fu Film"

Below is the original Taiwan release poster for THE CRIPPLED MASTERS aka THE CRIPPLED HEAVEN (!?)

mystery Spanish poster

and while I am rooting through my image folders, how about this one? The translated title is: "THE FIVE SISTERS OF BRUCE LEE" however, a Babel Fish translation gives sez BRUCE = BRUSH! Yes, behold THE FIVE SISTERS OF BRUSH LEE!!!!!! What chamber of Shaolin teaches you how to kick with heels like that!


2/6/06 - from the comments section comes this observation by Poptique: "This is also known as Five Black Heroines and somewhere I've got an Ocean Shores VHS of it called "Bruce, Kung Fu Girls". Suffice to say, there's no reference to Bruce Lee at any point during the movie - it's a goofy Taiwanese tale of a five strong team of leather-clad ladies taking on a dastardly villainess who’s discovered the power of invisibility. Oh - and they only manage to squeeze them into those crrrazy S&M outfits for a couple of scenes. "

mystery italian poster

Sorry, no contest this time. I came across this poster today while surfing and was wondering what it was for. Italian posters have terrific artwork and I am sure it does not reflect the actual film. Who is the guy on the wall? Spidey Sense Fu! (click on it to see it bigger)