a collectors item?

Look what my mom still has! A t-shirt I made of the cover of the 2nd (and last issue) of my HK film zine ASIAN EYE.

An old Christmas card that kicked ass!

Surly I have blogged this in the past, but it is worth pulling out every year. This is a Christmas card I made up several years ago and sent out to friends. I think I did it around 1994-97? Foggy on when it went out, but it was a good one. It has been years since I sent out Christmas cards, but one of my New Year's resolutions is to do that for 2011!

poster a day #25 - The Hunter, the Butterfly and the Crocodile (1976)

I have been neglecting my duties here in the temple and rather than just doing a quick sweep of the temple's floors, I am going to do a little wax on and wax off. While I do that, enjoy more than just a poster, but some photos of some of the rare lobbycards in my collection for this early Chow Yun-Fat flick, The Hunter, the Butterfly and the Crocodile (1976), from the director of one of my fave flicks, Seeding of a Ghost (1983). In fact, it looks like director Richard Yeung Kuen liked Chow so much, he went on to cast him in his 1977 production, Hot Blood.

and speaking of Devil Fetus...

Here is a review from when a print of Devil Fetus ran in Winnipeg in 2008 (click to enlarge):
And I could link to a clip off the DVD, but instead, here is camcorder footage off the screen when it played in at the Sitges Fantastic Fest a few years ago. Beware! Spoilers!

name this movie!

Got some new posters from a trade I did with a collector in Taiwan and one of the fab scores was this oddity, but I have no idea what it is. At first I thought it might be for Devil Fetus, but looking at the characters for Devil Fetus, clearly not a match. Anyone help out here?

Mystery poster

Close-up of the logo of my mystery poster

Poster for Devil Fetus

Wong Tin-lam passes away (1927-2010)

You might not know the name, but if you have seen some of Johnnie To's films in the past 10 years, you just might recognize Wong Tin-lam from his roles in The Mission and Election 1 & 2. Wong was a respected director who made Cantonese cinema in the 1950s and then moved to TV in the 1970s and ended up writing many of TVB's most popular series including Legend of the Condor Heroes. It was in TV that Wong Tin-lam made another great mark on the cultural landscape, as the mentor for the young assistant directors working under him including Johnnie To and Ringo Lam. And of course, his other great contribution to Hong Kong pop culture - he is Wong Jing's dad.

For more info, read the obit over at HKMDB Daily News (for more photos) and at Asian Film Business.

Ringo Lam and Johnnie To with mentor Wong Tin-lam

The cast of Johnnie To's Election in Cannes

Father and Son: Wong Jing and Wong Tin-lam

run baby run: Fatal Termination

I've been absent from blogging, but the other day I was working on archiving my poster/lobbycard collection and came across this gem of a lobbycard that I had to share. It's from Fatal Termination, a film with a WILD stunt scene that I have posted about before. This picture says it ALL. I also scanned a newspaper ad for the film and at the bottom is a YouTube clip of the film for you to experience the mayhem.

Footage from Tsui Hark's Dragon Tiger Gate 3D!

Here's some behind the scenes footage of the filming of Tsui Hark's new Dragon Tiger Gate 3D. The best part of the segment is that there's some assembled footage from the actual film at the end, which looks pretty dang exciting.

Check it out here!

via Wild Grounds' Twitter account.

La fureur du juste!

JCVD intros EAGLE'S PATH

From Cannes in May, some video I shot of JVCD introducing Eagle's Path, the new film he wrote, produced and directed. Sorry for the crap audio.

TONIGHT! IP MAN 2 at The Toronto Underground Cinema

Sorry. I know it is late notice and all, BUT if you are in Toronto, come on down to the Toronto Underground Cinema tonight at 9:30pm for an assortment of vintage kung fu coming attractions and then the main feature of IP MAN 2, all on glorious 35mm film! Click here to learn more.

Tsui Hark + Jet Li in 3-D!

I'm super excited about this news, especially after how much I liked Detective Dee & The Mystery of the Phantom Flame.

Li, Tsui reunite for new Dragon picture

Yup, Dragon Gate Inn 3-D!

Read the full story by our friends over at Film Business Asia.

Oct 22nd - IP MAN 2 plays Toronto!

Stay tuned for details...

Five Fingers of OUI

A review of FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH from the July 1973 issue of oui.

pulp kung fu graffiti

From several different sources including Apartment Therapy and Croatian Times, but the Daily Express seems to have the most complete story, on the discovery of a martial arts novel written on the walls of an abandoned home.

"The story is entirely written in Chinese lettering and also includes illustrations.
Unfortunately however, no one knows who wrote the book, or why they did it.
But now the story has become a massive online hit after one fan uploaded photographs of the novel on the internet.
One excerpt reads: 'I was 17… I have reactions like lightning, hearing like a bat, my vision is like a hawk, and I am as strong as a general.'"

Thanks to Hal Kelly for pointing this out to me.

the good ship Mayfair

Behold, the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa! 'Twas a Chinatown cinema and is now a cool and fun rep cinema run by the kung fu cinema king of the nation's capital, Lee Demarbe! Check out what they do here!

your ticket to ACTION!

Found stuck in an old film can...

RZA's got the fists

If you are either a hip-hop/kung fu/horror/Bear Jew/QT fan, you might have read some online buzz about Man With The Iron Fist, the RZA directed and Eli Roth/Quentin Tarantino produced film that is set to shoot in Chna in September.


I recently came across these two "trailers" on YouTube for RZA vs The Golden Phoenix, which looks like RZA's tests for his feature. Further investigation had uncovered these behind the scenes videos with RZA working out shots and sequences with kung fu cinema veterans, including fight choreographer Robert Tai (Chinatown Kid; Crippled Avengers; Five Venoms; Ten Tigers of Kwantung; and The Kid with the Golden Arm) and actor Chi Kuan-Chun (Men from the Monastery; Five Shaolin Masters; Shaolin Martial Arts; Disciples of Shaolin; Shaolin Temple). So the question now is, are these the masters he will be using for Iron Fist...?




Behind the scenes amateur doc for Golden Phoenix



Part 2 (has some brief but cool aerial wirework stuff)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uepnHQBeEQE

Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bIE8SeEMMs

Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCEVzQ3EjjQ

Part 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cLvOharaik

your teeth are in my congee

How I love the Mr. Vampire movies...

drunk and disorderly

I want this poster!

'70s Print Ads

I came across some ads in back issues of the International Film Guide that I thought were neat, and scanned them. Excuse the scan quality on a couple of them.

with a funky score, anything is possible

And here is an LP cover from some other Bollywood knuckle duster:

it's all in the hands...

rock with Asianada!

Years ago, I did an interview with Teddy Robin Kwan when he was at the Toronto International Film Festival for the premiere of Temptation of a Monk, the Clara Law film he produced. Before becoming an actor and producer, in the 1960s he was in a popular band called Teddy Robin & The Playboys. During our chat he told of being in a rock band in the 70s that toured Canada and took him to places such as Thunder Bay. Well, a photo has surfaced of that band! Behold:

ASIANADA!

Broken Cheung Chau cinema dreams

Found over at Yvonne's blog Webs of Significance, a great roaming camera blog that breaks out of HK's urban confines, comes these pics of a closed cinema in Cheung Chau. It might be familiar to contemporary HK film fans as a location from Riley Yip's Just One Look. I've overlooked that film and now from reading up on it, I need to seek as I am intrigued by how it sounds like a love letter to HK cinema from the 60s/70s plus has some of my favourite actors including Anthony Wong and Eric Kot.

late notice: FREE HK double bill May 29th

As some of you Kung Fu Fridays regulars will know, I had amassed a decent collection of 35mm prints of Hong Kong feature films over the years, rescuing them from closed Chinatown cinemas and in some cases, from the garbage. In March I donated a number of those prints to the University of Toronto and this Saturday, they are holding a FREE screening of two of the films to celebrate the donation. In between the two films will be a discussion about the films and their directors, plus a dim sum snack will be served! If you want to beat the heat, what better way to do so than by sharing in laughs and chills from two rarely screened Hong Kong films! And again, it's F-R-E-E!

Hoping to see some of the familiar faces from Kung Fu Fridays out for the evening!

Colin

(FREE!) HONG KONG FILM RETROSPECTIVE DOUBLE BILL / ASIAN HERITAGE MONTH Restless Spirits: Ronnie Yu and Ringo Lam's 1980S Ghost Comedies

Saturday May 29
4:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Innis Town Hall
Innis College at the University of Toronto
2 Sussex Avenue (south of Bloor at St. George)

FREE ADMISSION - Registration is strongly encouraged!
Please arrive early - First come first seated
Link for Registration: http://webapp.mcis.utoronto.ca/EventDetails.aspx?EventId=9010

Colin Geddes will launch his donation of Asian films to U of T with fun and prizes

Schedule
3:30 Doors open
4:00 - Film Screening - ESPIRT D'AMOUR
6:00-7:30 Panel on Hong Kong Films with Bart Testa (Professor of Cinema Studies) and Colin Geddes (International Programmer, TIFF & Ultra 8 Pictures), and moderated by Peter Kuplowsky [Dim sum snack will be provided]
8:00 - Film Screening - THE OCCUPANT

4:00PM - Film Screening


ESPRIT D’AMOUR
1983 / 35MM / Hong Kong / English Subtitle / 98 min
Director. Ringo Lam Ling-Tung
Cast: Alan Tam Wing-Lun, Joyce Ngai Suk-Kwan, Cecilia Yip Tung, Bill Tung Biu, Billy Lau Nam-Kwong, Phillip Chan Yan-Kin

Supernatural romance and shenanigans abound in Esprit D'Amour, a funny and even tragic romance directed by master filmmaker Ringo Lam (City On Fire, Full Contact). Alan Tam is Ming, a mousy insurance agent engaged to spitfire fiancee Ivy (Cecilia Yip). When investigating the death of the young and pretty Siu Yu (Joyce Ni), Ming meets and falls in love with Siu Yu's spectral form. Siu Yu wants her life insurance delivered to her beneficiary (a five year-old boy), and the charmed Ming is only too happy to go along. But falling in love with a ghost is sure to arouse some suspicion, and when the scheming Ivy catches on, Ming's ghost-man love affair may be in jeopardy. Mixing romance, comedy, drama, and a touch of supernatural tragedy, Esprit D'Amour is wildly entertaining and compelling example of Hong Kong cinema entertainment.

ESPRIT D’AMOUR Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB7Y1XVDRUY

8:00PM - Film Screening


THE OCCUPANT
1984 / Hong Kong / English Subtitle / 96 min
Director. Ronny Yu
Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Sally Yeh, Raymond Wong, Lo Lieh

Five years before their now-classic romantic pairing in The Killer, Sally Yeh and Chow Yun-Fat starred in this 1984 horror-comedy hybrid from director Ronny Yu (The Bride with White Hair, Fearless). Yeh stars as a wide-eyed Canadian college student named Angie, who comes to Hong Kong to do some field research for her study of Chinese superstitions. She gets a bit more than she bargained for when she rents an apartment haunted by the spirit of a spurned singer. As if fending off ghosts wasn't bad enough, Angie also has to deal with the unwanted affections of a sleazy con-man (Raymond Wong, All's Well Ends Well), as well as the sweet-talking detective (Chow) who vows to solve her supernatural case. Chow requires a little otherworldly help of his own after Angie's body is taken over by the ghost, who's hell-bent on reenacting the murder-suicide that ended her life. The Occupant's evenhanded mix of Creepy and Crazy foreshadows Yu's later work on American horror flicks like Bride of Chucky, and although Chow is operating largely in comedic mode, his role as a fearless police detective looks forward to his later heroic bloodshed collaborations with John Woo. But this is Sally Yeh's show, and her wonderful split-personality performance as a naive student of the supernatural possessed by the ghost of a sultry singing chanteuse is what ultimately makes the film a success. (synopsis from www.yesasia.com)

MAIN SPONSOR
Asian Institute

SPONSORED BY
Ultra 8 Pictures

CO-SPONSORED BY

Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (Canada)
Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival
Richard Charles Lee Canada Hong Kong Library
Cinema Studies Institute

Hire this man!

And in the bottom of that last story I linked to:

Interestingly, while Chan's celebrity parents have spared no expense to make their son happy, one of Jackie Chan's former employees, William Duen, claimed they were misers and mistreating their employees.

Duen claimed that the kungfu star fired his former right-hand man, Kenneth Lo, right after he appointed his wife Lin as head of his two entertainment firms JCE Movies and JC Group.

Duen, who was also fired after Lin's appointment, accused Jackie Chan of being "a heartless boss" when he spoke to Hong Kong reporters last week.

Lo, 50, had been working with Jackie Chan for 30 years but apparently received just HK$100,000 (S$18,000) in compensation when he was dismissed last year.

Lo, who had no other experience other than being a martial artist and bodyguard, is reportedly still unemployed.

Not meaning to bash Jackie, but there is also this story: Jackie Chan a ruthless boss?


And here is a fan tribute to Ken Lo, bodyguard and an astounding and underrated martial arts actor: