back to the roots of reason - poster posting #1

One of the intial reasons I started this blog was to share some of the images from my collection of Hong Kong movie posters. Looks like I got waylaid in the kung fu pop culture items that litter the webosphere. Now that I have started another blog to handle the non-kung fu/asian posts, I think I will try to get back to my roots as it were. And remember - once of the fun things about doing a blog is the interactive nature of it, so please leave comments!

Was going through the collection looking for stuff to put up on ebay for auction and found these. Not sure if they are destined for the biddling zone yet. Click on them to see them bigger. Enjoy! More to come!

BUTTERFLY AND SWORD starring Joey Wong! Tony Leung! Michelle Yeoh! Donnie Yen! Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong! Jimmie Lin! (where did he go?)
(Read the review over at KungFuCinema.com)

BLUE JEAN MONSTER starring Amy Yip and Shing Fui-on!
(read the review at Hong Kong Cinema: View From the Brooklyn Bridge)

CRAZY SAFARI starring Lam Ching Ying and Nixau from THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY

(Read the review at KFCC)

xmas fu#4 - who the hell was the "Amazing Kung Fu"?

Last of the yuletide postings. Found this "Special Christmas Extravaganza" wrestling event over at this Liverpool Museum site.

xmas fu#3 - my christmas card

To all readers of my blog - this goes out to you. I made up this Christmas card maybe in 1992? Here is a scan of it. Still pleased by it after all these years...

Wishing you all the best of the season!

xmas fu#2 - Bruce Lee at Santa's Town?

Tourist-type video footage of a Bruce Lee display at Santa's Town in Hong Kong. The mind reels...

wandering around the old Shaw sets...

Found these by chance (when doing my yule fu search) on youtube - clips of a Brit's trip to the Shaw Brothers studio lot circa 1995. Seems like nobody believed him that he went so he uploaded these clips along with his other works and aspirations ('nuff said).

xmas fu#1 - and Eddie Murphy as Bruce Lee...?

In doing a search for "kung fu + christmas" on google images, I found a listing of this episode of Saturday Night Live from December 20th, 1980 where the guest host was David Carradine. They must have been hard up for hosts that year. One of the segments was for a commerical with Carradine playing Caine called "Kung Fu Christmas" with Gilbert Gottfried as the "Master" and Eddie Murphy as Bruce Lee! Very curious... Can't find it on youtube. Scant details here. And this is the biggest pic I could find:

god of royale

Over on HK film fan and noted film guru David Bordwell's blog is an entry stripping down the subject of Casino Royale being a "throwback" with links to three of my faves - FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, THE IPCRESS FILE and THE GOD OF GAMBLERS....

jay chou is fearless

Cause I doubt that this will be on the US dvd... Pop singer Jay Chou was the dullest hero ever in his role as delivery boy/race car driver in INITIAL D, but the video he did for FEARLESS rocks. When I was in HK and FEARLESS was out on DVD, this song was echoing through the streets.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHINESE MOVIE THEATERS IN AMERICA

Go check Grady's posting about Chinatown cinemas at Kaiju Shakedown, expecially now that the Four Star in San Francisco has been saved.

“In the early 70’s, after the Vietnam War ended, there was a wave of Vietnamese immigrants who came over to this country and they loved Shaw Brothers stuff -- Ti Lung, Chang Cheh -- and they started opening Chinese cinemas. Every weekend our theaters did great business. There wasn’t much for Chinese to do, back then. There was no Chinese TV, no videos, no karaoke. The only form of entertainment for Chinese were movies. It was so lucrative; we had midnight shows, double features. It was just madness. But those times are gone.”

ccccc

All hail the homogenizing of the North American Moviegoing Experience!

So this is a bit of a cheat, a double posting here and also at Popcorn and Sticky Floors (my other blog), but it relates to both and also was the subject of one of my first posts here. From Grady over at Kaiju Shakedown comes this sad news: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN - THE MUSIC PALACE HAS LEFT THE PLANET.

I've spent many hours of my life in old Chinatown cinemas, an insitution that died at the end of the 20th century. With great movies, cheap double bill prices, and strange snack bar food, they were exotic detours where you could feel like a stranger in a strange land and not leave your own city. Now NYC has lost one of North America's last Chinatown movie theatres, the Music Palace. For some fond memories, read Grady's piece over at Subway Cinema:

I'll come clean: I've done shameful things in the Music Palace. I've eaten dinner, breakfast, lunch. Slept all day, dozed off for a few minutes, worked my way through a pack of cigarettes in one sitting, gotten drunk, dug through their trash, smoked dope, taken speed, had sex, argued with a cell phone user, played with a kitty, and had a party. To be fair, the sex and the dinner were both before they started turning on the lights between shows...knowing what I do now I would've held off.

music to fight by

I love trolling through the web looking for postings of old LPs that have been digitized and boy did my eyes pop when I found this! A reissue posting (I actually found it last year) of the soundtrack, complete with dialogue, of Fist of Fury starring Bruce Lee. Pop on the headphones...

friday kung fu fun

Kung Fu Vs Yoga!

lets throw a Shaw Brothers party at Bobby's house!

just imagine! an old 16mm projector. shaw classics... sweet...


from Kung Fu Fandom

posters for sale on ebay Nov 17th

Okay, here where I flog my wares... Below are some lovely posters from my personal collection that I am posting up for auction on eBay. Super rare these are. Please bid and help out my Christmas funds! Free HK film gift with every winning bid! Auctions end on the 24th!

Challenge of the Lady Ninja
$9.99 starting bid (link to auction)

Chivalious Inn
$8.99 starting bid (link to auction)

Hidden Desire
$0.99 starting bid (link to auction)

Hong Kong Film Parade 88 magazine
$1.99 starting bid (link to auction)

I Heart Shih Szu

found on youtube - a loving power rock tribute to Shaw femme fighter Shih Szu

Looting! Robbing! Killing! Raping!

Lolita in Full Bloom

got this info forwarded to me. if in NYC, be sure to check this series out!

TWO WEEKS ONLY!
Lolita in Full Bloom: 1980s Irresistible Heroines
November 10*-19, 2006
Japan Society
New York, NY
Delving into a world where teenage girls command yakuza gangs, travel through time and get trapped in boys' bodies, Lolita in Full Bloom:1980s Irresistible Heroines features five trailblazing films from the 1980s starring female pop stars known in Japan as "idols." Rarely seen in the States, these films are revived for two weeks with new English subtitles, created by the Japan Society especially for this series.

Check out the link to the trailer for 1981's Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (セーラー服と機関銃) and the coverage of the lollipop party for the opening film at Outcast Cinema!

Le gunfight le plus dingue du monde

Been spending time over on my other blog Popcorn and Sticky Floors. Okay, so I do feel like I have been cheating on you, but I thought you were all cool with this open releationship thing. I feel like I am growing and becoming a more well rounded person? What about you? Maybe you should give the other blog a try... but in the meantime, I hope this video that was emailed to me by Kung Fu Fridays Disciple Frederic Ambroisine (who does killer interviews for supplementary materials on French releases of the Shaw Brothers films) will satisfy you. It's from the film POM POM & HOT HOT, always highly recommended to me, but I have never had a chance to see it.

BOO KUNG FU!

Pic from an eBay auction by emovieposter.com
(click to enlarge)

Ad from a posting on DVD Maniacs by Fred Adelman.
I used to get his zine Critical Condition that has now hopped online.

(click to enlarge)

God of Vampires trailer

just found on youtube, a trailer for an upcoming US indie horror/gangster flick: