The Eight Immortals (Taiwan, 1971)

As a vintage Taiwanese fantasy wuxia film, The Eight Immortals is both pleasantly different and pleasantly the same. It’s different in that it boasts a fanciful structure that makes it something of an anthology film for its first half. This, however, does not prevent it from featuring everything that we come to such movies for in the first place -- hence, the pleasant sameness. And by that I refer to oodles of hyperbolic mystical hijinks, ranging from beast-hatching flora to Taoist whammies delivered via drawn on hand rays.

The film opens on two itinerant story tellers relaying to a gathered crowd the story of the Eight Immortals of Chinese legend. This they do aided by movable illustrated panels which are displayed in a grid-like, wooden frame. I couldn’t help but be reminded by this of the Japanese tradition of Kamishibai, which, along with other such proto-comic-strip modes of narrative, makes up part of a long tradition of Asian picture storytelling. The tale spinners gleefully introduce the Immortals one by one, via a series of vignettes in which each performs an act of kindness for the benefit of some hapless mortal. In most cases, the immortal introduces himself by singing a whimsical song.

In simplified terms, the Eight Immortals are Chinese mythology’s equivalent of saints, celestial beings of supernatural power who watch benevolently over the affairs of men and intervene when necessary -- which, in the interest of a robust mythology, is quite often. The movie introduces the leader of the immortals, Lü Dongbin (Lui Woon-Suen), in an episode in which he intercedes to unite the star-crossed lovers Tu (Chang Ming) and Pai (Chang Chi-yu). The impoverished Tu hopes in vain to buy Pai’s freedom from a brothel to which she has been sold by an unscrupulous relative, but what this ultimately requires is for Lü Dongbin to assume the guise of a boorish customer and slap Pai silly, leaving dark black palm prints on both of her cheeks. Her market value thus depleted, she is returned to Tu, whereupon Lü Dongbin magically removes the marks before disappearing into a print of himself on the wall.

From there we meet Iron Crutch Li (Oi Yau-man), whose crutch we see serially transformed into a sort of aerial floatation device, a powerful magic weapon, and a peach tree with supernaturally healing properties. Elder Zhang Guo (Lu Wook-Suen) rides a donkey backwards and helps the owner of an ale house unearth a particularly exquisite cask of wine. The handsome Chang Hsiang-Tzu (Fung Hoi) uses his enchanted flute to help a displaced family make their way across a foreboding tundra, using it to make a magnificent golden bridge appear across the span of a deep ravine. Immortal Ching, we are shown, carries with him a magic fan, while Immortal Tsao favors magic castanets.

Last but not least, we are introduced to the lone female immortal, Fairy Ho (Sally Chen Sha-li), who looks down from her perch in the heavens and sees that all is not right on the mainland (searchers for political allegory make of this what you will), thus setting the non-episodic portion of The Eight Immortals in motion. It seems the land has fallen into the despotic hands of a cannibalistic demon king (Cho Boot-lam) and his sorceress queen (played by an actress whom I could sadly not identify) who take great pleasure in literally feeding on the populace, while, of course, taking time out for defiling the women. Pai and Tu from the beginning of the movie also come back into play at this point, she having been thrown into the King’s dungeon, where she is tortured mercilessly, and he valiantly leading a makeshift resistance army against the King’s forces. Fairy Ho attempts to intercede, approaching the king under the guise of friendship and bringing with her a giant peach that splits open to reveal a snarling boar’s head. This, however impressive, does not appear to have whatever effect that Fairy Ho intended, as she is summarily captured by the king, who steals her two powerful sutras with the intention of using them as weapons.

As depicted here, the Eight Immortals are a jocular bunch, wiling away their time not spent bailing out humans by hanging out in the gazebo of their floral garden and trading good natured insults. However, once they catch wind of Fairy Ho’s fate, they prove themselves none too jolly to dole out violent payback. The Eight Immortals, thanks to its fairytale tone, indeed seems at times like a children’s film, until you consider all of the bloody slicing and dicing that takes place in its final act, not to mention a harrowing scene of Pai’s torture at the hands of the demon king. Perhaps it’s just that the Taiwanese produce a more hardboiled breed of child than we do here in the States, where you can’t even punch a little kid in the face without someone making a big deal about it (jk). In any case, suffice it to say that, with that final act, The Eight Immortals gives us everything we ask for from movies of its ilk in terms of amped up violence and cheap but colorful fantasy spectacle.

Happily, The Eight Immortals was directed by Chen Hung-min, whose credits include Little Hero and the Taiwanese portions of Mars Men, the international version of Sompote Sands’ Giant and Jumbo A, so you know we’re in good hands when it comes to the aforementioned “cheap but colorful fantasy spectacle”. This could be said to include a scene of the queen conjuring a giant puppet bird of prey to attack the resistance forces before emitting a stream of pink poisonous gas from her navel. Hand rays are of course employed, as are flamethrower palms, while people die and turn into weird weasel-like creatures and the king uses one of Fairy Ho’s sutras to emit a mighty wind from a gargoyle head perched atop his headdress. Meanwhile, the filmmakers try to distract you from the silliness of some of these effects with pure onslaught, placing brightly garbed, sword-slinging extras slashing, leaping and tumbling in every available corner of the frame. This tumult reaches apotheosis with a death duel between Lü Dongbin and the demon king that takes place high in the heavens, the opponents leaping about in the clouds.

The Eight Immortals elicits a lot of good will with the performances of all of its titular players, all of whom bring the Immortals’ benevolence and good humor to palpable life, as well as with its charming framing device. The best of these films display a generosity amid their cheapness, a desire to deliver maximum thrills despite a minimum of material means, and, as with its two story tellers, who so manifestly delight in the spinning of their tale, I think I detect a similar glee within The Eight Immortals. Yes, I hereby decree that, like mirthful, benevolent gods, the Taiwanese film industry of yore has once again gifted us from on high with a trove of beguiling dime store wonderment.

Friday's best pop song ever

Red Detachment of Women (China, 1971)

While presenting challenges of its own, Red Detachment of Women may have the power to redeem ballet in the eyes of those of us who have suffered through one too many performances of The Nutcracker. Instead of dancing tea leaves and sugarplum fairies, imagine pitched battles featuring severe, uniformed female dancers, all giving literal meaning to the term “bullet ballet”, with pliés that end in bayonettings and pirouettes that wind up to the hurling of grenades. All that alongside enough fruity, highly stylized scenes of terpsichorean hand-to-hand combat to make Chang Cheh wish he was born a woman.

Of course, Red Detachment of Women is not just a ballet, but also an opera, with much of its dialogue sung in the classical Chinese style. I’d venture that Chinese opera is an acquired taste to even the most liberalized Western ear, and the shrill stridence with which the film’s three leads -- prima ballerina Xue Jinghua, Qingtang Liu, and Song Chen -- deliver the libretto might provide an even more implacable obstacle to that acquisition. Xue, for her part, spends the entire film in a state of righteous fury which, thanks to her ear piercing range, is enough to blow your hair back whenever given voice to. Still, Red Detachment compensates immeasurably for any ear rending by being a fascinating and, at times, beautiful visual document, its painterly visuals and rigorously formalist compositions giving every frame the look of a Maoist social realist painting sprung into full Technicolor life.

Red Detachment of Women is basically a filmed version of a 1964 ballet of the same name that was in turn based on a 1961 dramatic film which was also of the same name. It is one of eight “Model Ballets” produced during the Cultural Revolution, in that it was deemed sufficient in its ingestion of Maoist Kool-Aid to be officially made part of the cultural cannon. This means that it was performed a LOT, with even Richard Nixon taking a gander at it during his historic visit. Reports have it that Nixon liked it, but when presented with something that is screaming for approval with as scary of an insistence as Red Detachment of Women is, what else is he going to say?

The film begins with peasant girl Wu (Xue Jinghua) making a violent escape from the clutches of the evil landlord Nanbatian (Chengxiang Li), who has imprisoned and tortured her for her failure to pay rent. (Here in San Francisco, tenants of rent controlled apartments would gladly accept such treatment over eviction.) Nanbatian’s minions catch up to her, however, and whip her mercilessly, leaving her for dead in a rain soaked field. Hong (Qingtang Liu), a military officer, comes upon her and nurses her wounds, then points her in the direction of a military camp where a new, all female army detachment is being trained. Wu arrives at the camp and is greeted with open arms by the detachment’s commander (Song Chen), who, after hearing of her treatment by Nanbatian, ceremoniously presents her with a rifle.

Enraptured by the thought of gunning down capitalists, and now, thanks to the Red Army, armed and certified to do so, Wu joins the detachment in their first mission, which is to raid Nanbatian’s estate and rescue the rest of his captives. Commissar Hong provides subterfuge for the operation by showing up at Nanbatian’s birthday party in the guise of a white suit and pith helmet wearing fancy man. In the end, they are successful, though Wu’s itchy trigger finger almost compromises the mission. For this she is relieved of her weapon, but one gets the sense that she just may get a shot at redemption during the last act.

The fight scenes here, while not at all aiming for realism, are nonetheless surprisingly exciting, marked by lots of high flying acrobatics and intricate choreographies of feigned violence. One sequence showing the charge of the women’s detachment, armed dancers leaping by in seemingly endless procession, some spinning like dervishes with colorful flags in hand, is breathtaking. No cautionary tale this, the message here is “War is awesome”, especially when it’s waged against such deserving parties as the leering Nanbiatan and his crew of willing capitalist thugs.

It seems that no matter where you go in world popular cinema, there is no more satisfying ending than that which features an armed raid by the heroes upon the fortified lair of a mustached villain. Even life under communism cannot slake an audience’s thirst for such spectacle, and so Red Detachment of Women -- daintily, musically, but, above all, energetically -- delivers it in spades. After Nanbatian attempts a raid of his own upon the military camp, the Red Army, Women’s Detachment in the lead, launch a devastating counterattack, aided by an armed mob of Nanbatian’s newly freed peasant captives. This decisive rout reaches a fine point with Wu fiercely singing admonishment at both Nanbatian and his chief crony Ou Guangsi (Wan Qiwu) before shooting each in the back as they flee. Hong, meanwhile, having been martyred in the attack, is paid solemn tribute by all in the detachment as the curtain -- figuratively -- falls.

While it left me mildly transfixed, I could see how all of Red Detachment of Women’s declamatory acting and stylized posturing could be welcomed by some as an unintended caricature of authoritarian rigidity, even if it’s one that is at times a little frightening. The hysterical pitch of the film could easily be seen as symptomatic of the period of brutal cultural suppression in which it was made. The frozen, wide eyed countenances of the actors, which were likely intended to communicate both vigor and revolutionary fervor, are just as evident of mania. In other words, if you want Maoist kitsch, you’ve got it, but in order to treat it as such, there is an awful lot that is hard, unforgiving, and aggrieved -- not to mention beautiful -- within Red Detachment of Women that must first be ignored.

Friday's best pop song ever

Revolver Rani (India, 1971)

Only the most enfeebled among you will be surprised to learn that contemporary relevance has nothing to do with why I choose to review a film on 4DK. Nonetheless, it is always interesting when some far flung obscurity that I’ve set my sights on turns out to have some. In the case of the 1971 Telegu actioner Revolver Rani, that relevance comes from the fact that current Bollywood “it” girl Kangana Ranaut has chosen to star in a satirical remake of it as her follow up to this year's widely praised Queen.

Those who are familiar with Telegu action films of Revolver Rani’s particular bent -- we’ll call them “vengeful cowgirl” movies -- know that they are ripe for satire. Yet satire, at its best, needs a target that is earnest in intent, and Revolver Rani leaves a lot of doubt as to just how seriously it takes itself. For instance, there is its title sequence, a riot of proto-South Park cut out animation that sees a rapidly spinning Vijaya Lalitha picking off baddies like tin ducks in a carnival shooting range. It’s funny, but also captures perfectly the feel of these movies: antic, breathlessly hyperbolic, and more than a little spastic.

And speaking of Vijaya Lalitha, a warning: those of you who, like me, come to Revolver Rani hoping to see a showcase for that diminutive South Indian dynamo might at first feel like they’ve been the victim of a bait and switch. This is due to the unwritten rule (I’m assuming it’s unwritten, though perhaps it was inscribed on a banner above the studio gates) that Superstar Krishna and his hair had to appear in every Telegu film made. Krishna, I’m happy to say, only dominates the first half hour of Revolver Rani and then, I’m even happier to say, is killed -- though, unfortunately, along with his dog, Peter, who showed a lot of promise as an anipal. This all occurs in the course of Krishna defending his sister, Lalitha’s Rani, from a rape attempt by the band of trigger happy grotesques he has fallen in with. Afterward, Rani -- thanks to Vijaya Lalitha’s unique features and command thereof -- adopts the look of a rabid Keane painting and swears her blood revenge, at which point Revolver Rani becomes the kind of movie we like.

These hoodlums against whom Rani is now pitted, I want to point out, are led by a sharply dressed Mr. Big named Vikram, who suffers from a heart condition that causes him to erupt into violent coughing fits whenever he gets too worked up. As a signature disability for a villain to have, this falls somewhere below a hook hand or eye patch in terms of desirability, as it simply leaves the audience anticipating him conveniently dropping dead during a pivotal moment in the narrative (I’ll never tell).

Adding a nice Magnificent Seven aspect to the typical “ride, rumble, shoot, then dance frenetically” structure of these films, Lalitha’s Rani decides that, to combat the gang, she must first form one of her own, and so rides off in search of suitable candidates. This she does to the accompaniment of the theme tune that music director Satyam has conjured up for her, which consists of basso male voices chanting the English word “vengeance” over a Morricone-esque backing. (By the way, Rani and her crew stay true to their rough riding cowpoke ways despite this film being set in the present day; there are cars and everything.) Rani first recruits a towering strongman for her cause, and then a carnival knife thrower. The vetting process basically involves Rani seeing the amount of grace with which they accept her beating the shit out of them. There’s a street boxer who doesn’t make the cut, but his high strung manager ends up tagging along for comic relief purposes. I think this is same actor to whom I referred in my review of James Bond 777 as “Tollywood’s answer to Jagdeep”.

While there are many familiar faces both in front of and behind the camera in Revolver Rani (many of whom I sadly can’t put names to) one of them is definitely not director KSR Doss, the man behind so many of the Telegu films I’ve covered. Instead a character by the name of KVS Kutumba Rao is in the director’s chair, which affords me the opportunity to momentarily break from my Doss fixation and get some sense of which of the vengeful cowgirl movies’ quirks were specific to the genre, perhaps based on audience expectations, and were not a symptom of one director’s particular madness – to establish a base line for 1970s Telegu action cinema, so to speak.

And the fact is there is little to distinguish Revolver Rani from one of Doss’ films in terms of pacing (frantic) or violence (also frantic -- and cartoonish), though the camera work does not quite approach Doss’ level of insane restlessness. There are also not quite so many of the upskirt shots that Doss was so fond of, though the one that I caught is pretty in your face. And by that I mean right up in there.

Vijaya Lalitha executed a flying scissor hold on my heart from the time I first saw her, in 1972’s Kaun Saccha Kaun Jhoota, back in 2009, and there is nothing in Revolver Rani that could chill my affections. Here the actress again exhibits that same peculiar combination of flitting, bird like movements and bug eyed intensity that, paired with the unrestrained mania of her fighting style – whether with whip, karate, or freestyle wrestling – makes her a signal figure in world action cinema. The only loss here is that we get to see little of Lalitha’s equally frenetic dancing, beyond a scene where she executes the old “infiltrate the villain’s hideout by posing as a nautch girl” gambit. The item girl duties are instead taken over admirably by the actress (Kavitha, perhaps?) who portrays Krishna’s nautch girl girlfriend, Lilly.

And then, of course, because no Telegu movie would be the same without her, Jyothi Laxmi shows up at the last minute for a number in which she demonstrates that sexy dancing and making really ugly faces are not mutually exclusive.

Once gathered, Rani and her gang go about the business of picking off Vikram’s rapey minions one by one while interfering with their various criminal enterprises (a diamond robbery in one case, sex trafficking in another). They then ship each minion’s corpse to their boss in a crate, complete with a nasty note. And, in case you were wondering, Rani does refer to herself as “Revolver Rani”. This activity attracts the attention of both Vikram and the Police Commissioner, who does nothing but listen to the latest tale of Rani’s exploits before staring dreamily off into the middle distance and repeating her name. All comes to a head in a showdown at Vikram’s lair that climaxes with Vijaya Lalitha wrestling a lion. And, yes, that is pretty fucking awesome.

Had I known those five years ago when I watched Kaun Saccha Kaun Jhoota that there would turn out to be many, many movies like it, all of them starring Vijaya Lalitha and/or Jyothi Laxmi, I would have thought my life had become some kind of strange and wonderful dream. And still today, a film like Revolver Rani sends me into an intoxicating reverie, a world very much like that film’s credit sequence, where a pixie-ish firebrand with Sailor Moon eyes spins like a dervish while sending greasily pompadoured, mustached men flying toward every point on the horizon, guns blazing and limbs a blur. True, the inclusion of two musclebound male sidekicks takes the action spotlight off of Vijaya Lalitha a little bit, but the fact that she fights alongside them as an equal (though they rescue her on occasion, she in turn rescues them) makes me respect her even more, and Telegu cinema as a whole for walking the walk.

Now the question: Will I see the remake? The trailer for the film, predictably, shows us a Rani who’s much more dependent upon hardware and fire power than Lalitha’s version. Tell me that Kangana Ranaut wrestles a lion and we might be able to do business.

The 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down: Can you prove it didn't happen?

Years from now, people will talk about the participants in the first 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down as if they were gods, the mythical creators of a mysterious and hallowed tradition. But let the record reflect that we were just humans -- humans who probably should have had something better to do than wile away our time on the internet making snarky comments about an obscure Taiwanese fantasy martial arts film. That record of course being this Storified transcript of the proceedings.

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank those who contributed the most to last night's hilarity: Carol of the Cultural Gutter, whose lightning fast screen capping reflexes provided the many illustrations that accompany the above linked transcript, Andrew Nahem of the Internet, who continues to maintain his aura of refinement in the face of the web's crassest indignities, and Miranda of the fine Filmi-Contrast blog, who not only provided pithy commentary but also turned out to be our lone contest winner of the night.

And now with our inaugural journey behind us, all there is to do is look forward to the next 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down, which will take place on Tuesday, April 8th. A preview of our feature:

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Tonight! It's the 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down: FURY OF THE SILVER FOX

The day has arrived and tonight is the night! Below is a YouTube link to a complete version of Pearl Chang Ling's Fury of the Silver Fox. Join us on Twitter tonight -- that's Tuesday, March 11 -- at 6pm PST sharp, using the hash tag #4DKMSD, to tweet your real time reactions along with me and a host of other sharp-tongued internet movie obsessives.



Remember that I will be tossing out Pearl Chang Ling related trivia questions throughout the movie. The first to reply to me with a correct answer will receive a DVD pack hand picked by me from the moldering reject pile that shall henceforth be know as the 4DK Classics Collection™.

So, you see -- and as we say in my old home town -- it's gonna be hella fun. If you need yet more information, please visit the official Monthly Movie Shout Down site at shout-down.com. I'll look forward to hearing from you all tonight!

Friday's best pop song ever

"Heloise" by The Sneetches

France invades Germany

[I’ve already given an overview of France Gall’s French language career over at Teleport City, but I thought I’d post this follow-up here, so as not to ignite in Keith fears that I am trying to turn his site into Ye Ye Girl Central. Those awaiting further film reviews, rest easy; I’ll be back to the usual nonsense in the coming days.]

"I’m a doll of wax, a doll of sound
My heart is engraved in my songs

Doll of wax, doll of sound

Am I better, am I worse

Than a fashion doll?

I see life through bright, rosy-tinted glasses

Doll of wax, doll of sound"

Winning the 1965 Eurovision song contest with the Serge Gainsbourg composition "Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son" (quoted above) turned French teeny-popper France Gall into a pop star with a global reach. Gall recorded numerous international versions of the song, including a Japanese language take, while ultimately being unable to beat the British poppet Twinkle to recording an English version under the title "Lonely Singing Doll".

One non-French speaking territory where “Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son” met with popular success was Germany, where the song was one of the biggest hits of the year. In response, a series of German versions of Gall’s French language hits were released into the market, but with little success. A team of German based songwriters -- including such hitmakers as Christian Bruhn and Kurt Hertha, as well as a young Giorgio Moroder -- were then recruited to fashion a sound for Gall that was more in tune with the “schlager” style of German popular music. The result was a series of singles targeted specifically at the German market that today stands as a complete repertoire wholly separate from Gall’s more well-known French sides. So insulated is this aspect of Gall’s career, in fact, that the only record of it that I could find on disc was the German import collection En Allemand – Das Beste In Deutsch.

The first thing you notice upon listening to En Allemand is how much louder the German version of France Gall is. The lighthearted whimsy of her French hits gives way to Teutonic bombast, the tinkling harpsichords and French horns replaced by barrelhouse piano and blaring trumpets. Gall, so often breathy and childlike on her French tracks, comes across the full on belter. If anything, this inspires a heightened appreciation for her power and range, although the naïve quirks that lent her vocals so much of their charm largely remain (with, for the German audience -- and according to the site Ready Steady Girls! -- an additional charm provided by her heavily accented German pronunciation).

The best example of this full barreled attack is on the 1968 track "Merci, Herr Marquis" (also found on Volume 3 of the essential Ultra Chicks compilation), which kicks off with an amped up male chorus peaking the microphones with what I think is a nonverbal exhortation (it sounds like "DOING! DOING! DOING! DA DOING!") before France comes in blasting the chorus. While this approach overall makes good use of Gall's youthful enthusiasm, it could easily come off as oppressive in its cheerfulness. Thankfully, these songs are so mercilessly catchy and crisply produced that, to an unrehabilitated pop fiend like myself, they are irresistible.

The only of Gall’s French hits given the German language treatment that appears on En Allemand is the baroque headspinner “Bébé Requin”, which appears in slightly remixed form as “Hafischbaby”. Beyond that, the only track likely to be familiar to the uninitiated is a spirited German reworking of the easy listening favorite “Music to Watch Girls By” (“Die Schönste Musik, Die Es Gibt”). What remains is pure lightweight pop, albeit noisome and brassy lightweight pop, which nonetheless leaves some room for experimentation. Bruhn and Georg Buschor’s “Der Computer Nr. 3”, for instance, features a host of retro-futuristic sound effects, as well as an authoritarian sounding robot voice, while the exquisitely named “Hippie Hippie” features an echoed out vocal chorus combined with one of the meanest 1960s bass tones I’ve ever heard. Pastiche also has a place within the collection, as with the honkytonk vogueing of “Dann Schon Eher Der Pianoplayer” and the Brazilian inflections given the carnivalesque cover of “La Banda” that opens the set.

Moroder’s contributions to the collection tend towards the more bubblegum end of things, and betray a barely suppressed fondness on his part for polka rhythms – not to mention, on “Mein Herz Kann Man Nicht Kaufen”, a shameless reliance on kazoos to provide a nagging, if adhesive, hook. The best of his tunes here is “Ich Liebe Dich – So Wie Du Bist”, which affixes a Beatle-esque chorus to the normal beer hall trappings. Bruhn, for his part, contributes some of the sets most go-go worthy numbers, including the aforementioned “Merci, Herr Marquis” and the hip swiveling “Links vom Rhein und Rechts vom Rhein” (“To the Left of the Rhine and the Right of the Rhine”).

But, of course, no matter how gifted the string pullers behind Gall’s “puppet of sound” might have been, any fan can tell you that hers is an appeal that is one hundred percent based in personality. Given that, I’m pleased to report that, for all its happy sturm und drang, Gall’s German sound does nothing to overwhelm or mask the coltish enthusiasm, irrepressible energy and naïve charm that has made so many listeners to her French recording love her so helplessly. I, for one, had an idiotic smile on my face the whole time I was listening to En Alemand. I hardily recommend it to anyone who’s enjoyed any of the more well-known fruits of this imminently lovable singer’s catalog.

The 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down is coming!

The time is next Tuesday, March 11, at 6pm PST. The film is FURY OF THE SILVER FOX, a wildly entertaining example of What-the-Fu directed by and starring the inimitable Pearl Chang Ling. When the time comes, I'm hoping all of you will log on to Twitter and -- using the YouTube link provided on this blog and the hashtag #4DKMSD -- join in the conversation as we all watch and comment along to this twisted masterpiece together.

For more information on the film and its director/star, you can either read my review and/or check out the deluxe, two part episode of the Infernal Brains podcast in which Tars Tarkas, special guest Durian Dave of the Soft Film blog, and myself provide a detailed overview of Pearl Chang Ling's career (Part I, Part II).

The effort might serve you well, as I will be tossing out Pearl related trivia questions throughout the movie. Those quickest to tweet an answer will receive a custom picked DVD pack from my bountiful white elephant pile (to be henceforth referred to as the 4DK Classics Collection™). Say, would that be a partially loved copy of 1980's FOXES starring Jody Foster and the Runaways' Cherie Currie? You bet your diseased spleen it is! AND IT CAN BE YOURS!

Visit the official 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down website for more information, as well as to see a schedule of all the amazing movies that we're going to be tweeting along to over the course of the year. You'll be glad you did.

I look forward to joining you all next Tuesday. Let's send this thing off right!

Podcast on Fire's Taiwan Noir Episode 11: Virago, The Anger, and Inferno Thunderbolt

I had long heard tell of these IFD “Franken-Ninja” movies, wherein ill-famed producer Godfrey Ho ill-advisedly “spiced up” repurposed footage from various Asian martial arts films with footage of aging mustache farmer Richard Harrison. Luckily, I had somehow avoided actually seeing one. Then along came Ken B. of Podcast on Fire, a callous ruiner of innocence if ever there was one, to put an end to my happiness.

In this latest episode of POF’s Taiwan Noir podcast -- in which I once again play guest co-host to Ken’s accent-y master of ceremonies -- we take a look, not only at the 1982 Taiwanese thriller The Anger, but also the misshapen creature that Ho molded it into, 1986’s Inferno Thunderbolt, in which Richard Harrison mostly hangs around the house a lot before finally going to war against the mob. Happily, we also review another one of Elsa Yeung’s cheesecake permeated lady ninja romps, Deadly Silver Angels, aka Virago, so all is not totally lost.

You can either stream the episode or get details on how to download it here.