Martial Law (1998-2000)

[Drunk Monk]

I thought I'd check out S1e8 because Shannon Lee was a guest star. I forgot how good this show was. Sure, Sammo's dialog is so stilted because his English is terrible. They should've just given him less lines. How hard would that have been? But in terms of fight scenes, it's on point for TV. 

Shannon is really good in this. Her acting and Kung Fu are good for TV. She had a decent spinning back kick and a strong right leg. Sammo is amazing as always. He pulls off some great moves, operatic weapon juggling, hoop jumping, and that sidekick of his drops like a batttering ram. Kelly Hu is a bit disappointing - she's very stiff and such a China doll. 

But it was a good show. Some of the issues it touched on - immigration, racism, corporate franchises driving out the indie mom&pop shops - all still relevant. And Shannon brings honor to the family in this ep, just like Mulan. 

I remember loving it when it played and now I'm thinking I should just watch it all again.

[Drunk Monk]

S1e1: Tzi Ma as the main villain. Kelly Hu's character is named Cheng Pei Pei. 

I remember the auto shop fight and the lawn-aeriating shoe fight. That was all I remembered.

[cranefly]

Auto shop fight...  Is this the one where Sammo does a somersault off the roof of a car to the floor?  Impressed the hell out of me, but also made me wonder how long his joints could last doing that sort of thing.

I know he opened a checking account at a bank in one episode, drove the uppity agent nuts by wanting to look at all the check patterns, and then in the end, after an hour, he settles on the default.

Lotta flashbacks right now...  You did a piece on the white sidekick.  Did he join the cast later?  I remember from the piece that he was a hardcore trainer, and that his mental state seemed just a tad off.  Too one-dimensionally macho or something like that.

[Drunk Monk]

Dayum. You're memory is on point. Except for the piece on the white sidekick. I don't remember doing a piece on him. Louis Mandylor (had to look that up even though I just saw it in the opening credits twice). His character is named Louis Malone. I don't know a thing about him beyond what I just read on wiki.

There's a blonde cop that I didn't remember at all - she's not going to make it to ep8 tho. She's rather stiff and can go. 

Not only did I remember the auto shop fight, I remembered that flip and the NG scene at the end of the flip. 

Despite Sammo's clunky English (his diction is well rehearsed but his timing is painfully off) he does emote well. I liked when he said he learned from Chinese opera. It was a lost line back then but for those who know Sammo, it rings true. Sammo has always been one of my favs. I'll watch him in anything. He always delivers. It's reaffirming to see that he's true to form in this and that it holds up okay, despite the typicaly TV cop show format and the wailing guitar riffs for the fight scenes. That feels so dated now. 

On a side note, I've met the showrunners. Al Gough and Miles Millar did Into the Badlands. I talked to Al about it a little in Dublin. He was very pleased that I remembered it (the other reporters were in their 30s so they were teens when Martial Law came out. I remember how excited we all were about it in the Wulin. It's really unprecedented and the martial arts shows now don't quite hold a candle to the level of choreo this was bringing. It's all Sammo and Stanley Tong.

[Drunk Monk]

Forgot to mention that Sammo appears on The Price is Right with a cameo from Bob Barker. It’s so random.

[cranefly]

Tracked down my Louis Mandylor memory.  Major clue found in an old email exchange dating back to Jan. 9, 2006:

Gene Ching <gene@kungfumagazine.com>
To:gshockley@yahoo.com

Fri, Feb 3, 2006 at 11:00 AM

Got it.  Thanks.  And you're totally right about being HUNG.  I'm
surprised Craig missed that.

I'll let Louis know to watch out for ya...

At 12:31 AM 2/3/2006, you wrote:
>Hi Gene.
>
>Well, that's certainly a revelation.
>I hope he doesn't totally screw up his shins.
>I thought I read somewhere (in Kung Fu Tai Chi?)
>how some guy trained like that and later in life
>his shins turned black and he died soon after.
>
>Then again, what do I know?
>
>One thing I know.  I could take Mandylor.  What
>a puny excuse for a man.
>
>The mag needs a section for posting challenges.
>
>--gary
>
>P.S. I changed Sammo's last name from Hong to Hung.
>I realize he was born Hong, but most people know
>him as Hung, right?
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>http://mail.yahoo.com

Gene Ching
Associate Publisher
Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine
www.KungFuMagazine.com
510-656-5100X137 F: 510-656-8844

In case you're asking, I never delete emails.  It's a laziness thing.

So I tracked down two Craig Reid Martial Law-related pieces on KungFuMazine.com.  One is an ezine article ("What Happened to Martial Law?") here:
http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/arti...rticle=216

The other is in the May/June 2006 print issue here:
http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/a...rticle=650

The title (a bit messed up on that page) is: "A Piece of Wong Fei Hong Hits Hollywood: Louis Mandylor and Huang Jia Quan"

Craig actually visited Mandylor's residence to interview him there.  I recall the craziness of what transpired.  Here's the opening:

Driving up the winding roads of Hollywood Hills, you begin hearing this eerie, arrhythmic, deep toned chime music clanging through the air.  Minutes later I learn that it's not somebody's stereo gone awry but the sound of Louis Mandylor working out on a 1400 pound, solid iron, wing chun dummy.  However, instead of having a few wimpy wooden sticks representing arms, Louis is whacking away on 6 iron arms attached to what appears to be sawed truck suspension springs that are imbedded into a 2-foot diameter solid iron body.  So as you enter his backyard pool area, and without sounding vulgar or rude, the first question that comes to mind is, "What the hell is that?"

[Drunk Monk]

So busted.

But in my defense, I thought you meant I wrote it, not Craig. And I stopped reading Craig's articles too deeply soon after I hired the 'butcher' copy editor. I inherited Craig from our previous editor, and he was prolific and had decent access to C-level stars being in LA, but when he moved to San Diego (and started writing for BB) we parted ways. He still does his reviews of the SDAFF, but those are free for us (he does them to get a press pass). I can't resist free content. Want to catch a DM? Dress up like a clown, hide in the sewer, and lure him down there with a balloon that says 'free content'. 

I'm in awe that you remembered this. It's coming back to me now like an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. I need to belch now.

It just struck me that DOOM has a Word Butcher and a Wood Butcher. The Butchers of DOOM.

[cranefly]

You're correct that I was thinking you did the interview, so the blow-off was warranted.  I know it sounds like the ultimate insult, mistaking Craig's prose for yours.  But it was the insane manner in which Mandylor was training that made the piece memorable.

Then again, Craig is known to embellish.  Among other English abominations.  Mixed metaphors into extra dimensions, red herrings bleeding like a stuck pig, a prose molester extraordinaire.

[Drunk Monk]

Yes I remember that piece now and should reread it. Craig has his moments, just enough to keep him around until he wrote a book for BB (which I still have never read but have toyed with the notion of getting it as a gift for you if I could find it at a used bookstore). That book was a good excuse to let him go although it was really all the bad puns. We still swap an email now and again. The last time I read his BB column, it was so painfully derivative of something I wrote that I almost posted it on the KFM forum. But I stayed me hand as a gentleman. We were friends after a fashion - I suppose we still are. It’s just those puns...

[Drunk Monk]

E2 the first story arc with villainous Tzi Ma is done and the team is formed (Kelly makes the team). It offers morsels of Chinese culture that I didn’t appreciate before. Tzi is charming in the Ng. There’s these pop tv references that are dated but nostalgic. Still fun.

The nod to the Far East Proto Cliche in the opening theme is a tad stereotyping but the rest is pretty cool.

---

E3 is a weird twist on UFC and WWE. Meh. Mandylor is better than I remembered however, although I'm thinking it's cf's memory of that Craiger.

[Drunk Monk]

E4 A lame counterfeiting plot. They're all really bad cops. They always get into these absurd fights, often losing their guns for some dumb reason. They break into things without warrants. Sammo & Kelly can pick any lock in seconds. They torture suspects. Lots of stuff gets broke - glass windows, gates, furniture. The show is ruthless too. High body count. The hand-to-hand fights are still good tho. 

Kelly is subjugated to a random sideplot that has nothing to do with anything. 

There was also a snitch named Eugene. Eugene’s get such a bad rap.

It’s weird seeing the LA streets so empty.

The police combat instructor David Hasbro is funny. He's a reoccuring character, the first acting role by stuntman David Leitch. Yeah, that David Leitch.

---

E5 Vigilante cops. Yeah, the plots are already getting pretty cliche. 

The blonde bitchy cop sleeps around a lot, almost like a male role would. Too bad she’s not going to last.

Finale fight in a construction site. The villains all have tonfa-shaped pipes (vigilante cops). Sammo fights with a rebar staff and that’s cool. Sammo is so good. But it’s not all him. Some of the stunt crew takes some big falls. It’s degraded to just the fights already.

Funny nod at the end as Sammo drives past the Chinese Theater and Rush Hour is on the marquee.

[Drunk Monk]

E6: Rock climbing ninjas. Exit blonde cop, stage left. It seems the female cops are just there to have perps be old flames, and to get their hearts broken when they have to bust them. A hottie legal assistent hits on Sammo and that's kinda funny. Sammo's reaction to accidently being mistaken for a sex addict in a group therapy session made me laugh out loud. I can see why American audiences rejected Sammo's accent. The tempo of his delivery is so awkward and halting. But he gives it his all and is really quite funny.

[Drunk Monk]

E7: Aryan nation hitting armored cars. Dana (blonde cop) is written out with a passing bit of dialog. There’s a lot of Boom mics - not in this Ep but others. Sammo takes his driving test and randomly crosses the crime scene. Sammo constantly just stumbles into major crimes. Next Ep is the Shannon one that triggered this binge. Scene in a Miami vice themed reggae bar full off white people dancing off beat.

---

E9 Enter Arsenio. Yeah, this might be a deal breaker. Arsenio’s bad Chris Tucker is worse than Tucker’s bad Eddie Murphy. He ruins it, stealing the spotlight from Mandylor in a blatant grab at the black audience. Ginuwine has a cameo and Arsenio does the worst Rasta patois ever (at least he gets busted for it). Sacrificing Sammo fights for Arsenio quips is a dumb trade. 35 eps to go but now my interest is waning.

[cranefly]

I wondered when you'd hit the Arsenio wall.  Though I wasn't certain it would be a wall.  I recently youtubed Sammo's best fight scenes from Martial Law.  Impressive explosive powerful and complex stuff.  But then there was Arsenio, and I cringed, remembering that addition to the show, and wondered if I was being racist.  Probably so, to some extent, but I've also got some refined tastes when it comes to martial arts.  Talk about watering down the series.  Sammo deserved better.  Mandylor deserved better.

[Drunk Monk]

E10: This ep had ninjas. Real sword swingin ninjas in those silly ninja uniforms that every martial arts company carried back in the late 90s and still does. Dumb. 

There's a finale fight in a museum where Sammo is able to procure a jian from a display and sword fight with a ninja, but so dumb. 

Arsenio has completely changed the tone of the show for the worse. Might bail. Or probably just start something else and leave this on the back burner for a while. 

The uzis date this show. Remember back then it was all about uzis? I even have an uzi tactical pen. But you don't really see them anymore, not now that we have AK47s.