09-04-2018, 05:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-04-2018, 05:33 PM by Drunk Monk.)
Sometimes you see a pic on Netflix and you just gotta see that. LDM had this pic of Leslie Cheung, a pretty boy singer who got into films. I didn't really care for him but respected when he came out at bi and was saddened when he killed himself. Leslie is pictured with someone in a bad giant bird costume. Giant bird costume? Yeah, gotta see that.
It's a story extracted from Louis Cha's Return of the Condor Heroes, a classic groundbreaking wuxia that I've never read because there wasn't an English translation available. There's lots of movies and even graphic novels but I've never quite put the saga together because it's just bits and pieces and I haven't really given it that much energy. I should. The Condor trilogy is allegedly a modern wuxia masterpiece and highly influential on media and I suspect on Kung Fu mythology. Anyway the bad giant bird costume is the condor. Go Condor! I had to wait until the last third of the film until the condor appeared, and it's a great wth moment. All these years, I've wondered why they were called Condor heroes. I get it now. Well, sort of.
Because the book has so many characters, everytime a new character appears, their name comes up in Chinese. This is a fairly common device in Shaw Bro films when they are depicting legends. It's cinematic shorthand letting us know who is who so we don't have to have any character development and just go right to the action. It also means the movie doesn't have to make a whole lot of sense on its own.
This also stars the mighty Chen Kuan Tai, who's digits I would have in my phone if I spoke Cantonese. We've hung out. I did a cover story on him - regrettably not one of my better ones given his cinematic stature. He gave me an embroidered school jacket which remains one of my favorites because it's beautiful, not misspelled like Chu Chiling's. Also appearing is the nefarious Lo Lieh and the ever-present Ku Feng.
The fights are silly - lots of flying about. Plenty of swordfights. There's a funny blooper where you can clearly see tire tracks in the dirt (this is set in medieval times). But there's a monk with a golden fidget-spinner frisbee of death and really, what more do you need from a KF flick? Toad fu? Virgin hottie fu? Secret nekkid male-female KF practice? KF freezing touch that results in a particularly loathsome rape? That's all like icing. There's also decapitation, limb loss and a split-in-two cut.
WARNING - there's also lots of senseless animal death and devouring. The dog stew scene is totally irrelevant and probably just because the director wanted some dog stew. That will put the DOOM dog peeps off for sure.
cf might like this. Maybe PPFY too. The rest of you should probably avoid it.
It's really all about the condor. GO CONDOR!
It's a story extracted from Louis Cha's Return of the Condor Heroes, a classic groundbreaking wuxia that I've never read because there wasn't an English translation available. There's lots of movies and even graphic novels but I've never quite put the saga together because it's just bits and pieces and I haven't really given it that much energy. I should. The Condor trilogy is allegedly a modern wuxia masterpiece and highly influential on media and I suspect on Kung Fu mythology. Anyway the bad giant bird costume is the condor. Go Condor! I had to wait until the last third of the film until the condor appeared, and it's a great wth moment. All these years, I've wondered why they were called Condor heroes. I get it now. Well, sort of.
Because the book has so many characters, everytime a new character appears, their name comes up in Chinese. This is a fairly common device in Shaw Bro films when they are depicting legends. It's cinematic shorthand letting us know who is who so we don't have to have any character development and just go right to the action. It also means the movie doesn't have to make a whole lot of sense on its own.
This also stars the mighty Chen Kuan Tai, who's digits I would have in my phone if I spoke Cantonese. We've hung out. I did a cover story on him - regrettably not one of my better ones given his cinematic stature. He gave me an embroidered school jacket which remains one of my favorites because it's beautiful, not misspelled like Chu Chiling's. Also appearing is the nefarious Lo Lieh and the ever-present Ku Feng.
The fights are silly - lots of flying about. Plenty of swordfights. There's a funny blooper where you can clearly see tire tracks in the dirt (this is set in medieval times). But there's a monk with a golden fidget-spinner frisbee of death and really, what more do you need from a KF flick? Toad fu? Virgin hottie fu? Secret nekkid male-female KF practice? KF freezing touch that results in a particularly loathsome rape? That's all like icing. There's also decapitation, limb loss and a split-in-two cut.
WARNING - there's also lots of senseless animal death and devouring. The dog stew scene is totally irrelevant and probably just because the director wanted some dog stew. That will put the DOOM dog peeps off for sure.
cf might like this. Maybe PPFY too. The rest of you should probably avoid it.
It's really all about the condor. GO CONDOR!
Shadow boxing the apocalypse