Big ol' box of HK cinema treats came in the post this past weekend. Ms. Mail Lady is now shoveling percoet into her mug to deal with the sciatic pain in her L4 for lugging HK goodies to my door. Sorry, but it's worth it! For me anyway. This box of good stuff came from a blog/podcast friend who owns HARD BOILED RECORDS in Chicago. He's selling off a bunch of HK movie stuffs in anticipation of relocating. So, I just lightened his load a bit. You can find Hard Boiled Records on Ebay here as well as on Amazon. (Don't have a direct link for Amazon. Sorry.) So, go and help a brother out.
Contents of this wonderful present included 42 HK VHS, 12 Hong Kong Film Connection fanzines, and 6 handmade buttons. I have ALL of the films in other formats but I just have a hankering for VHS. They are difficult to resist. Some of the titles: RED WOLF, SHANGHAI FEVER, ROSE, THE INCORRUPTIBLE, IN THE LAP OF GOD, THE UNTOLD STORY III, BURNING AMBITION, OUT OF THE DARK, WHITE LOTUS CULT, PEDICAB DRIVER, SAM THE IRON BRIDGE, MAGIC CRANE, FATAL OBSESSION, SONG OF THE EXILE, and VENDETTA.
Hong Kong Film Connection mags
A few buttons from HERO, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, and the odd man out, COP ON A MISSION
MY WIFE'S LOVER, HER VENGEANCE,GIGOLO AND WHORE II
'Nuff said! My kinda film review!
RETRIBUTION SIGHT UNSEEN, THE LOVE THAT IS WRONG, LABORATORY OF THE DEVIL
THE LAST BLOOD, JAIL IN BURNING ISLAND, MY HEART IS THAT ETERNAL ROSE
Bloody action film. Hard to read subtitles. I'm in love!
Also in the mix was RAPED BY AN ANGEL aka NAKED KILLER 2. Just as a heads up, Sleazy K and I recorder our NAKED KILLER special last weekend and it should be pounding away on your wax laden ear canals soon. The podcast is a whopper and we cover a ton of CAT III filth, oddly enough, leaving out RAPED BY AN ANGEL?! Don't you fret. I think a RAPED BY AN ANGEL special could be in our podcast future. Why wouldn't it be?
Eureka! Or something like that? Isn't that what Ponce De Leon said when he discovered the Mississippi River? Well, anyway, a discovery! My fiance, Wei, was helping her folks clean out their garage and came across some old TVB VHS that her grandmother used to watch. Lightening struck the three of them and in an instant they thought of me. Why throw them out when they know I collect garbage for a living? 20 VHS of the TVB dramas, THE CHANGE OF TIME, from 1992, starring Francis Ng Chun-yu, Frankie Lam Man-lung, Maggie Siu Mei-kei, and Gigi Lai Chi and REMEMBRANCE from 1994, also with Frankie Lam Man-lung and Kenix Kwok Hoh-ying. They are unsubed so there is very little chance I will ever see them so I will just add them to the clutter. Wei and her folks only finished cleaning out half of the garage so I wait with baited breath as to what wonders the other half holds. Can't wait to hit up that attic as well!
And finally. Wei and I spent a few days last weekend in Flushing's C-town. I hit up the usual spots, now over-rife with bootlegs, but was able to wrangle a legit REVENGE: A LOVE STORY. Directed by the pretentious Wong Ching-po, who also crapped out pretty looking emptiness like AH SOU and JIANG HU (Ok, so FU BO was pretty good, from what I recall?), REVENGE: A LOVE STORY almost achieves credibility with it's familiar heyday CAT III elements, characterizations, and a few tough to watch scenes, but ultimately fails because Ching-po thinks he's an important director and needs to inject art house ineptness to what could have been a creepy dark morality genre exercise. Instead, we get an artsy fartsy morality play that chucks an unsatisfying conclusion at you like a pompous punch in the face. Maddening! Japanese AV star Sora Aoi (No. I don't know who she is? I'm not that much of a pervert!) makes her feature film debut but is given little to do but show a bit of skin and act touched in the head. That being said, she does a decent job with what she is given and is a damn site better than her AV counterpart, Maria Ozawa (Ok. Maybe I do know who Ms. Ozawa is?) in the 2009 Taiwanese CAT III slasher pic, INVITATION ONLY. INVITATION ONLY is a turd. Don't step in it.Disgust with the director aside, I will marginally recommend REVENGE: A LOVE STORY. Dressed down, this is the kind of film that I wouldn't mind seeing more of. Dark yet sleek, reminding me of the Korean thriller, THE CHASER, the film starts off so damn good, mysterious and dirty police procedural style, before descending into conceit. Check it out. But definitely no rush.
Excuse me for asking, but do you live in a fortress made of VHS tapes? I have enough overflow trouble with DVDs and VCDs, which are considerably thinner.
ReplyDeleteLove those short, hand-written reviews! I aspire to such brevity.
duriandave, hahaha. They are overtaking my apartment. I'm using the new box of goodies as an ottoman! Seriously!
ReplyDeleteAnd as for brevity, I am constantly telling myself to 'shut up!' while I write the blog. I think your Tumblr site is the way to go?
Another nice haul Kingwho? but seriously how and where do you manage to store everything?
ReplyDeleteHi Kingwho? --
ReplyDeleteHave you seen "Her Vengeance" before? If not, reckon you're in for a treat. Think it's awesome -- the best rape revenge film I've seen... not least because the revenge part is truly something to behold.
Re "My Heart is that Eternal Rose"... seems it also goes by the title "My Heart is an Eternal Rose". In any case, you do know that it's available on DVD, right? ;)
Hi YTSL. I have seen 'Her Vengeance" and I loved it. I was discussing it recently with a facebook friend who had just revisited it. I plan on doing the same. Lam Ching-ying is great in the film. And poor Pauline Wong. So good. I'm surprised you enjoyed a rape-revenge thriller?
ReplyDeleteAnd, I do have the dvd for My Heart is That Eternal Rose as well. It's an underrated movie that, I have found, not many people have seen.
Oh, AHND, my apartment is extremely cluttered with all of this junk. It's rather embarrasing but I don't have anywhere to put it at the moment. Movies are stacked and/or shoved into large tupperware bins....which are also stacked. To the ceiling. My living room is a mess. We are looking for a bigger home and I really do need my OWN spac for this garbage. A rather large space at that =D
ReplyDeleteHi Kingwho? --
ReplyDelete"Enjoyed" may not be quite the word but find "Her Vengeance" a powerful film -- and admire it for being so. Also, like I said before, I like that its "revenge" part is as strong as its "rape" -- something that isn't often the case for "rape revenge" films.
Yes, I agree that powerful is a good word for the Her Vengeance experience. The revenge part is very cathartic, as I find in most all rape/revenge flicks.
ReplyDeleteI loved HONG KONG FILM CONNECTION magazine. I even have 2 of their awesome shirts and a copy of FIGHT FANTASIA: THE FILMS OF THE YUEN CLAN they prodcued back in the day.
ReplyDelete