Alex
04-15-2008, 05:36 PM
Before I get into the details, I'll say that this set is without a doubt worth picking up for Chiba fans. Some of the stuff below will sound disparaging, so keep this in mind.
Soul of Chiba (soul of Bruce Lee)- this is a list of reasons to love this one:
1. Chiba vs the monkey dudes which really is one of the best fight scenes he ever shot
2. Chiba literally eating handfuls of heroin throughout
3. Bronson Lee with a fake Fumanchu mustache
4. Bolo!!!!! (and subsequently Bronson Lee vs Bolo)
5. The wire contraption on the cover actually plays a pretty significant role, and makes for a hilarious training scene
6. An ending so depressing it makes Grand Silencio look like It's a Wonderful Life
7. An overall vibe of a movie made by Robert Tai on a PCP binge in a desparate scramble to pay off his coke dealer or something Al Adamson made in the Phillipines as a tax write off
It's cheap, fast, fun, trashy action packed goodness.
Now for the bad news: Fighting Fist just flat out sucks. Chiba is in it for what barely amounts to a cameo, and he does not fight. If I read the credits correctly he actually directed this (HKflix doesn't agree), which makes me glad he stayed in front of the camera in the more fruitful days of his carreer. The plot is about 90% standart HK 80s action and 10% Japanese Karate flick, although neither part is realized to anything resembling its true potential. The talents of the main actors are woefully misused, in fact there's very little action here at all. Sibelle Hu doesn't fight at all, Chin Kar-lok dies in the first 10 minutes without ever throwing a punch, Ken Lo's sequences are short and terribly edited. The protagonist, whom I vaguely recognize as the Sonada lookalike from either Ninjas and Dragons or Shogun's Shadow, is clearly a gifted kicker but is given very little to do. Whatever miniscule amount of action is here is edited terribly and for some reason looks very stilted. The final showdown, which I expected to be the saving grace, can be in the dictionary under anti-climatic. All this could have been somewhat overlooked if the film offered anything interesting in terms of plot, acting or even exploitative value - unfortunately this is not the case. There are only two moments that I genuinly enjoyed, the first being a short demonstration a Karate master gives his students and the second being Lo kicking really high with spurs to cut off Kar-Lok's ears.
Honestly, it seems like Rarescope only released this based on its obscurity, because there's very little to redeem it otherwise. Sometimes things fall from memory for a good reason, this is one of those times.
Bottom line: it's a cheap release, so get this for Soul of Chiba, it's not his best but it's still a riot. And since you already bought it, and if perhaps you're a masochistic completist, you might as well check out the other one as well.
Soul of Chiba (soul of Bruce Lee)- this is a list of reasons to love this one:
1. Chiba vs the monkey dudes which really is one of the best fight scenes he ever shot
2. Chiba literally eating handfuls of heroin throughout
3. Bronson Lee with a fake Fumanchu mustache
4. Bolo!!!!! (and subsequently Bronson Lee vs Bolo)
5. The wire contraption on the cover actually plays a pretty significant role, and makes for a hilarious training scene
6. An ending so depressing it makes Grand Silencio look like It's a Wonderful Life
7. An overall vibe of a movie made by Robert Tai on a PCP binge in a desparate scramble to pay off his coke dealer or something Al Adamson made in the Phillipines as a tax write off
It's cheap, fast, fun, trashy action packed goodness.
Now for the bad news: Fighting Fist just flat out sucks. Chiba is in it for what barely amounts to a cameo, and he does not fight. If I read the credits correctly he actually directed this (HKflix doesn't agree), which makes me glad he stayed in front of the camera in the more fruitful days of his carreer. The plot is about 90% standart HK 80s action and 10% Japanese Karate flick, although neither part is realized to anything resembling its true potential. The talents of the main actors are woefully misused, in fact there's very little action here at all. Sibelle Hu doesn't fight at all, Chin Kar-lok dies in the first 10 minutes without ever throwing a punch, Ken Lo's sequences are short and terribly edited. The protagonist, whom I vaguely recognize as the Sonada lookalike from either Ninjas and Dragons or Shogun's Shadow, is clearly a gifted kicker but is given very little to do. Whatever miniscule amount of action is here is edited terribly and for some reason looks very stilted. The final showdown, which I expected to be the saving grace, can be in the dictionary under anti-climatic. All this could have been somewhat overlooked if the film offered anything interesting in terms of plot, acting or even exploitative value - unfortunately this is not the case. There are only two moments that I genuinly enjoyed, the first being a short demonstration a Karate master gives his students and the second being Lo kicking really high with spurs to cut off Kar-Lok's ears.
Honestly, it seems like Rarescope only released this based on its obscurity, because there's very little to redeem it otherwise. Sometimes things fall from memory for a good reason, this is one of those times.
Bottom line: it's a cheap release, so get this for Soul of Chiba, it's not his best but it's still a riot. And since you already bought it, and if perhaps you're a masochistic completist, you might as well check out the other one as well.