Another Disappointing Experience

Until last weekend, I had never seen a Shaw Brothers film in a theater, and I thought I may never have the opportunity. Imagine my delight when I found out that "Avenging Eagle" and "The Duel" were playing at the New Beverly Cinema (a great revival theater), right here in LA! "Finally" I thought. "Finally I'll get to actually watch these movies with other kung fu fans!"
Wrongish.
Not only was the theater less than half full (despite the fact that Quentin Tarantino himself chose the programming and introduced the films), but it was clear by audience reactions that none of these people were even remotely familiar with this genre of film. The only actor that got any sort of applause from the audience during the previews or the films was Lee Van Cleef during the "Stranger and the Gunfighter" trailer.
Lee Van Cleef!
Lo Lieh? Who's that? There was even a muffled giggle when he came on the screen. I still don't know what that was about.  I couldn't hold back a "WHOOT!" when Tarantino mentioned Fu Sheng after "Avenging Eagle", seeing as during the credits, no one clapped for either Fu Sheng or Ti Lung. Someone had to represent.
The audience laughed heartily during "Avenging Eagle" (Ku Feng was killing people for some reason), but during "The Duel", which was dubbed, the few people who had actually stayed for the film were laughing like crazy. Of course there are hilarious moments in many Shaw Brothers flicks, I mean sometimes the wigs alone are enough. I'd feel differently if I thought they also appreciated the films, but I wasn't getting that impression. I mean, come on. How many times can you really laugh at someone scaling an impossibly high wall? It happens so many times in so many SB flicks that you'd think the audience would get tired of laughing. You'd be wrong. 
There were in the audience, I'm sure, a couple of real fans. Really quiet fans. This definitely includes the guy wearing an "Avenging Eagle" t-shirt and sitting in the front row. Kudos to you, my friend. And much to my surprise and delight, Quentin Tarantino did actually impress me with his knowledge and his appreciation for the films.
As a fitting end to the somewhat disappointing evening, the theater was playing "Friday" after the Shaw Brothers double feature, and the line was around the block. Then I mysteriously got explosive diarrhea. WTF.
*Ahem*. Anyway, here's what I'm trying to say: I thought there would be more people there, and I thought they would be more familiar and appreciative of the genre. I got the feeling that most people there just wanted to see Tarantino, or have a laugh.
In my everyday life, I'd already given up trying to persuade people to understand why I enjoy these films so much. I never thought I'd  have to put up with that same feeling of isolation while watching them with an audience in a revival theater.

A Very Disappointing Experience

Late last year, I embarked on an exciting whirlwind cross-country trip with my boyfriend and mother. We saw some incredibly strange things, so very little was out of the realm of possibility. The three of us stopped at a Chinese restaurant in the middle of a run-down town in Arizona to get grub on our way back to California, and I got such a shock! They turned the television on, and I saw something very familiar to me. The Shaw Brothers logo! But from there, things got so terribly disappointing. Allow me to elaborate with a comic in the popular four panel format.

Fucking Kill Bill.

Demon of the Lute

I've been spending a lot of time watching Shaw Brothers kung fu movies lately. I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't previously seen many of them, and in trying to make up for lost time I've been scouring the internet watching every movie that's even remotely involved with the Venom Mob, which has kind of been my jumping off point. One of these movies, I'm very happy to say was "Demon of the Lute".

The only review I had read said that it's moderately enjoyable if you realize that it's a children's film. I guess maybe the reviewer was expecting a more straightforward kung fu flick, but I had seen a trailer, and it was clear to me that this was also an early eighties fantasy flick, which I'm a total sucker for, so I was definitely in.

My god. This movie made me feel like I was 12 years old, but maybe trippin' balls at the same time. I'm not going to even bother talking much about the story because honestly, it takes a total backseat to the fighting, score and super sweet visual effects. I am however going to post a lot of screencaps to try to express the crazy radness of this film. If you want to surprise yourself with all of the weird shit that goes on in this movie, you may not want to go any further.

Let's introduce our heroes!

                                                                          Feng Ling

She's got a sweet flying sword and she's played by one of Shaw's super-babes Kara Hui. She does all kinds of super fast hand jives and it spins around and beats the shit out of people. She's on a quest for a magical bow and arrow that can defeat the evil (and totally sweet looking) lute.

                                                             What the lute actually does:

                                                                          Yuan Fei

Played by Siu-hou Chin (House of Traps, Legend of the Fox, Mr. Vampire, Fist of Legend) who is repeatedly referred to as "ugly" in the film because of the heart-shaped birthmark on his face. Mm-hm.

                                                     Ding-dong and his father The Thief

The Thief is played by the awesome Phillip Kwok (Five Deadly Venoms, Crippled Avengers, a million other sweet films). Another reviewer referred to Ding-dong (seriously) as a girl, but I'm fairly certain he's a boy. He gets drunk during the second half of the movie.

They rob from the rich to give to the poor. Need 'em? That's cool, just use the bunny signal!

                                                                       Old Naughty

He's Feng Ling's brother and he's also ridiculously awesome. He's drunk, his horse is drunk and he fights using a giant pair of golden scissors. Played by Yuen Tak. Totally underrated. Love that guy.

                                                         Other supporting good guys:

                                                              Skinny elf and Fatty elf

Skinny elf is nightmare-worthy, but he does piss on Yuan Fei's face and gets rid of that unsightly birthmark!

                                                        Did he just piss on you? Heck yes!

                                                                        

                              Fatty elf is actually super adorable. They give our hero a sweet sword.

                                                            Don't worry, it, uh, grows.

                                                                     The Woodcutter

It is a little weird seeing some of these actors who usually play super serious parts in many Shaw Brothers films acting so ridiculously goofy, but I kind of like it. He's played by Lung Tien Hsiang.

                                    My brain is about to explode, so I'll move on to the bad guys!

                                                                   The Demon of the Lute

                                        His army of dudes with wiggly spiders on their heads

                              Awesome dude with growing hair and ridiculously oversized axe

                                                                Before getting angry:

                                                                   After getting angry:

                             Lee Hoi San looks weird with hair anyway, so this is just ridiculous.

                                                             Viking and Hermaphrodite

                                     Old Long Arms, Killer Hunchbacks and Demon disco ball

                               There's so much more awesome weirdness. Check out these sets:

There is so much other crazy shit going on in this movie like killer trees (not the Evil Dead rape-y kind), birdmen, fire breathers, etc. I advise you to watch this immediately.

                                                          If not for yourself, do it for him.

                                                                 Jason Pai Piao is Amazing.