ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND (1980)

 This is probably my favorite Sammo Hung flick. Sammo not only starred but also wrote and directed this tale of a poor bumbling sap who gets targeted by a naughty priest/wizard fellow. Mr. Hung, like his buddy Jackie Chan, keeps things firmly in the comedy kung-fu camp but this one also throw in a bunch of horror elements including a haunted house(complete with one of those hopping vampires), a zombie and lots of magical spells that raise demonic ghosts that inhabit various people. As in a lot of these Hong Kong films from this era there's a bit of animal violence involving a chicken decapitation that might make not be great for the squeamish. Without completely giving it away the very last scene might be one of the greatest ever in Asian cinema (unless you're some kinda feminist with no sense of humour that is). AKA SPOOKY ENCOUNTERS
 There is an  ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND 2 that came out 9 years after this but I'm pretty sure it isn't an actual sequel.


 

PORTRAIT IN CRYSTAL (1983)

 Another crazy-ass Shaw Brothers kung fu extravaganza! This one is kinda hard to sum up and I'm not even very sure that I could follow the plot but I still enjoyed the hell out of it. There's a hero who's looking to solve some murders, there's crystal statues that come alive and become people, there's a guitar made out of a rib-cage, there's a kinda Phantom of the Opera-masked fellow running around poisoning people which then makes their stomachs explode like something from ALIEN, there's a naked lady in a fishnet who gets tortured on a cross, just about everyone ends up dead and there's lots of very red blood on display. Oh and it's all looks like the the editor did a bunch of cocaine before showing up for work. If you want to check out something wild in the kung fu genre give it a whirl.

RETURN OF THE EVIL FOX (1991)

 A lot of this kung fu flick, that centers around an evil kung fu lady with big furry mittens with claws on them(the "evil fox" of the title), is just a bunch of comedic hi-jinks concerning a family of weirdos and a fat security guard. The couple of fights they mercifully throw in are the typical 90's Hong Kong high-flying wire-work style. It took me a couple of tries to actually get through this one. If you're a serious martial arts fan don't bother.

ARHATS IN FURY (1985)

 This is a kung fu flick that focuses on some warring factions(one of which, The Jin appear to be Arabic in the way they dress and the big-ass genie swords they wield) and a Shaolin Buddhist monastery that caught in between. But really it's just a bunch of crazy crap thrown together for your amazement/amusement. You get a little boy thrown on a spike for starters, a guy gets his leg lopped off and in one nutso scene, unlike any I've seen in a martial arts film before, birds and monkeys suddenly attack an army(this contains some animal cruelty bits, like many Hong Kong films, so watch out you squeamish types) after our hero just whistles. The fight bits all seem to be sped up so you get this hyper-kinetic Benny Hill-like feel. The cast has to be one of the biggest in kung fu movie history which may be due to it being a mainland China co-production(I hear there are a lot of people there). Definitely one that stands out from your more typical genre fare. I still have no idea what an Arhat is though.

                                              The hip-hop remix!:

MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS (1958)

 Monster shenanigans featuring a professor who inadvertently turns himself into a prehistoric ape-man and runs amuck murdering folks. You also get an extra-large dragonfly and a dog with some big fangs. Good breezy 50s monster silliness. The main monster just looks like a guy wearing a cheap Halloween mask but I'm sure they did their best to find the scariest-looking Halloween mask they could. The stand out scene in this has got to be when our goofy-looking monster hurls an axe right into a policeman's face. Not something you see in 50's films very often.
 I did see someone(who I will assume is some type of religious nut) on the IMDB page for this movie complaining about how this movie promotes the crazy liberal idea of evolution. It's pretty amazing that there's someone who finds this movie offensive for any reason but I guess if you're an insane person don't watch this or you will apparently be terribly triggered!

MEN ON THE HOUR (1977)

 The version I watched of this kung fu flick (on a DVD that calls it BLACK HERCULES VS. YELLOW TIGER which, as far as I can tell is incorrect!) is a terrible cut version where half of the fight scenes are edited way down to eliminate all the bloody parts. This is clearly not the optimal way to view this film but might be the way it was shown on T.V. back in the day. It's a pretty typical martial arts deal where a master is killed except this time it's a mystery as to who did the killing and the film deals with solving this. Our main hero has a very simplistic style of fighting where he basically just punches his opponents really hard which sends them flying across the room(I've read that this was the inspiration for the comic books ONE PUNCH MAN and FIST OF THE NORTH STAR and that makes a lot of sense). There is a longer, but terrible-looking, version available on YouTube so I'm starting to think this movie is cursed or something. Probably not a bad one to skip anyway though. AKA THE HEROIC FIGURE
 The weird title of MEN ON THE HOUR I assume refers to a prostitute characters clientele though it would be more fitting for a porn movie.


The blurry extended cut!:

GIRL GANG (1954)

 Well there is a girl gang in this that show up a couple of times but the main focus here is on a drug-pushing scumbag named Joe who gets young people hooked on weed and heroin and then sends them out to be gangsters and/or prostitutes to pay for their habits. The whole thing plays pretty much like a REEFER MADNESS-esque "beware of drugs" cautionary tale, there's even a musical number thrown in just like in that classic. A quick hour long run-time makes it worth a look for classic exploitation junkies.

ATTACK OF THE VENOMS (1983)

 Also known as ATTACK OF THE JOYFUL GODDESS, which is probably a better title since this has nothing to do with FIVE DEADLY VENOMS except that it was direct by Chang Cheh who also did that classic, this one is not anywhere near a classic and is a pretty muddled mess of a film. The plot concerns a Chinese opera group that has to deal with a horny military commander who wants to screw their lead actress. So it's most; a boring drama but then there's also a haunted doll that is upset about being placed the wrong way in it's traveling case so it causes ghostly/possession stuff to happen. There's bloody murder, boring intrigue, a gay cross-dressing character and a bunch of slow parts. Unfortunately for a kung fu movie it's really lacking in the action department for a lot of the run-time. AKA THE GHOST and FIVE VENOMS ATTACK

                                                Ghost-doll laser-beam fu!: