GOLDEN SUN (1975)

 Known in America alternately as THE DRAGON DIES HARD and BRUCE LEE, WE MISS YOU, this is the story of a big Bruce Lee fan(Bruce Li, who also just so happens to look a lot like Bruce!) who discovers Mr. Lee is dead and then naturally decides to take it upon himself to investigate the mystery surrounding his demise. This leads to many kung fu fights. You get the ghostly spirit of Bruce Lee that shows up every once in a while.  The highlight here for me though has to be what is the weirdest reenactment of the moment Lee dies where he's jumping around like a spaz! 

 Some footage from 2 other kung fu flicks(THE SHANGHAI KILLERS and THE SCREAMING TIGER) are allegedly edited into this. 

 The actually release date of this movie is listed as anywhere from 1972 to 1977 depending on who you want to believe. Bruce Lee didn't actually die until 1973 so anything before that is obviously a little off!

RETURN OF THE FAT DRAGON (1993)

  This was originally titled KING SWINDLER which would explain why it's not really a sequel to Sammo Hung's ENTER THE FAT DRAGON. It is similar to that movie in that it is a comedy. This time though we get way less kung fu and way more scenes of annoying little kids. For almost a third of the film Sammo is sent to jail and we focus on these kids getting into hijinks which really gives this an Asian LITTLE RASCALS feel. There is some gross-out humour including snot-eating, fart-gags and a piss-filled balloon to the face so that's something. A bit too shmaltzy for anyone besides real hardcore Sammo fans. 

Fun fact: Stolen music from the horror flick TOURIST TRAP pops up when the 2 little kids are held hostage.

Sammo is called The Oriental Turtle but sadly never wears this Ninja Turtle outfit that appears in the posters:

SPIRITUAL KUNG FU (1978)

  Jackie Chan gets help from some ghost with bright red Raggedy Ann hair to get revenge for some nefarious deeds involving a Shaolin temple and other leaders of the kung fu world. As you would expect there are some goofy scenes involving Jackie in between the more serious bits. One memorable part has Jackie trying to write calligraphy with a giant pen as punishment for being such a screwup.

                          Released on video in the UK as KARATE GHOSTBUSTER:

DRAGON FIST (1979)

  This Jackie Chan kung fu flick starts out with the most basic plot of "you killed my master and now I must seek revenge" but then throws a couple of curveballs our way to spice things up. I think my favorite martial arts films are the ones where characters are not strictly good or bad but many shades of grey in-between and that certainly applies here. Even Jackie is not likable throughout the whole film but you do understand his motives making this one stand out from more typical fare.  AKA IN EAGLE DRAGON FIST and DRAGON HERO

 There are a few different cuts of this out there ranging in runtimes from 76 to 89 to 96 minutes in length.

CALAMITY OF SNAKES (1982)

  Well a lot of snakes certainly lost their lives making this movie. What we got here is a Hong Kong version of an animals-run-amok movie. This time with an apartment built over a pit of various slithering snakes. If you don't like animal violence in your entertainment this one definitely isn't for you. A good portion of the movie is really just snake snuff footage with them being chopped up by shovels, swords and even an earthmover. If that's not enough they also get set on fire, beaten to death and skinned alive.  If you're a snake lover it's probably best to pretend this(and a lot of similar extreme Asian cinema) doesn't exist. It is quite the ride for people who enjoy gross spectacles though even if it all does get a bit repetitious with the snake attacks.

 There's an alternate South Korean cut of this titled WAR BETWEEN MEN AND SNAKES with different footage and plot. 

EASTERN HEROES (1991)

 Originally titled FURY IN RED this is a Hong Kong/Taiwan/Filipino action flick(there's also shots from the U.S.A. inserted to give this quite the international feel). Revenge is the main motif as a battle between Hong Kong police and a Philippines gang takes place. We get an annoying American FBI agent, 2 different pregnant women murdered(one of which is violently raped and carved up first) and lots of kung and gun-fu. There's also gratuitous shots of LETHAL WEAPON 2 and CASUALTIES OF WAR marquees in Hollywood. While not the greatest it's perfectly suitable for lazy Saturday afternoon viewing. 

 Not sure if the Hong Kong movie magazine EASTERN HEROES had any relation to this retitling but it wouldn't surprise me. 

THE NINE DEMONS (1984)

  Caught this one for the first time recently as part of a kung-fu/horror movie marathon and it was one of the big highlights. It starts of as your standard kung fu movie before entering into the world of the supernatural when our main character(Tien-Chi Cheng) makes a deal with the devil to get revenge with the help of the titular nine demons. These demons consist of a eight little kids and their mom(or maybe she's their babysitter? idk) who sometimes turn into plastic skulls and do dastardly things. Our hero, who now isn't acting all that heroic, also gets some sweet new glamtastic clothes to wreak havoc with. This is obviously a wacky interpretation of the legendary Faust story so you shouldn't expect much of a happy ending but it's a hell of a trip getting to the conclusion and one of my wacky favorites from former Shaw Brothers director Chang Cheh.

THE CHINESE CONNECTION PART II (1977)

  As we all know Bruce Lee's FIST OF FURY was re-titled THE CHINESE CONNECTION in America which this is a direct sequel to. We get Bruce Li as Lee's brother here taking up the fight against those terribly abusive imperial scumbag Japanese who killed his brother. To make it more confusing it's also known as FIST OF FURY II even though there had already been a movie with Jackie Chan called NEW FIST OF FURY made a year before. We can ignore that one though since this movie does exactly that. As far as Brucesploitation flicks go this is one of the better made ones and from what I recall is better than the official Jackie Chan one. 

 There was a FIST OF FURY III made in 1979 which also starred Bruce Li and is a direct sequel to this.

                                                   Rated X in England!:

THE 7 GRANDMASTERS (1977)

  This kung fu master(Jack Long) has to travel around and defeat all the other masters in China just so he knows he's the best. Along the way he picks up a student(Lee Yi-Min) who he trains in the Pei-Mei(probably best known as that guy with the long white beard in KILL BILL) style. There's also the basic revenge tale here with Lee trying to get revenge for his murdered father. This one is pretty much wall-to-wall fighting(well choreographed thanks to Corey Yuen, who also appears as one of the grandmasters) so if that's your scene this will most likely be for you. 

TRIUMPH BY TWO KUNG-FU ARTS (1980)

  For a movie with kung fu right there in the title this one sure takes it's time before we even get to any fight scenes. For the first half hour or so it's all heavy melodrama about a guy seeking revenge for his dead father and his mom's disappointment with him for not getting it and generally for being such a loser. When we finally get to some fighting there are some weird choices including one of the end fight scenes being just a series of stills shown over some music. Some bits are also too dark to really see what's going on but I suspect that's just the garbage public domain transfers available. Skip it. AKA A FIST FOR A FIST

CHALLENGE THE INVINCIBLE (1979)

  Cheap, crappy, Taiwanese kung fu flick. To make matters worse I watched this on YouTube and some scenes were so dark that they were basically unwatchable. The plot concerns a family, or maybe just a group of people that call each other "brother" and "sister" a lot, who have to deal with one of them double-crossing the group. Also there are a few scenes where they train some armies for the king which, I guess is the reason for the alternate title of THE ART OF WAR BY SUN TZU which make this seem like some kinda historical drama which it is not at all. There is one dumb scene where our main lady makes a bad guy smell her ass that gave me a chuckle besides this though it's pretty forgettable stuff.

 There is some notably absurd background Muzak including lovely renditions of The Beatles' Blackbird that appears over and over. 

BREAKOUT FROM OPRESSION (1985)

 After watching the crappy Gordon Liu BREAKOUT FROM OPRESSION I figured I would give this one a shot since it couldn't possibly be much worse. Luckily it's not. It's also a totally different type of film replacing the kung fu with horror/thriller elements here. The plot deals with a lady who is wrongfully sent to prison for 12 years after being wrongly convicted of murder and then her attempts to get her life together after that. Things don't go very smoothly and more people end up getting snuffed. Very effective atmosphere and ending, which is seemingly swiped from FRIDAY THE 13th, and cool plot which successfully throws a twist in.    

 This film originally was released in Taiwan as EXPOSED TO DANGER in 1982 before being dubbed and re-christened by IFD films in Hong Kong. Thankfully they didn't feel the need to throw any ninjas into this, as they were wont to do, or really do much editing, besides dubbing it into English and throwing the band Tangerine Dream onto the soundtrack, from what I can tell. 

                                                                      Original flavor!:

DEVIL KILLER (1981)

  

 After having viewed the other Taiwanese DEVIL KILLER from the previous year I figured I would give this one a watch. I thought it would be a similar kung fu epic but there's actually very minimal martial arts in this and it relies mostly on gun-fu and drama concerning a hitman's quest for redemption. Sadly the version I watched was severely cropped on the sides and subtitled so that anytime someone said more than a few words it was cut off on either end. I don't expect something this obscure will ever be cleaned up but if it was it would be a way less disappointing viewing experience. 

 Two things I didn't expect  from this Taiwanese gangster flick: 1. the classic arcade game Missile Command puts in an appearance 2. Music from ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST showing up multiple times for dramatic effect. One other thing I really didn't expect is the one character that pretty much does a goofy Jackie Chan impersonation for much of the film(Hsaio-Fei Lee?) getting brutally gunned down by the bad guys so that's something.

Shitty cropped YouTube version!: 

DEVIL KILLER (1980)

  Not to be confused with the other Taiwanese kung fu movie titled DEVIL FIGHTER from 1981. This one is a mix of a rape/revenge film and a kung fu movie but outside of some surprising nudity and forced humping(only in the uncut version) it sticks really close to the standard kung fu flick formula. They do make the bold choice of killing off half of the main characters midway through the movie which gives it a strange disjointed feeling like they stuck two movies together and there is a high percentage of scenes where people are viciously tortured but even this doesn't really manage to elevate this one too much out of the ordinary and expected.

 Released on VHS as NINJA EXTERMINATORS even though there are no ninjas to be seen anywhere in it. 

ON THE SOCIETY FILE OF SHANGHAI (1981)

  This is technically a female revenge movie but it's not told in the typical way your average exploitation film would be. It deals with an investigator trying to unravel the motives behind the revenge so it kind of all works in reverse as things unfold. The whole revenge angle is really just an excuse for the filmmakers to point out all the terrible aspects of living in a communist country which can make for a pretty depressing ride if you're not actually living in Taiwan in the early 80s. There's an old-man getting rapey and our main gal(Hsiao-Fen Lu) slices into her own breast in probably the most famous scene but If you're looking for a bunch of sleazy thrills besides that this one might be a bit too political for you. AKA IN THE SHANGHAI SOCIETY FILES

 

NEVER TOO LATE TO REPENT (1979)

 This is credited as the first movie to bring a more realistic sense to Taiwanese cinema. It stars an actual ex-con(Sha Ma aka Tattooer Ma)) who tells his life story and all the terrible twists and turns involved in it plus some very cinematic flourishes to spice things up of course. It becomes a men-in-prison movie for a while and then ultimately becomes a tale about trying really hard to do the right thing even though life keeps throwing shit at you. A notch above your typical exploitation film in that it has a clear message and viewpoint even if that message is a pretty simple one of "don't be such a fuck-up but even if you are it's never too late" and starring the actual guy who went through these ordeals helps a lot. A rare super serious non-kung fu Taiwanese film.  AKA THE FIRST ERROR STEP

 The version I watched of this, which is also the version someone uploaded to YouTube here, has some minor audio issues but they don't seem to hinder the plot much:

THE CHALLENGE OF THE LADY NINJA (1983)

  This is one of those crazy over-the-top-style kung fu flicks with people flying through the air, burrowing through the ground like worms and throwing colorful smoke bombs at each other among other absurd delights. To make things even better they throw crazy sex antics into the mix. A ridiculous training scene where gals(including one whore) are trained to be ninjas by having their legs spread as far apart as possible while the camera lingers pervingly on their crotches. Also some rather large Asian breasts are exposed for your viewing pleasure. Beware though because apparently there are versions of this where the naughty bits are sadly cut out altogether and some other minor plot points are altered. AKA NEVER KISS A NINJA and CHINESE SUPER NINJAS 2(making it a sequel to this Hong Kong flick that it really has nothing to do with) 

WOMAN REVENGER (1981)

  I guess instead of calling this a rape-revenge movie it's technically a forced into a prostitution-ring-revenge flick. Oh and the person getting the revenge is a friend of the people forced into the prostitution. This is a super sleazy Taiwanese epic. It has a bit of kung-fu but that's not really the main draw here. There's quite a bit of patriarchal violence towards women to set things in motion including the big highlight of tying a gal to a big X, turning her upside down and torturing her with syrup and ants. Things ultimately go into THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE territory when our main revenger(Huei Shan Yang) loses an eye and gets a badass eye-patch. She's also smart enough to get a whole martial-arts class to help her in her quest for vengeance. They use samurai swords and various knives but my favorite weapon was the belt with a poisonous snake inside of it. Pretty inventive stuff! AKA THE NUDE BODY CASE IN TOKYO

   

THE LADY AVENGER (1981)

  There's definitely an I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE-vibe in this Taiwanese rape-revenge tale. Since it's from Taiwan I guess I was expecting more of a martial-arts scenario but, for the most part, they play everything pretty realistic which was a nice surprise. Surprisingly there's no real nudity that I saw(the print I caught was not in the best shape though) and the actual raping does take place off screen. The focus here is on the violence and revenge parts. Being directed by a woman(Karen Young) helped the feminist message come through pretty clearly.  

 This was released under a few different titles including DEADLY DARLING, CRAZY FEMALE KILLER and UNLAWFUL HANGOUT.

 

WU TANG CLAN (1980)

 Terribly re-titled as part of the rap group The Wu Tang Clan's collection on VHS. This movie has no mention of Wu Tang at all and deals with prisoners of the Shaolin temple. The interesting part of this one is that the prisoners are supposedly tortured but since, as everyone who has seen at least a couple of kung fu flicks knows, the similarities between torture and training are almost indecipherable which raises the question of whether they are actually being punished or trained by their captor who just purely coincidentally happens to be a former Shaolin student himself. From there everything kinda plays out like you would guess though and it goes on a bit long at an hour and 46 minutes but I guess you could do worse in kung fu cinema. 

 IMDB claims this was the inspiration for the Wu Tang Clan group's name which I'm pretty sure is impossible since this was originally called THE HEROES or THE SHAOLIN HEROES in English up until it's VHS release years later. Also usually this film is given that credit.