Before there were Hong Kong movies, there were Shanghai movies. 1929’s Red Heroine is the only surviving silent kung fu feature from Shanghai’s golden age. The Devil’s Music Ensemble provides live accompaniment. Hopefully, they’ll tour. Wise Kwai has more information and a trailer.
Chiu Man-Chuk aka Zhao Wen-Zhou is playing drunken Taoist folk hero Beggar So in Yuen Woo-Ping’s True Legend. Colin at Kung Fu Fridays has more, including some reminiscences about Chiu Man-Chuk and a very cool anti-poaching ad at the bottom.
Tony Jaa lives in a mixed martial arts village, befriends the elephants and takes people apart in this new Ong Bak 2 trailer. He’s much better than Mowgli.
Grady Hendrix writes about missing the point in martial arts and action movies, especially Ashes of Time: “Character, dialogue and subtext are important parts of the moviegoing experience, but there’s another more primal language that’s harder to parse and that’s the language of action.”
Let your cursor drift to the right and all the way down for Ozploitation trailer goodness like a giant razorback, a postapocalyptic drive-in, erection jokes as well as Donald Pleasance, George Lazenby and Jimmy Wang Yu at Flyp magazine’s look at Not Quite Hollywood.
Jackie Chan lectures rival Timorese martial arts clans, contributes to world peace. Warring clans come together into one fist.