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.
The road to the end of the world is shorter than we think. Just when we’ve adjusted our rear and sideview mirrors and selected a soundtrack, the end stands before us, eyes shining in our halogen lights, ready to total our engine block. The only question now is: […]
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.”
Muay Thai and now mixed martial arts machine Tony Jaa is still found and still working on Ong-Bak 2. He also has a sword and a Khmer palace and an interview up at his official site. (via Kaiju Shakedown).
Find t-shirts, mugs, totes and more at our new Guttermart location at Teepublic!
The Cultural Gutter 