Podcast of Fire's Taiwan Noir Episode #22: Dragon Inn

With this latest edition of Taiwan Noir, I use host Kenny B. as a kind of father confessor--a sympathetic ear to pay witness as I struggle with my feelings about King Hu's Dragon Inn, which is arguably a canonical work of martial arts cinema. I think it makes for one of our better episodes, but you can judge that for yourself. Download or stream the episode here.

Hot Plate Girl in the Land of Simper Fist

Last night's tweet-along by the 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down crew to Zodiac Fighters was a concatenation of sharp wit and dull-eyed confusion. We could see what was happening, but we weren't always sure why it was happening, or, more importantly, why it was happening to us. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, you can now  follow our addled thought processes step by step in the Storified transcript linked below:

The 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down: Zodiac Fighters on Storify

A hardy thanks to all who participated. And now, a preview of next month's feature. Hold onto your balloons!

Tonight! The 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down zeroes in on ZODIAC FIGHTERS!

The debut of distinguished fightress Polly Shang Kwan as a subject of the 4DK Monthly Movie Shout Down is as auspicious as Santo's was back in May. And tonight is the night! The stars are favorable, the planets are aligned, and all signs point to ZODIAC FIGHTERS, a full version of which is linked below (be sure to forward through any pesky ads at the beginning).



All you need to do is log on to Twitter tonight -- that's Tuesday, July 8th -- at 6pm PDT, fire up the movie and, using the hashtag #4DKMSD, join in what will no doubt be a pretty freewheeling conversation. I'll be looking forward to hearing from you!

The Ghost Hill (Taiwan, 1971)

If I made a Wuxia film, this would be the plot: A much coveted weapon of great supernatural power -- a magic sword, let’s say -- is stolen from a righteous sifu by an evil king and his grotesque minions. The old master is killed in the course of the theft and, in order to retrieve the sword and deal out vengeance, the surviving members of his clan, skilled martial artists all, must brave the evil king’s labyrinthine, booby trap filled fortress. One of them is a cute girl.

What’s that? Yes… yes, you’re right. This also describes the plot of roughly 80% of all existing wuxia films. Now let me tell you why: If, like director/writer Ting Shan-Hsi’s The Ghost Hill, you have an abundance of style, a charismatic cast, and nonstop violent action, that’s all the plot you need.

In the case of The Ghost Hill, the coveted super weapon is something called the Purple Light Sword and, until certain sticky fingers see otherwise, it is in the custody of a blind kung fu master named Yen (Chan Bo Leung). The culprits are a band of murderous weirdies (bearing awkwardly translated handles like “Cow Head”) commanded by one King Gold (Sit Hon), whose royal badness extends to him taking baths in boiling oil and eliminating unmotivated underlings with a spear launching metal prosthetic.

King Gold spirits the Sword away to his digs on the faraway Gold Mountain, requiring that Master Yen’s surviving family members make a long trek across much picturesque-yet-inhospitable terrain in order to retrieve it. Along the way, they pick up allies, such as blade-for-hire Shadow Tsai (A Touch of Zen’s Tien Peng), and a mangy bunch called the Beggars Gang. All the while, they fend off attacks from the King’s forces, including his also evil daughter, Princess Gia (Hon Seung Kam).

This motley lot eventually succeeds in capturing Yen’s adult son and daughter and imprisoning them in the King’s lair. Thus does our heroes’ mission of vengeance become also one of rescue, requiring them to withstand the many Dante’s Inferno-like travails of the King’s “Hell Castle”. This, as one might expect, does not prove easy, involving lots of acrobatic sword fighting, vigorous one-against-all hand to hand combat, and every manner of exotic weapon the Martial World has to offer. Fortunately, just as all seems lost, Yen’s daughter, Swallow, a formidable swordswoman, is freed to play a decisive role in the final confrontation.

Swallow is played by 4DK favorite Polly Shang Kwan. Kwan, still a contract player with Union Pictures, had become a literal overnight sensation with her debut in King Hu’s Dragon Gate Inn just a few years earlier, and still had the star power to carry an obvious prestige production like The Ghost Hill on her diminutive, but no doubt powerful, shoulders. Mind you, in keeping with the persona she established with that earlier film, this is a much steelier version of Polly than the one we would see emerge a couple years later, clowning around in goofball oddities like Little Hero and Zodiac Fighters. As likeable as she is in those roles, there’s something to be said for seeing her in a part that relies more on her considerable skill, athleticism and grace as a fighter. In keeping with that, Polly is never pitted against just one opponent when she can instead face off against several, or even a dozen. The result is that her fight scenes here make up most of the high points in a film that in no way lacks for well-staged and breathtakingly paced brawls.

The Ghost Hill offsets its gritty physical action with a woozy dose of dreamy, haunted atmosphere. This and its employment of fog enshrouded, hyper-real sets give it a striking resemblance to the many adaptation of Ku Long’s Wuxia novels that director Chor Yuen would film for Shaw Brothers over the course of the 70s. It also shares with Chor a pronounced debt to Sergio Leone, especially in the restless, sweeping camera work of cinematographer Chiu Yao Hu. However, Chiu also marks a departure from Chor in that, where Chor would increasingly rely on indoor sets for his exterior shots, Chiu uses the widescreen frame to capture yawning natural vistas, often dwarfing the film’s protagonists as they proceed toward their destiny across the wastelands.

Complimenting this epic air are those fanciful touches and tricks of art that we’ve come to depend upon from old Taiwanese fantasy wuxia movies. The first level of King Gold’s devilish lair is a psychedelic netherworld of brightly colored giant fauna that has all the gaudy artificiality of a roadside dinosaur park, within which the King sits upon his equally verdant throne like a malevolent bloom. Beyond that, there is the Palace of Ice, with its frozen sentries and prison cells carved from snow. And then there is the spiked chamber to end all spiked chambers, in which one imagines even the men’s room offers no relief from stabby appurtenances.

I know very little about director Ting Shan-Hsi, other than that he was one of those hard working and prolific directors of popular Taiwanese movies whose filmography by necessity includes silly sounding and amusingly translated titles like The Talenty Girl. An obituary for him over at Kung Fu Cinema -- he died in 1999 at the age of 74 – states that he is best known for the patriotic war films The Everlasting Glory and The Battle for the Republic of China, and that he directed at least 69 features over the course of almost 30 years. All I know is that, with The Ghost Hill, he demonstrates how a well-made martial arts programmer can be endowed with a kind of lurid pop poetry, thrilling in both its lyricism and trashy vitality. Sometimes, sifting through the dross of Asian action cinema as I do, I lose sight of that. Needless to say, I’m always grateful for the reminder.

Podcast on Fire's Taiwan Noir Episode 12: The Ghostly Face and Little Hero

Neither my or Kenny B's affections for Polly Shang Kwan can be overstated. And, as if in perversely obstinate demonstration of that fact, we have turned the latest episode of the Taiwan Noir podcast into a filibuster length, intercontinental mash note to the loveable Taiwanese star. Among the discussed films is The Ghostly Face, a Taiwanese/Indonesian co-production that is one of Polly's best and most unusual films. And speaking of unusual, what discussion of PSK would be complete without touching upon the awesome Little Hero? Which means that you once again get to hear me gleefully recount that scene where she battles the giant rubber octopi.

Give us a listen won't you? You can either stream the episode or get details on how to download it here.

And, Polly? If you're out there, call us, okay?

Chinatown Capers (Hong Kong, 1974)

Chinatown Capers is the sequel to the 1973 Polly Shang Kwan action comedy Back Alley Princess. In that one, Polly played the feisty street urchin “Chili Boy”, whose true gender was the worst kept secret in all of martial arts cinema. That did not, however, prevent the entire cast from being gob-smacked when, at the film’s conclusion, it was revealed that Chili Boy was in fact a guh… a guh… excuse me (hastily takes a drink of water, and in best Don Knotts voice) A GIRL! Not the least stricken was Polly’s co-star Angela Mao, who had started to find herself getting Beiber Fever for Polly-as-a-boy.

By contrast, Chinatown Capers doesn’t bother itself with such issues, preferring to leave Chili Boy’s troubling androgyny just that, and instead devoting its attentions to a showy shift in scenery. The trailer for the film touts the fact that the Hong Kong production was “filmed entirely in U.S.A”. And indeed it appears that all of it, interiors included, was shot in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. For a native of that area, that makes the film a treat on two levels. For one, there’s the thrill of seeing one of my favorite stars moving through an assortment of warmly familiar locations. For another, there’s the time capsule aspect that preserves both landmarks currently fading from memory -- the long gone Chinatown Wax Museum, Capwell’s -- and those that predated some current destination spots. For instance, who knew that, back then, there was a grassy park where the New People Theater and Super 7 now stand?

That Chinatown Capers’ location is somewhat intended to be the star of the movie is reinforced by the prosciutto thinness of its plot. Chili Boy and his/her dimwitted partner from the first movie, Embroidered Pillow (Samuel Hui), arrive in San Francisco and take jobs as waiters at the restaurant run by family friend Uncle Wang (Wong Sam). Hilarity ensues as a result of Chili Boy’s overconfidence in her(his?) English language skills, not to mention white people’s ignorance of Chinese cuisine. Polly haltingly directs one round eye patron to the chop suey and sweet and sour pork, only to have him respond in Chinese that he doesn’t want food for “foreigners”, while a Caucasian dining party later reinforces his(her!) prejudices by ordering those very items absent her/his prompting.

Amid all this culture clash humor, director/writer Low Wei establishes, albeit in the most leisurely manner imaginable, that Chili and Pillow have a secret purpose for their visit. It turns out that they’ve been entreated by a wealthy Hong Kong businessman to track down his daughter, Sylvia (Sylvia Chang Ai-Chia), who, after coming to the states to pursue her studies, has fallen off the grid for one reason or another. This being the drug and hippy infested San Francisco of the early 70s, you can probably guess what that reason was. And sure enough, it’s not long before our two bumbling amateur sleuths have found out that Sylvia’s crippling marijuana addiction has lead to her being kicked out of school. Now heavily in debt to the scummy band of pushers who got her hooked, she has been forced to square accounts by acting as their runner.

Meanwhile, Chili and Pillow must deal with problems resulting from their combined lack of money and our city’s stringent new “sit/lie” laws. After being rousted from the park by officer whitey, they decide to go with the flow of things and become street musicians, entertaining our city’s beardy inhabitants with songs about Americans’ loose mores and provocative clothing. Ironically, this only earns them enough money to lodge in a rat trap inhabited by a bunch of mini-skirted whores who act more like overzealous groupies. Finally, the two stupidly tip the scales by informing Sylvia’s unsavory associates of her moneyed background, which leads to the gang deciding to hold her for ransom.

And it is at this point, once Chili and Pillow have themselves become targets of the gang and feel the need to resort to disguise, that Chinatown Capers’ enters its most worrisome phase, ignoring the transgender issues that have been screaming from its sidelines since the very first frame in favor of exploring entirely other aspects of, um, identity. First the two profane our Christian holidays by dressing as Santa Claus. Then, for some reason, they find it best advised to dress up as a pair of soul brothers with huge afros and blackened faces -- Polly going for added authenticity by affecting an exaggerated pimp strut while repeatedly shouting “anybody there?” in what I think is supposed to be a Southern accent.

Sadly, the filmmakers deemed this above described act of minstrelsy in itself sufficiently comedic to warrant a long sequence consisting entirely of the two stars walking through an assortment of locations in their get up, occasionally stopping to crack up at each other because it’s all so manifestly hilarious. And while I have to admit to laughing at it myself, if only in utter disbelief, it’s every bit as awful as it sounds. Not even Polly’s infectious energy and good natured charm, abundantly in evidence throughout the rest of the picture, can save it.

I can’t be sure, but I would guess from the look of things that a lot of Chinatown Capers’ location scenes were shot without permits (this is unmistakably the case with the murky footage taken at San Francisco airport that opens the film), which would explain why so many of its fight scenes have a decidedly improvised, spur of the moment feel to them. It’s like everybody just piled out of the bus and got to it the minute they found a suitably unsupervised spot. This is especially true of the climactic fight, which has an absurdly high number of participants, including an eleventh hour, cross-promotional cameo by Slaughter in San Francisco’s Don Wong, who I assume happened to be in town at the time. The chaotic, backyard throw-down aspect of these sequences actually makes them a lot of fun, despite -- or perhaps even because of -- their lacking the type of showy choreography we’re used to seeing in HK films from this period.

At Chinatown Capers’ conclusion, in the wake of that final, dizzying melee, Chili, Pillow and their allies stand over a prostrate field of assorted hippies, thugs and doper scum, all blanketing the landscape like a sodden quilt woven from Richard Nixon’s worst nightmares. And speaking of, with congratulations in order, the film then bids us farewell with a horribly composited shot of Polly Shang Kwan and Samuel Hui being photographed alongside Tricky Dick himself in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building. Thus was Chinatown Capers cemented in my mind as the most unutterably bizarre thing yet to bare the Polly Shang Kwan brand, which you know is saying an awful lot.

Two crackers in search of Polly

After a brief hiatus, the joint Tars Tarkas and 4DK podcast has returned, and this time with a proper name: The Infernal Brains! (Or, as you lucha movie purists might prefer it, Los Cerebros Infernales). To kick off this new era of awesomeness, we couldn't think of a better subject than our favorite goddess of weird fu, Polly Shang Kwan. The podcast can be either downloaded as an audio file or streamed with pitchers below.

Ghostly Face (Taiwan/Indonesia, 1972)

This obscure co-production between Taiwan and Indonesia -- which also goes by the title Lem Mien Kuel, aka Pandji Tengkorak, aka Karate a Bali -- is a far cry from the kung fu vehicles starring Polly "Don't Ask Me To Play Mama" Shang Kwan that I typically review on this blog. While it does have a few vague fantasy overtones, absent are the giant rubber octopuses, lobster men and other "Shaolin Puff'n'stuff" absurdities of Polly's later films like Zodiac Fighters and Little Hero. Instead we have a grim and uniquely atmosphered take on the genre marked by fight scenes that are about as brutal and bloody as they come, serving as a welcome reminder that Polly, in addition to being kung fu cinema's most accommodating good sport, was also a serious martial artist of formidable skill.

By the way, that appellation I threw out earlier was inspired by the documentary Deadly China Dolls, in which a forty-something Polly, looking for all the world like a kung fu version of Little Edie in her leopard print fur coat, answers the question of whether she'd ever return to the screen by saying that yes, she would, adding "But don't ask me to play mama. I want to fight." How can you not love this woman?

The Ghostly Face of the film's title is in fact a hero, albeit one who sports a fugly buck-toothed fright mask in his fight against those who would prey upon the common folk. However, when we first see him, he appears to be engaging in an act of villainy, fighting his way into a fortress to steal a weapon known as The Precious Sword and, in the process, murdering Hua, Polly's father. This spurs Polly, who refers to herself throughout only as "Fightress Hua", to set off on a mission of vengeance. It turns out, however, that this Ghostly Face is an impostor, a member of a vicious gang of pirates lead by Tang (Chan Bo Leung), who plans to frame the hero for his crimes.

As Polly's quest goes on, she charters a boat to take her downriver and ends up having a pretty spectacular fight with an army of pirates, who come at her both from across the water in a fleet of catamarans and from underneath it via the employment of some primitive Martial World snorkeling gear. In the process, she rescues a young woman named Anny Ma (Indonesian starlet Lenny Marlina), who, it turns out, is also looking for the Ghostly Face, but for very different reasons. It seems the Face had earlier saved Anny's village from an attack by Tang and his men, but not before her brother, the village chief, had been killed. She is now seeking out the hero in the hope that he will help her track down Tang and settle things with him for good.

Polly also finds that she is being shadowed by a mysterious protector in the handsome form of Pan Chih (Indonesian actor -- and, more recently, politician -- Deddy Sutomo), who, as will surprise absolutely no one, is soon revealed to be the Ghostly Face himself. Sadly, and despite all of the evidence before her, Polly proves to be frustratingly slow on the uptake when it comes to the matter of the Face's innocence, and when the final showdown with Tang comes, she proves to be as much of an obstacle as an aid.

I realize that all of this sounds like the standard stuff of martial arts revenge drama, but what really sets Ghostly Face apart from other such films is, not only the novelty of its Indonesian locations, but, more importantly, the several long, dialogue-free sequences depicting traditional Indonesian ceremonies that crop up throughout the film, each of which provides a sort of meditative pause between the ferocious action scenes. The most striking of these is a seaside funeral procession that ends with Polly kneeling silently on the beach and watching as a towering funeral pyre slowly burns and collapses. I realize that such "travelogue" sequences were most likely just meant to provide some local color and will just be seen as annoying filler by many viewers. But to me they add a sense of brooding poetry to the proceedings and, in combination with the film's minimalist overall aesthetic, give Ghostly Face an appropriately haunted feeling.

I would highly recommend Ghostly Face to anyone who's interested in seeing a different, less manic kind of oddball martial arts film. While it is certainly a low budget production, with all of the seams and limitations that go along with that, there is something about it that really sticks with you. A lot of these Taiwanese cheapies tend to just blur together in one's mind, but I feel pretty confident in saying that this one will ferret out a weird little space all its own.

UPDATE 8/11/09: Reader Ash, in his comment to this post, kindly provided me with a good deal of background info on Ghostly Face. The film was based on a popular Indonesian comic book called Panji Tengkorak (rough translation "Panji the Skull Face") that was created by artist Hans Jaladara in 1968. The comic would also provide the basis for another feature film that was produced in 1985, as well as an Indonesian television series that aired in the mid 90s. Given that the character referred to as Ghostly Face in the version of the film I watched was so obviously the central character in the comic, I have to wonder if there is an Indonesian cut of the film that gives more play to that character, as well as to Indonesian actors Deddy Sutomo and Lenny Marlina.

Little Hero (Taiwan, 1978)

Ah, sweet sustenance. Simply put, films like Little Hero are the reason that 4DK exists. Anarchic surrealism worthy of the most dedicated avant-garde provocateur? Check. The type of furious desire to entertain that could only be born of the most mercenary populism? Yep. Total disregard for conventional notions of narrative sense and cohesion? Uh huh. As far as weird-fu goes, this is the hard stuff. And standing at the center of it all, like a human signpost signaling our crossing over into this strange and wonderful territory, is one of the very goddesses of that rarified subgenre, Polly Shang Kwan.

With it's ridiculous, makeshift costumes, grotesquely cartoonish characters and outlandish action, Little Hero could easily come across as a film designed for the soul purpose of humiliating its actors. That is, if its star showed the slightest signs of being phased by any of that. Indeed, one of the most appealing things about Shang-Kwan is how, despite her prestigious beginnings in martial arts cinema -- keeping in mind that she was discovered by the revered director King Hu and made her debut in his classic Dragon Gate Inn -- she always seems to be having the time of her life in these crazy Taiwanese cheapies.

Here Shang Kwan again plays a character who is constantly referred to as "him" and "young man" by the other characters, despite the contrary evidence presented by her heavy eye shadow, lipstick, pigtails and thigh-flashing amazon gear. And, unless I missed something, she's actually supposed to be a boy this time, rather than a guh... a guh... a girl masquerading as one. The martial world macguffin at the center of the action is a powerful weapon called the Phoenix Sword, and, in order to get it, the villains have kidnapped the daughter of its rightful owner, a kung fu master by the name of Chen. In response, Chen's former disciples, which include Polly, band together to wield the collective pummeling fist of justice.

All in all, it's a very simple plot made immeasurably more complicated by the fact that the voice-over actors who did the dubbing each have a completely different way of pronouncing the other characters' names. This is forgivable, however, as otherwise those actors deliver everything we might desire in an English voice track to a kung fu movie -- i.e. unaccountably squawky-sounding voices that lapse in and out of bad British accents as they deliver rapid-fire chunks of dialog that invariably end with "I am going to kill you!"

The villains of the piece are the Devil's Gang, who are lead by a guy in a gold mask named Gold Mask, who will later be revealed to be Lo Lieh. Both Gold Mask and his silver-masked sideman, who goes by the name Silver Mask, are able to fly around using giant fake condor wings, which is indescribably awesome. Rounding out the gang is a kung fu dwarf called Vampire, a whip wielding dominatrix type, a guy with elephant ears, an underground burrowing guy, a bear guy, and a bunch of guys in tiger-striped fuzzy head pieces and face paint called the Tiger Guards. The colorful nature of the Devil's Gang renders the forces of Master Chen, who under normal circumstances would be considered quite flamboyant in their own right, rather conservative by comparison, though, to their credit, they do have a guy in a spiked football helmet among their number.

I am happy to report that the action in Little Hero lives up in all respects to the crack-addled absurdity of the characters taking part in it, involving such things as giant mouse traps and people rolling around inside enormous pinballs. At the conclusion, the film beats the odds and actually tops itself by having Polly steal Silver Mask's wings and take off after Gold Mask in aerial pursuit. Upon touching down at the beach, she is then, for absolutely no reason, attacked by a pair of giant octopuses that look like Q*bert. For a moment she seems to be getting the upper hand, but then the octopuses start to aggressively birth baby octopuses at her, launching the little ones out of their octo-ginas at her like so many slimy tentacled projectiles. After overcoming these astonishingly fruitful beasts through great effort, she goes on to have a final confrontation with Lo Lieh in what looks like an extremely unsafe version of an elementary school playground where all of the climbing gear is made out of rough cut bamboo.

Oh god, I'm weeping. But, In truth, I've probably already said too much. Little Hero is a film which no amount of description can do justice, and which furthermore defies all attempts at analysis or justification. I hope you will understand that I am giving it 4DK's highest possible ranking when I say that you do not even need to drink while watching it. That doesn't mean I don't recommend it, though.