Day 3 of Ronin on Empty’s unplanned retrospective on The 36th Chamber of Shaolin franchise comes to an end with Disciples of the 36th Chamber, the third and final installment in the series. In comparison to the previous two films, Disciples turned out to be an extremely disappointing way to close the trilogy, as star Gordon Liu was relegated to a mere supporting role as the monk San Te in favor of Shaw regular Hsiao Hou, who plays quite possibly the most annoying Fong Sai-Yuk in the history of Hong Kong cinema. Looking back, I was probably a little too hard on the film and perhaps somewhat misguided in my criticism of the film’s portrayal of Fong Sai-Yuk. While I’m fairly certain Sai-Yuk’s annoying hypocrisy was intentional, I have to say that it didn’t make for a very enjoyable film. Sure, Sai-Yuk’s utter repugnancy makes the film “interesting” and perhaps worthy of further discussion, but I think my review was written from the point of view of a martial arts film fan, and the film just didn’t measure up to its intensely fun predecessors.

However, I will say that the movie is cool to look at, particularly if you’re a fan of the “heightened” period realities of these Shaw Brothers productions. And the fights, as always, are pretty nifty, too, thanks to director Lau Kar-Leung. Perhaps even worth the price of admission (aka DVD price) It’s not a great way to end the series, but it is an end, of sorts. For interested parties, you can read my review here. And I’ve embedded a trailer, which shows so much, you probably don’t even have to watch the movie:

Snazzy Spanish Language Poster to Return to the 36th Chamber

I wasn’t planning on running three retro reviews in a row this week, but I’ve been pretty busy with my dissertation work, and since I’d already started with The 36th Chamber of Shaolin yesterday, I figured I might as well continue spotlighting the second and third entries in the series for today’s post and tomorrow’s follow-up.

This winning, but entirely unconventional sequel recasts the first film’s star, Gordon Liu, as a down-on-his-luck con artist learning the ropes from the very same character he played in the original movie: the venerable Shaolin monk San Te. That may sound confusing, but the role switcheroo actually turns out to actually be a casting masterstroke as it successfully solves the problem of trying to follow up a film like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which has a beginning, middle, and end to San Te’s arc with very little room for a sequel. By having Gordon Liu play a different character, one gets to a) experience the “journey”all over again in a way that wouldn’t make sense using the same character or a different actor as the rascally pupil.

Equal parts spoof and straight-ahead martial arts actioner, Return to the 36th Chamber is one of the rare sequels that’s just as much fun as its predecessor.

You can read my review here.

Widely considered to be one of the greatest martial arts movies ever made, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) remains a definite must-see film for fans of the genre. Thanks to an intriguing premise, inventive choreography by Lau Kar-Leung, and a star-making turn by lead actor Gordon Liu, this film still retains the ability to hook new viewers even after all these years. Simply put, I liked it.

Check out my old LoveHKFilm.com review here. The film is available for purchase in Intercontinental Video Limited (DVD and VCD) and Dragon Dynasty (Blu-Ray and DVD) iterations.  Coincidentally, the film, which was released in Hong Kong on February 2, 1978, turned thirty-two this year, something I will do in about…oh…six days. Man, how time flies.

Last week, I posted a review for the PS3 game Yakuza 3, expressing my opinion that the next iteration of the series would need to make some big changes if it wanted to keep things fresh. And reportedly, Yakuza 4: Heir to the Legend does just that. The game has yet to be imported to U.S. shores, so I’ll have to judge for myself when it’s released in 2011, but at least from where I’m standing now, it doesn’t seem like a dramatic leap forward in the series.Enter Yakuza 5; or, as its known, Yakuza: Of the End. This newest iteration of the franchise takes everything you know and love about the Yakuza series, amps it up to 11, and then adds — wait for it — a post-apocalyptic zombie-infected Japan! I don’t even know what to say. I know it sounds like a crass attempt to jump on the zombie bandwagon, but I have to admit that the trailers make it look like a lot of fun. Hey, zombies worked like gangbusters for the Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption, so maybe some zombie-killin’ will do the Yakuza boys some good, too. Check out this trailer and be amazed at Sega’s exciting gamble:

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead 2: Okinawa Drift

Note: I know this is very, very, very old news, but I was looking at some rough drafts of unfinished posts I’d started awhile back and figured I’d put my two cents in about the game anyway, as it’s Asia-related and even spawned a feature film directed by Takashi Miike.

Yakuza 3 — aka Ryu ka gokuto 3/Like a Dragon 3 — came out on American shores on March 9, 2010. Rather than purchase God of War III or Heavy Rain, two well-reviewed games which were both released around the same time, I decided to plunk my hard-earned money down for the third installment in Sega’s “popular only in Japan” gangster series. Why?

Well, I became a fan of the franchise when I bought Yakuza 2 for the PS2  based on positive word of mouth. I ended up loving it, as its addictive gameplay provided a welcome respite from the doldrums of preparing for my PhD qualifying exams. After I completed the game and passed my exams, I searched out and found a used copy of the original game at a local Gamestop. Featuring a “name” English voice cast that includes Mark Hamill, Michael Madsen, Rachael Leigh Cook, Eliza Dushku, Dwight “Howling Mad Murdock” Schultz, and Alan Dale (LOST’s Charles Widmore), the game is quite good as well, although the controls are predictably less advanced than its predecessor. It also didn’t help that the plot of the entire game was already spoiled for me by very cool cutscene “movie” available in Yakuza 2 that provides all the relevant backstory. My enthusiasm for the series even motivated me to track down the Takashi Miike movie Like a Dragon, which adapts the events of the first game with, I’m sorry to say, very mixed results.

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Lau Ching-Wan and Daniel Wu in Overheard

Overheard starts out so deceptively low key that I was just about ready to write off this 2009 Alan Mak/Felix Chong film within the first fifteen minutes. Sure, the stars are in place early on — Lau Ching-Wan, Louis Koo, and Daniel Wu — but none of their onscreen actions really resonate in any palpable way. The film just seems so damn cold and clinical. But then, things start to evolve slowly and meticulously, as you find yourself gradually involved in each characters’ personal dramas — ranging from petty to life-changing to dire. And that’s when the plot kicks into motion.

In the film, Lau Ching-Wan, Louis Koo, and Daniel Wu play cops who do high tech surveillance work for the Commercial Crime Bureau. One day, Gene (Koo) and Max (Wu) capitalize on an  illegal insider stock tip they overhear during a night of eavesdropping. Max erases the tape, but their team leader Johnny (Lau) figures their plan out and tries to bust them. But through a series of events, Johnny is pulled into their little gambit, which eventually pays off lucrative dividends. Unfortunately, the three of them are going to have to outwit both the cops and the crooks if their going to make out with their sizable little “heist.” Somehow, a delightfully out-of-place Michael Wong figures into the story as a nefarious gangster/businessman/philanthropist (!).

The film is engaging from the moment the protagonists make their move on the insider stock tip right up until the last ten minutes of the film when the unthinkable happens. How can this possibly proceed as a Michael Wong film? Well, it does, amounting to a largely satisfying conclusion.

I’m not going to pretend that I understood even half of the stock market jargon in the film, but it’s a credit to filmmakers Mak and Chong for making me feel like it doesn’t really matter. The film moves at a swift pace once the ball starts rolling plot-wise, and it has a lot of interesting things to say about the law, surveillance, and trust.

In baseball parlance, Overheard isn’t an out-of-the-park home run, but it’s a solid double. For a more detailed critique, take a look at Kozo’s review on the main site.

Back in 2005, I took a trip to Singapore to attend an academic conference and visit my relatives on my Mom’s side of the family. During the visit, I took the MRT to the IMM Building at Jurong East and got a nice surprise. There, sitting in the lobby was Takumi Fujiwara’s Toyota Trueno AE86. If that doesn’t mean anything to you then you’re probably not familiar with Initial D, a Japanese manga and anime series, which was turned into a 2005 Hong Kong film, starring Jay Chou as the tofu delivery boy-turned-God of Racing, Takumi Fujiwara. Never mind that Jay’s not Japanese.

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