KENNETH'S REVIEW: Taiwanese Wuxia that, partly due to its presentation on home video, doesn't cohere at all. It's a case of a large character gallery understanding each and every nuance of the subtle swings and twists in plot. We the viewers, or rather me the thick viewer, are left with "appreciating" such aspects as theme music (STOLEN theme music) accompanying certain characters extensively, ropey wire work and the frequent times the characters break into sword fighting. But one wish merely such individual scenarios would at least let us survive the long trek but that isn't the case as little variation or excitement is offered up. I prefer my Wuxia stories less busy and actually well-told, something I still in my heart don't believe Black Eagle's is. Nor is it serviceable as a spectacle. Roc Tien and Chi Kuan-Chun stars. Also known as Black Eagle's Blades.

Xu Nuo (Ti Lung) loves Wang Chu Ying (Lily Li). Widow Luo Yin (Tanny Tien) also loves Xu Nuo and is willing to do anything to make him love her. Liang (Lo Lieh) loves the widow and is also willing to go to extreme lengths...and so he does. Enter black magician Shan (Ku Feng) into this soap opera with the Shaw Brother's horror touch...

Director Ho Meng-Hua (The Mighty Peking Man) divides his time between the nasty, goofy and grisly here. There's ample opportunity for him to disgust as various, explicit spells are carried out throughout the film, within the then modern 70s atmosphere, freaky sound design and a fast paced tone. Things never truly become scary however and when the special effects climax hit, Black Magic can't really compete. Ho pushes the buttons he can, with a fair degree of success and the film is a bowl of disgusting delight from the horror filmmaking side of Shaw's despite. An often tasty side to the studio.

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Ben (Chen Kuan-Tai) wants wealth and brings home a brain devil in a box, to be used in his black magic rituals. Along with a bottle of holy water, he knows he can stop the devil if needed. Unfortunately for him but fortunately for us, that bottle of holy water breaks. Let's get it on!

Stiff acting aside, obvious focus for director Lo Lieh is genre content but for the largest amount of time, there's no distinction as such. Oh, there's an amusing sound cue that gets repeated 150 times to accompany any "creepy" moment and the brain devil sights are quite wonderful but to rely on a sole gimmick seems a little modest. Enter Lo Lieh himself in front of the camera and The Black Magic With Buddha begins to take flight.

Playing an quirky, old exorcist, Lo amps the weirdness to very satisfying levels through plot devices such as him allowing a golden buddha to possess him, with some disastrous results concerning gravity and the whole premise of the brain devil finally gets taken up to full throttle level once our final battle begin. It's very welcome, showing a continuation of Lo's fine handling of quirky humour as also seen in Clan Of The White Lotus. From the extensive cannon of horror films from this year and era, The Black Magic With Buddha will probably remain hidden for some time but if you like what you hear, like what the uneven genre offers up, it's a sure bet.

Tsui Hark has not been unfriendly towards the ideas of bringing Chinese elements to the West. Just look how well The Master turned out. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

A non-related sequel to what wasn't the best production of his anyway, the Daniel Lee directed Jet Li vehicle still delivered some nifty Hong Kong sensibilities, much thanks to action director Yuen Woo-Ping. It is Tsui and Woo-Ping who continues to roll the ball in the English language re-thread. It's a different beast and it's a poorer beast. Taking an American favourite past time, in this case wrestling, and spicing it up with mutations and Hong Kong style wire-fu, Black Mask 2: City Of Masks could speak to an outrageousness Tsui Hark can bring at the best of times but the whole package is done without any finesse whatsoever. Are we supposed to be impressed by split screen dialogue and CGI created inner body turmoil? Not even the B-movie market audience should be and pushing aside all dopey humour, poor writing and characters for a moment, if the film would've delivered via Yuen Woo-Ping's contribution, some could've been forgiven. Turns out to be not the case though and not only is it uninspired, the choreography is highly indistinct considering whose name is on the credits. Then there's another theory to flash in regards to all this. Watching just the action scenes, concentrating fully on Woo-Ping's work will reveal some positives of the creative kind but then again, in a movie so covered up in silliness, your mind isn't switched off that easy despite when trying to concentrate on what possibly is the best aspect of the film. Black Mask 2: City Of Masks stars Andy On, Teresa Herrera (as the ditsy female sidekick), Tobin Bell (Saw), Jon Polito, Scott Adkins, Traci Lords, Terence Yin and the late Blacky Ko appears in a useless extended cameo. When dubbed into Cantonese for Hong Kong release, the film suddenly turned high profile with Andy Lau taking on the lead role, Cecilia Cheung as the little boy (!) and Jordan Chan voiced Scott Adkins Lang.

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Clarence Fok's action-comedy has gained somewhat of a cult reputation over the years. Hard not to see why and it all surely has to do with the absolute manic Hong Kong comedy on display. Broad to the max but combined with its over the top nature and the same esthetics to the high flying action choreography, Fok scores points.

Not being able to sustain that silly momentum, Fok almost completely diverts and goes the straight heist thriller route for the rest of the show. A decision leading to The Black Panther Warriors losing much of its colour. Still, whenever the action rears its head again, many wild and creative ideas fly by in rapid speed. Fok's film is simply a matter of taste and a test to see how receptive you are of this relentless assault of wackiness and action. With Alan Tang, Brigitte Lin, Simon Yam, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Carrie Ng, Melvin Wong and Yuen Wah.

The dvd subtitles are extraordinarily bad with grammar errors in most sentences but it's not high art and strangely adds to the nature of the film. Main credits also claim that 6 (!) cinematographers worked on the film including Arthur Wong and Jingle Ma.

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Reportedly this was to be a directorial comeback vehicle for Lo Wei (The Big Boss, Fist Of Fury) but most likely Sammo Hung (also action) took over full directing reigns in this new wave effort about political power struggles during a planned reformation of China. Therefore we're thankfully left with a highly serious effort in the vein of Once Upon A Time In China 2. The crew also splendidly echoes the feeling of an old Shaw Brother's movie with some beautiful, extravagant design work. There's a big but here because all intentions are correct, the execution in all departments isn't.

Despite an engaging plot, and a focus to deliver something akin to plot driven, the proceedings left me emotionally cold. Characters are established as they should yet this movie doesn't possess the heart that Tsui Hark for instance brought to his classic works of this era. Ti Lung however exudes terrific dignity as Tan Szu Tung and newcomer Yeung Fan probably could've taken over the Wong Fei-Hung role with ease as he embodies those ideals in a competent manner for the character of Wong Wu.

If only the action could've taken the emotions up a notch and it's the same correct instinct by Sammo here as he blends standard over the top wire work with welcome grounded displays of martial arts. However, he seriously undercranks just about everything so the effect of power instead turns Blade Of Fury into a cartoon. Which is sad because Sammo obviously had actual martial arts talent at his disposal that didn't need artificial power enhancement through undercranking. Sad, sad, sad...

Only dvd edition currently available with English subtitles is a Mandarin dubbed one released by Scholar in Taiwan.

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Also known as Lady Reporter and even marketed as a sequel to Corey Yuen's classic Righting Wrongs, Mang Hoi takes over directing duties for this unusual action venture since the lead is a Westerner, Cynthia Rothrock (dubbed in Cantonese though). She's proven to be a pretty kick ass presence under Hong Kong direction and it continues here since Corey Yuen is still around to perform action directing duties. It takes a while but around the hour mark the team delivers solid skirmishes with the finale being filled with more creativity (a fight in between cargo containers would later be a scenario used by Corey in The Transporter). It lacks the impact of Righting Wrongs though because this ain't no morality tale or as bleak and violent. Outside of the action, director Mang Hoi instead does his best to bore us to death with slow pace and straining comedy. Rothrock's leading lady abilities certainly ain't nothing to write home about so best advice is to look at The Blonde Fury only during the moments when Mang Hoi is working with Corey Yuen. Less blonde, more fury would have been nice basically.

Also with some returning cast members from Righting Wrongs that includes Roy Chiao (in a turn echoing his future award winning performance in Summer Snow), Wu Ma and Melvin Wong. Elizabeth Lee, Mang Hoi, Chin Siu Ho, Billy Chow, Jeff Falcon, Chung Fat and Ronny Yu (as the villain!) appears as well.

A rather unusual aka for our director but under the Chinese name of Tung Liu he also co-directed Without A Promised Land. A hardhitting film in its own right, cementing Blood Call in slasher-territory is not the worst of ideas either. But under the opening credits we find an oil painting by our director and via this abstract behaviour we launch into an utterly dreadful and incomprehensible stalker story. Fear of pagers and fear of a mental patient with a loaded gun, while atmosphere is foreboding and loaded with dread sometimes, it all is indeed dreadful and seemingly someone's consciousness under deep sleep that is manifested on screen. Not so much their nightmare but the illogical, unconnected stream of consciousness. Is that art to some? Max Mok, Eddy Ko, Michael Chow and Charlie Cho appears.

1974 saw Shaw Brothers teaming up with Hammer Studios which resulted in Shatter and The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires. A bit more obscure is this co-production with Italy that tapped into the notion of combining martial arts with the popular spaghetti Western and paired up Lo Lieh (King Boxer) and Lee Van Cleef (The Good, The Bad And The Ugly). Lo Lieh is Wang, dispatched from China to find the the missing fortune of his late uncle. Setting free Dakota (Van Cleef), the man accused of the murder of Wang, the two begin uncovering clues tattooed on the bottoms of women that leads them closer to the hidden wealth. A psychotic, bible quoting gunman is also following their every step...

While not particularly memorable, the novelty of pairing up East and West in this case survives the entire feature. It feels distinctly less Shaw and more Italian though which results in subpar martial arts choreography (a 70s score put on such scenes doesn't help either) but the pair of Lo Lieh/Lee Van Cleef are a fairly fun double act to follow as cultures are shown merging. Especially our Asian star nicely portrays the cunning nature of Wang and is a typical fish out of water character by choice. The many excuses to be very naughty and feature shots of women with their pants down is some kind of genius exploitation thinking as well. Also released as The Stranger And The Gunfighter. Also with Wang Hsieh and Chan Shen.