A Chinese ghost story from King Hu, his second production of 1979. The other was Raining In The Mountain, by many regarded to be Hu's peak as director and it shows in Legend Of The Mountain that a decline was taking place. Having said that, Hu was in a league of his own anyway and this ghost story still impresses enough to make it a standout when measured against... everybody elses work! The widescreen compositions are an addicting asset as per usual, in particular when showcasing of outdoor locations and the evolving mystery leading towards scenes of ghost busting (the only so called action featured in the film) is efficiently developed, if not a little lesser on the Hu scale of filmmaking. But again, he's been extremely high, even on top of that scale a number of times so with that perspective in mind, Legend Of The Mountain is very much worth it, not only for completists sake. Starring some of the usual King Hu cast including Shih Jun, Hsu Feng and Tien Feng. Sylvia Chang adds support as well.

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The mysterious Owl Gang (headed by Owl himself, take that literally...) have an annual auction where they offer up black men and white women among other things as slaves but a client wants the 36th wife of the King to be up for grabs. The kidnapping is swift and effective and after a Royal Guard has failed at the rescue mission, the King needs to send for the best of the best: Royal Guard Fan Shik Ling (David Chiang). After being delivered this message by the King's parrot, Fan gathers up the remainder of his trio (Eric Tsang and Barry Chan)...

Hong Kong's own a gag a minute, Airplane-esque spoof of Hong Kong genre conventions (in particular the Wuxia genre as portrayed by Chor Yuen) by David Chiang (and one of the writers was his brother Derek Tee). Taking a while to gain momentum as the banter is pre-Stephen Chow comedy not performed with the same skill, Chiang's secret lies in doing bigger gags and scenarios. The genre convention of the brothel more or less gains the atmos of a cowboy movie saloon and Chiang's courteous dinner with Norman Tsui where there's possible poison in the food are wonderful examples but once the trio reaches the hideout of the Owl gang, Chiang produces a terrific, silly time. Starting with the wind up dolls in Peking Opera wear that the trio needs to fight to the multiple reveals of the Owl gang leader, no matter how obvious Chiang's gag becomes ("Rock Around The Clock" and Star Wars are references done very openly), it's incredibly infectious.

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A Chinese New Year release in 1987 that fit the bill perfectly as Cinema City pulled out all the stops for their event with popular adventurer/novelist Wisely (as also seen in The Seventh Curse, The Cat and Bury Me High) and definitely a case can be made that this is the Hong Kong equivalent of an Indiana Jones. No one's been able to top Mr. Ford in that regard though, especially not our star Sam Hui here.

Shot in beautiful scope by Peter Pau, the location work not only in Hong Kong but Egypt and Nepal is gleefully insisted on being overused by director Teddy Robin. The location work is never withheld from the frame nor is the luxurious, sometimes futuristic design Hai Chung-Man. It's the world of movies to a T and the definition of entertainment for the masses as the proceedings are grand, stupid, action-packed and contains stars that are allowed to be planks. Sam Hui is certainly one but he's obviously a clever/shameless marketing tool that always opens up the prime op to attach a tune of his to the flick too. Joey Wong, despite having an action oriented character setup is put into division of flower vase status and Ti Lung is Mr. Kickass. Our director pops up as the one surely able to decipher the secret behind a religious pearl many want to obtain and while pretty much only Blacky Ko's action directing (good blend between fights, stunts and vehicular design) is the sole piece of relevant cinema that still lives today, The Legend Of Wisely is a packed event that makes no excuses for what it is. There was a time where this was highly acceptable. It was also the time when Hong Kong cinema still had the ability to gather up the stars. Therefore, it's still valid today.

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Certainly a story striking a chord more closely to home than in the West, this legend of the Chinese deity (with the power of healing) Wong Tai Sin probably at least deserved something more grand and not medium-sized looking. Having said that, director Do Gong-Yue (Blood Sorcery) utilizes what he has well, starting in the heaven-set where Goddess Mother's birthday is celebrated. Gold Tortoise is looking down at the humans suffering and decides to splat holy water on them in order to solve the drought. This violates the rules of heaven and gold tortoise's punishment is to be sent to earth and do good deeds to humans. Born as Wong Cho-Pin, he goes from shepherd boy to practicing to be a Taoist priest as an adult (played here by Lam Ching-Ying). The cinematic treatment is more of a spiritual journey and lacks any true excitement. Yet matters are arguably coherent and lead Lam Ching-Ying becomes a fitting representation of a familiar character to the homebound audience. The fight action present is more Peking Opera in style although a battle with a black magician (Ku Feng) posing as Wong Cho-Pin represents what could be perceived as the obligatory hopping vampire-moments for a Lam Ching-Ying film. Kwan Hoi-San plays Wong Cho-Pin's master. The 1986 TVB TV-series starred Adam Cheng as the titular character.

KENNETH'S REVIEW: Against one-tone backgrounds in the opening credits, the structure of Lee Tso-Nam's movie plays out. Specifically he wants to make sure the mix to expect is the stoic and the wacky. Pretty much a lazy and bad move that, Ha Kwong-Li plays Phoenix that think she's on the top of the martial arts world. Her trusty, loud, grating servant thinks so too but under the guidance of Master Tan (Dorian Tan), she'll revise her views. All while Tan's sworn enemies will draw close for a final showdown where legwork of different genders will stand together. Despite acrobatics being pretty much top notch, Dorian Tan featured as your suitably amazing kicking expert, The Leg Fighters annoys rather than entertains. Comedy kung fu is an art but the art is reduced here to merely performing without the dedicated touch. Ha Kwong-Li is truly amazing in one of her latter fight scenes and Dorian never less than a perfect genre staple but Lee Tso-Nam doesn't make his cheap vehicle grow beyond that. It's worked before. Also known as Incredible Kung Fu Legs.

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Godfrey Ho's exploitation version of The Killer is certainly audience friendly. Serving up a smorgasbord of girls, naked girls and a high pitched frequency to the gunplay WITH the girls, this is all very calculated, especially the drama and the Category III aspect of this production is embarrassingly forced. Lethal Panther get by just by lining up these elements for the slaughter but if Ho's action directors would've executed the stylized, acrobatic gunplay violence with a few more notches better flare (slow motion doesn't make mundane choreography automatically cool), there could've been something very gory and cool in the end product. Lead Maria Yuen fits her role very sufficiently though while Sibelle Hu merely supports the flick at various points. So does Lawrence Ng, Alex Fong and Ken Lo.

Released in the UK as Deadly China Dolls while the unrelated sequel was re-named to Lethal Panther in the same territory.

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Named Lethal Panther for its UK release since the actual first, unrelated film was blessed with Deadly China Dolls, this contains precious little Cantonese speaking performers as leads since the Philippines was used as a location. Phillip Ko appears briefly and choreographs the action and while quick-cut editing is an issue, this is unusually strong, acrobatic gunplay coming from him. The team for once channels the need for excess and creativity so above average for a Ko Fei production it definitely is, with Yukari Oshima responding dependently. Watch out for a brief but obviously Bullet In The Head inspired car finale. Drama in between is just basic framework for mentioned action aspect but we do get to the fair goodies within relatively short periods of time.

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David (co-director Wai Wang) comes back from abroad only to find his wife to be has married another man in order to clear a debt. Subsequently mugged and taken to the mentally unstable side, David decides to strike back against ALL women by training lizards to crawl inside women's vaginas (a sequence showing David and female accomplice stealing women's panties comes before this key plot ingredient so we know we're heading somewhere sleazy). The kill is both pleasurable and painful for the women...viva exploitation! At heart an intense melodrama, of course Wai Wang's baby has its sights firmly locked at the sleaze and boy does Lewd Lizard deliver fine, shameless stuff. 70s fashion is unavoidable but the audio assault is something else. Obvious cues probably heard in various porn movies are thrown at us without any subtlety, sound design during the lizard attacks is akin to chewing or munching and of course the lust/pain of the females David attacks is shot in glorious slow motion. Not really well attended narrative and giant overacting are negative asides but not enough to overpower the outrageousness Wai Wang and Wang Hsiung manages to convey on-screen via very small means.

Fairly eerie horror film, produced by Cinema City and shot in synch sound. Director Peter Yung collaborates very well with cinematographer Arthur Wong in giving us a low-key but quite chilling tale as we follow George Lam (being less of an empty void in his acting ways for once) trying to put together the fragmented pieces of his violent demise in a past life. Chinese puppets probably never did look scary, until now that is. Also starring Patrick Tse, Lung Tin Sang and Flora Cheung.

Arthur Wong was nominated against his own work in the slasher-comedy He Lives By Night and ended up taking home the Hong Kong Film Award for that very film.

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