KENNETH'S REVIEW: An unusually busy plot with character connections left and right plus some re-thinking of Jimmy Wang Yu's revenge motives, muddled is the word on Kim Lung's direction. It's admirable to make more out of a genre vehicle, its straight story and to re-locate to Japan but for advancement and excellence in filmmaking within the genre, turn to other Jimmy Wang Yu vehicles such as One-Armed Swordsman, Golden Swallow and The Sword. Screaming Tiger ain't it division-wise but excels in action, providing the viewer with intense brawls with both sumo wrestlers but topping it off best with the Jimmy/Lung Fei end duel that takes place both on a moving train, in water and near a waterfall.

Also known as Wang Yu's 7 Magnificent Fights, this Lo Wei/Jimmy Wang Yu effort does no service overall to the former's reputation as a boring director and the latter as a kickass star but bright spots do crop up. Brightest being James Tien with blonde hair and pink pants! Before we get to that, Wang Yu is the titular seaman fleeing to Japan (a country he he dislikes) after killing somebody. Getting slightly involved with smugglers but also trying to make a living as a waiter, taking Judo classes and sightseeing, eventually there's dark turns involving bloody murder so on to pieces of classic celluloid involving Wang Yu fighting underwater, hanging onto trucks while smoking and taking on the badass James Tien (who never had a more inspiring character design in films) plus sumo wrestling henchmen. HUGE stretches and reels of boredom and uninspired fight choreography take center stage and Lo Wei seems more interested in sightseeing in Japan through the lens. Eventually all crap that doesn't matter (including murder because by the end, characters are pretty upbeat) gets pushed aside in favour of the sparse moments that do work and fun, mainly involving Wang Yu on the truck versus Lam Ching-Ying and mentioned finale.

A terrific pick-up from the early days at IFD (Filmark's Tomas Tang was still at the company even!) when distributing in particular Korean martial arts movies internationally was their game, Secret Ninja, Roaring Tiger is according to Hong Kong Movie Database originally called "Injamunsalsu" (translated as "Duel of In-ja Hall") and was directed by Kim Si Hyeon (whose movies often was often distributed by IFD, only replaced by Godfrey Ho as director in the credits instead). Lam Chi-Foo (Ninja Terminator), Dragon Lee and a mysterious woman dressed as a man are off on a journey to free a millionaire's daughter from the grip of Tiger So (Hwang Jang-Lee) and his ninja sect. A few dips into comedy with Dragon Lee at center further cements his complete lack of talent in this area but most of Secret Ninja, Roaring Tiger competently follows formula straight faced. The performers are inspired, with the acrobatic and overall physical abilities coming through in a very crisp manner. In particular Hwang Jang-Lee is in fine form in one of his neglected villain roles. The film even indulges in a few raunchy and supernatural aspects, ranging from Hwang Jang-Lee in a steamy sex scene, whipping of a nude woman and said woman flashing Hwang Jang-Lee to break his fighting spell towards the end.

The material for a slightly stronger and dramatic Moon Lee/Alex Fong vehicle is there but certainly not assured filmmaking to deliver such so any hopes of something different with Secret Police diminishes fast. Still, one can't complain about director/action director Heaven Yiu's work in the latter department as it's a fairly competent mixture of fights and gunplay, with Moon Lee sadly not given much to do though. Ku Feng, Shum Wai, Billy Chow and Lung Fong co-stars.

An early Chow Yun-Fat vehicle but if you ever were to agree on the fact that the future superstar was box office-poison once, it would apply to See-Bar (re-titled God Father on the vcd). Chow plays happy go lucky mechanic Chieh whose closest ones are drained of all their money via gambling excursions with gangster Kwok (King Hu regular Pai Ying). When even Chieh unjustly ends up in debt with Kwok, he battles back...

Chow presents an annoyingly camp and silly character in the opening reel, only to be taken down a bit to earth by debut director Dennis Yu subsequently. While still creating See-Bar as lighthearted, Yu squeezes no interest, humour or excitement out of any low-budget means at his disposal. Pai Ying has the sole funny scene where his tough guy exterior is penetrated by fear of being caught by HIS boss but the known performers here (that also includes Roy Chiao) had seen and were going to see better days. Same with director Yu who made the effective exploitation nasty The Beasts the same year. Wong Ching, veteran director Ng Wui and Chui Yee-Ha co-stars.

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HK Flix.com
Yesasia.com

Reportedly and not unexpectedly, Seeding Of A Ghost connects with Black Magic 1 & 2, creating a trilogy content-wise but that's not what Shaw Brother's were here to tout. No, Shaw's showed the world that they were a little engine that could when it comes to b-horror special effects extravaganzas with Seeding Of A Ghost. An effort that clearly lives and breathes on this aspect but you'll have to suffer through an incredibly dull first half to get to it. Basically Phillip Ko's wife is raped and murdered by a couple punks after being dropped off in the middle of nowhere by her lover (Norman Tsui). Ko hires a master of witchcraft. Let the games begin...

Softcore sex, poor production values, poor acting and directing mar this first half despite being a Shaw Brother's production but rest assured, the low-budget SFX train that you'll be on for the remainder is something else. At times really wonderfully gross and imaginative coming from an industry that clearly is not an expert on this kind of thing, director Yeung Kuen also gives props (or steals) from various other iconic horror efforts from the West while adding the unique Hong Kong sensibilities to the religious aspect. If anything it's a shame the movie is played completely serious and therefore it doesn't rival one of the great b-pictures of the 80s, Seventh Curse, but god damn, this stuff will appeal to genre enthusiasts! A crowd that knows to expect flaws and that delivery must be made in other areas. Seeding Of A Ghost passes with flying colours therefore.

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HK Flix.com
Yesasia.com

Between the two sisters Yi-Lan and Yi-Lien (Sally Chen), it's the latter who is lambasted more often as she's not found a boyfriend, is undisciplined in school etc. Rather than going with Wang Shr-Chieh, a high ranking employee in her father's company, she goes after her big sister's boyfriend Wang Hsiao-Tung. Them subsequently falling in love triggers events in the family that is causing it to disrupt little by little. It's not easy to forgive betrayal of trust, even by a character ignorant of her actions until they're done...

An often gorgeous production with Steven Lau (Gone With The Cloud) in particular utilizing his studio interior meant as exterior really well, this emotional story rarely juggles those technical merits and dramatic intentions well. When there's no convincing beats leading into Yi-Lien's and Wang's romance, Lau never really rebounds. Not as melodramatic as you would think, still there's insistency from someone to go that route with the score and with many things in The September Song, the notes are false. Shame because the script in its small scale has complexity but someone was way too infatuated with how Taiwan romances and melodramas usually feel.

Buy the DVD at:
Yesasia.com

A rare chance for the girls with guns genre icons Moon Lee, Cynthia Khan and Yukari Oshima to venture into darkness but A Serious Shock! Yes, Madam! (aka Yes Madam '92: A Serious Shock), rated Category III, gives us that and the efforts are worthwhile. Emotions and villainous acting does register on the soap opera scale at times but Moon Lee in particular is eerily effective as she is easily looked upon as a charming and bubbly personality but when she commits cruel, violent acts here, that is the serious shock of the film. Yukari and Cynthia are also given emotional beats to work with that are only bearable but notable for the genre, although it has to be said that despite 4 action directors (Fung Hark On, Danny Chow, Benny Lai & Chu Tau), there's relatively little action due to the film playing out more like a straight thriller. Albert Lai's direction is at times sloppy and certain details are brushed over but he deserves credit for for giving the battling babes an acting challenge and within the confines of the genre they usually appeared in, A Serious Shock! Yes, Madam! ends up being worth your while. Eric Tsang, Ku Feng, Lawrence Ng, Karel Wong, Lee Siu-Kei, Waise Lee, Fung Hark On also appear.

Although carrying the 1986 copyright, footage on display seems to lean towards the fact that Serpent Warriors was either shot simultaneously as Calamity Of Snakes (1983, William Cheung) or lent actors from that production to create this cut & paste product. Utilizing very little footage of the original Taiwan production aside from its intense climax, instead of snakes getting revenge on a building developer (Kao Yuen) that slaughtered them for his own benefits, the movie opens on an island in the Pacific in 1946 where mentioned building developer (now getting the character name Jason King) as a kid witnesses his sister being sacrificed by a snake cult. Getting a curse inflicted upon him, cut to adulthood and his wife has premonitions of some bad events in the future (a shared plot-strand from the original). It's soon clear the snake cult and their Snake Priestess (Eartha Kitt) are targeting Jason. Mrs. King employs help from a trio of Los Angeles scientists (Clint Walker, Christopher Mitchum and Anne Lockheart) and heads out into the Mexican desert to confirm the existence of the cult. As the slightly ditsy Laura Chase (Lockhart) proclaims: "I wouldn't mind a week out of LA"...

Rather kooky and whimsy, the edit here is quite incoherent when using the Calamity Of Snakes-footage as it's edited super tightly and without rhyme or reason. The animal cruelty that lead the original is almost nowhere to be found and instead the bulk of the film has the desert as its locale. There's some wonderful dopey filmmaking present however, with the Eartha Kitt led scenes, her hippie followers beside her and the following gun battle in the desert ranking as highlights. In a way, the biggest turn in the narrative is the humanization of the Kao Yuen character that isn't 100% evil now but only prone to not listen. He still gets a fair comeuppance obviously as the fight with the giant killer snake is something the re-edit wouldn't miss out on. Thankfully. As an aside, this version is probably the closest we'll get to an original language, subtitled version of the original as almost all scenes from the original are unchanged in that regard.