Hahaha, red eye!

Netflix rocks for when you are stuck rocking the baby at weird hours of the night, and nothing is on TV.  I recently got a chance to check out Fatal Contact (黑拳) and it was a real shock to my system.  Beware of spoilers…

The Good

Ronald Cheng didn't get the V-neck memo

• I didn’t realize Wu Jing was the same guy who played the baton-baddy in SPL (I loved that fight, and it made up for Donnie Yen tossing Sammo Hung around).  The fighting was very good in Fatal Contact, and I really just watch these movies for the fight choreography anyway.
• When Kong Ko gave Siu Tin both fish cheeks, that’s when I knew it was love.
• I thought it was funny how they referenced Jet Li.
• The brutal butter knife fight was awesome!

The Bad

• The plot is so cliche and yet less engaging that that of most martial arts films.  There was surprisingly little tension until the end.
• ‘Captain’ Chan Shing never really taught Kong Ko anything except to be mean.
• The ending, while unexpected, was really unsatisfying (especially the conversation between Ko and Tin).
• None of the matches were very close.  Wu Jing’s character basically kicked the crap out of everyone easily.
• I was also mad when that bitchy waitress wouldn’t take the coupon because Siu Tin didn’t present it when ordering.  That is BS!

The Ugly

There be spoilers ahead!  Also, all these points really belong in a so bad they’re good category.

▼ Show

So, like, how do you know so much about whores anyway?

• I didn’t even realize that Chui Chi was “Ada” at first.  The hilarious implication of this is that Kong Ko was working in a theater troop where all the women were whores!  So was prostitution their main job, or was it just their second job?
• Did the theater have to close because Ko left, or was the performance run just over?  If it had to close because of Ko, that would mean he denied Chi hotpot and forced her to sell her body to get by.  This makes it even funnier that Ko called Chi a skank when he saw her at the fight against the K-1 guy (plus Ko himself was pseudo-dating a whore).
• When Siu Tin was in the midst of her emo depression, I thought she had flopped into a hospital pool at first (I was a little groggy).  What kind of hospital doesn’t have guard rails?  Needless to say, I did not expect her to off herself.  WTF, Kong Ko just had a broken leg!  He wasn’t even that hurt, because he was still able to limp over and kill all the gangsters with a butter knife!
• All along I figured Tin had been a prostitute in the past.  Who knew she was still practicing!  The conversations between Chi and Tin were so odd at first, but made sense later.  It must have torn Tin up to see Chi being such a n00b.

Excuse me, I'm trying to get to the umbrellas

Thanks to the magic of Netflix, I’ve been able to explore the martial arts movies of other countries. My previous foray into non-Chinese martial arts flicks was a mixed bag with some great movies (like the Thai Ong Bak) as well as some stinkers (e.g. the Finnish Jade Warrior, aka the worst martial arts movie I have ever seen).

This month, I watched two very good movies with strong female leads. The first was the Korean Muyeong Geom (Legend of the Shadowless Sword). This was a pretty well-rounded movie with very good action, and a decent story. The cheese level was fairly low, and it’s too bad there are not more movies with So-yi Yoon available in the US.

However, the movie that really rocked my socks was the Thai Chocolate. Basically, Chocolate is what Romeo and Juliet would be like if R&J had an autistic daughter that became Tony Jaa‘s biggest fan and went around extorting all the gangsters in Thailand.

I asked for elbow macaroni...

The choreography is outstanding again, although the cheese levels occasionally approach the danger zone. Some shots are clearly sped up; others are speed-then-pose combinations, mixed with a bit of stone-statue syndrome (attacker punches once and stops). While JeeJa Yanin lacks the brutal power of Tony, she is very clearly skilled (TKD background); furthermore her acting is such that her character Zen’s retarded-ferocity (I mean this in a good way) really comes through. There is also something intensely amusing (I laughed out loud so many times) about watching a little 70 lb. girl elbowing/kneeing the hell out of everyone. The fights in the Japanese restaurant were especially good, even though they included a morally-shaky fight between the autistic girl and the spazzing-mentally-challenged-dog-guy. I figure this kind of thing is right up Velius’ alley.

Here’s the trailer (with a few outtakes showing how there was no stunt double!): ▼ Show

Chocolate really has it all: fighting with staffs, katana, scabbards, and even those electric bug zappers that look like tennis rackets. It also touches upon a range of subjects like chemotherapy, engrish, loan sharking, cross-dressing (a lot of cross-dressing), cross-country marriages, and even clean wind power. The scenes where Zen is watching Ong Bak are hilarious as well, but not as far-fetched as you might think. A lot of martial arts movies starring females are kinda lame (because of the weak choreography and unskilled actresses), but I would recommend both Legend of the Shadowless Sword and Chocolate to any martial arts fans.

A Cuban taekwondo athlete and his coach were banned for life after Angel Matos kicked the referee in the face following his bronze-medal match disqualification.

Banned for being too awesome that is. The picture really highlights the awesomeness of the situation. If that judge was any good he would have dodged the kick. Actually, that would have been even more hilarious if the judge dodged it and knocked the guy out. In the slide show, you can clearly see Matos hurt, then arguing, then nailing the judge. Judge obviously thought Matos was gonna go body, but Matos elevated the kick at the key moment to avoid the ill-advised pseudo-x-block.

Matos angrily questioned the call, pushed a judge, then pushed and kicked referee Chakir Chelbat of Sweden. Matos then spat on the floor and was escorted out.

Damn you Swedes and your Ikea furniture!

The above review is a good one, but please ignore the advice about sharpening keys and using the kubotan as a flail. This is unlikely to provide any real stopping power to a determined attacker. The kubotan excels as a loadfist weapon, so use it to enhance your hammerfist and punch strikes. You can also use the point to ‘stab’ your attacker’s body points and bony targets like the back of the hand can be excruciatingly painful when struck. In other words use the kubotan like it was intended to do so. Nowhere in any traditional yawara training is it used like a mini-flail like the above poster suggested.

What the heck?!?! So of course I had to look up kubotan, and I was not impressed by what I saw. Basically you are still using empty-hands techniques, but your techniques may work a little bit better. Of course in the hands of an expert this can be devastating, but you’re probably better off just putting some mace on your keychain (you see what I did there?) for self-defense. And if I really want to feel safe, I’ll stick with the Mr. T in Your Pocket Talking Keychain.

I also like that the list-maker brought up relevant questions about the situational efficiacy of certain styles.

But what if you’re in an enclosed space, and the only way out is being blocked by a pommel horse and a spinning gymkata master?

These kinds of questions keep me awake at night.

On the other hand, The Twins Effect 2 was a disappointment on the scale of Volcano High. I’m not saying I stayed up like 10 hours to watch it on a flight to Taiwan or anything, but I was hoping it would have decent action. It was in the Donnie Yen section and the cover had him and Jackie Chan on it and everyone was looking all serious and ominous. I mean, that sounds like a sure winner when you are looking for a kung fu movie, right? WRONG! There’s this one dopey guy on the cover, and I had no clue who he was. My dad told me not to buy it because it was just a vehicle for Jackie Chan to get his son a role, but I didn’t believe him. Turns out the dopey guy on the cover is Jaycee Chan and he is the worst actor evaaaaar. Like take a young Jackie Chan, make his face more horselike, take away anything funny about him, and make him unable to fight; there you have Jaycee. I mean, I could take the beginning where it felt all Power Rangers with Amazons (even though they are in China?) in purple armor, but once Jaycee hit the screen it was all downhill. Unfortunately, Jaycee is the hero of the story and is even involved in a nonsensical romance with one of the female leads. The silly pop-idols were actually the best part, and there was little action past the initial 30 minutes. I can just picture Donnie Yen being forced into this movie by Jackie calling in a favor. In my mind, I can totally see him reading the script and getting to the part where the evil queen’s spell causes all the men to grow breasts and just wanting to rip Jackie’s spine out. Did I mention Excalibur is featured in this movie (not even Excalipur)? Seriously, there should be a warning on the cover of movies like this. This movie should be rated C for “crap”.

Ugh, so if anyone knows any good modern kung fu movies, please let me know. I own like every decent movie by Jet Li and even all those horrible TV-series by Donnie Yen and the well is starting to run dry. At this point, I think I consider Jet Li’s rendition of Fist of Legend to be the best kung fu flick I’ve ever seen, as it has just enough story spaced in between the amazingly choreographed fight scenes. Jet Li hasn’t been as good in recent movies, although Hero was very well done. Is there some awesome actor I don’t know about that I should look into?