Asian Kung Fu Cinema: Executioners From Shaolim

 Okay, onward and upward? I guess it's more like forward but downward, the second movie in the Dragon Dynasty box set is entitled Executioners from Shaolin, which follows a group of Shaolin students on their journey to execute the man who murdered their master. Wait, isn't that like, the same plot in every other movie in this collection?

I'll go ahead and state now, "Here there be spoilers!"

 The movie opens up with a red room fight sequence (no, not *that* red room) wherein a Shaolin Master faces another...Shaolin...master...well I don't know that he's Shaolin, but he practices the exact same martial arts. During the fight the first master makes several attempts to strike what should be his adversary's weak points, but to no avail. Why? Well noone knows, maybe he has glass eyes and no balls. Best guess?

 At the end of this sequence we see a group of Shaolin students fleeing the temple as it is destroyed, all the while their numbers are reduced by a group of pursuant attackers. For simplicity's sake we'll say this second master is a Warlord, and these are his soldiers. The students mount a final defensive, and send their strongest fighter, and an assortment of others, to escape.

 They form a group known as the Red Boats (or use Red Boats to cover their group? Whatever) that acts as a circus during the day, but after their performances they spread news of rebellions against the warlord, and other such revolutionary things. Well they meet a pretty lady and the leader type marries her. Yay romance that absorbs a large portion of the movie without being divulged upon too greatly. The Red Boats are attacked and the students go their separate ways.

 The leader type spends the next several years training, and has a son with his wife. While he practices tiger style, his son learns his mother's crane style. After a while our hero goes to face the Warlord. Their fight is fierce, but the Warlord sees no threat in the other's tiger style ("Your Kung Fu is good, but mine is better") and he flees. But not before just barely being rescued by his best friend who was coming to tell him a secret, the Warlord can move his weakpoints, and he is at his weakest between 1 and 3.

 Queue another lengthy training regimen wherein our hero strikes a mannequin filled with marbles labeled for the time of day when the Warlord might be weakest in an area. I guess he was relying on Buddha to guide his strikes or something? It worked anyway for the most part, and he went to challenge the Warlord again, being intercepted by his son along the way. This time though, the Warlord has recognized the threat this man's tiger style poses (read as: "Your Kung Fu is much better") and kills him.

 Everyone knows where this is going? I can stop? Well, the son swears vengeance for his Father and his father's fallen comrades, and locates his hidden tiger style training manual on his mother's request. Alas a rat has torn into it and much of the style is missing! The youth resolves he will learn what he can and make up the rest, creating some bizarre fusion of Tiger and Crane style. He goes to face the Warlord.

 Spoiler Alert? He wins! His bizarre, erratic martial arts, combined with his father's training regimen, allow the youth to surpass the Warlord and kill him. Vengeance is achieved and thus does the tale of the Executioners from Shaolin end!

 Sound like your kind of Asian Kung Fu Flick? I’m glad, because it certainly wasn’t mine, though there are some interesting scenes and ideas, like the crane style mating ritual! Seriously,

And...that's all I have to say about that.

 “All you must do is part my legs?” Oh, did I neglect to mention I have trained my legs to be near impenetrable for fifteen years? Seriously, that is my entire martial art, not moving my legs unless I want to. The sound effects date this movie hard though, as every single thrown punch makes a ‘whump’ sound, even the missed ones. Seriously Asia, when you punch the air the air does not punch back. I don't have a ranking system in place, but this is far from a 10, or even an 8, though as I pointed out there are definitely some attractive details.

And...that's all I have to say about that.

TTFN

-C. W. Sherman

Asian Kung Fu Cinema: Jet Li's Martial Arts of Shaolin

"Your Spoiler Alert is no good." I added this almost immediately, but it is an 'update,' this blog post does contain spoilers.
"Your Editing is no good." second edit in the same night (or morning?) I added the pictures I was missing, and have deleted the annotations stating I would add the pictures. So this post is officially done unless someone would like to point out something I missed.
   So, I realize in my previous post I stated I would update the next morning at the latest, well I overslept and then discovered a new YouTube series (new to me) Game Shop, which is fantastic, I highly recommend it to anyone with an ounce of nerd in them (oh that's anyone who reads this!) Anyway, let's take a look at the first movie in my Asian Kung Fu Cinema series Jet Li's Martial Arts of Shaolin! 

   Now to start with, this actually appears to be the best movie in the Dragon Dynasty 4 pack, if for no other reason than that name in the title, Jet Li. Now I'm not as big a fan of Jet Li as I am of many other non-martial artist actors, but I would probably rank Jackie Chan above Jet Li, if for no other reason than I know Jackie Chan more. However, my fiancée is a huge fan of Jet Li (in turn I've watched a lot of his movies) and this is probably the bottom of the list. Martial Arts of Shaolin was made in 1986 (I think) and is on part with other martial arts movies of its time, no doubt surpassing the vast majority. I'm gonna pin that on Jet Li, overall a terrific actor. 

   One of the biggest scenes to me, in the entire movie, takes place as a sort of introduction to the characters, you meet Jet Li (I cannot spell his character's name, it's not in front of me, sorry) already intensely training, seeking revenge against his parents' murderer who of course is also the warlord over the area. During this intense training regimen (it's like intense training anyway) he finds a nest of abandoned birds and decides to care for them and feed them a worm. The Grand Abbot of his monastery catches him and his close friend right before they feed the bird, and tells them it is a sin to kill the worm for the bird. Jet finds himself in a controversial situation, they are taught that they must save lives, but in order to save the bird's life, he must take the worm's life. Fortunately, he is called away to training and leaves the birds in the hands of the Abbot, who resolves the bigger life is more worth saving. (Did that have any significance to the rest of the movie? I don't think so.) 

   So following this we are introduced to two other Shaolin students, secular students (secular monks?! What madness is this? [Haha, confusion and stupidity resolved, my wonderful fiancee pointed out that clearly they are not monks but students, at a monastery] ) one of which is seeking revenge for the same reason against the same man, the other is in love with her and seeks to protect her. There's an awesome birthday ceremony, a botched assassination attempt, and a statement of "Your Kung Fu is no good." The three main characters barely escape with their lives, and an arranged marriage secret is revealed. The female member of the team wears an anklet that is identical to Jet Li's, which he clings to as the last reminder of his parents. This anklet was given to her betrothed at birth, but Jet Li is a monk! What shall he do?! Get caught by monks and brought back to his temple where he must serve three years of penance. It's all right though, the Abbott will escort the two secular students to the Southern temple (someone please explain how monks at a temple can be secular before I have to Google it.) Not to mention, Jet Li will escape and seek vengeance anyway, after butchering some artwork for no apparent reason. Kung Fu masters are jerks apparently. So of course the trio reunites after fleeing the southern temple and go after the warlord again, when they finally reveal...wait...no..."Their Kung Fu is still no good." But, they are assisted by their brothers from the North and South Shaolin temples and manage to defeat the Big Bad. The Abbotts having resolved that Jet Li was right and this was a noble pursuit of justice. (Batman would be proud) Ultimately Jet Li leaves his anklet with his betrothed's guardian, commanding him to care for her, and he returns to the temple with his brothers.

   The end.

   Pretty great right? Especially all of the philosophical debate! If anyone can point me to an explanation of the art defacing, please do! And how the some lives are greater than others debate plays into the movie plot.

 Anyway, TTFN.

-C. W. Sherman

Welcome to My Cinema

   Hello citizens of the internet, and welcome to My Cinema, the blog where I take you through my adventures in movie watching, whether those movies be horrible or terrific, animated or live-action, new or old, worth-watching or not. Is this an attempt to share my opinions on movies? Not in the slightest. Well maybe in the slightest, I do have this idea that everyone should think like me (not really, what a boring world that would be.) Instead it’s an out for my incessant need to write, when I don’t feel like writing a short story or working on a novel, hopefully I can get something posted here!

   What better way to start a blog about movies that may or may not be any good, than with an Asian Kung Fu action flick marathon? Well, I’m sure there are a few (you could always start with a Slasher marathon, or even just turn on Chillr!) But for now we’ll start with Asian Kung Fu Cinema as my first topic, seeing as I picked up FIVE Kung Fu flicks for 15.00! Here’s a few pictures:

 

   Now to be perfectly fair, these are not movies I have watched (with the exception of the first two) and I probably will have some posts about movies I’ve watched in the past, so don’t be surprised if I’m sometimes a little off about something (though I will try to avoid that at all costs!) Also, don’t be too surprised when my anime obsession starts cropping up, yes I will have posts about Japanese Animation movies and series, because this has always been my favorite style of motion picture (is that what I’m looking for? They are moving pictures after all.)

I’m going to post this and get ready for work, hopefully I can have a post ready for tonight, if not then tomorrow morning? Or the next day? Haha just now starting and already setting expectations I can never fulfill.

   Oh well,

TTFN

C. W. Sherman