Outlaw Brothers ( 1990 )When I dismissed some of the Dragon Dynasty releases as nothing more than the company burning off the films they were forced to pay the rights for because they were packaged in with the films they were trying to get the rights for, I was schooled by Asian cinema enthusiasts that all of the Dragon Dynasty releases were major films back in their country of origin. So far that has seemed to be true. Except for this film.
This is no major release. It was not a box office hit. It isn't a cult classic. It doesn't have any major Asian stars, nor any important producer or director. It is not brought to you by anyone responsible for anything important. The only notable person associated with the film was script writer Barry Wong who had written scripts for many classic Golden Harvest action comedies, and would go on to write the script for John Woo's
Hard Boiled before his untimely death in 1992. It was the final film released by Dragon Dynasty, but with an asterisk. The
Chinese Odyssey set should have been last. Each Dragon Dynasty release had a number on the spine of the box.
Outlaw Brothers was #57 and
A Chinese Odyssey was #58. For some reason #58 was released a week earlier than #57.
Dragon Dynasty always included extras, both ported from the original foreign release of the film, and original content they produced themselves, and often as two disc sets. And they always included a commentary track, if not from anyone who worked on the film, then from a film expert. That suddenly came to an end in 2010 after the two disc release of
The Killer ( 1989 ). The next fifteen release were martial arts films from the Shaw Brothers studio without any extras, followed by both
Chinese Odyssey films in a double set, also without extras. And of course,
Outlaw Brothers had no extras. By this time Dragon Dynasty was under new management, and they were no longer willing to spend any extra money on their releases. So it is very possible they wanted to balance the books by releasing all the films they paid for. My guess is that
Outlaw Brothers was packaged by media Asia in with the
Infernal Affairs trilogy. While their was no call for releasing the movie in the United States, the advantage was that Dragon Dynasty already owned the distribution rights to the film, and aside from costing nothing to release, was certain to be bought by everyone already collecting Dragon Dynasty releases.
This appears to have been the only time Dragon Dynasty did something like this. My only real complaint is that they could have released another one of the Shaw Brothers films instead of this. Currently Dragon Dynasty holds the North American copyrights to about 30 Shaw Brothers films they haven't released, including
Fists of the White Lotis and
Boxer from Shangtung. They are also hoarding the rights to a lot of other important Asian films including
Bride With White Hair and the
A Better Tomorrow trilogy. It is very likely Dragon Dynasty had no idea that
Outlaw Brothers would be their final release. Had not someone at the Weinstein company discontinued releasing new Dragon Dynasty titles, who knows how many more potboilers they acquired from Media Asia or any other film packages would have been released. ( Dragon Dynasty is not officially defunct, as they continues to repress and distribute their previous releases, excluding the titles licenced under Fortune Star since their deal with that company has lapsed and they no longer hold the copyrights to those films. )
But definitely
Outlaw Brothers has no business being released under the Dragon Dynasty label. As I said, it doesent have any Major stars. The lead is Frankie Chan, who also produced and directed. Frankie had spent most of his film career as a composer for martial arts films. ( He was responsible for my all time favorite Asian movie scores for the film
Five Masters of Death, and was also responsible for the film scores to several other martial arts classics. ) In 1980 he decided to move into acting, getting a break when Sammo Hung cast him as the villain in
Prodigal Son ( 1981 ) ( with a script written by Barry Wong ), But instead of accepting roles in other major martial arts films, he insisted on being in films that he produced and often directed, which doomed him to independent film companies and low budget films. His co-star Max Mok came from Shaw Brothers studios, who cast him as the leading man in his first two films for the studio ( one of them being the fantasy classic
Holy Flame of the Martial World ( 1983 ) ) but was gradually demoted to supporting characters and eventually bit parts. Outside of Shaw Brothers he landed in a few classic action films, but always as supporting characters. The leading lady is Oshima Yukari who seems to have a minor cult following, but her career has mostly been playing henchwomen.
The plot for this film is all formula, which leads me to suspect Barry Wong initially wrote the script expecting to sell it to Jackie Chan. Frankie Chan and Max Mok are brothers who are car thieves, specializing in stealing expensive sports cars. A mob boss attempts to force the brothers to work for him, so they retaliate by tipping off the police the location of his chop shop. Oshima Yukari plays the lead police detective raiding the chop shop named Tequila ( a name Barry Wong also gave to Chow Yun Fat's character in
Hard Boiled ). After being arrested, the crime boss tells her about the car thieves who set him up, and she decides to go after them via a sting operation. But during it Tequila and Frankie fall in love. So she ends up abandoning the sting and becoming Frankie's girlfriend. Things get complicated when Frankie and his brother steal a race car that has smuggled drugs stashed in it, resulting in the drug gang kidnapping Frankie's sister to get the drugs back. This all leads to a showdown between Frankie, his brother and Tequila and the drug gang in a warehouse.
Oh, and it is a comedy. Something that Dragon Dynasty tried to hide. ( the Dragon Dynasty box makes the film look like a thriller. ) One thing writer Barry Wong was notorious for was stealing gags from other films. This is very evident in the
Lucky Stars series where Wong shamelessly stole memorable gags from the films of
Mel Brooks,
The Three Stooges and others. In this movie Wong steals gags from
A Fish Called Wanda. As with most Hong Kong comedies, most of the humor falls flat, and the forced romance does not work, leading to large portions of the film being boring. The film only comes alive during the fighting and action scenes, which were reportedly choreographed by Jackie Chan himself. Although it is more likely that Jackie Chan's stunt team choreographed the stunts as Chan himself would have been too busy with his own movies to take the time to work on someone else's film. While the action is top notch, there is just not enough of it. And the climatic battle in the warehouse is ruined due to the real death and mutilations of chickens, who are blown up, squished and run over by a car. No need to explain why the warehouse is filled with chickens, just that real live chickens were needlessly put in harms way, and in many instances injured bloody chickens are seen crawling around the floor next to the bodies of the chickens that didn't survive. PeTA would never approve of this film.
The Heart of Midnight ( 1988 )Thanks to MST3K season 11, I have eaten up most of this months entertainment budget, which means it will be a few weeks before I can get some fresh superhero or fantasy films. Which means Saturday nights will be spent watching movies that have been sitting on my shelf for months, unopened and waiting to be watched.
For those of you old enough to remember the days of renting VHS tapes from Blockbuster or any other video rental store will remember
The Heart of Midnight from it's box. A very sexy photo of Jennifer Jason Leigh that looked like...... well, let me show you.

I am sure this box was responsible for millions of rentals, almost entirely by young males between the ages of 12 and 28 expecting this movie to be something they could pleasure themselves to. The problem is that the box was missleading. When this low budget independent film was picked up by The Samuel Goldwyn Company for theatrical distribution, they brought back Leigh for a photo shoot where this was one of the pictures taken and turned into the film's poster, and later the home video box for both the VHS and Laserdisc, as it would be used for all later releases. But she does not play a sexy vixen in the film, but rather the victim of multiple rapes. Not something that puts you in the mood for pleasuring yourself. Me and my friends rented this back in the early 90s, admittedly fast forwarding through most of the film to get to the juicy stuff we thought would be in it, and ultimately felt ripped off.
Last year a co-worker dumped the Blu-ray for this film on my desk and said "Here, you can have this!" It was a good 20 years since the first time this movie was released on VHS, and the same image, now on the cover of a Blu-ray, was still tricking men into buying it. Of course my co-worker never admitted he bought the movie because of the box. Just that for some reason he bought an obscure art film from the 80s and didn't like it. He has his own small office which he spends most of company time watching movies, and hopefully doing nothing else. But occasionally when he buys a film he does not like, he immediately gives it away to the first co-worker he sees. Normally I don't accept films from him, as he either offers me something I am not interested in, or a film I already own. This time I accepted, because I wanted to give the film the chance I didn't back in the 90s.
I can't really summarize this film without giving away spoilers. But basically Jennifer Jason Leigh is a girl recovering from a mental breakdown who inherits a sex club from her creepy uncle. Determined to renovate the club into a swanky 1930s style nightclub, she moves into her late uncle's apartment in the club so she can oversee the workmen. But then strange things begin happening, which could either be pervert ghosts, or her having another mental breakdown. I should point out that the Blu-ray, which was released by Kino Lorber under license from MGM and 20th Century Fox ( not quite sure how those two studios ended up owning the film ), is shorter than the version I had rented back in the 90s. One scene I remembered involving a character tied to a post while elderly perverts molest her is missing, although is shown on the trailer. And I recall Brenda Vaccaro's role being much longer than it was. I am not sure what else has been cut due to me and my friends fast forwarding much of the movie the last time I had watched it.
It is a very decent film, although with the unimportant feel of a television movie. It was definitely one of those low budget films with a cast of well known actors who only turn up for a couple of scenes, but still get top billing above the actors who are there for most of the film. As always, Jennifer Jason Leigh gives a brilliant performance. I do take issue with the casting of Peter Coyote, who seemed much too old to play Leigh's love interest. Jennifer had broken her leg just prior to filming this, and instead of postponing for a couple of months , the director wrote the leg in the cast into the script. There is an awkward scene at the very end of the film, which is suppose to take place months later, where Jennifer walks down the stairs of her renovated club without the cast on. However, it is pretty evident they are cutting away to a double for that scene. But it passed the most important test. I wasn't bored. Of course considering the really bad films I have been seeing lately, I am having a lot more respect for mediocre films.
The Ape Man ( 1943 )Once again
Saturday Night Live is taking a two week break. What is it with these breaks? You would think the month long Christmas hiatus and month long Olympics hiatus would be enough. What ever happened to the days when SNL's season began in September and it soldiered on until the end of the season, with only three weeks off for Christmas, New Year's and Easter? Anyway, whenever SNL is a rerun I watch a movie instead, which means finishing off the last two films in the
Son's of Kong movie set. Both star Bela Lugosi, an actor who I will admit I had till this year only seen in the Universal horror films, the Ed Wood films, and the few odd chapters of
Phantom Creeps shown on MST3K.
Since Bela Lugosi would do any film he was offered, there is no way of judging the quality of this film by the cast ( the rest of which were Monogram contract players ) so I will turn to the director. Much like most of the directors who worked for Monogram, William Beaudine directed hundreds of films before his eventual retirement. He had a remarkable career, which ranged from assistant director for Mack Sennett ( including the film's
Birth of a Nation and
Intolerance ), working for Walt Disney ( he directed the
Spin and Marty serials that aired on
Mickey Mouse Club ) and directing Bruce Lee ( he directed many of
The Green Hornet episodes, and even got a posthumous directing credit when the episodes were edited into feature films, making his last feature film
Fury of the Dragon ( 1976 ), released six years after his death, and three years after Bruce Lee's death. ) While at Monogram, Beaudine directed half of the Bowery Boys films, giving him the record for most films directed in a single franchise. Another of his records was longest career span for anyone working in the film industry.
I have seen a few of his films before. There was
Voodoo Man ( 1944 ), which was one of the Rifftrax DVDs. And one of my all time favorite films,
Sparrows ( 1926 ), in which Mary Pickford was the eldest of a group of orphans being held prisoner in a work camp locate in the middle of a swampy jungle. Finally having enough of their abuse, Mary and the orphans make a daring escape back to civilization, with the criminals running the camp in pursuit. The filming of this movie lead to one of the silent era's most memorable incidents. Mary's husband at the time was the actor Douglas Fairbanks. ( Know as Pickfair, they were the world's first celebrity power couple. ) Douglas was shown a daily from the film where Mary and the other children we're crossing a pond via a fallen tree. Just inches below them were live alligators, snapping at the children above and waiting for one to slip. The whole time Mary and the kids just barely keeping balance and occasionally nearly falling. Fairbanks was furious, not just because his wife was needlessly put in danger, but that children were endangered as well. He marched straight to the
Sparrows set, walled right up to Beaudine, and without saying a word, knocked him out with a single punch. Once the crew had Fairbanks restrained, they explained to him that the footage was the result of a very clever visual effect using a split screen. The children had been filmed first, then the alligators brought in and filmed after they left the set.
The two other William Beaudine films I have seen,
the Old Fashioned Way ( 1934 ) with WC Fields, and the film he will be remembered for,
Billy The Kid vs Dracula ( 1966 ), which he shot for Embassy pictures back to back with
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter ( 1966 ), both which were distributed as a double feature. ( It would be his final feature film, not counting the re-edited
Green Hornet footage. )
So, Beaudine seems like a competent enough director. Which is good news considering he also directed the film I will be watching next week. So what it all comes down to is the person who wrote the script, and he is.... Aw crap. Barney Sareky who also wrote
Radar Secret Service ( 1950 ). To be fair, he also wrote
Superman and the Mole-Men ( 1951 ), the snooze fest that qualifies as the first feature length superhero film.
Unfortunately the copy of this film used for this DVD release is nearly inaudible, and I had to strain to hear what the characters were saying, and much of the time not being able to make out some of the dialog. Bela Lugosi plays a scientist who, as far as the press is concerned, has mysteriously disappeared. His sister is summonsed back from Europe to his home where his co-worker informs her that an experiment he was working on went terribly bad. Apparently Bela was working on some sort of formula and decided to test it on himself. But the end result was that it turned him into a half human, half ape. And now he spends most of the day in a cage in the basement with a gorilla. Bela is convinced the only thing that can cure him is human spinal fluid. But obtaining it would kill the person it is being removed from, which is why his co-worker refuses to get it for him. Not wanting to spend the rest of his life as an apeman, Bela sneaks out of his basement with his gorilla friend and kills the co-worker's butler, then removes his spinal fluid. The co-worker reluctantly injects Bela with the fluid, and it seems to begin to work. But soon after Bela reverts back into an apeman. So he decides to go on a citywide killing spree with his gorilla friend in order to obtain gallons of spinal fluid. I am sure I would have enjoyed this more if only I could make out all of the dialog. But it seemed no more dumber than the dumbest of the Universal horror movies.