What was the last movie you watched?

[stethacantus]

Swordsman and Enchantress (1978)
Back to Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 7 which I took a break with for Shaw Scope Volume 4. And... it is another Chor Yuen adaption of a Gu Long novel starring Ti Lung. Okay, so maybe the plot is something original. There is a magic sword that whoever possesses can rule the martial arts world... Nope. Nothing original about the plot. A lot of this movie seems to be plot elements Gu Long has retread in his other novels... except for the third act of the movie where Ti Lung is drugged, then shrunk to the size of a Ken doll and put in a miniature city where other martial arts masters have been shrunk and imprisoned. After Killer Clans was a surprise smash hit, Shaw Brothers made sure Chor Yune churned out dozens of Gu Long adaptions, along with a few other Wuxia films in the style of a Gu Long novel. In the past, these movies were thought of as something that would not translate to Western audiences as Gu Long was not published in English, was therefore unknown over here, and the Chor Yuen movies were so dense as to be thought of as too confusing for American audiences. There was an eventual reprisal of Chor Yuen , and he got a few North American DVD releases back in the early 00s. This next wave of Shaw brothers releases on box sets has gone overboard with the director, and so a lot of movies that seem identical.

Superman ( 2025 )
Speaking of retreads... this. A superman film where Lex Luthor is the villain. They didn't even bother to give it an original title, like Superman: Enter the Pocket Dimension. Just Superman, which means that from now on we have to denote this as the 2026 film, and the other as the 1978 film. This was the reboot of Warner Bros. DC comic book universe, which is good news to those who hated the DCEU. I actually liked the DCEU. Sure, it was full of a hell of a lot of missteps and failed potentials. Sure, it was a cinematic universe where relied on the audience having a knowledge of the existing comic book universe to know who half the characters where, as opposed to the MCU which either gave the origin of or at least a proper explanation of every character introduced for audience members who never read any comic books before. But as much as everyone bashed the DCEU, it was, at the least, always entertaining. Even the worst of the films were nowhere as bad as Superman III or Steel... or those pre MCU films that seemed to go directly to video. The DCEU was a direction that Warner Bros. chose to go, and should of, at the least, allowed it to be completed. At the least, the second Justice League movie, the third Shazam movie so we could finally find out what Master Mind's plan was, and at least the post apocalyptic film where Superman turns evil. Or at the least, end the DCEU in a streaming series or two.  The Suicide Squad ( 2021 ) was James Gunn's f*&k you to the DCEU, specifically the Justice League, specifically when they made the villain Starro the Conqueror, who in comic books, was the actual first villain the Justice League faced, and their reason for teaming up.  Here was the Suicide Squad defeating the villain that the cinematic Justice League should have faced. So, Warner Bros. allowed James Gunn to demolish the DCEU and begin his own DC cinematic universe. The DCEU is gone... except for  James Gunn's streaming series Peace Maker. So ironically, the one man destroying the DCEU is also keeping it on life support as a popular streaming series.

So, what about this film? Is it the beginning of a brand new an better cinematic universe, or like Green Lantern, a cinematic universe that gets abandoned  after one film? Well, it actually does not matter if this is a good or bad movie, or if it was a success at the box office or not. Because Warner Bros. is about to be sold... again. And just as the executives at Discovery decided to discontinue both the DCEU and the Arrowverse immediately after taking over, we got a new set of executives taking over who will have their own ideas for the future of their DC properties. Superman could have earned billions at the box office and won Best Picture at the Academy Awards tonight, and Warner Bros. new management could easily decide they want Michael Bay to reboot the movies.

I liked the movie. And have a few thoughts. One, first ever Superman film that lead off a series that didn't retell the origin story. We are sort of dumped into the middle of the Superman mythos. Both Kents are still alive. Usually they either kill off Pa Kent with a heart attack before Clark graduates high school. Only the 90s Lois & Clark series kept Pa Kent alive. But, they make the Kents seem like they are mentally impaired. They made Jor El and Lara villainous? Why?  And why is   Teschmacher in this movie? She is not even from the comic books, was created for the Reeves Superman film, was not well liked, yet has continuously turned up in the live action adaptions of Superman since then. Krypto is brought to life using some bad CGI. Maybe not as bad as with Scooby Doo, but it appears to be a CGI character every time it is on screen. I'm pretty sure Superman kills a shitload of people in this movie. Not accidentally crushing bystanders in a fight like in Man of Steel, but deliberately frying soldiers working for Lex with his heat rays. He definitely does kill Ultraman by causing him to fall into a black hole. And this after trying not to kill the giant monster destroying Metropolis. Overall, this movie came off as lightweight. But it is still entertaining.

[stethacantus]

The Proud Twins ( 1979 )
Another Chor Yuen adaption of a Gu Long novel, this time starring Alexander Fu Sheng. This film seemed so familiar, as if I had just watched it this year. At first I thought it was because it begins with two infant brothers separated after their parents are murdered and raised to fight in a duel to the death when they become adults, which is a trope used in a lot of martial arts movies. But then one of the brothers is raised by a gang of villains, while his guardian is incapacitated by those villains, spends the next twenty years recuperating.  I have seen this story before. I know I have. And I did. Last September. It was in Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 5. The movie was called The Jade Faced Assassin, and both movies were adaptions of the same Gu Long novel.  This one, made post Drunken Master ( 1978 ), was mostly a comedy, while The Jade Faced Assassin was more of a drama. Alexander Fu Sheng was Shaw Brothers biggest star at the time, and was also seen as their best answer to Jackie Chan, so did a lot of comedic roles.

Captain America: Brave New World ( 2025 )
So.. ordered Falcon & the Winter Soldier which finally arrived on Friday. Watched the first four episodes on Friday evening, and the final two Saturday PM. And since SNL is on yet another hiatus ( Presumably until after Easter, ) watched Captain America: Brave New World after 11pm. I actually enjoyed Falcon and the Winter Soldier more than this. Basically, the plot is that Thunderbolt Ross, who is now the president, has been tricked into taking doses of Gamma radiation, and turns into a Red Hulk. There is the sub plot of the new Captain America uncovering the plot to turn Ross into a hulk. But basically the entire film is about the rampage of Ross as a red hulk, which doesn't happen until the final ten minutes of the film. ( Well, final twenty minutes if you count the ten minute ending credits. ) So basically, the same disappointment I had with Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman where that monster battle didn't happen until the final five minutes and was over pretty fast. Okay, you had us waiting nearly two hours for Captain America to fight the Red Hulk, and it is only five minutes long?  Well, at least Betty Ross finally returns after being abandoned by Universal.

[stethacantus]

A Deadly Secret ( 1980 )
Yet another famous Asian director who surprisingly briefly worked for Shaw Brothers Mou Tun-fei, best known for his infamous cult film Men Behind The Sun ( 1988 ), which is best known to American audiences for this scene:

It was also the movie that caused Hong Kong to need to create the Category III rating, becoming the very first film to receive that rating.  Because of his cult status, his exploitation film Lost Souls  ( 1980 ) about immigrants being kidnapped and sexually abused, was among Image Entertainment's releases of Shaw Brothers films, despite it having neither martial arts nor horror. A Deadly Secret was directed the same year as Lost Souls, and was described as a wuxia movie. Although this one has far more use of Kung Fu than swordplay. A young martial artist is framed and thrown into a jail cell with Ding Dian, a martial arts master who has been locked up for years because the corrupt magistrate has been trying to get Ding to reveal what is referred to throughout the movie as "The Deadly Secret." No matter how much Ding is tortured, he defiantly refuses to tell anyone the secret. So the plan now is to give him a cellmate who they hope Ding will bond with and reveal his secret to. This inevitably leads to the young martial artist and master Ding taking their revenge against the men who had them locked up. A nice revenge film with a plot that is easy to follow ( which is not the case with most post 78 Shaw Brothers wuxia films, ). But nothing approaching a cult film.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps ( 2025 )
The Fantastic Four was Marvel Comics first superhero comic book ( not counting Sub Mariner, the original Human Torch and Captain America from the 1940s era Timely comics, all which would later be revived when Stan Lee's 60s superheroes took off. ) Sadly, the Fantastic Four had not translated into success on film. There was the unreleased low budget Roger Corman film, the first Fox films which despite surviving to a sequel, were not liked by FF fand, and the reboot Fant4stic which FF fans hated. With Disney buying 20th Century Fox, the Fantastic Four can finally be added to the MCU, along with the X-Men and all of Marve's mutant characters. The question is, how should Marvel add the Fantastic Four and X-Men to the MCU? Reboot, or pretend they had always been around and just not mentioned an any of the previous MCU films. And the answer seems to be, bring them in via the multiverse. They always existed, just in a different dimension. The Fantastic Four in this film exist in universe 848, I am still not sure if this movie takes place in the 1960s, or if 848 Earth is retro with 60s style and some 60s era technology still existing in 2025.  That's probably my biggest problem with this film. Since it takes place in another universe, it is not a true MCU film, even if this version of the Fantastic Four is to return in the next Avengers movie. Basically, it is just as Non-canonical as all the previous Fantastic Four films. Or just as canonical if we take into account that all the Spider-Man films and the curious non-Spider-Man universe where Venom, Madame Web, Morphius, and Kraven the Hunter all live, were combined into the MCU as variants  in Spider-Man: No Way Home. So if Fantastic Four 848 is a variant in the MCU, then so could Fant4stic, Corman's Fantastic Four, and the other live action Fantastic Fours.  Another problem I have with this film is the paper thin plot. They needed two hours to tell this story? Basically, a silver surfer ( but not Norrin Rad? In 848 his girlfriend Shalla-Bal became the Silver Surfer instead? ) shows up and tells Earth that they are soon to be destroyed by Galactus. The Fantastic Four travel to space to confront  Galactus and talk him out of eating earth. Unable to convince him, they return to earth for a final battle with Galactus. That's it. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer did the same story in 90 minutes. Strangely, this film does not seem to have any padding, or have any slow parts. And I give it a lot of points for having Galactus look like Galactus and not a cloud of space smoke. It seems like this movie had a check list of stuff Fantastic Four fans wanted to see in a movie. including H.E.R.B.I.E for some ungodly reason. Still cant figure out why instead of Alicia Masters they give Ben Grimm a completely different girlfriend, even though Reed Richards specifically mentions that Puppet Master is among the villains currently residing in New York City. Now, I did like this movie. But there are a lot of changes to the cannon that made no sense.

[stethacantus]

Heroes Shed No Tears ( 1980 )
Well, final movie on the Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 7 set and....
...it is a wuxia film...
...an adaption of a Gu Long novel...
...and directed by Chor Yune.
My main complaint isn't that adapting the same author is monotomids, because he did come up with new plots for each of his books, but that you are taking these bulky novels with hundreds of characters and multitudes of sub plots and condensing them into a single movie. Every moment is a plot point you need to keep track of, and new characters pop up every few minutes. This one opened with screen text about a powerful sword which, according to legend, when unsheathed will signal some sort of turmoil in the martial arts world.  And just when you think this will be another movie where everyone is searching for that sword, it is given to the movie's hero by his master, who then tells him to investigate the three martial arts masters who are competing to be the leader of the martial arts world. Oh, and there is a fourth martial arts master who could be the possible leader of the martial arts world, who's name is unknown, and can only be identified as a man in grey who carries around a box with him. That's just the beginning of the movie simplified. By the end, we learn which one of the characters is the real villain, before the hero stabs him to death with the legendary sword.


Stand By Me ( 1986 )
When Rob Reiner died, I began to realize from the news reports about how important a film maker he was. I mean, who would have expected Meathead from All in the Family to have become such a talented director? But then they went over his filmography, and I began to realize just how many iconic films he had directed. One of which is North, which is the film most critics claim was the worst movie ever made. Roger Ebert was especially critical of North.

I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

There were times I wanted to see North just because I was curious how bad it could be, but never got around to it. Aside from that film, Reiner directed a lot of movies both critics and audiences loved. And surprisingly, I never watched myself.  I have only seen the "I'll have what she is having" scene from When Harry Met Sally. The "You can't handle the truth" scene from A Few Good Men. Both from the many times they have been repeated on various television shows. The Bucket List became a thing in our culture about getting to all the things you wanted to do before you die. Never watched the film. There were two Rob Reiner films I could have watched. The Princess Bride was rented by family members. I was not in the mood to see a fairytale movie, so left the room and did something else. Came back in the Livingroom as the movie was about to end and  saw the last ten minutes while waiting for the VCR to be freed up for a different film I wanted to watch. Same thing with Misery. I mean, it was a Stephen King adaption, which was something I usually watched. But had something else I wanted to do while other family members watched it, and only went into the living room long enough to see the part where Kathy Bates goes nuts over a movie serial she saw as a kid. Just that part, and then I was off to do something else. Reiner directed a bunch of movies which I know were cultural touchstones, and thought that maybe I should watched them someday, but never had the time. Out of his entire filmography, I have only seen two movies. This Is Spinal Tap, which I have on DVD.... somewhere. I saw it a few times before purchasing the DVD. And Stand By Me.

Back in the day when you rented and watched movies on VCRs, I had a lot of friends who realized that all they needed to do was own two VCRs, then link both of them up so that one records while the other plays, and you could have copies of every movie you rented. Also, this was just before Blockbuster and any other mega sized video rental store, so what we had were these small sized mom and pop video stores which had very small selections, and were usually missing a lot of films that customers failed to return. And Hollywood was just getting around to releasing their movies on home video, so there was a lot less out there. And, on Friday night when you went to your local video store, very often most of the movies you wanted to rent were already being rented by someone else. So one Friday night, when the Arnold Schwarzenegger film or whatever we went to rent was already out, we came across Stand By Me which was still on the shelf. I rented it. My friend took it home with him and made two copies, one for himself and one for me. We returned it and rented something else. Perhaps that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie was finally back. I returned home, and maybe a week or two later, watched the copy of Stand By Me I had on a VCR tape with three other movies. Four 90 minute movies copied onto one 6 hour tape. Monty Python's Life of Brian was also on the tape. Forget what the other two movies were.  I remember watching Stand By Me and loving it. As for the tape it was on. It's either lost in a pile of old VHS tapes, or more likely taped over. Once they began selling movies on VHS for $20 dollars or less, I began buying the ones I wanted to keep instead of copying them. A lot of those tapes with three to four films copied onto them ended up being taped over.  Stand By Me was a movie I had always intended to buy an actual copy of. First on VHS. Then on Laserdisc. Then on DVD. It's been on a list of favorite films I wanted to own, but never got around to buying. But then Rob Reiner was murdered. And not only wondering if I should watch some of his iconic films, decided I should finally buy Stand By Me. If it was out of print, and everyone out there was probably buying Rob Reiner films just because he was dead, then the clock was ticking on this movie being available for purchase.

It was actually in queue behind the superhero films. This week was supposed to be Thunderbolts*. But before I watched it, I wanted to catch up on the Disney+ MCU shows. Specifically Hawkeye which bridges the gap of Yelena Belova's story between Black Widow and Thunderbolts*. I ordered both Falcon & the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye the same day, both on Blu-ray. And Hawkeye arrived as a 4K Ultra HD. Those do not work on Blu-ray players. So, I went to the Amazon chat-bot to complain. And after an hour of trying to explain to it the difference between a Blu-ray and 4k Ultra HD, got it to send me a replacement. And it didn't require me to return the steel book discs. A week later, the replacement finally arrived. And it was another 4k Ultra HD.  F*&k the chatbot. This time I want to talk to a human. Which Amazon makes impossible. So, following instructions from a YouTube video, I put the search phrase  "Contact Amazon" on Google, which brings up a page on the site which for some reason there are no buttons for. Then on the page select "Something Else" among the options. Then "Something Else" among the options on the next page. That brings up another chatbot. When it asks you what you want, print "Phone Call".  It will then give you a bunch of options you do not want. Type in "Phone Call. And then "Phone Call" again. Finally, it will ask you if you want Amazon to call you back. Print your phone number, and they will call you and withing minutes put an actual human representative on. Probably from India by the accent. Finally thought I had explained to someone that I was sent the wrong format. She sent a replacement disc, and told me not to bother returning the two other 4K Ultra HD steel book sets. The replacement was expedited. Got it in two days. And it was another 4k Ultra HD. Talked with another human representative, who put me through to someone who actually worked at Amazon. And after a few minutes of him looking around the website, realized that Amazon didn't really have Hawkeye in Blu-ray format, and the website was mistaking the 4k for Blu-ray.  As far as I can tell, Disney never released Blu-ray steel books for Hawkeye, or any of the other Disney+ shows after Falcon & the Winter Soldier. So Amazon refunded my order, and didn't ask for the $150 worth of steel book collector addition 4k Ultra sets back, which I am now stuck with, which are just useless coasters unless I spring for an Ultra 4k player, which at the current time I am not planning to do. Checked around, and Walmart, and only Walmart, sells the Disney+ shows on Blu-ray without a steel book. But for some reason, you need to join their website to buy it. And for some reason, I have been unable to join the website because they will not send me the activation code. So while I try to figure this mess out, I decided to move the other two superhero movies up in the queue. Which was supposed to be the remake of Toxic Avenger.

Well, it was supposed to be Toxic Avenger. But then family came over for Easter a day early. And someone decided that Toxic Avenger was not appropriate for children. And seeing that Stand By Me was in queue, decided the film about four boys going on a journey in the 1950s was family friendly.

Stand By Me is an R rated film.

The kids in this film curse more than the kids in South Park.

Well, I guess that will teach everyone to force me to watch a different film on movie night because they brought their kids over a day earlier that expected.

Okay, as for the film. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did back in the 80s. I mean, it's a good film. But I loved this movie when I watched it back then, and this time around I merely liked it a little. Perhaps because back then I was very close to the age of the kids in the film, and now I am almost fifty years older than them. Whatever the reason, it's a shame when whenever a film isn't as fun as you remembered it.

[stethacantus]

Return of  The Sentimental Swordsman ( 1981 )
This week I begin Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 8. And as Shout! Factory has not announced any other volumes, and Arrow has not announced any more Shaw Scope sets,  these could be the final twelve Shaw Brothers films to get a North American home video release.... then again there is another company releasing Shaw Brothers films which is based in Germany, but reportedly not region locked for the US. I still need to research those sets. Is the packaging in German? Will the same films turn up on future Arrow or Shout! factory sets, because the last thing I want to do is spend money on movies that I will need to buy again because they are already in future sets. In this case, Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 8 only has one film previously released in North America, and the other eleven being released here for the first time. Another problem with the German sets, they do not have the English dubs, and on films where I know English dubs exist because they were shown on American television in the 80s. Okay, lets look at the films on this set:

Return of the The Sentamental Swordsman ( 1981 )
Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman ( 1982 )
The Duel of the Century ( 1981 ) ( Previously released by Well Go USA )
The Emporer and his Brother ( 1981 )
Ambitious Kung Fu Girl ( 1981 )
The Treasure Hunters ( 1981 )
Cat vs Rat ( 1982 )
Ghosts Galore? ( 1983 )
The Enchantress ( 1983 )
New Tales of the Flying Fox ( 1984 )
Return of the Bastard Swordsman ( 1984 )
Secret Service of the Imperial Court ( 1984 )

There are some sequels here from previous sets. New Tales of the Flying Fox is a sequel to Legend of the Flying Fox which was in Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 4. That set was mostly Venom Mob films, none who appear in this so called sequel. Both Return of The Sentimental Swordsman  and Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman are direct sequels to The Sentimental Swordsman, and Return of the Bastard Swordsman a direct sequel to The Bastard Swordsman. Both films were originally released on Shawscope Volume 3. I have no idea why that set didn't include the sequels as well, as the set also had The One Armed Swordsman as well as The Return of the One Armed Swordsman and New One Armed Swordsman completing that franchise. so basically Shout! Factory completed both franchises.

As to Return of the Sentimental Swordsman, it's another Chor Yune wuxia film based on a Gu Long novel. And this time, a sequel to a very confusing film I had not seen in a year. Fortunately, this one does not continue the plot of the previous film, but rather just continues the adventures of the hero. And surprisingly, this one had a plot that was easy enough to follow. A list was made of all the living martial artists, each given a rank. Li Xuan Huan has been ranked at number one, despite having dropped out of the martial arts world after the events of the first movie, and spending his days drinking. One of the masters on the list, the leader of the Money Clan, wants to raise his rank to #1, and has been killing off other martial arts masters. Since Li Xuan Huan and Ahfei   ( another highly ranked martial arts master who has also retired since the events of the previous film ) are at the top of the list, other martial artists are out to fight them. And the evil leader of the Money Clan has plotted for each to ruin their reputations b y turning both into drunks. And if that fails, just killing them. These films are a lot more fun when the story is easy to follow.


The Toxic Avenger Unrated ( 2023 )
Still have to delay watching Thunderbolts*, and there is a story behind that, which will probably conclude in a week or two where I will find out if I can actually get a physical media release of some key Disney+ series. Anyway, this week is The Toxic Avenger Unrated, probably one of the most pointless movies ever made. The original movie, made by the low budget direct to video production company Troma Films, was a shot on a shoestring budget superhero comedy about a nerd who was dumped by bullies into a vat of toxic waste and turned into a superhuman mutant. Four R rated films were made, followed by a Saturday morning cartoon for children? The franchise then died out. No idea why they thought then needed to reboot the franchise. They could have just easily made a fifth Toxic Avenger film. But this one was made by Legendary Pictures with a decent budget, and a lot of really good Hollywood actors. The first four films were terrible. But had nonstop gore and vulgar humor, which is why they and other Troma films had a cult following. This film, well, is actually good. I mean, it does fail at being a comedy again. But everything else works, and I was able to sit through it without constantly watching the run time to see how long it had left. So above average entertaining. The comedy falls flat, and it appears the director realized this as you can tell a lot of audio gags and extra one-liners were added in post. For example. Toxie rips a villain's arm off, causing him to fall on the ground and pass out. As this happens, you can hear a line dubbed in with an imitation of the villain's voice "Is that my arm?", which I assume is supposed to have been funny. Actually, one gag does work. I won't say what it is, as it would spoil it for anyone wanting to watch this movie. But it happens when Toxie and an anarchist played by Taylour Paige attempt to sneak into the main villain's fortress. She comes up with a plan to get past two armed security guards, which works in a way she had not expected. The only time I laughed at anything in this movie, and a really good gag that was wasted on this film. ( a couple of other gags came close to making me chuckle, but not close enough. ) I have no idea why they chose to cast Peter Dinklage as the nerd who gets turned into The Toxic Avenger, forcing them to use another dwarf actor to play Toxie, or why they gave his character a sad sentimental story about a dead wife, a stepson he has to raise, and a terminal disease. Or why the mop doesn't look like a mop. But it is watchable. Has one gag that works. And uses licensed pop music. So, worth watching if you have nothing else to do. And no annoying girlfriend from the original films, which is a relief.

[stethacantus]

Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman ( 1982 )
The Gu Long novels are confusing. The Chor Yuen film adaptions of those novels are even more confusing as they condense these long novels with hundreds of characters condensed into a single film are even more confusing. And so why shouldn't  the Shaw Brothers adaptions of those novels be any less confusing? Okay. This was the third film in the Sentimental Swordsman series. BUT... Both The Sentimental Swordsman and The Return of the Sentimental Swordsman were part of Gu Long's Xiaoli Feidao series, which is the name of the knife throwing technique of the series protagonist Li Xunhuan.  The Sentimental Swordsman and The Return of the Sentimental Swordsman were both based on the first novel in the series,  The Sentimental Swordsman, with the second movie based on the chapters Chor Yune had not adapted in the first film. Instead of basing the third film on any of the other books in the Xiaoli Feidao series, this movie is based on a book from Gu Long's Lu Xiaofeng series, with a protagonist of the same name, and had two previous Chor Yuen adaptions, Clan of Amazons which has yet to have a North American physical media release, and Duel of the Century which was released a year before this film, and is the very next film in this set. So basically Chor Yuen was about to adapt a third Lu Xiaofeng novel, but since The Return of the Sentimental Swordsman had been a surprise hit for the studio, the decision was to make this a Sentimental Swordsman sequel. So did they simply change the protagonist from Lu Xiaofeng to Li Xunhuan? Well, no. Despite casting Ti Lung in the lead, the protagonist in this movie is Chu Liuxiang from  Gu Long's Chu Liuxiang series, making this actually a film sequel to Clans of Intrigue which was in Shawscope Volume 3 ( Yep. That volume again. ) and Legend of the Bat which was in Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 7. Ti Lung played both Chu Liuxiang and  Li Xunhuan in the previous Shaw Brothers adaptions of those novels. So basically The Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman is a sequel in name only to the previous Sentimental Swordamen films, which is a sequel in character only to Clan's of Intrigue and Legend of the Bat and a sequel in story to Clan of Amazons and Duel of the Century.  Well, all these novels were written by Gu Long. But it is as if some studio had adapted one of Conan Doyle's romantic novels and it became an unexpected hit, so did a sequel, but used the plot from The Lost World, then for no reason switched the protagonist to Sherlock Holmes.  The lot to this film? Chu Liuxiang is wanted for attempting to assassinate the Prince, and ends up going to Ghost Mountain, a mysterious hidden village where wanted criminals facing execution take refuge. The rest of the plot is full of spoilers, and too confusing to describe here, so I wont bother.

Red Sonja ( 2025 )
Shaw Brothers isn't the only studio to swap out stories and protagonists from the same author. So basically Dino de Laurentiis acquired the rights to the Robert E Howard novels in order to make movies based on Conan the Barbarian without having to acquire the rights to the Marvel comic book series which adapted the same material. The script for the first Conan movie was written by Oliver Stone and was an amalgamate of plot points from various Conan novels, but had the villain Thulsa Doom from Robert E Howard's Kull the Conqueror series. Conan, of course, was played by Arnold Schwarzenegger who's only previous success was being featured in the documentary Pumping Iron.  Schwarzenegger returned for the sequel Conan the Destroyer,  and was to return for a third planned film Conan the Conqueror, the plot of which was teased in the first two films where Conan becomes the king. However... Laurentiis decided to adapt Red Sonja as his next film in the series. Marvel Comics had taken another Robert E Howard character, Red Sonya of Rogatino who existed in the Ottoman empire, and transport her to the mythical Hyborian Age as Red Sonja, and a spin-off comic book series to Conan the Barbarian. Claiming their movie was based on the Robert E Howard character and not the Marvel comic book character, Laurentiis produced a Red Sonja movie. And then decided to cast Arnold Schwarzenegger in it. But not as Conan, which probably would have made a lot more sense as his character looked and acted exactly like Conan. Instead Schwarzenegger played  Lord Kalidor. It was a miscalculation by Laurentiis. Schwarzenegger was contracted to three films. Laurentiis thought that by not having Schwarzenegger play Conan, then he would still be contractually obligated to make Conan the Conqueror.  Which turned out not to be the case when Schwarzenegger's management told Laurentiis their client was no longer under contract, and he would no longer be making any Conan movies.  The script for Conan the Conqueror gathered dust for years as they could never get Schwarzenegger to agree to do a third Conan film. Eventually the part was cast to Kevin Sorbo,  and feeling no one would buy any actor other than Schwarzenegger as Conan, the character was rewritten to be Kull the Conqueror, the movie was given that title, and  Conan the Conqueror was finally released. Years later the rights to the Robert E Howard novels transferred to    
Millennium Films, a Conan reboot was made, and then this film, which this time credited Marvel Comics for co-creating the Red Sonja character.  Also, there are reports that Arnold Schwarzenegger will return to the Conan character in a film still under development.    Millennium spent $90 million on the Conan reboot, and considerably less on this movie, which looks as if it was shot on video. It does have a few good brief CGI effects. Such as a cyclops which is on the screen for about a minute which Sonja, who was to fight him in an arena,  convinces to attack the emperor instead.  But a lot of this movie was cheaply shot. It is actually a decent B movie, and despite my fears, didn't get boring once. It is actually better than the original Red Sonja movie. But, nothing I would recommend to anyone unless they had a lot of time to kill and have already seen every other comic book movie.

Grizzly ( 1976 )
I am still confused by this season's SNL schedule. It was on hiatus for the Christmas break, which made sense. Then after a few weeks back, on hiatus for the Winter Olympics.  Then after being back for a couple of weeks, went on hiatus again. But not as an early Easter hiatus, as it came back for Easter week. But now is on Hiatus again? I had thought the series would be new episodes until the end of the season, which is only a few weeks away. But this week, surprise, a rerun. So, I had the time to watch another movie. In recent years I have moved all of my favorite films and guilty pleasures into a box that isn't in the storage room. And I usually watch them during summer when whatever I usually take a break from adding anything to my library and watch what I already have. And why not watch the movies I enjoy the most? So, not to blow that load before summer even gets here, there were a few movies I have that I either got as gifts, was given by someone who no longer wanted them, or impulse bought for whatever reason. Like the first Charlie's Angel's film I bought only because it famously had  fight choreography from Yuen Woo Ping's brother ( which at the time was reported to be from Woo Ping himself ).  Then there was Josie & The Pussycats, which was released when I first began collecting comic book movies, and so few superhero movies existed. I even had the first Fast & Furious film. I forget if someone gave me that, or if I impulse bought it. Films in my collection which are bad. But I wanted to watch again to see if they were as bad as I remembered them to be, or if they had any redeeming qualities. And, I could not find any of them. The curse of having everything piled in boxes. You can never find the movies you want to find. Not like the days when I had them on a shelf and arranged by category. Then I found Grizzly. Lying on top of the box with the King Kong movies where someone moved it for some reason. I had started collecting Jaws rip-off films at one time, and have both Orca and The car somewhere. I would have rather watched either last night, but could not locate either. So, Grizzly it was. It's not a good film. But maybe because I am judging it against Jaws which is an awesome film. But it just about holds your attention until the end. Not much of a story. A bunch of characters you don't care about, most of them park rangers, trying to catch a bear that keeps eating campers. Shot on such a low budget that whenever an actor flubbed a line it stayed in. And this may be a spoiler, but then again who would not expect the bear to be killed at the end of the movie, but why the f*&k did the park ranger suddenly have a bazooka in his back pack other than to pull it out at the end of the movie to blow the Grizzly up, just like the shark in Jaws was blown up? This was the movie all my friends who's parents would not let them see Jaws the year before, snuck in to see a year later. You se, there was a television series called Grizzly Adams, a western about a lovable guy who lived in a cabin with his friendly pet grizzly bear. And my friends sort of convinced their parents that Grizzly was the same Grizzly Adams series brought to the big screen. And their parents didn't realize what they had let their kids go to see until they came back and had the nightmares. But, they later boasted to everyone who didn't fool their parents and get to see it  about all the gory stuff that happened in the movie, and the scene where the female ranger takes off all of her clothing to skinny dip in a waterfall, and even embellish that the bear that attacked her ripped her tits off and you saw them floating down the stream. ( the breasts in the river apparently didn't happen, but the nudity and blood did. ) I didn't get to see it back then. But I didn't miss much.

[stethacantus]

Duel of the Century ( 1981 )
The only Shaw Brothers film in this set I previously owned. And I didn't remember anything about it. That's the problem with the Gu Long films. The plot is so complicated that you spend most of the time trying to keep track of every character and their individual grudges against other characters. So basically, one martial arts master asks for a duel with another, and the lead character wants to know why, so has an investigation which involves a multitude of other characters who each have their own agendas. I was confused six minutes into this one.

Thunderbolts* ( 2025 )
It sounded like such a good idea when Disney announced they would be making MCU miniseries for Disney+ with the same budget they gave their movies. And then they never came out on home video. You can see the flaw in this strategy.  The MCU is a continuing story, and the Disney+ miniseries are some of the chapters. A lot of MCU fans either cant get Disney+ where they live, ( you need high speed internet, which is not everywhere), or can't afford to fit it in their budget. So, if you have a movie like The Marvels which has two of the three characters introduced in Disney+ series, is it any wonder why it didn't do so well at the box office?  Home video at the least allowed MCU fans to buy, borrow or rent the MCU media they hadn't seen yet. When I first saw Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, I had not yet seen Wandavision, so had no idea why Wanda was so desperate to find some children she hadn't had in any previous movies. Disne finally released both the first season of Loki and Wandavision on Blu-Ray and 4k Ultra, both which had important MCU mythos. Available as steel book additions only, but at least finally on physical media.  It took them a couple of more years, but they finally began releasing some of the other Disney+ series on home video. Falcon and the Winter Soldier was released on Blu-ray and 4k Ultra, and I was able to watch that series before watching Captain America: Brave New World, which helped a lot. I knew that  Yelena Belova ( Black Widow's sister ) was in Thunderbolts*, and the last time that character appeared in an MCU movie, it was part of a tease for the miniseries Hawkeye. So, thought that it would be important to see that miniseries as well before watching Thunderbolts* because it could explain any character development or new powers. So, I got Hawkeye, and it arrived as a 4k Ultra. Called Amazon to complain, and they sent me a replacement, which was also a 4K Ultra. Complained, got a third replacement, and it was also a 4K Ultra. Eventually found someone at Amazon with brains, and they did a little research and discovered that their page for the Blu-ray was actually the 4k Ultra being sold as a 4K Ultra Blu-Ray? And that Amazon didn't actually have the Blu-ray in stock. I began to worry that they completely sold out of the Blu-ray, which was supposed to be a limited collectors edition. So searched for it on eBay, and could only find 4K Ultras. Shit. So I went to Google Shopping to see if anyone still had the Blu-ray. And the only site claiming to have it was Walmart. Not as a Steel Book, but as a standard edition Blu-ray release. Tried to buy it online, but found out they wanted you to join as a member first, and also found out that I could not use my cell phone number because I had already allowed someone else to use it to set up their own Walmart account. Walmart is not in New York City, so had to travel to a Walmart way out in the suburbs just to find out if they had it in their store.

Well, the good news. They had it on their shelves. They also had Moon Night. And Loki, seasons 1 and 2. Yep, already had the first season. But at least both seasons in the same set was cheaper than the steel book season 1 by itself. Here they are:

And the back of the boxes...

Now, I am buying these in a major retailer. And I am a bit worried that it is only sold here, and there is no mention of Disney on the box. But damn, the boxes were of excellent quality. No blurring. No misspelling. Nothing off center. Maybe these were Walmart exclusives? I got a bit worried when I saw the actual discs.

Well, guess what? Every single disc crashed. These are bootlegs. Well made bootlegs, but not well manufactured. So, the program was defective. I had to drive all the way back to Walmart to return these. And the clerk admitted that customers are constantly returning these discs as defective. I told him these have to be bootlegs, because Disney home video would never put out discs so shoddily made.  Dis some further investigating, and it turns out Disney has only released Hawkeye, Moon Knight and Loki Season 2 as 4k Ultras. No Blu-ray. No DVD. Nice going Disney.

Okay. So had to watch Thunderbolts* not knowing if there was anything vital to the story I missed from any previous Disney+ series.

It is a fun movie. Which feels like it should have been a plot of a Disney+ miniseries. It is an origin story for a team. And maybe if there is a New Avengers movie in the future, they can fight an actual supervillain. At the least, maybe they will be allowed to participate in the next Avengers film.

[stethacantus]

The Emperor and His Brother ( 1981 )
Here we go again. Another Chor Yuen film. Another adaption of a wuxia novel, this one written by Jin Yong. And wow, after the first two minutes, I was convinced this one would be way too complicated to follow. That is because the first two minutes are a montage where what seems to be the first ten chapters are explained in a voice over while we see what appears to have been footage from a previous film. But as far as I can tell, there is no previous film that this is a sequel to.  I have seen this in a lot of Chor Yuen films, and am convinced these must be scenes he shot for the film, then when it turned out the final cut was three or more hours long, had to turn the earlier scenes into a montage in order to cut the film down to a hour fifty minute run time. So in the opening two minutes we get a rapid narration which I needed to keep pausing because the subtitles were too fast to read, which tells of court intrigue with the selection of the next emperor, a royal baby switched after birth, a meeting with the emperor where he orders the group he had a meeting with to be arrested and killed, and some heroes who find the wanted criminals and take them to a mansion, and a lot of other plot that is thrown at us. Once that out of the way, we are introduced to about ten new characters who are the heroes of the film. And just when I thought this would be a film that I would find impossible to keep track of, it settles into a very easy to follow plot.  A hero is captured. The other heroes plot to rescue him. And the film ends with the heroes and villains having a match to see which group has the better martial artists.

The Naked Gun ( 2026 )
Well, here is something I had reservations of. Since I already had the Police Squad series and the three previous Police Squad/ Naked Gun movies, I was not going to skip the next entry in the franchise. But Paramount had done this before. Making a sequel to a ZAZ film without the participation of ZAZ. And that was Airplane II: The Sequel. which was not very good. ( Come to think of it, I was supposed to complete my ZAZ collection with Top Secret! and Ruthless People, but never got around to it. )  The good news is that this was just as funny as the original films. Or at least, the third Naked Gun film. It is also the second film in two weeks that has the theme to Mannequin in it. It was used in a sequence where Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson have a threesome with a snowman, and was used last week in Thunderbolts* as part of the ending credits. Just strange for Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now to show up two weeks in a row after not hearing it for over a decade.

[LucasM]

Thunderbolts* ( 2025 )
It sounded like such a good idea when Disney announced they would be making MCU miniseries for Disney+ with the same budget they gave their movies. And then they never came out on home video. You can see the flaw in this strategy.  The MCU is a continuing story, and the Disney+ miniseries are some of the chapters. A lot of MCU fans either cant get Disney+ where they live, ( you need high speed internet, which is not everywhere), or can't afford to fit it in their budget. So, if you have a movie like The Marvels which has two of the three characters introduced in Disney+ series, is it any wonder why it didn't do so well at the box office?  Home video at the least allowed MCU fans to buy, borrow or rent the MCU media they hadn't seen yet. When I first saw Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, I had not yet seen Wandavision, so had no idea why Wanda was so desperate to find some children she hadn't had in any previous movies. Disne finally released both the first season of Loki and Wandavision on Blu-Ray and 4k Ultra, both which had important MCU mythos. Available as steel book additions only, but at least finally on physical media.  It took them a couple of more years, but they finally began releasing some of the other Disney+ series on home video. Falcon and the Winter Soldier was released on Blu-ray and 4k Ultra, and I was able to watch that series before watching Captain America: Brave New World, which helped a lot. I knew that  Yelena Belova ( Black Widow's sister ) was in Thunderbolts*, and the last time that character appeared in an MCU movie, it was part of a tease for the miniseries Hawkeye. So, thought that it would be important to see that miniseries as well before watching Thunderbolts* because it could explain any character development or new powers. So, I got Hawkeye, and it arrived as a 4k Ultra. Called Amazon to complain, and they sent me a replacement, which was also a 4K Ultra. Complained, got a third replacement, and it was also a 4K Ultra. Eventually found someone at Amazon with brains, and they did a little research and discovered that their page for the Blu-ray was actually the 4k Ultra being sold as a 4K Ultra Blu-Ray? And that Amazon didn't actually have the Blu-ray in stock. I began to worry that they completely sold out of the Blu-ray, which was supposed to be a limited collectors edition. So searched for it on eBay, and could only find 4K Ultras. Shit. So I went to Google Shopping to see if anyone still had the Blu-ray. And the only site claiming to have it was Walmart. Not as a Steel Book, but as a standard edition Blu-ray release. Tried to buy it online, but found out they wanted you to join as a member first, and also found out that I could not use my cell phone number because I had already allowed someone else to use it to set up their own Walmart account. Walmart is not in New York City, so had to travel to a Walmart way out in the suburbs just to find out if they had it in their store.

Spoiler

Well, the good news. They had it on their shelves. They also had Moon Night. And Loki, seasons 1 and 2. Yep, already had the first season. But at least both seasons in the same set was cheaper than the steel book season 1 by itself. Here they are:

And the back of the boxes...

Now, I am buying these in a major retailer. And I am a bit worried that it is only sold here, and there is no mention of Disney on the box. But damn, the boxes were of excellent quality. No blurring. No misspelling. Nothing off center. Maybe these were Walmart exclusives? I got a bit worried when I saw the actual discs.

Spoiler

Well, guess what? Every single disc crashed. These are bootlegs. Well made bootlegs, but not well manufactured. So, the program was defective. I had to drive all the way back to Walmart to return these. And the clerk admitted that customers are constantly returning these discs as defective. I told him these have to be bootlegs, because Disney home video would never put out discs so shoddily made.  Dis some further investigating, and it turns out Disney has only released Hawkeye, Moon Knight and Loki Season 2 as 4k Ultras. No Blu-ray. No DVD. Nice going Disney.

Okay. So had to watch Thunderbolts* not knowing if there was anything vital to the story I missed from any previous Disney+ series.

It is a fun movie. Which feels like it should have been a plot of a Disney+ miniseries. It is an origin story for a team. And maybe if there is a New Avengers movie in the future, they can fight an actual supervillain. At the least, maybe they will be allowed to participate in the next Avengers film.[/spoiler]

A number of MCU/Disney+ series were released, and I got all that were made available.  All were steelbooks.  All of the sets were also limited editions, I'm pretty sure at least the Blu-ray/4K combo sets were exclusive to the Disney Movie Club (now no longer operating).  Shortly after buying these, I did see some of them (very) briefly advertised on Amazon, I THINK by Amazon themself, rather than by scalpers.  So these sets were available legitimately for a brief time.

In my collection, I have the following:
WandaVision  [Blu-ray]
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier  [Blu-ray]
LOKI s01  [Blu-ray]
Hawkeye   [Blu-ray + 4K combo]
Moon Knight  [Blu-ray]
LOKI  s02   [Blu-ray + 4K combo]

And, because I knew eventually I'll be upgrading to a 4K TV, and these'd long since be out of print at that time, I also bought the following 4K only steelbook sets, so that I'd have all of the sets they released in both Blu-ray and 4K:
WandaVision
Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Loki s01
Moon Knight

To my knowledge these were the only Disney+ MCU sets available, as I kept looking (I really wanted Ms. Marvel on Blu-ray and 4K).

I suspect, however, that any sets you might find in the aftermarket may be VERY pricey, because I suspect few MCU hard-copy collectors will part with them.

Good luck - I hope you can find them on eBay or somewhere for your own collection.  But at least you now know which ones were at one point legitimately released.

[stethacantus]

A number of MCU/Disney+ series were released, and I got all that were made available.  All were steelbooks.  All of the sets were also limited editions, I'm pretty sure at least the Blu-ray/4K combo sets were exclusive to the Disney Movie Club (now no longer operating).  Shortly after buying these, I did see some of them (very) briefly advertised on Amazon, I THINK by Amazon themself, rather than by scalpers.  So these sets were available legitimately for a brief time.

In my collection, I have the following:
WandaVision  [Blu-ray]
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier  [Blu-ray]
LOKI s01  [Blu-ray]
Hawkeye   [Blu-ray + 4K combo]
Moon Knight  [Blu-ray]
LOKI  s02   [Blu-ray + 4K combo]

And, because I knew eventually I'll be upgrading to a 4K TV, and these'd long since be out of print at that time, I also bought the following 4K only steelbook sets, so that I'd have all of the sets they released in both Blu-ray and 4K:
WandaVision
Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Loki s01
Moon Knight

To my knowledge these were the only Disney+ MCU sets available, as I kept looking (I really wanted Ms. Marvel on Blu-ray and 4K).

I suspect, however, that any sets you might find in the aftermarket may be VERY pricey, because I suspect few MCU hard-copy collectors will part with them.

Good luck - I hope you can find them on eBay or somewhere for your own collection.  But at least you now know which ones were at one point legitimately released.

Okay, so it turns out Moon Knight was released as a Blu-ray steel book. And is still available on Amazon. So that will need to be acquired next. As for the previous sets, it appears that all the previous Blu-Ray steel books are still available at Amazon, and are not listed as running out of stock as some other physical media are. But that means they skipped Hawkeye? Went back to Blu-ray with Moon Knight? Then didn't offer Blu-ray again for Loki, Season 2?  Blu-ray releases for Loki Season 2 and Hawkeye were listed on Amazon, but they were sending out 4K Ultras with no Blu-rays in the box. That listing was eventually taken down, not to long after I complained, but there are also a lot of negative reviews from others who got an unplayable 4K Ultra. No Blu-rays are on eBay for Loki 2 or Hawkeye, so the combos were probably very limited. Sounds like with Shout! Factory making some of their Shaw Brothers sets only available through their website. There was a brisk aftermarket for many Disney Movie Club releases. That's how I was able to add Condorman to my Superhero collection. Someone selling it on eBay, complete with the Disney Movie Club box it came in. Got a couple of other Disney Movie Club exclusives on eBay. And close to the retail price. Not bad. So now I am wondering, did they have a very limited stock of the Blu-Ray/4k Ultra combos, or did the Disney Movie Club shut down before they could all be sold?  I'm reluctant to get 4k Ultra. I do not want to upgrade to a more expensive player, only for them to discontinue it and allow Blu-ray to be the dominant format. Samne reason it took me so long to upgrade to Blu-ray. Now I insist on buying Blu-rays, and only get DVD if no other release is available. None of the Marvel films are truly in 4k. Apparently the current CGI is not capable of 4k resolution. Not because it's impossible, but because it is way too expensive. Anything on IMax or 4k would be upscaled releases. At least that was how things were a few years ago. So I have no idea if any 4k Ultra releases are truly in 4k, or are upscales. Ms Marvel was never released on physical media. Which sucks as it is essential viewing if you are going to see the movie The Marvels. It was shown on ABC just prior to The Marvels release in theaters. The broadcast wasn't well promoted though.

Ambitious Kung Fu Girl ( 1981 )
Supposedly based on a Gu Long story, but easy to follow. It begins with the same exact plot as the classic The Prodigal Son, only substituting a daughter for a son. In both movies ( released the same year, ) a spoiled rich kid thinks he is a martial arts master, due to his father hiring a martial arts teacher who tells him he has achieved great skills, and paying local martial artists to challenge the rich kid to a fight, then purposely losing it. In Prodigal Son, Yuen Biao discovers his martial arts skills are poor when he picks a fight with a gay Peking Opera performer and gets his ass kicked. He then begs the performer to be his teacher and teach him real kung fu, eventually becoming so good that he defeats the film's villain in a fight. This movie has no such story arch. The spoiled brat daughter decides to run away from home to find a famous hero ( Chen Kwan-Tai ) who all the girls fawn over, and beg him to be her boyfriend. She quickly finds herself in a scheme to force her to marry the owner of a brothel so that he will inherit her family wealth. When she discovers she has no actual martial arts skills, she simply never bothers fighting again, and spends the rest of the film being the damsel in distress. Which is why this movie never became a classic.

Jurassic World Rebirth (2025 )
Is there any reason to see any more of the Jurassic park sequels? We all know what the plot is going to be. A group of people go to where there are dinosaurs, then get eaten one by one until the survivors finally escape. The previous couple of films set up the premise that, thanks to some poachers, the dinosaurs have been taken away from the island they were isolated on, and have escaped into the real world. The previous movie established that wild dinosaurs had spread across the globe.  This movie begins by removing that premise. Apparently, the winters killed off most of the dinosaurs, and now they only survive around the equator, in a zone that is now off limits for human travel. So, a group of mercenaries go to the forbidden dinosaur zone to obtain DNA samples to be used for medical research by a greedy drug company. You pretty much get one of each formula character in this movie. The asshole executive who turns out to be the film's villain, and ends up being the final meal just when he is about to get away. The family just trying to survive. The scientist who goes along because he wants to see the dinosaurs. And Scarlett Johansson as the leader of the mercenaries who ends up being the hero of the film. And a bunch of characters who only exist so that they can be eaten, and you never expected would be among the survivors. Everything in this movie is by the formula. Even the bit about the youngest child finding a cute baby dinosaur to be her pet. None of the characters from the previous films return. So, it is entertaining. But so would be watching any of the previous Jurassic films. The only reason why I got this one was because I already had all the other movies in the franchise.

[stethacantus]

Treasure Hunters ( 1981 )
One of the films on the Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 8 set I was looking forward to.  And one of the few on this set that is Kung Fu rather than Wuxia. I originally got this film way back in 1989 as a bootleg, under its American dubbed title Master of Disaster, which it was given by World Northal as an attempt to make it seem like a sequel to Master Killer ( a.k.a. 36th Chamber of Shaolin ) as it had Gordon Liu in the cast playing a shaolin monk.  It also featured Alexamder Fu Sheng partnered with his real brother  Chang Chan Peng, and Johnny Wang Lung Wei as the villain ( called Ma Fu Ye in the American credits, due to that being his most memorable character in previous Shaolin Temple movies. ) One of my favorite Shaw Brothers films, it was one of the films Dragon Dynasti acquired the rights for but never released. Simple plot. Two con men ( Fu Sheng & Chan Peng ) team up to find a lost treasure that everyone else is searching for. Gordon Liu is a monk who has been traveling around to try to talk treasure hunters out of looking for the treasure. But each time he has a meeting with them, they end up being murdered a few minutes later by Wang Lung Wei, and evil martial arts master who has figured out where the treasure is hidden, and not only wants to eliminate the competition, but to frame the monk for the murders. He believes the treasure was hidden at the monk's temple, and is framing the monk as a pretext to invading the temple and taking the treasure for himself in the name of justice. Meanwhile, the two conmen get into plenty of trouble, including when they steal letters written by the thief who hid the treasure from an antique dealer, and cause havoc in a library where they believe a book has a clue to the whereabouts of the treasure. They end up being perused by a crossed eye police detective and his well armed patrolmen. They uncover the plot to frame the monk, and everyone ends up at the temple for a showdown. Fun film with a lot of creative fight choreography ( directed by Lau Kar Wing, younger brother to Lau Kar Leung ) and one of the few Shaw Brothers Kung Fu comedies that is actually occasionally funny.


Seoul Station ( 2016 )
Finally got around to getting this, the second film in the Train to Busan trilogy. Made the same year as the first film as an animated prequel, it is a very decent zombie thriller. Although it doesn't exactly match up to the first film as there didn't seem to be a major zombie outbreak going on at the beginning of Train to Busan, and this one has half the city being taken over by zombies, including the station where the characters leave from later that morning.

[stethacantus]

Cat Vs. Rat ( 1982 )
Back in the late 80s I had bought  Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to the Ninjas, the first book  to chronical the history of martial arts films. One of the films it mentioned was a comedy called Cat Vs. Rat which starred Alexander Fu Sheng, and included the goofy poster of the film. I had a few fans who were Fu Sheng fans from Black Belt Theater airings on Saturday afternoons, and like me, were buying the Shaw Brothers bootlegs. Most of them wanted a copy of Cat Vs. Rat, but it wasn't available.  The bootleg market seemed to be limited to just dubbed films, and Cat Vs. Rat was one of the films targeted exclusively to Cantonese audiences with no English dub produced. Outside of bootlegs, it wasn't released here on DVD back during Celestial Pictures first wave of Shaw Brothers releases in the United States. Finally, it shows up in Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 8. I guess this could have worked as a dubbed film. Fu Sheng and Adam Cheng are two neighbors and fellow students to the same kung fu master who are constantly fighting with each other to prove who is a better fighter, but are always having ties. Fu Sheng saves the life of the Emperor from a bandit who had kidnapped him, but not knowing he is the emperor, insults him and walks off when he is asked to bow. The next day Adam Cheng saves the emperor from being kidnapped by the same bandit gang, and this time believes that he is the emperor. He ends up becoming the head of the royal guard, and Fu Sheng becomes so jealous that he teams up with the bandits to pull off an elaborate plot that will get Cheng fired and possibly executed. This was directed by Lau Kar Leung as a follow-up to his most acclaimed film Legendary Weapons of China, and it is pretty lightweight compared to his other films for the studio. But, it has it's moments. And Fu Sheng was at the top of his game here, as the studio was trying to turn him into their own version of Jackie Chan.


Wicked ( 2024 )
I am part of a generation who were huge fans of the Wizard of Oz. This due to the 1939 movie which was rebroadcasted every year on network television and was at that time a major television event whenever it had it's annual broadcast. Before there was a Star Wars, this was the favorite film of every kid. Which is why my home video library includes every live action Oz themed movie released on home video. The Wiz, Return to Oz, Oz the Great and Powerful, The Muppet Wizard of Oz, even the various Oz miniseries like Tinman. So naturally, this was going to end up in my library. When I learned they would be breaking the musical adaption into two films, I decided to wait until the second one was released on home video, which paid off because Universal has released both parts on a double feature set at the price of a single film. And only five months since the movie premiered in theaters.  I purposely held off watching them until this week, as  we are now in the Saturday Night Live summer hiatus, and I can now watch both in the same evening. Or so I thought. Until I looked at the runtime of the first movie which was nearly three hours? The second movie is just as long. And here I was, putting the first movie on at 10pm, thinking both parts had to be 90 minutes, or at the most, 1hr 45min. Five and a half hours for both? How long was the stage show it was adapted from? So, not wanting to stay up until 4:30 am, or even later depending on how many bathroom breaks, we settled for just watching the first film, and as we are busy with two different cookouts we are obligated to go to despite the rain, will have to wait until next week to watch part 2.

Okay, so the title of this film is actually Wicked Part 1, which is what it is called on the actual title sequence. Except that someone decided to retitle the second film Wicked: For Good, so now this film is just called Wicked on the box, despite the fact that it is only half of the stage musical. Then again, The Wizard of Oz was only an adaption of the first half of that book, leaving out the second half where  Dorothy and her friends travel South to find Glinda ( who in the movie was combined with the Good Witch of the South, and shows up at Emerald City just after the Wizard leaves in his balloon, and gives some BS excuse to Dorothy as to why she didn't tell her she could have used the Ruby Slippers to go home all along. ) For a nearly three hour film, not a lot happens.  Elphaba ( who later becomes the Wicked Witch ) is invited to enroll at Shiz University with her sister ( who later becomes the Wicked Witch of the East ) because it is revealed that she has powers. She ends up becoming roommates with Glinda, and they end up becoming close friends. When Elphaba is invited to meet the Wizard at the Emerald City, Glinda joins her. That is most of the movie. There is a twist at the Emerald City where the villains of the story are revealed, leading to the bit where a title card says To Be Continued.... Nothing here feels like padding, and the movie moves along with no slow parts. Still, I do not understand how this little plot took up so much time. Also, every song I know from the stage musical that has been played on radio or performed on an award show, the MACY parade, or morning show, is in this film, making me wonder what songs are in the second film, if any. The first film, is very enjoyable. But it is only pat one. Lets see what Part 2 is like.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Watched Project Hail Mary and now I guess I have to get the book and read it.

Best new movie I've seen in many years, I'll have to watch it a few more times to see if it holds up as one of my all time favorites.

[stethacantus]

Ghosts Galore ( 1983 )
How many is in a galore? Apparently, just two.  By the early 80s Shaw Brothers finally realized "Oh Shit! Kung fu comedies are popular now!" and began copying the Jackie Chan films. Meanwhile, Jackie Chan had abandoned kung fu comedies in 1982, and was now making action movies. So while Shaw Brothers was releasing this movie, Chan was making Winners & Sinners and Project A. Chin Siu Ho is the stand in for Jackie Chan, while Chiang Kam plays an identical character he had played in the Jackie Chan films, which is also called Fatty. Both of them are fake exorcists somewhere in the wuxia era, and in a plot that seems to be a remake of The Spiritual Boxer. Their antics are spotted by Lo Leih, who turns out to be Chin Siu Ho's long lost uncle, and a legitimate exorcist.  They botch an exorcism of a female ghost from a haunted house, and she begins to follow them around, demanding that Fatty marry her. Lo Lei offers to teach them real mystical arts, but they don't believe him and turn him down. But when the talisman Leih gives Fatty succeeds in repelling the female ghost, both of them beg to be his students. Meanwhile, a Japanese brother and sister have escaped from a ninja clan, and are pursued to China by the clan itself. ( Hey. Same plot as Master Ninja. ) Fatty runs into the Ninjas and is killed, resulting in him turning into a ghost who is forced to wed the female ghost. So that is the two ghosts in this film. Hardly a galore. There is a galore of ninjas though. When they kill the brother, the sister ends up under the protection of Chin Siu Ho, who turns out to be an excellent martial arts fighter. But the leader of the ninja clan is also a wizard, and sends a devil possessed warrior after them that nearly defeats Chin Siu Ho.  Fatty's ghost warns him that the ninja master is after him, so he and the ninja girl seek out Lo Leih to help them. The film ends in a long supernatural battle between Leih and the ninja master, which has  Chin Siu Ho and others possessed by warriors and doing much of the fighting. So, yep, not much of a ghost movie. But typical of the supernatural comedies Shaw Brothers was churning out in the final years the studio was in business.

Wicked: For Good ( 2025 )
I have never seen the Broadway musical, so have no idea if the first movie ended at the midpoint of the musical, or if it used most of the material from the musical and padded out the second film. There is a shift in tone. The first was lighthearted with a few bits of darkness. The sequel is relentlessly dark. Characters we grew to love in first movie are killed or deformed in this film. I am thinking of West Side Story which is an upbeat musical for the first two acts, then turns dark in the third act. It worked because it was done in a single movie. I could not help but notice that you never actually see Dorothy. While every other character from The Wizard of Oz is shown, including the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion, Dorthy is only shown from the back, or you only see her shadow, or she is not in frame and you can hear her voice. I wonder if this has anything to do with Universal going out of it's way not to violate any of the copyrights with the 1939 M.G.M. version of The Wizard of Oz. However, they did apparently violate one copyright. Glinda shows up in Munchkin Land and is the one who sends Dorothy to Oz. Which did not happen in the novel. The Good Witch of the North is the one who tells Dorothy to go to Emarald City, and after the Wizard leaves her behind in his balloon, they are told to head South to find Glinda, who may have the power to send Dorothy home. It was M.G.M. who combined Glinda and The Good Witch of the North into the same character, and other adaptions of the novel made sure to separate both characters. So, Wicked did actually violate one of the M.G.M. copyrights. Although I don't know if anyone will bother to sue them. It should be pointed out that in eight years the 1939 film will finally be public domain, and film makers can violate any copyright they want.


Oz the Great and Powerful ( 2013 )
Decided to watch this other unofficial prequel to The Wizard of Oz. I already reviewed it here. There are a few other Oz related media I have not yet added to this collection, which I am thinking of getting to depending on how available they are.

[stethacantus]

The Enchantress ( 1983 )
Another of the Chor Yuen wuxia films, supposedly based on a Gu Long novel, but the plot does not match anything from that novel. More likely it was based on older Chinese folklore about ghosts seducing victims. In this case, an abandoned grotto called Moonlit Sky where a zither has been heard playing every night. However, each time someone goes to investigate, they disappear, only to be found dead floating in the moat the next morning.  A young swordsman goes to investigate and finds a beautiful young girl playing the zither .  She begs him not to follow her into the cave, but he does not listen, and he is immediately yanked into a ghost realm. The girl is the daughter of a vengeful Japanese ghost who uses her daughter to lure victims into the cave. However, the daughter has fallen in love with the swordsman, and instead of helping her mother, rescues him instead. Once outside the Moonlit Sky grotto, she immediately falls into a coma, and the swordsman brings her to a priest ( Lo Leih ) to be healed. The priest realizes that she was possessed by her mother in an attempt to leave the grotto to take revenge against the swordsmen who killed her and the samurai she was living with in a now abandoned palace behind the grotto. This leads to the surviving swordsmen who pulled off  that massacre to team up to fight the ghost, who grows more powerful every day. Plenty of supernatural battles with wirework here. One of the few Chor Yuen films that was easy enough to follow. And one of his last for Shaw Brothers studios before they discontinued making movies in the mid 80s and repurposed the studio for making television shows.

Kong: Skull Island ( 2017 )
Well, it is summer. And I have begun using the summer to cut down on new movie purchases in order to make up the budget deficit from buying a lot of Shaw Brothers sets. Also, a chance to rewatch a lot of movies from my library I had wanted to rewatch. So my usual favorite films and guilty pleasures, along with a few films I recently had the urge to rewatch. And this year I wanted to rewatch the Mosterverse. They were all together in the same box, not yet mixed up. Godzilla was the odd one out, being the only one I have on DVD only. So, there I was, getting ready to pop the disc into the player and begin the double feature, when I opened the case to find it EMPTY! So, no one will admit to knowing why the case was empty. Where did the DVD go? Did they lend it out to a friend of theirs who returned an empty box? Did someone break it and put the empty box back hoping I would never find out? Was it put back in the wrong box, and if so, then what happened to the film that was supposed to be in that box? After a long angry look through the storage room, I gave the DVD up for dead. Since I will probably be buying a replacement in a few months, and on Blu-ray, I decided to cancel my Monsterverse marathon for the summer. However, since I already had Kong: Skull Island next to the player, I felt like watching that. Won't bother watching the rest though.


The Iron Giant ( 1999 )
Found this one while looking for the missing Godzilla DVD. Pretty sure I have already reviewed both films here before.