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Retro Review: Dance Of Death.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of this film I’d like to explain why I’m starting this review without a title picture.

Normally I’d just Google whatever it is I was watching, playing, listening to and find the coolest looking title screen, box art, album cover I could find, slap the image on here and away we go.
Well, I tried that with this film and all I found was…

That’s it.
The whole thing.
To scale.

The reason I’m annoyed about it isn’t because “Oh hey, look, they don’t have any cool Film Posters or DVD Cover’s for this obscure 1976 Kung-Fu film, losers”.
No, the reason I’m annoyed about it is that this movie stars Angela Mao and she kicks ass of the HIGHEST fucking order yet doesn’t seem to be found on ANY promotional literature for this film, outside of that postage size atrocity you see above you.

(Atrocity, is that too harsh a word?)

It’s almost as if they got together and said “Hey, this movie has a dame as the lead character? Well that might play out there in China but that won’t work here in Bumble-Fuck USA. What’cha say we drop the skirt and stick a couple of them fellas on there instead?”

Fucking dumb-assess.

So, enjoy this picture of the fabulous Angela Mao instead, while I take five minutes to compose myself.

brokenoath-angela-mao-ying-1_e0c11c352f9a2e4eff921174005fd117

More effective relaxation than a Koi Pond.

Right, to the plot.

While walking through the country-side, Angela Mao stumbles across a drunk and a pot-head/opium fiend in the middle of a fight that has been going on for twenty years.
After watching for awhile , and laughing at them, she approaches them with a deal.
If they teach her how to fight she will use both techniques to decide which of their style’s is the best.
Both men readily agree and we’re off into a training montage.

Except we’re not.

What choo talkin’ ’bout Gray?

Instead we find our heroine taking apart three members of The Bird Gang as they try to kill some random bloke for no apparent reason and doing it while dressed, inexplicably, like a hobo, which we later find out is due to her being an orphan.
(What??)
Obviously this puts her at odds with the villainous rogues, not the whole being dressed like a bum with no parents, the ass kicking thing, but also makes her an ally in the man she saved, who is called Tin Can (well, I think that’s what he’s called, the dubbing on this film is terrible) who is on a quest to avenge his master who was killed by the aforementioned Bird Gang and The Crazy Horse Gang.
Unfortunately The Bird Gang and The Crazy Horse Gang find where Tin Can is hanging out, show up at the school and brutally murder everyone, leaving Angela Mao to break for freedom and end up at the point where the movie started.

With me so far?

If you think about it too much your head might just explode.

Now this wasn’t, as I initially thought, down to the usual Grindhouse style of editing that used to cut out unimportant things like plot in favour of as much action as you could jam into and hour and twenty minutes of screen time , but because it was a flash back that doesn’t warn you at all that it’s a flash back.

But with that out of the way we settle in for fifty minutes of good old fashioned vengeance as Angela Mao systematically takes apart the gangs responsible for her friends death.
Y’know, the bloke she knew for all of fifteen seconds.

It’s the standard formula.
Defeat wave after wave of nameless henchmen before taking out the Level Boss, rinse and repeat until your revenge is complete and the credits role.
But let’s be honest, you don’t watch Old School Kung Fu for the plot as all the plots are the same.
Bad kills Good’s family/lover/friend/donkey, Good kicks the crap out of Bad, everyone goes home happy.
The reason anyone watches these films is to see people kick ass and in that respect Angela Mao delivers in spades.

Time to die, Evil Doer!!!

Whether she’s laying the smackdown on groups of black shirts, taking out the end of Level Bosses or fighting the Big Bad himself she does so with the grace and style that became her trademark over the years, and the supporting cast of villains hold their own quite admirably, making her look even better in the process.

There really is no one singular stand out fight in the film as they are all of the highest quality, especially for a movie that was made in 1976, but if I had too pick I’d say the last fifteen to twenty minutes alone are worth watching this for.

Sure, the plot’s confusing to start with and the comedy elements are your standard hit or miss Chinese affair but the ballet of violence is worth a couple of quid of anyone’s money on a DVD from ebay or a quick trip to YouTube where you can watch it for free if you’re feeling poor.

So do yourself a favor if you like Old School Kung-Fu, have a Dance Of Death.

See what I did there.

Final Verdict:

Plot And Other Gubbins: Standard Fare: 5 Out Of 10.

Kung-Fu Ass Kicking: Top Quality For A film That’s Almost As Old As Me: 7 Out Of 10.

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Welcome To The Fatal Flying Guillotine.

Welcome to The Fatal Flying Guillotine.

A new site dedicated to all that is cult.

From Martial Arts Movies to Creature Features, from Slasher Flicks to Blaxploitation, The Fatal Flying Guillotine will bring you the best of the worst and the worst of the best.

Retro Review: 20 Million Miles To Earth.

Ray Harryhausen did the Special Effects on this bad boy.

Surely that’s all you need to know, right?

No?

Oh, OK then.

Holy shit!!! Is that Ray Harryhausn over there???

The movie starts in “A Fishing Village In Sicily”, where the sky and the sea are a beautiful blue, the surrounding fields and forest a lush, deep green and the chalk cliffs as white as snow, which means that I’ve somehow managed to get hold of a color print of this film instead of the original black and white copy.
The Italian Fisherman are going about their fisherman ways and being very Italian about it, mainly by putting the letter A at the beginning and ending of each a-word, when all of a sudden out of the sky comes a a Silver Spaceship, crashing down to Earth.
These brave men, and not at all American Film Extras, rush to the aid of the stricken vessel and find two survivors who they rescue in a flurry of long-shots, smoke machines, super-imposed space ship thingys and backlots made up to look like a crashed cockpit.
But are the two survivors the only thing they brought back…

Er…I’ll take that as a no then, shall I?

I could carry on here and tell you about the rest of the plot and how it all stems from a trip to Venus, or I could tell you about the burgeoning relationship between heroic Colonel Bob Calder (William Hopper) and feisty-but-it-was-the-50’s-so-she’s-gonna-fall-in-love-with-him Marisa Leonardo (Joan Taylor), or how it’s actually all the fault of the little boy Pepe who finds a strange container and flogs it so he can buy a sodding cowboy hat but I won’t, as that’s what Wikipedia’s for.

What you really want to know is about The Ymir.

From the first moment he crawls out of his green ooze until his final death throws within the Rome Colosseum, The Ymir is one of Ray Harryhausen more likable creatures.
Sure, it ticks all the right monster boxes, stomps on things when it should, screeches like a banshee in a blender and scares the hell out of anyone it runs into but at the same time I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the big lug.
After all, it was just minding it’s own business being a Ymir and doing Ymir things (whatever they might be) when the next thing it knows it’s 20 Million Miles Away From Venus (which is what they should’ve called the film) being chased by a hand full of Americans trying to subdue it with electrified nets and a whole host of pissed off Italians trying to barbecue it’s Ymir ass with flamethrowers.
This left me pitying it, which is something that Ray Harryhausen always seemed to be able to do with his creatures whenever he felt the need to and something that I’ve always thought that he never truly got enough credit for, being able to fill his creations with a soul, for want of a better word.

But all philosophical musings aside, you’re going to want to see a rumble, well we’ve got a doozy for you as The Ymir tangles with an Elephant after waking up in a zoo (man, we’ve all been there, amirite?)
It’s what Good Ol’ JR would call a slobberknocker that ends with *SPOILER ALERT FOR A 59 YEAR OLD MOVIE!!!* The Ymir winning, after burying it’s teeth into the Elephant’s neck.

Bring it, bitches!!!

So after the dust has settled and The Ymir has been dispatched by the heroic Colonel Bob Calder, and his bazooka, and his fucking army (Fuck you Colonel Bob Calder, this is all your fault, you and that dick kid Pepe) we are left with just one question.

Is it actually any good?

Well story wise, it’s no great shakes, standard monster goes loco after being dragged out of it’s natural habitat type thing but beyond that?

Ray Harryhausen did the Special Effects on this bad boy.

Surely that’s all you need to know, right?

Final Verdict:

Story: 4 out of 10

Special Effects: 8 out of 10.

Come on, it’s Ray Harryhausen, I’m just surprised it’s that low.

Retro Review: Superfly.

When cocaine dealer Youngblood Priest (Ron O’Neal and his fantastic receding hairline) decides that it’s time to give up the drug game and go straight, he devises a plan to shift thirty kilos of coke in thirty days.

With help from his partner in crime Eddie (the late, great Carl Lee) wheels are set in motion for him to leave the life but when it seems he is on his way out, his world conspires to pull him back in.

The best laid plans of mice and cocaine dealers…

Superfly is an important film for me and not just because it was one of the first Blaxploitation movies released, only Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Shaft being quicker out of the blocks, but because it was my first exposure to an entire universe of celluloid and music that has became an obsession of mine over the last twenty years or so.

Without Superfly there would’ve been no Foxy Brown or Blacula to put a smile on my face whenever I don’t feel like smiling, no Bobby Womack or Issac Hayes to pour from my headphones and make me feel like I’m in 70’s cop show every time I leave the house.

Without Superfly my life would be a hell of a lot more dull.

Glad to help, you jive turkey.

The movie itself isn’t great, there might even be a case to be made that it isn’t actually that good, but to judge it on that alone would be missing the point.

Admittedly some of the acting is ropey at best, bar Ron O’Neal and Carl Lee’s powerhouse performances most of the remaining cast members should’ve had their Equity cards revoked, the fight scenes look like they were choreographed by a ten year old in a school playground and the guerilla style of film making and sharp edits that seem to jump out of nowhere can be quite jarring at times but a film like this lives and dies on two things, it’s story and it’s soundtrack.

And Superfly has both of those down to a fine art.

A tale of one man who wants to better himself, get out of the life that seems almost pre-destined for him, only to be thwarted at each turn by the man, corrupt police, the black power movement and, tragically, his best friend is handled brilliantly by writer Phillip Fenty and director Gordon Parks Jr.

They make both Youngblood and Eddie likable characters that, despite their choice of lifestyle, you can’t help but root for and even though the deal is the main hook behind the film it’s the friendship between the two that is really the driving force, which makes Eddie’s eventual betrayal of Youngblood, as he can’t see past anything but pushing coke, even more surprising and heart-breaking.

Just walking behind you so I can knife you in the back, brother.

And then there’s Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack.

As an introduction to funk it was a hell of a jumping off point for me and one I will be forever grateful for, from the title track to Pusherman through Little Child Running Wild and Freddie’s Dead to all points in between there is not one misstep anywhere.

Every note is perfect and Curtis Mayfield’s voice is as smooth as butter dripping off a silk sheet.

And no mother fucker rocked glasses like Curtis.

This movie might not be another Apocalypse Now and it sure as shit didn’t win any awards, which are overrated if you ask me “You’ve played make believe better than anyone this year, well done, have an Oscar”, but as a starting point for Blaxploitation there’s not many better and you’d be doing yourself a great disservice if you didn’t give it at least one play through.

Final Verdict: 8.5 out of 10.

Retro Review: Atom Age Vampire.

” When a singer (Susanne Loret) is horribly disfigured in a car accident, a scientist (Dr. Levin, played by Alberto Lupo) develops a treatment which can restore her beauty by injecting her with a special serum. While performing the procedure, however, he falls in love with her. As the treatment begins to fail, he determines to save her appearance, regardless of how many women he must kill for her sake. ”

That plot synopsis is lifted directly from Wikipedia which may seem like lazy writing on my behalf but it’s the best way I can think to sum up the going on’s in this film without me slipping into a foul mouth tirade towards a story that is weak at best and at worst a pile of drivelling shit.

You see, some movies are great and some are so bad that they’re good and others are just fucking awful.

This movie is definitely in the fucking awful category.

I love a good bad film as much as the next guy or gal but those type of flicks have something going for them, maybe terrible special effects or shoddy acting, most times both, but whatever it is it makes you laugh and you can forgive it for being so awful, if anything it adds to the enjoyment, but Atom Age Vampire has little if any of this.

Sure, the fact that it’s an Italian production dubbed into English for characters who are, I think, supposed to be French is mildly entertaining for about five minutes and the transformed Alberto Levin from Professor into the aforementioned “Vampire” (who really just isn’t and is nothing more than a serial killer) is good for a few chuckles but outside of that, nothing.

The problem is this production couldn’t figure out what it wanted to be.

If you took out all the sci-fi mumbo jumbo like the serum 28 nonsense and the machines that go ping what you’re left with is something that would have made quite the passable Noir.

Love struck Doctor saves beautiful woman from life of disfigurement while all the time her ex boyfriend searches for her, leading to final confrontation between the two male protagonists.

But instead what we get is two different styles slammed together with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the bollocks, leaving it neither one or the other.

Which is a shame.

No, if I were you dear reader I’d avoid Atom Age Vampire and save yourself an hour and a half of your life, do something more constructive with that time, like taking an electric drill to your frontal lob.

Trust me, it’d be a more enjoyable experience than this pile of crap.

Final Verdict: 1 out of 10.

FooTube: S.P.L: Donnie Yen Vs Wu Jing.

Welcome to FooTube.

A new feature on The Fatal Flying Guillotine where each day/week/month (depending how busy/hungover I am) I will take a clip from YouTube and rant about how great I think it is or take a piss on it’s grave.

We start FooTube with, in my opinion, one of the greatest fight scenes ever committed to celluloid, the alleyway rumble between Donnie Yen and Wu Jing from S.P.L

The film itself is an all time personal favourite of mine and one that I don’t think get’s the love or respect it deserves.

It’s an exercise in perfectly paced story telling enhanced with spectacular action sequences and an ending that, even to this day, still blows my mind and depresses the hell out of anyone I happen to be watching it with.

And in amongst all this excellence is this stand out piece that shows how, when done right, martial arts should always add to the story and never be detrimental to it’s telling.

From the moment Donnie Yen enters the alley way to the ending where he walks out, bloodied but victorious, the four minutes it takes to knit this scene together is quite breath taking.

The pace with which each strike, baton blow and knife thrust is landed is so lightning quick and precise that, even now after repeated re-viewing, it leads me to question if the film had been sped up but knowing the work of the two actors involved I highly doubt it.

It is a brutal ballet, so vicious that it can be almost difficult to watch, if for no other reason that you can’t believe two people could perform at such a frantic and violent sprint without actually inflicting serious damage to each other but it is a testament to both Donnie Yen and Wu Ying that both escaped unharmed and left us with something that borders on a work of art.

If there can be such a thing in Kung Fu movies.

Both men perform their part to perfection, bringing to a climax a story thread that had run through out the picture in the most spectacular way and my only complaint is that it wasn’t longer.

Seriously, I could watch these two fight forever and never get bored.

Retro Review: The Master Of The Flying Guillotine.

So, I thought it would be remiss of me if my first Retro Review, and indeed my first article on this site, wasn’t of a Flying Guillotine movie.

I say “of a…” as there has seemingly been about a thousand films with that moniker attached to them, some of them great and a fair few that are terrible, but for this stroll down memory lane, with much punching and kicking and decapitation of heads, I decided to go with my personal favourite “The Master Of…”

This First Films classic is one of those movies I find myself returning too time and again whenever I find my love of all things Chop Socky starting to wane and that has happened over the years due to the market being flooded with far too much product that seems to rely heavily on gimmicky wire work or special effects just so companies can get their grubby hands on that sweet, sweet moolah.

But that’s a rant for another time.

Released in 1976, “Master of…” tells the tale of Fung Sheng Wu Chi, a blind assassin and aforementioned Master Of The Flying Guillotine, who is tasked by the Manchu government to hunt out any last rebel support for the Ming Dynasty and to deal with them appropriately by chopping their fucking heads off.

This he does by disguising himself as a Buddhist Monk, because no-one would suspect those guys knowing Martial Arts, and living on the side of an active volcano (which I’m just guessing at here, but there’s an awful lot of smoke kicking about) with his two disciples, who we never actually see because they are quite, quite dead.

A messenger dove confirms this by arriving with a note that informs him that, yes, they are quite,quite dead and it was the One Armed Man that did it, guv’nor.

This inspires Wu Chi to dust down the ol’ Flying Guillotine and, after a few shots of him pulling the heads off wooden dummies, decapitating a live chicken (because the 70’s) and blowing up his house he sets off to reap a terrible vengeance on the guy responsible for his MacGuffin’s down fall.

This red paint splattered rampage leads, inevitably, to a showdown between
Wu Chi and The One Armed Man who is played by the one and only Jimmy Wang Yu.

Now I’ll hold my hands up here, I fucking LOVE Jimmy Wang Yu.

If you can get past the controversy that dogged his life, from the alleged wife beating to the dismissed murder trial to the fact he seemingly wanted to fight everyone he ever met, quite fucking literally, here is one of the most prolific actors of the genre and one who’s output has far more hits than misses.

And if people are willing to over look Michael Jackson’s past transgressions then I’m still gonna watch One Armed Swordsman.

But I digress.

“Master of..” is, as I stated previously, one of my go-to films and though not perfect, weird dubbing on the English version that makes it hard to follow, hasn’t dated particularly well, uses the strangest sound effects (the classic bullet ricocheting off of a rock to accompany the use of the guillotine itself) and, for some reason, on the subtitled version I have it has an industrial music sound track, overall it has far more going for it than against it.

The fight scenes stand out for me as they seem to be heading away from the classic Chinese Opera way of doing things and into a more modern form of fight choreography, which at the time not many people were doing or willing to take a risk on.

Sure, it’s not anywhere near what Jackie Chan would later perfect but it has a certain fluidity to it that a lot of films from that era just didn’t have and even though I have a lot of love for the old way of doing things it’s refreshing to see something that isn’t done in the one, two, three, one, two, three waltz kind of way that had been a staple of Kung Fu movies since they been committed to celluloid

Add into that mix Jimmy Wang Yu with his cold, methodical acting style that always carried a genuine air of menace about it and his ability to perform the action moments with one armed tied behind his back (sorry, couldn’t resist) and I can think of a LOT worse ways to spend an hour and a half.

So do yourself a favour and hunt down a copy, hell, I have no doubt there’s at least four versions kicking around on YouTube, I promise you you won’t regret it.

And if you do then I can always send Wu Chi to visit you and point out the error of your ways.

Final Verdict: 8 out of 10.