THE FIVE
VENOMS
DIRECTOR: ZHANGE
CHE
HONG
KONG 1978
MAR 31 FRI
7PM
APR 2 SUN 6PM
Guild Theatre
 Long
a favorite of martial arts movie fans, THE FIVE VENOMS was
the defining showcase for late-career, all-male-ensemble Zhang
Che. The dying master of the Venoms House tasks his one remaining
disciple to bring to justice the young man’s predecessors,
now dispersed and fallen into ignominious criminality. The
elder Venoms quintet, however, possesses formidable skills,
each in a distinctive fighting style: scorpion, snake, centipede,
gecko and toad. The youngest Venom locates them in a small
town, and in this nexus of gold loot, shady cops and corrupt
judges, a suspenseful mystery plot unfolds, punctuated by
some of the most lucidly articulated and imaginative fight
sequences of the martial arts cinema.(97
mins.)
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MY YOUNG AUNTIE
DIRECTOR: LAU
KAR-LEUNG
HONG
KONG 1981
APR 1 SAT
7PM
Guild Theatre
 A
young widow (Kara Hui) arrives in Guangdong to deliver a fought-over
deed of inheritance to the rightful heirs, her crotchety nephew-by-marriage
(Lau Kar-leung) and his westernized son (Xiao Hou). Age and
gender role reversals allow for a wealth of kung fu funny
business: the nephew is easily twice as old as the aunt but
still bound to respect family hierarchies; the fetching aunt
has serious warrior chops despite her traditionally feminine
appearance. Freely mixing martial arts moves with allusions
to popular Hollywood genres (musicals, swashbucklers and even
war movies), MY YOUNG AUNTIE is an unalloyed triumph of kung
fu comedy.(114 mins.)
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THE JADE TIGER
DIRECTOR: CHU
YUAN
HONG
KONG 1977
APR 2 SUN 8:15 PM
APR 6 THUR 7PM
Guild Theatre
Chu Yuan’s
penchant for labyrinthine plotting reaches its zenith in this
dizzying adaptation of the Gu Long source novel. Di Long heads
an all-star cast as a Zhou warrior catapulted by the threat
of his father’s decapitation, delivered on his wedding
day, into the middle of a no-holds-barred war between his
clan and the Tangs. The outrageous characters, exotic weapons
and proliferating layers of subterfuge are hyperbolic even
by the standards of an already excess-saturated subgenre.
Chu’s characteristic visual splendor contributes to the
air of delirium, but a self-conscious pathos about the futility
of martial rivalry lends the film thematic ballast.(101
mins.)
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THE NEW ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN
DIRECTOR: ZHANG
CHE
HONG
KONG 1971
APR
7 FRI 7PM
APR 9 SUN 5PM
Guild Theatre
 Zhang
Che revisits the premise of his epochal ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN
(1967) but with a gruesome difference. David Jiang portrays
an arrogant warrior humbled by a nefarious opponent and forced
to hack off his own arm. Years of waiting tables fortify his
single-handed dexterity, but what finally launches him back
on the path of bloody retribution is the untimely death of
his comrade Di Long. The actors were Zhang’s preferred
pairing of heroes in his ‘70s films, and like other of
the director’s films about male bonding, this one is
charged through with latent homoeroticism. Fuelled by the
estimable action choreography of longtime collaborators Tong
Kai and Lau Kar-leung, the film builds to an astonishing finale
traversing the entire span of a bridge and then some.(94
mins.)
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LEGENDARY WEAPONS OF CHINA
DIRECTOR: LAU
KAR-LEUNG
HONG KONG 1982
APR 8
SAT 7PM
APR 9 SUN 7PM
Guild Theatre
 Director
Lau Kar-leung’s exhilarating exposition on Chinese martial
arts has been hailed as the ultimate film on the subject,
and it’s easy to see why. It argues for realistic kung
fu (skilled effort) over fakery and spectacle. A compendium
of 18 classic weaponry and combat styles, including “weaponless”
fist-fighting, the film also reiterates a favorite theme of
the martial arts cinema—the training of a disciple by
a master, though it shifts the usual focus on the pupil to
the teacher and his ethical responsibilities. Lau himself
stars as a master who, having disavowed the messianic bullet-repelling
hocus-pocus of the Boxer rebels, is now pursued in exile by
three young Boxer assassins: the acolyte Xiao Hou, the nimble-footed
Kara Hui and the fanatically implacable Gordon Liu (36 CHAMBERS
OF SHAOLIN, KILL BILL 2).(101 mins.)
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DIRTY HO
DIRECTOR: LAU
KAR-LEUNG
HONG
KONG 1979
APR 13 THUR 7PM
Whitsell Auditorium
APR 15 SAT 9PM Guild
Theatre
 Fighting
without seeming to fight—that’s the ingenious premise
at the heart of this dazzler by martial arts grandmaster Lau
Kar-leung. The director’s mainstay Gordon Liu plays a
prodigal prince (and hyper-cultivated epicurean) targeted
for assassination by his elder brother. Enter Wang Yu (not
to be mistaken for the star of ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN) as the
eponymous Ho, a boisterous ruffian who reluctantly apprentices
himself to the expert Liu. With the killers disguised as a
wine merchant and an antiques dealer, the prince finds himself
parrying kicks and blows while in art appreciation mode. The
climactic fight-back-to-the-palace pitting prince and apprentice
against a battery of swords is a set piece for the ages.(100
mins.)
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THE BOXER FROM SHANTUNG
DIRECTOR: ZHANG
CHE, BAO XUELI
HONG
KONG 1972
APR 14 FRI
7PM
APR 16 SUN 7PM
Guild Theatre
 This
brutal fight film adapts the proverbial rise-and-fall gangster
formula to the mean streets of ‘30s Shanghai. Chen Guantai
is a poor hick from Shandong (“Shantung” according
to the old Wade-Giles romanization) whose fearsome boxing
ability allows him to muscle his way to the top of the Shanghai
underworld. Bursting with typically Zhangian bloodshed and
distinguished by Chen’s authentic kung fu technique (the
film proved to be the actor’s breakout vehicle), BOXER
also features Shaw luminaries David Jiang as a charismatic
gangland don and Jing Li as a principled songstress. Among
its highlights that have inspired a host of imitators: ruthless
hatchet-wielding thugs, most recently revived as the “axe
gang” in Stephen Chow’s comic tribute to the martial
arts cinema, KUNG FU HUSTLE.(121 mins.)
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CLANS OF INTRIGUE
DIRECTOR: CHU
YUAN
HONG
KONG 1977
APR 15 SAT
7PM
APR 16 SUN 5PM
Guild Theatre
 Chu
Yuan continued his cinematic transmutation of the Gu Long
literary oeuvre with this gripping wuxia “whodunnit”
set in the timeless realm of martial chivalry. Famed swordsman
Chu Liuxiang (Di Long) is framed for the murder of three clan
chiefs. Leaving behind leisure and connoisseurship—a
resplendent houseboat and poetry-spouting friends—Chu
embarks on an investigation that leads him from a mystery
woman to Buddhist monks and a grotto-dwelling clan of female
fighters led by a lesbian (Betty Bei Di). Gradually he uncovers
a convoluted conspiracy that culminates in an unforgettable
gender-bending twist.(90mins.)
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KING BOXER
DIRECTOR: CHUNG
CHANG-WHU
HONG KONG 1972
APR 20 THUR 7PM
APR 22 SAT 9 PM
Guild Theatre
 Korean
director Chung Chang-whu was among the foreign talent hired
by studio mogul Run Run Shaw in the late ‘60s to help
meet Asian audiences’ growing taste for tough action
films. KING BOXER’s gritty revenge tale met that challenge
and more; it became the first kung fu film to be a hit in
the West and paved the way for the Bruce Lee phenomenon to
come. Actor Luo Lie brings characteristic intensity to his
role as an “Iron Fist” adept whose fingers are viciously
shattered by a rival gang. (The film was released internationally
under the title FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH). In paradigmatic fashion,
he then trains his way back to peak form and wreaks vengeance
on his adversaries.(97 mins.)
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THE MAGIC BLADE
DIRECTOR: CHU
YUAN
HONG
KONG 1976
APR 21 FRI
7PM
APR 22 SAT 7PM
Guild Theatre
 Chu
Yuan followed the popular success of KILLER CLANS with this
outré martial arts fantasy, possibly the most celebrated
of his 21 adaptations of Taiwanese writer Gu Long’s novels.
Shaw action stars Di Long and Luo Lie are chivalric rivals
who join forces to track down a legendary weapon—the
terrifying Peacock Dart!—and defeat an evil sorcerer
bent on domination of the jiang hu. Along the way a wild menagerie
of armed henchmen, conniving nobles and beauties, and a militant
grandma crosses swords with poncho-clad Di Long, sans cheroot
but brandishing his own custom spinning blade. (101
mins.)
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