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In regard to the first Kung Fu-bruary, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Ricky Glore, the filmmaker who happens to be a stand-up comedian, on making a microbudget campground horror movie in Cinci-tucky. His investment on this flick was less than what Joe Burrow once spent treating all his offensive linemen to lunchtime Skyline Chili.
All Your Friends are Dead, as previously mentioned, “middle-age slasher” which depicts the massacre by the so-called Kentucky Fried Killer, was written, co-directed and acted in by Glore himself. Check out my review from August of last year. SRS Cinema is releasing Glore’s work on much wider distribution, so it is going to be available for physical media preorders starting March 3. It is a little different this time because it is only open for two weeks; then there will be the usual staggered rollout on digital platforms.
I was shocked at the results from our Facebook poll in the latter part of October where Kung Fu movies received the second highest votes after woods movies which came first. I must point out that it has always been a challenge for me to collect enough bigfoot movies to fill up November, which by the way is our traditional bigfoot hunting season. Kung fu movies in the past have failed to capture an audience and do well when it comes to the likes on my pages.
Considering the fact that everything happens for a reason and there is an inexhaustable supply of those, the sound of the phrase ‘KUNG FU CITY’ seems catchy. For the next several weeks, this phrase dictates and has popular demand, meaning we will focus on going through Kung Fu City. We will however deviate from this focus during the 13th of February when I will be celebrating the 62nd Henry Rollins Day by previewing a movie that has him in it.
A Bruce Lee impersonator by the name of Ho Chung Tao, Bruce Li, starred in and directed it. It was released in 1977. Lee Min-Chin, the character he portrays, works for Hong Kong’s version of ADT back in the 1970s. He works as a security installer. Lo is an elderly man who is obsessed with security system installation. He has a tendency to yell at people. There are vicious traps surrounding his mansion in the woods. He also possesses a secret list that might grab the attention of criminals. He wants his interior to be attended to as well.
For his 1970s moves, these unusual camera works are expected, ‘modern’ non-historical kung-fu mixed with stock airplane footage. To ‘improve’ the quality of the movie, 95% of them contain stock airport footage. Enhancing intensifying reverb and Yanking McDonald’s style zooms during the combats have become normal too. The rest is broken too as the standard for the effect. The Overdubs sound.
In any case, Lee is brought to a hotel by a henchman called Octopus or Altoids (Ping-Ou Wei), who sports an exaggerated Kolchak hat and has crooked teeth. Something is off to Lee, so he decides to tackle Altoids along with three other thugs, during which he comes across a business card with the words Hotel Fortuna. After he knocks them out, he decides to visit the place, so he does.
So now he goes to the hotel where acid jazz is being played as the scowls of two men — one with large sideburns — meet him, another man is discovered dead in front of a make-up chair, and then, out of nowhere, he is attacked with a wooden stool That, it seems, causes everyone in the hotel restaurant to scream and run out. That can’t be entirely true, though, because there is another dead body in the restaurant after Lee wakes up, so perhaps it wasn’t the stool that broke the camel’s back.
A black 1968 Caprice or Chevy Impala pulls up with sirens blaring and a guy steps out. Lee walks in and the two engage in ‘Are you in trouble?’ ‘Not really’ ‘Then why did you accept my invitation’ ‘I wouldn’t have gotten in if you didn’t invite me’ “So you think you are smart, am I right.” conversation. That was pretty brilliant.
All of this makes sense when one watches until the end, but it certainly sounds like a battle of wits through male posturing and evasion when it is said the first time. This conversation is also being recorded/listened to by a dozen guys in a single room who are all smoking half a pack of cigarettes and are ordered by Lee in the beginning to perform kung fu stunts later in the movie. Even the heavyweight leader man with a comb over.
Then the driver states that he knows very well that Lee has to get to Master Lo, but first, Lee has to get past Poo Chi Chang (not Pootytang, but close), whom we believe is this sunglass wearing woman carrying a gun at the mansion. Poo0, it turns out, is a sweating manservant in a white shirt who constantly dabs himself with a handkerchief and has a rather impressive porn stash that Lee stumbles upon later during his installation. Poo also tells Lee to rendezvous with him at the local garbage dump, which happens to be downwind from the local amusement park, that evening.
While taking a stroll near the amusement park, Lee gets attacked by a man with a bo staff, along with another guy. Lee remembers his appointment with Master Lo and and finally decides to look out for the garbage dump, which for some reason looks pretty clean to him. Lee manages to beat his opponents, after which two flippy guys performs handsprings from two different ends and attempt to Gillette bulldog him. Instead, Lee takes them out with a flying double spread kick that doesn’t come within three feet of either aide of the two.
This man sitting in a Chevy Impala offers a job to Lee, and to no one’s surprise, Lee outright refuses him. This only stirs some unseen shadow figure to command the Impala man to assemble some thugs. In no time, Lee has teleported to an amusement park where he has to face two bo staff masters and five other troops. A mysterious attacker smothers Lee’s face with talcum powder only to get interrupted by an obscure actor. Lee really could have used the help sooner, especially considering Lee’s circumstances, the mysterious actor had died of cancer long ago. Lee really ought to be grateful for the true hero, a machine who fully understands what motion pictures ought to have been.
Now the reason why Lee was saved is all thanks to the bearded tom petty, or rather Octopus, who summoned some goons to help save him. Along the lines, Lee had also agreed to deal with Kun Fu Tom’s superior. The next day as Lee went setting up for his security sytem, he came across a vintage adult moview database. It raised alarms amongst a group of men. Lee shocked one of the brutes and caused a frenzy where they got embarrassed infront of Lo’s daughter.
Super ‘professional’ hooded Lee followers convene and state that he cooperates, however only because he pays him. Lee responds with, “I might consider it.”
Here, we can see the leader of one of the gangs getting prepared for a kung-fu fight assisted by Kung Fu Tom Petty and Kung Fu Larry Csonka (who is on the right in the glasses). (Screen capture from a crummy DVD by reviewer Ben Nagy).
Next comes the midnight rendez-vous of the hoodlum groups consisting of Kung Fu Tom Petty and Kung Fu Larry Csonka on one side, and ese Chevy Driver and his eavesdropping chain-smoking overweight nerd. Sitting in the corner is Lee who observes everything, ironically entertained much like Bruce Lee did when he let snakes within the control room in Enter the Dragon. He tries to reenact Yosemite Sam where he dynamite bomb and rolls it around in the middle of the fight. Instead, he fake everyone out because it is has been turned into a bowling ball with sparklers stuffed inside. Therefore, no one explodes.
Then there’s a hot tub scene as a bunch of guys in yellow towels claim type about the Black Eagle code or something and how they have to kidnap Lo’s daughter.
Li and Lo’s daughter playfully runs around until the time they find themselves captured by two men in a subway tunnel, and ‘Live and Let Die’ marks the beginning of a movie as he displays superhuman fighting skills against the two men. But he is no longer the only one facing off against Chevrolet Driver, who he now has a grudge against. He makes a reappearing entrance after an extensive introduction, stepping out from the shadows with the first chords of the James Bond theme playing in the back.
The dull and cringeworthy chop socky plot overcomplicates itself within the first forty five minutes, as the entire scene where Zhou’s team coming incapacitates Kung Fu Tom Petty and deciding to take out the rival gang becomes far too convoluted. From the little we are able to see in the cropped full screen version, there seems to be a stupidly designed warehouse shark that they are inside of. In less than four minutes, a number of outrageous events happen as one gangster stabs a guy on some railroad tracks, Kung Fu Larry Csonka somehow manages to use a bow to shoot a guy in the chest while giving an archery mark, and Kung Fu Tom Petty beats the sideburned man, who stiffen, mercilessly and slices him to shreds, an epic battle. A woman also manages to inject a man with poison.
After everything regarding the gangsters is resolved, Kung Fu Tom Petty along with the remaining villains abducts Lo’s daughter with an aim of exchanging her for that secret list. It is obvious that Lee would have to do some serious darn biker stunts and hour long Jackie Chan impersonation whilst weaving past traffic, which is exactly why he beat up those two teenagers who were attempting to soak him with a mountain bike. Any sane guy would head out to the bricks factory at the edges of town to try and rescue the girl before Lo forfeits the list.
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