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Considered the “Ed Wood of Hong Kong Cinema” by many a Z-movie aficionado, Godfrey Ho is a highly prolific director and screenwriter of improbable cult standing; best known for his ultra low-budget, ‘cut-and-paste’ style ninja movies of the 1980s.
Despite having over one-hundred films to his credit, Ho barely registers on the radar of most film lovers. But take a trip to the martial arts section of a second-hand DVD store and you'll come across a litany of titles with his name on, or one of his many aliases: Godfrey Hall, Charles Lee, Tony Cheung, Bruce Lambert, Wallace Chan, Larry Hutton, Philip Fraser and Chi-mou Ho are but a few of the forty plus pseudonyms Ho has used over the years, making it impossible to know for certain as to the number of films he has actually directed. However, two factors that are almost always the same is the involvement of Ho's production partner Joseph Lai – who at one point was rumoured to be yet another alias for Ho – and that the film will have the word 'ninja' in its title.
When Godfrey met Joseph
Ho was born in Hong Kong in 1948 and got his start in filmmaking at the Shaw Brothers Studio, Hong Kong's foremost production company at the time. Along with a fellow budding young filmmaker by the name of John Woo, Ho worked as an assistant director for Chang Cheh during the early 1970s. His involvement during this early period included many seminal Cheh features: Young People (1972), The Water Margin (1972), Hellfighters Of The East (1973) and Blood Brothers (1973), among others.
Shortly after, Ho was allowed to helm his own projects, starting with low key actioners such as The Blazing Ninja (1973) – where he first met the aforementioned Lai, who was working as an associate producer – and Paris Killers (1974), a co-directing effort with Ting Hung Kuo, who would go on to work with a then up-and-coming Jackie Chan over the next few years.
Korean knock-offs
After the commercial failure of Paris Killers, Ho left Shaw Brothers to pursue a new partnership with Lai and his company ASSO Asia in a bid to take advantage of the current popularity boom of Hong Kong action cinema. For the remainder of the decade, Ho directed a string of cheaply produced kung-fu movies in Korea, using a Korean cast and crew to save on costs. These Hong Kong knock-offs weren't sold to Hong Kong itself, instead, they were designed solely for international distribution. This was made possible by the arrival of newly developed home video formats such as VHS, as well as some shrewd business decisions on the part of Lai and fellow producing partner Thomas Tang, who would set up his own competing production company Filmark. Ho would continue to have dealings with both Lai and Tang after this parting of ways.
As for the films themselves; they were period kung-fu pictures made to look Chinese in order to appeal to the ongoing international craving for all things Bruce Lee-esque. Competently put together yet artistically desultory works, such as Dynamite Shaolin Heroes (1977), Enter The Invincible Hero (1977), The Deadly Silver Ninja (1978), Dragon's Snakefist (1979), Dragon's Showdown (1980) Snake Strikes Back (1981) and Leopard Fist Ninja (1982), were churned out at an incredible rate (up to four a year) with almost a complete disregard for historical or cultural accuracy.
Cut-and-paste ninjas
By the early to mid 1980s, Ho and Lai were in need of a change of strategy if they were to keep up with genre and industry developments. It was now common – not to mention financially viable – for films to have Caucasian cast members to increase American interest. Ho and Lai decided to follow suit and, under the banner of Lai's new company IFD Films and Arts Limited (formed after his partnership ended with Tang), started to make more contemporary action films involving ninjas.
The work that Ho produced in the 1980s is easily his most infamous, endearing and inept. Casting American B-movie actor (and former associate from the Shaw Brothers years) Richard Harrison – who famously turned down an offer from Sergio Leone to star in A Fistful Of Dollars (1964), recommending Clint Eastwood instead – in the lead role, Ho directed numerous micro-budget sequences of fighting ninjas as well as expositional scenes with Harrison and other cast members. This would become the basis for Ho's cut-and-paste period. Ho or Lai (neither chooses to take credit) re-edited and spliced their ninja footage with material from completely unrelated sources; usually from incomplete, obscure or unreleased films from other Asian countries such as the Philippines and Thailand. These films of varying genre – gangster films, comedies, romances, etc – were dubbed into English, as was the ninja footage, to create the end product. The results were hardly coherent but made financial sense; Ho and Lai had found a way to not only make several low-budget films for the price of one, but to keep American video rental stores well stocked with their produce.
Harrison was not happy with this approach. He had initially agreed to appear in a few of Ho's films but now found himself to be the unwitting star of over twenty; all of which re-edited and badly spliced together with other films to extend the running time. For instance, films such as Ninja Terminator (1985), Ninja Champion (1986), Ninja Thunderbolt (1986), Ninja Dragon (1986), Ninja the Protector (1986) and The Ninja Squad (1986) would feature re-dubbed shots of Harrison speaking on the phone to another character originally from a completely different film in a half baked attempt to stitch the two differing plot-lines together. Disgusted and embarrassed by his involvement with Ho, Harrison subsequently retired from acting in the 1990s.
A lot of the music used in these ninja films was also ripped off from elsewhere. Early Pink Floyd, Wendy Carlos' score for A Clockwork Orange (1971) and John Williams' score for the Star Wars films were popular victims - the musical sting for Lai's IFD logo at the start of each film was shamelessly pinched from 'The Imperial March', for example. The exact number of films made during this period cannot be determined due to nature of their construction, as well as the multiple title changes made for international markets. To make matters more confusing, Lai subsequently re-re-edited the ninja footage from many of Ho's films again into a 32 episode television series entitled Ninja Myth.
From ninjas to kickboxers
Ho capped off his cut-and-paste period with a short-lived but nonetheless prolific string of films involving kickboxers instead of ninjas; probably to capitalise on the success of newly emerging martial arts talent such as Jean-Claude Van Damme. Ho and Lai used their same old movie splicing tricks for titles such as Kickboxer The Champion (1991), Little Kickboxer (1992), Robo-Kickboxer (1992), Kickboxer From Hell (1992) and Kickboxer Against The Odds (1992), but their financial success in this arena was starting to dwindle.
As a result, Ho returned to directing legitimate, full-length features for the remainder of the ‘90s. Moving away from IFD briefly, Ho made Lethal Panther (1990), a Nikita (1990) inspired action flick about female assassins; it was followed by a sequel in 1993. Ho diversified further by making Laboratory Of The Devil (1992), an unofficial sequel/remake to Mou Tun Fei's positively horrific Men Behind The Sun (1988); a film based on the atrocities carried out by Japan's Unit 731 during the Second World War. Met with minor critical success, Ho was commissioned to do a sequel: Maruta 3: Destroy All Evidence (1994). Ho made a few more legitimate features, including Undefeatable (1993) and Mr. X (1995), before retiring from filmmaking after the completion of what would be his final film, Manhattan Chase (2000). After a prolific and unconventional career in filmmaking, he now teaches his craft to others at the Hong Kong Film Academy.
In recent years, Godfrey Ho has become somewhat of a cult icon despite being a shamelessly commercial filmmaker, or at least trying to be. Due to the nonsensical, bricolage nature of his work, Ho's cinema is pure bathos; unintentionally hilarious and hopeless in its attempts to appeal to western culture, something which in turn appeals to connoisseurs of the weird, wonderful and downright bizarre nooks and crannies of the celluloid world. As a result, Ho has unwittingly created some of the best worst films ever made, and will continue to find a loyal audience; but not quite the audience he originally had in mind. MP
Partial Filmography:
2000 Manhattan Chase
1995 Mr X.
1994 Maruta 3: Destroy All Evidence
1993 Undefeatable | Lethal Extortion
1992 Laboratory Of The Devil | Kickboxer From Hell | Robo-Kickboxer: Power Of Justice
1991 Kickboxer The Champion
1990 Lethal Panther | Ninja Empire
1989 Full Metal Ninja | Zombie Vs. Ninja
1988 Rage Of Ninja | Diamond Ninja Force | Robo-Vampire
1987 Ninja Death Squad | Ninja In Action
1986 The Ninja Squad | Ninja The Protector | Ninja Dragon | Golden Ninja Warrior
1985 Ninja Terminator | Ninja Champion
1984 Ninja Thunderbolt | Revenge Of The Drunken Master
1982 Fist Of Golden Monkey | Leopard Fist Ninja
1981 Rage Of The Dragon | Snake Strikes Back
1980 Dragon's Showdown | Shaolin Fist Fighter
1979 Dragon's Snakefist | Golden Dragon, Silver Snake
1978 The Deadly Silver Ninja
1977 Enter The Invincible Hero | Dynamite Shaolin Heroes
1974 Paris Killers
1973 The Blazing Ninja
When I first encountered the work of director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, it was in a university lecture. The lecturer of the class placed a bet; he wagered that none of us in the twenty-strong group of students could pronounce his name properly. He was right. With a name like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, there is a guaranteed certainty that comes from possessing such a tongue twister of a name; once a person pronounces it correctly, they won’t forget the name.
Although it is probably not the first name that comes to a person’s mind when images of Asian cinema are evoked, Apichatpong’s career has evolved outside the parameters and regulations of the Thai film system. From taking this decision, his life’s work has received recognition from prestigious awards bodies such as the Vancouver, Berlin and Cannes film festivals, along with creating short films in partnership with companies like Dior and Louis Vuitton. With his work regularly being acknowledged by an increasingly wider audience of big names, there is a growing feeling of inevitability that the name that was so hard to pronounce between twenty people will become synonymous to the production of Asian films.
Beginnings
Born in Bangkok, Thailand on 16th July 1970 to a family of physicians, Apichatpong originally gained qualifications to be an architect from a Taiwanese university. In 1997, he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where other film luminaries such as Hong Sang-Soo, Orson Welles and Walt Disney have studied. Two years later, he set up his collective/production company called Kick The Machine, so people like Suchada Sirithanawuddhi and Sompot Chidgasornpongse, his assistant directors, could work outside the stringent measures of the Taiwanese film industry and the levels of censorship.
His first feature length film, Dokfa nai meuman (Mysterious Object at Noon) from 2000 details several unconnected lives across Thailand; the Kick The Machine website describes it as “part fiction, part documentary, and part pseudodocumentary... It was shot without a conventional script and relies on the subjects being filmed... The film emphasizes a documentary approach that presents people with different professions rather than looking for a perfect and
unbroken narrative.”
This unconventional example of film, not only in its practical construction but in its aesthetics, was warmly received by reviewers and boards of judges from all across the globe, winning the special mention prize at the Vancouver International FF and the Grand Prix, and the Jeonju International FF in Korea.
Romance... and Exploitation
Between 2002 and 2004, Apichatpong directed two films exploring different themes of love and relationships with very contrasting results and reception by their wider public. The two films also set precedents for Apichatpong’s directorial style and cinematic trademark stamps.
The first of these two films, Sud Sanaeha (Blissfully Yours), from 2002, details two stories of partnerships at different stages in their lifespan, loosely connected by their locale and the professions of the people in the relationships. The second film, Sud Pralad (Tropical Malady), from 2004, tells the story of a homosexual relationship between a young soldier and a farm boy in the town that the solider is assigned to on a mission. A second story in Sud Pralad portrays the relationship between a young soldier lost in a forest and the spirit of a shaman.
Both Sud Pralad and Sud Sanaeha possess hallmarks of Apichatpong Weerasethakul beginning to develop a style towards a claim as an auteur; the juxtaposed composition of the dual narratives, the title credits of the film occurring midway through the narrative, and using the same actors from the first story as character roles in the second.
Both films received limited appraisal from their audiences because of their obvious nonconformist edit and narrative structures. Sud Sanaeha won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes 2002 and Sun Pralad won the Jury Prize at Cannes 2004. However, Timothy Pfaff writes of Sud Pralad in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Tropical Malady infects you in stages. Few people get Thai independent filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul's greatest film on a single exposure. Like other great art works, it requires - and rewards - repeat contacts.”
Much like the narrative qualities of Dokfa nai meuman, Sud Pralad and Sud Sanaeha possess, as Pfaff describes, the desire to return to the films to watch again. Much like great storytellers, Apichatpong Weerasethakul obviously possesses a natural talent for encapsulating audiences with the simplest stories.
Between these two films of romance came a film of stark contrast. Acting as co-director alongside Michael Shawonasai, they directed The Adventure Of Iron Pussy (Shawonasai) in 2003, a film made as a parody towards the action/cop films made within the Thai film system. Shot on an incredibly low budget and on digital video, the film furthered Apichatpong’s status amongst the disenfranchised clusters of alternative cinema audiences as a cult director working against the traditions of the time.
David vs. Goliath
In 2006, Apichatpong Weerasethakul directed the film that was to launch his name to a larger audience; but unfortunately it was not for the right reasons. Following the trademark points from previous productions, Apichatpong Weerasethakul released Sang Sattawat (Syndromes Of A Century) in 2006, a film made in tribute to his parents; the first half of the film set in a rural hospital and the second half set in a medical centre in Bangkok.
The film faced a frosty reception from the Taiwanese censorship board over some of the scenes portraying doctors and monks behaving out of character to what is expected within Taiwanese culture. Although seemingly innocuous in western culture, the scenes of monks playing with a remote control spaceship and a doctor kissing his girlfriend at work were flagged by the then active Thai Film Act of 1930 that Weerasethakul himself describes as “a vague statute that forbids the promotion of bad morals. In practice, that means films dealing with sex, religion and politics are taboo.”
In his refusal to edit the film to the rules of the censorship board, Apichatpong Weerasethakul pulled the film from general release and emailed the Bangkok post, as Kong Rithdee (Bangkok Express) re-tells: “I, as a filmmaker, treat my works as I do my own sons or daughters... I don't care if people are fond of them or despise them... If these offspring of mine cannot live in their own country for whatever reason, let them be free. There is no reason to mutilate them in fear of the system. Otherwise there is no reason for one to continue making art.”
Eventually, Sang Sattawat was released for a short time in Thailand in a censored form. However, in a mark of protest, the scenes in question that were censored were purposely replaced with black filler, so audiences were aware of the edit.
Despite all of its problems and controversy that faced it, Sang Sattawat’s world premiere was at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, and also showed at festivals in New York, Toronto and Melbourne.
His greatest reward
After all the controversies and opposition from governmental bodies and critics, Apichatpong Weerasethakul released Loong Boonmee raleuk Chat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) in 2010. The film focuses around the eponymous character on his death-bed, and recounting his lives with people in various contorted forms. The film premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, and against films such as the hugely popular film Another Year (Leigh, 2010) won the highly coveted Palme D’Or. The film also was listed for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category but didn’t make the shortlist.
Throughout his career, it is clear to see from the narrative and aesthetic compositions that Apichatpong Weerasethakul has always aimed to create against convention. An artist in his own right, he has slowly garnered a collective of likeminded people, an audience from all over the world that shares a love and craving for alternative cinema. He has won many prestigious awards, presented to him by revered people in the film industry. TJB
Jackie Chan is revered and adored by audiences and contemporaries alike as the world’s favourite action movie star. His infectious blend of comedy and action has seen him conquer not only the Far Eastern movie markets but also Hollywood’s, bridging cultural divides, and mirroring the incredible accomplishments of Bruce Lee.
Born 7th of April 1954 in Hong Kong to a poor but loving family, Jackie was named Chan Kong-sang. His parents worked for Hong Kong’s French Embassy, and fought to provide their son with better prospects than their own. As with other great names to be borne of the institute, he was enrolled at the Peking Opera School as the age of 7. Signing for a stay of ten years, he met and grew up with Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao - Hong Kong cinema’s ‘Three Brothers’ – as well as other notable talents, such as Corey Yuen and Yuen Wah.
The punishing regime at the respected school is well documented, with regular beatings from Master Yu Jim Yuen, as well as long days of repetitive training and tutoring in various forms of martial arts, as well as acting and singing. These were essential to the craft and performance of the then-dying tradition of Chinese Opera. Chan proved most adept at Hapkido, as well as learning classic kung-fu styles such as Shaolin and even Tae-Kwon Do. Seeing that this art form was no longer held in the public’s hearts, Master Yu Jim Yuen picked his finer students and found them work in film and television as child stars. These include Big And Little Wong Tin Bar, which also featured other members of the School’s Seven Little Fortunes, a troupe of the schools best performers.
Once his stay was over, Jackie, now aged 17, and strapping as well as handsome, found work as a stunt player. Blink and you’ll miss his very early appearances in Bruce Lee classics Enter The Dragon and Fist Of Fury. It wasn’t long before he attracted the attention of producers, and with the off-screen aid of long-time friend and producer Willie Chan, he appeared in 1978 movie Snake In The Eagles Shadow. It was clear that Chan was agile and extremely fast, but what shone through in his earliest films, including breakout classic Drunken Master, was his stunning ability for physical comedy. A thread he’d constantly play up to throughout his extensive career.
The 1980s saw his star not only eclipse that of the supposed heir to the Hong Kong action film god throne, Sammo Hung, but it also saw the west get a delicious taste of the action phenomenon, too. In Hong Kong and Japan, Chan was already a legend, and was an enormous presence on VHS. Whispers of this Hong Kong superstar reached Tinseltown. He took on the lead role in US picture The Protector, but didn’t enjoy his experience. The film featured, as Chan saw it, needless nudity and profanity. Disillusioned, after it proved to be the flop he feared, he returned to Hong Kong. He wouldn’t try his luck in Hollywood again until Brett Ratner helmed Kung-Fu buddy comedy Rush Hour in 1998.
The early to mid-80s saw a slight reversal of fortunes on home turf, too. Dragon Lord, a traditional kung-fu adventure with Chan as the cheeky but agile lead did badly. However, Chan understood the bad reaction and Box Office receipts wasn’t the public’s disillusionment with him; rather it was disillusionment with the tired and frankly dull narratives that Hong Kong had been trotting out for decades. So Chan resolved to devise a break from the cinematic norm. Penning and directing Project A, an absolute riot of action, comedy skits, and Three Brothers interplay, Chan helped to bring about a tremendous change in fortune and revive the story form on the Hong Kong screen.
The success of the movie proved that as well as his solo hits; Chan was not adverse to collaborations. Rather, he thrived on acting and playing with friends and close colleagues. The Lucky Stars series is a prime example. These featured the Three Brothers (admittedly Biao in cameo mode) with such comedy stars like Eric Tsang and Richard Woo (formerly Ng). A group of criminal misfits, headed by Hung, work alongside policeman and former orphanage housemate Chan to bring down heavy players in the Far East’s underworld. My Lucky Stars, instalment two, broke Box Office records.
Chan’s star never looked like dimming, even in the capricious hearts of the Far East cinema-going public. Chan knew what it took to keep them hooked, and his trademark astonishing stunts kept those tickets selling and picture house seats warm. He famously risked death by electrocution in Police Story, and almost met his maker again in the Indiana Jones inspired Armour Of God. A fairly simple stunt, one wall to another via a branch, saw Jackie plummet to the ground and whack his head on a rock. The branch broke under his hand and one trip to Accident & Emergency later and he was in emergency surgery. Chan has a metal plate in his skull from that scrape.
While still churning out a continuous stream of classic movies, Jackie also released albums and worked tirelessly for charity. By his own admission, he was brash and cocky when his star was first in the ascendency. He thought nothing of releasing details of his forthcoming marriage in the press and sporting the odd ingot of ‘bling’. But the suicides of two Japanese fans over his announced nuptials saw Chan retreat and think heavily. From that tragic point onwards, he more than raised his responsibility to the audience he played up to, and has kept his private life and family fiercely private since. Jackie works tirelessly for charity and stops for every fan’s request of a photo and autograph. This altruistic attitude, borne from his sense of loyalty to not only his fans but humanity as a whole, flows from the man in his work and extremely youthful outlook on life.
Professionally, though, Jackie Chan still wanted the western hit that would cement his star with molten gold. Brett Ratner, a confessed martial arts fanatic, thought he’d the perfect vehicle for Jackie’s Hollywood explosion. Teaming up with wise-cracking sharp-suited and fast-talking comedian Chris Tucker, Rush Hour was born. Chan plays Inspector Lee, a dedicated Chinese policeman loyal to the Chinese Consul, Han. When Han’s young daughter is kidnapped in the USA by secretive crime boss Juntao, Lee flies to help get back the little girl. Slick, wonderfully edited and directed, as well as having a cool script, Rush Hour gave Jackie not only a film he could be proud of, but also an American and worldwide Box Office hit. Although the franchise has run out of steam, Rush Hour 3 set in France proved to be stilted and lacklustre; Jackie was finally recognised by the ficklest of gilm buffs. Shanghai Noon, featuring Owen Wilson and Lucy Lui, kept the US hot streak running, as did the sequel.
Lately, however, Jackie has returned home for such films as Shinjuku Incident and Little Big Soldier, and to produce Wushu. He has also reached the level of being able to pre-title his movies, such as Jackie Chan’s The Myth, an effects-laden supernatural adventure. His son, Jaycee Chan, is also trying to carve a career for himself in film and music.
Jackie always had the desire to be a more serious actor and make physical comedy take a backseat, but as he approaches 58, Jackie shows no signs of stopping his exceptional career. As Hong Kong and China’s best loved action star since the legendary Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan’s career is enviable, and his accomplishments as a caring human being will long see his star pulse in the galaxy of film stars. JM
Relatively unknown outside of Japan, Shozin Fukui is an independent filmmaker who’s secured a small international cult fan base through his work in Japan’s extreme cyberpunk movement of the late-80s and ‘90s. However, the highly violent and sexual nature of his work has largely prevented him from ascending beyond the Japanese underground.
Fukui is an enigma of sorts. Little has been published about him, huge gaps are present in his filmography as he disappears, sometimes for years, to pursue other ambitions, and no-one is entirely sure as to how many films he has actually made. The Internet Movie Database, for example, lists only three, whereas other sources list up to ten, consisting of a mix of shorts and features.
Tokyo underground
Born in 1961, Fukui moved to Tokyo in the early 1980s where he got infatuated and involved with Japan’s booming punk scene, and started playing in his own punk band with friends. He also started to get involved in the underground filmmaking scene, a cue taken from underground director Sogo Ishii and his punk dystopian movie Burst City (1982).
After shooting promotional videos for various bands, Fukui made his first work of fiction Metal Days (1986), with members of his band and other friends performing cast and crew duties. Shot on 8mm and an hour in length, it was an ambitious effort from a group with zero filmmaking experience. Nevertheless, it got invited to be screened at a variety of university film festivals.
The same group of people then quickly turned out Gerorisuto (1986), a short film about a disturbed and possibly possessed young woman roaming the Tokyo subway and attacking office workers in the street. Plotless in the conventional sense, Gerorisuto is indebted to Fukui’s favourite film – Andrzej Zulawski’s art-horror opus Possession (1981) – and its notoriously prolonged vomiting set the precedent for Fukui’s future aesthetic obsession with bodily fluids.
From punk to cyberpunk
In 1988, Fukui worked as an assistant director for Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), a seminal film that not only became a flagship title for Japanese cyberpunk - detailing a businessman’s surreal transformation from human to mass of living scrap iron – but helped rejuvenate Japan’s film industry as a whole due to its international success. Fukui frequently plays down his role, maintaining that he merely “helped out a little,” as many crewmembers came and went during the lengthy production - a gruelling eighteen months of shooting that very few saw through to the end.
In tandem with Tetsuo’s production, Fukui set about directing another short. The result was Caterpillar (1988), a half-hour experimental film that saw Fukui moving towards cyberpunk imagery in a manner similar to Tsukamoto, featuring industrial locations, a malfunctioning cyborg/android and a hulking metallic ‘caterpillar’ that stalks characters (brought to life through stop-motion photography). Again, the film is more about imagery than conventional storytelling and sees Fukui finding his voice as a filmmaker.
Fukui worked again as an assistant director – fully fledged this time around – under the command of key underground filmmaker Sogo Ishii for his short Shiatsu Oja (1989). It was at this time when Fukui decided to make the leap from obscure short filmmaking and into features, and, by the beginning of the 1990s, he did exactly that.
When mental anguish exceeds physical pain
Fukui’s first feature, 964 Pinocchio (1991), is a culmination of everything that was explored in his previous short films – the kinetic, cyberpunk imagery of Caterpillar combined with the guerrilla style mania of Gerorisuto – made into a linear narrative about a man-turned-cyborg sex-slave being thrown out on the street by his owners. He meets a homeless girl and falls in love with her, regaining his memory of the evil corporation that wronged him in the process.
Reminiscent of the hyper-kinetic delivery of Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man and, again, partially indebted to Zulawski’s Possession, 964 Pinocchio (also known as Screams Of Blasphemy in some territories) became a minor cult sensation as international eyes were starting to look eastward. Intrigued by Tetsuo and other similarly extreme films such as Takeshi Kitano’s Violent Cop (1989), cult audiences were blown away by the sheer madness unfolding on screen, as a hysterical Pinocchio runs through the streets – amidst genuine Tokyo onlookers – as he drags a huge wedge of scrap metal chained to his person.
Fukui’s second and arguably best feature, Rubber’s Lover (1996) continues his exploration into cyberpunk territory, and took almost half a decade to gestate and execute. The zaniness of his first feature was reigned in and replaced with a stronger narrative and a claustrophobic intensity, realised in harrowing monochrome. The film’s depiction of clandestine experiments (reminiscent of David Cronenberg) into the potential of psychic powers not only made for a wildly violent and surreal cinematic nightmare but best encapsulated Fukui’s personal ethos of true power only being awakened when “mental anguish exceeds physical pain.”
Move to video
Like 964 Pinochhio, Rubber’s Lover became a hit in underground film circles and even got its own video release. However, at the height of his success and fame, Fukui abandoned filmmaking and joined a video production company. He worked there for the next ten years, producing visual work for businesses.
Things start to become unclear at this point. After his stint in the video industry, Fukui returned to making his own independent films. His official comeback film is largely acknowledged to be The Hiding (2008) but there are supposedly two other works completed before this. Den-Sen (2006) and Derenai (2007), the latter of which is an alternate director’s cut of a horror film called Onne (2006) that came before - all have had virtually no exposure outside Japan. However, it’s possible that these were pieces Fukui produced for the video company he worked for.
The story of an agoraphobic woman held prisoner in her own home, The Hiding disposed of the cyberpunk imagery that made Fukui infamous but continued his thematic exploration of the fragile and volatile nature of mental state. Shot on DV as opposed to film, The Hiding bares visual similarities to low-key work such as Visitor Q (Takashi Miike, 2001). However, Fukui’s follow-up project has taken him back to more familiar ground.
S-94 (2009) features the same industrial monochrome aesthetic that shaped the claustrophobic nightmare that was Rubber’s Lover. Set in a post-apocalyptic future where a virus has brought humankind to the brink of extinction, the half-hour short charts the violent collapse of two female survivors as they fight for the affections of a male survivor who arrives at their shelter. It’s the test run for a possible feature film (Fukui’s third) exploring similar territory, which may come about in the next couple of years.
The works of Shozin Fukui whilst haphazard, uneven and borderline unfathomable, provide a sensory experience that very few filmmaker’s are able to achieve, particularly with his two features. Themes and visuals frequently supersede plot, character development and sometimes logic, which is sometimes misinterpreted as being merely amateurish, but makes for a wild ride. His films are raw, experimental and filled with primal emotion, and although it’s debatable whether his work can be considered art or just a string of exploitative shocks (it’s probably a combination of the two), it’s twisted and intriguing independent cinema nonetheless. MP
Filmography:
2009 S-94
2008 The Hiding
2007 Derenai (?)
2006 Den-Sen (?)
1996 Rubber’s Lover
1991 964 Pinocchio
1988 Caterpillar
1986 Gerorisuto
1986 Metal Days
Arguably one of the most important and influential figures in contemporary Japanese cinema, Shinya Tsukamoto is a director, actor, writer, editor and cinematographer best known for his groundbreaking Tetsuo movies of the late-80s and early-90s.
Since his feature film debut Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Tsukamoto has gone on to garner worldwide critical acclaim and a huge cult following, whilst being one of the first to spearhead the now popular extreme Asian cinema trend of the 1990s and 2000s.
Born on New Year’s Day 1960 in Tokyo, Japan, Tsukamoto’s interest in filmmaking began during his school days in the 1970s, producing 8mm movies with friends and presenting them in class. After a brief dalliance in theatre during his time at university, Tsukamoto returned to filmmaking by the mid-80s with short films The Phantom Of Regular Size (1986) and The Adventure Of Denchu Kozo (1987); the former – a blueprint for Tetsuo: The Iron Man that followed a few years later; the latter – a film based on one of Tsukamoto’s stage plays. Tsukamoto’s films, with a couple of exceptions, are set in his home city of Tokyo; with whom he has a complicated relationship: “It’s strange,” Tsukamoto has mused in the past, “part of me loves a city like Tokyo, but part of me would quite happily destroy it.”
Monster metamorphosis
When Tsukamoto’s official debut Tetsuo: The Iron Man took international audiences by surprise with its low-fi, hyper-visceral imagery, it became a cornerstone genre text and the centrepiece of Japan’s short lived extreme cyberpunk movement of the late-80s and 1990s. It also served as an effective manifesto for Tsukamoto that laid out many of the themes, conventions and obsessions that went on to return in many of his subsequent works; chiefly: the identity threatening force of the urban metropolis and modernity’s potential for dehumanisation, as well as abject psychosexual exploration reminiscent of venereal horror originator David Cronenberg. The film’s slowly transforming protagonist (Tomorowo Taguchi’s salaryman turning into a super-powered scrap-metal monstrosity) is comparable to the Canadian director’s remake of The Fly (1986).
Tsukamoto’s penchant for the frenetic, visceral assault that was slowly making its way from festival to festival had all but disappeared completely by his sophomore follow-up Hiruko The Goblin (1990); an adaptation of two storylines from Daijiro Moroboshi’s manga series Yokai Hantra (Demon Hunter). It’s similarities to the more tongue-in-cheek style splatter movies of Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Evil Dead II ) and early Peter Jackson (Bad Taste, Meet The Feebles) stands it as a strange exception to Tsukamoto’s otherwise thematically unified filmography, and, as a result, is frequently considered the director’s weakest effort by his followers. It’s also the first of two studio commissioned films in the Tsukamoto catalogue (as well as moving away from the sprawl of Tokyo) with the rest being independently financed.
Hiruko The Goblin’s existence was largely the result of studio reluctance to bank roll a second Tetsuo film, which surfaced through independent means a couple of years later. Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) was essentially a re-imagining of the ideas put forward in the first Tetsuo film, making it more of a companion piece rather than a straight sequel. Once again, Tomorowo Taguchi’s salaryman transforms into a metal monster and does battle with the film’s equally metallic antagonist (played again by Tsukamoto). The results are less immediate and lack the bizarre, visceral coherency of the first movie in favour of a more accessible narrative structure.
Rage in the city
Tsukamoto’s filmmaking began to shy away from the science fiction/horror iconography that had characterised it so far in favour of more mature visions that still retained the director’s thematic concerns – the symbiosis of city and citizen – and the hyper-kinetic presentation of said material. Tsukamoto’s films Tokyo Fist (1995) and Bullet Ballet (1998) continued his exploration of the body transformed by rage, albeit only figuratively as opposed to the literal metamorphosis in the Tetsuo films. However, his last film of the 1990s Gemini – his only other ‘director-for-hire’ work – moved away from the contemporary cityscape and explored Tsukamoto’s staple concerns in a period countryside setting. Based on a story by Edogawa Ranpo (one of Tsukamoto’s favourite authors), Gemini revolves around a destitute peasant stealing the identity of his estranged twin brother who is the town’s highly respected and successful doctor. The film serves as a transitional piece in the Tsukamoto filmography.
The body fantastic
At the turn of the century, Tsukamoto returned, not only to independent filmmaking but to the domineering metropolis of Tokyo with psychosexual drama A Snake Of June (2002). A Snake Of June harks back to the monochromatic invasiveness of past work such as Tetsuo and Bullet Ballet, whilst simultaneously suggesting Tsukamoto’s future output – abandoning visceral violence in favour of a more psychological study of the pure body, free of transformation - although Tsukamoto’s recurring theme of transcendence remains. This updated manifesto continued through to his next feature Vital (2004), which again obsesses over the human flesh and the consciousness contained within.
Return to horror
After contributing a short twenty minute work to multi-segmented Japanese film Female (2005), Tsukamoto returned to the horror genre with the short feature Haze (2005) – a film about a wounded man (played by Tsukamoto) trapped in a abstract labyrinth based on the multiple layers of hell – along with Nightmare Detective (2006) – a police procedural about a suicide case and alternate realities. It was followed by a sequel; Nightmare Detective 2 (2008), which continues the story with Tsukamoto stating that he plans on making the series a trilogy.
In the meantime, though, after seventeen years, Tsukamoto has returned to the world of Tetsuo with a third outing. Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009) is an American co-production, and Tsukamoto’s first English language film, although still set in Japan. An American living in Japan with a Japanese family is provoked into transformation when his young son is killed by a hit and run driver. An American version of Tetsuo had been talked about for years; at one point a co-directorship between Tsukamoto and Quentin Tarantino was considered back in the mid-90s but failed to materialise. This incarnation has been seen as a compromise of sorts; making it more accessible to a world audience whilst retaining a modicum of integrity. The film premiered at the Venice film festival last year but has yet to appear in either the UK or USA – presumably the film’s main target audience.
Like David Cronenberg, Shinya Tsukamoto has developed an intrinsic, unified body of corporeal work where each film is simultaneously a similar yet differing exploration of a core nexus of recurring themes. By performing most of the key roles himself – directing, writing, editing, producing etc., as well as acting in many of his and other people’s films (Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer, for example) – Tsukamoto’s films feel very immediate and personal, with each one feeling like a labour of love, with possible exception to his infrequent studio efforts - although these never feel calculated or hollow. Staying fiercely independent, despite his expanding worldwide following, Tsukamoto’s uncompromising style has helped pave the way for contemporary Japanese cinema’s international breakthrough. MP
Filmography:
2009 Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
2008 Nightmare Detective 2
2006 Nightmare Detective
2005 Haze
2005 Female (‘Tamamushi’ segment)
2004 Vital
2002 A Snake of June
1999 Gemini
1998 Bullet Ballet
1995 Tokyo Fist
1992 Tetsuo II: Body Hammer
1990 Hiruko the Goblin
1989 Tetsuo: The Iron Man
1987 The Adventure of Denchu Kozo
1986 The Phantom of Regular Size
Recommended reading:
Iron Man – The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto, Tom Mes, 2005, FAB Press
Sammo Hung is one of the most prolific stars/innovators/directors/martial arts choreographers in this history of Eastern cinema. Known more for his impressive fighting skills that belie his girth and his adept hand at comedy, his path to cinematic success was perhaps not so surprising. Born in Jiangsu province on 2nd January 1952, young Sammo came from a family of film workers and is the grandson of a celebrated actress. His mother was a movie art director.
As a child, young Sammo - his stage name is a nickname taken from a cartoon character popular at the time (literally translated it means three hairs) – was, by his own admission, a truant and a street kid, something of a bully. Directionless and hard to control, he was signed up for a stay of seven years at the Peking Opera School under the tutelage of Sifu Yu Jim Yuen to learn the practicalities of Chinese opera. This was a blessing for Sammo, who harboured a dream of acting, as his workaholic parents were busy and the grandparents rearing him were getting desperate at his antics.
Excelling at the strict discipline imposed, he headed a team called the Seven Little Fortunes, which also comprised schoolmates Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. The conditions were hard, and much has been written about the often brutal regime. Sammo said: “We had to sign an agreement, a contact for seven years. On the third day after I signed it, I started to regret it, because the master beat the hell out of me. We were once made to do a handstand on a stool placed on a table. We did for an hour and a half.” Sammo and the other students terrible lives were immortalised on screen in his film Painted Faces. The movie does not shy away from the beatings and conditions they lived in, as they were trained for long hours each day in stage combat, acrobatics, singing and dance.
A broken ankle as a teenager saw him unable to train and he packed on a lot of weight, which he was forever unable to shift. Before his apprenticeship in film truly began, he received that trademark scar on his top lip. If you look carefully, its part of a circle that goes into his right cheek, a remnant of a broken coke bottle shoved into his face outside a Kowloon nightclub by a gangster who disliked Sammo’s acrobatics on the dance floor.
Once free of his contract with the school, Sammo set his sharp sights on a career in film and became an apprentice at 16 years of age. Starting out on screen as a hefty stuntman and ‘heavy’, he soon graduated to a credited extra. His first supporting role of note was in A Touch Of Zen, cited as possibly the first Chinese fight flick to garner international acclaim. This helped Sammo gain a contract with Golden Harvest, one of the most venerated studios in Eastern cinema. He was charged with staging fights in 1971 film The Fast Sword. He stayed with Golden Harvest until 1989. By now his name was growing and his professionalism and sharp uptake of the techniques of filmmaking was also proving him a reliable addition to a film set off-camera.
After a minor altercation with the late great Bruce Lee, the men became friends. Bruce asked Sammo to appear in Enter The Dragon, 1973. Sammo is the poor chubby fellow getting a kicking in the opening scene. This association with the Lee legacy continued as Sammo choreographed and appeared in Game Of Death (what was to have been Bruce’s next big screen project) and also worked with his daughter, Shannon Lee, in an episode of CBS show Martial Law.
Hapkido, 1972, gave Sammo a large supporting role alongside Angela Mao and Carter Wang. He plays a tempestuous young Hapkido student who cannot stay away from a challenge. He studied the martial art for the movie, a form of method acting he continued through his career, such as learning the art of nunchucks for Enter The Fat Dragon, a movie where he idolises the late Bruce Lee and does an impressive impersonation - other deft impersonations of Bruce can be seen in Skinny Tiger Fatty Dragon, a slightly disappointing film but still riotous amount of fun with Karl Maka, and Millionaires Express. Sammo’s character takes on a highly skilled Cynthia Rothrock and channels the late master to defeat her.
By now Sammo was moving out of the being the ‘bad guy’ supporting role into a ‘good guy’ and lead man. Iron Fisted Monk, 1977, saw Sammo’s official directorial debut. He plays a young man seeking vengeance against the oppressive Manchu’s over the death of his uncle. Taking himself to a Shaolin temple, he learns to fight to seek his revenge. The movie proved he had a good eye, knew how to frame a shot and pace a storyline. He also had the reputation of wanting realism in his fight scenes and made sure that actors actually did land the blows they threw.
Along with Enter The Fat Dragon, Sammo was seen to be the natural successor to Bruce Lee as Hong Kong cinema’s next big thing. But a young Jackie Chan put paid to that with his appearance in Drunken Master, and he went on to become the biggest star in Asia. Sammo, who’d made the classic Magnificent Butcher (a movie that used Drunken Master as a supporting character), was not bitter as they were students together back at the Peking Opera School. They decided current cinema was derivative of the old times and something new was needed, so they set out to work together. Along with the stunning physical ability of Yuen Biao, who Sammo introduced to the cinematic world in movies such as Knockabout, this triumvirate would be affectionately named the Three Brothers. Project A, Wheels On Meals and Dragons Forever, as well as The Lucky Stars series, would mark the Three Brothers’ screen endeavours. Each movie is credited as a modern classic, and the affection and seasoned interplay between them works like no other screen partnership had before.
A small falling out between Sammo and Jackie saw this profitable and box office smashing partnership end in bad feeling. Sammo continued to work with Yuen Biao in great pieces like Eastern Condors, and continue his own leading man career with a rash of comedies like Where’s Officer Tuba, Pantyhose Hero and Skinny Tiger Fatty Dragon. He also built up three movie companies of his own and took other projects on as action director. But as he stretched his talents, his movies took less at the box office. Looking back, Eastern Condors is credited as an absolute classic, a 1988 endeavour that sees a group of criminals dropped in Vietnam to retrieve a stashed arsenal. Yet, at the time, it got a lukewarm reception. His late-70s and early to mid-80s heyday was waning.
With his divorce in 1994 from his Korean wife and Peking Opera School sweetheart and mother of his four children, Sammo’s career had nosedived. The Chinese public do not look favourably on divorce, and the quick turnaround in marrying his new wife and Eastern Condors co-star Joyce Mina Godenzi saw him fall out of favour. Struggling to find work in an industry that once embraced him, and after a string of flops that included Don’t Give A Damn and The Pale Sky, he decided to relocate.
With Stanley Tong and the script help of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, a vehicle was built around our now middle-aged hero. Martial Law was set in Los Angeles and ran for two seasons between 1998-2000. A surprising hit in its first season, Sammo played a good hearted Shanghai police Captain who travels to the US to find his best detective, Grace Chen, played by the beautiful Kelly Hu. Some tweaking of the format saw him gain a partner in Arsenio Hall early in the run. Broadcast on CBS in a prime-time Saturday slot it exposed Hung to a new crop of potential fans and career opportunities. Although he struggled with the English, and was said to have recited some lines phonetically, he shone in the show with specially choreographed fight scenes to best display his skill. Obligatory outtakes at the end of each episode show his struggles with understanding and speaking the language, but also show a fun-loving respected character off-screen.
LA’s TV industry seemed to respect him in a way that Hong Kong once had. Even though a disastrous change of format made sure the second season was sadly the last, Sammo had broadened his range and fan base. The advent of DVD and downloading saw his once old dusty movies remastered, repackaged and sold around the world. His impressive physical skill, direction and natural ability as an actor won him new fans and deeper admiration.
Going back to China he found work again, working with the new wave of stars. Roles supporting Vanness Wu in Dragon Squad, Maggie Q in Three Kingdoms and his own Son Timmy Hung in Kung-Fu Chefs came fast. He has also worked with Wu Jing in Twins Mission and Fatal Move. But it’s his continuing relationship with the exploding star that is Donnie Yen that has seen Sammo happily back home and cemented. His choreography in modern classic Ip Man won him a Hong Kong Film Award. Also, he played a Triad boss in Wilson Yip’s acclaimed crime drama SPL (international title Kill Zone), his first foray into ‘bad guy’ territory for twenty-five years. This was the first chance to face off against Donnie Yen on screen in a whirlwind of Brazilian Jujitsu, a satisfying final fight reel that showed a man in his mid-fifties could still dance with the younger crop.
His re-emergence however was stilted after emergency heart surgery in early 2009. Making a recovery he worked on Ip Man 2, even taking another role opposite Donnie Yen. With a slew of projects in the pipeline it’s good to see the greatest exponent of Hong Kong cinema back on the cusp of the cutting edge. JM
