Agreement:79% of 250 voters agree with Jeffrey Frawley's reviews Gender: Male Age: 50 Location: Potomac, Maryland, USA Lists:WISH LIST (15) / OWNED LIST (387)
Bio: I like Asian film more than is good for me. Golden Harvest is good, but Shaw Brothers holds a special attraction, particularly Chang Cheh, with Ti Lung or the Venoms, or Lau Kar Leung, with or without his brothers. I'm learning more about South Korea, and find it the best cinema of the past two decades. Thai film is entertaining, but I don't have the critical apparatus to go beyond "That elbow strike was cool!"
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New Police Story (product link) Action/Adventure / Martial Arts Those expecting a continuation of the highly successful "Police Story" series will feel short-changed, but this is a pretty good film if one can get past those genre expectations. It has much more in common with "Crime Story", also from Jackie Chan, than the "Police Story" series.
Chan plays a veteran hotshot police detective whose bravado led to the death of his previous team and his own descent into shame and abject alcoholism. Now he finds himself facing the same master criminals with a new, smaller group.
Nicholas Tse is a less dominant presence than Jackie Chan, and the other co-stars are less prominent still. That is the weakness of much late-period Jackie Chan cinema: he is much too large an eminence for the balance of the films. When the spotlight leaves him, it finds very little of interest.
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I love this movie! And you're right, don't think of it as PS flick. Cuz in many ways it's not. It is however, better than the pile that is First Strike!
After Police Story 4 (first strike) we did not really need to reboot the franshice. The film downfalls due to it's cliche buddy cop films & no thrill attitudes among the stars.
Snake In The Eagle's Shadow (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure This is essentially the prototype of Jackie Chan's marvelous "Drunken Master", minus the drunken fairy styles, plus cat kung fu.
A mischievous boy is forced to protect his family and friends from the master of the Eagle Claw style. Through hard work and the inspiration of seeing a house cat fighting a snake, he develops a new style.
The training sequences are not quite so good as those in "Drunken Master", but the stunts and the originality of the fight choreography are at the same high level. Jackie Chan and Yuen Wo Ping made a much better team than JC and Lo Wei.
Drunken Master (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure This is a very great film. If one thinks of the quintessential early-stage Jackie Chan film, this is it, although it is much better than all but a handful of his work from that period. He plays the young Wong Fei Hung as a mischievous boy forced to grow into his great potential. The training sequences and stunts are amazingly good.
Once Upon A Time In America (product link) Crime / Drama Sergio Leone made at least three masterpieces: "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly", "Once Upon A Time In The West", and this. This is better than the others--more psychologically deep, more excellently scored, and much, much better acted. In its initial U.S. release, this great film was absolutely castrated: restructured into a much shorter chronological sequence rather than moving back and forth in time, and leaving out the introductions, youth, adulthood, and deaths of important characters.
This is not a film to approach literally: it is Noodles Aaronson's (Robert De Niro's character) story told as he knows it, remembers it, or thinks it was. I can't say what "really" happened. Neither can Noodles. Do not step away from the picture or turn it off before the final image: it is important. I think I may know what really happened, but maybe not.
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No & yes. The film does have it's unforgettable moments but due to the fact I felt a little short handed by the ending. I felt it ended when they crashed the car.
And do not forget to mention Leone's " Duck, You Sucker" which is originally apart of his "American trilogy". I agree with your review. This is one of those films that will stay with the viewer forever.
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (product link) Western / Action/Adventure Perhaps this film is too long, and tells too many stories, and is full of unnecessary scenes. Perhaps not. It is a grand, panoramic view of a three-way battle for money in the midst of a devastating Civil War, filmed beautifully in a Spain substituting for eastern New Mexico. Some amateur historians have quibbled that the American Civil War never reached so far west of the Mississippi River. Actually it did, but not in such a large fashion as shown here. That's not the only anachronism: note how many of the soldiers of fortune in 1861-65 use cartridge revolvers, which were not introduced until 1869, or widespread until the invention of the Colt Model 1873 (in 1873, as you might expect). This is not history, but a tour of the inside of Sergio Leone's imagination. It is grand.
For A Few Dollars More (product link) Western / Action/Adventure I didn't really "get" "Fistful Of Dollars" when I saw the "Dollars" trilogy at the age of eight or nine (although I came around before long). This is the film that grabbed my attention. While the budget was still quite low, it was a huge improvement over the first film, and there is some improvement in the supporting cast. Gian Maria Volante, so good as Ramon Rojo--the principal villain in "Fistful Of Dollars", is better as El Indio--the principal villain in "For A Few Dollars More". Lee Van Cleef is a very welcome addition as Colonel Mortimer--taciturn and efficient as his character, Angel Eyes, in the succeeding "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly", but a very different kind of man: seeking retribution, not a cashbox.
Fistful Of Dollars (product link) Western / Action/Adventure An unacknowledged remake/rehash of Akira Kurosawa's great "Yojimbo", this film from Sergio Leone was made on too small a budget to afford better supporting actors or scene coverage, but Clint Eastwood soared to superstardom on his own charisma and Sergio Leone's sense of drama. Each of the pseudo-sequels is better than the last, but this is still pretty good.
The Fearless Hyena Collection [2-Disc Set] (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure Part 1 is a first-rate bildungsroman-train hard and take revenge story, showing Jackie Chan's genius-level originality and flexibility. Part 2 is an insulting hodgepodge of outtakes compiled by producer-director Lo Wei to cash in on the superstar he had driven away. There's a reason Jackie Chan left these bits out of the first movie: they're not good enough.
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5 stars for Fearless Hyena 1. But for the whole collection it's just not worth it if the second film is there.
Lo Wei was pissed Jackie finally left and used everything he could find from Jackies earlier four films. Do yourself a favor and never watch the second side.
Empire Of The Wolves (product link) Action/Adventure / Thriller This is not really a good story or one which holds up to logical dissection, but it is nearly buoyed up by Jean Reno's charisma and enthusiasm. With a different lead, my rating would probably drop by at least 1.5 stars. A retired police officer is drawn into the investigation of a triple murder with dark sociopolitical connections. Of course he is completely outmatched, or so it would seem. This is Jean Reno, you know! He is tall, tough, loud and persistent. The ultra-nationalist Turks he faces are less tall, tough, loud and persistent: This is a French film, starring the (currently) French Jean Reno, so there you go.
Dr. Wai In The Scripture With No Words (product link) Martial Arts / Fantasy This is a fairly uninteresting misfire. Jet Li is miscast as a passive loser of a pulp writer whose stories and fantasies are played out by the mysterious Dr. Wai, his alter ego and fantasy fulfillment--also (of course) played by the much better cast Jet Li. There's not enough story to tell one story, much less two. Jet Li has been in other bad films, but his unfocused performance in this one is more embarrassing than his better turns in even worse films such as "The Master".
Cinema Of Vengeance (product link) Documentary / Martial Arts This is a very good one-disc summary of martial arts cinema. It is impossible to be inclusive at that length, but it is a good attempt which whets the appetite and fills in a few of the blanks in the Western understanding of the genre.
This film tries to accomplish much, often fails, and remains an exhilarating experience.
Samuel Le Bihan plays a forward-thinking adventurer more enthralled by the Age of Reason than the fearful villagers he encounters when sent to uncover the secret of terrible maulings from an unknown beast; Mark Dacascos gives a better acting performance than one usually expects from him as the Iroquois warrior with whom he has sworn brotherhood; Vincent Cassel is marvelously cast as a dissolute and mysterious man; Monica Bellucci is stunningly beautiful and hardly called upon to do anything else.
One may rightly wonder how an Iroquois and an 18th Century Frenchman are supposed to have developed such cool southern Chinese wushu, but the action choreography by Philip Kwok/Kuo Chui/Lizard Venom is quite fun. Eventually, mysterious events must be explained, and one might feel short-changed: Overall, the film is still pretty good.
The Dead Pool (product link) Crime / Thriller In "The Dead Pool" Harry is no longer up against pure evil (1), fascism (2), greed (3), or vengeance (4): now it's decadence and envy. Well-known people whose names appear on a "dead list", a series of bets on which celebrity will be the next to die, are being helped along, and Harry's name is now on the list. He sets things right with a VERY big gun. The character has sunk as low as is possible, and thankfully this is the end.
Sudden Impact (product link) Crime / Thriller In "Sudden Impact" Harry comes up against low life small town rapists and murderers who, inconveniently, are being picked off by someone else. Hey, no fair! He solves the case, but where does justice lie? His answer is very different from what it would be in the first three films.
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Clint's girlfiend need a job... hey, let's make Sudden Impact!
This film is a rip-off of Kiss Of Death, and old Shaw Brothers. In Kiss Of Death, the female stabbs her victims balls. In this one the female blows them off.
The Enforcer (product link) Crime / Thriller In "The Enforcer" Harry is teamed up with a tough, earnest, and stupid female partner and goes up against seeming Maoist domestic terrorists who turn out to be old-fashioned apolitical thieves.
Magnum Force (product link) Crime / Thriller In "Magnum Force" Harry goes up against a neo-fascist death squad. No, he seems to be telling the audience, we don't need to go THAT far. Just enforce the laws fairly.
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I think this was the filmmakers somewhat compromising response to the leftwing backlash that followed the first movie. But a decent film, nonetheless!
Dirty Harry (product link) Crime / Thriller "Dirty Harry" is a believable investigation of a San Francisco police inspector hogtied by civil liberties regulations when he KNOWS who the bad guy is.
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I wish every cop was like Harry Callahan. And Andy Robinson is creepy as fuck!
Born To Defence (product link) Action/Adventure / Martial Arts This is Jet Li's debut and (so far) single instance of directing a film, although he has been at one level or another of producing many of his films. He tells a simplistic story of good, small Chinese being manhandled by crude, huge, ugly Americans until one strong, hardened Chinese war veteran beats the hell out of Americans in and out of the boxing ring. The fight choreography is good. The script and direction are not.
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Agreed, it could have been much better. As an ex-military policeman, unfortunately soldiers do tend to think they could get away with anything in host countries. That part of the film is more realistic than most people know.
All five Dirty Harry films are presented from clean prints with generous commentaries and adequate extra features. With each new film, the series declines in believability, quality, and relevance.
1. "Dirty Harry" is a believable investigation of a San Francisco police inspector hogtied by civil liberties regulations when he KNOWS who the bad guy is. ***** five stars
2. In "Magnum Force" Harry goes up against a neo-fascist death squad. No, he seems to be telling the audience, we don't need to go THAT far. Just enforce the laws fairly. ****1/2 four and a half stars
3. In "The Enforcer" Harry is teamed up with a tough, earnest, and stupid female partner and goes up against seeming Maoist domestic terrorists who turn out to be old-fashioned apolitical thieves. **** four stars
4. In "Sudden Impact" Harry comes up against low life small town rapists and murderers who, inconveniently, are being picked off by someone else. Hey, no fair! He solves the case, but where does justice lie? His answer is very different from what it would be in the first three films. ***1/2 three and a half stars
5. In "The Dead Pool" Harry is no longer up against pure evil (1), fascism (2), greed (3), or vengeance (4): now it's decadence and envy. Well-known people whose names appear on a "dead list", a series of bets on which celebrity will be the next to die, are being helped along, and Harry's name is now on the list. He sets things right with a VERY big gun. The character has sunk as low as is possible, and thankfully this is the end. *** three stars
The Ballad Of Narayama [1983] (product link) Drama The great Shohei Imamura presents a worthy remake of Keisuke Kinoshita's 1958 masterpiece. Tastes vary, and some prefer the original, but I find the performances in the later film just as good and the cinematography better than the original. Ken Ogata plays a devoted son whose mother has come nearly to the age of 70, when the elderly are left to die on Mount Nara. Still vital, the elderly lady insists that her son follow the village rule--but first she must prepare him to go on and have a happy marriage: she must first find him a wife, and there is little time.
Ballad Of Narayama [1958] (product link) Drama Any review of this film is necessarily a spoiler. Here goes. Watch out if you need to.
The great Kinuyo Tanaka gives a marvelous performance as an elderly woman compelling her loving son to fulfill their community's tradition of leaving the old atop Mount Nara, so the young can live unencumbered by caring for their parents and grandparents. It is a harsh tradition--perhaps inexcusable to modern sensibilities--but it is their way. The mother loves her son too much to let him break the rule of their village.
Vengeance Is Mine [1979] (product link) Drama / Thriller Ken Ogata is stunning in the role of a Japanese serial killer whose rampage is long beyond his or the authorities' control. In the end, there is a partial explanation of his mania. There are many people like him.
Black Mask 2 (product link) Action/Adventure / Martial Arts A very inferior cashing in on the good Jet Li film, "Black Mask. Jet Li, Lau Ching Wan, and Karen Mok are sorely missed, and the WWF wrestlers making up the bulk of the cast are fairly incompetent.
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Dreadful! The name should not have been allowed to use "Black Mask"! Don't buy this one - get the original "Black Mask" with Jet.
Black Mask (product link) Action/Adventure / Science Fiction This is not Jet Li's finest film, but those only familiar with the American hip-hop-ified cut are missing out on a fairly good, very entertaining show. Jet Li plays a former member of a band of surgically-altered special forces troops, now employed as a librarian, defending Hong Kong against his former comrades and tentatively romancing his co-worker, played by Karen Mok. There's too much wirework, but the picture moves along at a good pace.
The Fearless Hyena (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure Jackie Chan's directorial debut is nearly as good as the just-finished "Drunken Master": an extraordinary showcase of his training and ability, wrapped around a very good story--the creation of "Emotional Kung Fu" through necessity and inspiration. Chan may never again have had such a physically-adept leading man in his self-directions. He was young, phenomenally limber, and extremely innovative in his ideas for action bits.
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Fantastic Movie! One of those that seems to have been overlooked. One of the best to showcase his skills and abilities.
a four from me, but you are right, this movie people are sleeping on. Nonetheless, I think that if Jackie were to do this movie over, I think he would do it better, actually.
Danny The Dog (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure First rate English language work from Jet Li. He had to wait for French producers filming in Glasgow. He plays a mentally-stunted physical adept working as an enforcer for a vile loan shark (played by Bob Hoskins), isolated from civilization and adult thought until he is drawn into normal life and forced to fight to protect his new family. The action has a real-world immediacy and practicality I have seen in none of Li's previous work, and the quality of his co-stars is much higher than what he has previously endured in the West.
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Horrible, self-indugled piece of butt. Completely boring with an incredulous story. The list goes on.
I like Anthony Anderson: occasionally, now, but not in this heap of garbage.
I like Tom Arnold: never, ever, under any circumstances.
Once again, Joel Silver has taken Jet Li's Beijing-style wushu and forced it down the throats of the American public, interspersed with third-rate hip-hop and tenth-rate writing. Jet Li is marvelous to watch, even in trash: this is trash.
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I think my review has more effect because of the AIDS comment but yes this garbage but should of been a zero rating.
Heart Of Dragon (product link) Drama / Martial Arts A change of pace for Sammo Hung (who directed and co-stars) and Jackie Chan, playing a seriously retarded young man and his police officer younger brother, respectively. Sammo is quite good as a good-hearted eternal child who accidentally comes into possession of stolen property; Jackie is excellent as the hard-charging cop who has nearly reached his limit of sacrificing for his retarded older brother. Some people say this film is transparently sentimental, but I like it very well.
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I like it too but was beginning to be a bit depressed as the film was ending. Sammo played a developmentally disabled adult with sensitivity and innocence..
Kiss Of The Dragon (product link) Action/Adventure / Martial Arts No, this isn't as good as Jet Li's best Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong films, but it is several steps up from the English language garbage he had been offered in the United States. I thought this was an anomaly until he was in the even better "Danny The Dog"/"Unleashed". Li plays a Mainland Chinese security agent sent to Paris to assist in the arraignment of a Chinese gangster, set up as the patsy in a double cross, and forced to defend himself and prove his innocence against huge odds.
Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman [1989] (product link) Martial Arts / Drama Shintaro Katsu closed out his powerful string of "Zatoichi" films with one of the best. He was in his early thirties when he began the series, playing a humble but deadly blind masseur who felt for the downtrodden and was consistently disappointed with human mendacity and cruelty. In the early films, Ichi was open to love and the idea of settling down in a world free of the Yakuza, but was continuously drawn back into the martial world. As the character and actor grew older (Shintaro Katsu was approximately 57 at the time of this final movie), the stories became increasingly pessimistic: there was no place in normal life for Ichi, who must keep on trudging from town to town with no love, friends, or hope of respite. This is a dark and cheerless film, but a very well made one.
Roningai (product link) Swordplay/Sword(s) / Drama Most of the actors give extraordinary performances in this excellent film. Shintaro Katsu, in his final substantive film appearance, is a bloated, dissipated samurai fallen to the level of ronin or even lower--a hired sword who has nearly forgotten virtue. Other than having some skill with the sword, his character is very far from Katsu's signature character, Zatoichi. Yoshio Harada, who was often called upon to do no more than display machismo and confidence, gives a nuanced performance as a swordsman uncertain of ambition and his place in the world. Kazuo Kuroki's tribute to the legendary director Shozo Makino is a very successful effort.
Hanzo The Razor [3-Movie Set] (product link) Action/Adventure / Swordplay/Sword(s) Disreputable fun from Shintaro Katsu. Hanzo The Razor is a very different fellow from Zatoichi: nearly as good with the sword, and packing another longarm which is nearly as dangerous. If one were to take the plots of the first two films seriously, they would be truly disgraceful. Within these surreally violent stories, intolerable behavior is no big deal. Hanzo is a scrupulously honest but perverted and sadistic police officer in the late Tokugawa period. All around him are people who need to be disciplined and chastised, and he is glad to be of service.
Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure Tony Jaa made a thundering entrance to martial arts superstardom with this low-budget, slightly rough-around-the-edges masterpiece. I am tempted to give it five stars, but the choreography and cinematography of his subsequent films show he and the filmmakers were still developing into something great with this enjoyable film.
Ting is a backwoods orphan raised by the local monk to be a devout protector of his village and its sacred image of Buddha, the Ong-Bak. He must go to Bangkok to recover the Ong-Bak and save his village, which is rapidly declining without the protection of Buddha.
Perhaps this story is nothing but a framework on which to hang Tony Jaa's spectacular moves. That's all right. It's a delightful movie.
The Sword Of Doom (product link) Drama / Swordplay/Sword(s) Tatsuya Nakadai is magnificent as an unstable samurai whose sword style parallels his cruelty and ambition. This great film has marvelous acting and cinematography.
Red Lion (product link) Comedy / Drama Toshiro Mifune is quite good as a vulgar peasant who craves status and fame. Naive as he is, he still has heroic impulses and a good deal of ability, but events overtake him.
Kill! (product link) Action/Adventure / Swordplay/Sword(s) This may not be a grand expose of corruption and mendacity--or perhaps it is. It can be appreciated as a masterful samurai adventure or as social commentary. It works either way. Two itinerant swordsmen consider whether to involve themselves in local events: one wants to become a samurai, and the other has reasons to doubt the wisdom of such a course. Tatsuya Nakadai is my favorite Japanese actor, and he is dependably good in this film.
There are multiple spoilers, I suppose, so watch out.
Tom Laughlin later bastardized this masterpiece as "The Master Gunfighter", but it cannot be understood or transplanted outside of its own environment. A member of a samurai clan has abandoned his family and friends after the clan stole government gold and massacred a village to cover its tracks. Bereft of his property and status, he makes his living as a carnival trick swordsman, but he is made aware that there is more government gold on the horizon, and that his former clan intends to repeat its previous outrages. Previously he identified himself as part of the clan; He has recreated his life as a low class bum but never specifically opposed his former clan. Now he finds he must again recreate himself--as a man of conscience who fights for justice, rather than clan loyalty or greed.
This is one of the handful of Hideo Gosha's masterpieces and a clear statement of his philosophy.
Hunter In The Dark (product link) Swordplay/Sword(s) / Action/Adventure Hideo Gosha put together an extraordinary cast in a thrilling tale of the yakuza. Tatsuya Nakadai's gang boss is as well crafted as the rest of his work, Tetsuro Tanba gives a strong performance, and Yoshio Harada one of the best performances from this early period of his career. I think Gosha had a deep suspicion of noble samurai and yakuza codes of conduct. Throughout his career, his heroes generally come to realize what beasts people are.
Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron [2-Disc Set] (product link) Action/Adventure / Swordplay/Sword(s) Hideo Gosha can be said to have had three periods in his career: revisionist Jidai-geki samurai tales, such as "Three Outlaw Samurai", "Sword of the Beast", "Hitokiri" (also known as "Tenchu"), and "Goyokin"; Yakuza tales, such as "The Wolves", "Hunter in the Dark", and "Onimasa"; and women with swords films, such as "Death Shadows". This falls into the gap between the first two genres: Yakuza vs. Samurai. I have not yet seen Tatsuya Nakadai give a bad performance, and he certainly does not in this exciting tale of a bandit leader with a secret targeting a samurai clan.
The New One-Armed Swordsman [3-Movie Set] (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure David Chiang, who is a better martial artist and a worse actor, takes the place of Jimmy Wang Yu as the new one-armed swordsman. His physical performance is better, but he cannot muster the dignity and emotion of the older actor. A proud warrior is humbled and mutilated, trains himself to be a better swordsman than before, protects others, and avenges himself. This is the same old story as before--slightly worse told, but still entertaining and worthy.
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3 1/2 is the correct rating. THe end fight with Chiang and a mess of people was great.
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