Drama

The Silver Emulsion Podcast: Ep. 158 – Macross Plus

This week on the Silver Emulsion Podcast, Stephen and I talk about one of Stephen’s favorites and the true sequel to Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Shoji Kawamori’s Macross Plus! Suit up for your test flight and enjoy! 🙂

Watch Macross Plus along with us on DVD (Parts 1 & 2, Parts 3 & 4)!

Also: the show is on iTunes! So if you feel like subscribing there, or rating/reviewing the show, feel free to share your thoughts!

Music Notes

Intro:

Rufus Thomas – Do the Funky Chicken
- Do The Funky Chicken (iTunes, Amazon)

Outro:

Yoko Kanno – After, in the Dark / Torch Song
- Macross Plus Original Soundtrack (Amazon)

If you’ve got feedback, throw it into the comments below or email it to me via the contact page! We’ll include it in a future show!

The podcast is embedded directly below this, or you can go directly to Podbean (or use their app) to listen. If you want to subscribe, paste http://silveremulsion.podbean.com/feed/ into whatever reader you’re using.

The Siamese Twins (1984)

The Siamese Twins [連體] (1984)

Starring Ida Chan Yuk-Lin, Michael Tong Chun-Chung, Tanny Tien Ni, Margaret Lee Din-Long, Robert Mak Tak-Law, Yueh Hua, Kwan Hoi-San, Leung Jun-Git, Fei Pak

Directed by Angela Mak Leng-Chi

Expectations: Moderate. Don’t really know what to expect.

The Siamese Twins tells the story of a college student, Po-Erh (Ida Chan Yuk-Lin), who returns to Hong Kong from Canada, and finds her mother less than satisfied at her return. It is implied that Po-Erh has been in Canada for quite a while (like more than just for college), but this is never explicitly stated. She has clearly never been close with her mother, though, and she doesn’t know where simple things like the telephone are located in her childhood home. Her old room is still set up with a crib and a bed for a young child, so I would guess that she left home sometime early during her elementary school years.

Why do I focus so much on her age when she left her parents? Well… because the movie asks us to believe that Po-Erh was born conjoined with her twin Bei-Erh, but has absolutely no memory of it at all. No brain damage is mentioned or anything that might explain memory loss, other than that the twins were connected at the head. I suppose it’s plausible that someone might forget the first few years of their memory after such a surgery, and I’m usually fine with suspending my disbelief for stuff like this, but as it was presented here it just seemed too far a stretch.

The Enchanting Shadow (1960)

The Enchanting Shadow [倩女幽魂] (1960)

Starring Chao Lei, Betty Loh Tih, Tong Yeuk-Ching, Yang Chi-Ching, Su Hsiang, Lee Kwan, Li Kuo-Hua, Lok Kei, Hao Li-Jen, Wong Yuet-Ting

Directed by Li Han-Hsiang

Expectations: I have high hopes.

The Enchanting Shadow is one of the true classics in Hong Kong horror, elevating the genre and inspiring filmmakers for years to come. It competed in the 1960 Cannes Film Festival — Fellini’s La Dolce Vita won that year — and it was submitted as Hong Kong’s entry for Best Foreign Film at the 33rd Academy Awards — it was not nominated and Bergman’s The Virgin Spring ultimately won. Li Han-Hsiang was a well-established director at this point in his career; the previous year his film The Kingdom and the Beauty was an award-winning success that remains one of the best Huangmei operas to be produced by the Shaw Studio. From what I could tell from HKMDB, The Enchanting Shadow was his first foray into the horror genre, and while it isn’t exactly what American audiences would recognize as a horror film, it is most certainly typical of the genre in Hong Kong.

The Enchanting Shadow is based on the story Nie Xiaoqian from Pu Songling’s classic 18th Century collection, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The same story — along with The Enchanting Shadow itself — served as the basis for the ’80s classic A Chinese Ghost Story. Like many of the stories in Pu’s collection, it is a tale of a scholar who gets involved with a ghost. In this particular case, Ning Caichen (Chao Lei) is a tax collector who needs a place to stay. All the inns are full, but he hears of Jinhua Temple, 10 miles north of town, and decides to stay there. He is warned that the temple is haunted, but he ignores this and stays there anyway. There he meets Yan Chixia (Yang Chi-Ching), a Taoist swordsman staying there, who lends some credence to the rumors of spirits haunting the temple.

The Enchanting Ghost (1970)

The Enchanting Ghost [鬼屋麗人] (1970)

Starring Chang Mei-Yao, Yang Li-Hua, Lui Ming, Lam Ban, Lee Hung, Julie Lee Chi-Lun, Sha Lee-Man, Ko Hsiang-Ting, Tsui Fu-Sheng, Tai Leung, Ko Hsiao-Pao, Ng Ho

Directed by Chou Hsu-Chiang

Expectations: Excited, I liked Chou’s The Bride from Hell.

Like last week’s film, The Ghost Story, The Enchanting Ghost falls into the category of Hong Kong horror with only minor elements of what usually defines a horror film. The Enchanting Ghost was also based on a story from Pu Songling’s 18th century collection of ghost stories and other assorted cautionary tales, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. This particular film is based on the story The Bookworm, for those interested in seeing how differently things play out in the two versions. As with most classic Hong Kong ghost films, your enjoyment of The Enchanting Ghost will depend on having properly set expectations for a slower pace and light supernatural elements. With that in mind, I thoroughly enjoyed The Enchanting Ghost from start to finish. It is a finely crafted film that definitely makes you wait for the ghostly happenings, but the journey towards them is also largely charming and entertaining.

Lang Yu Zhu (Yang Li-Hua, playing against gender as a male) is a scholar whose entire existence is consumed by his affection for learning and books. He doesn’t do much else, based in part on his particular love for a real-life poem by Emperor Zhenzong titled Quanxueshi (劝学诗). The poem is a love letter to studying, expressing that study can bring such things as fortunes, good harvests, and beautiful women. When we meet Lang, he is lovingly reciting these lines of the poem, and in a few short minutes he is given the chance to test the poem’s theories. Lang’s uncle covets his home, so he arranges with an official to seize it from Lang under the auspices of repaying the debt left by Lang’s father when he passed. Whether this debt is legitimate or not, Lang is thrown out into the street with nowhere to call home, so he decides to take up residence in the town’s derelict haunted house.

Pursuit of Vengeance (1977)

Pursuit of Vengeance [明月刀雪夜殲仇] (1977)
AKA Moonlight Blade: Vengeance on a Snowy Night (literal translation of Chinese title)

Starring Ti Lung, Lau Wing, Lo Lieh, Paul Chang Chung, Derek Yee, Shih Szu, Wai Wang, Ku Kuan-Chung, Cheng Miu, Yeung Chi-Hing, Ou-Yang Sha-Fei, Norman Chu Siu-Keung, Chen Ping, Lam Fai-Wong, Fan Mei-Sheng, Wa Lun, Chan Shen, Ngaai Fei, Yue Wing, Liu Wai, Stephan Yip Tin-Hang, Keung Hon, Wong Ching-Ho, Shum Lo, Bruce Tong Yim-Chaan, Jamie Luk Kim-Ming, Mama Hung

Directed by Chor Yuen

Expectations: High. Can Chor Yuen go five for five in 1977?

I expected to enjoy Pursuit of Vengeance, but the film surprised me and outdid every expectation I had for it. In researching the previous Chor Yuen films based on Gu Long’s Little Li Flying Dagger series (The Sentimental Swordsman & The Magic Blade), I read a basic plot synopsis of the novel that Pursuit of Vengeance is based on, Bordertown Prodigal (邊城浪子, Biancheng Langzi). It mentioned that the main characters, Ye Kai (Lau Wing) and Fu Hong-Xue (Ti Lung), both had love interests, and that the events of the book are what leads Fu to becoming the disillusioned, hard-boiled swordsman we see in The Magic Blade. So naturally I expected some sort of typical romantic storyline within the dangerous Chor Yuen martial world. The film is far removed from this, though, with nary a single love interest to be found. The film definitely does not need them, but because I was expecting it to figure in somewhere along the line, I spent the film looking for the seeds of this non-existent sub-plot and wound up admiring how cleverly plotted and perfectly paced the film is without it.

Like any good wuxia, Pursuit of Vengeance is full of twists that shouldn’t be revealed in wholesale by the likes of me. The Wan Ma clan is inviting swordsmen to their school, and they refuse to take no for an answer. When Fu Hong-Xue says he will not visit, the emissary for the clan says that he will remain there in the road, waiting for Fu’s acceptance, as long as it takes. Of course, this can’t be an innocent gesture, and Fu is too savvy to agree. Ye Kai is also invited, as are others, and it becomes clear that a specific group of people are being pulled together by the Wan Ma clan. What is their purpose? Who is in pursuit of vengeance? You’ll have to watch the movie! It’s too good for me to delve any deeper into the story, suffice it to say that many things are not what they seem and it will take our heroes’ every wit and sense to survive.

Foxbat (1977)

Foxbat [狐蝠] (1977)
AKA Operation Foxbat, Nato Code Name MIG-25

Starring Henry Silva, Vonetta McGee, Rik Van Nutter, Roy Chiao, James Yi Lui, Melvin Wong, Wong Hung, Nick Lam Wai-Kei, Phillip Chan Yan-Kin, Tong Chung-San

Directed by Po-Chih Leong

Expectations: High. I liked Jumping Ash, and this one’s on Blu-ray!

In 1976, Po-Chih Leong co-directed Jumping Ash, a film often cited as the beginning of the Hong Kong New Wave. The film was a big hit, and so the following year Leong made Foxbat. The film is interesting in many ways, perhaps most because it is a Hong Kong production shot in English and featuring an international cast. This sort of thing had been done prior by Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest, but those I’ve seen have all been co-productions with a Western-based film company. Foxbat was made fully independently, so it carries none of the baggage that studio-based co-productions generally have; it is a film with a singular vision executed with style and confidence. Like Jumping Ash it exhibits many hallmarks of the Hong Kong New Wave films, specifically a noted influence from European and American films, location shooting, and the multi-tonality that would come to define Hong Kong filmmaking during the ’80s and ’90s.

The story of Foxbat is based in current events of the time, taking the defection of Russian pilot Viktor Belenko as its jumping off point. On September 6, 1976, Belenko landed his MiG-25 Foxbat jet at the Hakodate Airport in Hokkaido, Japan. The film begins here as well, showing us the defection with scenes shot at the actual Hakodate Airport where it happened. From here the fiction begins, with multiple groups desiring the chance to study the Russian fighter jet. The CIA send Mike Saxon (Henry Silva), a James Bond-style operative, and he captures all the pertinent info via his photographic fake eye. He hides the film inside a candy so it can pass unsuspected through customs, but things get hairy when a goofy Chinese cook, Cheung (James Yi Lui) mistakenly eats the candy!

Chinatown Kid (1977)

Chinatown Kid [唐人街小子] (1977)
AKA Chinatown Kung Fu

Starring Alexander Fu Sheng, Sun Chien, Phillip Kwok Chun-Fung, Lo Meng, Jenny Tseng, Shirley Yu Sha-Li, Siu Yam-Yam, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, Yeung Chi-Hing, Wong Ching-Ho, Lo Dik, Chiang Nan, Yue Wing, Wang Han-Chen, Ku Kuan-Chung, Teresa Ha Ping, Kara Hui, Tsai Hung, Wong Lik, Chiang Sheng, Dick Wei, Wang Ching-Liang, Jamie Luk Kim-Ming, Lu Feng, Chin Chun

Directed by Chang Cheh

Expectations: Interested to finally see the longer cut.

Chinatown Kid is a great Chang Cheh film with a strong following, but it’s one of the few films that had a restoration tarnish its legacy. The story goes that when Celestial went to their Shaw archives to remaster Chinatown Kid, the only print they found was an alternate version that was much shorter, featuring re-shot scenes and a unique ending. This was back in the early 2000s, so at this point, nearly 20 years later, it’s probably safe to say that this shorter version is the only one that will ever be officially released by Celestial. It’s unfortunate because it’s almost assuredly not Chang Cheh’s original cut, but it is better than nothing. For this review, I watched the film twice: once with Celestial’s shorter version (which I’ve seen before), and once with the Venomsfan custom edit that combines a full-length VHS with a couple of extra scenes only found in the Celestial cut.

The story remains fairly constant across the two versions. Tang Dong (Alexander Fu Sheng) is an illegal immigrant who has just arrived in Hong Kong to help his aging grandpa. Finding a job is a struggle without a Hong Kong ID card, but Tang Dong is resourceful, street smart, and willing to work hard to make ends meet. He is largely driven by a materialistic desire to have cool stuff (like a digital watch), but he’s a nice guy at heart. Meanwhile in Taiwan, Yang Jian Wen (Sun Chien, in his debut role) has just returned home from two years service in the army. He shares Tang Dong’s willingness to work hard for his goals, but his family isn’t poor, and he is more book smart and responsible. Both characters end up in San Francisco by very different means (one studying abroad, the other running from the law), and they quickly befriend one another while working at a restaurant.