Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Best movie of this year hands down!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

All Shi Po Tian (Phillip Kwok Chun Fung), who claims his name is "Bastard" when asked his given name, wants is something to eat, but is broke. He observes a fight between a vendor and a group seeking a black token that will grant them a request from Xie Yanke (Wong Lik). The vendor feigns ignorance of the object and a fight ensues. Po Tian grabs a biscuit and high tails it out of the city and away from the violence. He bites into the bread and discovers the token.Po Tian is trying to hide the token when Mr. Shi Qing (Tang Ching) and his wife, Guan Rou (Lau Wai-Ling) see it. Xie Yanke appears and takes the token from Po Tian. When others appear seeking it, Shi Qing announces it's now back with to Xie Yanke. When everyone starts whining, Shi Qing reminds Xie Yanke that Po Tian is the one who possessed it and therefore should reap the reward.Xie Yanke grabs Po Tian and steals him away from the others. Xie Yanke admits he will grant a request when asked because Po Tian had the object. Xie Yanke is irritated Po Tian wants nothing from him. Po Tian balks at an offer to learn Xie Yanke's special Kung Fu. Po Tian has no desire to fight people. Xie Yanke ignores the comment and announces he will teach Po Tian anyway.Po Tian is near unconsciousness from a training session when he's discovered by Bei Haishi (Sun Chien) and companions, who are seeking their missing Zhangle gang chief, Shi Zhong Yu (Phillip Kwok Chun Fung in a 2nd role). Their resemblance is uncanny. Haishi orders the unconscious Po Tian be taken to the Zhangle compound where he can recover. They will also use him as a replacement for the missing chief. While Po Tian recovers, he learns Zhong Yu is an ass. He beats up and kills people on a whim. Assaults women at his leisure. He is also wanted by his former school to answer for his foul behavior. No amount of denial convinces people Po Tian is not the man they seek.Po Tian finds himself involved with Dingding Dangdang (Candy Wen Xue-Er), Zhong Yu's girlfriend through more misidentification. Po Tian again tries to explain he isn't Zhong Yu. When he denies having a mark on his body made by Dingding, her grandfather, Ding Busan (Yueng Chi-Hing), pulls back Po Tian shirt to reveal the mark. Po Tian finds himself forced to marry Dingding to save face. Haishi had previously giving Po Tian identical marks to those on Zhong Yu's body to ensure people bought Po Tian was indeed Zhong Yu. Unfortunately for Po Tian, having the bite mark means a rush to the alter with Dingding to save face for the Ding family.Xie Yanke comes to Po Tian's rescue when everyone seeking revenge for Zhong Yu's behavior convene at the Zhangle compound. Xie Yanke cannot allow anything to happen to Po Tian until he makes his request. Xie Yanke brings. Zhong Yu to the Zhangle compound to eliminate further identity confusion. Zhong Yu is unfazed by his repulsive behavior. He also announces he has no plans to honor the promise made to the Zhangle Gang. He is more interested in flirting with Dingding than the chaos he has created.Zhong Yu balks when informed his father will be accompanying him back to school so Zhong Yu can be help accountable for his insubordination. Dingding con Po Tian into posing a Zhong Yu so the couple can run of together. This will leave Po Tian to serve whatever punishment meant for Zhong Yu.Zhong Yu and Dingding decide heading back to the Zhangle Compound and pretending to be Po Tian, who was made the new chief, will make them rich and provide them with power. Their deception is revealed by a maid who is a former victim of Zhong Yu's behavior. The gang demands the location of their new chief. They bring Zhong Yu and Dingding with them.Po Tian is being escorted to face the penalty for Zhong Yu's crimes when he says a few things that let those with him know once more, they have the wrong person. They decide to Po Tian to his mother, Princess Mei Fanggu's (Teresa Ha Ping) house, so he can prove he isn't Zhong Yu. They are met by the Zhangle gang and Xie Yanke, who wants Po Tian to make a request to end the "torment".Po Tian asks Xie Yanke to take Zhong Yu under his wing, as a student, to teach him the proper ways of life. Xie Yanke reluctantly agrees and hauls Zhong Yu off to begin training. Zhong Yu is quickly followed by Dingding and his mother.Po Tian, the Zhangle gang and Shi Qing continue on to Princess Mei Fanggu's house for answers. They are set upon by her three guards who capture Shi Qing. They will be taking him back to the Princess' fther's palace. If Po Tian wants to save Shi Qing, he has to bring the princess the head of Shi Qing's wife. Po Tian is sick of the fighting and wants to know why such a request is being made. His mother reveals he is actually the son of the Shis. He was stolen by her to exact revenge on Shi for falling for another woman.Po Tian, Haishi and the two Senior Zhangle members fight White Tiger Angel (Chiang Sheng), Big Red Angel (Ricky Cheng Tien-Chi) and Green Dragon Angel (Chu Ko) to rescue Shi Qing. The Princess' men are defeated mainly by the reluctant to fight Po Tian.This is by far the best scene out of the whole movie. Watching even three of the Venoms fight is always a delight. Phillip Kwok Chun Fung as Yo Tian was fun to watch. He reminded me a bit of Chiang Sheng's Wang Yi in The Crippled Avengers, without all the tumbling. Sweet to watch and very endearing. Phillip and Chiang have the longest battle. Yes, it has the usual tumbling I expect from these two. I would have given this a much better rating had there been more Kung Fu encounters. As a Venom fan, I would definitely recommend this to others. Especially the final sequence.

ODE TO GALLANTRY is one of the last Shaw Brothers films to feature the Venoms actors and be directed by Chang Cheh. It doesn't have the same gravitas and impact as most of the genuine Venoms flicks and lacks the presence of the notable Lu Feng, who only does the action choreography here. The story is comedic and has a lightness of touch rarely seen in a Cheh film. Philip Kwok is slightly miscast in the lead role which would have been better played by the likes of Alexander Fu Sheng. The confused plot sees Kwok playing a beggar who becomes involved in a plot involving a magical swordsman and the possession of a magic token. It turns out that Kwok is the spitting image of a cruel young nobleman so there's a lot of mistaken identity and battles between rival groups. The film flirts with magic effects but they're limited to just a couple of early scenes. Sun Chien has a solid supporting role and Candy Wen is pretty good too while Wang Li gets to play an imposing bad guy and does so with relish. Other big Shaw stars like Chiang Sheng and Ricky Cheng Tien Chi only get to show up for the admittedly impressive final fight.

My love affair with classic Shaw Bros martial arts movies continues, and it's a good thing that the Esplanade Library has a decent selection. In continuation of my recent hunt for stories based on Louis Cha's novels, I chanced upon Ode to Gallantry (Xia Ke Xing) on the shelves, and despite it being cast with a relative bunch of lesser known names (of today), there's one name on the credits that compelled me to watch this: Director Chang Cheh.My memory of the story dates back to the early 80s, based on the TVB series starring Tony Leung as the lead twin characters Shi Po Tian and Shi Zhong Yu, in a classic tale of mistaken identities. The story begins with Shi Po Tian aka the Bastard, a beggar of sorts, stealing a bun which contains the Black Iron Token, created by skilled pugilist Xie Yanke, who grants the holder one wish, and includes not killing the wielder of the token. As they say, the Heavens smile on the Idiots, and having been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, Shi Po Tian slowly learns formidable skills while under the tutelage of Xie Yanke.Given that my memory is likely to be faulty, I can't really compare this movie to the original novel, but like all movies based on Louis Cha classics, it's usually a condensation of themes and characters, but unlike The Proud Youth, this movie doesn't overhaul the characters and allow them to undergo name changes. Strong in its theme of Gallantry, embodied by the dim-witted Shi Po Tian, the movie does move along quite fast with little time devoted for depth.Acting chops are nothing spectacular, and as the usual martial arts movies of the time goes, romance takes a backseat, even though you have a female character Dingding Dangdang (Candy Wen Xue-Er) having the hots for our lead twin characters, played by Philip Kwok Chun-Fung.But of course the main deal here is the martial arts. There are not many wire work here, and the fights are a combination of weapons and palms, as well as a great deal on evasive techniques, as Shi Po Tian is a reluctant fighter, who sees no rational behind fights and the taking of lives. Expect the usual blood fests from Chang Cheh, reputed for his generous dose of fake blood usage.Like all movies of its genre, the ending is usually weak, as if after the big fight, there's nothing left to do, and no purpose in life, and it ends just there. As mentioned before, the novel is a rich source, but having to translate it for the big screen, can be daunting at times. The crux of it gets a treatment, but the rest got forgotten. Remember though, this was made in the early 80s, so story telling techniques have evolved loads since then.This Code 3 DVD produced by IVL contains the usual extras you expect from their packaging of Shaw Bros classic movies. You have a few production and movie stills, one original poster which is quite small in size, a one page one paragraph worth of production notes, the theatrical trailer and other trailers of the same genre, which have undergone an update (I doubt they are the original trailers), and a very short cast and crew biography.Perhaps the best bit of extras here is a documentary on director Chang Cheh himself, running at 17 mins and 20 secs. It contains interviews with stars of today and yesteryears, as they recount their memories and experiences with working together with the great man who have revived the martial arts genre, and other genres in the Hong Kong movie industry. Definitely not to be missed, though it could have been done with a little bit more detail. For those who have not watched most of Chang Cheh's works, be warned of the loads of spoilers (character deaths especially) featured in it.Thankfully too the documentary also comes with English subtitles for those who cannot understand Mandarin/Cantonese, and Mandarin/English subtitles are also available on the feature film, restored decently in the DVD (you can see how picture quality had degraded in the documentary above).

Towards the end of Chang Chen's time at the Shaw Brothers studios, his films had evolved from very stagy Sword dramas to vast historical epics to fantastic superhero period kung fu films. Along the way he dabbled in gangster dramas. The one connecting trend in his career was the extreme violence and gore that permeates most of his films and his obsession with male bonding. By the end of his career he was making films without any women in the cast and the men were parading around in revealing open torso outfits with shiny chests. Make of that what you will however this film is a welcome exception in the trend. Based on a popular book, Chang Cheh keeps his predilections low this time.Kuo Choi (Phillip Kwok) is the lead in this film as he plays a righteous bumpkin named "Bastard" by his mother. He happens to resemble the leader of a criminal clan that is being stalked by a master martial artist who single-handedly punishes clans for their misdeeds. Bastard is kidnapped by the gang to replace their missing leader and hopefully take the blame for their misdeeds when the master shows up. That's about all I'm going to explain as the plot is very convoluted but somehow makes sense while you watch it. Let's just say that the simple Bastard is mistaken by the parents and the wife-to-be of the clan leader also, plus he learns super martial arts along the way.The film is kooky and the plot swerves all over the place but is fun to watch as the pace is very brisk without being too fast. Kuo Choi is very funny in the role and carries the film. He does struggle to appear to not know martial arts but when the plot finally allows him to let go at the end, it's his usual excellent work. The two other venoms, Chiang Sheng and Sun Chien, have minor roles and don't do anything until the last ten minutes of the film. This is not the martial art fest of "The Crippled Avengers". There are good but modest fight scenes throughout, however the last ten minutes have the excellent choreography and Venom action you are looking for. You will just have to accept the crazy situation the film suddenly throws at you to set up the scene. Unusual for a Chang Cheh film, there are four important female characters but except for one of them they are portrayed as either manipulative, deluded or outright evil. Also the gore is low key for a Cheh film but that doesn't mean that we don't get to see lots of swords sticking out of bloody victims along the way.Not bad at all, the light comic tone keeps the film from bogging down. Recommended for Shaw enthusiasts.