Revenge is best served BLOODY.
I was just lying in bed flipping channels when I came upon two channels, Star Mandarin and VIVA channel, back to back, each showing Asian movies that have revenge themes. They are also both a bit old, and have pretty cheezy, over-the-top and crazy stunts. One of them is The Story of Ricky, or Ricky-Oh, a Hong Kong flick I first saw years ago. This is a category III movie, meaning it's been given a mature or adults only rating in HK due to extreme sex or violence. Ricky-Oh's content is mostly violence; bloody, meatgrinder-gory violence. Basically, it's the story of a young man named Ricky (whose huge muscles, long hair and black pants make him a perfect actor to play Lui Kang in Mortal Kombat) who enters a corrupt prison in order to find the source of an opium ring that killed his loved one. This pits Ricky against super-strong convicts who serve the literally demonic warden, including acrobatic kung-fu fighters and brutal thugs and armies of guards. A funny thing is that HK action actress Yukari Oshima (Cynthia Luster to Manilenos) appears as one of the enemies; and yes, she is supposed to be male in this film. Lots of bloody deaths, spattering gore and exploding bodies mix with trademark HK goofiness and humor to make this a bloody classic. I was fortunate enough to see an uncensored version years ago, when Star Movies Mandarin didn't censor their films on TV. Heh.
The other revenge movie of the night is an old Filipino film, Anino ni David Crusado (Shadow of David Crusado) It stars stuntman/action star (I refuse to call him an actor) Dante Varona in a dual role as a man named David Crusado (and his twin brother) who tries to resist the evil Don who runs the provincial hacienda. The Don of course has David killed... but that only seems to make him mad. The hero returns, apparently alive, and clad in shiny black robes (with pointy hood) and wielding a scythe. This spectre of Death then starts to terrorize the Don and his men, beheading his targets. The film then moves onto various hilarious duels as a hodgepodge of 'martial artists' and hired killers try to put David Crusado back into his grave. The sword/bolo/scythe duels are laughable, and David Crusado has got to be one of the most taciturn heroes ever. ALL of the extras who play thugs get to ham it out with adlibbed dialogue while the hero just stares at them silently. As Filipino films go, this has average production values (funny costumes; the final bad guy wears red shiny robes and a mask he could have bought from a toy store), so it naturally looks horrible. But it's actually entertaining in a low-brow way, with blind hermits, cave hideouts filled with booby traps, a main villain who rants like J.Jonah Jameson, a lady love in distress and a hero who wields a scythe AND a machine gun. What more can you want?
Ah, revenge. Base emotions portrayed in base films. Gotta love that. Heh.
I was just lying in bed flipping channels when I came upon two channels, Star Mandarin and VIVA channel, back to back, each showing Asian movies that have revenge themes. They are also both a bit old, and have pretty cheezy, over-the-top and crazy stunts. One of them is The Story of Ricky, or Ricky-Oh, a Hong Kong flick I first saw years ago. This is a category III movie, meaning it's been given a mature or adults only rating in HK due to extreme sex or violence. Ricky-Oh's content is mostly violence; bloody, meatgrinder-gory violence. Basically, it's the story of a young man named Ricky (whose huge muscles, long hair and black pants make him a perfect actor to play Lui Kang in Mortal Kombat) who enters a corrupt prison in order to find the source of an opium ring that killed his loved one. This pits Ricky against super-strong convicts who serve the literally demonic warden, including acrobatic kung-fu fighters and brutal thugs and armies of guards. A funny thing is that HK action actress Yukari Oshima (Cynthia Luster to Manilenos) appears as one of the enemies; and yes, she is supposed to be male in this film. Lots of bloody deaths, spattering gore and exploding bodies mix with trademark HK goofiness and humor to make this a bloody classic. I was fortunate enough to see an uncensored version years ago, when Star Movies Mandarin didn't censor their films on TV. Heh.
The other revenge movie of the night is an old Filipino film, Anino ni David Crusado (Shadow of David Crusado) It stars stuntman/action star (I refuse to call him an actor) Dante Varona in a dual role as a man named David Crusado (and his twin brother) who tries to resist the evil Don who runs the provincial hacienda. The Don of course has David killed... but that only seems to make him mad. The hero returns, apparently alive, and clad in shiny black robes (with pointy hood) and wielding a scythe. This spectre of Death then starts to terrorize the Don and his men, beheading his targets. The film then moves onto various hilarious duels as a hodgepodge of 'martial artists' and hired killers try to put David Crusado back into his grave. The sword/bolo/scythe duels are laughable, and David Crusado has got to be one of the most taciturn heroes ever. ALL of the extras who play thugs get to ham it out with adlibbed dialogue while the hero just stares at them silently. As Filipino films go, this has average production values (funny costumes; the final bad guy wears red shiny robes and a mask he could have bought from a toy store), so it naturally looks horrible. But it's actually entertaining in a low-brow way, with blind hermits, cave hideouts filled with booby traps, a main villain who rants like J.Jonah Jameson, a lady love in distress and a hero who wields a scythe AND a machine gun. What more can you want?
Ah, revenge. Base emotions portrayed in base films. Gotta love that. Heh.
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