04-26-2008, 05:54 PM
After my oblique post referencing this on the Jackie Jet thread - see spoiler #2 here:
http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/phpBB2/view...6&start=30 - what would show up in my in box but a Check Disc of the soon-to-be-re-released DVD of Come Drink with Me. Dragon Dynasty is the new leader in Kung Fu DVDs, with all the hot new titles and remastered versions of the classics. And they're doing great work. The archive films are being treated with respect, nicely restored with B&W outlined subtitles, and a well chosen library of classics. And CDwM is a classic for sure. It's remains a gorgeous film, great to see on a widescreen HDTV as opposed to the late night sketchy broadcast I probably first saw it on, a true masterpiece of King Hu and the Shaw Brothers. It's slow by today's standards - such is the pitfall of the YouTube attention span - but the sets and scenery and the costuming are magnificent. You have to remember, this was the very first film of its kind. Jackie is supposed to have a bit role (in the odd musical interlude no less) as a child actor, but I couldn't really spot him. Ching Siu Ting (a leading choreographer who just did Statham's In the Name of the King) has a child role too - he's much easier to see because he gets rather brutalized. CDwM is cut from the same celluloid cloth of Zatoichi, a brooding lone hero, impossible feats of martial arts, absurd rogus galleries of villains, hypertechnicolor schemes, blood-soaked choreography. Cheng Pei Pei, with her commanding paranoid eyes and impossibly erect posture, is still captivating on screen. A ballet dancer by trade, she pulls off some fine fight sequences that involve cutting down a few dozen opponents in a single continuous shot, which she handles with the graceful flair of kung fu's most seminal movie heroine. Kill Bill, CTHD, Mulan, they all bow down to the original Golden Swallow. There's a rumor that Tarantino is planning to remake CDwM. I think he already did with KB. Yueh Hua's Drunk Cat has been imprinted on DM's psyche from childhood. Upon seeing this again, I realized that Drunk Cat was as much fo a personal cinematic role model as Yoda.
The other Check Disc that came was one of my all time favs Heroes of the East (AKA Shaolin versus Ninja). I'm sure CF and LCF have seen this, perhaps ED too, but I'm never sure how well versed teh rest of DOOM is on their kung fu flicks. If enough of you haven't seen Heroes, it's a worthy DOOM flick. Let me rewatch it again, just to be sure.
http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/phpBB2/view...6&start=30 - what would show up in my in box but a Check Disc of the soon-to-be-re-released DVD of Come Drink with Me. Dragon Dynasty is the new leader in Kung Fu DVDs, with all the hot new titles and remastered versions of the classics. And they're doing great work. The archive films are being treated with respect, nicely restored with B&W outlined subtitles, and a well chosen library of classics. And CDwM is a classic for sure. It's remains a gorgeous film, great to see on a widescreen HDTV as opposed to the late night sketchy broadcast I probably first saw it on, a true masterpiece of King Hu and the Shaw Brothers. It's slow by today's standards - such is the pitfall of the YouTube attention span - but the sets and scenery and the costuming are magnificent. You have to remember, this was the very first film of its kind. Jackie is supposed to have a bit role (in the odd musical interlude no less) as a child actor, but I couldn't really spot him. Ching Siu Ting (a leading choreographer who just did Statham's In the Name of the King) has a child role too - he's much easier to see because he gets rather brutalized. CDwM is cut from the same celluloid cloth of Zatoichi, a brooding lone hero, impossible feats of martial arts, absurd rogus galleries of villains, hypertechnicolor schemes, blood-soaked choreography. Cheng Pei Pei, with her commanding paranoid eyes and impossibly erect posture, is still captivating on screen. A ballet dancer by trade, she pulls off some fine fight sequences that involve cutting down a few dozen opponents in a single continuous shot, which she handles with the graceful flair of kung fu's most seminal movie heroine. Kill Bill, CTHD, Mulan, they all bow down to the original Golden Swallow. There's a rumor that Tarantino is planning to remake CDwM. I think he already did with KB. Yueh Hua's Drunk Cat has been imprinted on DM's psyche from childhood. Upon seeing this again, I realized that Drunk Cat was as much fo a personal cinematic role model as Yoda.
The other Check Disc that came was one of my all time favs Heroes of the East (AKA Shaolin versus Ninja). I'm sure CF and LCF have seen this, perhaps ED too, but I'm never sure how well versed teh rest of DOOM is on their kung fu flicks. If enough of you haven't seen Heroes, it's a worthy DOOM flick. Let me rewatch it again, just to be sure.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse