I took my seat, the movies were introduced by one of the employees and he said that the new calendar would be released soon and that there will be a crap ton of obscure horror movies shown in October. The lights dimmed, and before the trailer reel started, they showed a funny Looney Tunes cartoon called “The Lion’s Busy.” It was a bit disappointing that the trailer reel was the same as last time except in a different order. They showed The Chinese Boxer (retitled The Hammer of God), Five Element Ninjas (original Chinese trailer), and The Kid With the Golden Arm (English trailer). But I really shouldn’t complain; Watching the Five Element Ninjas trailer on the big screen is quite a spectacle.
Simply put, Five Fingers of Death was freaking awesome. It’s so cool and exciting and fun and dark. It’s just fantastic. The characters are refreshingly interesting and the story has some really clever surprises. For the time being, the fight scenes in this movie looked stellar. The movie just got me so excited. Also, the music really added to the movie. I was also surprised that this movie is incredibly dark. It’s not really a movie to make you happy. It gives you a feeling of remorse and sadness, but it still left me with a huge smile on my face when it was over. It’s a bit more than you’re average kung fu movie. You could really tell by the audience’s reactions that they were really into the movie. When someone gets hit, they felt it. There’s not much else for me to say about it; It’s just awesome.
While sitting in the theater, waiting for each of the movies to start, the theater usually plays soundtracks from different movies in the background and this time, there was a lot of Bruce Lee stuff (The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, and The Green Hornet) which was great. Also, despite the lack of new trailers during the first trailer reel, it seems that they really wanted to make up for it because the second trailer reel screened 9 different trailers! It almost felt like an excessive amount of trailers. They were all English trailers for different Shaw Brothers movies in fullscreen. They were also essentially the original Chinese trailers, but they were slightly shortened, they didn’t have the Chinese titles, and instead had some strange alternate English titles. There was The Heroic Ones (retitled Shaolin Masters), Five Superfighters (for some reason retitled Stroke of Death), New Shaolin Boxers (Demon Fists of Kung Fu), Man of Iron (Warrior of Steel), Shaolin Martial Arts, The Convict Killer (Iron Chain Assassin), Daredevils (Daredevils of Kung Fu), Monkey Kung Fu (Stroke of Death), and Four Riders (Strike 4 Revenge).
What better movie to follow one of Lo Lieh’s only starring roles than with one of his most iconic bad guy roles. Fists of the White Lotus was so much fun. The opening was amazing and the movie somehow continually outdid itself throughout. The movie really picked up speed with the first few training scenes. The audience was both laughing and applauding as Gordon Liu started to master his Women’s Style kung fu. And when he does, everyone was really enjoying themselves. It just felt so rewarding to see Gordon Liu progress and eventually get his revenge. I couldn’t stop smiling long after the movie ended. This movie does feel more like fun fluff than a revenge-filled adventure, which is totally fine because it was abundantly fun to watch. Fists of the White Lotus is probably the happiest movie ever made about revenge and mass murders. And I’m so glad that everyone had a good time watching it.
Again, I had a great time the New Beverly. I always enjoy going there to see some amazing double features. Horror movies aren’t quite my thing so I’ll probably skip next month. Also, so I don’t go insane from driving through LA traffic every week, this will be the last screening that I go to this month. There are still a few more screenings this month though including a midnight screening of Five Element Ninjas, another few screenings of Infra-Man, a double feature with The Avenging Eagle/Five Venoms, and another with Golden Swallow/Masked Avengers. I loved both of the movies and the prints looked pretty sharp (though both seem to have suffered from some color-fading). But still, awesome movies and I hope to make another visit to the New Beverly soon.
Also, New Beverly people, if you happen to be reading this, I just wanted to say that one of the Shaw Brothers movies that I’ve wanted to see at the theater the most is probably The Treasure Hunters (aka Master of Disaster) with Fu Sheng and Gordon Liu. It’s action-packed and hilarious. It’d be a lot of fun to watch with an audience and since Gordon Liu is in it, it’ll probably be profitable. If you guys ever get your hands on print of this, please screen it. There are other movies that I’d suggest but this one sticks out to me. Also, if you have anything with Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow, I'm there. Thanks.
Images from Wikipedia and Zenn Posters