Book Reviews (From: Heroic Cinema)
Sex and Zen & A Bullet in the Head
Hong Kong Babylon
Giant Robot Magazine
Asian Cult Cinema
SEX AND ZEN & A BULLET IN
THE HEAD
by Stefan Hammond & Mike Wilkins, Paperback - 272 pages (August 1996), US $9.60.
This oddly shaped blue book is the source of that
"List of Actual Subtitles from Hong Kong Movies" spam that floats around the
net, along with the one about the 11 year old with cancer. The first time I got the
subtitles spam, I laffed so hard I burst something. The author details were attached, so I
was able to track down a copy of the book. The second time I got the spam, the details had
been stripped off by some nameless efficiency nazi who cares not for credit where credit
is due. The third time I got the spam the list of 18 real subtitles had become a list of
21 subtitles; three fakes had been added along the way by some racist nebbish who
displayed a singular lack of wit and taste. All of this just goes to show that the
internet sucks, but I'm here to redress the balance by giving Messrs Hammond & Wilkins
their due.
I love this book. The by-line is "The Essential Guide to Hong Kong's Mindbending
Movies", which sums up the attitude. The writing style is energetic, funny, and
unreservedly enthusiastic. The content is split over 14 chapters and deals with seminal HK
people and genres: Ten That Rip (the authors' Top 10), John Woo, Nail-Polished Fists
(fighting female films), Tsui Hark, The Supernatural, Jackie Chan, Hong Kong Noir, Off the
Wall, Yuen & Sammo & Yuen, Unpolished Fists, Shaw Brothers, and Access (how to
find the films).
The bulk of the book is taken up by reviews - hundreds of full length and capsule
reviews spanning twenty years of HK history. Start watching now and you won't be done by
Christmas. The authors have drafted a bunch of stalwarts from the Hong Kong Cinema web
site to contribute, which gives fresh vigour to each write-up. My favourite opening line
has got to be: "Naked Killer arches its back and spits at you for ninety
minutes." The raves are well illustrated with splendid black-and-white stills.
Tucked in between the reviews are informative and often hilarious sidebars, such as The
True History of Wong Fei-hong, Ten Things We've Learned From Watching Hong Kong
Supernatural Films (No.10: "No monster is ever really finally dead until it
explodes."), Mondo Documentaries, Songs Bangs and Swooshes, and of course the
subtitles - pages and pages of 'em ("Explode at 11 o'clock sharp." - Bury Me
High).
There are some flaws. My copy has no index - I don't know if it is misbound or a
mistake with the print run, but it makes it damn hard to look anything up. It is also
falling apart, in the way that Titan books often do. The reviews often spill the entire
plot of the movies in an effort to inspire you to go find them, so in some ways it's
better to read about movies you've seen than those you're planning to.
But you still must buy this, if only for the subtitles. The infectious tone of the
whole enterprise will soon have dragging your friends over for HK video nights, or making
a web site ... hey, wait a minute ...
HONG KONG BABYLON
by Fredric Dannen & Barry Long, Paperback - 416 pages 1st U.S. p edition (November 1998), US $11.00.
The by-line to this one is "An Insider's Guide to the Hollywood of the
East", and I learned enough to make my eyebrows grow together.
The book is divided into four parts. The first is Dannen's article "Hong Kong
Babylon", which originally appeared in The New Yorker. This section is a
must. It's a riveting and astonishing history of the Hong Kong studio system, and covers
the main players and the trends. What stays in your mind most is the involvement of the
triads in the business - for instance, Jet Li's manager was shot dead, and Chow Yun-fat
had a cat's head tossed into his front yard because he refused to do a triad-approved
script. (Population density is such in Hong Kong that they didn't have room for a horse, I
guess.)
The second part is a collection of interviews with the people that Dannen met while
researching his article. Anyone you care to name is represented: Jackie Chan and his
manager Willie Chan, Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun-fat and wife and business manager Jasmine
Chow, Ringo Lam, Michelle Yeoh, Tsui Hark, shlock king Wong Jing, arthouse fave Wong
Kar-wai, and many more. There are some interesting Australian connections: Ronnie Yu,
director of The Bride with White Hair is now living in Sydney; Christopher Doyle,
Wong Kar-wai's preferred (and award-winning) cinematographer is Australian; serious
film-makers Clara Law and Eddie Fong have moved here specifically to get out of the Hong
Kong system, which is unkind to any movie which does not smell of box office; and the
legendary Josephine Saio lived here for a while. The interviews are superbly edited, and
address the difficulties of working in Hong Kong. Frankly, between the censorship of the
mainland, the grasp of the big studios, the egos of the main players and the pressures of
the triads, it's astonishing that anything gets finished at all.
The third part is 300 plot summaries from Hong Kong Movies. Each gets only a paragraph,
which is not quite enough to get fired up about, but they do all have their names in
Chinese characters, which is really handy in Chinese video stores when they look blankly
at you when you ask for Peking Opera Blues in English.
The final part is "Twelve Critics Choose Their Favourite Hong Kong Films". At
first I thought this would irritate the hell outta me, as the selection includes
high-browed types from all over the globe, but I was instantly charmed by the general
warmth and wit. Barry Long on Once a Thief: "It's become a tedious cliché
to refer to John Woo as a homoerotic director - but really, I couldn't tell if Leslie
Cheung was in love with Chow Yun-fat or Cherie Chung until midway through the film."
The critics fight, too; of Green Snake, Tony Rayns writes "Tsui Hark's
nadir, and Maggie Cheung's most undignified screen moments", whereas Howard Hampton
reckons it "knowingly flirts with camp, but this cockeyed fable has a core of real
passion - and Maggie Cheung, who blissfully slithers away with the picture". (HK
audiences agreed with Rayns - the movie bombed - but I'm with Hampton.)
In some ways the book doesn't mesh as a whole - and once again, no index - but it is
filled with so much information and inspiration that it makes you want to go out and rent
a hundred movies.
GIANT ROBOT MAGAZINE
Edited by Eric Nakamura & Martin Wong. US $3.95.
Published quarterly by Giant Robot Media. PO Box 642053, LA, CA 90064, USA. 4 issue sub:
USA $15, International $32 (boat), $42 (air). Issues 7 to 13 reviewed.
Giant Robot rules. I know of no other publication which packs such a
nifty blend of tremendous articles, inspiring interviews, guerilla reviews and punchy
writing. It doesn't matter what the Robot crew turn their attention to - Shaolin
monks in NY, goldfish, chili sauce, Ultraman World theme park, Tibetan dogs, whatever -
the result is fresh, funny & fascinating. The general theme is Asian culture, but the
overall feel is a celebration of people who are committed, kick-ass and cool. Reading this
will make you want to start your own zine or web site, or maybe just to eat a big plate of
rice.
There's a solid vein of HK content too. Issue 7 has a great interview with Michelle
Yeoh (who learned to ride a motorbike two weeks before doing that stunt in Police
Story 3!). Issue 8 has a Tsui Hark interview and a set report from Face/Off.
Issue 9 has a wonderful talk with Maggie Cheung who rarely does interviews these days, a
Handover party piece, Gigi Leung roadtesting goldfish, and a great report from the 1997
Hong Kong Film Awards with interviews with Christy Chung (Bride With White Hair 2),
Charlie Yeung (Task Force) and Kelly Chan (Lost and Found). Issue 10 has
four one-pagers in a row on Francoise Yip (Rumble in the Bronx), Karen Mok (Fallen
Angels), Sandra Ng (4 Faces of Eve) and Peter Chan (Comrades, Almost a
Love Story). Issue 11 (the latest) has a great interview with Jim Kelly, the black
kung fu guy from Enter the Dragon, as well as a hilarious interview with Simon
Yam (Naked Killer), an interesting chat with Bruce Lee's daughter Shannon about
her dad and about her own film debut (And Now You're Dead), and a look at Jet
Li's career leading up to Lethal Weapon 4. Issue 12 has a Jet Li cover and
interview (pictured). Issue 13 unveils the mag's funky new design, and has interviews with
Gigi Leung, Jordan Chan, Kelly Chan and Ekin Cheng.
Although zoning in on HK content is the focus of this web site, it cuts out about 90%
of the appeal and verve of Giant Robot. Go buy it and see for yourself. You can
also get a taste of the Robot on-line.
ASIAN CULT CINEMA
Edited by Thomas Weisser. Paperback - 352 pages Boulevard edition (April 1997), US $11.90.
Also magazine format; Published 4 times a year by Vital Books, PO Box 16-1919, Miami FL 33116, USA. 6 issue sub: USA $30, International $40 (surface) $50 (air). Issue 20 reviewed.
This digest-sized publication was formerly known as Asian Trash
Cinema, and although it tried to clean up its act with the name change, it's still
pretty dodgy. The content is mostly HK and Japanese films, with some other countries
making token appearances. About a third of the articles are interesting, the next third
are ho-hum or too obscure, and the other third are dubious exhortations of
S&M/exploitation flicks. I'm not one of the school that holds up misogynistic films as
"powerful explorations of society's violence towards women" (the paraphrase is
mine); if you make a rape film, you're part of the problem, and frankly the ACC
boys are getting off on it. (Columnist Ric Meyers writes of HK star Moon Lee "Now if
only Moon would wind up bound and gagged, my column would be complete. But no ... we must
leave the damsels in distress to the Japanese, who do domination and shame like nobody's
business." Yeah Ric, whatever.)
Good stuff in Issue 20 includes a retrospective of HK director David Lam (Asian
Connection, First Shot and others); a hilarious look at the prime-time
Japanese cook vs. cook gameshow Iron Chef (which may have been one of the
inspirations for God of Cookery); an exhaustive eulogy of Lam Ching-Ying; a look
at the early films of Tsui Hark; and a nice piece by John Woo on his films and film-making
philosophy.
However, with the exception of the Woo piece and the Iron Chef article, the
writing is fairly ordinary, and you have to wade through pages of opinionated columnists
using their space to either hawk their own books or to defend themselves against pissed
off readers, and past photo after photo of distressed half naked women being assaulted.
The best writing is to be found in the letters column, particularly the one from Mr
Leonard Skilke of Ohio State University, who writes "Please cancel my subscription to
Asian Cult Cinema immediately and send me a refund check." Amen. Anyone want
a secondhand copy of Issue 20?
