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Dignified Killers (Taiwan. 1991)

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                           I have to confess I'm a little wayward with my blogging, I do try, I wander from rock writing to this and that but really I should focus on what I'm good at writing about, which is hard, violent asian pulp cinema. So I'm going to try harder. This takes us to the 1991 Taiwan film  Dignified Killers . Taiwan gangster pictures of this era are even cheaper than the cheaper Hong Kong crime movies. They're usually laden with more violence and sleaze, along with louder clothing. They're also very hit and miss, some being so bad they're not worth reviewing (1988's War Of The Underworld). Thankfully today's feature is as enjoyable as they really get. Dignified Killers  is straight up action exploitation, nothing more and nothing less. Lean, crude violent pulp with guns that crackle like fire crackers and just as much broken glass as Jackie Chan's Police Story. Add in Chanbara Spurt hero Lam...

Rape! 13th Hour (Japan, 1977)

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I'm back! Committed to further adventures into Asian cinema on a regular basis. In a world of motherfuckers getting excited about Jackie Chan steel books and other assorted cultural detritus, it's about time someone made a stand for the hard-boiled nasty shit. Yeah! Come on! I begin with easing us into the back half of 2024 by covering  asleazy movies from  Japan. Snuggle up and let's get to it. Rape! 13th Hour  is a Nikkatsu roughie sex film directed by Yasuharu Hasebe and was released in 1977. These things were always short and sleazy with the sole intention of being so yet sometimes they were kinda arty, like getting beat over the head with an Italian bust by Michelangelo I guess.  Story wise it covers an anonymous red-coated, sunglasses wearing serial rapist who takes a young petrol station attendant under his wing, sort of like how Batman would have Robin, only these guys like to rape women and rob them. Stalking the red-coated rapist is a duo of homosexual thug...

Clones Of Bruce Lee (Hong Kong, 1980)

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                                                      Might aswell return to blogging with a bad taste big bang. Ah ol' Brucesploitation, the exploitation martial arts cinema experience devoted to raping the legacy of Bruce Lee. Now, Clones Of Bruce Lee is special. Why? Three Bruce Lees! Wow. Three fucking CLONES OF BRUCE LEE! Plus a lookalike from thailand, Bruce Thai! I had long ignored this movie, dismissing it as a crude enterprise in psychotronic bilge. Was I ever fucking wrong, yet oh so right. Now this was presumably filmed in the late 70s and released in 1980 but it resembles a kung fu basher from the mid 70s. Clones to look at is all bare interior sets or makes use of rugged coastal areas or even some Thailand family's back garden for its locations. The fighting itself is kinda rough but is non-stop. All hench men utilise flailing basher moves w...

Yakuza Justice: Erotic Code Of Honour (Japan, 1973)

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This film has several titles but I'm just rolling with Yakuza Justice m'kay. This is a flick that really surprised me, coming from a director of mainly pink films ,Tatsumi Kumashiro, it is a merging of crafted skin cinema with the brutality of a yakuza piece. The story begins twenty odd years in the past when a monk fishes a dead pregnant lady out of a river. She gives birth to a baby who he takes to the monastery and is subsequently raised as a monk himself, gaining the name Seigen. He is a good monk until he rescues a young woman from some thugs and promptly shows he thanks by shagging him silly. This leaves Seigen rather confused. Even more confused when he discovers her father, a mob boss, is his dad too by different mothers. This drives him nuts and he quits the monks, descending into a life of crime and vice. He fucks whores, kills gangsters, gets inked and broods about his half sister. All the while he is haunted by the monk that fished his mother out of the river and by...

To Live And Die In Tsimshatsui (Hong Kong, 1994)

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 'To Live And Die In Tsimshatsui' is the seventh film from future 'Young And Dangerous' director Andrew Lau, starring Jacky Cheung, Tony Leung Ka-fai and Roy Cheung. It's a mob film. An undercover cop mob film. Set in Hong Kong. From Andrew Lau. Hmm. Is it any good? The story is basic. Jacky Cheung is Crazy Lik. He's a policeman, infiltrating the triads. He's questioning his place in life. He's drinking too much. His woman is drifting away. His police sergeant is retiring, the replacement is a prick. Such a prick he steals Lik's woman. Cue triad tit for triad tat. Choppers, drugs, drinking games, shakedowns, machine guns. "Am I ghost? Or am I human?" Crazy Lik just perhaps might be going crazy. Cue conflicted mucho monstrous angry angst. Lik seeeeeeeeethes! Lik booooooozes! Lik sobs post fuck blues! This film is standard genre fare. Lau funks it up with amphetamine camera work. Wong Kar Wai midnight surf through the Hong Kong night. Policem...

Cops And Robbers (Hong Kong 1979)

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  Before I dug kung fu films, zombie yarns or sexploitation muck I loved crime movies. Especially the gritty kind of crime movies, leagues away from the safe soft-boiled tv detectives and their pristine murder of the week mysteries that show up on daytime tv. 1979's 'Cops And Robbers' is Hong Kong's first step towards the modern cops and triad yarns of Dante Lam and Johnnie To. The director was Alex Cheung, one of the best of the initial HK New Wave directors in terms of genre movies. There was attempts in the 70s but I have always found those films stiff and clunky. Alex Cheung, for a handful of films, caught a spark that became a fire for Hong Kong crime cinema. Much in the same way, Fernando Di Leo's crime movies marked the epicentre of the Italian cop wave, something similar should be said for Cheung and his legacy. 'Cops And Robbers' begins wistfully with little kids playing cops and robbers in the street in that knockabout fashion as is the way childre...

The Lady Punisher (Hong Kong, 1994)

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  The world of Category III entertainment is a murky one. Away from the big names such as the serial killing Dr. Lamb or the diseased antics of Ebola Syndrome is a cesspit of soft porn, rape and gore films. Along with those, you get the occasional hybrid that worked in action, revenge or crime elements such as Lady Punisher from 1994 does, all whilst the exploitation dial is jacked up to eleven. Despite the happy-go-lucky cover art of the image above, The Lady Punisher is anything but. Instead it is a sordid saga of rape-revenge, gang war, sodomy by bottle, lesbian frolicking, and undercranked action. Fang and Lan are two girls who meet a bunch of drug-running mobsters led by a turd called Mason who assault them in the Thai woodlands. Lan is killed and Fang swears revenge. Of course, later on in the film, whilst running a bridal fashion shop?! Fang bumps into Mason and his gang again and decides to start killing 'em. So starts CAT III own Frank Castles's crusade against rapey ...