Day of Resurrection (1980) AKA Fukkatsu no hi

What if a deadly air-borne virus killed off the population of earth? What if that wasn't the worst part?

Day of Resurrection was the most expensive Japanese film made at the time,  and was the manga publisher Kadokawa Shoten's attempt to break into the international film market. I expect that Hollywood wasn't too keen on a foreign studios muscling in on their patch, and the film failed to get a US general release. A shortened version (108mins) renamed Virus was shown in the States, but it seem to have now been forgotten, and the film has ended up in public domain.

Its got a great cast including Glenn Ford, Sonny Chiba, Robert Vaughn, George Kennedy, Oliva Hussey, Bo Svenson, & Henry Silva. It shares many similarities to the Late 70's disaster epics like Earthquake and Airport. Some of the actors probably stepped off the set of one disaster to this one. It even has its own love theme! (Why did they always have love themes in disaster films?)

The 1st part of the film reminded me of the Novel World War Z, without the zombies. Lots of short vignettes around the globe of how the virus is effecting humanity. Emotional scenes in a Japan hospital, A sweating POTUS in the White House, and confused scientists at an Arctic base. News reports of humanity breaking down. Riots and protests.

The 2nd part concentrates on the survivors who have congregated at the arctic base. Surprisingly, the film deals with the elephant in the room. Namely, of the group of 800 people, only eight are women. Yes, this movies go there. Obviously a movie about humanity being wiped out is grim, but its the bland council-meeting discussions of how to repopulate that are move unpleasant than any amount of scattered skeletons.

The last part (Spoilers) takes a sharp turn when the geologist of the group thinks that recent drilling may cause another disaster. Due to a convoluted chain of events, a earthquake in Washington DC will set off the Nuclear missiles aimed at Russia. Which similarly will set off the missiles aimed at the USA including the Alaskian base that the last of humanity is holed up in.

You have to like a film which is not content with wiping out humanity with a man-made virus, but wants to finish the job with a thermo-nuclear war!

There is a strange Alejandro Jodorowsky vibe to the ending that gives a slight amount of optimism which I think is completely missing from the shortened Virus version.

The film really boils down to a message of the folly of nuclear war. A message, that the Japanese would obviously have strong feeling about. 1980 was a dangerous time in the cold war. USA/Russian relationships were frosty. Mutually Assured Distruction was still the only real nuclear deterrent.

Sidenotes:

Henry Silva has played plenty of great villains, but here he is responsible for wiping out humanity twice! Good work!

Of Cooks and Kung Fu (1979) Tao Tie Gong

A mysterious stranger with a Raiden style hat, is killing off the chefs in the area, and it's not because of the cooking.

Master Glutton (Chai Kai) was once the Emperor's cook, The King of Chefs. But after a bizarre scallop incident, he was chucked out in disgrace. Over 20 years, he's developed a series of kung fu styles based on Chinese dishes. That's the odd premise, and also what he's teaching his wayward grandson Tan Tan (Chan Siu Lung AKA Jackie Chen). Yes, its basically Drunken Master, with an even more obscure fighting style. The two plot lines of chefs and killers carry on till they inevitable meet.

As part of my remit to review obscure films, I could make the whole blog on Hong Kong movies from the 70's. Having said that, if you've seen a few kung-fu movies, you can pretty much guess how this one will pan out.

So why am i writing about it? Well 3 reasons.

1. Its not actually that bad. There is plenty of action, the training sections tie into the plot as you see our young hero learn from his previous mistakes. Jackie Chen has great acrobatic ability.

2. This film has spadefuls of  gratuitous camera zooms. It may be a cliché of Hong Kong movies, but for me, this is a real plus.

3. The version I've seen has a weird effect which I'm going to call Wobble-Cam. Sometimes the action seems to bob up and down like a boat. Sometimes it feels like the camera is trying to avoid being punched. At first I thought it was some in-camera effect, but it looks like someone has blown up the print and has manually moved the film around, in a similar way they used to do pan-and-scan, only more violently. Its a really weird effect, that's hard to explain, but I quite liked.  On YouTube there is a clip of the film from a German release which doesn't have it, so I think this effect was added when it was released in America in the mid 80's. If any one can shed some light on this, please drop us a comment!

To be honest the film could of done with a few more locations. 90% of the fights seem to occur on the same dirt path.

Things to look out for:

Like Magnificent Bodyguards, There's another blast of a John Williams score on the soundtrack. This time Jaws!

If your daughter's life is being threatened by a hoodlum to make you reveal a secret, this film has a ingenious way out of it.

"As it's well known, Chinese cooking is the best in the world!"

This movie also goes under the name Duel of the Dragon, and is presently on YouTube and DVD rental at LoveFilm UK.

Shoot (1976)

A hunting trip goes very wrong in this intriguing Canadian movie starring Cliff Robertson and Ernest Borgnine.

A group of middle-aged buddies go on a deer hunt in the woods. With nothing to shoot but the breeze, the  party are about to call it a day, when they come across another set of hunters. After some major eye-balling, the other group takes a pot-shot at them, and a spontaneous shoot-out breaks out. When Zeke, played by perennial bad guy Henry Silva, kills one of their party, the groups scarper.

With its similarities to Deliverance, the movie becomes an exploration of the consequence of this violence. Should they report it to the police? will the others? What importance would they place on who started it? Lou (Borgnine) is the group's conscience, and as they decide their next steps, its clear that he is a lone voice.

Rex (Robertson) plays the most troubled member of the party. A man who seems to have a better relationship to his gun collection, than to his family. As he investigates who the other shooting party were, he begins to believe that what happened was only an opening skirmish in a full-on war.

The film has plenty of earthy dialogue. When one of the group is being treated by a veterinarian friend, Borgnine quips "You know that needle was previously in a horse's ass?". There's a nice down-to-earth quality to the movie, and the direction by Harvey Hart is solid and unshowy (he directed several 70's Columbo TV movies).

The film doesn't quite live up to the opening scenes, as Rex is pretty unlikeable, and we don't get to know the other characters that well. This gives a too narrow perspective on the events that follow. It would have been better if Rex's paranoia hadn't been so obviously valid, and the ending would seem to undermine the point the films seem to raising. I think this maybe due to simplifying the source material, a novel by Douglas Fairbairn.

Still, its worth a look as an examination of machismo and gun control.

(Presently on YouTube)

Magnificent Bodyguards - Fei du juan yun shan (1978)

Dipping into the world of Martial Arts can be a confusing adventure. Films tend to go under more names than a career criminal (not including original Cantonese or Mandarin titles). Prints can have laughable dubbing, or hard to read subtitles. The print-quality tends to vary between passable and atrocious, and the stories often assume a passing knowledge of Chinese myths and history which makes them hard to follow.

However, if the movie is as mad as a box of frogs, and the action puts Hollywood to shame, none of this really matters in my opinion. Jackie Chan movies make a pretty good gate-way into martial arts. Even if you don't like it, you've always got the insane outtakes at the end as consolation.

Magnificent Bodyguards is an early film in his career which he not only stars, but co-choreographs. Its got plenty of action, and a relatively straightforward plot (until the end). Jackie plays Lord Ting Chung, whose hired by Lady Nan (Ping Wang) to protect her and her sick brother as they cross the Stormy Mountains, a wild bandit-filled zone. With four bad-ass deputies running the territory, and evil Lord Chu controlling them, Jackie needs the help of his two brothers for the journey. Chang (Leung Siu-Lung) is a deaf Leather maker, and Tsung (James Tin Jun) is a fighter with a protection racket known as the Skinning Swordsman. (one skins humans, the other doesn't!)

Did I say the plot was simple?  The film is littered with hard-nuts and deadly assassins, that make the crossing more complex. After a while, the odds begin to look bad.

This was the first Hong Kong movie to be shot in 3D, and consequently there are plenty of shots of poles, knives and sharp sticks coming straight at the camera. In most films thats pretty annoying, but it makes sense in this. However, similar to Amityville 3D and others of the era, the picture can get a little blurry.

This flick doesn't have as good a reputation as Drunken Master and Snake in the Eagles Shadow, which he also made in 1978, but I think its a gem. Its got great footwork and plenty of different weapons. There's no stupid sub-plots, or characters only there for light relief. It doesn't have Jackie's trademark use of environment in the fight scenes, but all in all, it would make a great 3D Bluray release (fingers crossed!)

Stray notes:

There's something fishy about that Sedan...

If you've ever wondered what would of happened in Raiders of the Lost Ark if Indiana Jones wasn't afraid of snakes, I think this film covers it.

In the version I watched, one scene builds up the tension with a good blast of the Star Wars music!

There is an inverse law in Hong Kong movies that the more disabled or elderly you seem, the better the fighter.

Did they run out of film at the end?