Kicking It

Two unrelated kung fu movies: First, Yes, Madam, a 1985 Hong Kong police story with Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock. A sneak thief steals a passport containing the secret microfilm just before the owner is assassinated. The thief is a guy called Strepsil (John Sham), who is in a goofy gang along with Aspirin (Hoi Mang) and Panadol (director Tsui Hark, who is not directing this - this is a Corey Yuen outing).

So police detective Michelle Yeoh comes in to investigate, along with Cynthia Rothrock, just in from Scotland Yard. Yeoh looks very young and rather glammed up - with some kind of sparkly bronzer on her face, while Rothrock seems quite dowdy. She is introduced done up like a schoolteacher, which provides a good laugh when she starts kicking butt. Sadly, their outfits never get much better, mom jeans, crop tops on top of long sleeve blouses, and sadly, in one scene, overalls (I blame Dexy's Midnight Runners).

I think Michelle looks better as a mature woman with natural makeup, and Rothrock would have looked better if we could see her amazing legs now and then. But such were the times.

So, a mixture of comedy action from the Pills gang and women's action from Yeoh and Rothrock. Not their best roles, although some of their earliest. But man can they fight. Yeoh is always in the air, and Rothrock, among other tricks, can head-butt a man in the stomach while kicking him in the head.

Corey's direction is pedestrian at best when he's not filming action, but once the feet start flying, it's all good.

Zu: Warriors From The Magic Mountain is a different beast. First, a technical note. Netflix lists this as the 1983 version, but it is not. It is the subtitled cut of the 2001 Zu. Netflix shows this Zu Warriors as the 2001 version, but that is a hacked up English dub of the same movie. As I understand it, Tsui Hark made the first Zu film in 1983, and pretty much started the Kung Fu fantasy genre. This movie, with Biao Yuen, Brigitte Lin, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, etc, does not seem to be available from Netflix.

Hark remade the film in 2001 - and that's this one. It starts on Zu Mountain, a peak high above the clouds, surrounded by flying islands, protected by three clans and protects the cosmos from all evil. It starts cosmic, and it stays cosmic. All of the characters have god-like powers, except for a squad of mortal soldiers, who are pretty much just walk-ons. All battles are conducted flying through the air, shooting bolts of cosmic energy. In short, cosmic.

It's visually awesome and somewhat exhausting. I think I might have preferred more time spent on the mortal plain. But it was an amazing, uncompromising vision, dream-like and beautiful.