Journey To The West - Conquering The Demons (2013)

How many movies can you think of that climax with a fight between King Kong and God*? I can name one: Journey To The West - Conquering The Demons.

With Conquering The Demons writer/director Stephen Chow gives us a prequel to the well-known tale of The Monkey King as portrayed in various media, including the '70s TV show Monkey!

Conquering The Demons is the origin story of the famous quartet at the heart of the latter tale - Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy and Tripitaka - although this isn't entirely obvious until the final moments of the movie, as the film stands well enough on its own without any prior knowledge.

The story grows gradually out of a number of vignettes with characters that seem rather familiar from other iterations of Journey To The West (one of the  Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature) but cast as villains where we have only really known them as reluctant heroes before. You'll also spot items that eventually become iconic artefacts in the story of Monkey and Tripitaka's travels.

Zhang Wen plays scruffy demon-hunter Xuan Zang who doesn't want to slay demons but simply remind them they were once innocent children, though the songs in his book of 300 Nursery Rhymes.

While battling a giant fish-shaped water demon, Xuan crosses paths with the pretty and resourceful Miss Duan (Qi Shu), who is attracted to Xuan's innocence - despite his outward expressions of chaste disinterest.

After a run-in with an unstoppable pig demon, Xuan's master sends him on a quest to seek help from The Monkey King, imprisoned under Five Finger Mountain.

Luckily, he is not alone when he comes up against the ultimate trickster - he has fellow demon-hunters, Miss Duan, Prince Important (Show Luo), Almighty Foot (Chaoli Zhang) and Fist of the North Star (Xing Yu) to watch his back.

Blending comedy (both physical and verbal), with horror, martial arts, wire-work, magic, romance, song, tragedy and pathos in a cocktail rarely seen in Western cinema, Conquering The Demons is a genuinely captivating action movie.

Chow's take on The Monkey King is a lot darker than any I've been used to before. He's still playful, selfish, manipulative and arrogant, but he's also really very evil here - having clearly not learned his lesson from when Buddha trapped him under the mountain 500 years earlier.

The humour subsides in the totally gonzo climax as The Monkey King demonstrates his true nature, making short work of the demon-hunters before Xuan calls on Buddha to intercede and matters come to a head on a cosmic scale.

It's no surprise this film raked in the yuan in China, Journey To The West - Conquering The Demons is not only magnificent storytelling but a visual feast as well, packed as it is with magical martial artists and monsters.

* Technically it's The Monkey King and Buddha... and it's not really even a fight... ignore me, you just have to watch it... seriously... watch this film!

The Lady Assassin (2013)

A bevy of gorgeous women run an isolated coastal tavern/brothel with the sole purpose of killing and robbing corrupt officials in the top-notch, Vietnamese period martial arts flick, The Lady Assassin.

When they free a hostage from a funeral caravan, the leader of the group, Kieu Thi (Thanh Hang) decides to take this new woman, Linh (Tang Thanh Ha), under her wing and train her to become an assassin, like them, so she can seek revenge on the local warlord Quan Do (Le Thai Hoa) who killed her family.

Yes, it's a classic martial arts revenge story that harkens back to the golden age of kung fu movies - but it plays out magnificently, against a background spectacular landscapes and certainly helped by the universal good looks of the central female cast.

Despite some fleeting dodgy CGI, the stunts and wire-fu action is fantastic and the relentless story escalates to a protracted fight around the tavern that takes the entire third act of the movie as Quan Do and his never-ending legions of black-clad, ninja-like soldiers assault the women's base of operations.

Along the way there, we are treated to some great plot twists and character development, a fair degree of family-friendly titillation, a musical number, and a chaste sapphic sub-plot as Linh becomes part of the female family of assassins.

My main gripe about the movie is that although it was Vietnam's first 3D movie and the country's biggest box office hit to date, when I first saw this in 2014, Terracotta Distribution had only released a standard DVD of this movie - despite some very obvious "3D" moments.

The Monkey King (2014)

For those up on their Chinese mythology (or fans of the old Japanese TV show, Monkey!), the basic story of The Monkey King is a familiar one, although this latest big screen adaptation adds a few flourishes and twists to the traditional tale.

At its heart though, it's a straight-forward morality play about a naive and egotistical animal spirit, Sun Wukong aka Monkey King (Donnie Yen), being tricked into helping the evil forces of the Bull Demon King (Aaron Kwok) get through the Gates Of Heaven and attempt a coup against the Jade Emperor (Chow Yun-Fat).

Kam-Yuen Szeto and Edmond Wong's script is very clever, giving the well-known tale a fresh coat of paint rather than a total overhaul.

For instance, I liked the introduction of the low-key romance between the Monkey King and Silver Fox (Xia Zi Tong), that added an extra layer to explaining his willingness to go along with the Bull Demon King, and unlike many Western films this sub-plot doesn't slow the phenomenal pacing of the main story.

Although The Monkey King is two hours long, it moves along like a bullet train, but where it falls down is the rather inconsistent quality of its special effects.

While the blend of "people-in-costumes" creatures and CGI gives the movie a certain charm - the 'costume creatures', for instance, evoke memories of the old Monkey! TV show... and Power Rangers - the computer graphics lurch from breath-taking to appalling.

Rather oddly, for me, the equally unpredictable subtitles on my Thai-import DVD didn't hamper my enjoyment of the movie.

Some lengthy dialogue scenes merited no sub-titles (particularly, for some reason, when Sun Wukong was speaking) and at other times screeds of text would race across the screen at migraine-inducing speed.

And yet, the plot was still easy to follow. Yes, I might have missed some moments of witty (or profound) dialogue, but the visual storytelling was so spot on that I still felt as though I had my finger on the film's pulse.

That's not to say it's simplistic. This is an Asian fantasy after all, so there are some insane segues and moments of mind-baffling surreality that trigger 2001: A Space Odyssey flashbacks, but you watch enough of these movies and you learn to just go with it.

Interestingly, The Monkey King serves as a prequel to the better known story of Monkey and Tripitaka's 'Journey To The West'; we just get a teasing glimpse of young Tripitaka in the closing moments.

Flying Guillotine Part II (1978)

The cunning but cruel Qing emperor Yung Cheng (Feng Ku) has a hatred of the conquered Han and a penchant for having people's heads cut off, as exemplified by his revolutionary "flying guillotine" weapon.

The flying guillotine is an almost certainly fictitious weapon said to have been thrown over an opponent's head and causing instant decapitation.

However, heroic rebel Ma Teng (Lung Ti) has invented the "iron umbrella", a device to counter the flying guillotines, and even turn them back on their users.

So the emperor calls on the guillotine's inventor, a high lama, to design an even better flying guillotine.

Meanwhile, the Han rebels, including Na Lan (Szu Shih), daughter of a palace official, keep trying to assassinate the emperor.

Their plans - especially one involving poisoned daggers firing out of a scroll case - are inspired, but the crafty emperor is always one step ahead.

Ultimately, this leads to a monumental, large-scale, showdown in the emperor's palace between his forces and those of the rebels.

The denouement is not exactly what I was expecting, but I appreciated its honesty.

Set in Ancient (17th Century?) China, Flying Guillotine II aka Palace Carnage is an incredibly pacey and chaotic Shaw Brothers martial arts masterpiece, full of incredible fight sequences, superheroic wire-fu, and bonkers, physics-defying, exotic weaponry.

Throw in a couple of unexpected moments of brief female nudity, frequent splashes of bright red blood, and some half-decent dubbing and Palace Carnage is an impressive, if occasionally hard to follow, frenetic slice of 1970's Hong Kong martial arts. 

There's an avalanche of palace intrigue, spying and counter-spying, as Na Lan wins the emperor's favour - much to the disgust of his senior aides - and gets to form her own all-female cadre of palace guards.

While all the main rebels are superb fighters, major kudos to the ultimate badass villain, Yung Cheng, who holds his own against at least half-a-dozen rebel mooks and ultimately faces off against the three main heroes and gives no quarter.

This final showdown is as glorious a spectacle of bloody martial arts as you could hope for from a Shaw Brothers flick.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Honestly, it's next to impossible to summarise what's going on in the mind-bending Everything Everywhere All At Once without attempting to spell out every single moment of this gorgeously crafted movie.

Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn Wang, a middle-aged Chinese immigrant buckling under the pressure of running a launderette, filing her taxes, and coping with family drama.

Unbeknownst to her, her gentle husband Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan) wants to divorce her, but first they must report to the Internal Revenue Service for an audit by the officious Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis).

However, that's also when Evelyn unexpectedly learns of the existence of the multiverse and the fact that she's the only hope for saving all of reality from erasure... by drawing upon the unique skills of other versions of herself from across the infinite planes of existence.

Written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (as Daniels), Everything Everywhere All At Once is simultaneously unlike anything you've seen before and yet comfortably familiar to genre fans.

Superficially it is The Matrix meets Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness with a shot of Rick and Morty thrown in for good measure.

But mix in talking rocks and apocalyptic bagels amidst the frenetic wuxia martial arts and reality-bending and suddenly Everything Everywhere All At Once is also a cerebral art house flick as well.

Once the action begins, it's pretty much non-stop (I couldn't help but be reminded of Mad Max: Fury Road in that respect) with a visual assault of chaotic images that often comes at you faster than your brain can process, almost certainly necessitating a repeat viewing.

Yet, for all the cosmic, existential, threats, at its heart this is a film about family, handled in a way that rings true without getting overly mushy.

Ultimately, though, no mere words can do it justice. Everything Everywhere All At Once is a film that has been to seen - experienced - rather than read about.

In The Name Of The King - A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)

Forget whatever prejudices you may have against Uwe Boll for his previous crimes against cinema, forget whatever you've read about his eccentricities and conviction that he was the world's greatest film maker.

If you approach In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale with an open mind, you might actually realise that it's a cracking swords and sorcery romp.

Sure, it lifts a lot from Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings, but films and books have been ripping off Tolkien for years, even before Jackson's sublime films.

However, despite running about a half-hour too long and having a dialogue quota of two cheesey lines for every decent one, In The Name Of The King certainly ranks as one of my favourite "Dungeons & Dragons" films of the Noughties.

Based on a video game I was totally unaware of, the film has Jason Statham as a lowly farmer (with the required "secret destiny") - called Farmer, for reasons too dull to go into - whose village is attacked by the Krugs, a race of cut-price orc wannabes controlled by the wonderfully evil sorcerer Gallian (Ray Liotta).

Gallian has also seduced Muriella (Leelee Sobieski), the young fighter/magic-user daughter of the King's advisor, the magus Merick (John Rhys-Davies), and has convinced the king's foppish nephew Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard) that his Krugs will aid him in a coup.

The King, by the way, is Burt Reynolds.

The Krugs carry off Farmer's wife, Solana (Claire Forlani) and so aided by his old friend Norick (Ron Perlman) and Solana's brother he sets off in pursuit.

Meanwhile King Burt gets poisoned and a civil war breaks out.

On his travels Farmer meets some rather naff, bungee-vine-swinging "wood elves" (led by the gorgeous Kristanna Loken), who seem one of the more unnecessary elements in the film, gets captured by the Krug and meets up with Merick - who reveals that Farmer is, in fact, King Burt's son.

With Reynolds, Liotta, Lillard and Rhys-Davies all vying for a piece of scenery to chew, the film reeks of ham, but this adds to its harmless charm.

However, whenever Doug Taylor's script tries to tug at the heartstrings (such as the King's death scene) it is at its weakest, but luckily there's plenty of action and fighting to paper over these cracks. For instance, the climatic wizardly duel between Merick and Gallian, I would say, is less risible than the break-dancing challenge between Saruman and Gandalf in Fellowship Of The Ring.

The big battle scenes between Burt's boys and the Krug probably could have been trimmed and odd gimmicks, such as the burrowing Krug and the King's unit of Chinese wuxia skirmishers, are never really developed or even explained, but, for the most part, at least this film is never dull.

Great CGI scenery and pretty classy special effects help to elevate this above the normal straight-to-video swords and sorcery fare of yesteryear. 

It may not be 100 per cent original, and despite the title there are no "dungeons" and no "sieges", but I really enjoyed it and could happily see myself watching it again.

Although there were no large monsters in it, it certainly felt more Dungeons & Dragons-y than either of the first two 'official' Dungeons & Dragons films, from around the time this was made.

As a gamer I always look at this genre of film to see what I can take away from it. As Taylor and Boll have lifted from Tolkien and Jackson (and probably countless other sources), I reckon I can lift ideas from In The Name Of The King. I don't think I could ask for much more from such pulp fare.

Swords, Sandstorms and Snow: What More Do You Need?

Dao Ma (Jing Wu), the "second most wanted fugitive," is entrusted by his benefactor, the chief of Mo family clan, to take on a mysterious escort mission - escorting the "most wanted fugitive," to Chang'an.

This sublimely edited teaser trailer makes Blades of The Guardians (aka Biao ren) look absolutely phenomenal.

Based on a popular manhua (Chinese comic), the wuxia film will be released in the States by Well Go USA Entertainment on February 17 in cinemas and via VOD.

Simultaneously, the film will be released in mainland China, during Chinese New Year.

The translated first volume of the manhua will be available in the UK in March, as Blades of The Guardians.

Wikipedia expands on the comic book's hook by telling us:

Hired fighters called Escorts protect targets, criminals for whom the government has issued an arrest warrant.

On the eve of civil unrest in the last years of the Sui dynasty, a government of fear and terror is gaining power in China, and feelings of hatred and enmity are emerging among some people.

A bounty hunter named Dao Ma travels throughout ancient China with his three-year-old son Xiao Qi and lives with the power of his sword.

One day Dao Ma accepts a mission for which he is guided to the city of Chang'an. He plans to pay off his debt to a therapist named Mo, and when he travels in the western desert, he accepts a simple mission that turns into a critical, dangerous issue.

Released on March 5 in trade paperback form: Blades of The Guardians, vol 1. 

Going One Better Than The Magnificent Seven

Pivotal 1971 Hong Kong action flick, The Invincible Eight, is getting a swanky UK Blu-Ray release on March 16.

Directed by Lo Wei before his Bruce Lee hits The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, The Invincible Eight is a classic Hong Kong wuxia adventure from Golden Harvest’s earliest years.

Starring Nora Miao (The Way of The Dragon), Angela Mao (Hapkido), Paul Chang Chung (Police Story), and James Tien (Yes, Madam!), it follows eight warriors seeking revenge on a ruthless general protected by the Imperial army and deadly whip-wielding henchmen.

Featuring legendary fight choreography by Sammo Hung, who also stars as one of the villains, The Invincible Eight helped cement Golden Harvest as a powerhouse in martial arts cinema. Eureka Classics proudly presents this martial arts masterpiece on Blu-ray for the first time outside Asia.

The Legend of The 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

In 1804, a wicked Chinese priest, Kah (Chan Sen), makes his way to Transylvania to ask Count Dracula (John Forbes-Robertson) to resurrect the "seven golden vampires" that Kah had previously employed to keep local peasants in order back home.

Dracula, however, has other ideas and steals Kah's physical form so that he can relocate to China and get back into the bloodsucking business for himself.

A century later and Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is lecturing at China's Chungking University on the dangers of vampires, while also seeking aid and co-operation to investigate local legends of the undead.

He is met with derision from all but one of his audience, Hsi Ching (David Chiang), whose village has been almost destroyed by attacks from The Seven Golden Vampires.

Meanwhile, Van Helsing's son, Leyland (Robin Stewart), has befriended the forthright, wealthy and attractive European widow Vanessa Buren (Julie Ege), who has caught the eye of a local tong boss.

Vanessa agrees to finance Val Helsing's expedition to the isolated village, on the condition that she can join the party, and Ching introduces his seven kung-fu trained siblings who will provide protection on the journey.

Soon after setting out, the group is ambushed by tong thugs and Van Helsing gets his first taste of Chinese martial arts.

Later on, they make camp in a cave and find themselves under attack from several of the gold mask-adorned vampires and an army of skipping zombies.

From there, the next stop for our heroes is their besieged village, where they organise the remaining villagers into a defensive force and await the assault of the vampires and their legion of the undead.

One of the vampires kidnaps Leyland's girlfriend, Ching's sister Mai Kwei (Shih Szu), leading the surviving heroes to pursue him to Kah's temple, where Van Helsing discovers that Kah is actually his archenemy: Count Dracula.

After this final conflict, like a good many films of its era, the movie abruptly ends without showing any interest in exploring the high cost our heroes had to pay to get through the climactic confrontation between good and evil.

A joint production of Hammer Films and The Shaw Brothers, The Legend of The 7 Golden Vampires is surprisingly good for what it is, but could have been so much better.

From the moment they are introduced, the protagonists are stuck on a narrative railroad, travelling from point A to point B on a linear journey, broken up by impressive fight scenes... and culminating in a massive fight scene.

You get the impression that the Hammer crew were so delighted to be able to blend their tried-and-tested horror formula with Chinese martial arts that they couldn't really think of anything else to do with their Chinese cast or exotic scenery (it was shot on location).

While there's no denying the film is a lot of fun, there is so little to actual story that beyond its martial arts "gimmick" it is largely ephemeral. 

The golden vampires aren't even the classic Chinese jiangshi ('hopping vampires'), which would have brought something a bit unusual to a '70s Hammer flick, but are instead a strange mix of Western vampires and Eastern martial artists.

It also pays not to think too hard about the 100 year time jump from the prologue to the main story and the havoc that plays with Van Helsing's timeline if he's coming off the back of his (many) fights with Dracula in, and around, Transylvania.

Are we supposed to assume that Dracula was doing all this - and dying frequently - at the same time he was in China running The Cult of The Seven Golden Vampires?

Or is this a different Dracula? 

Although he is reduced to a largely supporting role, John Forbes-Robertson's take on Count Dracula is oddly camp, with his make-up bearing a more than passing resemblance to Cesar Romero's Joker in the Adam West Batman show.

Long out of print and pretty rare in these parts, I watched the 86 minute DVD version of The Legend of The 7 Golden Vampires, having finally tracked it down on eBay for a reasonable price, but I understand there's a 110 minute Eastern version that I'd love to see one day.

Ultimately, The Legend of The 7 Golden Vampires comes across as a massive missed opportunity.

Creation of The Gods I - Kingdom of Storms (2023)

With Creation of The Gods II: Demon Force scheduled for cinematic release at the end of this month, I thought it was the right time for me to cast an eye over Creation of The Gods I: Kingdom of Storms.

Thankfully, independent British distributor Cine Asia has released this 148-minute epic in a lovely Blu-Ray edition.

The Creation of The Gods trilogy is an adaptation of 16th Century fantasy novel Investiture of the Gods written by the Ming dynasty author Xu Zhonglin.

Kingdom of Storms is essentially a fantastic and fictitious retelling of the political fallout following the ascension of the last king of Shang dynasty.

Triumphant war hero Yin Shou (Fei Xiang) returns to his father's court - after quelling a rebellion - to be feted for his victory.

However, unknown to all, he has been seduced by a nine-tailed fox demon, who has possessed the body of the late Su Daji (Narana Erdyneeva), daughter of the rebellion's leader. And who can blame him really?

Narana Erdyneeva as Su Daji

Through some magical manipulation around the celebratory feast both Yin Shou's father and then his elder brother are slain, leaving him next in line for the throne.

However, this act triggers something supernatural called The Great Curse, which could potentially wipe mankind from the face of the Earth, with Yin Shou's self-sacrifice being divined as the only solution.

He says he's willing to do it... but we all know he's not!

At the same time, the mystic immortals of Kunlun send a trio of monks to deliver a magical scroll to Yin Shou that will save the world from the effects of the curse.

However, they quickly realise that the tyrant Yin Shou is not the right person to possess this power and a running battle ensues for the scroll and to topple the king.

Based on a 500-year-old story of events that took place in 2,000BC China, Kingdom of Storms is a complex, mesmerising tale of wuxia swords and sorcery.

Starting off as a magnificent, and quite grisly, grounded war tale, the supernatural elements are slowly seeded in with the arrival of the fox demon, then we meet the Immortals (who are basically superheroes), an evil sorcerer (whose powers include being able to safely remove his own head and animating enormous stone fu dog statues), a green-skinned demonic baby and so on.

Although the film is two-and-a-half hours of reading subtitles, the narrative sucks you in as the action gallops along, so you are drawn in to the wonderment of the visuals and the storytelling. 

There's even a couple of "mid-credit scenes" as the very long, Chinese language, credits roll - so you'll probably want to keep your finger on the 'fast forward' button once the main movie ends.

While there are echoes of Lord of The Rings, and even Game of Thrones, in Kingdom of Storms, director Wuershan - who co-wrote the script with Jianan Ran, Ping Ran, and Cao Sheng - has crafted a mighty vision that reminded me of the visceral thrills I felt when I first saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zu: Warriors of The Magic Mountain.

There is a jaw-dropping majesty in Creation of The Gods I: Kingdom of Storms that emphasises, as if you needed telling, that cinema is a global artform, not limited to Hollywood or the UK, and other cultures have very different, but no less engrossing, ideas of how to entertain an audience.

I hope Cine Asia is able to release Creation of The Gods II: Demon Force on Blu-Ray reasonably quickly after the film hits cinemas, and then Creation of The Gods III: Creation Under Heaven follows swiftly after that.

Now This Is How You Tell An Epic Saga

Taishi Wen Zhong led the army of Shang Dynasty including Deng Chanyu and four generals of the Mo Family to Xiqi. With the help of Kunlun immortals such as Jiang Ziya, Ji Fa led the army and civilians of Xiqi to defend their homeland.

Well Go USA brings the second part of Chinese epic Creation of The Gods to American cinemas on January 31 (IMAX on January 29).

I know I'm biased, but for my money, I'd rather see the kind of mythology depicted in Creation of The Gods II: Demon Force serving as the background to a superhero comic than the tried-and-tested tropes of more Western pantheons such as the Norse and Ancient Greeks.