Sunday 19 February 2012

5 Things To Love About Hong Kong Godfather

This is a first in what I hope to be a new series of articles in which I give five reasons to love a particular film. The first film I'll be taking a brief look at will be Wang Lung-Wei's ultra-violent cult Triad classic Hong Kong Godfather.

Number Five: Leung Kar-Yan's Pet Dogs



Leung Kar-Yan's character "Mad" Wei lives with his daughter at his garden nursery along with his two dogs. A German Shepherd and a Pug. This may seem very throw away at first but the dogs end up playing an important role later on in the film. Also the German Shepherd's name is Stallone. Gotta respect that!

Number Four: Wong Chun's Acting


The film's main villain Lan is played by a gentleman named Wong Chun and to call what he does acting in this particular motion picture would be a gross insult to the profession. He delivers his lines all the while not letting a single muscle in his face move. Occasionally he'll try and do something that is supposed to be a smile but it just looks like he's broke wind and not told anybody.

Number Three: Leung Kar-Yan Gets Serious


Given this is meant to be a dramatic Triad movie, everyone does their damnedest to give a serious performance and no one out of the entire thing tries harder then Beardy himself. I'm a huge fan of his and while he was very impressive when it came to performing martial arts he was never the most convincing of actors. Here you can see he's really trying his best to do some good acting but he doesn't quite hit the mark so scenes when he's supposed to be shedding a tear come off a little awkward but it's an endearingly wonderful piece of bad acting it has to be said.

Number Two: Norman Chu's Hair


It is often said that the 1980s was the decade that taste forgot and that would certainly apply to Norman's choice of hairstyle here. A jerry curl with a rat's tail!?!? You have to wonder how exactly Norman arrived at choosing that particular style when he signed on to star in this.

Number One: Blood On The Walls


For all the film's other wonderfully flawed elements, it more then makes up for it in the violence stakes. Featuring stylized brawls as opposed to traditional martial arts. Johnny Wang Lung-Wei literally paints the walls red with his characters' blood. The last 15 minutes are some of the wildest blood letting I've seen in a Triad film and it has to be seen to be believed.

That's all for my first 5 Thing To Love article. I'll be posting more of these as time goes on, in the mean time keep an eye out for my next entry in Jetruary!

4 comments:

  1. Fuck yes! Super thanks for pointing out #3. I like Beardy's funny "acting" mostly because it destroys any dramatic tension Wang Lung Wei was trying to build. Awesome blog, can't wait for more!!

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  2. Norman Chu's hair is magic in this.

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  3. I haven't seen this one. It sounds great! I'm a huge fan of Beardy, and was delighted to see his cameo in The Master and the Kid, which I saw at the weekend. You hit the nail squarely on the head about his acting - 'endearing' is a good description.

    Super idea for a series of articles, btw!

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  4. Through some strange twist in the space time continuum, I have never read either yours, nor Achillesgirl's blogs before! But please forgive me. It was only because I was too busy watching Asian action films, setting up deadly toe-severing traps in my own personal movie library/dojo, drawing heroic warriors, and hunting down animal abusers to wreak havoc on them with a storm of nunchaku strikes. Anyway...

    After seeing links on FB for Achillesgirl's blog a thousand times and thinking "I should check that out", I finally did. She recommended your blog, and I've truly enjoyed what I've read.

    I'm a big fan of HONG KONG GODFATHER and it was great reading your observations- many which I thought "Yes!" but haven't had a chance to share with anyone before.

    You have my gratitude!

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