ULTRAMAN: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS (1987) **

Hanna-Barbera teamed up with Tsuburaya Productions for this cartoon adaptation of the beloved Japanese superhero Ultraman for American audiences.  It’s kind of ho-hum, and it suffers from some needlessly Americanized aspects.  Still, Ultraman completists will want to check it out.

Three stunt pilots have a near death experience and are saved by aliens who fuse with their bodies to make them Ultramen.  Meanwhile, monsters from a distant nebula fall to Earth hidden inside of asteroids.  The pilots eventually embrace their new powers by doing battle with a plant monster in New Orleans, a robotic lizard in San Francisco, a clumsy dinosaur in Utah, and finally a monster that grows at an exponential rate in New York. 

Even though the film is from Hanna-Barbera, the animation itself looks closer to a typical Japanese anime.  It is kind of neat seeing the Japanese mythology tweaked for US audiences, as is the way they make use of American iconography.  (Ultraman bases are hidden inside of golf courses and Mount Rushmore.)  However, the Americanization takes away some of the uniquely Japanese aspects of the source material and as a consequence, it feels more like a watered-down imitation.  In an effort to make something more accessible, the producers have wound up making it more generic. 

The brash pilots (voiced by Michael Lembeck, Chad Everett, and Adrienne Barbeau) aren’t really endearing (I think Top Gun was a major influence here) and their comic relief robot companions are pretty annoying too.  Also, even though this was intended as a feature length standalone movie, it still feels like a bunch of episodes strung together, thanks to the fractured narrative.  That said, Ultraman:  The Adventure Begins is essentially a goofy cartoon meant for kids and maybe a dude in his forties shouldn’t be over-analyzing every little detail of it. 

AKA:  Ultraman:  USA.

ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS: BLOOD OF THE LEOPARD (1993) *** ½

Lin Chung (Tony Ka Fai Leung) is a benevolent soldier and Kung Fu expert.  His beautiful wife (Joey Wang) catches the eye of a sleazy lowlife who also happens to be the pampered son of a high ranking general.  Meanwhile, Lin Chung befriends an obnoxious but knowledgeable Kung Fu monk named Ru (Elvis Tsui) and the pair becomes inseparable.  After Chung is framed for an attempted assassination, he is punished and sent to the front line of battle.  While he is away, his wife is killed by her stalker.  Naturally, Chung and Ru go out for revenge. 

Based on the Chinese classic, The Water Margin (which had been filmed many times before), this ‘90s version of the historical Kung Fu epic has a little something for everybody.  There’s romance, comedy, drama, and of course, lots of action.  The various sword fights and Kung Fu battles are handled with a lot of pizzazz and feature some impressive and frenetic wirework.  We even get a couple of brief (but choice) gory moments as there is at least one memorable beheading scene and one semi-comic bit in which a guy is cut in half lengthwise. 

The dynamic between Ru, Ching, and his wife is what sets All Men are Brothers apart from similar action epics of the era.  There's a funny scene where the monk spends the night at our hero’s house and has a quiet Kung Fu duel with his host, so they won’t wake up his wife.  Her reactions aren’t too different from a wife who has to put up with her husband and his best drinking buddy.  Except instead of pounding cans of Budweiser, these guys just Kung Fu one another at all hours of the night.  Tsui gets some solid laughs as Ru and together with Leung, they make an amusing team.  Their camaraderie and chemistry helps make this one a real winner. 

AKA:  The Water Margin:  The True Colors of Heroes.  AKA:  The True Colors of a Hero.  AKA:  Waterside Story:  Heroic Character. 

THE LATE LATE LATE SHOW (199?) **

The Late Late Late Show is one of the lesser Something Weird compilations.  It’s mostly an assemblage of trailers for Eurospy movies (Danger in the Middle East, To Catch a Spy, Agent of Doom), but it’s padded out with assorted odds and ends from various other genres.  There are ads for Westerns (The Fury of the Apaches, Lost Treasure of the Aztecs, Duel of Fire), Viking flicks (King of the Vikings), war pictures (Escape from Saigon), jungle movies (Prisoners of the Jungle), sword and sandal epics (Messalina, Hercules of the Desert), and swashbucklers (Prisoner of the Iron Mask, Musketeers of the Sea).   

It ends with a short called The Gentleman in Room 6, which is told entirely in first person POV.  The gimmick is used to conceal the main character’s identity until the last shot, but you’ll probably figure out who it is long before then.

I certainly give it points for finding trailers for so many rare films.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard of, let alone seen any of the titles featured in this collection.  While I can’t say it’s great, it’s still worth a look, if only because there are more trailers for obscure movies here than you can shake a stick at.  I will say that “obscure” doesn’t necessarily translate into “entertaining”.  Most of the trailers are tepid at best, so fans of more exploitative fare might want to skip this one.  Some previews are heavily padded with publicity stills like Duel of Fire and Operation Gold Ingot.  Also, the biggest names here are Fernando Lamas, Eddie Constantine (who appears most frequently), and Aldo Ray, which adds to the obscure vibes. 

Only you know for sure if you can stand an hour or so of ho-hum espionage trailers.  The problem is that there is a sameness to many of the trailers (including the use of similar fonts and the same announcer’s voice frequently reappearing), which makes the hour-long running time feel a bit longer.  If, however, you do have a very particular itch to scratch, then The Late Late Late Show is just the salve you’re looking for. 

The complete trailer list is as follows:  The Fury of the Apaches, Danger in the Middle East, To Catch a Spy, Agent of Doom, M.M.M. 83, X-Ray of a Killer, Lost Treasure of the Aztecs, Eyes of the Sahara, Dangerous Agent, King of the Vikings, Duel of Fire, Walls of Fear, Stranger from Hong-Kong, Killer Spy, Secret File 1413, Operation Gold Ingot, Escape from Saigon, Headlines of Destruction, The Black Monocle, Death Pays in Dollars, Sergeant X of the Foreign Legion, Nest of Spies, Prisoners of the Jungle, Messalina, Hercules of the Desert, Sea Fighters, Destination Fury, Prisoner of the Iron Mask, Musketeers of the Sea, and The Gentleman in Room 6. 

ART OF WAR (1978) **

A guy moseys into town and befriends two fugitives.  When a slaver murders their favorite street vendor in cold blood, they team up with the cook’s son to get revenge.  Adding to the urgency of the situation is the fact that our hero’s fiancée has also been kidnapped by the slaver. 

The comedy portions of Art of War are brutally unfunny and are often a chore to get through.  In an especially unbelievable scene, one of the comic relief sidekicks plays a trick on our hero and pisses on his head.  This of course makes them best friends.  What the actual fuck.  In most Kung Fu movies that would normally get the guy a first-rate ass-kicking, but here it’s a heartwarming scene of male bonding. 

The fight scenes are… fine.  They wouldn’t make or break the movie one way or the other anyway.  They certainly would’ve played better without all the comedy sound effects.  In fact, the fights feel secondary to all the comic relief shenanigans.  (The guys all have goofy names like Plum Flower, Crazy Sabre, and Wild Chicken, if that gives you an idea of what we’re dealing with here.)  Plus, the subtitles on the copy I saw were small, blurry, and hard to read (especially when they appear on top of a white background), which didn’t help matters at all. 

Still, I have a rule, and that’s if a movie can show me something I’ve never seen before, I can’t judge it too harshly.  Art of War has at least one jaw-dropping scene that’s worthy of praise.  I’m talking about the part where the street vendor is killed.  The villain takes a bite of chicken and finds a bone in it.  Disgusted, he spits the bone out and it impales the guy in the middle of the forehead, killing him instantly.  The rest of the flick ain’t so hot, but that scene is finger-licking good. 

AKA:  Kung Fu Means Fists, Strikes and Swords.

LAST REVENGE OF THE DRAGON (1978) **

A brash Kung Fu fighter can’t wait to step in the ring with the champ (Bolo Yeung), so he mops the floor with him at the press conference for everyone to see.  The embarrassed promoter, who happens to be a feared underworld figure, retaliates by having the fighter’s brother severely beaten.  This sets off a chain of increasingly violent reprisals between the two families.  The families eventually decide to settle the matter with an old school karate match. 

Last Revenge of the Dragon suffers from way too much soap opera drama with our hero’s family.  The brother character alone has one too many subplots as he has a problematic drug habit AND a white girlfriend his family doesn’t approve of.  Either of these subplots would’ve sufficed.  Having both just slows things down.  (If it was the main character who had all that drama going on, I might’ve felt differently.)  On the plus side, the scene where the brother tries to detox from weed is some Reefer Madness type shit. 

It’s a shame the film is overburdened with so much family drama because the fights themselves are pretty decent.  (I liked the scene where the hero’s brother in-law grabs a bat to avenge his disgraced daughter.)  I just don’t think the plot with two rival families lent itself to the Kung Fu genre.  It probably would’ve worked better as a straight gangster picture.  It’s especially a shame that Bolo disappears so early into the film because he’s really the only one in the cast that has an intimidating presence.  

For everything the movie does right, it has at least one lumbering subplot with the family that gets in the way.  The finale where our hero rides his motorcycle into the rival family’s dojo is admittedly cool.  I just wish we didn’t have to sit through the bullshit with his siblings’ out of control gambling, drug addiction, reckless partying, relationship woes, parenting problems, etc. to get to it. 

AKA:  The Big Family.  AKA:  The Godfather’s Kung Fu Family.  AKA:  Wu Tang Gambinos.  AKA:  Last Challenge of the Dragon.

LABYRINTH OF DEATH (1989) ***

Labyrinth of Death is an odd but enormously entertaining horror comedy Kung Fu flick.  It’s apparently a sequel to a movie I’ve never seen called Mystery of Chess Boxing, which is probably why it didn’t make a lot of sense to me.  Fortunately, the filmmakers know that a movie doesn’t have to make sense if the action never lets up.  I can even forgive it for being called Labyrinth of Death even though it doesn’t feature a labyrinth of death.  

Evil King is a big-toothed vampire who goes around attacking people.  He is trapped by a beautiful swordswoman in a cave where she also hides a kind vampire family who are misunderstood by the neighboring village.  Seven hundred years later, a priest accidentally awakens them from their slumber. His granddaughter knows the family aren’t evil and sets out to protect them from both her grandfather and the Evil King. 

One thing is for sure, this flick is never boring as it contains non-stop action.  Usually when I say, “non-stop action”, it’s a generalization, but in Labyrinth of Death there is hardly a single dialogue scene that doesn’t involve fighting or at least vampires hopping around.  The fight scenes are fast paced and frantic and feature some wacky wirework and cheesy choreography.  In fact, the only scene that didn’t feature any Mung Fu is the part where the grandpa plays mahjong with some vampires.  The comedy fights with the little kid vampire are amusing too.  (There’s a scene where he pisses and farts on his attackers.)  The running joke where every time someone accidentally grabs the vampire mom’s boob, her husband hops over and smacks her is a bit weird though. 

The effects are pure cornball, but they add to the goofy vibe.  The colorful lightning, light swords, and glowing crossbows the characters use are definitely low rent, yet they are a lot of fun.  The villain’s lair set is cool too.  The poorly translated subtitles are good for a laugh as well.  My favorite line was, “Unmatured kid!  Try your best power!”

AKA:  Vampire Strikes Back.  AKA:  Chess Boxing Matrix.  AKA:  Chivalric Tornado.  

MONSTER MANIA (1997) ***

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark introduces this hour-long special devoted to classic monster movies.  Jack Palance acts as host (he appears on a colorful mad scientist lab set) and narrates over clips of films from various eras.  While there are some obvious exclusions, they do manage to cover a lot of territory in a short amount of time.  Palance discusses films from the silent era (Thomas Edison’s Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Nosferatu), the ‘30s (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, etc.), the ‘40s (The Wolf Man, Return of the Vampire, The Phantom of the Opera, etc.), the aliens of the ‘50s (It Came from Outer Space, War of the Worlds, Invaders from Mars, etc.), Hammer horror (Horror of Dracula, The Mummy, The Curse of Frankenstein, etc.), the Poe adaptations of the ‘60s (House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, etc.), the ‘70’s (The Omega Man, The Exorcist, The Omen, etc.), spoofs (The Phantom of the Paradise, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Young Frankenstein, etc.), Sci-Fi monsters (Alien, Predator, The Fly, etc.), slashers (Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street), and the revival of classic monsters from the ‘90s (Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Wolf, etc.)  There are also segments devoted to Lon Chaney, how television in the ‘50s introduced monster movies to a new generation of fans, and the merchandising of classic movie monsters. 

Originally airing on American Movie Classics (back when they actually showed movies that were American classics), Monster Mania doesn’t exactly break any new ground.  If you’ve seen similar documentaries/clip show packages, you’ll probably be familiar with all the titles being discussed.  They also resort to using clips from trailers to save money.  That’s not the worst thing in the world as the trailers are fairly iconic in their own right (like Bela Lugosi presiding over the preview for Mark of the Vampire).  I did find it odd that they showed clips of Dracula’s Daughter but not Bride of Frankenstein. 

While Monster Mania may be far from the definitive classic horror documentary, it remains a fun trip down memory lane.  Palance’s sincere intonation adds gravitas to the proceedings, although he isn’t above making a quip every now and then.  (Like when he calls The Wolf Man “the scariest and hairiest monster of all time!”)  Besides, I never pass down an opportunity to see Elvira, especially in something like this, even if it’s only briefly.