Toon Zone Talkback - Kung Fu Week

M

Matt-U-_You_Rat_You

New member
It's "Kung Fu Week" at Toon Zone News, because we didn't have any other reason to review four Shaw Brothers chop-socky movies!

First up, Speedy Boris loves his drugs ... Drugs and kung fu, that is!

splash-kungfu.jpg


[Edit by Eileen:]
[line]1[/line]
This is the talkback for the following:
Review: "Opium and the Kung Fu Master": You Don't Need Drugs to Enjoy This
Review: "Hong Kong Godfather" Offers Entertainment You Can't Refuse
Blog: Cool Stuff: Wing Chun Mechanical Arms
Blog: Top 5 Martial Artists of Animation
Review: "The 14 Amazons:" When Effort Trumps Skill
Review: "Shaolin Hand Lock": The Joyless Lock Club
Blog: Cartoon Intro Cavalcade: Hong Kong Phooey
Blog: Cool Stuff: Red Dragon
Blog: Cool Stuff: Kung Fu Bunny
Blog: Top 5 Martial Arts Fights of Animation
 
It's not unusual for a company specializing in anime, such as FUNimation, to dabble with live-action movies like Opium and the Kung-Fu Master. Media Blasters releases live-action Japanese thrillers and kaiju through its Tokyo Shock label. That's how I got to come to see and appreciate lesser-known Honda vehicles as Varan the Unbelievable, Matango, Atragon, and Frankenstein Conquers the World...movies which, up until now, I only saw in badly "drubbed" English-language versions on Chiller Theatre or The 4:30 Movie when I was younger.

But these Shaw Brothers movies sound like they might be a lot of fun to watch for the casual admirer of "camp" cinema....
 
This quick bit of animation was created by Anthony McGrath and put online in 2008. In it, mechanical arms practice a martial art form against a wooden dummy. McGrath mentions Digital Domain's mechanical legs advertisement (VFX Breakdown, Final) as a source of inspiration, along with a passion for both animation and Wing Chun. The piece was modelled, textured and animated in Maya. It was then rendered in MentalRay and had post production effects applied in After Effects. It looks like a great deal of work went into it and the arms were animated well. Kudos to McGrath.

More... Video and Links>>
 
Interesting list, but I have to say I'm shocked and disappointed you didn't think Jackie Chan from Jackie Chan Adventures was good enough for the top five.

While he's not as flashy as some of those on the list and yea, he can't toss energy blasts around, his animated martial arts abilities really are impressive and capture the spirit of the man himself.

Just found it odd that so many of his movies are getting looked at this week, and his great Animated series (so far) has been under the Kung Fu radar.
 
Note to casual forum readers: The poster is referring to our Top 5 Martial Artists of Animation list on the blog. (This thread doubles as the talkback thread to that blog post.)

As it happens, Jackie Chan isn't in any of the movies we reviewed above. I wish he were. I liked "Hong Kong Godfather," but anything can be made better by adding Jackie Chan to it.

Does the same rule apply to our list? I know he was mentioned in discussion (along with a lot of other possibilities) but I don't know why he didn't make the cut.
 
He's good, but I'm not sure he's that good. I haven't seen all of Jackie Chan Adventures. Maybe he could've bumped Spike, but that's not a clear call and Spike is helped by the fact that his fighting is played straight as opposed to the more fun & humorous bent of Jackie Chan Adventures.

If the list were bigger, I could see him as a contender for top ten somewhere.
 
Eh...you'd think so. I think I remember a movie about vampire hunters and Jackie was a minor character/uncle. All he did was climb a light pole and threw bananas at a vampire.

It was an otherwise boring movie.
 
I didn't say it could be made "good," I said it could be made "better." :p

Surely that really boring movie was a teensy bit improved by its pole-climbing, banana-throwing Jackie Chan scene. :D
 
FUNimation only sent us four movies, so we round out the week with a show I loved as a kid ...

Hey, I was only five years old at the time, and it's not like there was anything much better on.

splash-hkphooey.jpg
 
Hong Kong Phooey, to me, was "Get Smart" in a police station with a kung-fu/superhero makeover. Scatman Crothers (who was also on "Chico & The Man") also sang the iconic theme song, something that Maxie either forgot, or left out 'cause everyone else knows. ;) :D

So the introduction of Posse Impossible, who would get their own series a couple of years later as part of "CB Bears", was the series finale, eh? I guess ABC passed ("Bears" aired on NBC, which picked up Hong Kong's rerun rights some time after). Oh, I think we know now that budgets were tight back in those days, but don't ya think they could've come up with more realistic cityscapes?
 
I left it talking about the intro 'cos Matthew Williams did a whole blog post for us on the opening theme. :) Yeah, the song is the absolute best part of the show.



The guys on the commentary tracks try making some excuse for the cityscapes--that they were purposefully empty and expressionistic. I like stylized, stripped-down backgrounds in the right context. But I think these backgrounds weren't stripped down enough, and so they just look cheap. Abstract backgrounds also work best when put behind strong, distinctive animation, and that's something HKP just doesn't have, sadly.
 
Last week simply wasn't long enough to contain all of the Kung Fu awesomeness. So, believe it or not, we've got one more martial arts themed blog post for you!

Top 5 Martial Arts Fights of Animation



Read More>>

[line]1[/line]
This is the talkback for the following:
Review: "Opium and the Kung Fu Master": You Don't Need Drugs to Enjoy This
Review: "Hong Kong Godfather" Offers Entertainment You Can't Refuse
Blog: Cool Stuff: Wing Chun Mechanical Arms
Blog: Top 5 Martial Artists of Animation
Review: "The 14 Amazons:" When Effort Trumps Skill
Review: "Shaolin Hand Lock": The Joyless Lock Club
Blog: Cartoon Intro Cavalcade: Hong Kong Phooey
Blog: Cool Stuff: Red Dragon
Blog: Cool Stuff: Kung Fu Bunny
Blog: Top 5 Martial Arts Fights of Animation
 
Back
Top