Mi nombre es Shangai Joe

Fast action , one-dimensional characters in a Spaghetti Western with gunplay and kung fu . It is a thrilling and violent Italian Western with ordinary ingredients as a courageous , honest antihero searching justice and vengeance , Karate fights , duels , extreme outlaws wishing gold along with regular final confrontation . Concerning a Chinese young traveling to a foreign and far country : USA .The immigrant recently arrived in America , he is named Chin How or Shanghai Joe (Chen Lee) lands in a small Texas town inhabited by bigot enemies . As Chin leads his way by violent means , as if they don't succumb to his demands they normally end up dead . The town folk soon realize that Chin is no usual adventurer and he quickly gains a perilous reputation . When Chin's skills spread to Stanley Spencer (Piero Lulli) , the owner of the states largest cattle ranch, Chin lands a job working for snake-oil Spencer as a fellow cowboy. Friend soon becomes foe when Chin realizes he is working for a cattle smuggler bent on brutalising Mexican farmers and anyone else who stands in his way .The sinister town boss called Spencer has exploited almost everyone Mexican countrymen in the region as our hero Shangai Joe fights to free Mexican slaves from his ruthless master . Chen Lee , the real Brother In Arms of Bruce Lee . He took on the toughest white gang in America. With bare hands World Champions - Chen Lee (Karate) Gordon Mitchell (Pistol) , Pancho del Rio (Knife) .

This Pasta picture contains the ordinary plot about ¨One Man Stands Alone In His Fight For Justice¨ , as a valiant drifter who must move fast to struggle their way through unbearable risks and twisted difficulties . Including Western action , shootouts , violent fights with gore and blood , as well as a little bit of campy and refreshing humor . It's an improbable blending of standard Western , struggles, violence , gory scenes and chop-socky . An enjoyable premise , gunslingers against Karateka, and agreeable Italian cast make this oater well worth the watching . In Shanghai Joe or Il mio nome è Shangai Joe (1973) shows an understanding of both the western and the kung fu genres . Resulting to be perfect example of the late declining years of the spaghetti western . Stars the unknown Chen Lee who's acceptable as Kung Fu expert , testing his unbeatable fighting skills , as he takes on hard-nosed cowboys who don't take kindly to outsiders . As Shangai Joe confronts the greatest criminals in the West played by a top-notch plethora of secondaries of the 60s and 7os , such as : Klaus Kinski as Scalper Jack , Gordon Mitchell as Burying Sam , Robert Hundar as Pedro, The Cannibal , Giacomo Rossi Stuart as Tricky the Gambler . Along with these notorious secondaries, appearing here and there others Italian actors as Carla Mancini , Andrea Aureli , Pietro Torrisi , Lars Bloch , George Wang , Roberto Dell'Acqua and Rick Boyd . And being shot in Almeria, desert of Tabernas , some uncredited Spanish actor showing up , such as : Francisco Sanz, Alfonso de la Vega, Tito Garcia , all of them usual in Spaghetti/Paella subgenre .

It displays a considerable Spaghetti musical score by composer Bruno Nicolai in Ennio Morricone style , in fact Bruno was his main musical disciple . The motion picture was professionally directed by Mario Caiano , and it turned out to be entertaining enough . The picture takes part of a sub-genre in which during the period of the 70s combined Spaghetti Western and art martials with original influence from ¨David Carradine's Kung Fu ¨ series , and mostly focusing on the dumb spaghetti western comedy sub-genre , for example : ¨Karate law in the west ¨(Tonino Ricci), Tiger from River Kwai (Franco Lattanzi) , ¨The Karate , the Colt and the impostor¨ (Anthony M Dawson) . Adding this ¨ My name is Shangai Joe¨ (Mario Caiano) and its sequel , a poor knock-off titled¨Return of Shangai Joe¨ (Bitto Albertini) with Cheen Lie , Klaus Kinski , Karin Field , Carla Mancini , that focus on lame comedy rather than action : furthermore ¨The white, the yellow and the black¨(Sergio Corbucci) that bears remarkable resemblance to deemed to be the best : ¨Red sun¨ by Terence Young with Charles Bronson , Alain Delon , Toshiro Mifune . ¨Il mio nome è Shangai Joe ¨(1973) it's an offbeat , muddle and uneven Western but will appeal to Spaghetti Western fans fans.

Shanghai Joe is just a regular Chinese guy who has moved to America to get a good job and live the dream. Sadly for Joe everyone he comes across is a racist moron who don't want Joe to get anywhere. Sadly for them Joe tends to lose his rag and beat everyone who crosses him into submission.

This film is a lot of fun. A lot of fun. For the first half of the film Joe just goes from job to job being harassed and doling out justice, but then he crosses the wrong guy (a slave trader) and from then on the heat is on, in the form of ugly Gordon Mitchell and uglier Klaus Kinski! Basically just one action set piece after another, this film does not disappoint. Its a nice merging of spaghetti western and martial arts and Mario Caiano isn't daft, as he gives us loads of both in an overtly violent way.

Honestly, for a spaghetti western this one is really high on violence. Wrists are broken and bones protrude, folk are drowned in boiling water, hands are cut off, torsos punctured by fists and Joe even manually removes a guy's eyeball! Entertaining stuff.

I had this in my collection for years and now wish I'd watched it sooner. It's on YouTube if you don't own it.

Also - Joe screams Eeeeeaaaaeeaagh before braining someone. Watch out for that.

Minor, enjoyable and surprisingly violent Spaghetti Western, one of a clutch of such efforts embellished with an Oriental touch in the form of a martial-arts exponent hero (as can be gathered from the title). The film was enough of a success to boast a sequel – THE RETURN OF SHANGAI JOE (1975).

Chen Lee is the typical meek Oriental who becomes deadly when provoked; we're given plenty of opportunity to see him at work here, particularly after he falls foul of a slave trader. The latter despatches four ruthless assassins to exterminate the Chinaman – three of whom are played by well-known actors and popular Euro-Cult figures of the era: Gordon Mitchell, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart and Klaus Kinski, the other by Robert Hundar (ill-fated hero of CUT-THROATS NINE [1972], which actually preceded this viewing!). Kinski receives second-billing but his contribution lasts all of 7 minutes (and he only turns up 68 minutes into the film!).

Eventually, we learn that the title character is one of only two masters of a specific martial arts technique – so, naturally, the boss eventually calls on his equal to fight the hero! The most violent moments occur when Joe gouges the eye of one of the hired killers – a scene which surely must have inspired Quentin Tarantino for his KILL BILL (2003/4) saga – and the confrontation between the two Orientals, which involves dismembered limbs and busted torsos! As usual for films of this genre, the music score is a notable asset which is here provided by Bruno Nicolai.

Ahhhh, the Kung Fu Spaghetti Western, a weird hybrid that existed for a brief flash in the world of exploitation cinema. This film, known by various titles including DRAGON STRIKES AGAIN and most commonly THE FIGHTING FIST OF SHANGHAI JOE, came out in 1974, probably the zenith year for such attempts. (FYI, 1992 was the peak year for the Cyborg/Kickboxer mash-up--but that's another story.) Directed by undistinguished Italian genre hack Mario Caiano, the pic presents the tale of a Chinese loner ambling his way through the American Old West. The lead is played by the little-seen Chen Lee. Lee has only three movie credits to his name, each in an Italian film, which begs the question of whether he is an actor per se or merely a expert martial artist that happened to be living in Italy at the time. But whatever the explanation, Lee manages to acquit himself rather well in this performance. He has an easygoing, laconic presence that is pleasantly free of the stiffness sometimes on display among non-acting fighters. (Of course his dialog is dubbed, but so is everyone else's here, so it's hard to judge him in that respect.) After a few vignettes depicting Lee's troubles in finding transportation, food, and ranch work due to the locals' bigotry and bullying, we settle in to the main thrust of the story, wherein Lee aims to help liberate Mexican peons who are being enslaved by evil rancher Spencer, played by the familiar Piero Lulli. Along to help him is the pretty Mexican Cristina (Carla Romanelli), and she turns into a sort of love interest for him.

There are a few weird quirks about the pic that are worth noting. First, our hero goes unnamed for about the first 3/4 of the film--no one asks his name an he is never addressed by anyone. Then out of the blue, he offhandedly refers to himself as "Shanghai Joe" in a chat with Cristina. OK, after 80 minutes we learn his name... the in the very next scene, Spencer calls for "Joe" to be killed and shouts, "Go get Chin Hao!", a name by which "Joe" is referred for the final few minutes. What the heck? How did Spencer learn this guy's Chinese name? Is this a sloppy scripting gaffe, a botched dubbing mistake, poor exposition? Whatever the reason, it's weird.

Another oddity is the plot twist where, late in the story, Spencer and his men meet to decide how to deal with Joe. They opine that four notorious hit men would each be perfect for doing away with the Chinaman. What follows is a quick series of pretty ridiculous vignettes as colorful baddies with names like "The Cannibal" are dispatched by Joe. Among these hit men are top-billed stars Gordon Mitchell as "Buryin' Sam" and Klaus Kinski as "Scalper Jack". Their scenes are so brief, basically cameo appearances, that neither of the two have a real chance to flex their wild, woolly acting chops. A wasted opportunity.

The hit men sequences display another unusual aspect of this picture: a great number of grotesque, gory and explicit wounds and deaths. Kinski's character, obviously, relishes cutting his victim's scalps off; Mitchell builds a spiked grave-trap for his victim to fall into. Also seen elsewhere in the film are an eyeball gouged out, homemade acupuncture on a bullet wound, and a man's hand shot off. Gruesome stuff and oddly disconcerting, these shots don't give a visceral thrill or gasp, rather, they make you do a double-take in disbelief, like, "what was *that*?" Also unusual to the modern viewer are the camera tricks and staging used to suggest Joe's jumping and fighting prowess. Quite a few times we see the ol' "reverse footage" trick to depict someone jumping from a standstill up onto a tall perch. In '74 that might have wowed 'em, but by now we can see right through that trick.

In the end, the various exploitation elements can't make this a cohesive, engaging feature. Caiano's pacing is suspect, as little momentum carries over from one scene to the next, giving the 93-minute picture quite a plodding pace. And with no protagonist other than the stone-faced Joe, there is no charismatic heart to the story. As capable as Lee is, an effervescent sidekick or partner might have livened things up. What we do have to stir the soul, however, is the absolutely BRILLIANT theme music by Bruno Nicolai, which plays several times throughout. As great as the Morricone-trained Nicolai is, I will without hesitation call this the greatest theme (that I've heard) of his career. It is a rousing, epic delight that will stay with you long after the flick is done.

In all, I think the idea of this film is better than the actual finished product. Kung Fu, cowboys, cartoonish violence and gore, eastern philosophy, gunfights ... it ought to add up to a better picture that what it is. Not on anybody's must-see list, but a watchable curiosity. Call it a C+, or 6/10 stars.

"The Fight Fists of Shanghai Joe" (1973) sounds like one of those awful genre bending films that repeatedly crop up over the years; however this kung-fu Spaghetti Western is actually pretty decent and has certain similarities with the television series "Kung Fu" with David Carradine. It is directed by Mario Caiano, who made a number of Spaghetti Westerns, and stars Chen Lee as the eponymous Shanghai Joe.

The story is straightforward, almost verging on the simplistic. Joe is a recent immigrant from China to San Francisco, where, in search of work, he heads to Texas. Here he gets on the wrong side of a powerful, racist rancher, Stanley Spencer (Piero Lulli), after he witnesses the massacre of Mexican slave labourers.

This Western tries to say some interesting things about the West, and how Chinese immigrants helped do a lot of the "dirty" jobs that Whites wouldn't do. Sadly, most of this is drowned under its comic book style and some pretty bad kung-fu. Yet it does have some good parts: most of the action scenes come with Peckinpah-esque slow motion and exploding, bloody squids. Some of the violence is pretty strong too, with Lee pulling a bad guy's eyes out on screen. But due to its light-hearted mode, it never feels dark or repellent. In fact, it is all rather comic, lacking the seriousness as "Django Kill, If You Live, Shoot!" (1967) has from its strong violence.

Acting wise, Chen Lee is probably as wooden as his martial arts, but Piero Lulli makes a fine villain and Klaus Kinski's virtually cameo-like role is memorable. The scene where the Mexicans are killed is well-directed, as are a number of other action scenes, sufficient enough to make sure that the Western is at least fast paced.

It isn't a brilliant piece of cinema, but as the Spaghetti Western genre went down the drains, it is refreshingly old fashioned in a way, occasionally recalling the past Golden Era of the late sixties that makes it worth checking out for the Spaghetti Western enthusiast.