Shanghaï Joe

(54%) A film that shows "good" old boy cowboys in maybe the worst light possible as nearly every person featured bar a few Mexican characters are portrayed as huge and total b#stards. The guy that carts main character Joe to Texas is a git, the barman he meets is a turd, while everyone else is if anything even worse. This may not look up to much on the outset, but for a lowish budgeted 70's martial arts spaghetti western hybrid I enjoyed its simple charm. This is a little rough around the edges, though it moves along at a good pace with never really a dull moment throughout. There's plenty of fights, lots bad guys getting what they deserve, a sweet romantic sub-plot, and best of all: it's fun to watch.

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.

In 1882, spunky Chinese man Shanghai Joe hops atop a stagecoach from San Francisco (subtitle says St. Francisco!) to Texas in order to become a cowboy and ends up having to defend himself against a seemingly endless stream of trash-talking rednecks.

Soon Joe runs afoul of a group of nasty human smugglers who send four colorful hired killers to do him in, including Gordon Mitchell, a cannibal, and scalp-collector Klaus Kinski!

Coming out on the heels of the hit television show "Kung Fu", The Fighting Fists Of Shanghai Joe is a lot better than it's Italian knock-off status would suggest.

It's almost all non-stop action with loads of flying fists and flying lead. Blood, a bit of gore, and a great Ennio Morricone sounding score by Bruno Nicolai all fit the comic book nature of the film quite nicely!

In the title role, Chen Lee is really good and should have been in more movies than he was.

very weird European take on the Spaghetti western-Kung fu connection that has haunted Hong Kong cinema since Shaw Bros. started using borrowed Ennio Morricone music for their films in the later '60s.

There is much to be said of this weird connection; but for now, let's remark that while "Shanghai Joe" shows really very little understanding of Kung Fu, it shows considerable savvy about Spaghetti Westerns; the action rarely lags, and the heros are heroic, the villains are villainous - yep, a good B-movie all around, perfect Saturday Matinée fare from its era.

(Cinephiles - note the tribute to Sergoi Leone at the end - a definite plus for me.) I agree -fun film of its type & date.

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.