Guai ke

Featuring a solid cast of Hong Kong film luminaries and fight after brutal, bone-crushing fight, "Stranger from Canton" is the kind of movie I eagerly drank in on Sunday afternoons when I was a kid. Back then, the USA Network ruled basic cable with "Kung Fu Theater"--which aired this film under its international title, "The Karate Killer". Jason Pai Piao is one of my favorite Hong Kong stars; he went on to appear in everything from independent cheapies like Ron Van Clief's Black Dragon films to prestigious Shaw Brothers epics like "Avenging Warriors of Shaolin" and "Killer Constable". Here he plays a dapper hero (watch out for that spotless white ice cream suit!) who catches knives in his teeth and takes bites out of them. The imposing Thompson Kao Kang plays the lead villain, a dangerous fighter who wields his queue--or pigtail--as a weapon. Feng Yi of "Chinese Connection" fame appears as one of Kao Kang's minions, a Japanese swordsman. The fights in this movie are downright visceral; with the aid of the thunderous sound effects so common to mid-'70s kung-fu dramas, you practically feel every punch and kick. There are no wires...just tons of teeth-grinding action. If you enjoy the dark, violent martial arts films of this period, "Stranger from Canton" will be right up your alley.

You can't expect too much from the late Kung-Fu trash director Yeo Ban Yee, but this movie (released in US as Karate Killer in 1974), was a cut above his usually very low standard, cheaply made as the others but fascinating in the way the mandarin badguy is portrayed by charismatic Thompson Kao Kang. A kind of gelid Kung-Fu Terminator using his hair-queue as a whip! Sadly this actor died young killed by an Hong Kong idiot policeman in 1980, and this is probably the best thing this unlucky actor made. Story tells about the anti-Ching revolutionary struggle in the changing China of 1900 (even if the movie was made in Macau), as the secret agent Jason Pai Piao arrives in town to help the rebels against the diabolic Mandarin. Tons of fights and thundering sound effects of kicks and punches. Music stolen from James Bond saga as usual. If you are a Bruce Lee addict you'll surely recognize fat actor Fong Ai as the japanese samurai, the same role he played in the legendary Fist of Fury. All in all Guai Ke is bona-fide cult trash well rememberd by old timers and a way to re-discover an unsung martial artist who died brutally and untimely 4 august 1980. The same cast and crew went in Italy 1973 to make the terrible Kung-Fu Brothers in the Wild West.