9-3-09: Pieces and bits

News and views from Planet Loganville

Shooting from the lip: The ISHK Panel

For anyone out there with no better way to spend their Wednesday evening, there's a film-making panel with Wu Shu director Anthony Szeto, Lorna Tee and myself at 8.30pm in California (the bar, not the gym!), Lan Kwai Fong.

My thanks to the indefatigable Craig Leeson for shepherding this thing through twelve changes of date and five alternative venues! Now its all systems go for what's sure to be a fun rap session about the challenges of Hong Kong movie-making.

Its going to be particularly entertaining, seeing as Lorna, a last-minute replacement for Shaw Studios boss Lloyd Chao, very vocally didn't want to sit next to The Great Bey at the Media Asia Spring Dinner. (I get that a lot, and, yes, usually from women...)

The presentations will be followed by a Q-and-A, and then the cinematic equivalent of S-and-M, with each participant presenting clips from the celluloid skeleton in their closet. For Anthony, its American Samurai, for me, Its A Mad, Mad, Mad Kung Fu World and, for Lorna, Lady Garfield Goes To Guangdong (don't ask...) Anyway, 8.30pm at California, please feel free to come and hurl views, abuse and (fresh) produce.

Taing my Chi with Ocean

Big thanks to Alive Not Dead for connecting me with Shenzhen-based actor/choreographer/Tai Chi maestro Ocean Hou. 

After we started communicating through the site, Ocean came down to visit TWC HQ in Hong Kong, and joined us at the usual 12 midday kung fu session at pier 7, Hong Kong docks (all are welcome!). He demonstrated his mastery of Chen Tai Chi, and I was blown away by his skills.

Luckily for me, Ocean has been coming down from Shenzen to teach me his version of the Chen Tai 13 movement form. I'm a slow learner, but he's a patient teacher. Ocean's now up for a role in a major action film that's currently in the the final stages fo prep, so good luck to him for that.

If anyone else wants to train with Ocean, or cast him!, you can reach the maestro at youshengclub@hotmail.com. (He also has a bunch of clips on his AnD page and on Youtube, if you want to check his form.

The Comet Strikes (out)

Oh, the deceptiveness of memory... One of my first jobs at Media Asia was cataloguing the full back catalogue of Golden Harvest films for the US Library of Congress.

Naturally, this was a labour of love, as it allowed me to screen all these obscure classic 70s Hong Kong actioners, and get paid for it! I remember watching, and being impressed by, a VHS of The Comet Stikes,  an obscure horror/kung fu hybrid from director Lo Wei.

Lo is best-known for directing two Bruce Lee movies, and he shot both the first of these, The Big Boss, and Comet Strikes in 1971. The latter features several cast members from both Boss and Fist of Fury (including Tony Liu and Lee Kwan). Most memorable of all is Nora Miao, Lee's on-screen paramour in Fist and Way of the Dragon, who lays down some double sword smackdowns in Comet like she's Golden Harvest's answer to Cheng Pei Pei. (Nicholas Tse's father, Tse Yin, also performs some of his own impressive stuntwork in the film.)

However, the film as a whole has more cheese than a quattro formaggio. Its out now on DVD, and I was amazed how much slower and creakier it was than I remembered.

The One eyed Boxer

On the more serious side of the news, my son Calvin was (play) fighting with his two brothers and my associate Nick Eriksson and he manage to sustain a blow to the left eye.

He was soon sporting a fine shiner, and so decided to put on this blue eye mask he found in back of the freezer. (No-one is quite sure how it got there, but I'm sure there are many similar strange objects to be found deep in the recesses of even the cleanest freezer.)

Before wearing the mask, he decided to wrap a towel around his head, so he looked like the world's first Saudi superhero. Lets see what the other kids made of this new look in school today...