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Here are just the Asian films I’ve watched during the five day marathon along with a little about them and reflections.

-Last Hurrah for Chivalry, Probably the tenth time I’ve seen this one and under the Dragon Dynasty disc its looking better then ever before, great picture and sound quality. Its still, along with The Butterfly Murders, one of the best transitional Wu Xia films between the styles of the 1970's and 80's.

-PTU, another Dragon Dynasty disc, again they did a very good. In my mind this is probably Johnny Too’s best film. Very moody, the pace is a little slow for some people, but its great.

-Doctor Vampire, classic HK horror comedy about a HK doctor who travels to England and is bitten by a vampire prostitute. He then goes back to HK and becomes a good guy vampire and eventually fights along with a group of his friends against a super vampire. Very enjoyable and takes a self reflexive approach in terms of referencing the cliches of other vampire films.

-The Quiet Duel, really early Kurosawa is hit and miss. This is much better then some of the other films of this era such as Scandal, although he did make a few masterpieces even then. Its all about a Japanese doctor that contract syphilis during an operation while a medic in the war. He comes back and feels he has to hide it for a variety of reasons.

-North Korean Guys, an okay Korean comedy about a group of North Korean sailors who accidently finds themself in the south after a storm. They try to navigate around a resort community and most of the comedy centers around the cultural differences. Its okay, one or two good laughs. But more then anything its very average.

-Slave of the Sword, this is a shameless ripoff of Butterfly Sword aka Butterfly and Sword aka Butterfly, Sword, Secret. They use most of the same sets and locations. A lot of the same camera angles, similar costumes, plot elements and some of the same actors. They do throw in a little erotica, but it feels strongly like a week imitation.

-Fires on the Plane, a classic Japanese film about a soldier wondering around after a series of battles during the second world war. Later on he faces crazed comrades who have resorted to cannibalism.

-Adultery, Chinese Style, this is a great little soft core erotic anthology by Lui Key over at the Shaw Brothers in the mid 70's. It revels in its own subject matter a great deal and features segments as short and a minute or as long as twenty. It also includes a few musical ones.

-Love Swindler, this is a Li Han Hsiang anthology about cheating. Its on par with his other work of the period and has some memorable segments including a snappy little one about a crooked acupuncturist. A lot of pitch black comedy.

-Wild Zero, a film that should need no introduction. I haven’t watched it for about a year and a half, so it worked really well for me at probably my fifteenth viewing of the film. Awesome zombie filled, Rock n’ Roll Jet movie.

-The Island, this is a HK exploitation film along the same style as Fatal Vacation, only not quite as good. It stars John Shum as a teacher who takes a group of students to a island where a family of inbred crazies live. One of the crazies, who also happens to be retarded is looking for a wife. He selects one of the students, that does not go down well and there is a prolonged siege/battle towards the end of the film. There is a lot of genre mixing, but it does not go down as well as it did in the above mentioned Fatal Vacation. Still, this is recommended for fans of HK exploitation.

-The Blade, Tsui Hark’s remake of The One-Armed Swordsman. Its very different then the original in the same way that other Tsui films New Dragon Gate Inn and A Chinese Ghost Story differed from theirs. It’s a lot darker and almost reminds me of a Lu Chun Ku film such as Bastard Swordsman. Highly recommended.

-Sick Nurses, I’ve been hearing about this Thai horror film for a while not. It short, simple and very good. The plot is very straightforward. A group of hot nurses kill another nurse and she comes back from the dead one night and takes her revenge in a highly graphic manor. A lot of violence, gore and a fast pace make this one of the best Asian horror films of the past few years.

-Savior of the Soul, in style this was similar in terms of its mix of crazy elements to The Heroic Trio. Its about a group of people known as city soldiers who are a crazy kind of super hero type crime fighters. Someone is after them to take revenge and lots of over the top confrontations go down involving swordplay, gunplay, magic, exploding daggers, whips and one crazy thing after another.

-The Dream Sword, one of the Taiwanese Wu Xia films released by Rarescope. This has some very high production values compared to its contemporaries and has generally aged well. Its all about clan feuds. It also has an early appearance of Hu Chin which makes it worth the watch if just for that.

-Made in Hong Kong, Fruit Chan’s second film and his big break out moment. Its kind of a case of HK meets the french new wave. Amazing film and a must see for HK film fans.

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