Movie Ad of the Week: REVOLT OF KUNG FU LEE (1977)

A double bill of REVOLT OF KUNG FU LEE and THUNDERFIST opened at the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit on October 12, 1977.

REVOLT OF KUNG FU LEE is TIE HAN (1973) a.k.a. THE IRON MAN, starring Yu Wang (Jimmy Wang Yu).

The second feature, THUNDERFIST, is originally titled ZE WANG and is also known as DEATH BLOW. Rated PG and advertised as "the first kung fu karate motion picture for family audiences," it first appeared in U.S. theaters in October 1973 from Artisan Releasing Corporation, a short-lived distribution company that also released THINGS FALL APART, DON'T LEAVE GO MY HAND (a.k.a. BLACK HOOKER), a reissue of the concert film SOUL TO SOUL, and possibly a second martial arts film called THE COBRA KNOWS NO MERCY. The head of Artisan was jazz pianist James LaMont Johnson, whose LaMont Johnson Quintet did the music for THUNDERFIST. Johnson later ran two other exploitation film distribution companies, Twin World Films (BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD) and Elmark General Film Corporation (WHEN DRAGONS COLLIDE), and passed away in 1999 at age 58.

Movie Ad of the Week: RETURN OF THE CHINESE BOXER (1983)

THE CHINESE BOXER (1969), a trendsetting and immensely popular Hong Kong martial arts film, was Jimmy Wang Yu's directorial debut as well as his final appearance in a Shaw Brothers production (It was released in the U.S. by Enchanted Filmarts in 1973 as THE HAMMER OF GOD). The sort-of sequel RETURN OF THE CHINESE BOXER, shot in Taiwan in 1974 and also directed by and starring Yu Wang, was nearly 10 years old when William Mishkin Motion Pictures subdistributed it in the New York area for Unifilm International. Opening date: February 25, 1983.

A QUEEN'S RANSOM (1976)

Recommended more to James Bond fans for the presence of series one-shot George Lazenby and connoisseurs of terrible English-language dubbing than to the kung fu buffs who’ll be drawn in by a couple of key names in the cast, A QUEEN’S RANSOM is Golden Harvest’s attempt at an international thriller along the lines of THE DAY OF THE JACKAL, RUSSIAN ROULETTE, and HENNESSY. It has something of a bad reputation, probably due to the export version that I’m reviewing here, but is an entertaining time killer as long as you’re not expecting an abundance of martial arts action. A letterboxed, sub-titled DVD and VCD can be purchased from online vendors or at Chinatown DVD shops, but nostalgia for the teen years I spent in front of the TV on Saturday afternoons drove me to this cropped, horrendously dubbed transfer. Pic reached U.S. grindhouses in 1981 as THE INTERNATIONAL ASSASSIN, courtesy of World Northal, and was already part of the company’s “Black Belt 2” television syndication package (as INTERNATIONAL ASSASSINS) by March of that year.

The serpentine story takes place during May of 1975, an especially hectic month in Hong Kong history. After accepting over 130,000 Indo-Chinese refugees who were fleeing communist takeover in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the United States closed its doors and forced the remaining 12,000-to-18,000 to pour into makeshift camps in Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and – yes – Hong Kong. At the same time, Queen Elizabeth II became the first reigning monarch to visit the colony in 133 years of British rule, an event that required massive amounts of police and military security. Into this powder keg comes Belfast IRA killer George Walsh (Lazenby, hilariously voiced by a whiny Brit who only tries for an Irish brogue in every third scene) and his motley band of international assassins -- familiar faces include Jimmy Wang Yu, Bolo Yeung and American starlet Judy Brown (THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, WOMEN IN CAGES) -- who are apparently in town to kill the Queen at any cost. But with a Cambodian princess (Angela Mao) and all of her riches stowed away in a nearby farmhouse, any halfway attentive viewer will know where this is going by the midway point. Other plot twists are competently handled and won’t be spoiled here. Director Shan-si Tung has a lot to juggle and manages to keep most of it in the air for the full 96 minutes. Others in the cast are Tien Ni a.k.a. Tanny (from the BLACK MAGIC movies and CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD), Dean Shek, Lung Chan, Chun Hsiung Ko, and - although I never actually saw him - Sammo Hung. Lazenby, who had already done one movie each with Mao (STONER) and Wang Yu (THE MAN FROM HONG KONG), was next seen in KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE and Al Adamson’s DEATH DIMENSION.