KILLERS ON WHEELS in 35mm on 7/13 at the Nitehawk!

Wow, check this out: Temple of Schlock founder Chris Poggiali will be at the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn on Thursday, July 13th, to introduce a rare 35mm showing of the amazing KILLERS ON WHEELS! This event, part of the “The Deuce” screening series, is expected to sell out, so get your tickets now! HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS collides with STRAW DOGS and LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT in this brutal biker flick from Hong Kong's legendary Shaw Brothers Studios. A series of increasingly hostile run-ins between a gang of rowdy Yamaha riders and two young couples staying at an island vacation home leads to deaths by electrocution, fire, boiling oil, broken glass, harpoon gun, and even outboard motor! In other words, this is more top-notch schlock from the director of THE BOXER'S OMEN! Plus, you get a snappy soundtrack of stolen music ranging from Piero Piccioni's "Identikit 2" and Herbie Hancock's "Heartbeat" to Lalo Schifrin cues swiped from KELLY'S HEROES. This is the very same, extremely rare English-dubbed 35mm print that played the grindhouses of 42nd Street! The show starts at 9:30 p.m. and, as always, there will be prizes afterwards. For more details, head over to the event page.

Updating the IMDb: The World Northal Edition

My interest in the World Northal Corporation began on February 20th, 1982, when I saw my first Shaw Brothers kung fu movie, TEN TIGERS OF KWANGTUNG, on WNEW’s “Drive-In Movie.” I didn't know it then, but TEN TIGERS OF KWANGTUNG -- which had been released to theaters the previous August -- was one of the 13 movies that formed World Northal's first trendsetting "Black Belt Theater" TV syndication package. A few years ago I wrote an article about the company for George Reis’ excellent DVD Drive-In, and although subsequent research has revealed a couple of errors in the piece (including one that is now on the IMDb, and I’ll take full responsibility for correcting), it’s otherwise very thorough and includes quotes from a brief interview I did with former company head Mel Maron. For anyone unfamiliar with World Northal and its “Black Belt Theater” packages, I highly recommend reading that article before continuing with this post.

Like most of the independent distribution companies that handled imported martial arts movies (New Line, Aquarius, 21st Century, Transcontinental), World Northal was based in Manhattan, so the nationwide release “track” for their product began in the Times Square-42nd Street area, with additional playdates in the outer boroughs. After its New York debut, it might take weeks or even months for a movie like THE MASTER KILLER to reach other theaters on the track, such as the Colonial in Hartford, the McVickers in Chicago, the Capital in Philadelphia, and the Rialto in Atlanta. After a year on the track, the World Northal releases would be edited for time and content (by Larry Bensky) and sold to TV in the company’s successful syndication packages.

There are three sources responsible for the inaccuracies on the IMDb related to World Northal's kung fu releases. The first and most obvious is the regional release pattern of indepedent movies during the 1970s and '80s, which the ad below nicely illustrates. SATURDAY THE 14TH opened in October 1981, NEIGHBORS was a December '81 release, and REVENGE OF THE SHOGUN WOMEN hit theaters in the New York-New Jersey area in January '82, so one would assume that THE FOUR ASSASSINS and CHALLENGE OF THE NINJA were also late 1981 or early '82 releases -- yet World Northal premiered them both in November 1980.

The second is the MPAA database. For reasons possibly related to the syndication deals, World Northal would submit their movies to the MPAA months after they opened in New York. For example, THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS -- which played on 42nd Street in July 1980 -- is one of several World Northal releases from '80 that the MPAA has on file as being submitted in 1981.

The other source for incorrect information is John Willis' annual Screen World. Willis apparently got a lot of his information from Variety and its city-by-city box-office reports; if THE SPEARMAN OF DEATH was drawing big numbers in Cleveland for a week in January 1984 and Willis had no prior data for it, the movie would appear in the following volume of Screen World as a January 1984 release, even though it had been in circulation since 1982.

To gather the following information, I consulted the New York Daily News, New York Post, Newsday, Chicago Tribune, and Village Voice movie listings, as well as Boxoffice.
                                                                          -- Chris Poggiali

THE AVENGING EAGLE (1980)
a.k.a. LONG XIE SHI SAN YING (1978)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1980)

THE BLOODY AVENGERS (1980)
a.k.a. BA GUO LIAN JUN / BOXER REBELLION (1976)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1980)

CHALLENGE OF THE NINJA (1980)
a.k.a. ZHONG HUA ZHANG FU / HEROES OF THE EAST (1978)
The IMDb lists a U.S. release date of 1982, but it first appeared in New York theaters in November 1980

DEATH CHAMBER (1981)
a.k.a. SHAO LIN SI / SHAOLIN TEMPLE (1976)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1981)

DEATH STROKE (1981)
a.k.a. ZHU ROU RONG / BUDO WING (1979)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1981)

DISCIPLES OF DEATH (1983)
a.k.a. SHAOLIN ZI DI / MEN FROM THE MONASTERY (1974)
Under the distributor credit, 1976 is given as the World Northal release date. It’s actually 1983.

DYNASTY OF BLOOD (1983)
a.k.a. CI MA / BLOOD BROTHERS (1973)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1983). Release date is November 9, 1983 (New York)

ENTER THE FAT DRAGON (1983)
a.k.a. FEI LUNG GWOH GONG (1978)
The IMDb lists a U.S. release date of January 1984, but it played in New York in 1983. This date should also be applied to the company credit.

THE EXECUTIONERS OF DEATH (1980)
a.k.a. HONG XI GUAN / EXECUTIONERS FROM SHAOLIN (1977)
In the company credits of the IMDb, New World Pictures is credited with releasing the movie in 1982. It’s possible their sub-distribution office in Atlanta (New World Pictures of Atlanta) handled it in the ATL territory -- and someone who lived in the area at the time added this information -- but New World didn’t release the movie nationally. The company credit should be World Northal (1980).

FISTS OF THE WHITE LOTUS (1982)
a.k.a. HONG WENDING SAN PO BIA LIAN JIAO / CLAN OF THE WHITE LOTUS (1980)
The IMDb lists a U.S. release date of 1983, but it played in New York theaters in 1982.

THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS (1980)
a.k.a. WU DU / FIVE VENOMS (1978)
The IMDb lists a U.S. release date of 1981, but it first appeared in New York theaters in July 1980.

THE FOUR ASSASSINS (1980)
a.k.a. MA KA PO LO / MARCO POLO (1975)
The IMDb lists a U.S. release date of 1981, but it first appeared in New York theaters in November 1980.

HEROES TWO (1984)
a.k.a. FANG SHIYU YU HONG XIGUAN / BLOODY FISTS (1974)
I couldn’t find a U.S. one-sheet or ad for HEROES TWO, but it opened on 42nd Street in June 1984 on a triple bill with DEATH CHAMBER and FIVE MASTERS OF DEATH. World Northal later changed the title to KUNG FU INVADERS for a TV syndication package.

THE INCREDIBLE KUNG FU MASTER (1980)
a.k.a. XING MU ZI GU HUO ZHAO (1979)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1980)

THE INVINCIBLE KUNG FU BROTHERS (1983)
a.k.a. FANG SHIH YU YU HU HUI CHIEN / THE SHAOLIN AVENGERS (1976)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1983)

THE INVINCIBLE ONE (1983)
a.k.a. HONG QUAN XIAO ZI / DISCIPLES OF SHAOLIN (1975)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1983).
Release date is November 16, 1983 (New York)

KARATE EXTERMINATORS (1984)
a.k.a. WAN REN ZAN / KILLER CONSTABLE (1981)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1984). Release date is November 1984.

KILLER ARMY (1982)
a.k.a. DA SHA SI FANG (1980)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1982)

THE KILLER FROM SHANTUNG (1980)
a.k.a. MA YONG ZHEN / BOXER FROM SHANTUNG (1972)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1980)

THE MASTER AVENGERS (1981)
a.k.a. FEN ZHU CHI LAO HU / MASTER KILLERS (1980)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1981)

MASTER OF DISASTER (1982)
a.k.a. LUNG FU SIU YEH / THE TREASURE HUNTERS (1981)
The IMDb lists a U.S. release date of 1983, but it played in New York theaters in 1982.

MISSION KISS AND KILL (1980)
a.k.a. LANG DANG JIANG HU (1979) - Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1980)

ROAR OF THE LION (1983)
a.k.a. NAN BEI SHI WANG / LION VS. LION (1981)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1983)

THE SAVAGE FIVE (1980)
a.k.a. WU HU JIANG / FIVE TIGER GENERALS (1974)
The IMDb lists a U.S. release date of 1981, but it played in New York theaters in 1980.

THE SPEARMAN OF DEATH (1982)
a.k.a. TIE QI MEN / THE FLAG OF IRON (1980)
The IMDb lists a U.S. release date of February 1984, but it played in New York theaters in 1982.

STONER (1981)
a.k.a. TIE JIN GANG DA PO ZI YANG GUAN / HONG KONG HITMAN (1974)
Distributor info is missing and should be added: World Northal (1981)

THE THREE AVENGERS (1980)
a.k.a. DA CHA TOU (1979)
The IMDb lists a U.S. release date of October 1981, but it played in New York theaters in 1980. Also, "re-release" needs to be removed; THE THREE AVENGERS and ENTER THREE DRAGONS are two different movies, but the person who last updated the company credits seems to think they're one and the same. Therefore, Cinematic Releasing Corporation (1979) needs to be removed from the company credits, since that applies to ENTER THREE DRAGONS and not THE THREE AVENGERS.

Movie Ad of the Week: "Sir Run Run Shaw Kung-Fu Festival" (1983)

In late 1983, World Northal Corp. had so many Shaw Brothers movies on their release schedule that the Movieland theater in Times Square was able to run a five-week "Sir Run Run Shaw Kung-Fu Festival"
(November 9 - December 13) to help clear the slate so the films could be included in the company's latest TV syndication package. Here's what was shown...

DYNASTY OF BLOOD
a.k.a. CI MA / BLOOD BROTHERS (1973)

THE INVINCIBLE ONE
a.k.a. HONG QUAN XIAO ZI / DISCIPLES OF SHAOLIN (1975)

KUNG FU WARLORDS PART II
a.k.a. SHE DIAO YING XIONG CHUAN XU JI / BRAVE ARCHER 2 (1978)

THE DEADLY MANTIS
a.k.a. TANG LANG / SHAOLIN MANTIS (1978)

SUPER NINJAS
a.k.a. REN ZNE WU DI / FIVE ELEMENT NINJA (1982)

By the second week, THE KUNG FU INSTRUCTOR/JIAO TOU (1979) had replaced KUNG FU WARLORDS PART II, which kept its November 23 release date but premiered instead at the Empire Theater on 42nd Street, where it was paired with the first KUNG FU WARLORDS.

One-Sheet of the Week: CHINATOWN KID (1979)

TANG REN JIE XIAO ZI (1977)

U.S. release in 1979 as CHINATOWN KID

This movie's leading man, the late Alexander Fu Sheng, was recently the subject of a wonderful 3-part post over at the great Cool Ass Cinema blog. Check it out HERE.

Shaw Brothers short takes

While we wholeheartedly applaud Celestial Films for the wonderful job they've done in the digital re-mastering of over 760 movies from the Shaw Brothers studio, we still think they deserve a swift kick in the balls for neglecting a handful of the sleazier and more offbeat Shaw offerings of the mid '70's -- namely VIRGINS OF THE 7 SEAS (1974), KILLERS ON WHEELS (1976) and THE DEADLY ANGELS (1977). All three played the U.S. drive-in/grindhouse circuit for years, with one earning its widest audience through Saturday afternoon TV showings, before slipping into near-total obscurity. Shown last week on a triple bill in the Temple screening room to an enthusiastic crowd of degenerates, all three are solidly entertaining exploitation flicks that instantly earned the Temple of Schlock seal of approval.

Pull five foxy fräuleins out of a SCHULMÄDCHEN-REPORT movie (before they've had time to get dressed, natch) and drop them in the middle of a Hong Kong kung fu flick and that's the pitch for VIRGINS OF THE 7 SEAS, pretty much everything you'd ever want from an alliance between the Shaws and West German smut peddler Wolf C. Hartwig's Rapid Film company (Actually, we would've included Ingrid Steeger and that gorgeous black gal from SCHULMÄDCHEN-REPORT #4 in the cast -- but hey, we never said this movie was perfect). Acquired for stateside distribution by Film Ventures International (FVI), with test screenings under the VIRGINS OF THE 7 SEAS title beginning in December 1975, pic was renamed THE BOD SQUAD by the start of the '76 drive-in season and evidently played to good business under that handle for several years.

In a desperate attempt to capitalize on the popular 10-hour NBC miniseries SHOGUN, which had premiered in the fall of 1980, FVI threw together a regional reissue under the rip-off title SHOGUN WARLORD beginning in August 1981, supported by their newer hit KILL OR BE KILLED as the co-feature (the double bill passed through the New York City area in June '82).

Story begins with the titular femmes -- all Caucasians, and only 3 of them still virgins -- held hostage aboard a junk en route to the evil Boss Won Tau’s domain, with the explanation that they were bound for Australia when captured by pirates. Captives are Karen (Tamara Elliot), her younger and innocent sister Donna (hot little Sonja Jeannine from 14 AND UNDER and SCHULMÄDCHEN-REPORTs #5-7), Anna (Diana Drube), Brenda (Gillian Bray) and the buck-toothed Celia (Deborah Ralls), and just when we thought we had never seen a more unflattering collection of wigs in our lives, the junk arrives at Won Tau’s place and every man from the Boss right down to his most bumbling lackey shows up sporting a ratty Cher weave. The girls are quickly stripped, cherry-checked by gloved servants and then groped by key members of Won Tau’s entourage, including his crazy henchman Ju-Lau (who gasps “I wanna cross the Gobi Desert on you!” while squeezing Donna’s bare butt) and the lesbian Aunt Jo-Fu, who sets her eyes on Karen. The 5 are then given lessons in the proper way to make love to a Chinese man (with an elderly woman as their instructor) and taught Chinese dance by the beautiful and sympathetic Ko Mei Mei (Hui-Ling Liu), a slave to Won Tau herself ever since her brother Ko Pao (Hua Yueh) challenged the Boss and then fled to organize an uprising against him.

Ko Mei Mei also secretly trains the 5 in martial arts so they can defend themselves against the horny, wealthy men who’ll be buying them at auction, her self-defense technique of choice being one that we quickly dubbed “deadly pit-spit style” because it involves olive pits as lethal projectiles. This leads to a jaw-dropping training montage in which nude white girls in hideous Rapunzel wigs cram olives into their mouths in fast-motion, spin around and spit the pits at pots of water that spring slow-motion leaks upon impact (while beer was spraying from mouths and noses all over the Temple screening room). And wait'll you see the slave auction, where a bidding war erupts over poor buck-toothed Celia and the winner turns out to be a squeaky-voiced millionaire who appears to be half-man, half-mouse! We knew when we saw the credit “Directed by Chih-Hung Kuei and Ernst Hofbauer” that this was going to be a winner, but by the 20 minute mark we were wondering aloud just how the heck this thing played theaters all over the U.S. for over 5 years without attracting word-of-mouth attention, ‘zine coverage or trade paper reviews. Best of all, the version we got through Cinema de Bizarre is German-language with fan subs that render nearly every line a howler (“I’m gonna turn off your gas and hang you from the Chinese wall!”), making this the most crowd-pleasing party movie we’ve come across in ages.

A Hong Kong hybrid of STRAW DOGS and the AIP biker flicks of the ‘60s like THE BORN LOSERS, Chih-Hung Kuei’s KILLERS ON WHEELS is a fast-paced and nasty B-flick ripe for rediscovery. When released stateside in 1977 by Howard Mahler Films, the same company that had unleashed the Shaw horror pic KILLER SNAKES a couple of years earlier, pic was blessed with a beautiful Neal Adams one-sheet that in no way exaggerates the action and brutality of the story (It also makes no attempt to conceal the film’s Asian origins in its credit block). When Mahler closed up shop a few years later, Terry Levene of Aquarius Releasing acquired the movie for a June 1983 reissue under the title KARATE KILLERS ON WHEELS.

Simple storyline opens with a trio of vacationers -- husband & wife, plus the husband’s younger sister -- encountering a rowdy gang of bikers aboard a ferry to Hong Kong’s outlying islands, where the three are headed to meet the sister’s fiancée (played by Danny Lee) for a weekend stay in his beach house. They reach their destination, but tensions mount through a series of increasingly hostile run-ins with the bikers (as well as in-fighting among gang members, a common subplot in this genre) until all hell breaks loose: their car is destroyed, the beach house trashed, the wife ravaged and the sister murdered (by having her face repeatedly slammed into a pile of broken glass!). While the revenge-crazed fiancée cracks open a half dozen biker skulls with a crowbar, the husband barricades himself and the wife inside the house to fight off the Yamaha-riding reinforcements in a vicious finale featuring deaths by electrocution, fire, boiling oil, harpoon gun and even outboard motor! This is top-notch action house entertainment, with blood and bare flesh to spare, plus a snappy soundtrack of stolen music ranging from Piero Piccioni’s “Identikit 2” (from COLPO ROVENTE) to Herbie Hancock's très funky "Heartbeat" and Lalo Schifrin cues lifted from KELLY’S HEROES! Unfortunately, the only version we’ve been able to track down (a) has no credits whatsoever, (b) is dubbed into German (c) with no subtitles and (d) has been trimmed of the more extreme barbarism, some of which can be glimpsed in the trailer. There’s also no IMDb entry to be found for this twisted little gem, leading us to believe that even normally diligent Shaw students can’t figure out what the heck it is!

THE DEADLY ANGELS is the only one of the three that we had actually seen prior to the Temple screening, and in a heavily edited TV version thanks to frequent appearances on WNYW’s “Drive-In Movie” in the mid ‘80s. With a rigidly structured script that doesn’t introduce its title characters until the 20 minute mark, it’s also the only one that could be called a mainstream formula actioner (despite the fact that it’s still packed to the rafters with hard-R-rated sex and brutality). Today’s kung fu fans and A.D.D. moviegoers might gripe about a slow first act but we quickly got into the groove and found the plot buildup satisfying, especially after the immediate all-out assault of the first two features. Designed to cash in on the popular American TV series CHARLIE’S ANGELS, pic became one of many Shaw Brothers films licensed exclusively in the U.S. by veteran distributor Mel Maron once he became president of the World-Northal Corporation in 1979. Released theatrically on a double bill with THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS (New York City opening: February 1980), it received its widest exposure as part of World-Northal’s popular “Kung Fu Theater” syndication package for television.

Nightclub owner Chin and his murderous employees, including psycho girlfriend Yu Chi and sadistic knife-thrower Feng, have a lucrative side business ripping off Hong Kong diamond merchants and using showgirls from the club to smuggle the contraband into Japan and Korea, with Feng closing each deal by slashing to death the beautiful courier with his collection of blades. When the corpses of several showgirls turn up in Korea and Japan soon after the diamond heists, Scotland Yard detective Miss Eve (Evelyne Kraft from THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN) arrives in Hong Kong to put together a 3-woman police unit to go undercover in Chin’s club and bust up the operation. All three women are skilled in martial arts and firearms, with each brandishing a different weapon of choice: Chinese cop Yang Che Sin (Nancy Yen Nan Hsi) swings a mean spiked bolo, Korean cop Kow Chen Chen (Chen Chin Lan) prefers a crossbow, and Japanese cop Lei Ping (Dana/Tsen Shu-Yi) is a crack shot with a slingshot. Once this setup is in place THE DEADLY ANGELS kicks into high-gear with plenty of well-choreographed fight scenes and action setpieces, and despite the slick Aaron Spelling-like exterior there’s a surprisingly high sleaze quotient that was nowhere in evidence in the T.V. print we watched back in the day. Ennio Morricone fans will be kept busy identifying the maestro’s music cues on the soundtrack (especially from THE SICILIAN CLAN), and the whole Temple crew cracked up during the big climactic action scene when we realized it was taking place in the same beach house from KILLERS ON WHEELS. Both are available from grey market dealers. Check 'em out.

One-Sheet of the Week: THE FLYING GUILLOTINE (1980)

XUE DI ZI (1974)

U.S. release in 1980 as THE FLYING GUILLOTINE

One-Sheet of the Week: BLAST OF THE IRON PALM (1984)

SHE DIAO YING XIONG CHUAN SAN JI / BRAVE ARCHER 3 (1981)

U.S. release in 1984 as BLAST OF THE IRON PALM

One-Sheet of the Week: KUNG FU WARLORDS PART II (1983)

SHE DIAO YING XIONG CHUAN XU JI / BRAVE ARCHER 2 (1978)

U.S. release in October 1983 as KUNG FU WARLORDS PART II