Marco Brambilla is a Milan-born, New York City-based video collage and installation artist, which doesn’t make him a natural choice to direct a Sylvester Stallone movie. He also directed Excess Baggage, Dinotopia and Abominable, but if you said, “Who should direct a slam-bang action film?” I would not answer with a video installation artist who comments on visual overload through his work.

1996: Maniac Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) kidnaps a number of hostages and hides in an abandoned building (the Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Company in Louisville, Kentucky, which was scheduled for demolition, substitutes for a Los Angeles building). This lures in LAPD Sgt. John Spartan (Stallone) — “Send a maniac to catch one” — who jumps out of a helicopter directly into combat. Spartan had done a thermal scan and no bodies were found, so he goes in guns blazing.

Unfortunately, the hostages were already dead and their bodies are found in the rubble of the exploded building. Phoenix claims that Spartan knew he had hostages and attacked anyway. The question of why does the court believe a man who has killed numerous people over a cop comes to mind here, but if you’re going to ask questions that make sense, you’re not ready for 1990’s action films.

Phoenix and Spartan are incarcerated in the California Cryo-Penitentiary, where they are frozen and given subliminal rehabilitation techniques while they sleep.

2032: Phoenix has a parole hearing and escapes, armed with the skills he needs to survive in the future, like computer hacking. Remembering that it takes a maniac to catch one, Lieutenant Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock, who took over the role from Lori Petty after just two days of filming) thaws out Spartan.

Spartan wakes up to the peaceful world San Angeles — Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara all in one city, kind of like Mega-City One from Judge Dredd — and discovers that he is a man out of time. It’s the most politically correct world ever, a place where physical contact and swearing are illegal and anything unhealthy is banned.

It’s also a place where Taco Bell is the only survivor of the Franchise Wars and is now considered the finest restaurant in the world. In Europe, where Taco Bell is less known, this movie substitutes Pizza Hut. Luckily, the new Arrow 4K UHD release allows you to see both versions.

Taco Bell did a Demolition Man pop up to celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary at the 2018 San Diego Comic Con.

Spartan and Phoenix battle at a museum that has outlawed weapons, where the villain meets Dr. Raymond Cocteau (Nigel Hawthorne, who lent his voice to The Black Cauldron and The Plague Dogs). Cocteau is an evangelical peace-loving ruler who has been in charge of San Angeles since the Great Earthquake of 2010. Phoenix finds that he can’t kill him because the leader is the one who programmed him while he was in cryosleep.

He did all this so that Phoenix will murder Edgar Friendly (Dennis Leary), the leader of the Scraps, an underground gang that resists his absolute power. Huxley figures this all out and Spartan tries to stop him. Unfortunately, Phoenix also has an army of thawed criminals. He taunts Spartan by telling him that he killed all the hostages before the bombs went off, doomed the hero cop to 36 years of cryo-prison for no reason.

Phoenix kills Dr. Cocteau, thanks to one of his men not being programmed, and tries to take over the future. Spartan stops him and blows up the cryo-prison in the process. He suggests that the peaceful future can only succeed if the Scraps and the above ground people learn to work together. He kisses Huxley and they walk away together.

It’s pretty amazing how much Judge Dredd took from this film, like Rob Schneider’s character and Adrienne Barbeau as the voice of the computer. It’s an early pass at that film and actually a million times better. It doesn’t feel dated at all, despite how silly it is at times. And by silly, I mean awesome.

Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad, Night of the Creeps) actually did some uncredited rewrites to the film. It was his idea to show the two adversaries in 1996, saying “If you don’t show Kansas, Oz isn’t all that special.”

Of all the ridiculous ideas in this film, the bathroom seashells take the prize. Stallone has explained them by saying that the first two seashells were to be used like chopsticks to pull waste from the body and the third was used to scrape what was left. I mean, just the thought of how the three seashells work makes me pause this movie every time and try to comprehend what they’re all about.

The real explanation comes from screenwriter Daniel Waters, who wanted a scene where even the bathroom in the future would cause Spartan problems. So he called another screenwriter and asked for ideas. The answer? “I have a bag of seashells on the toilet as a decoration.” Waters replied, “OK, I’ll make something out of that.”

Hungarian science fiction writer István Nemere claims that most of that script was based on his 1986 novel Holtak Harca (Fight of the Dead), in which a terrorist and a soldier are frozen and then awaken to a society that has outlawed violence. He’s alleged that there is a conspiracy where a man has been illegally selling the ideas of Eastern European authors to Hollywood after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

According to this article at The Toy Box, the Mattel action figures that came out for this film basically took the body parts from The New Adventures of He-Man figures and added new heads. That said — where else can you find a Dennis Leary action figure?

There are tons of small roles in here filled with actors and personalities that I love, like Jesse Ventura and Jack Black. Jackie Chan was Stallone’s first choice to play Simon Phoenix, but Jackie doesn’t play bad guys, even when they planned a sequel to this.

I know I said earlier about ignoring plot holes, but there’s a major moment that isn’t touched on in the film. After Spartan learns that his wife died, he asks about his daughter before being cut off. In truth, before the Wasteland battle, he meets a Scrap named Kate (Vasilika Vanya Marinkovic, Jacklyn Hyde from the 2000’s reboot of Women of Wrestling) who he learns is his daughter. You can see him protecting her during the battle and she also stands next to Friendly when he’s introduced to Associate Bob at the end (I kind of adore Associate Bob, who constantly says “greeting and salutations” a line from another Daniel Waters movie, Heathers).

In fact, there’s a ton of this movie that was cut to achieve a more teen-friendly rating, including more of the scene where Phoenix rips out Warden Smithers’ eye, Phoenix spraying a crowd with machine gun fire, Phoenix killing Zachary Lamb and a battle between Jesse Ventura’s character — who has been overdosed with adrenaline — and Spartan. All of these cuts make the continuity of the battle scenes in the Scraps underground lair and the cryo-prison an absolute mess.

Best of all, when this movie in Kuwait, it was called Rambo the Destroyer. That’s a carnie movie that even Italian film producers would have to applaud.

I love Demolition Man, a film that gets its title from a song by The Police that Grace Jones sang on. It’s big, dumb, loud and completely insipid — and inspired — in all the best of ways.

The Arrow Video 4K UHD release of this movie is, as you’d expect, overflowing with awesomeness. Start with a brand new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative by Arrow Films, approved by director Marco Brambilla, then add in the domestic Taco Bell and international Pizza Hut versions of the film presented via seamless branching. Then you get all kinds of extras, like three audio commentary tracks: one from director Marco Brambilla and screenwriter Daniel Waters, another with film historian Mike White of the Projection Booth podcast and an archival commentary with Brambilla and producer Joel Silver. There are also new interviews with production designer David L. Snyder, stunt coordinator Charles Percini, special make-up effects artist Chris Biggs and body effects set coordinator Jeff Farley, as well as a new visual essay by film scholar Josh Nelson, a trailer and an image gallery. It’s all inside limited edition packaging featuring newly commissioned artwork by Laurie Greasley that includes a 60-page perfect bound collector’s book featuring new writing by film critics Clem Bastow, William Bibbiani, Priscilla Page and Martyn Pedler; a double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Laurie Greasley; 6 postcard sized artcards and Three Seashells and Edgar Friendly graffiti stickers.

You can get it from MVD.

Les Hackel (James Marsters) is down on his luck. Maybe even worse than that, as he wakes up to find that an explosive device has been implanted in his neck. Now, he must carry out heinous crimes in order to stay alive while trying to identify the mastermind ordering him to keep killing.

Also: This is a puppet movie.

Director and writer Evan Marlowe said, “We resolved (for some insane reason) to use only realistic lifelike hand puppets in actual settings, just like any other movie. No CGI backgrounds or actors wearing prosthetic makeup. This sort of thing has never been done. The Dark Crystal comes close, though there, the designers weren’t bound by the confines of reality. We’ve had a few incredibly skilled people helping out. Jeff Farley has been our lead puppet fabricator. Again, this kind of work isn’t common, so some amount of trial and error has been needed to find the balance of aesthetic, durability and function. Meaning, the heads need to look great on camera, hold up well under shooting environments that are often hostile,and let the puppeteer emote without too much effort. When it comes to the actual shoot, our puppeteer Danny Montooth lip syncs with each line, played on loop on my magical iPad until all the aspects (lighting, camera movement, mouth motion, eye line) are just right. Once I’ve got the footage, I edit it up and then our visual effects guy John Sellings smooths out any problems. When a scene is done, it gets color-corrected and graded, and then the sound and score are added.”

It took six years to make this movie. It also has an incredible voice cast, including Sid Haig, Robert Englund, Jordan Peele and Christopher McDonald. And there hasn’t been a movie ever before that looks or feels like this.

For those that can get past just how strange it looks to have human-sized puppets in every role, this movie is pretty awesome. Reality pretty much falls apart as Les has to place poison gas in workplaces, watch assassination TV shows and even slice the head off a baby which soon sprouts tentacles. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Can we even be sure after the end?

If you want to see a movie that goes all the way and beyond, Abruptio is for you.

You can learn more at the official site.

Did you see that name and logo above? Anchor Bay Entertainment is back. The home entertainment and distribution company was a favorite of collectors during the early years of DVD and blu ray. Umbrelic Entertainment has revived the brand with a mission to release quality films that entertain, inspire, and challenge audiences.

The Anchor Bay blu ray of this movie comes with a commentary track with writer/director Evan Marlowe and producer Kerry Marlowe, a second commentary with puppeteer Danny Montooth, interviews with the performers and filmmakers and the first pressing will have a limited edition slip cover.

You can get this from MVD.

Martha Peters and Mary Davis noticed that women weren’t making many horror movies in the 1960s, so they wrote this, which would be directed by Tom Moore, who  produced Horror High, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, The Norseman and directed, wrote and produced Return to Boggy Creek.

As for Peters and Davis, only Davis would work on another film, writing the script for S.F. Brownrigg’s Scum of the Earth.

This starts like Black Sunday, as a witch (Marie Santell) is being put to death after having been betrayed by her coven. As they take her to the gallows, she says that she will come back for revenge on the family of MacIntyre Stuart (Robert Elston), who is why she has been charged.

Three hundred years later, Professor Mac Stuart (Elston) is dumb enough to have a party and invite his swinging hippy students over to his place, where Jill (Anitra Walsh) steals one of Mac’s books, the Red Book of Appin, and soon becomes possessed by the witch after she, Sharon (Barbara Brownell) and Harry (Jack Gardner) — her boyfriend Alan (Darryl Wells) doesn’t want to play with evil — conjure up the evil woman, who ends up killing all of her friends to become the ruler of our world.

Pretty simple, but also pretty awesome, as 1972 was a way groovier place than 2024. The strangest thing is that instead of, you know, just killing Mac, the possessed Jill asks him all about telephones and coffee while a Moog synth soundtrack dibble dabbles. Man, could we all just live in this?

You can watch this on YouTube.

Chris Stokes and Marques Houston are the kings of Tubi. Seriously, these guys have a movie a month and it feels like I’m the only one going crazy about their work, but who cares? You can be a weirdo like me and get super jazzed about these movies too and yell at your TV or whatever device you choose to watch Tubi on.

When we last saw Joanna (Cassidey Fralin), she had ruined the lives of her father, real estate millionaire Michael Lawrence (Blue Kimble) and her new stepmother Whitney (Annie Ilonzeh), a self-made cosmetics company owner. To remind you how horrible she is, this starts with flashbacks to her launching her grandmother down the steps, burning a woman’s face with tainted makeup, killing a family friend, throwing a woman off a balcony and so much more. They skipped how she threw Whitney’s mother’s ashes all over the place!

I’m already yelling at the screen and this just got started.

Michael is missing, Joanna is contained in critical condition in a hospital after being shot in the chest and the cops are on the case. Somehow, despite the police knowing where she is, they can’t contact her family. Look, I’m not here to make these movies make sense. I’m here to react like I’m watching old ECW matches.

Despite Joanna nearly being dead, she kills someone and runs off. Did you expect anything to be different? No. Look, we’re here to see people drink fancy drinks in fancy places and interfamily ballistics.

This guy Matt is trying to pick up Ms. Daniels at a bar when Christopher drops in and threatens him, says he’s her husband, then says, “Blessings, king” before calling the guy an asshole.

Two weeks later and Joanna is in Debra’s house, refusing to help cook or clean. She’s only there because they can’t find her father, who you know, we just saw. Joanna follows this up by kicking her Aunt Deb down the steps as her kids lose their minds. She’s good at launching people down the steps.

Now it’s one year later. Christopher is now married to Tessa (Erica Pinkett), who owns Stretch, a non-surgical spandex company. She has a son named Trevor (Keyon Bowman), who is quite the athlete. So Christopher has done pretty well in a short time, finding another gorgeous wife and a great family. They both helped him heal and he’s honored to be in their family.

Joanna shows up on schedule, arriving at a family party, the same as the last movie.

“How did your aunt die?” asks Christopher.

“She fell down the stairs,” replies Joanna.

“Again?” Christopher screams.

“Why is my family so clumsy?” answers Joanna, crying and begging for a place to stay.

While Tessa has some issues, Joanna moves in and starts tutoring her son. She knows what’s going on with her father, who thinks that he’s into another scam. And as for Whitney cuts her wrist on a bottle and screams at her children, saying that she failed and their friend died. She was married to a murderer!

On that same day, she goes to her first day of AA and sees Cedric (Mike Hill), the cop who is on the trail of Joanna and Michael. Whitney is worried because she shot both of them in the heart and they’re still alive. He wants to use her as bait and, you know, they used to date.

Michael has gotten Tessa pregnant, which screws up his plans with his daughter, as now they need to kill everyone to make sure they get the money. Just as he reveals that he knows she is going to be having a baby, Brandon shows up.

Who?

Brandon is Tessa’s ex and Chris takes it about as well as you’d think. He’s Travis’ biological father, not Hank, her husband who died. Chris says, “You need to explain this to me like i’m a child.” Trevor doesn’t even know that his dead is alive and she goes through the story of how she had a baby and yet married another man.

Best of all, Brandon doesn’t know that he has a son.

The world of The Stepdaughter is a pretty complicated one.

Meanwhile, the crazy guy from across the street, Henry — who Travis is afraid of — knows that Joanna is a criminal from watching the news. He keeps trying to get the word out to Tessa, who is all upset about Brandon, who has also upset Chris.

While this is all happening, the family from the last movie is trying to get the cops the help they need, just as Whitney reconnects with Cedric, a fact that doesn’t seem to make her sons happy.

As if enough hasn’t happened, Joanna has killed the old man across the street and tells Travis about his real father. It turns out. that Joanna was the one that informed everyone — Brandon and Travis — about them being father and son. Tessa reacts by trying to asphyxiate Joanna, while Chris tackles her and then Travis hits him. Tessa screams for everyone to get out.

The Stepdaughter 2 lives up to the legacy of Stokes and Houston, perhaps their best movie yet.

Trevor leaves to see his father just in time to see Chris punching him into oblivion. Everyone has run away and Tessa is calling the police, just as Chris grabs her and starts to shake her like a baby. This is soon followed by Joanna taking Travis and knocking Tessa out with a frying pan before telling her father that he made a mistake falling for one of his targets. She calls him his real name, Michael, as the cops start to figure it all out.

As for Joanna, she’s the only child that gets to be happy, as she wants to poison everyone to get revenge for Chris/Michael killing her mother. Now she wants to kill everyone and get everything, which has father and daughter firing guns at one another and stalking through a dark house.

The cops arrive just in time, but come on, you know this can’t end like that. Chris/Michael has escape prison and the police want Joanna/Maggie to help them find her, just as her father shows up at Whitney’s mansion.

The Stepdaughter 3? I can’t wait.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Yes, this sex drama is Jackie Chan’s first acting role, but you have to watch it closely, as it’s not like he’s a major part of it.

Based on the book by Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng — a pseudonym of someone who didn’t want their identity known — called Jin Ping Mei, it gets its name from three of the female characters: three central female characters: Pan Jinlian, whose name means Golden Lotus; the concubine Li Ping’er, whose name means Little Vase and maid Pang Chunmei, whose name means Spring plum blossoms, which means sexuality.

The book is a spin-off, of sorts from The Water Margin and All Men Are Brothers. It starts with Wu Song avenging the murder of his older brother by killing his brother’s former wife — and killer — Pan Jinlian. She was one of the many wives of Ximen Qing, who is killed in The Water Margin by Wu Song. In Jin Ping Mei, Pan Jinlian overdoses him on aphrodisiacs.

While only a small portion of the book is pornographic, it’s enough to get it banned from many libraries. That said, it has also been named as one of the “Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel” by scholar Andrew H. Plaks.

In the movie, Ximen Qing (Yueng Kwan) is a rich man who keeps adding to his collection of wives. One day, as he sees the dwarf Wu Dalang (Chiang Nan) selling pancakes in the street, he takes notice of the man’s wife, Pan Jinlian (Hu Chin). They soon fall in lust and murder her husband.

There’s no Wu Song in this, though his return is rumored. Thanks to Heroic Cinema, I learned that that story is part of another Li Han-hsiang movie, Tiger Killer. Beyond making that adaption of this story, he also made The Golden Lotus: Love and Desire in 1991 and The Amorous Lotus Pan in 1994.

As for Jackie Chan being in this, he’s the fruit vendor who figures out that the pancake seller has been murdered. He’s in the first part of the film, but with all this power, there’s no way anyone is going to jail for the crime.

I’m loving that 88 Films is giving us more than just martial arts Shaw Brothers movies. Here’s hoping that the entire output gets a chance to come out. I realize that I will be long gone before that happens, as that would be hundreds of films.

The 88 Films release of The Golden Lotus has a trailer, a stills gallery and a reversible sleeve with the original Hong Kong poster artwork. You can buy it from MVD.

Directed and written by Han Hsiang Li, this is the steamier side of Shaw Brothers. Yes, it’s not all punches, kicks and blood. This is an anthology about a brothel, telling the story of Da-Qin (Yu Feng) and her battles against owner Miss Ho (Lily Ho, playing the opposite of her role in Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan). Despite being sold into sexual submission, she remains defiant. Then, the story moves on to a young emperor having his first time in the brothel before meeting a soldier who wants the house of ill repute’s most gorgeous woman and finds himself possessed by the emperor, while the object of his desire was saving herself for the very same leader. It’s a musical, it has ghosts and yes, none of these anthology chapters really add up.

In the middle of all the whippings and nudity, Jackie Chan shows up in the last story as a waiter.

I kind of like the audacity of this movie in that it wants to be a history lesson and then fills the screen with wall to wall depravity. Well done, Shaw Brothers. You aren’t that far away from your Italian exploitation filmmaking cousins after all.

The 88 Films blu ray of this movie has art by Yu-Ming Huang, as well as the option of displaying the original Hong Kong poster art. You can buy it from MVD.

Directed by Gabby Revilla Lugo and written by Dana Brawer, this film starts with a book club who are all reading a series of books with the same name as the title of this movie, Secret Life of a Dominatrix. I wonder if they’re all reading the book by Summer Bradford, which I found on Walmart’s web site, that has purple prose like this to sell it: “My name is Sarah Fielder, normal looking University student. However, you may know me by my other persona, Miss Trix. Mistress Trix, Dominatrix.”

May (Mariel Molino) is pretty excited about reading this book, because her sex life with her husband Kurt (Andrew Biernat, who seems to have a fan club on IMDB giving this 10/10 reviews) has grown stale ever since she had a miscarriage and oh yeah, had an affair.

Her friends get all worked up as well, so they decide to go check out a local sex club, which actually ends up being people talking and not just having wall to wall sex, which is pretty realistic one imagines. May becomes friends with Olivia (Jenna Kanell) and Kelly (Marcia Harvey) and several other women, gradually realizing that she is not a submissive but instead dominant.

When she tries to bring that fun home to her husband and be honest — instead of cheating again — he keeps going hot and cold with her. It’s just not for him, so she decides to keep it all held within.

And that would be the movie, except this also wants to be a giallo — well, erotic thriller — and have a Red Light Killer who can’t be anyone other than Kurt. This murderer ends up offing one of the book club members, Dee (Imani Vaughn-Jones), and makes all the ladies decide to stay inside instead of exploring dungeons. Well, except May, who can’t stay away, and soon learns that her husband — again, surprise — also goes to the same club to be a rough — and none well liked — dom.

She springs this knowledge on him in bed, hoping to finally get a bunch of the rough trade she’d be hoping for and even lets loose her dom side, which surprisingly — and by that I mean not at all — does not play well with his. He loses his marbles, shoves her head into a wall and starts to threaten her life, even attacking one of her friends that comes in to save her. Luckily, her skills with a rope — she was a farm girl, so tying people up comes quickly — end up with him dead and her still breathing. I have no idea how anyone would explain this to any officer of the law or court.

None of that matters because this has a twist ending that — do I even need spoilers after that one before? — everyone is alive, the book club are all still friends and May has claimed her sexuality. She’s moved on past Kurt — and didn’t lynch him — and everybody is happy. Wink at the camera.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Yes, I have watched three Diddy documentaries on Tubi now, starting with The Downfall of Diddy, then The Downfall of Diddy The Indictment and now, here we are. The freak-offs.

Along with so many celebrities in this — is Ray J a celebrity other than having sex with Kim Kardashian? — Tanea Wallace, an aspiring singer-songwriter, is interviewed. She claims that she was invited to Diddy’s party by a Saudi Prince who flew her from L.A. to Miami. She also says that she saw “Harajuku Barbies” who she later realized were children and that the party went until 7 A.M.

Even better, TMZ reporter Charles Latibeaudiere claims to have seen videos of the freak-offs and claims that they are straight porn, directed by Diddy.

This is such a strange story because, as they remind us several times, filming porn and having orgies is not necessarily illegal.

This doesn’t have a great line like the first one, where Diddy’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo, when answering why Diddy would have a thousand bottles of lubricant and baby oil, answered, “I mean, he has a big house. He buys in bulk, you know.”

My wife looked at me during this and said, in the same angry voice she has when she walks in on a Black Emauelle movie, “Why are you watching this?”

The phrase “demonic energy” is also used and that Diddy can look at you and hypnotize you like an Illuminati. You can go really deep into the conspiracy theory stuff about Diddy, if you want. Perhaps when we get the fourth part, which I know I’ll watch, because I feel like I’ve done this much.

A disclaimer that TMZ posted about the most important guest in this: “Ms. Tanea Wallace has no credibility and her claims about freak-offs and minors are completely and categorically false. As we’ve said before, Mr. Combs cannot respond to every new publicity stunt, even in response to claims that are facially ridiculous. Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that the accusations against Mr. Combs are pure fiction.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

Yojimbo led to A Fistful of Dollars which led here. I’ve been watching so many Sun Chung movies over the last week and this one may have been one of my favorites.

Since, well, forever, the Mong clan and the Chows have fought over who owns Ho Si. The Chows want to unite the city, while Mong Fan (Ku Feng) wants them all dead. He hires the greatest martial arts teacher in the world, Wong Yang (Ti Lung), to train his family, but the fighter refuses, knowing that only selfishness will come from his teachings. Mong Fan angrily sets up Wong, having a farmer attack him, who soon falls onto a spike and dies. The town then turns against the hero.

Wong goes on the run, hoping to prove that he is innocent. Yet Mong Fan claims that if he teaches his men, he will clear his name. As this happens, Chow Ping (Wang Yu) sneaks into the training area and starts to learn all he can, yet he is captured and about to be killed when Wong saves him. As he takes him back home, Wong starts to train him until he’s attacked by Mong’s men and nearly killed.

Nursed back to health by Chao Cheh (Therea Chu), he teaches Chow his most perfect style, the Shaolin Pole. Now that he has a student who is nearly his equal, it’s time to clear his name as well as the Chows, who have been accused of killing monks.

While this has the two clans at war aspect of the aforementioned movies that inspired it, it has a more noble hero and one who chooses a side and remains on the side of good. As always, Ti Lung is incredible, but if you’ve been watching Shaw Brothers movies, you already know that.

The 88 Films blu ray release of The Kung Fu Instructor has a gorgeous cover by 17th and Oak. You can get it from MVD.

Directed by Lau Kar-leung, The Shadow Boxer is also known as The Spiritual Boxer Part II.

Master Chen Wu (Chia-Yung Liu) and his apprentice Fan Chun Yuen (Yue Wong) are undertakers who have the rough job of getting the dead back in their graves. They must bring nine corpses from back to their home graves, an effort that Master Chen accomplishes by turning the dead bodies into jiangshi or, as more commonly known, hopping vampires. He does that by attaching spells to their foreheads which reanimate them, which allows the spiritual undertakers to avoid carrying coffins and just have the dead walk — or jump — home on their own.

Arriving before Mr. Vampire and Encounters of the Spooky Kind, this is one of the first appearances of these creatures, monsters that would soon show up in so many horror — and non-horror — movies.

One of the undead, Zhang Jie (Gordon Liu), just won’t listen. That’s because he may not be dead. They’re also hosts to Ah Fei (Cecilia Wong), who arrives just in time for things to start going wrong.

Fan Chun Yuen can only do martial arts when his master is chanting spells at him, so it’s a good thing that Zhang Jie is along. And it’s also great for the viewer, as Gordon Liu is always a welcome fighter in any film.

Also: Don’t be concerned that this is a sequel. It is one in name only and both movies have Yue Wong in them.

The 88 Films blu ray release of The Shadow Boxing has a limited edition slipcase with brand-new artwork by Mark Bell and four collectable artcards. You also get a trailer and a still gallery. Of all the 88 Films Shaw Brothers releases, this has the greatest looking cover art. I’m honored to have it as part of my collection.

Get this from MVD.