This is the sequel to Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger, stars Bruce Li and is one of the best Brucesploitation films I’ve seen.

I guess it’s a spiritual sequel as Li plays a totally different character, Chang Hung. He and his partner (Angela Mao, Lady Whirlwind) are busting up a crime empire run by Paul (Paul Smith!), taking out most of his army early and even suggesting that he just kill himself. Of course, being a gigantic evil man, Paul decides to go on the offensive and battle back. There’s also a Chinese gang that Paul is fighting for control of the heroin business, which means that our heroes are going to go all Yojimbo or A Fistful of Dollars and play them all off one another.

This movie would be incredible if all it did was steal Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” and most of the score from Live and Let Die, but it goes all the way to have an incredible ending fight with Smith remembering when he was playing a Bud Spencer ripoff along with Michael Coby as his Terence Hill in movies like Convoy Buddies. He’s a monster compared to the kung fu guys throwing flying kicks at him and it’s amazing to watch him throw them around. The way he’s finally defeated is even more amazing.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Directed by Romolo Guerrieri (The Sweet Body of Deborah, Ten Thousand Dollars for a Massacre, Detective Belli, The Final Executioner), who wrote this with Nico Ducci, Mino Roli and Vittorio Schiraldi, Covert Action was known in Italy as Sono Stato un Agente C.I.A. It’s based on former C.I.A. agent Philip Agee’s book Inside the Company: CIA Diary. He eventually became disillusioned with the U.S. government’s support for authoritarian governments across Latin America and that they worked for multinational corporations and not for the good of the world. He did work with the producers, but by the end of the movie sued them over his fees and expenses.

Lester Horton (David Janssen) is really Agee, a man who has left the C.I.A. and wants to write about his time with them again, after a first book that put him on their hit list. There’s also a tape that has dirt on the commander of the Athens C.I.A. station (Arthur Kennedy), which is being kept by John Florio (Maurizio Merli), who is married to Horton’s ex-girlfriend Anna (Corinne Cléry).

The C.I.A. commits Horton to a mental ward to get rid of him, giving him shock therapy — this scene is pretty intense — while a Greek inspector (Phillip Leroy) works to discover the truth of what is happening. The spies also want to take out Florio, as his heroin addiction has led to him becoming a liability. To take him out, they send their killer, known as The Silent (Ivan Rassimov) who cooly takes the man out.

This has a great Stelvio Cipriani score, a super dark feel throughout and was Janssen’s last film, released four months after he died by 21st Century. Catherine Bach was the original lead, but was replaced with Cléry.

Released in the U.S. as Mortal Combat and The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms, this is the story of how Chu Twin and his son Chu Cho Chang have started a reign of terror. It all begins when Chu Twin returns home to find his wife murdered and his son critically injured, with his arms amputated from the elbows down. Making him iron arms and training him in kung fu, the two find that revenge is not enough and now they have become the villains, crippling four men who get in their way.

The town’s blacksmith is forced to drink a burning liquid that takes his voice whole a ear clap from Chu Twin makes him deaf as well. A travelling salesman is blinded by Chu Cho Chang and another has his legs torn off just for bumping into Chu Cho Chang. When kung fu Yuan Yi, he attempts to make the evil doers pay for this damage, but instead finds his head crushed inside a vice, reducing his intelligence to that of an idiot.

As they escape to the temple of Yuan Yi’s master, they each find ways to use their injuries to their advantage, with the blacksmith increasing his vision, the salesman being able to hear a leaf hit the ground and the legless man gains iron legs and feet. As for Yuan Yi, he now sees fighting as a child’s game, happily laughing even in the face of death.

The four men return on Chu Twin’s 45th birthday and exact their revenge, battling a series of kung fu experts before challenging the evil master and his iron fisted son.

Four of the Venoms — Kuo Chui, Lu Feng, Sun Chien and Lo Meng — show up in this film and it’s quite literally a living and breathing cartoon. Movies like this are why you seek out the films of Shaw Brothers and director Chang Cheh.

If American audiences know director Lau Kar-leung and star Gordon Liu for anything, it would be this movie. A lot of credit for that goes to the Wu-Tang Clan, who referenced it in an album title and have as many alternate names for one another as audiences do for this movie (The Master Killer, Shaolin Master Killer and Shao Lin San Shi Liu Fang).

Liu Yude (Liu) has been radicalized into the rebellion against the Manchu government, which ends when General Tien Ta destroys his school and then kills not just the students, but their friends and family as well. On the run, he goes to the Shaolin temple in the hopes of learning the fighting skills he’ll need for revenge.

As an outsider, he is turned away until the chief abbott has mercy on him. Yet a year later, Yude is now San Te and begins working his way through the 35 training chambers that each monk must complete. The top chamber is too much for our hero, where he must recite Buddhist philosophy from memory, so he begins on the bottom, amazing everyone at becoming the master of 35 of the chambers in just six years.

After numerous battles, he finally defeats one of the elders and announces that his goal is to create the new 36th chamber, one in which ordinary people will be given the skills to defend themselves. The temple officially banishes him but only does so to allow him to go back into the ordinary world and continue the revolution and stopping Tien Ta.

“The wall may be low, but the Buddha is high.” With dialogue like this, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin shows that the journey to master oneself through fighting skill is not even about the actual fighting. It is mastering emotion and going inward to better oneself. The war is often with ourselves.

There was a time — let’s call it 1978 — when HBO first entered my life. Unlike predictably scheduled network television, many of the movies ended at odd times. In between, there were all kinds of unplanned content, like Video Jukebox, Arcade Attack, Bambi vs. Godzilla, The Mild Ones and Hardware Wars. As a kid who couldn’t get enough Jedi content in 1978, the fact that this aired every few days on our TV made me overjoyed. Every time it came on, whoever had on HBO would yell for everyone to run into the TV room and watch.

It’s a treasured memory.

I’d like to tell six year old me that I now own a copy of it and can watch it any time that I want. This is a magical feeling, the kind of power that young me never guessed would ever be my reality.

Hardware Wars — and another HBO favorite Porklips Now — came from animator Ernie Fosselius. After making twenty shorts for Sesame Street, he wrote several screenplays that never got filmed, including a Zippy the Pinhead movie. In his career, he’s done everything from foley work on Ed Wood, Serial Mom and The Unbearable Lightness of Being to making props for RoboCop 2, being a founding member of The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo and providing the voices for the pilots in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Poggle the Lesser in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, the Rancor Keeper in Return of the Jedi, writing the song that “Lapti Nek” that the Max Rebo Band performs, contributing one of the voices of the arcade game Gauntlet, doing the “Ack! Ack!” Martian voices in Mars Attacks! and performing the voice of Trantor the Troll in Ernest Scared Stupid.

Shot in four days for $8,000, this is George Lucas’ favorite parody of his film. When it was re-released in 1997, Fosselius didn’t take part, as he didn’t see the need to add in digital effects. He was also unhappy with the 2002 re-release that saw animators take out the strings on the puppets, which was intentional.

This movie was obviously made by a fan of the source material, as even Paul Frees — who voiced the Star Wars trailer — is used, making this feel real. His voice warmly reads “Hardware Wars! A spectacle light years ahead of its time! Starring: Fluke Starbucker, intergalactic boy wonder. Augie “Ben” Doggie, venerable member of the Redeye Knights. Princess Anne-Droid, interstellar damsel in distress. Ham Salad, ace mercenary pilot and intergalactic wise guy. Darph Nader, villain.”

Yes, Fluke Starbucker (Scott Mathews) must learn to master The Farce with help from Augue “Ben” Doggie (Jeff Hale, an animator on Sesame Street and Heavy Metal), Artie Deco, 4-Q-2 (Frank Robertson), Princess Anne-Droid (Cindy Furgatch), Ham Salad (Bob Knickerbocker) and Chewchilla the Wookie Monster.

If this line doesn’t make you laugh, this isn’t for you.

Fluke Starbucker: Jeepers! What is it, Augie Ben Doggie? Did you feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced?

Auggie Ben Doggie: No, just a little headache.

Being a grown up is not the fun that I hoped that it would be when I was six. At least having this helps.

The MVD release of Hardware Wars has a brand new 2K HD transfer from the only known surviving element, a 16mm Reversal Release print. There’s commentary by Ernie Fosselius, a director’s cut, a prequel featurette, a foreign version, an interview and three other movies: Hardware Wars Saves Christmas, Porklips Now and Plan 9.1 From Outer Space. It has a limited edition slipcover and a collectible mini-poster. You can get it from MVD.

Other than replacing Tien Niu with Niu Niu in the role of Huang Rong, Keung Hon taking over the role of Liang Ziweng and Norman Chu becoming Yao, the sequel to The Brave Archer keeps much of the same cast and feel as it continues to adapt Louis Cha’s The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

Huang Rong has been taken hostage by Ouyang Feng (Wang Lung-wei) who ransoms her for the Nine Yin Manual that is protected by heroic Guo Jing (Alexander Fu Sheng), who works with Hong Qigong (Ku Feng) to give the villain an incomplete version of the book. When he practices the forms in it, it drives him insane as they aren’t correct. He challenges the two, but is hurt and Guo Jing and Hong Qigong escape. However, Hong Qigong is injured and gives Huang Rong his weapon, the Dog Beating Staff, handing over his leadership of the Beggars’ Sect as well. But when she loses the staff to Yang Kang (Li Yi-Min), it causes a battle between several of the different sects trying to gain power, including the Tsuen Jen Taoists, the Iron Palm Clan and the Beggars’ Clan.

This is a movie that demands attention, as there are about twenty or so lead characters — or so it seems — and everyone has a conflict and story of their own. Director Chang Cheh believed that his versions of these stories weren’t as good as the novels that they came from. For Western audiences, it may be difficult to jump in and follow so much of what is going on. However, I have been enjoying their scope and trying to keep up as well as I can, despite language and culture barriers. It helps that when there is action, it’s thrilling and that the heroes are so likeable.

Written, starring and directed by Jimmy Wang Yu, The Chinese Boxer moved martial arts films away from fantasy and weapons into a world where one man and his fists could do plenty of damage. He was a martial arts superstar in Hong Kong before even Bruce Lee and this movie proves exactly why. I’ve honestly never seen a bloodier hand to hand combat film, as nearly every punch sends mouthfuls of blood everywhere when they’re not blasting people through walls.

Diao (Hsiung Chao, Five Fingers of Death) was thrown out of the kung fu temple and spent years learning judo, defeating each of the students of the school upon his return until the master defeats him. Not being a man of honor, he sends for Japanese karate mercenaries, who are also defeated, until he sends samurai who not only destroy the school and murder all of the kung fu students and the master but also have the gall to take over the town and make it a city of sin.

Lei Ming (Jimmy Wang Yu) has survived, however, and he’s willing to do anything and everything to take his town back. You may think you’ve seen this before — and you have — but that’s because every other movie like this came after. A training sequence, much less one where the hero punches his hands into burning sand to toughen them? Yep. A room full of men with weapons and one unarmed hero? Here. A man fighting for the honor of his dead master? This is where it all began at least in film form.

There’s also the bad guy KItashima (Lo Lieh, nearly a Shaw Brothers supervillain) who can chop tables in two and provides a more than perfect secondary villain for our hero to fight. And it all looks astounding, because it shares a cinematographer — Hua Shan — with one of the most kinetic and strange movies that Shaw Brothers put out, The Super Infra-Man. Just one look at the fight in the snow and you’ll know that this is a movie to be studied just as much as it was stolen from.

This was released in the U.S. as The Hammer of God.

Eagle Chief Yoh Xi-Hung (Ku Feng) leads Iron Boat Clan, a gang made up of orphans that he has raised to be his personal army — Eagles — of killers. His toughest “son” is Chik Ming-sing (Ti Lung), who loves combat. After being injured by Golden Spear Tao De-biu, he nearly dies and is nursed back to health by the family of lawman Wang An. Now, Chik Ming-sing sees that the life he has known since he was a child is a lie. He deserves love and to have a family.

Of course, the Iron Boat Clan then kills Wang An and Chik Ming-sing is targeted by them. As he wanders, he meets wrist knife fighting master Cheuk Yi-fan (Alexander Fu), who wants to destroy the Iron Boat Clan for killing his wife and children. He suspects Chik Ming-sing, but they make a good team as they both starts to fight back against the gang. Things take a turn when Chik Ming-sing reveals that he killed a man’s wife years ago — guess who? — and wants to be killed by that man to atone for his crime.

Of course our heroes get their revenge, even if Yoh Xi-Hung attempts to turn them against one another. The end, however, is still surprising and poignant, as our heroes are honor bound and have a path that they must follow. The last fight is astounding and both lead characters are so worthy of a movie on their own. Together, this is perfect.

Directed by Chung Sun, this movie knocked me out. Everyone’s weapons, from Yoh Xi-Hung’s claws and Chik Ming-sing’s staff to Cheuk Yi-fan’s wrist blades are so unique to each character and perfectly used. I can’t wait to watch this again.

This was remade in 1993 as The 13 Cold-Blooded Eagles.