Deváté srdce is about a student named Martin who has volunteered to seek out the cure for Princess Adriana, who has been knocked down and out by a mysterious illness. But the truth is that it’s no sickness. Instead, the magician Andlobrandini has enchanted her as part of his plan which involves creating a magic potion to return his youth from the blood of nine children’s hearts.

Directed by Juraj Herz, who wrote the story with Josef Hanzlík, everything in this feels handmade, down to the poster by surrealist painter, writer and ceramicist Eva Švankmajerová. This was shot at the same time as Herz’s Beauty and the Beast in an attempt to save on costs and is a fairy tale created in modern times that in no way feels unlike the tales we were told at bedtime.

By literally capturing the young hearts of the young men who have come to save Adrianna, Andlobrandini  seeks to take their vitality and become hale and hearty anew. Unlike them, Martin has no love for the princess. Instead, the Grand Duke (Premysi Koci) allows him to take on this mission instead of sending him and the street circus people he has fallen in with to jail, most especially Toncka (Anna Malova), the daughter of a puppeteer.

Joined by the Grand Duke’s jester (František Filipovský) and wearing a cloak of invisibility, the two men go across the River Styx to the Grand Duke’s former alchemist’s — yes, Andlobrandini — dark and foreboding castle, a place filled with corpses, innumerable candles, a swinging sun and danger around every turn. It’s gorgeous and perhaps the greatest love within this film is for the art of moviemaking itself.

The Ninth Heart is part of the new Severin box set, All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2. It has extras including commentary by Kat Ellinger, author of Daughters Of Darkness; the featurette The Uncanny Valley Of The Dolls – The History and Liminality of Dolls, Puppets and Mannequins and the video essay The Curious Case Of Juraj Herz and the Švankmajers.

You can order this set from Severin.

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.

Ah Wai runs a martial arts school, a job that his girlfriend Amy thinks is a waste of time. She should talk to his friends, which includes her little brother and two other pals who seem to do nothing until one day, they all go diving and find gold. Ah Wai is sensible, unlike everyone else, and says that it has to belong to smugglers. They return it and plan on coming back in three days and if it’s still there, they will keep it.

One of the friends, Ah Keung, goes back before everyone else and takes the gold. He pawns one piece of it, which connects him to the smugglers, who show up and shoot Ah Chow with a speargun and then shove a SCUBA hose straight up the La Maison du Chocolat highway. They go to Ah Wai’s school and threaten to kill everyone unless they get the gold back. This leads to a battle in a quarry where Ah Chow gets dragged by a van and dies.

If that’s not the worst thing, well, how about the fact that the bad guys hire Phillip Ko. He finds out that Ah Wai is working on a movie and attacks the man he’s about to fight on screen. Imagine the cast and crew’s surprise when a real fight happens. The killer barely escapes and then shows up to kill Amy’s little brother and then throw a flaming blanket at her face. Yes, really. This leaves Ah Keung to get hung in a shower and the killing machine to have one last battle against our hero. And if this all ends like a gritty take on a Shaw Brothers movie, well, that’s what director Kuei Chih-Hung will do. Yes, the same man who made The Boxer’s Omen, making a down and dirty low budget martial arts crime movie.

This was a total shocker and I loved every moment. That final apartment fight is so destructive and then the film says, “What if we break your heart?”

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.

Ching Hing-lung (Jackie Chan) lives with his grandfather, kung fu master Ching Pang-fei (James Tien), who has trained him despite Ching Hing-lung loving to gamble and being pretty lazy. When he finally finds a job, it’s using his martial arts skills to train con men. He names his school after his grandfather, which attracts the evil attentions of Yen (Yam Sai-kun), who soon murders the elder. However, he soon meets The Eight-Legged Unicorn (Chan Wai-lau) who teaches him an entirely new series of martial arts skills and if you’ve seen any of Jackie’s The Drunken Master era movies. you understand that this will be a painful, if not funny, series of training moments.

Released in Japan as Crazy Monkey — and as Revenge of the Dragon in the U.S. — this is said to have inspired the Dragon Ball series of manga. Want to be confused? In Germany, this is called Der Superfighter III with the sequel, Fearless Hyena Part II, being Der Superfighter II. So what movie is Der Superfighter? Project A.

This was released by 21st Century.

You can watch this on Tubi.

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.

Also known as Snake Fist vs. the Dragon, this starts with the monkey style kung fu of Koo Ting-sang (Pomson Shi) battling the snake style of Hsia Sa (Charlie Chan Yiu Lam). Monkey defeats snake and is merciful, allowing him to live. This is a mistake.

Years later, Lung (John Cheung Ng Long) starts as a janitor and works his way up to be a student of Teacher Ho (Hau Chiu Sing), who is still rough on him, getting him drunk and leaving him in a field where he’s nearly killed by a snake. Luckily, the much older Koo Ting-sang (Pomson Shi) saves him. He offers to get a real monkey to teach Lung his style, but instead he goes back to the school and learns drunken style. Lung also finally fights back against the Yan brothers (Wan Faat and Cheng Hong Yip), who have been bullying him for most of the movie.

In response, their father Yan Fung Tien (Tong Tin Hei) hires two killers: Hsia Sa and another snake fighter, Lun Chun (Wilson Tong Wai Shing). What are the odds? They go to the school and kill everyone except Lung, He barely makes it to the woods where Koo Ting-sang lives and his second teacher is soon killed by the snakes. That means he must go through a training montage, watching a monkey fight and bite off the head of a snake. He finally learns his drunken monkey style and, as you expect, gets back the honor of those who trained him.

Directed by Cheung Sum, this movie is everything I love about kung fu films. Yes, there’s Brucesploitation but this is Jackiesploitation, making a film similar to Drunken Master while being just sleazy enough to throw in a mondo animal scene. 21st Century sold it by saying, “Bruce Lee is gone by Johnny Chang must carry on!”

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.

It seems like every one of my favorite 1970s studios put out a family wilderness movie. I mean, Sunn Classic had their Grizzly Adams movies, Cannon had The Alaska Wilderness Adventure and 21st Century had this, The Legend of Black Thunder Mountain, which starts with a whole bunch of volcano stock footage.

Well, as we soon discover, “Black thunder, you know, is the Indian name for earthquake. They say its the earth speaking from inside her soul. And that fire and smoke from a volcano is a warning, that the earth is angry with man. Well, it turns out the earth had good reason to be angry.”

Anna (Holly Beemer) and Jamie (Steve Beemer) Parrish are lost, their dad (Ron Brown, who was also in Lefty, the Dingaling Lynx and Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar) has been knocked out by two criminals, George (Keith Sexson) and Buzz (John Sexson). As they look for their father, the children meet plenty of stock footage animals, as well as a real bear named Mrs. Mullen, who is played by Bozo the Bear. If he looks familiar, he was Ben the Bear on the Sunn Classic TV series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. There’s also a bald eagle named Balderdash, but he hasn’t been in anything else.

Directed by Tom Beemer — yes, whose kids are in this — and who wrote this along with Susan Shadburne (who also wrote the frightening The Adventures of Mark Twain, so it makes sense that Will Vinton was an editor on this), Tyler Johnson (whose only other IMDB credit is writing a Harry Styles video and that has to not be true), Lola Thompson and Don Chasan.

Yes, when we had only a few channels and went to the movies often, producers would make family wilderness movies with weird pop songs in them and sometimes make it look like volcanos were going to kill kids.

You can watch this on YouTube. Watch it in Spanish like I did.

Another film with Death Duel‘s Third Master (Yueh Hua), Full Moon Scimitar starts with Ding Peng (Derek Yee) sparring in sword battles that don’t go to the death. However, he wants to get ahead of his rival Liu Ruo Song (Wang Yong), who sends his wife to seduce him and steal his sword manual before they fight. Our hero is humiliated, leading him to ask his father’s spirit for guidance. He soon meets Qing Qing (Liza Wang) and learns of a weapon called the Full Moon Scimitar. Yet even when he obtains it, he wants glory and honor instead of peace.

Directed by Yuen Chor, this is another tale of the difference between the martial world and the world of normalcy, a place that Ding Peng wants to escape and that Qing Qing wants him to remain in. The martial world is one of shadows and fog, a place lit like a Mario Bava movie, a violent universe where you must be ready to defend yourself at any moment. There is no rest.

This is a movie brave enough to answer the question “When you get to the top of the mountain, what comes next?” It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll, as Bon Scott sang. And when you get there, like an Italian West gunfighter, you have to be ready to defend your title with your life at a moment’s notice. It seems exhausting and unsustainable, as this film’s moral reminds us.