Directed and written by Lu Chun-ku (Bastard Swordsman), this is about the power struggle between the Fourth Yung Cheng (Tony Leung) and Fourteenth Princes (Mok Siu-Chung) — as the Kangxi Emperor (Ching Miao) is dying — with the Lady Assassin Lui Si Niang (Leanne Lau) caught between them and bodyguard Teng Tsung (Norman Chui) ready to protect the Fourteenth Prince with his life. He just might, as the Fourth Prince has hired the unstoppable Min Geng-Yiu (Jason Pai Piao) to kill everyone in his path.

Yes, there are some parts about how the rulers treat the Han Chinese, but it also has most of the cast battling a Japanese ninja (the director!) and his army of gold ninjas. After you just read about all that palace intrigue, let me assure you that there are throwing stars, wire fighting, sword battles, a giant throwing star and two people cut in half—all in one scene—one up and down and the other left to right.

The title doesn’t come into play until the movie’s last few minutes, but who cares? Let me reiterate: giant throwing star and gold ninjas.

The 88 Films Blu-ray release of The Lady Assassin comes with a set of 4 collector art cards, an interview with Poon Kin-Kwan, a stills gallery, a trailer and a reversible sleeve featuring original art. You can get it from MVD.

Directed by Bette Gordon and written by Kathy Acker, Variety is the story of Christine (Sandy McLeod), a woman in the city looking for work and ending up in the ticket booth of the Variety, a job that her boyfriend Mark (Will Patton) hates. None of the men that she encounters turn her on, even though a co-worker named Jose (Luis Guzmán) tries. Then she meets Louie (Richard M. Davidson), an older wealthy man who takes her to a baseball game before disappearing. She becomes obsessed with him and her sexuality is awakened by this man and a series of prank phone calls (Spalding Gray is the voice).

According to Downtown Express, “The film is a sort of Who’s Who of downtown street cred: music by John Lurie, cinematography by frequent Jarmusch collaborator Tom de Cillo, script by former sex worker and Pushcart Prize-winning feminist novelist Kathy Acker, and roles played by Spalding Gray, Luis Guzmán, Mark Boone Junior and photographer Nan Goldin, who also took production stills.” Despite that, the theater isn’t really in Times Square. It’s the Variety Photoplays, which was located on Third Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets in the East Village, the same theater as Taxi Driver where Jodie Foster jumps into the cab to escape her pimp.

As a feminist filmmaker, Gordon got criticism and praise for making a film about pornography. Yet I loved Christine’s character, someone fascinated and also upset by the sex that she spends so much of her time around, but it’s not real sex, it’s created for the male gaze. However, it inspires her, even as she reads her sexually frank writing to a boyfriend who doesn’t seem to care, is surrounded by men who just see her as the law of the invisible sex object and the strange man who keeps ghosting her. This movie has stuck with me since I watched it and I wonder, did Louie come back to meet her in that alley?

Thanks to the British Film Institute, there’s a list of films that played Scala. To celebrate the release of Severin’s new documentary, I’ll share a few of these movies every day. You can see the whole list on Letterboxd.

“The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena: the Videodrome. The television screen is the retina of the mind’s eye. Therefore, the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than television.”

As a kid, David Cronenberg used to pick up American television from across the border and worried that he’d see something he wasn’t supposed to see. Videodrome’s CIVIC-TV was based on the Canadian television network Citytv, which had a show called The Baby Blue Movie that played stuff like Camille 2000 and Wild Honey. There’s also an urban legend that Cronenberg saw Emanuelle In America and wondered how anyone could enjoy a movie that combined sexuality with snuff footage. I don’t know — or care — if that story is true. I’d like to just have complete faith in it.

The director was between Scanners and The Dead Zone and got a bigger budget on this movie than he never had before. Of course, it barely made its money back yet became a classic film, which is usually the way of the world.

Max Renn (James Woods) is the president of CIVIC-TV, a Toronto UHF television station that shows footage on the absolute limit of what is allowed to be shown on TV. One of the satellite dish operators shows Max Videodrome, which is either coming from Malaysia or Pittsburgh — as a lifelong resident, I am pretty pleased with that — that shows people being tortured and murdered with no storyline to get in the way.

Max’s lover, Nikki Brand (Debbie Harry) is so turned on by Videodrome that she goes to try out and never returns. Max is now obsessed and learns that the channel is so much more than just a video show. It may also be the voice of a political movement.

Media theorist Brian O’Blivion is the only person who can guide Max further down the tunnel. At the homeless shelter where O’Blivion’s daughter Bianca (Sonja Smits, The Pit) conducts marathon TV watching experiments. He soon learns that O’Blivion was killed by his partners who created Videodrome but lives on in the hours of video footage he created. Oh yeah — Videodrome also creates brain tumors and hallucinations which are both the symptom and the cause.

Videodrome is really part of an ideological war between its sex and violence-obsessed viewers and Barry Convex (Leslie Carlson, Black Christmas) and the Spectacular Optical Corporation, a combination ophthalmology and arms company. They program Max — via videotapes inserted into a vaginal opening in his chest that causes his body to transform and even grow a gun in his hand — to murder anyone that gets in their way, which may or may not all be hallucinations, until Bianca reprograms him to start killing for her father’s cause, shouting “Death to Videodrome. Long live the new flesh.”

That new flesh means ascending outside of the bonds of our normal form, which for Max means suicide. Or does it? There were plenty of endings made for this movie, including one where Max, Bianca and Nicki appear on the set of Videodrome, all with slits in their chests filled with sex organs. As an atheist, Cronenberg cut this ending, as he felt it may make people think he believed in Heaven. He was also forced to cut all manner of berserk things from the script, like Max having a grenade for a hand, as well as him melting into Nicki as they kissed and a total of five more characters dying of cancer.

This sequence sums up why I love this movie so much:

Max Renn: Why do it for real? It’s easier and safer to fake it.

Masha: Because it has something that you don’t have, Max. It has a philosophy. And that is what makes it dangerous.

You can hear dialogue from this movie in tons of songs, including “Microphone Test” by Meat Beat Manifesto, “Master Hit” by Front 242, “Children” by EMF, “Draining Faces” by Skinny Puppy, “Scared to Live” by Psychic TV and so many more.

For a movie made in 1983, it really could have been made today. There’s so much to experience here and I will be going back for another experience. See you in Pittsburgh.

I have no idea how and why this exists, but I’m ready to find out.

Supposedly made for Hawaiian TV, this 55 minute movie is made out of parts of War In Space and Godzilla scenes from the TV show Zone Fighter. And it’s a mess, a glorious mess, nearly an hour of footage of space ships, aliens yelling and kaiju beating one another up.

Or maybe it’s an elaborate hoax, a bootleg put together to sell at cons and post to the internet.

Does it matter? This does what I have always wanted: Chop out the boring exposition and human drama and just give the audience what they want: explosions, kaiju combat and destruction.

I could tell you that this is about Hell, the Supreme Commander of the Empire of Galaxy kidnapping the daughter of Captain Takigawa and holding the Earth hostage.

Meanwhile, Zone Fighter was a Toho tokusatsu show that took place — in continuity! — between Godzilla vs. Megalon and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. It’s all about the zone Family, whose planet Peaceland was destroyed by the evil alien race known as the Garogans. The children of the family are Zone Fighter, Zone Angel and Zone Junior, powered by toy-like weapons.

King Ghidorah and Girus show up, as does Godzilla, who has a special cave built for him by the Zone Family so he has a place to relax. It lasted for 26 episodes before poor ratings ended the show, even with the appearances of Toho’s most famous monsters. Also: Every bad guy monster dies horribly on this show.

For an example of that, Godzilla sets Wargilgar on fire in this, as we watch that poor kaiju dance around ablaze. Burn, Tokyo, burn! There’s also a magnetic kaiju named Jikiro that gets torn apart. In America, we only saw fights between monsters. Kids in Japan demanded blood.

This also ends as so many Japanese movies do with one of the heroes bravely sacrificing his life to save everyone else. I didn’t understand the idea of nobility as a child and it just made me sad. It still does. But then again, did I really want. these antenna aliens telling me how to live my life? Today, I’d do the same thing, but it’s not as cool to drive a minivan into a spaceship as it is to drive a big flying battleship.

Anyway: This movie goes good with drugs.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

Director Chun-Ku Lu (Holy Flame of the Martial World) is here to tell us the story of Yun Fei Yang (Norman Chui), an orphan who is given the worst tasks at Wudang, a martial arts school. Every privileged student abuses him, but he remains there, studying and working on his kung fu when he isn’t being treated like trash. There’s a real problem, however, as the rival Wu Di school and their best fighter, Kung Suen Wang (Meng Lo), is coming back to duel the school’s master swordsman Qing Song (Jung Wang) after having already defeated him twice.

Yun Fei Yang also is in love with the daughter — Fang Er (Yeung Jing-Jing) — of the leader of the school, Chief Dugu (Alex Man Chi-Leung), who has left for two years. As Dugu rests as a tavern, he’s attacked by four killers — Wind (Yuen Tak), Thunder (Wong Lik), Rain (Yuen Qiu) and Lightning (Kwan Fung), in case you ever wondered if John Carpenter watched these movies — and is saved by Fu Yu Shu. Yet after he’s attacked a second time, Yun Fei Yang is blamed and the school starts to tear itself to pieces A new master shows up, Fu Yu Xue (Tony Liu), and he soon steals away the school.

Yun Fei Yang starts to train with a stranger — Shen Man Jiun (Chan Si-Gaai) — and begins to master the signature style of the school, the Silkworm, all while running for the law, who thinks that he is a murderer. Yet despite the odds being against this “bastard,” the only way the true Wudang style will live on is through him.

Don’t think that this movie is rooted in our world. After all, Yun Fei Yang soon learns how to spin himself into a cocoon and emerge as a silver armored superhero who can shoot webs and emit blasts of energy. By the end, the final battle takes place inside his cocoon and it ends with the bad guy turned into a skeleton.

Based on a TV series, Reincarnated or The Transformation of the Heavenly Silkworm, this would be followed by a sequel, Return of the Bastard Swordsman.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Three box set has a brand new 2K restoration of The Bastard Swordsman as well as commentary by Frank Jeng and a trailer.

You can get this set from MVD.

Also known as Naked Space and Spaceship, The Creature Wasn’t Nice was directed and written by Bruce Kimmel, who is probably best known for his other movie, The First Nudie Musical, as well as his acting career. He’s also worked on numerous stage plays, written twenty-five books and even put on production of a musical, Levi, that was based on the story of Levi Strauss with a book by Larry Cohen and a score by the Sherman Brothers. He also came up with the idea for The Faculty.

Kimmel’s director’s cut was only seen twice before producers cut it to pieces. Kimmel loved the old science fiction movies but thought that slashers were evil and despicable.

Beyond Leslie Nielsen — which explains the Spaceship and Naked Space titles being named after Airplane! and The Naked Gun — this has a great cast with Cindy Williams, Gerrit Graham and Patrick Macnee, all of whom seem to be having a wonderful time. Along with Kimmel, they make up the five-person crew of the Vertigo, which is looking for new life when they must land on a planet.

Soon, a goopy red alien is on board and singing “I Want To Eat Your Face” and there’s also a series of parodies, like a cooking show and an elderly Dirty Harry. There’s also footage from This Island Earth and Spectreman, as well as a talking computer that was supposed to be played by Broderick Crawford.

It’s all over the place and frequently falls apart, but Cindy Williams is so plucky and Leslie Nielsen is always funny even in sub-zero parody films and this doesn’t reach those lows.

This feels like if no one on Dark Star smoked grass.

88 Films has been releasing some incredible things this year, but The Project A Collection is the best set yet. It features both Jackie Chan films in a 4K UHD presentation with both the Hong Kong and Taiwan versions, as well as English and Cantonese-language options. There are so many extras, including a perfect-bound book, six lobby cards, a double-sided poster, a slipcase with brand-new artwork from Kung Fu Bob and interviews with Jackie Chan, Lee Hoi San, Mars, Yuen Biao, Dick Wei, Michael Chan Wai-Man, Michael Lai and Edward Tang. There’s even more, such as new audio commentaries by Frank Djeng and FJ DeSanto, making-of videos, outtakes, trailers, still galleries, the Japanese ending and more!

You can order this from MVD.

Project A (1983): Project A has a clock tower stunt in it, but Jackie Chan had not seen the films of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd when he made this movie, as they were not available on home video. He saw this as the evolution of comedy, action and martial arts that he’d been working on since The Young Master.

This movie and Dragon Lord were the first films since Jackie came back from his initial failed time in America and he had something to prove.

Sergeant Dragon Ma (Chan) is part of the Hong Kong Marine Police, which is battling both pirates and their Hong Kong Police rivals. After one fight too many, the Marine and regular police have to join forces.

Beyond Dragon Ma, Project A also has Sammo Hung as Zhuo “Fei” Yifei and Yuen Baio as Inspector Hong Tin-Tzu. In time, they all join together to face pirate lord Sam Pau (Dick Wei), who is smuggling guns directly from the cops.

Up until Project A came out, Hong Kong movies didn’t have the large sets and attention to period detail that other movies did. It’s also a film that isn’t all fighting, but instead a mix of action and combat.

Project A Part II (1987):Sergeant Dragon Ma (Jackie Chan) is back and has been sent on a new mission, far from the pirates who have pledged to kill him at the end of the first film. He soon learns that his new assignment, Sai Wan Police Station, is full of corrupt police like Superintendent Chun (Lam Wai), all except for one officer. He takes that man, Ho (Kenny Ho) and three of his friends to try to arrest gangster Tiger “Awesome Wolf” Au (Chan Wai-man) and is nearly killed. He’s saved at the last moment by his friends in the Marine Police.

Once he gets through that challenge, Dragon gets set up for a jewel robbery and must work with revolutionaries to clear his name. If that’s not enough, he also has three incredibly attractive women to deal with in Yesan (Maggie Cheung), Miss Pak (Rosamund Kwan) and Carina (Carina Lau), who gets kidnapped by the same criminals who have tried to ruin Dragon Ma’s reputation.

Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung only have cameos in this, allowing Chan to take center stage. Who knew that a martial arts movie could pay tribute to the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton while changing the way fights would be filmed? Instead of lining the bad guys up one at a time, Chan battles numerous opponents at once.

By the end, even the pirates love Jackie. This movie is worth watching so many times as the sets, costumes and action has to be savored.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For the last two days of Cannon Month, I’m going to cover movies that weren’t produced by Cannon but which were distributed by them on one of their various home video labels including Cannon / MGM/UA Home Video, HBO/Cannon Video, Cannon Video, Cannon / Guild Home Video, Cannon / Rank Video, Cannon Screen Entertainment Limited, Cannon Classics, Cannon / Warner Home Video, Cannon/VMP, Cannon Screen Entertainment, Scotia/Cannon, Cannon International, Cannon/ ECV, Cannon / Showtime, Cannon / United Film, Cannon / Isabod, Cannon / Mayco and so many more.

Jim Goldman is also Jun Gallardo, the director of fifty plus movies like SFX Retaliator and The Firebird Conspiracy. Are you surprised that he’s recruited Richard Harrison for this film mission? If you’ve watched as many movies where the Philippines become the new Vietnam, you’re not.

Also known as Operation Coleman — Frank Coleman is the man who needs to be rescued — and featuring the same cast as Intrusion: Cambodia (coming later this week) this one finds Harrison as CIA agent Robert F. Burton. He’s offered a hundred thousand dollars to save the POW and uses a government computer to choose the best men for the job.

Between pretending to be archaeologists and spending the night before their mission getting drunk at a strip club may not be the best move for these soldiers. Plus, in any gathering of thirteen — or however many people go to Vietnam to get a treasure or rescue someone in an 80s VHS rental movie — expect a Judas.

Somehow, Tetchie Agbayani — who plays Kara in this movie — would also appear as Princess Rubali in Gymkata, get to be in The Money Pit and Disorderlies (of all movies!) and was the first-ever Filipino woman to appear in Playboy (even if it was the German version). She’s still acting today.

This has all your favorite soldiers in VHS films like Mike Monty, Romano Kristoff (who was in a few Mark Gregory movies including Just a Damned Soldier and Tan Zan: The Ultimate Mission), Jim Gaines (Strike Commando, Cop Game), Korea war orphan and writer of this movie Don Gordon Bell (Enter the Ninja, Stryker), Mike Cohen (The One Armed Executioner) and more.

It’s not the best one of these movies you’ll find, but it’ll pass the time. And no, we don’t get to win this time.

Also…

It’s a Cannon (international) movie!