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!

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.

Samon Kamiyama is a yoriki, one of the helper class samurai, working for the Minami-machi magistrate. He’s been sent to investigate the Denzû-machi prison by chief elder Abe Isenokami and is nearly killed when he’s thought to be Mushuku Sahêji, a jailhouse snitch. He’s saved by another prisoner, Sanji, and gets back to learning about shipping improprieties conducted inside the jail by organized crime.

A series of Japanese TV movies about “Samon from the Hell,” this somehow ended up in the ownership of 21st Century. How and why, I have no idea. It was directed and written by Tokuzô Tanaka, who directed several Zatoichi movies and plenty of TV movies, as well as The Whale God.

Has anyone else seen this?

You can watch this on YouTube.

September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on September 27 and 28, 2024. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $15 per person. You can buy tickets at the show but get there early and learn more here.

The features for Friday, September 27 are The Raven, The Terror, The Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters. Saturday, September 28 has The Beyond, Opera, Cemetery Man and A Blade In the Dark.

Known in Italy as La Casa con la Scala nel Buio (The House with the Dark Staircase), Lamberto Bava’s A Blade in the Dark was originally intended to be a four-part TV mini-series, with each segment ending with a murder. However, it was too gory for regular audiences, so it was released as a film. It was written by the husband and wife team of Dardano Sacchetti and Elisa Briganti, whose script was often at odds with what Bava wanted to put in his film.

Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti, The New York Ripper) is a composer hired to create the soundtrack for a horror movie. He’s been having trouble concentrating on the job, so he rents a house to sequester himself. He meets two women who used to know his rented villa’s former tenant, but when they disappear, he’s forced to watch the movie he’s scoring closer, as there’s a clue to the razor-wielding killer’s identity hidden within.

Bava worked as Dario Argento’s assistant for the movie Tenebre two years before this movie was made, so that has a big influence on this work. This is a movie unafraid to wallow in gore, feeling closer to the American slasher than the giallo. Then again, Lamberto was an assistant on the movie that predates the slasher, his father’s A Bay of Blood.

For the killer, he had difficulty finding someone who could convincingly appear to be a man and a woman. He turned to his assistant, Michele Soavi, who went on to direct plenty of great horror on his own.

For those that care about these matters like me — Giovanni Frezza, forever Bob from The House by the Cemetery — shows up in the movie within a movie that Bruno is writing the music to. He’s taunted by voices that chant “You are a female! You are a female!”

Also, in the true spirit of giallo and what the word means, every victim — and then the killer him or herself — is called out by the color yellow.

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.

The world ended in a nuclear war that happened in 1989.

The Fabers — Ben (Gary Lockwood), Lucy (Camilla Spav) and Rachel (Zoli Marki) have been isolated from the end times, as they work their farm and just concentrate on the harvest. They lose all that when Bigman (Ian Steadman) and his cannibal motorcycle gang attack, but thanks to their knowledge of guns, as well as the mysterious stranger named Adam Strong (Morgan Stevens) who has been living with them, they get it all back.

Director and writer Percival Rubens also made The Demon, which is so much better than this. This is a rare boring after the bomb movie. Where is the facepaint? Where are the crossbows? Where are the cool cars?

Gary Lockwood made a career of playing doomed astronauts, like Frank Poole in 2001 and Gary Mitchell on the Star Trek episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”

Nothing in this movie feels like it’s post-apocalyptic. The farm family drinks tea and have family nights while the rest of the world is dead. It’s hard to be on their side.

Originally released by Commedia Pictures in 1983 and also known as Haunted Planet, this was re-released by 21st Century.

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.

Thanks to Temple of Schlock, I now know that this movie — originally known as Long Hu Feng — was also titled The Needle Avenger, Dragon Tiger Phoenix and under the title Dragon vs. Needles of Death was released on both Planet Video and licensed to Continental Video for a double feature with Snake Fist Ninja/Shake Fist Fighter.

Directed and written by Kuo-Heng Chung, this is all about Chung(Kou Feng), a martial artist who skips training to teach himself how to throw needles. After running off with his master’s daughter Mei Lei (Wang Ping), he falls out of favor with the school — obviously — and starts smuggling salt before he has to work for the triads battle his former romantic rival Sammy (Chu Jun).

“Deadly Spikes Challenge Super Kung-Fu!” “A New Kung-Fu Demon is Unleashed!” Yes, this got all the 21st Century hype.

I’ve never seen a movie where someone learns how to throw nails at people before or one that presents him as the anti-hero, forced by his station in life to have to work for the enemy. Much like several other 21st Century kung fu releases, if you saw this in the theater, you may have been given a disco album

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.

When will the kids learn? When an old man in a town warns you of great evil, perhaps he knows what he’s talking about. When your college professor does the same thing, perhaps you should listen to him as well. But no, these kids just meander along and unleash the spirit of Black Claw and then all die one after the other.

Well, I guess we wouldn’t have a month of slashers if these kids knew what they were doing.

This Fred Olen Ray written and directed film isn’t bad. It’s a different location for a slasher, the Native American mythos are intriguing and hey — that’s Superman as the professor! No, really, that’s Kirk Alyn, the original movie serial Kal-El, as Professor Machen*, who works alongside Forest J. Ackerman, who plays Professor Trentwood. And oh yes — Dr. Sharon Reynolds is Carroll Borland, whose look as Luna, the daughter of Bela Lugosi’s Mark of the Vampire inspired plenty of undead femme fatales.

I don’t know of too many other movies that have a lion-headed ghost, much less a moment where the image of an old man inside a bowl of soup causes someone to slice their own throat, but there you go. Scalps is there for you, answering the call of a movie you never knew you wanted but now you will always feel like you need.

*Aldo Ray and Robert Quarry were also up for this role. I mean, those are great picks too.

21st Century licensed this to Continental Video for a double feature with The Slayer.

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.

This was the last movie of a long weekend of drive-in fun. But eight movies in two days can be a test for your endurance and Becca just wanted to hear home. Luckily, I watched the beginning and finished via video in the days following!

Also known as Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn or The Return of the Alien’s Deadly Spawn to cash in on Alien, it was co-written by director/screenwriter Douglas McKeown and producer Ted Bohus (John Dods and Tim Sullivan are also credited).

We first learn of the Deadly Spawn when they kill two campers, then begin moving toward the home of Sam (James L. Brewster, who also shows up briefly in Maniac) and Barb. Also home are their children, college guy Pete and monster kid Charles. Oh yeah — Uncle Herb and Aunt Millie are also visiting. All seems safe and secure until the parents are devoured minutes into the film.

No one knows that yet — Pete is too busy setting up a study date with Ellen, Frankie and Kathy. Meanwhile, Uncle Herb thinks Charles is nuts, so he decides to interview him. Aunt Millie? Well, she’s going to a luncheon.

When an electrician arrives to check on the basement, why shouldn’t Charles put on a monster costume and scare him? Charles soon discovers a variety of Deadly Spawn feasting on the electrician and his mother. Realizing they react to sound — and beating A Quiet Place to the punch by nearly 40 years — he silently escapes.

The study date kids find a dead Spawn that looks like a tadpole. Instead of, you know, throwing it away, they decide to dissect it. And they at the retirement luncheon at Bunny’s house, the Deadly Spawn attack, only for a gaggle of geriatric grandmas to grandly grind them into gore! This is my favorite scene in the movie, just moments of pure mania as these old ladies go buck wild and blend, slice and stab these beasts into nothingness! And the dialogue in this scene!

Bunny: Do you know what I’ve always wanted?

Aunt Millie: What?

Bunny: A really handsome gorilla.

Aunt Millie: A WHAT?

Bunny: A gorilla! But, they don’t seem to make fine ceramics of the great apes, for some reason. They are our nearest relations, you know, the great apes. But they never left the proverbial Garden of Eden like we did. Did you know he’s a vegetarian?

Aunt Millie: Who is?

Bunny: The gorilla! No eating the flesh for him, no sir. He’s peace loving, and adorable!

Aunt Millie: Good Lord. Mother, you’re crazy.

The science buffs try to get Uncle Herb’s opinion, but he’s already being eaten. They run through the house, one step ahead of the Spawn until one bites Ellen’s head clean off her body and tosses her body away! Charles ends up saving the day with a prop head filled with flash powder and soon, the town begins to mobilize, killing every Spawn they can find.

Later that night, one lone cop is outside the house. Everyone is confident that the Deadly Spawn have been wiped out, but that’s when a gigantic one rises from the ground to end the film!

Charles was played by Charles George Hildebrandt, which may seem like a familiar name. That’s because his father is fantasy illustrator Tim Hildebrandt. The film was shot in their house and Tim was an executive producer.

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.