Philaflava.com ::

gonna trickle down some late 80s/early90s things you might not be aware of. some are very rare over here but you might have better luck in borkdom

PS, disregard HK listing some of these as out of print, there are often bootlegs or other versions in circulation

royal warriors:
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.2025/qx/details.htm

tiger cage:
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.291/qx/details.htm

tiger cage2:
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/title.tige ... titles.htm

in the line of duty 3:
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/title.in+t ... titles.htm

I'm going hunting today later and they're on the checklist now. Thanks.

While you're at it, could you (anyone for that matter) make a To top 5 maybe?

I'd also be interested in what Miike's best action flicks are - having only seen his more strange and off-beat movies.

miike doesn't really have stuff that's just pure action, most of them still have that weird edge. but good ones that do have a fair amout of action are Dead Or Alive (parts 2 and 3, the first is mostly a cop vs criminal drama with incredily weird bookend segments), Fudoh(BIG personal favorite), Deadly Outlaw Rekka/Violent Fire, Full Metal Yakuza, Yakuza Demon, City of Lost Souls

he rarely goes into genre purism, there are some yakuza drama's (graveyard of honor and Triad Society Trilogy for example), and there's 13 assassins which looks like a straightforward samurai period action drama.

what about some seijun suzuki?

again a little weirder than your typical action movie but i dig em

also i finally burned through that nikkatsu noir collection and all those are highly recommended

suzuki is the shit without a doubt

tokyo drifter, branded to kill, youth of the beast, kanto wanderer, tattooed life - all unfuckwitable. it's great to see him progress from just flirting with weirdness to gradually injecting experiments with color and abstract staging into otherwise fairly rote yakuza movie conventions to going all out in branded to kill.

+ underworld beauty which is one of the few 'pure' noirs i've seen come from japan

+ pistol opera which is like his 60-70s yakuza movies on 10 pounds of arthouse crack


pretty mucht the best dude all around

don't expect 'action' in the same sense as hard boiled though, you'll be sorely dissapointed

Funky Butler wrote:also i finally burned through that nikkatsu noir collection and all those are highly recommended

oh mayne the end of colt is my passport >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Fighting Elegy is seriously fucking awesome as well. Hoping the rumors that Criterion are going to go back and release Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill properly are true and coming soon.

Funky Butler wrote: also i finally burned through that nikkatsu noir collection and all those are highly recommended

Right. They were posted in mp3x as well, I remember.

still havent seen pistol opera

it looks wild

drizzle wrote:miike doesn't really have stuff that's just pure action, most of them still have that weird edge. but good ones that do have a fair amout of action are Dead Or Alive (parts 2 and 3, the first is mostly a cop vs criminal drama with incredily weird bookend segments), Fudoh(BIG personal favorite), Deadly Outlaw Rekka/Violent Fire, Full Metal Yakuza, Yakuza Demon, City of Lost Souls

he rarely goes into genre purism, there are some yakuza drama's (graveyard of honor and Triad Society Trilogy for example), and there's 13 assassins which looks like a straightforward samurai period action drama.

part 1 is awesome.. the opening scene with the ramen.... shit had the most unexpected ending ever.

now part 3 if i remember correctly was weird as fuck

Lid wrote: part 1 is awesome.. the opening scene with the ramen.... shit had the most unexpected ending ever.

took me a lil bit to figure it out but i think the idea is that these guys hate each other so much, or are channeling their own personal frustrations at each other so hard, that they would literally destroy the world just do get rid of each other. that shit blew my mind at a tender young age

drizzle wrote:

Lid wrote: part 1 is awesome.. the opening scene with the ramen.... shit had the most unexpected ending ever.

took me a lil bit to figure it out but i think the idea is that these guys hate each other so much, or are channeling their own personal frustrations at each other so hard, that they would literally destroy the world just do get rid of each other. that shit blew my mind at a tender young age

thats what i got from it. i was young too, so i was on status for like a week.

thread brings back memories. another action flick thats somehwat ridiculous is Versus.

Keeping this thread alive!

Damn, I can't even find 70% of these flicks available for DL. The rest I've seen.
I'm mainly interested in those Suzuki flicks that Drizz mentioned.

And I'm cosigning Fudoh. That flick is amazing. The opening scene is one of the greatest in film history.

My Heart is That Eternal Rose (1989) - I liked this a lot. It's not an action blowout as such but there are certain jawdropping scenes, some of them very violent and hit with quite an impact. There's a really dope love triangle subplot which worked incredibly well for me, I'm surprised more movies don't take a similar approach as it's very honest and even cute, in a good way. The end is some of the better action choreography I've seen and the acting is surprisingly good considering it's a lowbudget effort.

Also saw Election. I won't say anything bad about because it's a good movie but it's really not for me. I prefer my gangster-movies with less characters and less relations between the characters, it's a bit confusing to me and I don't really care for anyone in the movies. Some hilarious moments when a guy crushses his plate with a spoon and eats it, or when some dudes are thrown in a box which is tumbled down a hill. Just not my kinda movie but whatever.

heart is an eternal rose was a little too sappy and melodramatic for my taste but it does have a lot of good going for it. Tony Leung is fantanstic as always, and the action is very solid indeed. If there was a bit more action and little less weepyness it could've been a serious contender

I just really liked the idea of having a guy who is in love with a girl risking his life so she can be with her man. But yeah, crank up the death-count and you would have something really special.

I want to see Tony Leung in more movies, guessing hes been typecasted as a villain quite often.

nah actually more as a tragic and possibly doomed hero ala his role in Hard Boiled

Doesn't really fit in here, but it's close enough IMO

Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) - Buddy-cop movie which is very by the numbers, but the result is affable and never dull. Brandon Lee and Dolph Lundgren are a great team, and the characters are somewhat unusual. Dolph plays a guy raised in Japan who lives by the samurai code of honor. Lee plays a half-Jap who is estranged from that culture and is more American than his partner. They work to take down the Yakuza in Little Tokyo. There's a grip of cheesy one-liners, boneheaded cliches, some nudity and lots and lots of almost non-stop action. Clocks in @ 75 min, short and sweet.

Didn't Tia Carrere get her titties out in that?

Body double : (

this movie inspired a bucket list item of eating sushi of a nekkid girl

My new mancrush is Dante Lam, was glad I decided to check out a double-presentation of his two 2010 movies.

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The Stool Pigeon is the shit. made exactly the ones from the era I like in terms of the dark look, angsty characters and bluesy score. It's about a snitch and the policeteam he works for. There are some quite emotional moments but they fit well with the movie and really set the mood. I really think this is one to seek out, not a pure joyride but really engaging and it has a realistic feel with characters who are more developed than usually, for movies like this. Really good acting too.

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Fire of Conscience is more of a fun action-bang with cops v robbers. Very fast-paced and lots of stylish scenes, I think this will please a broad scope of people. Still a bit moody but it moves too fast to really dwell on that too much. Fairly violent as well but more in a "cool" way like Woo.

loved fire of concience,stool pigeon not so much though. just didn't buy into the dramatic parts, they were so rediculously overwrought, especially everything with the cop and his wife. reminded me of the town in some ways. if they followed through with the plot twist they made but instantly negated, it would've been much better.

So I checked Sonatine. It is really good but I'm not sure I got as much out of it as some people, really interested in knowing what it is I missed. Kitano is such a cool actor though, his stoic face is perfect for movies like this. Lots of memorable little scenes, definitely.

Also saw this slice of awesome



Naked Killer (1995) - Really fun and crazy movie about a female hitman in training. There's so many moments of goofy and dark humor which really hit the spot. There's also a good amount of lesbian sleaze, cunt-kicking, dick-stabbing and ass-shotting. The actions scenes are realyl off the wall and the drama is rather hysterical. Some romantic scenes disrupt the pace a bit but its not a major annoyance.

best movie, especially if you have the uncut version. the cross cut masturbation scene is so hilarious

Wong Jing 'remade' it himself with maggie q about 10 years later as Naked Weapon, it was nowhere near as sleazy but had some great Ching Siu Ting choreographed fight scenes. A 3rd installment called Naked Soldier is already wrapped, coming later this year supposedly

drizzle wrote:best movie, especially if you have the uncut version. the cross cut masturbation scene is so hilarious

So true. The basement-pedo scene was also amazing.

Looking forward to #3, in that case.

I really wish their was a group like criterion for this type of stuff and kung fu/samurai films.

there was something similar at one point, it was called HK Legends. released a ton of classics, then went out of business I think. some of their dvds remain the definitive versions of those particular titles