Catching up on what I've watched

I've fallen behind on review my netflix instant viewing so I am just going to give brief reviews on a bunch of films and not post any youtube trailers.
The Lost Son - England, 1999. Daniel Auteuil is a private detective that gets involved in a missing person's case that ends up in something much worse. Not much action but the plot moves fast and twists. Good cast.

Lilyhammer - Season 1 USA/Norway 2011. Little Steven takes his mafia character to Norway. I liked that there was a fair amount of subtitled dialog. 8 episodes was the right length. Anymore and it would become to familiar. Nice showcase for Norwegian rock bands.

Who Took The Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour USA, 2010. Nice tour documentary and live footage. Not much new information about the band if you've read any interviews. Go buy their records.

Salvage England, 2009. Effective low budget horror film about a mother trapped in her house while a SWAT team searches her housing estate for an escaped monster. Definitely worth checking out and only 73 minutes long.

My Kingdom China, 2011. Mainland film about Peking Opera and kung fu. Some good action choreography from Sammo Hung and it is always nice to see Yuen Biao on screen. The plot seems to condensed with characters that you would expect to have more time or fights left to the wayside.

1911 China, 1911. Jackie Chan's 100th movie. Most of the action in the film is gritty war battles/gunfights filmed in a "Saving Private Ryan" dirty, bloody sheen. The film covers a lot of important Chinese history but will probably be too confusing to most western viewers. For example, half the movie is devoted to Sun Yat Sen's role in founding the Chinese Republic but the Imperial government refers to him as Sun Wen. Jackie Chan co-directed the movie and it is nice to see him branch out.

Wheels On Meals (Hong Kong, 1984)

Sammo Hung directs himself, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao in Barcelona set martial arts comedy. The first hour has some short action scenes and some stunts that definitely hurt the performers, but the last 45 minutes of the film is one chase after another with lots of fights. The highlight is the final fight between Benny "The Jet" Urquidez. Features some good car stunt work. The netflix streaming has easy to read subtitles.

Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars (Hong Kong, 1985)

In the 1980's there were a series of Hong Kong movies with "Lucky Stars" in the title. They featured a core group of actors, Sammo Hung, Eric Tsang, Richard Ng, Michael Miu, and Stanley Fung. They would get up to Stooges level of slapstick hi-jinks with some painful physical comedy stunts fight over pretty girls. If your not a fan of over the top Hong Kong comedy the Lucky Stars movies can be hard to watch. Fortunately this one is packed to the gills with guest stars and tons of action, courtesy of director Sammo Hung and his stunt team. HKMDB.com also lists Yuen Biao, Lam Ching Ying, Chin Kar Lok and Yuen Wah as co-action choreographers. Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Andy Lau show up frequently as cops after a group of assassins led by Richard Norton, Yatsura Kurata and Chung Faat. The action is more than enough to make me recommend the film. It is on netflix streaming. Here is part of the final fight sequence.

New Tsui Hark film, trailer, Detective Dee

Tsui Hark was one of my favorite directors. From 1983 to 2002 he made many amazing films, The Blade, The Swordsman series, The Once Upon A Time In China series, Green Snake, Time & Tide, to name a few. He has made some ok movies in the last 5 years but his new film, Detective Dee, looks like a return to form. It stars Andy Lau, and has martial art choreography by Sammo Hung.

Inglorious Basterds

I watched Inglorious Basterds last night. I liked it but did not think it was a great film. Better than Death Proof but not by much. I might have liked it better if I hadn't read the script and knew what was going to happen. When I saw the soundtrack listing when the movie came out I did wonder if the "Eastern Condors Theme" was from the Sammo Hung film and it was. He takes the music from Sammo's jumping on metal springboards to kill a guard before he kill his friends. and uses for Eli Roth's buddy taking out one of Hitler's guards. I doubt many people would have gotten the reference and of course "Eastern Condors" is basically a remake of "the Dirty Dozen". The music starts at around 4:20 into the clip.

Mark