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Friday, December 10, 2021

The Old School Kung Fu Fest Reviews - Part 1

“7 Grandmasters” and “36 Deadly Styles”

by Joseph Perry

New York City’s The Old School Kung Fu Fest delivers the jumps and jolts this month with both online and in-person options (details below). Focusing this year on 1970s titles from Joseph Kuo and his Hong Hwa International Films production company, the festival features showdowns and throwdowns in nine exciting features. Following are capsule reviews of two films in the fest that have received great-looking new 2K restorations.

7 Grandmasters
Shang-Kuan Cheng (Jack Long) is all set to retire as the best kung fu practitioner in his region, complete with official banner, when some rapscallion delivers a note claiming that he is not the best. Shang-Kuan Cheng then goes on a quest across the land with his four finest students, and they are followed by Hsia Hsiao-Ying (Yi Min-Li), who starts off as an annoyance but eventually becomes a fifth student. When Shang-Kuan Cheng was a student, his master entrusted him with a pamphlet detailing the Paie Mei Twelve Strikes, the pages about three of which were stolen by a masked man. Intrigue galore comes into play when Hsia Hsiao-Ying is deceived into believing that someone close to him murdered his parents, and the missing three strikes come into play. Long gets a fine showcase here to display his martial arts prowess, and the third act offers some fun surprises.


7 Grandmasters
Directed by: Joseph Kuo
Written by: Joseph Kuo and Da-Wei Kuo
Produced by: Hong Hwa Motion Picture Company
Genre: Action, comedy, drama
Starring: Jack Long, Yi Min-Li
Runtime: 89 minutes
Rated: unrated
Country of origin: Taiwan
Release Date: 1977

 
 





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36 Deadly Styles
I didn’t keep track of the actual number, but I’ll take Ko at his word for that. He certainly delivers a bevy of names for the various styles, from the threatening to the downright hilarious. And that’s how the story ranges in 36 Deadly Styles, too, as we witness everything from a goofy villain who we can’t wait to see get his to the death of some characters, though this one is a bit heavier on the comedy. Heck, we even get Henry Mancini’s “The Pink Panther Theme” and one of the wackiest wigs in the kung fu genre to take the head scratching to a whole ‘nother level! This film sees a group of Buddhist monks and some fellow protagonists fight it out against a gang of villains out to kill, and it is an absolute blast.



36 Deadly Styles
Directed by: Joseph Kuo
Written by: Joseph Kuo
Produced by: Hong Hwa Motion Picture Company
Genre: Action, comedy, drama
Starring: Jack Long, Jang-Lee Hwang, Lik heung
Runtime: 92 minutes
Rated: unrated
Countries of origin: Taiwan, Hong Kong
Release Date: 1982









7 Grandmasters and 36 Deadly Styles screen as part of The Old School Kung Fu Fest, copresented by Museum of the Moving Image and Subway Cinema, with eight newly restored films and one fan favorite classic by filmmaker Joseph Kuo on glorious 35mm — four titles available exclusively online, December 6–13, 2021, and another five films for in-person big-screen viewing at MoMI, December 10–12. For more information, visit http://www.movingimage.us/programs/2021/12/06/detail/old-school-kung-fu-fest-joseph-kuo/.

Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast (decadesofhorror.com/category/classicera/). He also writes for When It Was Cool (whenitwascool.com), the film websites Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), and Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom). 

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