The second instalment of my review of what I saw at the Fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival in 1981 covers films from Thailand, Turkey, China, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part two
Cagey Films Blog
Pete Walker, master of British exploitation
Two new box sets from 88 Films provide an opportunity to re-visit the work of Pete Walker, arguably the best exploitation filmmaker working in England from the late-’60s to the end of the ’70s. The Flesh and Blood Show collects the seven horror movies which are his best-known work, while the Pete Walker Sexploitation Collection includes his first playful features which grew out of years of making sex loops as well as his final film of the ’70s in which the sex takes on a much darker tone.
The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part one
I recently unearthed a lengthy manuscript which I wrote when I attended my first film festival ‘ in Hong Kong in 1981 – reviewing, or at least commenting on, all fifty-six movies I saw over a sixteen day viewing marathon. These were some of my earliest critical writings and I’ll risk embarrassing myself by presenting here, partly as an illustration of my still-forming understanding of cinema, partly because some of these movies seem to have vanished into complete obscurity. In part one, I cover the movies made in Hong Kong.
Sam Peckinpah’s final western: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)
Criterion gives Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), Sam Peckinpah’s final, unfinished Western, stellar treatment in a two-disk Blu-ray set (also in a 4K UHD edition) with three different cuts plus extensive extras. The original theatrical release is presented alongside Peckinpah’s final preview cut and a more polished 50th Anniversary edit which restores and refines much of the material originally removed after the director walked away from the project.
Masahiro Shinoda’s Demon Pond (1979): Criterion Blu-ray review
Japanese New Wave filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda uses a range of styles and registers to evoke Japan’s tumultuous Twentieth Century history in the allegorical fantasy Demon Pond (1979), newly restored in 4K and released in dual formats by Criterion.
Hong Kong’s Studio One cinema club
During an eight-month visit to Hong Kong in 1980-81, I took out a membership in a cinema club called Studio One. I recently came across the eight monthly schedules for their screenings and discovered that my memory of the movies I’d been to see varied widely. What makes one thing stick while another fades away? Damned if I know!
Fantasy, horror and crazed killers on the exploitation fringes
I’m drawn to movies made on the fringes, far from the industry centre, and these have recently included low-budget ’60s noir, ultra cheap ’70s horror and ambitious ’90s direct-to-video sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Whatever their technical short-comings, all these movies exhibit the creative ingenuity essential to completing a feature with inadequate resources.
Late Boris Karloff on Blu-ray
Two new Blu-rays showcase excellent restorations of a pair of late Boris Karloff movies – Daniel Haller’s Die, Monster, Die! (1965) from the BFI, Michael Reeves’ The Sorcerers (1967) from 88 Films. Despite being unwell and in constant pain, in both Karloff gives committed performances which illustrate why he remained a beloved star for four decades.
Tod Solondz’s Happiness (1998): Criterion Blu-ray review
The cultural climate has changed in the quarter-century since the theatrical release of Tod Solondz’s second feature and it’s virtually impossible to imagine Happiness (1998) being made today. Controversial at the time, it seems even more explosive now. Its comedy of dysfunctional relationships is still pertinent, but its cool, even empathetic treatment of paedophilia and mass shootings forces the audience to engage in ways which bypass habitual responses and recognize the human element in monsters.
Roberto Gavaldón’s Untouched (Sombra Verde, 1954) on Blu-ray from Indicator
Indicator have taken a break from their recent spate of Mexican genre movies by dipping a little deeper into the Calderón family archives. Untouched (Sombra Verde, 1954) is a torrid romantic melodrama with allegorical notes which trades in the urban noir of a movie like Emilio Fernández’s Victims of Sin (1950) for the primal jungle of Veracruz. Both were produced by Guillermo Calderón and show him pushing against the boundaries of censorship and testing how far cinema could push a frank depiction of sexuality in a society still very much under the sway of the Catholic Church.
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