Taiwan Black Movies at IFD & Filmark ( part 21): Survival Of A Dragon

Back to the early 80's it seems IFD catalog was an endless one if we compare the ammounts of movies they released around the world to the limited catalog they offer today. One of the most interesting facts is most of the movies that IFD has no longer on its catalog are the taiwanese ones. I can just imagine two ways for this matter: IFD have not longer the copyrights of those movies or they were just lost during the fire that destroyed IFD & Filmark offices in Garley Gallery in Yau Ma Tei back in 1996.

These days, my elder son is sick & I have to stay with him full time at home, so, I decided to put in orderm my movies storage room & check damaged or forgotten old VHS that I haven't transferred into DVD yet. Among them I found a forgotten gem from IFD that it still remains as a rare gem from Joseph Lai's company since, to my information and if I am not wrong, it is a very underrated film titled Survival of a Dragon.

Watch out, Survival of A Dragon. Don't get confused with another film starred by Larry Lee originally titled The Thunderkick directed by Teddy Yip, a regular face on Samo Hung's movies, that later was re-titled Survival of the Dragon that also included in the cast famous faces like Bolo Yeung, James Nam or Yukio Someno.

The movie released by IFD, Survival of a Dragon is a 1981 taiwanese production originally titled Hero From the Time Tunnel directed by Lam Ying who scripted, among other nice kung fu films, a favourite of mine titled The romantic double rings. Lam Ying was also the director of one of those taiwanese women in prison movies that were also a "nice" subgenre for rottenminded people like me. Among those movies there is one that I like specially titled Escape at Dawn  

Survival of a dragon was starred by Alan Lau Tak-Hoi whom we have previously seen in some other movies distributed by IFD such as Pink Force Commando or as co-star with Elsa Yeung in Nude Body Case in Tokyo.

Alan Lau's co-stars in this movie were actress Lee Lit who also starred a crazy movie titled Lunatic Frog Women ( aka Virgin Commandos), Ngai Ping Ngo, the gaylish gangster in Bruce Lee's movies and Hung Chiu Hung, a guy who decided to be known internationally as Squall Hung (!!!!!!!) and whose movie career is quite short, probably a gangster who decided to try his luck in the movie industry.

Survival of A Dragon is a crazy movie about a reporter girl who is investigating about some gangsters and because of a electricity problem inside of an abandoned mine she is back on time to the middle age, then as it happened in Yuen Biao's The Iceman Cometh, the kung fu warriors will come to the present time & fight the gangsters!!!!!!

Till now, I Just knew the spanish VHS release of this movie, but I have been able to find some information that Survival of A Dragon  was also released in some other countries and territories!

One day, I should compile a complete list of IFD catalog including the long time lost movies like this one. Oh, I mean lost from IFD catalog....

Taiwan Black Movies at IFD & Filmark (part 20): The Ninja Showdown

Ninja Showdown has been the last IFD ninja movie to enter in my private collection. While most of IFD cut & paste movie were released in Spain on tape, the ones that never got their release have been very hard for me to get them. I am still trying to hunt several ones that it seems were never released on domestic formats.

Ninja Showdown is other of those bunch of ninja movies supposely directed by Joseph Lai. These movies were not directed by Mr Lai but by several action directors such as John Cheung, Ridley Tsui and their stuntment groups. They were done when the demand of this kind of movies were at its peak and IFD people hardly have time to prepare them with a minimus care.

Ninja Showdown was done using a 1983 taiwanese production titled Tian Zhuang A Ge, also known as The Return, a movie that was co-directed by taiwanese superb director Chu Yen Ping who made some of the very best & craziest movies ever done in the world. I personally enjoyed his vision of gangster movies with Requital or Island on Fire. He was also the man who made the most popular movies ever played by Elsa Yeung: Golden Queen Commando & Pink Force Commando.

Chu Yen Ping was assisted directing Tian Zhuang A Ge by Chiu Chan Kwok who seems to be his most diligent student sincce Chiu also directed some crazily funny movies such as Lucky Seven and Lucky Seven 2 and he worked in some movies that were directly influenced by Chu's visuals such as Gun and Rose that weird movie starred by Alan Tang & Andy Lau.

Tian Zhuang A Ge was starred by Tattoer Ma, maybe the most popular taiwanese actor who has ever portrayed a gangster there and internationally launched by IFD and Choi Wing Wa the same actor who played in the taiwanese movie used in Ninja Hunt.

Recently Tian Zhuang A Ge was released on VCd in Taiwan & it can be purchase throught usual online shops. It is indeed a good chance to get it & understand how they made movies not only in Taiwan but at IFD.

Taiwan Black Movies at IFD & Filmark (part 19): Ninja Hunt

I have to recognice it: I am very lazyyyyyyy about updating the blog lately. I have many entries ready to be post but I don't publish them, I am getting bored of these entries about Taiwan Black movies at IFD & Filmark but I should publish all the information I have been collecting before I should start other topics about IFD/ Filmark, their movies & the people who made them possible...but I say again, I am very lazy & other matters need most of my free time...

Anyway, after all my stupid excuses have been explained, I have to finish this entry with another Taiwanese Black movie that has been "unmasked" after it was used by IFD in the making of Ninja Hunt, one of the latter movies Richard Harrison made IFD in 1986 before he left the company & Hong Kong.

Ninja Hunt is one of those ninja movies from IFD I haven't enjoy very much due to several reasons. It belongs to that group of movies supposely directed by Joseph Lai ( such as Ninja Kill, Ninja Commandments or Ninja Against Cobra among other titles) that just contains 5 to10 minutes of uninspired  ninja action usually choreograhped by John Cheung. who was also probably tired of working for IFD, or very stressed, or just wanted to finish as soon as possible.

Ninja Hunt was made using a 1983 produced taiwanese crime drama titled Wrong Step directed by Tsui Mei (aka Chui Mooi) whose filmography only contains this title. Then, Wrong Step was choreographed by Lam Gwong Wing a well-known face from some important taiwanese martial arts films.

The Spanish VHS was designed just following the original design of Eagle Leung the publicity artist at IFD. The most curious fact of this work is the painted Stuart Smith was also used in Spain in several artcovers for some taiwanese martial arts films that have nothing to do with IFD or Ninja Hunt.