Short Attention Span Review: Best of the Best (1989)

Short Attention Span Review: Best of the Best (1989)

I do this out of love, peeps.  Writing this review feels a lot like baring my soul in some new and thoroughly uncomfortable way.  Why?  Well, because this cliched and entirely too emotional offspring of a kung fu flick cross-pollinated with a soap opera is most certainly a guilty pleasure of mine.  Crafting this blog will require me to profess my undying love for a picture that is remarkably bad.  As far as I'm concerned, Best of the Best is a case study in the rare art of getting everything wrong--and somehow getting it right.  Yes, the plot finds room for every staple of both motion pictures about sports and plucky underdog tales in general.  Yes, it shamelessly mines each of these tropes for every single ounce of melodrama.  It mines many of them twice.  Some of them may be mined a half-dozen times or more before everyone hugs it out at the weepy conclusion.  Yes, Eric Roberts takes over-acting to new heights, playing his role with less restraint than we might expect from Bill Shatner and Wings Hauser--if they were shitfaced and engaged in a fierce competition to see who could get booted off the set first.  Yes, the closing reel morality play is so overdone that it roughly equates to cooking your steak until it becomes jerky.  All of these things are true (and I haven't even touched upon the glam-rock soundtrack or Eric's hair, dear lord) and yet it is both entertaining and touching in spite of its glaring flaws.  Shit, much of the entertainment is reliant upon Eric's dedication to turning every other scene into an opportunity to work through the five stages of grief in one take.  In terms of competence, originality, and believability, Best of the Best must be considered an abject failure.  However, it bypasses the realm of "so bad it's good" filmmaking and somehow lands in "so bad it is marvelous" territory.   Yeah, I'll stand by that.  You'll marvel, all right.  You may even cheer.  You may cry a bit, doing your own Eric Roberts Lite routine, and you'll certainly feel like a dumbass for falling prey to this crap when that happens.  Honestly, I love it.  No shame, peeps.  I'm going to bat for Eric Roberts like Mickey Rourke here.  I would have given him the Oscar, no bullshit.  His performance in Best of the Best leads me to believe that his acceptance speech would have been the greatest thing to happen in the history of time.

Final Grade: C+

Eric Roberts, man.  Eric Fucking Roberts.  Unbelievable.  And I still wind up so invested in his character.  If I was the only one who felt this way, I would chalk it up to mental illness.

Short Attention Span Review: Masked Avengers (1981)

Short Attention Span Review: Masked Avengers (1981)

This one has all the necessary ingredients for a classic Shaw Brothers exercise in Kung Fu Treachery: Chang Cheh in the director's chair, key members of the Venom Mob in the cast, a sinister mood, and an abundance of gore.  Of course, it should go without saying that Masked Avengers is also enhanced by the colorful costumes and sets and the breathtaking choreography that make the Shaw Brothers library so worthwhile for connoisseurs like yours truly.  I would rank this among their more frightening offerings, and I think that the fact that the masked killers terrorizing the countryside in Masked Avengers are armed with tridents gives this one an advantage.  While Shaw Brothers movies are revered for their fight scenes, to include big brawls with multiple cast members and stellar weapons choreography, the use of tridents makes Masked Avengers rather unique.  The picture hits several familiar beats for fans of Chang Cheh's work, to include secret identities, deadly alliances, and characters whose motives remain murky until they finally pick a side in the grand finale.  Speaking of which, the big showdown that marks the conclusion of Masked Avengers has to rank among the studio's very best.  It's a real showstopper, and those who enjoy such fare will definitely be thrilled by this sadistic climax pitting terrifying villains against valiant heroes in a bloody battle that is thrilling and creative in equal measures. 

Final Grade: B+

Venom Mob + Chang Cheh + Gore + Superb Choreagraphy = Grade A Kung Fu Treachery

If you enjoy these pictures as much as I do, check out my reviews of other top shelf martial arts flicks from the Shaw Brothers:

Short Attention Span Review: Blood Brothers (1973)

Short Attention Span Review: Five Shaolin Masters (1974)

Short Attention Span Review: Crippled Avengers (1978)

Note: I didn't realize until I was digging up these links that I've apparently never reviewed the one Shaw Brothers classic that rules them all: The Five Deadly Venoms.  I promise my faithful readers that I will remedy this situation shortly.

Short Attention Span Review: Blood Brothers (1973)

 

No one has time for kung fu treachery in this life, unless it's part of your kung fu cinema regimen.  If you're like me, you know that the greatest kung fu flicks of all time fall under one of two categories: 1) films starring Bruce Lee, and 2) films from the Shaw Brothers.  Yeah, I'm thinking that Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais are working on creating a third category for me, but we're not there just yet.  Regardless, I watched Blood Brothers in Shaw Scope this weekend and had a great time with it.  It was rather grim and the ending was a major bummer, but it was pretty obvious we were heading in that direction from the opening frame.  The usual grand sets, colorful costumes, and incredible choreography were all on display, but if you know the Shaw Brothers, you knew that already.  The story was compelling and the three leads (David Chiang, Lung Ti, and Kuan Ti Chen) all did a remarkable job with both the acting and the chops and kicks that Blood Brothers required of them.  There was a strange emphasis on dudes rolling down hills in slow-motion (this didn't happen once or twice--it was more like five to ten times) that I didn't completely understand, but it was still a quality kung fu flick.  I loved David Chiang's work with the triple staff and Lung Ti really stole the show as the "brother" whose lust for power (and Kuan Ti Chen's lovely wife) eventually turned the three men against one another.  It wasn't in the upper echelon of movies c/o of the Shaw Brothers (Five Deadly Venoms, Crippled Avengers, Five Shaolin Masters), but it was definitely worthwhile.

Bonus points: whoever did the subtitles on the version I watched certainly played it fast and loose.  There were numerous scenes where the subtitles didn't make a damn bit of sense.  Also, (and this shouldn't have been funny but it was) the female lead was frequently referred to as "bitch" or "the bitch" and I'm pretty sure these references weren't actual translations of what was being said. 

Final Grade: C+

Dude in the middle (Lung Ti) looks like an asshole, doesn't he? 
This isn't one of those examples of how looks can be deceiving.