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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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7
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8 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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In
November 2005 Mondo Macabro released a double
feature DVD teaming the infamous For
Your Height Only — a Filipino 007 knockoff
starring the three-foot tall Weng Weng — with
Challenge of the Tiger,
a more conventional (though almost as silly) kung
fu/action adventure. I regret not having turned
my attention to this disc earlier, for at the
moment I'm hard-pressed to think of a more raucously
entertaining double bill of so-bad-they're-good
movies. If you're an unabashed cheese lover like
me then this DVD is an absolutely essential purchase
— you will not be disappointed.
The
diminutive Weng and his charmingly awful Bond
spoof may have stolen the limelight but I actually
enjoyed the second-billed feature, Challenge
of the Tiger, a wee bit more. I suppose
the titular Tiger is meant to be star Bruce Le
(yes, only one "E" in the last name), although
he's never referred to as such, nor is any
kind of tiger anywhere to be seen in the film.
(Bruce does fight a bull, though.) Known on VHS
as Gymkata Killer
— which I like better as a title, despite the
fact it doesn't have anything to do with the plot
either — this action-packed martial arts cheesefest
starts off with a bang: a double assassination,
a kung fu fight and topless slow-motion tennis
all within the first five minutes!
Upon
developing a super-sterility drug that permanently
kills all sperm, a scientist and his assistant
are murdered by neo-Nazi terrorists and the formula
stolen. The CIA, worried that the formula will
be used to blackmail the world, assigns its two
best agents to the case — Huang Lung (Le), Chinese-born
kung fu master, and Richard Cannon (Richard Harrison),
a skirt-chasing American whose Roger Moore 'do,
Burt Reynolds 'stache and reputation for womanizing
apparently qualify him for secret agent duty.
Tipped off that the thieves are selling the formula
to the highest bidder, our heroes track one of
the potential buyers, a Japanese gangster, to
Spain. The deal is set to go down during a bullfight.
Huang tries to intercept the formula, which is
hidden inside a hat, before it can be passed to
the Yakuza. Confusion erupts and a gun battle
breaks out in the stands; Cannon trades lead with
the Japanese as Huang squares off against a maddened
bull inside the ring. A skull-shattering blow
to the bull's head —
shown via humorously crude
animation a la The Street
Fighter — finishes the beast but the formula
is gone, recovered by a foxy bint named Maria
(Nadiuska, Conan's mom in Conan
the Barbarian) who works for the terrorists.
Time for smarmy chick-magnet Dick Cannon to step
to the fore.
In
the time it takes to say "Can I come home
with you?" (his actual pickup line), Cannon
is frolicking with Maria in a hot tub, keeping
her occupied while Huang sneaks into her condo
to snatch the formula. The copy he swipes turns
out to be fake, so the boys are soon on their
way to Hong Kong on Maria's trail. Here things
really get sticky as both terrorists and CIA agents
come under attack from a ruthless Vietnamese spy
ring. Hanoi has ordered the formula secured at
all costs, and since they can't afford to buy
it the commies will just have to steal it instead...
Produced
by globetrotting exploitation impresario Dick
Randall (French
Sex Murders) and directed by star Bruce Le
(reportedly with an assist by Richard Harrison),
Challenge of the Tiger
positively gushes with lip-smackingly tasty cheese.
There's really no point in trying to analyze such
a film in the traditional sense... It's totally
inept, sure, but will it make you laugh —
even though the filmmakers didn't set out to make
a comedy? Oh, you betcha! Incredibly stupid dialog,
all of it very poorly dubbed, kept me in
stitches throughout. Challenge
has practically everything one could hope to see
in an enjoyably bad martial arts/spy flick except
gore, which I'm pleased to report is compensated
for with oodles of gratuitous female nudity. (Of
the six women that appear in the film, five —
including Nadiuska —
get partially or totally naked. The slo-mo topless
tennis match will instantly become a 'classic
movie moment' for any unapologetic horndog seeing
it.) Poor Bruce has to do 95% of the fighting
— conventional stuff
not employing wirework, decently enough staged
— as pepla/spaghetti
western vet Harrison (a Poor Man's Roger Moore
by this stage of his career) hogs every bit of
the chick action. (It might not be fair, but Le
doesn't exactly possess an abundance of charisma;
the Emo Philips haircut certainly doesn't help.)
Another veteran of European genre films, Brad
Harris (Goliath Against
the Giants, The Freakmaker),
lends muscle to the proceedings in the role of
Leopard, the vicious terrorist enforcer who never
removes his sunglasses.
Old School Fu fans should enjoy the presence of
Ninja
Terminator's hard-kickin' Hwang Jang Lee (AKA
Wong Cheng Li) as the leader of the communist
spies, while Bolo Yeung (Bloodsport,
The Clones of Bruce Lee)
appears as the largest of his henchmen. Although
on the same side, these chop-socky masters end
up fighting each other after Bolo bungles an important
mission. ("Failure means death," the
boss states matter-of-factly, upon which Bolo
decides to take issue with the organization's
rules of employee conduct.)
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Packaged as the third volume
of The Dick Randall Collection, Mondo Macabro
presents both feature films on the same side of
a single DVD. For Your Height
Only is fullframe and taken from a videotape
source, though reportedly in the best condition
extant on home video. (For a full-fledged review
of Weng Weng's celebrated superspy epic, check
out Ian Jane's take on this disc over at DVD
Maniacs.) As for Challenge
of the Tiger, the surprisingly good looking
print is letterboxed in its original 2.35:1 aspect
ratio; color balance and contrast (often the bane
of old HK kung fu flicks on home video) appear
spot-on. Other than some minor damage and dirt
here and there it's a textbook example of how
Asian martial arts movies of the 1970s and '80s
should be brought to DVD. (I watched it
for the first time on a pal's 52-inch HD projection
TV — the topless
tennis match was simply eye-popping!) The Dolby
Digital 2.0 audio track gets the job done and
no more, with all the goofy dubbed dialog and
sound effects coming through clear. Only the groovy
action music (lifted lock, stock and barrel from
other movies) is shortchanged, sounding somewhat
flat.
Extras include image
galleries for both films, factoid-filled talent
bios/articles on Dick Randall, Weng Weng, Bruce
Le and Richard Harrison by Pete Tombs and Julian
Grainger, a loving, comical essay on Weng Weng
by Weng Aficionado Extraordinaire Ian Jane, and
the ubiquitous Mondo Macabro promo reel. (NOTE:
My DVD rating of '8' factors in the total
value of this double feature package.)
2/10/06
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