masterly master lee
a home for forgotten and famous korean pulp, its heroes, its heroines, and its pulpeteersArchive for low-budget
Bloody Mafia 붉은 마피아 review
This is the last movie directed and starred in by action legend Wang Ho 왕호 better known as Casanova Wong 卡萨伐 from his many, many, many Hong Kong action flicks. OK, OK, not his last movie, I mean, this ex-marine also helmed the South Korean Ministry of Defense propaganda flick Read the rest of this entry »
Action Boys 우린 액션배우다 2008 review
Master Lee was thrilled to see this documentary about the daredevils who do the stunts and bodydoubles for Korea’s famous (action) stars (not for the Master of course! He invented action cinema). Action Boys follows the careers of the 36 young men who made it passed the 2004 auditions for the 8th class of the Seoul Action School 서울액션스쿨. Within a month 10 of them dropped out due to the extreme physical and mental demands made on them Read the rest of this entry »
Hera Purple: Devil Goddess 헤라버플 2001 review
A great beginning for the movie publicized as ‘the sexiest and most shocking movie in Korean cinema history‘: a naked crucified body. Then a priest in a church, looking increasingly frightened by two books in front of him that are leaved through by an invisible force, stopping at a page with a picture of Greek goddess Hera. And it gets better. Very pretty ajumma Yi Hyerim Read the rest of this entry »
Quick Man 追殺令 2002 review + update
This is directly from the back of the DVD: “The death of a company CEO triggers a battle for his estate, when his will indicates that he leaves everything to his missing granddaughter. Read the rest of this entry »
If You Want 그대원하면 1987 review
If you’re looking for 80s pulp, look no further. It’s all here: the strange, scrawny hairdo’s, big leather belts with holes big enough to put your arm through, tight leggings, colors that scream “Mismatch!” and that inimitably dark feeling of doom from movies like The Class Of ‘84: Read the rest of this entry »
Charisma 카리스마 1997 review
Well, after watching Charisma, there can be only one conclusion. Superheroes do exist and they are very hard to beat, although they seem to be very sentimental and vulnerable to rather pathetic music. From the director who brought us Clementine, this 1997 gangster flick is memorable for two things. Read the rest of this entry »
The Invincible From Hell 1981
This blog really should have started with a review of this DVD (a double feature; the other movie on it is Duel of the 7 Tigers), starring the eponymous Master Lee. In The Invincible From Hell Master Lee plays a former triad member who has taken on the triads after they killed his wife. This really is a very nice movie, starting with the soundtrack, which is improbably versatile Read the rest of this entry »
The Last Fist Of Fury 最後의 精武門 1977
Here is a treat. An authentic Dragon Lee movie! Starring Dragon Lee 巨龍 거룡, whose Bruce Lee impersonation is so perfect it borders on the surreal. Bruceploitation at its best, it is hard to tell that this was originally a Korean movie. The original version is lost, Read the rest of this entry »
The Korean Connection 1977
I think this is a nice movie. I guess, because it seems to have been made up from left-overs from other movies. This is the story how it is supposed to be: “Korean martial arts star Yong Chul stars as “Tiger”, a loner fighter with a deadly kick! Read the rest of this entry »
Rules of the Gangs 건달의 법칙
Thousands of video’s with gangster movies on them must be running the risk of extinction in South Korea. The friendly neighborhood video shop has lost the battle with the South Korean version of Blockbusters. Their stock is discarded or ends up in the hands of wholesalers. As a result, the low-budget pulpies disappear. More often than not, the original spools are gone and there is little interest (and no funds) to transfer these movies to dvd. Some of them, however, escape the quiet extinction of their kind. Rules of the Gangs is one of those movies. Read the rest of this entry »
Clementine 클레멘타인
Clementine isn’t the worst Korean movie ever. That honor probably goes to gangster flick Rules of the Gangs or one of the generic melodrama’s South Korea keeps curning out. Clementine was made by martial arts movie director Kim Du-young (김두영), Read the rest of this entry »
Killing Game 킬링 게임 1996
No better way to start this blog than a posting on a very typical gangster pulp video. I just watched Killing Game, a 1996 direct-to-video pulpie about a gangster who is forced to enter a cage fight competition for the evil crime lord (no, this is not a tautology. The movie also features a good crime lord) of his mining home town. The acting is atrocious (worst acting honors go to the Bored Rich Lady), the dialogues surreal (not a good thing here), the sex gratuitous and violent, the plot absent, but the fighting is actually pretty good. Read the rest of this entry »
The Showdown 거칠마루
Martial arts, unknown actors, gangsters, competing fighting styles, seven people wondering: “Who is the best?” Sounds like a typical martial arts low-budget movie, but Kim Jin-seong’s The Showdown is anything but typical. Yes, it is low-budget and, yes, it is about who can kick ass best,
but there the similarities end. The Showdown is a thoroughly enjoyable, well-acted, well-thought out and funny little gem of a movie. It’s a story about the quest for Geochilmaru, a martial artist whose prowess in posting messages on www.mulimjizon.com, a martial arts website, has won him the admiration of many martial artists. Read the rest of this entry »
