Korean posterI wrote about the wild and crazy movie FIREFIST OF INCREDIBLE DRAGON the other day and here's a bit of new info from two nice gents; Knudsford of ASIAN CULT CINEMA SHOWCASE blog in Japan has provided highly interesting info on the film's origin and Peter "Kothar" from Cinehound has sent me cover scans for the French VHS and DVD releases.
The different releases:
Peter, along with my buddy David Z in the US, confirms that the French print is a good-looking letterboxed print and that it runs a whooping 11 minutes longer than the UK DVD!!!
Unfortunately, the French DVD isn't English friendly. :o(
Whether the French VHS and DVD contain the original uncut Korean print instead of the Tomas Tang version remains to be seen. One rather unfortunate piece of info I learnt via the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) homepage is that they cut out no less than 51 seconds of the UK DVD!!! As I wrote in my first post the film is also out on VHS in the US and I would assume that version is the uncut print (of the shorter Tomas Tang version).
About the film:
Firstly, FIREFIST OF INCREDIBLE DRAGON isn't a Hong Kong movie at all as it says on the IMDb!
Whaaat? Surely you jest, Jack!?!? O_O
Incorrect info on the highly trustworthy IMDb??? Nooo!!! @_@
Obviously, I'm laughing my ass off here. xD
As soon as I saw that Tomas Tang moniker I suspected foul play but with info as difficult to come by in regards to an ultra obscure and rare movie like FIREFIST you sometimes got to run with what you're being given. Even shitty info provided by drunken IMDb monkeys.
However, here's the correct info which Tommy translated from Korean:
소림사 주천귀동 Juchon-Gwidong in Shaolin Temple (1982)
Chinese title: 少林寺酒天鬼童
Production Company Shin Han Art Films Co., Ltd
Producer Kim Gi-Yeong
Release Day 1982-06-19
Running Time 82 min.
Director Kim Jong-Seong
Cast: Lee Jae-Yeong, Im Poong, Han Hee, Joo Yong-Jong
I'm a bit curious as to the 82 minute running time info. Peter tells me the French tape runs 88 minutes!!! Did the Koreans have a censored print or is it simply a misprint?
None of these two French covers are particularly good I'm afraid! Actually they're terrible at conveying what kind of film is inside the box! You would think this is an ordinary - and kinda boring looking - martial arts movie. Well, like I said (i.e. rambled about frantically) in my first post this isn't an ordinary kung fu film by anybody's standards! I would loooove to see this being given a proper release by Mondo Macabro!! Are you listening Peter Tombs!!!
UPDATE: Fred Anderson has just reviewed the film on Ninja Dixon.
Big thank-you's fly out to Knudsford, Peter, and David!
Jack, I ask you permission to take this filmark post to my blog...Ala cut & paste, of course!
ReplyDeletewaiting for your persimision.
Permission granted! I've created this blog to spread the world on these rare films so yes you can use anything you want from here. Thanks for asking. :D
ReplyDeleteBy the way, remember I have TWO big posts about
this film, the first one was posted 4-5 days ago.
You can copy paste if you want - or I can send you the contents in an email. That way you'll get the post codes and all you have to do is post the text right into a new post. Let me know.
Thanks Jack!
ReplyDeleteWe share the same blankpoint: Spread good words on rare films we enjoy. My objetive is smaller than yours since I dedicated my site exclusively to IFD / Filmark. that's why any kind of information, any smal details about them is very valuable for me.
I bought the rare original Korean poster of this 2 months ago :)
ReplyDeleteVery cool!! I got the longer French DVD recently! Somebody ought to do a subtitled version. Hmm, who do we know who speaks French?? ^_^
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey buddy. Thanks so much for your kind words. And no, that plot is a bit, uh, difficult to follow but that's not so important: It's a wild film! :D
ReplyDeleteoops, I wanted to correct my comment and ended up deleting it... About the running time of the French DVD or VHS, it is due to the fact that it is a PAL (for the DVD)or SECAM (for the VHS) system, which run at 24fps, while the standard fps is 25fps (which is respected by the NTSC system). This one frame difference makes a gap of 4 minutes for a 90 minutes feature film. This explain a bit the running time difference.
ReplyDeleteAs for a translation of the French dialogues, well... I could give it a try... But be aware that the French dialogues are sometimes really funky and vulgar and must be quite far from the original ones. But it adds to the general craziness of the whole!