Runtime:
94 minutes
Directed
by: Mario Caiano
Starring:
Chen Lee, Piero Lulli, Carla Romanelli, Gordon Mitchell, Klaus Kinski
(yes, that's right)
From:
C.B.A. Produttori e Distributori Associati
Here's
another film from one of the collections of public domain Westerns I
got on Monday. The blurb on the back said that this was a guy from
the Far East in the Old West; believe it or not there were a handful
of those back in the 70's, doing it long before Shanghai Noon in the
late 90's. I then looked it up and saw that it featured legendary
crazyman Klaus Kinski, and that seemed like a good reason to see
something that sounded so odd. Turns out, it was greatly
entertaining.
The
plot: Shanghai Joe (Lee) emigrates to the Old West from China and
experiences a whole lot of prejudice. Despite this, he remains noble
and well-spoken. However, when he has to, he will unleash a whole lot
of martial arts fury. He comes across an evil rancher who illegally
uses Mexican labor (Lulli) and after pissing him off, the rancher
hires some goons with wacky names like Scalper Jack (Kinski), Pedro
the Cannibal, Tricky the Gambler, and Burying Sam, to try and take
him out. He also engages in some interracial romancin' with a lovely
Mexican lady (actually played by Italian Romanelli).
The
movie was definitely better than I expected from some wacky Spaghetti
Western production from Italy that was cashing in on the then-new
martial arts craze. As I already stated, Joe was a noble character
who spoke well and wasn't a crazy vengeful person. That was a nice
touch. Yet, he also did things like punch a guy through his chest,
knock out a bull when he was forced into a bullfighting ring, and
even ripped out a dude's eyeball, so... this is an Italian production
so there is indeed sleaze. Plenty of racial slurs are heard, and not
just against Asians but also Hispanics, African-Americans, and Native
Americans. The goons with the wacky names were certainly over the
top, but also memorable and I wish we could have gotten more
screentime with them. Alas, I still enjoyed the movie more than I
thought I would.
The
film is like a videogame, really. Joe travels through various areas,
deals with bad guys and he has big battles before moving onto the
next area. Yes, he even uses martial arts against Kinski's character
(Scalper Jack), but in a unique way; Jack crippled Joe's legs with
bullets so he has to use different ways to do battle against him, and
it's pretty cool. Kinski delivered the unique Kinski performance.
People
in this film look like 70's-era Kris Kristofferson, a fat Richard
Dreyfuss circa Jaws, Jerry Garcia in the last years of his life, and
even modern-day Dolph Lundgren. That guy was Burying Sam, played by
Mitchell. He was a bodybuilder who went to Italy in the early 60's to
make sword and sandal films, and he stayed there after that trend
died out. He also happened to look like Dolph at the time.
While
I wish the movie wasn't in fullscreen and panned and scanned from its
original widescreen release, it otherwise was something nice that I
stumbled upon. As it's public domain it's not hard to find on
YouTube; two different copies are uploaded as of now.
I'll
be back Friday night.
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