ONCE UPON A TIME IN TRIAD SOCIETY (HK 1996)

I've just watched ONCE UPON A TIME IN TRIAD SOCIETY for the first time and now I'm kicking myself in the head for having had it on my shelf for bloody five years without watching it. It is awesome! So different, so inventive, so smart and clever. Different from any other HK film I've seen, and mind you this isn't even some art-house film, it's "just" a clever gangster film - and somehow it's the complete opposite of THE KILLER, the message in this one is trust no one, everyone's bad, everything is a lie, and the main character bad guy (Francis Ng) isn't good underneath it all, he's just a cunt. But even so has sympathetic features. 

Five years ago this Malaysian DVD was the only DVD release of the film anywhere in the world and it might still be. A quick google turns up zilch. The DVD carries the burnt-in theatrical HK subs in English and Chinese (and optional Malay subs). There's an unrelated sequel by the same director.

People who complain about the level of medical attention in their home country should try and seek help at a Hong Kong hospital. Here's a scene of a guy's been shot in the chest and a nurse is trying to save his life putting a Kleenex on the wound. o_O

PS: by the way, the hot nurse in the screen grab is poor Pauline Chan. Six years later she jumped out a 24th floor window. Her sad story is on Wiki.

Quarry's paperbacks

  
I discovered Max Allan Collins' "Quarry" books about a year ago and I am slowly working my way thru the series. There's 12 books so far (the first one was published in 1976 and the latest one was published recently). The series is about an ex Vietnam vet who turns pro hit-man. Apparently, Collins was the first author to make a hit-man a main character.There's a new tv series but I'm not gonna check it out until I've got thru all 12 books.

"A Ticket to the Boneyard" - Lawrence Block (1990)

"A Ticket to the Boneyard"
By Lawrence Block (USA, 1990) 
Danish edition: "Billet til ormegården" 
Published by: Forlaget Klim (1992)
Translation: Mette Egerod
Ex library copy

I've just finished reading my second Matt Scudder novel. The first one was "A Walk Among the Tombstones" (which I posted about here) and this second one was "A Ticket to the Boneyard". I read "Walk" in Hard Case Crime's cool US paperback rerelease but my copy of "Boneyard" is an old Danish edition that I found (and bought) years ago at a library book sale. It was slightly odd to read about Matt Scudder in Danish but it was alright (although the translation was far from perfect which, unfortunately, was all too obvious even without having the original edition to compare with). I might get hold of the original English language version at a later stage.

I have at least one more Matt Scudder ex library book laying around somewhere (I've got seven or eight big removal boxes full of books piled up in my wee pad, I simply haven't got enough book cases to put 'em on!). Not sure which one it is, it could very well be "A Dance at the Slaughterhouse".

In "Boneyard" Matt Scudder and his lady friend, the prostitute Elaine, get harassed (to put it mildly) by an old foe from way back; Nasty piece of work James Leo Motley got locked up for 12 years thanks to Scudder and now he's out and about doing what an ex jailbird with a 12 year grudge does best. He doesn't stay far away from Scudder and Elaine, and this fellar isn't one to pop around for coffee or hang out with you discussing the latest trend in vinyl rereleases. He's off his rocker and does his best to "thank" Scudder for the 12 years behind bars. Matt's friends and relatives start dying in gruesome and yukky ways.

This isn't Miss Marple and there's no butler. "Boneyard" is a grim, violent and totally captivating hard-boiled crime novel and I certainly wanna get hold of more of Block's Scudder books. I think I liked "Tombstones" slightly better but it could very well have to do with this edition having been translated and the language just doesn't flow at well through the filter that a translation is. And as I mentioned at the beginning the translation isn't perfect to say the least (man "entrerer" altså ikke ind ad et vindue på dansk, helt ærligt!). But in any case, highly recommended.

The LOST sequel to THE BIG BOSS is finally getting released to home-cinema!!!

EDIT: Needless to say nothing came of this. FAKE NEWS! 

Awesome news!!!

THE BIG BOSS PART 2 starring Lo Lieh and Bruce Le from 1976 (which I strongly believe is an official sequel to Bruce Lee's THE BIG BOSS) is finally getting a blu-ray release!!!

Years ago I posted about the film and the elusive 35mm copy that the person behind the South African video label Globe owned and later sold off to a cinema in Zambia. Well, it seems he DID make a copy (I have no idea in which format - dvd-r maybe?) before he sold off his 35mm print to the Zambian cinema, and he has now sold off his copy (dupe) to a label. They (the label) wrote to me recently because they though I owned a 35mm print (as I had re-uploaded the Globe guy's 10 min footage to YouTube). I am certain it's the same label. I won't mention who they are till there's an official announcement but it's a good, well-known label in the USA. No release date yet.

I have the info about the Globe guy's copy from a post of his on Kung Fu Fandom message board from last Tuesday.

This is indeed great news and I can't wait to see the film. I'm fully aware that fans of "real" martial arts films consider BIG BOSS PART 2 to be a piece of shite like the rest of the brucesploitation films. But I kinda come from the other side of "karate film" fandom, the "dark side" if you will, I'm totally into trashy B movies and as I said I can't wait to see this.

Finally. After fuck knows how many years I've been looking for a copy. I tried several times to get a copy from the Globe guy but without any luck.

Here's a link to my old main post about the film (which includes the trailer and 10 minutes of footage which was uploaded by the Globe guy). And here's the entry for the film at the Hong Kong Movie Data Base.

Benoît Sokal's Inspector Carnado

 "Le Chien debout" - Benoït Sokal (France, 1981)
Et hundeliv (Danish edition, 1982)

34 years after this comic album (graphic novel) came out and I finally get to read it. I didn't buy the series 34 years ago as I was sick of funny animals and comics with Donald Duck style characters - who were funny. This isn't in retrospect - I do remember seeing the albums back then and deciding not to buy them.

Skip to 34 years later and I'm kicking myself in the head for not getting them back then. But then again, maybe the jokes and adult humour would have gone over my head, haha. I found the album in a big pile of unread comics on the floor sitting between, well, other stuff. It was a pile of ex library comics that I bought at a big indoor market 6-7 years ago.

This is awesome stuff and although it's full of humour it's nowhere near funny-animals funny. This is full of mean spirited characters, violence, death, dark humour and sarcasm.
I'll have to track down the other albums. Apparently there's four more in Danish.

I checked English Wiki but whoever made the entry didn't do a very good job of it. All the French albums are listed with English titles but I'm certain most of them are just translated titles, they're not actually release in English (you don't list translations as titles when they're mere translations). And no info on the few albums that did actually get a release in the English speaking world. Wiki is only as good as the last guy who made an entry.

And kudos to Søren Vinterberg for the Danish translation. It has a flow and crispness that borders on sheer poetry.

The first issue (in French) is from 1979 and Benoît Sokal is still churning them out. The newest issue is #23 from 2015. Don't tell me I have to learn bloody French to read the rest of the series!
(actually I don't - I see the entire series is released in Germany as well)

Tapes, Tapes, Everywhere ...*

I found a video display ... holder/cabinet ... whatever you wanna call it at a second hand market a while back. It doesn't hold too many tapes but it's pretty cool and means you can have a bunch of tapes sitting in your lounge room next to the tv, your chair or wherever. The tapes are just random tapes, there's no system here.
 

*Okay, I'm misquoting Samuel Taylor Colridge's old poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" there so sue me. :P

One shelf at a time

It's been going for months now, and the getting everything sorted out and put in place (i.e. the tidying up nightmare) is still in progress. The past few days I've got my ex-library hardcover comics (i.e. graphic novels mainly from the French/Belgian school of comics) in place, my records (most of 'em anyway) and a few shelves of non ex-library graphic novels. One shelf contains graphic novels that I had in a closed cupboard since the mid 80's!!! (they're almost still in mint condition). I guess it's about time for a reread.

Hardcover graphic novels (all ex library copies)

Soft cover graphic novels, also ex library copies. No, you don't usually put comic books in a pile when you're a collector but these are worn copies from the library and they're totally bent in all directions so I'm trying to get them somewhat back into their original shape.

LPs. I began to buy records around 1980 and I've still got most of them.

Most of the graphic novels from the cupboard I mentioned atop the original post.

I collected Jonah Hex when the original magazines came out. I discovered the mag early on and bought them all from ish #1 and thru to the end. I love the fact they're reprinting them now. Also Tomb of Dracula and House of Secrets/House of Mystery are comics I used to read back in the day. Very cool to finally be able to get complete reprints. And I love that they're in black & white which suits these comics much better than colour.

Blurry piccie of yours truly in front of some of my films. They are NOT placed in any kind of order yet!

STAY SICK! Newsletter

If you're one of my Scandinavian readers who don't subscribe to the news feed on this blog's Danish section you might wanna check this out: I've just posted a new issue of my SS NYT - the newsletter companion to my old zine STAY SICK! It's all in Greek of course.

Go here.

Tracking down old SOUTH PARK box sets

I've always loved SOUTH PARK, ever since my ex girlfriend sent me one of the very first VHS releases from OZ in the 1990's. Recently I've started to collect the series on dvd but since I'm skint most of the time I go for the cheapest sets on Amazon UK.

There's quite a few different releases; UK PAL, US NTSC, volumes as part of a season, full seasons, old releases, repacked releases. Last week I received season 2 and season 11. What a difference between the two sets! Season two is an - dare I say - oldskool dvd box set in which they've simply collected volume 4-7 in a big carton box; i.e. four dvd's in individual cases and four identical four page booklets + four identical 28 pp video catalogues! Season 11 is a compact set of three dvd's in one digi type pack. The latter takes up a fourth of the other set but the oldskool set is way cooler.