Asian Rarelust Movie

The plot thickens as the heroes, Pak and Hak, discover a horrible plan by the evil genius “DR.Magma” as he makes the evil dead come to life and fight the Shaolin monks that have mastered the art of fighting.

Monkey Goes West, the first film in the series, is the film that introduces the world to the viewer and sets up all the recurring characters — the Tang priest (Ho Fan), who is on a holy pilgrimage to India to collect scriptures, and his motley trio of companions. The focus is squarely on the journey, however — unlike the novel (or the Japanese TV series) we don’t see any of Monkey’s exploits before he’s imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha. Instead, the first we see of him is his first encounter with the priest, as he entreats him to free him from the rock and make him his disciple. Further on their way they collect a Dragon Prince, who becomes the priest’s horse as penance for eating the original one; Pigsy (Peng Peng), the disgraced Marshal of Heaven who becomes the second disciple; and Friar Sand (Tien Shun), a water demon who also becomes a disciple. Yueh Hua does an excellent job as the Monkey King in what was probably quite a tough assignment, taking on such a beloved character in only his second feature.

A greedy developer has placed huge machines to suck dry a part of the ocean near Tokyo so he can put luxury condos there. After a storm, a giant egg washes up on the beach nearby and is immediately put on public display. The developer’s plans go awry when he disrupts Godzilla’s rest and the monster goes stomping through Tokyo again. It’s up to the elderly Mothra, and then to its two offspring, to save Tokyo from destruction.

Set around the turn of the century in China, the White Lotus Society plots to put the next Emperor on the throne. To do this they want their protege to marry the Princess Sun Yu who possesses an important jade ring. They dispatch Yueng Kwan to fetch her. However, Yueng Kwan is a patriot, working for the revolutionary forces of Sun Yat Sen. He abducts Sun Yu and finds refuge with the father of the future hero Wong Fei Hung.

A female of a trucking company has run-ins with evil yakuza during the American occupation of Okinawa. Her hometown is threatened by usurers, gangsters and indirectly by American GI influences. She must battle a yakuza organization with her employees to help settle things.

Another subversion of audience expectations has Kobayashi acting somewhat cowardly in the snow-bound final showdown, an unheard-of trait in a ninkyô yakuza hero. Also with Tamio Kawaji as a sword-wielding assassin in Zero-cape-and -hat(!)

On the set of a dark war time drama at an old movie studio, a young director, Toshio Murai (Yanagi), is trying to complete his debut film. The two starring actresses, Hitomi Kurokawa and Saori Murakami, play sisters in his film. Murai has a crush on Hitomi (Shiroshima), the seasoned leading actress, and keeps a photo of her by his bed. The younger and less experienced actress, Saori (Ishibashi), is annoying and likes to have recess on the set. The production of the movie is consistently interrupted by strange occurrences and the cast and crew begin to get spooked.