Movie Monday - Swordsman II

This may seem shorter than usual, but it's not so much because I'm distracted by the novel. I'm a little put out, because this week's Movie Monday has been such a pain in the ass.

I figured, why not stick out the kung fu thing for one more week, because I've got one of the gonzo classics on DVD--"Swordsman II," starring Jet Li from 1991, before he was a household name in the U.S.

So I popped in the DVD to rewatch it, and it was even crazier than I remembered.

But...

I don't know if there's something wrong with the DVD, or something finicky with the DVD player in the television I bought last year, but the movie won't play smoothly. It hangs up and jerks in spots. The climax was completely unwatchable. I had to play it out on my computer.

So I did. And then I spent a couple of hours doing screen caps. But I forgot that there are steps that must be taken, and when I went to scale down the screen caps today, they were all blank.

So I sighed at the prospect of a couple more hours of work, and tried to pop in the DVD, and both my DVD drives are down. One won't read the DVD at all, and the other one won't open. What's the opposite of LOL? WTF? HOK (Head on Keyboard)? I rather like that. HOKHOK!

SO I visited Youtube, and yes, someone has the entire movie posted there, but I was not mentally prepared to spend the time necessary to get new screencaps that will end up looking like shit. So, except for one pic I found on-line that matches one of the screencaps I lost, there are no images in this week's Movie Monday.

So anyway, "Swordsman II," or "Swordman II" as the DVD cover states (the title in the movie spells it right), is a crazy wu xia adventure that, like so many 90's kung fu movies, is put together from a hundred pieces of awesome that somehow don't quite manage to click together. But it's a hell of a show, if for no other reason than the sheer audacity of everything they tried to do in it.

Jet Li stars as Ling, a wandering hero who, with his sidekick Kiddo (played by Michelle Reis), wants to reunite with his fellow students from the Wah Mountain school (which apparently figured in the first film, which I 've never seen). They plan to retire to remote Ox Mountain, where they will stop fighting and heroing and instead relax and party. Ling wants to spend the rest of his days drinking and partying with women. He's like a kung fu Seth Rogen!

However, on his way to the rendezvous, he gets caught up in a power struggle between rival factions of the Sun Moon Sect. One faction is led by Ling's love, Ying (Rosamund Kwan), daughter of the sect's former leader, Master Wu. The other faction is led by a young man named Invincible Dawn (on the disc I have--I've seen other articles translate the name to Asia the Invincible), who has imprisoned Master Wu and stolen a sacred scroll which holds the secret to ultimate spiritual martial arts power.

Ling's problem: unbeknownst to him, he has also fallen in love with Invincible Dawn (played by Brigitte Lin), because the scroll's power is turning him into a woman.

But this bare summary of the scenario can't begin to describe the craziness that this film contains. "Swordsman II" was produced by Tsui Hark, so over-the-top is sort of an understatement. Here are some of the things you'll see in the course of this movie:

Snake-flute! Running on top of tall grass! Ninjas riding on giant flying shuriken! Tomboy tying buns in her hair to look feminine! Ninjas burroming underground and into tree trunks! Pressure-point paralyzation! Poison spitting! Deadly needles (yes, the inspiration for Professor Pierce, if you must know)! Giant hooks! Swords fighting by themselves! Two different characters cut off their own arms! Vacuum hands! And enough exploding bodies and buildings to fill three other movies! With musical interludes!

And all this happens in 108 minutes. With really crappy subtitles. Although this has apparently been released in the U.S. market as "Legend of the Swordsman" dubbed in English, so it'll probably be easier to find that way (although it also cuts 8 minutes off the running time, so most of the bloodier parts are probably gone).

Anyway, if you're curious about just how crazy HK cinema can get, "Swordsman II" is a pretty decent primer. It's fun.

Movie Monday - Operation Scorpio

Movie Monday continues with more kung fu madness. This week's feature is "Operation Scorpio" from 1991. And although this week's movie is not adapted from a comic, comics do play a part.

"Operation Scorpio" starts Chin Kar Lok as Yu Shu, an aspiring comic artist. He idles away his time in class doodling battles between kung fu masters and daydreaming about being a hero, or at least telling stories about them.

His aspirations receive a cold dose of reality when he rescues Mei, a pretty girl who is being sold into slavery as a prostitute. Unfortunately for him, when he tries to set her free, Mei decides to become his servant to express her gratitude. He hides her out in his father's house.

One night, Yu Shu goes to spy on the slavers. The gang is led by an old man in a wheelchair; his will is enforced by his son (known only as Sonny and played by Korean Won Jun Kim), a master fighter who uses an unusual scorpion style.

Watching from outside the window, Yu Shu sketches Sonny's various techniques with an eye toward using them in his comics someday. When Yu Shu then asks his father if he can study kung fu, his father tells him to be realistic and gets him a job at an old friend's noodle shop instead.

From there on, things get really complicated. Fleeing from the slaver's men, Yu Shu meets Jean Paul, a Chinese proto-bodybuilder who has studied abroad and adopted Western methods of diet and training (so instead of eating rice and practicing Chi Gung, he advocates eating meat and lifting barbells).

Yu Shu begins to live a double life with Mei's help, working in the noodle shop and training his strength with Jean Paul.

Of course, eventually his duplicity is discovered when it causes a disaster. Yu Shu is forbidden to train with Jean Paul anymore, which is when his noodle-making "uncle" (played by Hong Kong movie legend Lau Kar Leung) reveals that he is a kung fu master and has been training Yu Shu all along. Like the "wax on, wax off" scenes in "The Karate Kid," all the work Yu Shu has been doing lifting and tossing huge, burning-hot woks has been training his strength, toughness, and reflexes. His uncle also begins to teach him a special deceptive kicking technique that he says is even more powerful than the Scorpion Tactic. Yu Shu becomes so enthused by his training that he even studies live eels to develop his own personal Eel Technique.

Eventually Mei is discovered and captured again, and Yu Shu sets out to rescue her. Jean Paul battles Sonny, but is beaten. The Noodle Master then battles Sonny, and is on the verge of beating him when he is shot in the leg by Sonny's father. So it is all up to Yu Shu, who must combine Jean Paul's strength training, his uncle's Noodle Fu and Southern Shadowless Kick, and even Eel Style (which looks a bit like combat break dancing), coached by his uncle, who throws Yu Shu's comics pages into the air during hte fight, so that Yu Shu can see and anticipate Sonny's techniques.

It's amazing just how much of the free-for-all plot finally gets tied together in a final battle that lasts only a few minutes.

"Operation Scorpio" is the quintessential 90's kung fu movie. The furious fight scenes are bursting with wire work, which is obvious and unbelievable, but also dazzling if only because it's so crazy. The plot wanders all over the damn place, crams in all kinds of random shit, yet ties it all up and pays it off at the end. Compared to this whack-a-doo mess, an American film like "The Karate Kid" is a model of brutal simplicity.

Overall, I'd say "The Karate Kid" is a better film. But "Operation Scorpio" is way more fun, and given the choice on an average Friday, I'd much rather watch it again.

Movie Monday - Saviour of the Soul

So yeah, I was originally going to be going over superhero movies based on American comics. I will still get back to that eventually. But I realize that right now, it's more fun to hunt down obscure Hong Kong movies that intrigued me and maybe introduce them to an audience that might also find them interesting.

So today's movie is "Saviour of the Soul" from 1991, starring Andy Lau (apparently not the same person as Andrew Lau, who directed last week's featured movie), Aaron Kwok and Anita Mui (best known to American audiences for her roles in Jackie Chan's "Rumble in the Bronx" and "Legend of the Drunken Master" aka "Drunken Master II"). Once again, while I had large portions of this movie on VHS, I ended up reviewing the entire film on Youtube, from which I pulled the fuzzy scans. Sorry.

I first discovered this movie while channel-surfing in Korea on my second tour there. It was the craziest mish-mash I'd ever seen, part romance, part comedy, part kung fu action (with cartoonish moments). I taped about half of it, but as it was broadcasting on a Chinese language network with no subtitles, I had no idea who these people were or why they were fighting. I only knew that it was like nothing I'd ever seen before, almost like a live-action cartoon.

And through the miracle of the Internets, I find out that the movie is apparently based on a Japanese manga, although it's hard to determine which one (a review on Amazon says it's inspired by City Hunter, but if so, it's one of the loosest adaptations I've ever seen). I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given that one of the main characters looks as if he stepped right out of a Final Fantasy video game.


That's Aaron Kwok as the villainous Silver Fox. The film opens as Fox breaks his master Eagle out of the World's Weirdest Prison; he defeats dozens of machine-gun wielding guards with only his sword and a bullet-proof poncho. Eagle relates the story of how he was captured by a woman named May, a city cop/assassin(?) who blinded him with thrown knives. Eagle makes Fox swear revenge before dying.

Turns out, May works with a couple of guys named Chin (Andy Lau) and Koo (Kenny Bee), who are both in love with her. Koo has proposed, but May has been putting Koo off, hoping Chin will find the courage to declare his own feelings. Meanwhile, May's crazy sister (both roles are played by Anita Mui) tells her that Fox is coming for revenge, and that May should send both men away for their own protection until Fox is dealt with.

May rejects her sister's advice. Shortly thereafter, Fox kills Koo, but is forced to flee when May blinds him in one eye with a knife. May decides to protect Chin by telling him she has no feelings for him and was going to marry Koo. She then goes into hiding, leaving Chin to care for Koo's teenage sister.

A year later, May's sister (tired of Chin constantly questioning her as to May's whereabouts) tells Chin that May is posing as Pet Lady, who hides behind a mask and for whom a contest will be fought later that night. Chin heads off to the Pet Palace and fights for the hand of Pet Lady, who has legendary powers of healing. When he finally convinces her to unmask, he is disappointed to find she is not May.


Shortly thereafter, he realizes that May has been the reclusive tenant of the apartment across the alley from his, and manages to reach her just in time to save her from an attack by Fox, in an incredibly entertaining and ridiculous fight sequence.

But not before Fox manages to inflict a terrible curse on her. He inhales a special toxin named Terrible Angel, which causes his skin to go pale and his eye to turn blue.

The drug makes him temporarily super-strong and blazing hot. He can also turn immaterial, passing his body through that of another and transferring the effects of the drug to them. Apparently, if one is not adapted to it as Silver Fox is, the effects are more deleterious. May loses all her strength, and is told that in 24 hours, she will become a mind-controlled puppet of Fox. He will then have her kill Chin.

Chin takes May to a hospital, but they can do nothing. Desperate, he takes her to Pet Lady, but even though he accedes to her demand to crawl through broken glass, she refuses to help. Defeated, Chin takes May back to his apartment, where he tells her that he has turned on all the gas, which will ignite and kill them both when the 24 hours is over. They will never be parted again.

Which is of course the moment that Silver Fox chooses to make his final attack.

"Saviour of the Soul" is a strange beast, combining action, drama, romance, and broad comedy into one insane roller-coaster ride. The action is exciting, but also cartoonishly broad, with crazy weapons like a bullet that steals all the oxygen out of a room and a yo-yo that turns into a sword with a springy blade so flexible that it can wrap entirely around an opponent's head and sword before stabbing him in the eye.

Unfortunately, this is all accomplished on a horribly low-budget. So while the film occasionally features some breathtaking compositions (which highlight the romantic fantasy nature of the story)...




...it also features some Batman tilt-a-cam shots, laughably fake CGI effects and other cheap shortcuts (as well as horrible translations in the subtitles). For instance, at one point, while under the effects of Terrible Angel, Fox gets caught in a mirror. For some shots, they used a decent split-screen effect...


But for quick action shots, they took the expedient method of just gluing a picture of Silver Fox to the mirror (it's much more obvious in motion than in this crappy scan):

So in the end, by American standards, "Saviour of the Soul" fails on almost every level. Its comedy is too broad, its drama too melo-, its epic moments compromised by cheap effects and an overstuffed plot. The movie is ultimately too cheap and uneven to convince anyone who doesn't already love Hong Kong Cinema that there is cool stuff waiting to be mined out there.

However, for people who are already familiar enough to overlook its shortcomings and love its considerable strengths, "Saviour of the Soul" is an absolutely unique,over-the-top experience. It's my kind of crazy.

Out of the Vault - The One-Arm Swordsman

So I mentioned last week that before Jademan made its big U.S. debut in 1988, there had been another attempt at bringing Chinese Kung Fu comics into the U.S. market. That was Victory Comics with The One-Arm Swordsman in 1987.

One thing stands out right off. Like the Jademan Special with which Jademan launched their line of comics, The One-Arm Swordsman uses gold ink to give it the look of superior quality. Not only do they use it in the title on the front cover, but it is also used on the back cover to hype their upcoming second book, The Invincible Four of Kung Fu & Ninja. Sure the title may be crap, but look at that gold printing; that's the mark of quality, right there. Also like the Jademan books, a poster is included, as well as a mailing address where you can write for even more cool swag.

The story is pretty standard kung fu movie fare. Master Lui the Tiger calls himself "#1 in Kung Fu," and works hard to maintain that reputation. He has a wicked three-sectional staff technique: the middle section of his staff can split in two to form two nunchaku. We learn that his henchmen have robbed a convoy of a large shipment of silver, and have framed Chan Lam (a wandering hero nicknamed "The Invincible Broadswords") for the crime.

The traders in charge of the convoy confront Chan Lam, who denies the crime and fights off the traders' men. At that moment, Lui the Tiger steps in to see that justice is done (Lui's men have staged all of this so that Lui can kill Chan and eliminate a kung fu rival while still appearing righteous). Lui battles Chan, and the two seem evenly matched until Chan pins one section of Lui's three sectional staff to the ground with his foot.


Lui splits the middle section of his staff and pops out a hidden blade, with which he cuts off Chan's right arm. Chan flees and barely escapes with his life.

Years later, Chan is working as a simple laborer in a restaurant. He has learned to perform all his tasks with only one arm, which has developed outstanding strength and speed. When love interest Mei Ling is nearly raped by some local bandits, Chan tries to stop them, but refuses to fight, still shamed by his defeat of years past. That's when Wan Wei, "The Super Broadswords," arrives in town and saves the girl. He cuts off the bandits' ears and they flee.

Wan Wei is an old friend of Chan Lam and tries to convince him to take up kung fu again, and Mei Ling gives Chan Lam her father's sword so that he can protect himself. Meanwhile, the earless bandits report to their master (none other than Lui the Tiger) that Wan Wei is in town. Lui decides to frame Wan Wei so that he can kill him.

Chan Lam tries to warn Wan Wei that it is a trap, but his poor word choices don't get the message across.


Yes, his techniques are very mischievous, if by "mischievous," you mean he's going to cut your fucking arms off.

So Wan Wei confronts Lui the Tiger, and once again, after a frame-up and a well-matched duel, Lui splits his staff and stabs Wan Wei, proclaiming, "There is no need to consider whether the technique used is upright or not when dealing with an evil man."

When Chan Lam learns that Wan Wei has been killed by Lui, he decides enough is enough. Taking up the broadsword he received from Mei Ling, he goes batshit and kills everyone in Lui's household before confronting the old man himself. Lui's techniques are as devious and tricky as before, but he does not count on the incredible speed which Chan Lam has developed in his single remaining arm and so is defeated, which results in a spectacular death tantrum.


Once Lui is dead, Chan Lam can go back to a happy life with Mei Ling. But we are warned that trouble awaits in issue two. Unfortunately for Victory Comics, there was no issue two.

And it's fairly easy to see why. The story has the feel of a mid-70's Shaw Brothers film, but comics in 1987 had moved far beyond that level of storytelling. Both Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns had debuted the previous year, and their influence had hit the U.S. comics marketplace like a bomb. It's not surprising that a stiffly drawn, poorly-translated comic with skimpy color would not perform well.

Which is too bad, actually, because The One-Arm Swordsman is not horrible. The artwork is stiff and not as polished as the Jademan studio's offerings, but the action sequences play out almost like diagrams in a kung fu manual. The action is clear and believable. And the storyline is mostly simple and direct without the xenophobia or convoluted soap operatics of The Blood Sword or Oriental Heroes.

But yes, the translations are laughably awful. That's part of their charm, though. Only a man with a heart of stone can remain unmoved when Wan Wei, facing Lui's false accusations, responds with:


No, I wouldn't have bought any more issues had they printed them. But I actually enjoyed rereading this one more than I expected to.

Movie Monday - A Man Called Hero

So I figured I'd start doing the same thing with movies that I've been doing with Out of the Vault, which is looking back at old movies, doing sort of half-review, half-nostalgia. My initial plan was to concentrate mainly on superhero movies adapted from comic books, so of course, my lead-off for the official feature is a kung fu movie, 1999's "A Man Called Hero," directed by Andrew Lau and starring Ekin Cheng.

But it is based on a comic book; in fact, the same comic I talked about in Saturday's Out of the Vault: The Blood Sword, known in China as Chinese Hero (sorry about the poor quality of the framegrabs--I don't have this movie on DVD, only VHS, so I grabbed frames off of Youtube, with the expected crappy quality).

The movie opens in 1914, in the village where young Hero Hwa lives. He is excited, because he is due to try out to become the disciple of martial arts master Pride. Before he leaves, his mother gives him her prized possession, the family heirloom Red Sword. Hero goes off to perform a sword form for Master Pride and his chief disciple, Shadow. The master tells Hero that he will accept him as his student, and that when he returns from an errand in Japan, he will teach Hero the ultimate sword technique known as China Secret.

Hero runs home, bursting with pride, but discovers that his parents have been killed while he was gone. His father was a reporter who opposed the opium trade, and the foreigners dealing in opium have killed him in retaliation. Hero uses the Red Sword to take revenge on his parents' murderers, then hides out in the home of his girlfriend, Jade. In a scene that is lifted straight from the comic, their shoes keep each other company on the floor while they (apparently) knock boots.


The next morning, Hero takes passage on a ship taking coolies to America, while Jade and Hero's friend Sheng cry on the dock.

Sixteen years later, in 1930, Sheng arrives in New York with a sixteen-year-old boy named Sword. Sword is Hero's son, conceived on the night of the shoes (I'm not sure why they land in New York rather than say, San Francisco other than setting up the climax--in this movie, all Chinese coming to America come straight to New York). Sheng and Sword go to China House, a hotel for Chinese immigrants, and ask if anyone knows Hero.

Over the course of the rest of the movie, we see in flashback from several witnesses how Hero battled slavers while working as conscripted labor in a mine, how he was rescued by Shadow (Master Pride's senior disciple), how Jade found Hero in New York before the birth of their child, how Shadow and Hero fought ninjas seeking their master Pride, how Jade died giving birth to twins (a boy and a girl) and how the twins were separated shortly after birth. Sword went to China with Sheng, and the daughter was kidnapped by an enemy. We learn how a fortuneteller told Hero he was born under the Star of Death and everyone around him was doomed to die, after which Master Pride finally taught him the China Secret (just before he died as a result of wounds suffered in a duel with rival master Invincible from Japan). No one has heard from him in the years since.


Just as Sword is thinking he will never meet his father, Hero shows up. Sword is happy to finally meet his father, but Hero is distant, explaining that they can never be close because of his curse. Now that Hero has returned, the folks at China House decide to free the coolies enslaved at Steel Bull Canyon (the mine from which Hero escaped 16 years before, and which is run by the man who kidnapped Hero's infant daughter). The Chinese storm the camp and free the slaves, but the secret of Hero's daughter dies with the boss.

Soon afterward, Invincible shows up in New York, determined to duel Hero. Hero and Invincible battle on and around the Statue of Liberty, cutting it to pieces in the process, before Hero kills Invincible with the China Secret technique he has spent 16 years perfecting.


"A Man Called Hero" is an odd movie. Like many Chinese films, it tries to be a lot of things at once--generational saga, romance, action film--and it falls short in all of them. But it does have pretty high production values for a Hong Kong picture, although the CGI used for process shots and to depict incredible martial arts superpowers looks horribly primitive now. And there are some breathtaking shots, although choppy editing, especially in the Statue of Liberty climax, blunts the impact of those incredible images.



The movie tries too hard to cram years' worth of comics storylines into two hours of running time; the story alternately lurches and drags, and some major characters get short shrift. Big Bad Invincinble, for instance, only appears in one brief scene in the last third of the film before he comes back for the big climax. Likewise, the gang of ninja who cause so much trouble appear out of nowhere almost halfway into the film and disappear just as quickly once their little bit of the adventure is over, with one exception. That exception is the female ninja played by Shu Qi, who went on to play Lai in "The Transporter."


Wow. You can see why they came up with an excuse to give her an extra scene.

So anyway, to sum up: "A Man Called Hero" is about a man associated with the Star of Death, or "Death Star," if you will, who has incredible fighting abilities and uses a glowing red sword that can cut through anything. His wife died giving birth to twins, a boy and a girl, who grew up without any contact with their father or each other, until the boy was a teenager.

Sounds familiar...

Out of the Vault - The Blood Sword #1

In 1987, manga began to make a big splash in the U.S. market with the publication of Lone Wolf and Cub from First Comics and several titles from Viz Studios and Eclipse Comics. The following year, 1988, Hong Kong publisher Tony Wong decided the time was right for his Chinese comics to break into the U.S. market.

Wong kicked off the line with a comic called Jademan Kung Fu Special #1, which bore a cover illustration with a gaudy but distinctive golden border. Inside, the book told the legend of the colorful and flamboyant Tony Wong, who had come to dominate Hong Kong's comic market (you can read an entertaining account of Tony Wong's career here-I love how several of the covers show his main characters not only losing the fight, but actually being disemboweled, like, every other issue). The book also contained previews of the four titles Jademan would be offering in the U.S.--Oriental Heroes, Drunken Fist, The Force of Buddha's Palm, and The Blood Sword.

Of the four, only The Blood Sword was not credited to Tony Wong. Instead, it was written and illustrated by Ma Wing Shing. Turns out, The Blood Sword is cited by Hong Kong comics historians as having single-handedly transformed the industry. Ma Wing Shing's artwork introduced greater realism in drawing style to Chinese comics and spawned a host of imitators. Even Wong's most popular title, the disembowelathon Oriental Heroes, changed its more cartoony style to follow Ma's lead.

The Blood Sword #1 was published in the U.S. with a cover date of August 1988, with a gorgeous cover illustration featuring very sophisticated colors. Ma Wing Shing was credited with the story and illustrations and the scripts were credited to Mike Baron.

I was looking forward to the line with great anticipation. I liked martial arts movies, I liked the freshness that that the Japanese releases had brought to the U.S. comics scene, and I was a big fan of Baron, who had written Nexus and Badger, as well as DC's update of The Flash and Marvel's The Punisher. There had been a previous attempt to export Chinese Kung Fu comics to the U.S., but it had been poorly translated and sank without a trace after one issue. But if Baron was on board, I was sure this time, everything would come together beautifully.

So it was with great anticipation that I bought all four titles in Jademan's initial line, expecting to be dazzled.

I wasn't.

The Blood Sword opens with this caption:

Life in the village was hard enough after the war. They didn't need gangs of pimps catering to the foreign devils.

That shows you right off where the story is headed.

The Blood Sword stars Hero, an idealistic young man from tiny Clear Stream Village, son of a blacksmith. His mother is also a talented swordswoman and has taught Hero her kung fu techniques. Clear Stream Village is being terrorized by evil white slavers kidnapping and raping the women, in collaboration with corrupt local Chinese officials.

When Secretary Wan refuses to pay for some knives made by Hero's father, young Hero beats him up, earning his enmity. The secretary then tells his boss, Master Man, that Hero's parents own a magical sword that can "slice through iron like butter." Man naturally decides he must own such a sword and confronts Hero's parents, demanding to be given the sword or else they'll burn the blacksmith's house down.

So Hero's father pulls a box out of a hidden niche in his house and pulls out the sword made by one of his ancestors. But when Hero looks at the blade, it's rusty and dull. They hand the sword over to Master Man anyway (much to Secretary Wan's surprise, since he'd apparently been making the whole thing up), but Man throws it back at them and demands the real sword. Hero's mother then appears with her own sword and challenges Man's bodyguards, and the foreign devils accompanying him, to take her sword if they can. Hero's father tells him to run.

Hero runs away, taking the rusty sword with him. Hero's mother fights valiantly, and seems on the verge of defeating Grasshopper, Secretary Wan's Chinese bodyguard who is a master of Praying Mantis style, but she is shot in the head by one of the foreigners. Hero's father is also killed.

Hero flees to his girlfriend's house, where he apparently spends the night getting busy. When he returns home, he finds the house burned to the ground and his parents dead. Master Man's men throw a net over Hero, and he uses the rusty sword to try to fend them off. At its first taste of blood, the rusty blade suddenly begins to glow red and can now literally slice through iron like butter. Turns out, it really is a magic sword. Hero kills Master Man, Secretary Wan, Grasshopper and the foreign devils.

But now he is wanted by the law for murder. So he says goodbye to his girlfriend Kittu and takes passage on a ship full of laborers going to work in America. When the ship reaches its destination, Turtle Island off the coast of California, Hero's sword is stolen by a man named Schemer. Hero chases him overboard to try to get it back.

Hero and Schemer battle a school of sharks in the water while the crew of the ship, actually foreign slavers who lure the Chinese onto the boat with promises of good pay only to slap chains on them and put them to work in a mine, shoot at the escapees. One of the stray bullets kills a fish, which results in the ship being attacked by the Sea God, a green fish man who protects all the fish around Turtle Island.

Both Hero and Schemer survive the sharks, but Schemer gets away with the sword. Hero rides a turtle to the beach and passes out. When he comes to, he encounters an escaped slave being chased by the mine's enforcers, the Four Furies, which leads to the first really off-the-wall Mike Baron moment in the book, when Tall Fury grabs the escapee and says, "Lemme brush your head, Fred."

Hero is captured and taken to the mine, where he discovers that one of the bosses there is none other than Schemer.

Overall, the issue didn't grab me. Its "Chinese Hero Battles the Foreign Devils" storyline may have thrilled Chinese audiences, but it did nothing for me (and I was surprised that Wong would choose such an anti-American story to introduce his comics to an American audience).The story was certainly action-packed, breathlessly so, but it pushed forward too quickly to ever more ridiculous extremes. The magic sword I could accept, slavers on the ship I could tolerate, but when the ship is attacked by Sea God, followed quickly by Schemer choking out a shark, followed by Tall Fury the Rapper, I had reached my Silliness Tolerance Level and could go no further. Baron's scripting, aside from a few off-the-wall dialogue choices, didn't really grab me either.

There was also a problem with the production of the book. A text page at the end of the comic claimed that "I am sure you will agree that this comic features some of the most outstanding artwork and quality printing ever seen in America," but it was just not true. The original Chinese comic was published to read right to left, so they had to flip the artwork for American release (and they apparently actually cut the pages apart and pasted the frames down in proper order). But when they lettered new word balloons, they were careless in the placement, so lines were often printed in reverse order. Also, Grasshopper for some reason only spoke in thought balloons. I'm not sure if this was a mistake or supposed to mean that he never actually spoke. It's a mystery.

And while the artwork was pretty good, it came nowhere near the level of sophistication of the Japanese comics I'd been reading for the last year, though it showed clear signs of Japanese influence, especially the realistic sharks and Sea God, who looked as if he'd been swiped directly from the work of Ryoichi Ikegami, artist of Mai the Psychic Girl (published by Viz/Eclipse at the time).

The colors were strange as well, delicate airbrushed tones that nevertheless showed too much white through. No other comics in America had that sort-of half-colored look. On the other hand, in several places, they used color holds to do some really outstanding effects, like this portrait of Hero superimposed over a river scene. It was a breathtaking hint of awesome in a story that was otherwise mediocre.

I ended up not buying any more issues of The Blood Sword. I don't have everything out of the Vault yet, so I don't know if I bought more than one issue of the other Jademan titles, but I don't think I did. (ETA: However, just becaue I didn't like it, don't assume the book faded away quickly--it apparently ran for something like five years in the U.S.)

But the story doesn't end there. See you Monday with a new feature and the rest of the story.