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Yellow Skin (1985)
Director: Wang Kuan-Hsiung
A fairly obscure "heroic bloodshed" release from the mid-1980's, Yellow Skin stars Wang Kuan-Hsiung (who also directed, wrote and produced the movie, as well as probably doing the catering) as a Chinese-American New York City gangster who is trying to retire to the pastoral lands of New Jersey, but is pulled back in after his dad is gunned down. He has to go to "Italy Town" (Little Italy) and "Harien" (Harlem... I think) to investigate the Italian and black gangs, but -- huge shocker -- he discovers that there's a rat in his own gang who's working with the Koreans (led by Hong Kong movie thug mainstay Johnny Wang Lung-Wei). Huge knives chopping up people and gunfights follow in a not very inventive, yet still strangely satisfying fashion. A couple of side notes: there is a scene in a strip club featuring a topless dancer, but any time a nipple threatens to rear itself, some clumsy after the fact black smudges come up to obscure the tittilage. It's not known if this was intentional by Wang to try and avoid a harsher rating. Next, the film is sometimes promoted as featuring Taimak, the actor who became a cult favorite after appearing in The Last Dragon. In classic low-budget Hong Kong fashion, Taimak's role has been greatly exaggerated, as he is in the movie for exactly one scene and has about two lines before he is (spoiler alert!) gunned down. RATING: 6 |
