Blood Brothers - B-
Now Playing: (1973, Chang Cheh) [seen in theatre]
After missing out on the Shaw Brothers films that played last Friday (how could I ever believe in fairness again when I'm too tired to attend the supposedly astounding Come Drink With Me/Golden Swallow double feature but am wide awake for the first three installments of the pompous, boring art-hype monstrosity of The Cremaster Cycle? Jeez this parenthetical is looooooooong... anyhoo) I came to this one. I'd been informed that Chang Cheh movies tend to be over-the-top with the bloodletting, but this turned out to be some exception, and let me tell you the redness was sorely missed. What we basically have here is a story of two brothers and a friend whose lives are torn apart by one brother's wife having an affair with the friend. The story doesn't pack that much of a punch, mainly because I didn't really feel for the wife character, who's supposed to come off as conflicted and troubled but to me was a whining baby. I mean, really lady- if you're going to shtup your husband's best friend, do you honestly think he's not going to do anything if he finds out, especially if he's in a martial arts movie? The fights are OK, if bloodless, and there's some interesting visual ideas at work, although so many killings end in bodies tumbling down hills that it becomes a kind of running (rolling?) gag. Not really much to write home about, sad to say, though now I have yet another reason to regret missing last Friday.