Pure White And Deadly

Set during the Yuen Dynasty, many sects compete for possession of the two golden swords which contain the secret to dominance of the world of martial arts. The first faction, led by Shaolin, consists of Shaolin, Wu Tang, Ngo Mai, Kun Lun, Hung Tung and Wah Shan. The second is the Ming Sect, otherwise known as the Fire Sect or Evil Sect, led by branch leaders Queen of Purple Dragon, King of White Eagle, King of Gold Lion and King of Green Bat. A student of Wu Tang, befriends Gold Lion and marries the daughter of White Eagle. He is killed for the secret of the location of the missing sword. His infant son witnesses this and vows revenge on the heads of the sect. Unfortunately he has a jinx which prevents him from learning martial arts.

In the darkest corners of the Caribbean, an old evil is rising again. It’s been years since Christopher Raven’s family was brutally murdered by Neville “the Devil” Scranton and his bloodthirsty gang, the Devil’s Tines. Orphaned and missing a hand, Christopher is rescued by Marcus, an ex-slave and rum-maker who nurses Christopher back to health and takes him under his wing. Growing up with a black bitterness in his heart, Christopher drowns his demons in rum and violence, brooding endlessly on the revenge that was stolen from him when the Devil’s Tines disappeared in the monstrous quake that sunk half of Port Royal.

In the darkest corners of the Caribbean, an old evil is rising again. It’s been years since Christopher Raven’s family was brutally murdered by Neville “the Devil” Scranton and his bloodthirsty gang, the Devil’s Tines. Orphaned and missing a hand, Christopher is rescued by Marcus, an ex-slave and rum-maker who nurses Christopher back to health and takes him under his wing. Growing up with a black bitterness in his heart, Christopher drowns his demons in rum and violence, brooding endlessly on the revenge that was stolen from him when the Devil’s Tines disappeared in the monstrous quake that sunk half of Port Royal. When a string of brutal and all too familiar murders occur, Christopher’s chance for revenge is suddenly within his grasp. Neville and the Tines are back, and nothing on earth will stop Christopher from claiming their heads.

Only the most foolhardy of mortals would attempt a plot summary of this film, and I’m not quite that crazy. This is Tinto Brass’s 1969 effort, coming between 1967′s Deadly Sweet and 1970′s The Howl. The former is a mad, pop-culture collage of noir elements, while the latter is a hallucinatory picaresque. This one is the most plot-free of the the lot. The original title is Nerosubianco, an untranslatable pun that combines “black on white” with the word “eros” (Attraction – note the word contains “action” – is an honorable attempt, and better than the theatrical title of “The Artful Penetration of Barbara,” which is what appears on the screen here, with the new name showing up as a subtitle), and that’s about as much as can be summarized: this is an interracial romance. Beyond that, we have an exercise in pure formalism, an eye-popping collection of images and incidents as abstract as they are psychedelic.

A flamboyantly blood-spattered samurai revenge picture with a twist: the implacable seeker of retribution is a slender female (Meiko Kaji) with a flawless ivory complexion and a dead-center killer stare. Born in prison, Snowblood is raised by a martial priest and trained to fulfill a single purpose: tracking down, and dismembering (or bisecting), the four cackling fiends who killed her father and persecuted her mother to an early grave. Adapted from another manga comic book written by Kasuo Koike, whose most famous work became the legendary Lone Wolf and Cub film series, this 1973 programmer stays close to its pulp-paper roots: images from the comics are deployed in a couple of montage sequences, and the story is divided into four chapters drawn from the monthly manga installments. Stalwart leading man Toshio Kurasawa plays a crusading journalist who writes a series of Japanese dime novels based on Snowblood's exploits, and manages to flush out a couple of the evildoers in the process.

Richard Donner's big-budget blockbuster Superman: The Movie is an immensely entertaining recounting of the origin of the famous comic book character. Opening on Krypton (where Marlon Brando plays Superman's father), the film follows the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve) as he's sent to Earth where he develops his alter-ego Clark Kent and is raised by a Midwestern family. In no time, the movie has run through his teenage years, and Clark gets a job at the Daily Planet, where he is a news reporter. It's there that he falls in love with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), who is already in love with Superman. But the love story is quickly sidetracked once the villainous Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) launches a diabolical plan to conquer the world and kill Superman. Superman: The Movie is filled with action, special effects and a surprising amount of humor.