| Deadly Snail vs. Kung Fu Killer (1977): Great title, eh? Fans of kung fu cinema should be warned that this imaginatively named flick contains very little in the way of martial arts action. It is, instead, a fairy tale. If that sounds mundane to you, you’ve forgotten just how weird the average fairy tale is.
Chang Fu (Wong Yuen San), our hapless protagonist, is an honest, hardworking young man who’s unfairly mistreated by his cruel uncle. Kind of like what Cinderella had to put up with from her wicked stepmother in that old fairy tale called…er…um…nope, can’t remember the title. Anyway, the uncle and the rest of his scheming family are trying to keep Chang from finding out that he is the only legitimate heir to the family estate. Got all that? Good. Let’s move on to the weird stuff.
One day, Chang finds a sea snail that has been wounded in a battle with a snake. (Are snails and snakes natural enemies? If so, I can’t imagine that the snails win very often.) He takes the injured mollusk home, and has a dream in which a woman (Candy Yu) asks him to put a drop of his own blood on the snail’s head. This he does, and the snail’s health is magically restored.
Cut to some sort of magical undersea world, that resembles the set of a school play. There are giant pearls and shells all around and soap bubbles cascade everywhere, á la The Lawrence Welk Show. Soldiers in red uniforms constantly march back and forth across the set for no reason. This $2.98 wonderland is apparently the home of the woman from Chang’s dream – a magical fairy whose natural form is that of a sea snail. She tells her two sisters about the handsome man who was kind enough to bleed on her earlier today, and tries to think of something she can do to repay him. Say, what about matrimony as a reward? With an emotional farewell to her sisters, the snail fairy assumes human form, wins Chang’s heart and marries him.
The Snail Fairy turns out to be a pretty good wife, for an invertebrate. She magically spruces up Chang’s disgusting hovel, and foils break-ins and attempted burglaries from his treacherous relatives. Meanwhile, after the mean old uncle’s umpteenth attempt to hassle his nephew is thwarted by snail magic, he concludes that Chang must have married a demon. Does he cease his fruitless attacks on their lifestyle and let them live in Bewitched-style peace? Hell no. He recruits a wandering monk (actually a snake demon in disguise) and redoubles his efforts to ruin their marital bliss.
The snake demon pulls out all the stops, summoning up a bunch of elemental spirits. There’s a fire spirit, an earth spirit, a water spirit and some loincloth-clad guy with a Carrot Top fright wig and a Papa Smurf hat. Yes, really. The Snail Fairy responds by turning her hubby into a kung fu expert via remote control and by summoning her sisters to fight by her side.
Deadly Snail vs. Kung Fu Killer is a one-of-a-kind fantasy that sounds deceptively sane in synopsis. Imagine the above story padded out to about 90 minutes with redundant nonsense, add special effects inferior to those available from novelty gumball machines, beef up the weirdness factor by about 30 per cent, and you’re almost there. Best part: being able to tell your friends "No man, this movie actually exists! I’ve seen it!."
Rejected (2000): "In the spring of 1999, the Family Learning Channel commissioned animator Don Hertzfeldt to produce promotional segments for their network. The cartoons were completed in five weeks. The Family Learning Channel rejected all of them upon review, and they were never aired…" This intriguing little fib sets the stage for Don Hertzfeldt’s Rejected, one of the lowest budgeted films to ever be nominated for an Academy Award. (Best Animated Short Film, 2001) Despite the fact that there’s no such network as "The Family Learning Channel", a number of people have been confused over whether or not this film is "real." Those who have actually seen this brilliantly twisted nine-minute marvel quickly got the joke, however, and it remains a favourite of animation fans.
Hertzfeldt’s hilariously minimal stick figure characters soullessly spout inanities about their corporate sponsors. The material becomes weirder and more disturbing as it goes on, as if the animator was suffering a complete mental breakdown from selling out to big business. Finally, the animated world unravels completely in a terrifying pen-and-paper apocalypse.
Absolutely brilliant and unforgettable, this is a must-see for fans of berserk animation. It played as part of Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Animation Festival two years in a row, and was easily the highlight of the evening both times. The DVD is available from www.bitterfilms.com. |
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