Mentioned to a friend at work that I might be ready to try dating again and she was so enthusiastically supportive of me that I immediately lost all interest in it

I pretty much completely agree.

I had the stupidest possible reaction to Weapons, which was to be disappointed that the magic wasn’t shot and cut more like the magic in one of the Lam Ching-Ying Taoist priest actions movies

I’ve heard really interesting things about If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do, which is about the extent of my Ormond knowledge. I’ll probably get that set since it’s been out longer and more likely to sell out

And then also a toss up between Columbia Noir #6: The Whistler or The Ormond Family boxset

Absolutely getting this one this year

The Deadly Companions (1961)

Starting off with Sam Peckinpah’s first feature, something I’ve been meaning to watch for years now and have just never made the time for. Starring John Ford favourite Maureen O’Hara

The titular sword is a dark object, with evil intent forged into it, a powerful weapon that brings misfortune upon the one who wields it, making this almost the Wuxia equivalent of Winchester ‘73 or The Wild Bunch, stripping away the heroism and the glory from the violence that undergirds the genre

Li Mak-Jan (Adam Chen Siu-Chow), a young swordsman looking to prove himself, wants to duel the reclusive master Hua Quian Shu (Tien Feng). His travels bring him into contact with Hua’s daughter (Jade Hsu), as well as his childhood love (JoJo Chan Kei-Kei) and her sinister husband (Eddy Ko Hung)

The Sword (1980)

Tam’s first feature, following several years of making social realist tv movies about the place of women in Hong Kong society (I need to get my hands on his Seven Women series). Beautiful, stately, modernist compositions with Tony Ching Siu-Tung’s King Hu on speed choreography

This one starts off very goofy, but then there are huge tonal swings when Ko Tai Hoi starts kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and eventually murdering women. These scenes aren’t played for comedy, which is good, but their proximity to the slapstick goofs gets very jarring

This first confrontation with Ko happens while Wong is writing. Ko insults him and the two duel with calligraphy brushes, each trying to write different words (“benevolence”, “kill”, “submit”, “death”) that express their feelings towards the other. Turns minor wrist actions into essential cinema

Kwan Tak-Hing has a much smaller part in this than in The Skyhawk, but despite it being 5 years later he seems sprier and more engaged. That’s at least partially because Yuen Woo-Ping designs his one big fight scene around Kwan’s skills and limitations, rather than bringing in somersaulting doubles

Lam Sai-Wing (Sammo), an overzealous and foolish Kung-fu student gets into trouble with Ko (Lee Hoi-Sang), his master’s rival. When Ko’s near-do-well son (Fung Hak-On) kidnaps Lam’s sister and frames Lam for killing Ko’s goddaughter, Lam trains with a drunken master (Fan Mei-Sheng) for revenge

The Magnificent Butcher (1979)

The second movie where Sammo Hung plays the student of Kwan Tak-Hing’s Wong Fei-Hung, although this is an out-and-out Sammo vehicle in a way that The Skyhawk wasn’t. Very few people have ever been as good at playing incredibly confident idiot blowhards as Sammo

My favourite running gag is this guy who lives inside an urn and is summoned by the bad guy to do his bidding. He is able to pop all of his limbs back in and disappear, or move by rolling around, and he fights with a paper sword that acts like metal. Shu defeats him by convincing him he’s ugly

This one is so silly, even more so than a lot of the other Taoist action films I’ve seen. The bickering between the two elderly priests is especially fun as they each work to sabotage the other’s spells. Yuen Woo-Ping gets his whole family (The Yuen Clan) involved in acting and stunt performing

The Miracle Fighters (1982)

Shu (Yuen Yat-Choh) is mistaken for the young prince who was kidnapped years earlier. The royal sorcerer (Yuen Shun-Yi) decides to pass him off as the prince to advance his own position, so Shu must learn magic from two cranky Taoists in order to protect himself

The final fight, with Yuen and Sammo using their cheeky, acrobatic Monkey Kung Fu to combat Lau’s more traditional and brutal martial arts is such an achievement. The imagination with which Sammo constantly reconfigure the three bodies in relation to the space and each other is endlessly thrilling

The way his character’s fighting style changes over the film to reflect the influences of his new teachers is so impressive. Rarely has an actor in a martial arts training film sold their physical journey better than he does here