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| Images courtesy of Visual Vengeance |
Visual Vengeance is next to Saturn’s Core one of the premier
boutique labels for scooping up insane uncategorizable shot-on-video or only-surviving-on-VHS
films and publishing them in lovingly packaged releases stacked with extras
both fascinating and enjoyably unnecessary such as the bountiful VHS sticker
sheet and a throwing star key tag. Their
latest acquisition is an unusual 1984 venture called Furious: a 35mm kung-fu
actioner with shades of Miami Connection weirdness and distinctly 1980s
do-it-yourself regional filmmaking except the only surviving elements supplied
by the director himself are standard-definition analog tape sourced. Despite this, not wholly unlike Olive Films’
releases of Shock Em’ Dead and Deadly Prey, the inane absurdist
fun sporting eventual martial-arts stuntman legends Simon and Phillip Rhee of The
Matrix and Inception comes through loud and clear in maybe the
nonsensical kung-fu equivalent of Devil Story. Few if any homegrown kung-fu fighter flicks
get this bizarre.
Simon (Simon Rhee) is a kung-fu master teaching children
martial arts in between desperately searching the city’s criminal underbelly for
answers pertaining to his sister’s death, leading towards a spiritual master
who in actuality is deceiving him in his own quest for an ancient amulet Simon
shared with his sister. As he dives
further in this mostly dialogue free oddity, it becomes apparent he’s not just
involved in avenging his deceased sister anymore but the fate of the world
hangs on the balance against an alien army of karate wizards who can transform
their adversaries into flaming chickens, rubber-felt dragons, some kind of New
Wave Devo group and talking pigs. From the
inexplicable mixture of seemingly Eastern European villains, a secret hideout
with trained guards who are besieged and overthrown by the aforementioned child
martial artists and a levitating superhuman villain, Furious doesn’t
seem to slow down on the nutty factor.
Somehow even stranger and more nonsensical than Miami
Connection but not quite as out there as Devil Story or the Super
8mm Mad Mutilator, Furious is a bit like a Found Footage Festival
revelation ala Creating Rem Lezar.
While not good and even a little torpid at times, Furious as a
slice of no-budget Samurai Cop filmmaking is certifiably batshit and the
lo-fi visual quality supervised and approved by the filmmakers Tim Everitt and
Tom Sartori kind of adds to the whole otherworldliness of it all. Honestly, this is the kind of film where you
might feel inclined to hold your hands to your ears so your brains don’t melt
out of your sockets. When you pick up
what pieces of your mind are left, there are tons of extras including but not
limited to director interviews, archival and new commentaries, short films and
music videos by the filmmakers and a mini-poster reproduction of the original
one sheet.
If you go into this expecting undiscovered martial arts
wonderment, run for the hills. But if
you know what you’re getting yourself into, as most Visual Vengeance customers
have figured out the terrain by this point, there’s a bona fide shit ton of weirdly
idiotic regional Adult Swim fun to be had here.
A kind of take-no-prisoners do-it-yourself actioner with the renegade anarchic
attitude of, say, Jim VanBebber’s Deadbeat at Dawn, Furious is
terribly incoherent storytelling that succeeds as a party movie cult gem. Visual Vengeance have put together a stacked
release for this one which I’m sure, like their releases of The Abomination I’ll
absolutely be revisiting if not spreading the good word to others about. Yeah they’ve had some duds like the
completely upside down Lycan Colony but this is the best thing they’ve
put out in awhile.
--Andrew Kotwicki
