dvd review – DISCIPLES OF THE 36th CHAMBER

No film production company on the planet is responsible for turning out more great kung-fu movies than Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers Studios. Their list of classic titles includes such movies as The One-Armed Swordsman, King Boxer and Five Deadly Venoms. To this day, one of Shaw Brothers greatest films is The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (a.k.a. Master Killer, a.k.a. Shaolin Master Killer), starring Gordon Liu and directed by Chia-Liang Lau, better known to American fans of martial arts flicks as Lau Kar-leung. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin proved to be immensely popular, leading to the inevitable sequels, Return to the 36th Chamber, and Disciples of the 36th Chamber.

dvd review – DEATH OF A SNOWMAN

Back in the early days of home video, when studios were much slower to release new movies, and video tapes were usually rented at grocery stores, there was a glut of exploitation titles to choose from. These were all flicks that had come out in decades earlier, and many of them were released on video under alternate titles. This is especially true of select blaxploitation titles—movies like The Bus is Coming became Ghetto Revenge, while Force Four, Charcoal Black, Brother on the Run and Savage became Black Force, Black Rage, Black Force 2 and Black Valor, respectively. And then there was Death of a Snowman, one of the few