So…there was a minor cascade of minorly bad decisions that led to the next movie. I had originally planned to show an outright classic movie, one of the very best and one of my very favorites. However, the allure of Halloween was strong and I decided fairly shortly before the Fest to shelve that movie and show a classic horror movie, to wit Night of the Demon (aka Curse of the Demon). Then during the Fest I realized Day of the Beast was a devil movie, and I worried that two devil movies in a row wouldn’t work. Another dumb decision was that I didn’t pack my original classic as a back-up. Better safe than sorry, always.
Instead, I decided to show my spiffy new Blu Ray copy of The Magic Crystal. I had seen the trailer, which made it look like Hong Kong’s version of Pod People. Plus the young Cynthia Rothrock was in it, fighting Richard Norton as an evil Russian. You can see why I thought that might fly.
It certainly wasn’t terrible, but it was a double rather than a home run, and I could have done better. It was (unsurprisingly) made by the same company that made Righting Wrongs, another Hong Kong actioner starring Rothrock, which I had shown people the day before. (The Rev LOVES Rothrock, which I’m certainly not questioning.) The films were pretty good if not great, but shared similar faults. Mostly this was a question of pacing; each could have been tightened up a goodly amount. Especially Magic Crystal. When it finally got to the Trumpy stuff it was pretty great. Sadly, that didn’t happen for like 40 or 50 minutes.
So if you want a GREAT Rothrock Hong Kong film, I’ll still suggest buying the marvelous Millionaire’s Express with Sammo Hung, even if she’s in it less.
Again, not a disaster by any means, but I should have done better. Lesson learned.
Have a great weekend, everyone! (It’s NOVEMBER already!!!!!) Watch something stupid. Watch Party next week.
