Hello and welcome to the first week of the summer season! Y’all ready for summer!? Yes, the distribution of months in a year does indeed make the commencement of “summer season” feel oddly delayed, and yes, that makes for a doubly weird experience when I’m not actually tackling seasonal anime in these things. But chill out, live a little, let’s just try and enjoy what summer we’ve got left. I’m currently enjoying that delightful New England combination of extreme heat and humidity mixed with oppressive gray skies, meaning the air conditioners are working hard and the movie screenings are plentiful. Today I’ve got wuxia classics, Italian pulp goodness, and even some actual anime, with my house proving ill-equipped to defend against Bastard!!’s gleeful absurdity. Let’s run ‘em down!

Our first film of the week was A Touch of Zen, a formative wuxia classic directed by King Hu, who previously worked with the Shaw Brothers Company. The film centers on Gu, an artist and self-proclaimed scholar with no particular ambitions or prospects. Gu’s life is disrupted when he stumbles into a dangerous conspiracy, and learns that the mysterious woman Yang is actually the daughter of a general, now being hounded by the forces of a malevolent court official. Though he possesses no aptitude for fighting, Gu will find himself playing an integral role in the battle to come, as all the forces of the eastern army come to bear on his humble village.

A Touch of Zen is remarkable in all sorts of ways, expanding beyond the Shaw Brothers’ style to create something more sprawling, contemplative, and ambiguously philosophical. This expansion of scope is conveyed visually as well, with wide shots of Gu’s mountainous home emphasizing the characters’ smallness in the face of the natural world. The choice to establish a non-combatant as the film’s perspective character also deeply impacts the nature of the conflict, undercutting the “self-determining hero” template of most martial arts cinema, and replacing it with a sense that the forces of this world will always be beyond our full control or understanding. In the end, this sense of imperfect control and subservience to greater forces even extends to the film’s mightiest warriors, culminating in a finale that questions action cinema’s fundamental certainty in violence’s ability to enact change.

Oh, and it’s also a punchy, exceedingly generous movie in all the conventional ways. I loved how long this film took to actually get to a fight scene – almost its entire first third is given over to exploring the day-to-day patterns of Gu’s life, as more and more of his daily encounters take on an oddly conspiratorial hue. And when the fights do arrive, they each dazzle through unique staging concepts and graceful wire-fu, from the sword duel framed through the shimmering peaks of a wheat field, to the wildly inventive “ghost ambush” Gu concocts to defeat a much larger force. Through the well-chosen rapid cuts and incidental shots inserted into his characters’ strikes, Hu presents heroes that don’t simply “fly,” but glide across the terrain like wind or water, dazzling the audience as much as their opponents. Beautiful, inventive, and rich in thematic ambiguity, A Touch of Zen is an essential watch for any fan of martial arts cinema.

Our next feature was Drunken Master II, also known as The Legend of Drunken Master when it was released in the States. The film stars Jackie Chan as returning hero Wong Fei-Hung, this time directed by Shaw Brothers legend Lau Kar-leung, the director of the iconic 36th Chamber of Shaolin. The plot largely concerns Wong’s efforts to stay sober and out of trouble, which are complicated by the introduction of a British plot to steal ancient Chinese artifacts. Along the way, he must carefully avoid the gaze of his father (Ti Lung), while enjoying the surreptitious support of his stepmother (Anita Mui).

While the original Drunken Master is more influential, and certainly a necessary precursor to screening this one, I believe that Drunken Master II bests its predecessor in terms of both action and comedy. The highlight of the original Drunken Master was the sequence of Jackie mastering each of drunken boxing’s individual sub-forms, an exercise that mostly just consisted of Jackie himself flailing around in a field. Here, with his mastery of the martial art affirmed from the start, he is able to roar into dynamic and seemingly effortless battle-ballets right from the start. The mid-film battle between Jackie and maybe one hundred Ax Gang members is simply one of the greatest action scenes I’ve ever seen, and the ending dazzles through its sheer willingness to inflict harm, sending Jackie racing across hot coals and setting him on fire a good handful of times.

Along with its stunning action scenes, Drunken Master II also ratchets up the humor of the original, benefitting tremendously from the addition of costar Anita Mui. Mui is as much of a physical and facial comedian as Jackie himself, breaking into defeated tears in the face of her husband, then snapping back to violence and scheming the moment he turns away. The film maintains a delicate dance of buffoons and straight men from start to finish, with both Ti Lung’s son and wife doing their best to present a semblance of professionalism to his face, then immediately reverting into gremlin mode as soon as he leaves. With consistently stunning displays of combat choreography and physical acumen, along with the sense of cheer and charm provided by the family’s antics, Drunken Master II fashions itself an essential seat in the martial arts film pantheon.

We then watched Demons, an ‘80s Italian horror film directed by Mario Bava’s son Lamberto, and produced by Dario Argento. Demons is a deliciously pulpy slice of horror indulgence, offering a locked theater’s worth of hapless victims and lots of delightful makeup effects. The film opens with a screening of a film-within-the-film that establishes all the rules of the coming demon invasion, simultaneously fast-forwarding through any essential exposition, and also providing a fun gothic slasher counterpoint to the more zombie invasion-style theater massacre. That intelligence of structure in service of gleefully lowbrow ends carries all through the film – I’m not sure I’ve seen a better payoff for Chekhov’s Motorcycle or Chekhov’s Katana, and with a rip-roaring new wave soundtrack to set the tone, it’s clear that everyone’s here to have a scandalously good time. Demons’ various twists are fun enough that I feel obliged not to spoil them, and will say simply that if you enjoy pulp horror, Demons is a perfect bag of popcorn.

After that, we checked out Michael Mann’s debut feature Thief. Mann is a connoisseur of unapologetic Dude Movies, and Thief is about as dudeish of a film as you could imagine. James Caan stars as a professional thief who is very good at what he does, but dreams of retiring to a peaceful family life. When a high-level mob boss (Robert Prosky) takes notice of his skills, Caan sees a chance to escape: just do one or two big jobs for Prosky, and ride into the sunset with his love (Tuesday Weld). Of course, things are never quite so simple as that.

Having spent five years in television before hopping to film, Thief sees Mann having already mastered his signature style, heavy on saturated city lights and full of open, sun-baked compositions. The film is quite beautiful on the whole, and Caan does excellent work portraying a character who possesses a rich well of emotions, but whose time in prison has forced him to portray an indifferent face at basically all times. The side performances are also praiseworthy; Prosky plays the Devil of Temptation perfectly, and friggin’ Willie Nelson turns up to steal some scenes as Mann’s old mentor.

Much like Mann’s later Heat, part of Thief’s inherent appeal is how seriously it takes the business of criminality. Caan’s actions seem considered and professional at absolutely all times, from his confident analysis of a vault’s traps, to the way he negotiates technicalities of employment with Prosky, to his steady hand and focus on blind corners whenever a gun’s in his hand. There is a sturdiness and intelligence to the film’s professional thievery that makes it feel that much more real, a feeling that’s neatly balanced by the film’s character-rich, almost lyrical dialogue. Ultimately, Thief provides all the explosive delights you’d expect from an action-thriller, but elevates them through greater attention paid to all the practical details, along with an unusual depth of aesthetic richness. As I said, Mann makes Elevated Dude Films, and he does it very well.

Along with all the films, my house also burned through Netflix’s recently released Bastard!! adaptation, and luxuriated in the glory of unadulterated exploitation theater. Bastard!! basically has three modes: ponderous Dungeons & Dragons exposition, shamelessly exploitative softcore porn, and wicked sick wizard battles. The show falls a little outside my usual wheelhouse, but it’s just so gleefully dedicated to its grindhouse shtick that it was hard not to love the thing.

If you’re looking for tasteful, you’re in the wrong place – basically every woman in this show subscribes to the Frank Frazetta fashion philosophy, and all of them also end up in a variety of bodice-ripping escapades courtesy of either the villains or our theoretical “hero” Dark Schneider. Schneider himself is an unrepentant asshole, and the odd mental link between him and the young boy whose body he shares only serves to make the show’s horniness that much weirder. But goddamnit, the show just goes for it, gleefully typifying the Heavy Metal style of fantasy exploitation drama, like it was all inspired by a t-shirt featuring a wizard riding a dragon.

We don’t really get this sort of trash anymore, and with a fairly impressive production behind it, we certainly don’t get trash looking this good. I laughed at the endless reams of “as we both know” exposition, I groaned at the various ways Schneider found himself seducing yet another cannon-boobed woman, and I cheered at the big magical explosions. Above all, I had a great deal of fun indulging in campy depravity, and that’s what heavy metal is all about.