Tagged: indiana jones
Jonathan “Short Round” Ke Quan to Return for Indiana Jones 5 ?!
Ok, so my title above is a bit misleading because as of right now there’s not currently rumors about Jonathan Ke Quan returning to the role of “Short Round” for the upcoming Indiana Jones Part 5. BUT let’s start that rumor here because maybe it will catch fire on the web and actually happen!
So this whole idea really began the other evening when I saw the amazing 1991 movie ‘Breathing Fire’ starring Ke Quan as a teenage ass kicking kung fu machine. If you haven’t seen this movie and love his roles in Indiana Jones and Goonies you best check this one out asap. Seriously. Movies rarely reach level of pure fun and some great over the top kung fu! He even faces off against the legendary Bolo Yueng and it’s just jam packed with amazingly awesome & hilarious retro action cheeze. Seek this one out asap. The full movie can be found on Youtube.com!
However I digress, Ke Quan’s acting career ended in 2002 with the Hong Kong sci fi feature film “Second Time Around” so he’s not exactly been focused on acting lately. As you can tell from the previous Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Speilberg is heavily focused on nostalgia from the previous films as one of the key moments is the return of Marion Ravenwood. So in this next installment how amazing would it be to have Indy once again team up with his buddy Short Round on another adventure?
During filming ‘Temple Of Doom’, Quan studied Tae Kwon Do under film choreographer Phillip Tan. Something about the discipline of martial arts really appealed to him, so he began rigorously studying many different techniques. Once his acting career had become more quiet, Quan became an assistant fight choreographer to Hong Kong legend Corey Yeun on movies like ‘X-Men’ and Jet Li vehicle ‘The One’. Ke Quan now is 45 years old, has kept himself in great shape and could likely bring his seasoned martial arts exploits into the next Indy flick with pure adoration from longtime fans. He’s even been asked more recently from fans about appearing in part five answering with an enthusiastic “I don’t know!”. From what I understand he’s also down for a trip down nostalgia lane for the forever talked about Goonies sequel. So this here is all a real possibility considering Indiana Jones part 5 is indeed happening for sure.
I’ve got high hopes for the next Indy movie, I enjoyed the last one but I’ll agree it’s far from perfect and nowhere near as classic as the first three. Still this next movie is likely Harrison Ford’s last as the character so Speilberg will get one last shot to right the wrongs of the last movie. Ditch the ridiculous CG you promised you weren’t going to use and give us something that truly feels like a classic Indy movie and please leave Shia Labeouf’s Mutt Willaims at home. Let’s feel the nostalgia and let’s see Jones & Short Round team up once again, I know that fans would flip their shit if this was worked into the movie and it’d make sense that a fully able, older Short Round could help Indiana Jones kick some butt this time as our aging main character likely needs all the help he can get this time around. What do you think? Would you like to see Johnny Ke Quan return? If so share this post and let’s make it happen!
VHS Verdict: The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck!
I’m always and I mean ALWAYS down for an Indiana Jones rip off movie! There are a few out there that reared their heads back in the 80’s and this week I had the pleasure to find “The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck” on vhs and give it a watch. This one’s actually pretty damn entertaining, if you can get past some of it’s non PC-ness that would today surely have people in a wildly frantic uproar. Basically what we have here is a kind of Indiana Jones meets Romancing The Stone meets Crocodile Dundee with less of budget and a far more crude trashy style to it. That being said the flick actually visits some pretty awesome locations and it’s sets are top notch as well, which is always nice for a movie trying to rip off Indy!
This one has a little star power too with David Keith (An Officer and a Gentleman) in the lead swashbuckling role also directed this one and Sydney Lassick (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). Yeah Tennessee Buck is a crude dude alright, a boozing, womanizing jungle guide who’s hired by a young yuppie couple named (Barbie & Ken) to help them find and hunt a white tiger. The woman just happens to be Kathy Shower, former Playboy playmate of the year, so I knew there was going to be some senseless nudity in this one and boy is there a ton of that here! I also knew that she’d most likely leave her husband for Buck and though I was right the way it played out was like nothing i was expecting!
But the movie actually took some odd twists and turns that in a way shocked me a bit. Tennessee Buck starts out as a comedy but around it’s third act it gets pretty dark suddenly. Characters endure some things that seem quite out of place with the movies otherwise fun loving, wisecracking vibe. I guess it’s what you expect when they become pursued by a crazed band of headhunters with a horny chieftan as it’s leader.
This one kinda played out a bit like “The Last American Virgin” which started out like Porky’s and ended up a bit of perplexing shocker. Buck here is an odd movie that’s most definitely worth a watch if you’re a fan of the jungle adventure style movies, trashy 80’s schlock & weird out of place plot twists!
A New Actor Replaces Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones!!
Well, sorta! I just had to share this cool video called “Indiana Bones: Raiders of the Lost Bark”! Check this rad little video out and see what grand adventure this canine version of Indy gets into! I’d rather have this cool dog pick up the character than Shia Labeouf any day!!
VHS Score: Richard Grieco Totally Ditches Summer School for Big Time Adventure!
I’ve been picking up a ton of VHS while out on the town doing while doing vintage shopping for my business here in Portland Oregon, that means that I’m watching a ton of awesome old flicks that have been somehow lost in the shuffle for years, at least for me! So the other night I decided to put on an interesting looking one called “If Looks Could Kill” way back from 1991, starring none other than fan fave from 21 Jumpstreet (the original series yo!) Richard “Booker” Grieco! Ol’ Grieco was destined for stardom when he exploded onto Jumpstreet & briefly rivaled Johnny Depp as the series heart throb. So Grieco quickly got some offers to make some movies-some bad and some good in a bad way. This particular film is pretty awesome, directed by William Dear hot off the success of the brilliant “Harry and The Hendersons”.
What we get here is a great obnoxious teen comedy (which I’m a big fan of, well, since I myself was a teen!) with a heavy dose of James Bond & equal parts Indiana Jones! What’s not to love there?! Dear clearly had a budget for this box office flop and it shows as it rarely skimps on cool set pieces and rather impressive action sequences. The flick was panned by critics, but like me, Roger Ebert got it and awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars. The plot’s simple, Grieco is a high school student flunking out of his french class while too busy boozin’ it up and slackin’ off. Now before I continue I have to ad that Grieco is clearly no teenager, nope- he’s got a serious dark ass five o’clock shadow the entire movie and the body of an olympic athlete, truth be told that in 1991 he was nearly 2y years old, though to me he looks more like 37!
Anyway because he flunks French he’s forced to…get this….go France for summer school!! Boo hoo what a life huh? Fail and get a free trip to France? Yeah right!! So that’s where things get crazy, as he’s quickly mistaken for a secret agent bearing the same name as his and begins an adventure of his own! Mistaken identity never felt so good. He’s almost tempted to reveal that he’s simply a high school student until the British Gov’t gives him a Ferrari to roll around in, so then at that point he decides it’s totally like worth playing along! Duh!
This begins a zany chain of events that involves Grieco playing his teenage luck with deadly sexy secret agent ladies, explosive chewing gum, wall walkin’ suction cup LA Gear sneakers, killer scorpions and a dastardly villain with a robotic Terminator style hand. It’s pure camp gold and a entertains with quite an impressive finale with Grieco trapped in an Indiana Jones style deadly villain castle hide out! So if you’re looking for a fun flick to watch with friends and a few beers check this one out-it should have made ol’ Grieco a star like Depp! Oh well!!
New Norwegian Movie “Ragnarok” Gives Indiana Jones a Run for His Money?!
Check out this awesome looking trailer for the upcoming Norwegian adventure flick Ragnarok! This one looks like a ton of fun and has that old Amblin style Goonies type adventure thing going on. I wish there were more movies these days that could pull off this style of film. So far this one seems like it hits on all cylinders and has been described as an adventure that “Indiana Jones in his prime could never quite achieve” by Twitch Film.
There’s no release date yet here in the USA but Magnolia pictures recently acquired the right so we shouldn’t have to wait to long. The plot sound like a great time too: ‘When the archaeologist Sigurd can’t settle on the myth about Ragnarok, the end of the world in Northern mythology, he decides to go on an expedition together with two colleges and his two kids. This adventure leads them to Finnmark in the Northern most part of Norway, and into “No mans land” between Russia and Norway, where no one has been in modern times. Old runes gets new meanings, when they unveil the truth. A truth bigger and more spectacular than you would have dreamed.” Be on the lookout for this one!
The Seventh Curse: Indiana Jones….on Acid!
I finally checked out a movie I’d been wanting to see now for the longest time-The Seventh Curse from 1986! This is surely one of the coolest movies that you’ve never seen! This Chinese action/ adventure/ horror movie has got it all and I’d really expect no less from a flick by Ngai Kai Lam. If you aren’t familiar with Lam you’ve missed out big time for a long time. Most famous for “Riki-Oh:The Story of Ricky” from 1991, which is seriously one of the coolest movies ever made, The Seventh Curse is equally as good in different yet similar ways. I guess I’d best have to describe The Seventh Curse as Hong Kong’s fucked up version of Indiana Jones, and I mean that in the best way possible.
This one has it all really, a young adventuresome cop deep in the jungles of Thailand tries to rescue a beautiful girl from being sacrificed by the evil “Worm Tribe”. In doing so he’s captured by an evil witch Doctor who casts seven “Blood Curses” on him, which burst through his legs periodically. When the seventh bursts, it will affect his heart killing him swiftly. Betsy (a strange mane for a member of The Worm Tribe), the hot jungle vixen he saved, stops the curse with an antidote, that she draws from the most peculiar place(trust me).
This however will only protect him for one year, so on the advice of his friend Wisely (Chow Yun-fat) he heads back to Thailand to find a permanent cure. Serious adventure ensues as the cop and his mercenaries battle the evil sorcerer of the Worm Tribe, a ridiculously hideous blood hungry baby-like creature, and finally “Old Ancestor,” a skeleton with glowing blue eyes that’s got some impressive kung fu chops himself and can transforms into something far more sinister!
Sound like fun? You bet it is! Throw in some great 80’s style monster effects, some great sets, jungle adventure sequences, top notch kung fu, some nice gore and a bunch of really bizarro plot twists and you’ve got a true genre classic that is not to be missed by any fan of awesome odd ball cinema. The Seventh Curse is just as cool in my opinion as Riki-Oh and it really makes me want to hunt down down more of Lam’s movies. This one pretty hard to find on dvd, but I’m sure it could be downloaded somewhere on line, or you could buy it on Amazon.com. If you’re craving some wild offbeat 80’s adventure then this one movie NOT to be missed!!!
“Army of Darkness 2” Confirmed! But is That Really a Good Thing?
So it’s been confirmed it seems by several sites that not only is Bruce Campbell set to reprise his role as Ash in “Army of Darkness 2” but now that Sam Raimi will indeed be directing it and is now hard at work on completing writing it’s script with his brother. So this is all WONDERFUL news right?! Another adventure with Ash is something I’ve really only ever dreamed would happen. So now that it that it’s going to happen let’s figure out what it really means. First, when was the last really good Sam Raimi movie? Personally I’d say it’d maybe have to be “The Gift” way back from 2000 or maybe “A Simple Plan” from 1998. Anything since then to me really either hasn’t aged well, was very mediocre or just plain sucked!
So really let’s be honest here, is Raimi really that awesome? Or did he happen to get lucky a few times and land a dream job directing the Spider-man movies? He tried to prove himself to his Evil Dead fans with “Drag Me to Hell” but an honest comparison to other more legitimately awesome current horror/ horror comedies revealed it really wasn’t anything that special. A decent attempt but still a flawed one. So what are the chances that we’re going to get the Evil Dead / Army of Darkness sequel we have all been waiting for? What are the chances it’ll be “The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” of the Evil Dead franchise? I’m gonna say 50/50.
One of the problems is that Raimi seems way too far removed from that the genre he basically created that so many others have tried to copy. He’s a bit out of touch, as he’s so used to cranking out big glittery CG stuffed blockbusters I’m not sure he’d really know what to do with Ash this time around. Hopefully he keeps it old school-perhaps this recent Evil Dead reboot will give him a basic outline to follow of what he should do to give the fans what they want as he’s stated that this next Army of Darkness is really for the fans. I think a good sign is that Bruce Campbell seems to understand more than anyone what made the movies all so fun. So perhaps he can guide Raimi into not making a total pile of shit. Perhaps Fede Alvarez who directed the reboot can also talk some sense into the guy.
The fans want Ash plain and simple at least in Army of Darkness 2. Not some young hip side kick to accompany him. He’s the star and he doesn’t need anyone else there trying to make the movie more accessible to the teen or tween masses. The fans want to return to that old school vibe, they don’t want the movie to look like Ash green screening around Oz the Great & Powerful. Give the fans some ridiculous gore and DON’T resort to anymore wretchedly bad CG anvil scenes like we saw in Drag Me to Hell. That was fucking pathetic.
Do it right and don’t try to score a giant Hollywood hit with this movie, show everyone that deep down inside you’re still that hungry independent film maker of the 80’s. Set the new standard for all those newer directors who think they’ve one upped you at your own game. You’ve seen other big film makers try and revive their franchises and fail miserably, pissing off their fans and eternally tarnishing their greatest bodies of work. Let’s do this shit the right way this time! What do you think? Does Raimi still have it?!
Indiana Jones is Expendable?!
This is pretty crazy news, that by now everyone knows, but really Harrison Ford joining the Expendables 3 is quite a surprise! This clearly is going to add a different dimension to the movie and give it some serious star power. It certainly seems as if Sly is going for it again with his casting but what does this mean for Ford’s character? Is he a villain? Part of the team? I’m hoping that injecting him into the movie will perhaps bring on a more “adventurous” vibe to the movie, maybe having him play slightly off his Indiana Jones role and taking the team to some truly amazing remote places! How cool would it be if they had to hire him as a guide for the team in search of some strange artifact of some sort.
Perhaps his involvement means what Stallone mentioned, that the third film might shift genres? I for one hope Ford brings the team into new territory and that the movie does shift into maybe a more sci-fi element, or even better as was predicted, the movie may be based on the discarded “Rambo 5” script “The Savage Hunt”. The ideas for that was that Sly and his team have to hunt down a genetically modified mutant super soldier gone psycho. Now I’d pay to see that! Let’s hope this is the case and that Ford is their guide into the jungles where he or rather it is hiding! Come on Stallone make it happen!!!
The Good The Bad The Weird the Awesome!
Well this here isn’t breaking news or anything but I just wanted to mention that I finally checked out the amazing Korean flick, The Good The Bad The Weird last night. I have to say I wish I would have seen this amazing movie sooner-but you know this dork here can’t be dorkin’out 24/7! I WISH!!
Anyway it’s definitely one of the best action movies I have ever seen hands down-like a Korean take on Indiana Jones perhaps. Jam packed with colorful quirky characters, absolutely stunning action sequences and a nice touch of comedy to boot! This movie delivers on all levels and is surely one of the BEST movies a dork could have seen that was released on dvd in 2010! Don’t wait any longer if you missed this one-check it out already!
PLEASE Reboot The League of Extraordinary Gentleman!!
It’s funny but sometimes there are certain movies I actually want to be remake or in this case rebooted. The movie at hand here is The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and if you have seen this steaming pile of shit of a movie from 2003 then you know exactly why I am starting the campaign right here at Universal Dork to get this rebooted and done the right way! So it would seem kinda weird huh since the movie was released a mere seven years ago right? Well think about how fast The Incredible Hulk was rebooted, now Spider-man and the Fantastic Four. So why not The League? Though the movie was pretty well cast Stephen Norrington still managed to totally fuck it up. God damn they even managed to get Sean Connery cast as Quartermain!
Did he ever even read the comic book? If so did he just decide to trash it on purpose with an unmemorable, generic pile of Hollywood bull shit dumbed down for the masses? The answer most likely is YES. It’s really no secret that the movie sucked the big one real hard so what I think is that we need a good director say like Zack Snyder to reboot this thing and make it the movie it should have been. It had, like the book, the potential to be a grand adventure in the same vein as Indiana Jones.
It also should have retained some of the grit of the original series Continue reading
Universal Dork 