Richard Meyers

When this book hit the shelves in 1985, there had never been anything like it. Critics looked down their noses at martial arts movies, and even TV Guide refused to rate the films that ran every Sunday afternoon on the USA Network's Kung Fu Theatre...as if they weren't films at all, but uncategorizable entities that fell somewhere between pro wrestling and sitcoms on the cinematic value scale. Today, of course, numerous books have been written about martial arts movies, and they enjoy critical as well as popular acclaim all over the world. But Richard Meyers's book was the first to say: Yes, we take these films seriously. If you've got a problem with that, go to hell.

Meyers and his co-authors--Amy Harlib and Bill & Karen Palmer--are fans, but they're also good writers. You won't find a single line of terse urban sociolect here: these folks write eloquently and at length about the films they love, treating Chinese and Japanese action cinema as a subject of legitimate study. And, while I don't always see eye to eye with them (the authors have a clear affinity for the low-budget comedic kung fu flicks of the late '70s and early '80s, while I prefer the so-called "bashers" of the early '70s), I'm in total agreement with Meyers when he writes, "Why the martial arts movie? Because it can be beautiful, extreme, emotional, soaring, and freeing for an audience. That is what it is all about. Exhilaration."

Essential reading for fans, and it might even win over a few skeptics with its intelligent, scholarly approach. Fabulously illustrated, too: not just with the standard Bruce Lee pics you've seen a hundred times, but dozens of photos of Japanese samurai films and obscure (at the time) productions from Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers Studio.

Here's the top ten list compiled by the authors:
Fist of Fury (aka The Chinese Connection)
Enter the Dragon
Drunken Master
Project A
The Shaolin Temple
Legendary Weapons of China
Baby Cart in the Land of Demons
The Human Tarantula (aka In the Spider's Lair)
Zatoichi's Cane Sword
The Seven Samurai… (más)

For One Night Only is fun. In a combination of plot summaries and desultory essays on sub-genres and the relationships between different films, this book rambles across the genre of exploitation films, containing more than a few insights on the social importance and history of grindhouse film, and film in general. As you might expect, it is not a book to read straight through; it’s best taken in small, fun doses (perhaps like the films themselves). He doesn’t include every possible example (how could he?) but he hits the more prominent examples, many less prominent ones, and a few cross-over examples from other genres (like Pasolini’s “Salo”). Ric Meyer’s style is breezy, knowledgeable and fun; and, as he says early on, reading about these films is much more fun than watching them. Great stuff!… (más)

While Meyers obviously knows quite a bit about exploitation movies, you'd think that a guy who would write an entire book about the subject would like them a little more. This is a collection of plot synopses (the best part) and Meyers' dashed off personal opinions (the worst part) of a random collection of horror, sexploitation, and blaxsploitation movies of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The book has a nice name and title index, but would have risen above its negative qualities if the publisher had sprung for more illustrations. There are black and white collages of movie posters before each section, but the posters are half the fun with exploitation movies, and it is too bad they couldn't include more of them. The longer essays on individual filmmakers are better written and definitely worth reading, but Meyers slapdash writing style and negative attitude really bring this book down.

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2012/03/for-one-week-only-world-of-exploitation.ht... ]… (más)