I've been trying to get hold of Ocean Shores' VHS release of the new-wave HK movie JUMPING ASH (1976) for quite a while and this afternoon I finally secured a copy. Yay! Actually, I've lost out to other eBay bidders TWICE in the past and BOTH times was due to my "only" having placed 30 bucks on the tape and some other schmuck won it for 31 dollars. TWICE!! .\_/. Haha. Well, that's life.
A while ago a got hold of the Greek VHS which is taken from an old and scratched (beyond belief) print with big Greeks subs that cover up the on-screen text. Anyhoo, today was my lucky day! I placed 50 bucks and won the fucker for just under the 9 dollar mark! Amazing!! All the way up to the finishing line I kept thinking "somebody's GOT to make another bid! How could they not! Are they daft!! It's JUMPING ASH for crying out loud!!!" Hahaha. Oh well, maybe everyone was out in the sun. My luck indeed.
I've just watched Josephine Siao & Leung Po-Chi's entry to the Hong Kong new wave genre JUMPING ASH from 1976! And what a gritty and awesome movie it is. The copy I watched is the Greek VHS which is sourced from an old and very scratched print but actually it seems right that it's so worn! Brings it down on the gritty street level you'll find in the movie. I don't know which release this YouTube clip is from but it actually looks too good. It looks too much like a film! No kidding.
By the way, when I use the term "Hong Kong new wave" it's not a reference to what kung fu message boards and most other Western film sites about Asian films refer to as "Hong Kong new wave" which is basically just any film made after John Woo's A BETTER TOMORROW and EVERY film from the 1980s and thru to 1997. The term New Wave was used by film scholars/reviewers in Hong Kong to describe a bunch of films made by first time directors in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Directors who made gritty films about HK and life in the then crown colony. You can read about it on Wiki - just remember Wiki is by no means perfect and you'll find that some yoyo simply haaad to add John Woo to the list of new wave directors probably because they thought it inconceivable that something as important as the NW genre would exist without the director who "saved" the HK film (at least in the eyes of action fans in the West). Anyway, if you wanna expand your HK film knowledge to more than just Shaw Brothers and heroic bloodshed then get hold of some of these films. And you could certainly start off with a much worse choice than JUMPING ASH.
Headed by directorial rookies Josephine Siao (award winning actress in Summer Snow) and Leung Po-Chi (Hong Kong 1941), this gritty, documentary-esque Hong Kong cop thriller has the marks of stuff seen before and since. But thanks to a keen eye for placing the narrative amongst the Hong Kong people and the world they would be familiar with, Jumping Ash immerses well. Ga Lun is Callan Leong, whose cop life and straight line of administrating the law gets a bit blurred at times. Working in the Kowloon Walled City for instance, a little corruption, immoral attitude and bribes solves crimes in a society that's heading downhill. The big fish in the pond is drug king Tung (Nick Lam) however and the two killers from Amsterdam (Michael Chan and Chen Sing). The former protects Tung, the other wants him dead and the closer Callan gets to Tung, the closer he gets to co-operation with the opposite side....
Placing their camera quite effectively in the midst of environments alive with activity, the realism of Jumping Ash isn't a fashion statement at all. It adds to a sense of doom, grit, danger and the obvious social commentary about the struggles of the outnumbered cops. There are equally important moments of lightheartedness such as one scene with a stakeout at a brothel and Callan is both the clichéd movie cop and suitably struck out of a mold the filmmakers have witnessed on their beloved Hong Kong street. That mold contains some quite grave stupidity in terms of decision-making which leads to a questionable scene towards the end but no doubt, Jumping Ash remains important today. As a statement and view, even though it probably rightly won't be looked at as an edge of your seat work. Crude isn't bad in this case either and the worse print quality you can find of the film, probably serves of it. Josephine Siao also appears as Callan's wife.
Po-Chih Leong's debut film was a trendsetter in Hong Kong cinema. Shot from the shoulder, the fast-moving world of cops, informers, drug dealers and other crooks are evoked in a very lively and realistic way. The action all takes place in carefully selected locations, among them the walled city of Kowloon and Yuen Long. The film looks like a documentary and evokes the kind of excitement usually seen in news programmes. The story focuses on the battle between two gangs and starts in Amsterdam, where one of the gang leaders is murdered. The male protagonists Jia Lun and Chen Huimin provide memorable acting achievements as the just cop and the cold-blooded killer."
