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Drive-In Collection: Vixens Of Kung-Fu/Oriental Blue

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    Ian Jane
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  • Drive-In Collection: Vixens Of Kung-Fu/Oriental Blue



    Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
    Released on: July 9, 2013.
    Director: Bill Milling
    Cast: C.J. Laing, Bree Anthony, Jamie Gillis, Bobby Astyr, Peonies Jong
    Year: 1975
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movies:

    A Bill Milling XXX double feature (and a collaboration between Vinegar Syndrome and Distribpix), this latest entry in their ongoing Drive-In Collection also features stalwarts Jamie Gillis, Peonies Jong and C.J. Laing in both pictures. Though these have hit DVD before, the quality here makes this one worthy of consideration for the old double dip, as if you've seen either of these movies before, odds are pretty good you haven't seen them look this good. Here's what you get!

    VIXENS OF KUNG-FU:

    Bree Anthony plays Paula, a young woman whose luck turns sour one day while taking a leisurely stroll through what looks like upstate New York in the middle of the afternoon. She's interrupted by three thugs - Jamie Gillis, Bobby Astyr and some guy in a sweater with a receding hairline - with obviously sinister intent. After verbally harassing her, she makes a break for it but unfortunately for her, these guys possess a tranquilizer gun (!!) and before she can make her escape they shoot her in the back. She falls to the ground and they proceed to strip her and rape her and once they've had their way with her, they leave her there all alone.

    She regains consciousness and soon finds comfort in the arms of the titular Vixens Of Kung-Fu, a small group of three women (comprised of Linda Trussell and Rosanne Lang, and lead by C.J. Laing) who have no use for men and instead find comfort in one another's arms. Laing takes her under her wing and initiates her by giving her a massage and having lesbian sex with her. Once that's out of the way with, it's time to begin her training regimen and she soon learns the ways of the Vixens. We also learn a little bit about Paula's background as a prostitute and learn that she's exactly the kind of mistreated woman that the Vixens want as a pupil.

    Soon, a wandering kung-fu practitioner named Yang (Tony Richards, credited here as Tony Blue) makes the mistake of wandering past the Vixens' training grounds. He's immediately attacked for his error in judgment, beaten to a pulp in one of the most inept on-screen displays of kung-fu ever filmed.

    Scorned by the Vixens, Yang decides that he needs to bone up on his kung-fu skills and so he heads into Chinatown and kneels at the feet of a woman working in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant (Peonies Jong). This woman turns out to be Madame Blue, though Yang insists on calling her Master for some reason. Regardless, she reluctantly takes him on as a student and they head into the woods where she instructs him in the deadly art of her own style - Golden Dragon Raising Head! This primarily involves Yang stroking his...uh... wang. While Yang and Madame Blue are training, C.J. and Paula are running up and down the beach together in slow motion like something out of Bo Derek's filmography. Once the two students are finished training, it's time for the climactic showdown to be held in upstate New York at Bear Mountain (at least it sure looks like Bear Mountain)!

    Wow. What a horribly made film in all of the best possible ways! Vixens Of Kung Fu is definitely 'so bad it's good' material, from Tony Richard's Moe haircut and cheesy earring to the 'Asian style' soundtrack presumably added as an afterthought to give the movie some authenticity as a martial arts film. The martial arts themselves? Amazingly bad. Imagine the likes of Tony Richards, Bree Anthony and C.J. Laing strutting and striking the phoniest looking kung-fu poses imaginable while the film cuts faster than a Russ Meyer movie in an unsuccessful attempt to hide their obvious lack of martial arts training. Someone named Anthony Wong (no relation to the Cat III superstar from Hong Kong we can assume) is credited with 'special kung-fu fighting.' He should have been fired. Yang's tendency to call his female teacher Master time and time again adds to the unintentional comedic value that the picture is overripe with, while the overly long shots of Laing and Anthony running up, and then later down, the same beach pad out the film in a rather curious manner.

    The sole directorial credit of one Lin Cho Chiang (a great pseudonym for Milling) and the only known picture produced by Chiang Productions (likely a fake company all together), Vixens Of Kung-Fu is a poorly made and completely goofy smut film but it's certainly an entertaining mess of a picture. The girl on girl scene with Laing and Anthony is steamier than you'd probably expect though the heterosexual sex scenes in the film are pretty clinical and devoid of all but the most rudimentary sexuality. That said, this is one of those porno movies that modern smut fans are likely going to watch more because of the camp factor and B-movie values than the XXX happenings. Evaluated as a grindhouse oddity rather than a serious adult picture, Vixens Of Kung-Fu is pretty interesting and definitely worth seeing for the copious amount of comedy that it contains when viewed today, more than three decades after it played theaters.

    Interestingly enough, kung-fu porno didn't die with this film. In 2002, gonzo smut peddlers Kick Ass Productions released a series of four Kung-Fu Girls films, which were re-released on DVD in 2007, presumably to cash in on the success of Wicked Pictures' own Kung-Fu Nurses A-Go-Go, which itself was probably made to cash in on Tarantino and Rodriguez' Grindhouse double feature. Digging even deeper into the depths of obscurity, in 2005 Masterlen Productions shat out a fetish video entitled Kung-Fu Masochist in which a chubby girl named Andrea is put through rigorous kung-fu training courtesy of director/producer/co-star Master Len. Alt/punk porn purveyors Burning Angel got in on this too with their release of Kung-Fu Pussy a couple of years ago. Maybe Vixens Of Kung-Fu was more influential than most of us realized!

    The film is also known as Vixens Of Kung-Fu: A Tale Of Yin And Yang, which is how the title card reads on this DVD presentation.

    ORIENTAL BLUE:

    Considerably more serious though still far from a 'straight' movie is Oriental Blue made that same year. The film begins in New York City's Chinatown where night sets over the city and a thug named Conrad (Alan Marlow) abducts an unwitting young woman (Kim Pope) and tosses her into the back of the limousine populated by his employer, Madame Blue (Peonies Jong). Though she struggles at first, one dose of Blue's 'love juice' calms her and quiets her and before you know it, she's having a three way with her captors.

    As it turns out, Blue is corralling all the fine young ladies she can so that she can supply them to Max (Bobby Astyr), the head of the NBA - that'd be the National Bordello Association. He in turn supplies brothels and houses of ill repute with all the talent that they could ask for and evidently this is quite a profitable business for both of them and hey, if he's lucky enough to get in on a three way with Blue and her assistant (C.J. Laing) in order to seal the deal, so much the better. From there a man named Steven (Steven Lark) shows up and buys a foxy French lady (Terri Hall) for some kinky sex after which one of Blue's employees, Brock (Jamie Gillis), lures a country girl named Antrea (Bree Anthony) back to his grubby apartment for some kicks with pal Antonio (Tony Richards) that end with her inducted into Blue's fold. What Brock didn't count on was how wrong things could go should he decide to cross Madame Blue, however, and once he does just that, her devious ways begin to make things very dangerous for him.

    Making great use of some period location photography to capture some of the grit that the Chinatown base offers the movie, Oriental Blue moves at a good pace and manages to pack in enough plot to make the movie more than just the obligatory bumping and grinding you expect to see in an adult movie. While the storyline isn't going to floor anyone (and at times feels like a remake of one of the Audrey Campbell Olga movies!), we get a few interesting characters and decent performances from the cast. Bobby Astyr is his usual quirky self while Gillis does his thing well here, scuzzy and seedy but also willing to stand up to Jong as Madame Blue. Jong herself makes a great lead this time around, if she's somewhat of a background player in a lot of her movies she shows some star power here. Her scene with a subservient Laing is one of the high points, it's well shot and plenty potent.

    A few fun plot twists, as unbelievable and completely out of left field as they might be, add to the fun while the score, which 'borrows' from some pretty recognizable soundtracks and pop songs, helps to seal the deal. The movie is nicely shot and features better than average production values, making it nice to look at and showing some impressive use of color in a few key scenes. Not as crazy or as unintentionally hilarious as the first feature but still very worthwhile for fans of seventies skin flicks thanks to a solid cast, a decent plot and the fact that it looks really good.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Both movies are presented in 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transferred from 35mm elements and for the most part both movies look very good here and are definitely much improved over previous full frame tape sourced releases (for the records, Vixens is transferred from the 35mm original negative and Oriental Blue from a 35mm answer print). Some splices and scratches pop up here and there as well as some minor specks but detail is good and colors look excellent. There are a few scenes in both movies where the lighting is a little less than perfect but ultimately what we wind up with are some nice, film-like transfers taken from materials that were culled from less than perfect sources. What's worth noting though is just how much better these movies both look in their original aspect ratios. Vixens might still be completely nuts but at least here it proves to have been shot with reasonable competency while Oriental Blue shows off some legitimately impressive cinematography that really helps to aid in appreciating it properly.

    Both films get Dolby Digital Mono soundtracks, in English and without any optional language options or subtitles provided. Clarity of each mix is fine. There are some scenes that sound a bit flat but that's obviously to do with the original recording. The scores sound good here, particularly in Oriental Blue, and the levels are properly balanced. Any hiss or distortion that does creep into the mix is minor and not particularly distracting while the dialogue is consistently easy to understand and follow.

    Aside from a static menu offering chapter selection, there are no extras on this DVD.

    The Final Word:

    Another fine entry in Vinegar Syndrome's Drive-In Collection line up, Vixens Of Kung-Fu and Oriental Blue make for a pretty great double feature (for viewers eighteen and over of course). Both movies have completely different merits but both are worthy additions to anyone's dirty movie home library thanks in no small part to the presentation which is vastly improved over previous editions.











































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