I have to confess I'm a little wayward with my blogging, I do try, I wander from rock writing to this and that but really I should focus on what I'm good at writing about, which is hard, violent asian pulp cinema. So I'm going to try harder. This takes us to the 1991 Taiwan film Dignified Killers. Taiwan gangster pictures of this era are even cheaper than the cheaper Hong Kong crime movies. They're usually laden with more violence and sleaze, along with louder clothing. They're also very hit and miss, some being so bad they're not worth reviewing (1988's War Of The Underworld). Thankfully today's feature is as enjoyable as they really get.
Dignified Killers is straight up action exploitation, nothing more and nothing less. Lean, crude violent pulp with guns that crackle like fire crackers and just as much broken glass as Jackie Chan's Police Story. Add in Chanbara Spurt hero Lam Wai and you're laughing.
Basically Dignified Killers follows a gang war until half way through when it turns into a revenge film with a team of hostesses turned silver suited karate killers. That is as much depth and analysis as the film deserves, it's all about the psychical action, of which there is plenty. The film starts with bloody knife battles, leans towards gun fights in the middle, then ends on hands and feet with skulls smashing on walls and backs breaking on stone staircases. Viva violence! Really it's a basic film that rattles along to cover as many pulp touchstones as it can, there's a sappy canto pop song plus montage with elephants, along with some rough sex for the dirty mac crowd plus a villain that laughs a lot. Yes, the movie is pretty crude, the gunfights especially suffering from a stiltedness to the staging but fuck it, it's all so much fun.
Dignified Killers exists as a decent vhsrip out there in torrent land, perfectly acceptable with burnt in english subtitles.
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