Wednesday, March 23, 2011

PAN SI DONG - Fu-ling Wang - "The Cave Of Silken Web" (1967)

It's a Wacky, Weird, and WTF Wednesday courtesy of those zany cats, The Shaw Brothers, you've got to be ready for all the wrong reasons when you venture into "The Cave Of Silken Web", so let's Run Run!!

Here they are, guys, it's another female dominated society, a little smaller than some lost South American stronghold, it's a cave, an orifice that signifies the strength and power of womanhood, you know, like Deep!!

"Sisters be doing it!" One by one, here's Angela Yu Chien as Third Sister. Usually going by just Chien Yu, Angela was also in "The Oily Maniac," "Killer Elephants," and "That's Adultery" and was considered to be part of the Shaw Bros. Bombshell Trinity!

Next up is Lia Liang Hua as Elder Sister, the "Temptress of a Thousand Faces!"

How bout a big round of applause for Tien Meng of "Axing of the Coffin" fame??

That brings us to Shirley Huang who among her 42 titles was in films with names like "The Godfather Of Hong Kong," and "Deaf Mute Heroine."

Next in line is swordswoman Helen Ma from "Royal Tramp 2," and "Nine Girls And A Ghost!"

Don't forget about Shen Yi of "Angel Strikes Again" and "Killer Darts" fame!

And last but by no means least, presenting Yu Ching who was also in "Monkey Goes West," and "The Dragon Creek!" All together, these seven gals have got a lot of collective footage under their sashes!!

And here they are for one more encore, the Seven Sisters, Yes, indeed, the Seven Demon Bitches from Hell in all their glory!!!

Just in case you really wanted to know what's going on, "The Cave Of Silken Web" is the third installment out of four, in the Shaw Bros. version of the classic novel "Journey To The West," where the monk Tripitaka or Xuánzàng is traveling with his three guardians, The Monkey King, Pigsy, and Sandy!

After a big musical number at the beginning of the flick, the spider girls settle down, and find out that Xuánzàng is cruising around their area! Well, it's a well known fact with the girls that if they eat Xuánzàng's flesh, they will live on forever through eternity! It's at this point you start wondering what kind of a movie is this? Is it a kid's movie? Is it a comedy/horror/fantasy film? Even after watching it, you'll probably still be wondering!

The spider demon girls capture Xuánzàng, and take him to their lair! Chow Lung Cheung aka Zhou Long Zhang is phenomenal as The Monkey King! The girls and the guys have all kinds of krazy powers, and they can also change into each other or other people or become invisible on a whim! Very difficult to deal with!

Time to send in the second string!

In order to keep The Monkey King out, the girl demons use their Spidey powers to seal off the entrance with electric webs!

Then they throw this evil lookin' dude at you, just to complicate things, so he can change into a normal looking guy and become Third Sister's lover!!(His existence also allows Monkey King to slip into the cave unseen when Third Sister lets him in!)

Sandy and Pigsy were also captured along with Xuánzàng somewhere along the line, and at this point, they are being deceived again, but think they are being saved by Bodhisattva! Xuánzàng was played by Ho Fan who after a few films left the Shaw Brothers in 1969, and started over as a director! Sandy was played by Tin Sam, and Pigsy, probably the strangest of them all, was played by Paang Paang or Peng Peng, depending on who is writing or what you're reading!!

Wow! Mr. Fu-ling Wang wasn't fooling around when he was composing the music to some 160 movies, including all time classics, "Fists Of Fury," "Naked Love," "One Armed Boxer," "The Bod Squad," "The Rat Catcher," and "The Flying Guillotine" just to give you a smattering of the man's work!

When they are outside the cave, anything goes, and some of the shots are amazing! I think the cinematography by Kuo-Hsiang Lin deserves an extra large round of applause!

Good prevails, evil fails! "May Buddha bless you!!!

4 comments:

Prof. Grewbeard said...

one in every color!

TABONGA! said...

I dig those stills!!

cams said...

Chinese clothes were very colorful and I really admired about their martial arts and kung fu.
every time I watch a movie I would prefer to watch their scenes cos of their martial arts.

R. Claude said...

C'est une perle. Very pop !

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