She Shoots Straight (1990) A year before suddenly retiring from film at just 26, Joyce Godenzi went out near the top: leading one of the fiercest and finest Girls with Guns films of Hong Kong’s action boom
Devil’s Vendetta (1991) Seductive cockroach woman, hopping vampires, Taoist virgin magic & a man turning himself into a bar of soap to infiltrate a women’s shower | Alongside Holy Weapon, one of Hong Kong’s weirdest ’90s wuxia films
In the Line of Duty 5 (1990) The female-fight version of all the glass-smashing chaos in Police Story: Ballet dancer-turned-action heroine Cynthia Khan vs. Australian Karate champion Kim Maree Penn
Millionaires' Express (1986) In what might be the most stacked Hong Kong cast of all time, Japanese karate champion Yukari Oshima steals the show in her Hong Kong debut
Possessed II (1984) '80s Hong Kong horror at its most energetic & demented: essentially a Cantonese Poltergeist with vampire kids, she-werewolf transformations, face-peeling, green-slime monsters & comically incompetent high-tech Hare Krishna exorcists dying like redshirts
In the Line of Duty 4 (1989) Come for the hard-hitting female martial arts, stay for a young Donnie Yen kicking ass | Taiwanese dancer-turned-action heroine Cynthia Khan vs. "Blonde Fighter" Fairlie Ruth Kordick
The Nest (1988) Need an unheralded American b-horror this October? Gross, visceral, slimy ’80s body horror in the style of The Fly & The Blob remakes
Killer’s Nocturne (1987) A year before Bloodsport, the director of Riki-Oh/The Cat made his own underground fighting movie, also starring Bolo Yeung | The reigning champion is a buff Kangaroo
Ninja III: The Domination (1984) Cannon Films made probably the dumbest entry in the entire ’80s ninja craze, and it excels as pure B-movie entertainment
My Blade, My Life (1978) Violent Taiwanese wuxia | Pearl Chang plays a limping swordsman, inspired by Gu Long’s famously grim Fu Hongxue, who carries a legendary blade and lives only to test it against China’s greatest swordsman
Magic Girl / Hello Dracula 6 (1992) The final entry in the Hello Dracula series | What began as a kid-friendly, comedy-heavy Taiwanese take on the Mr. Vampire formula ends with a intense and genuinely depressing finale
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983) Imagine a Tolkien-sized fantasy world filtered through Chinese mythology, wuxia & 1980s Hong Kong cinema, starring several of the biggest stars of their time: Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and Brigitte Lin.
The 3-D Army/Hello Dracula 5 (1989) 2nd to last in the series, this entry has our crew of child taoist ghost busters vs ghosts possessing dragon dances costumes
Holy Flame of the Martial World (1983) Even among Shaw Brothers’ wildest 80s films, this fantasy wuxia manages the difficult feat of feeling exactly like a psychotronic cartoon brought to life
Diva in the Netherworld (1980) Feels like a low-budget version of Japanese horror classic Hausu | Vampire pop idols, a haunted castle run by cannibals and a stop-motion dragon
Hello Dracula 4 - One of Peach Boy star Hsiao-Lao Lin’s lesser-known crazy fantasy films, this entry in the children’s hopping vampire/horror series Hello Dracula throws her into Taiwan’s bizarre b-movie jiangshi world
Spiritual Love (1987) Just as Chow Yun-fat was becoming a heroic-bloodshed icon, he starred with Cherie Chung in this gorgeous, largely forgotten supernatural ghost romance - Available on Blu-Ray
Little Dragon Maiden (1983) The Vietnam-born Shaw Brothers wuxia star who walked away from movies at 20 after only a handful of appearances — including some of Shaw Brothers’ wildest latter-day fantasy wuxia | Mary Jean Reimer / Yung Jing-Jing (翁靜晶)