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I lived in Chicago’s Chinatown while going to film school.
Being car-less, anti-Blockbuster, and essentially lazy, I began
to frequent my local video stores. My early encounters at
these Mom-and-Pop dives were akin to my first few
Christmases – wide-eyed wonder at all of the colorful boxes;
the contents of which were unknown until I took them home. I was
amazed to find that my "Samurai Saturday" visions were completely
off the mark. These films weren’t chop-socky. As a matter of fact,
a majority of the videos I randomly rented were some of the
most stunning films I had seen in years. Before I knew it, I was
hooked to the gills on Hong Kong cinema. Action movies that
might’ve gotten a rise out of me a year earlier became
tedious exercises in pyrotechnic waste. I became "Trent" instead
of "that weird gweilo that keeps coming in here." Once the store
owners realized I was a dependent and valuable customer, they began
to steer me in the right direction, rental-wise. Their
first recommendation: Jackie Chan.
Shaking with exhilaration that night as Jackie nearly killed
himself for the tenth time, I had a vision: The rest of the world
would wake up to the fact that Jackie Chan was the greatest action
star in the history of the universe. He would die during one of
his stunts and the resulting publicity would enamor him to the
western movie going public. It was a melancholy vision,
indeed.
<a href= "http://www.taiseng.com">Taiseng Video - distributors of Eastern Condors</a>
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