Special Edition: Terence Chiu Reports on the 1999 Fantasiafest

Fantasiafest: the International Festival of Fantasy and Action Cinema took place this year from July 23 to August 15th. Oh, the Humanity! wishes to express its thanks to Terence Chiu for giving us a man-in-the-field report on the happenings. You can read other re-caps of the event at the fest's official website.

I know it's a little too late to let you know about this but there is a Asian movie festival called Fant-asia in Montreal. Basically, they show movies made in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and other films from all around the world. The atmosphere is great, most people who go are movie buffs who know that those films are crap at best. Most films would get a "pick" rating on your reviews. Some of the highlights so far are:

1) Kids from Shaolin. This film stars Jet Li in his early days. It basically tries to wedge 45 minutes of Kung Fu fighting into 30 minutes of incomprehensible dialogue. The characters are corny, the premise is corny, and the songs are corny. That's right, you haven't seen Jet Li until you've seen him randomly breaks into song! But the fight scenes leave everybody similing at the end.

2) Santo vs. The Vampire Women. I have a new god and his name is Santo! I had no idea Santo is such a cult figure. Even before the movie began, you knew this wasn't going to be an ordinary movie. What we didn't know was that the organizers had a staged a special live fight scene for us. Just when you think the movie is about to start, Santo rushed on the stage! At which time some vampires appeared from nowhere and proceeded to decend upon him. He bravely fought them off with a cross while the crowd was cheering "Santo! Santo!". This definitely got me in the mood for the movie. During the movie, wise-cracks were in no shortage, especially when the vampire women morphed into the most beautifully women I've ever seen. Everytime Santo entered the scene or when he was kicking some ass, the crowd was on their feet chanting "Santo! Santo".

3) Japanese Animation. Need I say more?

I thought I'd give you an update for the last weekend of the Fantasia festival. I went to the the North American premiere of Terror Firmer, brought to you by none other than Troma Entertainment (celebrating 25 years of filth). Guess who made a special appereance? Give up? The director Lloyd Kaufman himself. He was also accompanied by the sexy and seductive Debbie Rochon (Oh, Debbie....). As you can guess, all the Tromaville fans were there, and they knew what to expect from this movie--crap. Here is the brief outline of the movie:

Wait! This is a Troma movie. There IS no storyline. Basically someone goes on a killing spree (which involves some kind of body mutilation) and somehow, the star of the movie (some lady with big breasts) figures it out. The nice twist though, was all the murders took place on the set of another Troma movie. Lloyd Kaufman actually plays the director and he pokes fun at himself and the movie. The Toxic Avenger and Sgt. Kaubukiman (too lazy to check spelling) make special appearances also.

In accordance to your movie reviews, I will try to make a list of things to watch for:

• Sex scene with Alyce LaTourelle and a jar of pickles, you figure it out.
• Lemmy makes a cameo appearance.
• The creators of South Park as hermaphrodites.
• Alyce LaTourelle, nuff said.
• Vomit galore.
• "You got your ass kicked by some guy with half a dick!"
• Debbie!!!!

The movie was followed by a Q&A period. It was fascinating to hear what they had to say about the state of independent films.

This report copyright 1999 by Terence Chiu. Permission granted for use to Oh, the Humanity!