Merge SWORDHAND and The Seisure Soul Sword of a Blind Girl

[Michael Kistner]

If no one ojects I merge soon that 2 movies:

http://www.hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mht ... ay_set=eng

and

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?i ... ay_set=eng

[calros]

Liu Ping appears in one poster but not in the other. Maybe one film is a sequel of the other film.

[heinz Germany]

that's exactly why i did create a new one

[Michael Kistner]

Following text from my friend Oliver Sodemann shows evidence that SWORDHAND and THE EVIL KARATE are identical (SEIZURE was a mistake). He makes some additional comments about the hkmdb. None of this is meant offensive. Now the text:

Hi there,

I am Oliver Sodemann from Germany, I am a collector of Hong Kong and
Taiwan movies since the early 80s. It was me who asked my friend
Michael Kistner
to merge SWORDHAND?and SEIZURE SOUL into one movie. Not without a
profound
reason, as Joseph Kuo himself did make that statement. – Although I
have to
correct this after having checked my notes and files: SWORDHAND later
became THE EVIL KARATE – for sure! There is no additional and separate
movie like this. But let me explain...

First of all, I know that image uploaded here as SWORDHAND very well,
it was
shown in an old Cinemart magazine I own (the issue number I would
have to search
at the moment, but that is not really important now) and let us state
that this is JUST
an advertisement.

So, there is no such evidence that this movie is a separate Joseph
Kuo movie
in the first place, as would be in case of an original poster. Movies
covered in
those old Hong Kong magazines can change titles – or in some rare
cases would
be never completed.

Secondly, please let us call that movie tentatively as literally
translated as
possible: „EMPTY?HAND?SWORD“ (which could be translated also
as „KARATE SWORD“)

Furthermore, SWORDHAND, as an entry without any quotation marks,
suggests that
there is a proven original title for this. – One thing (from
several) that I criticise regarding
many entries in the database: Please distinguish literal translations
of titles from
original English titles as given on posters for the international
market by quotation
marks! It would help a lot, as this is the beginning of spreading
wrong titles
through the internet.

But let me tell about the statement that Mr. Kuo did personally:

Back in 2008, we (= I and Stephan Zahner from Switzerland, another
expert in the field of Hong Kong and Taiwan martial arts movies) were
attending
the „Festival Paris Cinemá“ which was held from 1 till 12 of
July. They had a special
programme on Kuos movies showing SWORDSMAN?OF?ALL?SWORDSMAN,
BORN INVINCIBLE, SORROWFUL TO?A?GHOST?and THE 18 BRONZEMEN
(Japanese
cut with additional footage that was shot years later for the
Japanese market).
All screened beautifully, fantastic. Furthermore, they had invited
Mr. Kuo
himself, and he was personally there to answer questions from the
audience. Most people there did not know him too well, fans and
genre dedicated people and collectors like us were rare.

In fact, we just went to Paris to meet Kuo in person and private,
not for the screened movies which we knew already too well.

So I prepared a big pile of xeroxed coverage in every variation I had
in my
old Hong Kong magazines like CINEMART and MILKY WAY for each and every
movie of Kuo and did a list of questions we wanted to ask. We didn’t
know beforehand if we would get the possibility to talk to him for an
hour
or more or just for a few minutes. Of course, we both knew that „EMPTY
HAND SWORD“ advertisement for long and wanted to ask him about it.

Everything worked, we got the interview and the possibility to ask many
in-depth questions that delighted Mr. Kuo very much, as all the other
interviewers that he had met before us all had asked similar superficial
questions, some of them did not even know him or ever had heard
of him.

With a translator at hand, we went through all the xeroxed coverage
and asked him questions. Looking at that „EMPTY?HAND?SWORD“
advertisement,
he immediate pointed out that this was SEIZURE SOUL OF A BLIND GIRL
by writing it down in Chinese:

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/images.mhtml ... ay_set=eng

But later on, after having heard many interesting stories, it
crystallised out
that he had just said so because of that still in that advertisement
showing
Chang Ching Ching as the blind girl.

The background was that by the time, this advertisement was
done by his marketing people, they did not have stills from that
tentatively called „EMPTY?HAND SWORD“ movie he was shooting.
But he wanted to save that title meanwhile as he was very fond
of it or something like this.

Due to the language differences we could not exactly get
every detail, but another company then made a movie with nearly
the same title, some kind of stole that title from him, so he finally
changed it.

The only and very interesting conclusion was:
That other movie must have been UNPARALLELLED JUDO KNIFE!

How the background story exactly goes, we don’t know and
could not find out.

But having a closer look at the coverage of THE?EVIL?KARATE
in „International Screen“, Jun. 71, they in fact talked about the
title change from „Empty Hand Sword“ to „Tai Chi something“
and UNPARALLELLED JUDO KNIFE. Also in the Taiwan book on Kuo
„The World Directed By Joseph Kuo“ they mention that title change:

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/images.mhtml ... y_set=big5

Finally, the interesting thing is that the word „Karate“ was
used for the international English title THE EVIL?KARATE
in the end.
_____

So let me finally give some input for the improvement of
this hkmdb.

It is a pity that Stephan and I rather often come across
definately wrong entries. We are experts with pretty much
experience and a good instinct, as we also own many movies
and also pretty rare ones.

To prevent wrong entries, some basic conditions could help:

1.) Literal translations of movie titles in quotation marks.
2.) If nobody ever saw a tape or a physical poster or lobby card
of it, please express your doubts (In this case some comment
like „This could be another Kuo movie or just an alternative
title.“ would have made this entry legitimate until further
investigation)
3.) The MOST?IMPORTANT for me would be: Please name
your source of information and deposit it! (e.g. image taken
from „Cinemart“ Nr. XY, title from American VHS release
from XY company etc. – At the moment, one can never see
any source of information. Especially the Aliases are like
a hell of fantasy sometimes!
4.) My personal wish: Put in alternative titles from other
countries! This would also help collectors of lobby cards,
posters, VHSs etc. Why not? (posters from other countries
are already there in the „image“ sections...

The problem remains and sometimes is very obvious:
Some members seem to do not know that much about
HK movies and surprise with totally wrong entries.

Other members from time to time make totally surprising
mistakes like the recent entry of MAGIC SWORD
where the original entry was O.K. but made worse and was
deleted due to some confusion with PROSPEROUS OF FAMILY
that came from a bootleg with self-made „Magic Sword“ credits.

Finally, like the wrong entry SWORDHAND, there are always many
double entries which could be prevented by having seen the movie or
discuss it first in the forum, like this one here

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?i ... ay_set=eng

which is simply SWORN CHIVALRIES.

All the best,
Oliver

[Michael Kistner]

deleted double entry of my post

[calros]

OK, you can merge.

1.) Literal translations of movie titles in quotation marks. -> Literal translations must be in the "alias" and with description as "Literal translation"
4.) My personal wish: Put in alternative titles from other
countries! This would also help collectors of lobby cards,
posters, VHSs etc. Why not? (posters from other countries
are already there in the „image“ sections... -> Why not? because if we put the titles from other countries, we would find that there will be movies with 50 titles as aliases before the data, this would be cumbersome. Titles only en English and Chinese (excepting co-productions with other countries). Posters, covers, etc., are different.

b) Who deleted the 2nd "Magic Sword" entry without previous warning?

c) Removed "Ming Men Jin Jian Xia Shi Qing" (1970)

[Michael Kistner]

b) Who deleted the 2nd "Magic Sword" entry without previous warning?

Second entry? Oliver Sodemann talked about that already fixed case:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=52312

c) Removed "Ming Men Jin Jian Xia Shi Qing" (1970)

Thank you.

___________

Merged:

???
Swordhand (1970)
Country: Taiwan
Director
Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong
Cast
Cheung Ching-Ching
Chiang Nan (2)
Ma Kei (1)
Tin Ming (1)
Yee Yuen
Su Chen-Ping
Mo Man-Hung
Long Hsiao

with

????
The Evil Karate (1971)
Country: Taiwan
Genre: Martial Arts
Director
Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong
Script
Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong
Tyrone Hsu Tien-Yung
Lin Yu-Yuan
Action Director
Lam Yau-Chuen
Producer
Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong
Cast
Cheung Ching-Ching
O Yau-Man
Kong Ching-Ha
Chiang Tao
Su Chen-Ping
Tsai Hung
Chiang Nan (2)
Laai Tak-Naam
Yuen Sam (1)
So Gam-Lung
Ngok Fung (2)
Shaw Luo-Hui
Lui Jun (1)
Gam Man-Hei
Wa Luen
Woo Chau-Ping
Ngai Chi-Wong
Ho Wai-Hung
Kai Pao-Yu
Wong Cheung (3)
Yue Fan (1)
Hong Ming (1)
Lau Man-Hung (3)
Kong Yeung (4)
Siu Foo-Dau
Wong Chau-Hung
So Kwok-Leung ... extra
Story
Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong
Assistant Action Director
Yip Mau

I hope my comments on the alternate titles are all right. Added also one comment on the advertisement image.

[Chen Hung Lieh]

Does anyone know an official source of this alias?

育安勾魂劍

Looks a lot like a misspelled one, I've always wondered what the source was, never found a clue.

The Cantonese & Mandarin transcriptions of an old archived webpage (2004) reveal that it was the first Chinese title for this entry and the real chinese title was added some time later.

If this alias exist, then the editor must have possessed a very rare official version with a misspelled title and not knowing about the widely available real title at the same time which seems pretty unlikely to me. I'm almost sure he just mixed up the characters when he added the movie to the database.

[bkasten]

I would like clarification on this film's aliases.

Calros created this alias in 2009. He is not here, so his source will remain unknown:
2009-10-20 17:06:25 | calros | 育安勾魂劍 | alias

Heinz created this alias:
| 2021-10-16 17:31:34 | heinz Germany | insert | 盲女勾劍魂宣 alias_id 1764

Heinz updated the same alias here:
| 2021-10-16 17:32:08 | heinz Germany | update | 盲女勾劍魂 alias_id 1764

Chen deleted the alias here:
| 2021-11-14 11:57:09 | Chen Hung Lieh | 1764 alias_id delete

Aliases are never to be summarily deleted without a post here. If it is incorrect that is fine, but it needs to be posted here.

[Chen Hung Lieh]

Calros created this alias in 2009. He is not here, so his source will remain unknown:
2009-10-20 17:06:25 | calros | 育安勾魂劍 | alias

I think calros just changed the Chinese main title into an alias. Before he did, it must have been the first Chinese title when the movie entry was just created.

Heinz updated the same alias here:
| 2021-10-16 17:32:08 | heinz Germany | update | 盲女勾劍魂 alias_id 1764

Chen deleted the alias here:
| 2021-11-14 11:57:09 | Chen Hung Lieh | 1764 alias_id delete

Yes, I'm not innocent here . I deleted it, as I was sure it was an ordinary reversed character mistake copied from a different website:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... irefox-b-d

Why I was sure it was from this website? Because Heinz uploaded a picture from that site, so it appeared obvious for me that the alias came from the same site. so I just removed it.

I even sent a facebook message to the Kaohsiung Film Archive, they replied that they couldn't help me with a source for that title (I'm not sure if they really tried it though).

I am determined to post everything from now on, even if it's obvious.

[bkasten]

OK, thanks for clarification.

The more notes we keep here, the more we can refer back to refresh our memories as to why we did something. While it is not a perfect method (in lieu of a formal and cumbersome "change process"), it is efficient and it is better than nothing.

[Chen Hung Lieh]

I would also like to suggest to remove this image, before anyone gets the idea to add this as an alias:
https://hkmdb.com/db/movies/image_detai ... ay_set=eng

It is clearly edited from the poster, as you can see by comparing the traces of folding and the background texture of the english title which does not match the poster motif's texture in the same image. The Chinese characters seem to have been edited away.

[bkasten]

OK. Unless someone has another reason to keep it, I will delete it soon. Thanks.