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[Hide] (27.1KB, 400x532) Reverse Goddamn, big hitters are dimming off:
While no one was watching the underrated canadian-bulgarian master Ted Kotcheff signed off in a mexican beach on April 10th at 91yo. A director branded often as a "journeyman" he made several movies outside his realm of Canada/UK, often with an interesting tint of dark comedy.
Some of his movies include the once-lost essential australian film Wake in Fright from 1971, another essential film but for canadians and jews in 1974's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, american comedies like 1977's Fun with Dick & Jane, 1978's Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? and 1989's Weekend at Bernie's, plus 1992's Folks. A classic american sports movie is also under his name, 1979's North Dallas Forty.
Ted was also known for his forays into action stuff with the notable example of 1982's First Blood aka Rambo I i swore the movie was older than that and a late-nite TV surfer classic The Shooter from 1995, on TV he did some stuff which include Bronson's Family of Cops and a couple of old episodes from Law & Order: S.V.U..
Most notably, with people knowing but not admitting, some of his most-seen work was several episodes of the anthology series Red Shoe Diaries.
Highly versatile and entertaining, appalled to see the lack of news despite his mainstream work.
Another guy that deserves a mention is Ku Feng, an acting jack of all trades for the Shaw Brothers studio, mainly in the 70's, who got out at 94yo. With more than 300 film credits he was a common sight in HK cinema from that era and was very often the most natural actor in any given scene although that's not saying much considering the usually over-the-top or wooden/deadpan acting in the Chinas, quite versatile too as he could pull off sympathetic side characters or main antagonists all the same in very different settings, sometimes in the same movie and sometimes in the same scene.
Also a known presence in HK television, he was certainly one of the most ubiquitous stock character actors in the entire medium.
Mentioning a movie from his is quite funny because you could download any Shaw movie and there's a very serious 25% chance he's going to be there, 50% if it is action-related, but the ones i recall with gusto are 1966's Come Drink with Me, 1970's Vengeance, 1972's The Boxer from Shangtung, the interesting but flawed The Brave Archer trilogy, 1971's The New One-Armed Swordsman, 1978's 5 Deadly Venoms and The Avenging Eagle, 1979's Life Gamble, 1975's The Flying Guillotine and 1986's Peking Opera Blues. If/when i watch more of those erotic/riceploitation/concubinecore movies i might have another 5 to 10 suggestions, Shaw Bros was basically either kicking chinamen, red-light china intrigues or romcoms in the urban sprawl of Hong Kong.
There's some others that deserve a mention, mostly stunt actors in the martial arts movie category, that i might post later on. Action cinema has been hit hard in the feelings lately.
>>3649