This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan discover that there’s actually an antidote to getting punched really, really hard. The cultural divide proves too much for Ryan in this wild, fantastic, hallucinatory Kung Fu epic of many names. The story is incomprehensible, the fights are nonsensical, but Steve still finds it defensible, while Ryan finds the editing reprehensible. There’s no reason for this rhyme.

Kung Fu Cult Master (1993)

d. Jing Wong, Sammo Kam-Bo Hung

Starring:
Jet Li
Man Cheung
Chingmy Yau

Set during the Yuen Dynasty, many sects compete for possession of the two golden swords which contain the secret to dominance of the world of martial arts. The first faction, led by Shaolin, consists of Shaolin, Wu Tang, Ngo Mai, Kun Lun, Hung Tung and Wah Shan. The second is the Ming Sect, otherwise known as the Fire Sect or Evil Sect, led by branch leaders Queen of Purple Dragon, King of White Eagle, King of Gold Lion and King of Green Bat. A student of Wu Tang, befriends Gold Lion and marries the daughter of White Eagle. He is killed for the secret of the location of the missing sword. His infant son witnesses this and vows revenge on the heads of the sect. Unfortunately he has a jinx which prevents him from learning martial arts.

Brian Rawnsley

Things discussed in the show:

Tom Clancy & Jack Ryan vs World War 3

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (Carlton Cuse, Graham Roland, John Krasinski, Wendell Pierce, John Hoogenakker)

Wargames (John Badham, Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, John Wood)

Breakfast Club (John Hughes, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Paul Gleason, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy)

The Night Porter (Liliana Cavani, Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Leroy)

Deutchland 83 (Anna Winger, Jörg Winger, Jonas Nay, Maria Schrader, Ulrich Noethen)

Operation Able Archer

Wind of Change podcast (Patrick Radden Keefe, The Scorpions)

Wong Kar-wai

Raise the Red Lantern (Yimou Zhang, Li Gong, Jingwu Ma, Saifei He)

The Great Wall (Yimou Zhang, Matt Damon, Tian Jing, Willem Dafoe)

American Factory (documentary, Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert, Junming 'Jimmy' Wang, Robert Allen, Sherrod Brown)

The Queen's Gambit (Scott Frank, Allan Scott, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chloe Pirrie, Bill Camp)<