Karate, Fists and Beans / Storia di karatè, pugni e fagioli (Tonino Ricci, 1973)

[Phil_H]

No thread for this one it would seem so thought I should start one although I can’t for the life of me think of much to say about it.

Nowhere near as bad as many comedy westerns from this period but a long way from being any good either. Thankfully, the bar room brawls are not too long and there are the odd moments to make you smile. Plus it has Fernando Sancho which always helps for me. But the caricature Asian figure is pretty hard to take.

I’ve seen worse, but at the moment that is really not saying very much.

Database page: Storia di karatè, pugni e fagioli - The Spaghetti Western Database

[sartana1968]

look’s a bit stupid film

[ENNIOO]

Yes, just a bit .

[Admin (Sebastian)]

This movie’s entry in the database has been upgraded to the new layout. We welcome additions such as more and better posters and other pictures, facts and trivia, links, reviews and more

[Mickey13]

Copied from the Spagvemberfest 2023 thread:

@Mickey13

The film constitutes basically what you would expect to get from this sort of entertainment, there is however one upside which is the pairing of Dean Reed and Chris Huerta: Reed turns in a pretty solid performance, though what is more surprising and somewhat shocking is Huerta’s unexpectedly good showing who instead of hamming it up as usual beyond the absolute limits of decency and good taste, just seems mean, agitated and cantankerous, but in a pertinently amusing fashion without any surplus histrionics. Notwithstanding, the said factor is largely obfuscated by the remarkably chaotic script which totally lacks any kind of focus and basically careens from one lousy scene to another in order to culminate in, yes, you guessed it, a gigantic bar brawl, which I took the liberty of fast-forwarding so as to alleviate the pain.

What is astonishing is the thoroughgoing superfluity of the kung fu theme in that it appears absolutely unwarranted and rarely even comes to the fore. Whenever it resurfaces, it only serves as a pretext to showcase some awful kung fu fighting sequences or to make use of some racial stereotypes relating to the Chinese, predominantly treating of eating dog meat, rice and fish, all that stuff. The worst thing is not even that it condescends to this level of crassness, picking the lowest-hanging fruit in the laziest possible fashion, but rather that at the end of the day, it simply is not funny at all and comes to grate on one’s nerves, especially what with the vexing English dub. This could have been legitimately good had it been outfitted with a superior storyline, forgoing the redundant kung fu shtick, but it is evidently anything but. Perhaps not quite as bad as its reputation, but close enough.

[Wobble (Timothy Rogerson)]

Just finished this one which was very difficult to sit through. One of the more successful westerns at the Italian box-office in 1973.

You Tube have a 79m version which is a German print albeit English dubbed although in the several long fight scenes it reverts to German for a little while which suggests that the fight scenes were trimmed from an English print.

Dean Reed and Chris Huerta do a Hill/Spencer double act with Huerta food-obsessed (of course) and disliking rice which puts him in conflict with the Japanese character, based on Bruce Lee, who mainly acts in his own movie and then appears to do various Kung Fu activities and save the day. The plot involves our heroes recruited to free a banker’s daughter who is being held for ransom by Fernando Sancho. They join up with a famous gunslinger who they encounter in a monastery discussed as a friar and are also helped by several forgers. It is pretty tedious and the Japanese character, who keeps trying to make food for everyone, is a ridiculous stereotype as well. Quite episodic to and could have been cut by another 20m easily.

1973 Italian westerns seem to be especially heavy going - I have A Man Called Invincible and the Providence sequel to follow neither of which I am looking forward to.

[stanton]

The Providence sequel is a unique film, much better than the first one. Funny, weird, surreal.

Check the thread.

[Wobble (Timothy Rogerson)]

I’ve now watched 20m of the Providence sequel and had to turn it off for a break. Found it virtually unwatchable so far and grossly self-indulgent,. However, Carole Andre has just turned up so it may get better although her appearance has been followed by a tedious song and dance number in Italian. The Tricky Dicky movie I didn’t find that bad.