Patchwork Memories

The design brief for this project was an outer slipcase box, two double-sided inlays, disc art and booklet designs for a ten-film compilation from the extrememly prolific Shaw Brothers filmmaker CHANG CHEH. Oh, and come up with a title for it. 

As is typical of my working method, my first intention is to for the outer packaging to reflect the tone and feeling of it's contents. And to me, this patchwork collection of pathwork films reminded me of my early days rummaging around the dusty old shelves of Chinese video rental shops in somewhat seedy parts of town. As I've chronicled previously, this lead me to spend so much time in one particular shop in suburban Maryland, VIDEO CITY, that I eventually married the owner. Now our store is long gone, but the wife (and hundreds of VHS tapes I couldn't part with) remain. 

But something about this Chang Cheh collection triggered a memory from the old video store. My wife would constantly get new Hong Kong movie posters with every shipment of tapes. She'd put up some new ones, and take down soem old ones. And what did she do with the old posters? Well, grab a seat HK movie collectors and take a deep breath... she would CUT THEM UP INTO LITTLE SQUARES and use the reverse blank side as scrap notepaper on the counter for customers to use to scribble on when communicating in Mandarin, Cantonese or even broken English. As a matter of fact I still have some cherished "squares" of a ROBOTRIX poster somewhere. I eventually stopped her from doing that for the most part, and bought her a notepad. But these discarded, faded and torn old poster scraps somehow informed my visual approach to this package. The movies are old so. The package should remind buyers of the excitement we felt digging through those forgotten shelves discovering an old movie that you'd never seen, featuring a faded photo of one of your Martial Arts heroes. Our hearts beat like finding lost gold. So, from the distressed background to the photo collage to the "carved colossus" title treatment. Even the tarnished copper metal corners which are taken from an old Chinese jewlery box I own. It's all meant to evoke those old patchwork memories for fans of these films. While still presenting them with a clarity that was impossible outside a theater. We are living in a golden age for physical media collectors. But for how much longer is anyone's guess.

FURIOUS SWORDS AND FANTASTIC WARRIORS: THE HEROIC CINEMA OF CHANG CHEH.             

The two inlays are designed to be placed side by side making a diptych. 

The turquoise tone was a color I haven't used much in my designs lately and it made me think "old". I felt this was the appropriate time for its return. The circular stickers are the type of thing my wife would apply to the tapes to indicate if it has Mando or Canto dialogue, so I wanted to include an homage. 

And my book cover design also has that "UV-damaged from months in an old shop window" appeal... and is more than ready for my wife to rip into small pieces. (Damn it honey, that was Jackie Chan!) 

Next time.... I revisit my old favorite film. Can you guess?

Let Them BASH

Another 1970s Hong Kong basher, this time SHAOLIN BOXERS starring journeyman actor James Tien, gets restored for Blu-ray. As a fan of Jackie Chan's golden age films, it was nice to spot Mars in a small early role. He would later go on to have more prominent parts in many Chan classics, as well as doubling Jackie for certain shots. 

My artwork takes its cue from the original HK poster, included on the inlay sleeve, which also prominently features green tones.  

The booklet cover, featuring the martial arts tournament trophy seen in the film, repeats the visual style I've used for a series of similar films.

Hang in there folks.

SPIES AND LIES

 

This Blu-ray packaging design project provided me a fun opportunity to explore mid-to-late 60s spy movie visual asthetics. This three-film collection of Shaw Brothers modern actioners is full of clever characters, glamorous gals, groovy gadgets, furious fisticuffs, and of course, outragiously "sixties" set designs. That's what makes them so fun to watch.   

For this triple feature, SUPER SPIES AND SECRET LIES (which includes THE GOLDEN BUDDHA, ANGEL WITH THE IRON FISTS, and THE SINGING THIEF) I split the real estate vertically and contained the actor's inside "surfboard" ovals with various related iconography breaking the borders. Since I went with a consistant "themed" color palette, I decided to make the art grayscale to achieve a more cohesive overall appearance. I also added some weathered aging and a psychodelic font treatment to help sell the time period. 

For the booklet cover I simplified it down to the various MacGuffin iconography representing each film.

The James Bond movie series was a pop culture phenomenon all over the world. With the craze perhaps reaching it's boiling point in 1966. But the ripples continued for a few years, with action "spy" films riding out the decade. With each culture adding their own local flavor. The Hong Kong filmmaking giant, Shaw Brothers, was no different. These 3 films certainly flaunt their cinematic inspiration proudly. But they are more than low budget copies of Her Magesty's most popular agent, they illustrate the tastes of the HK film audiences of the time. Less sex, more fist fights. Less WORLD DOMINATION, and more down-to-earth, localized stakes.

For cinema buffs, it's fun to spot the recognizable shooting locations. Two of the films included here were filmed on the Shaw Brothers Movietown lot in Sai Kung, without much effort to hide the fact. In ANGEL, our heroine rappels down the face of SHAW HOUSE (the iconic administrative building), while in THIEF, our protagonist has his climactic finale battle on the Shaw backlot amongst various standing, but dimly lit, martial arts film sets. 

Hey, whatever saved them a buck. But, I'm glad they did, because getting an "behind the cutain" glimpse into Shaw Movietown, however obscurred or lightly camouflaged, holds as much interest to me as anything they could've constructed for the film. Sadly, the glory days of Shaw's filmmaking dominance are long gone, and the site is due to be redeveloped into apartment flats.

Getting back to the packaging. I was under the mistaken impression it was to be a three-disc affair. So each film got it's own disc art and menu design. I don't think these were used in the final presentation. So here they are for posterity.

The disc art:

And the menus:

See you in 2025!

COPS OF FUTURE PASSED

 

Here's some Blu-ray cover art I did a couple years ago that I was starting to think might never get released. This title faced an extended delay as the distributor tried, ultimately in vain, to get a new higher quality HD scan of the original film elements. After two years, they finally decided to go ahead and do a very limited release of this 1993 goofy Wong Jing action comedy, FUTURE COPS. On the bright side, at least now there's an acceptible (if maybe not spectacular) HD version out there for fans. Yes, there ARE fans of this film. It's a bit broad for me personally. (And I often like broad humor.) And the cast is top tier. But for me, it just doesn't quite gel as a whole.

My brief from the client was to NOT raise the attention of CAPCOM's lawyers. The film has characters obviously inspired by the popular Japanese video game franchise, yet not officially licensed by CAPCOM. So my art should also not resemble the video game fighters too closely. The only "video game" reference is the old CRT monitor showing nothing but, appropriately enough, static. (Anybody else have a strange nostalgia for "tv screen snow"?) And the 8-bit font of the director's name. I leaned more into an anime style. It was a gamble, but the movie is a goofy mess, so I figured the art could be too. 

Actually this style of illustration more closely matches my normal, "comfort-zone" style (minus the manga-ish faces, which obviously is not my thing), than the painterly stuff I feel is expected of me for movie posters. As a young child I was heavily influenced by the artwork found in 60s-70s MAD Magazine. Early exposure to the work of Don Martin, Basil Wolverton, Jack Davis, Antonio Prohias and Sergio Aragonés boiled my brain, and certainly inspired my burgeoning imagination.

Side note: Recently, I was super lucky to catch the wonderful exhibition of original MAD MAGAZINE art and memorabilia at the Norman Rockwell Museum of Illustration located in his hometown of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The Rockwell stuff was great, of course, but man, feast your eyes on that Wally Wood original?! Glorious!

Anyway, I gave each character a background color matching their costume, bursting forth from manga panels with action lines, halftones and whatever else. Hopefully you get the idea, without it really looking like typical Street Fighter art at all. Mission... accomplished?

For the inside inlay I did another piece just for variety. I wasn't sure how much anyone would care for the cover art since it was a bit different. But I guess if you hate the cover, you'll hate the inside image too, since they intentionally share a common style. 

Surprisingly the film distributor included a double-sided poster with this release featuring BOTH art pieces. Yikes!

Next up... Would you believe... we put on our X-Rays specs, our tiny hidden cameras and our shoe phones (well maybe not the shoe phones, Chief) as we delve into the stylishly super groovy mid-sixties SPY MOVIE CRAZE.... via Hong Kong, no less.

Miracles Never Cease

This art was done for an over-the-top fantasy/martial arts double feature entitled TWO TOAIST TALES, which includes the films TAOSIM DRUNKARD (1984) and THE YOUNG TAOISM FIGHTER (1986). These are "loose" sequels to THE MIRACLE FIGHTERS (1982) created, for the most part, by the same team of filmmakers. Because of that, and since they are also very similar in theme and tone to that first film, I continued in the same art style I used for that film's presentation previously. 

Artistic inspiration can come from anywhere. Usually it just comes from watching the film and mixing that with a general understanding of the previous marketing done for the film and what poster styles were in vogue at the time of production. I try not to design something misleading with incongruous visuals. As a designer, it's fun to attempt to work in different styles from various decades and genres. That being said, in this case I remember seeing THIS image of what I think are toys. They might be CG renders, I don't know. But something about the composition struck me. So months later, when this project came across my desk, I had to design a slipcover which included elements from both films, my memory went back to that image of the toys/CG figures. 

 

Below is the result of that inspiration. (Maybe you have to squint to see it.) But, the inspiration is in there somewhere. I promise.  

Inside the Blu-ray packaging is my art for each individual film. Here's my cover art for TAOISM DRUNKARD. Yep, this is THE ONE with that chomping "banana" eating monster. Not real bananas, but... well, you'll just have to watch it yourself. It's nuts. (I think he'd eat those too, if you're not careful.)

The kung fu shenanigans continue in THE YOUNG TAOISM FIGHTER. Is someone fighting against Taosim? Shouldn't it be The Young Taoist Fighter? I watched it and I still can't remember what the heck was happening. So, what do I know. Anyway. There was a jiāngshī hopping zombie vampire at one point. And disembodied arms and legs flying around fighting some dude with a fanatical love for black mascara, complete with cartoon sound effects. Or my meds were out of balance again. Half the time, with these flicks, I can't tell which.

For the included booklet cover, I did a simple rendering of the reflexology hand map seen on a wall in one of the films. A respite from the above scenes of colorful chaos.

Next time... we go to the FUTURE, to go to the past.

Kicking and Scheming

This fun piece was inspired by the amazing (and quite prolific) Hong Kong illustrator, Yuen Tai-Yung. Considered "The Godfather of Hong Kong Movie Posters" as he worked on some of the most popular films made during their cinematic 'golden age' (1970s to 1990s). He's perhaps best known for his comedy posters for the Hui Brothers, as well as Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. These usually featured caricatured, exaggerated heads of the main cast in dynamic poses. Often against a simple white backdrop.

His orignal poster for the 1983 sports/action/comedy THE CHAMPIONS is one such example. In my updated version, I've continued that motif of the exaggerated head for Biao, with an added spash of color 'peeling' off his uniform. To, hopefully, give it more energy and excitement. The color-coded cast is lined up for battle (good guys in red, and bad guys in blue), matching the soccer/football jersey colors used in the film. All this is set against a diagonal slash of team colors, Yuen popping off against white, with faint magnified details of grass and sports jersey material.

I also included some chalk markings of mapped out 'play diagrams', which I have no clue if soccer coaches actually do. But, hey, if filled in negative spaces and drew the eye to my signature. Ha.

Next up.... MIRACLES never cease.

Tiger Man

 

This 1973 Hong Kong actioner shot in Japan, was intended to star Bruce Lee. But after his untimely death the lead role went to HK-Taiwanese martial artist Jimmy Wang Yu. And he gives a intensely crazed performance as the man driven to avenge his father's mysterious murder. Yes it's a who-killed-my-father-oh-YOU-killed-my-father-prepare-to-die flick.

For the A MAN CALLED TIGER blu-ray package I designed a fairly typical 70s style exploitative action thriller poster. Wang Yu conveys his prototypical facial expression used heavily throughout the film. (Usually the last thing his adversary sees before it's "lights out".)

Tiger imagery is common in my town, from the school mascot to the tiger sancuary down the road. So some sublte stripes and blazing bengal colors seemed a natural fit, even though Yu is the only true "animal" in the film.

Overall the design came off as sorta "sharp". Not so much in clarity, but more in angularity. I think it's due to the pointy achitecture and jagged bleeding text. Oddly enough, I can't recall ever seeing a cablecar in a movie unless their was a fight atop it. Certainly more often than not. 

For the booklet cover design, I went with simple silhouettes in bengal hues. An airborne Jimmy rages out center stage, surrounded on all sides by dead men who just don't know it yet. 

Next time, we take the action to the soccer field.