Lucky Seven (1986) + Lucky Seven 2 (1989)

Rating: B and B-

Dir: Chao Chen Kuo
Star: Pin Chin, Jung Fang, Yukari Oshima

[14] Which bit of The Toxic Avenger did you enjoy most? If you answered “the scene where the kid gets run over”, a) you’re obviously a sick puppy after my own heart, b) you’ve not got the British cut-to-shreds version and c) I’d heartily recommend these two martial arts films to you, as they feature a wonderful variety of child abuse. The plots are perfunctory – the first has a gang of children taking on jewel robbers, in the second they face kidnappers – but the staggering kid-fu will warm the heart of anyone who hs ever wanted to throttle a brat. How part one got a release here, I don’t know – if Esther ‘Teenage Suicide – Don’t Do It’ Rantzen saw it, she’d choke on her halo. While the sequel is not as nicely brutal, relying slightly more on childish (though funny) humour, it does have Oshima being bad.