Dir: Mario Caiano
Star: Chen Lee, Piero Lulli, Carla Romanelli, Klaus Kinski

Spaghetti Eastern? Noodle Western? I’m not quite sure what to call this combination of two genres, which probably counts as among the oddest mash-ups – quite saying something, in a decade that also gave us horror/kung-fu crossbreeds such as Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires. In this case, it’s a kung-fu Western, with the titular Joe (Lee), coming to the United States to make his fortune, only to find just about every American is a racist. He ends up innocently involved in a scheme to smuggle Mexicans across the border as slave labor, but when he witnesses a massacre, he realizes the truth, and embarks on a mission to take down the man responsible, Spencer (Lulli). Needless to say, Spencer is unimpressed, and hires a pack of thugs with names like ‘Pedro the Cannibal’ and ‘Scalper Jack’ (Kinski) to make sure Joe doesn’t interfere with operations.

This brings home one of the delights of Project Kinski. If it hadn’t been for Klaus’s presence – and he’s only in it for a few scenes, amounting to little more than a glorified cameo – I’d almost certainly never have bothered watching the little gem. Oh, don’t get me wrong: in conventional terms, this is not a “good” movie. Far from it. But if you’re not braying with laughter when the hero karate kicks an obviously stuffed bull’s head into unconsciousness, then you clearly do not share my sense of absurdist humor. Put it like this: if someone had sent me the script, I’d have been more than happy to show up and do a cameo, for the sheer lunacy of it. Maybe that’s why Kinski is in it, though I suspect it was more the usual financial inducement than the attraction of the surreal lunacy it contains.

Given the era, one suspects Chen Lee is trying to channel Bruce, though he actually looks more like a young (and pre-plastic surgery) Jackie Chan. I liked the way he was dubbed into impeccable English, almost BBC pronunciation – it really enhances how dickish the locals are being. Lee does have some decent moves, though any sense of reality is severely eroded by the obvious use of tricks like slightly off-screen trampolines and reverse footage. Were those ever convincing to an audience, even back in the seventies? The best bit, is probably where he pokes one of the killers in the eyes and yanks out the eyeballs.  The main problem is the stretching the film requires to get around the issue that kung-fu isn’t exactly bulletproof: with the exception of Kinski’s character, if the other killers sent after Joe behaved with moderate intelligence, the film would be over. As is, it’s only at the end, where he goes up against a colleague from the same school (or “boss level”), that there’s anything like a reasonably fair fight.

Kinski plays the penultimate boss, and is in the film for eight minutes, tops. He discovers Jack’s whereabouts after interrogating a doctor whom Joe called to tend to Cristina (Romanelli). the Mexican lady who has been helping him. As mentioned, Jack the Scalp Ripper is the only one to displaying some common sense, starting off by shooting Joe in both legs. He then terrorizes Cristina for a bit, draping the doctor’s scalp over a doll to ghoulishly effective result, it must be said, before setting his sights – and the portfolio of knives he keeps inside his coat – on the lovely senorita’s locks. Of course, Joe won’t stand for that kind of thing. Mostly because he was shot in both legs, remember? Hohoho! Let’s just say, it ends with Spencer receiving a gift that made me wonder if David Fincher, the director of Se7en, had seen this [I’m also fairly sure Quentin Tarantino has, since I was reminded more than once of Django Unchained – not for the first time in a spaKinski Western]

Despite my cynicism, and an amount of Kinski which belies the font size of his name on the sleeve, I was definitely entertained by this. It may be ludicrous – actually, there’s not much “may” to be found – and hardly counts as anything more than a Frankenstein’s monster of moviemaking, sewing together elements from different genres, regardless of their suitability or coherence. However, it’s certainly never dull, and makes up for in loopy inventiveness, what it lacks in more traditional cinematic qualities.