Man

The offering for my latest Festival of Bad Cinema on Friday night was "The Man From Hong Kong". It's an Australian/Hong Kong co-production made in 1974, and one could not ask for a movie that gives a more vivid, chilling portrayal of mid-70s Australia.

Fashion

If you play the skivvy* drinking game during this movie (ie see a skivvy, take a shot) you will be passed out on the floor before The Man from Hong Kong bags his first bimbo. I do like skivvies; I own two myself. But there's something to be said for not wearing a skin-tight white skivvy when you have pronounced manboobs. There's also something to be said for not wearing buttock-pinching bikini briefs under your tight white bellbottom slacks, thus generating VPL that can be seen from orbit. As for the ladies, apparently wearing a headscarf, enormous sunglasses and a trenchcoat in 1974 meant you were cool, rather than a chemotherapy patient on the run from the law.

Sex

In the mid-70s there was a golden window of opportunity for sleazy men everywhere, between the Sexual Revolution of the 60s and the "No Means No" of the 80s, wherein women were taught to say yes to casual sex, without being taught that they didn't have to. Apparently having standards, or even preferences, was a sign of bourgeois frigidity.

Interior Design

Personally I wouldn't recommend having an open fireplace in the centre of your penthouse apartment if you are going to decorate exclusively with lurid orange acrylic velour. The carpet could be burning and you wouldn't even be able to see it. It might also be unwise considering that you have a safe full of explosives next to the conversation pit.

Cars

Aerodynamics are for poofters.

Language

Saying 'man' a lot and never washing your hair makes you an edgy denizen of the streets.

Politics

Rebecca Gilling crashes her hang glider into The Man from Hong Kong's special forces training facility, then starts giving him grief about his imperialistic war machine and the oppression of the proletariat, while making insensitive race-based remarks. Then she has sex with him.

In short, this movie made me glad I grew up in the 80s. Big-shouldered suits win out over testicle-strangling jeans any day.

*Skivvy = Turtleneck