New York-based librarian Chris Poggiali's expansive collection of martial arts posters tells an alternative history of kung fu films.
There's an amazing poster tagline for The Dragon's Fatal Fist that says, "New York's got Harlem, but no ghetto in America can compare to the rat-hole slums of Shanghai." Did distributors often try to localise the film's marketing like that? That was a tip of the hat to the porn movie Deep Throat, as that film had become a sensation that year. They tried to cash in on two different fads - pornography and martial arts - with one movie!
Yes, Corman had a sex scene filmed for The Water Margin . He requested that Shaw Brothers filmed a scene with some nudity. It was an R-rated scene which featured topless girls, and that footage went into the trailer. A couple of years later, when ninja films were popular, it was re-released as Snake Fist Versus Ninja. So it was the same movie with two deceptive titles!