Enter the Beaver: Lee Demarbre and the debut of Can-Fu

TAKE ONE, June-Sept, 2004 by Patrick Lowe

"Anything done on 16 mm inspires me," Demarbre admits. "Italian zombie, Mexican wrestling films, none of that stuff was ever done on video. It's not right for the medium." Even other drawbacks, like the occasional hammy acting and cheesy makeup, enhance the film's deliberately tacky mise en scene invoking an even more authentic grindhouse flavour. Or as McSorley puts it, "Lee's inside the mask, he's not just constructing (it). Like the best of Paizs, it's done totally straight up. Original and completely derivative at the same time." Add this to ample blood-squirting, a song-and-dance number a la Andrew Lloyd Webber, plus a theme song, "Everybody Gets Laid Tonight," which should've won a Genie, and the result is the most self-effacing Canuck camp since Chris Windsor's 1983 unheralded Big Meat Eater. A worthy entry in the annals of "Canuxploitation," writer Paul Corupe's term for our national schlock.

In this light, it's tempting to see Lee Demarbre as Canada's answer to Quentin Tarantino or Kevin Smith: a fast talking video-store cineaste sincerely devoted to whatever is located at the bottom of the sell-out bin or East Asian section. The problem is, however, as even Demarbre admits, today everything from Starsky and Hutch to Kim Possible is a tip of the hat to 1970s Asian retro-homage, especially that other love letter to the grindhouse, Kill Bill, a film that may potentially overshadow Demarbre's future efforts. Not that he feels threatened. "I felt Tarantino made it for me," chuckles Demarbre. "I was so in love with every aspect of the movie even down to the end credits. But I find what goes into Harry Knuckles is very different than what inspired the Kill Bill movies. His films are spaghetti Western meets wire-stunts martial arts; mine are the Florida exploitation films of Herschell Gordon Lewis meets Italian horror meets Sammo Hung." In any case, Demarbre insists that what he does is not parody. "The Zucker brothers do parody. I make genre films. I don't parody the movies I love, [otherwise] I'd be making fun of them."

Discovering those very sources of inspiration happened only after Demarbre had finished his film studies at Carleton University in the mid-1990s. Still unsure what to tackle cinematically, he began visiting the Chinatown video stores where, in addition to the usual staple of Jackie Chan and John Woo, he found his own muse, Hong Kong auteur Sammo Hung Kam-Bo. ("He's the one who inspires me the most, or I let inspire.") Finding his spark, Demarbre sought out volunteers for his first film, little more than a collage of action scenes. To play the lead, he enlisted the short but charismatic Phil Caracas, manager of the Bytowne cinema, with Driscoll coming on-board to help write narration and flesh out the structure. The end result was Harry Knuckles (1998), a five-minute mock trailer. The collaboration continued the following year with Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy (1999), a half-hour adventure featuring Harry once again in what could be described as an Indiana Jones snack pack. This garnered further accolades, including the Spirit Award at Slamdance and a distribution deal with Troma Entertainment.