This year I’ll be attending Fantastic Fest in Austin as a reviewer/reporter/spy for Dangerous Minds. The festival which runs from September 23 thru the 30th is the largest genre film festival in the US. I plan to keep DM readers up-to-date on the latest in sci-fi, fantasy and horror films, including interviews with filmmakers and cast members.

Gallants is one of the films getting alot of pre-fest buzz. It looks like crazy fun.

Loser office boy, Cheung (Wong Yue-nam), is banished to one of Hong Kong’s rural backwaters to help greedy property developers kick a bunch of old timers out of a run down tea house. But this teahouse used to be a martial arts studio and its owners, Dragon (Chen Kuan-tai) and Tiger (Bruce Leung), are trying to keep the lights on until Master Law (Teddy Robin), wakes up from his 30-year coma and tells them what to do again.

Chen Kuan-tai was Shaw Brother’s most iconic leading man in the 70’s and Bruce Leung started his career as a Bruce Lee imitator before becoming a celebrated martial artist (he played “The Beast” in Stephen Chow’s KUNG FU HUSTLE). Teddy Robin is only four feet tall, but he’s a producer, an actor and the man who invented Chinese rock n’roll, even writing and performing the music for this film. Real-life gangster-turned-actor, Chan Wai-man plays the evil Master Poon; Lo Meng (aka Turbo Law) was one of the Five Deadly Venoms; and Susan Shaw, playing Dr. Fun, was a softcore sexpot back in the day. And with decades of experience behind them, these old pros own the screen.