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Summary: The Only Worthy Film Of The Series
Comment: If you've read my review of "The Deadly Dust", then you saw where I made mention to this film as the only other good one of the series. The Chinese Web, known as The Dragon's Challenge overseas, was the only other one that even came close to how Spider-Man was in the comics! We see the clash of conscious with Peter Parker when he's called a coward for running out on the girl's uncle when in reality, he was changing to Spider-Man to stop the criminals. Still, this was the closest we came to seeing Peter Parker as he was in the comics, always mulling over the consequences of his actions. We also see a bit of a blooming romance between Peter and the chinese woman, especially when she finds out that he's Spidey and not the pasifist coward that she thought he was.Overall, it was the strongest episode other than Deadly Dust. Individual episodes I would recommend are Night Of The Clones (especially for Spidey die-hards who long for some similarity to the comics), A Matter Of State, A Photo Finish and Escort To Danger. Other than those, I'd go with Deadly Dust and this one.
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Summary: Superheroics....'70's Style!
Comment: I first saw this in 1978 on CBS at the tender age of 8! I thought is was great at the time & there's a certain amount of nostalgia when I watch it now.However, in light of more recent comic-books adapted to movies, especially (obviously) the NEW Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, & Willem Dafoe, directed by Sam Raimi, this (dated) made for tv movie probably will disappoint more recent (& younger) fans.
First some background on this movie. Marvel Comics had struck a deal with CBS Studios back in the mid-'70's to bring their heroes to the small screen. Of course, everyone remembers The Incredible Hulk, with Bill Bixby. That was a regular, weekly series. But the deal I'm writing about concerned Captain-America, Doctor Strange, & of course, Spider-Man (which was the first of the adaptations.) These three characters were shown on tv specials, that would air maybe every month or so. They weren't television series in the conventional sense (they weren't shown every week), but they were shown regularly enough (monthly or so) to garner decent ratings. However, when watching these shows, one gets the sense that the tv producers didn't really care about the characters the way today's movie producers of movie-comics adaptations do. For one thing, they took liberties with both the origins & (most disappointingly) the costumes! (Spider-Man was the only character that looked like he did in the comics. Captain-America didn't fare so well. He had a motor-cycle helmet instead of a mask!) None of the super-villains of the comics are there & their individual personality traits, well developed by the comic's writers, are pretty much devoid in the tv adaptations.
When watching The Chinese-Web, you're basically getting a straight police-story, with the only difference being that the "cop" of the show wears red & blue tights & crawls up walls!
The plot concerns an American steel-magnate living in Hong-Kong, plotting the murder of a Chinese industrial-official so that the official's successor, who favors the magnate, will approve the magnate's opening up of a steel-mill in China. There's a minor love-interest, the official's daughter, played by Rosalind Chao, who thinks Parker is a coward for "running out" when baddies try to kidnap her father (so he can become Spider-Man) & there's loads of martial-arts action scenes (remember, it's Hong-Kong!) The soap-operish life of Peter Parker, his faults & foibles, portrayed in the comics, re-created with affection by the film-makers of the current movie, is non-existent in this & every installment of the Spider-Man TV Specials. Even J. Jonah Jameson, who uses his newpaper to destroy Spider-Man in the comics & in the new movie, is pretty much straight in these tv specials. He's NOT outrageously spiteful, hypocritical, or even grouchy! The tv Jameson, unlike the current Jameson of the movie or the Jameson of the comic-book, is more like Super-Man's "Perry White." He's almost likeable....which is not how he's supposed to be.
But...that's the way they did it in the '70's! As a matter of fact, that's the way they did it until 1989's Batman came out. That's when real comic-book fans became film-makers & decided to bring their heroes to life, accurately!
The Chinese-Web is still fun to watch, though. The action moves along brisquely, the fight-scenes for this episode (and for all of them, for that matter) are well-staged, Nicholas Hammond in the lead is likeable as Peter Parker, and best of all, that sound-track! Who can forget it? (The musical soundtrack/theme song is really catchy! It's a spider-disco instrumental. It's about as good as the '60's cartoon show theme of Spider-Man was.) Die-hard fans of the comic-book character will want to see this, if only for reference purposes. Young adults who remember the CBS Marvel Specials when they were kids will also like this show. However, I wouldn't recommend it to younger Spidey fans. They, the teens & twenty-somethings who have grown up with computer-generated special-effects, complex character development, & topical story-lines, will probably find this straight-ahead rendition of Spider-Man a bit out-dated.
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Summary: It was awesome (when I saw it on TV 17 years ago)
Comment: I remember seeing it on one of the UHF stations in the Boston area growing up. I think it was really good. Don't remember much, though. Anyway, if this was available I'd blow the $10 and buy it just for the heck of it. I'd probably laugh at it now, just like I did when I bought "The Black Hole", another movie I liked a lot when I was a kid & threw in my online shopping cart after drinking a gallon of beer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's an okay movie for an average fan
Comment: As it says in my title, It's an okay movie for an average fan. I brought it from an Small Movie Rental Store that was selling movies of little interest to the public. I watched it and it was like the reruns on TBS, just a little longer and it takes place mostly in Hong Kong when it was a British Coloney (with some phrases spoken in Chinese) Peter, A girl and an Ex-Marine must go to Hong Kong to clear the girl's uncle's name from a murder after WWII. But danger lurks in Hong Kong, and It's up to Spider-Man to save them. I'd like to tell you more, but it'd spoil the 'movie'
