Tag: h

The Huntresses

  By

★★★
“Charlie’s Korean, Medieval Angels”

During the Joseon era in Korea, a trio of bounty hunters, Jin-Ok (Ha Ji-Won), Hong-Dan (Gang Ye-Won) and Ga-Bi (Son Ga-In), work with their agent, Moo-Myung (Ko Chang-Seok), capturing wanted bandits. But they get a different task, after a King’s envoy carrying an encoded message is the latest courier to go missing, and are charged with bringing him in. Needless to say, it’s not a simple task, and they find themselves facing a host of players opposed to the King receiving the message, which would threaten the fragile relationship with the Chinese emperor. But there’s also a personal angle, as Jin-Ok finds herself face-to-face with the man she remembers as having killed her father.

Huntresses-Poster-5Huntresses-Poster-1Huntresses-Poster-4

Early on, it becomes abundantly clear that this is not intended to be taken entirely seriously, probably from the time one of the heroines whips out her yo-yo, and takes out an entire platoon of enemies, Sukeban Deka style. Indeed, it’s probably the comedic elements that work best, such as the constable who follows him around, convinced his camo skills will stop him being seen – in a rarity for the humour often seen in Eastern films, it’s a joke which could have been used more, rather than being driven into the ground as normal. However, it feels that this lack of seriousness was taken by the makers as a reason to slap together the story, which lurches from set-piece to set-piece without any sense of logic or narrative flow – and don’t even get me started on the whole “dramatic amnesia” suffered by Jin-Ok.

It’s also fairly obvious the actresses aren’t doing very much of their own action, putting them behind Drew Barrymore et al, and in another galaxy, far, far away, from the participants in another cinematic cousin, The Heroic Trio. Ha probably comes off the best of the three, but there’s an awful lot of scenes which consist largely of close-ups of the actresses flailing wildly, intercut with wide shots from behind of someone competent. However, it still passes the time easily, particularly after all the parties involved end up in the port city of Byeokrando – or, at least, a convincing CGI imitation thereof. This allows plenty of scope for some impressive bits of combat, regardless of who’s actually doing them, as well as exploding pagodas, and other chunks of mass destruction. It also helps that the performances are solid from just about everyone concerned, which shores up the flimsy constructs of the storyline.  I’m informed that the Korean title translates as “Three Beautiful Musketeers of Joseon,” and that’s probably an accurate an overall summary as the preceding 400 words.

Dir: Park Je-Hyun
Star: Ha Ji-Won, Gang Ye-Won, Son Ga-In, Ko Chang-Seok

How I Live Now

  By

★★★
“My Sweet Sixteen Teenage Armageddon.”

howilivenowThe extraordinarily surly teenager Elizabeth (Ronan), who loudly insists on being known by everyone as “Daisy,” is sent from American to spend the summer in rural Britain with relatives. Unsurprisingly, she hates it – at least, until she meets Eddie (MacKay), a local brooding hunk for whom she falls. Fate throws a spanner in the works, however, as escalating tensions eventually lead to a nuclear attack on London and the outbreak of World War 3, against an un-named foe. The kids try to fend for themselves, but the boys and girls are forcibly separated, with Daisy having to take care of young cousin Piper (Bird). Turning her willpower to topic other than, as she says, not eating chocolate, she and Piper escape the camp where they are being used as forced labour, and begin the hazardous trek back to where Daisy is sure Eddie is waiting.

The best thing here by far is the heroine’s character arc. In the first two minutes, it’s established what a totally unlikeable bitch Daisy is: she has clearly made up her mind to hate the trip and everything about it, and the audience hates her for the obvious narcissism. But by the end, she has been forged in the fire of adversity and completely transformed in just about all aspects of personality, to someone who has learned that it’s much better to live your life for others than for yourself. As Chris noted, it’d be funny if the whole thing had just been a set-up by her (unseen) father, just to teach his whiny daughter a good lesson. That isn’t the case: what it is, is another powerhouse performance by Ronan, backed by solid work from the rest of the young cast, particularly Piper, who could gives the likes of Abigail Breslin and Dakota Fanning a run for their money in the Adorability Stakes.

Probably the main weakness is the abruptness of the relationship between Daisy and Eddie. It probably needed more time taken to develop it, because as things stand, it seems Daisy falls head over heels for him at about the second glance. On the other hand, I’m quite glad it didn’t because it’s the kind of standard, young adult cliché which we’ve seen far too often before [this was based on a book from the genre by Meg Rosoff]. Much more satisfying is the second half, when Daisy is forced entirely into relying on her own skills, and becomes a much more interesting character as a result. Director Macdonald got his start in documentary film-making and brings much of the same urgency to proceedings here, not soft-pedalling the brutality and violence of armed conflict. Like a more contemporary version of The Hunger Games, it shows how inner strength can be found in the most surprising of places, and Ronan cements her position as one of the leading young action heroines in Hollywood.

Dir: Kevin Macdonald
Star: Saoirse Ronan, George MacKay, Harley Bird, Tom Holland

Hapkido

  By

★★★
“Forbearance. It’s vastly over-rated…”

lady_kung_fu_poster_011934 Korea is under the yoke of Japanese occupation. At the hapkido school of martial arts, Yu Ying (Mao), Kao Chang (Wong) and Fan Wei (Hung) are learning the form. On graduation, they return to China and open an establishment of their own, only to fall foul of the Japanese Black Bear group, who bully both local residents and other schools, and try to run the hapkido practitioners out of town. Despite their teacher’s mantra of “Forbearance,” of which Ying has frequently to remind her colleagues, hot-headed Wei is eventually baited into fighting and killing some of the Black Bear students, and has to go into hiding. Chang’s efforts at diplomacy fare no better, leaving him beaten within an inch of his life, and the Bears seize the opportunity to tell Ying they’ll be incorporating her school into theirs. She finally realizes that turning the other cheek can only go so far before you have stand up for what’s right. Which, in this case, is some kicking of asses belong to the Japanese and their minions.

The film certainly loses points for obviously cloning Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury, also released in 1972 and similarly based on a conflict between Japanese and Chinese martial arts schools. The strong anti-Japanese sentiment is no less shrill and strident here, and the style adopted for the fights is also largely similar, with one or other of our hero(in)es taking on a large group of rival students, before finally battling the big boss (or The Big Boss, if you prefer…).  Still, this is remarkable for the future output of those involved in the film. As well as being an early entry in the careers of Mao, Wong and Hung, there are minor roles for Billy Chan, Lam Ching-Ying (Mr. Vampire), Yuen Biao, Corey Yuen (director of Yes, Madam, She Shoots Straight and DOA: Dead or Alive) and Jackie Chan, who plays one of the Black Bear students.

But it’s mainly a showcase for the leads, and the action demonstrates why they’d all go on, to varying extents, and become stars in their own right. Mao is, obviously, of most interest here. After an early demonstration in Korea, which shows her as the smartest and sharpest of the trio, she largely takes a back seat in the middle, trying to keep the peace and practice that whole “forbearance” thing, before exploding into action again at the end. Particularly cool is the use of her weighted braids as a weapon, to whip her opponent about the face – you never saw Bruce Lee do that! And this is probably what defines the film. When it’s trying to be no more than a Lee-mitator, it comes off as second best, for obvious reasons. However, when the creators go their own way, it’s inventive and much more entertaining as a result. Shame the ratio isn’t tilted more heavily towards the latter.

Dir: Huang Feng
Star: Angela Mao, Carter Wong, Sammo Hung, Bai Ying
a.k.a. Lady Kung Fu

Her Vengeance

  By

★★★
“Revenge, with extra sleaze.”

hervengeanceDirector Lam is responsible for insane cult classic, The Story of Ricky, and if this is more restrained, it’s only by comparison. Casino manager Chieh Ying (Wong) is gang-raped by five sleazebags – and, wouldn’t you know it, they’re the same guys who killed her father. Worse is to come, as a trip to the doctor reveals a rather nasty case of venereal disease, and after some melancholic wandering around which occupies the rest of the first half (and, to be frank, is rather boring), our heroine gets tore into the villains, extracting the titular payback. Though you know the old saying, “She who seeks vengeance, must first dig two graves”? That’s a severe understatement here, because this roaring rampage will end needing an entire cemetery, costing Chieh Ying almost everybody she cares about, from her uncle, a wheelchair bound kung-fu wizard (Lam, best known for the Mr. Vampire series), to her wannabe boyfriend (Wong).

Once things kick off, this is impressive, and it’s clear that Lam does not give a damn about any kind of political correctness. The performances are (surprisingly?) decent, with Wong suitably angsty, and the villains entirely hissable, though their apparent inability to recognize her certainly defies explanation – I’ve never raped anyone, but if I did, think I would likely remember what they looked like. Lam is his usual great self, demonstrating some amazing moves as a crippled master, at one point whipping one of the wheels off his chair, and hurling it at an assailant. The main problem is poor pacing, to such an extent that it feels almost like two separate films, spliced together – and as we’ll see, that is indeed the case in some ways. The film gets credit for not hanging around, and gets the rape out of the way with admirable speed. However, things then grind to a halt for a good 30 minutes, Chieh Ying moping around from Macao to Hong Kong and back again, before eventually getting a job in her uncle’s bar. Your attention may drift away considerably during this spell.

Fortunately, things recover significantly when she starts taking out the trash, with a wicked combination of blades, acid and curtains constructed of fish hooks (!). And that’s not mentioning the F-sized crossbow she and her uncle construct: the poster isn’t quite accurate in the details, but does give you an idea. There’s a wonderfully bleak approach here: while Chieh Ying may get the retribution she has been craving, does it really help? Is she any happier as a result? I sincerely doubt it. If damaged by its unevenness, this remains a good example of “they don’t make ’em like this any more,” as far as Hong Kong cinema is concerned.

Dir: Ngai Kai Lam
Star: Pauline Wong, Ching-Ying Lam, Elaine Jin, Kelvin Wong

Note: there have been a couple of versions of this officially released: one with all the sex and violence, and another where that was cut, but containing other scenes that actually resulted in a longer running-time, by several minutes. Some enterprising individual took it upon themselves to splice the two together, and that’s the version reviewed here.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

  By

★★★½
“Still not as good as the book.”

catchingfire2It took a little way into 2014 for it to get there, but Catching Fire overtook Iron Man 3 to become the biggest-grossing film in the US, released in 2013. What’s particularly stunning about that is, it’s the first #1 film for a year, with an woman as the unequivocal lead, in four decades. And depending on how you view Linda Blair in The Exorcist, you might have to go back even further, to Babs Streisand in 1968’s Funny Girl. It indicates just how far this series has redrawn the playing field: there can no longer be any credible claim, as heard after the failures of Catwoman, Aeon Flux, Cutthroat Island, etc. that action heroines are, per se, box-office poison.

I was really looking forward to this, too, having enjoyed the second book more than the first, and with the reviews for the cinematic part two also an uptick better. And… S’alright, I suppose. Though that’s a bit unfair: it’s mostly disappointing only in relation to my increased expectations. On any other level, this is very solid cinema, with Lawrence continuing to provide a steely, resourceful heroine who breaks the mould. But I’m still finding myself on the outside, looking in – observing Katniss, rather than feeling for her. If there’s an emotional heart here, it hasn’t been beating in synch with my own; when this ended, I turned it off, went to bed and forgot all about it.

There were a couple of ways in which it felt deficient to the book, even though it’s still an extremely faithful adaptation, with virtually every incident being reproduced, in a way not far off how my mind’s eye saw them. “Virtually” might be important there. Even at 146 minutes, I got the feeling some key elements were watered down. For instance, the film doesn’t do a good job of explaining why Katniss decides that Peeta must survive at all costs. In the book, it’s clear that it’s because she believes only he can lead a rebellion, with her role being to make sure he lives to do so. Of course, the Peeta in these films doesn’t exactly come over as a teenage Martin Luther King or Gandhi: he seems there more as a cuddle-buddy for Katniss, when Gale isn’t around [thankfully, that love triangle seems pushed further into the background this time around].

HGCF_KATNISS_75J_PLAK_D_CMYK_300_A4.inddThe same sense of dilution goes for both the attacks and their results in the film version, with neither packing much wallop. A number of Katniss’s friends and allies are killed in this one, but none have as much punch as their most obvious counterpart in the first part [name omitted, just in case anyone reading this hasn’t seen or read it!]. Finally, and to some extent contradicting what I said in the opening paragraph, our heroine isn’t less the focus here, as she was in the first film, where she all but flew solo in the Games. Again, it plays differently from the book, whose first-person narration ensures that Katniss is put squarely front and centre: this entry feels more like The Expendables, with a team-based approach to the process. To some extent, this does make sense, however: one of the themes here, is the ripple effect of Katniss’s victory and how things are not longer just about her survival. The gradual realization that this is now much larger, plays a major part in the lead-up to the Quarter Quell.

Which brings me to the things the film does well, because the set-up, as Katniss and Peeta go on their “victory tour” of all the districts, is quite exquisite. Right from the first stop, where a supposedly celebratory rally ends up diverting far from what the authorities want, after the couple abandon their bland, pre-prepared speeches, you get a real sense of rising revolt. What also comes across well, is the sense of large-scale discontent, even among the power elite in the capital: witness the reaction to Peeta’s (fake) announcement of Katniss’s pregnancy, or the costume designed for her, which contains a none too subtle reference to the rebellion (and for which its designer pays the price). As a work of political subversion, this is far superior to the likes of V for Vendetta, and the dystopia depicted, in all its brutal coercion, is undeniably chilling.

It does suffer somewhat from “second film syndrome,” though stands alone much better than, say, The Desolation of Smaug. Proceedings end on the same cliffhanger as the book: while Katniss was fighting for survival, the powers that be were taking care of business elsewhere. I haven’t read the third volume yet, and am torn between doing so before I see the next film or after it. Complicating matters, the last book, Mockingjay, will be pulling a Harry Potter or Twilight, and becoming two films, to be released in November 2014 and 2015. I’m a bit dubious: the book is barely half the length of either of those volumes, and we’ve seen with The Hobbit, what can happen when material is stretched too thinly. Against that, due to its first-person narrative, the book is likely much more limited in its ability to depict the obviously impending global revolution, and one imagines this will be expanded upon in the two parts of Mockingjay.

One thing seems little in doubt. By the time the series in finished, Lawrence will have the number one, two, three and four box-office hits in action heroine history, and may even have the first billion-dollar global entry. That can only be applauded.

Dir: Francis Lawrence
Star: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Sam Claflin, Woody Harrelson

"By the time the series in finished, Lawrence will have the number one, two, three and four box-office hits in action heroine history, and may even have the first billion-dollar global entry. That can only be applauded."

High Kickers

  By

★½
“Desperately in need of more kick.”

highkickersHanging on the wall of the training gym in this film, is a banner on which is written in large letters: “WTF”. I imagine this is probably supposed to stand for “World Taekwondo Federation”, but it’s an unfortunate acronym for any organization. Says quite a bit that this is perhaps the most memorable thing, in what is not far from a Chinese knock-off of one of the more forgettable American martial-arts flicks of the 80’s, Best of the Best. Lingling (Huang) shows up one day at a failing taekwondo school run by Zhao Yumin (Liu), and asks to be trained for the national championships, even though she’s never fought before. Zhao sets her an impossible challenge, but when Lingling succeeds, is forced to take her on. As the rest of the film unfolds, we discover why the gym is failing – a former pupil died in a previous championship bout against the cockily brutal Gao Zhi (Cheng) – and also the reason for LingLing’s sudden interest in martial arts. If you’ve seen Best, you’ll probably be there already.

To give you some idea of how generally lame this is, the “impossible challenge” set for the heroine is… to go to a railway station and buy a ticket. We’re given no idea of why this is supposedly such a feat, because we don’t get to see any of it. Maybe it’s surrounded by a pit of crocodiles or something. Huang is also pretty unconvincing, with arms like twigs: before her climactic battle, we get to see her in one bout, which she wins with a gimmick move, so the viewer is never given any reason to feel that she has a realistic chance against Gao. That’s especially the case, after the only martial arts worthy of note, which is when he comes to the gym and basically demolishes an entire platoon of trainees.

The rest of the time is little more than a parade of martial-arts clichés, with Xie far too over-fond of the training montage as a cinematic device. Admittedly, my school of thought says “once” is about the limit, and you’d better have a good reason for doing it that often. Still, it’s in line with the other aspects: the characters are uninteresting, performances nothing special and, with the sole exception noted above, the fight sequences do little to generate excitement or interest. I note that the film is conveniently missing from Gordon Liu’s filmography on the IMDb: if I were in his shoes, I’d probably hope it stays that way.

Dir: Xie Yi
Star: Eva Huang, Gordon Liu, Mark Cheng, Daniel Chan

Hannie Caulder

  By

★★★½
“Iconic imagery, but not really too convincing a heroine. “

If genre entries produced in Italy are “spaghetti Westerns”, what does that make those produced in Britain? “Fish and chip Westerns?” “Roast beef Westerns?” Shot in Spain, but made by Tigon Film, and including such quintessential Brits as Christopher Lee and Diana Dors in supporting roles, this is nicely-photographed and hits all the right notes. But as the titular character, who seeks revenge after her husband is gunned down, and she herself raped, by the Clemens brothers, Welch perhaps has too much cinematic baggage. While responsible for one of the all-time absolute classic images of the genre, it’s an association which leaves the viewer struggling to look at the heroine without seeing fur bikinis or even Fathom, rather than a widow, hellbent on and dedicated to vengeance with an almost psychotic obsession and lack of self-concern.

Still, there is plenty to enjoy, not least Culp as the bounty hunter who, reluctantly, agrees to take Caulder under his wing, largely realizing that she’s going to get herself killed otherwise. He delivers exactly the right air of world-weary wisdom, and Hannie’s training is covered in enough depth, and with enough bumps in the road, to be credible. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the Clemens (Borgnine, Martin and Jack Elam): for some reason, they are portrayed almost as comedic jesters or harmless buffoons, characters in great contrast to the vicious rapists and killers we first see. It’s an odd combination, that doesn’t work. Much better used is Lee, as a gunsmith who has retired to Mexico to raise rug-rats, and it’s there Caulder’s mettle is first tested.

I did suspect that she wouldn’t be able to complete her mission without significant male help – this was made in 1971, after all. I was somewhat right, but only somewhat. The ending is both fairly satisfying, in that it avoids the obvious get-out in this direction, but also unsatisfying, in that it merely replaces it with a different one, which is likely too much of a deus ex machina to be acceptable. However, there’s no denying Welch’s credentials as a screen icon, and if this could never be called a classic of the genre, there’s enough here that does work, to make this more than an acceptable entry in the field. Even if one which, thanks to its Anglo origins, perhaps would be best accompanied by a nice cup of tea.

Dir: Burt Kennedy
Star: Raquel Welch, Robert Culp, Ernest Borgnine, Strother Martin

High School Girl Rika: Zombie Hunter

  By

★★½
“High School Girl? Check. Zombies? Check. Hunting? Not so much.”

Rika (Kudo) and her schoolgirl pal ditch education for a day and head off to a remote village to check up on her grandfather, who hasn’t been heard from for a while. But as soon as they arrive, the pair come under attack by zombies, initially spawned as the result of a euthanasia drug being tried out by the Japanese government to address the whole “inverse pyramid” thing. They do reach Grandpa’s house, but find him in the stages of advanced Alzheimer’s – at least, until Rika is bitten. Gramps removes the limb, and replaces it with one conveniently lying around, which happens to belong to a master zombie hunter. Who cares if it’s the wrong colour and incredibly muscular? With America preparing a Return of the Living Dead style cleansing operation on the area, Rika and her allies have to locate the King Zombie and kill him, before being reduced to their constituent atoms.

There are a couple of nice ideas here, so let’s get those out of the way first. The master hunter is an amusingly male version of the Onechanbara heroine, both in the cowboy hat and otherwise scanty clothing. And I liked the fact there is actually an intelligent, polite zombie thrown into the mix, who retains his fondness for humanity (or does he? For he’s still a bit bitey…). However, it’s the best part of an hour before anything approaching the title is seen, by the time Rika loses her arm, gets her new one and comes to terms with the new, strong urges to swing a sharp sword in the direction of anything lacking a pulse. When it does…it’s really no great shakes either, and the action aspects of this are absolutely no match for the likes of Machine Girl or Hard Revenge Milly.

This is, however, operating in a rather different genre, as you’d expect from the makers of the catchily-titled Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers, which occupies an uneasy middle-ground between horror and soft-porn. This is mostly horror, occasionally comedy (the Three Stooges who are also roaming the town could have taken their comic mugging and left, without doing the film the slightest damage), and the action is some way back, likely less important than the “let’s all compare our breast sizes” scene. I’m certainly not averse to horror, and on that basis, given its low-budget, it’s a harmless time-passer. But given the title, I’d have liked to see Rika do an awful lot more actual hunting of the zombies.

Dir: Kenichi Fujiwara
Star: Risa Kudo, Takeshi Yamamoto, Mai Minami, Tsugumi Nagasawa

Hoodrats 2: Hoodrat Warriors

  By

★½
“And no: neither of the actresses on the cover actually star in the film, as far as I can tell.”

When Chino (Rodil) beats up his woman, Lucia (Sparagna) decides it has happened for the last time, and accompanied by her two friends, Celia (Mortel) and Miriam (Cho), she gives him a dose of his own medicine, with a baseball bat. This turns out to be a clear case of thinking without acting, because it turns out he’s a big kahuna in one of the local gangs, and is now out for revenge on the trio. After a drive-by cripples their vehicle (a ghettomobile with the amusing personalized plate, ‘ICUHATN’), they are stuck deep in enemy territory, with a lot of unfriendly people looking for them. And even if they make it out alive, what then?

I like the idea a lot: it could have become a Latina take on The Warriors, an urban nightmare journey pitting the heroines against a range of city low-lives, as they battle their way back across Los Angeles. And, perhaps surprisingly, the acting is not terrible: I was expecting something sub-amateur, but the three ladies are competent, and Rodil is actually more than adequately unpleasant as the villain. Arellano knows where to point the camera too – and, as an aside, you do not appear to need any knowledge of his previous Hoodrats. Two things, however, undo all the positives, and send this heavily into the red.

Firstly, the script is really badly written, with any number of scenes that outstay their welcome or are simply unnecessary. I’ll describe a couple of the worst offenders. Late on, two of the women are captured; the third just wanders off, bumps into a complete stranger and has an irrelevant conversation, resulting in her grooving out to some tunes. What? That, however, is a masterpiece compared to the scene where they seek help from the local king pimp, the inexplicably-British Baron of New Orleans. He looks like Simon Pegg, sounds (dubbed?) like Russell Brand, and must have been an investor in the film, because there is absolutely no justification for the seemingly endless minutes of screen time allocated to his vapid burblings.

The other problem is the fights, which are largely predictable, uninteresting and completely fail to be hard-hitting. For instance, the enemies met by the three women as they head home, are inevitably…three women, and the sluggish cartwheel move Lucia uses, apparently inspired by capoeira, doesn’t improve with repetition. I’ve seen films where my attention drifts away, except during the action scenes: here, however, it drifted away more during the action. It builds to a finale in what could well be a school gym, that is ludicrous in its implausibility, though is a fitting end to an inept work.

Dir: Edgar Arellano
Star: June Marie Sparagna, Donnabella Mortel, Arden Cho, Neal ‘Xingu’ Rodil

Hell’s Fury: Wanted Dead or Alive

  By

★½
“There’s nothing like a good Western. And this is nothing like a good Western.”

Eryn Cates (Hague) returns home to Texas from finishing school in New York, to find her family farm teetering on the edge of foreclosure [maybe if they hadn’t spent all that money to send her to finishing school in New York…]. In a misguided attempt to help things, her brother tries to rob a stagecoach carrying payroll, but is injured. The attempt fails, but local mogul Mortimer (Harris), who holds the loan on the Cates farm, sees a chance and pockets the loot. Two Texas Rangers, including the young and handsome Flint (Hagenbuch) show up to investigate the robbery, but it’s up to Eryn to save the family property, take on the mantle of the bandit, fend off the unwanted advances of Mortimer and engage in pseudo-romantic banter of the least interesting or convincing sort with Flint.

It’s not very good, and the problems start right from the format: it was shot on low-definition video, which gives everything a harsh, modern look that really doesn’t suit the genre. Hague is equally unsuited for the role, and never succeeds in putting across any significant degree of emotion. And quite why there’s a kung-fu master in an early scene, I have no idea: he crops up once, and then is never seen again. It’s not as if Eryn exactly wields nunchakus against Mortimer’s minions. There are some cheap laughs to be had, not least the town dance where the band appear to play the same eight bars of The Streets of Laredo for six minutes straight, but most of this is just terribly pedestrian.

The DVD cover blurb claims, “The Quick and the Dead tips its cowboy hat to True Grit in this action packed Western gun battle.” Hmm. The tubes of the Internet deny any such phrase, though since Independent Film Quarterly [or “Quartly”, as the blurb has it] appears to be that endangered species, a print magazine, we can’t definitively claim fabrication here. What I can say with certainty, is that the apparent provider of the quote, Stuart Alson, has crafted a far greater work of fiction in that single sentence, than anything the writers here manage to conjure up in their 72, almost entirely tedious minutes.

Dir: Alan Chan
Star: Hannah Hague, Adam Hagenbuch, Ron E. Harris, Richard L. Olsen