Tag: k

Karate Do

  By

★★½
“Do, a dear…”

Firstly, I’m not quite sure whether this is a movie or not. The IMDb lists it with a running time of 98 minutes, but Tubi had it as 4 x 25-minute episodes. I’m guessing the former is just a compilation of the latter, it works about the same either way. The title translates as “The way of the empty hand”, and the emphasis here is very much on the first part: the journey. The heroine is Nicki Wright (G. Niebauer), who has barely got out of rehab for alcohol problems, when she gets involved in a brawl, after seeing a woman being assaulted by a man. Her mother had had enough of dealing with Nicki’s taciturn BS, and dumps her on her father, Cliff (D. Niebauer).

Turns out Cliff was a bit of a karate bad-ass, and agrees to teach his estranged daughter the martial art. However, while Nicki wants simply to learn how to beat people up, Cliff insists on the process, beginning with the simplest of forms, and teaching her as much about the philosophy of karate, as the physical movements. He also introduces her to other martial arts, such as kendo, and Nicki (inevitably) begins to realize there is considerably more to the field than pure aggression. Inspired by her father’s teachings, she seeks to pass it on to high-school girls, so they can defend themselves. Her plan does not meet with unbridled enthusiasm by the local principal, shall we say. Meanwhile, her father finds himself in desperate need of cash, after his stock investments tank.

If you’re a fan of training montages – especially with voice-overs –  boy, is this the movie for you. Normally, that would be a severe problem, but as mentioned above, this is not a film about beating people up. It’s about the spiritual transition which can be obtained through rigourous physical training. As such, it’s likely among the most accurate martial-arts films I’ve ever seen, in the sense of being true to the central ethos and overall philosophy. There’s no rival school with which to duel. No climactic tournament. The biggest battle Nicki faces is with her inner demons, in the form of her alcoholism. You have to respect the film-makers’ adherence to their core beliefs.

That said… There’s a reason why most films introduce such artificial conflicts. Because, truth be told, “real” martial arts is pretty damn dull, as a viewing experience to the casual spectator. As depicted here, it has about the entertainment quotient of watching aerobics. Matters are not helped by the way this seemed to finish after four episodes without any of the threads being satisfactorily resolved. It feels like more were needed to address the story-lines, and the result was unsatisfactory. I did enjoy the familial feel here: I’m guessing Nicki and Cliff genuinely are father and daughter, or something similar, and their relationship is convincing. However, that is not enough to overcome an underwhelming lack of dramatic structure, and unless you’re a karate student yourself, I can’t honestly recommend this.

Dir: Jessie Topsi
Star: Gabrielle Niebauer, Dan Niebauer, Paris Moletti, Heather Alexander

Babysitter Must Die

  By

★★★½
“The babysitter, murders”

Josie (Scott) is a babysitter, though her real interest is her work as a leader in the Girl Guide-like “Mustard Seed” summer camp. In this she mentors young girls, and accumulates some nifty skills of her own. This is relevant, due to her current situation.  She’s taking care of Sophie (Hazen), the youngest daughter of the Castillo family. The father is a rich music mogul, and they live in a remote mansion, deep in the Utah mountains. The family come back early, but before Josie can leave – she’s playing hide and seek with Sophie – there’s a home invasion by three people, under the leadership of The Woman (Yeaman). They’re no regular burglars, but members of a Satanic cult, intent on retrieving artifacts hidden in the house by its previous owners. These can then be used to sacrifice the inhabitants, and open a portal for… something not very nice to enter our world. 

It’s quickly made clear that the new arrivals have no problems with killing anyone who attempts to interfere with their mission. But they don’t initially know about Josie’s presence. You can probably work out how the rest of the movie goes from there – and you’ll be more or less right. Josie gets caught, escapes and taps into her inner warrioress, to ensure at least Sophie survives the night. She picks off the intruders, one by one, before eventually facing off against The Woman. 

While there’s not an enormous amount new or special in the execution, there are enough wrinkles to lift this above average for the “home invasion” sub-genre. Firstly the heroine is unusual enough to be interesting. She’s a quiet, understated type, who’d rather spend the night babysitting, than go to a party with her friends. Her background in the Mustard Seeds provides a justification for some of her abilities, though it’s an angle I’d like to have seen used more. Maybe, given the Christmas setting,  thrown in some Home Alone-style improvised defenses? The other main strength is the antagonist being a woman too, and Yeaman delivers the necessary level of intensity to pull off the role. The apocalyptic motivation is also a fresh one, and there’s enough background dropped in over the course of proceedings, to give this more depth than “because cultists”.

There are some holes in the plot. For example, at one point when Josie is fighting one of the cultists, things get a bit noisy – but the other two seem completely oblivious. There are also points where Josie’s actions seem illogical, or at least where her motivation is unclear. However, Glass keeps things moving forward with sufficient energy to overcome any issues. Credit is also due to cinematographer Neil Fernandez, who does a good job of capturing the isolation, from the opening shot as Josie drives up with her Mom to the mansion. An early game of hide-and-seek both foreshadows subsequent events, and gives us a good look at the home’s interior. For a small-scale, relatively low-budget production this was a pleasant surprise. At 76 minutes, it does what it needs to, and in a lean, efficient way.

Dir: Kohl Glass
Star: Riley Scott, Melinda Yeaman, Nic Fitzgerald, Scarlett Hazen

Kung Fu Mulan

  By

★★★
“Disney gets some of their own medicine”

Going into this, I was expecting it to be really terrible. After all, this Chinese animated version seemed to be little more than a mockbuster, riding on the trails of Disney’s live-action version of the Mulan story. That is a little unfair, since this film began production back in 2015, five years before its Chinese release in October 2020. But it’s that timing – less than a month after Disney’s version came out – which inevitably invited comparison, and the local reaction was utterly scathing, despite an advertising tagline of “Real China, real Mulan.” It was compared unfavourably to a Western version of Chinese food, and lasted only three days in cinemas before being pulled, not taking in even one-tenth of its relatively small $15 million budget.

This is why I was braced for something at the level of pre-school stick figures. The reality, however, is nowhere near that bad. The animation is, it must be admitted, functional rather than impressive, but matters are helped significantly by decent voice acting and a plot which doesn’t appear tailored towards 12-year-olds. We join Mulan (Guest) already in progress, with her in the army and going on a mission to assassinate the prince of an invading army from the Northern grasslands, who are attacking the Central plains. Except, nobody mentioned there are two princes. She stumbles across the young one, and refuses to kill him.

While escaping, she ends up falling off a cliff with the older one, her actual target, Arke (Lee). As they make their way back to civilization, they fall for each other, partly because he conveniently forgets to mention the whole royalty thing. Needless to say, her superiors are not impressed with the failure to complete the mission. But there is a possibility of her marriage to Arke bringing peace between the two kingdoms, though there are some who are not in favour of that possibility either, and intend to use Mulan a pawn towards their own ends. I will say, there’s simply more plot going on here than in Disney’s version, and if the visual side is considerably plainer, the lack of ill-defined superpowers for its heroine is definitely a plus.

However, it doesn’t take advantage of the freedom which animation provides. While there are occasionally pretty moments, it falls short of capturing the majestic grandeur of China, and animated martial arts is always going to be less impressive than the live-action version. Though the dubbing is solid, with Guest in particular bringing her character to life, any cartoon version of Mulan is always going to end up being compared to Disney’s animated one, and this is just not as good. The main deficit here is the inability to make an emotional connection to the viewer. I never cared about the fate of Mulan or her country in the way I did while watching the classic edition. But considering my expectations going in, this was far better than I feared. Then again, I quite like the Western version of Chinese food. :)

Dir: Wallace Liao
Star (voice): Kim Mai Guest, Allan H. Lee, Vivian Lu, Greg Chun

Kate

  By

★★★
“Dying to kill you.”

The action heroine plotline of a woman defending a child – sometimes her own, but more often an acquired kid – is a common one. The “Mama Bear”, as TV Tropes called it, was most famously used in Aliens, but shows up with some regularity in our genre. See also Ultraviolet, Furie and The Long Kiss Goodnight (have I really never reviewed that?), while Gunpowder Milkshake was the most recent example. Of course, it’s not just heroines to whom it can apply; indeed there’s another page on TV Tropes called “Badass and Child“, covering the likes of Leon: The Professional. But the pairing of an action heroine with a (usually female) child has particular resonances, that perhaps merit general discussion, before we get into the specifics of Kate.

Firstly, it offers an easy justification for any and all subsequent violence. In Western society, women are not supposed to be aggressive. They are seen as the caring, nurturing gender, but protecting their offspring is one of the few times when they are “allowed” to engage their inner monsters. Again, it’s not limited to the female sex (think Taken), but male characters tend to have a wider range of potential motivations e.g. patriotism, personal power, so you don’t see paternal protection as often. [And that’s quite enough P’s.] In most cases – Ripley being an exception – the mother figure is already something of a bad-ass, so has that “very particular set of skills” necessary. It’s just the specific direction of her targets which is a result of the threat to her offspring. 

There is also, quite often, some kind of emotional resonance, in the cases where the child is not biologically related [when that is the case, you don’t typically need or get any more explanation, blood being thicker than water]. Maybe the kid acts as a surrogate, a replacement for one previously lost (Alien), or the heroine could never have. Or if a girl, the protagonist can perhaps see a younger version of herself. The other common theme is the use of the child as a key, to unlock the adult. Often, the latter has lost her humanity, typically through harsh circumstances, becoming largely a lone figure, with her emotions suppressed. The “childlike innocence” of the young person, to use a cliché, can be used as a psychological crowbar, pricing open the hard shell of the grown-up, allowing them to reconnect with their humanity. The more emotionally-driven immaturity also stands in contrast to the adult’s stoicism, often to an extreme degree. 

Which brings us to Kate, since the film demonstrates most of the above, to a certain degree. It is, to some extent, an unfortunate victim of its own timing. Probably safe to say, I would have enjoyed this more, had it not come out almost immediately on the heels of both Gunpowder Milkshake and The Protégé – films with which it has rather too much in common. All three movies are about female assassins, who find themselves at a crossroads in their professional and personal lives. In Kate and Milkshake, the protagonists find themselves, more or less unwillingly, in charge of a young girl. In Kate and The Protégé, they operate under the guidance of an older, male veteran killer, who trained them since childhood, but may or may not have their best interests at heart. Throw in to this, the “investigating your own murder” plot-line from classic film noir D.O.A., and you’ll understand why this seemed over familiar. 

It begins in Osaka, where Kate (Winstead) takes out a yakuza boss, despite qualms over the presence of his daughter. She tells her mentor, Varrick (Harrelson), she will do one last mission before she retires – yeah, that cliché. But before it happens, she’s poisoned with radioactive polonium, which will kill her in a few hours. Intent on extracting vengeance, she finds it was apparently ordered by Kijima, brother of her previous victim. To try and lure him out, Kate abduct his niece, Ani (Martineau), the girl who was there when Kate killed her father. But Ani becomes a target as well, due to a power struggle within the criminal syndicate, and Kate her unwilling protector. This makes the whole “I killed your father, actually” thing more than a bit awkward, especially as Kate needs Anu’s help if she’s to discover the truth about her own assassination. For that is even more disturbing than she expects.

As you can probably tell, there’s nothing new in the story. This doesn’t mean it’s devoid of merit, for the execution is solid.  Nicolas-Troyan, previously here for The Huntsman: Winter’s War, brings a perpetual neon sheen to Japanese urban life, leaving half the film feeling like cut scenes from Blade Runner. While lovely to look at, this is very much a foreigner’s view of Japan, which makes Kate’s familiarity with the culture a bit jarring; she speaks Japanese, and is obsessed with ‘Boom Boom Lemon’, a (fictional) local soft-drink. The heroine could have done with more of this kind of humanizing quirk; for much of the movie, she seems more like a machine for revenge, rather than a woman clinging to her last hours of life, as the perfectly-machined tool of her body increasingly betrays its owner.

The other positive is the action, which is well-handled, and occasionally savage to an almost extreme degree. The peak is likely an early battle between Kate and a large number of gang members, culminating in Kate stabbing an opponent up under the chin, the blade coming out through his nose. I have not seen that before. However, the keyword there is “early”. The film probably needs a better sense of escalation, and the lack here stands in contrast to the likes of the John Wick franchise. I can’t say I was ever bored here. However, I didn’t feel there was enough to make it stand out from the (recently very sizable) crowd. I suspect this will likely vanish into the crowd of Netflix originals, and quickly be forgotten.

Dir: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan
Star: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Martineau, Woody Harrelson, Tadanobu Asano

Knock Knock

  By

★★★½
“I can only apologize, darling…”

This is the kind of film which makes for very uncomfortable date night viewing, simply because the situation presented is likely to lead to awkward conversations. Happily married architect Evan Webber (Reeves) has the house to himself for the weekend, his wife having gone with their two kids to the seaside, leaving him free to work on a project. A stormy night ensues, until a knock at the door, and he finds two lost young women, Genesis (Izzo) and Bel (de Armas), shivering on the doorstep. He can hardly make them stay there, so lets them in. Almost immediately, something is wrong, though initially this falls into the “Too good to be true” category. For they are nymphomaniac flight attendants, and inevitably – though after a credible struggle – Evan succumbs to their relentless charms.

The next morning, however, the reality proves less pleasant, and it’s all downhill from there. For the pair are avenging angels, honey-trapping married men, then savagely punishing them for their infidelity, and Evan is not their first victim. This development should be no real surprise if you’ve seen Roth’s other films, where bad things almost inevitably tend to result from good. A nice trip to Europe became kidnapping, torture and murder in Hostel. Social activism turned into cannibalistic dismemberment in Green Inferno. So the first half of this was largely an exercise in waiting for things to go wrong, along with strenuously assuring Chris that, in similar circumstances, my assistance would strictly be limited to passing them towels through the letter-box. I highly recommend not deviating from this answer, under any circumstances. For she was firmly convinced, whatever happened to Evan in the second half was well-deserved.

The resulting punishment is certainly not pleasant, with his home-life wrecked, both literally and figuratively. Though there were a couple of ways it could have been improved. Firstly, even with some straggly facial hair, he’s still Keanu Reeves, not exactly your average guy. He likely has to beat off real nymphomaniac flight attendants with a stick, on an everyday basis. It’d have been more effective with a more homely leading man, to whom the audience could relate. And I’d rather have seen Genesis and Bel evaporate like smoke in the night, leaving no evidence of their presence, save their impact on Evan. A little more subtlety, and less scrawling of “DADDY’S LITTLE WHORE” on the family portraits would have gone a long way here, I feel.

Still, Roth is not exactly known for his delicate approach to cinema, and as a blunt instrument illustrating in female form the perils of infidelity, this works well enough. It’s also a rare entry in the “home invasion” field where the invaders are entirely women. À l’interieur (Inside) is one of the few predecessors there, and it’s no shame this doesn’t quite reach the same heights of sheer insanity – very few movies do. It’s still a cautionary tale which had me shifting uncomfortably in my seat often enough to justify its existence, as well as casting wary glances over at Chris.

Dir: Eli Roth
Star: Keanu Reeves, Ana de Armas, Lorenza Izzo, Aaron Burns

Kat, by K.L. McRae

  By

Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

Firstly, I’m still trying to figure out the relevance of the cover (right). With a heroine named Kat, why is there a dog pictured? It’s not as if she even owns one at any point. The “size of the fight” line… well, tenuous at best. I should probably have listened to my instincts and skipped this frankly implausible tale, about a teenage girl who is smart, attractive and a black-belt martial artist with 34E breasts. Yet she ends up having to get work as a stripper, a job at which she is naturally brilliant (thanks to adopting a pseudo-Xena persona), in order to keep her alcoholic mother out of debt. She breaks the arm of a particularly unpleasant customer, Alex, an act which gets her the attention of Alex’s business partner. He runs McKenzie Personal Security, and offers Kat a job as a trainee bodyguard.

She and the boss, a black Scotsman who is terminally ill, end up falling in love, while Alex, who had been set to inherit the business until Kat showed up, plots against her with his cronies. This ends in a nightmare gang-rape, setting up Kat to take vengeance. Oh, and the all-powerful MPS has a “black” division, which kills pedophiles and the like for money. If you are not going, “Wait, what?” at multiple points during the above synopsis, you’re a more tolerant reader than I. So much of this sounded like dubious sexual fantasy, I was genuinely surprised to discover the author is a woman. I mean, it could still be dubious sexual fantasy; I just tend to expect that kind of thing more from male writers.

The structure is all over the place. After she is attacked, Kat’s actions seem completely bizarre and pointless, and the book fast-forwards through a couple of years, until a later explanation that falls some way short of convincing. Meanwhile, neither Alex nor his allies come over as any kind of credible threat: in particular, their assault on her rural farmhouse is portrayed as painfully inept. Which, I concede, may be part of the point. As the book says, “vile bullies…might have some skills but put them up against someone who really knows their stuff and the only chance they had was blind luck.” During this, Kat sits back in her stronghold and lets her allies take care of the threat, bringing the villains to her like a Christmas present for her amusement. She certainly spends more time training in martial arts, than actually putting her skills into practice. In fact, she probably spends more time attending karaoke nights than being an action heroine. I was somewhat surprised Kat did not turn out to be a classically-trained opera singer, while she was at it.

All told, sadly, this book turned out to be a bit of a dog. I guess the cover was representative enough, after all.

Author: K.L. McRae
Publisher: Little Silver Publishing Ltd, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 2 in the Kat series.

Kat’s Rats by Michael Beals

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆

I reviewed the first book in the series last year, and to be honest, found it a bit of a mixed bag. I was thus a bit surprised when the author contacted me and offered me a copy of volume two, in exchange for an unbiased review. Kinda brave. The good news is, this is a genuine improvement. Not perfect, certainly. But it has got one of the best ‘Final Bosses’ I’ve ever seen in a book.

To rewind. Katelyn Wolfraum is a German expat who has switched sides, and is now operating in North Africa as an agent of MI-6. This one starts off with her in and around Morocco, preparing for a looming Allied invasion. However, the water is thoroughly muddied by the presence of various, more or less unaligned groups, from Vichy soldiers to Jewish partisans, with whom Kat and her team of under-the-radar operatives have to interact. With the mission constantly evolving, she has to be quick in her ability to adapt, and fearless in her willingness to go up against enemies, the likes of which the world has never seen.

Which brings me to that Final Boss: an experimental German weapon known as the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte. It’s a tank which weighs – and this is not a misprint – a thousand tons. For comparison, the heaviest tank currently in operational service, the M1A2 Abrams, weighs just 62 tons. This Landkreuzer is mounted with battleship guns, has impenetrable armor and its 16,000 horsepower engines mean literally nothing the Allies throw at it can stop the Landkreuzer. Oh, and Kat’s Nazi father is on board, for extra plot points.

The most startling thing might be, this monster wasn’t just some fever dream of Beals’s. It was actually proposed in 1942: Hitler loved the idea, but wiser heads prevailed. However, this book offers a glimpse at what this behemoth might have been like in action. And if you’re a fan of absolute mayhem, like I am, it’s glorious. There’s even an explanation offered for why this action was wiped from the historical record – basically, to make General Patton look good. He’s one of a number of genuine historical figures on both sides who are sprinkled in, adding a certain authenticity. Hence we get cameos by Audie Murphy and Claus von Stauffenberg, and the chunk in Morocco seems slightly influenced by a certain Humphrey Bogart film.

On the downside, the middle section, before the Landkreuzer shows up to provide focus, seems to consist of random action scenes bolted together, severely lacking in narrative flow. Then there’s things like the comparison of the machine to Godzilla: while perhaps not wrong, Godzilla didn’t appear until 1954. And Beals’s strength seems at the “big picture” level: there were times when I was less than clear about the details of who was doing what and to whom. But if you assume the answers to those questions are a) Kat, b) killing them and c) the enemy, you’ll probably not be too far off. Given my main complaint about book one was, “It needs considerably more Kat”: consider that addressed.

Author: Michael Beals
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
2 of 4 in the Adventures of Kat’s Commandos series.

Killing Eve: Season Three

  By

★★
“How the mighty are fallen.”

I remember how the first series of Killing Eve blew my socks off, and was completely unlike anything else on television. The second series fell short, but that was unsurprising – how could it be otherwise? – and there was still the chance for it to mount a course correction and recover. This third installment, however, has if anything accelerated the downward trend. What was once must-see television has become something which sits on in the background, typically as I surf the Internet on my phone. I can’t think of another series which has collapsed in such a remarkably brief time-frame.

The problem is, the writers have completely forgotten what made the show work was the dynamic between Russian assassin Villanelle (Comer) and the MI5 agent, Eve (Oh), who is on her tail. I was wary of the frantic, moist fan ‘shipping which went on over this – at a level I haven’t experienced in anything I’ve been part of, since the more rabid elements of Xena fandom in the nineties. Yet I couldn’t deny it was the chemistry between the two characters which defined the show and made it work. Yet, the focus of the second season seemed to drift from this, and in the third, it felt more like I was flicking between two different shows. It felt as if Villanelle and Eve operated in the same universe only barely, and hardly crossed paths at all.

Indeed, it also seemed to forget what Villanelle was: an assassin. We’ve gone far from the glorious spectacle kills we saw previously, Here, she has become so sloppy, she can’t even dispatch Eve’s husband with a pitchfork to the neck properly. Our anti-heroine seemed instead to spend more of this season faffing around Europe, from Spain to Russia. This involved Villanelle either bitching at co-workers with the shadowy organization known as The Twelve, trying to reconnect to her family (an endeavour so clearly doomed from the start, you wonder why they bothered), or grooming the daughter of former handler Konstantin, for reasons which never pay off adequately.

At least Villanelle is getting some stuff to do, even if it’s far from enthralling. Eve, on the other hand, spent much of the season stuck in a holding pattern, when seen in any form – at least one episode went by without her appearing at all. Eve appears little if any closer to tracking down her nemesis than she was at the beginning of the first season, and her investigation into The Twelve has born equally little fruit. It has cost Eve her husband, so there has been an emotional price. However, he was always painted by the show as being a bit of a dick, whose fidelity was questionable, so the impact of this loss feels limited.

Put bluntly, while the two lead actresses are doing their best, I don’t care any longer about the characters or their fates. And probably never will, for as long as the showrunner appears more concerned with shoehorning in Taylor Swift covers than developing the story. Sorry. Just not interested.

Showrunner: Suzanne Heathcote
Star: Jodie Comer, Sandra Oh, Fiona Shaw, Darren Boyd

Kunoichi Hunters: Sentenced to Female Hell

  By

★★★
“Not so hellish.”

This rating is perhaps influenced by my seriously low expectations here. Having seen my share of generic “female ninja” films, all too often they tend to be thinly-disguised exercises in soft-porn. Any action elements are usually secondary, at best. That’s not the case here. Well, at least, not entirely. You’ll not mistake this for Crouching Tiger, yet there has been some thought put into the plot and characters, and this helps elevate proceedings to the level of satisfactorily watchable. Which is, as noted, considerably more than I was anticipating. It comes as a pleasant surprise, especiallyfor a film so obscurist, the IMDb doesn’t recognize it, director Noto’s sole credits being as an assistant in that role. The Amazon Prime synopsis is also from Kunoichi, and so wildly inaccurate in every way.

The actual story present concerns Benimaru (Asami), a member of a clan of ninjas, who has been tasked with assassinating a feudal lord and stealing a scroll containing the location of his treasure. While she succeeds, this is only the start of her issues. The lord’s family sends out hunters after her; various independent parties are after the scroll as well; and even her own clan seek to dispose of her. For, as we eventually find out, Benimaru only accepted the mission to try and save her girlfriend, Kikyo (Ayana), from execution, after they were caught in flagrante. When they meet up, a happy ending seems possible – yet is far from inevitable.

We’ve covered a number of Asami films before, the most notable ones being Gun Woman, The Machine Girl and the Lust of the Dead trilogy, and she provides good value again here. She’s perhaps the modern equivalent of someone like Meiko Kaji, with charisma that elevates almost anything she’s in. There is genuine acting to be seen, such as in her scenes with Kikyo and she also is capable of doing a bit more than simply waving a sword about. It helps that Noto, whether by accident or design, keeps the camera relatively static. The plot provides a constant stream of obstacles to be overcome, such as the brother and sister bounty-hunters. Perhaps there just wasn’t any chance for more than the couple of sexy scenes (one with the lord, the other with her girlfriend) which get squeezed in to the 70-minute running time.

It’s to the film’s credit that it would work as a low-budget actioner, even without the nudity at all. Admittedly, the production values extend to little more than a few costumes, with the bulk of the film spent either running around a forest, or sitting around a cave. Yet the cast and crew manage to keep it more interesting than that might sound, with the heroine quickly realizing that few people are what they seem. Mind you, she gives as good as she gets on that front, with her ninja talents including voice impersonation. And, it seems, hiding underneath an extremely large straw hat. Who knew?

Dir: Hidemi Noto
Star: Asami, Rei Ayana, Takashi Irie, Yoshihiro Sato

The Kitchen

  By

★★½
“Rather over-baked”

Regardless of its flaws, this does at least show that comic-book adaptations needn’t involve superheroes and Thanos snaps. This is instead a crime story, beginning towards the end of the seventies in Hell’s Kitchen, a working-class area of New York. Following a failed armed robbery, the husbands of Kathy (McCarthy), Ruby (Haddish) and Claire (Moss) are sent to jail, leaving the wives to fend for themselves. To make ends meet, the trio begin to move in on the territory of local boss Little Jackie, who has been taking money from local businesses, without delivering the promised protection. When Jackie goes after them, he is killed by the women’s ally, Gabriel (Gleeson), who begins a relationship with Claire. But the husbands’ return to Hell’s Kitchen looms on the horizon, as the women’s growing power also brings them unwelcome attention – both from the authorities and the Mafia who dominate the city.

More than slightly reminiscent of Widows, this is considerably less plausible. The area at the time was controlled by the Westies, a powerful Irish-American group, and the film gives you little or no reason to believe why they’d roll over and let a bunch of amateurs – and women at that – muscle in and take over. In reality, I strongly suspect they’d be squashed like bugs at the first collection of protection money. One woman leading a crew might be possible (see Dangerous Lady for a good example); tripling down, as the movie does, stretches credibility to breaking point. It doesn’t help that there is only one decent character arc between them. That belongs to Claire, who goes from abused wife and perpetual victim, to the group’s enforcer under the tutelage of Gabriel. One of the film’s best scenes has him giving a lesson on dismembering a body to dispose of it. Kathy can’t watch at all, and Ruby is similarly appalled; Claire is entirely fascinated. It’s clear something has been awakened inside. And her incarcerated husband isn’t going to like it much.

It’s a shame she is largely relegated to the sidelines, being the most interesting of the trio – as well as the one most suited to this site, as the poster suggests. Instead, it’s mostly the blandly uninteresting Kathy who takes centre-stage. Even Ruby would have been an improvement, her black heritage adding an element of racial tension, with her husband’s family reluctant to accept her into their bosom. We’re also asked to accept them as heroines without explanation, ignoring the inherently scummy nature of the protection racket which they operate. But they’re nice about it, so that’s okay! Then again, I’ve never bought into the “They’re just taking care of their family” excuse, especially when, as here, efforts to get gainful, legal employment are all but absent. Berloff seems to be aiming for a Scorsese-like approach, down to the use of contemporary pop songs as a commentary on proceedings. While there are worse auteurs to ape, you’ll likely be left with little more than a desire to go watch Goodfellas.

Dir: Andrea Berloff
Star: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss, Domhnall Gleeson