Month: July 2021

Air and Ash, by Alex Lidell

  By

Literary rating: ★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

There is quite a lot going on here, so please hold on while I try to summarize. The world in which this takes place has two main groups, engaged in a decade-long war: the neo-Communist People’s Republic of Tirik and the Lyron League, an alliance of six kingdoms. The smallest of these is Ashing, a seafaring country, where both men and women go to see. The latter includes Princess Greysik, an officer on one of the Ashing navy’s ships, but after one mission goes wrong, she is returned to the palace, and scheduled to become part of a marriage arranged for diplomatic reasons. Rather than suffer that, she runs away, taking the identity of Nile Ash and becoming a sailor on a Lyron League ship. But without the privileges her rank and position previously afforded her, she’s about to discover how harsh her new, entry-level position life will be.

But, wait! There’s more! For a small fraction of the population are “Gifted” – they have an affinity for, attract and with practice can manipulate, one of the five elements: air, water, metal, stone or fire. But the ability has potentially lethal side-effects, e.g. stone caller’s muscles dissolve; water caller’s blood refuses to clot. This matters because Greysik’s twin brother, Clay, is a metal caller. She has vowed to find a cure, rumoured to be found in the Diante Empire, a reclusive and largely sealed-off third faction in this world. However, Greysik is showing increasing signs of being an air caller herself. While that may potentially be very useful on the sailing ship she now inhabits, that will only be the case, if she can manage to control it before it kills her.

Phew. You’ll understand why the early stages felt a bit like I was cramming for an exam. Meanwhile, the end of volume one topples into over-ripe romance, which is no less unwelcome for having been foreshadowed since almost the very beginning. Fortunately, in between these  times, there’s a lot of good to be found here. Lidell does a particularly good job of capturing the sense of being at sea. Well, not that I have much watery experience; it just feels authentic, to the point where it seemed I could almost smell the salt in the air. Indeed, the whole royalty angle seems almost slightly superfluous, at least in this first volume; the heroine could just have been an ordinary girl with her “gift”.

There is also a nice sense of progression, with the relationship between the characters deepening, and an increasing sense of foreboding, as a Tirik prisoner provides ominous, if non-specific, predictions of doom. These do indeed come to pass over the final chapters, in spectacular fashion – though not in the way that Greysik expects. I am just hoping the late surge of romance doesn’t prove to become a major focus as we go on. This has done a good job of setting the stage, though we’ll see whether I get to circle around back to further volumes before my Kindle Unlimited subscription expires.

Author: Alex Lidell
Publisher: Danger Bearing Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 3 in the TIDES series.

Trese

  By

★★★½
“Come get your Phil…”

While undeniably anime influenced, this originates from the Philippines, rather than Japan. It’s based on a graphic novel of the same name, by Tan and Baldisimo, and was made by Netflix’s anime branch. The six x 30-minute episodes were released with English, Filipino and Japanese language tracks. I went for the “original” Filipino, though there’s not a particular case for that. It just seemed to fit the setting better [this isn’t a hard and fast rule. I watched Gunsmith Cats: Bulletproof in Japanese, even though it’s takes place in Chicago].

In this version of Manila, there are a host of creatures from the country’s apparently rich folklore present alongside humans. Most of them I hadn’t heard of beyond the aswang, but they include everything from fire demons to electric entities. I’m sure this partly explains the show’s greater success in its native land; Westerners should probably just accept it all and go with the flow. There is a fragile truce between them and humanity, and on our side, Trese (Soberano) is charged with keeping the peace. Her family has been in this business for generations, and she works alongside twins Crispin and Basilio (dela Cruz), whom she used to “baby-sit”.

The episodes work as stand-alone entities, but there is also an over-riding arc of something malicious bubbling up from the underworld. It seems to be related to corrupt local official, former Mayor Sancho Santamaria (Tandoc). Trese faces off against him in the first show, and he’s sent to prison – but continues his occult manipulations from there, forcing her to confront him further. At which point, the real power behind the throne comes out, for a face-off in the final episode. Not all of them work equally well. There’s a fairly crap one in the middle about a film actress who spawned a pack of goblins or something, that years later came back to take revenge on her and her plastic surgeon. Yeah. I don’t think that was quite thought through to the same extent as the overall concept.

But when it works, it works really well. Some of the episodes deserve expansion to feature length, such as the one where a horde of zombies are unleashed to attack the local police-station. It plays like a cross between Night of the Living Dead and Assault on Precinct 13, and crams more action into its 30 minutes than many full-length movies.The series also does a good job of shading in  grey; across the creatures of folklore, some are friendly to humanity, while others are not, and some shift allegiance over the course of the show.

This is at its best when going its own way, rather than when, as sometimes happens, it becomes a bit Buffy-esque. The whole “heritage” thing is a little overplayed, with her family history dribbled out in little parcels at the start of each part. It’s better when simply focusing on Trese being the bad-ass she is certainly capable of being. Here’s to more of than in any subsequent seasons.

Creators: Budjette Tan, Kajo Baldisimo
Star (voice): Liza Soberano, Simon dela Cruz, Apollo Abraham, Rene Tandoc

36 Husbands

  By

★
“Save yourself!”

I have so many questions. Not the least of which would be, how the hell is this ranked a 7.3 on the IMDb? I do note a sharp division among the sexes: male voters gave it a 3.3, while women an 8,3. What can I say? I now know the meaning of the phrase, “Bitches be crazy.” It did, however, cause me to consider my opinion on one topic. There is a school of thought which says that films that intentionally try to be bad, cannot succeed. In the past, I’ve tended to disagree: the Sharknado franchise, for example, certainly has its moments. However, this is a good counter-argument; it’s not just trying to be bad, it strains towards its goal like a constipated elephant – and with much the same end result.

The problem here is, the makers seem to think that to make a parody, you simply have to be worse that what you’re parodying, and that’s where their invention stops. “Look at how shitty we are! Isn’t that funny?” No. No, it’s not. The target here appears mostly to be sixties spy-films, with three heroines (Pasch, Bianchini and Nourney) trying to stop – or at least, delay – World War III, through methods that are almost entirely unclear. Yet I’m really not sure tismakers have ever seen an example of what they’re supposed to be parodying. They possibly just suck at film-making, though I’m sure they and their pals had a fine time globe-trotting to make this.

I’m not sure which are the worst elements. A smugly self-indulgent script which is simply too damn meta for its own good. Line delivery from the three leads that could be improved by replacing them with a text-to-speech program. Or the cringeworthy musical numbers which seems to have escaped from open mic night at your local college coffee house. The makers appear to have a group called Bright Blue Gorilla, whose songs are about as terrible as you would imagine a group with that name to be.  Actually, my mistake. It’s the kung-fu. Definitely the kung-fu: feeble wet-noodle limb-waving, which makes Honey West look like like Michelle Yeoh’s greatest hits. And they don’t even have an ocelot here.

My brain shut down after 20 minutes and I had to physically step away. When I resumed, the rest was little improvement though I will say, the use of one actor to play triplets was surprisingly well-done. If only the rest of the film had remotely approached that standard. I gave serious consideration to simply bailing, and pretending the whole thing did not exist. But if the existence of this review manages to save one person from making the same mistake as I did, then my sacrifice will be worthwhile. So, I persisted, right through the eight-minute credit crawl, including what seems like a picture of every single person involved in the production. Further proof, as if any were needed, confirming the largely vanity nature of this project.

Dir: Michael Glover
Star: Christa Pasch, Roberta Bianchini, Nadine Nourney. Dominic Anglim

I am Lisa

  By

★★★
“Another packet of Ginger Snaps”

Lisa (Vaganos) is a young woman who runs a second-hand bookstore, but has fallen into the bad books – hohoho! – of local bad girl Jessica Huckins (Anello) for some reason, who makes poor Lisa’s life a misery. There’s little Lisa can do, because Jessica’s mother (Halliburton) is the local sheriff and is fiercely protective of her daughter. The feud between Lisa and Jessica escalates, until it topples over into extremely violent unpleasantness. Sheriff Huckins orders Lisa’s near-dead body to be dumped in the nearby forest, as food for the local wolves. However, after only slight nibbling, she is rescued by a mysterious woman, and nursed back to health. Returning to town, she opts to lie low with best friend Sam (Seward), only for Lisa to notice she’s not the same person she used to be. For example, this former vegetarian now has a fondness for raw meat, and is considerably less passive, deciding to take the fight to Jessica, her pals and, eventually, to Sheriff Huckins.

I’ve seen werewoman movies before. Indeed, I’ve reviewed a few here before – most obviously Werewolf Woman, but also When Animals Dream, Blood Redd and The Big Bad. I’ve also seen plenty of revenge films, to the extent there is a dedicated tag for those on the site. But this is probably the first movie which is both. Such innovation is almost enough on its own to get through the running time, even if it’s inevitably going to be compared to the wonderful Ginger Snaps, and be found wanting. Bonus points here for skewing so thoroughly female, with the five lead characters all women, and it’s also clear there’s a lot more going on, of which Lisa is unaware. The opening scene proves this before we see the heroine, with the sheriff gunning down another werewolf and proclaiming “I guess we gotta find another.” Given this, it is a bit difficult to grasp why Jessica’s cronies are so surprised by subsequent events.

The script is rather undeveloped in some of the other directions it seeks to explore. For instance, it opens with two quotes, one pro-revenge, the other anti. Yet there’s never much sense that Lisa’s vengeance is other than justified, and it appears to have a relatively minor impact on her psyche. Well, compared to turning into a werewolf, anyway. It also took me a while to get into the head of the main character; Lisa as savage predator is considerably more interesting and engaging than Lisa as vegetarian bookshop owner. Obviously for budgetary reasons, the actual transformation is very restrained – not much more than claws and contact lenses. I guess it’s good enough to get the concept over, if you don’t look too closely. The restraint elsewhere is a bit disappointing, and harder to explain: I never got the sense Lisa was overtaken by, or surrendered to, her newly-found feral nature. However, it still makes for an interesting watch, even if the central character is more werepekinese than -wolf.

Dir: Patrick Rea
Star: Kristen Vaganos, Jennifer Seward, Manon Halliburton, Carmen Anello

Queen of the South, season four + five

  By

Season 4: ★★★★
Season 5: ★★½
“There’s only one way to be safe in this business — be powerful enough that no one can touch you.”

I only just realized that I had not reviewed the fourth series of Queen of the South at the time of its broadcast. I’m not 100% sure why that slipped my mind; it may have been a reaction to the rather underwhelming nature of the third season. In some ways, the show did get back on track – it did, at least, stop trying to fake badly Arizona, largely relocating to New Orleans. This brought with it a new slate of rivals and enemies for Teresa Mendoza (Braga). This was a necessity, the show having sent the main antagonist from the early series, Camila Vargas, into exile at the end of season three.

The main replacement was likely Cecil Lafayette, a corrupt local judge who seemed to have his finger in every pie, as well as cooking up a few more of his own. He wants an ever-increasing slice of Teresa’s endeavours, as he comes to realize how large her empire is. There’s also Marcel Dumas, a well-established gang leader in New Orleans, who initially wants to co-operate with her. Their relationship becomes increasingly fractious over the first half of the series, and Judge Lafayette sees the opportunity to pit them against each other, while apparently acting as a mediator.

Meanwhile, inside Teresa’s organization, we see the first inklings of dissension in the ranks. Boaz, who had been running her operations South of the border in Sinalioa, is beginning to show dissatisfaction with Teresa’s approach. But there are new opportunities too. I guess, perhaps to replace Vargas, we get Oksana Volkova (Cherny), who is the public face of the Russian mob in New York, operating on behalf of her extremely reclusive boss, Kostya. She offers a potential pipeline into the lucrative East coast market, from Miami up the coast through Atlanta to the Big Apple, for Teresa and her product. However, there’s opposition to her expansion, in the form of an existing Cuban mob, under El Gordo.

After the weakness of season three, this was a strong return to form. It got back to the basics, of Teresa Mendoza seeking to expand her empire and consolidate her power, despite opposition from existing players. The violence which almost inevitably flows from such a struggle was present in copious quantities, with at least one shocking and unexpected death (well, we only expected it about two seconds before it happened!). In Judge Lafayette, well portrayed by David Andrews,  there was a solid villain, whose cunning, along with his local connections and allies, proved a tough nut for Teresa and her cartel to go up against.

Probably my only complaint was our heroine not quite getting as deeply involved in the action as previously. Outside of an assault on the base of some mercenaries sent to kill her, there hardly seemed to be any significant firearms use for Teresa. Perhaps that was an indication that she was beginning to seek an exit strategy, moving into more legitimate businesses, and away from those where killing is a standard technique of operations. The news that the fifth series would be the show’s swansong, seemed to support this theory.

To start at the end of it, however, the grade for this season loses a full star simply on the basis of its chosen ending. While skirting around spoilers, we utterly called almost every aspect, down to the specific beach-side location of the final scenes, as early as end of the previous episode. Maybe we’ve just seen too many telenovelas in which this particular plot twist has been done to death. There was a real lack of any sense of karmic balance, considering the number of dead bodies Teresa had left in her wake. We also kept hoping, right up until the final credits rolled, that we would get closure for Camila Vargas. If the actress playing her, Veronica Falcón, just wanted to leave the series after #3, the character deserved a far better send-off. Meanwhile, Teresa Mendosa barely appeared in the final episode, which instead focused on long-time sidekick, Pote (Madera).

Up until that point, however, the season had not been terrible. It was fairly broad in scope, mostly hopping between New Orleans and New York, though with a side-trip to “Berlin” [quotes used advisedly, since unlike the Maltese excursion in series three, I’m fairly sure the production did not go to Germany, instead throwing in a couple of bits of stock footage and faking the rest]. As expected, Teresa was seeking to diversify into legal business, in particular property development. Though she quickly found out that “legitimate” did not necessarily mean those involved could be trusted. Still, no problem there, that methods from her usual field of work can’t solve.

Particularly effective was her ongoing dealings with the Russian mob. I will admit, I did wonder for a while whether their supposed leader even existed, since Oksana was the only person who ever seemed to talk to Kostya. There were a number of tense moments, as Teresa tries to convince the Russian to turn on her boss, because the Mexican offers a better long-term future. While Oksana was not up to the level of Camila Vargas, she did offer a good foil. She possessed an impenetrable air, reminding me of the famous Churchill quote about Russia being “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” You just never knew what she was planning.

And so, it all ends – not with a bang, but in a considerably more peaceful way than I expected.  I think that. perhaps, after so long, writers tend to fall in love with their characters a bit too much. I’ve lost count of the number of shows, from Buffy through Dexter to Game of Thrones, which have had trouble creating a satisfactory ending, and we can now add Queen to that list. Its departure does still leave a gap on television. In terms of truly bad-ass heroines, prepared to go to any ends to reach their goals, Teresa Mendoza is without parallel. Now, let’s get a US remake of Rosario Tijeras…

Star: Alice Braga, Hemky Madera, Peter Gadiot, Vera Cherny