Author: Jim McLennan

Queen of the Ring

  By

★★★
“Bit of a test of stamina.”

Coincidentally, I watched this the night after Sinners, another period piece which looks at the place of a specific culture in society. There, it was music in predominantly black society of the thirties; here, it’s professional wrestling in the overwhelmingly white society of the fifties [the presence of in this WWE champion Naomi as Ethel Johnson, feels very much a token gesture]. Definitely fewer vampires in this, however. It’s the story of Mildred Burke (Rickards), who went from working as a waitress in a diner, though wrestling at carnivals, to become one of the biggest draws in the ring of her time. The end of the film calls her the first woman to become a millionaire through sports. 

It’s not an easy journey, being both helped and hindered along the way by sometimes manager, sometimes promoter, sometimes husband, sometimes abusive bastard Billy Wolfe (Lucas). She also has to deal with scepticism regarding her talent, other wrestlers and promoters trying to muscle in, and even legal barriers, with many states forbidding women’s wrestling bouts outright [In the UK, the city of London banned such matches until as late as 1979]. All while also being a single mother, trying to bring up her son. This builds to a battle for the Women’s Wrestling World Championship in 1954, pitting long-running title holder Burke, against her now ex-husband’s wrestler, and Mildred’s long-time rival, June Byers, whose dislike of the champion goes back to the carnival shows. 

Definitely the best thing about this is Rickards, who very much looks the part of a wrestler: fit and well-toned, without ever seeming muscle-bound. Though it is odd how little she seems to age over the course of proceedings – likely close to twenty years all told, if the age of her son is any guide. Beyond the mere physicality, the Mildred we see here is also a warm and winning personality, and it’s very easy to root for her. As a fan of wrestling in general, I enjoyed the glimpse into the past of the pastime, and it treads a decent line between being accessible to non-fans, without dumbing everything down too much. Though there are some goofs, in terms of period wrestling: tapping out in submission only started in the nineties. 

The main problem, and it’s a significant one, is the film is far too long, at a hundred and forty minutes. It’s clear that writer-director Avildsen was in love with his own script, but there are long chunks – mostly in the second half – which feel closer to soap opera. The whole scene with Burke and Wolfe buying out a whole hotel, so their black wrestlers don’t have to go somewhere else, seemed like pure virtue signalling, and caused me literally to cringe. There simply isn’t enough going on here to justify the running-time, and while the good stuff here is often very good e..g the lesson on how to cut a good promo, it definitely feels like a case where less would have been more. 

Dir: Ash Avildsen
Star: Emily Bett Rickards, Josh Lucas, Tyler Posey, Francesca Eastwood

Imani

  By

★★½
“The Long Goodnight Kiss”

I’m not sure whether this is too long or too short for its own good. Could be a little bit of both. As the tag-line for this review suggests, it bears more than a superficial resemblance to a certain other action heroine film. Faith Newford (Hall) is your everyday, upper middle-class woman: married to a loving husband, physician Bryce (Shipp), with a young daughter, and running a shoe store on the side. Let’s not trouble ourselves about the mysterious amnesia, which leaves a large chunk of her past a blank slate. The problem is, Faith – or Imani, as she was previously known when she was a special ops soldier, is not supposed to be alive at all.

A blow to the head suffered during an abduction attempt triggers the return of her old skills, albeit at the cost of sending her on the run. Turns out she was in possession of information which could prove seriously detrimental to the political ambitions of General Michelle Dupree (Mirto). It’s why Imani and the rest of her squad were supposed to have been eliminated. If dodging Dupree’s goons wasn’t enough, there is another shadowy yet powerful group, who have an interest in Imani from the other direction, intending to use what she knows against Dupree. It’s all rather too over-complex, and I suspect they’d have been better off either simplifying the plot, or making it a mini-series. Hence my opening sentence.

The makers do get some things right, not least there has clearly been a decent amount of resources put into this. It doesn’t look cheap, and they also largely avoid most cliches of black action cinema. Though, inevitably, you still get drug dealers, rap music and The Man – or, in this case, The Woman – they are more incidental, and not the focus. Hall is okay as the heroine. If no Geena Davis, she generally acquits herself adequately in most of the action scenes, at least when she’s not trying to go toe-to-toe with obviously far larger and stronger opponents. For example, Raymond ‘Supreme’ Avant Jr (Lofton), who looks like he could eat Imani for breakfast, and pick his teeth clean with her spine. Yeah, their fight was a tad cringe.

At least the cinematic amnesia wasn’t too grating. For the movie simply has someone sit the heroine down and explain the past, rather than relying on the contrivance of her remembering it when convenient. Sometimes, simple is better. However, the film isn’t good at managing all the threads in the plot carpet, and it proved too much for my poor little mind to handle. I think my brain threw up a blue screen of death somewhere in the middle, during one of the more expository sections, about who was doing what to whom and why: my interest and attention never fully recovered thereafter. I did find the ending satisfyingly bleak – there’s always someone more shadowy and powerful than you – but I’d not call this more than adequate.

Dir: Mike Ho
Star: Brittany S. Hall, Demetrius Shipp Jr., Kris D. Lofton, Elyse Mirto

Sri Asih: The Warrior

  By

★★★
“No Marvel: and that’s okay.”

Turns out that Marvel and DC are not the only ones creating “cinematic universes” based on comic book. Another example can be found, perhaps surprisingly, in Indonesia. This film is part of the Bumilangit Cinematic Universe, and is a follow-up to 2019’s Gundala. I haven’t seen that, but I’m 99% sure that the scene in the end-credits is a direct cross-over to that, featuring its hero, given the apparent prediction late on of a team up to come between him and Sri Asih. Otherwise, though, this stands on its own, and you don’t need to have seen Gundala, or be familiar with the comic-book series about Sri Asih, created by R.A. Kosasih, and first published all the way back in 1954.

This is the third incarnation of the character, which was also first seen on the screen in 1954, in a now lost Indonesian movie of the same title. In this version, we begin with the birth of Alana during a volcanic eruption, in which her father is killed. Brought up by her mother, Alana is highly talented in martial arts, but has problems controlling her temper. After she fails to throw a fight as arranged against rich playboy and serial abuser Mateo Adinegara, he sends his men to beat up Alana’s mother, and the situation then escalates. Someone kills Mateo and his father, industrialist Prayogo Adinegara (Saputra) vows revenge. The result ends up triggering Alana’s transformation into her final form, the reincarnation of fire goddess Sri Asih.

Which is convenient, because someone is trying to carry out a ritual to obtain ultimate power, a process which require the sacrifice of a thousand souls. With the help of cop Jatmiko (Rahadian), who teeters between honesty and corruption, and childhood friend Tangguh (Nichol), now a journalist, Sri Asih has to figure out what’s going on, and stop the ritual. It’s all earnestly naive in an adorable kind of way. There’s a touching faith in journalistic integrity, and also lines like, “If you are unable to learn how to defeat your anger, it’s only a matter of time before it defeats you.” Occasionally this does topple over into clunkiness, such as when someone late on literally says, “I just remembered <key plot point about the thousand soul sacrifice>” Really?

However, if you can buy into the tone and go along with it, you’ll have a good amount of fun. It certainly does not feel like 134 minutes, which is more than can be said for some Marvel or DC product, though this is somewhat less highly polished. I do wish the fight scenes had been less CGI heavy: the impact is considerably more when Sri Asih and her opponents are knocking chunks out of concrete pillars than when she’s flying unconvincingly through the air. The best thing about Indonesian martial arts is the hard-hitting aspect, and that only intermittently comes through. It does have a cheerful “can do” attitude that’s endearing, and I’d not mind checking out further installments. 

Dir: Upi Avianto
Star: Pevita Pearce, Reza Rahadian, Surya Saputra, Jefri Nichol

Baseball Girl

  By

★★½
“Pop-up on the infield.”

And if the above phrase doesn’t make any sense – it’s basically an underwhelming outcome during a baseball game – then you are probably not the target audience for this sporting drama. After almost a quarter-century living in America (much of it spent running a site about the local team as a sideline!), I’m fairly well-versed in baseball’s intricacies. But in contrast to some of the other Korean movies in this genre, such as Run Off or As One, you really need to know the sport going in to understand this on more than the surface level. Do not expect the film to explain what a knuckleball is, or the importance of spin rates.

The central character is Joo Soo-in (Lee J-y), a high school student who has dreams of becoming a professional baseball player. The main problem there is, she’s a teenage girl, and no woman has ever played professionally in Korea. While she pitches well enough – for a girl – she doesn’t throw with enough velocity to catch the eye of scouts. It doesn’t help that nobody really believes in her dream, with just about everyone trying to dissuade her. Even when she does get an offer from a professional team, it turns out to be to front their women’s outfit. Not least among Soo-in’s critics is her own mother (Yeom), already dealing with a feckless husband, who just wants her daughter to get real and start working in the same factory she does.

There are basically few surprises to be found here at all, with everything unfolding more or less as you would expect. It feels as if the script started off with a single word – “empowering” – and everything was developed from that point outward. For example, you will likely not be shocked to discover that mom is eventually won over to her daughter’s cause. Though I was amused by the scene where she’s told by the pro team the deposit on her daughter’s services is $60,000. Her response is, “I can’t give you that much money right now,” unaware the team is the one paying! Otherwise, it often plays like an All-Star Game of sports cliches, such as the gruff coach, romantic interest, etc.

I will say, the baseball stuff is well done: the actress seems to know her way around a pitching mound, and her mechanics look sound. [I wonder if CGI was used for the baseball, or if she really was throwing at 80+ mph?] It’s interesting that we never actually see Soo-in play in an actual game. Instead, it’s all training sessions and try-outs, as she tries to learn a new pitch, which relies less on velocity. As a fan of the game, I probably got a bit more out of this than most viewers, and was still never more than moderately engaged. When the outcome of any sporting contest is obvious, there’s not a lot of point, and much the same goes for sporting movies like this.

Dir: Choi Yoon-tae
Star: Lee Joo-young, Lee Joon-hyuk, Yeom Hye-ran, Song Young-kyu

Fairest of Them All

  By

★★½
“Princesses are doin’ it for themselves.”

There’s a recent trend for horror films based on public domain characters. The most infamous is likely Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, but traditional fairy tales have also been exploited to the same end. This is a sequel of sorts to the same studio’s Cinderella’s Curse (which I have not seen), but basically hurls every princess of legend into the mix. The excuse is Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter (Santer), who in this incarnation is a Joker-like psycho, who has kidnapped Alice (Desmond) and made her his slave, courtesy of his magic. He now wants a bride, and to this end abducts a selection of princesses and others e.g. Tinker Bell, as potential candidates. They will fight to the death. Last one alive becomes Mrs. Hatter.

Likely out of necessity, to differentiate the various princesses, the results play fast and loose with traditional folklore. For example, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, turns out to be a shape-shifter. Or there’s Snow White, who is driven by her cannibalistic impulses. It’s also notable that some of them are enthusiastically on-board with the Hatter’s plan. It therefore takes a while before any cohesion takes place between the kidnap victims, forming the necessary alliance to be able to fight back. This is quite an interesting concept, yet somehow still feels somewhat longer than its brief running-time of seventy-seven minutes. We are here to see regal catfights; instead, there’s rather too much sitting around and talking about things.

It also seems occasionally to veer into near-darkness, leaving it hard to tell exactly what’s happening. But I did like most of the characters, and a lot of the performances are enthusiastic enough to pass muster. Many of those involved seem to be actively “in on the joke”, being aware of the general ridiculous nature of the concept. Santer in particular sets the tone, and everyone else is at their best when they follow suit. The production values were surprisingly decent too, with an interesting, decrepit location, which seems to mirror the broken-down nature of Hatter’s sanity. It feels like there has been some effort put into the costumes, hair and make-up – again, reflecting the personalities of the princesses.

On the other hand, it’s clear none of the actresses have been chosen for their martial arts abilities, despite pronouncements from the director that, “This is a blood bath with epic fight sequences. Gore hounds are in for a treat.” It really is not, the fights are well short of epic, and I do not feel particularly treated either. I was hoping for a fairy-tale version of Raze. Instead, what I got was closer to after hours in the locker-room at Disneyland, following the consumption of one too many margaritas. Sure, it may be adequately entertaining to watch, but it’s probably not going to be the proudest moment of anyone involved. Better than most public-domain knockoffs though. I’m looking at you, The Mouse Trap…

Dir: Kunahan Thampi
Star: Lewis Santer, Alina Desmond, Kelly Rian Sanson, Natasha Tosini

Girl Gun Lady

  By

★★½
“Get yer kits out…”

With its combination of alternate reality sci-fi and stylized action, this feels like it could have come from the mind of Mamoru Oshii, creator of things such as Avalon and Assault Girls. It’s not. Instead, it was created by toy manufacturer Bandai – like most of their shows, it works largely as a 25-minute long advertisement for product, in this case specifically model kits. But there are some interesting ideas to be found here, though they are somewhat let down by action that clearly has no interest in being realistic, and a tendency towards maudlin emotion. I was left wondering who, exactly, it was aimed at, because the sentimentality feels at odds with the young men who are likely the target consumers.

It takes place in a high school where the favoured hobby of Koharu Tachibana (Shiraishi) is making plastic models. After buying kits of a gun and a figure called Alice, and assembling them, she wakes to find herself an unwilling participant in ‘Girl Gun Fight’. Four teams of three young women, are pitted against each other in battle, overseen by each team’s commander – hers being Alice (Ohara). Between rounds she’s returned to school, along with the other participants, but naturally, nobody believes this story. There’s an awkward twist, in that if you lose all three of your lives in the game, that’s it. You do not get back to the real world, with all trace of you, including other people’s memories, being wiped out.

That’s a wonderfully dark concept, which we see realized as members of the team’s try, and fail, to protect their last life. But it also possesses almost industrial levels of perkiness, particularly reflected in idol-like pop video inserts, and bumpers of enthusiastic model-making. Tonally, it’s all over the place. I suspect that might be the point, in the same way I don’t know at whom it’s aimed. I’m inclined to go for male wish fulfillment, with Koharu being about as far as possible from the typical model-building nerd. On the other hand, it has a lot in common with the “magical schoolgirl” trope, often found in anime, and it’s driven largely by the power of friendship.

That’s especially true in the final two episodes, when Koharu, Alice and the survivors meet the wizard behind the curtain. It all gets a bit too sentimental for my tastes, with the protagonists falling over themselves in a rush to self-sacrifice. The other weakness is action that, in the main, is nothing special – it’s very stagey, in a way at which Power Rangers might look askance. More hard-hitting fights would have added nicely to the contrast with the cheesier elements. Still, I burned through the ten episodes in three sittings, and was entertained, though the emotional impact I felt fell short of what the show was aiming to generate. I also do not feel any strong urge to take up kit-building as a hobby.

Dir: Yûsuke Taki
Star: Sei Shiraishi, Yuno Ohara, Anna Ishii, Natsuki Deguchi

KPop Demon Hunters

  By

★★★
“Pop go the demons.”

The appeal of K-Pop in the West baffles me. I mean, I have a fairly low tolerance for pop in general. So the appeal of a foreign version, born from a culture to which you have no connection… Yeah. Fortunately, you need no knowledge to be entertained by this Netflix animated movie. It’s also tongue in cheek enough to work for non-fans, poking self-deprecating fun at the obsessive nature of K-Pop fandom. The title alone is so direct as to indicate the attitude. It’s accurate though. Pop trio Huntr/x are also demon hunters. They are the latest generation, tasked with keeping the forces of darkness and their ruler Gwi-Ma, out of our world through a barrier called the Honmoon.

Gwi-ma’s latest plan to dismantle the Honmoon involves creating an idol group of his own, the demonic Saja Boys. Their sudden popularity represents a growing threat to Huntr/x, who need to best them in the annual Idol Awards to stop the Honmoon from collapse. Things are complicated by the part-demon nature of Huntr/x lead singer Rumi (Cho), which she has kept secret from fellow members Mira (Hong) and Zoey (Yoo). They believe all demons are inherently evil, making her status a tad awkward. On the other side, Rumi gets to know Jinu, a member of the Saja Boys, who is wracked by guilt over his demonic nature. Naturally, it all ends in a potentially apocalyptic performance by the Saja Boys. 

I was surprised it was Chris who actually asked to watch this: she’s not a K-Pop stan either. This did turn out to be better than expected. Admittedly, said expectations were low. But it’s nicely animated, and the previously mentioned willingness not to take itself seriously goes a long way. For example, when the heroines’ efforts to go down a slide are stymied by their battle catsuits, one remarks sardonically, @@@@. Or there’s the member of Saja Boys whose fringe is so long, it covers most of his face. It’s quite dry humour, something I like. Even the songs are… tolerable, in a Eurovision Song Contest kind of way (an event for which I have a soft spot).

Of course, the way it unfolds is never less than predictable, with the power of friendship and heroic sacrifice, being the order of the day. It’s also relentlessly PG-rated, meaning that no matter how many demons are slain – and there are a lot – do not expect to see so much as a single drop of blood. These elements were in line with what I expected, and I would certainly not mind a live-action version aimed at a more grown-up audience. However, was I not adequately entertained? Yes – yes, I was. It’s a frothy concoction, that gives a glimpse into a world beyond the one I know. In fact, two worlds: both the demonic realm and the K-Pop one. Your choice as to which is weirder. 

Dir: Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans
Star (voice): Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong, Ji-young Yoo

Outlaw

  By

★★★
“A Rocinha Tale”

Interestingly, this is based on a somewhat true story, written by Raquel Santos de Oliveira. She comes from Rocinha, one of the most notorious slums in Rio, where she grew up on the streets. “By 11, I was already carrying a .38 revolver,” she says. In the mid-eighties, she was the girlfriend of Ednaldo de Souza, the man in charge of crime in Rocinha, and took over after he was killed in a gun-battle with police. She exited the gang a few years later, and was able to straighten our her life, quit using cocaine, and wrote a book, Number One, at the suggestion of her therapist. While fictional, it’s clear it draws a great deal from Rsquel’s own experiences.

It begins with the childhood of Rebeca (Bomani), which includes being sold off into prostitution at an early age. She’s able to dodge that, by instead working for local boss Amoroso (Cortaz), until the boss gets assassinated on the order of rival Del Rey (Otto), who thene takes over. Rebeca is able to switch sides, and falls in love for another member of the gang, Pará (Amorim). Naturally, any happiness they find together is short-lived and when she loses him as well, Rebecia decides to take revenge, even though her target is operating in cahoots with corrupt members of the police force. The story unfolds in flashback, Rebeca making a tape as her building is under attack, believing her story is all that will be left of her.

This makes an interesting contrast to non-GWG film, Elite Squad, which takes place in a similar setting, only told from the point of view of an honest police officer. [It’s highly recommended, by the way] Outlaw doesn’t run more more then eighty minutes, and so there’s isn’t a lot of slack. Indeed, I suspect it might have been better told over a longer period, since there are points where it feels like it is galloping through its story, mixing historical footage with modern content, aged to look like it’s the eighties. It is quite effective on a high level, but in the second half especially, I didn’t feel as if my attention was being solidly held, due to a narrative which seemed to lack flow.

It does seem like Wainer was heavily inspired by the gangster works of Martin Scorsese, such as A Bronx Tale. Okay, that one was directed by Robert De Niro, but he was clearly Scorsese influenced as well. It’s very down-to-earth, rather than glamourous, and doesn’t stint on the violence which goes along with the criminal territory. The strong sense of place you get might be the best element of the film, since Bomani only occasionally succeeds in inhabiting the skin of her character. If this had been the pilot for a TV series, such as one of my telenovelas like Dueños del paraíso, I would likely be interested in watching it. As a complete story, it’s fine but leaves little impact.

Dir: João Wainer
Star: Maria Bomani, Jean Amorim, Milhem Cortaz, Otto
a.k.a. Bandida

Road Wars: Max Fury

  By

★★
“Mock fury”

Just as Furiosa ended up being a sequel that nobody wanted, what we have here is a mockbuster sequel that, as far as I can tell, nobody was asking for. This is, at least loosely, set in the same post-apocalyptic universe as The Asylum’s earlier (unseen) knock-off, Road Wars, which sought to ride on the coat tails of Fury Road. The sequel begins with Shane (Wells, who actually appeared in the old-school Mad Max 2) being cast out of his very small tribe in the desert. It’s not long before they regret their decision not to impose the death penalty, as he turns around and shoots James dead, before heading off to join his new tribe. Five years later, James’s daughters Naomi (Shah) and Greta (Kaur) are living with their mother Sarah (Wilson) and step-father, in their secluded compound. An attack leaves the parents in need of antibiotics, so the daughters head off to pick them up. Doing so, however, puts them back on Scott’s radar, and he intends to take the chance for some long-delayed revenge.

Obviously, anyone watching this and expecting something on the scale of George Miller’s episode is going to be extremely disappointed. Me? Not so much. I’m familiar with The Asylum, and knew what I was letting myself in for. But even by their standards, this is cheap. The apocalypse happens entirely off-screen, and what you get instead is a bit of running and driving around the desert landscape. The latter is distinctly low-key, with barely half a dozen vehicles and no destructive mayhem to speak of. The two that do get blown up, the explosions are obviously digital – the studio clearly wanted to get their security deposit back from the car-hire company at the end of the day. For the classic Thunderbird, I understand that choice. However, the other is a beat-up junker of a pick-up truck, and it says a lot they weren’t willing to write off the five hundred bucks.

They weren’t willing to write much elsewhere either. After the prologue, things get kinda confusing for a spell, with it largely unclear who is attacking the family, and why. Things do eventually settle down, and we get the required bickering between the younger, headstrong Naomi and her older, more cautious sibling over what to do, who should do it, and how. I was expecting the trip to get the antibiotics to be more fraught with peril than it is i.e. not at all, with a combination lock the only difficulty faced. Mind you, the final confrontation with Shane is just as underwhelming. Despite occasionally decent cinematography, there was a specific point at which I realized my moderate and restrained hopes were unlikely to be met. This occurred when Naomi randomly smears mascara – or engine grease, it’s hard to tell – across her eyes, for absolutely no apparent reason beyond imitating Furiosa. Being a mockbuster isn’t easy, I get it. That doesn’t excuse the lack of effort here.

Dir: Mark Atkins
Star: Preet Kaur, Chandni Shah, Vernon Wells, Lindsey Marie Wilson

The Old Guard 2

  By

★★
“Old and tired.”

I was considerably less impressed with The Old Guard than some folk. I suspect it benefited from coming out during the COVID lockdown, when people were desperate for entertainment, and would obsess over any crap (see: Tiger King). Truth be told, it was really rather mid. Hard to believe it has been five years since then. With hindsight, we should probably have rewatched the original. Might have saved us having to look up the plot on Wikipedia, because the sequel assumes we remember everything about the first film, as if it were yesterday. We do not. It’s still basically about these immortals (or thereabout), who have been helping humanity through the ages. This seems initially to mean working with the CIA, which is certainly a choice.

As well as Andy (Theron), who has lost her immortality because reasons, there’s Nile (Layne). On the other side, we have Quỳnh (Ngô), who spent centuries at the bottom of the ocean, perpetually drowning, and is consequently slightly peeved. No, really: you’d expect full on psychosis, but she’s not much more than somewhat annoyed, and gets over it impressively quickly. There’s also Discord (Thurman), the first immortal, who has a scheme of her own to… Well, it’s complex, but it turns out that not only can immortality be lost, it can also be transferred between people. Death, where is thy sting? It all smacks of lazy, even desperate writing, inevitably leading to a scene borrowed from Star Trek II.

The film feels full of these missteps, lumbering clumsily from one chunk of exposition to the next. This builds to an assault on a Chinese nuclear facility, but there’s no sense of resolution. Because the film is more interested in acting as a bridge to The Old Guard 3, consequently ending in an ending which isn’t an ending. A third part is not something in which I have interest: any review of it here is likely to be out of genre obligation, rather than genuine interest. The only potential plus is that perhaps we might see more of Discord there, because in this installment, Thurman’s presence is wasted to a degree that is almost impressive. Though if it’s another five years before part 3, she’ll then be aged more or less sixty. 

On the other hand, Theron looks eerily like she did in Aeon Flux, almost twenty years ago. And the action in general isn’t bad in quality, with both her and Ngô having their moments. It is technically sound, occasionally slick, and there are some cool car moments at the beginning. But if you compare it to something like Ballerina, both the quantity and impact of the fight sequences are clearly short of the mark. If that hadn’t been the case, I’d have been willing to forgive the clunky exposition and generally uninteresting nature of the plot. But I wouldn’t say “somewhat alright” fights come close to justifying anyone’s monthly Netflix subscription.

Dir: Victoria Mahoney
Star: Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Veronica Ngô, Uma Thurman