Author: Jim McLennan

The Mini-skirt Gang

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★½
“So glad to have missed the seventies.”

miniskirtDear god, this is awful. The only reason this 1974 film manages the dizzy heights of 1 1/2 stars, is the finale, which is actually a pretty decent burst of comedy action, highlighted by the heroine receiving inspiration from a poster advertising a Peking Opera production of the Mulan legend. Up until then, it’s a rancid piece of film-making, wasting the talents of those involved. Well, the actresses anyway, since Lui Kei provides no evidence, in either his direction or script, that there was any talent present to begin with.

The gang in question are five female pickpockets, led by Ra Liao Liu (Danish actress Tove, whose presence in Hong Kong at the head of these thieves is never explained). When engaged on a job, they cross swords with a pair of bumbling male pickpockets, and inexplicably decide to join forces, even though the men are incompetent perverts. Cue the kind of behavior which would get you arrested these days, played by the movie in attempts at comedy which fall utterly flat. Man, if this is really what the decade was like, it must have been hell to be a woman. The rest of the film is filled with similarly “amusing” high-jinks, along with other scenes which serve little or no dramatic purpose, like the one where the good heart of Ra gets her deceived by a pair of con women, or an extended sequence where the whole gang pretend to be hookers. Oh, hold my aching sides, for I fear they may split.

Eventually, what passes for a meaningful plot finally shows up, as the gang rescue a woman from being forced into prostitution. Of course, the morality on view is a bit dubious, when their rescuee is then made pregnant by one of the men, who refuses to ‘fess up until he is made to believe he had sex with a leper. Yes, the laughs just never stop start in this Shaw Brothers production. Subsequently, her pimps come after them, and that’s what leads to the inadequate redemption of the big final battle, as well as an ending which offers no resolution, consisting entirely of the gang yelling out “We are the weird and crazy thieves!” Maybe that line lost something in translation from Chinese.

I thought my loathing might be strictly personal, but the first review I found called it, “The worst Shaw Brothers film I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen over 200 of them.” So, not just me, then. Any screen presence Tove and her co-heroines possess, is almost entirely countered by the crude and largely incompetent approach, resulting in a mix of comedy and sexploitation that is neither funny nor sexy. Maybe times have changed, but if this ever seemed other than creepy, change can only be a good thing.

Dir: Lui Kei
Star: Birte Tove, Chen Ping, Nancy Leung, Lee Fung-Laan

Concrete Blondes

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★★½
“Would it be churlish to point out they’re not real blondes?”

concreteblondesThis is the story of three young women, sharing a house. There’s Kris (Pope), the sensible and apparently staid one, who works as a tax accountant; her flighty girlfriend Tara (Armstrong); and roommate Sammi (Baird). Tara and Sammi stumble into the aftermath of an apparent gangland shootout, exiting with a bag containing over $3 million in cash. The trio have very different ideas about what to do next, but Kris convinces them the best bet immediately, is to stash the bag in a lock-up, secured by three separate padlocks, with each holding one key, until they figure out if anyone is coming after the money. However, Sammi’s inability to keep her mouth shut proves disastrous, as her boyfriend is $50,000 in debt to local mob boss Kostas Jakobatos (Rhys-Davies), and sees an opportunity to clear the balance, and a lot more. Neither of the men have reckoned with Kris who, it turns out, is much more prepared for the situation than her two house-mates.

The approach to the storytelling feels undeniably Tarantinoesque: we’ll see a scene from one perspective, then crank the timeline back, and see what leads up to it, and the aftermath, from another character’s point of view. This is a mixed blessing. For some scenes, you do go “Ah-hah…” as light dawns; for others, it seems like a pointless exercise – compare and contrast Wild Things, where they saved all these aspects up until the very end, to much greater impact. The other problem is, the characters are not very likeable, particularly Tara and Sammi, who alternate between bitchy and whiny, neither of which are endearing. Kris fares much better, yet her back story is rather implausible and underplayed, in the sense that I’d have liked to hear about it in detail. In some ways, it might have make for a more interesting – and certainly, more original – tale than what we actually get, which is instead, largely a recycled selection of elements and styles from other films, such as Shallow Grave.

I should also point out that nothing matching the cover actually occurs, though by now, I’m quite used to films over-selling the “girls with guns” aspect, probably because of how successful it is. While I can’t honestly say I was bored by the proceedings as they unfolded here, my interest generally remained stuck somewhere in second gear. That may be suitable for pottering around town, but falls well short of adequate for hitting the highway and letting her rip.

Dir: Nicholas Kalikow
Star: Carly Pope, Samaire Armstrong, Diora Baird, John Rhys-Davies

Her Vengeance

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★★★
“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.

Code Name: Jackal

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★★
“Too little, too late.”

codenamejackalFor years, an assassin known as “Jackal”, has eluded all efforts at capture, taking out targets before vanishing without trace. However, it seems that retirement is close, when a note is found, apparently left by the killer. This indicates that they are tired of the chase, and will be in a town’s low-rent hotel, waiting for the police. The cop (Han) who has been hunting Jackal is, understandably, wary and suspects a trick, but sets up a stakeout in the hotel to see what unfolds. However, already in one of the rooms there is K-Pop superstar Choi Hyun (Kim)., who had been hoping to hide out for a bit of peace and quite, only to be kidnapped by a rookie killer (Song), hired by his jilted lover. She’s apparently not very good at her job, especially after Choi convinces her he isn’t actually the star, but a celebrity lookalike. Meanwhile, a local cop (Oh) has been drafted in to help with the stakeout, and the hotel staff are proving rather less than helpful, treating the stakeout as a bonus cash-cow to be milked, rather than a chance to help the authorities.

For much of its running time, there is a great deal of sitting in hotel rooms, alternating with scenes of creeping about around corridors. The overall feel is more like a Korean take on British farce, and I sense a good deal of cultural stuff may fly over Western viewers’ heads – for instance, Kim actually is a K-Pop superstar, so issues like obsessed fans and record company executives with ulterior motives probably have particular resonance. It’s just too static to work, concentrating for spells on the burgeoning relationship between novice killer and her victim, then drifting off to the cops and their surveillance operation. What should be the key question – who is the Jackal, and what is their plan? – seems to be all but forgotten until the very end of the film. This is a shame, because this is both interesting and well-considered. Unfortunately, the overall impact is largely to make you wish it had shown up about an hour earlier, with the film developing forward from there with similar energy.

The performances aren’t bad, and there are occasional moments that are genuinely funny. For instance, the police disguise themselves as hotel cleaners so they can check rooms, only for the real employee to insist they actually do the cleaning. But these are only sporadic at best, and the script is generally so weak, in terms both of setting up the central storyline and executing it, that the final 10 minutes aren’t enough to salvage proceedings. You get the sense that a prequel, or a sequel, covering the Jackal’s exploits before or after this particular incident, would have been more interesting.

Dir: Bae Hyeong Jun
Star: Song Ji Hyo, Kim Jaejoong, Han Sang Jin, Oh Dal-su

Bruce Kung Fu Girls

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★★½
“Bruce rolls over from beyond the grave.”

brucekungfugirlsFour years after Bruce Lee’s death, and film-makers were still trying to fool moviegoers into believing their product had some connection to kung-fu’s first global star. Not sure where the deception occurred, as the print here simply overlays the new title over the (still-legible) Hong Kong one, Five Pretty Young Ladies. You really need to combine the two for any genuine accuracy: Five Pretty Kung Fu Girls, would be about right. The five are visiting Hong Kong, where their “uncle” (it’s not clear if this is a genuine relation, or just an honorific title) is a police superintendent. While at a swimming pool, they bump into a guy being pursued by a gang, and take care of the pursuers. Turns out they wanted to get their hands on a formula he had developed. Might there be some connection between this and the invisible thief who is wreaking havoc in the colony? And could the unseen one be planning to steal a moon rock, newly arrived as the centerpiece of an exhibition?

Oh, who am I trying to kid. The answer is, of course, yes to both, and the film doesn’t have any surprises to speak of. What it does have – and this is close to falling into the “only saving grace” category – is Polly Kwan as the head of the group. She’s easily the most talented in terms of fighting, and the makers know it, giving her the bulk of the action. This she handles with grace and flexibility, kicking her way out of trouble, regardless of the number of opponents. Beyond these scenes, there’s a lot of other stuff which drag proceedings to a grinding halt, such as the camping trip, climaxing with what’s probably the worst fake guitar-playing in cinema history. However, there is some entertainment value to be had from things like the matching black hot-pant uniforms worn by the girls on moon-rock guard duty, and the film’s ending teaches us a valuable lesson: when you have strapped a belt of dynamite around your waist, it’s probably best if you try not to fall over.

It is all, clearly, nonsense, with little or no effort made to differentiate the four pretty young ladies that aren’t Polly – one of them has pigtails and pouts a bit, that’s about the extent of it. But I’ve seen less entertaining nonsense, and when Kwan goes into action, becomes worth watching to a high enough degree, as to justify its existence. Unfortunately, all available prints are horribly cropped, which certainly affects the experience: truly a case where seeing more of the lead actress would be a help.

Dir: Shut Dik
Star: Polly Shang Kwan, Lui Ming, Wong Lan, Yeung San-San
a.k.a. Five Pretty Young Ladies

Agent Carter gets her own TV series

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Agent-CarterSomewhat following up on the news from February that Black Widow will get her own film. Marvel Entertainment and ABC announced that the comic book company’s Agent Carter, will get her own 13-episode series this summer. It’ll be screened when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. goes on hiatus, before returning for its second season [we tried it, but gave up a few episodes in; our son remains a fan though]. Here’s the official blurb on the new show.

Marvel’s Agent Carter, starring Captain America’s Hayley Atwell follows the story of Peggy Carter. It’s 1946, and peace has dealt Peggy Carter a serious blow as she finds herself marginalized when the men return home from fighting abroad.

Working for the covert SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve), Peggy must balance doing administrative work and going on secret missions for Howard Stark all while trying to navigate life as a single woman in America, in the wake of losing the love of her life–Steve Rogers. Inspired by the feature films Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, along with the short Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter.

Starring Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter, Marvel’s Agent Carter is executive produced by Christopher Markus, Steve McFeely, Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Jeph Loeb.

AgentCarter2It’s largely inspired by the Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter short film, included as a bonus feature on the home release of Iron Man 3, though as the blurb notes, Carter also played a significant role in the two Captain America films. But her character dates all the way back to May 1966 (making her virtually the same age as me!), first appearing in Tales of Suspense #77. In her comic incarnation, Carter joined the French Resistance, fighting alongside Captain American and falling in love with him, before suffering amnesia and being sent home.

The film – and presumably TV – version is rather different, having Carter as a British agent. Atwell says of her, “She’s an English soldier through and through, although she always looks fabulous. She might stand there with a machine-gun shooting Nazis, but she’s obviously gone to the loo beforehand and applied a bit of lipstick. She doesn’t need to be rescued. That’s exciting to me – her strength.” The period setting is interesting, not something often seen in network shows, though cable’s Mad Men shows that it can be highly successful. If Carter gets renewed, one suggestion is the show will probably move forward a couple of years with each season, up until the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’ll cover the gap in Carter’s life between the events of the two America movies, the first set during World War 2, the second during the present day.

It’s also interesting to note that the series will be helmed by two female showrunners, Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, who created Reaper, and just finished a stint working on Resurrection [which we did watch, but vastly preferred the French take, Les Revenants]. However, perhaps most relevant to this site, they were writers and consulting producers on Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku, which certainly had a decent quota of ass-kicking heroineocity. I must confess, I haven’t see the Marvel One-Shot as yet, but this news has certainly inspired me to see if can track it down. Below, you can find a quick clip, to whet your appetite for what is to come on ABC this summer.

Shadow Dancer

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★★★½
“The informant who went into the cold.”

shadowdancerIt’s 1993, and the peace process in Northern Ireland is cautiously inching forward – though there are some who prefer a more robust method of rebellion, shall we say. Among them is Collette McVeigh (Riseborough) whose little brother was killed by the British Army when she was 12. Along with her brothers Gerry (Gillen, whom you’ll know as Littlefinger from Game of Thrones) and Connor, she is part of the armed struggle, until a mission to plant a bomb in London leads to her capture. MI5 officer Mac (Owen) gives her a stark choice: face a long stretch in prison, separated from her children, or become an informer on her own family.  Collette chooses the later, perhaps influenced by Mac showing her it was an IRA sniper who killed her brother. But it soon becomes clear more is at play, with Mac’s boss (Anderson) apparently intent on sacrificing Collette, in order to protect another, more valuable asset.

Man, this is chilly. Just about everyone in this is being manipulated by one or more of the other characters. It is particularly successful at bringing home just how much the life of an informant must become a gurgling vortex of paranoid loneliness: you can’t trust anyone, and your life could end at virtually any moment. There’s one scene which really brings that home, where Collette is taken to an abandoned apartment, and quizzed about recent security breaches by her cell’s “compliance officer” (for want of a better job description!). She’s entirely on her own, and not even her brothers would be able to help if the truth is revealed. But she’s certainly not the only one: Mac is equally being used by his boss as a tool, and with a coldness that’s particularly chilling, since they’re supposed to be on the same side. Enhancing this, is that the viewer can see the point: it’s like a game of chess where a knight is sacrificed to protect the queen. Doesn’t make it any less painful for the knight of course, but the greater good is not necessarily painless. As a result, there are no real villains here: there are, however, a number of people who have to do unpleasant things for others, either through coercion or because they believe them to be justified. Such is the murky world of terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Director Marsh is best known for his docudrama Man on Wire, about a tight-rope walker who strung a line between the two towers of the World Trade Center in 1974 and crossed between them, 1,350 feet up. This provides a similar same sense of living on a knife-edge, and resulting ever-present peril – along with the threat of violence, which even infects something as solemn as a funeral. The double-twist ending is shocking, though I confess the second one seemed to appear out of nowhere, and appeared to offer little more than this shock value. Still, as a tense drama, this is solid enough, anchored by decent performances from all involved.

Dir: James Marsh
Star: Andrea Riseborough, Clive Owen, Gillian Anderson, Aidan Gillen

Royal Warriors

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★★★½
“Royal pains.”

royalwarriorsIt’s really the finale which makes this stand out – not necessarily for its qualities (though it’s far from bad), more for the batshit insanity. It sees ex-cop Michelle Yip (Yeoh) storm a construction site in an armoured car, to rescue the coffin containing the body of a colleague, which has been suspended from a crane by the bad guy. How the hell did we get here? Good question. It all starts on a plane back from Japan, where among the passengers are Yip, Interpol agent Peter Yamamoto (Sanada, recently seen creating doomsday diseases in Helix) and security guard Michael Wong (Wong – a lot of thought clearly went into that character). On the flight, there’s a hijack, in an attempt to free a killer being extradited to Hong Kong; our heroic trio foil it, killing the hijackers. But that just brings down the wrath of the rest of the gang, who vow to take their revenge on the people who killed their colleagues. And they really don’t care who gets in their way, as a mass gun-battle at a night-club shows – it also gets Yip taken off the case.

Does the finale make sense now? The correct answer would be “kinda,” and the plot here is certainly the weakest element, forming more of a shaky bridge between the action scenes. Wong is particularly unimpressive, his romantic pursuit of Yip coming over as more in need of a restraining order than portraying him as endearingly romantic. In some ways, it also plays as 80’s Action Clichés, Volume 1, There’s a massive civilian body-count, the fate of Yamamoto’s family is painfully obvious, and we get things like Yip’s boss yelling at her, before she throws her badge in his face, and storms off to solve the case on her own. None of this takes away from the action, which is copious and hard-hitting (if, admittedly, sometimes frankly implausible, as noted). There could perhaps be some more Yeoh – you can never have too much – but watching her go up against the final villain (Ying) and his running chainsaw is a thoroughly adequate payoff.

Wong would show up in the fourth entry, again playing a character called Michael Wong, though by that time, Michelle Yeoh had been replaced as the series heroine by Cynthia Khan. Yeoh and Sanada would be paired again, but it would take a couple of decades and a lot of filmographic miles for each, before they worked together on Danny Boyle’s Sunshine. Chung would also direct Yeoh in her final action movie before “retiring” to marriage for a decade, Magnificent Warriors.

Dir: David Chung
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Wong, Ying Bai

Tokyo Ballistic War

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★★
“Long live the new flesh.”

tokyoballisticI’m on the fence with regard to the Japanese uber-gore films, most notably, by the Sushi Typhoon studio, which have achieved renown (or infamy) of late. While some (Mutant Girls Squad) are entertaining nonsense, others (Helldriver) are pretty tedious. So, the concept of lower-budget, exploitation-er versions of these, already low-budget exploitation flicks, is a mixed blessing. Enter Zen Pictures, and their formula, which appears to consist of costumed heroines who alternately fight and get tortured. The story here is split into two volumes, but with each barely an hour long and containing plenty of filler, probably better to consider them a single, feature-length entry.

I do like the central story, which is daft as a brush, yet executed with the right level of straight-faced intensity. In order to market his half-human, half-machine cyborgs to the military, Koumoto, chairman of the Dainippon company, comes up with a cunning plan: create a set of female athletes, who will smash all existing records. However, he has forgotten the Japanese Sports Association, under chief Gondo, who don’t take kindly to these performance-enhancing shenanigans. The solution? Naturally, build their own (eco-friendly!) cyborg to fight the Dainippon team. Except, due to an administrative cock-up, the original candidate, Megumi Asaoka (Taki), is accidentally replaced by Ai Asaoka (Noda). Initially, Ai is successful, but after being captured by Koumoto, she is reprogrammed, and her friend Megumi has to battle to rescue Ai.

The first volume is significantly better, though still has its weaknesses, not the least being more evidence that crappy CGI is far less endearing than crappy practical effects – and there’s enough of both to be seen here. However, it whizzes along with sufficient energy, and contains plenty of action, to merit forgiveness for the obvious poverty-row origins, and everyone involved chews scenery to amusing effect. After the break, unfortunately, things slow down, with a pair of lengthy torture sequences which had absolutely no value for me whatsoever, and the fights seemed, to a large extent, repeats of those from the first volume. Both parts also have another severe weakness – taking an idea and running with it, well past the point where it stops being interesting. Case in point: one of the battles includes the participants each releasing a cyborg arm, which then stage their own fight, independently. For 15 seconds, it’s kinda amusing. After a minute, it’s dull. But the film keeps going far beyond that, and there are plenty of similar cases; the surgery which turns Ai into a cyborg is also depicted at far greater length than necessary. Maybe this is some Japanese fetish thing, of which I was previously unaware.

tokyoballistic2This is definitely a case where less would have been more, and with a more enthusiastic hand on the editor’s knife, this could have become a decent eighty-minute feature – and possibly an even better 50-minute one. Kamikura does often demonstrate an awareness and acceptance of exactly how ludicrous the entire scenario is, and the film is at its best when wholeheartedly embracing its own insanity. For instance, each of the cyborg athletes’ talents is influenced by their sport: Hitomi Oka is a tennis-player, so whacks people with an over-sized, pneumatic racket, and lobs exploding tennis-balls at them. Additional helpings of that kind of imaginative lunacy – and considerably less tied-up schoolgirls being prodded or whipped – would certainly have made for a more entertaining end product.

Dir: Eiji Kamikura
Star: Ayaka Noda, Arisa Taki, Masahiro Saito, Shinya Nakamura