Author: Jim McLennan

Brutal Beauty: Tales of the Rose City Rollers

  By

★★½
“Too much ego and not enough doughnuts.”

For the next entry, we leap forward to 2009, and Portland – a city which all we know about, we learned from Portlandia. And, on that basis, of course it’s a city which has roller derby, where it sprung, virtually fully-fledged to four-figure crowds. This is less of a landmark doc, in that it doesn’t cover the beginning, middle or end. It’s basically a year or so in the lives of the participants in the Rose City Rollers, which is the Portland league. It covers both their local season, and then, once that’s over, follows the travelling team, the Wheels of Justice, first as they head down to San Francisco to take on their hated rivals, then over to Denver for the regional championships.

S’okay. The problem is there’s very little here any fan of the sport won’t already know about, or have seen before, and not enough to draw in anyone else. Is it heretical to say that roller derby chicks can be stereotypical in their individuality, just as much as those in the mainstream they profess to detest? That is the impression that comes over here, and a couple of the women are… Well, to be honest: really annoying. I guess there’s a certain kind of extroverted type who will be attracted to roller-derby. But simply because you strap on wheels and give yourself a fake name, doesn’t necessarily stop you from being an irritating bi… Well, let’s just say: I don’t care in the slightest what kind of tattoos you get, and move on, shall we? As for “Roller derby saved my soul”, even as a fan of the sport, I reckon that counts as going overboard. What next? “Roller derby cured my tumour”?

It’s a shame, since when concentrating on the sport, the documentary is decent enough. There’s a great explanation of the rules involving donuts [incorporating a plug for the city’s famous Voodoo Doughnut store!], and they also provide a better insight into the separate and largely distinct roles of jammers, pivots and blockers, as well as the different skills needed for each. In contrast to some other leagues, the theatrical fights and things like the punishment wheel are nowhere to be found in Portland. However, it’s not long before we’ve abandoned derby and are back at watching one women yell at another through a bathroom door. As an insight into the appeal of the pastime, it’s a good deal less than satisfactory.

[This one can currently be seen on Hulu without a subscription being needed.]

Dir: Chip Maloy

Hell on Wheels

  By

★★★½
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was ‘Austin’…”

The revival of modern-era roller-derby started in Austin, Texas, when a man of dubious background and apparently even more questionable character, Dan Policarpo, arrived in the city and started talking up the sport to anyone who would listen. While he didn’t last long – taking loans out in the names of his skaters doesn’t inspire confidence – he was instrumental in putting together the first in what would become a worldwide wave of amateur, but extremely dedicated, all-girl roller-derby leagues. At the center in Austin were four women – Heather Burdick (a.k.a. Sugar), April Herman (Queen Destroyer), Anya Jack (Hot Lips Dolly) and Nancy Haggerty (Iron Maiden) – who founded Bad Girl Good Women and were captains of the four teams. However, it was not long before the inevitable drama starts, with the rest of the participants wondering for exactly whose benefit they were risking life and limb, as well as sacrificing their free time.

And when I say inevitable, this is not a gender slam, since we’re currently “enjoying” something similar in the male-dominated world of pro wrestling here in Arizona. It’s more that strong personalities, contact sport and money are unlikely to be a good combination, and the film demonstrates this in spades. Things come to a head after a financial fiasco involving calendars, and a very nasty injury at a bout that turns out to be an uninsured event, and about 3/4 of the skaters slough off into a rival league, setting the stage for even more drama. You couldn’t script this stuff, and it’s remarkable that Ray was there to capture it from the very beginning, well before Dave Attell showed up to film it for Insomniac, before A&E covered the original league for Rollergirls and way before Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page took any interest.

However, it’s a double-edged sword, in that there’s far more footage of league meetings than league matches – and if you can work out what’s going on in the latter, you’re better than I am. Admittedly, that may be because, in these early days, they weren’t actually very good skaters. As for the former, most get-togethers appear to take place in bars, or other places not conducive to the recording of crystal-clear dialogue. But it’s worth persevering, for the characters and drama that unfolds with a remarkably even hand. It would have been easy to portray the Gang of Four as exploitative tyrants, but one makes the point that they wanted to run the league like communists, and it failed miserably. There are also times when the film should have called out the BS of those present, such as when a skater gets all snotty after an audience member grabs her crotch… instead of merely spanking her as intended… while she’s dressed as a sexy schoolgirl. Yeah. I think you lose much right to credible outrage at that point.

But, for all its uncritical approach and other flaws, this is the Declaration of Independence of roller derby, a historic document which shows how the whole thing got started. Austin set the tone for both the good and the bad aspects of the sport-industry-crypto-feminism which we know and love today, though after this film, you’ll be left feeling it’s something of a miracle the whole shebang didn’t crash and burn during its formative years.

Dir: Bob Ray

[The whole doc is now available to watch online, though the DVD comes with a lot of extra footage, commentaries and other assorted bells and whistles.]

The History of Roller Derby

  By

We used to be fairly well into roller derby, and reports of these bouts have previously graced the pages of this site. Our involvement in the scene came to a sudden halt a couple of years back when a shift-change at work left me holding down the fort on Friday and Saturday evenings, which are basically the prime nights for bouts. While the shift has its advantages, it does mean the only bout we’ve seen in about the past five years was one at the Arizona State Fair which happened to coincide with a midweek night off. I still possess my AZRD shirt, which I wear it to work occasionally, and have followed (vaguely) the schisms and ructions as groups have split, flourished and folded locally. Phoenix alone, as well as AZRD, has the Arizona Derby Dames, Arizona Roller Girls, Harmonic Violence Rollergirls, Renegade Roller Girls and Desert Dolls Roller Derby (somewhat) active, more than any other city in the world. I’m unsure whether this splintering is a good thing.

But while randomly kicking around Netflix, I noticed not one, not two, but three documentaries covering the topic, and figured I might as well use my bandwidth to watch them. After all, roller derby continues to grow, and is among the sports being considered for inclusion in the 2020 Olympics [though as “roller sports”, it seems likelier its more civilized cousins such as inline skating, will get the nod]. It doesn’t seem to be the passing fad some suspected – there’s over a thousand women’s flat-track leagues worldwide on this list – so for those interested in kick-ass heroines, the following films all provide an initiation into the sport of queens.

  • Hell on Wheels

    ★★★½
    “In the beginning was the word, and the word was ‘Austin’…”

    The revival of modern-era roller-derby started in Austin, Texas, when a man of dubious background and apparently even more questionable character, Dan Policarpo, arrived in the city and started talking up the sport to anyone who would listen. While he didn’t last long – taking loans out in the names of his skaters doesn’t inspire confidence – he was instrumental in putting together the first in what would become a worldwide wave of amateur, but extremely dedicated, all-girl roller-derby leagues. At the center in Austin were four women – Heather Burdick (a.k.a. Sugar), April Herman (Queen Destroyer), Anya Jack (Hot Lips Dolly) and Nancy Haggerty (Iron Maiden) – who founded Bad Girl Good Women and were captains of the four teams. However, it was not long before the inevitable drama starts, with the rest of the participants wondering for exactly whose benefit they were risking life and limb, as well as sacrificing their free time.

    And when I say inevitable, this is not a gender slam, since we’re currently “enjoying” something similar in the male-dominated world of pro wrestling here in Arizona. It’s more that strong personalities, contact sport and money are unlikely to be a good combination, and the film demonstrates this in spades. Things come to a head after a financial fiasco involving calendars, and a very nasty injury at a bout that turns out to be an uninsured event, and about 3/4 of the skaters slough off into a rival league, setting the stage for even more drama. You couldn’t script this stuff, and it’s remarkable that Ray was there to capture it from the very beginning, well before Dave Attell showed up to film it for Insomniac, before A&E covered the original league for Rollergirls and way before Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page took any interest.

    However, it’s a double-edged sword, in that there’s far more footage of league meetings than league matches – and if you can work out what’s going on in the latter, you’re better than I am. Admittedly, that may be because, in these early days, they weren’t actually very good skaters. As for the former, most get-togethers appear to take place in bars, or other places not conducive to the recording of crystal-clear dialogue. But it’s worth persevering, for the characters and drama that unfolds with a remarkably even hand. It would have been easy to portray the Gang of Four as exploitative tyrants, but one makes the point that they wanted to run the league like communists, and it failed miserably. There are also times when the film should have called out the BS of those present, such as when a skater gets all snotty after an audience member grabs her crotch… instead of merely spanking her as intended… while she’s dressed as a sexy schoolgirl. Yeah. I think you lose much right to credible outrage at that point.

    But, for all its uncritical approach and other flaws, this is the Declaration of Independence of roller derby, a historic document which shows how the whole thing got started. Austin set the tone for both the good and the bad aspects of the sport-industry-crypto-feminism which we know and love today, though after this film, you’ll be left feeling it’s something of a miracle the whole shebang didn’t crash and burn during its formative years.

    Dir: Bob Ray

    [The whole doc is now available to watch online, though the DVD comes with a lot of extra footage, commentaries and other assorted bells and whistles.]

    Continue reading →
  • Brutal Beauty: Tales of the Rose City Rollers

    ★★½
    “Too much ego and not enough doughnuts.”

    For the next entry, we leap forward to 2009, and Portland – a city which all we know about, we learned from Portlandia. And, on that basis, of course it’s a city which has roller derby, where it sprung, virtually fully-fledged to four-figure crowds. This is less of a landmark doc, in that it doesn’t cover the beginning, middle or end. It’s basically a year or so in the lives of the participants in the Rose City Rollers, which is the Portland league. It covers both their local season, and then, once that’s over, follows the travelling team, the Wheels of Justice, first as they head down to San Francisco to take on their hated rivals, then over to Denver for the regional championships.

    S’okay. The problem is there’s very little here any fan of the sport won’t already know about, or have seen before, and not enough to draw in anyone else. Is it heretical to say that roller derby chicks can be stereotypical in their individuality, just as much as those in the mainstream they profess to detest? That is the impression that comes over here, and a couple of the women are… Well, to be honest: really annoying. I guess there’s a certain kind of extroverted type who will be attracted to roller-derby. But simply because you strap on wheels and give yourself a fake name, doesn’t necessarily stop you from being an irritating bi… Well, let’s just say: I don’t care in the slightest what kind of tattoos you get, and move on, shall we? As for “Roller derby saved my soul”, even as a fan of the sport, I reckon that counts as going overboard. What next? “Roller derby cured my tumour”?

    It’s a shame, since when concentrating on the sport, the documentary is decent enough. There’s a great explanation of the rules involving donuts [incorporating a plug for the city’s famous Voodoo Doughnut store!], and they also provide a better insight into the separate and largely distinct roles of jammers, pivots and blockers, as well as the different skills needed for each. In contrast to some other leagues, the theatrical fights and things like the punishment wheel are nowhere to be found in Portland. However, it’s not long before we’ve abandoned derby and are back at watching one women yell at another through a bathroom door. As an insight into the appeal of the pastime, it’s a good deal less than satisfactory.

    [This one can currently be seen on Hulu without a subscription being needed.]

    Dir: Chip Maloy

    Continue reading →
  • Blood on the Flat Track: The Rise of the Rat City Rollergirls

    ★★★★
    “The best of the recent docs for the novice to the sport.”

    In contrast to Brutal Beauty, this succeeds to a far greater degree is in putting over the attraction of roller derby. The first couple of films seem aimed more at the devotee, and it was more or less taken as read that already you liked it, or were at least somewhat interested. Here, I think even the more casual viewer will find themselves sucked in. They may or may not want to go any further, but the doc does a much better job of explaining the entertainment to be found, both for participants and spectators. The sheer sense of fun that is found at the best roller-derby events [or even, to be frank, the crappy ones, which we have also attended!] is a good deal more palpable here than in the other films, which concentrated on personalities to a greater extent than the sport. That isn’t the case here, and to an outsider, the results are likely better for it.

    Not that there is any shortage of said personalities, such as the mother and daughter who both take part in the sport, or the three sisters who have been roller-skating virtually their entire life, and are feared across the entire Seattle league. There are, admittedly stories about romance and marriage included, but even these have a close connection to roller-derby, like the guy who proposes after his girlfriend became part of the championship-winning team [I can relate to this, having proposed to my wife immediately after the Arizona Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series!]. I also enjoyed the insight into the different teams, like the Sockit Wenches (right) or the Derby Liberation Front, and the different ways in which they both perceive themselves and are perceived from the outside. Each has a different group personality, which of course, attracts other like-minded individuals, reinforcing that aspect of the team.

    In common with the rest of the films, it covers a period of time rather than necessarily any particular sequence of events, mostly around the 2006 season, where the Wenches were trying to dethrone the reigning champion DLF. There’s enough footage of actual bouts that you can understand the skill of the participants, and the danger inherent in the sport. It’s frank in admitting that sex appeal is part of the draw, especially for the male audience, but I can attest that the film is also correct when it states that after about 15 minutes, that simply isn’t important. With its host of likeable players, it’s no surprise that the derby scene in Seattle continues to prosper, with the fed holding the national record for single-event attendance, having pulled 6,885 to a show in June 2010.

    [It doesn’t seem to be available to stream online for free; we found it on Netflix. ]

    Continue reading →

Below the Belt

  By

★★
“Captures the true spirit of independent wrestling on the road. Especially the tedium.”

Rosa Rubinsky (Baff) is working as a waitress at a wrestling venue, when her swift dispatch of an over-affectionate coworker gets her noticed by a promoter (Bechler). He convinces her to try out, under the watchful eye of Mildred Burke [playing herself – she held the Women’s World Championship for about 20 years], and after some initial shock, discovers she likes the theatrical sport. Despite never having been outside the state of New York, she goes on the road, along with a set of other women wrestlers, and they travel up and down the East coast, putting on shows, though Rosa is still deemed too “green” to get in the ring. That changes after she meets the current women’s champion, Terrible Tommy (O’Brien, another genuine wrestler of the era). A bout for the belt is arranged, in which Rosa – known now as “Rosa Carlo, the Mexican Spitfire” – will take on Tommy for the title.

Inspired by the recently-republished novel, To Smithereens by Rosalyn Drexler, in turn inspired by Drexler’s brief career in the squared circle as “Rosa Carlo”, when she wasn’t hanging out with the likes of Andy Warhol, this certainly captures the non-glamourous side of the business well. If you’re used to the WWE and its divas, the women here will seem like they come from another planet, not exactly the skinny supermodels now near-exclusively seen: I don’t know about you, but Terrible Tommy sure put the fear of god into me, and some of the others have faces that could stop a clock. However, it just doesn’t make sense for Rosa to make her debut in a title match: from what I know of wrestling, you have a long apprenticeship before you get that far, and instead of ring action, this leads to lots of scenes in cars, as the women drive from city to city, interspersed with semi-random wrestling footage that makes no sense and serves no real purpose.

And then there are the montages… I didn’t realise this was a musical. Ok, the characters don’t sing, but it seems like every few minutes, there’s a song over a cinematic backdrop, to the extent that it goes beyond good, to bad, and then right through to a surreal point where it almost, but not quite, makes sense again. Negatives like that do outweigh the moments of truth, such as the promoter giving Rosa her ring-name despite her loud protests, or the comment that “Old wrestlers never retire.” This one is more a curtain-jerker than a main event.

Dir: Robert Fowler
Star: Regina Baff, John C. Becher, Annie McGreevey, Jane O’Brien

Bandit Queen (1994)

  By

★★★
“Not quite Bollywood.”

If you’ve seen Bollywood films, you might expect the same here – a light, breezy romp, interspersed with gratuitous musical numbers. Wrong, on every conceivable level. It’s an almost unrelentingly grim portrayal of the life of Phoolan Devi (Biswas), sold off by her family at the age of 11, abused by her husband (Shrivastava) as well others in the higher-ranked Thakur caste, and basically treated worse than an animal. She’s eventually abducted by a gang of bandits, whose lieutenant Vikram (Pandey) is sympathetic to her: when the leader tries to rape her, Vikram shoots him in the head, and takes over, making Phoolan his co-chief. However, after the group’s true leader is released from prison, he’s none too happy, and sets out to teach Phoolan a lesson than will make her earlier misfortunes seem like paradise.

How much of this is true, is open to debate. Devi was supposedly so upset by the film, she threatened to set herself on fire outside a cinema if the film weren’t withdrawn, but the depth of her anger can be questioned, since she ended up being paid off by the producers. The basics do seem true, and it’s a remarkable story, centred on a performance from Biswas that leaves nothing in the locker. It’s also entirely unlike any other Indian movie I’ve ever seen, being foul-mouthed, brutal, and even contains some full-frontal nudity – though that is far more unsettling than anything else. However, in depicting the hellish life of low-caste women, it goes beyond the eye-opening to the stage where you almost find yourself thinking, “Oh, look: she’s being raped again.” Less would be substantially more, in terms of impact.

It’s definitely more drama than action, with her gang’s raid on a village the main set-piece in this area. Another thing that doesn’t quite work is Biswas being a full decade older than the character she’s playing. In reality, Devi’s rise to bandit infamy and eventual surrender to authorities was all over, while she was still a teenager, which is quite stunning. The movie certainly exposes a side of Indian life unlike one you’ll have seen, even if probably not one you’ll want to see again. But it certainly shows that someone is pushed far enough, they will push back.

Dir: Shekhar Kapur
Star: Seema Biswas, Nirmal Pandey, Aditya Shrivastava, Saurabh Shukla

Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby

  By

★½
“Hugely disappointing sequel, that’ll make you want to hurl.”

Wow. This is dreadful, and I speak as someone who enjoyed its predecessor, appreciating its excessive updating of Little Red Riding Hood. Bright tries to capture lightning in a bottle here, this time going for Hansel and Gretel, but it’s largely a miserable failure, imploding in screeching one-note performances from the two leads and far too many scenes of teenage girls vomiting. Yep. Girls vomiting. The scenario has Crystal Van Meter (Lyonne) sentenced to 25 years in prison, by a judge (a cameo by John Landis) fed-up of her petty criminality. There, she meets fellow desperado Angela “Cyclona” Garcia (Celedonio), a teenage serial killer with even more anti-social tendencies. After much binging and purging, the pair break out and go on the lam, heading for Tijuna and Sister Gomez, whom Garcia believes can solve their problems. But the Sister is not quite what she seems… as should be clear when I tell you she’s played by Vincent Gallo.

That chunk is really the only area where the film is remotely salvageable, capturing the surreal horror of a depraved, cannibalistic Mexican cult, which is both grim and Grimm. Until that point, however, you have painfully little of interest, with Bright failing to provide anything that’s interesting in the way of characters, plot or even bad-taste, despite one sequence where Crystal projectile vomits over a guard, in a manner last seen in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, and she is just about as repugnant a creation as Mr. Creosote. Indeed, the whole film is shot through with an unpleasant loathing of all humanity, whether it’s her lawyer (David Alan Grier), who gets public hand-jobs from his clients, or the two cops trailing the fugitives. It’s a nasty, sneering approach which leaves the viewer wanting to take a shower, even if you discount the fascinated depiction of bulimic regurgitation.

Even if you stick to the simple math, Lyonne is clearly much less than Reese Witherspoon in the original, and for the first hour you’ve got absolutely no reason to watch: I’ll confess I spent some time in the next room, trying to fix a computer, rather than listening to the leads’ screeching at each other. Chris bailed in the first scene, claiming she had a strong aversion to Grier, and while I initially was peeved by her snap judgment, in the end, I can’t argue she was dead right.

Dir: Matthew Bright
Star: Natasha Lyonne, María Celedonio, Vincent Gallo, Bob Dawson

Raging Angels

  By

★★
“Because “Peeved CFOs” wouldn’t be as catchy a title.”

Despite the name, there isn’t much raging, especially in the first half, which is more about the struggle for ownership of a company. It starts with an attack on the current chairman and his wife Bin (Ng) while on a trip to the Phillippines, after which she takes over the company. That doesn’t last long, as Tammy (Cheung) has designs on its finances, aiming to asset-strip it for his own purposes and divest Bin of her shareholding. To this end, he frames her and Chin (Leung), her best friend who is the wife of the company’s accountant, for drug smuggling: Chin takes the rap and is sent to 10 years jail. It takes all Bin’s resources to get her out, and when he does, Tammy sends his henchmen to kill their mother [ok, its not clear whose mother]. Bin and Chin arrive just too late, but find the minions’ vehicle, full of weapons… Yep, finally, it’s raging time!

When it finally kicks in, it’s certainly good stuff, to the extent that you wonder why they basically didn’t bother for the first 75 minutes: the only notable action heroine sequence to that point sees Ng take on a predatory lesbian and her gang in prison. However, it loses half a star due to the action, for no apparent reason, being shot in a crappy strobey fashion, dropping frames here and there: I wondered whether it was just my dubious copy (which also had audio in two different languages simultaneously), but I’ve seen a couple of other reviews that mention it, so I’m thinking it was a deliberate stylistic choice, albeit one we could have well done without. Ng and Leung both still have the moves, though they are unable to dispatch Tammy by themselves and have to rely on male help; further debit there.

Not to be confused with the Sean Patrick Flannery pick – unlike Amazon did! – the film’s main mistake is taking a good cast, and failing to play to their strengths. Which would be kicking ass, in case you were wondering. The final reel shows the makers are aware of this, which simply begs the question, why wait so long? The performances aren’t bad, with both Leung and Ng are decent in their roles. However, it feels like having to eat an entire loaf of bread before getting a couple of slices of ham at the end. While you’re glad for the break, it doesn’t repay the effort.

Dir: Rickie Lau
Star: Carrie Ng, Jade Leung, Roy Cheung, Eddie Ko Hung

Karate Girl (2011)

  By

★★★½
“On the plus-side, this does have a plot. On the other hand, you kinda wish they hadn’t bothered.”

The film manages to cram just about every cliché of martial-arts films into its 92 minutes, with a plot driven by four major threads:
a) You killed my father, and must pay.
b) You run a rival school, and must pay.
c) You are generally not a nice person, and must pay.
d) You kidnapped my sibling, raising them as one of your own and training them in your evil techniques, before sending them out to kill me. Oh, and you must pay for this too, naturally.

Ayaka Kurenai (Takeda) can only watch as her father, a master of karate, is killed in front of her very young eyes, and her sister Sakura (Tobimatsu) is dragged away by the perpetrators. A decade or so later, Ayaka goes viral after using her skills to stop purse-snatchers in the cinema where she works, an event that brings her to the attention of Tagawa Shu (Keisuke), the man behind it all. He still covets the family belt, having apparently missed it when killing the man and kidnapping his daughter. He sends out some minions to verify if she is who she seems – then when that’s done, plays his trump card, revealing he has Sakura, in his evil grasp. Little does he reckon that Sakura’s family loyalties run deeper than all the training the Evil Dojo can drive into her…

Yeah, the plot is a load of pants, and the acting is nothing to write home about – it’s serviceable enough, in line with what you’d expect from a movie with this title. I did enjoy most of the action, and the relaxed style of editing which lets you see the performers and their skill. It doesn’t always work, but enough of it does to make for a generally-entertaining time. British-born Heselton. who looks like a pissed-off Simon Pegg on steroids, comes across well, but the highlight is probably the scene where a pair of Tagawa’s minions go to Ayaka’s karate school, and take on, first her classmates, then her, in an effort to flush her true talent and ancestry out.

Both Takeda and Tobimatsu show potential here. The latter is another young discovery – the next next generation of action heroines? – and it’s startling to realize she is just 14. One suspects child-labour laws must be a good deal laxer in Japan than the West. Let’s just hope their next film isn’t plotted out on the back of a beer-mat.

Dir: Kimura Yoshikatsu
Star: Rina Takeda, Hina Tobimatsu, Horibe Keisuke, Richard William Heselton

High-Kick Girl

  By

★★★
Less a “film” than “fights spliced together, interspersed with cut scenes from a Mortal Kombat knock-off”.

The entertainment value you get from this may depend on your expectations. It undoubtedly works best as a party-tape, show-casing the “no wires, CGI or stunt doubles” approach, but I have to beg to differ with some of the critical savaging it has received. Even on our forums, it divided opinions, with some posters calling it “moronic and offensive” and “complete TRASH”. While I can see its weaknesses, and it’s no classic, at least in the first half, it does deliver pretty much everything you’d expect in the way of teenage ass-kickery.

The plot – such as it is, and I wonder what they did with the rest of the postage-stamp – is as follows. Kei Tsuchiya (Takeda) is a student under master Matsumura (Naka), but fed up with training, goes out to “hunt black belts.” This brings her to the attentions of the Destroyers, a gang of mercenary martial-artists called the Destroyers, extend an invitation to her to join them. Turns out it’s a trap, designed to lure in Matsumura, against whom they have a 15-year old grudge, and with the kidnapped Kei as bait, they await her teacher’s arrival. And that’s the main problem. The first half sets up Kei as fearless and tough, but after the chief villain shows up, spends much of the second-half whimpering on the floor: Matsumura does far more of the heavy lifting, despite his claim, rather questionable on the evidence here, that “karate is not for fighting.”

And that’s a shame, as Kei makes a good impression, right from her first bit of action, which sees her surprise an unsuspecting opponent with a kick to the head from a standing position, as shown on the right. Another standout was the kickfest (below), against another real-life karate star, Yuka Kobayashi. Stylistically, however, the main problem is the director’s repetitive, frequent use of slow-motion: while this is great in the aforementioned “party tape” atmosphere (where, if someone yells, “Wow, look at that,” you can turn around and see it again), it is badly overused and drags the viewer out of the cinematic experience far too often: lob this kind of stuff on as an extra on the DVD, if you must.

The reviews which aren’t writing this off entirely tend to point out that it works better if you regard it as some kind of martial-arts promotional piece, and that would tie in with the heavy emphasis that “Karate is a martial art for protection.” [Personally, I feel a good pair of running shoes would be just as good there] However, there’s little doubting that Takeda is the real deal in terms of fighting ability, and shows a willingness to take punishment as well as dish it out, that is certainly to her credit. However, the inexperience of both her and the creators in the more traditional aspects of film-making – for the final battle, the location appears to be a school gymnasium, on loan to the Destroyers! – do significantly hamper the overall merit.

Dir: Fuyuhiko Nishi
Star: Rina Takeda, Tatsuya Naka, and a host of faceless minions

Rina Takeda: The Next Action Heroine?

  By

Last month, we saw MMA star Gina Carano hit the big-screen in Haywire, but she’s not the first genuine female martial-artist to have started a movie career. Most obviously, Cynthia Rothtock was a five-time World Karate Champion in forms and weapons, and has a number of black belts in various disciplines. Similarly, Jeeja Yanin was a third-Dan black belt in Taekwondo, before hitting the silver screen in Chocolat. But here, we’ll be looking at the name that has recently emerged out of Japan, Rina Takeda, holder of a black belt in Ryukyu Shorin-ryu Karate.

Born in 1991, Takeda was reportedly inspired to take up the martial-art at the age of ten, when she saw her father get knocked out of a karate tournament, and was determined to avenge his defeat. [If you’ve seen the “plot” – quotes used advisely – of some of her films, this makes a great deal of sense…] In 2005, she auditioned to become a member in J-pop group Morning Musume, and to date, has appeared in three films, as well as a recurring role on the Japanese comedy-superhero series, The Ancient Dogoo Girls. There’s a certain sense that her talents have not yet been matched by the material provided, but everyone has to start somewhere. Just ask Angelina Jolie, whose career started with Cyborg 2…

[November 2013 update: we can add Dead Sushi to her resume, where she plays the daughter of a famous sushi chef, who has to fight off reanimated… well, sushi. It’s from the director of Machine Girl, but having just watched the trailer, I think a well-stocked fridge will be needed!]

  • High-Kick Girl

    ★★★
    Less a “film” than “fights spliced together, interspersed with cut scenes from a Mortal Kombat knock-off”.

    The entertainment value you get from this may depend on your expectations. It undoubtedly works best as a party-tape, show-casing the “no wires, CGI or stunt doubles” approach, but I have to beg to differ with some of the critical savaging it has received. Even on our forums, it divided opinions, with some posters calling it “moronic and offensive” and “complete TRASH”. While I can see its weaknesses, and it’s no classic, at least in the first half, it does deliver pretty much everything you’d expect in the way of teenage ass-kickery.

    The plot – such as it is, and I wonder what they did with the rest of the postage-stamp – is as follows. Kei Tsuchiya (Takeda) is a student under master Matsumura (Naka), but fed up with training, goes out to “hunt black belts.” This brings her to the attentions of the Destroyers, a gang of mercenary martial-artists called the Destroyers, extend an invitation to her to join them. Turns out it’s a trap, designed to lure in Matsumura, against whom they have a 15-year old grudge, and with the kidnapped Kei as bait, they await her teacher’s arrival. And that’s the main problem. The first half sets up Kei as fearless and tough, but after the chief villain shows up, spends much of the second-half whimpering on the floor: Matsumura does far more of the heavy lifting, despite his claim, rather questionable on the evidence here, that “karate is not for fighting.”

    And that’s a shame, as Kei makes a good impression, right from her first bit of action, which sees her surprise an unsuspecting opponent with a kick to the head from a standing position, as shown on the right. Another standout was the kickfest (below), against another real-life karate star, Yuka Kobayashi. Stylistically, however, the main problem is the director’s repetitive, frequent use of slow-motion: while this is great in the aforementioned “party tape” atmosphere (where, if someone yells, “Wow, look at that,” you can turn around and see it again), it is badly overused and drags the viewer out of the cinematic experience far too often: lob this kind of stuff on as an extra on the DVD, if you must.

    The reviews which aren’t writing this off entirely tend to point out that it works better if you regard it as some kind of martial-arts promotional piece, and that would tie in with the heavy emphasis that “Karate is a martial art for protection.” [Personally, I feel a good pair of running shoes would be just as good there] However, there’s little doubting that Takeda is the real deal in terms of fighting ability, and shows a willingness to take punishment as well as dish it out, that is certainly to her credit. However, the inexperience of both her and the creators in the more traditional aspects of film-making – for the final battle, the location appears to be a school gymnasium, on loan to the Destroyers! – do significantly hamper the overall merit.

    Dir: Fuyuhiko Nishi
    Star: Rina Takeda, Tatsuya Naka, and a host of faceless minions

    Continue reading →
  • Karate Girl (2011)

    ★★★½
    “On the plus-side, this does have a plot. On the other hand, you kinda wish they hadn’t bothered.”

    The film manages to cram just about every cliché of martial-arts films into its 92 minutes, with a plot driven by four major threads:
    a) You killed my father, and must pay.
    b) You run a rival school, and must pay.
    c) You are generally not a nice person, and must pay.
    d) You kidnapped my sibling, raising them as one of your own and training them in your evil techniques, before sending them out to kill me. Oh, and you must pay for this too, naturally.

    Ayaka Kurenai (Takeda) can only watch as her father, a master of karate, is killed in front of her very young eyes, and her sister Sakura (Tobimatsu) is dragged away by the perpetrators. A decade or so later, Ayaka goes viral after using her skills to stop purse-snatchers in the cinema where she works, an event that brings her to the attention of Tagawa Shu (Keisuke), the man behind it all. He still covets the family belt, having apparently missed it when killing the man and kidnapping his daughter. He sends out some minions to verify if she is who she seems – then when that’s done, plays his trump card, revealing he has Sakura, in his evil grasp. Little does he reckon that Sakura’s family loyalties run deeper than all the training the Evil Dojo can drive into her…

    Yeah, the plot is a load of pants, and the acting is nothing to write home about – it’s serviceable enough, in line with what you’d expect from a movie with this title. I did enjoy most of the action, and the relaxed style of editing which lets you see the performers and their skill. It doesn’t always work, but enough of it does to make for a generally-entertaining time. British-born Heselton. who looks like a pissed-off Simon Pegg on steroids, comes across well, but the highlight is probably the scene where a pair of Tagawa’s minions go to Ayaka’s karate school, and take on, first her classmates, then her, in an effort to flush her true talent and ancestry out.

    Both Takeda and Tobimatsu show potential here. The latter is another young discovery – the next next generation of action heroines? – and it’s startling to realize she is just 14. One suspects child-labour laws must be a good deal laxer in Japan than the West. Let’s just hope their next film isn’t plotted out on the back of a beer-mat.

    Dir: Kimura Yoshikatsu
    Star: Rina Takeda, Hina Tobimatsu, Horibe Keisuke, Richard William Heselton

    Continue reading →
  • Ninja Girl (Kunoichi)

    ★½
    “Save your time, save your money, and go watch Karate Girl instead. Again, if necessary.”

    From the director of Alien vs. Ninja, the story here centres on a pair of ninjas, Shimotsuki and Hyotsuki, who are carrying on what appears to be a family tradition, kidnapping women from other clans’ villages, and taking them back to their own for nefarious purposes – let’s just say, the phrase “tools of pleasure” crops up on more than one occasion. They ar returning with their latest batch of four, including Kisaragi (Takeda), who is a ninja in her own right. With the help of a mysterious man (Sato), Kisuragi and her colleagues in imprisonment are released from their bondage – but that is only the first obstacle between them and their freedom. Of course, it turns out the heroine is not quite as innocent as she appears, and has an agenda of her own, because her mother was kidnapped by the same sleazy ninjas, when Kisuragi was just a baby.

    Barely an hour long, this still somehow manages to outstay its welcome, managing to spend far more time engaging in borderling misogyny, rather than anything remotely empowering, and a distinctly sleazy tone with plot elements involving castration, venereal disease and a great deal more molestation of helpless women that I generally like (particularly in my ninja flicks). There is really only a single battle of note, when Kisuragi gets to take on one of her captors in a battle that is fairly well-shot and does a good job od showcasing Takeda’s undeniable skills. However, you don’t get the sense that there was more than a couple of days work involved, and even given the short running time, it’s still a negligible amount of what’s on view, and there just isn’t anything like sufficient elsewhere to keep you interested or entertained.

    I haven’t seen Chiba’s earlier work, but it seems to be basically the same “head off to a forest for some film-making” approach that we see here. That can work in the right hands – Versus is justly the most well-know example of that genre. However, here, it’s more like a cheap excuse to disguise the obviously limited production values than anything else. Hopefully, Takeda will soon move beyond this kind of Z-grade dreck: I did read rumours of her being in Chocolate 2, which would be nice if said rumours had the slightest grounding in fact, which seems questionable. Hey, we can dream, can’t we?

    Dir: Seiji Chiba
    Star: Rina Takeda, Yuichi Sato, Masanori Mimoto, Mitsuki Koga

    Continue reading →