Author: Jim McLennan

Dragon Blue

  By

★★½
“Into each generation a rubber-suited monster slayer is born…”

When the island site of a proposed resort starts seeing mutilated bodies turn up, they call in Feng Shui specialist Mayuko (Tanaka) to investigate. However, as she herself discovers, she’s no ordinary psychic, but the next in a line of guardians dedicated to stopping demons from entering the human world. With the aid of some conveniently informative dreams, a down-to-earth cop (pro-wrestler Mutoh, known in the West as The Great Muta) and a sword she finds underwater, it’s up to Mayuko to stop the Hellmouth from openi…er, save the world.

Despite careful thought clearly having gone into the back-story and related folk legends, this wastes time meandering around before its climax, where Mayuko finally gets her powers by snapping her rock crystal power bracelets [incidentally, available at Trash City :-)] It probably doesn’t help that the monster is…well, let’s say that despite the involvement of Steve Wang, it’s no coincidence that this was released in the US by ‘Rubbersuit Pictures’. Though its relentless interest in human women – particularly topless ones – is amusingly reminiscent of B-pics like Humanoids from the Deep, that sound you hear is the Creature from the Black Lagoon sniggering.

This lacks the necessary enthusiasm which would counter the obvious budgetary restrictions. While possessing a smattering of sex and violence, the film as a whole is overly restrained, well-mannered and simply too damn polite to be of much interest.

Dir: Takuya Wada
Star: Hiroko Tanaka, Keiji Mutoh, Tomoroh Taguchi, Ryo Hayami

Lady Battlecop

  By

★★
Tired and dull Robocop clone. But after all, “women were made for tennis”…

At least, so claims one of the songs in this largely ineffective movie, about professional tennis starlet Kaoru – Anna Kournikova will be in the Hollywood remake, no doubt – who is transformed into a crime-fighting machine. This takes place after she is killed by the Cartel, a crime syndicate bent on taking over Japan, despite apparently having about seven members. They do, however, have a “psychic robot” called Amadeus, which is probably the sole original thought in the entire film, and the whole thing gets kicked up a notch during his battles. The interesting question of where he came from (apparently a NASA creation), is never explored. This is a shame, since it’d be rather more interesting than almost anything the film actually offers.

As it is, it quickly gets tedious after the first time we see Lady Battlecop walk unharmed through a hail of bullets. [When the Cartel find a weapon that actually hurts her, this behemoth of evil can apparently afford only one of them] Keita Amamiya, who’d later go on to direct better films of his own, such as the two Zeiram movies, designed the suit, and it’s not bad – I liked little touches such as the dangling ear-ring and what may be turn indicators – but either it or the actress are incapable of moving above walking pace. Or performing martial arts, stunts, or indeed, anything else that might provide much-needed entertainment.

Many scenes and even dialogue will strongly remind you of Paul Verhoeven’s classic, but where Robocop was sharp and satirical, this is bland and vacuous. There’s little attempt made to make the characters interesting, and the Cartel’s enforcers come across with more depth, even if they never do much beyond sneer and rant. The good guys (and gal) here are left to dream of getting emotive depth.

Dir: Akihisa Okamoto
Star: Azusa Nakamura, Keisuke Yamashita, Masaru Matsuda, Shiro Sano
a.k.a. Lady Battle Cop

Dangerous Prey

  By

★★★
“Daft, but entertaining, soft-porn angle on Nikita.”

If you must stab someone with a knitting needle, you should take time to work out what to say afterwards. Instead, Robin (Whirry) comes out with the immortal line, “Knit the devil a sweater, asshole”, which is not a one-liner that’ll go down in cinema history. But like Fatal Conflict, this is a Lloyd Simandl film, the man perhaps most worthy of inheriting Andy Sidaris’ girls-with-guns crown in the 1990’s. And as such, this is no disaster.

When the arms-smuggling shenanigans of Robin’s boyfriend get her sent to jail, she is busted out by a secret project which turns women into assassins, who seduce men before killing them. Robin is none too impressed with the idea, but Dr. Drexel (Laufer) has implanted a device that can kill her on command. After an impressively sleazy opening, which mixes sex and violence to heady effect, this has more in common with the women-in-prison genre. For example, Robin has to deal with current top bitch Tanya (Hunter, Miss Canada 1988) who is unhappy to have competition. It’s no surprise to discover the two end up, er, bosom buddies as they, um, bust out. There’s certainly plenty of eye-candy, with the women showing all the expected devotion to personal hygiene.

Whirry is actually pretty convincing, and Hunter acquits herself well, in the face of a script that hardly bothers to motivate her character. Laufer, on the other hand, appears to have been instructed to extend the running time. By. Saying. His. Lines. As. Slowly. As. Possible. However, best of all is a cameoing taxi-driver (Ahmed Rahim), whose quirky character almost steals the film, though it’s not explained why an Indian is driving a Czech cab. The action is sound if unspectacular gunplay, plus occasional cool moments such as Robin’s concealment of a razor-blade. Overall, the impact falls short of the potential, but as a B-movie, it’s solid, knows its limitations, and works within them.

Dir: Lloyd A. Simandl
Star: Shannon Whirry, Ciara Hunter, Joseph Laufer, Beatrice de Borg

Blue Crush

  By

★★★
“Life’s a beach, especially if you want to surf more than the Internet.”

The marketeers screwed up: aimed at teenage girls, our daughter refused to see it, on the grounds – Hollywood, please note – that their bikini tops and bottoms didn’t match in the poster… Anyway: Anne Marie (Bosworth) sees her ticket to stardom in a surf competition on Hawaii’s North Shore. But she has to come to terms with waves bigger than she’s ever faced before; a rebellious kid sister (Boorem); a dreadful job as a hotel maid; and, inevitably, the guy who wants to spend quality time with her on dry land (Davis), while her friend Eden (Rodriguez) tries to keep her focussed on surfing.

We’re firmly behind Eden on this one, since it’s only in the water that the film comes alive. Much credit to cinematographer David Hennings, who does an excellent job of capturing the power and intensity found in the unfettered ocean. The film needs this, as otherwise, there’s not much in the way of conflict – everyone turns out to be nice, even Anne Marie’s rivals in the surfing contest.

As is, it’s not bad, just easily predictable: maybe they should have tossed in a shark, or a giant octopus, or something, simply to spice things up a bit. A slight romance and flashbacks about a bang on the head are well short of realising the potential to be found in the magnificent Pacific setting. While there’s hardly anything new in its painfully obvious storyline, it will certainly inspire new respect, both for the sea, and those who challenge it armed with little more than a plank.

Dir: John Stockwell
Star: Kate Bosworth, Matthew Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Mika Boorem

Pink Force Commando

  By

★★★
“At least they got the title straight. Now, about the plot…”

Pretty much the same cast and crew as GQC [initials used to prevent lengthy debate over exact title] bring you, if anything, an even more surreal adventure. We get footage from the earlier film to introduce the characters, not mentioning that a lot of them died first time round. And what era is this? The original was WW2, but at one point here, a character sails off on a jet-ski. Anyway, our heroines find themselves aligned against the evil swine who betrayed them, whose motley gang includes ninjas, banditos and the KKK. This time, Brigitte Lin is Jackal – at least she gets a new character. Initially with the villain, she sees the light and proves loyalty to her old pals by cutting her own arm off. She then meets “The Heart-Broken Man”, who provides a nifty prosthetic, complete with gun and power-drill attachments.

I am not making any of this up, I swear.

On the plus side, once it actually gets on track with the story, it’s as effective as GQC, with a final battle that’s rousing and well-staged. As before, however, it takes its own sweet time to get there, meandering via betrayal, reunion, more betrayal, amputation, a subplot involving a really big diamond y mucho mucho mas, as they say on Mexican TV adverts. None of this will hold your interest but, hey, if you don’t like this plot, no need to worry, there’ll be another one along in a minute. Chu’s “everything but the kitchen sink” approach can either infuriate or entertain – probably both – but at least Chris stayed awake for this one.

Dir: Chu Yin-Ping
Stars: Brigitte Lin, Elsa Yeung, Sally Yeh, Sylvia Pang

Golden Queens Commando

  By

★★★
“One title for each heroine. And each plot element too, probably.”

I’m going with the title on the print – your opinion may differ. As it likely will for this insane distillation of The Magnificent Seven and The Dirty Dozen, complete with music lifted from both Western and War genres. It certainly isn’t dull: incoherent and dumb, maybe, but you expect that in an early work from the director of Flying Dagger, one of the maddest Asian movies ever. Lin, credited as “Venus”, plays the fetchingly eyepatched Black Fox, who breaks out of jail with six associates, and convinces them to help destroy a chemical weapons plant in occupied Manchuria.

This task occupies only the last ten minutes of the film: the rest covers life in prison, how the women got there, a dumb subplot where the ladies get captured and take part in goofy contests (such as spaghetti-eating) to win their freedom, etc. Calling these “of variable interest” is being very kind, yet when not diverted, the film works well; the heroines, each with different skills, are strong and well-defined. I was able to recount their individual fates the next day to Chris, who’d fallen asleep – in defense, she’d been sinusy and on the Robitussin. But without saying too much, the heroic mortality rate here is higher than in either Magnificent or Dirty…

Shame the print is badly cropped: a caption reading “tan Plate” is presumably “Tibetan Plateau”. While the production is often as clumsy as the presentation, it’s one of the first girls-with-guns films to come from Hong Kong, so respect is due. And given sufficient leeway and appropriate expectations, this is stupid fun on its own terms.

Dir: Chu Yin-Ping
Star: Brigitte Lin, Elsa Yeung, Sally Yeh, Sylvia Pang
a.k.a. Amazon Commandos [BRNS.com]
a.k.a. Golden Queen Commando [Alex-in-Wonderland.com]
a.k.a. Golden Queen’s Commando [IMDB.com]
a.k.a. Golden Queen’s Commandos [HKMDB.com]
a.k.a. Jackie Chan’s Crime Force [Arena Video title]
a.k.a. Seven Black Heroines [BrigitteLin.com]

Two-Gun Lady

  By

★★★★
“An old-school Western delivers a very pleasant surprise.”

Trick-shot artist Kate Masters (Castle) comes to a remote town with her show, raising suspicions among locals, who suspect she’s more than she seems. They are led by Jud Ivers (McDonald) and his family, who rule the area with an iron grip. This 1955 B-movie (in the original sense – it’s only 71 minutes long) crams plenty in, with almost everyone having secrets, good or bad. Castle makes a fine heroine, exuding strength but ultimately vulnerable, and is matched by the rest of the cast. Particular credit to McDonald, and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s mother, Barbara Turner, in her movie debut as Jenny Ivers; both bring depth to what could be one-dimensional characters.

This certainly has predictable elements (the fate of Jenny’s lamb is inevitable), yet punches surprisingly above its weight, with exchanges such as the following, on the nature of frontier justice:
    “You the sheriff?
    “No. Just the law…”
It does drag in the middle, thanks to a tedious subplot involving a US Marshal (Talman) out to get the Ivers clan, which reached its nadir in a very dull horse chase. There’s also a very odd part where Marie Windsor walks into a scene she’s not involved in, and leaps back, visibly startled – how that take stayed in the film beats me. But the finale, pitting Masters against the fastest gun in town, is very nicely staged, and will likely bring animal lovers everywhere to their feet.

Most remarkably of all, our 18-year old son, more used to Buffy and Alias, sat and watched this b&w Western, made three decades before he was born. And we weren’t even in the room. Praise, indeed.

Dir: Richard Bartlett
Star: Peggy Castle, William Talman, Ian McDonald, Marie Windsor

High-Heeled Punishers

  By

★★★
“All men are rapist scum. Now, once again, here are our titties.”

short0117This resembles an adult version of Cat’s Eye, an 80’s manga which became an anime series, and eventually (1997) also a live-action film. Both feature a trio of ladies with a fondness for tight costumes, who run a cafe by day, while engaging in unusual overtime work. In Cat’s Eye, it was robbery; here, it’s punishing rapists, lechers, etc. in painful, genital-related ways. And, of course, two local policemen patronise the cafe, blithely oblivious to the extra-curricular activities of the trio, who leave a calling-card of a stilletto on their victims, and are known as the “High-Heeled Cats”. [The title above, which it’s generally called, seems to be a Video Search of Miami invention.]

It’s strangely schizoid: largely light-hearted, yet including some downright nasty sexual assaults, and the anti-chauvinist message of the heroines is diluted by their dressing, undressing and showering at every opportunity. [I suspect this is the main purpose of the feature, especially since they can’t fight for toffee.] When they cross a Yakuza boss, he uncovers their secret identities and kidnaps one while on a delivery run. It’s up to her friends, aided by the cops, to save the day. After a brisk start, there are few surprises here – subtitles are largely superfluous – though some “vengeances” extracted by the girls are imaginative. This falls some way short of being enough to sustain a feature, and how much you get out of this is possibly linked to your interest in masochism.

Dir: Takashi Kodami
Star: Misuzu Saiki, Manami Morimura, Minori Sonoda (The D-Cats)

Bikini Bandits: Freeze, Motherfu***rs!

  By

★★½
“More is less. Much less.”

Bandits started as a hugely popular short – confusingly, titled Episode 7 – on Atomfilms.com. Its success led Grasse to churn out a number of extremely loosely-connected ‘sequels’ (also on this DVD), as well as 50-minute feature (sold separately) The Bikini Bandits Experience, featuring the late Dee Dee Ramone and Corey Feldman. The basic idea is grand, and is established in the original short, where bikini-clad, gun-toting babes rob a convenience store (which stocks some beautifully surreal imaginary products, not the least of which is ‘Beef Flaps’), kidnap a clerk, and lasciviously kill him. It is politically incorrect on almost every conceivable level, and on its own, is an undeniable guilty pleasure of the highest level.

Unfortunately, the rest of the series is no more than a sequence of tired rehashes, shuffling the Bandits into other settings (the desert, an Amish community, 1776), and there is no sense of development, progression or innovation at all. What was initially trashy fun becomes pointless through repetition – the final entry, Bikini Bandits Under the Big Top is just woeful. Grasse’s lurid directional style, which also packed a wallop for the first five-minute chunk, is one-note to the point of inducing a headache – I dread to think what the long version of Experience would do. It may be unique, but it’s still sad to see such a fine concept flushed down the tubes so relentlessly. And yes, that’s exactly how the title appears on the sleeve.

Dir: Steve Grasse
Star: Heather McDonnell, Heather-Victoria Ray, Cynthia Diaz, Betty San Luis

The Fabulous Moolah, by Mary Lillian Ellison

  By

★★★
“A living legend proves she’s capable of both kicking and kissing ass.”

It’s ironic that this runs some 90 pages shorter than Chyna’s bio, given that Moolah had almost 50 years of experience before Chyna ever stepped into a ring, and also outlasted the Ninth Wonder, fighting a bout in 2002, on her eightieth birthday. Indeed, Moolah’s upbringing alone – the sole girl among 13 children, whose first marriage was at age fourteen – likely has enough material for a thick volume. Yet, despite wrestling in seven different decades, and multiple reigns as women’s champion over forty-three years, this finally peters out into insignificant sycophancy.

Of course, you expect some of this in any “WWE authorised” book, but the McMahons comes across here as saints, devoid of failings. This is despite Vince reducing the women’s division to a T&A/freak show from its 1998 reappearance, until Lita won the crown in August 2000. It’d have been interesting to hear Moolah’s genuine views on these tawdry gimmicks – in defence, her involvement was never as bad as Mae Young’s – but there’s no chance of that in this book.

This is a shame: its earlier portions provide a real sense of personality, and as a role-model for growing old disgracefully, Moolah’s wonderful. Her apparent belief that she genuinely held the title from 1956-1984, through pure skill, is more touching than plausible (and ‘forgets’ numerous defeats, e.g. a 1968 loss to Yukiko Tomoe in Japan). But generally, this is the grandma every child wants. Her stories ramble and, in all likelihood, are of questionable accuracy, yet that doesn’t make them any less amusing.