Author: Jim McLennan

Witchcraft X: Mistress of the Craft

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★★★
“Tackily entertaining entry in sorcery saga. Mine’s a pint…”

This comes from Vista Street Entertainment, whom you might remember produced some of the worst entries in the Women Who Kick Butt box-set; they’re kinda like a poor man’s Troma. The series mostly feature attorney Will Spanner, but he took a break for this entry, being temporarily dead: it’s that kind of world. While I’ve not seen 1-9, I found this entertaining – trash rather than garbage – though Chris kept making sarcastic comments about Stephanie Beaton’s nipples (or lack thereof).

She plays an LAPD detective sent to England to extradite a Satanic serial-killer (Knowlton). Before she can, he’s freed from custody by vampire queen Raven (Daly) to assist in a dark ritual. Luckily, there’s white witch Celeste (Cooper), who runs round London at night, fighting evil in a fetching, powder-blue PVC costume, complete with cape. Cue catfights, human sacrifice and a ten-minute chunk where all three leading ladies get naked, simultaneously but separately.

Daly (plus henchwoman Emily Booth) chews the scenery to fabulous effect, and the Raven/Celeste conflict is the stuff of which franchises are made – imagine Buffy and Glory, ten years after. Given sufficient beer, experienced bad movie lovers will appreciate the badly dubbed sound effects, clunky dialogue and cheap production values. But how can you not like a heroine who travels on the astral plane, yet still also uses payphones, clad in her little costume? It will, however, probably be some time before I get Chris drunk enough to pick Witchcraft XI from the unwatched pile…

Dir: Elizar Cabrera
Star: Wendy Cooper, Eileen Daly, Kerry Knowlton, Stephanie Beaton

Pushed to the Limit

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★½
“A title equally applicable to heroine and viewer.”

If I ever become an evil overlord, I will conduct thorough background checks on all entrants to my martial arts tournament, to ensure they are not related to anyone I may previously have had killed. I will also teach my guards that if a prisoner is apparently not in his cell, they will use mirrors to examine all its corners, rather than rushing in and allowing him to drop from the ceiling onto them.

But I digress (if you can do so, before actually saying anything). In this film, wrestling champion Mimi Lesseos plays…wrestling champion Mimi Lesseos. Clearly a stretch for her there, then; think her brother and mother are perhaps also…her brother and mother. Is this a documentary? ‘Course not: real life would never be so cliched and predictable as this, which plods along, almost entirely as predicted. Mimi (Mimi) loses her brother to evil Oriental drug dealer Henry (Henry) – with hindsight, telling “gook” jokes was probably not a wise move on his part – who just happens to run a martial arts tournament. I trust I need say no more with regard to the plot.

Lesseos makes for a decent fighter and a tolerable actress, though the subplot which has her as a showgirl in Vegas is irrelevant, inane and positively wince-inducing. She does rely too much on wrestling moves – flying drop-kicks are not a genuinely viable tactic in deathmatches, I imagine. It’s the story that really kills this. There’s a moment when it seems that the bad guy is becoming infatuated with Mimi, regardless of her background, and this could have gone somewhere. Instead, it’s discarded as she works through a range of opponents, leading to the (yawn) final confrontation with her brother’s killer. The result is something which works, only if you’ve never seen any of this kind of film before – having a female lead is a nice idea, but much more effort is needed, rather than thinking this is sufficient, in and of itself.

Dir: Michael Mileham
Star: Mimi Lesseos, Verrel Reed, Henry Hayashi, Greg Ostrin

Bubblegum Crisis

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★★★
“Hardsuits, rogue mecha and day jobs.”

Worthy of note as one of the first pieces of anime made available to an English-speaking audience, (not long after its original 1985 Japanese release), BGC is set in 2032, when Tokyo has been rebuilt, post-earthquake. The Genom corporation are fiddling with Boomers, biomechanical robots of immense strength but with a nasty tendency to run amok. Standing guard are a mysterious team, the Knight Sabers, with their own technological strengths, who alternate between merc work and more altruistic concerns.

Any similarity to Blade Runner is entirely deliberate; the heroine is called Priss, and sings with a band called The Replicants. She, and her three colleagues (Nene, Linna, and Sylia) moonlight from their various day-jobs as the Knight Sabers, each with their own special abilities. The eight episodes in the series combine multiple plot arcs and standalone stories, with mixed effectiveness, though the later ones tend to work better. There’s not much background on the characters, save Sylia, and a tendency to gallop through towards the final fight in a number of the OAVs. There’s a lot of emphasis on the music, but I’m no J-Pop fan, so they needn’t have bothered.

The animation looks a little creaky now, as you’d expect from a show of its age, but also seems to improve as the series progresses – the artists learn what works and what doesn’t. I confess to preferring secondary characters such as Nene, to supposed heroine Priss; when we get to see their lives (as in #8, which has Nene acting as “babysitter” to a teenage girl on a quest to photograph the Sabers), it’s a more fully satisfying experience. Followed by two sequels, Bubblegum Crash and Bubblegum Crisis 2040.

Dir: Various
Star (voice): Kinuko Ohmori, Akiko Hiramatsu, Michie Tomizawa

Coffy

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★★★½
“The godmother of blaxploitation’s debut in the field.”

Neither star Grier nor director Hill were exactly strangers to the world of exploitation when they made this, but their combination here created a whole new subgenre, crossing action heroineism with black cinema. Following her would come Foxy Brown, Cleopatra Jones and the rest, but let it be said, Coffy was the first of any significance.

It’s a robust tale – or at least one reused frequently since with minor changes. Nurse Coffy (Grier) goes after those she sees as responsible for leaving her kid sister a drug-addled vegetable, be they low-level pusher, high-level supplier or the politician in cahoots, who just happens to be her lover. There’s no hanging round here; almost before the credits have finished, we get someone’s head being blown off with a shotgun, and Hill brings a hugely gleeful air to the violence. This is perhaps exemplified best by a marvellous and justifiably classic catfight in which Coffy, razorblades hidden in her hair, takes apart an entire escort agency’s worth of hookers.

Dramatically, it’s less successful, with neither the supporting characters nor the plot holding your interest. It often borders on the painfully obvious; when her cop friend turns down a bribe, you just know he’s going to end up hooked to one of those hospital machines that goes “Beep”, and inside five minutes, yep, there he is. Beep. He then vanishes from the film shortly thereafter, though it’s never clear whether he dies or not. At least this does mean we don’t get the even more painfully cliched “flowers on the grave” sequence. But as a Pam Grier vehicle, it’s fine, and if little more than a vehicle for sex ‘n’ violence, with questionable morality and a hackneyed storyline, it is at least done enthusiastically enough to pull you along with it.

Dir: Jack Hill
Star: Pam Grier, Booker Bradshaw, Robert Doqui, William Elliott

Gladiatrix

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★★★½
“Proof that the female action heroine’s appeal is at least a couple of millennia old.”

This sculpture, found at Halicarnassus, in what is now Turkey, depicts two woman, Amazonia and Achillea, fighting each other. It’s one of the prime pieces of evidence for female gladiators.

This intriguing piece of archaeological detective work began with the discovery of an opulent grave in the paupers’ section of a Roman-era cemetery in London. Piecing together the clues, the conclusion was reached that, while it could have been a follower of Isis, this was most likely a gladiator’s grave – which was something of a shock, as the occupant was female…

From here, we head into a discussion of how Roman life centred round the amphitheatre and how the gladiatorial games developed. While there wasn’t a great deal of new information here, it was interesting to see a connection made between the rise of the female participant linked to Boadicea’s revolt, which had taken place a decade or two earlier. This would have no doubt opened the Roman mind to the possibilities of broads with swords. Similarly, in Rome, the absorption of the Amazonian legend (originally a Turkish story) could have led to the introduction of the gladiatrix.

Narrated by – who else? – Lucy Lawless, the documentary is hampered by an over-enthusiastic visual style during the battle recreations. At times, these were so hyperactive as to convince me that I was watching clips from the 2001 version of The Arena. While understanding the need to avoid becoming a sequence of talking heads and shots of ruins, the attempts to jazz the inserts up prove more of a distraction than an enhancement. I’d have welcomed more speculation on the life of the gladiatrix too. Still, great to hear a little about the ancestors of Michelle Yeoh and Pam Grier!

Dir: Jeremy Freeston
Discovery Channel documentary, December 2001

She

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★★★
“She may be the face you can’t forget…the film, too, has its moments.”

Proof positive that a lack of narrative coherence is no barrier to a good time, She makes about as much sense as you’d expect from a film where the soundtrack veers wildly from Rick Wakeman to Motorhead. It’s post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery, with Bergman as She, the immortal goddess ruling a tribe of Amazon warriors. For reasons which are never explained, She ends up tagging along with hero Tom as he searches for his kidnapped sister. Hey, even Immortal Goddesses need some time off, I guess.

Loosen up, realise this bears effectively no relation to the H.Rider Haggard novel (previously filmed by Hammer, with Ursula Andress in the Immortal Goddess role), and you may find this fun, albeit the dumb kind. I should warn you that the first 20 minutes suck, make little sense and are remarkably tedious. Once we get moving, things perk up, because on their travels, Tom and She encounter a wild range of wacky adversaries: chainsaw-wielding lepers, mad zookeepers, vampires and someone doing a convincing impression of Robin Williams at his most irritating. None of these could hold an entire movie, and Nesher realises this, wisely whizzing them past at high speed, despite the resulting random air, like a D&D adventure written by a rank novice.

The action is competent, if obviously cheap, though surprisingly, Bergman is outdone by her sidekick (Kessler). Tom rescues She, She rescues Tom, repeat with minor variations until it all ends in a pitched battle against the bad guy and his army of, oh, say 30 soldiers. Whatever its shortcomings (and space is too short for a listing), lack of imagination is not one of them. Many less inventive movies are out there – thus, this one can only be applauded.

Dir: Avi Nesher
Star: Sandahl Bergman, David Goss, Quin Kessler, Harrison Mueller

Silk

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★½
“Beware: Silk pulls the wool over your eyes.”

One of the primary rules of exploitation cinema, is never to trust a movie with painted box-art. And, verily, no scene like the picture at right occurs in the film. Indeed, the whole film is sold on sizzle rather than steak, and will probably leave you feeling more than a little hungry. Verrell looks the part, though her slicked-back hair is rather too cliched and obvious, and she does appear to be doing her own action. Her lack of acting ability is painfully obvious, however, and Santiago is wise to keep her dialogue to a minimum.

Silence on the subject of the plot would have been well-advised too; it’s particularly woeful, involving drug smugglers and vigilante cops. Large chunks aren’t clear, and the sections which are, don’t capture the interest. The box tries to hype things up, with an amusing line in superfluous verbiage – another rule of exploitation is to beware blurbs with four adjectives in the same sentence (“…a chain of spectacular action footage, from screeching car chases to raging gun battles and blazing explosions of firepower.”) – but it’s a lost cause.

Special mention must be made of the appalling soundtrack, in particular the theme song, and although the setting is supposedly Hawaii, I strongly suspect the Phillipines is closer to the truth. But as the box art proves, this is not a film that can be relied upon to deliver what it promises. One can only wonder what Claudine St. James though of this adaptation inspired by her work.

Dir: Cirio Santiago
Star: Cec Verrell, Bill McLaughlin, Fred Bailey, Joe Avellano

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

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★★
To quote Marshall Fine: “Kaos would have saved everyone a lot of time and money by simply eliminating the stars and the story and releasing Ballistic as Giant Fireballs, Vol. 1.”

Despite the title, this movie rarely pits Ecks (Banderas) vs. Sever (Liu). The two spend more of the film teamed, up taking on the evil duo (Henry and Park) who killed Sever’s family and have kidnapped Ecks’ son – perhaps a spoiler, but anyone who didn’t see that one coming, was probably run over on the way to the cinema.

The film raises a number of interesting issues. Unfortunately, they stem more from the cinematic process, such as wondering why no-one taking part in the car-chases ever appears to drive faster than the speed limit. I know it’s Canada, but these are supposed to be characters living on the edge, not concerned with getting traffic tickets. And speaking of Canada, why are so many American government agencies operating in the open, blowing things up and shooting anyone in range, with barely a whimper from the locals?

The other problem is that no-one in the movie can act – we should perhaps exempt Liu, since she has barely a dozen lines. The scenes of Banderas and his wife (Soto) are woefully lacking in chemistry, and Ray Park is simply dreadful, despite looking so much like Oz from Buffy, that I kept expecting a full moon and a transformation. The plot is equally inept, tacking on an entire chunk about microscopic robotic assassins which is almost totally redundant. It’s nice that the studio changed Sever from male to female, but the results are…well, at time of writing, the Rotten Tomatoes review score runs 64-0 against the movie, which must be some kind of record. [Update, December 2013: Try 110-0!. Which is, indeed, the worst ever.]

There is one great sequence, when Sever is ambushed at a library, in which she mows down an entire army, picking up their weapons and turning them against their owners. This culminates in a fabulous shot from above of a victim dropping onto a car which you keep thinking is going to cut away – it doesn’t. That, however, is it, and despite such brief flashes of potential, this is largely lame, tame and full of unfulfilled possibilities. Ten years ago, it might have been a Hong Kong movie starring Simon Yam and Yukari Oshima – on the whole, that would have been much more entertaining.

Dir: Kaos
Star: Antonio Banderas, Lucy Liu, Gregg Henry, Ray Park

Silk 2

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★★½
“She’s back! Except, thankfully, she’s not – it’s someone different.”

Was the world really crying out for a sequel? I guess Silk proved profitable enough for Gabrielle to replace Verrell as the titular cop, three years later and without any explanation. I’ve liked Gabrielle since her barnstorming double role in Deathstalker II, but even I have to admit she’s not really well-cast here, with her voice inappropriate for a supposedly tough crimefighter. Mind you, anyone would have problems with cliched aphorisms of the “Crime doesn’t pay” kind demanded by the dialogue.

After an opening third which is pretty dull and pointless, things do liven up – you get the impression someone actually thought about the script, rather than just spending an hour in Blockbuster, cribbing it off the back of other movies. The goods at the centre of things here are a set of Japanese scrolls which were guarded by a sect of warrior monks; on loan to a “Hawaiian” art-gallery (looks like the Philippines once more), they are switched for a set of fakes. The shenanigans that follow are not perhaps a surprise, yet they are carried out with sufficient energy to keep an uncritical viewer content.

I should point out that, as in the first film, the picture at right does not actually occur anywhere in the movie. Gabrielle does get one surprisingly decent fight sequence however [and I’m not saying that because of her loose-fitting robe, or the wildly gratuitous shower scene which precedes it]. More of such action would have helped – instead, this ends up as a passable, if not exactly memorable, waste of time.

Dir: Cirio Santiago
Star: Monique Gabrielle, Peter Nelson, Jan Merlin, Maria Clair

Yes, Madam

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★★★★
“Early HK girls-with-guns flick sets high standard.”

Purely on a historical level, this 1985 film merits attention since it started the whole action-heroine genre in Hong Kong cinema, which thrived for the next decade, producing some of the finest entries ever made. It also was, effectively, the start of the careers of Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock. Interesting to see how they’ve since headed in opposite directions: Rothrock to low-budget erotic thrillers, Yeoh to the Academy Awards.

But even on its own terms, and despite a few mis-steps (forgivable in any pioneer), this is still greatly entertaining. It’s classic good-cop/bad-cop material, with Rothrock playing Carrie Morris, a Scotland Yard officer send to help Yeoh find a microfilm which incriminates the manically laughing chief villain (James Tien), and is in the unwitting possession of three shysters.

For some reason these are named, in the subbed version, Strepsil, Panadol and Aspirin – one is played by famous HK director Tsui Hark. The subbed version also includes some very goofy comedy (including a cameo by Sammo Hung) that, frankly, I could have done without; score one for the dubbed version which excises this, and also treats you to a dubbed Rothrock, sounding more like the Princess of Wales. On the other hand, her nickname in the subtitles is – and I wrote this down – “nasty foreign chick”. Something lost in translation there, I reckon.

It all builds to a fabulous, extended brawl in which our heroines take on the bad guys in a plate-glass showroom (er…perhaps it just seems that way). This remains one of the finest showcases of female martial arts on the screen. Up until then, it’s been solidly entertaining, pacey and with some thought apparently having gone into the plot and characters. It’s a classic, in more ways than one.

Dir: (Corey) Yuen Kwei
Star: Michelle Yeoh (as Michelle Khan), Cynthia Rothrock, John Sham, Man Hoi