Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½
This version of the world is more or less identical to our own. Except, several hundred years ago, there was a catastrophe in which massive dragons rampaged around, with humans being collateral damage. A secret society called the Earthbound managed to end the thread, partly through the invention of the Spell Web – basically, an Internet for magic users. Now, the Earthbound and a secret government organization, the Supernatural Intelligence Group, operate to keep a largely oblivious population in the dark. Though everyone knows dragons are extinct… aren’t they?
Well, for whatever reason, someone seems very keen to take out Mei Walker, who has grown up under the protection of the SIG, before she comes into her supernatural powers at age 20, which will be in a few weeks. There have been over 530 assassination attempts made against her in the past 12 years. While the Earthbound and the SIG are supposed to be allies, it’s clear there’s a faction of the former intent on getting their hands on Mei, and using her talents for their own ends. Fortunately, she’s not exactly defenseless. Beyond those magic abilities, allowing her to manipulate the element of water, she has also been brought up to be able to take care of herself. She’s forced on the run with SIG agent Seth, unsure who she can trust – even her long-absent father – or how far up the plot against her goes.
I think my main problem is that Mei is almost entirely in the dark as to why she is so important. She (as well as, by proxy, the reader since it’s all told in the first person) and Seth seem about the only people oblivious to the specifics of her situation. It’s a conceit which seems there solely to generate a sense of mystery – not least because of her being left a mysterious box which is built up as being a serious Macguffin, but contains basically nothing of significance. It feels as if, especially after 500+ attempts on her life, the story would have made more sense for her to be aware of the situation from the beginning, rather than running around blind. By the end, we finally know what’s about to happen, though the book ends before there’s any conclusion as to exactly what that means.
Outside of that (admittedly, fairly major) flaw, this is okay. Mei is pitched at a nice level of ability: competent, without being super-powered, and there’s a lack of significant romance which is pleasant. There is a spell in the middle which edges towards the dreaded urban fantasy love-triangle, before it backs off – at least, for now… Jaye does a decent job of building a world lurking just beneath ours, with the standout scene perhaps being Mei’s retrieval of the box from a pawnbroker, who is also a collector of magical artifacts and… things. But safe to say, I think I prefer my fantasy considerably less shrouded in mystery.
Author: Trudi Jaye
Publisher: Star Media, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 4 in the Dragon Rising series.


It probably didn’t help that I watched this the same day as I finished off the slick, well-animated and occasionally downright beautiful 
There is a good concept here. Unfortunately, rarely have I seen an idea so conspicuously derailed by dreadful execution. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though, and begin by focusing on the positives here. Dawn (Morgan) is a truck driver who is on a cross-country route, and pulls off the road into a remote, wooded location for an obligatory rest stop. Barely has she come to a halt, when a terrified young woman, Phoebe (Gobin), shows up outside her cab, demanding help. She claims to have been abducted, and been held nearby. But she managed to escape from her kidnapper, who is now hot on her heels, with evil intentions. However, is the new arrival speaking the truth or is she dangerously deranged?
This was a very pleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting much from this, especially after seeing Wynorski’s name – let’s be honest, he is best known for bargain basement soft-port. That said, he does occasionally hit one out of the park, such as the sublime Deathstalker II. This is definitely one of his better entries, even if it is, by and large, a low-budget version of Assault on Precinct 13.
This probably falls into the category of lightly amusing, rather than anything more. But I can’t say I was ever bored, and it’s assembled well enough technically that I can’t complain. The heroine is Mi-Young (Uhm), a former North Korean agent, who defected, changed her looks through plastic surgery, and now lives a quiet existence, with a part-time job selling pastries in the local market. She’s married to Seok-Hwan (Park), a computer repairman, and their life is frugal as far as wealth goes. Seok-Hwan, however, is wins a promotion run by a soft-drink company, getting them and their young daughter a trip to Hawaii.
Rapace seems to be turning into a female version of Ryan Reynolds. By which I mean, it seems that hardly a month goes past without a new Netflix Original coming out starring her. Ryan had 6 Underground, Red Notice and The Adam Project. Noomi has given us
I must confess I have not seen Confessions of a Homicidal Prostitute, to which this is a sequel. It’s marginally possible, I suppose, that the character development, story and nuance were present there, and explain why these are all but entirely absent in its successor. I would not, however, be prepared to bet on it. I suspect the original was every bit as mean-spirited as this: and “suspect” is all I’ll ever do, because I won’t be making any effort to track it down. In fact, I probably wouldn’t watch it if my aged mother begged me to on her death-bed. Too harsh? Perhaps. Yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flat-out
This one is slightly unusual among action-heroine films, in that it was both written and directed by women: Kirsten Elms and Kari Skogland respectively. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly an advert for their gender; after a brisk start, it falls apart, and becomes a ridiculously implausible movie, in a completely different genre from where it started. That’s a real pity, because where it started, had a lot more potential than where it ends up. It begins with Sage Rion (Manning), a young but highly-talented thief, taking a bet with her partner, as to who can boost a classic car quickest. She picks a 1966 Dodge Challenger, but inadvertently leaves her ID at the scene of the crime.
This is certainly an odd animal. It takes place in and around a Thailand hospital, where one of the physicians, Dr. Tar (Jarujinda), has a lucrative side-scam in selling bodies to… well, if it’s not clear who, there appears to be sufficient demand for them. He is in cahoots with a group of seven nurses, but one of them, his girlfriend Tahwaan (Wachananont), finds out he is having an affair with her sister, Nook (Rujiphan). After she threatens to go to the police, Dr. Tar and the other six nurses kidnap and kill Tahwaan. However, her spirit comes back from the grave, to take brutal vengeance on those responsible for her death. Naturally, the peeved ghost starts with the characters who bore relatively minor culpability, working her way up to Nook and the not-so-good doctor.