Author: Jim McLennan

Sheba, Baby

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★★★
“Neither claim on the top left of the poster are accurate.”

After the success of Coffy and Foxy Brown, Pam Grier continued her career with this not dissimilar blaxploitation flick, albeit one of a more restrained approach. Indeed, this received a ‘PG’ rating at the time of its release in April 1975, something modern ears would likely find shocking, considering the copious use of certain racial epithets deployed here. She plays private detective Sheba Shayne, who returns to her home town of Louisville from Chicago, after getting a telegram from her father’s business partner, Brick Williams (Stoker). He warns that her father (Challenger) is taking on some rough customers who are trying to force him into selling his company. Sheba, naturally, is having none of it, and when the police refuse to do much, starts working her way up the food-chain of scumbags, to the apex predator of The Man, who in this incarnation is Shark (Merrifield).

There’s not much here which could be described as particularly new or exciting. Indeed, I almost passed on the movie entirely, thinking I’d already seen it, but it appears I was confusing this with Friday Foster. That’s the thing about Grier’s career: she received only limited opportunities to break out from the ghetto of blaxploitation, and to some degree, her output is much of a muchness. Though at this point, there were precious few other areas of English-speaking media which allowed women to kick butt in the way she did. We were still in the era before Charlie’s Angels and Wonder Woman, albeit just – WW started the November after Sheba came out, and CA the following year.

For now, Grier was ploughing her own furrow in the vanguard of action heroines, and despite the generic nature of this offering (it was the final movie of Pam’s contract with American International Pictures), still represents okay value for money. It does gloss over the fact that Sheba’s Dad is little more than a kinder, gentler loan-shark, operating what appears to be a payday finance company, of the kind often described as “predatory” these days. It’s not even clear quite why Shark is so keen to take over the business. Fortunately, before becoming a Chicago PI, seems Sheba was a local cop. She still has some of the connections from that time – as a bonus, without having to worry about niceties like ‘due process’ or ‘police brutality’.

Even with the relatively low-key sex ‘n’ violence allowed by the PG rating [which would be “almost none” and “light”, compared to Grier’s previous offerings], it’s still fun to watch her in action. The highlight is likely her encounter with a “street entrepreneur” wearing a suit which looks more like an optical illusion. After he runs off, rather than answer her questions, she simply gets into the back of his pimpmobile and waits for him to return. It builds toward her sneaking onto Shark’s boat, jumping off it, sneaking back on, getting caught, escaping, and eventually chasing him through the Southern bayou on a jetski. It seems to have strayed in from Live and Let Die, and the cops seem remarkably unfazed by Sheba behaving in a manner more befitting Moby Dick, shall we say.

As noted at the top, this falls short of Grier’s best work, though is still better than Foster. It’s workmanlike, rather than impressive, and the restraint necessary for the certificate probably works against it. The words “family-friendly” and “blaxploitation” are clearly better off kept apart from each other, I suspect.

Dir: William Girdler
Star: Pam Grier, Austin Stoker, Rudy Challenger, Dick Merrifield

Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI

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★★
“Not-so fair cop”

This 1986 TV movie was the first film made about an FBI agent while they were still active. Gibson was the fifth black female agent in the bureau’s history: she broke new ground by being the first such assigned to the Fugitive Matters department in the Miami branch, and was also the first to reach a supervisory level within the FBI. That would, however, be well after the story told in this film. It covers how she came to join the FBI, and her first major undercover operation, taking down a gun-running ring operated by ex-NFL star, Adam Prentice (Lawson). However, Gibson starts to find the lines between real-life and undercover work blurring, and begins feeling genuine affection for her target. This doesn’t sit well with her partner, TC (Rollins). If it sounds all very by the numbers… It is.

No less stereotypical are the other black men in Gibson’s life. Most notable are her sternly disciplinarian father, who thrashes Johnnie after she accepts a Thanksgiving gift on a surplus turkey from some white folks, and Marvin (Young), the husband she meets at college. The latter is thoroughly unimpressed when she announces – in a staggeringly clunky fashion, showing up in full uniform – that’s she going to join the police force. You can imagine his reaction to her becoming an FBI agent, and his perpetual whining is perhaps the film’s most annoying aspect. Though it has to be said, when it comes to caring for their daughter, Gibson is very much the absent mother.

All the background stuff is bounced over so quickly as to be little more than a parade of cliches. Yeah, we get it: she had to overcome some obstacles. Though based on the evidence here, racism wasn’t really one of them, and the way sexism is depicted has some flaws, for example when a fellow trainee at Quantico kicks her ass repeatedly in hand-to-hand training. For this begs an obvious question: would a criminal in the field go easy on an FBI agent trying to arrest them, because they were a woman? Of course not. From that viewpoint, this incident was actually less sexism than a reality check. It could have been welcomed as such, showing Johnnie she needs to use her brain rather than brawn, rather than a simplistic message of The Man Keeping A Woman Down (literally).

The undercover case is not much better in this department, trotting out the usual tropes before suddenly exploding into a gun-battle at the end, which even Gibson, in interviews at the time it was shown, noted was entirely fictional. The TV movie seems particularly guilty of trying to cram too much in, and would have been better served by focusing either on its subject’s journey to becoming an agent, or on her work thereafter. By attempting to cover both, it succeeds in covering neither adequately. While the subject is undeniably worthy, I can’t say that this treatment feels as if it does her justice.

Dir: Bill Duke
Star: Lynn Whitfield, William Allen Young, Howard Rollins, Richard Lawson

Maria

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★★★½
“Jean Wick.”

Proof that a lack of originality is not necessarily a bar to being an entertaining movie, this pulls together elements from all over the place, but probably most notably, The Long Kiss Goodnight and John Wick. You have the “former assassin now leading an idyllic family life, until her past catches up with her” of the former. And the “Oh, they’re surely not going to kill tha… Hoo-boy. The hero/ine is going to be VERY angry with them” of the latter, among other elements.

In this case, we have Maria (Reyes), formerly Black Rose assassin Lily, who is now married with a young daughter, until a chance encounter with ex-colleage Kaleb (Padilla). He is still highly miffed at her betrayal, and sets his minions on her – and, worse still, her family. Maria takes the fight to Kaleb with the assistance of her mentor, Greg (Lazaro, probably the best performance in the film); he helped her escape by faking her death, yet still has ties to her old employers. Meanwhile, the chaos resulting from their actions do not impress Kaleb’s boss, Ricardo de la Vega (Webb, looking like the Filipino version of Alan Ford, Bricktop in Snatch), who turns to Kaleb’s brother, the even more vicious – and, worse, considerably more competent – Victor.

Like John Wick, the generally straightforward nature of this works in its favour. There’s not much standing between Maria and kicking ass, with frequent bursts of solid action. Sonny Sison also choreographed the other recent Filipino action heroine film on Netflix, BuyBust, and it has a similarly gritty feel. The hotel run by Greg also is more than a little reminiscent of a similar establishment for assassins from John Wick 2. Though there’s an odd bit where Kaleb’s right-hand woman goes there, looking for Maria, beats up a few people and… just leaves? We’ll let them off with a warning, since they do later have a rather nice brawl, wearing high-heels, in a night-club bathroom.

Reyes is an actress who learned fighting, rather than the other way round. Yet, she looks the part, and Lopez throws in some stylistic flourishes, such as shooting from overhead, which keep things interesting. Overall, this teeters on the edge of achieving our seal of approval, but a couple of things leave it fractionally short. The first is the unconscionable failure of Kaleb, Victor or Ricardo de La Vega at any point to say, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” I mean, the line positively writes itself. The other issue is an ending, which is way too open, pointing directly towards Maria 2 in a way I haven’t seen since the end of Kill Bill: Volume One. And that was, of course, originally intended as a single entity. There is a slight degree of closure, yet is largely unsatisfying: more like finishing a level of a game than defeating the final boss. If there ends up never being a sequel, I’m going to be annoyed…

Dir: Pedring Lopez
Star: Cristine Reyes, Ivan Padilla, Freddie Webb, Ronnie Lazaro

The Women of Game of Thrones: Revisited

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More than five years ago, in March 2014, we wrote about the women of Game of Thrones, and ranked the top ten at that point. However, at that point, only three series had been screened of the show. Since then, we’ve had forty-three more episodes over five seasons, and a lot of water – as well as blood and other body fluids – has flowed under the bridges of Westeros in that time. With the finale having screened last month, it seems a good point at which to go back and revise the earlier article, in the light of subsequent events.

Stating the obvious, what follows includes massive spoilers for the entire show. Rankings were determined entirely at the whim of the author, based on a range of factors including survival or otherwise, eventual position in the Westeros community, glory of their fate and general bad-assery over the entire course of the show. I have to say, despite the large volumes of criticism (some of it wildly overblown: I mean, a petition for a do-over? Really?), I didn’t find the last season anywhere near as bad as some claim. Yes, elements of the writing could have been improved, and we’ll touch on a few in this countdown. But overall, it remains the finest TV series of the decade. And with that…

10. Ygritte

  • Previously: #7
  • Played by: Rose Leslie
  • Status: Dead
  • Fate: Shot with an arrow while attacking Castle Black
  • Quote: “You know nothing, Jon Snow…”

One of GoT‘s many tragic love stories [seriously: do not fall in love in Westeros. It rarely ends well], Ygritte met Jon after being captured by the Night’s Watch. However, the tables were turned, with Jon becoming a prisoner of the Wildlings. Eventually, the two began a relationship, with Ygritte aggressively pursuing Jon, and eventually taking his virginity. A skilled archer and fierce fighter, she was part of the Wildling force sent to take Castle Black; they believed Jon to have defected from the Night’s Watch, but when his loyalty was exposed, the pair were separated. Ygritte shoots Jon with three arrows for his betrayal, though was unable to finish him off. When they meet again during the attack on Castle Black, her hesitation proves fatal, and she was shot in the back. I repeat: do not fall in love in Westeros.

9. Ellaria Sand

  • Previously: not ranked
  • Played by: Indira Varma
  • Status: Unknown
  • Fate: Last seen, imprisoned in King’s Landing
  • Quote: “No wonder you can’t stand, you have no spine.”

The mother of the Sand Snakes – a trio described as “the show’s worst characters”, but let’s not hold that against her. She began her path of vengeance after her lover, Oberyn Martell is killed in particularly gruesome fashion by the Mountain, in Tyrion Lannister’s trial by combat. Ellaria blamed Cersei, due to her false accusation against Tyrion, and swore revenge. An attempt to kidnap Cersei’s daughter, Myrcella Baratheon, is foiled, but when Myrcella departs back to King’s Landing, a farewell kiss is fatal, due to Ellaria’s poisoned lipstick. She stages a coup in Dorne, and allies it with Daenerys Targaryen. Captured in an ambush at sea by Euron Greyjoy, she is taken to King’s Landing. There, Ellaria was imprisoned in the Red Keep and, presumably, dies in its destruction.

8. Olenna Tyrell

  • Previously: #9
  • Played by: Diana Rigg
  • Status: Dead
  • Fate: Takes poison, after her capture by the Lannisters.
  • Quote: “I’ve known a great many clever men. I’ve outlived them all.”

The matriarch of House Tyrell was its final survivor. Initially allied with the Lannisters, her grand-daughter Margaery was briefly married to Prince Joffrey, before his death on their wedding day. But she hated Cersei with a passion, and it was mutual, with Olenna one of the few who gave no damns. Once greeted by Cersei with, “Ah, yes – the famously tart-tongued Queen of Thorns, Olenna Tyrell”, she fired back with both barrels, “And the famous tart, Queen Cersei.” While not exactly an action heroine, we’ll allow it since Diana Rigg was almost eighty, and probably already in our hall of fame, for her portrayal of Emma Peel. Olenna certainly died the way she lived – with a barbed tongue. Her last words concerned the murder of Joffrey: “Tell Cersei, I want her to know it was me.”

7. Melisandre

  • Previously: #8
  • Played by: Carice van Houten
  • Status: Dead
  • Fate: Dies of old age… kinda.
  • Quote: “The night is dark and full of terrors.”

Proof of the power religious conviction can give a person, Melisandre was a fanatical devotee of R’hllor, the Lord of Light. This seemed to give her abilities including eternal youth, pyrokinesis and the ability to create shadow demons, such as the one sent to assassinate Renly Baratheon. Her faith proved infectious: she managed to convince Stannis Baratheon to burn his own daughter as a sacrifice to R’hllor. After Stannis was defeated, she turned her support to Jon Snow, whom she resurrected after his death, believing he will lead the forces of light to defeat ice. In the Battle of Winterfell, she helped convince Arya to kill the Night King, reminding her of an earlier meeting, where she said, “I see a darkness in you… Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes. Eyes you’ll shut forever.” Her mission accomplished, she ended the magic which had prolonged her life and expired.

6. Cersei Lannister

  • Previously: #4
  • Played by: Lena Headey
  • Status: Dead
  • Fate: Crushed in the collapse of the Red Keep
  • Quote: “So we fight and die or we submit and die – I know my choice.”

I would say was a severely disappointing ending, for arguably the greatest villainess in television history. Given Cersei’s relentless pursuit of power at any cost, and the number of people she had wronged or flat-out murdered along the way, the joy of inflicting her death going to a pile of falling masonry just seems… wrong. Indeed, she was underwhelmingly absent for much of the final season, doing little except stare out the window. Considering how much she had done before then, and her outstanding qualities of ruthless ambition and cold-hearted cunning, I found this passivity hard to accept. Still, I guess her fate was prophesied by her most famous quote, “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.” Turns out, it was the second.

5. Yara Greyjoy

  • Previously: #5
  • Played by: Gemma Whelan
  • Status: Alive
  • Fate: Queen of the Iron Islands
  • Quote: “What is dead may never die… But kill the bastards anyway.”

Life on the Iron Islands is hard, and it breeds hard folk. They don’t come much harder or fiercer than Yara. She may have been the daughter of their ruler, but had nothing handed to her, and had perpetually to battle prejudice from those ironborn who feel women should not fight or command. She led a brave attempt to rescue her kidnapped and tortured brother, Theon, but when her father was assassinated, lost out in the subsequent power struggle to his brother, Euron. Fleeing the islands, she allied with Daenerys, who preferred Yara’s terms to Euron’s more matrimonial ones. After her uncle captures her, Theon returns the earlier favour, rescuing his sister, and she retakes the Iron Islands, becoming Queen. I suspect a declaration of their independence may not be far behind.

4. Lyanna Mormont

  • Previously: not ranked
  • Played by: Bella Ramsey
  • Status: Dead
  • Fate: Crushed by a zombie giant, whom she killed with her last breath.
  • Quote: “I may be small. I may be a girl. But I won’t be knitting by the fire while I have men fight for me.”

Surging in with a tiny, unstoppable bullet, she was only supposed to be in a single scene, but impressed the showrunners so much, they kept bringing her back for more. Fandom fell in love with her irrepressible attitude, which knew absolutely no fear and had a zero-tolerance policy for those who did. Woe betide anyone in the show who dared treat her like a little girl: they got off lightly if they only had to endure a withering stare in return. Before the Battle of Winterfell, she refused to take shelter in the crypt with the other women and children, and fought alongside everyone else. is The smallest character on the show fell victim to the largest, crushed in the grip of a giant. But she took it down, stabbing the monster in the eye with her dragonglass dagger. In a show where truly heroic deaths were few and far between, this was the finest one of all.

3. Ser Brienne of Tarth

  • Previously: #3
  • Played by: Gwendoline Christie
  • Status: Alive
  • Fate: Lord Commander of the Kingsguard
  • Quote: “All my life, men like you have sneered at me. And all my life, I’ve been knocking men like you into the dust.”

Ah, Brienne. We pretty much fell in love with you the first time we saw you. And you remained one of the few truly good characters in the show, never compromising your morality for the sake of expediency. When you made a promise, you kept it, regardless of the personal difficulties which may have resulted. You were a better knight than a vast majority of those who bore that name, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house – well, our house, at least – when Jamie Lannister bestowed that honour on you, the night before the Battle of Winterfell. Your romantic ideals proved a fatal weakness, however, Jamie abandoning you to return to his sister-with-benefits in King’s Landing. You deserved a considerably better finish to your own story than merely writing his down. But at least you made it through to the end with your high morals intact, as well as with your life.

2. Daenerys Targaryen

  • Previously: #1
  • Played by: Emilia Clarke
  • Status: Dead
  • Fate: Stabbed by Jon Snow
  • Quote:  “I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.”

Yeah… About that… Think the 560 parents who named their daughters Khaleesi last year, are suffering a case of buyer’s remorse? For the amazing rise of Daenerys, from reluctant bride to, literally, touching the Iron Throne, imploded over the final two episodes. First, in the genocide of King’s Landing residents after their surrender; then in her death at the hand of her lover/nephew. Given how beloved a character she was, a “heel turn” like we saw in the penultimate episode was always going to be problematic for a lot of people. That’s even considering her family history of psychological issues, to put it mildly, and her fair share of immensely cruel acts, albeit with a higher degree of justification.

That may be what was missing here. Once the firestorm got under way, we saw little or nothing of Daenerys; she and her dragon became more like a natural catastrophe, raining fire from the heavens. And what we got from her in the final show was more a well-staged speech to rally the troops than any kind of explanation. I have read the interesting suggestion that her actions made most sense, if read through the lens of Machiavelli, who believed that cruelty can be well- or ill-used, and famously wrote, “It is much safer to be feared than loved.” But she stands best as a reminder of the murky world depicted in Game of Thrones, where there is rarely black and white to be found, in morality or characterization.

1. Arya Stark

  • Previously: #2
  • Played by: Maisie Williams
  • Status: Alive
  • Fate: Heading west to explore parts unknown
  • Quote: “A bruise is a lesson… and each lesson makes us better.” 

What a journey. If you watch season one, and the tiny, timid Arya, being traumatized by the execution of her father, then compare what we had by the end of the show, there seems little argument that her character’s arc has been the most monumental, even surpassing the Mother of Dragons in the final reckoning. She was always a bit of a proto-badass, demanding (and getting) sword lessons, but in the early days, it felt like a kid playing dress-up. Only after she had to go on the run and undercover, initially dressed as a boy, did we see the steel within her character, reciting like a bedtime prayer, the names of all the people she was going to kill. Most of them did end up dead, whether or not by her hand.

We probably reach Peak Arya during her stint training to be an assassin, with the Faceless Men of Braavos. Though she eventually rebelled against them, refusing to kill a target, then taking out the Waif, a colleague sent to kill Arya [which led some crazy fan theories of its own]. It still gave her the stealth and skills she would need at the Battle of Winterfell, when all seemed lost, to plunge a dragonglass dagger into the heart of the Night King, and pretty much save the entire kingdom of Westeros. Deciding, at the end, to sail away into the sunset and start afresh, was the act of a true adventurer. The tedious palace life in a Northern castle her sister “won”, was not going to be Arya’s fate. For that, and a hundred other reasons, she’s the ultimate action heroine the show gave us.

Killing Eve: Season Two

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★★★
“Sophomore slump.”

[Warning: this piece will contain significant spoilers for the show. READ ON AT YOUR OWN RISK!] It was always going to be difficult, if not impossible, for the second series of Killing Eve to match the brilliance of the first. That had ended with mousy MI-5 desk jockey Eve (Oh) stabbing ruthless assassin Villanelle (Connor), as they lay on a bed – platonically, but you could cut the sexual tension with a knife. Where would things go from there? The answer, unfortunately, is nowhere particularly much, except for some thoroughly unconvincing plot twists, such as Villanelle going to work for MI-5. Hello? Did everyone forget her cold-blooded murders of agents Bill Pargrave and Frank Haleton in season one? Let’s just pretend she’s one of us, and send her off on a mission without so much as a background check, m’kay?

This is, of course, an attempt to keep the relationship Eve and Villanelle going, bringing them into a close proximity to each other, where that sexual tension can continue to boil, albeit at the cost of plausibility, Not that it was ever the show’s strong suit to begin with. This is significantly less interesting than the cat-and-mouse game between the two of the first series, and frankly, too often borders on poorly-written fan fiction. A main thread seems to be how Eve is slowly becoming more like Villanelle, drifting from thoughts of murder into an actual killing – “With an axe!”, the hitwoman gleefully recounts. [Adding a second meaning to the show’s title, moving her from object to subject. Or is it the other way round? Whatever…] But we also seem to see Villanelle becoming more human. For someone who isn’t supposed to be able to experience human feelings, she certainly appears a pretty damn emotional psychopath.

You can all but ignore the silly plots, such as a convoluted effort to bring down a high-tech entrepreneur selling an uber-Google to the highest bidder, who – wouldn’t you know it? – turns out to be a serial killer himself. Or the marital relationship of Eve and husband Niko: now that both sides have been unfaithful, it should have been buried. Or the brief introduction of another, equally talented female assassin, which is disposed of so quickly, it’s possible I may have made up the entire thing. What keeps the show going, and allows this to remain surprisingly watchable given the weak writing, are the extraordinary performances of the two leads. A contrast in acting styles, between Comer’s flamboyance and Oh’s internal anguish, it proves that both can be equally effective. And there are sequences which still work brilliantly, such as Villanelle’s dalliance with private wet work, stringing up and butchering an unfaithful husband in a window in Amsterdam’s red-light district, like some kind of twisted performance art.

After becoming an under-the-radar hit the first time, the second set of episodes seems to have left a lot of people unsatisfied, for a variety of reason. And the ratings reflect this. Having managed the almost unprecedented feat of increasing almost every week the first time round, this season saw fewer viewers for every part after the debut, than the equivalent in series one. Maybe renewing it the day after that opening episode was a mistake? The final scene of this series ends in a mirror image of its predecessor, Villanelle shooting Eve in a fit of pique after she responds to Villanelle’s declaration of love with “You don’t know what that is,” and walks away. Of course, the renewal and critical acclaim basically make it certain Eve isn’t dead. So it’s less a case of “What will happen?”, than “What cheat will the writers use to get out of the corner into which they’ve painted themselves?” I’m going with a bullet-proof vest.

It’s a shame, since the second volume in the novels went in a very different direction, put the pieces together in far superior fashion and reached the end with a genuine cliff-hanger. Hopefully the third season separates its two leads and gets back to what the show did well, letting each performance shine on its own terms, rather than trying to force oil and water together, to the benefit only of fan ‘shippers. In the penultimate scene of the last episode, Eve  and Villanelle are stumbling through a maze of underground passages below Rome, trying to find their way out of the darkness. Unfortunately, that turned out to an entirely appropriate metaphor for the problems of the second season as a whole.

Showrunner: Emerald Fennell
Star: Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer, Fiona Shaw, Henry Lloyd-Hughes

Blind Woman’s Curse

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★★★
“The girls with the dragon tattoo”

Akemi Tachibana (Kaji) is second in command of her yakuza gang. During a battle with another group, she accidentally blinds Aiko Gouda (Tokuda), the sister of an enemy – an incident Akemi believes leaves her cursed, after a black cat laps up the blood spilled as a result. Following three years in jail, she returns to find the clan on the verge of war against their rivals, the Dobashi group. Various members of the Tachibanas are turning up dead, and with their tattoos flayed off. Turns out that Gouda has joined the Dobashi gang, with the aim of extracting vengeance on the woman who took her sight, even though Akemi has borne the guilt of that event ever since. 

When it concentrates on their relationship, the film is really good, with both actresses commanding the screen with an impressive presence. This leads to a final confrontation which certainly feels like it may have been an influence on the one at the end of Kill Bill, Volume One, between the Bride and O-Ren. What’s particularly outstanding is the surprising way in which it is resolved: based on everything you’ve seen to that point, you’d be forgiven for betting, odds-on, that there will be an oce-lot of arterial spray. There isn’t – though I’ll say not much more than that. It’s a strangely effective moment, like a Western where the two gunslingers eventually face off at high noon… and decide to go for a pint instead.

What’s considerably less effective is the stuff around the edges, much of which is silly – or, perhaps, played a great deal better on the page than the screen. For example, Akemi’s female minions each have part of a dragon tattooed on their back, so when they expose their shoulders and line up, it forms the entire thing. Which sounds really cool, but ends up looking more like a samurai version of the Human Centipede. There’s also the member of the enemy clan who goes around wearing a scarlet loin-cloth. It’s difficult to take someone as a threat, when they’ve apparently forgotten to put their pants on. In its defense, this is apparently played for comedy purposes, because he smells. Yeah. About that…

This illustrates the film’s main weakness, an apparent desire to be all things to all viewers. I’m not if the audience in 1970’s Japan was crying out for comedy-horror-yakuza-swordplay films, because that’s what they get here, and the various elements vary too much in quality and fail to mesh together at all. When it concentrates on what it does well – and that’s the relationship between the two female leads – it’s very good. You can easily see why Kaji, making her debut under that name here, would go on to stardom. Given how effectively they play off each other, it’s something of a surprise Tokuda didn’t follow suit, though she did go on to become (briefly) the last of writer Henry Miller’s five wives.

Dir: Teruo Ishii
Star: Meiko Kaji, Hoki Tokuda, Makoto Sako, Hideo Sunazuka

Sword of Order, by S. Mays

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

Book 0 in the series? It seems a little odd, as this obviously leads in to the “first” book – Curse of Souls, published in September 2017 – yet Sword came out just three months later. Reading the synopsis, it seems as if Curse may be focused on a different character: college student Sverre Walker, who encounters Jessica Luvkrafft, warrior for the Order of Mankind. Sword is the story of how Jessica became that warrior.

The Order is a massive, ancient, extremely well-funded and completely covert religious organization which, more less, fights for humanity against things that go bump in the night. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, elementals… They’re all real, and the Order is in the front-line of making sure the threat they pose does not overwhelm the human race. As Jessica’s father Jake puts it, “We are the Sword of God. We were put here to eliminate the evils and abominations that seek to overrun our world.” To do so, the Order uses all the technology they can, much of which is developed in house, and not available even to the military.

Jake is a former field operative who now does R&D at one of the Order’s bases. His wife, Abigail, was killed on a mission, leaving him to take care of their daughter Jessica, who is aged 12 when the book starts, and in training. What’s supposed to be a simple mission ends up in the death of the Order member in charge (he was, to put it mildly, a bit of a dick). Even though Jessica was culpable in the fatality, by order of the Council of Overseers, she is fast-tracked to be his replacement. Getting there will require her overcoming her guilt, undergoing some brutal training, and passing a test where the price of failure is both death and her immortal soul.

That’s just the start, and it does feel a bit of a weakness that the book tries to cram in an entire decade’s worth of action. By the end, as mentioned above, Jessica is old enough to go undercover at college and there are a couple of points where it seems multiple years are skipped over with the wave of a paragraph. It also lacks a proper antagonist, with no-one showing up to fit that role until 70% of the way through. On the positive side, it’s a world with almost infinite potential, and I liked the way religion is incorporated into the book in a non-judgmental way.

It does end at a satisfactory point, with Jessica being given the mission that will form Book 1. If it didn’t appear that she’s a co-star at best in that, I’d be more inclined to read it. Despite the flaws and jerky pacing (as well as a cover that’s rather… different to the techno-warrioress we actually get!), Mays has laid the groundwork for a decent heroine in Jessica, and the prospect of her eventually going up against Countess Bathory is an intriguing one.

Author: S. Mays
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 0 of 2 in the Warrior of Souls series.

Tidelands

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★★★
“Attack of the killer cartel mermaids.”

Cal McTeer (Best) has just got out of prison after serving a 12-year sentence for arson leading to murder, a crime she committed as a teenager. Returning to her home town of Orphelin Bay, she finds her brother, Augie (Jakubenko), now working as a conduit for drugs, with the connivance of at least some local cops, and supplied by the mysterious Adrielle Cuthbert (Pataky). She oversees a commune near town called L’Attente with a zero-tolerance policy for dissent, and uses the proceeds of her narco-aquatics to fund a worldwide search for mysterious fragments of pottery. Turns out she is queen of the Tidelanders: the offspring of humanity and legendary sirens who inhabit the ocean. Though Cal doesn’t know it initially, a near-death experience shows that she is of similar stock. Adrielle doesn’t like the competition. And neither does local gangster Gregori Stolin (Koman), who is intent on muscling in on Augie’s business, and cutting out the middleman, to work directly with Adrielle.

It’s part Banshee, part True Blood, and part its own strange creation. It could well have been just a crime drama with familial overtones, an antipodean take on Sons of Anarchy: Cal’s father was lost at sea, and her mother spent what should have been the resulting inheritance on buying the local bar. Yet the makers opted to add fantastical creatures into it, though the sirens themselves are only ever glimpsed in cameo, at least for the first series. It is refreshingly gynocentric: Cal vs. Adrielle is the dynamic at the core, and considerably more interesting than Augie vs. Gregori, with neither woman prepared to give an inch of ground.  There’s no doubt who’s in charge, Adrielle dealing ruthlessly with any challenges to her authority, helped by the seer she keeps chained up in the basement.

It doesn’t end in any meaningful way, and I presume this first Netflix original series to come from Australia will be returning to expand further on the mythology set up in its debut run. For example, I was intrigued by the brief depiction of an apparent anti-siren secret society, run by local women who lost their men (one way or another) to the creatures, and maybe this will be developed further next season.  There’s something of a soap-opera feel to it as well, in that almost everyone is uniformly attractive, and seem to be having copious amount of sex – whether for pleasure or power. The sunny seaside setting also lends itself to plenty of cheesecake for both sexes, whether it’s shirtless beach bods, or Adrielle’s apparent aversion to bras.

Best makes for a solid heroine though, who takes no shit from anyone and, as is clearly demonstrated from her opening scene, is more than capable of taking care of herself – in or out of the water. She and the better-known Pataky are always worth watching in their scenes. While I’m not quite as convinced by anyone else, there was still enough to get us through these eight episodes, and leave us hungry for some more fish tales.

Creators: Stephen M. Irwin and Leigh McGrath
Star: Charlotte Best, Elsa Pataky, Aaron Jakubenko, Jacek Koman

Vengeance of a Snowgirl

  By

★★★½
“Revenge, truly served cold.”

The elevator pitch version of this sounds like a million other kung-fu films: Shen Ping Hong (Li) seeks revenge on the people who killed her parents and left her crippled. But there’s rather more going on beneath the surface, and shades of grey on both sides. One of her targets, Lord Kao Hung, regrets what happened and wants to help Shen regain the use of her legs. But Shen only agrees to let his son Tien-Ying (Yueh) help, in the belief that it will make her mission of vengeance easier. It feels almost like she’s a mad dog, lashing out at anyone who tries to help; keeping the severed heads of her victims in jars is a clue there. Meanwhile, Kao’s associates – and Tien-Ying’s ex-girlfriend (Chiao) – think he’s helping because he wants to get Shen’s jade sword for his own ends, and are intent on getting their revenge in on her first.

Let the record show, Chris wandered in half-way through this, glanced at the screen and said, “Is that Sammo Hung?” Knock me down with a feather if it wasn’t Sammo, in a minor supporting role as a villainous henchmen. This is why I love my wife: her ability to spot martial arts legends in 1971 cameos. Er, well… Not just that. Anyway, this would be massively overshadowed by the release, just two days later, of another Lo Wei film, his first for fledgling studio Golden Harvest. The Big Boss would put both studio and its star, one Bruce Lee, on the map, and Snowgirl would be all but forgotten.

In particular, the way it twists the usual “You killed my _____ and must die!” tropes are what makes this stand out, along with a second half which turns into something resembling a series of video-game side quests. Because the spring where Shen can heal her legs is so frigid, you need a magic pearl to survive near it for more than a few seconds… The pearl is in the belly of a volcano, reaching which requires a suit of flame-resistant armour (looking remarkably like a fireman’s uniform)… This is held in the treasure house of a remote prince, who will only agree to lend it out, if Shen can beat his champion… And there’s not a save point in sight.

The fights are decent, rather than spectacular, and we never get the hoped-for face-off between Shen and the disgruntled ex-girlfriend, who has skills of her own. On the other hand, Li does a good job of working round her character’s disability – though her ability to fly, makes me wonder why she bothers walking anywhere! Lo, who also makes a brief appearance as the heroine’s father, shoots good, long takes which help enhance his lead actress’s talents, and if nothing else, the ending will likely stick in your mind for its unexpectedly downbeat example of altruism and self-sacrifice. It mostly looks very nice, except for a thoroughly unconvincing “volcano”, and all told, it’s a shame this isn’t more well-known.

Dir: Lo Wei
Star: Li Ching, Yueh Hua, Ku Feng, Lisa Chiao

Bubblegum and Broken Fingers

  By

★★½
“Pap fiction.”

Outside of Kill Bill, I’ve never been a fan of Quentin Tarantino. But this film did give me some appreciation for him. Because it’s only when you see Tarantino done badly, that you realize the aspects he does well. It undeniably takes some skills to keep a story-line involving multiple sets of characters in the air, especially when centered on a Macguffin like a suitcase whose contents are never revealed. Jackson tries to do exactly the same thing here, and the result is, frankly, a mess, where you’re left caring little or nothing about any of the participants.

It starts with two low-level henchmen on their way to make a deal outside Las Vegas, swapping a large quantity of cash for the suitcase in question. This ends with the opposite side dead, and the pair on the run. They come across two German pedophile tourists, who have kidnapped Heidi (Daly) along with a mute girl, Tiny (Tyla). However, turns out Tiny isn’t the innocent she appears, and she takes the suitcase, being part of a all-female criminal cabal herself. They’re being pursued by a variety of law enforcement agencies, who have their own agendas. It’s as if the writer (also the director) had only one solution to any story issues: introduce more characters, rather than developing the ones already present.

It’s the script which is the glaring weakness. The performances are fine, Jackson makes good use of locations in and around Las Vegas, and there’s a particularly impressive sequence told without dialogue. Indeed, having a major participant who can’t speak – except through an electronic text-to-voice synthesizer – is navigated well, when it could easily have been a disaster, bringing things to a grinding halt any time she appeared. But the pattern soon becomes obvious. Introduce some characters. Start to develop those characters. Abandon them, leaving them (in some cases, literally) dead at the side of the road. Rinse & repeat for an hour or so, until your audience can no longer be bothered to care about anyone.

You’re presumably intended to keep your eye on the suitcase. Yet we never learn what is in the case, capable of triggering all the carnage and corpses. How annoying. It could be argued that it doesn’t make any difference. Unlike Pulp Fiction though, it feels as if it matters, because this is clearly the focus of everyone’s efforts, rather than a supporting act to the sideshow, as in the Tarantino film. As we seem to have said quite a lot lately, I suspect this is a result of having the director film his own script, leaving him too close to the project to spot its flaws. Jackson has good technical abilities, and it’s certainly possible to imagine a version of the same story, with the pieces re-arranged, some expanded and others excised, where this became a Bitch Slap-esque gem. Instead, it’s a struggle to pay attention, through an ending that has little to offer except more dead bodies.

Dir: Sean Jackson
Star: Camme Tyla, Mandy Williams, Brenna Daly, Jason Nious