★★★
“Thoroughly lost in translation.”
Well, this is a real roller-coaster ride of style and incompetence. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Chinese film where the subtitles were quite so incomprehensible. Even though this one is on the YouTube channel for an official Chinese streaming service (iQiYi), the soundtrack was entirely muted at some points, and the soundtrack replaced by jaunty elevator musak at others. Despite being a mere sixty-six minutes, the presentation is therefore something of a test of endurance, and I am also not prepared to guarantee the accuracy of the plot synopsis, character names or actors. There was heavy use of Google Translate required, there being no IMDb page for the movie. I did my best.
Though this is not immediately clear, it takes place in… 1930’s Shanghai, at a guess? Not sure if the Japanese are actually occupying the city, or if it’s just a Casablanca-style nest of spies and intrigue. Working for a quasi-governmental part of the Chinese authorities (yeah, it’s vague) are our trio of heroines: Qiu Di (Zhang Y.), gothette Lü Yun (Wang) and schoolgirl Cui Ya (Zhang T). They have to recover a roll of film stolen by the Japanese military, now in the possession of gangster Huang Sen. In order to get close to him, our trio opt to go through his godson, Kwok Tin-ming (Ke). Di’s mad musical skills make her best suited, so she makes contact with Kwok and becomes his girlfriend, while her two colleagues…
Um, well, I’m not sure exactly what the plan was here, because Di doesn’t do very much: her associates complete their mission without any real trouble, and we’re only twenty minutes in. Thereafter… more stuff happens. I remain vague, not out of a fear of spoilers, more because but I would not be prepared to wager money on many of the specifics. It seems like a former ally of the trio is now working for the Japanese? Maybe? I initially thought they already got the film back, but apparently not, because Di keeps hanging out with her target. He finally realizes he is being played, and Di looks surprisingly broken-up about it. Genuine feelings, maybe?
I was certainly hoping for more action, given the poster and brisk opening, something along the lines of a Chinese version of the original Charlie’s Angels movie. There’s an opening fight, a spot of action during the film recovery heist and then a long lull before a moderately rousing finale. Everyone suddenly remembers about the film again, Di has to fight a slew of kabuki-masked ninja types, and then try to rescue her boyfriend, before a final scene which… I have no clue about. I will say, the movie does look good overall, with super-crisp photography and a sense of style across its characters and settings. If you told me this was an adaptation of a local comic-book, I would believe you – it possesses that sort of aesthetic. The film is below: perhaps you can make more sense of it than I!
Dir: Sun Jiayi
Star: Zhang Yinan, Ke Jiahao, Wang Xiran, Zhang Tong
There can’t be many Westerns of the fifties where the Yankees are the 
★★★
You do need to have seen M3GAN to follow this, as there’s not much introduction provided. In it, robotocist Gemma Forrester (Williams) develops an AI-capable artificial companion, M3GAN – standing for Model 3 Generative ANdroid. She gives it to her orphaned niece, Cady (McGraw). However, it gradually develops psychopathic tendencies, and has to be… dare I say… terminated? As the sequel gets under way, Gemma is now a strong advocate for technological regulation, but is still working in the field of robotics. M3GAN has survived, hiding out in the Internet of Gemma’s smart home. But a bigger threat is a militarized version, AMELIA (Sakhno). It has also gone independent, and has an agenda which it is pursuing with lethal prejudice. 
The action is reasonably decent, albeit within the limitations of a PG-13 certificate. This begins with AMELIA smacking a guy’s head clean off with a single punch – although this is shown in silhouette. She’s obviously the most directly physical of the characters, though M2GAN and, surprisingly, Gemma (with the help of M3GAN, courtesy of a neural implant), also get to kick ass in a reasonable amount and variety of ways. It is all very gynocentric, with the male characters largely relegated to the fringes, and being fairly to severely incompetent, on both sides of the battle. However, there’s never any indication of this having a particular message or ax to grind (beyond the given, about the potential of technology for abuse). It just kinda happens organically. 
Director West certainly knows his way around an action film. He is probably best known for Con Air, but I’m also a fan of his Chinese disaster porn flick, Skyfire, about a volcano-themed holiday resort (guess how that works out?). So, despite the critical drubbing this received, I was hoping this might still be entertaining. Unfortunately, it is not. It’s a comedy-action movie, that manages to fire blanks from both barrels. There is not a shred of originality to be found here. What isn’t stolen here from Die Hard, is ripped off from Bridesmaids – heroine Wilson plays her role like the makers ordered Melissa McCarthy on Temu. Writer Shaina Steinberg should be ashamed for the lazy sloppiness, painfully apparent here.
The major impact of watching this was largely to remind me of what incredible films Alien and Aliens are. It’s clear director Berdejo and writer Julien Deladrière think so too (the company who made this is called Nostromo Pictures: enough said). But they are just not up to the task of assembling something which can stand up to any comparison. Admittedly, it’s a largely thankless job. They are far from the first to fail at this, and not the worst either. However, I would lay most of the blame on Deladrière, because it’s the script which had me looking for the nearest airlock. The basic shape is fine. A mining colony on a hostile planet, populated by families, comes under attack from unstoppable monsters. Yeah: like I said, this should be largely familiar.
I suspect the main problem here is a story which takes too long to get going. By the time things do kick off, my interest was already on… if not quite life support, it was likely seeing a doctor regularly. While things do then perk up in the second half, it feels too late. We begin with Abby Gardner (Ohm), a recovering alcoholic and mother to a young daughter, whose marriage falls apart after a car accident with the child in the back-seat. Her husband gets custody, and Abby begs for them to come visit her. Before that can happen, her home is entered by Bennet (Rand) and his wounded partner, who have absconded with a duffel-bag full of drug money.
I don’t know which is more irritating: a film that isn’t very good, or a film which teeters on the edge of greatness, then botches it. This falls into the latter camp. Writer/director Simmons does a lot right, especially considering it’s his feature debut. But just when my finger was hovering over the seal of approval, the film makes a near-disastrous wrong turn. This happens to a degree I found myself annoyed and impressed in equal measures. The first thing it gets right is casting Weaving, who has quickly become one of my favourite action actresses. Here, she plays Edie, who been driving getaway for her criminal dad since her early teens. Now though, she’s trying to go straight: she has a bank job and is attending college.
From what I can tell, Arisen is a massive zombie apocalypse saga, with a heavy military focus, by Fuchs and Glyn James. There are fourteen books in the main series, but Fuchs has also spun off related sets to tell other stores set in the same universe, such as Arisen: Raiders. The Operators series appears to be another. It looks to be intended as a trilogy: at the time of writing (March), part one is out, with part two next month and the finale in 2026. It feels like subsequent installments might be more team-oriented, but part one? Hoo-boy.
Yeah, this is the first book to ever get a five-star action rating from me. It just doesn’t stop. There’s a sub-genre called “hard SF,” which according to Wikipedia, is “characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic.” I suggest this could be labelled as hard action, with a great deal of information about hardware, like guns and vehicles. Here’s a sample paragraph: “The boat itself is a low-observable, reconfigurable, multi-mission surface tactical mobility craft with a primary role to insert and extract SOF in high-threat environments, but can also be used for fire support, maritime interdiction, and VBSS missions, as well as CT and FID ops.” I’m not sure what much of that means. Though I suddenly have a strong urge for a glass of whisky and a cigar.
On seeing the title and poster (which looks suspiciously AI-generated, and I know