Author: Jim McLennan

La Reina Del Sur: season two

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★★★½
“The Queen comes home”

Nine years after the events of the first series, Teresa Mendoza (del Castillo) is no longer in the world of crime. She lives in Italy under a new identity, where she makes marmalade, has a hunky boyfriend and is concerned more with bringing up her daughter, Sofia (Sierra). But where would the telenovela fun be in that? Therefore. it’s not long before Sofia is kidnapped, and used as leverage to drag Teresa back into the murky world of narcotrafico. Except, it’s as much a political game this time, with her previous adversary, Epifanio Vargas (Zurita), is now running for President of Mexico. He orders Teresa to bring down the main rival for that position, by joining the gang of the drug-lord who is backing his rival’s campaign, and finding evidence which can exposie their connection. It’s not even that “simple”, with a lot of people who have long-standing scores to settle with Teresa, and the DEA lurking in the background, pulling strings on behalf of the American government.

It is certainly quite jet-setty. Perhaps because of del Castillo’s well-documented problems with the Mexican government, I’m not sure how many of her scenes were actually filmed locally. As well as Italy, it bounces around between her old stomping-ground of Malaga, Spain and Russia (reuniting Mendoza with Russian mob ally, Oleg Yosikov (Gil), though eventually settles down with the bulk of the action does take place in Mexico. There, Teresa has to round up some other old pals, to give her the necessary resources to infiltrate her target. Meanwhile, Sofia is proving quite the chip off the old block, and causing no end of problems for her captors – who include someone playing a rather dangerous double- or even triple-game. However, despite the plethora of plot threads – and the above is well short of being an exhaustive list – the script does generally pull off a very good job of delineating them without confusion.

Initially, it seemed like we might be in for a more action-oriented brand of Teresa, the first episode (embedded at the bottom, with English subs) ending with her chasing a car on a motor-bike and a rather spectacular stunt. Sadly, it only sustains this pace intermittently thereafter. To make up, we do get the very impressive Manuela, a.k.a Kira, played by Paola Núñez. A disgruntled former DEA agent, she’s one of those with a grudge against Ms. Mendoza, holding her responsible for the death of some family members. She’s definitely a bad-ass, and it’s always a pleasure seeing her and Teresa go toe-to-toe. There were some aspects of the story I did have issues with. For instance, in about a two-episode spell, we get three different cases of someone who should be dead, turning out not to be. That gets old. But all told, it’s a nicely-paced bit of television, that sustained my interest over its 60 episodes – even if it took me approaching six months to get through them all.

Star: Kate del Castillo, Humberto Zurita, Antonio Gil, Isabella Sierra

Warigami

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★★★½
“Card sharks”

This feature-length entity is the omnibus edition of a series created for Canadian streaming service, CBC Gem. Originally 10 x ten-minute episodes, they’ve been combined into one entity, though the joins are still pretty visible. It is, however, a brisk and generally entertaining work, with a good twist to the usual martial-arts shenanigans.

Wendy Ohata (Piggford) lives with her grandfather, a martial-arts master who is the guardian of a scroll that potentially will confer great power on its owner. Wendy has never been able to tap into her talents, until one day she meets Vincent (Bradbury) and his pal Mark (Julien) – while they are burgling her house. Their choice was not a random one: Vincent felt a strong pull towards the house, and it turns out he and Wendy are long-lost siblings. More significantly, when they are within 50 feet of each other, they both become kami-jin. Those are people who are able to manipulate the density of paper at will, turn it into a lethal weapon in their hands.

Unfortunately, when these talents are used, they attract the attention of the villainous Teramoto clan, who want to use the scroll to return Japan to a more pastoral state, blaming technology for the evils of modern life. Their leading agent is another kami-jin, Sadako (Suzuki). She kidnaps Wendy’s grandfather and holds him hostage, demanding the scroll for his release. Can she, along with her new-found brother and his pal, locate the Teramoto lair, and rescue Gramps?

The show got my attention with an opening scene where Sadako is detained at the airport – it doesn’t end well for the agents trying to hold her – and didn’t let go for much of the way thereafter. This does a good job of balancing between the serious and the silly, no small task given the potentially ludicrous nature of the skill at its heart. About the only moment where it descends into full-on silliness is when Vincent dons a complete outfit of samurai armour made from paper – and even there, you can only admire the effort involved from the costume department. Wendy and Sadako make for a solid yin and yang at the center of things, with both acquitting themselves well on the martial-arts front. Director Lapeyre also deserves credit for not letting their talents be obscured by frenetic editing.

There are a couple of plot moments which have questionable plausibility: both the Teramoto lair and its underground entrance are discovered way too easily. And the ending is rather obviously pointing towards a sequel, though it’s one I’d be interested in seeing, and hopefully the makers are given the chance to deliver it. For, given its origins, this was better than I expected from a web series. That’s especially true for the way the talents of the kami-jin are portrayed, which varies from okay to flat-out impressive, on occasion. I was left with a strong urge to find a pack of playing cards and start working on my wrist strength.

Dir: Jason Lapeyre
Star: Emily Piggford, Kai Bradbury, Miho Suzuki, Akiel Julien.

Boudica: Rise of the Warrior Queen

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★½
“Boudica: The Moping About the Forest Years”

I try and not let my expectations influence my reviews: a movie deserves to be judged on what it is, rather than what I expected it to be. A film-maker usually doesn’t get to decide, for instance, the DVD sleeve. But when you invoke the name of Boudica in your title, this creates certain requirements with regard to your content, especially when combined with the words “warrior queen.” These are requirements which this movie is utterly incapable of meeting. Technically, the word “rise” is probably the only accurate element to be found, on the cover, which certainly counts as among the most inaccurate in recent memory.

At least it is set in Britain, during the Roman occupation not long after the birth of Christ. Boudica (Peel) is scheduled to be wed to the son of another tribe, to cement their anti-Roman alliance. But virtually on the eve of the wedding, her mother, Lucilia (McTernan) spirits her away. Mom, y’see, had gone through the whole arranged marriage thing to Boud’s brutish Dad, Scavo (Pengelly), and is damned if she’s going to let her little girl suffer the same thing. Quite why Lucilia has a Roman name is never explained. Anyway, they set up home in the woods, while Scavo and the husband-to-be roam the countryside looking for them. But one day, Boudica discovers an injured warrior (Cooke) near their home.

At no point does Boudica dress in the manner depicted on the cover. There is no castle to be seen: a mud hut is about it. There appear to be thousands of extras present, when I don’t think there was a scene where the count of players reached double digits. And I’m not sure where the “epic battle scenes” allegedly experienced by the “Geek Legion of Doom” (whatever that is) are. But they would seem to be full of shit, because they ain’t in this film. What you do get, is the sure and certain knowledge that whiny teenage girls bitching continually at their mothers is not a modern invention, and was in full effect in 47 AD. Boudica, of course, falls for the warrior, about whom Lucilla has qualms, causing the daughter to fling back her mother’s words about following her heart.

This soap-opera nonsense is, apparently, what is meant by a warrior queen rising. Who knew?

Based purely on content, this probably doesn’t deserve to be here, but it is technically about one of the most-renowned women warriors in history, so I feel under an obligation. For the first hour-plus, the closest we get to seeing Boudica in action is whacking a tree with a stick [I would at least have laughed, if she’d yelled repeatedly while doing so, “Why are you hitting yourself?”] Eventually, the warrior turns out not to be who he seemed – that’s a shock – leading to about the only sequence which could even remotely be described as the “passionate fighting spirit” claimed on the cover. Though you’d still need to be squinting from the right angle, to see even that. I strongly recommend you don’t bother.

Dir: Zoe Morgan
Star: Ella Peel, Michelle McTernan, James Cooke, Simon Pengelly

Fatal Destiny, by David DeLee

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Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

Grace deHaviland is a former cop, fired from the force in Columbus, Ohio under circumstances which remain murky. To continue in the justice field, she turns to bail enforcement, bringing in perps who have gone on the lam in exchange for a percentage of their bond. They don’t necessarily want to come in, as we find out right at the start; her first target causes Grace almost to become a victim herself, save for the grace of her stun-gun. Following this, she gets to take on what should, in theory, be a nice, simple case: locating white-collar criminal Barry Keegan. He was the accountant for a pharmaceutical firm engaged in shady financial practices, and has skipped bail shortly before the trial involving him and the company’s head honchos.

Except, of course, it’s never as easy as that. Almost before deHaviland can begin, one of Keegan’s co-defendants turns up with a bullet in his head, and her target has also very badly beaten up Grace’s best friend, who is still on the local force. It has now become personal as a result, and making matters worse, she isn’t the only one with a deep interest in locating Keegan. He, meanwhile, wants to spirit his wife and child out of town, because there are secrets in his past beyond some dodgy book-keeping for a drug company, potentially a threat to him, his family and even our heroine, if she gets too close to the truth. And her former colleagues in law enforcement are none too happy with what they perceive as her interference in their case.

deHavilland has so much baggage, she would probably need a moving van to go get coffee in the morning. As well as her time with the police, her mother was raped and killed by her boyfriend, and she has massive trust issues as a result. The cop in charge of the case is also a former lover of Grace’s. And yet, she’s so incredibly rich she has multiple tricked-out cars, and operates out of a massive, sprawling factory which would put Wayne Industries to shame. It even has an “Olympic-sized swimming pool”. On the second floor. I was distracted for quite a bit by figuring out how that worked, considering such a pool contains over 2,750 tons of water. It’s all just too much. And that’s not even mentioning her mixed Hispanic-Irish heritage, or her gratuitous pet monkey called Trouble.

The action is fairly sparse, especially in the first half. After you get past the initial introduction, she’s mostly going from place to place talking to people, to the extent this feels more like a novelization of a Lifetime original movie than anything adequately kick-ass. Things do perk up a bit on the second half, with a gun-battle at Keegan’s house, and a well-written climax at an abandoned shopping mall, which was very easy to visualize. It’s still the very definition of “too little, too late,” and this is not a heroine with whom I’m very interested in spending any more time.

Author: David DeLee
Publisher: Dark Road Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 6 in the Grace deHaviland Bounty Hunter series.

Girl with a Gun

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★★★
“Taiwanese knock-off, unsurprisingly, proves not as good as the original”

Make no mistake, Ms. 45 is one of the absolute classics of the girls-with-guns genre. So, if you’re going to remake it – officially or, as in this case, not – you had better bring your A-game. It’s possible that Chen did indeed bring his A-game, as did Yin in the role of Liang Pi-Ho, the mute garment worker assaulted twice in one day, who kills her second attacker and begins an escalating spree of misandrist revenge. I haven’t seen enough of their work to be able to judge. But Chen is not Abel Ferrara, and Yin is definitely not Zoe Tamerlis. All of which renders this largely pointless. Although it still gets to ride the power of the original, and is sometimes interesting, when going its own route rather than being a shot-for-shot copy of its inspiration.

Mostly, it’s the latter, with the same nosy land-lady (Wong), and the victims including a guy who picks up Liang’s bag on the street, a sleazy photographer, and a gang of street thugs. The middle of these, for example, crashes back onto the backdrop in his studio in an almost identical way to the Ferrara version. Despite this Xerox approach, there just isn’t the same level of intensity in the central performance, and nor do you get the scuzzy, unwashed depiction of New York. It is worth noting that this Taiwanese production is set in Hong Kong – it has been suggested for censorship reasons? That would explain why the shots of Liang dismembering her first victim are shot in solarized negative. This version does also include a nightclub scene while an instrumental version of The Human League’s Love Action plays in the background, which was… unexpected.

Let’s discuss the other differences. It opens with news stories about attacks by the mentally ill, and there are wraparound segments which have our heroine receiving treatment in an asylum. This, along with her muteness being explained as a psychological reaction to the death of her parents in an accident, provides more “justification” for her actions in comparison to Ferrara’s version. The film includes coverage from the police side too, of the investigation into the trail of bodies she has left around the city. Interestingly, we don’t see the heroine dress up as a nun for the party at the end [perhaps because it’s not a Halloween event]. However, the female cop who is on the case does go undercover as a nun for one sequence.

Many of the changes are relatively small – tweaks, rather than significant changes. For instance, rather than the landlady having a dog, Liang herself has a cat. Though in a morbid twist, she feeds her kitty some of the remnants of her victim. The gang attack is preceded by a battle between two different groups, both of whom have tracked Liang to a deserted Hong Kong park: the winners get… Well, gunned down by her. There is, apparently, a more radical reworking “that spliced in new scenes featuring Caucasian actors and an inexplicable satanic cult,” and was sold in the West, for no good reason, as American Commando 5: Fury in Red, a.k.a. Crackdown Mission. Iconic exploito-schlock master Godfrey Ho allegedly had a hand in that cut-up, and it sounds loopy enough to make me want to see it.

There is one scene which is both genuinely new, and memorable. In her wanderings, Liang stumbles into a group doing a rendition of He’s Got the Whole World in his Hands, partially in sign-language, and is deeply affected by the mournful performance. [Really, it’s an upbeat tune, but this version sounds like it was done by Joy Division, such is the gloomy nature] I’m not sure quite why it’s there. Perhaps to demonstrate that Liang still possesses her humanity, and just needs it to be touched somehow? It’s a weird little scene, yet one that works, and shows that the film-makers here are not devoid of their own imagination. It’s a shame they didn’t choose to employ a bit more of it, taking their unauthorized remake down some other original directions.

Dir: Yao-Chi Chen
Star: Hsia Yin, Pauline Yuk-Wan Wong, Alan Tam, Lun Hua
a.k.a. Fury in Red

Outlaw Women

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★★½
“In which Iron Mae eventually breaks.”

The city of Silver Creek is on the way out, and many of its inhabitants are leaving, including town doctor Bob Ridgeway (Nixon). Originally heading to Kansas City, he is convinced at gunpoint to take up a position instead in “Las Mujeres.” That’s Spanish for “The women,” and is an appropriate name since the place is a gynocratic society, where the ladies are in charge. Top of the heap is Iron Mae McLeod (Windsor), who runs the local saloon and ensures that the the other women in the town are kept safe from exploitation. She does, however, have to navigate the straits between aspirational gambler Woody Callaway (Rober) and outlaw Frank Slater. Ridgeway, meanwhile, because the target of affection for both Beth Larrabee (Balenda), one of Mae’s enforcers, and her big sister and star of the saloon’s show, Ellen. But when all of Mae’s money is about to be transferred out of Silver Creek, and becomes a target for Slater and his gang, romance has to take a back seat.

This was shot in Cinecolor, at a time (1952) when many more expensive productions were still in black and white. That helps up the production value, though it otherwise remains an obviously low budget approach. It’s a shame the makers didn’t quite use that freedom to make something truly subversive. The ending instead manages to be almost cringeworthily patriarchal – particularly following, as it does, a gun-battle in which we see, again, that firearms are the great equalizer, allowing Mae and her gals to play their part in holding off the outlaws. Up until this disappointing coda, it has been a fairly decent romp, with Windsor holding things together effectively. She gets good support from Balenda, as well as Maria Hart, playing bouncer Dora. She casually manages to judo-flip the fastest gun in Silver Creek, after he refuses to give up his gun, while simultaneously disarming him. Dora can also strike a match on her teeth, an impressive party trick for either sex.

Coming in at a brisk 75 minutes, it still manages to waste some precious time, on things like musical numbers by a barbershop quartet called The Four Dandies. tnd The film doesn’t delve into the implications of its idea as far it might. Despite the noble intentions of Mae, Las Mujeres seems little if any different from any other town in the wild West. Though that could be the point, I suppose. I did like the pointed way in which the system – in the form of male-only suffrage – is the tool used by Callway to dismantle Mae’s gynocracy. Though as noted, the ending manages to embarrass the entire film, effectively dismantling the strong portrayal of Mae which we had enjoyed to that point. That aside, there’s no denying the movie remains well ahead of its time, paving the way for probably better entries, such as Johnny Guitar and Woman They Almost Lynched, later in the decade.

Dir: Sam Newfield, Ron Ormond
Star: Marie Windsor, Richard Rober, Allan Nixon, Carla Balenda

Special Female Force

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★★★
“The Inspector Still Wears Skirts”

I’m not sure how much this is an official remake of The Inspector Wears Skirts, the 1988 franchise-launching action comedy which we covered earlier this month. It is certainly very close in both content and tone, but I’ve not seen a formal acknowledgement of this from anyone involved. While I’m obviously happy to see a reboot of one of the pioneers of the Hong Kong girls-with-guns genre, I just wish they hadn’t also rebooted the weaknesses as well as the strengths. In particular, they could have left all of the lame comedy in the eighties, and I’d have had no complaints at all.

It begins in decent style, with a group of female police officers laying a trap for a notorious terrorist known as “The President” at a pool in a hotel complex. Except, it goes badly wrong, with a number of the officers getting killed – quite brutally by action-comedy standards. 25 years later, the survivor, Madam Fong (Leung – yep, Black Cat herself is back on the scene – though she lets the next generation do the work here) is a trainer, who is about to take in the next class of candidates. We focus on Group D, which is where all the least-talented candidates are dumped, including Fa (Sam). Her mother, Macy, was one of the victims in that long-ago shootout, and Fa still bears a grudge against Fong for Mom’s death.

Before we get to anything approaching that, however, we have to trudge through the painfully predictable middle section of the film. Crank up those training montages, folks, as a series of the most obvious character tropes (the fat one, the busty one, the lesbian) learn the ropes and bond with each other. While you’re at it, also crank up the soap-opera complications, and naturally, the discovery that failing together as a team, is better than succeeding as individuals [welcome to post-colonial Hong Kong, folks…] For it’s not enough to stop Group D from getting booted out. But, wait! Turns out, this was just a ruse so that they could go into double secret undercover work, jet-setting off to Malaysia where The President – looking surprisingly youthful – has turned up.

He’s about to launch a scheme to spread a bioweapon across SE Asia, which will spread like lighting because it’s contagious before any symptoms are shown. Watching this while staying at home due to the coronavirus, I certainly went “Hmmm… There is a nice double twist here, which sets up a thoroughly explosive finale. This does a decent job of almost making you forget what you have trudged through over the course of the previous hour, as Fa inevitably gets the chance to redeem her mother. It’s all very slickly assembled, even if it seems aimed as much at providing fan service, with its heroines notably under-dressed for combat. That’s when not getting full-on moist, because the final battle takes place in a river. Which likely tells you all you need to know about the director’s motivations.

Dir: Wilson Chin
Star: Eliza Sam, Anita Chui, Cathryn Lee, Jade Leung

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Riot Girls

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★★
“Two girls, one gun.”

After a disease has wiped out all adults, the town of Potters Bluff has divided into two camps, delineated by the river running through the town. On the west are the Titans, a quasi-fascist order of jocks operating out of the old high school and led by Jeremy, whose motto is “Strength, power, respect.” On the east are the free-spirited remainder, living under and protected by Jack (Bourgeois). However, after hijacking the contents of a Titan truck, Jack is abducted by them and held hostage. A three-person party sets out on a rescue mission: Jack’s sister Nat (Iseman), her best friend  – and painfully obvious lesbian, right down to the mohawk – Scratch (Kwiatkowski), and Sony (Friese), a former Titan who recently defected to the East, and whose inside knowledge is essential to their survival and the success of the mission.

This provides a slightly different twist on the usual post-apocalyptic scenario, though the idea dates back at least to Roger Corman’s 1970 film Gas-s-s-s, in which a deadly gas wiped out everyone over the age of 25. Canadian show Between also explored similar territory, and the conflict-driven nature here brings us almost into Battle Royale territory. Though it’s more of a team sport than an individual pursuit, and natural division instead of artificial construct. But I have to wonder, how did Potters Bluff reach this point? What’s the back story which saw, for example, Jack and Jeremy become leaders of their factions and implacable enemies? I suspect this may have been more entertaining than what we actually get. And why is the soundtrack apparently fascinated with hair metal songs from a long bygone era? [I’m pretty sure it shares one with the 35-year-old Return of the Living Dead…]

After a bright, comic-book styled opening sequence to set the scene, at first it seems this may be building and then subverting expectations. For example, when on a foraging expedition, Scratch is delighted to come across a vibrator… But in a twist, her interest is purely for the batteries it contains. However, the further on it goes, the safer and more predictable everything seems to become. The hurdles Nat, Scratch and Sony have to overcome on their journey, are precisely the ones you’d expect (although there is one eye-poppingly brutal head-shot), and it all inevitably leads to a confrontation with Jeremy and his troops in their high-school gymnasium.

Most irritatingly, it ends up getting too bogged down in class and gender politics. The Titans are largely defined as the bad guys almost purely because they are white, straight and male. Meanwhile, it’s “diversity = good” for the Eastsiders – even if its tenets like affirmative action are a civilized conceit, which wouldn’t last two days in a proper apocalypse. Consequently, it’s absolutely no surprise Nat and Scratch end up as An Item – not minutes after the former has spurned a heterosexual advance, and while Nat’s brother is still in the clutches of his enemies. I guess, for some, the line between free love utopia and devastated dystopia is severely blurred.

Dir: Jovanka Vuckovic
Star: Paloma Kwiatkowski, Madison Iseman, Alexandre Bourgeois, Ajay Friese

The Plagues of Breslau

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★★★★
“Siedem”

The above is the Polish for “seven”, and in the first half-hour, you’ll be forgiven for thinking that’s what you’re watching: a Polish knock-off of David Fincher’s Se7en. Homicide cop Helena Rus (Kożuchowska) is struggling to come to terms with life, after her boyfriend is killed by a drunk-driver and, for political reasons, the criminal is allowed to go free. A welcome distraction comes in the shape of a series of ritualistic murders: every day at 6 pm, a body turns up on the streets of Wroclaw. The victims have been killed in strange and unusual ways – the first, for example, is sewn inside a cow-hide, which shrinks as it dries, crushing the victim to death. Each has a word branded into their flesh, such as “Degenerate”.

To help her, a profiler is sent from the capital, Warsaw: the equally brusque Magda Drewniak (Widawska), who quickly identifies that the perpetrator is replicating the titular incidents – Wroclaw was previously known as Breslau. In those, the ruler cleaned up town by selecting a criminal each day for gruesome public execution. So far, so Se7en. But just as we were settling in comfortably, the film hurls an absolute doozy of a twist at the viewer, and from then on, all bets are off. It becomes less of a whodunnit, and more a whydunnit, with the killer having a very specific agenda, which might be considerably closer to Helena than is comfortable for her.

Director Vega was previously seen here with Pitbull: Tough Women and Women of Mafia, but has stepped up his game a notch with this. Not least, in the spectacularly grisly nature of proceedings, with some disturbingly realistic deaths and corpses: you will need a strong stomach for a number of moments. However, both Helena and Magda make for excellent characters. The former is perpetually soft-spoken, yet takes absolutely no shit from anyone, despite possessing arguably the worst hair-cut in cinema history. And Magda’s impeccable knowledge of subjects from Polish history to coma recovery, makes her a force to be reckoned with as well. However, they’re facing a killer who is always one step ahead of them, and whose plan will come right into police headquarters.

It ends up being a little Se7en and a little Dragon Tattoo, yet has more than enough of its own style and content to stand on its own terms. It does perhaps stretch belief in some of the elements: a couple of the killings feel like they would require a road-crew to assemble, rather than being the work of a single person. However, in Helena Rus, we’ve got one of the most uncompromising heroines to come out of the European noir scene, and I’d love to see more of her cases in future – even if the ending makes that… somewhat uncertain, shall we say. Just be prepared for a film which is short on genuinely likable characters, and long on carnage. In particular, I recommend having a shot of vodka at hand for the guillotine scene.

Dir: Patryk Vega
Star: Małgorzata Kożuchowska, Daria Widawska, Tomasz Oświeciński, Maria Dejmek