Category: Feature

The action heroines of Hayao Miyazaki

  By

“When a girl is shooting a handgun, it’s really something. When I saw Gloria… she shoots a handgun as if she is throwing dishes. It’s really exhilarating.”
  — Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is the greatest animator of all time. Since his feature directorial debut in 1979, with The Castle of Cagliostro, he has been responsible for more classic movies of the form than anyone else. As of August 2018, he had six films ranked in the IMDb Top 250, the most by a non-Engliah language director, and the same number as Alfred Hitchcock. While there are many themes which have been a notable part of his work over the past four decades, perhaps the most consistent is his love of heroines. Women almost invariably stand not only front and center, but also occupying important supporting roles as well.

Frequently, but not always, these are teenagers or even younger. The characteristics they embody stand in sharp contrast to most Disney princesses of the era. For example, when Princess Mononoke came out in 1997, Disney was still offering up tepid heroines like Jasmine and Pocahontas, defined almost entirely by their looks, instead of their actions. They weren’t the ones doing the rescuing, shall we say. This is perhaps a result of the public-domain fairy tales which the media behemoth strip-mined for their movies, not exactly a source of female empowerment. In contrast, Miyazaki invents the worlds he wants. After Cagliostro, he didn’t adapt anyone else’s work for a quarter-century, until his ninth feature, Howl’s Moving Castle, in 2004. 

And there can be little doubt, what Miyazaki wants, are thoroughly self-reliant young women. He told The Guardian in 2013, “Many of my movies have strong female leads – brave, self-sufficient girls that don’t think twice about fighting for what they believe in with all their heart. They’ll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a savior. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.” That is a theme which runs through most of his work, even if not all are what you’d call “action heroines.” For example, it would be a stretch to label as such, Mei from My Neighbour Totoro, or the titular heroine of Kiki’s Delivery Service. While still sharing many elements with their more energetic colleagues – bravery, compassion, fidelity, smarts, and an undeniable feistiness – they’re more reactive than active.

What’s also common is an almost complete lack of “princes”. For romance, in the conventional sense, is all but absent from the Miyazaki oeuvre. Certainly, no-one is sitting around, singing about how some day their love interest will come.  Miyazaki heroines are almost asexual to a fault. While entirely understandable at the younger end of the spectrum, it’s notable how even the older ones, like the 17-year-old Fio in Porco Rosso, have better things to do. This is entirely deliberate, the director saying, “I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live—if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.”

Indeed, their femininity is often virtually irrelevant. Gender-wise, you could swap many of them out with young men or boys, and little would need to be changed. I’d argue it’s the most effective kind of feminism: the sort which doesn’t need to shout about it, but simply gets on with doing and being, and leads by example rather than the creation of loud noises. Yet, as we’ll see, it’s a philosophy which cuts both ways. Being female does not necessarily make you a good person: they can be every bit as egotistical, prejudiced, cruel and willing to bring down hellfire and destruction, as any man. That’s true equality in cinematic action.

His most recent feature, 2013’s The Wind Rises, diverged from his previous norm in being largely heroine-free, instead offering a loose biopic of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Mitsubishi Zero used by the Japanese in World War II. This was followed by another Miyazaki retirement: he has more farewell tours than Cher, but has always come back for one more feature. And so it proved, with the announcement in 2016 of How Do You Live?, though little is known of its topic. But with Miyazaki now 78 years old, time is definitely not on his side. Whenever it comes, the loss will be immense, and almost irreplaceable.

For now though, let’s appreciate his work. Below, you’ll find review of the two most relevant films in the Miyazaki filmography to this site, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind and Princess Mononoke. Despite being separated by thirteen years, they share a strong common theme of environmentalism, and also represent the Miyazaki heroine and villainess at their most well-developed.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

By Jim McLennan

★★★★½
“The wind rises.”

After the enormous critical, if not commercial, success of Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro, Miyazaki was commissioned to create a manga series for Animage magazine, with a potential film adaptation attached. Publication began in early 1982, but it would take a dozen years, albeit of intermittent publication, before that story was complete. When the series’s popularity among Animage readers was established, work began on the film adaptation, covering the early portion of the manga. Since this was before Miyazaki’s own Studio Ghibli was founded, an external company, Topcraft, were commissioned to create the animation. The budget was only $1 million, with a mere nine-month production schedule leading up to its release in March 1984.

It takes place on a post-apocalyptic world, a thousand years after the near-mythical “Seven Days of Fire”, pushed humanity to the edge of extinction. Since then, nature has taken over much of the planet, covering it in an expanding toxic jungle where the very air is poisonous in a few minutes. It is populated by equally lethal creatures, at the top being the “ohmu”, gigantic insectoids capable of destroying anything in its path. The human race is reduced to clinging on to the fringes, such as the small kingdom of the Valley of the Wind, in which a never-ending breeze keeps the toxins at bay. There, the king’s daughter, Nausicaä (Shimamoto), is one of the few brave enough to enter and explore the jungle, and has developed a mutually respectful relationship with its strange inhabitants.

The balance is destroyed when a plane from the kingdom of Tolmekia crashes. In its cargo is an enormous “God Warrior” – one of those which carried out the Seven Days of Fire – recently dug out from where it had been buried. Tolmekia and their rivals, Pejite, are wrestling for control of the warrior and the power it wields, and the crash drags the Valley of the Wind into their conflict. In particular, Princess Kushana of Tolmekia (Sakakibara) intends to use the warrior to destroy the jungle and restore mankind’s dominion over the planet. Nausicaä is ferociously opposed to this scheme, especially after discovering that the jungle is actually purifying the atmosphere and soil, absorbing the toxins from the apocalypse. She’ll do anything to stop Kushana, including being willing to sacrifice her own life if necessary.

There’s a lot going on here, as you can see. It’s somewhat understandable why, when initially shown in the West (one of the first examples of anime to receive a theatrical release), 22 minutes was cut out, in order to market it as a children’s film, retitled Warriors of the Wind. The problem is, like almost all of the director’s work, it is not a children’s film. This is not a uncommon mistake – presumably based on them having a child as the central characters, and because they’re animated, which still largely equates to Disney in many people’s minds. But they’re more about that age capturing an innocent and idealistic mentality. This is undeniably mature and thoughtful cinema. In just his second feature, and first original film, Nausicaä establishes several themes which would run through almost all of Miyazaki’s future work, in varying degrees: the joy of flight, concern for the environment, and a strong female presence.

Miyazaki’s father ran an airplane parts company in World War II, and even his film company, Studio Ghibli, was named after an Italian plane. Almost every one of his movies includes a flying sequence, and Nausicaä certainly has plenty of them, whether its the heroine skimming across the desert on her one-person glider, or gigantic warships looming, threateningly, in the sky. Despite the imperfect animation, a result of the limited resources, the sense of wonder and awe is undeniable. If you don’t want to take to the skies after seeing these scenes, you might want to check for a pulse. Similarly, there’s no denying Miyazaki is firmly on the side of nature, with his heroine believing all life to be sacred, and humanity deserving no special place above any other species. If mankind can’t live in harmony with the world, the movie suggests, it’s mankind which needs to change. Bending nature to our will is always going to backfire.

But it’s with the depiction of womankind that the film truly succeeds. In Nausicaä and Kushana, you have two fully-formed characters that are not just among the best in animated film, they could stand beside the protagonist and antagonist of most live-action movies. The latter, in particular, demonstrates Miyazaki’s skill at depicting those who would be flat-out villains in less nuanced films, instead being given motivation and depth. While you may not agree with Kushana resurrecting the God Warrior, you can understand what she is trying to accomplish. Her actions stem from a genuine belief that what she is doing is best for the future of mankind. She just has a military-industrial approach to that, in sharp contrast to the one emphasizing ecological science and harmony, preferred by Nausicaä. Interesting to note that, in the 2005 Disney English-language dub, Kushana was voiced by Uma Thurman.

The story here builds to a stellar climax, in which a massive herd of ohmu are lured into a stampede towards the valley, while simultaneously the God Warrior is unleashed by Kushana, to horrific effect. [The animation for the latter was done by a young Hideki Anno, who’d go on to become a master of the genre himself, best known for Neon Genesis Evangelion. In a 2006 Japanese poll, Evangelion was the only anime ranked ahead of Nausicaä as an all-time favourite] Our heroine puts herself in harm’s way in an effort to stop the carnage, and… Well, I won’t spoil it in detail; Miyazaki manages to pull off an ending which could easily have come off as contrived or ridiculous, and is instead emotionally satisfying. With even the Tolmekians forces humbled by nature, as environmental messages delivered by teenagers go, it’s certainly a great deal more effective than an angry Scandinavian shrieking “HOW DARE YOU!” at the audience.

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki
Star (voice): Sumi Shimamoto, Gorō Naya, Yōji Matsuda, Yoshiko Sakakibara

Princess Mononoke

By Jim McLennan

★★★½
“Princess Die”

To some extent, this was the film which “broke” Miyazaki in the West, being his first feature to receive an unedited theatrical release in America. It wasn’t a huge commercial success, taking only about $2.4 million in North America. But it was very well-received, Roger Ebert listing it among his top ten films of 1999. It likely opened the door for the success of Spirited Away, which would win Miyazaki the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards. But if I’m being honest, I don’t like it as much as many of his movies. While there’s no denying the imagination and enormous technical skill here, it doesn’t resonate emotionally with me in the same way. I think it’s probably the central character, who is relatively bland and uninteresting, even compared to other characters in the movie.

Firstly though: no, there’s no-one called “Mononoke” in this. It’s not a name, but a Japanese term describing a supernatural shape-shifting creature. Though even this seems ripe to cause confusion, because there are no shape-shifting princesses to be found either. And despite the title, the protagonist is Ashitaka (Matsuda), a prince of the Emishi tribe in medieval Japan, whose arm becomes infected after an encounter with a demon-possessed wild boar. As happens… Seeking a cure before the rest of his body follows suite, despite the superhuman strength it gives him, Ashitaka heads into the Western lands, and straight into the middle of an ongoing battle.

On one side is Lady Eboshi (Tanaka), the ruler of Irontown, a progressive and industrial settlement, in need of the resources which can be found in and under the nearby forest. On the other is San (Ishida), a young woman raised by wolves, who has vowed to protect the woods and their inhabitants, including the Great Forest Spirit. It’s their conflict which is really the core of the film, with Ashitaka’s quest to get his demonic arm fixed, taking a back-seat for most of the (lengthy, at 133 minutes) running-time here. Probably for the best, since he is, as mentioned, perhaps the least charismatic or engaging protagonist in the entire Miyazaki canon. His arm is easily the most interesting thing about him – and that keeps wanting to strike out on its own. When your own limb wants to go solo, you might be the problem… To quote Lady Eboshi, “I’m getting a little bored of this curse of yours, Ashitaka. Let me just cut the damn thing off.” #ImWithTeamEboshi

But enough of him. Let’s focus on what works here, which would be San and Eboshi. The first time we see San, her face is smeared in blood which she has sucked up and spat out, from a wound in the side of a gigantic white wolf. [This is certainly the most hardcore of Miyazaki’s films, with decapitations and limbs being lost at a rate closer to an entry in the Lone Wolf & Cub franchise.] She’s relentlessly aggressive in attitude, going so far as to stage a one-woman assault on Irontown in an attempt to assassinate her enemy. She tells Ashitaka, “I’m not afraid to die. I’d do anything to get you humans out of my forest.” That said, she’s still considerably less creepy than the forest apes who want to eat him.

Eboshi, on the other hand, is a complete contrast to the near-feral San, and remarkably progressive, especially considering the era and location. Her town is a haven for the disenfranchised and those society considers “untouchables”, including both lepers and prostitutes, the latter whose contracts she bought out and who now work in her iron mill. Her citizens and their welfare are what she cares about, above all, and she’s completely fearless about who she has to go through for that purpose. “She’s not even afraid of the gods, that woman,” says one of Irontown’s residents about their ruler, admiringly. They aren’t wrong, for she subsquently tells her warriors, “I’m going to show you how to kill a god, a god of life and death. The trick is not to fear him.” It’s remarkably easy to envisage a version where the roles are reversed, and she is the heroine. The fact she’s a gun enthusiast, is just a bonus!

Ashitaka’s role is largely to act as a middleman between the two worlds: somewhat more than human, yet less than divine. That remains the case even at the end, as he agrees to spent part of his time in the forest with San, and part of it working alongside Lady Eboshi in Irontown. It’s potentially an awkward and unsatisfying compromise, storywise, yet Miyazaki makes it work better than you feel it should.  But there are a couple of perplexing missteps too. For one, when the animals of the forest are talking, there’s zero effort to make their lips synch up. It’s bizarre and distracting. And in the Japanese version, the voice of San’s wolf mother, Moro is a man. Someone known in Japan as a drag queen, admittedly – but a man none the less, a weird choice which confused the heck out of me [score one for the dub, at least, which had Gillian Anderson as the character]

The overall result is undeniably beautifully animated, and epic in its scope and invention. As ever, Miyazaki excels at creating a world which is like our own, yet simultaneously completely alien. However, it all gets rather wearing, especially at the length depicted here. My attention simply ran dry during the second half, as the multiple different factions began hacking or gnawing away on each other, with the personal and intense quality of the Eboshi/San conflict getting lost in the bigger picture. It’s in putting over the intensely personal elements of large stories, that Miyazaki is unsurpassed – never mind just in animation, among film-makers as a whole. This isn’t the best demonstration of his talents in that area.

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki
Star: Yōji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida, Yūko Tanaka, Kaoru Kobayashi

Queen Lakshmibai: India’s Joan of Arc

  By

“Being young, vigorous, and not afraid to show herself to the multitude, she gained a great influence over the hearts of the people. It was this influence, this force of character, added to a splendid and inspiring courage, that enabled her to offer a desperate resistance to the British…. Whatever her faults in British eyes may have been, her countrymen will ever believe that she was driven by ill-treatment into rebellion; that her cause was a righteous cause. To them she will always be a heroine.”
  — “History of the Indian Mutiny” by Sir John Kaye and Colonel George Malleson

The notion of a warrior woman, who leads the fight against occupying forces is something which quite a common trope of legend and lore worldwide. The family tree includes the likes of Boudicaa in Roman England, through Vietnam’s Trung Sisters, Martha Christina Tiahahu of Indonesia – and, of course, Joan of Arc in France.

Lakshmibai is far from unique in Indian history as a warrior woman. The line probably starts with Rudrama Devi, who reigned in her own right over the Kakatiya kingdom for three decades during the late 13th century. In terms of rebellion against the British, who began occupying parts of India from around 1757, Lakshmibai was preceded by Rani Velu Nachiyar. After Nachiyar’s husband was killed in 1772, she raised an army and allied with other monarchs to fight the British.

Half a century later, in 1828, Manikarnika Tambe was born – the girl who would become Rani Lakshmibai. Her mother died when Manu, as she was known, was still a toddler. She was therefore brought up more by her father, who worked for local ruler Baji Rao II. This may explain why her upbringing was non-traditional, Manu learning how to wield a sword, as well as archery and horsemanship. But barely after becoming a teenager, at the age of 13, she was married to the Maharaja of Jhansi, Raja Gangadhar Newalkar. As was tradition, she took a new name: Lakshmibai, in honour of the Hindu goddess of wealth, fortune and prosperity, Lakshmi.

She was not able to provide him with a heir, their only child dying while only a few months old. Instead, shortly before the Maharaja’s death in 1853, they adopted a son. And that’s where Lakshmibai’s problems with the British started. For the British East India Company refused to recognize the adopted son as heir to the throne, applying what was called the ‘Doctrine of Lapse’ and annexing the state of Jhansi to its territories. The following year, Lakshmibai was literally pensioned off, being given a stipend and ordered to leave the palace. Despite this, she does not seem to have initially harboured strong anti-British feelings at this point.

“Her two qualities worth mentioning are her bravery and her generosity. Mostly, she was dressed in male attire. She used to wear a pajama with a vest of dark purple colour. On her head, she wore a turban like cap. On her waist would be a duppatta-like cloth in which a sword would be tucked.”
  — Vishnubhat Godse

In June 1857, rebel soldiers seized the fort at Jhansi and massacred, not only the officers garrisoned there, but their families. After the rebels left, Lakshmibai took over, running Jhansi on behalf of the British until they could send a superintendent. That’s not exactly Joan of Arc-like… Instead, she fought off efforts by the rebels to claim the Jhansi throne for her husband’s nephew, as well as an attempted invasion by neighbouring states. It’s possible the latter enemy’s alliance with the British helped sour relations between them and Lakshmibai, though she still seems to have intended to act as a caretaker to this point.

But clearly something changed her mind. For when the British eventually showed up, in March 1858, she declined to hand over the fort, instead issuing a proclamation: “We fight for independence. In the words of Lord Krishna, we will if we are victorious, enjoy the fruits of victory, if defeated and killed on the field of battle, we shall surely earn eternal glory and salvation.” Brave words, though with hindsight, basically saying, “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough,” to the British, at the point of basically peak Empire, might not have been the wisest of tactics…

The British laid siege to Jhansi, and the last hope of rescue ended when an approaching force of 20,000 supporters, under the command of Lakshmibai’s childhood friend, Tatya Tope, was headed off and beaten at the Battle of Betwa River. After ten days, the walls were breached, and the British entered. There is some debate over what happened to the civilian population thereafter. Some reports indicate all were massacred, but Brahmin priest Vishnubhat Godse gave an eye-witness account which said, “All men between the ages of five to thirty were searched out and killed… But the British did not kill women; they stood at a distance from women and told them to hand over whatever gold and jewellery they were wearing.”

Legend states that the queen leapt from the fort on a horse, with her adopted son strapped to her back. Godse’s account is slightly tamer: “She wore male attire, riding shoes and armour covering her whole body. She did not carry even a paisa coin on herself. With a resounding ‘Jai Shankar’ war cry, she descended from the fort and, crossing the city, went out through the north gate. The Company cavalry chased them for about a kos and a half (3 miles). Thereafter, [Lakshmibai]’s horses were no longer in sight.” She regrouped with the remnants of Tatya Tope’s forces, but they were again beaten by Imperial forces, and forced to flee once again.

Two months later, on June 17, she fought her final battle, her army going up against the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars. Again, what exactly happened to Lakshmibai has been clouded through the mists of time and folklore. One story says she dressed as a cavalry officer and attacked the hussars; unhorsed, she was wounded, but fought on, firing at her opponent with a pistol, before being shot by his rifle. Godse’s account is almost terse, saying she was “wounded by a bullet, but she continued to fight. Just then, her thigh was wounded with a sword and she fell off the horse. Tatya Tope rushed forward and held her dead body.”

“The high descent of the Rani, her unbounded liberality to her troops and retainers, and her fortitude, which no reverses could shake, rendered her an influential and dangerous adversary.”
  — Sir Hugh Rose

Her post-rebellion legacy was a complex one. Some English writers maligned Lakshmibai, blaming her for the massacre by the rebels at Jhansi – in particular army doctor, Thomas Lowe, who called the queen the “Jezebel of India.” However, Sir Hugh Rose, commander of the British forces who took Jhansi spoke of her in much kinder terms, calling her “Personable, clever and beautiful,” “The most dangerous of all Indian leaders,” and “The bravest and best military leader of the rebels”.

She became a character in a number of English novels, such as The Rane: A Legend of the Indian Mutiny written in 1887 under the pseudonym of “Gillean”, by British officer John Maclean. In it, she seduces an agent of the empire, reinforcing Lowe’s negative depiction. Yet others were more sympathetic, such as Michael White’s Lachmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi, published in 1901. For example, that version of her story absolves Lakshmibai of responsibility for the rebel massacre, blaming a treacherous Muslim associate instead.

In India, of course, there is no such divergence, and she is revered to this day. There are many statues of her, typically on horseback with her son on her back, as the stories depict. She has been honoured in poem and song, and multiple films and TV series. The first was 1953’s  Jhansi Ki Rani, released in an English dub three years later as The Tiger and the Flame. The first Technicolor film to be made in India, it was also the most expensive Hindi film made to that point. The makers brought in talent from Hollywood, such as Ernest Haller, Oscar-winning cinematographer for Gone With The Wind, and editor Russell Lloyd, who had also worked with Vivien Leigh, on Anna Karenina in 1948. However, this version proved to be a flop at the box-office.

There have been three television series and two further movies based on the life of the queen. [Some of these adaptations and versions will be reviewed here shortly, and will be listed below] Still to come, and potentially the biggest in the West, is The Warrior Queen of Jhansi, originally titled Swords and Sceptres. In this, Devika Bhise (shown above right) plays Lakshmibai, with Rupert Everett as Sir Hugh Rose, and the supporting cast including Ben Lamb, Derek Jacobi and Jodhi Ma. This picked up distribution through Roadside Attractions in June, and is supposedly scheduled for a fall 2019 release – though no date has been fixed as yet. I’m curious to see how it performs, and if it will help Lakshmibai become as familiar an icon here, as she is in India.

Lakshmibai on the page, screen and TV

The Women of Game of Thrones: Revisited

  By

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.

Codename: Villanelle vs. Killing Eve

  By

Credit: Entertainment Weekly

“You are an evolutionary necessity.”

With the second series of Killing Eve starting this month, and one of our most eagerly anticipated TV shows of the year, it seems a good point to take a look back at Luke Jennings’s original source material, and its translation to the small screen. Codename: Villanelle was originally self-published by Jennings as four separate novellas, the first (with the same name) appearing in February 2014. It was followed by Villanelle: Hollowpoint in August, then Villanelle: Shanghai and Odessa in February and June of the following year.

It wasn’t Jennings’s first published work: far from it, with Atlantic appearing back in 1995. These were mostly what Jennings calls “politely received but unprofitable novels,” adding “Our income was, to say the least, patchy.” That probably explains why he was dance critic at The Observer newspaper for 14 years. Which in turn explains the entry in his bibliography which stands out as most un-Villanelle like: his co-authorship of The Faber Pocket Guide to Ballet…

Codename: Villanelle was optioned for the screen relatively quickly after the first novella, in spring 2014. Initially pitched to Sky Living, they turned the project down, but it was reworked by writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, to put more emphasis on Eve, and these modifications also triggered the title change. It was a wise decision, I think. Codename: Villanelle seems very passive, a label given to a character (and half-meaningless unless you’re an expert on French perfume). Killing Eve is considerably more active, and also reflects the shift in focus from the hunter to the hunted. It helped get the show picked up by BBC America, and in autumn 2016, the show was given the go-ahead for an eight episode first series. But such was the advance buzz, that a second series was commissioned before even the first episode was broadcast.

This proved to be a wise decision. For it became a word-of-mouth hit, with ratings increasing by two-thirds from the first episode to the last. Critical reaction was no less enthusiastic: Killing Eve was included in more TV writers’ top tens for 2018, than any other show. Sandra Oh’s performance as Eve was particularly lauded, and she won the Golden Globe, Screen Actors’ Guild and Critics’ Choice Television Awards for her portrayal. The success of the series helped propel the first book onto the best-seller lists, and allowed Jennings to quit his day job at The Observer. The second volume, No Tomorrow, was published in October; we’ll have a review of that up later in the week.

But for now, we’re concentrating on the first book – and in particular, comparing and contrasting the show with its source material. What are the similarities? And, perhaps more interestingly, what are the differences? [Of necessity, what follows include significant spoilers for both TV and literary incarnations]

Villanelle

“They had recognized her talent, sought her out and taken her from the lowest place in the world to the highest, where she belonged. A predator, an instrument of evolution, one of that elite to whom no moral law applied. Inside her, this knowledge bloomed like a great dark rose, filling every cavity of her being.”

As noted above, the book leans considerably more towards Villanelle than the TV series in balancing the characters. In the show, she is initially a blank slate, and only slowly is her background revealed, as Eve peels back the layers behind her fake persona. The novel, however, fills in the basic details by page 13, while Eve doesn’t even appear until almost a quarter of the way in. Villanelle is a convicted triple-murderer, having taken revenge on the criminals responsible for killing her father – just one of a number of incidents that illustrate her socio/psychopathic nature [let’s not get bogged down in labels]. In the TV series, it’s a less family-oriented crime which gets her put away: castrating and murdering the husband of a teacher/lover.

She is then spirited out of prison by a shadowy group, known as “The Twelve” and trained in a range of lethal arts, becoming an assassin employed by them. “Shadowy” is putting it mildly for the TV version. Entirely opaque is probably closer to the truth, since we know almost nothing about them. The novel, in contrast, opens with a depiction of their meeting, and The Twelve deciding to unleash Villanelle on a target. We still don’t know who they are or their goals, however. They clearly don’t mess around though. While Konstantin, Villanelle’s handler, is in an “is he dead or not?” limbo at the end of season one, there’s no such doubt in the book. He’s 100% dead, killed by Villanelle after he has been rescued by her from kidnapping – just in case he divulged any incriminating information. Guess you never know. That’s considerably more brutal than in the show, where Konstantin does indeed “go rogue”.

The Vilannelle we see is considerably more anti-social than in the book, where she is entirely capable of hanging out with people as and when necessary. The version on the page is considerably more sexual too – likely impacted  by the TV show being on basic cable – with a habit, after completing an assassination, of finding some random stranger – male or female, she’s not bothered – for a meaningless fling. For her, it’s all about making them want her, and the resulting power she has over them. [There’s also a rather gratuitous scene, describing in unnecessary detail the unpleasant sexual fetish of one victim]

Eve Polastri

“Eve Polastri is looking down at Lambeth Bridge and the wind-blurred surface of the river. It’s 4 p.m. and she has just learned, with mixed feelings, that she is not pregnant.”

Even on the most superficial level, the small-screen version of Eve is radically different. In the book, she’s British and aged 29. The change in nationality was something BBC America required. Given their audience, it’s somewhat understandable, despite the resulting, somewhat clumsy need to explain why a Yankee is working for the British security services. That Sandra Oh is two decades older than the original Eve diminishes the suggestion in the novel that Eve and Villanelle are two sides of the same coin. Both are professional, childless women who have turned to their work, to the exclusion of almost everything else. Instead, the generation gap creates other echoes, almost a mother/delinquent daughter relationship.

Despite her youth, book Polastri has risen to become the head of her department at MI-5, which arranges special protection for visitors to the UK who are deemed at risk. She’s already intrigued by the whispers of Villanelle she has found, but this becomes a full obsession after the assassin takes out a Russian fringe politician on Eve’s turf, causing the civil servant to lose her position. Both versions then have Eve being recruited for an off-book operation to hunt Villanelle down, cutting ties with her previous colleagues.

This brings tension to Eve’s marriage with Niko, though much more so on television. In the book, while they still have their disagreements when Eve puts work before previously-arranged social engagements, there is a reconciliation (of sorts) towards the end. Niko and his academic pals help Eve crack a USB password, the device containing information that leads to an operative associated with The Twelve inside MI-5. Their marriage is certainly in a far better place at the end of volume one, than series one.

Eve vs. Villanelle

“She knows who I am. Killing Simon was a message, addressed to me. She was saying I can take you, and the people you care about, any fucking time I want…”

It’s at the nexus of the two main characters, in their relationship, that the TV series and book diverge most drastically. Because, in the novel, there pretty much isn’t one. Eve and Villanelle have virtually no conscious interaction at all. Emphasis on conscious, since the most time they spend together is when the killer slips into the spy’s Shanghai hotel room while Eve is sleeping and “inhales her warm smell.” What there is, is strictly adversarial: Eve regards Villanelle solely as a threat who must be stopped. “It’s just beginning,” are the three words from Eve with which the first book ends, as she puts a Glock 19 pistol in her bag. There’s little doubting her intentions.

What Phoebe Waller-Smith did in the show, was broaden and deepen that relationship, in a myriad of ways, both little and big. It feels more like Clarice Sterling and Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, with a charming psychopath playing games against a dogged, somewhat dour bloodhound. By deepening the discord between Eve + Niko, and her overall discontent with life, and playing up Villanelle’s bisexuality, the TV show has added a slab of unresolved sexual tension between the pair, which simply wasn’t present in the first book. It has certainly helped make the show become a firm favourite in the gay community, though thanks to the wonderful performances of Oh and Jodie Comer, it’s far more than ghetto TV.

I do have concerns, however. In a Reddit AMA, Jennings said, “The fandom drives the success of the books and the show, and also influences it. Killing Eve: No Tomorrow would be a different book if I hadn’t spent time listening to fans.” It seems a perilous route for any creative person, to let the consumers dictate where your story goes. I’ve already seen Xena: Warrior Princess destroyed when its makers started pandering to the demands of gay fan ‘shippers. Will Killing Eve go the same way? We can only hope it doesn’t.

2019 in Action Heroine Films

  By

Welcome to our sixth annual preview of what we can expect from our genre in 2019. The year just ended was relatively low-key, without the massive tent-pole of a film like Wonder Woman. The biggest success at the North American box-office was the Tomb Raider reboot, which was a commercial disappointment and finished 43rd on the year. There will still pleasures to be had, but they were more at the smaller end of the spectrum, such as Revenge and Raazi, as well as the small-screen delight of Killing Eve. 2019 though, should be considerably bigger, with the first quarter alone bringing two releases with a combined cost estimated as north of $350 million.

We start with one of those, and then cover another which is also a holdover from this feature last January…

Alita: Battle Angel (February 19)

Delayed twice from its originally-scheduled date of last July – that’s not normally a good sign. But escaping the Hunger Games which was the Christmas box-office for the much quieter February might have been very sensible: just ask Mortal Engines about that. After a shaky start with a first trailer that had everyone going, “…but those eyes!”, subsequent efforts have consistently improved, and by the last one, enthusiasm online seemed generally higher. With a $200 million budget, it needs to be huge for there to be any chance of sequels, and adaptations of Japanese comic-books have not done well previously. Fingers crossed producer James Cameron can sprinkle some of his pixie-dust on Robert Rodriguez.

Anna (TBA)

“I’ve a feeling this may end up drifting back into 2019″. That’s what I said last year, and I’m tempted just to copy-paste that entry. because we know precious little more about Luc Besson’s next film now, than we did last January. I suspect Besson has been a bit distracted, between rape accusations, sexual harassment claims by seven other women, and a $101 million loss for the first half of the financial year at his studio, EuropaCorp [thanks, Valerian!]. Anna was originally set for a January release in France, but has been pushed back to March 27, in part due to the company getting out of distributing its own films there. US distributors Lionsgate haven’t scheduled it yet. A trailer would be nice…

Atone (February 26)

Per Amazon, “Atone introduces us to the world of Laura Bishop, an ex-special ops soldier that has reluctantly settled into raising her daughter Kate… She spends her days in a security job at a place that she thought would not require much effort, a church. Until a team of highly trained and armed terrorists takes the church by siege. With the intent to simply report the incident to the cops, she starts to head to the police department when suddenly she is stopped as she notices her daughters bike lying at the entrance of the church… With special forces standing between her and her daughter, Lauras rage engages her past in special ops setting off a pitched battle that may kill everyone involved.” So… Die Hard in a church?

Captain Marvel (March 8)

This is an easy pick for top box-office GWG in 2019, as every Marvel Cinematic Universe film since Thor in 2011  – sixteen in a row, and counting – has grossed at least half a billion dollars worldwide. It sees Brie Larson play Carol Danvers, a.k.a. the titular superheroine. It will be Marvel’s first female-led film, which isa bit risky, considering the character is perhaps less well-known, lacking Black Widow’s audience in previous ensemble films, for example. It’s an origin story, set in the nineties, and tells how Danvers’s DNA was fused with that of an alien species, the Kree, and helps fend off an invasion of Earth by another extra-terrestrial race. It’ll be huge. But Ant-Man and the Wasp huge? Or Black Panther huge?

Charlie’s Angels (November 1)

Like Alita, this has been pushed back twice, originally scheduled for July and then September. Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska play the trio of crime-fighters, with multiple Bosleys, including director Elizabeth Banks, Patrick Stewart and Djimon Hounsou. This one will have to overcome the stigma of the 2011 attempt to reboot the show as a TV series, which was canceled after only four episodes had aired. Or indeed, the lacklustre Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, which failed to capture the same spirit of fun as the original movie. I’m curious as to how this is going to work in a post-#MeToo era, given the eye candy that has been an integral part of almost every incarnation, going back to the first TV series.

Crawl (TBA)

“A young woman, while attempting to save her father during a Catagory 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against alligators.” This stars Kaya Scodelario, and will be somewhat familiar territory for the actress, as she was also in Tiger House, playing a young woman trapped in a house who must fight for her life against robbers. Director Alexandre Aja’s break through film was the French Haute Tension, and also did remakes The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha 3D.

Dark Phoenix (June 7)

Startled to realize this will be the twelfth film in the X-Men universe, if you include the Deadpool films. But it will be the first truly female-driven one – though you could perhaps make an argument for Logan  at least being a two-hander. Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) is ‘turned’ to the dark side after being blasted by radiation from a solar flare, and becomes Phoenix. She’s manipulated by an alien shapeshifter, played by Jessica Chastain, while the rest of the X-Men, including Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Psylocke (Olivia Munn) on the distaff side, try to reclaim their colleague. This has been in post-production for a long time, with shooting having completed in October 2017, and also had its release date moved back into 2019.

Fighting With My Family (February 14)

Telling the story behind WWE’s former women’s champion, Paige (Florence Pugh), who comes from a family of British pro wrestlers. Fun fact: I saw her mother wrestle, as “Sweet Saraya”, at Croydon’s Fairfield Hall in the late nineties. Mom here will be played by Lena Headey, with Dad by Nick Frost – both are well-loved here, and it’s an unexpected directorial effort from Stephen Merchant, whom we also like. I suspect it’s going to be very British and dry in its wit, but having seen the documentary of the same title, I’ve no doubt there’s plenty of material to be found in this dysfunctional family. However, films about wrestling have not tended to do well at the box-office. Anyone remember Ready 2 Rumble? Exactly.

Headlock (January 11)

I’ll believe this when I see it, considering how long it has been in production – it started filming in July 2014. For now, I’ll stick to repeating the IMDb synopsis – as last year! “After new CIA recruit, Kelley Chandler (Polish) is seriously injured during a mission, surviving only on life support, his wife Tess (Dianna Agron), a former CIA operative, becomes determined to find out what happened to her husband. As the details of Kelley’s last mission unravel, showing that his accident was an inside job, Tess puts everything on the line to keep Kelley out of harm’s way, even if that comes with dangerous consequences.”

I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu (TBA)

The fifth in the franchise, I’m not certain if this one will qualify for the site. We have revieweed the reboot and both of the sequels. However, the original was more rape than revenge, and this entry shares the same director, Meir Zarchi, and star in Camille Keaton. She plays the best-selling author of a book that recounts her rape ordeal and subsequent trial where she was acquitted of killing her attackers. Now living in New York City with her supermodel daughter (Jamie Bernadette), they are kidnapped and taken to a remote rural town by the revenge-seeking relatives of the rapists. Hence: deja vu.

Liberté: A Time to Spy (TBA)

“Based on true stories, the film tells the story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill’s “secret army”: Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.” We’ve written about Khan previously, and I’ve got a fondness for all the heroines of World War II. [I’m currently watching British TV series Wish Me Luck, which covers similar topics] Atkins is played by Stana Katic, who was in Stiletto, and Khan by Indian actress Radhika Apte.

Miss Bala (February 1)

A remake of the Mexican film of the same name, it does adjust some elements from the original. Rather than the heroine being a beauty queen, it’s a make-up artist (here, played by Gina Rodriguez) who is coerced in to working for the local drug cartel. Per the official synopsis, “Gloria must turn the tables on everyone to escape and finds a power she never knew she had as she navigates a dangerous world of cross-border crime. Surviving will require all of her cunning, inventiveness, and strength.” Which sounds more or less like the synopsis of 60% of the telenovelas I watch, though that is probably just me.

Monster Hunter (TBA)

Resident Evil may be done (for now), but Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich have moved on to another video-game property. She plays Captain Natalie Artemis, a member of a United Nations military team who fall through a portal into an alternate world where humans and monsters do battle. The skills she picks up there come in handy when the monsters come back through the portal to our Earth. With martial artist Tony Jaa as the male lead, the kick-butt here may be off the charts, and based on the pic above, it looks like Milla didn’t have to change much more than her socks from portraying Alice. Should be fun, though expect whining from the video-game fans about changes made for the movie.

The Rhythm Section (February 22)

Made by Eon Productions, the company who produce the James Bond films, this will star Blake Lively as Stephanie Patrick, “a woman who seeks to uncover the truth behind a plane crash that killed her family. Patrick was also meant to be on the flight. After she discovers that the crash was not accidental, she embarks on a mission to track down those responsible by assuming the identity of an assassin.” It’s based on the novel by Mark Burnell, which “is not a thriller about the hunt for a terrorist, although that is the path Stephanie takes, and it’s not a story about revenge, although justice for her family is her initial motivation. Rather, The Rhythm Section is the story of Stephanie’s attempt to reclaim herself.” Hmm.

Split Lip (TBA)

I heard about this independent effort through Chris, who works at a local film studio here in Arizona – the daughter of one of her clients there is the star, and does all her own stunts. Synopsis: “In the underground world of contract killers, mistakes cannot be tolerated. Set (Doreé Seay), a brutal mercenary with an icy exterior, finds out the hard way when one mistake sends her on a treacherous mission to clear her name. Hunted by her former mentor Karlton (DeJean Brown) and his roster of psychopaths, she forms an unlikely alliance with a mysterious stranger and his sister as Set races against the clock to out-wit and out-fight the dark forces gunning for her life.” I’m sold. Check out the trailer in the playlist at the bottom.

Untitled Terminator Reboot (November 1)

Probably one of the most frequent questions I get is why I haven’t written more about the Terminator films. It’s mostly because Sarah Connor is a supporting character in parts 1+2; only the third, with its female terminator as the antagonist really qualifies. I’ll still be interested to see what this reboot does with regard to the franchise. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton reprise their roles (albeit largely with a body-double for the former!), and it apparently ignores everything after Terminator 2.

Of course, any and all of the above is subject to change! But as and when they are released, you can expect coverage and reviews of them here in the coming year.

Girls With Guns Calendars 2019

  By

Welcome to our eighth annual round-up of girls with guns calendars, just in time for your Christmas shopping delight. Below, you’ll find prices (generally excluding shipping), sample images and links to purchase for all the calendars we could find. We’ll add more if we find them, feel free to email us if you know of any others

TAC GIRLS

TacGirls.com – $16.95

“Tactical Girls® 2019 Bikini Gun Calendar starts in January of 2019 and brings you 13 months of beautiful women with some of the world’s most exotic weaponry in realistic tactical settings. The 2019 Tactical Girls Calendar includes the Cadex Tremor .50 BMG Precision Rifle, the Kel-Tec KSG Tactical Short bullpup Shotgun and last but not least the DRD Tactical Paratus Battle Rifle in 6.5CR! 10% of the print run of this calendar is donated to deployed soldiers and organizations that support them, notably AmericanSnipers.org.”

LIBERTY BELLES

LibertyBellesUSA.com – $19.95

“A special unit of the military, the Liberty Belles have a mission to pay tribute to U.S. forces in their bikini-clad attire with army style! These sexy ladies are features on every one of the 12 months in this special edition 2019 wall calendar, featuring the most provocative tactical women of the year! Stapled binding. 12″x 9″.”

GUNS AND GIRLS

GunsAndGirlsCalendar.com – $19.95 (inc. shipping)

“The 2019 GUNS AND GIRLS wall calendar is packed with beautiful pin up models and many of today’s most popular weapons, everything from handguns to AR-15’s. This 16 month large format calendar is 17″x 28″ when hung up and a perfect gift for any Armed Service Member, Police Officer or Shooting Enthusiast. Also includes a bonus 12 month poster inside giving you two calendars in one package!“

HOT SHOTS

HotShotsCalendar.com – $19.50

“The Hot Shots Calendar was originally created by Edgar Brother’s Police and Military Division. Today it is backed but not just Edgar Brothers but also several other key sponsors including Crimson Trace, Creative Superette, Crye Precision, Soldier Systems and Smith Optics. Now in it’s twelfth year of print, the iconic hotshots calendar has gone retro for 2019, Tan lines and all! Returning for 2019, Hotshots legends Kelly Hall, Stephanie Pietz, Kayla Cardona and India Reynolds, as well as new girls Rosie Danvers, Katya Sanchez, Sabine & Lucie Rose Donlan. The calendar’s primary aim is to raise money for the Help For Heroes charity which we have consistently done over the last 4 years.”

ZAHAL GIRLS

zahal.org – $24.90

“We are proud to present our new ZAHAL Girls Calendar which combines the best of both sexy models and the tactical gear world.

No gun bunnies! Only IDF veterans.“

Width 297 mm, Length 210 mm

CCFR Gunnie Girl

Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights – $20.00

“CCFR members and volunteers got together to create this unique calendar, highlighting women in our sport. Proceeds from the sale of this product fund women’s programs and initiatives across the country, helping bring more ladies into the sport. Register your calendar at www.ccfrcalendar.com to be entered into free draws all year long. Thank you for supporting the women’s program at the CCFR. Endorsement by Olympian Lynda Keijko.”

ReadyGunner

ReadyGunner.com – $9.99

“This calendar features a good combination of not only some great women in the gun industry, but also some awesome fire power and beautiful backdrops. Getting this calendar won’t just help you keep 2019 organized. But it will also look great on your wall.”

Hens ‘n’ Guns

Hens ‘n’ Guns Facebook page – £10

A rather British GWG calendar this, and in aid of a very good cause, with the proceeds going to support the Dorset and Somerset air ambulance.

The World of Battle Angel Alita

  By

With the release of Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel scheduled for February next year, I figured now would be a good time to take a look at the origins of the character. Where did she come from? What is the world she inhabits like? And what might we expect from the film?

The character was created by Japanese manga artist Yukito Kishiro, with the first installment appearing in Business Jump magazine, late in 1990. The 52 episodes plus an epilogue were then collected into nine volumes, and the story is available in that format, both in Japan and translated into English for a Western audience. There have been some changes made, beginning with the title: in its homeland, the series was known as Gunnm, which translates as “gun dream” [something hinted at by the heroine, who at one point says “I was probably a gun or something in my previous life”]. Alita is known as “Gally” in the original version, and the city hovering over her home town was originally Salem, rather than Tiphares. I’ll be using the English language names.

It takes part in a post-apocalyptic version of North America; later installments have said the timeframe is the 26th centure, beginning in the year 2533. The elite have left the surface of the planet, and live in the flying city of Tiphares. Everyone else is still on the ground, supplying the city with all its needs. One of those is Ido, a cyberdoctor exiled from above, who finds a cyborg head in the scrapyard lying beneath Tiphares. He gives it a body, and calls her Alita. Her memories are all but gone; what she does remember, however, is how to fight, being skilled in ‘Panzer Kunst’, a legendary form of martial arts. This stands her in good stead, as she becomes a bounty hunter, tracking down and killing criminals in and around the scrapyard.

There have been two (or perhaps three) subsequent comic-book incarnations. First was Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, originally published from 2001-14 in Japan. Then came Battle Angel Alita: Holy Night and Other Stories, though this was a collection of four side-stories – hence the “perhaps three”! Most recently, we had Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicle (2015-17). Two of the volumes from the first incarnation were adapted into a pair of 30-minute OVAs (Original Video Animation), released in June 1993. Rumblings of a live-action version have been around almost as long, with James Cameron securing the rights to the comic in 1999, having been introduced to the property by Guillermo Del Toro. By the mid-2000’s, a script had been created, but after developing the project in parallel with Avatar, Cameron decided to devote his efforts to that instead, and Alita went on the back-burner.

The massive success of Avatar led to Cameron committing to not one, two or three but four sequels, with releases dates planned out as far ahead as December 2025. Needless to say, that meant he would not be working on Alita any time soon. In 2015, he gave Rodriguez the script to rework, and was reportedly impressed enough by the result, then to hand over directorial control as well. The results are likely to be somewhat different from Rodriguez’s other works, where he typically does the cinematography and editing as well as his directorial duties. Here, those tasks have been delegated, a nod to the scale of the production. At a reported figure of $200 million, it’s not far off the budget of every other Robert Rodriguez movie combined.

It does not appear to have been a trouble-free journey to the big screen. When the first trailer appeared in December 2017, it came under heavy criticism for the enlarged size of the heroine’s eyes. While a standard feature in much of anime, seeing it in a “live-action” production was clearly unsettling to many people. It was notable that, by the time the second trailer arrived in July, adjustments had been made, and the reaction was considerably better. However, by that point the film had already undergone its first change in release date. Originally scheduled to come out on July 20, in February, it was pushed back to December 21.

But in September, Fox moved the release date again, this time to Valentine’s Day, 2019. This seems to have been a decision to back out of a crowded December market, including Aquaman and new movies from the Spiderman and Transformers universes. Moving it lessens the competition, giving it a couple of weeks before Captain Marvel is released. It’ll also become the first foreign movie after Chinese New Year, which may help its prospects there. That’s now almost eight months it has been pushed back, so you can understand some nervousness among fans. Especially given how much is riding on this.

For Alita: Battle Angel will be the most expensive action heroine film of all time, easily surpassing the $160 million cost of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. [I exclude The Force Awakens, as more a Star Wars film with a female lead, than a “true” action heroine film] That, of course, was the final entry in a series which had already proven its worth at the box-office. The market for live-action adaptations of anime out of Hollywood has also been shown to be precariously soft, most recently and obviously by Ghost in the Shell. If Alita reproduced that movie’s performance worldwide, it would not even cover its production costs.

If it flops, this would be a serious setback to future entries: we would potentially be back at the days of Catwoman where received wisdom was that actresses couldn’t carry an action flick. Right now, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed, for to this point, there have apparently been no test screenings of the full movie by which it can be judged. 18 minutes of various scenes was screened at Comic-Con International in July, and reports at that time said “the movie is going to be a combination of the manga and the OVA with elements of the ‘motorball’ storyline.” Let’s take a look at both of those incarnations, and see whether we might be able to learn what the film may contain.

Battle Angel Alita, by Yukito Kishiro

By Jim McLennan

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

I used to read a lot of comics and graphic novels. But when I moved from London to Arizona in 2000, I all but stopped. There are still boxes in our basement, unopened since then, filled with my comic collection. Rare have been the forays into that culture since, beyond the occasional volume of Dirty Pair, for review purposes. Certainly, nothing as extended as deciding to re-read this in advance of the anticipated release of Robert Rodriguez’s live-action movie. Initially, I feared I had bitten off more than I could chew, when I realized the nine-volume series was a total of over two thousand pages of content. Maybe I should have started reading it before mid-October?

In the end, the release date for the movie got pushed into next year, and I blitzed through the comics at about a volume per day, in virtually my usual reading time. I’d forgotten how pacy comic reading can be: if there’s no dialogue, you scan the panels quickly. It’s not as if you stop and admire them, or worry about what exactly is being portrayed. The intent is almost for the visual aspect to go from the page into your subconscious, so you get a visceral “feel” for what’s happening. That’s especially true for something as heavily action-oriented as this, and Kishiro has an amazing flair for it (not least in the area of sound effects!). If you look at an individual frame, you might not know what’s happening; yet put them together, and almost magically, it becomes a coherent flow.

However, there’s still an amazing amount going on in terms of story-line and universe-building. You can easily see how the feature film will only be able to cover perhaps one-quarter of the series. I presume it will begin with the origin story, in which Ido finds the head of Alita in the scrapyard beneath the floating city of Tiphares, and gives it a cybernetic body. He’s a part-time bounty hunter, only to find out quickly, the combat abilities of his new charge far surpass his own. Unfortunately, she has little or no memory of her prior life; where she got these skills and how she ended up in the scrapyard is only revealed well into the series.

The second volume has her both falling in love, and discovering the pain which love can bring. She is smitten by Hugo, another young orphan of the scrapyard, who is working hard – albeit in some very dubious ways – to raise enough funds to buy a ticket up to Tiphares. When he discovers the truth about his situation, he cracks – and a bounty is placed on his head. The end result is romantic tragedy of a high order, and also drives Alita away from Ido. That brings her into the middle arc: motorball, a superviolent pastime popular among the scrapyard inhabitants. This occupies the third and fourth volumes: Alita climbs the sport’s ladder towards the elite players, and ends up facing off against its brutal champion, Jashugan. It appears this is roughly the arcs which will be covered in the film version, though I’m not sure how far they’ll get into the motorball thread.

The second half sees Alita head into the wastelands, in search of Desty Nova, like Ido another Tipharen exile. She has become an agent working on behalf of the floating city, and against the rebel group of Barjack, which is intent on (literally) taking down Tiphares. While this gives her access to help from above, the flow of data goes both ways: if one Alita is good, wouldn’t a dozen of them be better? Through Nova, she discovers the gruesome truth about the citizens of Tiphares, and her convenient amnesia is also cured, with Alita remembering where she came from, as well as finding out the history which led to the current situation on Earth. She’s left to make the ultimate choice: whether to destroy Tiphares or save it.

It having been more than two decades since I last read this, I’d forgotten almost all the details, so the twists and turns proved highly effective once more. There were several moments where I had to put the book down and just absorb what I’d been told, and Kishiro is good at telling the reader the essential information efficiently. However, it’s the action sequences throughout where he really shines, whether it’s the motorball contests, or the escalating series of battles in which Alita finds herself involved. For no matter how powerful she may become, there’s always someone bigger and badder – likely culminating in Den, leader of the Barjack rebels. Imagine a pissed-off half-horse, half-Transformer. Yeah, he’s like that.

While they certainly would not be cheap, there’s enough material here for a whole franchise of live-action movies, if the first one is a success (fingers crossed, though I’m not optimistic it’ll take in the half-billion or more needed for it to turn a profit). I’m really looking forward to seeing what Robert Rodriguez can do with the adaptation, on the largest cinema screen I can find. Hopefully his vision of Tiphares, the scrapyard and Alita is able to live up to the impressive world created by Kishiro.

Author: Yukito Kishiro
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book

Battle Angel Alita, Volume 1
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 2
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 3
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 4
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 5
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 6
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 7
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 8
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 9

Battle Angel: The OVAs

By Jim McLennan

★★★½
“Sweet, yet too short.”

Watching this after having read the manga version, it feels like the anime version can do little more than scratch the surface of the world of Tiphares, in the barely fifty minutes it has to work with across its two OVA (Original Video Animation) volumes. The stories here, originally released in 1993, cover the first two section of the manga, and it looks like much of what we see here will also be included in the live-action film next February. Slightly confusing matters, is the way this uses the original Japanese names. So Tiphares becomes Zalem here, and Hugo is Yugo. Most oddly, the heroine is not called Alita – hence the absence of her name from the title – but Gally. To avoid further confusion, I’m going to be consistent with our other articles on the topic, and stick to the translated ones for what follows.

We see Ido (Kariya) discover the head of Alita (Itou), and almost before we can blink, it’s back to being fully functioning. He’s a part-time cyber-doctor, part-time bounty-hunter, and after Alita follows him – suspecting he’s a killer who is stalking the streets of the scrapyard – she ends up rescuing him from the real killer. She also meets and falls for Hugo (Yamaguchi), a young man desperate to get out of the scrapyard, by any means necessary – a fact that proves to be the source of his downfall in the second OAV. Not present in the manga is the character of Chiren (Koyama). Like Ido, she’s a refugee from Tiphares, who resent his cyber-medical skills and wants to prove herself superior. To do so, she rescues gladiator Grewcica and sets him against Ido’s creation, Alita.

For something a quarter-century old, the animation has stood the test of time well. This is notable in the first part, and especially the battles between Alita and Grewcica, which remain more than capable of getting the blood pumping. The look of the scrapyard and Tiphares have been transferred nicely. The colours feel like your imagination told you they should, from the b&w manga, and even the sound design adds to the atmosphere, both in Kaoru Wada’s score and the groans of the pipes connecting Tiphares to the scrap-yard.

The problem, I think, is a script which doesn’t have enough room to develop the characters and their interactions. Especially short-changed is the relationship between Alita and Hugo, which feels like it goes from zero to passionate love (on her side, at least) in no time at all. As a result, you’re left to wonder why she’s prepared to go to such lengths for him, though his eventual fate remains poignant – not least the addition of a little flourish at the end, where Ido and Alita send up a balloon in his honour. I probably would have felt kinder towards these episodes if I’d seen them before reading the original source material; as is, while solid enough, I can’t help feeling there’s something missing.

Dir: Hiroshi Fukutomi
Star (voice): Miki Itou, Shunsuke Kariya, Kappei Yamaguchi, Mami Koyama

Cattle Annie and Little Britches: Fact vs. fiction

  By

“This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
  — The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The fact

There’s something satisfyingly circular about the story of Cattle Annie and Little Britches. Two teenage girls, inspired by the questionably accurate literary exploits of Western outlaw derring-do, leave their homes and families to join those outlaws. They end up becoming the stuff of these same legends themselves, with their story being turned into a Hollywood movie (see below). Art imitating life imitating art.  Given this, discovering the truth behind the myth is almost impossible, with sources telling different versions, and often contradicting each other. As such, take what follows as a best guess…

Annie was originally Anna Emmaline McDoulet, born in November 1882: some say she was the daughter to a Kansas justice of the peace, J. C. McDoulet – clearly giving her something to rebel against! – while other versions have her father a poor preacher-lawyer. After a spell working various menial jobs, she turned to crime. Initially selling liquor to Indians (something outlawed at the time), she graduated to rustling livestock, likely leading to her nickname. Meanwhile, Jennie Stevenson (a.k.a. Jennie Midkiff and Jennie Stevens), was three years Annie’s senior, and had been married and separated twice while still a teenager.

In the early eighteen-nineties, Oklahoma was still a territory, not a state – it wouldn’t become one until 1906 – and was still very much the Wild West. Bill Doolin was initially a member of the Dalton Gang but after a failed attempt to rob two banks simultaneously left four of the group dead, Doolin put his own team together, known as the “Wild Bunch”. They began a string of bank and train robberies, and in September 1893, were involved in a shootout called the “Battle of Ingalls,” which left three marshals dead. At one point were the most feared gang in the West, in part due to the efforts of dime-novelist Ned Buntline, who brought a (doubtless romanticized) version of their exploits to a popular audience.

As mentioned above, some credit Buntline’s work with inspiring our heroines to a life of crime, though as Oklahoma residents, they would likely have been well aware of the Doolin gang anyway. Another account indicates the young women met members of the Doolin gang at local dances, “and became wildly excited at the stories of the wealth and fame that would be theirs if they should turn to banditry.” [The same source notes sniffily, “Not only did they dare to wear men’s pants…but rode horses as men rode them, astride”!] Regardless of the cause, Annie and Jennie became members of the gang, with the latter being named Little Britches by Doolin.

It’s unclear what the role of the girls was, but it makes sense they would have been suited to reconnaissance work, and supplying intelligence about law-enforcement activities to Doolin. For who would suspect two teenage girls of being outlaws? However, legend says, there was more to it. and the only known surviving photo of the two (above right) does suggest active participation: “Cattle Annie led her own gang of men and Little Britches was her lieutenant. Cattle Annie wore a cowboy hat and dressed and carried a rifle. Little Britches wore a cowboy hat and men’s trousers, vest and jacket, and a cartridge belt and a double holster with two six guns. Both of these ladies were tough, they carried guns like other women carried parasols, and strong men quailed when they walked into a saloon.”

In August 1895, the law finally caught up with the pair. Little Britches was arrested first, but initially escaped custody during a meal break: “She darted through the back door of the restaurant and quickly tearing off her dress, seized a horse and, mounting it, rode off.” Freedom was short-lived. For the following night, just outside Pawnee, Oklahoma. United States Marshal Bill Tilghman and Deputy Marshal Steve Burke raided the ranch where she was hiding out with Cattle Annie. With some difficulty and after an exchange of gunfire, the lawmen managed to arrest them both. Both were convicted as horse thieves and sentenced to serve their time back East, at the Farmington Reform School, in Massachusetts.

Little Britches was released early, for good behaviour, in October 1896, with Cattle Annie following 18 months later, in April 1898. Both women eventually returned to Oklahoma, married and gave up the outlaw life – though Little Britches largely dropped out of the public eye, and her eventual fate is unknown. Annie was wedded twice, having two sons with her second husband, and living in Oklahoma City from 1912 until her death in 1978 at the age of ninety-five. Her obituary in The Oklahoman made no reference to her outlaw escapades, instead saying simply, “She was a retired bookkeeper and member of American Legion Auxiliary and Olivet Baptist Church.”

The legend

★★★
“All legends end in bullshit.”

One of the subjects here almost lived long enough to see her story on the big screen: the woman who was Cattle Annie passed away only three years before the movie version was released in April 1981. Playing her was the daughter of Christopher Plummer, Amanda, in her screen debut (she already had stage experience off-Broadway), while the role of Little Britches went to another near-newcomer who would also go on to fame in her own right, Diane Lane. It was based on Robert Ward’s book – he co-wrote the screen-play – and seems to take a fairly fast and loose approach to the facts of the pair’s lives. Though given the huge uncertainty involved in those, it’s hard to complain too much.

For example, rather than being born and brought up in Oklahoma, the duo are portrayed as making their way out to California to seek their fortune, when they’re forcibly detoured to Guthrie, OK, There, they encounter Bill Doolin (Lancaster) when he and his gang visit the town. Annie falls for gang member Bittercreek Newcomb (John Savage) and they end up being taken by him to the gang’s hideout. Their knowledge of the Doolin Gang is entirely based on the embellished stories they’ve heard about them, and they’re disappointing to find reality comes up short.

The man they encounter, and whose gang they join, is considerably older than the real person. Lancaster was 67 at the time, while Doolin was in his late thirties. The girls are also played significantly older: 23 during filming, Plummer was a full decade older than the real Cattle Annie. The cinematic Doolin seems increasingly weary of the whole outlaw thing, of being pursued by the relentless Bill Tilghman (Steiger), and has little or no interest in living up to his own mythology when he meets the pair. But Cattle Annie’s belief in the legend, at least somewhat reignites the fire. Though after his capture, Doolin returns to fatalism, and it’s up to the girls to stage a rescue mission, when the rest of the gang would just let their leader hang.

You get something of the hardscrabble life about the pair, and how the outlaw life is one of the few routes by which they could escape their grinding poverty. As Annie says after their failed initial attempt to follow Doolin, “I’ll not be a white nigger slave woman! I’d rather burn like a fire!” But there isn’t an enormous amount going on, and the film seems to contain a fair bit of filler, such as an impromptu game of baseball, using equipment looted during a train robbery [As a baseball fan, seems doubtful the entire group of adult men would be so oblivious of the sport as they appear. This was the mid 1890’s: the National League had been running for close to 20 years, with a team in St. Louis, one state over] Though as a meditation on the dying embers of the “Wild West,” and the gap between heroic fiction and slogging through endless rain and mud, it’s effective enough, and you can see why both young leads would go on to greater fame.

Dir: Lamont Johnson
Star: Amanda Plummer, Diane Lane, Burt Lancaster, Rod Steiger

Run Lola Run: 20 years on

  By

On August 20th, it will be twenty years since Run Lola Run – or as it was originally titled, Lola Rennt – was released in its native Germany. And, given the significance the number “20” has in the film, it seems appropriate to take a look back at it. Let’s be clear: this will not be a particularly critical analysis, more of an adoring reminiscence. For I love this film, and have since Chris first mailed me a bootleg copy (recorded in LP mode!) in 2000. I’d seen the poster outside an art-house cinema on Long Island, but knew little or nothing about it. Certainly, when I banged that VHS tape into the player, I had no clue I’d be watching a film which would become one of my all-time favourites.

Note: THERE WILL BE ENORMOUS SPOILERS BELOW THIS LINE

Why do I adore it? It’s amazingly rewatchable – we saw it in the cinema together for the first time a couple of months ago, at a 20th anniversary screening, and it was still near-perfect – perhaps because it works on so many levels. On one, it’s a simple action tale. Lola (Potente) has 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 Deutschmarks lost by her boyfriend, Manni (Bleibtreu), which belong to a crime boss. That, in itself, is a brilliant pitch for a thriller, and the first third unfolds in an incredibly stylish, yet straightforward way, as Lola runs across town, fails to convince her father (Knaup) to help, gets involved in Manni’s supermarket robbery… and then gunned down by a policeman in the subsequent stand-off.

Wait, what? We’re not half an hour in, and the title character is already bleeding out on a Berlin street? How the hell is Tykwer going to sustain this? And this is where the film pulls of its master stroke, which is breathtaking in its audacity. After a brief interlude of Lola and Manni lying in bed, the film simply resets. It goes back to the point where Lola left her apartment, and the story unfolds again. However, this time, we are introduced to another of the film’s main themes: chaos theory. A tiny change in initial circumstance has a knock-on effect – there’s a pointed shot of dominoes toppling – and leads us to a completely different conclusion.

It’s still not what Lola wants. And, as the old song goes, whatever Lola wants, Lola gets. So we reset once more, with a further slight tweak at the beginning, subsequently causing the dominoes to fall in another, radically different way. [The moment when you figure out what’s going on is perhaps the greatest “Holy shit!” moment I’ve ever had in my film-viewing career] This time, she not only raises the money, Manni recovers his as well, and the pair wander off. Happy ever after? Hard to say. The enigmatic look on Lola’s face when he asks her, “What’s in the bag?” suggests her hard-won ending and new-found skill-set might have broadened her horizons, beyond the slightly shady and scatterbrained current boyfriend.

It can be enjoyed simply on that level: a demonstration of how a tiny change at the right point can have an extraordinary effect. This impact isn’t limited to Lola. Throughout the film, as her path crosses with various other people, we see what happens to them in this version of the future, through a series of still photos preceded by an “And then…” caption. It’s another brilliant idea, conveying an entire story in a few seconds. Like so much in the film, there’s absolutely no fat. Tykwer can’t afford that: the entire film runs only 80 minutes, and has to tell three similar, yet divergent story-lines, so time is, literally, of the essence here. The film and its heroine, must keep moving forward.

As a purely kinetic spectacle, it’s great, powered in part by the pulsing techno soundtrack, crafted by Tykwer along with Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil. They had previously collaborated for the music on Tykwer’s second feature, Winter Sleepers, and hit the ball out of the park with this collection of electronica. There are only two movie soundtracks which I’ll listen to on a standalone basis: this and Bollywood comedy, Singh Is Kinng. With lyrical work by Potente, it’s no less ceaselessly in motion than the movie – except for one scene which flips the script, going into slo-mo as it crashes into the sultry jazz tones of Dinah Washington. “What a difference a day makes,” she tells us. What a difference, indeed.

But it’s only when you dive deeper you realize the film has layers, with aspects deliberately left open to the viewer’s interpretation. It sets its philosophical stall out early, opening with quotes on the cyclical nature of life from poet T.S. Eliot… and German football coach, Sepp Herberger. “After the game is before the game,” says the latter; or in the context of the film, after Lola’s run is before her run. There’s a voice-over, by Hans Paetsch (well-known in Germany as, appropriately, a narrator of fairy-tales), who poses a set of philosophical queries before revealing their semi-pointlessness since these are, “questions in search of an answer, an answer that will give rise to a new question, and the next answer will give rise to the next question and so on.”

Then it’s game on. Right from the start, it appears that Lola has “a very particular set of skills”. At the end of her conversation with Manni, she throws the phone into the air, only for it to land, neatly on the base. This is… not normal. There’s also her scream, which can shatter glass and perhaps alter the outcome of a roulette wheel: it’s her method to “take control of the chaos” which is threatening to overwhelm her life. And that’s not even getting into her ability to rewind time, and get a “do over”, a power which may be driven by her intense love for Manni, and refusal to accept being separated from him. I hypothesize that she may be a goddess of some kind, slumming it in the body of a young German punkette. It’s as valid a theory as any the film provides.

Nowhere is Lola’s dominance over petty reality more obvious than in the casino. She doesn’t have enough money to buy a chip, yet the cashier gives her one anyway. Her clothes are clearly at odds with the casino’s dress code, yet she’s allowed to take part. And when she’s about to be ejected after her first win, she turns to the employee, stares levelly at him and says “Just one more game.” This is not a request, or even a demand. It’s a statement of fact, utterly undeniable. There will be one more game. What happens subsequently is further proof that what we perceive as chance is Lola’s tool, and not the other way round.

Yet in that light, it’s worth noting she’s not immune to external forces. Indeed, the first domino is her descent of the staircase in her apartment block and an encounter with another resident and his dog. The resulting outcome begins the process of changing the timeline. These are also not complete “resets”. In the opening run, Manni has to show her how to operate the safety on a gun; in the second, she knows what to do. Nor is her power without limits, or Lola could simply go back and prevent her boyfriend from losing the money to begin with. There are, apparently, rules to this game, though who sets them and why, is not a topic addressed in the film.

I love the use Tykwer makes of colour in the film, in particular red, yellow and green [likely not by coincidence, the same ones used in traffic lights]. Once you’re primed to look for their use, you’ll see them appearing, over and over again. Interpreting their meaning is trickier; it’s not something the director appears to have addressed, even on the DVD commentary. Red is clearly the dominant shade, from Lola’s hair to the filters applied to the scenes between runs, where she and Manny are lying in bed. While often associated with danger, it is also a colour associated with love and passion, and both are highly significant elements here.

Meanwhile, Manny is linked to yellow, most obviously in his dyed hair, and the phone booth in and around which he spends much of his time. At a guess, I’d says this symbolizes his life grinding to a halt, Manny’s anxiety and subsequent inaction (particularly in comparison to Lola) and perhaps the cowardice of his refusal to ‘fess up to his boss and face the consequences of his incompetence. Also of note: the scenes in which the pair do not appear are, quite deliberately, shot on noticeably lower-quality stock than scenes with Lola and Manny: Tykwer said he wanted those scenes to seem less “real”.

Something else which shows up repeatedly are spirals: the staircase down which Lola runs, the bar outside which is Manni’s phone-box; even the slow descent into entropy of the ball on the roulette wheel. This seems to have been inspired by Tykwer’s love of Vertigo, something explicitly referenced in the casino. There, the mysterious painting on the wall, of the back of a woman, is a portrait of Kim Novak in the gallery from Hitchcock’s movie, whipped up in 15 minutes and from vague memory by the art director, to fill an annoying blank space on the wall. [It went on to hang in the director’s living-room!]

Chris and I love the film so much, that when we went to Berlin on honeymoon, one of the things we did was spend an afternoon visiting as many of the locations as possible. We discovered the film does play fast and loose with local geography. The settings are situated well beyond the capabilities of even an Olympic athlete to cover in 20 minutes, so we were not able to get to the supermarket, for instance. I do, however, still have pics of Chris “running” outside the bank (which is now the Hotel de Rome, with rooms starting at $300 per night…)

Though not the first feature for either Tykwer or Potente, this has become the one by which both are defined. Such is our love for Run Lola Run, we’ll pretty much watch anything they’re involved with, even though nothing has come close to matching it. Probably wisely, Tykwer hasn’t tried, even when re-uniting with his lead actress and soundtrack composers for The Princess and the Warrior. While their other works have certainly had their merits, it feels like this was the cinematic equivalent of catching lightning in a bottle. Small enough for the director to be allowed artistic control, yet large enough to be able to deliver it, it’s a film which is every bit as fresh and invigorating now as it was in 1998.

The upcoming Chinese remake, announced last year, will have some very large, black boots to fill…

 

Night Witches: Red skies at night

  By

From left: Rufina Gasheva, Irina Sebrova, Natalia Meklin, Marina Chechneva, Nadezhda Popova, Seraphima Amosova, Evdokia Nikulina, Evdokia Bershanskaya, Maria Smirnova, Evgeniya Zhigulenko

[I covered the women tagged by their enemies as “Night Witches” – two years ago as part of our feature on Russian World War 2 women fighters. But having recently both read a book and watched a TV series about the exploits of these wartime flyers, it seemed appropriate to revisit the topic in some more depth.]

“We bombed, we killed; it was all a part of war. We had an enemy in front of us, and we had to prove that we were stronger and more prepared.”
  — Nadezhda Popova, deputy commander, 588th

The regiment has its origins in October 1941, when Joseph Stalin signed Order number 0099, creating the 221st Aviation Corps: a group where women would not only be pilots, but engineers and ground support staff [men were later allowed in to fill some positions, though remained in a small minority]. His decision was in part due to a campaign by Marina Raskova, a noted aviator and friend of Stalin. She sought to take advantage of the high number of women with flight training, who had previously been barred from serving in the armed forces, except in ancillary roles. 

The corps created by Stalin included two other regiments as well as the Night Witches. The 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment were first into combat, on April 16, 1942, and destroyed 38 enemy aircraft in 125 air battles. The 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment, commanded by Raskova until a plane crash took her life in January 1943, flew 1,134 missions, and dropped almost a thousand tons of bombs. But the one which achieved the biggest impact is the 588th Night Bomber Regiment.

Staffed with around 400 women, they received a brief but intensive course at the Engels Military Aviation School, before being deployed to the Eastern front where the Germans were advancing through the USSR, toward the end of May 1942. The lack of equipment intended for female use was problematic. Uniforms, for example, were hard to find in anything approaching the correct size, and often had to be modified by the recipient in order for them to fit.

The regiment’s aircraft were little better than hand-me-downs. They flew Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, which were used more as training craft or crop dusters, and were incredibly slow, with a top speed of just 94 mph. But that became one of the regiment’s major advantages: the German planes were unable to fly at the Polikarpov’s speed, making it very difficult to shoot down [The aircraft is the only biplane with a documented jet “kill”: during the Korean War, a Lockheed F-94 Starfire stalled and crashed, while trying to engage one] Shooting down a Night Witch eventually became such a feat, it reportedly resulted in an automatic Iron Cross for the Luftwaffe pilot responsible.

“We were psychologically prepared to be killed. It was a tense situation all night. I told my co-pilot that no matter how terrible things got, to stay calm because I might need just one split second to do something to save our lives and if she shouted at me, we might lose that vital second.”
  — Klavdia Deryabina

The low air-speed made them sitting ducks for ground fire, so the regiment flew at night. This wasn’t just safer, it made them into a psychological weapon, disrupting the enemy’s sleep as well as causing material damage with their bombs. The standard attack “involved flying only a few meters above the ground, rising for the final approach, throttling back the engine and making a gliding bombing run, leaving the targeted troops with only the eerie whistling of the wind in the wings’ bracing-wires as an indication of the impending attack.” Along with the female pilots, this sound, which the Germans likened to a broomstick, earned the regiment the nickname of Nachthexen, or “night witches.”

Their Polikarpovs had other limitations, too. As well as being dangerously flammable, every unnecessary item was removed to reduce weight and allow the aircraft to carry more bombs instead. The items stripped included radios, heaters for the open cockpits and even parachutes, so if the plane went down, so did the two-woman crew. They were still extremely limited in the munitions they could carry, so to make up for this, the planes made multiple sorties, returning to base and landing only for long enough to refuel and reload. The regiment’s deputy commander, Nadezhda Popova, flew eighteen bombing missions in one night.

We should not forget the work of the ground-staff: while less directly risky, their work was even more physically demanding, keeping the planes armed and able to fly. Senior mechanic Nina Karasyova-Buzina recounts, “Some nights we lifted 3,000 kilos of bombs. Three of us lifted the bombs, working together. We did our work at night and were not allowed to have any light to work by, so we worked blind, fumbling in darkness… We worked in mud, frost, sleet and water, and we were very precise in fixing the bombs. We had to work barehanded, so that we could feel what we were doing.”

In the early days, the regiment mostly operated in the Caucasus – not far from where the Amazons of Greek lore are believed to have lived. But as the German advance into Russia slowed, halted, and was eventually reversed, they were relocated to other theatres, including Byelorussia, Poland and Germany. They continued to fly right up until May 1945, when the Nazis surrendered, coming within 40 miles of Berlin. Disbanded that October, the Night Witches accumulated 28,676 flight hours, dropped over 3,000 tons of bombs and over 26,000 incendiary shells, damaging or completely destroying 17 river crossings, nine railways, two railway stations, 26 warehouses, 12 fuel depots, 176 armored cars, 86 firing points, and 11 searchlights.

Their efforts were not without cost. At its peak, the regiment had 40 two-person planes, but lost 31 members over the course of its missions, including one black night where four planes were lost, each with both of their crew. Many other members were shot down, some on multiple occasions, only to rejoin the regiment and continue flying. But their courage did not go unrecognized. Of the 95 women ever to receive the highest distinction awarded in the USSR, Hero of the Soviet Union, almost one-quarter (23) went to women who were part of the 588th. Ten of these women are shown below.

Nadezhda Popova

Natalya Meklin

Makuba Sirtlanova

Irina Sebrova

 Antonina Khudyakova

Zoya Parfenova

Yevgeniya Rudneva

Tatyana Makarova

Olga Sanfirova

 Nina Ulyanenko

“I knew the only way to survive was to be ice inside, to feel absolutely nothing.”
  – Klavdiya Pankratova

After the war was over, the survivors of the 588th – or the 46th “Taman” Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, as it had been renamed in honour of its role in two Soviet victories on the Taman Peninsula – returned to civilian life, though I’m sure this remained a defining experience in all their lives. Some stayed with aviation. Others became teachers. One, Yevgeniya Zhigulenko, became a film director, and made a movie about her experiences in 1981, In the Sky of the Night Witches. Members of the regiment were alive at least as recently as last year, when Evdokia Pasko passed away at the age of 98.

I don’t want to ignore the other two regiments, who have received less attention than the 588th – perhaps because both eventually became mixed-gender. The 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment was tasked with protecting ground-based targets from enemy attack. Among those who flew with the regiment at one point, were Lydia Litvyak and Yekaterina Budanova, the only two female fighter aces ever. The former, nicknamed the White Lily of Stalingrad, holds the all-time record, with twelve individual and four shared “kills” before her death in combat at the age of just 21. [She may well merit an entire article of her own down the road].

The 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment was renamed, in honor of its original commander and for its distinguished combat performance, to the 125th “M.M. Raskova” Guards Dive Bomber Regiment. During the war, five of its women in addition to Raskova became Heroes of the Soviet Union. As a sample of why, Klavdia Fomicheva’s bomber was hit by enemy fire on the way to its target, and the left engine went up in flames. She continued her mission, and dropped her bombs before turning back to friendly airspace, only bailing out after making sure her navigator had parachuted away. Despite suffering serious burns, Fomicheva was back the air barely three weeks later.

While these three regiments were the result of extraordinary circumstance and severe necessity, with every asset Russia possessed being pressed into service, it would be more than 50 years, in April 1993, before America would allow women pilots officially to fly any combat missions. Even setting aside the poor conditions, underwhelming equipment and the doubts of their superiors, it’s remarkable how far ahead of their time the Night Witches and their colleagues were. 

Women pilots of the 586th fighter aviation regiment in 1942. From left Sergeant Lydia Litvyak, second Lieutenant Yekaterina Budanova and Lieutenant Maria Kuznetsova