Category: Review

First Shot

  By

★½
“Legally blonde”

firstshotThe low score for this is partly not entirely the film’s fault. Despite the title, it’s actually the third entry in a series of TV movies – following First Daughter and First Target. All focus on blonde Secret Service agent Alex McGregor, charged with protecting the President and his family. However, only this one is available on Netflix, which is where I picked it up: had I known in advance, I would likely have started at the beginning. Certainly, the abundance of references to events prior to the start of this movie becomes explicable – if no less irritating – and this might well make more sense if you’ve seen, in particular, First Daughter. The makers seem largely to ignore the second entry, First Target – perhaps because the role of McGregor there was played by Daryl Hannah, after Mariel Hemingway turned down the role she had played in #1. She returned here, supposedly because she “was impressed with the script”. The cynical reader may suggest this is usually acting code-speak for “needed the money,” especially considering the script here is probably the weakest element.

The events of Daughter seem to serve as the foundation, with a survivor of the militia group who kidnapped the President’s daughter in the earlier TVM, now out for revenge, both on the Commander-in-Chief and on Alex. If the storyline had kept to this, it might have been decent enough, although the militia man’s plot is way more complex than sensible. But the writers kept shoehorning on additional elements. The President has a girlfriend! [Never mind there hasn’t actually been a single person in the White House for almost a hundred years] She doesn’t get on with his daughter! There’s a new guy in the Secret Service! He might be gay! The number of times I had to suppress an urge to yell “Who cares?” at the TV were only surpassed by the number of times I physically dozed off for a few minutes, and had to rewind a bit.

The pacing suffers from its obvious origins, with dramatic cliff-hangers fading to black, where the advert breaks need to be inserted. The main problem, however, is that it’s neither exciting nor credible. The landscape – both televisually and of the world as a whole – has changed drastically since the series started in 1999, yet it seems the film is still stuck in a pre-9/11 timewarp, before the murky merging of war and terrorism which spawned the likes of 24. Alex McGregor wouldn’t last five minutes with Jack Bauer. It is certainly understandable why this entry marked the last foray for her, and perhaps it’s best I started here, as I don’t find myself with much inclination to look for the two films which preceded it.

Dir: Armand Mastroianni
Star: Mariel Hemingway, Doug Savant, Dean Wray, Gregory Harrison

Sket

  By

★★★
“A Gun for Jennifer, UK edition”

“I saw my dad beat the fuck out of that woman, day in and day out. She was pathetic. Not once did she swing back, not once. The only way you’ll survive is to become like them. Otherwise you’ll end up like our mothers.”

sketPurely coincidental that I viewed this not long after A Gun For Jennifer. The films share some common themes, despite 15 years and a couple of thousand of miles between them (not to mention the French poster on the right, which is a lot more riot-y than the movie itself). In both, a “new girl in town” finds herself harassed by a couple of sleazeballs, only to be rescued by a gang of women. While initially reluctant to join them, they give the heroine a sense of belonging, sadly lacking in the rest of her life, and she’s drawn in to their illicit lifestyle. However, there’s always someone tougher out there, meaning tragedy and the death of someone close to you, is never far away when you’re on the mean streets of the big city.

Okay, it’s a little bit of a stretch to call them identical, but I felt definite resonances, despite the hell which is North London, standing in for New York [I lived in London for over a decade, albeit in Sarf London – which as everyone there knows, if far superior to the Norf]. As for differences? The women here are also younger, heroine Kayla (Foster-Barnes) maybe 15 or so, when she arrives with her elder sister Tanya from Newcastle. After being harassed on a bus, she falls in with Danielle (Hartley-Miller) and her gang, who look out for each other, since no-one else will. But Tanya has the misfortune to cross paths with violent drug dealer Trey (Walters), paying the price for interfering in his business. With Kayla capable of turning him in to the police, Trey tries to tidy up the loose end, forcing the young girl on the run, as she vows revenge. Kayla finds a willing accomplice in Danielle – and, perhaps, a surprising one in Trey’s girlfriend, Shaks (Steele), who has her own agenda.

There are some elements here which do stretch disbelief somewhat (where are the authorities? Or even her father, who barely shows up, even after the loss of a daughter) , but the performances help overcome this weakness. Hartley-Miller, in particular, is entirely convincing, creating a character you’d cross the street to avoid, yet still with the sense she’s a victim as much as a perpetrator. Steele is also very good, perpetually giving the sense that she’s analyzing the situation like a chess-master: the scenes where Danielle and Shaks face off are wonderfully intense, and I’d have liked to see more of them. Foster-Barnes isn’t quite there, apparently suffering from a bad case of Resting Bitchface, although her character has been through enough, it’s kinda understandable.

A little heavy on the grime soundtrack, the plot also wanders off occasionally in directions like vengeance on an ex-boyfriend, that turn out to be nothing but a needless diversion. But it’s still a solid enough attempt at exploring an under-explored area of female culture, particularly in the UK.  Oh, yeah: in case you’re wondering, the title is an epithet for a sexually promiscuous woman. It was originally “Sketel,” and is Jamaican in origin. Never say this site isn’t educational.

Dir: Nirpal Bhogal
Star: Katie Foster-Barnes, Emma Hartley-Miller, Riann Steele, Ashley Walters

In the Line of Duty V

  By

★★★
“Decent, but after Part IV, definitely disappointing.”

itlod5After the magnificence of Donnie Yen and Khan in its insane predecessor, the fifth installment was always going to have a tough job living up to the same standard. On its own terms, it’s perfectly reasonable, but certainly suffers in the comparison, not least because the storyline is strikingly similar. Once again, there’s an innocent who gets caught up in murky dealings between Inspector Yang Lei-Ching (Khan) and the CIA, and finds themselves on the run from a pack of assassins, unsure who to trust – except Yang, of course. In this case, it’s her cousin, David (Wu), a marine who has returned to Hong Kong, only to find himself under suspicion for espionage. In particular, being part of a Korean group, led by a man known only as ‘The General’ (Chow), who deals in Western secrets. It’s up to David and Lei-Ching to prove otherwise – if they can stay alive long enough to do it.

This certainly starts the right way, with Khan kicking an opponent through a car windshield, before going on to battle on top of multiple vehicles [I guess rear-view mirrors are optional in Hong Kong, since the drivers all appear oblivious to the brawl going on behind them!], Thereafter, the fights are certainly regular enough to keep the viewer interested, and by no means badly-staged: it seemed to me that a lot of them took place in fairly claustrophobic locations, such as narrow corridors. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword; while enhancing the intensity, Khan’s balletic style really needs a bit more space in order to be appreciated at its best. After the opening, she doesn’t have any standout battles until the end, where she takes on the General’s secretary (blonde Australian Kim Penn), whose skills are not limited to dictation.

The rest of the running time, there’s appears to be quite a lot of chase sequences, and definitely too much of David. The former, again, aren’t badly done: it’s just that it wasn’t boat chases which made previous entries in the series such solid-gold classics of the GWG genre, even a quarter-century later. I can’t say I was ever bored: confused, certainly, since the subtitles on the copy I was watching bore only a passing resemblance to the Queen’s English. However, there’s no denying this is significantly below the standards set by the series previously, even if its own merits still leave it worth at least a one-off watch.

Dir: Chuen-Yee Cha
Star: David Wu, Cynthia Khan, Billy Chow, Lieh Lo
a.k.a. Middle Man

Blood +: Episodes 1-25

  By

★★
“Bloody mediocre”

bloodThis is the third version of the same concept I’ve seen, following some years after the first animated version (released in 2000), but a couple of years before the live-action movie from 2009. What they both had over this was commendable brevity. If I’d realized the degree to which this was true, when I started the series on Netflix, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. The main problem, for anyone who has seen the other two takes, is that you know what’s going on. You’re well aware that the heroine Saya is a human-vampire crossbreed, who has now sided with humanity and dedicated her life to taking out the monsters. This was taken care of, quickly and efficiently, in the alternate versions, and we could move on to the kicking of vampiric ass. Here, however…. Not so much.

After 25 episodes – eight hours of story, even discounting credits – I still haven’t seen Saya in full-on attack mode. Indeed, I really don’t know a great deal more than I did after the first two parts, because the story unfolds at a glacial pace. A military group is trying to weaponize the “Chiropterans,” alongside a shady industrial conglomerate, Cinq Flèches. Opposing them is the Red Shield, dedicated to wiping out the Chiropterans, who can only be killed with a sword dipped in Saya’s blood. And then there is Saya’s own history: she may be a teenage girl in modern Okinawa, but she gradually remembers that she goes back through the Vietnam War, all the way to pre-Revolution Russia. Of course, telling this in chronological order would be too simple: not when she can have dramatically convenient amnesia, and recall things at whatever leisurely pace is needed by the plot.

Instead, we get a lot of chat about her not being fully “awakened” and, even more irritatingly, all the characters seem to know what’s going on, they just refuse to enlighten the audience. For instance, there’s a diary, started by the founder of Red Shield, Joel, which contains all his research; successive generations have kept it, to share with those who commit their lives to Red Shield. Do we get to know what’s in it? No, not even after Saya’s brother Kai is given the diary to read. It’s something which can be sustained for a short time, but as the episodes roll on, and information continues to be dribbled out, the approach becomes increasingly irritating. It’s a shame, since the core idea is imaginative, with scope for plenty of development, and the animation is solid, and better than I expected. There’s one wonderful episode in the middle, where an attack on a research facility unleashes children which turn into… things. I was all ready for this to be Saya’s blossoming, and the next dozen episodes to hurtle towards a thrilling conclusion. Didn’t happen.

Instead, we got more in the show’s ongoing series of inconclusive battles, with the villains muttering something dark and meaningful, before flying off into the night, and Saya recalls another incident from her past. By the time episode #25 rolled around, with the heroine finally getting to face off against the uber-mysterious Diva, I was wondering how it would all be wrapped up, but hardly unhappy to have finally reached the en… What? There’s another 25 episode chunk hidden elsewhere on Netflix? You have got to be kidding me. And, from the reviews I’ve read, these make the first batch look like masterpieces of storytelling. Don’t expect a review any time soon. Life’s just too damn short.

Dir: Junichi Fujisaku
Star (voice): Eri Kitamura, Akiko Yajima, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Junichi Suwabe

A Gun For Jennifer

  By

★★★½
“Shitty city bang gang.”

gunjenniferThe back-story behind how this was made is, in some ways, more interesting than the film itself. The star and co-writer was working as a stripper, and came up with the idea, almost as a coping mechanism to handle some of the creeps with whom she had to interact.  Funding came from a customer at one of the clubs. But, unfortunately, it turned out that the money he was “investing” was actually being embezzled, leading to a two-year crawl through post-production – it still hasn’t received an official release in its American home. Made in 1997, it looks like a fossil from an earlier, much scuzzier era, with both its grimy New York locations and feel harking back to the work of Abel Ferrara.

Allison (Twiss) heads from Steubenville, Ohio to the Big Apple to escape an abusive relationship, but ends up in far worse shape the same day she arrives. Her rape at the hands of two local sleazebags is interrupted by the fortunate arrival of a van of pissed-off and armed women, who extract vengeance of a vicious kind on the assailants – and make Allison (or “Jennifer” as she tells them she’s called) finish one off. With no other options, she joins the gang, as they work in a go-go bar, and locate other targets who have abused women. The male-dominated police refuse to believe the truth, and only NYPD homicide detective Billie Perez (Kay) figures out the connection between the crimes. She and her partner stake out one potential victim of the women, and in the gun-battle which ensues, her partner is shot dead. As I believe the kids say: shit’s getting real.

How much you take away from this will probably depend on your fondness for the grindhouse cinema to which this is a loving homage – a full decade before Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino went there. Personally, I like the take no prisoners approach, and that this is heavily tilted towards the “revenge”side of the “rape-revenge” scale. But it’s certainly rough around the edges – actually, the bits not on the edges are also pretty rough – particularly on the acting front. It seems to have been the first (and in the cases of Kay and Hoops, only) film for a lot of the performers involved: Arthur Nasacarella, as Det. Perez’s boss, has more experience, and it clearly shows. Still, on balance, its indie heart beats strong enough for me to forgive the flaws, the most obvious being that Twiss is no Zoe Tamerlis.

Dir: Todd Morris
Star: Deborah Twiss, Benja Kay, Freida Hoops, Veronica Cruz

Fast Lane

  By

★★
“The Farce and the Furious.”

fastlaneAfter a freeway chase ends in a fatal crash, a policewoman (Lizette) goes undercover to infiltrate the warring gangs of car thieves responsible. As “Baby” Martinez, she helps Eve (Lethridge) evade capture by an irate car-owner and, as a result, is recruited to join  the all-female group of which Eve is a part, operating under the protection of Mama (Olivia Brown). However, Eve has a past to contend with, having defected from the gang led by Knight (Parker) – and worse still, taken his classic car with her. Unknown to her, the trunk holds a stash of drugs, whose loss leaves Knight feeling the heat from those in the criminal food chain above him. As a result, he’s prepared to go to any lengths to recover his property.

It’s not very exciting, in part because it’s painfully obvious that all the cars used here, clearly had to returned to their owners in the same condition in which they were received. Thus, this is a movie about stealing fast cars, in which no-one goes very fast, or even bumps into anything, which kinda dilutes the point of having them to begin with. The low budget is also apparent elsewhere, with a lot more dialogue than action, and people doing a lot more talking about stuff, than actual stuff. The performances are a bit variable. Lizette is okay as the lead, and I’d actually like to have seen more of Mama, whose potentially interesting back-story deserved further development. On the other hand, Parker [whom you may recognize as Dozer from The Matrix] appears to be trying way too hard to channel the late Michael Clarke Duncan, and across the board, we get a bit too much posing and not enough acting. Stephen Bauer plays the police detective supervising the operation, and literally phones in half of his lines, since he seems to spend most of his time on the police radio.

There’s some dubious logic here, with supposed boss Knight doing far too much of his own dirty work – that’s why you have minions – on the way to a finale where the guns finally come out, and the police conveniently show up at just the right moment. I went into this with minimal expectations, of little more than 75 minutes time passing without me sliding into unconsciousness. It just about managed to reach that low-hanging standard.

Dir: David Betances
Star: Melina Lizette, Anthony Ray Parker, Kenyetta Lethridge, Steven Bauer

Relic Hunter: season one

  By

★★★
“Sydney Fox and the Temple of Tomb.”

relichunterMore or less shamelessly ripping off Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider in equal measures, this Canadian TV series ran for three seasons and 66 episodes between 1999 and 2002. The heroine is Sydney Fox (Carrere), a Professor of history at “Trinity University,” who is renowned for her ability to track down historical artifacts lost for centuries – and, unlike some of her colleagues in the business, return them to their rightful owners. She is assisted on the road by Nigel (Anholt), her British assistant who is smart, but far happier in a library than taking part in the globe-trotting or fist-fighting, in which Sidney revels, and back at base by Claudia (Booth), her bubble-headed secretary who got the job largely because her father is a major donor to the college.

The episodes are almost completely standard, starting with a historical prologue, to show how the relic was lost. Someone goes to Trinity to ask for help finding it. Sydney and Nigel follow a series of clues bringing them closer to the relic. There’ll be another group hunting the same object, for mercenary or other reasons, often with an unexpected agent working for them. Expect secret passages and protective traps, some fisticuffs as Fox takes out the villain’s goons, light romantic tension, a mildly life-threatening situation and a happy ending as the treasure is found and something moral is done with it. The only things that change are the McGuffin and the country involved. The latter is generally as close as the Canadian shooting location can fake it, though the end of the season did appear to fund a trip for actual shooting: five of the last six episodes had a French setting.

It’s hardly challenging stuff, and the action is generally several level sub-Buffy, in part because Carrere lacks much physical presence. The history on view is particularly woeful too, with basic factual errors surrounding just about every “real” character. All told, after the first couple of episodes, which seemed particularly stilted, I contemplated quietly forgetting the entire idea. However, I persevered, and the series did slowly grow on me. Sydney and Nigel develop a nice chemistry, and there are occasional moments which suggest a more tongue-in-cheek approach than you might expect. For instance the line delivered on their entrance into an Amsterdam bar: “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m in a Kubrick film?”. Or, as shown below, there’s the muddy catfight between Sydney and a female adversary, which is almost as self-aware as the one between Denise Richards and Aunjanue Ellis in Undercover Brother.

Make no mistake: even by the low standards of network television, this is hardly great, being incredibly derivative, and unwilling to stray anywhere outside its comfort zone. And yet… Once I came to accept these limitations, I found myself increasingly entertained by the fluffy lack of envelope-pushing. This is the televisual equivalent of putting on a beloved bath-robe: well-worn, comfortable, and you know exactly what you’re going to get. If not something you probably want to wear all the time, there are occasions when it’s just what’s needed.

Star: Tia Carrere, Christian Anholt, Lindy Booth, Tony Rosato

The Devil’s Gravestone

  By

★★
“Blade-ette, but a good deal more chatty and cheaper.”

devilsgravestoneJaq (LaMont) has devoted her life to hunting and killing the vampires who stalk the night in the metropolis of ‘Roach City’. She became this way after her husband, Cale (Red Star), was turned by one of the most notorious of serial vampires, and the first victim of his blood-lust was their young son. He vanished, and Jaq has spent the years since trying to track him down, taking out any fangster who gets in the way. She is visited by a local detective, Dick (Nemmers), who gives her some surprising news: Cale stabbed himself to death in a local cemetery. However, the body vanishes from the morgue, and it soon becomes clear that that’s not the only strange thing going on, as a woman who was sexually assaulted nearby has gone from zero to heavily pregnant in a few days.

After a brisk and fairly promising start, this becomes increasingly bogged-down in exposition and talk, rather than action. It does have some interesting ideas, putting new twists on old ideas, such as the concept that vampires perpetually need blood, because they “burn” it off constantly, a result of their superhuman strength and speed consuming so much energy. However, there isn’t enough time to do much with these concepts, which are instead espoused – typically by a character I nicknamed Dr. Exposition (James) – then never mentioned or of significance again. If he had been laying the groundwork for a series, it might have made sense, but in a standalone movie like this, it bring things to a grinding halt. It’s the last thing the film needs, because the extremely-low budget approach across the board, from video definition through sound (a lot of the dialogue seems post-synched) to special effects, then becomes all the more obvious.

Once that happens, it becomes a chore to get through. I kept finding my attention drifting elsewhere – checking my email, picking my toenails, the sort of pastimes you do when you’re vaguely bored, yet not disinterested enough to seek out aggressively something more entertaining. More than once, I realized something semi-important had happened while I was distracted, and would have to rewind to the point where I’d lost interest. That’s never a good sign, and the final “apocalyptic” showdown left me thoroughly unimpressed, with all the initial potential having evaporated.

Dir: Jay Mackenzie Roach
Star: Elle LaMont, Joe Nemmers, Grant James, Niko Red Star

Dance of Death

  By

★★★
“Putting the ‘arts’ in martial arts.”

danceofdeathIn the seventies, Angela Mao was the queen of Hong Kong cinema, occupying much the same position as Pam Grier in the blaxploitation films of the decade. Probably best known in the West for her role as Bruce Lee’s sister in Enter the Dragon (for which she was paid the princely sum of $100!), she had much meatier roles in a slew of films. This is my first exposure to her work, albeit in a print which has seen better… well, never mind days, I’m thinking better decades. It was dubbed and had subtitles, though the English track often matched the English subs more in spirit than anything else. And it wasn’t even ranked in her top 25 by IMDB rating. But, whaddya know, it actually wasn’t too bad.

She plays Fei Fei, a nomadic orphan who comes across two fighting masters, that have been battling for years, without being able to decide who is better. She offers them a solution: they can both train her, and she’ll then go off and fight people – whoever’s training is most useful, is clearly superior. [This kind of thing only makes sense in a kung-fu movie. Fortunately, that’s exactly what this is.] In her first encounter, she sees off members of the Bird Gang, rescuing a member of the Five Styles School, which leads her to join the latter group. However, the rest of the Bird Gang continue their mission to wipe out their rivals, with Fei Fei the sole survivor. She returns to her original teachers to learn more and, after picking up a sixth style from a surprising location, is ready to take on Bird Gang leader, Mu Fa Shan, and his “Upside-down Horse” style.

Early on, I was ready to write this off, because Fei Fei’s fighting skills are second-rate at best. However, as things progressed, I realized that was actually the point: she progresses over the course of the film from being an enthusiastic amateur, through study and training, to someone who can credibly take on a top fighter. Her character may not have much of a story arc: instead, it’s her kung-fu that does. By the time of the final battle – which lasts about 15 minutes – she’s graceful and fluid, filmed by Lu in lengthy shots which do Mao justice. Now, it’s still a style of cinema very different to modern action films; but if you can accept the difference (which I’ll admit, takes getting used too, because it’s relatively slow and far more obviously choreographed), you’ll be fine. I kept being reminded of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – and that might give you a clue as to the source of the sixth style… Oh, never mind: the title gives it away. It probably helps that stunt co-ordinator on this was Chen Yuan-lung – whom you might know a bit better as Jackie Chan.

It does suffer too much from the perpetual bane of the genre – too many comedic elements, and a resulting horrid unevenness of tone: the revenge motif which is crucial to the plot never comes over as having any emotional punch, not least because the members of the Five Styles clan bite the bullet before Fei Fei has apparently done more than be introduced to them. But Mao has enough charisma and presence to stop you, just this side of throwing things through your TV. If this is one of her minor works, I’m looking forward to the better ones.

Dir: Chuan Lu
Star: Angela Mao, Shih Tien, Shiao Bou-Lo, Chin Pey

RIN ~Daughters of Mnemosyne~

  By

★★★
“Harry Potter, with more lesbians.”

mnemosyne2There’s something to be said for not laying everything out on the line for your audience from the get-go, and only gradually revealing pertinent information. But do it too often, or for too long, and you run a significant risk of driving them away in bafflement. Such is probably the case here: for rather too long, it’s clear that the characters know a great deal more about what’s going on than the audience. The central character is Rin (Noto), a private investigator who, we soon discover, is immortal. We find this out because she keeps coming back after getting killed by Laura (Ohara), an assassin employed by the mysterious “Apos,” who thinks he/she is a god, and is intent on proving it. Turns out, this immortality is the result of Rin ingesting a spore from a tree known as Yggdrasil – yep, that’s ancient Norse. In Japan – which normal people can’t see. If a woman is infected, she becomes immortal. If a man does, he turns into an “angel”, a monster that hunts and eats the immortals, who have an irresistible urge to have sex with the angels.

There’s more. A lot more, spanning a century or so. Probably too much more than should be crammed in to six 45-minute episodes, but as I noted with AHS: Coven, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s fairly clear where it’s all going to end: a battle between Rin and He-who-must-not-be-named, Apos. Before we get there, however, there’s a lot of sex, much of it of the girl on girl variety, though with a significant quantity of BDSM as well, befitting is apparent origins on a Japanese version of Skinemax. That certainly makes this unsuitable for minors: some is necessary to the plot, but a lot of it feels more like fan service – a bit of a shame, because it needlessly devalues what’s a fairly intriguing concept, containing a good deal of imagination. Rin’s daily business, such as finding lost cats, always seems to end up dragging her into much more complex affairs, linked either to Apos or some big corporation.

Some of these are well done and are capable of standing alone, such as the third episode, which covers biological weapons and human testing, still something of a taboo subject in Japan (Don’t mention Unit 731. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it).  However, the closer we get to the big bad, the more confusing and less interesting things become. One review put it beautifully: “It feels like you’re just watching the characters explain what the hell is going on, while raping and eating each other.” I think the creators are trying to up the ante, but there’s little or no emotional wallop to the sexual sadism, with the result that it becomes kinda dull. However, it does also play to anime’s strengths, in that whatever the mind conceive, can be depicted. If you don’t get a frisson when the angel wings start sprouting, you’re a more phlegmatic individual than I. Overall, it’s worth a look, though you may want to track down the episode synopses first, and use them as a cheat-sheet.

Dir: Shigeru Ueda
Star (voice): Mamiko Noto, Rie Kugimiya, Nobuyuki Hiyama, Sayaka Ohara

[Random amusement: while looking for pics, I did a Google Search for images with “mnemosyne anime”. One of these things is not like the other. #AmyPondWTF?]