Category: Review

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun

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★★★½
“Lured in by the title, stay for the well-acted drama.”

sailorsuitThe novel by Jirō Akagawa which spawned this has proved rather popular in Japan. It also inspired two television series, in 1982 and 2006, but this film was the earliest adaptation, coming a year before the first show. Izumi (Yakushimaru) is in a funk because of the death of her father, but gets a shock when dozens of yakuza suddenly show up at her school. Turns out, he had a rather shady past, and had just been named heir to a gang, on its boss’s death: his own departure suddenly leaves Izumi next in line. Initially reluctant to take over, she does so, simply to spare the members from a futile death. And it’s not as if they’re a massive organization anyway: most of those at her school were on loan to them for the day(!), so how much trouble can really ensue…?

Of course, the answer is more than she expects, since it turns out her father may have been holding a large package of drugs, and its owner, Fatso (Mikuni), now believes Izumi and her gang have it. Her place is ransacked while she’s out, and there’s also the questionable Mayumi (Kazamatsuri) who claims to know Izumi’s father, but whose past is even murkier. Let’s just say that, by the time the film ends, their numbers will have been reduced from the already fairly feeble count of four, with which they start. It’s not exactly a glamourous life at the bottom of the organized crime pyramid, and the movie doesn’t portray it that way. There is, however, an odd unevenness of tone and style, which swings from drama to comedy to art-house. Sômai seems to have a fondness for setting his camera up some distance – in one scene at the end, a very great distance – from the characters, and letting things unfold. It’s certainly striking on occasion; there’s a sequence where a cop wants to interrogate Izumi, but her bodyguard won’t let him in, despite being obviously and horribly over-matched, and another achingly long-take that flows effortlessly from pedestrian to motorcycle traffic.

However, if you’re looking for action, even at the cheesy level of Sukeban Deka, you’re better off elsewhere. Despite the attention-grabbing title and poster, there is only one, brief moment of machine-gun madness. While that may be part of the point – it’s almost Izumi’s last hurrah, giving her very few options – it is a shame that such a striking concept was not more enthusiastically embraced. We do still have a heroine who is brave, loyal to her friends, and through Yakushimaru’s solid portrayal, comes to three-dimensional life. Finally, if Kazamatsuri looks familiar, that’s probably because, 20+ years later, she played the proprietress of the House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill, Volume One…

Dir: Shinji Sômai
Star: Hiroko Yakushimaru, Tsunehiko Watase, Rentarô Mikuni, Yuki Kazamatsuri

C.I.A. Code Name Alexa + C.I.A II: Target Alexa

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C.I.A. Code Name Alexa
★★
“Harkens back to a kinder, gentler era of domestic terrorism.”

ciaalexaA terrorist attack on a federal facility is interrupted by cops, and the leader is killed in a shootout. Bizarrely, a raid is then staged on the church where his funeral is being held, apparently with the aim of recovering the body. It’s led by Alexa (Kinmont), who is captured in the process, and interrogated by police detective Nick Murphy (Simpson) – at least, until CIA operative Mark Graver (Lamas) swoops in and claims her. Turns out this is all part of a plot by evil genius Victor Mahler (Cord) to acquire a computer chip which will give him enormous power, because of its ability to control weapon systems. Unfortunately, Mahler has diplomatic privileges, so normal methods won’t work. But if Mark can turn Alexa – using her daughter as leverage – maybe she can take care of Cord.

There are moments when this threatens to break out of the direct-to-video mediocrity to which it aspires, but not enough of them. To be honest, what happened to Simpson a couple of years later, was probably fortunate for the film’s producers, giving the film a certain notoriety it doesn’t deserve.  I did like the cynicism of Graver, and his boss (Pam Dixon) has a disregard for the societal niceties which rings true. Kinmont, at the time the third of Lamas’s five wives to date, is sadly underused, however. There’s one sequence, where she stages a solo raid on Cord’s complex, that does a good job of showing her potential, but there’s too much time spent sitting round in federal detention.

The other problem is a plot which contains far too many elements requiring the suspension of disbelief. For instance, having recovered such a vital chip, would the government really allow it back in the hands of the person who was trying to steal it, purely so she can swap it with a terrorist for her daughter? I don’t think so. It all builds to a massive battle in the belly of Los Angeles Airport, which harkens back to a kinder, gentler era of domestic terrorism, when airport security apparently consisted of one rent-a-cop and a guy asking “Hey! What are you doing down here?” Ah, such innocent days.

Dir: Joseph Merhi
Star: Lorenzo Lamas, Kathleen Kinmont, O.J. Simpson, Alex Cord

C.I.A II: Target Alexa
★★★
“Learning to fly a helicopter? It’s vastly over-rated….”

cia2The following year, Kinmont and Lamas teamed up again, this time with Lamas also behind the camera, making his directorial debut – keeping it in the family, Kinmont also helped come up with the story. Mind you, the pair would separate on Veterans’ Day 1993, and eventually divorce, which lends the scene depicting their two characters bickering before a mission, a certain eerie poignancy. It begins with Alexa (Kinmont) having abandoned the CIA and run off to a life training horses with her daughter. But an unfortunate involvement in an armed robbery means that her only way out is back in to the agency, where Graver (Lamas) needs her to infiltrate the camp of Franz Kluge (Savage), a mercenary who has acquired the chip at the heart of another weapons guidance system. Sheesh, US government: you really need to take more care with these things. Oh, and Kluge is also the father of Alexa’s daughter.

There’s another terrorist, who needs the chip to make the components he stole operational. and Kluge’s leading minion is a henchwoman, Lana (Fetrick), who is unimpressed when his old flame comes waltzing back into their camp. She can actually kick ass better than just about anyone else in the film – including Kluge’s other associates, as they find out when they try to take Alexa on. That, and the grocery-story robbery, are probably the best fights in the film, whetting the appetite nicely for the Lana-Alexa battle at the end. That is actually kinda disappointing, but is worth it, simply for Alexa’s comeback after Lana says, “You can run, but you can’t hide.” It’s probably the time where Kinmont comes closest to being the “next Schwarzenegger,” as claimed on the DVD sleeve.

The rest of the film is okay. It’s more entertaining than its predecessor, with the gyno-centric approach giving it much-needed originality, and Savage gives a quirkily off-centre performance, switching sides as opportunity requires. It builds to a ludicrous climax which sees Alexa clinging to the leg of Kluge’s helicopter as it takes off, clambering in, knocking him out and then, apparently, landing it safely on sheer instinct, because no-one in either film has mentioned her knowing how to fly one. That sums up the entire series: it’ll pass for entertainment, providing you don’t stare too hard at the details, because things will then fall apart on you.

Dir: Lorenzo Lamas
Star: Kathleen Kinmont, Lorenzo Lamas, John Savage, Lori Fetrick

The Stunt Woman (Ah Kam)

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★★
“Because stunt women have feelings too.”

stuntwomanThe end credits of this show, in a style familiar from Jackie Chan movies, the “stunts gone wrong” montage. Except here, it’s Michelle Yeoh suffering a serious back injury after a bad landing following a jump from a bridge. What’s particularly galling is that the stunt was entirely pointless, in terms of the movie, and also filmed so badly, they could easily have used someone much more experienced in that kind of thing. This is likely what happens when you have a director who apparently has no aptitude for, or interest in, action cinema. Instead, Hui’s filmography is full of earnest social cinema such as Summer Snow, “about a middle-aged woman trying to cope with everyday family problems and an Alzheimer-inflicted father-in-law,” according to Wikipedia.

On a similar basis, I guess this is about a middle-aged stunt woman, Ah Kam (Yeoh), trying to cope with everyday cinematic problems, and an alcohol-inflicted father-figure (Hung). What we learn, is that the life of an stunt person involves as much sitting around and drinking as it does actual, ah, stunting. We also find out, apparently, that you can go from walking-on to the set, to becoming the de facto director in about two days. Actually, snark aside, this is the most interesting section of the film, with a no-holds barred depiction of the crappy conditions under which action scenes are created in Hong Kong cinema, with a brutal mix of time constraints, Triad hassles and a near-complete disregard for personal safety. You won’t do this stunt? Kiss employment goodbye, because there’s always someone else who will. If nothing else, you will come away from this with an enhanced regard for the people who put their bodies on the line for your entertainment.

However, odds are that’s all you’ll get, for the longer this goes on, the further this meanders off track, in to a series of unsatisfying threads which are equally underdeveloped and unsatisfying. Ah Kam falls for a man and follows him to China, only to find life as a bar manager not what she expected, so she gives up and goes back to movie work. The Triad troubles escalate until they lead to the death of a major character, but this doesn’t go anywhere much either. Even when she has to rescue a young boy, kidnapped for what’s basically a prank on a mob boss, there’s little or no resolution, the movie ending in such an abrupt fashion, it feels like Hui ran out of film-stock. While it’s nice to see Yeoh given a chance to exercise her dramatic talents more, and she acquits herself well, the results are singularly disappointing, and unfortunately, are also definitely not worth the injury she sustained.

Dir: Ann Hui
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Sammo Hung, Ken Lo, Hoi Mang

Prostitutes Protective Society

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★★
“Sin City’s Old Town comes crawling up on to dry land.”

ppsGot to suspect Frank Miller might have been aware of this 1966 sexploitation flick when crafting his story of a red-light district run by the prostitutes, because it’s easy to imagine this 62-minute film turned into a segment in Sin City 2. For that’s basically what you have here: Madame Sue leads the New York hookers in an informal collective, finding them customers and ensuring things run smoothly. But a local small-time thug wants in on the action, demanding 10% of the revenue; knowing that would just be the start, Sue declines, and her business rival starts offing the girls, trying to scare them into compliance. But you can only push Sue so far, before she proclaims “We’re gonna get guns and other weapons.” and goes to war…

Robert Rodriguez could knock this out of the park. Mahon, with far less resources and almost no acting talent, not so much (great poster though!). The shoestring operation is apparent across the board, but a couple of examples should suffice. They apparently couldn’t afford external mics, so when Madame Sue meets the mobster trying to shake her down in a public place, we don’t get to hear what they say – as with much of the plot, Sue has to describe it in a voice-over. While she’s far from the worst actress – check out the trailer for examples of delivery so wooden, it could make a charming set of living-room furniture – it doesn’t help that she has a heavy Eastern European accent, making it impossible to determine, for example, whether the mobster’s name is Carnaby or Carnegie. The indoor sets are little better, they seem to have had access to one apartment and a nearby stairwell, from which Carnaby/Carnegie appears to run all his business.

There are really three sections to this. In the first, the girls wander around topless as we establish their overall business. In the second, the girls wander around topless (and occasionally soap each others’ backs in the shower) as they get stabbed, strangled and offed. Finally, they put some frickin’ clothes on and start taking revenge, culminating in a rather nasty, if non-lethal, fate for Carnaby/Carnegie – the trailer will show enough to illuminate you, if you don’t mind spoilers. This is all very basic, and even at barely an hour, drags its feet badly for much of the time – as with many grindhouse flicks, you’re much better off just watching the trailer. However, considering its era, this is actually pretty advanced, Sue and her sidekick in particular being depicted as far stronger and more independent than most “nice” girls of the era. Credit duly given for that.

Dir: Barry Mahon
Star: “Madame Sue and her Times Square girls.” For real, that’s the only acting credit!

Zero Woman: Assassin Lovers

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★★★★
“Grimly fiendish yet effective killers’ romance.”

zerowoman3Mob boss Daidohji (Yutani) has the city almost within his grasp, thanks to a minion promising him material he can use to blackmail the mayor. But his success is short-lived, as the minion is taken our by Rei (Takeda), who is then ordered by her boss Takefuji (Nishioka) to finish the job, taking out Diadohji and the rest of his gang. Not that the mobster is sitting back and waiting: he hires his own assassin, Katsumura (Matsusa), to get to Rei before she can get to him. However, neither killer is exactly happy with their role as pawns in the bigger scheme of things, and when they meet, it’s time for a little R&R. As in “romance and rebellion.”

This is the best of the saga which I’ve seen to date, mainly because it does a better job of striking a balance among the various elements. The storyline and characterization are not lazily ignored in preference for more easily exploitable elements; not that there’s any shortage of either sex or violence, but they seem to flow naturally from the plot, rather than appearing to drive it. The relationship between Katsumura and Rei has some credibility to it, with each seeing a reflection of themselves in the other. But will that be able to over-ride Rei’s strong loyalties to Section Zero? The film does a good job of keeping that in doubt, right up to the very end, where Rei is given the ultimate in ultimatums by Takefuji, and it’s not clear what way she’s going to jump.

There’s also a nice, slick look to the film, which unfolds under an apparent endless array of neon lights, and on perpetually-moist streets, a visual style that helps conceal the low-budget nature of proceedings. While the story may rely to heavily on the clichés of the genre, those involved, on both sides of the camera, execute – pun not intended – their responsibilities with enough flair and energy to counter-balance its shortcomings, and the end result is certainly a significant improvement on the first two films in the revived series.

Dir: Masahide Kuwabara
Star: Kumiko Takeda, Keiji Matsuda, Charlie Yutani, Tokuma Nishioka

Female Ninjas: Magic Chronicles, Part 1

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★★
“At least it’s imaginative. Unfortunately, that’s all it is.”

femaleninja1Samurai lord Toyotomi Hideyori is about to lose his lands, to an assault from his wife’s grandfather, Tokugawa, but he’s not going down without a fight. Or, at least, to continue the battle, he has sex with her multiple female ninja handmaidens, in the hope of having a son who can continue the battle – that’s some long-term thinking, right there. Lady Sen (Shiroshima) is down with her husband’s plan; Tokugawa, not so much. When he finds out about the resulting pregnancies, he dispatches a series of ninjas of his own – men who have, shall we say, a very particular set of skills; skills they have acquired over a very long career – to ensure there’s no live births. Fortunately, the lady ninjas have some unusual abilities of their own, with which they can counterattack: as one of them says, “As ninjas, we’ve been trained to master sexual challenges.” Let battle begin!

This is such an… educational movie. I mean, if your sperm lands on a woman’s skin, she won’t rest until she has had sex with you. Who knew? Maybe it needs to be ninja sperm or something: the film is kinda unclear on the specifics. Meanwhile, on the distaff side, there’s the transference of a fetus from woman to woman as necessary, and most impressively of all, the ability to blow bubbles from your vagina, which send men they contact back to the womb. It’s insane moments like these which keep this marginally watchable, simply on the level of “What the hell will they come up with next?”, and it’s clear this is where the majority of the makers’ imagination and effort went. The rest of the time is filled with soft-core gropings and largely unconvincing fight sequences, when the sexual trickery proves inadequate. Though I did quite like the bit where one ninja’s shadow detaches itself and goes into battle independently.

The actors and actresses involved make absolutely no impression at all, though deserve applause, simply for keeping a straight face while dealing with “female ninja lock magic”, which is exactly what it sounds like, and delivering lines like “Now, I’ll squirt my own seed into your vile body,” without bursting out laughing. I’d be lying if I said this was in the slightest bit “good”, by any conventional measure. But even I have to admit it’s once seen, never forgotten, and so deserves credit above and beyond that given to many, far more forgettable flicks.

Dir: Masaru Tsushima
Star: Yasuyo Shiroshima, Ginji Gao, Reiko Hayama, Hitomi Okazaki

Bounty Killer

  By

★★★
“A taste of anti-paradise”

bountykillerSomehow, I get the feeling I should have liked this more than I did. The elements are all these – high-energy, hyper-violence and no shortage of style – but, somehow, the whole felt rather less than the sum of its parts. It’s a post-apocalyptic scenario, after the corporate wars have pretty much trashed the planet, and the Council of Nine hand out rewards for the deaths of white-collar criminals. These are collected by the titular hunters, the best being Drifter (Marsden) and Mary Death (Pitre) – the latter is a star, followed by fans and paparazzi, much to the chagrin of the former. However, the Council suddenly issue a kill notice for Drifter; he heads to confront them and sort out the “mistake”, with Mary in hot pursuit, intent on collecting the bounty. Of course, and after quite a bit of the old ultra-violence, Drifter and Mary team up, to take down the real bad guys.

An adaptation of a graphic novel, it does, at least, a better job of capturing the grindhouse philosophy than the limp Machete Kills. The inspiration – actually, it’s more shameless plagiarism – is more Mad Max 2, particularly in its stubbly hero and an extended chase sequence across the desert, in which he’s chased by a pack of nomads with painted faces. That’s perhaps the problem, because Drifter was a great deal less interesting than Mary Death to me; Marsden delivers a bland performance, over so much screen-time that this almost didn’t meet the necessary minimum standards for GWG qualification. I could also have done without the embarrassingly blunt attempts at “satire”, which feel like they came from an earnest late-night session at a liberal arts college. It’s not clever and it’s not funny.

But the bits that work, work quite nicely. There’s a great scene where Drifter is being yelled at in a soundproof office by the lead villainess (Loken), who is oblivious to the mayhem being wreaked by Mary on the other side of the glass. Indeed, virtually every time Ms. Death is on screen, the interest level increases significantly, and not merely for the obvious reasons. Pitre struts, stomps and raised the sardonic eyebrow to such impressive effect, that you wonder why you’ve never heard of her before. If Drifter is reheated leftovers of every post-apocalypse hero from the past 20 years, Death gives us something new. Hopefully, if there’s any sequel, Marsden will be “unavailable”, and the makers can concentrate much more on the heroine.

Dir: Henry Saine
Star: Matthew Marsden, Christian Pitre, Barak Hardle, Kristanna Loken

Dreaming the Reality

  By

★★★
“Taking the red pill”

Dreaming the RealityThere’s half a good movie here, albeit one which treads some rather familiar territory. It might seem hard to go wrong, with three of the most-renowned Hong Kong action actresses in one place, but as we saw with Avenging Quartet, quantity does not guarantee quality. The main issue is two separate plots, which appear to have strayed in from entirely different movies, and which don’t even cross paths for about an hour.

In one corner, we have Kat (Oshima) and Silver Fox (Lee), who have been raised by their foster father as assassins. But after one hit results in collateral damage to an unfortunately-timed school bus, Fox starts to have doubts about her career path. They’re dispatched to Thailand to recover a floppy disk containing damaging evidence [Older readers: it wasn’t even one of the little ones, but a full-on 5 1/4″ disk! Younger readers: look “floppy disk” up.]. Fox gets their target, but in the ensuing chase suffers a bout of cinematic amnesia. And that’s where the other plot kicks in. Lan (Hu) is an ex-HK cop who has been trying to keep her brother, Rocky (Lam), out of trouble, despite his ambitions to be a champion kick-boxer. This leads to all kinds of goofy and entirely uninteresting shenanigans, with Lan having to sub for Rocky in one fight, fend off an evil manager, etc.

It’s only after Fox stumbles into Lan’s bar, that things gel, and from then on, it’s an almost ceaseless barrage of gunfire and punches, with some surprising deaths, and all three heroines on top form, particularly Lee and Hu. This makes up for the opening hour, which largely alternates between the “tortured killer” cliché and excruciating comic mugging. The former is preferable, not just because the action is better-staged, but also because Lee and Oshima do get to deliver some interesting lines, which succeed in giving their characters a bit more depth than you’d imagine. When Fox asks Kat, “What would you do if I died?”, her answer is a straightforward yet poignant, “I’d die with you.” But this darkness jars badly with the slapstick elements, and Liu has no idea how to combine them into anything like a coherent whole.

Dir: Tony Liu
Star: Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima, Sibelle Hu, Ben Lam

Here’s the end fight, with Lee going up against Eddie Ko, who plays her foster father.

Naked Vengeance

  By

★★★
“In which we learn that small-town folk are dicks.”

nakedvengeanceWhile clearly knocking off I Spit on your Grave – not least in the underwater castration scene – this did at least have the good grace to wait for a bit, coming out seven years after Meir Zarchi’s infamous grindhouse pic. It’s one of the many pictures churned out by Roger Corman’s New World company, with the Philippines doing an admirable job of standing in for California, directed by Santiago, who’s no stranger to the GWG genre, with the likes of TNT Jackson and Ebony, Ivory and Jade also in his filmography.

The heroine is small-time actress Carla Harris (Tranelli), whose life is torn apart by tragedy, when her husband is killed after trying to intervene in an assault. With the law powerless to do anything, she heads off to the town where she grew up, to recuperate with her parents. However, the locals are unimpressed by her “big city” ways, in particular the men, after she rebuffs their crude advances. A drunken raid on her home, led by the local butcher (Garaz), ends in tragedy, and Carla in a catatonic state at the local hospital, apparently with no memory of the night’s events. Key-word there: “apparently”…

Yeah, it’s not exactly a spoiler that she’s soon tracking down those responsible, and disposing of them with extreme prejudice. It would have been cool – if, admittedly, fairly implausible – had she kept faking her illness and apparently remaining in hospital, while sneaking out to take her vengeance. But it’s only about two kills in before the ruse is discovered, and the rest of the film has her trying to complete the mission before the local cops, led by Sheriff Cates (McLaughlin) can track her down. I liked the pacing here: while it’s only about seven minutes in before Carla is burying her husband, the film then takes its time demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the police, and how she is now out of synch with the Neanderthal attitudes of the town where she grew up. Then: BANG. The assault is a nasty piece of work, but Santiago doesn’t linger too much there, before getting on to our leading lady’s retribution.

The problem is more one of plausibility, particularly in the second-half, where Carla seems about as indestructible as Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees. Car crashes, fires, impalement, all barely seem to slow her down with barely a scratch, and like those horror icons, she’s not interested in simply killing her victims, the stalk is just as important as the slash. Of course, it helps that her victims are equal idiots to the horny teenagers in Friday the 13th. I mean, that’s a woman you raped undressing and coming towards you. How much do you have to think with your pecker, for that not to set off all kinds of warning bells? Disengage your own brain’s higher-order functions here – and maybe your ears for the startlingly-bad theme song – and you’ll have a better time.

Dir: Cirio H. Santiago
Star: Deborah Tranelli, Bill McLaughlin, Kaz Garaz, Ed Crick

Inara, the Jungle Girl

  By

★
“The film that could only be made in South America, where hair-care products are cheap…”

inaraDear god. It has been a very, very long time since I have seen a film displaying such a degree of ineptness, in so many areas. About the only exception is the look of the film, which is nicely lush, allowing the makers to put together the trailer below. It’s a greater work of fiction than the movie itself, because the preview manages to give the impression that the feature its advertising does not entirely suck. In reality, trust me: it does. This is clear within the first 15 minutes, where we’ve had one burbling monologue of sub-Tarantinoesque proportions, two musical montages of absolutely no point, and the worst attempt by an actor to look drunk in cinematic history. I started looking up other reviews online at that point, and discovered, no, it wasn’t just me.

The plot is basically Avatar in bikinis. No, wait: that sounds a lot better than this actually is. Inara (Danger) has been raised by her father, after her mother was killed during a jungle operation by mercenary group Asguard. Dad killed the perp responsible – the one with a taste for long, droning speeches rather than action – and his son still bears a grudge against Inara, 18 years later. After her father’s death, Inara is recruited to join Asguard and return to the scene, but on the way there an entirely unexplained (and unshown: trust me, if this film can skimp on any cost, it does) crash leaves Inara the sole survivor. She joins a tribe of local “Amazons” – quotes used advisedly, since they are basically Caucasians with unlimited expense accounts for Target’s bikini department. Discovering the true meaning of life, our heroine switches sides, and joins the natives for a battle against Asguard. This clocks in at a brisk one minute, 40 seconds, or rather shorter than the average WWE Divas match.

Lead actress Danger appears to be a star of fetish sites like RingDivas.com, which offer services such as filming of “custom wrestling matches,” and that may explain why there is little acting demanded of her. However, the rest of the cast are tasked to no greater extent, by a script consisting largely of scenes that begin nowhere, end nowhere and, in between, serve no purpose in developing story or characters. Now, every film might have a couple of these: here, they crop up with such regularity, it begins to feel that Desmarattes is playing some kind of surreal joke, making a native warrioress version of My Dinner With Andre. Sadly, I think it’s pure incompetence. Any time the film has a choice, and can go either towards being interesting or boring, it’s always the latter. And if you’re watching in the hope of some nudity or action, forget it: this fails to deliver anything of note in either category. I don’t use the phrase “worst movie ever” lightly, and have seen plenty of truly terrible offerings, but this certainly deserves to be in the conversation, for both its breadth and depth of awfulness.

Dir: Patrick Desmarattes
Star: Cali Danger and other people. Names redacted: they’ll thank me later.