Category: Review

IWA Mid-South: Queen of the Deathmatch

  By

★★½
“Only women bleed…”

The Hardcore genre is denigrated by some pro-wrestling fans as “garbage wrestling,” but I’ve never quite felt that way. To be good, you still need many of the same skills necessary to be good at the more regular end of sports entertainment: ability to work the crowd, sell the offense of your opponent, put over a storyline, etc. It’s true, you don’t need much in the way of technical aptitude to let someone break a fluorescent light-tube across your head, but the willingness to do so is certainly worthy of undeniable respect (if coupled with questions about your sanity). The bottom line is, there are good “garbage wrestlers” and there are bad ones. We’ve seen both in our previous coverage of the genre, when we wrote about FMW: Torn to Shreds, where we saw Megumi Kudo and Shark Tsuchiya, who represent the two ends of the spectrum.

We’ve also spoken before about the gulf betwen Japanese women’s pro-wrestling and the largely pathetic excuse for it put out by the WWE, where two minutes of a glorified cat-fight passes muster as a title match. You need to abandon network TV and go down to the independent level if you want to look for anything comparable – in style, if not necessarily in quality – to joshi puroresu, and it’s there that we found this. The IWA Mid-South federation had been holding annual “King of the Deathmatch” tournaments for quite some time, the first being won by Ian Rotten, one of the most well-known/infamous garbage wrestlers (current WWE heavyweight champion, C.M. Punk was part of the 2004 event, in a non-deathmatch bout). But in 2006, they also staged a similar event for women wrestlers.

Of course, this being independent wrestling where the phrase “card subject to change” is a given, the eight women scheduled to complete ended up being seven and a man. MC Ian Rotten said that Delilah Starr had a car-crash on the way here, and another competitor, LuFisto, had broken her hand fighting another notorious garbage wrestler, Necro Butcher, in a Canadian Death Match tournament called “Bloodstock”. Taking advantage of the open spot was SeXXXy Eddy, a male wrestler with a long history of intergender matches, which his in-ring persona thoroughly enjoyed, as you can imagine from his name. The roster also included reigning IWA women’s champion Mickie Knuckles, Rachel Putski (grand-daugher of WWE Hall of Famer Ivan Putski), and two joshi wrestlers, Mayumi Ozaki and Sumi Sakai.

The first round got under way with a Staple Gun Match between Knuckles and Ann Thraxx: it was best of 13, so the first to embed seven staples in their opponent won. Knuckles was busted open immediately, but this was very much equal opportunity carnage: as the pic on top shows, the red, red blood contrasted nicely with Thraxx’s bleached blonde hair. The score was tied at six with a staple to Knuckle’s crotch, but she took the win by tacking a dollar bill on Thraxx’s nose. Next up was a disappointingly bland thumbtack match, with Putski taking on Vanessa Kraven in ring containing a small box of tacks: it was Kraven’s first death-match, and you could tell her heart really wasn’t in it. Add another skill to the list necessary to succeed as a garbage wrestler: commitment.

The third match was improved, though from a strictly aesthetic and visual sense, was hard to watch. Amy Lee – about as far from a WWE diva as it’s possible to get – took on SeXXXy Eddy, who was wearing what can only be described as a “banana hammock”. This was a “Four Corners Of Pain” bout, with the corners of the ring behind home to barb-wire/salt, mousetraps, fluorescent light-tubes and..,er, lemons? Life gives you lemons, you…stage a death-match. That said, this was mostly fun for Eddy’s antics, not least his epic selling of the mousetraps: though he won, he took care in the post-match interview to put Amy over, for which he deserves credit. The first round finished with Mayumi Ozaki taking on Japanese colleague Sumie Sakai, in a Barbed Wire Ropes and Boards match: this was basically a squash, Sakai taking all the damage, as Ozaki prevailed.

Moving on to the semi-finals, the first pitted Knuckles against Putski in a Taipei Death Match. In this, the wrestlers’ fists are taped, dipped into glue and then in broken and crushed glass, to turn their fists into nasty weapons – its use here may have been because the most infamously bloody of these was between tonight’s MC, Ian Rotten, and his “brother” Axl, at a 1995 ECW show. This one is not much less messy, especially when the two wrestlers set up on facing chairs, and take turns whaleing away at each other’s foreheads [a common target in this kind of wrestling, being an area not likely to incur permanent damage, but capable of generating plenty of the red, red kroovy, as A Clockwork Orange called it, running down the face]. Knuckles prevailed, but hard to say who lost more blood.

Osaki took on Eddy in a two out of three, light-tube log-cabin match. You’re wondering what a light-tube log-cabin is, aren’t you. Those are fluorescent tubes, taped together in a square, four to a side and maybe stacked four interweaved rows or so high. They make a very satisfying crunch when you drop your opponent through one, as we discover here. One thing wrestling fans know, is “two out of three” anything means the first two will inevitably be split, and that’s the case here: Ozaki gets backdropped through the first log-cabin, but comes back with a flying kick off a chair to send Eddy into the second. She takes the win after he tries a high-risk manoeuvre off the top rope, only to be grabbed by his banana hammock and flipped through the deciding log-cabin. Ozaki, again, appears to avoid significant damage.

The final, between her and Knuckles was officially described as a (deep breath!) “No Rope Barbed Wire Fans Bring The Weapons Electrified Lighttubes Cage Match”. Basically, pretty much anything went, inside a steel cage which came already furnished with a ladder, beer barrel, barbed-wire ropes, a host of other offensive shrapnel (barbecue fork, baking tray, and bizarrely, a light-up magic wand with a star on the end) and enough fluorescent light-tubes to illuminate Vegas – yes, some of which were plugged in and working, for added emphasis. It is, I think, the first wrestling bout I’ve seen where the referee wore eye-protection. Knuckles hadn’t even bothered to clean up after the last bout, coming to the ring still covered in dried gore from her semi-final.

This one was relatively brief, and must confess, I actually found it somewhat disappointing, especially considering it was supposed to be the grand final. It felt almost as if both women had been drained by the previous encounters, so (understandably) had little energy left for their third match of the night. There was some breaking of glass and some mild use of foreigh objects, but it lasted only a little more than seven minutes in total, before Knuckles kicked through one of the electrified light fixtures into Ozaki’s forehead, following up with a pin for a three-count and victory. She didn’t really get to enjoy her title for long, as LuFisto and Kraven came in, blindsided her and left Knuckles draped in a Canadian flag, obviously intended to set a grudge-match up for the next IWA Mid-South event,

This is not great wrestling, by any means: matches generally proceed at a sluggish pace, and the format offers little scope for any significant degree of technical skill. But I have nothing but total respect for the participants, who put their bodies on the line for the entertainment of the audience, with a cheerful lack of concern for safety. If they were getting paid tens of thousands of dollars, I could perhaps understand it, but the paying crowd here probably numbered a hundred or less, so the compensation for their efforts can have been little more than token. Such willingness to suffer for your art (and there is no doubt in my mind, that pro wrestling is indeed an art), can only be applauded.

Date/time: November 3, 2006 at the Capital Sports Arena in Plainfield, Indiana.
Participants: Mickie Knuckles, Mayumi Ozaki, Rachel Putski, Sexxxy Eddy
Available through Amazon, as The Best of Deathmatch Wrestling, Vol. 4: Queens of the Deathmatch.

La Femme Nikita: season one

  By

★★★
“French kissing in the USA”

To say I approached this show in a roundabout way would be an understatement. 15 years after its original screening, after three separate movie versions and two seaseons of the largely unrelated version of the story starring Maggie Q, I finally got round to it. So, bearing tht in mind, it’s a different beast from what I expected – mostly because it’s a lot less action-oriented. Peta Wilson, as lost soul turned government operative Nikita, looks like she could potentially kick your arse, but (largely for budgetary reasons, I believe) there’s only token moments of hand-to-hand action: the focus is much more on spycraft, undercover work and deceit, rather than full-on assaults. There are still occasional sequences, but even these tend to involve relatively brief gun-battles, not the martial arts brawls which are one of the new version’s trademarks.

The other chance is that Section One, their version of Division, is not malicious – at least not in the same way. It’s certainly a heartless organization, which is utterly ruthless, and prepared to dispose of anyone who may interfere with their actions, but it’s more an awareness that when you’re dealing with terrorists, organized crime or other threats to the country and world, you can’t be unwilling to get your hands dirty. It leads to a significant bleaker overall tone, and is amazingly prophetic, given this was screened well before 9/11 led to this attitude become a necessary part of national security. Early on, it’s established that you can never trust Section heads Operation (Glazer) and Madeleine (Watson, who was also part of the remake, playing Senator Pierce – her given name there was also Madeleine), to the extent that their deceit becomes almost a cliché.

There are some direct nods to Besson’s movie: her first assignment is to murder a target in a crowded restaurant, and the bathroom assassination crops up in a later episode. On the other hand, there is one significant difference from the original film, in that Nikita here is genuinely innocent of the crime for which she is sentenced, simply happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her refusal to engage in the actions Section demands of her is a strong thread of the first season, with a reluctance to compromise her moral code being pitted against Section’s desire to control her for their own ends. Early on, she risks “cancellation” (termination with extreme prejudice) more than once, by disobeying orders, usually to protect others from Section action.

Another area in which this show differs from the current version, is a much more pronounced use of music. There are fairly lengthy sequences, several minutes on occasion, where scenes unfold over almost all of a song. A soundtrack CD was about the only piece of merchandise given any wide-scale release by Warner Bros, including the title track by X-Files composer Mark Snow, as well as songs by Depeche Mode and Morcheeba. Also popping up in the first season, are Morcheeba, P.J. Harvey, Sister Machine Gun and several tracks by neo-classical/industrial band In The Nursery, whom I coincidentally went to see in Hamburg, back around the time these episodes first aired. It’s certainly a trademark of the show, and is an aspect I consistently enjoyed.

On the other hand, apart from the lack of action, the angle I liked least was the relationship between Nikita and her handler/fellow agent, Michael (Dupuis). I’ll come right out and say it: I hate ‘shippers, and storylines that pander to them are nothing more than an irritant to me, especially in shows which I watch for action, where they do little except interfere with the good stuff, in my humble opinion. [We’ve seen this in the new incarnation, where the show has disintegrated from one of the best shows on TV, into little more than Mr. and Mrs. Smith And Friends.] I’m definitely a “noromo”: If I wanted unresolved sexual tension and relationship nonsense, I’d watch daytime soap operas. Right from the first time Nikita and Michael meet, it’s doe-eyed heaven, even though there is obviously little or no honesty, trust and anything else on which a genuine relationship could ever be founded.

There are also a number of aspects of the show which now seem undeniably dated, which is always going to be an issue when a series is trying to be “cutting edge”. Most obvious is the technology – an early episode has tech wiz Birkoff explaining about IRC, something now so passé, an explanation would probably be needed again! – but the opening credits always get a chuckle, especially the final “morph” at the end, which looks incredibly cheap. Meanwhile, Wilson’s accent drifts in and out without rhyme or reason: at times, she seems straight off Bondi Beach, while at others it’s almost entirely subdued.

The episodic nature of this, with less concentration on an over-riding story arc, is both a strength and a weakness. It frees the creators up for some really good stories, but there’s not much incentive to plug in the next episode – I largely watched them in double-bills, but it took me more than seven months to get through the first season’s 22 shows. I enjoyed the bleakness and emotional chilliness depicted here, which as noted above, is probably more relevant now than then, but the obviously lower production values, and its replacement of high-energy action with dramatic angles that Wilson isn’t quite up to handling, brought its overall entertainment value down significantly. I’m probably just about interested enough to pick up the second season at some point: however, that is not likely to be for a while.

Star: Peta Anderson, Roy Dupuis, Eugene Robert Glazer, Alberta Watson

Alien 3

  By

★½
“Lost in space.”

“No one hated it more than me. To this day, no one hates it more than me.”
— David Fincher

Few films have had such a troubled path to the screen. The story of those struggles, and the various versions of the story generated by William Gibson, Eric Red, David Twohy, Vincent Ward and others, is probably worthy of an entire separate article. For now, we concentrate on what finally came out, but let’s quote writer Rex Pickett:

“I was hired by 20th Century Fox four weeks prior to the start of principal photography… First on my agenda was a complete rewrite of the second half of the Walter Hill/David Giler screenplay due to certain major character and narrative changes mandated by Walter Hill. Once that was accomplished I was to attend to the first half and write an amalgamated version which was to include scenes from their draft and new scenes that I wrote. Thus, the resultant screenplay – particularly the first half – contains scenes that I was instructed to include whether I wanted to or not.”

The end result is every bit as awful and borderline incoherent as you’d expect, given the circumstances. At the time, Fincher had no feature-film experience. He was known almost entirely for music videos, particularly for Madonna – when it was announced he would be helming the third part, I recall idly wondering if we were going to see the aliens in pointy bras. That isn’t quite the case, and it does make more sense in the light of Fincher’s subsequent work, from Seven through to the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo remake. But it’s worth considering that neither Ridley Scott nor James Cameron had worked on a large-budget sci-fi flick before their entries – Cameron had made The Terminator, but it was low-budget, at barely one-third the cost of Aliens. Both seemed to deliver a more consistent vision, though I suspect neither suffered from the copious degree of studio interference apparently seen here.

Right from the get-go, the script basically junks its predecessor. An emergency on the spacecraft bringing Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop home causes it crash-land, with Ripley apparently the only survivor. It’s a near-derelict former prison planet, which was about to be decommissioned, but the inhabitants, under spiritual leader Dillon (Dutton), opted to stick around, under minimal supervision. They’re none too happy to have a woman dropped into the middle of their society, and a message is sent to request Ripley be removed as soon as possible. Needless to say the Weyland-Yutari Corporation are more than happy to oblige. However, it soon becomes clear that Ripley was not the only living thing to escape the crash, as local residents start turning up “diced.” When it’s confirmed, through Ripley re-activating Bishop, that there was indeed an alien present: destroying it is necessary, not only to survive, but also to stop it from falling into the hands of Weyland-Yutari.

You can almost take Aliens and this, using them as point-counterpoint examples, of how you should and should not handle almost every aspect of genre film-making. Aliens built logically upon what had gone before, but this throws it all out the window, apparently making the rules of engagement up as it goes along. Aliens was a near-textbook example of how to create supporting characters with a few simply brush-strokes, giving them character and motivation: this has very little beyond a bunch of unlikeable bald-headed monk/prisoner types, with absolutely no reason provided for the audience to care about anyone beyond Ripley, as they get picked off. The pacing is terrible too, with little or no sense of progression or any significant twists, beyond the one that Ripley finds out about herself. And that makes no logical sense, given what we learned about the alien’s life-cycle in the first two movie. Everyone – Ripley, the prisoners and even the marauding alien – seems to be in a holding pattern, waiting for the corporate ship to show up so something (pleasegodanythingatall) can happen.

Without wishing to give away too much about the finale, it bears more than a slight resemblance to the one used by Aliens director Cameron in Terminator 2, which came out the previous year. He later told the BBC, “I couldn’t stand Alien 3 – how they could just go in there and kill off all these great characters we introduced in Aliens, and the correlation between mother and daughter. It stunk.” So was the similarity coincidence? Or did Cameron see a script during the long, pre-production process and opt to swipe it, to thumb his nose at the makers for basically jettisoning his entire contribution to the series? I’d like to think it was the latter, but suspect it was indeed one of those Hollywood flukes.

However, it’d be no better than this massively disappointing movie deserved, with Fincher and co. literally making it up as they went along. The first time I saw it, was on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, its original theatrical release coinciding with a trip to California. I fell asleep. 20 years later, I saw it for the second time, in the comfort of my own home… I fell asleep again. As Oscar Wilde might have said, “To lose consciousness once, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose it twice looks like carelessness.”

Dir: David Fincher
Star: Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Brian Glover

Mother’s Day (2010)

  By

★★★★
“Hell hath no fury like a mother.”

A loose remake of a somewhat infamous 1980 horror movie [rejected by the BBFC and as yet unreleased in the UK], this is a nastily brutal and effective home-invasion story, with a maternal angle that’s both surprising and well done. On the run after a botched bank robbery, the three Koffin brothers end up in the wrong home, and end up with a houseful of hostages, who were visiting Beth Sohapi (King) and her husband. The criminals call on the rest of their family for help, led by their mother (De Mornay), who is 50% June Cleaver – even providing cake and ice-cream for the residents – and 50% Lizzie Borden, showing absolutely no restraint against anyone she perceives as threatening her brood. As the night progresses, a lot of skeletons come out and we discover the Sohapis definitely do not live up to their name…

What looks initially like another variant on the Last House on the Left takes an abrupt left-turn when Mrs. Koffin shows up. From there on, De Mornay holds the viewer’s attention with an effortless performance which makes you wonder where she has been for the last 20 years. There are certainly echoes of her character from The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, but I’m also reminded, in tone, of Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom. What I think is particularly disturbing is her rapid switch from homespun family wisdom to violence of a particularly cruel sort – and not just physical, but mental, as she is generally astute when it comes to pushing her victim’s buttons. I say “generally,” for Beth provides an opponent that even Mrs. Koffin can’t necessarily read accurately. It’s clear, almost from the start, that this will be heading towards a confrontation between the two.

At 112 minutes, it could seem long, but I can’t say my attention flagged at any point. If there is a criticism, it’s the not uncommon one for the genre, of characters who have to exhibit “stupidity necessary to the plot.” There were certainly points at which Chris rolled her eyes as the victims did not behave in the way she would have; I tend to find how much that impacts my appreciation depends on how blatant that is, and how much I’m enjoying the other aspects of the film. Here, watching De Mornay is so entertaining – I’m hard pushed to think of many comparable, deliciously villainous performances from an actress – that I’m happy to overlook those flaws. I’ve seen and enjoyed other home invasion films, like The Strangers; this takes a very different approach, replacing those faceless monsters with a twisted version of humanity. In some ways, it may be even more effective.

Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman
Star: Rebecca De Mornay, Jaime King, Briana Evigan, Patrick Flueger

Gang of Roses II: Next Generation

  By

★½
“Why? No, really: why?”

There are films which get a sequel because they’re successful. There are films which get a sequel because they are good. And then there’s a sequel to a film which was sub-mediocre, and appeared to vanish without causing even a ripple after its straight to video release in 2003. As a measure, nine years later, it hasn’t even reached 750 votes on the IMDB. Yet, we get this: a sequel that is neither needed, nor demanded by the public, and which manages to be even more boring and badly-constructed than its predecessor. Most movie-makers acquire at least a measure of technical skill as their career progresses, bur La Marre seems to have forgotten what little he knew a decade ago.

La Marre and Lamont Clayton are the only returning names from the original here – there’s a claim that Cassie is an member of the gang of female outlaws there, but neither actress Charli Baltimore nor her character seem to have been in it. She’s sitting in jail with the combination to a military safe, and for some reason, divulges the plan to break the safe to her cellmate Collette (Pratts), about two minutes after they’re introduced. Cassie is killed during an escape attempt, but Collette, with her knowledge, slides in to the gang, who then sit around a hotel room for what feels like ever. Eventually, they head to the town of San Juevo, and prepare for action, not knowing they are being stalked by Lee (Casseus) and his gang, out for revenge on the women. Yes, even though they are completely different ones from the first film. That’s the level of coherence you can expect from this.

Somewhat of a troubled production, apparently, with Taylor and La Marra getting into a brawl on set. Sure that improved the creative atmosphere immeasurably. But even the cheapest publicity stunt couldn’t have saved this wretched mess, which has exactly two decent scenes: one with one of the Roses speaking to the pastor of the San Juevo church, and another interacting with a little girl. That’s it. The action is horribly staged – the film budget couldn’t even run to fake blood, it seems – and it’s a merciful release that the film runs 15 minutes less than I was braced for. The balance is made up with La Marre’s entry to the 2012 World’s Least Amusing Out-takes competition. It’s a sure winner there: the only possible award for which this possesses any chance.

Dir: Jean-Claude La Marre
Star: Teyana Taylor, Eurika Pratts, Claudia Jordan, Gabriel Casseus

Brave

  By

★★★
“Brave, but too much heart?”

I was immensely stoked for Brave on a number of levels. First, Pixar kicks ass. With the exception of the underwhelming Cars and its pointless sequel, the quality of their work speaks for itself: Monsters, Inc is close to the finest animated movie of all time. Secondly, genuine action heroine films for the whole family are rare, to the point that they can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand over the past 25 years. Thirdly, it’s Scotland. Y’know, where I’m from. It’s the bit at the top of England. I feel I should mention this, because Pixar had originally tabbed Reese Witherspoon to voice the teenage, Scottish heroine, Merida. Fortunately, scheduling prevented this, and Pixar ended up with an all-Scottish lead cast.

I also note the somewhat troubled production: despite two names getting directorial credit, this wasn’t a co-direction. Mark Andrews replacing Brenda Chapman as a result of what Chapman called “creative differences.” This was certainly an embarrassment to Pixar, who had long been criticized for their very male-dominated output, and had made a big fuss about Brave, not just featuring a female heroine, but also written and directed by a woman. The problem, according to Andrews, was that the story was unfocused. He said, “Whose story it was – whether it was Merida or her mom’s story or Merida choosing which parent she was going to be more like – these things weren’t working.” Chapman was unimpressed, telling the NY Times, “To have it taken away and given to someone else, and a man at that, was truly distressing on so many levels.”

Does this impact the final movie? It’s hard to see how it couldn’t, either through a compromise of the original vision, or as a result of the realization, mid-way through production, that it wasn’t working. Not that it’s alone – many Pixar movies have had bumpy journeys to the screen. But in this case, the end result was greeted with muted box-office success. It seems odd to describe a movie that grossed $235 million as a disappointment, but Brave showed a lot less “legs” than most Pixar films. Almost all have gathered total US box-office receipts four times or better than their opening “wide” weekend. Brave’s multiplier, of 3.56, is ahead of only the woeful Cars 2 (2.89) in studio history.

Not to say it’s bad, because it certainly isn’t. Pixar have an absolute and complete handle on the technical aspects: even in 2D, this is the best-animated (if not necessarily the “best animated”) film of 2012. The landscapes are lush to the point of seeming photographic, the characters are richly-detailed, down to the last red-haired ringlet on Merida’s head, and in motion, you remember why Pixar is #1. And there are plenty of moments where everything comes together. Witness the sequence below, depicting a contest between three suitors to win the hand of Merica. It is filled with 100% pure awesome, climaxing with the heroine’s declaration, “I am Merida, and I’ll be shooting for my own hand,” before she literally bursts out of the confines of princessly expectations.

The problems are more with plotting – basically, the issue described above by Chapman is still present. The story starts in one direction, looking suitably action-oriented. It’s difficult to provide any specifics without giving spoilers – there’s a major plot-point not even hinted at in the trailers, which certainly surprised me. But I can see that it abruptly changes direction in the middle, going in a much less satisfactory direction, that seems almost to push Merida into the background of her own story. Even the climax relies less on any innate abilities of our heroine, such as her much-touted archery, or even her temperament, more the fortuitous toppling of a large geological entity [I doubt the film would have sold quite as well had it been named “Lucky”].

This conclusion is set up by the sort of happy compromise that is only deemed acceptable by both sides in fairy stories – anyone who has had a teenage daughter can vouch for this. I also have some qualms about the arranged marriage subplot that drives the first half of the film, which is depicted as little more than a “You’re going to do your homework, young lady, whether you like it or not” kind of way, which seems facile and dubious, even for a Disney-produced cartoon. And the introduction of “magic”, for the first time in a Pixar film, allows for the sort of convenient story developments that does nothing but weaken the overall structure. It’s not even a magical universe, instead, it’s more or less a one-shot deal, necessary to the plot.

It does fairly well in avoiding the Scottish clichés: one haggis joke, a random act of indecent exposure, and a soundtrack which oozes wannabe tartan are about it. The lack of any romantic love interest for the heroine is delightfully refreshing, and the lead actors all do a very, very good job in their roles, bringing their characters to life beautifully, to a degree that you can’t imagine any other voices coming out of their mouths. [I repeat: Reese Witherspoon?] It’s not boring. but fails to engross in the way that the better Pixar movies invariably succeed in doing. I got to the end entertained, but without any real sense of investment in Merida or her fate. Put bluntly: I just didn’t care about her, and the film succeeded mostly as a commercial for the Scottish Tourist Board. As a dramatic entity on its own merits, this falls somewhere between Brother Bear and Freaky Friday.

Dir: Mark Andrews + Brenda Chapman
Star (voice): Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Julie Walters

Yakuza Hunters: Revenge Duel In Hell

  By

★★½
“The Good, The Bad And The Hardly Ugly.”

If its predecessor (reviewed here as Sukeban Hunters) echoed the tropes of pinky violence, this one seems to have much more in common with Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns. A mysterious stranger with a dark past rides into town, only to find that the violence they sought to escape has no intention of leaving them alone, and they must once again put on their weapons to fight for…something or other. Here, it’s returning Yakuza hunter Asami (as before, conveniently played by…Asami), who comes back to visit her old master, now a bar-owner, Inokuma (Kato), who arranges for her to stay with Miki (Yoshiyuki), who used to be a bit of a Yakuza hunter in her younger days. But all is not well, for the evil Shoryu clan are intent on turfing everyone out so they can build a casino. When that turns out to include both Inokuma and Miki, with extreme prejudice, Asami must take on both their minions and the hired uber-killer Akira (Miwa), who proves she is more than a match for most.

It certainly hits the ground running, the Shoryu members wielding a chainsaw in a deeply brutal fashion on both male and female victims, but overall, it’s just a tad less worthy than the original – there were times, particularly with regard to the audio, when the cheapness just seemed too much to handle. On the plus side, most of the gore effects are practical, rather than CGI, which was a welcome surprise after watching several genre entries from the Sushi Typhoon stable, and the action sequences are occasionally surprisingly impressive, most notably when Asami battles two Shoryu henchmen, in what’s effective a single take for each fight. However, the final battle – which, it’s no spoiler to say, is between Asami and Akira – is a disappointment, with flaky CGI and a really dubious conclusion.

Supposedly set three years after part one, I’d guess it was more or less filmed back-to-back, though there’s enough continuity issues to make me steer clear of calling this a “sequel” – not least, Asami possessing several more fingers than she should. I can see what the makers were aiming for [not least the soundtrack, which shamelessly adopts the spirit of Ennio Morricone], but they’ve picked a much harder target this time. They don’t have the necessary ability to pull it off, and the results don’t make up for the shortfall in skill with adequate energy.

Dir: Shinichi Okuda
Star: Asami, Yumi Yoshiyuki, Sakichi Kato, Hitomi Miwa

Hannah’s Law

  By

★★★
“A straightforward tale of revenge, Western style.”

In 1866, the young child Hannah Beaumont (Canning, best known for her role in The Vampire Diaries) watches as the rest of her family is slaughtered by outlaw Frank McMurphy (Pyper-Ferguson). Twelve years later, Hannah is now getting her long-awaited revenge. Having been trained to shoot, ride and collect the bounty on wanted men by Isom Dart (Danny Glover in a small role), she is now reeling in the members of McMurphy’s gang, one by one. When McMurphy hears about this, he gathers up his entire posse and rides to Hannah’s base in Dodge City to finish off what he started, a decade before. Can Hannah – with the aid of the town’s deputy marshal, Wyatt Earp (Holt) and her other friends, come out on top?

Well, there’s really not much doubt about that, this being a Hallmark Original Movie. Which means, as well as good winning out, there will be no sex or bad language, and severely restraint is exercised on the violence front. That said, knowing this going in will help defuse much sense of anticipation, and if you can get past the feeling this belongs to a far kinder, gentler age of cinema, it’s not a bad time-passer. Canning doesn’t quite look the part, being too willowy to be convincing, but that really only attracts the attention during the occasional hand-to-hand scene – firearms are a great equalizer for size and strength. She does manage to exude the required amount of steely determination, which is likely more important for this role.

Director Talalay’s name may be familiar to GWG fans; she directed the flop Tank Girl back in 1995. From the IMDB list, this looks to be her first return to the action heroine field since, and she has her moments, not least the first encounter between McMurphy’s gang and the very alone Hannah in Dodge City. Credit also to Kennedy, who plays Doc Holliday by shamelessly channeling Val Kilmer from Tombstone, yet still comes across as a memorable character. However, the presence of both Glover and Kimberly Elise as black gunslinger Stagecoach Mary, imply a racial blindness to the era that one suspects is more based on modern hopes than historical accuracy. Still, while the net result is not particularly memorable, and is clearly more interested in fulfilling expectations than confounding them, it succeeds in reaching its modest goals, in a way that some previous entries in the genre could only envy.

Dir: Rachel Talalay
Star: Sara Canning, Greyston Holt, John Pyper-Ferguson, Ryan Kennedy

The Hike

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★★
“The Descent without the caves. Or monsters.”

Five young women head out into the country for a camping trip, led by Kate (Phythian), a former soldier who is stil traumatized by seeing her boyfriend killed in front of her while on a mission in the Middle East. She’s about the only member of the party who seems genuinely keen on the trip, and it’s not long before the others start to whine, demanding rest stops, and the hike is curtailed before the intended destination. At least the country is not entirely deserted, though the creepy East European guy and his two women isn’t exactly sociable. But at least there are the three nice guys, out for a spot of rock-climbing, led by Ethan (Loyd Holmes), so there’s always that. And if things end up getting dicey – say, if one of the women vanishes mysteriously, while out gathering firewood, the others can turn to Ethan and his chums for help. Right? Right?

With a bit more thought on characterization and dialogue, this could have been an effective exercise. When I say, “a bit,” I probably mean “an awful lot,” as apart from Kate, the women are at best flat and two-dimensional, and at worst, actively and significantly irritating. Do women really act and sound like that? It may be relevant the script was written by two men, and there are few surprises to be found here (especially if you’ve seen Eden Lake, a similarly-themed “rural nightmare” flick from the UK). The progression is so obvious that it doesn’t even count as a spoiler to reveal that Kate ends up the ‘final girl’, and it’s likely significant that the more the film focuses on her struggles for survival, the more effective it becomes, to the point where the last reel eventually delivers the tension and energy I’d hoped to see from the beginning.

It definitely does owe some inspiration to The Descent: I don’t think it’s coincidence that Shauna McDonald has a small role as Ethan’s wife. However, I also note Nedeljacova’s role in the Hostel series, which perhaps has rather more in common with this, as the movie relishes the rape and degradation elements to a greater degree than I like. Phythian does what she can with the role and comes over as a decent heroine, who goes through hell and back again over the course of 24 hours. However, there are plenty of better entries in the genre, and little otherwise to recommend this one.

Dir: Rupert Bryan
Star: Zara Phythian, Ben Loyd Holmes, Barbara Nedeljacova, Daniel Caren

Robogeisha

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★★★½
“‘I, too, have an ass-sword.’ That quote about sums this up.”

Having been largely unimpressed by Iguchi’s other work, which seemed to have little to offer except megabytes of digital blood, I likely wouldn’t have watched this except an accident involving beer and my Apple TV remote has stopped me from much of my usual viewing. I could still stream from Netflix, however, though when I saw this was dubbed in English, I almost didn’t bother. But surprisingly, this has easily the best plot of his movies, with a slyly-twisted sense of imagination that’s very effective.

It centres on sisters Yoshie (Kiguchi) and Kikue (Hasebe), the latter a geisha who is cruel and vindictive to her younger sister. They are taken by Hikaru Kageno (Saito), the scion of Kageno Steel, to his castle and inducted as recruits into a geisha army, which he is using to take out opponents to his plans for national domination. Yoshie has an innate skill for assassination, soon surpassing Kikeu, who begs Hikaru to “upgrade” her mechanically, so she can best her sister. Yoshie, to keep up, is similarly enhanced.

The scenario shifts when Yoshie is sent to take out a group of senior citizens and discovers they are the families of other members of the geisha army – far from being willing volunteers, they were abducted and brainwashed by Kageno and his father. After narrowly escaping a suicide mission, Yoshie switches sides and joins the senior citizens, who add further to her artificial armoury. It’s up to her to stop Kageno, before he can drop a massive nuclear weapon into Mount Fuji, completing his plan.

This is certainly out there, but is a good deal lighter in tone than expected, often crossing the border into an outright silliness that is actually endearing. For instance the whose “castle-shaped robot” concept is beautifully ludicrous, not least as the building rampages around, whacking building that then spurt blood, for no readily apparent reason. There’s also shades of 60’s spy thrillers like Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs in the basic concept of the geisha army, though there’s still a certain ass-fetishism which I could have done without – swords and shuriken both come flying out of there.

Complaining that this is, to quote Monty Python, “too silly,” would be missing the point, and the fight sequences are well put-together, not least when involving Kageno’s lead henchwomen, the Tengu Twins. At over 100 minutes, it is likely a little too long and these are less performances, than hangers, on which to place lurid visuals of questionable taste. However, you will want to keep watching, simply to see what the heck Iguchi will come up with next.

Dir: Noboru Iguchi
Star: Aya Kiguchi, Hitomi Hasebe, Takumi Saito, Taro Shigaki