Category: Review

Lady Vengeance

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★★★★
“Revenge is a bitch…”

This film may need two viewings. First time up, I was irritated by an apparent lack of coherence – which was particularly annoying, since the non-linear storyline seemed almost completely superfluous. Second time round, it bothered me less though remained, perhaps deliberately, disorienting, and I still doubt the need for it. But the re-view left me better able to appreciate the great central idea, a chilling meditation on justice, revenge, the thin line between the two, and the effects on those who become involved. The final part of Park’s loose trilogy (after Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy) is the story of “kind-hearted Geum-ja” (Lee), who spends 13 years in prison, for the heinous murder of a young child. Except, she isn’t guilty, and spends the time forging alliances which will help with her new goal: revenge on the real perpetrator (Choi).

The pace is stately, rather than adrenalin-driven, yet there’s no denying its place here. Much credit to Lee for a great performance in a complex character, capable of huge sacrifice in her quest for redemption: she cuts off a finger in front of the victim’s parents, and has to be physically restrained from removing more. Yet it seems that her charity and good deeds, such as donating a kidney to a fellow prisoner, may be part of her vengeance. And then, when her goal is within grasp…she steps back to allow others, perhaps better-motivated, to take her place. Or is the opportunity that she offers a poisoned chalice? The questions asked have no easy answers; neither proponents of capital punishment, nor those opposed to it, will find it comfortable viewing. By the end, there are no victims left; everyone is guilty – to use the old Sex Pistols line, no-one is innocent.

he DVD was released by Tartan Video USA on September 26th, and includes an interview with Park, a ‘making of’ documentary, and no less than three commentaries. Nice job! For more information, visit the Tartan Video USA site.
a.k.a. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Dir: Park Chan-Wook
Stars: Lee Young-ae, Choi Min-sik, Kim Si-Hu, Nam Il-Woo

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

  By

satana-kickass★★★★★
“The Smell of Female”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Violence. The word and the act. While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favourite mantle still remains – sex. Violence devours all it touches, its voracious appetite rarely fulfilled. Yet violence doesn’t only destroy. It creates and moulds as well. Let’s examine closely then this dangerously evil creation, this new breed encased and contained within the supple skin of woman. The softness is there, the unmistakeable smell of female. the surface shiny and silken. The body yielding yet wanton. But a word of caution: handle with care and don’t drop your guard. This rapacious new breed prowls both alone and in packs. Operating at any level, at any time, anywhere and with anybody. Who are they? One might be your secretary, your doctor’s receptionist, or a dancer in a go-go club!”

Made more than forty years ago, Faster was decades ahead of its time – which may explain why it was such a resounding flop on initial release. But in his autobiography, John Waters called it, “The best movie ever made, and possibly better than any movie that will ever be made,” and helped resurrect it: Rob Zombie is another big fan, and introduced its recent screening on – of all places! – Turner Classic Movies. For this is the kind of film, hell, the kind of title, Quentin Tarantino wishes in his wet dreams he could create. And yet, it’s also an interesting example of censorship as artistically productive: probably the tamest of Meyer’s films: subsequently (and, often, before) they would contain a great deal more explicit nudity. But very rarely did he ever come close to the same artistic heights.

It tells the story of three girls: go-go dancers, hot-rod racers and outlaws, led by Varla (Satana). One afternoon, their chilling in the desert is rudely interrupted by Tommy and Linda (Bernard, who’d become a Playboy centerfold in 1966), a “square” couple who also have a car. After racing against them, Tommy and Varla get into a fight, which ends with Varla snapping his back. The trio kidnap Linda, and drive off. Stopping to get gas, they hear from the attendant about a crippled old man, who lives with his two sons, and is rumoured to have a fortune as the result of an accident. The girls decide to pay him a visit, and relieve him of his money – only to find out that he may be even more twisted and sadistic than they are…

Where to start? What about with the dialogue, which is prime, ripe and firm as last year’s Gouda, even if Satana has a slightly-irritating tendency to belt out every line at the top of her lungs. But as Rosie (Haji) says, “Honey, we don’t like nothin’ soft! Everything we touch is hard!” – these broads are “like a velvet glove, cast in iron,” as another memorable line reports. Or, as Varla puts it, “I never try anything. I just do it.” Almost every line has a sneer attached to it, and while none of the actresses went on to do anything else of real significance, they are all perfect here. They’re obviously playing characters, but their characters are also playing characters, so it all ties together with either remarkable happenstance, or artistic genius.

Often neglected are the male contributors, in particular Stuart Lancaster as the target of their scheme. Though confined to a wheelchair, he rules his twisted clan with a rod of iron; in many ways, this is an ancestor of the family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with ‘the vegetable’ – as even his own father refers to him – a kinder, gentler version of Leatherface. Seeing the old man slobbering over Linda certainly shifts the audience, and helps to turn the murderous Varla and the other girls from villains into heroines, even as they progress their plan of robbery, because you sense their fate could end up being worse than death.

Rarely have all the aspects of a film come together with such perfection: it’s like throwing a dozen die and watching them all come up sixes. The editing; the script; the casting; the performances; the theme-tune alone is one of the best of the decade, and all the music helps drive the film along at a relentless pace. You could argue that it’s all idiotically unrealistic, and I would be hard-pushed to disagree. But I would, however, counter that this is much of the film’s appeal: it takes place in an alternate universe ruled by large-breasted, leather-clad, superwomen. Speaking personally, that may not be somewhere I’d want to live, but boy, it sounds like a fun place to visit. :-)

A militant feminist a decade before feminism was popular, Varla is also among the first openly bisexual women in cinema history, and the film is remarkably unjudgemental about the sexuality of any of the women. This helps explain why the movie’s cult appeal crosses so many boundaries, from the gay community to hardcore punk. And though they’re nothing to raise eyebrows today, Satana also used martial arts when they were almost unheard of in Hollywood. It’s sardonic, trailer-trash chic from an era that had yet to grasp fully the entertainment value of such irony. Others would aim at the same targets subsequently, mixing sex with violence in various ratios (Barbarella, Danger: Diabolik, The Perils of Gwendoline), but even now, few have come closer to capturing the heady, hyper-kinetic approach of Meyer’s finest work.

Dir: Russ Meyer
Stars: Tura Satana, Lori Williams, Haji, Sue Bernard

Big Bad Mama II

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★★½
“Non-threatening mayhem and a healthy dose of gratuitous skin.”

A Roger Corman production. Those four words cover much turf, both good and bad; this inclines toward the latter, simply because it takes an interesting premise, and goes next to nowhere with it. It’s less a sequel to, than a remake of the 1974 film, also starring Dickinson, which is generally believed to be superior. However, that isn’t on heavy cable rotation this month, so you’re stuck with the follow-up. Dickinson plays Wilma McClatchie, evicted from her home by uncaring businessman Morgan Crawford, and whose husband is killed in the process. She and her daughters Billie-Jean and Polly take up a life outside the law, but when Crawford makes a run for governor, their crimes take on a political perspective, as they aim to sabotage his campaign.

However, this is far too flimsy a production to support any social subtext, and while there’s certainly plenty of ammunition expended, the action scenes have almost no impact at all [though there’s an amazingly enthusiastic bit of blood squibbing at the end that is memorable]. Brisebois and McCullough, playing her daughters, are there largely to add skin to the production, though have a certain naive charm – incidentally, I suspect Dickinson’s nude scenes were body doubled, unlike the original film. Given she was in her mid-50’s by the time this was made, it’s understandable. She still has undeniable presence and that’s what keeps the film ticking; Culp has fun with his role as a journalist, hot on the family’s trail.

There’s a fairly useless subplot in which they kidnap Morgan’s son (Jeff Yagher) and turn him to a life of crime – I’m sure the presence of the nubile daughters was in no way an encouragement. Naturally, however, it all ends in a massive gunbattle, but given the generally fluffy nature of proceedings, it’s not much of a spoiler to say that Big Bad Mama III remains a possibility. [Hell, the ending of the original pretty much ruled out a sequel, logically speaking] How old is Angie Dickinson these days?

Dir: Jim Wynorski
Stars: Angie Dickinson, Danielle Brisebois, Julie McCullough, Robert Culp

Public Enemies

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★★★
“Historical accuracy? It’s vastly over-rated…”

The story of Ma Barker, legendary leader of a bank-robbing gang consisting mainly of her sons, has inspired multiple movies, from relatively well-known (Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama) to obscurist (Ma Barker’s Killer Brood from 1960). They all play extremely fast and loose with the facts, upping Ma’s role from a travelling companion for her sons, who rarely if ever got involved in their crimes, to the undisputed leader, who wielded a mean tommy-gun. The FBI at the time leaned towards the latter, but that was perhaps because they ended up gunning down Ma and some of her sons. [Hey, I don’t regard historical fact as meriting a spoiler warning. At the end of Titanic, the ship sinks.]

This is a cheery enough romp, making up for in blood squibs what it lacks in historical accuracy, depth or significant character development. Russell holds the film together well at the center, but it’s all shallow – hints (totally unjustified, as far as I know) of an abusive childhood are about the closest we get to psychological insights. There’s also creepy hints of incest between Ma and her sons – which reminds me that, contrary to her prominent cover position, Alyssa Milano’s role is minor, as a “gang whore”. If the dramatic side is half-baked, the action is good, with a real sense of the FBI being out-gunned. They actually were in their early days, though the level of ineptness shown here, with regards to stakeouts and ambushes, is difficult to swallow.

Especially towards the start, the narrative is lumpen and certainly doesn’t grab you immediately. Once the main thread becomes apparent – agent Melvin Purvis (Cortese) tries, but fails, to capture Barker and her gang – the film can devote energy towards this, and becomes more successful. It’d have been interesting had the connection between Purvis and Barker been made more significant; there’s an interesting scene where a drunk Barker rails against her hunter on the telephone, hinting at the potential here. However, I doubt the director of Commando was really interested much in subtle underpinnings, and on the whole it’s probably for the best he doesn’t even try.

Dir: Mark L. Lester
Stars: Theresa Russell, Dan Cortese, James Marsden, Frank Stallone

License to Steal

  By

★★★★½
“Thieves Like Us.”

This is an largely over-looked gem, featuring the future Mrs. Samo Hung (Godenzi – they married in 1995) in a role and performance which are so excellent, as to make you wonder why she apparently quit the cinema the following year [though she does have a cameo in Mr. Nice Guy, appearing in the cooking show audience]. She first came to attention in Eastern Condors and, despite a lack of training, developed a graceful, fluid style of action that works well. Her best known vehicle is She Shoots Straight, but for my money, this is even better.

She plays Hung, one of three sisters who are the business end of a family of thieves. Their guardian decides to pass the clan on to Hung, but another sister, Ngan (Aurelio, also from She Shoots Straight) wants control – she fixes a job so that Hung is captured, then takes over operations, using brute force and murder rather than skill and agility on their robberies. Three years later, Hung’s sentence is ended, but her sister immediately frames her again: to avoid jail, Hung agrees to co-operate with the police and work towards capturing her sister. She discovers Ngan has been hired to steal Napoleon’s death-mask, and the film climaxes with the two sisters battling each other inside the warehouse where the treasure is guarded.

This is almost two plots for the price of one, as on the police side, you have the investigating cop (Ng), who has to keep an eye both on his new partner (Ngai Sing) and a swordplay-novel obsessed nephew (Yuen Biao), who both want to help, but together are as much a distraction as an assistance. This lends itself to the usual goofy and unsubtle HK comedy – for example, Ng stripping to his boxers after believing there’s a bomb hidden in them – though these aspects don’t grate nearly as badly as I’ve seen elsewhere. There are also a bunch of cool moments to the plot which are probably unnecessary, in the larger scheme of things, but are thoroughly satisfying, and suggest someone actually thought the script out, again something not always the case in HK action cinema.

Godenzi is great, putting over a great combination of coolness and charisma, with a confident attitude that’s wholly justified. It’s established in the first scene that she knows how to push her sister’s buttons, and this comes back into play right at the end. Aurelio, a Filipina powerlifting champion, is a little less adept at acting, but is well-cast as the villainess, with a good sneer. There’s one amazing, politically-incorrect exchange between the characters, when they meet for the first time after Hung’s release from jail. Ngan sneers, “You look plump,” to which Hung replies, “Better than you, with sunburn like a nigger!” Ah, the 1990’s…

But this one is less about offensive banter, than action scenes which are top-notch, from the opening practice duel between the sisters, through to the final battle – this time for real. It’s particularly inventive as, early on, the sisters have to fight each other without making a sound, to avoid alerting the guards The highlight is, however, probably an amazing fight in a car-park – one of the top locations for mayhem in HK films, right up there with restaurants and warehouses – where everyone bar Aurelio gets involved. Her role as top villain there is delegated to Billy Chow, who went toe-to-toe with Jet Li in Fist of Legend, and he’s one hell of a formidable opponent. The action choreography is credited to Lee King-chu, but I suspect producer Samo Hung had more than a little involvement.

There is little or no depth here, only really what Godenzi brings to the table. But there is, equally, little or no intent of depth either: this was created purely as entertainment, nothing more, and on that level it succeeds admirably. It’s a real shame Godenzi chose not to follow a career as an action actress since, on this showing, she could well have ended up as big a star in the field as Michelle Yeoh.

[A note on spelling. The sleeve says ‘LicenCe’, but the print goes with the S. The former is also grammatically inaccurate, so I’ve gone with the S spelling throughout this article.]

Dir: Billy Chan
Stars: Joyce Godenzi, Agnes Aurelio, Richard Ng, Alvina Kong

Model Operandi: Affair of the Heart

  By

★★★★

Back in the day, I was a big comics fan, but have largely ignored the medium since coming to America in 2000 [there are still two large, unopened boxes in the hallway closet!] I think it’s perhaps the Scot in me coming out: graphic novels are an expensive way to pass an hour or so. Props first, therefore, to Caramagna and Budd, for keeping the cost of their first issue to an extremely reasonable price The story therein centers on the theft in France of a priceless diamond, the Heart of Josephine, and the quest of supermodel Legsy Diamond and Ann Lezbee, the implausibly-bosomed Special Ops Presidential Intern, to retrieve it.

Perhaps the biggest weakness is this storyline tries to cram too much in. As well as the search for the diamond, we also have Legsy’s family background, inter-model agency rivalry, her boss’s previous intrigues, a relationship with an investigating cop, and so on. While this sets up many potential storylines for future issues, it does feel somewhat heavily laid-on, and I tend to feel that less would be more. They’re going for an almost-Alias level of complexity, but twenty-plus hour-long episodes gives you much more scope for exposition than 88 pages, especially in an action-oriented title like this.

That said, the artwork rocks. Bright, crisp, colours mesh perfectly with bold lines, and capture the pop aesthetic delightfully. Every page is the kind of work which deserves to be framed and hung on the wall – though occasionally is perhaps a little too breast-fixated for me to really appreciate it! [I read it in the canteen at work, and felt a little uncomfortable doing so now and again 8-)] Style-wise, I was reminded a bit of the Adam Warren Dirty Pair comics, and that’s pretty high praise since I do have a page of art from that hanging on the wall here. I’m certainly looking forward to future editions, and this first issue is something any action heroine fan should check out.

Available now from AHP Comics, 88 pages, $5.99
Words and Ink: Joe Caramagna
Pencils and Colors: Dennis Budd

Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior

  By

★★★
“Into every third generation, a slay..ah, warrior is born.”

It’s kinda sad to say, but the action in this Disney TV movie kicks the ass of, not only most TV shows, but a credible number of Hollywood films. Then again, behind the fights here is Koichi Sakamoto, who is also responsible for Drive, among the best American martial-arts films of all time. And while obviously “Disneyfied”, this is still sprightly and engaging, with a couple of very decent fight sequences. It is, however, extremely influenced by Buffy: an unwilling heroine (Song) destined to face down evil on the night of a major school event, under the care and tuition of a mysterious guardian? Joss Whedon should have a word with his lawyers. However, the Chinese cultural twist is nice, not least the Shaolin Soccer riffs, though neither lead actually is Chinese.

This does pose problems, the film trying hard to be culturally “sensitive”; Wendy struggles between wanting to be a “normal” American girl, and her Chinese heritage. This is clunkily handled and does drag the middle of the film down, as the whole Homecoming Queen plot-thread is simply not very interesting, and adds nothing of significance to the film. Things do perk up again, when her teachers get taken over by monk spirits, to assist with her training. It then heads to the finale in a deserted museum where Wendy and her “watcher”, Shen (Koyamada), must face an possessed-schoolmate and a host of terracotta warriors. I stumbled on this by accident, in an advert break during a baseball game on a neighbouring channel, and enjoyed it, despite being about three times the target audience’s age. Some more action would certainly have been preferred, but between this and Kim Possible, Disney have as good a claim to being the home of action heroine TV as any channel.

Dir: John Laing
Stars: Brenda Song, Shin Koyamada, Justin Chon, Andy Fischer-Price

Belle Starr

  By

★★★½
“Proto-action heroine, with a real-life inspiration, and some questionable philosophy.”

There’s something startlingly incorrect about this 1941 film, which makes its heroine, Belle (Tierney), an unrepentant Confederate mansion owner. She regrets the end of the Civil War and joins a rebel group who keep fighting, marrying their leader Sam Starr (Scott), only to find their morality may not quite live up to her own. It’s interestingly even-handed, with neither side being “good” or “bad”; Belle blames the Yankees for the death of her father and the burning of her home, but the leader of their forces, Major Grail (Andrews) is a sympathetic character who carries a torch for Belle. Naturally, given the era, Belle is more of an assistant, loading Sam’s rifles during a gun-battle, rather than firing them herself and it’s remarkable how her hair and dresses remain impeccable, even when she’s livin’ la vida outlaw. However, she’s a fine, independent-minded heroine, prepared to take decisive action to support her beliefs – highly dubious though they may be.

An obvious inspiration here is Gone With the Wind, but it’s also worth noting that Belle Starr was a real outlaw, whose life would make a good story on its own. She did marry a Sam Starr, but he was three-quarter Cherokee, rather than a Confederate officer. There also wasn’t quite the same pure, high purpose to their banditry, though her destiny, as depicted in the film, is close to what happened to her in real life. For some reason, this has not been deemed worthy of a release on DVD – I believe, Bill Cosby bought the rights. :-) But it does crop up on cable, and is worth a look; just leave all modern sensibilities at the door. If you can imagine a German movie which has Ilsa Koch as its heroine, escaping the Allies to join a group of rebel Nazis and continue the war, you’ll be in the same moral ball-park as this feature.

Dir: Irving Cummings
Stars: Gene Tierney, Randolph Scott, Dana Andrews, John Shepperd

The Nest

  By

★★★★
“Aliens Assault on Precinct of the Living Seven.”

Despite influences all over the place – Assault on Precinct 13, Aliens, Night of the Living Dead, The Magnificent Seven – Siri takes and runs with them very effectively. Laborie (Farès) is a career soldier, tasked with transporting an Albanian gangster to his trial; but the convoy is ambushed, so she and her men hole up in a nearby warehouse on a deserted industrial estate. However, it is being robbed by brothers Santino (Magimel) and Nasser (Naceri), plus their crew – and the attackers have also followed them, intent on rescuing their boss. Can they survive until help arrives?

It’s a well-constructed story, with some thought going into the explanations. Part of the thieves’ preparation was to black out cellphones in the area, and the film takes place on Bastille Day, so fireworks drown out the gun-battle. The violence is also nicely realistic; when people get shot, they stay hit; fans of the game Counterstrike will particularly enjoy this. But the rest of us should too. Laborie is a serious action heroine, who takes no nonsense as she takes charge, wielding authority and her assault-rifle with equal proficiency. And the tension mounts inexorably, as the faceless enemy close in, cutting off the space to those trapped within.

The ending is arguably a little weak, and there is the occasional dip into cliche – Laborie gazing at a photo of her kid, for example. However, on the whole, this is a fine, well-crafted piece of entertainment, which beats up most similar attempts to come out of Hollywood lately. Siri has since headed that way (he directed Bruce Willis in Hostage), and one hopes the studio system does not dilute his undeniable eye for action. Give him Resident Evil 3, with Farès alongside Jovovich, and we are so there. :-)

Dir: Florent Emilio Siri
Stars: Nadia Farès, Benoît Magimel, Samy Naceri, Anisia Uzeyman

Alias: season five

  By

★★★
“And they all lived happily ever after. Except for the ones who didn’t.”

Our once-favourite TV show walks off into the sunset – literally – and we are confirmed in our belief that it is very, very hard to keep interest in a series going past the third season. Especially if you’re creator JJ Abrams, who was missing, presumably making the very Alias-like Mission Impossible III; he didn’t even return to write or direct the season finale. It was, on the whole, a credible stab at trying up loose ends: Rambaldi, the question of whether Sloan was good or evil, Syd’s relationship with her mother, and the real identity of Vaughan, about to be revealed at the end of season four, when he and Sidney were in a car-wreck. This led into the main arc of the series, a hunt for ‘Prophet 5’, a shadowy organization intent on the usual things shadowy organizations want. As opposed to, say, the Alliance, the Covenant, K-Directorate, SD-6, etc…

There was also Garner’s pregnancy, which was written into the show, but obviously interfered hugely with any action sequences. Gone were the days when every episode would include Sydney running; in the first half of the series, we were lucky to see her in any kind of motion at all. As an alternate, we got Rachel, in a similar position to that once occupied by Sydney – believing she worked for the government, but actually not; she got sent on assignments in Syd’s place. With Vaughan also out of action for most of the series, another new agent, Thomas Grace, joined the team, but the kindest thing you could say about either was that they were forgettable. The aim was, presumably, to have them replacing S+V, but with the show ending, they became irrelevant.

Rather more successful was Renée Rienne (Élodie Bouchez), an interestingly ambivalent freelancer who straddled the line between working with Sydney and opposing her. We were also pleased to see the return of Anna Espinoza, a classic enemy from early on who, in an unsubtly rehashed plotline, gets turned into Bad Sydney. Enthusiasm for the show wasn’t helped by a long hiatus after Thanksgiving, but things rebounded as the show galloped towards its conclusion where the bad guys largely got their come-uppance. We’re sorry to see the show end – it leaves primetime TV without an action-heroine show – and there will be a little void in our lives as a result. But we’ll always have the DVDs of Series 1+2.

Star: Jennifer Garner, Michael Vartan, Victor Garber, Ron Rifkin