★★★½
Director Ichimura returned for the fourth episode, and despite similar problems as the third installment – most obviously, an apparent doubt that Oichi’s character can hold the viewer’s interest by herself – makes a much better stab at things here. Bounty-hunter Oichi finds out what life is like on the other side of the law, after she helps rescue an unwilling bride from a local magistrate; he slaps a 100 gold-piece reward on her head, which naturally, brings other bounty-hunters on her trail, led by Sankuro (Meguro).
She ends up in a fishing village, where the “evil property developer” subplot makes a surprising appearance, despite the historical era. The reconstruction of the harbour threatens to put the locals out of work, but a plot is afoot among the local authorities to pay them only one gold piece each in compensation, rather than the 15 gold pieces actually provided by the federal government. Residents, officials, bounty-hunters and Oichi all inevitably collide, including one character played by Tetsuro Tamba, who remains even now one of the most respected (and prolific – the IMDB lists 193 films for him!) actors in Japanese cinema.
There’s a lot of devious double-crossing and deception here, which is okay to watch, but isn’t really the reason we watch these things. And that it also turns out to be Sankuro’s birthplace is too much of a fluke to swallow. Fortunately, it all builds nicely to an extended finale, where our heroine (now also framed for the murder of a village elder) gets a chance to take out her aggression and resentment on all those who have turned her life into that of a hunted animal. It’s a great urban battle, through the town which is being demolished around her, in and out of buildings until she finally confronts the chief villain of the piece.
Though this was the last entry in the series, there isn’t much sense of closure at the end, with (and I trust I’m not really spoiling this for anyone) Oichi merely walking off into the sunset, alone again, naturally. One senses Shochiku were hoping to continue, but for whatever reason – most likely box-office success, or rather, the lack thereof – it never materialised. However, for a series from the 60’s, it was undeniably ahead of its time, and most of the films have survived the passage of three and a half decades in an impressive style. If any enterprising DVD company were to snap them up, the rewards would likely be significant.
Dir: Hirokazu Ichimura
Stars: Yoko Matsuyama, Yuki Meguro, Tetsuro Tanaba, Reiko Oshida
a.k.a. Mekura No Oichi Monogatari: Inochi Moraimasu
The third entry in the series saw a new director, and unfortunately, a marked turn for the worse, largely because the focus drifts off Oichi. It starts briskly enough, with the heroine coming into possession of a new, effective formula for gunpowder, something barely known at the time in Japan. Understandably, this makes her the focus of attention, in particular for a group with an interest in profiting from the discovery.
Later that same year (1969), Oichi was back in action, and at the start of Trapped, seems quite content with her life as a bounty-huntress. She has even adopted an orphan, just as she herself was taken in herself, but two things wreck this relatively happy situation. She discovers her protege is really a runaway, not an orphan, and consequently has to abandon her – again, as she was discarded. Worse yet, she incurs the wrath of fellow bounty-huntress Oen (Matsuoka), a kitten with a whip 
We meet our heroine Oichi as a young child, who has just been being abandoned by her mother – not sure what happened to father, but we later discover Mom’s a prostitute, so can probably fill in the blanks ourselves. To make matters worse, the tree under which Oichi takes shelter from a storm is struck by lightning, rendering her totally blind, in a way that’s – probably wisely – left medically unexplained. However, she is then taken in by a kind gentleman, who brings her up, and on into adulthood.
I liked, and enjoyed the original film, and at first, this seems to have a great chance at surpassing it. The opening fight between our two heroines, one (Choi) a slave-trader, the other (Chung) an enforcer for the Empress, is a masterpiece that combines wire-work, CGI and gimmickry – camerawork from Azumi and what looks like a mutant Klingon batleth – to fabulous (if not fully convincing) effect. All this in a mythical kingdom where women rule, and men are reduced to “dumbbells”, while the cast includes both Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen. Even if the connection to the original is tenuous at best, the potential here doesn’t need to be specified.
On the plus side, both Twins put in surprisingly solid performances – Choi, in particular, is much less irritating than before, though remains outshone by Chung. However, they still aren’t enough on their own to sustain a movie, despite the parade of celebrity cameos, especially when co-stars Chen and Fong are woefully short of the mark. With a $10.2 million budget, I just wish they’d spent a few more dollars on the script and some decent actors. Then, it might have lived up to the marvellous first fifteen minutes.
If the inspiration for this one wasn’t clear, Goro Yasukawa’s score will soon enlighten you: Sergio Leone. A character with a mysterious past and equally obscure agenda comes into a lawless town, and kicks ass. For The Man With No Name and his horse, read Saki (Yonekura) and her Harley. Given that Leone basically ripped off Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo in A Fistful of Dollars to begin with, the irony is satisfying. She has come to Tsuson – surely a nod to Tucson, less than two hours down the dusty Arizona I-10 from where I write this – to take on Tojo (Tsurumi), the local mob boss, who commits his crimes with impunity from the safety of an American Air Force base. She gets his attention when she interferes with his robbery of a wages truck, and takes the money herself. The two had met previously, though Tojo doesn’t recognise Saki; you’ll probably work out the basic circumstances long before the film reveals them, but it does add a couple of unexpectedly nasty twists of the knife.
I have to say, this film would probably merit a higher score given a better presentation. Not only is the GoodTimes DVD barely VHS quality, dubbed and horribly cropped, the dialogue is missing from the right audio. Worst of all, the two tracks are out of sync, meaning that every punch is accompanied by a double sound effect. If there’s a more dreadful DVD in existence, I don’t want to see it: those responsible should suffer the fate depicted in the fabulous poster, shown on the right.
There’s no doubt about the aesthetic they’re aiming for here; heroine with secret identity, sneering evil nemesis, gadgets, etc. Take a Marvel comic from the 60’s, transplant it to the modern Far East, and there you are. Indeed, this period is apparently where SilverHawk originated; unfortunately, the makers failed to learn from similar failures such as The Avengers, The Mod Squad and Wild Wild West, and the results are lacklustre.
isney movies are not the usual place to find action heroines: their classic woman is a princess, who sits in a castle and waits for someone of appropriately-royal blood to come and rescue her from whatever evil fate (wicked stepmother, poisoned spinning wheel, etc.) that has befallen her.
There’s also no threat of execution when her deception is found out – Chinese culture may perhaps actually have a more tolerant approach to such things, though this is admittedly going only by the likes of Peking Opera, and a good chunk of Brigitte Lin’s career. And, of course, both the romantic angle and amusing sidekick were modern additions. This contrasts sharply with one version of the original, which has the Emperor hearing of Mulan’s exploits, and demanding she becomes his concubine. Mulan commits suicide in preference to this fate, an ending that, for some reason, didn’t make it into the Disney adaptation…
That’s a shame, because the original still has a great deal to offer. Unlike many Disney films, the songs don’t bring proceedings to a grinding halt and are notably absent from the second half of the film. Indeed, the transition is deliberately abrupt: a band of happy, singing warriors is stopped mid-verse when they come across a burnt-out village which the Huns have exterminated (right). It’s a simple, but highly effective moment, where silence says a lot more than any words. [At one point a song for Mulan about the tragedy of war was considered, but this was dropped, along with Mushu’s song, Keep ‘Em Guessing – both decisions which can only be applauded.]
However, personally, I’d say the value of having a clearly non-Caucasian heroine (a first for any Disney film) outweighs relatively minor quibbles about subtext. It may be the last great hand-drawn animated feature from the studio which invented the genre, and all but defined it for sixty years, so I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending this as an empowering and highly entertaining tale for children – of any age, but especially those too young to read subtitles. There aren’t many action heroine films our entire family loves, but Mulan is definitely high on the list.
Another title in the ongoing Metropolitan Police Branch series, has much the same ingredients as the other entries: cheesecake and mildly competent action. I think this is the second entry, but as the three films have three different pairs of actresses playing policewomen heroines Mika and Rin (Hara + Iijima in this case), it’s clear continuity is less the purpose of the exercise than the aforementioned C + MCA.