Category: Review

Charlotte Gray

  By

★★★½
“Despite fine performances, this doesn’t know what it wants to be, and ends up between two stools.”

Love story or wartime thriller? The script here tries to have it both ways, and as a result of this uncertainty, the undeniable potential in the idea is unfulfilled. Gray (Blanchett) is dropped into Vichy France during World War II as an agent, but her bosses don’t realise she is more interested in finding her pilot lover (Penry-Jones), who’s been shot down nearby. While conflict between love, and love of country, would have been interesting, the former is almost ignored, then disposed of in a thoroughly unconvincing manner. Not that this diversion is uninteresting; you get a real sense of the terrors of war, with people being “vanished” in seconds, and the tension of living your life on a knife-edge behind enemy lines.

Mostly, the film is concerned with Charlotte’s protection of two Jewish children, and involvement in a resistance cell led by Julien (Crudup). They’re communists, so the British don’t really like them, but they’re convenient – and can be abandoned when necessary, the revelation of which provides the film with its most chilling moment. Blanchett has the right steely resolve for the role, and the cast is generally excellent; particular credit to Gambon (magnificently surly as Julien’s father), Ron Cook as Gray’s contact, and Anton Lesser, an oily collaborator who had us screaming “Die! Die!” at the TV set.

However, the movie never makes us understand why Charlotte would go to such extreme lengths for someone whom she’s known for only a few days. Also, Armstrong seems to have little or no idea how to direct action – not that you’d expect much else from the director of Little Women [one of only two films I’ve ever walked out of] – and the results fall far short of pulse-pounding. Was pleasantly surprised by the ending though, where the heroine discovers that war does indeed change everything. Pity it couldn’t change Blanchett’s dodgy Scottish accent.

Dir: Gillian Armstrong
Star: Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon, Rupert Penry-Jones

The Women Who Lived For Danger, by Marcus Binney

  By

★★★★
“Truth which proves to be just as exciting and interesting as any fiction.”

In World War II, the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) recruited and trained a number of women agents for insertion into occupied territory. There, they risked torture and execution, while carrying out missions of intelligence-gathering, subversion and sabotage. The exploits of some have received the recognition they deserve (such as Violette Szabo, who received both Britain’s George Cross and the French Croix de Guerre), but most seem to have slid through the cracks of time – Binney’s book is a solid and commendable effort to save at least a few from historical oblivion.

After a introductory chapters on agent recruitment, training and life in general, the book devotes a chapter to each of ten agents. Their backgrounds, characters, experiences and fates cover as wide a range as imaginable. There’s Virginia Hall, an American citizen who had a wooden leg but still climbed across the Pyrenees to get from France to Spain. Pearl Witherington, who controlled an entire region of French Maquis fighters after D-day. Szabo, who was executed in Ravensbruck. Paola del Din, aged 20, had just four days training for her work as a courier.

Perhaps most fascinating of all is Christina Granville (right), born Krystyna Skarbek in Poland. Described as “the most capable of all SOE’s women”, with “lightning reactions…extraordinary stamina and agility.” She could talk the Gestapo into releasing captured agents, and also persuaded the garrison at Larche to surrender. Her “film-star assurance and glamour” meant men hurled themselves at her feet: one spurned lover threw himself into the Danube, though the river, unfortunately, was frozen at the time. After surviving the war, however, another unwanted beau stabbed her dead in 1952. A movie of her life, starring Sir Winston Churchill’s daughter, was mooted but never occurred. An opportunity still awaits.

The book’s main flaw is less to do with the author than time; thanks to bureaucratic pruning and even a fire, SOE records are “maddeningly incomplete”. This means stories frequently have gaps or peter out, but this is inevitable when you write a historical record, 60 years after the event. Binney does occasionally get bogged down in tedious detail, but on the whole, this is fascinating reading. As the book concludes, “these women were to show…valour, determination and powers of endurance…They had to be alert, quick-witted, calm and unruffled, while constantly playing a part.” These are stories which deserve to be told.

By: Marcus Binney
Publisher: Coronet (UK), 2002, £7.99

Cat’s Eye

  By

★★★½
“Some truly great sequences lift this otherwise average manga adaptation.”

Despite an overall rating that is only mildly above average, when this is good, it is fabulous, and that’s why it merits recommendation. The highlight is probably a delirious first ten minutes, in which our three heroines steal a painting, and are pursued by the relentless and dogged Detective Hoshio (Harada), who doesn’t realise the cafe where he eats is run by the thieves he’s after. [If this sounds familiar, High-Heeled Punishers used a very similar idea in an S&M setting] This opening is lovely high-camp, played (as it should be) totally straight, with a beautiful sense of progression – both pursued and pursuers use wonderfully evolving gadgets.

Indeed, all the action is great. Unfortunately, instead of sticking to this simple concept, the major thrust has the trio seeking their father, an artist kidnapped 20 years ago, which brings them against the Chinese mafia and their assassin, Black Flag, played by Sho Kosugi’s son, Kane. This plot is badly-written, and drags the movie down like an anchor. Apparently, beyond basics, it also bears little resemblance to the 18-volume manga and 73-episode anime series which ran between 1981 and 1984, though I’m unfamiliar with them or the previous live-action version, a TV special aired in 1988.

Most fans seemed to hate this; as a neutral, I wasn’t so upset, though neither characters nor acting were exactly memorable – in particular, I found it hard to tell the heroines apart, especially when clad in their PVC cat-suits (complete with little pointy ears!). However, as disposable fluff, the time passed quickly enough, even if I would have loved more heists, and less flaky familial fiddling.

Dir: Kaizo Hiyashi
Star: Yuki Ichida, Izumi Inamori, Morika Fujiwara, Kenta Harada

GLOOW: Hovember to Remember

  By

★★½
“Someone, someday will run a serious US women’s wrestling federation. GLOOW is not that group.”

I keep buying DVDs like this, hoping against hope to strike gold. Not to say it doesn’t have the occasional guilty pleasure, but knowing the name used to stand for “Gorgeous Ladies of Oil Wrestling” (the second O eventually became “Outrageous”), should give you a rough idea of what to expect on this DVD, filmed in November 2002 at the Pennsylvania National Guard Armory. If not, then bouts such as the Battle of the High School Virgins or Hardcore Bra and Thong Match should provide a clue, and explain why Chris was rolling her eyes at the prospect.

However, she’d probably admit it wasn’t quite as tacky as feared – no actual titties, and I definitely saw her smirking in the tag-team battle featuring midgets Little Louie and King Sleazy (and who’d disagree?). Nor could she deny that ‘Prime Time’ Amy Lee vs. Riptide, who cuts a great promo, was also a damn fine brawl. Though you couldn’t tell by moronic commentators Jeffrey J. James and Eric Garguilo, who give teenage humour a bad name, but at least the sound quality on the DVD was mercifully poor and their drooling frequently inaudible. Oddly, for a women’s fed, they had a man (Greg Matthews, from Tough Enough) wrestle champion G.I. Ho for the title. This was okay too, despite a cop-out ending that demonstrated another problem – watching this in isolation, you had no idea of the storylines leading up to it, or who half the characters were.

While GLOOW seems to have died, many of them are now part of Women’s Extreme Wrestling. It was from their Ebay seller, soprovideo, that I got this double DVD set, though buyers should beware: the discs took six weeks to arrive, were DVD-R (with the title written in Sharpie), and the second one refused to work in the player, and had to be nursed on the PC. Still, I only paid $6, not the $29.95 price on the site. Needless to say, that’d be far too much to pay for one memorable bout and a lot of juvenilia.

Ebony, Ivory & Jade

  By

★★
“Plus Teak and Porcelain…but not forgetting Milo.”

As well as its questionable use of the apostrophe, the cover kinda implies that three girls are involved here, which is only true for a small fraction of the running time. It starts off with five female athletes, including rich heiress Ginger, being kidnapped in the Philli…er, “Hong Kong”, and held for ransom. Their subsequent frequent attempts to escape are hampered by a difficulty in grasping the idea that, when you knock someone out, it’s okay to take their gun. But not everything is as it seems with regard to their “kidnapping”.

Oddly, there’s some primitive attempts at social commentary here, not least the conflict between black and white within the athletes, and the fact that one of their escape attempts is aided by a Communist rebel. We were also amused by the extremely crude product placement for “Milo”, which I presume is some kind of beverage popular in the Philippines – if not, perhaps, Hong Kong.

However, despite all this, and funky 70’s music which often seemed in danger of toppling over into either Bond or The Avengers theme, it gets tedious fast. This is not least because the electricity for the production must have been cut off half-way through, leaving the viewer to peer into murky gloom for the remainder. The doubling for the women’s stunts is often painfully obvious, and I bring to your attention the PG-rating this received in 1976, so don’t expect gratuitous nudity. Over at badmovieplanet.com, they have the sleeve blurb from when it was known as Foxforce. Truly hysterical, in both senses, save your time and money: read that, rather than watching the film.

Dir: Cirio H. Santiago
Star: Rosanne Katon, Colleen Camp, Sylvia Anderson

Bad Girls: season three

  By

★★★½
“Too much soap and not enough opera, but still entertaining.”

The third series hit the ground running, Michelle Dockley taking evil warder Jim Fenner hostage, after stabbing him in the stomach with a broken bottle (to loud cheers here), and Nikki Wade breaking into jail, having gone to see Helen Stewart. However, in the middle, Michelle and Denny headed to Spain, with Fenner’s help. After a really grim episode, in which they took Sylvia Hollanby and her husband hostage (it felt like Last House on the Left 2), the show seemed to lose impetus, and spent the second half spiralling round a series of love triangles: Nikki/Helen/Thomas, Di/Josh/Crystal, Di/Gina/Mark. Chuck in two “surprise pregnancies” and, while soap-opera has always been part of the show, this was overkill.

The loss of Michelle was particularly apparent. An attempt to introduce a new “evil slut” prisoner was a failure; Maxi, leader of the Peckham Boot Gang, simply came across as a pale imitation. However, there was still plenty to enjoy, and the series finished strongly, with the arrival and departure of Victoria O’Kane (a great guest spot for 70’s icon Kate O’Mara), Nikki’s appeal, plus Michelle and Denny’s Butch & Sundance moment in Spain. The end of this series saw a couple of major departures, and the show will have to work hard to fill the gaps in the roster – we look forward to seeing whether the makers are up to the challenge.

Stars: Mandana Jones, Simone Lahbib, Linda Henry, Jack Ellis

Azumi

  By

★★★★½
“No matter how much I try to escape, I can’t avoid it… I am forced to kill.”

The moment that I heard this female samurai pic was from the director of Versus, I started drooling uncontrollably. [See the Trash City review for why] And if the end product is a slight disappointment, it is only because it doesn’t quite replicate Versus‘ imaginative splatter. Sure, the body-count is massive – it makes The Bride vs. The Crazy 88’s look like Lilo and Stich – but I wanted, and expected, arterial spray. Lots of arterial spray. However, in every other way, this is excellent.

Azumi (Ueto) is one of ten orphans, raised by a warrior (Harada) for a mission to slay the warlords who have thrown Japan into chaos. At the risk of stating the bleedin’ obvious, this won’t be easy. Indeed, at one point, Azumi abandons her samurai ways and tries to be semi-normal, joining the sole survivor of a travelling circus. This doesn’t work out, needless to say, leading to the quote above.

Cutting to the chase; the action is excellent, with several sequences which would be fitting climaxes to any other movie. When you see this one’s finale, you’ll realise why they’re not: Azumi’s master is captured, and an entire town of sword-wielding rogues and assorted scum is in her way, plus villain #1, a rose-wielding psychopath who dresses in white (Odagiri). Settle back, and pass the popcorn. While the swordplay itself is mostly nothing special (save one Very Special decapitation), Kitamura captures it beautifully, the visual highlight being a full circle around two characters – vertically. The sound is also fabulous; you could close your eyes and just listen to the battles.

Especially early on, the pacing is kinda slow (it is a 143-minute movie), but Kitamura’s fabulous sense of style means you’re never bored. The villains, in particular, are all larger-than-life characters and enormous fun to watch – for example the Sajiki Brothers, who attack anyone even faintly resembling their target. Curious to know the budget: I’ve heard both “low” and “high”, without specific figures. Certainly, it looks amazing, every bit the equal of The Last Samurai, though I doubt it cost a fraction of $140m. If any 2004 Hollywood action heroine can match Azumi, I’ll be very, very impressed.

Dir: Ryuhei Kitamura
Stars: Aya Ueto, Yoshio Harada, Joe Odagiri, Masato Ibu

Legion

  By

★★
“Cheap TVM offers up its secrets before you even see it. Take them.”

Do not read the sleeve before watching this; idiotically, it gives away the whole thing, including stuff revealed in the last ten minutes. Also: yes, it is the Rick Springfield: Jesse’s Girl, Human Touch, and…er, that’s about it, in the most unexpected reappearance of an 80’s pop icon since a bloke from Bros turned up in Blade II. With these issues out of the way, the movie itself is set in the future, after six years of a war has led to stalemate. Agatha Doyle (Ferrell) leads a Dirty Dozen-ish group of criminal soldiers with nothing to lose on a mission to capture an enemy base. That part’s easy, as there’s no-one around – except for a pile of corpses. However, while they wait for reinforcements, someone/thing starts ripping our her troops’ throats.

Y’know, I always thought “legion” meant more than one. Not in this, which looks as if it were made for the Sci-Fi channel; just the one enemy, and most of the time all you see is his POV, looking like that of the raptors in Pitch Black. There’s much wandering around corridors, as numbers get whittled down to the inevitable survivors (identities also given away by the sleeve). It’s a minor shame, as the team are an amusing bunch of cliches, led by Corey Feldman as a computer hacker; the doctor (Audie England) was also entertaining, with loony lines such as, “The Angel of Death is my superior officer.” Otherwise, this gets less entertaining as it goes on, and while Farrell makes a good first impression, she’s swiftly reduced to bickering with her (steadily declining) force. On the whole, best cancel my first statement in this review: read the sleeve, and save yourself 95 minutes.

Dir: Jon Hess
Star: Terry Farrell, Parker Stevenson, Corey Feldman, Rick Springfield

Hooded Angels

  By

★★★½
“Clumsy plotting damages interesting idea and decent acting.”

hoodedangelsAt the end of the Civil War, marauding gangs rage through Texas, raping and killing. The victims of one such raid fight back; three years later, they have become the Hooded Angels, a notorious and feared group of bank robbers led by Hannah (Stander). But on their tail is Wes (Johansson), whose father was an innocent victim in their original battle. He and his friends catch up with the women in a town where they’re plotting their next raid and, with painful inevitably, love blossoms between Wes and Hannah.

This mixes the highly-effective, and the embarrassingly crass and badly-written. The “three years later” comes as a surprise; worse still is the shock when you find out one character is another’s daughter. Credibility explodes entirely when Wes and Hannah go at it like knives, immediately after she reveals she killed his father, and isn’t sorry in the slightest. On the other hand, this is a Western without villains; both sides are portrayed with sympathy, yet without soft-pedalling the brutality, in particular when the women ambush a posse that is following them.

A clear leader in that category is Ellie, an insecure, psychotic lesbian, beautifully portrayed by Venter, avoiding the obvious cliches. Amanda Donohoe, another member of the gang, also turns in a good performance. Stander and Johansson are less effective: one scene will work, while the next will seem stiff as a board. Could certainly have been much better, yet in the end – at least, until the end, which struggles through gymnastic convolutions in order to make Wes come out clean – this has enough memorable moments to justify its existence.

Dir: Paul Thomas
Star: Chantell Stander, Paul Johansson, Juliana Venter, Amanda Donohoe

Twins Effect

  By

★★★★
“Vampires using mobile phones, with TV screens in their coffins? What is the world coming to…”

For something crafted largely as a vehicle for its two female, pop-singing stars (the titular Twins), this is much better than you’d expect – compare, say, any Mary-Kate and Ashley film. Sure, it’s dumb. Sure, it’s loaded with cheesy romance and totally unnecessary celebrity cameos. But it also has more fun with the vampire genre than any movie since the original Buffy, and the action, directed by the hugely under-rated Donnie Yen, is far superior.

Vampire-hunter Reeve (Cheng) loses his partner (an impressive Josie Ho) to a newly-arrived evil Euro-vampire after a brutal battle in a railway station. Her replacement is Gypsy (Chung), who has idolized Reeve for years. But meanwhile sister Helen (Choi) meets and falls in love with Kazaf (Chen – yep, all four leads’ names begin with Ch. You can add a Jackie Chan cameo too), a good vampire who won’t suck blood from unwilling victims. The evil vamp need Kazaf’s essence in order to walk in daylight, and it’s up to…oh, everyone else, to stop him.

The action movies in fits and starts; a great opening battle, an amusing Gypsy/Helen spat over a teddy-bear early on, which shows where this movie’s tongue is; and an extended final duel with the pair as our last hope, and which gained the film our seal of approval. It’s clear neither girl is an experienced martial artist, but 95% of the time, you can easily overlook this; the ever-wonderful Anthony Wong, as Kazaf’s butler Prada, helps keep the film grounded and outweighs the fact that Helen is an immensely irritating character. To quote Lars Von Trier, “Take the good, with the evil”, and here the balance is firmly for the former.

Dir: Dante Lam
Star: Ekin Cheng, Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Edison Chen
a.k.a. The Vampire Effect