Category: Videos

Zoe Saldana plays a young woman who, after witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota, grows up to be a stone-cold assassin. She works for her uncle as a hitman by day, but her personal time is spent engaging in vigilante murders that she hopes will lead her to her ultimate target: the mobster responsible for her parents’ death. This Luc Besson production is directed by Olivier Megaton, best known for The Transporter 3. It’s due to be released on August 26th.

Seven times WWW Women’s Champion Trish Stratus makes her feature-film debut as Jules Taylor, who leads a team of bounty hunters, Their latest capture offers them $100,000 bounty for his release – but the mob boss he was running from also makes them an offer – one they find rather difficult to refuse. Now, being WWE Women’s Champion is a minor honour as far as action goes, but Stratus knew her stuff more than many of the “divas”. Going by the trailer below, and reviews which generally speak positively about its no-nonsense, low-budget effectiveness, it may end up being better than most of the dreck coming out of WWE Films.

“Two powerful female warriors must journey across a post-apocalyptic land to fight a ritual duel, and fulfill an ancient prophecy. In the tradition of “Xena, Warrior Princess”, and influenced by seminal fantasy films such as “Excalibur” and “Flesh & Blood”, Warrioress combines a unique, mystically-infused atmosphere with blistering action scenes. The story features a wide array of vibrantly attractive and powerful female characters pitted against each other in mortal combat. In this world of mysticism and philosophy, ruled by dominant highly trained female warriors, the world is held in the grasp of the dark and malevolent Falonex Empire, and two distinctly different villages hold a deeply-held sworn belief in a powerful prophecy that will bring them salvation.

Once in every generation one chosen fighter from each village must travel on a quest across treacherous terrain to a sacred circle formed of ancient stones, to fight a ritual sword duel, each armed with a sacred sword. If the two warriors are of equal skill and wield the sister swords “the Opener” and “Dragon Singer” they will fullfil the Prophecy and lead the fight against the Falonex Empire. The time has come again for the prophecy to be fulfilled and the two fighters will meet at the pre-destined place. But will they meet as friend or foe?” It stars Cecily Fay, who’s been featured here before, as part of ‘Babes With Blades’, so I’m keen to see this. Here’s the trailer: see the film’s website for more information.

Might Sucker Punch have some competition on the Hollywood action-heroine front this year? Here’s the trailer for Hanna, which sees Saoirse Ronan in the title role, raised as a lethal killing machine by her soldier father (Eric Bana). After his former boss (Cate Blanchett) tracks him down, Hanna is captured, but escapes and “journeys stealthily across Europe while eluding agents dispatched after her.” Though director Joe (Atonement) Wright said, “I don’t think I would [describe it as an action movie]. It’s a fairy tale, action movie, drama…. It’s a really difficult movie to describe and I think it’s gonna be quite difficult for the marketing department to market.” Potentially interesting. Here’s the trailer: release is currently scheduled for April 8.

Ok, this should have gone up in October month, when we had our Salute to Grindhouse month, but I was distracted by Sucker Punch [Look! Shiny, pretty things!] and getting the forum up. Anyway… Back when Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino made Grindhouse, they had a competition to make a fake trailer. The winner was Hobo with a Shotgun, which is now being made into a real movie, amd looks pretty damn cool – it’s Rutger Hauer, so what else can it be? But the other two finalists were both GWG-friendly. There’s The Dead Won’t Die, and below, Maiden of Death (perhaps a bit too polished to be “true” grindhouse). Maybe these will also follow in due course? All are pretty much Not Safe For Work, folks, in case you hadn’t guessed!

The LA Times once called Zayra, “An aspiring rock goddess, who prances around in cosmic blue cat suits like she’s Ziggy Stardust’s long lost Caribbean cousin.” Here, she gets her Kill Bill on, with a trailer-park battle. I look forward to the feature-length version. :-)

Zack Snyder is certainly among the most creative of directors, whose work we have enjoyed since we first saw it in the Dawn of the Dead remake. He followed that up with 300 and Watchmen, carving a niche for himself with incredibly-stylish (and stylized) action films. Now, he’s working on a Girls With Guns movie, Sucker Punch, which he has described as “Alice in Wonderland with machine guns.” Set in the 1950’s, it’s about a young girl (Emily Browning) and her female friends, who need to escape a lunatic asylum before they are lobotomized. Here’s the trailer (that it uses Lords of Acid as the music is simply a bonus); it’s due out in March.

The ScreenTeamShow.com video spoofing California Girls by Katy Perry – the new version is called Comic Con Girls. It feels a little like something The Guild might have done, and that’s a pretty high compliment around these parts.

Michelle Yeoh is back! Hurrah! She would certainly be one of the inaugural members of the Girls With Guns Hall of Fame [opening soo…er, eventually], and so it’s great to see the star of Yes, Madam! and Crouching Tiger back in the action heroine genre. And she doesn’t seem to be slowing down, even as she approached her fiftieth birthday. This is Reign of Assassins, the film co-directed by John Woo, which is due for release in the fall.

The trailer for Samurai Princess, scheduled for release on DVD, May 25th. I got a Barnes & Noble gift-card for my birthday. I think I know what it might be used for…