Tag: 1976

Big Bad Sis

  By

★★★
“Social soap with some punch.”

Despite this being from Hong Kong, I’m actually tagging this one in the “Pinky” category, because in a lot of ways, it feels closer to a pinky violence movie from Japan, being basically the story of a posse of bad girls. Except, this being Hong Kong in the seventies, where even juvenile delinquents were expected to hold down a responsible job. In the case of Fung Ying (Ping), this is working in a massive garment shop. It feels almost like prison labour, not least because of various predatory types, to whom Fung takes exception, becoming an unofficial shop steward. It helps she’s a bit of a bad girl herself, a former gang member.

She teams up with a couple of colleagues, and starts helping her co-workers solve their problems. For instance, one girl has been forced into prostitution to pay off her brother’s gambling debts, or another who was dumped by her sleazy boyfriend after she got pregnant (once you get past the first five minutes, there’s a theme here that, if not all men are scum, all scum are men). Needless to say, Fung’s past comes back to haunt her. The factory owner, who I guess is fairly decent as sweatshop proprietors go, is subject to a hostile takeover attempt by her old boss Dai Goa (Hsieh). When Fung derails this, he’s none too happy, and kidnaps her with the intention of burning her alive.

The middle of this is rather too much social drama for my tastes: if Ken Loach was to make a martial arts movie, the end result might be something like this. Fung and her allies seem more concerned with social equity, forming a union to fight against the exploitation of the working classes, sexist men, and so on. Not quite what I expected from a Shaw Brothers production in the mid-seventies. It all comes off as a bit earnest, though the copious nudity – all female, naturally – makes it a little difficult to accept fully any messages of feminist empowerment. It does, however, act as a lovely time-capsule of Hong Kong in that era, in every area from hairdressing through to home decoration.

While well-made, it’s a bit dull until the end. Fung’s kidnapping is followed by a rescue attempt, which leads to a massive extended brawl on a building site, that’s as good as I’ve seen from any heroine of the era. This takes full advantage of the environment, Fung swinging a shovel as if born to it. Naturally, violence cannot be seen to prevail, so this ends in the moralistic style you would, with the authorities – notable by their absence to this point – showing up. Fung and her old pal Shing (Chen) take responsibility for their actions, and are led off to the cheers of their workmates. This finale goes a long way to redeem things, though it’s still guilty of putting its message before the mayhem.

Dir: Chung Sun
Star: Ping Chen, Chung Wang, Chen Kuan-Tai, Hsieh Wang

Brenda Starr

  By

★★½
“A bit lacking in Starr quality.”

No, not the eighties version of Brenda Starr: that is well known, and justifiably much derided, to the point it didn’t even reach the necessary level for inclusion here. But neither was it the first version of the comic-strip to reach the screen. Well, at least the small screen. There had previously been a 1945 series, Brenda Starr, Reporter, though some reports describe this as nearly action-free. But the late seventies saw two television efforts: as well as the one under discussion here, three years later in 1979, there was an unsold television pilot movie (now apparently lost) in which Sherry Jackson played the intrepid girl journalist. In contrast, this appears to have been intended as a stand-alone from the get-go. While I’m sure ABC wouldn’t have minded had this been successful enough to become a franchise, it suffers from much the same problem as all the other adaptations, with a heroine that’s too passive to pass muster

However, as TV movies go, this isn’t terrible. It hits the ground running, with Brenda (St. John) investigating the case of reclusive millionaire Lance O’Toole (Buono), who arrives in Los Angeles and goes straight to hospital, apparently being taken down by voodoo magic. Starr is tussling for the scoop with her nemesis, fellow reporter Roger Randall (Buono), though he’s a mere TV anchor, and so the subject of her disdain. Meanwhile, other rich people – including her paper’s owner – are getting blackmail letters demanding $5 million, after the death of O’Toole. Brenda gets a tip and heads for Brazil, the apparent source of the voodoo practices (though let’s be honest, this is one of the least convincing depictions of South America you’ll see!). There, she finds that, things aren’t quite as they seem. O’Toole is far from dead, and in fact is working on creating a new world order, with Ms. Starr scheduled as his queen. Randall is also hot on the tail of the story, though he is arguably even less action-oriented than Brenda.

About the peak of the action is St. John – or, more accurately, her stunt double – climbing out of a bedroom window and down the shrubbery to the ground. However, there was a surprisingly high body-count; we were perplexed by the rather callous way in which the heroine quickly abandoned one deceased travelling companion, without even the courtesy of checking him for a pulse. While she’s no Lara Croft, I didn’t mind St. John’s performance, and that just about kept me watching. The plot feels like something cribbed from a lesser Bond movie of the time – this may be a positive or a negative, depending how you feel about the Bond movies of the time. But Buono, probably best known as King Tut in the sixties TV version of Batman, chews the scenery in suitably agreeable fashion opposite the heroine. At barely 75 minutes (did they have a lot more commercials in those days?). this can’t be accused of outstaying its welcome, even if 75 minutes more is likely long enough for it to be forgotten again.

Dir: Mel Stuart
Star: Jill St. John, Jed Allan, Victor Buono, Joel Fabiani

Eight Strikes of the Wildcat

  By

★★★
“Pussy Riot.”

I guess this is, at its heart, about the quest for a treasure map that has been torn into two pieces. Though you could be forgiven for not really noticing, as most of the cast seem to forget about it for the bulk of the running time. The heroine is Shao Wa (Chi), whose father is killed by the Three Rats in their quest for the map. She ends up being punted off a cliff and presumed dead by them. Naturally – it’d be a short movie otherwise – she’s not as dead as they think. She’s rescued by the inevitable kung-fu master and his annoying sidekick, Lee Ta Fa (Hung), who nurse her back to health, and give her the skills necessary to beat the Three Rats.

The clue there is in their name, for their martial arts are all rodent-inspired. This being a seventies Taiwanese flick,  means all their movies are accompanied by a dubbed-in soundtrack of squeaking. Literally, every move they make, sounds as if they are breaking in a new pair of loafers. Their big move involves all three of them forming a mouse, with one the head, the next the body and the third the hindquarters and tail. It’s every bit as loony as it sounds. You should probably have worked out from the title how Shao Wa is going to counter them: and, yes, this means her moves are accompanied by caterwauling. For variety, she also does “beauty kung-fu,” which seems to involve a lot of pouting.

There are a lot of training montages in this one, though I minded less than I generally would, because they’re quite entertaining in their own right. Chi, who doesn’t appear to have made any other movies, is clearly flexible and gymnastic, and some of the stuff she pulls off is genuinely impressive [I mean, I regard getting out of bed in the morning as an achievement], such as the splits onto a trapeze. I suspect there could have been wire-assistance involved there, yet enough of the other stuff she does clearly was her, to make it plausible. It’s hard to tell under the dubbing whether her acting is any good, though that’s more a bonus than a requirement.

Eventually, the Three Rats kill her master, and Shao Wa goes after them, accompanied by the almost entirely useless Lee, whose contribution to that point is roughly split 50/50 between unhelpful remarks and sexual harassment. When it comes to the final fight between Shao Wa and the Three Rats, he’s more of a colour commentator than anything effective. It’s one of the few cases I can think of where the last battle is a one vs. many, with the heroine being the one. Like the rest of Shao Wa’s fights, it is a little too obviously staged, yet is a decent effort. It would probably have been at least 25% better without the sound effects, however. It’s definitely an area where less would have been more.

Dir: Yi-Hsiu Lin
Star: Dan Dan Chi, Li Tao Hung, Hung Tsai, Tao-Hung Lee

Dance of Death

  By

★★★★

“Not backwards in high heels, yet still highly impressive”

This one might sound familiar, as I did previously review it about four years ago. But it deserves, and gets, a fresh analysis, due to my having recently had the chance to watch it in a way much closer to how it was originally meant to be seen. This version was purely subtitled, rather than dubbed, and in particular, had a 2.35:1 ratio print, rather than the previous 4:3 atrocity which meant that half the time, one or other fighter in the (numerous) battles was cropped off the side of the screen. This made it feel such a radically different movie, it took an hour for me to realize I’d actually seen it before. And it was all the better for the new look.

There were aspects which still befuddle me, such as most of the plot. Why, exactly, is Angela Mao pretending to be a boy? It’s completely unconvincing, and entirely unnecessary to the story-line. No-one ever discovers her true gender: it’s almost as if this were originally written for a man, then they got Mao, and in all the excitement, forgot (or, alternatively and equally credibly, couldn’t be bothered) to change the script. The rest of it is an odd mix. It’s partly vengeance with Fei Fei (Mao) out to pick up enough martial arts skill to take revenge on those who killed her family. Yet this sits alongside slapstick comedy which you’d not expect given the title, such as the two kung fu masters – one drunk, one stoner – whom she tricks into sharing her talents, or the villain with the world’s tiniest fan whom she defeats on her way to the big bad.

This time, those elements didn’t bother me anywhere near as much, and even if they had, I’m willing to forgive an enormous amount when the fights are so acrobatically inventive – the hand of Jackie Chan, who was a stunt co-ordinator here, might have something to do with this. Yes, it’s almost retro, even for its time. For by this point, in 1976, Bruce Lee’s shooting star had already blazed across the sky of martial arts cinema, and the Peking Opera approach was quickly being replaced by films based on his harder hitting style. Yet the long takes and fluid choreography used here have an undeniably elegant rhythm to them. I previously wrote that this movie reminded me of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and that’s one element which hasn’t changed between these viewings.

The steady progression in Fei Fei’s talents also remains notable, as does the blizzard of different styles of kung-fu, from crane through dragon to monkey, as well as less traditional approaches such as the.. ah, “flatulence fu” which shows up at one point. The graceful skill which Mao demonstrates in virtually all of these – save the intestinal variety, I’m pleased to say! – is truly a joy to behold, especially in this format, which allows you to appreciate it all the better. If there’s a more impressive vehicle for her talents, I’ve yet to find it.

Dir: Chuan Lu
Star: Angela Mao, Shih Tien, Shiao Bou-Lo, Chin Pey

The Muthers

  By

★★½
“Jolly rogered.”

This is a strange cross-breed between a blaxploitation flick, a pirate movie and a women-in-prison film. Then again, a lot of the seventies films coming out of the Philippines tended to be at least somewhat bizarre, and this is likely no exception. The titular gang are pirates, led by Kelly (Bell) and Anggie (Katon), who roam what appears to be the Caribbean, going by the mention of Santo Domingo, but is actually in the Eastern hemisphere, boarding and robbing unsuspecting vessels, and fighting with a rival band of brigands using their kung-fu skills. However, Kelly’s sister goes missing, and is tracked down to a coffee farm belonging to the evil Monteiro (Carreon), which he runs in the manner of a pre-Civil War Southern plantation. Our heroines go undercover, only to discover getting out will be tougher than getting in.

It starts off in fine form, coming over as a modern, urban version of a sixties swashbuckler, and it’s a shame it didn’t stick to this premise, which would have offered something rather innovative. Instead, from the time Kelly and Anggie – yes, there is apparently an extra “g” in there – show up on the farm, it goes down too well-worn a path, with sadistic guards, fellow inmates who cozy up to their captors, and showers. Lots of showers. After the expected breakout attempts, recaptures and punishments, things eventually end in an equally expected riot, enlivened somewhat by the unexpected return appearance of the rival pirates, as allies of Monteiro,

muthersBoth Bell and Katon had worked with Santiago before, in T.N.T. Jackson and Ebony, Ivory & Jade respectively, and make a decent impression here. I’ve read a few other reviews that rip into this for poor-quality action, yet I can’t say I hated that aspect too much. Sure, there are times, particularly for any acrobatic moments, where the doubling is not exactly well-concealed. But there are other times where they’re putting in their fair share of effort, and should be appreciated for that. It is, if not quite tame, rather less sleazy than some on Santiago’s offerings. At first, I thought this was because I was watching it on Turner Classic Movies (yes, a refreshingly broad definition of “classic”!), but turns out to be fairly mild. Mind you, Bell’s ultra skin-tight top doesn’t exactly leave much to the imagination there!

On the whole though, I’d have preferred if it had stuck with the pirate theme present at the beginning, which was a good deal fresher than the rote WiP fodder served up in the middle. Maybe I’m just grumpy because I did lose a bet with the wife: on seeing a guard tower overlooking the workers’ huts, I predicted it would later explode in a giant fireball, as a guard falls from it. I am disappointed to report that this simple pleasure was with-held from me. Sheesh, what is the world coming to, when a film from the golden age of Phillsploitation can’t even deliver on this expectation?

Dir: Cirio H. Santiago
Star: Jeannie Bell, Rosanne Katon, Trina Parks, Jayne Kennedy

The Great Texas Dynamite Chase

  By

★★★
“A movie packed with blow(-up) jobs.”

dynamitegirlsSorry. Couldn’t resist the above tasteless joke. I did try. It was the longest five seconds of my life. But, let’s face it, the late Ms. Jennings would probably have approved, as she shot across the B-movie firmament like a meteor, in other films reviewed here, such as ‘Gator Bait and Unholy Rollers, before her untimely death at the age of 29.

This is an energetic and briskly-paced B-movie, with no pretensions, perhaps inspired somewhat by the Italian film Blonde in Black Leather, made two years earlier, which also had a downtrodden woman breaking free of the shackles of society for wild adventures alongside a rebellious friend. Here, the former is bank-teller Ellie-Jo Turner (Jones), who has just been fired when her branch is robbed by the dynamite-toting Candy Morgan (Jennings). in need of funds to save her family’s farm. The two meet each other again on the road, and Ellie-Jo convinces Candy that a life of crime would be fun, and so the pair – after scoring some non-fizzling explosives – begin a cross-Texas bank robbery spree. During an unscheduled diversion to a convenience store, they pick up a hostage, Slim (Crawford), who turns out to be rather happy in his plight. However, for how long can they stay ahead of the law?

I didn’t even realize this was an action heroine film, until a friend reviewed it on his site, so a hat-tip to Hal for that. The alternate title – particularly if accompanied by the over-enthusiastic French poster accompanying this piece! – makes this more clear.  I enjoyed the Thelma and Louise vibe here, with the two heroines playing off each other nicely, and while it is obviously exploitational, right from the moment Jennings gratuitously changes her top inside the first five minutes, these aspects are relatively restrained. To be honest, I could very easily have done without Slim entirely, as his character appears to add nothing of significance to the film, and Crawford’s performance is so blandly uninteresting, he sucks the life off the screen whenever he appears – quite a contract to Jennings.

There is also a sharp shift in tone for the final reel, where Pressman [whose subsequent directorial career include a pair of really bad sequels in The Bad News Bears: Breaking Training and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze] apparently getting in touch with his inner Sam Peckinpah, and delivering a slow-mo blood-squibtravaganza that is not at all in keeping with what has gone before. However, I’m prepared to forgive it for one big reason, though unfortunately it’s too spoilery for me to provide more details. For the same reason, I have to remain vague in my approval of the ending, which went in a different direction from the one I was expecting, and was all the better for it. This is more evidence that Jennings’ early departure was certainly our genre’s loss.

Dir: Michael Pressman
Star: Claudia Jennings, Jocelyn Jones, Johnny Crawford
a.k.a. Dynamite Women

Werewolf Woman

  By

★★★
“Hungry like the wolf”

wolfwomanWhile there have been plenty of female vampires over the year, the number of female werewolves is a lot smaller. There’s the wonderful Ginger Snaps (and its not as wonderful sequels), the forgettable Cursed, TV series Bitten, and most infamously of all, Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf.  However, perhaps the closest relative here is a little off to one side: the remake of Cat People, made by Paul Schrader in 1982. It is not dissimilar in tone and approach, both taking a firm, if somewhat hysterical psychosexual tone to proceedings, and Giorgio Moroder’s musical score sounds like the synthesized one here. Both have heroines whose transformations are triggered largely by sexual excitement, and who eventually find a man happy to love them for who they are – only for that happiness to be short-lived. Of course, this one being grindhouse, the reason for its abrupt termination is her boyfriend being stabbed to death while trying to stop her from being raped, which triggers a rampage of revenge that justifies its inclusion on this site.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. It’s also a sexual assault which triggers the psychological problems for Daniela Neseri  (Borel). The psychological trauma and Daniela’s obsession with a family legend involving an ancestor who supposedly turned into a predatory animal, form a potent combination, and she develops a deeply-held belief that she also changes into a wolf at the full moon. That doesn’t appear to be the case, but it still brings tragedy down on the family, when Daniela gets all hot and bothered after seeing her sister (Lassander) making love to her husband. The resulting carnage get her committed to a psychiatric hospital by her aristocratic father (Carraro), only for Daniela to escape after an encounter with the facility’s local nymphomaniac. After some more brutal murders, which baffle the local police, she finally meets her soulmate, who works as a stuntman. And this takes us back to where this paragraph came in.

It’s pure exploitation cinema, not skimping at all on the nudity, and with a healthy amount of gore as well – what else would you expect from a director who, the same year, gave us Deported Women of the SS Special Section? This isn’t quite as sleazy, though certainly is not family viewing, and is well enough made to make for an interesting viewing experience for broad-minded spectators. Borel has a nicely lupine quality about her, and even if the transformation sequences [most notably the opening dream sequence] leaves a bit to be desired, the various elements – the heroine, her family, the cops who gradually realize the connection between the corpses – are tied together with a script that has had more effort put into it than you might think. They truly don’t make them like this any more.

Dir: Rino Di Silvestro
Star: Annik Borel, Howard Ross, Dagmar Lassander, Tino Carraro
a.k.a. La lupa Mannara or The Legend of the Wolf Woman

Dance of Death

  By

★★★
“Putting the ‘arts’ in martial arts.”

danceofdeathIn the seventies, Angela Mao was the queen of Hong Kong cinema, occupying much the same position as Pam Grier in the blaxploitation films of the decade. Probably best known in the West for her role as Bruce Lee’s sister in Enter the Dragon (for which she was paid the princely sum of $100!), she had much meatier roles in a slew of films. This is my first exposure to her work, albeit in a print which has seen better… well, never mind days, I’m thinking better decades. It was dubbed and had subtitles, though the English track often matched the English subs more in spirit than anything else. And it wasn’t even ranked in her top 25 by IMDB rating. But, whaddya know, it actually wasn’t too bad.

She plays Fei Fei, a nomadic orphan who comes across two fighting masters, that have been battling for years, without being able to decide who is better. She offers them a solution: they can both train her, and she’ll then go off and fight people – whoever’s training is most useful, is clearly superior. [This kind of thing only makes sense in a kung-fu movie. Fortunately, that’s exactly what this is.] In her first encounter, she sees off members of the Bird Gang, rescuing a member of the Five Styles School, which leads her to join the latter group. However, the rest of the Bird Gang continue their mission to wipe out their rivals, with Fei Fei the sole survivor. She returns to her original teachers to learn more and, after picking up a sixth style from a surprising location, is ready to take on Bird Gang leader, Mu Fa Shan, and his “Upside-down Horse” style.

Early on, I was ready to write this off, because Fei Fei’s fighting skills are second-rate at best. However, as things progressed, I realized that was actually the point: she progresses over the course of the film from being an enthusiastic amateur, through study and training, to someone who can credibly take on a top fighter. Her character may not have much of a story arc: instead, it’s her kung-fu that does. By the time of the final battle – which lasts about 15 minutes – she’s graceful and fluid, filmed by Lu in lengthy shots which do Mao justice. Now, it’s still a style of cinema very different to modern action films; but if you can accept the difference (which I’ll admit, takes getting used too, because it’s relatively slow and far more obviously choreographed), you’ll be fine. I kept being reminded of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – and that might give you a clue as to the source of the sixth style… Oh, never mind: the title gives it away. It probably helps that stunt co-ordinator on this was Chen Yuan-lung – whom you might know a bit better as Jackie Chan.

It does suffer too much from the perpetual bane of the genre – too many comedic elements, and a resulting horrid unevenness of tone: the revenge motif which is crucial to the plot never comes over as having any emotional punch, not least because the members of the Five Styles clan bite the bullet before Fei Fei has apparently done more than be introduced to them. But Mao has enough charisma and presence to stop you, just this side of throwing things through your TV. If this is one of her minor works, I’m looking forward to the better ones.

Dir: Chuan Lu
Star: Angela Mao, Shih Tien, Shiao Bou-Lo, Chin Pey

New Female Prisoner Scorpion 701

  By

★★★
“Reset! Reset!”

Just goes to show that the “cinematic reboot” is not a 21st-century invention, e.g. Batman or James Bond. For a mere three years after Meiko Kaji showed her sting as Nami, the studio reset the series, giving it a new director, new (and much more talkative) lead actress, and returning Nami Matsushima to a happy, criminal record-free young women, with a loving boyfriend. Except, of course, he turns out not to love her quite as much. Things start to collapse after her sister uncovers evidence of major government corruption, and passes it to Nami, shortly before being kidnapped. After Nami uncovers the truth – her sister is killed and she is framed for the murder, with the help of her boyfriend, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Initially an easy mark for the tough girls in her cell, Nami soon develops her mean streak. And she’s going to need it, because the politician behind it all is looking to tidy up the loose end she represents, by killing her and making the death look like a suicide. Name turns the tables, in incendiary fashion, and it’s clear that she’s one loose end that won’t be quietly disposed of.

Y’know how On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a really great Bond film, with a crappy Bond, Lazenby being the merest shadow of Connery? That’s the situation we have here. The film would be perfectly serviceable, but with every (largely superfluous) word, gesture and action, the viewer can’t help but be reminded of Kaji, who simply fits the character being depicted here, far better. Not that Takigawa is a bad actress. It is just that Kaji made such a strong impression in the role, anyone else playing the character is almost bound to seem like a pale imitation in comparison. Without Kaji or the surrealist touches brought to the previous entries by Shunya Ito, there really isn’t much to distinguish this from the rougher end of the pinku genre, with Kohira appearing to take particular interest in the rape.

The sections after Nami breaks out are the best, in terms of style, and it’s hard to put your finger on any problems: “competent” is likely a good word for this. But probably the most damning indictment, is that I watched the film, wrote most of the review, and then realized almost nothing about the second half had stuck in my mind at all. I ended up having to pull the movie up, just to convince myself I hadn’t been called away to dinner half-way through or something. I hadn’t: it had just failed to make any significant impression on me.

Dir: Yutaka Kohira
Star: Yumi Takigawa, Ryoko Ema, Nobuo Kaneko, Ichiro Nakaya

The Sexy Killer

  By

★★½
“Cheap Chinese knock-offs aren’t limited to toys and electronics.”

Not to be confused, in any way with SexyKiller, this 1976 Shaw Brothers film is more of an unofficial remake of Coffy. Wanfei (Ping), a nurse by day, decides to go vigilante by night, after her sister falls victim to druglords and ends up brain-damaged and drooling. With most of the police force in the pockets of the dealers, Wanfei opts to go undercover as a drug-addict of loose morals, so she can make her way up the chain of command, to deliver justice on behalf of her sister to the sinister Boss (Hsia). This finds her an ally in Weipin (Hua), a childhood friend and honest cop whose hands are tied by pesky bureaucratic niceties, like “needing a search warrant”; she’s also encouraged by her pundit boyfriend (Wei), who has long taken a strong anti-drug stance.

This has its moments, and I’m likely remembering those more fondly than the movie overall, which grinds to a halt in the middle, and diverts far too much running time over to Weipin. Action-wise, this is from the Dark Ages of Hong Kong movies, after the death of Bruce Lee and before Jackie Chan resurrected the genre. The fights here are pedestrian and poorly-staged, with Ping’s credentials particularly limited, though male viewers may be distracted by her alternative assets [another review described her as spending most of her career lying on her back, and there’s plenty of that to go around here too]. The problem with remakes, is you inevitably compare them to the original, and while the heroine here is easy on the eye, there’s a reason Pam Grier is a genre icon, and Chen Ping isn’t.

Onto those “moments” mention above, which are the film’s saving grace. They start with Wanfei’s showing off her topless kung-fu, and build up to her crashing a car into the Boss’s mansion and letting loose on his minions with her shot-gun, apparently made by Perpetually Loaded Armaments, Inc. The film’s highlight probably comes when we discover what happens when you fire said weapon at a water-bed, which is something the Time Warp crew really should be looking into. However, between the opening and the finale, this comes over mostly as a pale (literally) imitation of Pam Grier’s journey down the same path, from three years previously.

Dir: Chung Sun
Star: Chen Ping, Yueh Hua, Wang Hsia, Szu Wei
a.k.a. The Drug Connection