Tag: 1995

Guns & Lipstick

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★½
“V.I. Warshitski.”

gunslipstickI’m not saying this was a film made, The Producers-style, as a tax write-off. But if a movie was made for that purpose, it would probably look as slapdash and amateurish as this. I’ll just give you one example. Near the end, the heroine is seen by a corrupt cop and he gives chase. It starts in broad daylight, up in the mountains. One cut later, it’s the middle of the night and they’re by the docks. WTF? Whether the makers didn’t notice, or didn’t care, neither says much about the quality of the product. Then again, the entire concept of a cougarish, blonde PI with a smart mouth was clearly ripped off wholesale – minus the shoe obsession – from Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski, filmed four years before this came out in 1991.

Kirkland plays private detective Danielle Roberts, a former cop who was kicked off the force for having an affair with her boss. She has a job protecting Rose, a stripper who thinks someone is out to kill her – with good reason, because Rose turns up dead. As, in short order, do a lot of other people who cross Roberts’ path, and due to this she comes under the suspicions of her former colleagues. Turns out there Rose had come into possession of a jewel that an awful lot of people want to get their hands on, for one reason or another. These include crime boss Mr. Song (Hong), cop with a grudge Dimaggio (Forster), Rose’s brother, Andy (Lurie) and an albino, who can’t have been a “real” albino, because he doesn’t have pink eyes [Source: my numerical analysis professor at university was an albino] It’s a complete mess of a storyline, with little or no effort made to provide credible motivation, and the romance between Danielle and Andy is more creepy than anything, since Kirkland is literally double his age.

Things escalate to a ludicrous and entirely incoherent shoot-out at a ranch, where the bad guys prove they are literally incapable of shooting the broad side of a horse, before the time-challenged car-chase mentioned above. A potentially interesting B-movie cast, which also includes Wings Hauser for no readily apparent reason, is entirely wasted on this turgid mess of a script. Kirkland has been decent enough in other things, and gives it her best shot, but is woefully miscast here. Everyone involved with this should be very, very ashamed.

Dir: Jenö Hodi
Star: Sally Kirkland, Robert Forster, Evan Lurie, James Hong

Dangerous Lady

  By

★★★★
“No luck of the Irish to be found here.”

dangerousladyBased on the debut novel by British crime writer Martina Cole, this depicts the life of Maura Ryan (Lynch), the only daughter in her family, whose brothers are making a push for increased power in the underworld of 1960’s London, much to the disapproval of the Ryan’s matriarch (Hancock). Leading the push is Michael (Isaacs), who has more than a touch of Ronnie Kray about him, being both homosexual and a borderline psychotic. Maura falls in love with Terry Patterson (Teale), and is shocked to discover he’s a policeman. When he comes under pressure from colleagues to use their relationship, he ends it – unaware that Maura has just become pregnant. She is forced to have an abortion, which leaves her insides looking like they’ve been weed-whacked, and vows she’s going to show him, by becoming every bit the gangster peer of her brothers. But the path to the top is littered with dead bodies, of foes, friends and family.

There’s not a great deal here which you haven’t seen in a million other dramas about organized crime, be they set in America with the mafia, or Hong Kong and the triads. The whole “trying to go straight and make an honest life” thing is certainly not new, and strapping a skirt on, isn’t enough to make it so. It’s really the performances which make this work, and the acting is top-notch. Among the men, Isaacs is outstanding, going from zero to brutal in the blink of an eye, and you certainly get the notion of someone who was turned into what he became (Cole doesn’t explicitly snort derisively at “born that way”, but it’s certainly implied abuse as a youngster by another mobster is behind many of Michael’s problems). He’s a bundle of conflicting emotions: fiercely loyal to family members, but capable of savage brutality to anyone who betrays him, or whom he considers a threat.

But it’s Lynch and Hancock who are the driving force here, and both are excellent. The latter was a veteran of 40-plus years in plays, films and TV, and portrays Mrs. Ryan as being a loving mother, but one who gradually comes to the conclusion that they are beyond her control, Michael in particular. However, by the time she has realized this, she’s helpless to do anything much about it, except bar Michael from the house, even though that causes her pain, probably only a mother can know. Lynch plays Maura with very much the same streak of stubborn steel. As the show develops over its 50-minutes episodes, she becomes someone who won’t let anyone, least of all her family, tell her what to do, because she has seen the consequences of those bad decisions. She may not be right, but if she isn’t, at least it’s her own choice. You can’t help rooting for Maura, a victim of circumstance, as she negotiates the tricky life of a woman in the era, especially one in an area certainly not exactly female-friendly.

It’s slightly disappointing that we don’t get to see Maura go all Scarface on anyone; despite the cover picture, I’m not certain I recall her pulling the trigger at any point. However, that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm  for a solid slab of television drama, and we were sad to reach the end and realize that there were only four episodes – it’s an idea which could certainly have sustained a full season. I’ve now acquired a few of Cole’s books, and look forward to reading them in due course.

Dir: John Woods
Star: Susan Lynch, Jason Isaacs, Owen Teal, Sheila Hancock

Zero Woman 2

  By

★★½

Confusingly titled in the West, without any indication it wasn’t the first of the rebooted franchise, this perhaps explains why there’s little or no explanation of… Well, anything, really. What is Section Zero? Who is Rei? Where did she come from? “Never mind about that,” seems to be the film’s attitude, “Here are Natsuki Ozawa’s breasts to distract you from such trifles.” That’s particularly the case early on, when it seems Rei is unable to go five minutes without showing them off, whether it’s through being molested, becoming inescapably randy or simply taking a soapy shower (to wash off the blood after a kill, so I guess it’s a shower necessary to the plot – it also replays the intruder shower scene from its predecessor, with a different ending).

Fortunately, their novelty apparently wears off for the director, and we get on with the actual plot, which involves a stolen suitcase of bearer bonds, belonging to a politician. Rei is sent to retrieve them, working her way up through the shady network of fences which handle such things. As help, she’s assigned a member of the regular police (Watari? – credit information is basically non-existent here), but he turns out to have his own plan, to recover the bearer bonds himself and make a nice profit by selling them back to their owner. However, said owner is also working his own way up the chain, and kidnaps the sister of one of the thieves, as leverage for the return of his property. That brings the perp (Kosugi, the son of Sho Kosugi, iconic star of a million ninja flicks) into an alliance with Rei, and they storm the warehouse where the hostage is held, for a bloody confrontation.

It’s more obvious that this is clearly shot on video – and not particularly HD video at that, though that may be a product of its era as much as anything. This generaly gets better as it goes along, unless you are interested in Ms. Ozawa’s breasts, in which case your mileage may vary. The plotting contains a decent number of twists and turns, and Kosugi helps deliver a competent amount of action. However, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t struggle through the earlier sections. In particular a scene where she is forced by a fence whose day job is a butcher, to sniff coke and then raped by him. While at least he gets his just deserts (let’s just say, there’s a meat-hook involved), it’s both entirely unnecessary and clearly intended to titillate the audience. Not cool, and it left a bad taste in my mouth, which even an impressively nihilistic conclusion was unable to remove entirely.

Dir: Daisuke Gotoh
Star: Natsuki Ozawa, Saori Iwama, Kane Kosugi, Hiroyuki Watari
a.k.a. Zero Woman

Zero Woman: Final Mission

  By

★★★½

Probably the least accurate title of any film ever – at least Friday the 13th put out a few movies before using “final” – you definitely should begin here if you’re looking for much coherence. Rei (Iijima) is now partly employed as secretary to the head of Section Zero, but also takes out criminals for whom traditional channels of law enforcement aren’t enough, for one reason or another. She also pals around with Takako (Fukuoka), a detective from another section and a girl he helped bring out of delinquency, in what’s vaguely intimated as a love triangle. One night, they witness a hit and run, and discover the perpetrator (Suzuki) is the daughter of a powerful economic figure. Despite encountering official resistance, Rei and Takako persist with their investigation and, inevitably, this brings out more robust sanctions.

This does take some time to get going: it’s probably about 25 minutes before the car-micide in question, really kicks things off, and the film is more or less in a holding pattern until then. Still, Iijima certainly looks the part, and unlike some of the other occupants of the position, you don’t get the sense she got the role purely for her willingness to disrobe. Indeed, she manages even to take a shower and gun down an intruder without straying much beyond the boundaries of PG-13. Not that there’s exactly a shortage of nudity in this production, most of it coming from Suzuki, who is portrayed as being kinda depraved and heavily into S/M. Indeed, this seems the case for the director, as Rei spends a far too large chunk of the second half, tied up and being tormented by what can only be described as a cackling sex dwarf [literally half his lines must have been, “Bwahahahaha!”]. Quite what this says about Enokido’s predilections, is probably best glossed-over.

There’s a cool colour palette used here, mostly blues and grays, and a couple of scenes which will certainly stick in the mind. One is the previously mentioned shower-ambush, and the other is one where Rei is on the phone to Takako, when their conversation is rudely interrupted on his end: gradually, she realizes that something is very, very wrong. It’s expertly crafted, with good performances from both ends of the telephone line, and you can’t help wondering that more of this, rather than so much of the Laughing Gnome, would have elevated this to a classic. Instead, it’s merely hints at greatness, and settles for being solid and effective, starting the franchise in a way of which the original movie could only have dreamed.

Dir: Koji Enokido
Star: Naoko Iijima, Takako Fukuoka, Misayo Haruki, Miho Suzuki

Spitfire

  By

★★
“Imagine Tonya Harding playing Jason Bourne. Yep, it’s like that.”

This can only be described as a mess, albeit a crappily entertaining one, with a leading lady in Phillips, who almost made it to the Olympics, being described as “the next Mary-Lou (Retton)”, before trying her hand in low-budget action. She plays an international-level gymnast and martial-arts expert, whose parents are, unknown to her, involved in a plot involving the launch codes for Ukrainian missiles. The mother is killed by villainous Brit, Carla Davis (Douglas – apparently Jenny Agutter was unavailable. Or, more likely, too expensive), who wants to get her claws on the codes for some reason. Hey, she’s a villain: what more does she need? She captures Dad (Henriksen), but not before he has given his daugher the first in a series of clues which will lead her and investigative journalist Rex Beechum (Thomerson), apparently with an unlimited expense account, around the globe from Rome to Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong and Athens, bumping into various unexpected siblings along the way.

One senses this globe-hopping was largely funded by Pyun’s frequent flier miles, and he makes sure that we see enough of the actors that we know they were actually there – I suspect Henriksen was excluded, as he is never shown in anywhere that couldn’t be faked outside a studio, nor is he ever on-screen at the same time as Thomerson. Despite an opening credit sequence which is clearly trying to channel a seventies Bond flick (not least in the jet-pack with which Henriksen escapes the bad guys), this plays more like a distaff version of Gymkata, with significantly poorer production values, though at least Phillips doesn’t need to be doubled for the gymnastics scenes. There’s a bizarre subplot involving evil Romanians, which also appears to have strayed in from a Cold War era, and many, many chase sequences, which pause briefly for exposition, or Phillips to demonstrate her mediocre martial-arts skills. There’s certainly no shortage of things going on, even if the interest level of these often remains questionable. However, I’ll admit, I did laugh at the running joke which sees Beechum perpetually being knocked out by someone or other.

Thomerson and Henriksen could do this kind of thing in their sleep, and apparently did so here, though still lend the film an air of quality that it largely lacks otherwise, and Douglas makes for a decent villainess. Phillips is more problematic: after Betrayal, it was the second film of the day where we had a lead actress who wasn’t actually an actress, and it shows. I’m now fairly convinced that some kind of test should be required of anyone starring in a movie, and if you don’t pass, your artistic license gets revoked. Phillips, wisely, retired from acting there after, saving the world from further punishment – if, unfortunately, not further Albert Pyun movies.

Dir: Albert Pyun
Star: Kristie Phillips, Tim Thomerson, Sarah Douglas, Lance Henriksen

No Contest

  By

★★★
“No originality, no budget… But no disaster, either.”

An almost-entirely shameless Die Hard rip-off, this stars Tweed as Shannon Bell, the host of a beauty-pageant, which is interrupted by Oz (Clay) and his gang, who take a half-dozen of the beauty-queens and Bell hostage, up in the penthouse, and demand $10 million in diamonds for their release. Bell manages to slip away and, fortunately, her character is an actress, famous for playing action heroines [yeah, it’s all a bit ‘meta’ – except, it came out in 1992, largely before ‘meta’ became popular…]. So she gets to go all John McClane on their asses, crawling round air-ducts and assisting ex-federal agent Crane (Davi), who was bodyguarding one of the participants, who is a politician’s daughter, but popped outside the building for a fortunately-timed smoke.

The script is hackneyed, certainly, but it’s a stellar B-movie cast, that works well, and largely keeps things entertaining. This is where the thought has gone in. While Oz is undeniably brutal, he is as far from Hans Gruber as can be imagined, a foulmouth sleazeball rather than a suave sophisticat, and Bell, similarly, is the opposite of McClane, despite her action pedigree (one character describes the roles she plays as, “Bruce Lee with boobs”). Endearingly, she bursts into tears after she has to kill someone. Davi, of course, was in the original, playing Special Agent Johnson [“No – the other one…”], and we’ll watch anything with Piper in it, after They Live. It’s clear Tweed is not exactly in the realm of Lee, but does credibly enough to paper over the cracks, action-wise, and perhaps surprisingly, keeps her clothes entirely on.

Things do fall apart at the finale, which is convoluted and strained, to say the least: the film is much better when sticking to its basic premise – or, more accurately, someone else’s basic premise. But, having sat through much the same film with Anna Nicole Smith in the lead, this is an enormous improvement. Certainly, it’s cheap and cheerful, the kind of thing you can imagine seeing in an early 90’s videostore, with an appropriately lurid cover. But it is entertaining, and given the sights of the makers were clearly aimed no higher than that, has to be judged a success.

Dir: Paul Lynch
Star: Shannon Tweed, Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay, Roberto Davi, Roddy Piper

Beautiful Beast

  By

★★★
“The Beast is yet to come…”

Debate raged over this one. Chris reckons lead actress Shimamura was, at some point, a man. I’m not quite so convinced, but the mere thought certainly gave the sex scenes here an added edge of creepiness. Given the lengthy such sequence which occurs about five minutes in, I feared this was going to be no more than an itty-bitty titty-fest. Fortunately, after getting that out of his system, director Ikeda (Evil Dead Trap) settles down and delivers a gritty bit of nastiness, occasionally teetering on the edge of sadistic.

Ran (Shimamura) comes to Japan, and makes an immediate impression by assassinating a Yakuza boss and his associates, while they dine in a restaurant. Escaping the scene, she hides out in the restaurant owned by Yoichi (Yamato), and thanks him for covering for her with her body. About three hours later – or maybe it just seems that way – she moves on with the rest of her mission, which is to extract revenge on those responsible for the death of her sister. To this end, she works at the same hostess club as her late sibling, and waits for opportunity to present itself. However, the remaining target (Hakruyu), aware of his peril, kidnaps Ran’s friend Chun Li, and uses her to lure Ran out of the darkness.

The results are clearly inspired by the Zero Woman series, also about an angst-ridden hitwoman, and certainly have their moments. The finale, unfortunately, is not one of them, where instead of the bullet-propelled shootout against an entire Yakuza gang, we get something a lot less entertaining. The movie also features one of the most extreme instances of a boom-mike appearance that I have ever seen [it’s when Chun Li returns to her apartment to pick up some cash. At least, I think it’s a mic, since we couldn’t come up with any other credible suggestions]. Otherwise, however, it was less soft-pornish than we feared, and is played straight up and down, with the gangsters appropriately boorish, yet not stupid. More action would have helped, yet not without its merits. But if anyone can confirm or deny Chris’s theory about Shimamura, we’d like to hear from you…

Dir: Toshiharu Ikeda
Stars: Kaori Shimamura, Hakuryu, Takeshi Yamato, Takanori Kikuchi