Tag: 2000

First Target

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★★★
“Mostly hit, and several misses.”

Well, after taking ten years to get from the third film to the first, the gap between first and second is considerably shorter. I think this probably works the best of the trilogy, not least because there are a few good GWG to be found here, not just Secret Service Agent Alex McGregor. This time, she’s played by Hannah – allegedly, seeing her here got Tarantino to cast her in Kill Bill – rather than Hemingway. The latter supposedly declined due to a combination of scheduling conflicts and script concerns. Frankly, I think this is a bit more solid than the original film. It begins with a nice nod back to First Daughter, opening again with an attack on President Jonathan Hayes (Harrison) – except, this time it’s just a training exercise.

McGregor is now the head of the Secret Service, and is coming down hard on new agent Kelsey Innes, for much the same reason McGregor suffered the same treatment. But more pressing matters are at hand, because the Vice President has a plot to kill his boss and take over. To that end, he has hired international assassin Nina Stahl (Grauer) and her hacker brother, who plan to assassinate Harrison during a ceremony in Seattle, with the help of a mole inside the local Secret Service office. Returning from the first picture is wilderness guide Grant Coleman (Savant), whose attempts to propose to Alex keep getting interrupted, and who is impressively unfazed by the fact his girlfriend now looks radically different from last movie.

The concept here is still a little silly, but at least the threat here is genuine, with Stahl a decent adversary who poses a real threat to McGregor, Innes, etc. She additionally brings a nice line in femme fatale to her line of work, and I was surprised to see a not-exactly subtly incestuous vibe with her brother. It feels like Stahl has wandered in from a different franchise entirely. Again, it is a little disappointing that Grant ends up doing so much, in this case going toe-to-toe with Nina, while Alex is making her way up the mountain towards the assassin. However, the heroine still gets her licks in, and puts the pieces of the puzzle together before anyone else.

Unlike First Daughter, there’s a sense that most of the people involved here are relatively smart; or, at least, behave as if they are. The absence of the annoying teenage Presidential daughter – never seen or heard, but apparently now getting tattoos – feels like a positive development too. It still remains limited by being a TV movie, and the pauses for advert breaks are often painfully obvious (not helped by them not lining up with the Tubi advert breaks). However, I was definitely entertained, and if I had seen this when it came out in TBS at the turn of the millennium, I would likely not have changed the channel. It almost makes me want to re-review First Shot, and see if I was unnecessarily harsh to it. Almost…

Dir: Armand Mastroianni
Star: Daryl Hannah, Doug Savant, Gregory Harrison, Ona Grauer 

An Eye for an Eye (2000)

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★★
“Somewhat eye-dentical.”

This opens with a scene that is almost a direct life from the similarly titled Eye for An Eye, directed by John Schlesinger four years previously. Here, businesswoman Carmen Pak (Cheong) is on a video-call – or, at least, the primitive 2000 version thereof – with her daughter, Shan (Tong), when someone breaks in and attacks Shan. Carmen can do little except watch in horror as her daughter is brutalized and raped. Though Shan identifies her rapist as Kiu Chi Yeung (Tong), there’s enough doubt over her statement, specifically regarding a tattoo he does not posses, that the police are unable to do anything. After further tragedy, Carmen decides to seek the justice she has been denied, through her own hands.

To this movie’s mild credit, it does divert from its American predecessor after the opening sequence, though this never manages to find its own identity entirely. It’s based on a rather shaky premise: namely that someone accused of rape would then, almost without hesitation, embark on a relationship with his accuser’s mother. It’s not even as if Yeung doesn’t know who Carmen is, which could have given the concept a sheen of plausibility. She’s right there when Shan physically attacks him after they both leave the police station. The script tries to walk a line of uncertainty as to whether or not Shan is guilty, though not particularly successfully. If you can’t figure out who was the perpetrator before the final confrontation, you haven’t been paying enough attention.

I did like the supporting character of Officer Chan (Ko), who initially comes off as a bit of a callous jerk, caring more about his mahjong losses than the rape case he’s investigating. However, he becomes more sympathetic as things unfold, being more a harried and overworked cop, who still tries to warn Carmen into taking care of things herself. It’s likely a better arc than the heroine gets, her development being largely summarized in a training montage where she hides a knife in the sofa, and uses it to attack innocent watermelons. It’s a curiously specific bit of practice, one made all the more odd by having little or no relevance down the road. She’s no more than semi-competent in terms of self-defense.

The same grade likely applies to the film-making on view as a whole. I can’t point to any elements that are especially deficient. Yet even less can I point to any elements which demonstrate innovation or even artistry. Everything plods along in workmanlike fashion, towards an ending that offers no particular surprises or thrills. Considering the subject matter, it’s surprisingly tame as exploitation, and would barely seem out of place as a Lifetime original movie. I was left yearning for the lurid excess of someone like Wong Jing to inject some pep into proceedings. We are, after all, talking about an anti-rapist vigilante here. This feels more like Carmen is fighting white-collar crime of some kind.

Dir: Yuen Shu-Wai
Star: Angie Cheong,  Michael Tong, Blacky Ko, Leila Tong

Teenage Hooker Becomes a Killing Machine

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★★
“Why, yes – yes, she does…”

You’ll understand why, when skimming leisurely through a streaming channel on the Roku, I screeched to a halt at this title. Even though the “official” English title is just Killing Machine, I knew I immediately had to watch it. Yet, while the title technically reflects what happens, it’s a masterly bait-and-switch. For instead of the expected grindhouse apocalypse, it’s far more arty and surreal. The word “Lynchian” is likely over-used, yet it’s hard to argue its accuracy here. If David Lynch had been contractually obligated to deliver a movie with this title, it’d perhaps have looked very similar.

The synopsis is about what you’d expect. The nameless schoolgirl prostitute (Lee) is caught turning tricks by her teacher (D-t Kim), and the pair start a relationship. But when she becomes pregnant and declares her love to him, he decides the best way out is, with the help of a few friends, to convert her into a cyborg killer for hire. Except, in a Robocop-like twist, she proves capable of breaking her programming, and turns her new found talents (including a machine-gun, mounted in a place machine-guns were never intended to go) on those who created her.

All of which still sounds a lot of fun. Except, trust me, it’s not, and it’s clearly not intended to be. Nam is interested more in Creating Art, with a capital A. This is apparent right from the beginning, which opens with the credits, running very slowly, backwards. They run again, in a forward direction, at the end; this pretension seems like unnecessary padding in a film which (perhaps mercifully) only runs 58 minutes, including about ten minutes for both sets of credits. It’s a lurid, shot on video nightmare, that takes place in a back-alley world, where the lighting is perpetually neon-harsh, and there’s always a hip soundtrack, ranging from Ryuichi Sakamoto to the Gypsy Kings.

It almost feels like an hour-long performance art prank at the audience’s expense, not least given the amount of time devoted to characters laughing hysterically for no apparent reason. Nam seems to feel that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, in the sense that virtually every scene continues well past the point where it has worn out its welcome or point. Yet it’s clear he knows his B-movies: for instance, the heroine’s first mission is obviously inspired, almost to the point of plagiarism, by the one in Nikita. It’s as if the director was going, “Well, I could give you what you expected… Nah. Let’s not. Instead, here’s another scene of the bad guys laughing hysterically for no apparent reason.”

I will say this for it. You will not have seen anything like Killing Machine before, and I will remember the movie, when most other films reviewed for this site have long been forgotten. However, neither of these points are necessarily a good thing. The joke’s on the viewer here.

Dir: Gee-woong Nam
Star: So-yun Lee, Dae-tong Kim, Soo-baek Bae, Ho-kyum Kim

Sheena

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We recently wrote about the movie version of the Sheena story, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, but that was not the most recent adaptation. For Sheena would eventually return in form of another TV-series that ran for two seasons and 35 episodes from 2000-2002. It’s quite likely that producers Douglas Schwartz and Steven L. Sears hoped to cash in on the trend of action-adventure TV-shows that were then popular thanks to series like “Hercules” and “Xena”. Sears himself was enjoying quite some success with “Xena – Warrior Princess” which he wrote several scripts of and partly co-produced.

Unfortunately, the “Sheena” show was nowhere near as captivating as “Xena” was. Sheena (Nolin) is far from the “cute but a bit naive” version that Tanya Roberts played. Here, Sheena is more a kind of eco-terrorist, fiercely protecting “her” jungle of Maltaka – so you’d better behave if you go there! Along comes Matt Cutter (Nelson) with his constantly ironically snarky companion Mendelson (Quigley). Cutter is out for the quick buck, leading tourists in the jungle, trying to forget his former career as a CIA-agent (!). But after clashing with Sheena in the beginning they quickly establish a working relationship – usually meaning Sheena will draw the poor man into another harrowing adventure of hers.

Obviously, there are plenty of terrible things that can happen in the jungle, be it big game hunters, terrorists, military coups or tribal wars that have to be prevented. While the show quite obviously had a very limited budget – I couldn’t escape the fact after some time that they always filmed at the same five locations – I give the film makers credit. They tried to make their show as diverting as possible as they could, with the time and money they had at their disposal.

Sheena has changed quite a bit from her previous version; she is no dumb blonde in the jungle, she reads Tom Clancy and romantic novels, has her own cave, is trained in the mystical art of transforming into any animal with whom she has eye-contact (I immediately had to think of the old TV-show “A case for Professor Chase” when seeing this) by Shaman Kali (Moorer) and has absolutely no qualms about killing off evil-doers in the jungle – and there are plenty over the course of the show).

Usually she transforms into what she calls the “Darakna” – which essentially means she puts black mud on her body and gloves, with bone claws on to slash her enemies to death. Don’t worry: it’s neither bloody nor (after the first time they show it to us) very exciting. I just wonder if, by doing that, she also immediately became super-powered. though she already is a strong fighter. Or if it just made the killing easier for her, as she then wasn’t “quite herself” (to quote Norman Bates!).

It seems the producers were going for some kind of developing love story – differently to “Xena”, there are no overlapping story-arcs, just stand-alone episodes. But if so, they blew it. It seems all the efforts of Cutter were in vain, after early in the second season, Sheena has sex with a random stranger after a couple of unsubtle compliments from him. A couple of episodes later, we are asked to believe that Cutter gets together with an Asian women he once met in a training unit at the CIA. Oh, and we have to suffer through the usual episode where Sheena meets her “first love,” or the one where a special-mission leads Cutter’s ex-wife into the jungle.

Nolin and Nelson never have much chemistry with each other, that would let them appear as anything more than good friends. There’s no Xena-Gabrielle spark here, if that’s what you were hoping for! So if you thought we were getting the Sheena-Cutter-happy ending no one was asking for, you’d be wrong. Cutter says good-bye to another beautiful blonde at the beginning of the last episode, who thanks him for “showing him the world”, and the rest deals with a tribe mistaking constantly monotonously babbling wanna-be-snark Mendelson for a wise, old leader with the same name. The series ends as unspectacularly as it began.

That said, while the show (like most shows of its ilk at the time) is underwhelming compared to “Hercules” and “Xena”, I do think the screenwriters really tried to come up with as inventive stories as possible, given the fact that the “adventures in the jungle” was already a genre as dead as a door-nail. There are some good ideas here: plants that raise certain hormones in your blood, making you love-struck as well as murderous (therefore having Cutter and Sheena try to kill each other); a female black Rocky in the jungle, faced with countless attacks by her opponents; a kind of “X-files”-episode, with the audacity to play that show’s musical theme a couple of times in the episode; or the dangerous giant ants that eat anything. setting Cutter and Sheena in quite a distressing position.

There are also some “guest stars” though you shouldn’t expect the A-class of actors here. I noticed Grand L. Bush (whom I know from a minor role in the James Bond-movie Licence to Kill some 11 years earlier), make-up specialist and occasional actor Tom Savini (From Dusk till Dawn) and the Tarzan of the 60s, Ron Ely in a villain role. At least the team tried, though you hardly ever can speak of three-dimensional villains here. You also have to forgive the typical 90s CGI-morphing and masks that were terrible, even in better and more prestigious TV shows of the time than this one.

All in all, “Sheena” is not a great show but given its limitations I would say the people in charge tried to do their very best. Though while I could still binge-watch “Xena” today, “Sheena” is something that I would probably only watch again if I woke up at 2 a.m. and regular TV didn’t offer anything better at that time.

Creators: Douglas Schwartz and Steven L. Sears
Star: Gena Lee Nolin, John Allen Nelson, Kevin Quigley, Margo Moorer

The Rowdy Girls

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★★★
“If Andy Sidaris directed a Western.”

rowdygirlsThe self-awareness of the film’s own silliness is clear, virtually from the start in which a singing cowboy – referred to in the credits as a minstrel – strolls through the countryside, crooning his ballad of the titular ladies. He pops up intermittently throughout to narrate, and it does a good job of setting the tone: clearly, this is not intended, in any way, to be a serious look at historical life in America. It is, very much, gyno-centric: beyond the leads, this was also written by two women, including India Allen, who was the 1988 Playmate of the Year. Not just a pretty face, then.

The three characters at the center have different stories, that all end up taking them to the same place. Velvet McKenzie (Tweed) has bailed out of her life in a bordello, with a travel-bag full of cash, and is travelling disguised as a nun. Sarah Foster (Brooks) is similarly making a break, fleeing an arranged marriage and heading for San Francisco, on the same wagon as Velvet. But in their way is Mick (Strain), member of an outlaw gang and the leader’s lover; the group rob the stagecoach, taking both Velvet and Sarah hostage. The attack is interrupted by the local sheriff, until Mick slides a knife between his ribs; that just sets his younger brother, Joe Pepper (Varga) on the trail of both the criminals and their captives.

No shortage of curvy nudity here, as you’d expect given the cast, though it certainly qualifies as being at the tasteful end of the spectrum. There is probably more of a plot than you would expect too, with loyalties and alliances shifting over the course of the 87 minutes, and despite its B-movie origins, the production values are better than certain Troma movies I could mention [though I’m not entirely sure about the credibility of some of the costumes, which appear more Victoria’s Secret than 19th-century Western America!] Strain is particularly fun to watch, not least because her 6’1″ frame towers over some of the male cast, and her attitude is equally imposing, but Tweed, well into her forties at the time, is by no means outclassed.

Sure, the makers of this have set their sights low, not appearing too interested in offering up much more than a soft-core exercise in historical inaccuracy. Adopting a tongue-in-cheek approach to the whole thing was thus likely a wise movie, effectively defusing most of the (numerous) critical arguments which could be made against it. Manage your expectations, therefore, and those expectations will be met. For as soft-core exercises in historical inaccuracy go, you could certainly do an awful lot worse. Below, courtesy of Troma, you’ll find the whole thing, so you can judge for yourself!

Dir: Steven Nevius
Star: Shannon Tweed, Julie Strain, Deanna Brooks, Richie Varga

Sin Dejar Huella

  By

★★★
“The road through Mexico.”

sindejaThe title translates as Leaving No Trace, and is entirely appropriate, since it focuses on two women who, each for their own reasons, are very keen to disappear off the grid. There’s MariLu (Sánchez-Gijón), a.k.a. Ana, a.k.a. a bunch of other names – she has three different passports – who works in the murky world of art smuggling, and is first encountered sneaking across the border from Arizona into Mexico [a nicely-ironic reversal of the usual traffic]. She is being pursued doggedly by cop Mendizábal (Ochoa), who is trailing Ana to find out who she works for. Then there’s Aurelia (Scanda), a single mom who is on the run after stealing and selling the stash of drugs her boyfriend Saul (Altomaro) was holding for the cartel, and who is on the run with the resulting cash. The pair meet up and agree to share the drive to Cancun, though neither is willing to reveal the truth about themselves. However, a red car with tinted windows is tailing them: is is Saul or Mendizábal behind the wheel?

This plays a little like a Mexican version of Thelma & Louise, although the women here begin as strangers instead of friends, and their film is as much about the growth of their relationship as the interaction with the outside world. It’s also very much a road movie, with the landscape through which they move almost another character; there are some amazing locations, such as the abandoned and derelict plantation mansion, now taken over and inhabited by the local peasants, or the near-deserted hotel in which the final act unfolds. Novaro does a great job of contrasting the grinding poverty and stunning natural beauty, and there’s an undercurrent of political subtext, with apparent nods toward NAFTA and the female homicides in Juarez. However, it is all kept light enough to teach Callie Khouri a thing or two about the benefits of subtlety and understatement.

Aurelia is likely the more sympathetic character, mainly because we know the truth about her situation – Ana appears almost pathologically incapable of telling the truth to anyone, about anything. However, the motivations and eventual goals of the women are left murky and unclear; this is a film definitely more interested in the journey, both physical and spiritual, than the destination. This is most apparent in an unsatisfactory conclusion, which zigs in one direction before inexplicably zagging back in another, without adequate explanation for either. The two pincers closing on the women do cross, only for one then apparently to meander off, as if distracted. And that’s a shame, as the film had put together a number of compelling elements and memorable sequences, including one of the more brutally realistic crashes I’ve seen [cars don’t fly, they plummet]. You should accept going in, this is much more drama than action; do that, and it’s an enjoyable enough ride, even if the final objective is rather disappointing.

Dir: Maria Novaro
Star: Tiaré Scanda, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón Jesús Ochoa, Martín Altomaro

Kyoko vs. Yuki

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★½
“Dead boring. Note: that is not just a critical opinion, it’s a statement of content…”

kyokovsyukiThe ultimate high school girl assassin Kyoko (code name 2029), who was raised by a mysterious underground organization finally became active. Meanwhile, the high school girl Yuki (born in 1983) with a reputation for being the strongest fighter in town, was living carefree every day with her girlfriend. And then, when the two met, a bloody battle for the title of “strongest high school girl” began…

Well, it sounded promising. Unfortunately, even though this lasts 52 minutes, the execution is so woefully inept, that you would be much better off watching half of Half Revenge Milly. The plot sees Kyoko (Fujikawa), having completed her training, sent on a mission to retrieve a suitcase of drugs which has been stolen from the organization that employs her. The Yakuza who stole it is currently living it up with what he thinks is a schoolgirl prostitute, but is actually Yuki (Satomi), who is intent on rolling her “compensated dating” boyfriend. She does so to help her lesbian lover, Miki (Satô), left deep in debt after acting as guarantor for a loan taken out by her sister, who has since vanished. However, when Kyoko finds out the pair now have her employer’s possessions, her revenge is swift and brutal, setting up a subsequent confrontation between her and Yuki.

Director Yamanouchi apparently has a bit of a “reputation” for sleaze, and that certainly seems justified here. Not so much for the lesbian sex, which pretty much par for the course: it’s the subsequent excursion into lesbian necrophilia for which this one will be remembered. It certainly won’t be for the fight scenes, which are feeble in the extreme, poorly-staged and possible even more badly edited. Sure, it’s clear that none of the actresses here were employed for their martial-arts abilities – even if, curiously, Fujikawa keeps her clothes on. Yet given the premise, you’d have thought those involved would at least have made some effort, albeit a token one. Nope. It’s wretched on just about every level, and even the splatter seem unenthusiastic, save for a mildly effective umbrella through the face. Oh, and I did laugh at Yuki taking her bra off and using it to try and choke Kyoko.

Maybe that’s really what this is: a parody of the genre, deliberately made to be piss-poor. However, from what I’ve read about Yamanouchi’s other work, it seems unlikely: satires doesn’t appear to be his bag, and this is described, in more than one place, as relatively restrained by the director’s own standards. That probably isn’t a good thing: if you don’t have production values… Or good actors… Or a script… Then at the very least, you should go full-throttle and embrace the madness, and it’s what the best of these J-film entries do. This one? Not so much.

Dir: Daisuke Yamanouchi
Star: Kyoko Fujikawa, Yôko Satomi, Kinako Satô