Tag: 2007

Twins Mission

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★★½
“To bead, or not to bead, that is the question…”

Twins_Mission-posterTwins Effect, the first film starring the Cantopop duo, Twins, was a frothily entertaining mix of action and humour, that was surprisingly entertaining. Its sequel? Despite a stellar supporting cast, and some great action, not so much, with a historical setting, and a balance that tilted unfavourably towards comedy. This third entry does at least return to the modern era, and also continues some impressively slick fights – and more broken glass than any other movie I can immediately think of – but has a similarly lumpy attitude, feeling almost like two films spliced together.

The McGuffin is a Tibetan relic called the Heaven’s Bead, long alleged to have magical powers to cure illness – which is actually pretty damn big, since I was expecting something that could be measured in millimetres, rather than feet. On its way by train, a robbery attempted staged by an evil collective of twins (rather than Twins, if you see what I mean) leads to it ending up in a bag belonging to the owner of a store in a Hong Kong mall. Meanwhile, good twins Pearl (Chung) and Jade (Choi) are working as trapeze artists in the circus, but end up helping the guardian of the bead, Uncle Lucky (Hung) and his adopted son (Wu) to track down the artefact. But the evil twins also have their agent, Lillian, who is lured in with the promise of the bead’s power being use to cure her cancer-stricken little sister, the unfortunately-named Happy.

Yes, this doesn’t exactly take the high road in terms of pathos, milking child illness for every ounce of maudlin sentimentality it can muster, when not making xenophobic jokes about the funny way foreigners speak. There is also a fight over an autographed picture of David Copperfield [Jade + Pearl’s idol], which ends with it being eaten by a hippo. This apparently tells us two things about China: people still care about David Copperfield, and it may be the only place where circuses that use wild animals are still welcome. I’m not sure which is more surprising, but that’s the level of nonsense between the action that you will have to endure, and I’m not sure the plot makes any actual sense in terms of logic or motivation. Fortunately, the saving grace is said action, with one standout fight between the good twins and several sets of evil twins in the mall, and another at the end, in the evil twins’ lair. Both are long, inventive sequences on finding new and interesting ways to break plate glass, though both the wire-fu and the stunt doubling for the starlets are a bit excessive.

I originally gave this 2.5 stars, then upped it to three, when I realized that was what I gave Twins Effect II, and this surely wasn’t any worse, was it? But on further reflection, it probably was, and I downgraded it again: there’s about 20 good minutes in this, and even Sammo couldn’t save the rest.

Dir: Kong Tao-Hoi
Star: Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Wu Jing, Sammo Hung

Kite Liberator

  By

★½
“Half a star deducted, for being only half a movie.”

KiteLiberatorAnd not a very good movie at that, suffering from such multiple personality disorder, it sometimes feels that two completely different anime were spliced together in some mad scientist’s laboratory. If so, he clearly got bored and drifted off while the project was half complete, because this ends in a way which doesn’t so much suggest another part, as demand it unconditionally. Six years on, that still hasn’t materialized, making this about as appetizing as a half-cooked chicken. Oh, and speaking of mad scientists, there’s one of those in here too.

We’re a decade on from the events of the original Kite, and it seems Sawa has – without explanation – morphed into Monaka (Inoue). In between tracking down and killing paedophiles, she has a regular identity as a klutzy waitress at a cafe, where he co-worker Mukai (Okamura) protects her from the sleazy patrons. Monaka’s father is an astronaut, who has been in space for years. His space-station is visited by Kōichi Doi, a researcher investigating ways to preserve bone density in zero-G. However, it appears a combination of factors such as radiation, results in the astronauts mutating into monstrous creatures. After a firefight, Doi and his team bail out as the station disintegrataes, but the monster that Monaka’s father has become, is also on their craft, which crash-lands – conveniently right in her neighbourhood. A cover-up ensues, despite a trail of corpses, and Monaka is given her next mission: to kill the monster, unaware that it’s actually her father.

Which is pretty much where it ends, after a first battle between Monaka and him. Really: WTF? On its own, this is such an entirely pointless release, you have to wonder what happened. Even up to that point, this is problematic in a bunch of way, not least that Monaka is almost a minor character, and it appears to be a sequel in little more than name. While I’m not normally one to criticize a film for a lack of sex, this also lacks the severely transgressive or original qualities which made the original infamous. This is mostly a monster mash, which we’ve seen any number of times before. There is some potential for a second half, but I doubt it will ever happen. This is like tearing a book in two, selling the first half and never publishing the rest. If I had actually paid any money for this, I would be righteously pissed.

Dir: Yasuomi Umetsu
Star (voice): Marina Inoue, Akemi Okamura, Masakazu Morita, Setsuji Satō

Punch Lady

  By

★★★
“Battered wife = comedy gold. Or not.”

punch ladyNot unlike The Opponent, this centers on a battered woman, who takes up the pugilistic arts in an attempt to regain control of her life. The big difference here is that, for a great chunk of its running time, this is played for laughs. Yeah: spousal abuse as a topic for broad comedy. Oh, those wacky Koreans! Sarcasm aside, it makes for somewhat uncomfortable viewing, simply because such an approach would be almost inconceivable as a mainstream project in the West, due to the backlash. And this certainly was mainstream in Korea, getting a wide, national release – though it bombed, with its box-office performance described as “shockingly bad.” So maybe the Koreans aren’t quite as different from us after all…

The heroine is Ha-eun (To), who has the misfortune to be married to Joo-Chang (Park) and his vicious temper. Worse still, he’s a champion in mixed martial-arts, and doesn’t hesitate to use his ring skills on her and their daughter (Choi). But when he kills an opponent, an ex-boyfriend of Ha-eun, she storms the post-fight press conference, berating him and challenging him to fight her in the ring, rather than outside it. He agrees to do so, with one hand literally tied, and the custody of their daughter going to the winner. No legitimate trainer will touch her, but she finds a much more dubious coach in Soo-hyeon (Son), who is actually her daughter’s Math teacher, and is about to turn the gym into a nursery. However, funded by her ex-boyfriend’s life-insurance policy, of which she was the beneficiary, Ha-eun makes Soo-hyeon a generous offer. He accepts, taking classes at from Joo-chang’s gym, so he can stay one step ahead of his pupil as he trains her for the big fight.

Of course, a huge amount of disbelief needs to be suspended here, not least in the assertion that any legitimate MMA organization would sanction such a match – nothing good could come of it – or that someone (regardless of gender) could go toe-to-toe with an MMA champion, after only a few weeks of training from a clueless adviser. Not happening. It’s also hugely uneven in tone, an almost inevitable flaw as a result of the decision to take the story and treat it largely as the basis for goofy antics. This is at odds with the opening, and also the battle at the end, which is genuinely uncomfortable to watch, as Joo-Chang beats the shit out of Ha-Eun (at least initially; I don’t think saying so deserves classification as a spoiler). I have to say, Kang does a fabulous job of shooting the fight itself: whatever the other weaknesses, he nails it, keeping things interesting and tense throughout. The rest, however, probably needed to go in some different directions to be successful; perhaps, play up the media hysteria more. That said, I think I can say, with a fair degree of confidence, you won’t have seen anything quite like this, and even for that alone, this deserves credit.

Dir: Hyo-jin Kang
Star: Ji-Won To, Sang-Wook Park, Hyeon-ju Son, Seol-ri Choi

Naked Fear

  By

★★½
“The Naked Prey”

The concept of “hunting humans” has been popular cinematic fodder for over 80 years, since The Most Dangerous Game came out in 1932. This isn’t the first specifically to target women – the Roger Corman produced The Woman Hunt did so in the seventies – but the prey in that needed male help to accomplish much, which isn’t the case here. The heroine is Diana Kelper (DeLuca), whose new dance job turns out not to be quite as expected – she’s more or less coerced into working as a stripper, unable to leave until she pays off the debts to the man who brought her in. The only way to do that is to turn tricks on the side, but her first client is Colin Mandel (Garfield), who is interested in a longer-term relationship. Specifically, one where he can take his female victims into the remote wilderness, where they wake up, unclothed and eventually on the wrong end of a crossbow bolt or bullet. However, with Kelper, he may have bitten off more than he can chew.

It’s a good concept for a movie – all the more striking when you discover real-life serial killer Robert Hansen basically did the same thing for real, up in Alaska – and much credit to DeLuca for a performance which retains her character’s dignity, more than you’d imagine from the pretty lurid plot-line. The problem is mostly the script. The two obvious flaws are, firstly, it takes too long to get to the interesting stuff (from both exploitative and less prurient views), instead, meandering around pointless subplots such as a new local cop (Shiver), who has suspicions about all the missing persons reports, but blah blah blah. And secondly, way too much idiocy is required by Diana for reasons of plot. For example, at one point, she completely has the drop on her tormentor, having knocked him out with a rock. Obvious things to do would include, keep on smashing his skull, taking his weapon, or at least removing his boots and clothes for your own use, since you are buck-naked. Nope: she just runs off. Really?

There’s some discussion over the ending: some have said it feels tacked on, but I liked it, and felt it pointed towards a potentially more-interesting sequel, with Diana swapping roles and becoming the hunter rather than the hunted. But it isn’t quite enough to salvage the overall movie, with the weaknesses noted above enough to negate the more positive elements.

Dir: Thom E. Eberhardt
Star: Danielle DeLuca, J. D. Garfield, Arron Shiver, Joe Mantegna

Claymore

  By

★★★½
“Broads with swords. Really big swords. And monsters. There will be blood.”

You can almost imagine the trailer for this anime series being done by The Trailer Guy [y’know, who does all the voice-overs for Hollywood action flicks]: “In a world where demons stalked the land… One woman… Was humanity’s final hope…” The particular focus here is Clare (Kuwashima), one of 47 Claymores, an all-female sect of nomadic warriors who travel a fictional country, battling the flesh-eating Yoma, with combat abilities that border on the magical. But doing so requires them to unleash their own Yoma power, an act which runs the risk of them becoming what they hunt if they lose control. Clare rescues Raki (Takagi), who becomes her companion and cook, but out heroine has a mission of her own: hunting down and killing the Yoma who, years previously, killed her own mentor, Teresa of the Faint Smile.

This 26-episode show does not skimp on the violence, to say the least, with limb-lopping and arterial spray, both human and demonic. the order of the day, and the style is nicely mature (I’m no fan of the huge eye approach so often seen in anime, which inevitably makes me think the show is aimed at 11-year-old girls. Sailor Moon has a lot to answer for). But what worked best for me was the characterization: it’s a neat role reversal, with the taciturn warrior being female, and the clingy tag-along, male. The other members of the organization, when we meet them, are also well-drawn, with their own back stories and motivations, as well as abilities. The interplay among them is fascinating, with a strict hierarchy, which Clare threatens to up-end, due to how she became one of them.

Two-thirds through, this was poised on the edge of greatness, but it ended up falling short. The sub-plot involving her splitting from Raki, and their subsequent reunion, is poorly handled, and the series topples over into repetitious battles, with the final few 25-minute episodes little more than two long fights, with a brief pause between them. One wonders if this might have worked better in a longer format: by the time you lop off opening and closing credits and the “story so far” sequence, there isn’t a lot of room to move the story on and provide the necessary quota of action. Do not expect any resolution either: the series ends in a way that requires a second season, which hasn’t happened at this point (the manga is ongoing, I think). Still, even as someone who is nowhere near as much an anime fan as I used to be, this was not unimpressive stuff, and definitely didn’t leave me feeling like I had wasted my time.

Dir: Hiroyuki Tanaka
Star: (voice) Houko Kuwashima, Motoki Takagi, Aya Hisakawa, Hana Takeda

Blood on the Flat Track: The Rise of the Rat City Rollergirls

  By

★★★★
“The best of the recent docs for the novice to the sport.”

In contrast to Brutal Beauty, this succeeds to a far greater degree is in putting over the attraction of roller derby. The first couple of films seem aimed more at the devotee, and it was more or less taken as read that already you liked it, or were at least somewhat interested. Here, I think even the more casual viewer will find themselves sucked in. They may or may not want to go any further, but the doc does a much better job of explaining the entertainment to be found, both for participants and spectators. The sheer sense of fun that is found at the best roller-derby events [or even, to be frank, the crappy ones, which we have also attended!] is a good deal more palpable here than in the other films, which concentrated on personalities to a greater extent than the sport. That isn’t the case here, and to an outsider, the results are likely better for it.

Not that there is any shortage of said personalities, such as the mother and daughter who both take part in the sport, or the three sisters who have been roller-skating virtually their entire life, and are feared across the entire Seattle league. There are, admittedly stories about romance and marriage included, but even these have a close connection to roller-derby, like the guy who proposes after his girlfriend became part of the championship-winning team [I can relate to this, having proposed to my wife immediately after the Arizona Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series!]. I also enjoyed the insight into the different teams, like the Sockit Wenches (right) or the Derby Liberation Front, and the different ways in which they both perceive themselves and are perceived from the outside. Each has a different group personality, which of course, attracts other like-minded individuals, reinforcing that aspect of the team.

In common with the rest of the films, it covers a period of time rather than necessarily any particular sequence of events, mostly around the 2006 season, where the Wenches were trying to dethrone the reigning champion DLF. There’s enough footage of actual bouts that you can understand the skill of the participants, and the danger inherent in the sport. It’s frank in admitting that sex appeal is part of the draw, especially for the male audience, but I can attest that the film is also correct when it states that after about 15 minutes, that simply isn’t important. With its host of likeable players, it’s no surprise that the derby scene in Seattle continues to prosper, with the fed holding the national record for single-event attendance, having pulled 6,885 to a show in June 2010.

[It doesn’t seem to be available to stream online for free; we found it on Netflix. ]

Hell on Wheels

  By

★★★½
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was ‘Austin’…”

The revival of modern-era roller-derby started in Austin, Texas, when a man of dubious background and apparently even more questionable character, Dan Policarpo, arrived in the city and started talking up the sport to anyone who would listen. While he didn’t last long – taking loans out in the names of his skaters doesn’t inspire confidence – he was instrumental in putting together the first in what would become a worldwide wave of amateur, but extremely dedicated, all-girl roller-derby leagues. At the center in Austin were four women – Heather Burdick (a.k.a. Sugar), April Herman (Queen Destroyer), Anya Jack (Hot Lips Dolly) and Nancy Haggerty (Iron Maiden) – who founded Bad Girl Good Women and were captains of the four teams. However, it was not long before the inevitable drama starts, with the rest of the participants wondering for exactly whose benefit they were risking life and limb, as well as sacrificing their free time.

And when I say inevitable, this is not a gender slam, since we’re currently “enjoying” something similar in the male-dominated world of pro wrestling here in Arizona. It’s more that strong personalities, contact sport and money are unlikely to be a good combination, and the film demonstrates this in spades. Things come to a head after a financial fiasco involving calendars, and a very nasty injury at a bout that turns out to be an uninsured event, and about 3/4 of the skaters slough off into a rival league, setting the stage for even more drama. You couldn’t script this stuff, and it’s remarkable that Ray was there to capture it from the very beginning, well before Dave Attell showed up to film it for Insomniac, before A&E covered the original league for Rollergirls and way before Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page took any interest.

However, it’s a double-edged sword, in that there’s far more footage of league meetings than league matches – and if you can work out what’s going on in the latter, you’re better than I am. Admittedly, that may be because, in these early days, they weren’t actually very good skaters. As for the former, most get-togethers appear to take place in bars, or other places not conducive to the recording of crystal-clear dialogue. But it’s worth persevering, for the characters and drama that unfolds with a remarkably even hand. It would have been easy to portray the Gang of Four as exploitative tyrants, but one makes the point that they wanted to run the league like communists, and it failed miserably. There are also times when the film should have called out the BS of those present, such as when a skater gets all snotty after an audience member grabs her crotch… instead of merely spanking her as intended… while she’s dressed as a sexy schoolgirl. Yeah. I think you lose much right to credible outrage at that point.

But, for all its uncritical approach and other flaws, this is the Declaration of Independence of roller derby, a historic document which shows how the whole thing got started. Austin set the tone for both the good and the bad aspects of the sport-industry-crypto-feminism which we know and love today, though after this film, you’ll be left feeling it’s something of a miracle the whole shebang didn’t crash and burn during its formative years.

Dir: Bob Ray

[The whole doc is now available to watch online, though the DVD comes with a lot of extra footage, commentaries and other assorted bells and whistles.]

The Gene Generation

  By

★★★
“Well, I guess it’ll do until Neuromancer shows up.”

In a dark, grim future, Michelle (Ling) is an assassin, taking out DNA hackers for pay. However, her income is drained as fast as she earns it by her Jackie (Shen), her brother, who has a gambling addiction. To try and pay off his mob debts, he breaks into the apartment of their next-door neighbour, Christian (Newman), a renegade DNA hacker himself, and steals a device on which he was working. The “transcoder” can take a subject’s DNA and, more or less, rewrite it, thereby having the potential to end disease – yet it could also be turned into an enormously destructive weapon. Needless to say, when word gets out that Jackie has this device, everyone wants to get their hands on it.

I liked the visual style, even if it’s so Blade Runner, that Ridley Scott should be cut a fat cheque for its use. And Bai Ling may be in her forties, but is still capable of kicking ass in an impressively competent (and occasionally hyper-bloody) manner: witness the way she disposes of a bunch of evil minions, surrounding her, guns pointed, in about two seconds flat. Let’s just say, Cleric Preston would be impressed. Throw in some impressive industrial beats – VNV Nation leader Ronan Harris provided additional music – and you’ve got something that, at its best, is a very nice slab of cyberpunk.

However, the weaknesses are both severe and obvious. The plotting is clunky and muddied: it’s based on a comic-book (The DNA Hacker Chronicles), but some apparently important points are not explained, while others that appear important are never mentioned again. Jackie is also incredibly annoying; it wasn’t long before Chris and I were wishing a rapid death on this entirely unlikeable jackass. If the film-makers had been wise enough to find another, entirely separate way of bringing Michelle and the transcoder together, we’d have been a great deal happier.

The negatives and positives operate in sharp contrast to each other: the good stuff is really very good, but the bad moments are on the “root canal” level. The unevenness left us with a sense of wasted opportunity; the elements were there for something with definite cult-classic potential. However, they simply succeed in making the failings all the more obvious.

Dir: Pearry Teo
Star: Bai Ling, Parry Shen, Alec Newman, Michael Shamus Wiles

À l’interieur (Inside)

  By

★★★★½
“Some women will stop at nothing to have a baby. Whether it’s theirs or not.”

The ‘final girl’ is a well-worn concept in horror: the last survivor, typically the “good” girl, finally fights back against the assailant in the movie’s climax. It is isn’t normally enough to merit inclusion here, since it’s usually a relatively minor aspect of the film. Here, however, not only is it just about the entire film, the main theme – motherhood and the instincts it arouses – is entirely feminine. Aliens, and Ripley’s surrogate parenting of Newt, would be another example. And it’s also a rarity in the horror genre for both protagonist and antagonist to be female, but the threat here certainly deserves to be up there with Freddy, Michael, Jason and their cousins.

The action here does take place on a much smaller-scale, with the vast majority occurring in a semi-remote house. Sarah (Paradis – her older sister is Johnny Depp’s other half) is left alone on Christmas Eve, her husband having been killed a few months previously in a car accident. She’s about to give birth, but is more depressed by her current situation than delighted. There’s a knock on the door from a mysterious woman (Dalle); Sarah, suspicious, does not let her in, but it seems the woman knows Sarah and her history. The police are called but find no trace and leave. Later that night, the woman returns, and it’s soon clear she will go to – bold, underline please – any lengths to take Sarah’s baby.

Let me be perfectly clear: this is hardcore horror of the most unrelenting sort, completely unsuitable for those of a nervous disposition, and particularly pregnant women. In the 1980’s, Dalle was a sexpot, for her role in Betty Blue, but you can flush all memory of that down the toilet: here, she has a feral, near-demonic intensity, and god help anyone who is unfortunate enough to get in her way. Particularly the men, who are disposed of with complete dispassion and brutality; as the film goes on, her relationship with Sarah becomes complex, and more a case of, “I’m taking your baby, and we can do this the hard way or… Well, really, that’s all there is. Sorry.” Friends, family, even an entire patrol of cops – no-one can help Sarah. She’s completely on her own, and her fate is entirely in her own hands.

Somewhat inspired by the 2006 case of Tiffany Hall, who removed a foetus from her friend’s womb with scissors, the film escalates from a quiet opening, through tension, before exploding in a literal tidal-wave of gore, as the protagonist and antagonist battle each other. My sole complaint is a couple of incidents in the final act that seem to stretch belief, e.g. a character conveniently rising from the dead for another assault, though it’s a common complaint in this area. Otherwise, even though we are jaded fans of both genres covered here, this one will stick with us for a long time, and cements France’s place at the forefront of horror.

Dir: Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo
Star: Alysson Paradis, Béatrice Dalle

The Apocalypse Code

  By

★★★½
“Proof that cheerily mindless action pics are not the exclusive domain of Hollywood.”

About ten minutes into this, as another large explosion filled the screen, Chris turned to me and said, “Is this a Michael Bay movie?” While it isn’t, confusion is understandable: this is just the kind of dumb action film for which he is renowned, featuring basic plotting and large-scale mayhem. Terrorist Jaffad is just about to sell four nuclear warheads he has hidden in major cities worldwide back to the Americans, when his entire compound is taken out, at the command of a mysterious figure known as “The Butcher.” FSB Agent Marie (Zavorotnyuk), who had previously been working undercover to get to Jaffad, just manages to escape the slaughter, and is now assigned to track down the Butcher, by getting close to his financial advisor, Louis (Perez). Jaffad gave parts of the eleven-digit code that can be used to detonate the devices, to trusted colleagues in Italy, Norway and Malaysia, and Marie needs to find the code before the Butcher.

Expensive by Russian standards, yet relatively cheap ($13.5m budget) by American ones, this certainly provides bang for its buck, whizzing around the globe like the Bond movie it mostly wants to be, while putting its heroine in a selection of glamorous costumes and wigs (prefer blondes? Marie can provide for you too, as shown in the pic at lower-right). Shmelev has a good visual eye for proceedings, shooting and framing the action with some beautiful work, and makes the most of his locations. Zavorotnyuk has good screen presence, and I liked that no-one made much mention of her sex; she’s just another agent. It gets bonus points simply through its origins, which confer a different approach – when the Americans show up (though it’s difficult to tell, since everyone speaks Russian), they aren’t particularly good or bad, just there.

However, the plot is not novel at all, the efforts to give Marie backstory are near-laughable, and once the novelty of the Russian heroes wears off, the script has little to offer: significant fragments don’t make much sense, and other scenes seem to be there, just to prove the makers actually went to the locations. Action-wise, it’s somewhat of a mixed bag; it seems pretty clear the lead actress isn’t doing much of the action herself, but there’s a nice fight at the end between Marie and the villain, in front of the console which can be used to detonate the bombs, as a self-destruct timer counts down. You can also enjoy a gun-battle on a boat, and Marie stocking the corridors of a hotel [you’ll understand why I spelled it like that, hohoho].

It originally came out in Russia more than three years ago, and I’m a little surprised the film apparently hasn’t had any kind of official release in the UK or US. It’s glossy, well-produced nonsense, that completely fails to engage the brain or heart, yet kept me adequately interested for 105 minutes, with plenty of eye-candy [note to Chris: I mean the exotic locations, darling…] and giant fireballs. While I’ve already forgotten much of what happened in this, it is as good a stab at creating a female Jason Bourne as anything Hollywood has yet managed.

Dir: Vadim Shmelev
Star: Anastasiya Zavorotnyuk, Vincent Perez, Vladimir Menshov, Oskar Kuchera