Tag: c

Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

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★★★★
“Certainly better than Battle Royale 2.”

catchingfireWe rejoin heroine Katniss Everdeen in the second book of the trilogy, after her success in the 74th Hunger Games, where she out-lived the other contestants, in part through a fabricated love-affair with fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta. However, as well as her previous love, Gale, she now has to cope with life as a celebrity, beginning with a “Victory Tour” through the other districts. It soon becomes clear that not all is well, with her stand against the Panem government having fanned the flames of rebellion elsewhere. To demonstrate their power remains unshaken, the leaders announce the special, 75th Hunger Games will involve two previous winners from each district, meaning Peeta and Katniss are sent back in to a new, even more lethal environment, to take on other champions.

That this works better than its predecessor, is mostly due to the pacing department, which builds through a first-half of impending doom, and on to an upgraded Hunger Games, before dropping a bomb in its final paragraph. There’s more depth given to the Panem hierarchy than first time around, and the undercurrent of growing revolution is nicely depicted. The Twilight-esque love-triangle aspect, which bogged down the first book, is reined back, with Gale almost absent, though Katniss still has deal with her feelings for Peeta, whom she has sworn to protect at any cost. However, can she trust those with whom she is allied in the games, and whose motivations are less clear? It’s this angle which largely keeps you turning the pages, along with the arena, throwing one threat after another at her.

At its center is Everdeen, who remains an entirely admirable creation. She is loyal, brave and phenomenally-skilled with her bow, yet possesses enough doubts and flaws to keep her human, rather than becoming some kind of superheroine. Clearly, the first-person narrative does mean there’s not much sense of direct threat to Katniss’s survival; however, Collins has enough other cards in her hand, to leave you concerned as to what the emotional cost of that survival might be. Hopefully, the second film can capture the nuances and improve on its predecessor in the same way. For when that literary bomb was dropped on me at the end, I gave serious consideration to heading straight into the third book. Damn you, Suzanne Collins.

Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic

C.I.A. Code Name Alexa + C.I.A II: Target Alexa

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C.I.A. Code Name Alexa
★★
“Harkens back to a kinder, gentler era of domestic terrorism.”

ciaalexaA terrorist attack on a federal facility is interrupted by cops, and the leader is killed in a shootout. Bizarrely, a raid is then staged on the church where his funeral is being held, apparently with the aim of recovering the body. It’s led by Alexa (Kinmont), who is captured in the process, and interrogated by police detective Nick Murphy (Simpson) – at least, until CIA operative Mark Graver (Lamas) swoops in and claims her. Turns out this is all part of a plot by evil genius Victor Mahler (Cord) to acquire a computer chip which will give him enormous power, because of its ability to control weapon systems. Unfortunately, Mahler has diplomatic privileges, so normal methods won’t work. But if Mark can turn Alexa – using her daughter as leverage – maybe she can take care of Cord.

There are moments when this threatens to break out of the direct-to-video mediocrity to which it aspires, but not enough of them. To be honest, what happened to Simpson a couple of years later, was probably fortunate for the film’s producers, giving the film a certain notoriety it doesn’t deserve.  I did like the cynicism of Graver, and his boss (Pam Dixon) has a disregard for the societal niceties which rings true. Kinmont, at the time the third of Lamas’s five wives to date, is sadly underused, however. There’s one sequence, where she stages a solo raid on Cord’s complex, that does a good job of showing her potential, but there’s too much time spent sitting round in federal detention.

The other problem is a plot which contains far too many elements requiring the suspension of disbelief. For instance, having recovered such a vital chip, would the government really allow it back in the hands of the person who was trying to steal it, purely so she can swap it with a terrorist for her daughter? I don’t think so. It all builds to a massive battle in the belly of Los Angeles Airport, which harkens back to a kinder, gentler era of domestic terrorism, when airport security apparently consisted of one rent-a-cop and a guy asking “Hey! What are you doing down here?” Ah, such innocent days.

Dir: Joseph Merhi
Star: Lorenzo Lamas, Kathleen Kinmont, O.J. Simpson, Alex Cord

C.I.A II: Target Alexa
★★★
“Learning to fly a helicopter? It’s vastly over-rated….”

cia2The following year, Kinmont and Lamas teamed up again, this time with Lamas also behind the camera, making his directorial debut – keeping it in the family, Kinmont also helped come up with the story. Mind you, the pair would separate on Veterans’ Day 1993, and eventually divorce, which lends the scene depicting their two characters bickering before a mission, a certain eerie poignancy. It begins with Alexa (Kinmont) having abandoned the CIA and run off to a life training horses with her daughter. But an unfortunate involvement in an armed robbery means that her only way out is back in to the agency, where Graver (Lamas) needs her to infiltrate the camp of Franz Kluge (Savage), a mercenary who has acquired the chip at the heart of another weapons guidance system. Sheesh, US government: you really need to take more care with these things. Oh, and Kluge is also the father of Alexa’s daughter.

There’s another terrorist, who needs the chip to make the components he stole operational. and Kluge’s leading minion is a henchwoman, Lana (Fetrick), who is unimpressed when his old flame comes waltzing back into their camp. She can actually kick ass better than just about anyone else in the film – including Kluge’s other associates, as they find out when they try to take Alexa on. That, and the grocery-story robbery, are probably the best fights in the film, whetting the appetite nicely for the Lana-Alexa battle at the end. That is actually kinda disappointing, but is worth it, simply for Alexa’s comeback after Lana says, “You can run, but you can’t hide.” It’s probably the time where Kinmont comes closest to being the “next Schwarzenegger,” as claimed on the DVD sleeve.

The rest of the film is okay. It’s more entertaining than its predecessor, with the gyno-centric approach giving it much-needed originality, and Savage gives a quirkily off-centre performance, switching sides as opportunity requires. It builds to a ludicrous climax which sees Alexa clinging to the leg of Kluge’s helicopter as it takes off, clambering in, knocking him out and then, apparently, landing it safely on sheer instinct, because no-one in either film has mentioned her knowing how to fly one. That sums up the entire series: it’ll pass for entertainment, providing you don’t stare too hard at the details, because things will then fall apart on you.

Dir: Lorenzo Lamas
Star: Kathleen Kinmont, Lorenzo Lamas, John Savage, Lori Fetrick

Challenge of the Lady Ninja

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★★★
“Well, it’s never dull, at least…”

short0447Chinese woman Wong Siu-Wai (Yeung) is training in the secret arts of ninjitsu, and passes her final test, much to the chagrin of her master’s other star pupil. Immediately afterward, she gets news of her father’s death at the hands of evil collaborator and former fiance Lee Tong (Chen), who works with the Japanese occupying forces. Oh, yeah: did I forget to mention this takes place in World War 2? Because the movie did as well. Anyway, she returns to China and sets about recruiting other, similarly-skilled women, who will be able to help her take revenge. Only, her nemesis has his own minions, who aren’t short on martial arts abilities either, and it’s only through the mysterious help of a masked ally that she is able to avoid an early defeat. Of course, she perseveres, and along the way there are shocking revelations, gratuitous mud-wrestling and a few bars of music apparently lifted directly from Star Wars.

The film can’t decide whether it was to be empowering or exploitative. For every scene of the heroines standing up for themselves and making their own way in the world, there’s one where they are stripped down to their underwear for the flimsiest of reasons. This starts early on, when it appears one of Wong’s ninja skills is to transform from her standard red jump-suit (as shown on the right) into something which looks like a stripper version of Tinkerbell, resulting in all the men around her collapsing with lust. Or there’s the sequence where she fights Lee’s only female bodyguard, who evens the playing-field by emptying an industrial-sized vat of baby oil on it. Or that one of her recruits is a prostitute, whose sole skill is apparently turning men into drooling imbeciles, at the frequent drop of her dress. The virulent anti-Japanese/pro-Chinese tone also gets old, and is kinda odd, since this was a Taiwanese production, so I wouldn’t expect them to be quite so pro-mainland.

That said, the more traditional action is certainly copious and generally fairly well-staged: Yeung is doubled for the more acrobatic elements, but it’s not made hideously obvious, and is helped by the fact that she is doing the rest of the fighting herself, and decently too. The opponents provide an interesting selection, notably the Japanese guy (Robert Tai) with a scorpion tattooed on his head. The revelations mentioned above, do come out of nowhere, and things end so suddenly I had to rewind to try and figure out what the hell just happened: this resulted from the combination of crappy print quality, making the final fight look as if it takes place underground, and the final fight actually taking place underground. Incoherent, surreal and nonsensical? Guilty as charged, m’lud. I probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dir: Lee Tso Nam
Star: Elsa Yeung, Kam Yin Fie, Peng Kong, and Chen Kuan-Tai
a.k.a Never Kiss a Ninja, Chinese Super Ninjas 2

Claymore

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★★★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

Crusade of Vengeance

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★★★½
“Look! Beneath the cheap silliness, some decent performances lurk…”

It’s easy to dismiss this, for its low production values, sometimes laughable dialogue and wildly-implausible plot – and I could hardly argue. Yet we still enjoyed this, thanks largely to performances which sustained us through the bad matte paintings, clunky lines, and mediocre action scenes. Of course, to use a pro-wrestling term, we’re huge Rutger marks, so seeing him as evil medieval warlord Grekkor is a big plus, harking back to his work in Flesh + Blood for Paul Verhoeven. Pacula is a “crusader mom” (for want of a better word), back from the Holy Land where she vowed to go after making a deal with God to let her son survive. However, she returns just after Grekkor and his sidekick (Vosloo) have swept her boy off with them. She goes to rescue him, teaming up with three other women on the way, as she heads towards the inevitable confrontation with Grekkor.

Despite a weird Scandinavian accent that seems out of place in what’s supposed to be England (and is actually Lithuania), Pacula does well, bringing the right intensity to her ‘wronged mother’ role. Hauer is fab as we expected, while Vosloo gets to act more than in either Mummy movie, and is actually good. They help hold up a film that occasionally wobbles between uncomfortable rape scenes, silly humour and Culver’s costume, that resembles a fur coat which has gone through a shredder. Between that and her height, she looks more like the model she was, than a forest huntress, but does kick butt in an efficient manner. While the story goes almost exactly as you’d expect, this is one of those cases where you will be entertained, if you allow yourself to be. If no-one will mistake this for a classic, cut the movie some slack, and work with the film, rather than picking holes in it. Especially for those still mourning the death of Xena, the payoff will be more than adequate for a rental on a midweek night.

The film was released by MTI Home Video on January 24th. See their site for more details.
Dir: Byron W. Thompson
Star: Joanna Pacula, Arnold Vosloo, Rutger Hauer, Molly Culver
a.k.a. Warrior Angels

La Culata: Mexican Standoff

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★★
” Like a low-budget Andy Sidaris film. If he was Mexican and couldn’t talk his actresses into undressing.”

I vibrated between 2 and 2 1/2 stars for this, but opted for caution: it’s probably not as bad as it seems, despite an obvious lack of budget and ambition far in reach of its abilities. Or, at least, I maybe liked it a little more. As the alternate title suggests, it’s the third in a series, though information on the first two is scant: there’s no IMDB entry for them, and they appear to have different cast members. The central character is Maria Navajas (Ponce), an abused woman who turned to killing, discovered a talent for it, and took it up as a career. This entry finds her being sought by two different groups of gangsters who believe she ripped them off, as well as the feds. She has to fend them all off, with the aid of a friendly undercover cop (Sevilla) and her agent (played by, according to the IMDB, one of the producers of Napoleon Dynamite!).

There are elements of this that are quite laudable, with a host of strong female characters – not just Navajas, but her main adversary, the mob boss knows as “La Culata” (Cepinska), who has a fondness for female enforcers. Both the roles, and the performances behind them, are interesting enough to hold your attention, and some of the supporting pieces are also decently constructed. However, for every step forward, there’s at least one, and often two back. The storyline is over-stuffed, and at 113 minutes, this would benefit from a lot of editing. The action is largely poorly-shot, probably to conceal the limited combat talents, and with bizarre mis-steps such as one awful moment where the heroine throws her knife down the barrel of an enemy’s gun. Look, if you’re that good with the weapon, just embed it in their eye, alright? There are several moments where it looks like this is going to kick off, but doesn’t – most notably, we never get the expected confrontation between La Culata and Maria, which is a shame. Instead, the finale is the biggest let-down since the Hindenburg.

Certainly, don’t be fooled by cover art which appears to have strayed in from Single White Female, or something similar. This is a zero-budget action movie, but coming from a culture which doesn’t exactly regard women as equals, deserves some credit for putting them front and centre. However, the execution in this case leaves just too much to be desired.

Dir: Jorge Ramirez Rivers
Star: Cecilia Ponce, Anna Cepinska, Guillermo Iván, Manuel Sevilla
a.k.a. Maria Navajas 3

Cherry Bomb

  By

★★
“More bomb than cherry.”

Cherry (Julin – yep, that appears to be her surname) is a stripper, whose life takes a turn for the worse when she is assaulted by five customers in a private room at the club where she works. The cops aren’t able to do anything, so she takes the law into her own hands, with the help of her brother (Rodriguez), who accidentally kills one of the perpetrators when he goes to demand help with Cherry’s medical bills – no prizes for guessing how that request goes. As the others realize someone is out to get them, and who that someone ins, they hire Bull (Hackley), a gigantic hitman, to stop Cherry before she gets to them.

It’s clearly attempting to re-create the grindhouse era, but wimps out on most levels – for example, Cherry is a stripper who never shows any significant flesh. That’d perhaps be forgivable, if Julin’s performance hit the required notes elsewhere, but it wobbles uncertainly from giggly schoolgirl, incapable of forming any kind of plan to violated bitch, capable of ramming a vehicle into someone’s head (in probably the film’s most impressive moment). The other performances are similarly shaky, with the possible exception of Manning as the club owner, who captures the necessary tone for his role. Hackley is so shamelessly channeling Samuel L. Jackson from Pulp Fiction it goes beyond irritating into amusing – then past that, back into irritating again [Chris wondered if it was a white guy in blackface, it’s so clichéd!]. The action is equally as mixed a bag, swerving from well-staged to sloppy, occasionally even within

The overall impact is occasionally effective, with a couple of scenes that deliver the necessary wallop. But too often, it feels half-hearted, like they had a vague interest in resurrecting the grindhouse era, rather than a passion or drive, and it’s certainly all but lacking the “grind.” While I’m all in favour of emphasizing the “revenge” over the “rape” aspects of the story, the latter is so toned-down and muted – the assault itself is barely shown here – that the justification for the former is almost non-existent. That makes it difficult for the audience to get on board, when the ends don’t appear to justify the means.

Codename: Yin/Yang

  By

★★
“Just because you can make a movie, doesn’t mean you should…”

To the makers’ credit, they are perfectly up-front about this being made for pennies, with home video equipment and edited on a laptop. But even though I’m not averse to that – heck, I’ve been involved with films on such microbudgets myself – there’s still too much here that’s avoidably bad. For instance, if you are going to put the President of the United States in your film, be sure you have access to someone with a grasp of English that extends past “D+, must try harder”. If you don’t, then leave them out.

Said President (Daubjerg) unleashes a zombie virus on Denmark, apparently confusing the country with Iraq [maybe this joke makes more sense in Danish?]. To finish the job off, he sends in Special Forces icon Bobo Moreno (Penstoft), to oversee the mop-up work. But against him are Yin and Yang (the other Penstoft and Louring), two opposing sides of the same lethal coin. One is dark, dresses in black and is an expert with firearms. The other is blonde, dresses in white, and wields a mean Samurai sword. They are Denmark’s last hope, and have to slice and dice their way through the zombies, to reach Moreno’s headquarters, where he and an amazingly over-acting mad scientist are holed up.

There are some elements of this which are not bad. Unfortunately, they do not include the acting, dialogue, action or pacing. The last-named is perhaps the worst offender, such as the scene where Moreno is basically reading the Yin/Yang dossier for what feels like 45 minutes. The girls certainly look the part, and since they get to do their acting in Danish rather than English-as-a-second-language, perhaps come off best. However, the fight sequences are poorly-staged and largely uninteresting, with very little being made of the light-side/dark-side which is carefully set-up, then almost ignored.

So, what does work? The zombie make-up is pretty impressive, and technically, it really isn’t as bad as I feared it was going to be. The soundtrack is strangely catchy, in an 8-bit games console kind of way, and the actual concept is…well, it was strong enough to lure me in, with its promise of hot chick-on-zombie violence. It almost entirely fails to deliver what it promises, but for all its faults, I can’t bring myself to hate this. The love for the genre and unpaid effort that went into it is obvious: if only the enthusiasm had been tempered with more skill.

Dir: Henrik Andersen, Bo Mørch Penstoft
Star: Line Penstoft, Sabine Louring, Bo Mørch Penstoft, Mads Daubjerg

Chikara: Joshimania

  By

★★★★
“They Came From Japan…”

If I’d heard about this event in advance – rather than the first I saw of it being a review of the opening night – a road-trip to the East coast might have been in order. For this would have been a chance to see some of the giants of Japanese women’s wrestling – known as “joshi” – on a rare trip to the United States for three shows on successive nights. That includes Toyota who, in her mid-90s heyday, was perhaps the best female wrestler ever, and was among the very best, of either gender, at the time: from 1992-95, she wrestled in no less than ten bouts rated as five-star by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, two of which were named the world-wide Match of the Year. Fifteen years later, I was curious to see if she and other icons like Kong could still bring it, and also to check out Sara Del Rey. A few years ago, Del Rey had been a regular part of IZW, the local promotion we helped at, and her reputation now had her among the best indie workers in the US.

Some general thoughts before we get into each event. If you’re used to the WWE and their “divas”, these events would be a startling change, on a whole variety of levels. Most obviously: the matches aren’t three minute bathroom breaks. For instance, on the debut show, all the women’s matches ran for at least ten minutes, with Toyota vs. Toshie Uematsu running just short of twenty. And, just as important, the skills on view are undeniable, both technically and from the ‘in-ring story telling’ point of view – which is basically an ignored aspect in WWE, where it’s get in, string a few spots together, pin-fall and get out. Here, there’s a palpable sense of effort going in to building a character as heel or face, especially necessary in a one-off set of shows like this, where there’s no back story on which the crowd or wrestling can rely to create atmosphere.

As with just about all wrestling shows, not all matches are equally good, or equally relevant. and I’ll generally be concentrating on the the main bouts more than the undercards – though there were still some moments worth mentioning from the latter. The three nights of Joshimania also included some men’s bouts: Chikara is mostly a male promotion, with even Del Rey fighting against men. I acknowledge the existence of these matches here, and will not cover these again, though they were generally entertaining.

Night 1: December 2, ECW Arena, Philadelphia. A good example of those “mentionable moment” came in the opening contest, an inter-gender match where the joshi trio of Kaori Yoneyama, Tsubasa Kuragaki & Hanako Nakamori beat the Chikara heel team of Archibald Peck and Los Ice Creams. This ended with the submission move shown below on the left, in which Kuragaki lifted two opponents across her shoulders. It was the move of the night, amazing especially if you consider that most divas – with the honorable exceptions of Beth Phoenix and Kharma (who was a tag partner of Aja Kong in Japan in the mid-2000’s) – would crack in a stiff breeze. That was the highlight of the undercard, with the GAMI vs. Sawako Shimono bout rather slow and uninteresting, coming across as too obviously staged.

Things perked up with Cherry & Ayako Hamada vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Mio Shirai, the latter playing the cheating heels to impeccable effect, and this really showcased the character aspect of pro wrestling. In particular, the veteran Ozaki had a grudge against the “rookie” Cherry, and concentrated on bullying her every chance she could get, legally or otherwise. It’s the first time I’d seen Shirai, and she made a great impression too, in what was probably the most entertaining bout of the opening evening. Manami Toyota is now into her forties, and has probably lost a step or two from her peak, but is still an unrivalled combination of high-flier and technical expertise – her misile drop-kicks remain a thing of wonder. Her opponent was Toshie Uematsu, another veteran, albeit one three years younger than Toyota. This was a solid enough match, between a pair of veterans who are more than familiar with each other, but the lack of an obvious heel/face may have robbed this of some drama.

No such problem with the final bout: it was clear who was who, from the moment Kong spurned Del Rey’s offer of a handshake pre-bout, leading the US wrestler to yell “Too good to shake my hand, Aja?” at her opponent. Del Rey threw everything she at at Kong right from the start, but Kong wouldn’t go down – for instance, after being hit by Del Rey’s headbutts, she went over and started headbutting the corner turnbuckle. What this did was set up the later parts, when Del Rey’s offense did have an impact, such as the massive suplex dropping Kong on her back. Del Rey took her share of punishment, including a metal can to the head after the a ref bump took the official out. The finish came after Kong missed her finisher, the uraken or spinning back fist; Del Rey took advantage to roll Kong up for the pin, ending the first night’s events.

Night 2: December 4, Everett Rec Center, Boston. Okay, a little outside Boston, technically, but let’s not split suburbs. Many of the same competitors from last night were seen again, with the matches swapped around to provide a different set of contests. The crowd looked a bit smaller than Night 1, but were probably a little bit more into things – it’s amusing to be reminded of how wrestling fans anywhere (be it Massachusetts or Arizona), tend to react the same way. More than once, I thought, “Is that Chikara’s equivalent of ?” Wherever you go, there you are. Which has probably just made this the only review of Joshimania to quote Confucius. Or Buckaroo Banzai, if you prefer.

Quickly to go through the undercard, GAMI still continues to underwhelm; watching her and her opponents dawdle their way across the ring at leisurely paces, was like watching furniture being rearranged. However, Kaori Yoneyama did prove impressive in her match against Hanako Nakamori. That was especially so, given her small stature – she’s only 4’11” – but that did not reduce her impact in the match one bit. It was mentioned several times that Yoneyama was going to retire shortly, but it seems this tour helped lead to a change of heart, with Yoneyama announcing, literally during her retirement ceremony, that she’d be carrying on. Glad to hear that, since I enjoyed her matches: the promoters of that final event were none too happy, and had to offer refunds to those who’d attended!

Things literally kicked into high-gear with Mayumi Ozaki vs. Mio Shirai – they’d been losing tag partners last night, and based on this one, each blamed the other, because this was phenomenally stiff. Shirai’s kicks and Ozaki’s punches were the stuff of nightmares: the latter won out in the end, and even Chris nodded approvingly, saying “This is real women’s wrestling.” Hard to argue with that. Sara Del Rey took on Tsubasa Kuragaki in the next match, which for my money just took Bout of the Night honours, though it was hard to separate the singles matches in terms of quality. This was a blitzkrieg of perpetual near-falls, and you had the sense the match could end at any time, in either direction, which made for engrossing viewing. An amazing strength move by Del Rey, suplexing her opponent, out of the Royal Butterfly submission hold [with both her opponent’s feet already off the floor], proved decisive.

Manami Toyota was in action next, but as part of an 8-man tag match – or, rather, a 6-man 2-woman match. Listing the participants would use up all my space, so I’ll just say it was as packed with action as you’d expect from such a crowded ring, though I’d rather have seen a ring goddess like Toyota as more than 1/4 of one side, even if she was certainly involved more than one-quarter of the time. I was a little surprised, given their lengthy track record, we didn’t see the “obvious” match of Toyota vs. Kong, one-on-one, in this series. Instead, the main event here was Kong vs. Ayako Hamada, with Hamada giving away about 80 lbs or so. Can’t say I felt the outcome here was ever in doubt, but credit Hamada for withstanding much punishment, e.g. Kong stomping on her body, before catching an uraken. Goodnight, Vienna: though even Kong – ever the monster heel – acknowledged Hamada’s effort after the bout, a nice touch.

Night 3: December 5, Highline Ballroom, Manhattan One of the problems with one-off shows like this is there’s no possible story arc; a key aspect of pro wrestling is threads that run over multiple consecutive events, typically building to a big finish in some way. With a fresh audience each night, that’s not possible here, but what is lacking there is largely made up for in personality and ongoing character. By the time I got to the third show, I knew that Mayumi Ozaki would cheat like a three-card hustler, Aja Kong would no-sell just about every bit of offense thrown at her, and Sara Del Rey would stand her ground against the best joshi could throw at her. This predictability might seem a deficiency, but it’s what we want. This is soap opera with violence, and is designed to give viewers what they want, not confound expectations. This night’s showed delivered impeccably.

On the undercard, I should mention Saturyne, who was one half of an impromptu tag-team taking on Los Ice Creams, and was more or less an unknown. She made a good impression, taking a good deal of punishment but also showcasing some spectacular high-flying moves. One to watch. This was followed by GAMI vs. Portia Perez, and while I was unimpressed with the former in the other two nights, this was her best match of the weekend, with some great strength moves, including holding a vertical suplex for a full 20 seconds. The final match of the half saw Toshie Uematsu fit in nicely with the demonic Batari trio, and take on Cherry and the Colony (all three Ant fighters) in an eight-person bout that was no less frantic than the one the previous night.

It was certainly warmly appreciated by the audience, and I they were the “extra man” which helped make this night’s show the best one. They seemed really into almost every bout, and their reaction to the moves certainly enhanced their impact. It was a “cosy” venue, with the fans almost on the edge of the ring, and this made for a great atmosphere, despite the early 4pm start. After intermission, they really started to get into things with the Ozaki vs. Yoneyama match – as noted above, this delivered exactly what you’d expect, with the OZ twisting all the rules and Yoneyama [coming to the ring in s head-dress, for some reason…] taking all the punishment and bouncing back like a Duracell bunny made of latex. I think it was this bout which included a Human Centipede reference from the commentator. Not something you get on WWE.

Manami Toyota, Sawako Shimono & Hanako Nakamori vs. Aja Kong, Tsubasa Kuragaki & Mio Shirai. Frak me, this was good. If you buy only one DVD, Show #3 would be it, and if you watch only one match on one DVD, it’s this one. It ran for twenty-eight minutes, fifty-seven second. Let me repeat that. No, better yet, merely appreciate it was about ten times as long as your average Divas contest, and that’d include the WWE introductions. And you know another thing? There wasn’t a dull moment. Little wonder the crowd were chanting “This is awesome!” while the bout was still in progress. I was expecting this mostly to focus on Kong and Toyota, but it was a real barn-burner, with all six women both taking and delivering an impeccable showcase for women’s wrestling. While most of the matches in these three night were good, this one was outstandingly well-paced and entertaining.

The last bout had Sara Del Rey go for the triple-crown, having gone 2-0 against Kong and Kuragaki so far. Ayako Hamada stood in her way, and this one started cautiously, with both women trying to find an opening that would give them an advantage. Eventually, however, all such pretense at subtlety was replaced by them kicking each other in the head. Repeatedly. With feeling. Del Rey eventually prevailed after fifteen or so minutes, courtesy of a spike piledriver, to complete her undefeated run. While a solid main event, it definitely came up a step or two short of the fabulous bout which immediately preceded it. However, given the amazing pedigree of those involved, Del Rey shouldn’t be embarrassed in any significant way.

Conclusion. This was a heck of an event, and kudos are due to Quackenbush and the entire Chikara organization for the undeniably huge effort that went into putting these three shows on. It’s probably not much of a stretch to describe them as the finest series of women’s wrestling shows ever put on in the United States, and for any fan of the genre, the DVDs – available from Smart Mark Video for $15 each, and the digital downloads are less than ten bucks – are almost essential. As noted, if you can only get one, the third night is likely the one to have, containing the standout bout of the trilogy, as well as a number of extremely solid other matches. And even if all you’ve ever done is yawn your way through a two-minute Divas match on Monday Night RAW, this is the equivalent of a triple-shot expresso, injected directly into a vein.

Date: December 2-4, 2011: Philadelphia, Boston, New York.
Star: Manami Toyota, Sara Del Ray, Aja Kong, Mayumi Ozaki
[Tip of the GWG hat to Minoh Kim for the Sara Del Rey illo, and Makeway Graphix for the event poster.]

Carlito’s Angels

  By

★★
“Do we really need a ghetto, microbudget version of Charlie’s Angels? But then, did we really need the TV reboot?”

In many ways, this is wretched beyond belief, crippled by near non-existent production values and likely only to appeal to those who live in the urban culture depicted. And yet… For every moment of wince-inducing idiocy [Agustin appears to be a big fan of Benny Hill, using speeded-up footage for “humourous” effect more than once], there were moments of surreal charm. For instance, “Captions for the Hispanic-impaired,” or the really terrible fight scene which breaks the fourth wall, turning into a “making of” segment which (and I can attest to this) accurately depicts the hell of being a microbudget moviemaker. Or that the large family of children belonging to one of the Angels includes a bearded midget. “He just showed up one day. Hey, he buys groceries, it’s cool” is her casual explanation.

As you’d expect, it’s a spoof, with the three leading ladies living in Harlem, and as in the original, getting their orders from Charlie by phone – except, here, that’s because he’s locked up in jail. While sent undercover at a strip-club, supposedly to track down some white girl whose sleeping with a local guy, they overhear their landlord Big Lou (Reynosa) getting a loan from the Mafia guy who owns the club. He promises to pay the loan back by fixing the “boleta,” the local numbers game. They’re not going to tolerate this attack on an integral part of their culture, so have to stop him and his associate, Triple Gauge, before they can bring this heinous plot to completion.

Credit the three leads for giving their all, attacking their characters with a great deal of energy, that helps overcome some of the obvious limitations. I’m pretty sure a lot of cultural references went whizzing way above my head, but as the kids say, I’m “down” enough [Phoenix is pretty Hispanic] to be able to get a good chunk. The plot is pretty awful, the action falls short of even the 1970’s original version, and there’s way too much yapping, of a style generally seen on afternoon talk-shows. But there’s a sense the people involved have genuine enthusiasm, and made it for the love of film-making. At barely an hour between (rather nifty) comic-book styled opening credits and (entirely unfunny) bloopers which close things out, it can hardly be accused of overstaying its welcome. I probably enjoyed it more than the grade above suggests, but I own the very substantial tolerance for poverty-row productions required; your reaction will likely depend on that.

Dir: Agustin
Star: Evly Pacheco, Alessandra Ramos, Jeni Garcia, Raymond Reynosa