Tag: c

Chickfight

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★★★½
“Probably the best American women’s wrestling DVD I’ve seen to date.”

This 8-woman tournament took place on October 2004 as part of All Pro Wrestling’s Halloween Hell weekend, in in Hayward, California and.was the first under the ‘Chickfight’ banner. If you’re used to the Diva “matches” [quotes used advisedly] put on by the WWE, this will come as a pleasant surprise – it’s closer to the Japanese style, where technical skill is more important than breast implants. Perhaps the most surprising thing is the length of the bouts: rather than being a five-minute distraction, 15 or 20 minutes being not uncommon. The wrestlers come from Mexico and Japan as well as the US, though they really deserve better than both the location, which appears to be a lock-up garage complete with a roll-up door on one side, and the crowd, the bouts taking place in front of an audience that hardly seems to number fifty.

That said, the women still give their all, and Sugey is probably the most impressive, both in her quarter-final contest against Candice LaRae, where she totally destroy her opponent into unconsciousness, and then again in her semi-final match versus Nikki Roxx, where the pair roam turn the entire venue into the ring. Meanwhile, the other half of the draw sees Cheerleader Melissa – who can now be seen on TNA as Awesome Kong’s “Islamic” sidekick, Raisha Saeed – move through the tournament, defeating her opponents, Tiffany and Christie Ricci. The contests there are more evenly-balanced, though probably also count as somewhat less memorable – the acid test being that they failed to distract us as much from the appointed task of packing up boxes, in preparation for our imminent move. The final is a steel-cage match between the Princess and the Cheerleader [which, if it’s not a Disney movie, should certainly be one], held on a later evening – likely a wise decision, since otherwise, the wrestlers would be fighting their third contest in one night.

To be honest, the finale was a bit disappointing, since we believe it’s not a real steel cage match until the phrases “busted wide open”, “mask of blood” or “Oh, the humanity!” are used. This was far more like a regular wrestling bout inside a wire fence than anything, and the cage also hampered the camerawork, leaving me feeling like I was watching proceedings on CCTV. It didn’t help that the commentators didn’t know the rules for the fight, and weren’t aware that escaping the cage made you the winner. Really, it’s a pale shadow of a cage match when compared to something like the 1997 tag-bout, Las Cachorras Orientales (Mima Shimoda and Etsuko Mita) vs. Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe. That, dear readers, is a cage-match [and can be found on our video page for April 2009]. Overall, however, it’s a good-value package with some quality content and despite occasional qualms about the production values, I intend to check out other entries in the series down the line.

Star: Princess Sugey, Cheerleader Melissa, Nikki Roxx, Christie Ricci

Cat Ballou

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★★★½
“They’ll never make her cry…”

Aspiring teacher Catherine Ballou (Fonda), heads home to see her father in Wyoming, but finds him engaged in a struggle over his land with a land baron, and threatened by the villainous Tim Strawn (Marvin). She sends for legendary gun-fighter Kid Shelleen (also Marvin) to come protect them, only to find he is less legendary gun-fighter, and more alcoholic bum, incapable of saving himself. Strawn shoots Cat’s father and, when justice fails to be served, she heads off to a nearby outlaw town, where she vows to bring the land baron down and take revenge herself.

Originally a ‘serious’ novel – the same author, Roy Chanslor, also provided the source material for another proto-feminist Western, Johnny Guitar – this was turned into something light and frothy in tone. It provided a career breakthrough for Fonda, making her a star at age 28, and did much the same for Marvin, whose double role got a Best Actor Oscar, and helped lift him up after decades in TV and supporting roles. Unlike Paint Your Wagon, he wisely leaves singing to the pros e.g. Nat King Cole. This was a precursor to Fonda’s cult role as another fringe action heroine a couple of years later, as Barbarella. As there, she is less action-oriented than I’d like, though we have to bear in mind the era. She unquestionably drives the plot along, but when it comes to things like the train-robbery, she generally steps to one side, leaving things up to her male colleagues.

That said, she shows guts and bravery, as is shown in the scene immediately after the death of her father, where she goes to confront Strawn. It’s a poignant scene, where she realizes that the entire town is against her, and vows “You’ll never make me cry!” – and is in marked contrast to her first encounter with him on the ranch, where Strawn’s mere presence is enough to start her screaming. It’s a nicely-drawn arc, and the ending leaves me wishing there’d been a sequel. Still, nothing quite lives up to the delightfully pre-credit sequence, where the Columbia logo transforms into the rootin’, tootin’, six-shootin’ animated version of Cat Ballou shown below. That would be the movie I want to see.

Dir: Elliot Silverstein
Star: Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman

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Chocolate

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★★★★
“I tried to come up with some cute pun on “chocolate bar” but couldn’t quite work one out.”

We couldn’t wait for this one to get an official American release, so off to Ebay we went for a copy of uncertain origin. This was something of a double-edged sword. It means we get to tell you that this is, hands down, the action heroine film of the year, with fights the like of which I haven’t seen since Yuen Wo Ping was working with Cynthia Khan in Hong Kong. However, it also means that we had to suffer the worst set of English subtitles I think we have ever seen, which appear to have been pushed enthusiastically through Babelfish several times, with feeling; this culminated in a line which will live forever in my memory. It is, and I quote the subtitle in its entirety, “Wang monkeys.” You’ll thus forgive me if the subtleties of the plot were perhaps lost on us, though by most accounts, this likely improved our enjoyment of the endeavour overall.

Zen (Vismistananda) is the autistic daughter of a Japanese gangster and a Thai woman (Siripong), who betrayed her local partner, a rival boss (Wachirabunjong), to be with her lover. When her mother gets cancer, it’s up to Zen and a chubby friend (Phobwandee) to collect on debts owed. Fortunately, Zen has a sponge-like ability to learn martial arts, be it from Tony Jaa movies on TV, or the school next door, and proves herself adept at “encouraging,” shall we say, repayments from those who are reluctant to pony up. The bad news is, this attracts the attention of her mother’s former employer, who has not forgotten the past and is unwilling to let matters lie. Which, inevitably, leads to a showdown where Zen takes on an apparently infinite line of henchmen – it’s somewhat reminiscent of Kill Bill, Volume 1, in the same way an earlier ice-house battle reminded me of The Big Boss, However, the final fight, on a series of balconies, is bone-shatteringly unique.

If Vismistananda isn’t yet quite up to the level of Jaa – there’s nothing quite like the five-minute, single shot fight scene in The Protector – she is amazingly lithe and powerful, quite belying her waif-like physique. There is some use of undercranking and wire-work that occasionally distracts from her natural talent, as much as it enhances it, and I have to wonder if the ‘autism’ plot-device was a cunning plot to cover for lack of actual actimg talent, though this angle is not played anywhere near as exploitatively as it could be. Still, if the dramatic aspects are somewhat perfunctory and uninteresting, the fight scenes more than make up for these shortcomings, and the result is quite the kick-ass action flick.

Countdown

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★★
“I think the alternate title applies to Petty’s career.”

Mad bomber Chris Murdoch (London), is running around Seattle, blowing up Japanese people. FBI agent, Sara Davis (Petty) is part of the team looking into the case, but though they take Murdoch’s Japanese girlfriend (Kawagoe) into custody, Lt Sugimura (Amami) of the Tokyo police sweeps in and demands they release her, so she can be returned home – her father has influence on both sides of the Pacific. Davis won’t let that happen, since the girl is their main hope of catching the bomber; he, needless to say, is none too pleased to find the love of his life in the hands of the police.

Based on a Japanese novel, Christmas Apocalype, this is a pedestrian story, not enlivened by anything particularly exciting in the script or from the performances. Petty is hardly a convincing FBI agent, with limbs like twigs, and both Amami and Kawagoe are clearly fresh from their “English as a Foreign Acting Language” classes; while you understand what they’re saying, there isn’t much depth to their performances, in that language, at least. The main problem, however, is that Murdoch’s behaviour makes no sense. The purpose in his original actions is never explained, and he behaves in convoluted ways that are only logical, as far as setting up the cinematic artifice goes.

The best thing I can say about this is, the pyrotechnics crew does a decent job of blowing things up. Otherwise, it’s a mundane time-passer, workmanlike enough on the technical level, that never succeeds in going any deeper than the most superficial level, taking the “cross-cultural cops” idea we’ve seen so often before, and doing nothing with it. It builds to what passes for a climax, at a classical concert: that makes about as little sense as anything which led up to it.

Dir: Keoni Waxman
Star: Lori Petty, Yuki Amami, Jason London, Miwa Kawagoe
a.k.a. Serial Bomber

Charlie’s Angels (original TV pilot)

  By

★★½
“Once upon a time, there were three little girls…”

I suppose my main surprise is how pedestrian this was. Action? Hardly anything to speak of at all, despite the credit sequence which shows them training as police officers. The story has them going undercover at a vineyard, whose owner vanished seven years ago, and is about to be declared legally-dead: his ex-wife (Muldaur) and the sleazy foreman will clean up…unless the daughter, also missing, shows up. Of course, the Angels play both a fake daughter (Smith) and the ‘real’ thing (Jackson) – the former is designed to be exposed, in order to get herself involved with the wife and foreman, and reveal what’s going on. Quite cunning, really.

Cunning, yes – exciting…not so much, unfortunately. It plays mostly like the TV movie it is, and is never more than fluffy, warm-hearted entertainment at best. It’s somewhat interesting to note the presence of David Ogden Stiers as another of Charlie’s henchmen, a role later dropped for the actual series, where Bosley was deemed sufficient for all normal purposes. However, the biggest shock is perhaps an unknown Tommy Lee Jones, playing a childhood friend of the heiress, who threatens to expose the Angels’ plot. He probably gets more screen time than Fawcett-Majors, who is barely used at all in this episode: she gets one real scene of note, an entertaining performance as a backwoods bimbo luring the bad guys into buying her land, on the basis they think it’s loaded with oil.

Otherwise, it’s hard to say why this became one of the most successful series of its time, running for five seasons and 110 episodes, as well as spawning [albeit twenty years later] a pair of Hollywood motion pictures. Even those expecting a full-on jiggle-fest will be very disappointed, as the costumes here are more functional than anything: the most skin is shown by whichever of Charlie’s babes is handing him a drink – and I have to say, the whole concept of women unquestionably accepting orders from an unseen Father-figure seems more creepy and patronising than anything else. The 1970’s were a different time, however, and it’s not really fair to judge work from another era by our own standards of morality. On the other hand, this is only sporadically entertaining and slowly-paced, and that seems an entirely reasonable criticism.

Dir: John Llewellyn Moxey
Stars: Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Jaclyn Smith, Diana Muldaur

Cool Cat, by Dan Leissner

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★★★★
“Sex, drugs and funk ‘n’ soul, in a throwback to the future of action heroines.”

My review of this is somewhat delayed, because the book spent two months inside what remained of our car, after a nasty accident on the freeway. It was finally rescued, and the next chance I got was actually on a plane going to Las Vegas – fortunately, it appears as though the book was not cursed, and I survived that trip intact. Chris actually got to read this one first: she made note of Leissner’s frequent usage of the word “Undulating”, to describe everything from the landscape to the heroine’s figure. Me? It’s a good word, one you don’t get to use too often, so more power to him there. The heroine in question is Cat Warburton, the semi-estranged daughter of an industrial tycoon, who works as a secret agent for an agency of uncertain origins. Her intended vacation goes awry, and she finds herself knee deep in a plot involving black militants, white supremacists and – this’d be a spoiler if it weren’t mentioned on the back cover – aliens from outer-space. She’ll need all her talents, if you know what I mean, and I think you do, to survive.

It’s clear the style is intended to reproduce pulp potboilers of an earlier year: it’s never made clear what era it’s set, but I’d say mid- to late-70’s, if pushed. It’s equally cinematic though, set to a Motown-esque soundtrack, and half the fun is working out who’d play the various roles: Charlize Theron for Cat? Or Uma Thurman? Sybil Danning, twenty years ago, would have been perfect. Though whoever it’d be, would have to be entirely comfortable with their body, since there’s hardly a scene where Cat is not showing more or less flesh. That brings me to one of the odd points: there’s an awful lot of sadistic torture scenes, almost all the victims being female characters – this sits uneasily with the generally liberal viewpoints on sexual liberation, drugs and race.

However, qualms about such sequences aside (and the elderly matron beside me on the plane seemed quite intrigued by them), the plot does also career a little too far out of control towards the end. The whole “alien” angle seems superfluous at best, and I’d probably have preferred it not be invoked at all, since the rest of the plot stands on its own quite nicely – it feels as if Leissner doesn’t have enough faith in his own script. Still, as soon as I picked it up, I was hooked, and even once I got off the plane, was reading it every chance I could get. It’s enormous fun, and Cat is a great heroine, whose skills are beyond compare: she’s smart, strong, independent, and capable of kicking your ass, with or without weapons. Exactly the kind of heroine, Hollywood would never be able to cope with, in fact.

By Dan Leissner
Publisher: Midnight Marquee, $20.00
The book is available on Amazon.com

Come Drink With Me

  By

★★★
“Good, but don’t believe the hype.”

Perhaps I was expecting too much, after reading reviews that described this as, “one of, if not the, greatest martial arts film of all time.” It’s not, at least, not from my perspective, with a storyline that is sparse and badly-finished; the heroine and chief villain vanish before the climax and there’s absolutely no resolution, with the film suddenly diverting into a battle between a pair of supporting characters. It’s a shame, as Cheng Pei-Pei [the Jade Fox of Crouching Tiger was once a very intense teenager] deserves better. She plays Golden Swallow, the sword-adept daughter of the Governor, who is sent to rescue her brother after he’s kidnapped by bandits who want to exchange him for their leader.

The action is a mixed bag; there are some very bad effects, which jar the viewer out of an appreciation of the real, almost balletic, physicality, easily appreciated through the long tracking shots. These are as much dances as fights – Cheng had being doing ballet since she was eight. Less effective is the alcoholic beggar Drunken Cat (Yueh), who wanders through the storyline, with his band of ragamuffins, bringing things to a grinding halt when they appear. Of course, it’s giving little away if I say he turns out to be a martial arts master with entirely his own agenda, but unfortunately, that’s where the film heads, the further things go on.

Poor Golden Swallow is all but abandoned, and that’s a shame: the scene where she sits calmly in a tea-house, as the villains work at gauging her skills, is a masterpiece of suppressed, yet inevitable violence, up there with the best moments of Sergio Leone. There’s also a very odd subplot in which Swallow is initially mistaken for a man; it’s so utterly implausible as to make us wonder if it was a subtitling mistake. And maybe it was, for half-way through, this is discarded without explanation. It’s unsatisfying, and adds to my feeling that, while I can see the influence of this 1966 movie, it’s a case where later entries that build upon the foundation, do a better job.

Dir: King Hu
Star: Cheng Pei-Pei, Yueh Hua, Chen Hung-lieh, Yeung Chi-hing

Crimson Bat: Wanted, Dead or Alive

  By

★★★½

Director Ichimura returned for the fourth episode, and despite similar problems as the third installment – most obviously, an apparent doubt that Oichi’s character can hold the viewer’s interest by herself – makes a much better stab at things here. Bounty-hunter Oichi finds out what life is like on the other side of the law, after she helps rescue an unwilling bride from a local magistrate; he slaps a 100 gold-piece reward on her head, which naturally, brings other bounty-hunters on her trail, led by Sankuro (Meguro).

She ends up in a fishing village, where the “evil property developer” subplot makes a surprising appearance, despite the historical era. The reconstruction of the harbour threatens to put the locals out of work, but a plot is afoot among the local authorities to pay them only one gold piece each in compensation, rather than the 15 gold pieces actually provided by the federal government. Residents, officials, bounty-hunters and Oichi all inevitably collide, including one character played by Tetsuro Tamba, who remains even now one of the most respected (and prolific – the IMDB lists 193 films for him!) actors in Japanese cinema.

There’s a lot of devious double-crossing and deception here, which is okay to watch, but isn’t really the reason we watch these things. And that it also turns out to be Sankuro’s birthplace is too much of a fluke to swallow. Fortunately, it all builds nicely to an extended finale, where our heroine (now also framed for the murder of a village elder) gets a chance to take out her aggression and resentment on all those who have turned her life into that of a hunted animal. It’s a great urban battle, through the town which is being demolished around her, in and out of buildings until she finally confronts the chief villain of the piece.

Though this was the last entry in the series, there isn’t much sense of closure at the end, with (and I trust I’m not really spoiling this for anyone) Oichi merely walking off into the sunset, alone again, naturally. One senses Shochiku were hoping to continue, but for whatever reason – most likely box-office success, or rather, the lack thereof – it never materialised. However, for a series from the 60’s, it was undeniably ahead of its time, and most of the films have survived the passage of three and a half decades in an impressive style. If any enterprising DVD company were to snap them up, the rewards would likely be significant.

Dir: Hirokazu Ichimura
Stars: Yoko Matsuyama, Yuki Meguro, Tetsuro Tanaba, Reiko Oshida
a.k.a. Mekura No Oichi Monogatari: Inochi Moraimasu

Crimson Bat, The Blind Swordswoman

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★★★

We meet our heroine Oichi as a young child, who has just been being abandoned by her mother – not sure what happened to father, but we later discover Mom’s a prostitute, so can probably fill in the blanks ourselves. To make matters worse, the tree under which Oichi takes shelter from a storm is struck by lightning, rendering her totally blind, in a way that’s – probably wisely – left medically unexplained. However, she is then taken in by a kind gentleman, who brings her up, and on into adulthood.

She’s no luckier with her foster parent, who is murdered by a former associate, Devil Denzou (Amatsu); she is saved from the same fate by a wandering samurai. He sees her potential and trains her in the way of the sword, to the point where she has surpassed him. But she mentions the M-word – “marriage” – and he, too, exits like a, er, bat out of hell. On subsequent travels, she uses her skills to save yet another man from being lynched, and eventually, all these disparate plot threads join up, more or less. Though others, such as the woman with a killer yo-yo [GoGo Yubari’s ancestor?] just kinda drift out of the plot.

The film is at its best when there is the threat of violence; much like Sergio Leone, the lead-up lasts much longer than the actual acts, with the director ratcheting up the tension. For example, there’s one scene where Oichi visits a gambling parlour to raise money, and from the moment she sits down, you know it’s just a matter of time before her sword comes out of its red sheath (which presumably is the origin of her name – that, and the copious blood that tends to get sprayed when she’s around). There’s also a nice visual sense at work throughout here, particularly in lighting, which enhances proceedings nicely.

And, being honest, the actual drama needs all the help it can get, since it seems limp in comparison, though allowance should likely be made for the dubbing. That, however, can’t explain the bouncing back and forth in time, which may induce temporal nausea in susceptible viewers; it feels as if the finished film got tossed in the air and is shown in the order it hit the ground. And while there’s a decent “ah-hah!” when everything ties up, this isn’t enough to justify the lengthy set-up. Fewer plot threads, explored in depth, would be a major improvement.

Dir: Matsuda Teiki
Star: Yoko Matsuyama, Isamu Nagato, Jun Tatara, Satoshi Amatsu
a.k.a. Mekura No Oichi Monogatari: Makkana Nagaredoni

Carve Her Name With Pride

  By

★★★
“Worthy, but rather sluggish, retelling of the life of St. Violette of Szabo.”

This is based on a true story, so we know from the start this is going to end in front of a firing-squad – at least until the Hollywood remake, with a happy ending. Given this, the film still tries to crank up the tension, but as written, Violette Szabo comes off as beyond saintly, without flaws or imperfections. Almost as irritating, she is shown as being mostly inspired by the death of her husband, rather than any innate patriotism (Charlotte Gray similarly portrayed a female SOE agent as passive-reactive). Having said that, the movie generally stays true to the facts, though the poem supposedly written by her husband was actually, in far less romantic reality, by her SOE codemaster – interestingly, the SOE’s name is not mentioned at all. Much of the end is fictionalised; details of her interrogation, for example, are obviously unavailable.

The film does take much too long to get going – it’s almost half-way done before she touches French soil – and most of the exposition, especially early on, is unbearably clunky. However, McKenna is solid as Violette and, despite some questionable accents, so are most of the cast (look out for a young Michael Caine as a soldier on a train asking for water; Gilbert would later direct Alfie and Educating Rita, in addition to three Bond flicks). The characters are stereotypical, particularly Ze Germans, but we should remember this was made in 1958, only 13 years after the war ended, and balance was not an issue; Szabo’s torture at the hands of the Nazis still makes uncomfortable viewing. Rather than watching the movie at 11pm on Thursday night (as we did!), a Sunday afternoon slot should fit this admirably.

Dir: Lewis Gilbert
Star: Virginia McKenna, Paul Scofield, Jack Warner, Denise Grey