★★½
“Too politely British for its own good.”
Lou Farnt (Brayben) is stuck in her life, with a dead-end job, no apparent friends to speak of, and still living with her domineering mother (Ball). She seeks escape from one self-help guru after another, spending her money on their books, DVDs and audio-tapes, though with little or no apparent positive results. Then, she meets the unconventional Val Stone (Roe), who lives in a seaside caravan and promises to change Lou’s life forever. After some qualms, she agrees to depart with Lou, who does indeed deliver on her promise. For, as the title suggests, Val is a psychotic if smart killer, who is specifically targetting those same gurus. Either she regards them as a curse on humanity with their vapid schemes, or she simply wants to dispose of the competition.
It seems clear that writer-director Roe holds a strong, likely personal grudge against self-help tutors, in order to create a movie which is largely based on showing their flaws, and then killing them off. This isn’t a cause I particularly care about: if not my cup of tea, I’m sure some people find them helpful. So this naturally limited my buy-in to the concept here. Kill off social media “influencers,” reality TV celebrities or Los Angeles Dodgers fans, and I’d be right there with you. Motivational speakers? Meh. It is somewhat amusing how naive Lou is, in regard to Val’s extra-curricular activities, and how long it takes her to realize she is taking life advice from a psychopath.
When she does, her reaction is little more than a shrug, admitting it feels quite empowering to kill. The movie really needs to buy into this concept considerably further, rather than gently nodding its head. The likes of Killing Eve have shown even we British can engage in a gleeful embrace of the darker side of things. The script here is simply too gentle for the subject matter, not least with much of the violence happening off-screen. We never get much insight into what makes it particularly empowering, since there’s no sense of catharsis for Lou. These aren’t people who have wronged her in any way, more than the most superficial. Unless “being annoying” is a capital crime? In which case a lot of people are in trouble…
I enjoyed Roe’s performance, which does have much of the same failure to give a damn as Villanelle in Eve. But how much you get out of it may depend on two things. Firstly, how long you see the end twist coming before it’s announced. Note: not if, when. For it’s one that most viewers will see coming, especially if they are familiar with a couple of cult movies from 1999 and 2003, the latter reviewed here. The other issue is how much this bothers you. Personally, less than I’d have expected. Though that may reflect the film’s general lack of impact. It feels like the kind of horror-comedy which would rather invite you in for a nice cup of tea than horrify you.
Dir: Staten Cousins Roe
Star: Katie Brayben, Poppy Roe, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Sarah Ball
The sport of arm-wrestling has been featured in the movies before, most notably the Sylvester Stallone vehicle, Over the Top. But that wasn’t a comedy – at least, not intentionally. This entry, as well as switching to the distaff side, also has its tongue in cheek, while still sporting a strong message about female empowerment, that never becomes a lecture. If you’re looking for an inspiration I’d saw the 
Yang Yang (Yang) is an impetuous young policewoman, whose career is on thin ice after shooting the target of what was supposed to be a surveillance operation. Her superior officer – who also happens to be her uncle – is forced to re-assign her, and sends Yang to operate undercover as a student in a high school from which girls have been going missing. The leading suspect is an arrogant pupil who has recently been accused of sexually assaulting a classmate. Teacher Wu Xie (Zhou) is a witness in the case, so Yang is also tasked with making sure he isn’t pressured into changing his statement. Fitting in is going to be part of the problem for Yang – despite the help of Molly (Li), who takes the “new girl” under her wing.
This is the kind of film which I’d say was enjoyable, rather than being good. Indeed, if you want an illustration of the difference between the two, this movie is a good example. Sona Mukherjee (Fernandez) is the wife of respected doctor, Mrityunjoy Mukherjee (Bajpayee). But their life is upended when the bodies of six, formerly pregnant, unmarried women are found on their property. Sona believes her husband was framed – possibly by police inspector and former boyfriend Imran Shahid, (Raina). She takes the advice of a dubious lawyer, who suggests that if the serial killer was shown to be still active, that would prove her husband’s innocence. So Sona kidnaps another expectant young woman, Anushka Tiwari (Khan) to provide a seventh victim. Only… well, Sona is a bit crap as a serial killer, and Anushka is a feisty little thing with a black-belt in taekwondo, pregnancy be damned.
Spun off from the popular Lucky Stars series, this takes Madam Wu (Hu), who had first appeared in Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars, and branches out into its own saga. After an unfortunate incident involving a sheik’s wife, the local police decide to set up a special group of women officers, who can handle similarly sensitive missions. Wu is given the task of licking the candidates into shape, with the help of Interpol’s Madam Law (Rothrock), and despite the disdain of Inspector Kan (Fung), who is training a similar group of men. Needless to say, the male and female squad members compete, both for success and each other’s attentions, but both are called in to provide security for a showcase featuring priceless jewels. Will the ladies finally be able to prove they are worthy of serving alongside their gentleman colleagues?
For the first hour, this is among the most miserable of action heroine sequels ever to come out of Hong Kong. It’s right down there with Naked Killer II: Raped by an Angel, in terms of the gulf in quality and entertainment value separating it from the original. While Hu and Fung return, as leaders of the male and female squads respectively, outside of a minor battle in the lunch-room, there is almost no significant action to speak of, until the final 20 minutes. It’s almost as if the makers forgot entirely about this side of things until the last week of shooting, and were forced to make up for lost time. It’s certainly brisk and not badly put-together. However, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be ramming your head into the wall and praying for unconsciousness, long before all that shows up.
While still packed with crappy humour, this was at least crappy humour that occasionally made me laugh, rather than roll my eyes. The fourth and final installment went out on a relative high. It demonstrates that it helps when making an action-comedy, to have actors who know their way round the action part. Here, that’s Lee and Khan, both of whom were veterans in the Hong Kong GWG field, and the martial arts here are pretty close to the quality we saw in the first installment.
Diedre (Tacosa) and Frida (Riley) are the fractious stars of low-rent superhero show, Battle Babe and Combat Queen. When the series is canceled, they go on a bit of a binge, ended only by the appearance of two tiny aliens from Metaluna (Nguyen), who give the pair of very drunk Earth women devices that will turn them into Team Giantess Attack. These are intended to be used to rid the planet of evil. Needless to say, things don’t quite work out that way. The military, under Gen. Smedley Pittsburgh (Rowen), want to get their hands on this alien technology. But D+F won’t give it up and, instead, use it to go on the rampage and take revenge on those who previously wronged them.
This is exactly the kind of “mismatched cop” film in which you’d expect to see Melissa McCarthy, if it was ever remade by Hollywood. Though since two decades later, McCarthy would star in 
Fashion model Tiffany Jones (Hempel) finds herself dropped into the middle of international intrigue, after President Boris Jabal (Pohlmann), leader of the Eastern European state of Zirdana, takes a shine to her during a state visit to Britain. It’s supposed to be a trade negotiation, but is really to allow Jabal to broken an arms deal with some shady Americans. Her meeting the President brings her to the attention of two factions of Zirdanian rebels.