Tag: e

Ever After

  By

★★½
“Off-centre, not dead centre”

This is not your normal action heroine film. Nor is it your normal zombie apocalypse film. While it certainly nods in both directions, it seems entirely committed to going in its own direction. My mental jury is still out on whether or not this was a good thing or not. I think if I’d perhaps been prewarned what to expect, I might have been better equipped to handle this. It takes place after the outbreak of a plague, with the dwindling number of survivors now holed up in two cities: Weimar, where infection is an immediate death sentence, and Jena, reported to be trying to research a cure. 

The mentally fragile Vivi (Kohlhof) tries to do her part by volunteering on the fences surrounding Weimar, but a brutal incident on her first day sends her into a state of shock. She tries to head for Jena on the automated train which runs between there and Weimar. On it, she meets Eva (Lehrer), who is considerably more versed in the ways of survival. When the train breaks down, the two young women have to set off on foot across country. Which is where things get increasingly odd, as they bump into characters such as the Gardener (Dyrholm), who is running a market garden in the middle of the apocalypse. The zombies themselves also begin to mutate, such as the one on a wedding dress, whose face is half plant. Is nature healing? Or is a human apocalypse not necessarily such a bad thing from the perspective of the rest of Earth’s species?

There is a fair amount going on here to unpack, and it feels like the kind of party to which you have to bring your own booze. For the film offers no easy answers; indeed, I’m not necessarily certain what are the questions it is asking. At times it felt like there was a religious aspect with the Gardener being the snake in Eden. Yet at others, it is more about the different ways Vivi and Eva come to terms with the traumas they have experienced. Vivi shuts down, emotionally and mentally, while Eva adopts a hard shell, prepared to do whatever is necessary to survive. Also of note: there are almost no male speaking roles, though it’s subtle enough not to matter [The crew are also largely women]

There are still the required moments of threat, heroic sacrifice, etc. familiar from the genre. However, these feel almost perfunctory, as if imposed on the director in some kind of contractual obligation. The film might have been better to avoid the standard beats entirely, as these feel out of line with the rest of the movie. On the other hand, if it had gone full art-house, it’s possible I would not have bothered watching it, and almost certainly wouldn’t be reviewing it here. Still, it’s an approach to the zombie film I’ve definitely not seen before. Even if this wasn’t what I expected – or wanted, to be honest – that has to be worth something. 

Dir: Carolina Hellsgård
Star: Gro Swantje Kohlhof, Maja Lehrer, Trine Dyrholm, Barbara Philipp
a.k.a. Endzeit

Everything Everywhere All at Once

  By

★★★½
“I’d have settled for two of three.”

This has been a long, long time coming. I’ve been a fan of Yeoh since seeing her Hong Kong starring debut, Yes, Madam, which came out all the way back in 1985. Over the years since, her career has had its ups and downs, including complete retirement after her marriage in the late eighties. She returned, and is the only actress to have appeared in two movies rated five stars here: Heroic Trio and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But her career in Hollywood has been limited to sterling support roles, in both movies and television, encompassing everything from Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies through Star Trek: Discovery to Crazy Rich Asians. A starring role, appropriate to her talents, never seemed to come along. 

Until now. Thirty-seven years after Yes, Madam, and at the age of 59, this film finally puts Yeoh where she deserves to be: front and centre. Yet, perhaps partly due to how long I’ve been waiting for this, I must confess to being a bit disappointed this is not a classic to match the titles listed above. Oh, it certainly has its moments, and Yeoh is as good as expected. However, its 139-minute running-time feels more a curse than a blessing. The concept at its core is almost infinite in scope, and I did feel the movie was trying to include all of it. Less could have been more, with a targetted approach preferable to the relentless overload adopted by the makers, which left me feeling as if I was drinking from a fire-hose.

The multiverses here literally rotate around Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), who runs a laundromat teetering on the edge of failure, with her husband, Waymond (Quan). Their marriage is also failing, her relationship with her daughter, Joy (Hsu) is on rocky ground, and she has to go to an appointment with hard-ass IRS tax auditor Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Curtis). The last is where things kick off, as she is visited by a Waymond from an alternate universe, who tells Evelyn she is the only hope of foiling the evil Jobu Tupaki. That’s an alternate Joy, who has gone insane and created a black hole-like vortex which could destroy all the multiverses. Fortunately, Evelyn’s abject failings at life give her the ability to tap into all the skills and knowledge of the other, better versions of herself.

Like I said: almost infinite in scope. Apparently, co-writer/director Kwan was diagnosed with ADHD during the creative process: to be frank, it shows. While the imagination on view is admirable, the film bounces about between ideas at a ferocious rate, almost regardless of whether they deserve it. We spend an inordinate amount of time in a multiverse where everyone has long, floppy fingers. Yet there is also buttplug-fu, which is an example of the movie going places you’d never have expected could be so entertaining. Or a lengthy, surprisingly engrossing, scene in which two rocks in an otherwise lifeless multiverse have a conversation in captions. Because why not?

To the film’s credit, it never abandons its characters, and that helps keep it grounded. Albeit only just, on occasion the movie standing on its tippy-toes as it tries desperately to avoid being blown away by its own excesses. It’s perhaps telling that, despite all the film’s visual bluster, the most effective moment for me was among the simplest, one character telling another, “In another life, I would’ve been happy just doing laundry and taxes with you.” As such, Yeoh is the story’s heart, and gets to demonstrate her unquestionable acting talent. It has been fascinating to see the development of that, especially considering her lack of not just experience but any formal training. I mean, she first entered the field close to four decades ago, as a former Miss World contestant. How many of them eventually go on to get talk of an Oscar?

It’s as a result of this that I kept watching the film, because I genuinely cared what happened to Evelyn. I wanted to see her figure it all out and make peace with the various forces trying to tear her humdrum life apart. From that angle, it’s close to soap-opera, albeit an unusually effective one. Except, of course, the means by which that peace is potentially achieved, includes multiverse hopping, and fighting an evil version of your own daughter, who wields a gurgling plughole of doom. It’s the overlap between the mundane and bizarre where this finds its own voice. The problem is, it tries too hard to live up to the title. Sure, give us everything, everywhere. I’d just rather it hadn’t done so, all at once.

Yet, similarly, it leaves an awful lot of potential on the table. Why is kung-fu virtually the only talent Evelyn uses? Tap into a universe where she’s a cab driver, and give us an epic car-chase. Or the one where she’s a cat-burglar, for heist purposes. It’s not hard to come up with a dozen such threads. Perhaps the makers were constrained by their budget, a relatively cheap $25 million – less than Crazy Rich Asians. They do an admirable job of squeezing value out of it; again, the sheer pace probably helps, with your brain trying so desperately to keep up, it’s hard-pushed to pay attention to any of the finer details.

But I’m glad I won’t go to my grave with my final paid cinematic experience being Terminator: Dark Fate. [Though the two Neanderthals beside us, talking loudly and checking their phones throughout, really make me think we are done with theatres] The Daniels deserve credit for the obvious invention displayed, and this is the kind of original property I’m happy to support, over another sequel and/or shitty comic adaptation. I also must mention the supporting cast, who are uniformly great, particularly Hsu as both aggravated daughter and multiiverse threatening villainess [There’s also a cameo by another eighties Hong Kong action actress, Michiko Nishiwaki. Maybe she’ll get her own movie next?]. That it stars one of the most under-rated actresses in Hollywood, finally getting the opportunity she deserves, is alone reason enough to see this. Just don’t expect too much.

Dir: Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis

Enhanced

  By

★★½
“X Offender”

The German title for this is, apparently, Mutant Outcasts, and that perhaps gives you a better insight than the official, relatively generic title. There’s more than a hint of X-Men to this, though the superpowered members of humanity in question here, are artificial constructions, created as part of a secret research project by the military-industrial complex. They are now out in the world with the regular population, but are being recaptured by operative George Shepherd (Tchortov) and his squad. Their latest target is Anna (Bale), who had been living quietly as a car mechanic, until she’s forced to use her powers after a gang of thugs show up. That gets her on George’s radar – but also that of David (Mark). While initially, he seems on Anna’s side, turns out he has been killing the superpowered citizens, and absorbing their powers into himself.

There’s a nice mix of grey here, in that George shifts sides as he realizes the truth. But the authorities, such as his boss Captain Williams (Holmes) are not “evil,” as such, but genuinely believe the escapees present a serious threat to the rest of the population. To some extent, he’s not wrong, as the potential for their powers in the wrong hands e.g. David’s, is very significant. It might have been nice if he had been one of them too, for balance; the actual explanation is, I must admit, rather implausible, even in a film about vat-grown mutants with paranormal abilities. It all builds in a rather predictable way to the face-off at the headquarters of Military-Industrial Incorporated, where David walks in, and starts tossing bodies about like rag-dolls.

The director’s background is in the stunt world, and you can tell this, with plenty of scenes of his colleagues throwing themselves around enthusiastically. I was rather disappointed with the lack of screen-time given to Anna’s powers, though this is somewhat redeemed by a good hand-to-hand battle between her and David which forms the film’s climax. To that point, I was seriously wondering whether this should even be reviewed here, but it managed to push the needle over the necessary red line. Most of the time, this is adequately entertaining, though comes off more as an upper-tier SyFy original movie: workmanlike, rather than memorable.

Indeed, I watched it less than an hour ago, and already found myself having to Google certain points like character names. Bale does make a reasonably good impression; she comes over a little like a low-rent version of Tatiana Maslany. The rest of the cast, however, struggle to create any significant impact; the line between them and the generic stuntmen that go flying around is a thin one. There is definitely a strong sense of deja vu in the overall concept: if you’ve not seen several films or series about poor, unfortunate superheroes being persecuted, you’re clearly not trying! But this is reasonably well-executed as to just about get over the red line as passable entertainment too.

Dir: James Mark
Star: Alanna Bale, George Tchortov, Chris Mark, Adrian Holmes

Eye for an Eye (2019)

  By

★★
“The little engine that couldn’t.”

Stacey Anderson (Sturman) is an agent for the CIA. When an operation in Tunis goes bad, she is blamed, and the intelligence which was supposed to have been collected – a complete list of Russian assets – goes missing. Stacey is disavowed by the organization, and dumped out, with a new identity. Five years later, she’s a saleswoman for a PR company, and her boyfriend, Ken (Haymes) has just proposed, when Stacey’s old life comes back to haunt her. An assault on her workplace shows that someone clearly believes she knows more about the list than she admitted. She is forced on the run, with Ken, while she tries to figure out whether it’s the Russians, or a rogue faction within her former employers. Fortunately, this wasn’t entirely a surprise, and Stacey is quite well-prepared. Less expected: having to take her new fiance along with her.

The script here is actually quite good, with a number of twists and turns I did not see coming, particularly at the end. However, this is one of the cases where a film has aspirations which are massively beyond what it is capable of delivering. This is clear from the get-go, when the drone strike which almost kills our heroine in Tunis, is depicted with really bad digital effects. Unfortunately, that sets the tone for what is to follow, with the production unable to deliver a convincing version of the explosions, gun-battles or blood squibs necessary to the plot. Even some of the rooms appear to have been done with green-screen work which fails to convince. The non-digital stuff is nothing to write home about either, and the makers perhaps should have gone with a stunt woman for the lead. Sturman gives it her all, bless her heart, but considering the frequent need for physicality in the role, it’s a character which really needs somebody like Amy Johnson or Zara Phythian.

The pacing also seems to lag badly in the middle. The opening set-up is, for all its flaws, put together quite effectively (though do the CIA really have formal “disavowal” speeches?”), and as mentioned, the ending delivered some sharp twists in regard to Stacey, not the least being her background. In between those though, it didn’t seem to know what to do with itself. This is the kind of movie that I really wanted to like, since it seemed a project made with some passion, rather than a by-the-numbers studio product. However, there is only so far that passion and heart can take you. The technical aspects – such as audio in some sequences which sounds like it was recorded underwater – are a very significant distraction from its entertainment value. It may have worked better if they had cut their cloth to fit their resources; sitting on the shelf next to far more polished productions, the comparisons are obvious and not to this movie’s benefit.

Dir: Stephen Lambert
Star: Alex Sturman, Clayton Haymes, David Chattam, Shirley Dalmas
a.k.a. Patriot: A Nation at War 

Exit Strategy, by Kelley Armstrong

  By

Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

Canadian author Kelley Armstrong is best known as a bestselling writer of urban fantasy. Her Nadia Stafford trilogy was her first foray into the mystery/crime fiction genre. Having already read the sequel novellas that conclude the series, I really want to read the original trilogy. This first volume didn’t disappoint!

After a short, grim prologue in third person, Chapter 1 introduces us to series protagonist Nadia, who’ll be our first person narrator for the bulk of the novel. (The parts from other viewpoints are in third person.) Now 32 years old (so, though the books were written from 2007-2017, the story arc of the series actually covers just three years in her life), she owns and operates a guest lodge in the northern forests of her native Canada. Raised in a family of cops, she’s always had a strong compulsion to serve justice and protect the innocent, which deepened and became more driven after the death of her much-loved cousin, who was murdered when the girls were in their teens. (Nadia still blames herself for not keeping Amy safe.) When she followed in her family footsteps by joining the force, that compulsion had to be tempered by laws and procedures protecting suspects and requiring due process, that exist for a good reason. In her early 20s, there came a triggering incident where her reaction couldn’t be tempered, and boiled over in an act of vigilantism that cost her her badge. Investing in her lodge was a way of rebuilding her life. But she’s fortunate in employing a married couple who can manage the place at times if she has to be away for awhile; because she has an un-advertised side occupation.

The lodge barely breaks even, and six years ago was on the verge of bankruptcy. A regular guest was aware of her financial troubles, and of her history. He happened to be a high-ranking member of New York City’s Tomassini Mafia family. His family aren’t philanthropists, and don’t have much in the way of ethical values –but he could respect hers, and understand something of her mindset. Occasionally, the Tomassini’s interests call for the elimination of some genuinely bad person, who really is a threat to the innocent; and at those times, they’re willing to pay top dollar to someone who can accomplish their purpose capably, without getting caught. So, he had a business proposition for her; and when she accepted it, she saved her lodge.

But she also crossed a line that put her permanently on the wrong side of the law, precluded much possibility for normal close human relationships, and set her on a dark and morally problematic path. She doesn’t relish killing in itself, even of the deserving and dangerous, and is painfully aware that a regular diet of it is troubling and unhealthy. But it does allow her, in some sense, to fulfill her inner compulsion, and it’s become an inescapable part of the person that she is, which she shoulders responsibility for. Her narrative voice looks at herself honestly and self-critically, but without apology. So if you, the reader, are going to be friends with her, you’ll have to look her in the eye and decide whether you can accept her as is. (Obviously I can, since I’m a series fan.)

Early on here, she gets a visit from her taciturn older acquaintance Jack. She’s gotten to know him some (though that’s not easy) in the last few years, since he first showed up at the lodge and let her know that he’s also in her illegal line of work. He’s been back sometimes since, and become a bit of a mentor, with professional advice that she’s found useful. Now, he’s bringing news of the Helter Skelter Killer who’s been terrorizing the U.S. (she’s heard of the case, but deliberately refused to immerse herself in the details). Over a period of nine days in October, across several states, four very diverse people have been murdered, in different localities and all by different means; the only unifying factor is a page torn out of the book Helter Skelter and left beside each of the victims. The chilling twist, though, is that law enforcement officials believe the perp is actually a professional killer, who’s gone rogue and is now dropping random bodies. This has produced an unusual spotlight of police attention on the very small world of long-term hitmen/women, resulting in a couple of arrests, much inconvenience, and a general climate that’s very bad for business.

By nature and necessity, the denizens of this circle are not a gregarious and chummy bunch; but to the extent that they do share information and opinions, their general consensus is that this wacko needs to be identified and stopped, NOW. Jack wants to know if Nadia’s willing to bring her cop skills to the table and partner with him in this hunt. She’s not too keen about coming out from behind her curtain of anonymity, even just among other assassins; and while talking to Jack sometimes at her lodge is one thing, she’s got some trust issues about going off to the States with him and working together. But …the precious lives of more potential victims that this killer might take are at stake, and Nadia is Nadia. Having gotten to know her by reading the novellas, I wouldn’t have been surprised by her answer even if I hadn’t read the cover blurb of the book. :-) So, as Sherlock Holmes might have said, the game is afoot!

As a rule, I don’t care for the idea of serial-killer fiction, and mostly avoid it (the one other exception being Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders). I’m also not usually a particular fan of romantic triangles, despite my liking for the Twilight Saga, and we get something of that vibe here. (Having read the later books, I already knew how that would play out –and my reviews of those books would be “spoilers” for that aspect!– but reading the series in order is probably the best way to experience the character arcs and relationship developments.) Unlike in the Christie book, we do experience most of the serial killings directly, although they’re done quickly and Armstrong doesn’t wallow in the gore, and we do get in the killer’s sick and disturbed head some –thankfully, only at times and briefly, but it’s an unpleasant place to be.

Coupled with the mitigating factors, though, the author’s strong character study of Nadia herself made this a worthwhile read. She’s a fascinating, complex character (and when the chips are down, an actual heroine despite the ethical issues some of her life choices present), and not the only one of those here; very vivid, round and complicated characterizations are one of this author’s particular strengths. Even minor characters who only appear for a few pages are often illuminated clearly enough to be memorable. Not many of them are particularly likeable (although Nadia honestly is, at least to me, and that’s an assessment I think series fans in general would echo), but you do understand them –or, if you don’t, you’re intrigued enough to want to peel back more of the layers.

This is a genuine, challenging mystery that takes detection and deduction to solve, and Nadia and her unlikely fellow sleuths don’t have access to the kind of crime scene investigation and witness interviews that the FBI does. (Fortunately, though, which partially compensates, they do have more knowledge of the shadowy world of killers for hire than the authorities do.) It’s definitely a mystery of the “American” school, not its staid and cerebral British counterpart: gritty, violent and fraught with danger, and peppered with bad language, though I considered the level of the latter legitimate in terms of realism for these characters. (There’s no sex, explicit or not, but there is some reference to it; Nadia isn’t often promiscuous, but her attitudes are colored by the fact that she doesn’t expect marriage to ever be in her possible future.) The investigation snakes through a dark underside of America, where not only the serial killer but other nefarious types as well have dark secrets, and no scruples about eliminating the nosy. And while Nadia’s very protective of innocent life, even when it’s not convenient to be –despite her hit woman credentials, you could totally trust her to babysit your toddlers!– thugs who want to kill her may find her quite lethal.

Overall, this is a gripping read right from the starting gate (Armstrong leaves two dead bodies lying on the first nine pages), with a lot of action and a real page-turning quality. With the above-mentioned caveat for language issues, I’d highly recommend it to mystery/crime fiction and action “thriller” fans.

Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: KLA Fricke Inc.; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Enola Holmes

  By

★★
“Puts the ‘no’ in Enola.”

Complete ranking of Enolas

  1. Enola Gay
  2. Enola Holmes
  3. That’s it.

I’m probably not the only one who spent much of the film humming OMD’s classic Enola Gay to themselves – released 40 years ago this month, coincidentally. And, sadly, it remains my favourite Enola, by quite some distance. This was more annoying than anything else, though I’ve never been on the Millie Bobby Brown hype-train. I didn’t think much of Stranger Things, and her performance in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, interfered with what I want to see i.e. monsters fighting. Here, I found her more irritating than engaging, though in her defense, she wasn’t helped by some poor directorial choices.

This get off on the wrong foot at the very start, Enola (Brown), Sherlock Holmes’ sixteen-year-old sister, breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience, something she does frequently. Director Bradbeer used this technique in TV series Fleabag, but I’m not a fan: it takes me out of proceedings, reminding me I’m watching a film. What follows is less a convincing evocation of 1900 England, than contemporary America playing girl power dress-up, with “nasty women” blowing things up as they seek to defeat the evil patriarchy. One of these is Enola’s mother (Bonham-Carter), whose vanishing without warning starts things off, causing Enola to begin searching for her, based on coded clues left behind. It escapes me quite why the missing parent couldn’t simply write, “Dear Enola, Gone off to be a suffragette. Love, Mum.”

Not that it matters, because Enola rapidly abandons this quest entirely, in favour of a case involving the young, attractive and entirely personality-free aristocrat, Viscount Tewkesbury (Partridge), whose vote is crucial to get a reform bull passed, expanding the ability to vote [in reality, no such change took place until almost twenty years later – but hey, why let facts stop you from twisting history for your political points?]. On his trail is a mysterious and ill-intentioned man (Gorman), with whom Enola crosses paths. She also has to fend off attempts by her other brother, Mycroft, to have her consigned to a very Handmaid’s Tale-looking boarding school. This is intended to have Enola brainwashed into being the quiet and submissive woman society expects.

The politics on view here are cringeworthy, particularly from Mrs. Holmes, who speaks almost entirely in feminist fortune-cookies, such as “Don’t be thrown off course by other people. Especially men.” It’s one of those cases where merely leading by example isn’t enough: you have to virtue-signal your morality by announcing it, explicitly and repeatedly, which I find immensely off-putting. Hence, we get gobbets of political sermonizing, such as Sherlock (Cavill) being told, by a black, female martial-arts teacher – something I’m fairly sure wasn’t common enough  in the Victorian era to pass without comment: “You don’t know what it is to be without power. Politics doesn’t interest you… because you have no interest in changing a world that suits you so well.” You go, sister!

Speaking of which, the portrayal of the great detective is no more accurate than the other element. “Sherlock Holmes always works alone!” proclaims Inspector Lestrade. Uh, I guess the creators never heard of Dr. Watson, an intrinsic character, from the very first Conan Doyle story? You just never get any sense of keen intellect from Cavill’s performance. Guess they didn’t want to overshadow Enola and her Big Brain. Yet, under all these flaws, is a decent movie, trying to get out. The look of things is lovely, and some of the action sequences are well-handled, even if a slip of a girl like Enola hardly seems equipped to trade blows with grown men.

Maybe they could have made more use of her archery skills (above), which are set-up, then entirely forgotten. Like so much else, that gets lost in the rush to cram an “uplifting” message into the movie, rather than letting one flow organically from it.

Dir: Harry Bradbeer
Star: Millie Bobby Brown, Louis Partridge, Henry Cavill, Burn Gorman

 

Ek Hasina Thi

  By

★★★
“Hell hath no fury…”

A somewhat cheesy melodrama, this throws together elements from Western pot-boilers Double Jeopardy and If Tomorrow Comes, adds a handful of Bollywood spice, and to be honest, probably overcooks the whole thing a bit. The title translates as “There Was a Beautiful Woman”, presumably referring to the heroine of the piece, travel agent Sarika (Matondkar). Into her office one day comes hunky businessman Karan Singh Rathod (Khan), and after some reluctance, she begins a relationship with him. However, it turns out he is actually a mobster, and manipulates her into taking a fall rather than incriminating him, which nets Sarika a seven-year prison sentence. Escaping from jail, she vows to destroy her former lover, and in turn, works on framing Karan with his criminal pals, by making it look like he murdered a colleague and stole money.

The most fun part for me, was the section in the middle where it turns into a Bollywood women-in-prison movie. I’d have watched an entire movie about that, as Sarika – wholly unprepared for the experience – gets dropped into the literal hell-hole which is an Indian jail. [Seriously: I don’t want to hear any complaints about Western prison conditions ever again] This is what transitions her into being the bad-ass she needs to be, to be able to take down Karan, and is where the melodrama reached its peak, right from the get-go. Her cellmate offers Sarika a biscuit, then warns her, “There’s a woman here named Dolly. Beware of her. She’s crazy. She’s a real wretch. She has committed four murders.” Of course, the cellmate is Dolly. It’s like watching an entire season of The Yard, condensed into thirty minutes.

The strong female characters aren’t limited to the heroine. There’s also the prison matriarch, Pramila (Kazmi), who takes Sarika under her wing. And on the other side, is ACP Malti Vaidya – she is portrayed by Biswas, who played the title role in Bandit Queen. Vaidya is the no-nonsense policewoman who gets the heroine convicted (what’s a little finger violence between cops and criminals?), yet also wants to work her way up the chain and catch Karan as well. I’d not have minded seeing either of them get more screen-time, perhaps at the cost of the early scenes depicting the growth of the relationship between Sarika and Karan.

For at 137 minutes, it does meander a bit much, especially when its story should be accelerating forward. I have some questions about the final act, after the heroine escapes from jail during a fire. Firstly, whoever is in charge of security for Karan’s mob friends is in for a really poor performance review this quarter. And the eventual revenge taken, would have made more sense if we’d seen Karan suffer from musophobia, rather than Sarika. Overall, however, it’s an entertaining piece of nonsense, which even got Chris off her mobile phone for its duration. If you’re averse to the Bollywood standard dance routines, you’ll be pleased to learn they don’t show up here at all.

Dir: Sriram Raghavan
Star: Urmila Matondkar, Saif Ali Khan, Seema Biswas, Pratima Kazmi

The Empty Hands

  By

★★½
“Hands of fate”

The title is the English translation of “karate,” yet seems oddly appropriate for a film which barely clears the necessary quota of action to qualify for this site. I can’t say I felt my time was wasted, as such. Yet if you’re looking for a plethora of martial arts, you’ll be disappointed, despite the poster and a story which certainly could have gone in a much more action-oriented direction.

Mari Hirakawa (Tang) is the daughter of a Japanese karate teacher (Yasuaki): she had been taught by him while growing up, but quit the sport at age ten, after an incident at a competition, and now loathes it. When her father dies, she returns to claim the dojo as her inheritance, intending to turn it into apartments and become a landlord. Only, he bequeathed 51% of it to a former student, Chan Keung (To), who plans to keep running the place, helped by the late master’s faithful henchman, the aptly-named Mute Dog (Au). After much crossing of swords between Mari and Chan, he makes her an offer. Take up the sport again, enter a karate competition and simply survive – not even win – the opening match on her own two feet. He’ll then hand over his share to Mari, to do with it as she pleases.

It’s certainly a cliched plot, yet I’d have been fine with it, providing the end result contained a good volume of high-octane action sequences. That’s not the case: there’s really only one, the first-round contest. To the director’s credit, it’s not the point in his telling of the story. Chan’s offer, for example, doesn’t even turn up until after the half-way mark. He’s much more interested in a character study of a disaffected young woman, who is unhappy with her current situation, yet isn’t sure of what she wants from life. Mari isn’t even a very nice character, not least for her affair with a married man which ends up becoming more than slightly stalker-ish. Though Tang’s performance is good enough to keep her sympathetic, if not likeable, and I found myself rooting for her to find her direction.

The ending probably becomes semi-inevitable, after we learn that Mari’s recollection of past events is not necessarily an accurate reflection of what happened. Even there, however, the script manages to subvert expectations, and it turns out that her father was clearly considerably smarter than it seemed. There are some moments which perhaps make more sense to local viewers, such as elderly people doing keep-fit, to a jaunty Cantonese pop-song whose lyrics go – and I wrote them down, they were so bizarre – “If I do not love the motherland, the sun will explode!” On the whole, it’s not a film I would recommend to site visitors, unless they are also open to art-house drama and character studies, and the score above reflects that. On purely cinematic terms, you can certainly add a half-star, possibly a full one.

Dir: Chapman To
Star: Stephy Tang, Chapman To, Kurata Yasuaki, Stephen Au

E.M.P. 333 Days

  By

★★★
“A thoroughly Canadian apocalypse”

Really, for a reported budget of about $6,500 – and those are Canadian dollars, which currently works out to less than five grand in freedom dollars – this is quite impressive. You could argue that trying to create a convincing post-apocalyptic scenario on such a tiny budget is biting off more than you can chew. And there are certainly moments which just don’t work. But in its low-key approach, it’s probably a more accurate reflection than many of the way in which the world might end. Not with a bang, but with a whimper, and a slow grinding to a halt.

In this case, it’s an electromagnetic pulse weapon, detonated high in the atmosphere (most likely by North Korea, going off early radio broadcasts) and wiping out everything that use electronics. Which, these days, is virtually everything. When it does, young heroine Niamh (Ferreri, the director’s daughter) is staying with her grandmother, because Dad is away on a business trip. Initially, they hole up, trying to wait it out, but eventually resources dwindle and Niamh has to strike out on her own. Fortunately, Dad was a bit of a prepper and so she is better prepared than most girls her age for life in the new, primitive world, as well as encountering other survivors, both good and bad.

Undeniably, you have to allow a lot of leeway for the very limited resources. Even given the rural setting, it’s never clear to where 99% of the population has gone, or why; a throwaway line saying, “A bunch of people left a few nights ago,” is about as close as we get. The collapse of civilization into anarchy and chaos is depicted by a shot of Niamh and her grandmother, peering out the window and looking concerned, while somewhat riotous sound-effects are heard. All told, as the tagline above implies, it’s a very polite end of the world. It’s also a bit unusual, and therefore refreshing, to see a positive portrayal of survivalists. Rather than the usual wild-eyed paranoiacs, they’re depicted here as down-to-earth, and simply prepared for unfortunate events.

The technical aspects are quite impressive, especially on the visual front where it certainly doesn’t look like a microbudget production. However, the film does drag in the middle. From the point at which Niamh meets another young survivor, Will (Davidson), it seems to spin its wheels for the longest time, despite the pair stumbling across a rare car still capable of driving. It takes the injection of an external threat before the plot begins to move forward again, and Ferreri deserves credit for getting its depiction of killing right, as not something which should be done lightly by anyone.

The movie did tie up its loose ends up a little too conveniently, just when it was looking set fair to be nicely ambiguous. Though on the other hand, this offers a somewhat hopeful note on which to finish things. That might not be a bad thing after a generally downbeat experience, and if it remains the complete cinematic opposite of, say, Fury Road, that’s not entirely a bad thing.

Dir: Adriano Ferreri
Star: Rosa Ferreri, Liam Davidson, Derek A. Bell, Martin Saunders

Eye of the Colossus, by Nicole Grotepas

  By

Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

This probably picked up half a star in the final couple of chapters, because up until the end, the plot seemed to have some huge deficiencies. While most of these were certainly addressed by the final resolution, it still left a rather questionable taste in my literary mouth [if you see what I mean!]. The heroine is Holly Drake, who has been unjustly sent to prison after killing her abusive husband. Unfortunately, he was a police officer, and some of his dubious colleagues helped ensure Holly went to jail for it. On release, her previous career as a teacher is no longer an option, and she’s largely thrown on to the charity of her sister, Meg, also a cop.

It’s Meg who gives Holly a lead to potential employment, albeit of a shady nature. But Holly has few options, and has to accept the job, which involves retrieving a necklace which has been stolen from its rightful owner, before it can be whisked away. To complete the task, she needs to put together a team with the various skills necessary, and also acquire a piece of tech called the Skelty Key, which is needed to defuse the security around their target. For someone with no background in the underworld, all of this poses a significant challenge, even discounting entirely the actual job itself. [Why she was hired at all is one of the eventually explained plot deficiencies]

This is nominally science-fiction, taking place in a six-moon system around Ixion, a gas giant. There are several different races, in addition to expat Earthlings like Holly, and the relationship between them is occasionally fractious. However, I never got any particular sense of “alienness”: you could rewrite this to be on Earth with almost no SF elements. There’s also not much in the way of an antagonist here. Early on, the “Shadow Coalition” appear to be trying to stop Holly from carrying out her mission; this aspect seems to peter out, as if the opposition got bored and drifted away. This combination perhaps turns it into more of a “crime procedural” than SF; that’s less criticism than an observation.

What is my main criticism is its sluggish pacing. You’re more than 90% of the way through before you get to the heist which is the book’s focus, and it’s a bit of a drag to reach that point. While self-contained enough overall, it’s clearly a set-up for future volumes, and I must confess, these are somewhat intriguing. There’s some stuff which happens to Holly late on, toughening up her character from the rather whiny one she has been to that point, and we also discover the harrowing circumstances leading to her incarceration. I just can’t help feeling we could have got to the same place considerably more economically, in about one-third of the page-count, and we would all have been considerably better off.

Author: Nicole Grotepas
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 3 in the Holly Drake Job series.