Tag: f

Fighter’s Life

  By

★★½
“Knocked down by the clichés”

If you fed an AI all the sports movies ever made, and then asked it to write a script, what you’d get is likely something close to this. Here’s a challenge: write down ten clichés you find in a film like this, then watch the movie (conveniently embedded below), and see how many show up. I’m willing to bet most of those on your list would be present here. The main saving grace is that the execution is done with a complete lack of self-awareness. It feels as if the writers genuinely had no clue they were treading a path which was more of a groove. Everyone involved in this is so earnest, it just about gets away with it.

Here’s the plot. Let’s count the clichés. Xia Yun (Xia) dreams of a career in MMA (#1). However, she’s stuck working in her family restaurant (#2), run by her father after her mother left them (#3). She gets a chance to enter a prestigious tournament (#4), the prize money for which could clear her father’s debts (#5). However, her trainer comes under pressure for Xia to throw a match (#6). Despite this, she reaches the semi-finals, where she suffers a setback (#7), losing to a Brazilian fighter. It’s subsequently revealed her opponent cheated (#8), giving our heroine the chance to win it all (#9), in front of her mother (#10). Oh, yeah, add a freebie: there might be a life-threatening illness involved at some point as well (#bonus).

The other issue is, there’s a lot of stuff outside the octagon to cram in, especially when the film is only seventy-two minutes long. There’s surprisingly little actual fighting in it: certainly more drama, and possibly even more training sequences, of one form or another. This is a bit of a shame, since Xia Jiao looks more convincing than the actresses in many a Hollywood film. Not least in her quick hands, which suggest she might be a fighter trained to act, rather than an actress trained to fight. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know: if not, then a “well done” to Xia for making it look convincing. Or at least convincing enough to fool my (admittedly, untrained) eyes.

The brief running-time may work in the film’s favour, in that it can hardly be accused of outstaying its welcome. It’s technically solid, and though clearly smaller in scale, doesn’t look cheap. The components are in pace for a decent, quick-paced action film; it’s just that the makers don’t appear particularly interested in delivering one. They seem more interested in the dramatic elements: as noted above, those aspects are absolutely nothing you have not seen, many times before, and the execution does little to elevate them. A hat-tip to Denis for pointing me in the direction of this one: I’m always looking for suggestions, and it certainly wasn’t the worst I’ve seen – even this week. There’s just little here to merit a second viewing.

Dir: Huang Binhao
Star: Xia Jiao, Yu Shan Chuan, Bai Yao, Sarah Chen

The File, by Gary Born

  By

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

Not many novels come with a ringing endorsement from a former director of the CIA, but Gina Haspel calls this “A thoroughly enjoyable, engrossing thriller.” Argue with her, and she’ll send you an exploding cigar, or something. While it certainly isn’t bad, the rating above reflects its likely moderate appeal for readers here. A general audience might be more impressed, especially with regard to the second half, where the heroine becomes more of a passenger. Things begin at the very end of World War II with a flight out of Berlin carrying documents intended to secure the future of the Reich. It doesn’t reach its destination, crashing in the depths of the African jungle.

Almost eighty years later, a botanical expedition stumbles across the downed plane and its cargo. When word seeps out, various very interested parties converge on the Congo, intent on securing the contents by any means necessary. Surviving the initial onslaught is Sara West, daughter of the expedition’s head, who bails with the documents, and the parties in hot pursuit. In the jungle at least, Sara has more experience and proves eminently capable of turning the tables on her pursuers. After escaping the wilderness, she convinces one of the hunters, CIA agent Jeb Fisher, to change sides, and his assistance becomes increasingly valuable as they head through Africa, into Italy, and eventually to Zurich. There, they make a final stand, in the unlikely location of a venerable Swiss bank.

The above should hopefully explain why this feels like a book of two halves. I really enjoyed the first half, with Sara using all her knowledge, built on years of living in the jungle, to stay one step ahead of the opposition – or sneak up from behind on them. She rarely over-powers her enemies, relying more on stealth, wits and turning their own resources against them. It is still a bit of a stretch to imagine a young woman, untrained in combat, taking out a whole slew of Russian special forces. However, Born certainly sells the illusion well enough to work. The problems arise with the arrival of Jeb, not least the ease with which he disobeys orders to take Sara’s side.

Thereafter, he also becomes the main protagonist. While it makes sense that his skills would become more important outside of the jungle, it results in Sara being somewhat (though not entirely) sidelined. There’s also the almost inevitable romantic dalliance, and I feel that having a Jebina instead of Jeb, might have addressed that, and a lot of the problems I felt hampered the second half. It’s still a decent enough read on its own terms, building nicely towards the grandstand finale – although I can’t imagine even Swiss authorities taking so long to get to a hellacious firefight in downtown Zurich! But I feel it does not do Sara the justice she deserves, especially after the impressive heights reached earlier on.

Author: Gary Born
Publisher: Addison & Highsmith Publishers, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Standalone novel

Furies: Season one

  By

★★★½
“Hell hath no Furies…”

Not to be mixed up with Furie, The Furies or even Furies – the last of which also showed up on Netflix recently. Confusion seems almost inevitable (and I’m not helping, by largely recycling the tagline for Furie). However, those three are all films – two Vietnamese, one Australian – while this is an eight episode TV series from France. It begins with Lyna Guerrab (El Arabi) living a fairly idyllic, and certainly well-heeled life, with no bigger issue than whether or not to marry her cop boyfriend Elie (Nadeau). Things get upended in no uncertain fashion, when her accountant father is assassinated. Turns out, he kept the books for certain criminal organizations, and someone wanted him very dead.

Lyna vows to find whoever was responsible for her father’s demise, and make them responsible. That opens up a whole can of worms, as she has to venture into the domain of the Parisian criminal underworld, which is far more expansive and influential than expected. To a degree, it feels like the system shown in the John Wick franchise, with six crime families, working in different areas, e.g. prostitution, robbery, etc. who govern things and make sure nobody does anything that would upset their highly lucrative apple-cart. As their collective enforcer is a woman, Selma (Fois), known as the Fury, a hereditary position, passed down the matriarchal line, and she has the skills to keep everyone else in line.

Or does she? Because as Lyna enters the game, it becomes apparent that someone is out to disturb the balance of the system. Coming under the Fury’s patronage, as a possible successor, may not be enough to save her from the war which is becoming increasingly inevitable. As well as John Wick, there are quite a few elements here which feel inspired by Luc Besson in one way or another: the world-weary assassin who takes on a feisty young apprentice, for example, could be straight out of Leon. The fight scenes are well-crafted, slick and hard-hitting: I vaguely recall action director Jude Poyer as part of the Eastern Heroes crew in London, back in the nineties, so nice to see him kicking professional ass.

It does sometimes feel too over-stuffed, trying to juggle too many threads and characters. The script solution to any problem seems to be, throw in another subplot. The makers also deserve a demerit for ending on a horrendous cliffhanger. The streaming service have made no announcement regarding a second series: the show seems to have done reasonably well, but Netflix gonna Netflix. If that doesn’t happen, you should whack off a full star, since the way it ends is definitely not satisfying. But there does remain a good deal here to admire. I particularly liked the performance of Foïs, who brings a lot of nuance to a character that initially seems one-dimensional. The extended duration allows her to develop, though all told, it might have been better as a two-hour self-contained Besson flick.

Creators: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Jean-Yves Arnaud, Yoann Legave
Star: Lina El Arabi, Marina Foïs, Mathieu Kassovitz, Jeremy Nadeau

Fighting Karma, by Reid Bracken

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

This is a sequel to Saving Karma, also by Reid Bracken, and follows on from the events there. When we last saw heroine Bree Thomas, she had taken down, in spectacular fashion, the city belonging to Chinese business mogul Aslam Meng, which was a front for large-scale organ harvesting. At the end, she and her father, Cole, both discover that the other is not dead as was previously thought. Though there’s still quite a lot of road to cover before Cole and Bree will be re-united. That journey is the main topic of this second installment, together with continuing to fight against Meng’s sinister plans.

For – surprise! – the billionaire is not as dead as he seemed at the end of part one. He’s just moved on, though is still obsessed with the idea of extending his life past its natural span. That’s a process in which Bree will be playing a very important role. He is also engaged in a plan to mine rare-earth minerals from the ocean floor in the Andaman Sea, regardless of the ecological price. Hey, if it causes an earthquake, tsunami and swamps Burma, that’s just a bonus opportunity for expansion, right? But there’s dissent in the ranks, with his niece Jade looking to supplant her uncle as the head of the Meng Foundation. 

On its own, this would likely be considered a borderline entry for this site, because it’s as much Cole’s story as Bree’s, if not more so. It’s 35 pages or more before she so much as shows up, and then there’s a significant chunk where Bree is basically out of commission entirely. For good reason, to be sure, but it still diminishes the heroine action quotient. What perhaps pushes it over the necessary quota are the supporting characters. For beyond Bree, Jade makes for a strong and capable antagonist, and Cole also has a (sort of) sidekick, Tita, who ups the content in this department. Bree gets her work in, perhaps most memorably a spectacular escape on a Ducati from a cargo ship in to Macao.

There’s some good tech stuff in here too: if you’re familiar of the concept of “hard SF”, this could be described along the same lines as “hard action,” with a significant helping of gadgetry and cutting-edge undersea stuff which I liked. I must confess to slight eye-rolling when getting to the surprise at the end, because it reminded me of the Oscar Wilde quote: “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two, looks like carelessness.” I’m trusting the author will spin the wheel differently in the third volume which the revelation sets up. There is certainly enough scope that it shouldn’t be too taxing to do, and providing there’s a little more Bree on the menu, I’m looking forward to it.

Author: Reid Bracken
Publisher: Independently published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 2 of 2 (so far) in the Bree Thomas Karma series. I received this copy in exchange for a honest review.

Fool Me Once

  By

★★★½
“An elegant exercise in plate-spinning.”

Maya Stern (Keegan) is having a rough patch. A former helicopter pilot in the military, she was sent home and discharged under murky circumstances. While she was away, her sister was killed in what looks like a botched burglary, and not long after her return, husband Joe is also shot and killed in front of Maya, when they are walking in the park. But is everything what it seems? Because when checking the nanny-cam monitoring her young daughter, Maya sees a shocking site: her supposedly dead husband visiting the house. This kicks Maya into an unrelenting search for the truth, which will send her down a rabbit-hole and uncover a lot of sordid secrets, dating back decades.

I have to admire the script here, which takes an entire loom-ful of plot threads, and manages adeptly to keep them functioning, instead of collapsing into a Gordian knot. As well as all of Maya’s difficulties, there’s [deep breath]: the ongoing health issues of investigating officer, DC Marty McGreggor (Fetscher), who might or might not be corrupt; her nephew and niece discovering they have a half-brother; the supposed suicide of Joe’s brother decades previously; mysterious phone-calls from a video arcade; a dead body in a freezer; and the business shenanigans of Joe’s family, who run a pharmaceutical company under the watchful gaze of matriarch Judith Burkett (Lumley). I was genuinely impressed it all tied together by the end of the eighth episode.

Admittedly, the twists might prove to be excessive for some tastes, and I did spot the big one at the end before it arrived (it’s something I’ve seen in various forms a number of times elsewhere). But I enjoy the almost melodramatic approach, even if the relocation of the story from the United States to Britain required some twistiness around the topic of firearms. Keegan delivers a committed performance as Maya, who is far from perfect, yet relentless in pursuit of “justice” – and quotes used very advisedly there. I also loved seeing Lumley, who was my first celeb crush – longer ago than I like to think, back in her New Avengers days. Now 77 and still awesome, someone needs to make her a Dame, alongside Judi and Helen.

I was uncertain about whether or not this qualified here, but I think the final episode delivered the necessary amount of bad-assery from Maya. It does suffer from an unnecessary coda, set eighteen years (!) after the plot basically finished, and therefore presumably at some point in the future. Still no flying cars, unfortunately. I’ve not read the book on which this is based, but this is certainly much more engaging than the turgid Hulu mystery, Murder at the End of the World. I’d definitely not be averse to watching other adaptations of Harlan Coben work. Turns out this is the eighth made by Netflix, though the others are presumably Maya free, because… well, let’s just say “reasons”, and leave it at that!

Creator: Danny Brocklehurst
Star:  Michelle Keegan, Dino Fetscher, Joanna Lumley. Dänya Griver

Fear The Night

  By

★★★
“Bows before bros.”

Director LaBute is best known around these parts for his ill-conceived remake of classic horror The Wicker Man, which is generally regarded as spectacularly bad,  and is probably best-known for spawning memes involving Nicolas Cage and bees. So expectations going into this were… not high, shall we say. On that basis, the three-star rating is something of a pleasant surprise, though most of the credit for this should got to its star, rather than the director. Tess (Q) is a veteran of the war in Iraq, who is struggling to reconnect to her two sisters. Rose is getting married, and is nice enough that Tess is willing to attend her bachelorette party at the family cabin, deep in the country. But Beth (Foster) is a straight-up bitch.

So Tess isn’t exactly having a good time. All the giggly gal-pals are not her idea of fun; between that and Beth’s sniping, Tess’s new-found sobriety is on thin ice. Such familial and mental health concerns are quickly rendered irrelevant, by the unexpected arrival of an arrow, right through the middle of one of the guests. Turns out a local group of drug dealers want inside the house, which up until the unexpected arrival of the bridal party, had been being used as a safe place to store their ill-gotten gains. All of a sudden, it’s less about cheeky appetizers, getting tipsy and male strippers, more like a no-holds barred fight to try and survive the night.

This isn’t exactly subtle: LaBute seems fairly obsessed with the battle between the sexes (something certainly an element of The Wicker Man), though here it’s more of an all-out war. Fortunately for the fairer sex: Tess is far and away the most competent of anyone here. This is established in an early, nice scene at a gas station where the women are being hassled by three locals. While Tess doesn’t exactly de-escalate the situation, it does a good job of establishing her background, and zero tolerance for anyone who disrespects her or the military. Of course, being Maggie Q, it’s no surprise when she can deliver, despite being severely outweighed by her opponents, in a crisp, crunchy manner that does not mess around.

Less effective are… Well, everyone else, to be honest. The villains, in particular, are a fairly mediocre bunch, who go down surprisingly easy, even when they end up going hand-to-hand with a bridesmaid rather than an annoyed veteran. For example, Mia (Crovatin) is chosen to try to make a break for a nearby house for help, having been a track athlete as school. When cornered by one of the men, the resulting bludgeoning is delivered from her end. Outside of their bows, the limited threat they present here definitely stops this from being all it can be, and the ending is more of a damp squid [on review, I’m letting that typo stand…] than Tess deserves to get. But Q is entertaining as ever, and helps overcome what sometimes feel like unnecessary attempts at social commentary.

Dir: Neil LaBute
Star: Maggie Q, Kat Foster, Travis Hammer, Gia Crovatin 

Furies

  By

★★★½
“If you don’t want men to push you around, be stronger than them.”

This is a prequel of sorts to Furie, partly telling the story of how its villainess, Thanh Soi (Toc) came to be (also: not to be confused with The Furies). However, it’s more the saga of Bi (Quynh), the daughter of a rural prostitute who makes her way to the city seeking her fortune.  There, she joins Thanh and Hong (Rima) under the protection of the Svengali-like Jacqueline (Ngô), who trains and indoctrinates them towards their eventual mission. This involves bringing down the leader of the city’s underworld, who has been exploiting women for years, in addition to other unsavoury activities. 

He goes by the descriptive and fairly accurate name of Mad Dog Hai, and his underlings are little more sane. When the trio of women make their presence felt by sabotaging a drug deal, Hai is not happy, and from there, it’s an escalating series of tit-for-tat attacks. We also discover that Jacqueline’s motives are not purely altruistic, being considerably more personal then she originally admits. There’s an argument, which the movie does not explicitly address, that she’s exploiting the three young women herself, albeit in a different way from Mad Dog. Rather than physical abuse (of which the film is certainly not short), hers is a psychological approach, taking their anger against men and focusing it against Hai, as well as sharpening it to a particularly fine point.

At 109 minutes, it’s arguably a little too long, and the film generally works better in action, then when pushing the more melodramatic elements. The makeover montage of Bi, for example, is superfluous and too obvious. If the editing during the fights is perhaps slightly too frenetic, it isn’t too much of a problem. This is more than made up for by the high-impact nature of the combat, with all three characters (and Jacqueline, by the end), going full force into an endless slew of faceless minions, thrown at them by Hai. There’s also a motorcycle chase/fight, apparently inspired by John Wick 3, though the execution is painfully green-screen. Would it have hurt the makers at least to get a wind machine, and create the illusion of movement?

When sticking to the purely physical stuff though, it’s mostly effective stuff. Nothing ground-breaking, admittedly, yet there are times when sticking to the basics and keeping things simple is probably for the best. It’s not exactly an advertisement for Vietnam: Chris turned to me when it finished, and firmly crossed the country off her holiday destination list. The city does seem a bit of a sewer, to put it mildly, though I must say the cinematography here is all pastel neon colours, and nicely executed. It at least helps lightly paper over the wholesale unpleasantness which is going on. I’m fairly sure this cost a fraction of bigger Netflix originals like Extraction II, yet for entertainment value, it’s not so far behind.

Dir: Ngô Thanh Vân
Star: Dong Anh Quynh, Toc Tien, Rima Thanh Vy, Ngô Thanh Vân

Family Blood

  By

★½
“Bloody hell.”

Tubi TV has become a goldmine of obscure, weird and, very occasionally, wonderful content for me. When I say “obscure”, I mean their selection includes films like this, about which the IMDb has only the barest of information. No external reviews; no user reviews; not even a rating. The film exists, and at the time of writing, nobody on the Internet has apparently noticed. To be honest, there is  good reason for this: it’s another one of those modern blaxploitation vehicles, which seem to exist mostly for the director’s pals to show up on the soundtrack. Yet even by the low standards of that genre, this is technically inept, with woefully shoddy audio and almost no storyline to speak of.

What there is, occurs ten years after the event – not that you’d know it, if it wasn’t for a caption saying “TEN YEARS EARLIER”.  Det. Lens Smith (Stagger) tells the story of his ultimately unsuccessful efforts to locate a group of women assassins, operating at the time in Las Vegas. There was Dawn (Jaye), Phoenix (Cantrell)… and it then appears the group ran out of proper names, with the others being called Red Death (Douglas), White Tiger and – I kid you not – Yellow Fever. I have to repeat, there’s really no plot here. One of them is married to another LVPD detective. There’s some light bickering among the women. At the end, Det. Smith gets up and walks away, vowing to re-open the case. That’s it. 

Pluses are hard to find. It’s barely an hour long: that’s one. Initially, I thought it might eschew the usual crap rap, with the first murder accompanied by electro-Celtic bagpiping, which was at least different. This didn’t last long, unfortunately. There are occasional moments of droll humour, referencing the Die Hard and Lethal Weapon franchises, and one victim gets an extra bullet, for having had the temerity to touch his assassin’s ass. Though most of the killings are uninteresting or even unintentionally laughable. What assassin worth their salt, would climb to the roof of a building to try and shoot their victim on the sidewalk with a silenced handgun? I know nothing about guns and still realize that’s flat-out stupid.

As is sadly common, the audio is about the worst aspect. The talking head interview of Det. Smith is the only time where this is acceptable. Anything outside is doomed to be muffled; anything inside is equally inevitably afflicted with a tinny echo. I had to keep my finger permanently hovering over the volume button, turning it up whenever anyone was speaking, knowing that at any second the crap rap would burst out and send my ear-drums to Bleeding Town. In the end, I enabled the closed captions instead. Problem solved. The women are reasonably attractive, and keep their clothes on, with nothing more than a bit of cleavage to show for your troubles. It’s all, very definitely, not one of Tubi’s finest moments.

Dir: Bowfinger Stagger
Star: Kevin Stagger, Marlo Jaye, Porsha Cantrell, Ta’Sha Douglas

Fight for Survival

  By

★★
“Suffering from a bit of an identity crisis.”

This Taiwanese kung-fu potboiler just about manages to sustain interest for an hour, before losing the plot (literally, and such as it was to begin with) down the stretch. It begins with ten martial arts masters stealing an omnibus edition of fighting manuals from the local Shaolin temple. Trying to get entry, and failing, because they won’t admit women, is Shi Fu Chun (Kwan). With the help of former head priest Lin Chiu (Chan), who still lives nearby, she is taught a slew of skills, and ends up assigned the task of recovering the purloined books, and restoring the temple’s honour. Oh, except the “positive kung-fu” learned is causing Shi Fu to transition into a man. So she/he (inexplicably, the 1977 film does not provide us with preferred pronouns…) needs to find and learn some “negative kung-fu” stat, to counter the process. 

This is mostly standard stuff, with the novice being trained by the master, before going out into the world and putting her skills to the test. Except it feels like the movie was edited down from a four-hour version, as the story jumps from Shi having about three of the ten parts, to her heading back to the temple with them all. The heads of the ten clans then show up, and it all becomes almost incomprehensible. About the only part that I am certain about, had them forming what looked disturbingly like a kung-fu version of the Human Centipede [now, that’s a movie I would… if not perhaps pay to see, certainly consider downloading from a dodgy website]. I think one of the clan leaders tries to fight his way into the temple, defeating various occupants in different styles, leading up to a fight again Lin. He faked his own death to get Shi accepted, and since then, has apparently been sitting around the temple, covered in gold paint, because that’s what they do to dead ex-leaders.

There are a couple of bits which are kinda cool, such as Shi having to accept the branding of the temple, carried out through her carrying the red-hot cauldron depicted on the poster. One of her skills involves the ability to extend her arms and legs to remarkable length, which leads to some interesting fights. However, the old gender re-assignment plot may well reach new depths of implausibility. Somehow, this is repeatedly mistaken for a man. Another weirdness (at least, to contemporary Western viewers) is the good luck symbol on the clothing worn by the heroine and her allies. Yep, it’s the ol’ Buddhist swastika. Beyond such trivial concerns, the main problem though, is that most of the fights are pedestrian and uninteresting. The makers even bring Judy Lee in, and don’t allow her to get into action. This shows a severe misunderstanding of how things should be done, and if you pass on this, you’ll not be missing much.

Dir: Cheng Hou
Star: Polly Shang Kwan, Chan Wai-Lau, Che Chi-Sang, Judy Lee
a.k.a. Lady Wu Tang or Shaolin Tamo Systique

Fountaine and the Vengeful Nun Who Wouldn’t Die

  By

★★
“Jack of all trades, master of nun…”

You will probably understand why the title more or less rocketed to the top of my watch-list, especially when accompanied by the poster (right). Naturally, it was almost inevitable that it could not possibly live up to either: the question was mostly, how far short it would fall. The answer is, “a fair bit, yet not irredeemably so,” even if the first half if considerably duller than I wanted. Indeed, it’s also rather confusing, in terms of what’s going on. As well as I can piece things together, Mary (Stern) is a nun who gets sent to an asylum after losing her sister, though it turns out to be less a mental-care facility than you’d expect.

There, she meets and falls for another nun, Lee (Tripp), and the pair escape. Mary eventually falls in with a vigilante group, intent on taking down the criminal empire of Fountaine, while Lee is abducted by the same group. With the help of trusty sidekick Sam (Clower), who was also Lee’s adopted brother, Mary acquires the set of special skills necessary, in addition to a fetching zebra-striped eye-patch and a very pointy Samurai sword This leads to storming Fountaine’s headquarters, in order to rescue her love. I think that hits most of the main points, though I accept no responsibility if I’m wrong. To be honest though, this is not really plot-oriented, being a collage of elements from exploitation cinema over the last fifty years.

The most obvious influence is probably Kill Bill, which was itself a patchwork assembly, so we’ve got to the point where exploitation cinema truly is eating itself. The other angle is clearly the nunsploitation genre of sinful sisters, though it has to be said, this is remarkably chaste in comparison. I think there is only one pair of breasts and zero full nudity in the whole thing, a tally at which Jess Franco would laugh patronisingly. It isn’t even close to being the first “retro grindhouse” entry that harks back to the style, trailing a decade behind both Nude Nuns With Big Guns and the recently reviewed Sister Wrath (a.k.a. Nun of That), the latter in particular doing a better job at being more than a third-gen photocopy of the genre.

Instead, it concentrates on the violence, though to mixed results. When it concentrates on practical effects, it’s not bad and occasionally reaches impressive. However, bad CGI is something you would never have seen in the seventies, and its presence here is equally unwelcome and unsatisfactory. The other problem is the lead actress falling short of the charismatic heroines in the films which inspired this. Pam Grier. Tura Satana. Dyanne Thorne. Meiko Kaji. Christina Lindberg. Stern will not be joining them in the pantheon of greats any time soon. And good retro grindhouse is capable of being entertaining, even if you have no knowledge of the genre’s history. I’m rather less than certain that’s the case here.

Dir: James Dean
Star: Mallory Stern, Ron Clower, Jaclyn Tripp, Zera Lynd