Tag: four-star

The Princess Blade

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★★★★
“Imaginative and well-executed modern samurai tale.”

The same source comic inspired Lady Snowblood, but plenty of original thought has also been put into this, set in an interesting alternate present, after 500 years of imposed isolation. A band of fighters, the Takemikazuchi, have been thrown out of work and now roam the country, killing for pay. One of their number, Yuki (Shaku), discovers their leader (Shimoda) killed her mother, and after confronting him, leaves. Except the group’s motto seems to be, “No one here gets out alive”… She finds shelter with Takashi (Ito) – except he is part of a rebel group with a similar philosophy, so a quiet, peaceful life is not on the cards for either of them.

The action, choreographed by Hong Kong’s Donnie Yen, is excellent, combining swordplay with martial arts to great effect. This is so good as to leave the bits between fights feeling dull in comparison, and as a result the film seems a little uneven and choppy. Also, Yuki’s lack of emotion makes her a somewhat unengaging heroine, though it’s both plausible, and reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name. The use of CGI for backgrounds is very effective in creating this parallel world, and it’s interesting to see how Yuki and Takashi deal with their similar situations. Credit also to Sano as the rebel leader, for creating a villain nasty enough to have us hoping earnestly for his death. Very cool overall, and definitely recommended.

Dir: Shinsuke Sato
Star: Yumiko Shaku, Hideaki Ito, Kyusaka Shimoda, Shiro Sano

Set It Off

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★★★★
“Even-handed blaxploitation, mixes brawn and emotions to good effect”

After a couple of less-than-perfect entries in the ‘robbery girls’ subgenre, this came as a refreshing blast, with decent characterisation and a storyline that goes past the painfully obvious. Mind you, the moral remains the same – crime doesn’t pay – but at least the road taken to get there is interesting and complex. These women all have their own reasons for wanting to rob banks: getting back at society for perceived injustice, supporting a child, or simply for kicks. Interestingly, you can see both their point of view and society’s, the latter most clearly in a surprisingly sympathetic cop, Strode (John C. McGinley). The results are more a product of tragic circumstance than anything else.

We’ve seen elsewhere this can easily slip into cliche; for the most part it doesn’t, despite a lack of character development. Only Stony (Pinkett) and her relationship with a bank executive really counts – and if you can’t see where that’s going, you’re not paying attention. Still, there’s plenty to admire, not least a delightful homage to The Godfather. One way or another, we care about everyone, from extremely out lesbian Cleo (Latifah) to the brains of the gang, Frankie (Fox). The action isn’t ignored either, most notably the whirlwind event that is their first robbery; at the end, I discoved I’d been holding my breath. Despite dialogue which sounds occasionally as if it was in a foreign language, this definitely goes beyond a black audience.

Dir: F. Gary Gray
Star: Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, Kimberly Elise

Amazons and Gladiators

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★★★★
“Xena: The Early Years meets Gladiator.”

Benefiting from a slew of decent performances, A&G manages to surpass most of the competition and become a worthy entry in the “gladiatrix” sub-genre. This is perhaps because the cast have been hired either because they can act or because they can fight, while simultaneously not embarrassing themselves in the other department. Pity poor Hiltz, who is in virtually every scene, yet doesn’t even get her name on the cover.

Things start badly, with an annoying child version of heroine Serena, witnessing – and partly responsible for – the death of her mother, as entertainment for governor Crassius (Bergin, a nicely-judged and slimy piece of creepiness). Fortunately, the grown-up version (Hiltz) is much less irritating, and ends up training for revenge with a band of Amazons, under their leader Zenobia, played by former Dr. Who assistant, Mary Tamm. [The real Zenobia was indeed a famous warrior-queen, in Syria around the 3rd century AD] Rubin is the master-sergeant who trains her, and Norton, a veteran villain in many a martial arts flick, gets to play the love interest for once, and does a pretty good job.

No real surprises in the plot, with everyone getting more or less what they deserve. But despite accents which roam the globe from Australia through England to America, it’s well-acted and well thought-out, with very few mis-steps. Rubin is excellent, exuding confidence in her role, while Hiltz looks as if she is able to tell one end of a sword from the other, yet with flaws which perpetually threaten to derail her quest for vengeance. Shot in Lithuania, if it’s tame enough to feel like a TV pilot, it’s one for a series I’d be keen to watch.

Dir: Zachary Weintraub
Star: Nichole M. Hiltz, Patrick Bergin, Richard Norton, Jennifer Rubin

Yes, Madam

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★★★★
“Early HK girls-with-guns flick sets high standard.”

Purely on a historical level, this 1985 film merits attention since it started the whole action-heroine genre in Hong Kong cinema, which thrived for the next decade, producing some of the finest entries ever made. It also was, effectively, the start of the careers of Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock. Interesting to see how they’ve since headed in opposite directions: Rothrock to low-budget erotic thrillers, Yeoh to the Academy Awards.

But even on its own terms, and despite a few mis-steps (forgivable in any pioneer), this is still greatly entertaining. It’s classic good-cop/bad-cop material, with Rothrock playing Carrie Morris, a Scotland Yard officer send to help Yeoh find a microfilm which incriminates the manically laughing chief villain (James Tien), and is in the unwitting possession of three shysters.

For some reason these are named, in the subbed version, Strepsil, Panadol and Aspirin – one is played by famous HK director Tsui Hark. The subbed version also includes some very goofy comedy (including a cameo by Sammo Hung) that, frankly, I could have done without; score one for the dubbed version which excises this, and also treats you to a dubbed Rothrock, sounding more like the Princess of Wales. On the other hand, her nickname in the subtitles is – and I wrote this down – “nasty foreign chick”. Something lost in translation there, I reckon.

It all builds to a fabulous, extended brawl in which our heroines take on the bad guys in a plate-glass showroom (er…perhaps it just seems that way). This remains one of the finest showcases of female martial arts on the screen. Up until then, it’s been solidly entertaining, pacey and with some thought apparently having gone into the plot and characters. It’s a classic, in more ways than one.

Dir: (Corey) Yuen Kwei
Star: Michelle Yeoh (as Michelle Khan), Cynthia Rothrock, John Sham, Man Hoi

Bad Girls: season one

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★★★★
“Guilty of being a solid and thoroughly entertaining drama.”

Women-in-prison is not a genre greatly within our remit, since they’re often just an excuse for a bit of soft-core masochism. There are occasional exceptions, however, and this is one, with its origins as a network TV show forcing restraint of the more exploitative aspects, as well as permitting the characters to develop more fully than in a movie.

This is especially necessary, since at first glance they are your usual cliches: slimy warder, do-good governor, lesbian with a heart, wrongly imprisoned innocent, etc. However, over time, we get to see more facets, and the acting is, without exception, impressive. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we particularly warmed to the villains, Jack Ellis as Fenner, a guard who deals out privilege in exchange for sexual favours, and Debra Stephenson as the psychopathic Michelle Dockley.

Credit to the writing too, which maintains a fine balance, most notably the episode which switched between a funeral and attempts to brew up home-made wine. You truly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But why does almost no-one ever get out of jail, except in a body-bag? Could probably stand a little less of the unresolved sexual tension between Nikki (the good dyke) and Helen (the nice governor) – I’m no fan of it, gay or straight – but I suspect this side will run and run, and we’re happy to put up with it.

Star: Mandana Jones, Simone Lahbib, Debra Stephenson, Jack Ellis

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: season two

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★★★★
“Possibly the slayer’s finest hour…all 24 of them.”

While there have been stand-out Buffy episodes since, season two perhaps ranks as the most consistently high in quality. There’s hardly an episode that ranks as less than excellent, and the writing is sparklingly witty, with more eminently quotable lines than you can shake a stake at.

The big bad in this series is Angel, and he is far better as a villain than the drippy, mopey good guy he seemed in series one. By sleeping with Buffy, and thereby knowing true happiness (hmmm, so sex = happiness, does it, Joss?), he loses his soul. If this story arc has a weakness, it’s that it is spread over about nine episodes. In most of these he just pops in, torments Buffy and leaves, when it would have packed more wallop to cover the entire thing in three or four hours. However, even the less significant episodes are great, and the transformation of Spike from villain to Buffy’s unwilling accomplice is fabulous.

Other highlights include the Judge, a demon that can’t be killed by human weapons (or at least, couldn’t last time he was incarnated), Kendra the West Indian slayer (and her stake, Mr. Pointy), and the growing relationship between Giles and computer teacher Miss Calendar (about which the words “oh, dear…” come to mind). There is a certain feeling of rehash to some of the episodes – yet again, Xander falls for the wrong girl, making Inca Mummy Girl too close to Teacher’s Pet – but the actors have really grown into their parts and the results still seem fabulous and fresh.

Star: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, James Marsters

Golgo 13: Queen Bee

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★★★★
“A tale with plenty of sting, but too much sexual bee-haviour.”

Four stars but no seal of approval? That’s because this is about the most wildly variable animated film I’ve seen. The story and characters are great, but the frequent sex scenes are incredibly tedious and clearly put in solely for the teenage male fan (all pneumatic breasts and moaning). It’s rare for me to say this, but they are genuinely gratuitous, and the film could have coped fine without them.

Between times, there’s certainly plenty going on in terms of plot. Ultra-taciturn hitman Golgo 13 is hired to kill narco-terrorist Queen Bee, who has been sending threatening letters to a presidential candidate. From here an entire web is spun (sorry, failed to come up with a bee analogy!) of deceit, double-dealing and death. The anti-heroine comes across rather better than the anti-hero, since you see more about her background, and she’s certainly a fascinating personality, even in a grim world where no-one is innocent.

The animation uses every trick in the book to mixed effect, with some of the violence particularly well-executed. The tape I saw was dubbed, which is another reason to deny it the seal, though the voice acting here is largely painless (it helps that Golgo 13 has about five lines!). It may yet make it: I’ll likely pick up the subtitled DVD sometime, with a director’s commentary, apparently revealing that the candidate and his adviser were shown as gay lovers in a deleted scene. Frankly, I’d have been happy to trade that for one of the heterosexual encounters.

Dir: Osamu Dezaki
Star (voice, English dub): Denise Poirier, Carlos Ferro, Dwight Shultz, John Dimaggio

Freeway

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★★★★
“Little Red Riding Hood: the crack whore years…”

Right from the opening credits, a debt to the Brothers Grimm is clear. In this modern-day version, Red’s stepfather is a sleazebag crackhead, and her mother a street hooker; when both get carted off to jail, Vanessa Lutz (Witherspoon) heads, with basket, up Interstate 5 towards Grandma’s house. Except that on the way, she meets Bob Wolverton (Sutherland), the notorious I-5 killer. And what big teeth he has!

From there, the tale diverges a bit: I don’t remember a prison catfight in the original, and recall Red relying more on a woodsman with a large axe than her own handguns, but it has been a while since I read it. This is, however, unashamedly grim with a small G. Er, and one m. :-) The Lutzs take “dysfunctional” to new levels, and it’s frankly astonishing that Vanessa has retained any sense of morality, albeit a severely skewed one. I wasn’t surprised when her only decent relationship was terminated by a drive-by.

The cast is a mixture of has-beens (Sutherland, before resurrection in 24, and Shields) and will-bes (Witherspoon and also Brittany Murphy), but all deliver fine performances. The weakest point is a script more concerned with satire than logic – would they really let a convicted arsonist carry a lighter in jail? No wonder Oliver Stone is a producer, given the undeniable echoes of Natural Born Killers. As a benchmark, at one point, when Vanessa shows Bob a photo of her “real” father, it’s actually serial killer Richard Speck. If that amuses – and must confess, it did us – this film is probably for you.

Dir: Matthew Bright
Star: Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Brooke Shields, Bokeem Woodbine

Gunsmith Cats: Bulletproof

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★★★★
“Fast, hardware-heavy fun in Chicago, Japanese-style!”

Watching this dubbed was, for once, viable since despite its Japanese origins, it’s firmly set in and around Chicago. So we did sit through some of it in English, but the accents were woefully Cal-girl and thus we’d recommend sticking with the Japanese, even more unlikely though it might be. That out of the way, this is an action-packed romp, in three episodes but effectively one story. Rally Vincent and May Hopkins, one a crack marksman, the other an explosives expert, own a gun store, but are blackmailed by the ATF into helping nail an arms ring. It’s not as simple as it seems, since the perps have connections at a high level, and the services of a former Soviet Special Forces hitwoman.

The episodic structure means there’s never a dull moment and you effectively get three climaxes for the price of one, with the car chase in #2 perhaps my favourite. If it occasionally teeters on the edge of cheesecake – Rally gets her blouse shot open – it’s made clear early on that the heroines have little time for romantic dalliance. Indeed, there’s little time for anything much, including character development, but the story charges on at a great pace, so it’s not as if they’re wasting time.

You can see why Sonoda set it in America, since handguns are illegal in Japan, and the crowded streets would likely impair the auto quotient. Creator Kenichi Sonoda’s fondness for fast cars was apparent in his earlier work, Riding Bean, and by the end of this, Chris had decided she wants a Shelby GT Cobra, just the like the one Rally drives. Drool. :-) A lot of effort went into reproducing Chicago and wiser heads than mine (who have actually been there!) say it’s accurately detailed. Though undeniably great fun, perhaps the most amusement we got was from pretending the opening song was the theme to Saturday Night Live, to which it bears a spooky resemblance…

Dir: Mori Takeshi
Star (voice): Michiko Neya, Kae Araki, Aya Hisakawa

Bad Girls: season two

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★★★★
“Back behind bars, but brilliant as before.”

Somewhere around the middle of the series, I realised that this is soap-opera, pure and simple. As someone who’d never be seen dead watching a soap, this was disturbing. Fortunately, moments later, Jim Fenner did something else truly rotten to the core, and my attention went back to H.M. Prison Larkhall. Such is the joy of the show: it defies categorization.

All our favourites return, though both good and bad show more character development than previously. Evil guard Fenner (Ellis) in particular demonstrates amazing depth, and we find out why resident bitch Dockley is that way. Top plot-arc this season was a through-the-bars romance between lifer Niki Wade and former governor Helen Stewart, that sprouted wings, flew, then crashed-and-burned (apparently) in the final ep.

Of the new characters, gangster’s wife Yvonne Atkins made the biggest impression – a nemesis for her arrived too, but was offed after only a couple of episodes, in a disappointing second case of “sudden fatal illness as plot device”. While there wasn’t perhaps anything as heartrending as we saw in the first series, the breadth and depth of storylines remains a joy to watch. Soap opera or not, we’ll start season 3 sooner rather than later.

Star: Mandana Jones, Simone Lahbib, Debra Stephenson, Jack Ellis