Tag: four-star

Wolf Creek: season one

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★★★★
“The dark side of Crocodile Dundee.”

Here is a confession: I have never seen the acclaimed two Wolf Creek movies (2005 and 2013 – a third movie is planned). The reason was simple: I just didn’t care for ultra-cruel slashers from Australia. After watching this TV-spin off I might revise my opinion and catch up with them; if they are as good as this TV series I definitely want to see them!

So, what’s the story? The American Thorogood family is on holiday in Australia. Unfortunately for them, their young son is swimming in a crocodile-infested lake (who goes swimming in Australia? Don’t we all know their waters are full of deadly animals?). Fortunately for them, Australian animal hunter Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) arrives, right on time, to shoot the crocodile before it can attack the boy. Unfortunately for them, Mick is a psychopathic sadistic serial killer who kills them all before the evening is over, including daughter Eve (Lucy Fry). Or so he thinks, because Eve survives. As she is slowly nursed back to health, and answers the questions of the police, she comes to the realization that the authorities won’t be able or willing to catch the killer.

She decides to hunt Mick herself and take revenge for the death of her family. Eve is originally innocent, and carries feelings of guilt, since her family was only in Australia because she was recovering from drug addiction – she used to be an athlete. She has to learn to get along in a hard, merciless country by herself, and avoid or defeat the criminals, thieves and would-be-rapists there who pose a threat during her journey. Eve is pursued by the police, as she herself has broken the law, and also by a well-meaning policeman who wants to help her. Not to mention Mick who – happily slashing his way through unpopulated areas – has realized that someone is pursuing him and starts to play a cat-and-mouse-game with Eve…

I have to say that this series really surprised me. I had bought it based solely due to the cool cover photo and didn’t expect much more than a probably over-gruesome third-rate slasher, I mean, is Australia really famous for great serial killer psycho thrillers? Though there is the very good Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis thriller from 1981, Road Games. As a matter of fact, this short (six episodes) series blew me away with its astounding quality. When you read the above, you might be forgiven for getting the impression the whole thing will come across as a bit cheap in its storytelling, or the motivation of its characters – a bit schlocky in general.

But… it isn’t.

The best way I can describe the show is with the word “unpretentious”. That might sound strange. Yes, it is, at its core, a revenge story. And, yes, people are tortured and killed in cruel ways: when someone has an infected hand, you see him cut it off with a saw. But I never got the feeling these scenes were gratuitous or to make the blood-thirsty gorehounds happy. Quite the opposite: things like this are carefully integrated into the narrative of the story, and have a meaning that goes above mere shock value. I would almost call this story, about a serial killer tracking his prey across desert hunting grounds, decent and yes, even tasteful – considering how different this narrative could have been presented.

Most surprising for me was, though big game hunter Mick is always looming in the background, it’s mainly Eve’s story. In the beginning I wasn’t too impressed with her. She seemed like a bland, pale character, just a victim who survived a catastrophe. I was half expecting her to become the usual superwoman, who knows it all and can do everything better than every male – thanks, mister! But the filmmakers were smarter than your average Hollywood screenwriter and producer, who nowadays seem only to be able to create one-dimensional, flawless, conveyor-belt manufactured heroines. Eve does not know it all, she can not do it all alone, and makes mistakes – some really terrible. She fails and learns from it. She falls and has to stand up again. It alone makes the character better than almost 95% of today’s female protagonists in American movies or shows. Kudos for that!

Also, there is a second season, which I have not seen yet (it isn’t available in my home country). Given it has everyone’s favourite killer from Down Under again, but not Eve, I began seriously to worry about her fate. You really start to sympathize with her. Running away from the police in the beginning might be anything but rational, but as the series develops, so does she. You start to understand who she is, and she gets a backstory: she is not a random female character out for revenge anymore. She has these understandable feelings and more than once I thought: “Gosh, this could be going different, girl. You should be working together with the police. There could be common ground if you were not so stuck on the idea that you’ve got to do this all on your own!”

Then there are moments when she realizes herself she is way over her head, fighting insurmountable odds. She gets better at it, slowly, and the point in a way is about self-discovery. It becomes an odyssey for oneself, where the protagonist has to question when reaching the nadir of life: What am I standing for? Why do I do what I do? Is it really worth all that? Could I choose a different life? There are moments that indicate that Eve might give up her hunt. The series repeatedly contrasts her persona with other characters who have lost themselves, who may have been destroyed by this vast open country where you seem to be far from civilization or God.

Eve is repeatedly confronted by these criminals, or wanna-be-rapists who see a normal dressed woman as an offer, and experiences family tragedies that actually form the core of the narrative. She is not without help though. As well as the policeman on her trail who reluctantly starts to cover-up for her, there is a criminal whom she meets in the desert, an old Aborigine who fits into the classic mentor role, a colleague in a bar and she even gets a canine companion. Though the question always lingers while watching the show: Will she get her revenge? What will she do when meeting the man who killed her family? Does she even have a chance against an experienced, sadistic killer like Mick?

So, yes, I applaud Lucy Fry’s performance in the role. Thanks to an excellent script, it made me believe she – albeit slowly- becomes a potential threat to the seasoned serial killer. But also John Jarrat, playing this role for a third time, is incredibly good. Mick Taylor is a nightmare of a character, superficially charming, but essentially a disgusting sleazebag. Though it’s great even he has been given a backstory. While he kills the way other people drink their morning coffee, we get to know enough about him to deduce how he became that way. An episode tells us in flashback about a key event in his childhood that may have been the catalyst for his murderous doings. If this is believable is up to the viewer, I think. I like it they gave him more than the “Well, he’s insane” explanation so many movies and shows tend to give their killers nowadays.

Having Eve faced with what can only be labelled as a devil in human form, touches an even more ambitious question. It’s a theme that classic The Hitcher (C. Thomas Howell and Rutger Hauer) dared to ask. How much of your own humanity do you have to leave behind, to be able to fight the devil? I think it refers to the age-old Nietzsche-ism “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” I’m not saying how this “psycho thriller” ends, but I really, really recommend this show. Every episode had me glued to my TV, and I got much more enjoyment out of this short Australian TV show than I imagined. Also, I think it’s far superior to your average American product playing in the same genre pool.

I really feel I should get my hands on season 2, even though the main actress won’t be back. Also, I look forward to the third movie – and I wish you happy hunting! 😉

Creator: Greg McLean
Star: Lucy Fry, John Jarratt, Dustin Clare, Jessica Tovey 

Jericho Ridge

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★★★★
“Assault on Precinct 1.”

After a year which has been filled with disappointments and films which have failed to generate much reaction beyond a mild “Meh,” it’s nice to see one which certainly surpasses expectations. Indeed, with about two months left to go in 2023, this would certainly be a finalist for GWG Film of the Year, were there to be such an award, and potentially could walk away with that hypothetical trophy. It’s the kind of movie which, even when you know exactly what’s about to happen, still delivers in a way that can generate an undeniable reaction. Considering my expectations going in were not much more than the made-for-TV level – this being a BET channel exclusive – it surpassed those greatly.

The heroine is Tabby Temple (Amuka-Bird), a deputy in a small, rural North Washington town (albeit one entirely faked in Kosovo!). She is just heading back to work following an extended lay-off due to a broken ankle. The reason for this injury is not immediately clear. Nor is the reason why she is no longer a chief deputy, but it appears to be something to do with her troubled teenage son, Monty (Morris). She returns to find the police station in some turmoil, due to a burglary the previous night, while an investigation is also under way regarding the murder of a local drug dealer. Sheriff Eddie Reynolds (Kunz) goes out to visit a suspect, leaving Tabby behind, to guard domestic abuse prisoner Earl Macready (Socha), and await the arrival of a locksmith to install new station locks.

It’s here things go very badly wrong, with Tabby discovering there is apparently something in the station that a certain party is prepared to go to any lengths to obtain, with the burglary being just the first step in that process. She finds herself under siege, and severely out-gunned, the station’s armoury having been stripped almost bare. Local help is… not going to help, shall we say, and the state variety won’t get there for some time, leaving Tabby to try and survive until they do. The unexpected arrival of Monty during a lull in proceedings, only heightens the stakes, and also forces mother and son to confront the truth about their fractured relationship, and how it became that way.

But this is not s touchy-feely emotional drama, to put it mildly. Once it gets going, this is a relentless assault, which sees Tabby go from a quiet, almost passive observer, into a fully-fledged warrior queen. Amuka-Bird is quite excellent in both parts of that dual role, being entirely plausible as both devoted mother and unstoppable force. And she needs to be, because the villains are just as brutal in their approach. The film also does well with passing out the necessary information to the audience, doing so in its own time, despite a couple of scenes which do feel rather too obviously expositional. In general though, this does a great deal without the need for stars or big production values. Story, performance and crisp execution are all on point instead, and the results are all the better for it.

Dir: Will Gilbey
Star: Nikki Amuka-Bird, Zack Morris, Simon Kunz, Michael Socha

Assassin’s Vow, by David Bruns and J. R. Olson

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

Bruns and Olson are retired U.S. Navy officers, Olson in particular with a background in naval intelligence –and that background is drawn on heavily in the various self-published series that he and Bruns co-write. This particular 117-page novella exists only in an electronic edition; in keeping with my usual practice, I’d never have read it, but for the fact that it’s a freebie. Supposedly, it’s the fourth in a succession of “Standalone Suspenseful Short Reads.” In fact, although I read it as a standalone, it actually ties directly into The Pandora Deception, the fourth novel in the authors’ WMD Files series. (The first novel of that series is premised on the conceit that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein really did have his infamous “weapons of mass destruction,” but cleverly smuggled them out of Iraq before the Americans closed in – okay, this IS fiction.) Our protagonist in this novella, Mossad agent and top-notch assassin Rachel Jaeger, is an important character in the afore-mentioned fourth novel of that series (and possibly others); and indeed, we can surmise that the reason this work is given away for free is so that it can serve as a teaser to draw readers to the series.

Actually, our heroine’s real name is Makda Moretti; “Rachel Jaeger” is her Mossad code name (jaeger means “hunter” in German, and probably also in Yiddish, which is a Germanic language; and Rachel is a name with definite Old Testament associations). Historically, going back to at least New Testament times and possibly back as far as the reign of Solomon, a certain number of blacks in East Africa have identified with the Jewish faith. Rachel was born in Ethiopia, and her mother was one of these (although her mixed race father was half Italian). But though this subculture is mentioned. the authors don’t develop it at all. Their concentration is very much on providing the character’s “origin story.”

We begin en media res, on her first mission as a fledgling operative in a town on the Egyptian Sinai penninsula, where she’s supposed to provide scouting and lookout functions for a team tasked with taking out a terrorist. (But circumstances will cause her role to morph into something more demanding….) Well positioned flashbacks show us how, as a smart, physically fit and observant Tel Aviv Univ. student with a double major in economics and foreign languages, a solid background of martial arts training, and no close family (her mother had recently died, and her brother had emigrated to the U.S.) she was recruited into Mossad. (Later flashbacks show her family’s harrowing trek to Israel from danger in an unraveling Ethiopia, on which her father was killed, when she was a very small child, and a later formative experience of standing up to two bullies in order to defend another child, which shaped her penchant for defending innocents.)

Levi, the slightly older agent who recruited her, initially used the cover of a dating relationship as a medium to get close to her and check her out; this probably began as a ploy on his part, but quickly became much more serious, and the Makda-Levi relationship plays a very crucial role in the plot here. I don’t recommend reading the Amazon book description (the Goodreads database entry doesn’t have any description) because it divulges a lot of the plot, not just the premise. But suffice it to say that personal tragedy will be a shaping force in Rachel’s career. The time frame of the main tale is apparently about two years.

This is not a deep novel wrestling with moral, psychological, spiritual or political issues. There’s no real exploration of the complex roots and merits of the current Israeli vs. Arab hostility. Both Rachel’s and Levi’s role in Mossad is strictly counter-terrorism, combating and forestalling bad actors who would target and murder innocent civilians for political ends. That these people need to be stopped is a moral no-brainer, regardless of your attitudes towards Zionism or Palestinian statehood. Religion plays no role in the tale; Rachel and Levi are strictly secular and identify with Israel on the basis of peoplehood (which in her case is not exactly ethnic either, but more cultural, in a broad sense). The first time that she has to take a life (in self-defense), Rachel experiences some believable psychological distress at the enormity and finality of it, but is able to work through it and come to terms with it fairly quickly, as an action in successful and needed defense of her people; that kind of issue doesn’t arise elsewhere in the book. Despite the Amazon blurb’s overwrought reference to her “inner demons,” we don’t really meet any of the latter, our authors don’t really psycho-analyze her in depth, beyond the obvious feelings.

What it is instead is a straightforward tale of espionage action-adventure, with no real pretensions beyond offering exciting entertainment for readers who appreciate danger, suspense, physical challenges, and the satisfaction of seeing a good gal kick some bad-guy butt. :-) That’s exactly what the authors set out to deliver, and they make good on their promise admirably. This is a very well-written, fast flowing novel, with believable characters, all of them presented in life-like fashion. The prose is thoroughly serviceable, and free of bad language, with the exception of a couple of s-words in one place. (I appreciated that restraint, which I regard as a hallmark of good, tasteful writing.) There are a variety of locales here –Rome, France and Tunisia, in addition to Israel, the Sinai and East Africa, as already mentioned– and while they’re not necessarily realized with a deep sense of place (remember, this is a 117-page novella!), all of the physical settings are described vividly enough that we can easily visualize them.

Inside knowledge of espionage trade-craft and the inner workings of an intelligence agency is incorporated seamlessly into the narrative, giving it a solid feeling of verisimilitude. Our authors refrain from depicting explicit sex, and they treat sexual matters in general with restraint. It’s mentioned that Makda and Levi began sharing her bed after they’d been dating two weeks, but it’s left at that, and the feelings between the two, in fairness, are much more intense than the short time span suggests. (Normally I’m skeptical of insta-love scenarios in fiction, especially in a modern setting, but it carried complete credibility here.)

One scene had both Rachel and the target of one of her hits naked at one point, because she was posing as a prostitute in order to carry out her mission, but there’s no gratuitous physical description and no sexual activity takes place. (It’s a disgusting scene only because of the repugnant nature of the target’s exploitative and misogynistic attitudes, but he’s meant to be disgusting.) As an action adventure yarn with a government-sanctioned assassin for a main character, it’s going to feature lethal violence directly described, but there’s restraint here too; there’s no wallowing in gore for its own sake, and neither the authors nor Rachel are sadistic. (She’ll deliver certain death to her marks –who inspire no particular pity!– with consummate efficiency, but she”ll deliver it quickly and cleanly.)

My high rating reflects the degree of skill with which the authors deliver on the conventions of their genre, as well as my enjoyment of the tale (I’d easily have read it in one sitting if my time had allowed!). The only negative I felt is that Rachel’s character arc here doesn’t leave her, emotionally, in as good a place at the end as her friends would want her to be. (And by the time you finish the book, if you read it, you’ll probably also count yourself among her friends. :-) ) To be fair, however, that’s because it’s not a complete arc; the authors have at least one more adventure for her, in a full-length novel that will probably allow for much more progress in her personal life journey. Sadly, I don’t plan to witness it; at the age of 70 and with a gargantuan TBR, I don’t choose to get sucked into the welter of Bruns’ and Olsen’s various series, so I read this as a stand-alone. But I wish our heroine well; and can unhesitatingly recommend at least this start of her saga to all fans of espionage thrillers and action heroines!

Author: David Bruns and J. R. Olson
Publisher: Reef Points Media; available through Amazon, currently only as an electronic book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

The Gentle Touch

  By

★★★★
“Touched by an angel.”

British television was rather late to the policewoman party. The first such American show, Decoy, had aired in 1957, and been followed in the seventies by Get Christie Love! and Police Woman. But the UK had to wait until the eighties for their first home-grown series. The Gentle Touch just beat Juliet Bravo to the title, beginning its five season run four months earlier, in April 1980. It centered on Maggie Forbes (Gascoine), a Detective Inspector who worked out of the Seven Dials station in central London. The show began with the murder of her husband, also a police officer, leaving her to raise teenage son Steve (Rathbone), despite a strong devotion to her career in law enforcement.

To be honest, it’s more character- than action-driven overall, yet that’s its strength, since it does a great job of creating people who feel “real”. Nobody here is perfect: everyone has flaws, and struggles to cope with life’s ups and downs. Maggie is the focus, having to operate in an era when casual disregard for a woman’s talents was the norm. Not least by her Scottish colleague, Bob Croft (Gwaspari), though he eventually came to appreciate her many talents, such as Forbes’s fierce devotion to justice. Fortunately, her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Bill Russell (Marlowe) always had her back, even if his approach means cutting her no slack either. But every episode seemed to have one or more great performance, taking advantage of the vast pool of top-tier British character actors.

If you’re familiar with British films and television of the time (and I basically grew up with them!), you will see a lot of recognizable faces. Josh Ackland, Enn Reitel, Joanne Whalley, Art Malik, David Kelly, Ralph Bates and even Floella Benjamin – now Baroness Benjamin, then playing a high-class call-girl! The show also covered a lot of social topics not often seen on eighties television, from racism to porn, yet generally managed to do so without feeling like it was delivering a lecture. There’s no denying its success at the time. This peaked with the ninth episode of season three, in January 1982, which was the fifth most-watched TV program of the year in the United Kingdom, seen by almost a third of the entire population.

The odd episode does perhaps teeter on the edge of implausibility, such as a largely ineffective cliffhanger at the end of season four, where a woman walks into Seven Dials station, armed with a hand-grenade, and threatening to blow herself up. Such excesses seemed positively… well, American. I felt the show was better when staying safely British: you could have a good drinking game, based off people offering each other a nice cup of tea. Speaking of which, Gascoine must have had a sponsorship deal with artificial sweetener company Hermesetas: Chris noticed the way she inevitably dropped a couple of their little tabs into her cuppa. Yet I was surprised how well it generally stood the test of time. Its age only occasionally shows, and most of its 56 episodes proved highly watchable, thanks to the solid characters and performances.

Creator: Terence Feely
Star: Jill Gascoine, William Marlowe, Brian Gwaspari, Nigel Rathbone

I’m Your Woman

  By

★★★★
“Taking action”

Hearing that James Gunn, new head of the DC movie department at Warners, just recently announced David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan as the new actors to play Superman and Lois Lane in the next “Superman”-movie, I felt the need to find out more about these new actors. For Brosnahan I chose the movie I’m Your Woman, an Amazon Prime production from 2020. For one thing, she played the main role, and secondly a two-hour movie is much quicker to watch than a series like The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel. Sure, for that series she got two Golden Globes, one Emmy and two Screen Actors Guild Awards – but my time is a bit limited. Also, I prefer gangster movies over a dramedy show.

I’m Your Woman takes place in the 1970s. Although a year is never specifically mentioned, the dresses, suits, hair styles and the ugly interior design speak for themselves. Jean (Brosnahan) plays the wife of gangster Eddie (Bill Heck). She knows that he’s a gangster but not what he exactly does. In material terms, while there is everything that she could wish for, she is obviously unfulfilled, as she would have liked to have a child – but it didn’t work out. A big change in her life happens when Eddie one day brings home a baby, declaring that it is now theirs. Jean is more than a little over-burdened with the new task, for taking care of anything or anyone, least of all a baby, is something she never had to do.

Very soon her life changes even more dramatically, when one night Eddie doesn’t come home. Instead, she is given a large amount of money and told to go with Cal (Kene), a friend of Eddie’s. She is not told what has happened, so her subsequent escape and isolation in a foreign house remains a mystery to her for quite some time.  As one can probably already guess from the above, the movie is not excessively an action movie with a whole lot of bang-bang. That said, it nevertheless earns its place in the “girls with guns” category, even if this element shows up quite late in the game. For most of the movie, the heroine (and by extensions we, the audience) are left in the dark concerning the why, what and how. Only slowly are we given that information, with light eventually being shed on the background of what happened and the fate of Eddie.

I think this makes it quite an unusual movie as – in contrast to many other movies – we are not immediately brought up to speed with an info-dump, so that we tie ourselves emotionally to Jean. As a result, the fear and tension she experiences are really palpable to us, too. We don’t know who Cal is and why he is helping her, or why people are after Jean. In my opinion, the movie is particularly successful in showing a female perspective, as part of something that would otherwise potentially have been just an ordinary gangster story. In the beginning, Jean does whatever she is told, while at the same time also trying her best to be a good mother to the little baby, even if her knowledge in this respect is also just rudimentary.

It’s only when she realizes that, unless she leaves behind the passive role that she has occupied for such a long time and becomes active, the hunt for her will never end. After that, she is able to change her life and save her new found friends, including Cal and his family. In that respect – and I know how this sounds – this movie can actually be called an emancipation drama. For once this is real, in contrast to the kind of what many modern movies understand under that expression. Also, the story can be seen as offering a historical comment on 1970s paranoia, and in particular how everything seemed to be chaotic at this time. Jean has to come to terms with the notion that those people who try their best to protect her, might have just as little a clue as she has.

I liked this movie, filmed in Pittsburgh, very much. The inherent tension can be felt for the entirety of the movie and it always feels and sounds like the 1970s. Wikipedia tells me the movie was only in theatres very briefly before Amazon Prime released it online. Rachel Brosnahan gives a first-class performance here though the whole production is top-notch. I regret that, too often, quality content like this flies under the radar, while we are distracted with yet another of these big dumb blockbusters Hollywood is constantly pouring over us. I feel Brosnahan is an actress of whom I would like to see more. That appears not to be problem, with plenty more of her work apparently available on Prime.

Dir: Julia Hart
Star: Rachel Brosnahan, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Arinzé Kene, Jameson Charles

Charlotte Who? – A Gaelic Football Story in America

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★★★★
“When Irish eyes are smiling.”

I stumbled across this entirely by accident, Tubi’s autoplay feature putting it on after watching some World Cup highlights. But the start was intriguing enough to keep me watching, and turned out to be a really good documentary, even if the story is a bit clichéd. The original title was the rather more forthright, Who the Fxxk is Charlotte? and that sums up the approach here. Any viewers with an aversion to strong language should not apply. It’s the story of the Charlotte, North Carolina women’s Gaelic football team, and their quest to win the national title. Gaelic football? Yes: an Irish sport, which combines elements of football and rugby. In Ireland, it’s close to a religion with fierce rivalries that go back to the 19th century. 

The Charlotte club was formed in 2000, and based on what we see here, is as much a social organization as a sports club. There does appear to be quite a lot of consumption of adult beverages. But there’s no doubt, they take the sport seriously, and recruit from all round the area, both Irish and American players. On North America, teams can bring in experienced players from Ireland, known as “sanctions”, to help grow the sport. But some clubs do that to excess: Charlotte refuse to go that route, putting their team at a potential disadvantage compared to Boston, or their arch-rivals from San Francisco, the Fog City Harps. The film follows Charlotte as they develop their team, and take part in the 2016 and 2017 senior women’s tournament, for the best sides in North America. 

There are absolutely no pretensions here. It’s a very straightforward approach, and that no-nonsense style fits the participants to a T. Unlike some docs, there’s no off-field drama here, be it artificial or genuine. It’s all about the sport, and it’s depicted as a classic underdog story with plucky Charlotte trying to beat their larger, more established and more “sanctiony” opponents. Though in regard to the last, I would have been curious to see actual numbers: how many of their team were Americans, and how does that compare, say, to the Harps? It’s an easy enough sport to pick up for a viewer, though in some of the games, it was occasionally hard to know the exact score. A score bug in the corner would have been useful. 

In some ways, the structure feels like it mirrors that of a classic kung-fu film. The heroine loses the first battle against her nemesis, but this only increases her resolve. She withdraws, trains harder and learns new techniques, in order to prepare for the rematch. That’s what we have here, with the 2016 tournament ending in defeat. The Charlotte coach also retires, his previously pledged three-year term having come to a close. Yet this opens the door for a dual-headed approach, with two managers of different styles. Considering this is a sport about which I knew almost nothing going in, it was all remarkably engrossing. If you’re not cheering by the end, you’ve clearly got no Irish in you.

Dir: David N. Stiles
Star: Aoife Kavanagh, Catríona O’Shaughnessy, Jan Henry, Kevin Tobin

White Haired Devil Lady

  By

★★★★
“Hair today, gone tomorrow.”

I’ve been on a bit of a kick of Chinese Animal Attack Movies of late. These are basically their version of those SyFy Original Movies, and typically involve some giant creature – snakes or sharks are particularly popular – menacing the population. Some are rather good fun. Others… are not. But I discovered that the same Chinese streaming services also do seem to have a small selection of action heroine flicks. Much the same goes there, in terms of quality: it will be a cold day in YouTube hell before I can get through Beauty Detective Mission. But now and again, there’s a minor gem like this, which helps to make up for all the crap I (and Chris) have endured.

This is not to be confused with any of the other “white hair” films. Most obviously, White Hair Devil Lady from 1980, but potentially also The Bride With White Hair or even The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom. Though from what I’ve seen, some share a common origin: this one was adapted from the novel series Baifa Monü Zhuan by Liang Yu Sheng, and he’s also mentioned in relation to other movies. Anyway, what we have here is an evil court official, Eunuch Wei (Chui), who seeks the Red Pill which will give him immortality. Due to his murderous activities and general disregard for the local population, he incurs the enmity of Lian Ni Shang (Zhang W), who will do anything to stop him.

Making matters more complex, Wei orders a martial arts school, the Wudang Sect, to deliver the Red Pill to him – its leader, Zi Yang (Zhang Q) does not realize this is a ploy to get rid of them. The lead member he sends, Zhuo Yi Hang (Shi), also knew Lian when she was a little girl. Cue romance, betrayal, and eventually, Lian being framed for the murder of Zi Yang. Given this runs 74 minutes, including credits, there’s quite a lot going on. On occasion, it does teeter on the edge of over-stuffed, yet I’ve definitely seen far worse in the wu xia genre, of terms of narrative coherence. Once it settles down, it’s fine, even if some elements seem swiped from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon i.e. the couple falling off a cliff embrace, accompanied by an emotional cello.

However, we are here for the action, and this is pretty damn impressive. It is somewhat quickly edited, yet like the plot, stays just this side of coherence, and the cinematography and design are super, especially considering the budget on this likely was not that high. Elements like Lian’s weaponized hair are rendered beautifully, and the CGI feels like it was used more to enhance the proceedings, rather than creating them wholesale. If the whole thing does feel like a throwback to the kind of flying fantasy films Hong Kong was making in the nineties, it’s does with enough care and attention to detail to pass muster. My attention was undeniably sustained throughout, and that’s more than can be said for many a more expensive work. It’s embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

Dir: Tianyu Zhou
Star: Zhang Wei Na, Shi Jun Zhe, Norman Chui, Zhang Qi

The Swordswoman, by Malcolm Archibald

  By

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

I am, probably, biased here. Scottish action heroines are pretty rare, to the point I am hard pushed to think of a single one I’ve covered previously, in the twenty years I’ve been running this domain. [I just made myself feel very old…] So I was likely disposed to feel kindly towards this literary example. But even setting aside patriotic tendencies, I genuinely enjoyed reading this. It takes place, I’m guessing, around the 9th century, when Scotland was still a loosely connected set of tribes, albeit with a king in what’s now Edinburgh, and a rather fragile peace with the Norse neighbours.

That peace is shattered when someone is washed up on the Western Isles island of Dachaigh where 20-year-old Melcorka lives with her mother. It turns out the Norse are invading, and the king must be notified of the threat. Melcorka and the rest of her clan head towards the capital, only to arrive too late: the army of Alba (as Scotland was then called) has been routed and the nobles scattered. However, Melcorka has a destiny to fulfill… And also inherits a large sword, Defender, with a history dating back centuries, whose powers transform her into the titular character. It’s up to her to rally forces, including the ferocious Picts from the North, to take on the invaders, and send them back across the North Sea to Scandinavia.

It’s not quite historical, not quite fantasy: or, rather, this has elements of both. Events occur in real places: fun fact, up until he retired, my father worked in Burghead, the modern site of Pictish capital Am Broch in the book – I grew up less than 20 miles away. I kept found myself going to Wikipedia to look up particular locations, as Melcorka and her allies moved through the country. But there are some elements which are mystical, such Melcorka venturing into Elfhame, the realm of Faery. At least in this volume, those are limited, and the rest feels grounded. Very grounded in some areas, particularly the battle descriptions, which don’t pull punches: “the slide of intestines as blades ripped open bellies and the pink-grey splurge of brains as swords split skulls.”

It’s certainly not all gore though, and Melcorka realizes there’s a gulf between battle as described in the sagas and heroic songs, and the real thing. It’s part of her development as a heroine, which may be this book’s strongest suit. She starts as an innocent, almost naive young woman, takes her lumps and comes out the other side, wiser if not necessarily happier for it. Credit is also due to Archibald for telling a complete, satisfying story without the need for a gratuitous cliff-hanger. That helps leave me much more likely to invest further in the series, as time permits. He has done the country proud, and I look forward to discovering where Melcorka’s destiny will take her.

Author: Malcolm Archibald
Publisher: Next Chapter, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 5 in The Swordswoman series.

Real Dangerous People, by K. W. Jeter

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

This gritty and action-packed series was originally marketed in seven volumes. The new edition condenses that to four, by combining the first six into three and designating each component in the pair as either Part 1 or Part 2, the original title of each Part 1 serving as the new book title for both. So this book counts as two series installments. That’s a felicitous arrangement, because installments 1-2 (now paired as Real Dangerous Girl) and 3-4 here both fit together nicely as two self-contained two-part story arcs, each featuring protagonist/narrator Kim but centering on a different challenge each time, that starts in Part 1 and finds its resolution in Part 2. But the books should be read in order; here, references are made to persons and events from the prior installments, and in order to fully understand who Kim and her wheelchair-bound kid brother Donnie are, their situation, and the development of her character, you really need to have read the preceding part of the canon. Warning: this review will contain “spoilers” for the previous book(s).

As I’d deduced and mentioned in my review of installment 1 (I read and wrote about the first two as separate books: what is now Real Dangerous Girl Part 1 and Part 2), the setting is an unnamed city in western New York state. It’s not named here either; but references to docks and ocean-going commerce point to Rochester, which is on Lake Ontario and can access the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence River. Several months have passed since the end of the previous book; it’s now winter. One reference suggests that Kim’s still 17; but she has to be getting pretty close to 18. (A credibility problem with the series is that it’s hard to fit all of her backstory into 17 years.) We’re not actually brought up to speed on the intervening events until Chapter 3, and Kim’s wry description of her new line of work as “killing people” might give the idea that she’s been working as an assassin. She hasn’t –but she has opted to make her living with her .357 rather than her calculator; and as she recognizes, the possibility of lethal violence is always present, especially given the sort of people who’ll employ her.

At Cole’s funeral, a meeting with Curt, an old acquaintance of his that he’d recommended her to, led to a three-month gig in “security” for one Mr. Falcone, another mobster like her former employer, who now prefers to be called Mr. Falcon since he’s looking to shed his Mafia image; also like the late Mr. McIntyre, he’s moving to position himself as more plausibly “legitimate.” (So “security” work for him involves dealing with his double-crossing employees, and attacks by thugs working for his equally shady rivals.) Near the beginning of this book, she’s invited to join his personal bodyguard team, where a sudden vacancy has opened up. But the way it opened up isn’t encouraging…. Since there are a couple of more books in the series, we know that our girl’s going to make it home at the end of the day. But she doesn’t have any such assurance, and the chances of this job ending with a tag on her toe look pretty real. She needs the money, though, since failing to provide for Donnie isn’t an option she’ll accept; and she’s about to face another unexpected existential threat to her little family unit, from a totally different quarter.

As noted above, Kim’s character is developing, and not always in ways that please her. (In fact, some developments concern and scare her.) The criminal underworld she originally entered unwittingly when she landed a job with McIntyre’s now defunct organization has become pretty much her default environment. That’s partly because no legitimate business will hire her as an accountant with no formal credentialling, even if she’s good at it, but also because, though she doesn’t like to admit it to herself, at one level she thrives on the excitement, empowerment and adrenaline rush of life in warrior mode; and she takes fierce pride in being equally good at that. Thanks to Cole’s training, she’s a very accurate, quick-reflexed markswoman, and strong and agile despite her petite stature. (And she can now kill without batting an eye –though that’s a development she fully realizes is problematical.) This career choice puts her on a tightrope between the demands of her job and her moral instincts; the tension of walking it can make her cry and vomit at times. Shades of grey often define her alternatives; there’s a lot of food for thought here in terms of moral reflection, as there often is in this genre. That’s implicit in the story, though, not embodied in explicit struggles in Kim’s mind; survival generally dictates her choices, and the one here that many readers will most intensely disagree with and disapprove of is one she makes instantly and without having to agonize over at all. (Having a family of my own, I totally understand why she doesn’t have to.)

There’s no sex, licit or illicit, in this book (or the prior installments). Kim’s not without interest in sex; but like most teens, she sees herself as unattractive. She’s never pursued a relationship, and she’s taken to heart Cole’s advice that the best option for a hired gun is celibacy. (Though given that he was in a long-term relationship with a live-in girlfriend, he failed to practice what he preached.) Compared to the prior installments, there’s an increase in bad language here, including some use of the f-word and religious profanity, though Jeter’s use of it is still restrained compared to many writers who depict this milieu. (Kim’s own language isn’t as bad as that of her colleagues, though if I were her dad I’d still call her on some of it.) In fairness, given the kind of characters we’re dealing with, the language isn’t unrealistic. Violence comes with this territory; several people here exit the world with bullets in their bodies (some of them by Kim’s hand). But none of them are particularly nice people who would elicit any tears from the average reader; I can safely promise that “no innocents were harmed in the writing of this book.” :-)

In terms of literary quality, this is a highly gripping and emotionally evocative read, and a fast-paced one. Depiction of well-drawn, nuanced characters is one of the author’s strengths; Kim herself is a vital bundle of three-dimensioned nuance, but all of the cast here come to life. (Most aren’t especially likable, except for Donnie and Mae, but I do like Kim and root for her, despite her rough edges; Jeter lets me understand where she’s coming from, and her narrative voice makes me empathize with her.) There’s also more of a mystery element here than in the previous story arc, though I still classify this as action-adventure rather than mystery. It has to be said, though, that this book isn’t as well crafted as the preceding. There are editorial issues, some minor. but several more serious. In places details, plot elements and conversations are inconsistent with things written before, which can fray (though not break) the thread of the plot. (The worst of these is where a character dies in one chapter, but reappears alive in the next one!) That cost the book a star; but I’d still recommend it to all readers of the first book (though not as the starting point for the series). And I most definitely intend to follow the series to its completion!

Author: K. W. Jeter
Publisher: Lincoln Square Books; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
Book 2 of 4 in the Kim Oh series, containing previously available titles Real Dangerous People and Real Dangerous Place.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Emily the Criminal

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★★★★
“Parks and Illegal Recreation.”

For six months or so, our morning routine involved the consumption of an episode of Parks and Recreation with breakfast. Our favourite character on the show was Ron Swanson, but not far behind was April Ludgate, played by Aubrey Plaza. She was the mistress of deadpan misanthropy, delivering lines like “I’m just gonna live under a bridge and ask people riddles before they cross.” We’ve not seen her in much since the show ended, but the concept of April Ludgate, career criminal, was too delicious to pass up. So here we are, yet I must admit, Plaza is almost good enough to make us forget April. Well, except for one roll of the eyes, which was vintage Ludgate.

She plays Emily, a young woman saddled with an inescapable pit of student loans, for a basically useless qualification, and an unfortunate felony relegating her to food delivery work. A chance encounter brings her into contact with Youcef (Rossi). She earns $200 for making a fraudulent credit-card transaction on his behalf, and is offered the chance to earn ten times that, for a larger, riskier purchase. With regular employment clearly not the solution, Emily embraces her new, illegal career, working with Youcef, much to the disdain of his Lebanese brothers. As their infighting escalates, Youcef decides to cut and run, only to be beaten to the punch. Emily won’t stand for that: “You’re a bad influence,” says Youcef, as he and Emily prepare to rob his brother. He’s not wrong. 

On one level, Emily’s situation is a result of her poor choices. Running up eighty grand in debt for an art degree and committing felonious assault are both decisions she made, of her own free will. These have consequences. Yet I increasingly found myself rooting for Emily, and her refusal to be ground down by the unfairness of life, or those seeking to exploit her – both in the legal and illegal employment sectors. She possesses undeniable smarts, and a righteous anger at the undeserved success of those she sees around her. Her wants are not excessive, and her crimes are… if hardly victimless, non-violent. At least, if you don’t count those who try to take advantage of her. For Emily wields a mean stun-gun.

If the world won’t give Emily a chance, playing by their rules, she’ll simply make up her own rules. She’s not willing to conform just to become society’s victim, and in this, weirdly, it has elements in common with urban flicks like The Bag Girls. There’s also no sense of honour among thieves, though the authorities and police in this movie are notable by their complete absence. Certainly, the threat of arrest is never a consideration for Emily, or at least, doesn’t alter her trajectory. The ending is ambivalent, to put it mildly: crime appears to pay, though it seems Emily may be addicted to the adrenaline high as much as the ill-gotten gains. While the morality here may be questionable, Plaza’s performance still makes it more than worthwhile. 

Dir: John Patton Ford
Star: Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Gina Gershon