Tag: four-star

RWBY

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rwby★★★★
“Harriet Potter and the F-sized Weapon”

There are occasionally times where our book reviewer Werner’s “split scale” of grades for both artistic merit and action, would come in handy. This is one of those times. For the action scenes here are as glorious as you would expect from the man behind Dead Fantasy, virtuoso symphonies of exquisite hyper-violence, meted out and absorbed by characters and monsters without fear or bias, in ways limited only – and not very much, at that – by the creator’s imagination. Probably inevitably, this overshadows a fairly perfunctory plot, and characters whose characterization is largely defined by the shade they wear. On a split scale, this would merit five stars for both the quantity and quality of action, but likely three or three and a half for artistic merit.

It takes place in the world of Remnant, in a three-cornered struggle between humanity, the monstrous Creatures of Grimm, and the Faunus, who are part-animal, part-human, and largely perceived as second-class citizens, despite their own talents. There’s a substance called “Dust” which has magical powers, and an academy where young men and women train as Hunters and Huntresses, to do battle with the Grimm. The focus is on four teenage girls who are part of this year’s new intake, and who end up forming team RWBY [pronounced “Ruby”]: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long: the last is yellow-themed, you should be able to figure out the others. The main nemesis is Roman Torchwick, a terrorist who is working with a group fighting for Faunus’ rights, yet who had entirely his own agenda – as well as some high-powered minions and skills of his own.

Originally a web series, the first and second seasons have now been collected into feature-length collections, and while their episodic nature is occasionally apparent, they probably work better that way. The opening takes a little while to hit its stride, as it has to create the world, introduce the characters and establish the situations. The animation style takes some getting used to: it’s done in CGI, but trying to look like traditional cel animation; some of the resulting movement is almost too smooth, and I find the lack of noses on some of the characters, a bit unsettling. However, the script is well-written, sometimes sharp and witty, occupying a good place between self-awareness and parody. Even the characters that are largely superfluous – and some of the hunters in training could be so described – are less irritating than they might be.

It is, however, all about the action, and it’s clear that all of the other aspects – the plot, the participants and the world they inhabit – exist merely to facilitate the fight scenes, which is where all the work, imagination and energy become truly apparent.  The highlight, for me, in volume one, was a battle at a temple against a series of Grimm, while the second part climaxes with a running fight in, on and around, a train as it hurtles toward the capital city. You forget they are animated, while simultaneously wishing someone would throw $200 million at the studio behind it, Rooster Teeth, and let them make a live-action version. Sadly, creator Oum died of a severe allergic reaction in February this year, although it has been announced that Volume Three of the series will continue. Hopefully, the quality will not suffer, and will be a fitting monument to Oum’s sadly-missed talents.

Dir: Monty Oum
Star (voice): Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Arryn Zech, Barbara Dunkelman

Angel Terminators 2

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★★★★
“Angels of death”

angelterm2I have not seen Angel Terminators, so cannot comment on its merits or flaws. However, it does not appear that this impacted my thorough enjoyment of this slice of early 90’s Hong Kong goodness, and nor did the mangled subs which leave me a little vague on some details. The two heroines are Chitty (Lee) and Bullet (Oshima), who are… Cousins? Sisters? Not sure. Bullet has just got out of prison, having turned to delinquency after blaming her policeman father for the death of her mother. He and his partner (Hu) – who adds to the confusion because everyone calls her Big Auntie – try to achieve a reconciliation, but Bullet is unimpressed. She goes to her former gang boss for money, having taken the fall and gone to jail for him, but he just wants Chitty to become a hostess. The fight than ensues, kicks off a chain of events which leads to Bullet stealing some jewels belonging to the boss, who unleashes the accurately-named Brother Mad (Wong).

Will there be mayhem? Yes. Will there by fisticuffs and much gunplay? Yes. Will there be people strung up from lamp-posts like some kind of novelty Chinese lanterns? I’m not saying: I’ll let the film retain some element of surprise. But for all its broad strokes of characterization, it manages to deliver a relatively-even tone, without any of the slapstick and comic interludes which sometimes plague other entries. Indeed, it does become progressively darker, with a kidnapping forcing action that then goes horribly wrong, setting up even further death and violence. This is all accompanied by high-quality action, right from the get-go, starting with Hu leading an assault on criminals holed up in a restaurant, before quickly bringing you a battle between Lee and the leaders of another training squads in a gym, then escalating from there through to a bloody finale.

It’s easy to become somewhat jaded, particularly when you’re watching films because of their genre, without applying any quality control. But then you find a movie like like this, which looks like just another generic action heroine flick, yet instead delivers everything you could want from low-budget action, easily making up for in energy what it may lack in polish. With Lee, Oshima and Hu, you have a hand of three aces, and the film is only a couple of Khans (Cynthia and Michelle, a.k.a. Michelle Yeoh) from having the best cast ever in a HK action heroine film. Unlike some (hello, Avenging Quartet), it lives up to that.

Dir: Lau Chan + Chin-Ku Lu
Star: Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima, Chi Yeung Wong, Sibelle Hu

Dakiti, by E. J. Fisch

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

dakitiThis series opener is a rousing science-fiction action adventure yarn, far better crafted than today’s average first novel. (I’m guessing that Transcendence Publishing is a real small press, not simply a printing service for self-publishing authors; but in either case, Fisch has taken her craft seriously and given readers a polished work.) The premise appealed to my liking for action-oriented heroines, so I took the opportunity to try out the series by downloading this novel when it was offered free for a day. (I’ll definitely be buying a print copy!)

We have here a tale of interplanetary intrigue, set in a far-future galaxy widely colonized by humans, whose far-flung settlement has brought them into contact with various alien races. Our main series characters belong to one of these, the humanoid Haphezians. They’re not really “super-human,” but they are taller and more muscular than Earth humans, with strength and endurance to match; and with two stomachs, they only need to eat every few days. (Otherwise, they’re physically much like humans, except for more vividness and variation in eye and hair color.) In this novel, we also meet another alien race, the reptilian Sardons. Characters from all three races will interact here, in a galaxy that’s riven by tensions, and sometimes open warfare.

Much of human space is ruled by a powerful Federation. But some fringe human planets like Tantal maintain their independence; and as in the Star Wars universe, the Federation faces resistance from a guerrilla insurgency that has elite fighters, the Nosti, who have special telekinetic powers (unlike the Jedi, theirs are derived from injections every ten years with an illegal psi-enhancing drug). The Haphezian monarchy faces a terrorist insurgency of its own, called Solaris; and some years ago fought a war with the Sardons, who sought to end the Haphezian monopoly on the caura extract trade. Ziva and Aroska serve the Haphezian Crown as agents of the HSP, Haphezian Special Police; and Haphezians are much in demand from other, less combat-capable, peoples as allies or as mercenary soldiers. That’s what’s brought hereditary Tantali governor Enrike Saiffe and his son Jayden on a diplomatic mission to Haphez near the novel’s beginning. Meanwhile, there’s a plot afoot that Ziva and her team will have to discover, and it’s a nasty one.

All of this political background is quickly sketched here in the process of narrating swiftly-moving events, without noticeable info-dumps (I expect it to be developed more in the succeeding books). Haphezian culture is suggested a bit more fully than that of the other two races involved here, but detailed world building isn’t the author’s strong point. Rather, her strong points are tight plotting, smooth and direct prose style that does what she wants it to, well-written action scenes (and a lot of them!), a conflict against a foe whose aims and methods are definitely evil, though that doesn’t mean that we think the Haphezian regime necessarily resembles goodness incarnate; and above all, character development and interrelationships between characters. (We’re not talking about romantic relationships here, but human relationships –and Haphezians are as “human” as you and I in those respects, regardless of how many stomachs they have.) Fisch throws some twists and turns into her plot (one of these I saw coming –but the satisfaction of guessing rightly is part of the fun!) and the last chapters especially are suspenseful right up to the end (reading these, I was glued to the screen!).

Ziva Payvan is a complex, round and dynamic character, embodying more than physical strength, good aim with a gun, and quick reflexes –though she’s got all of those, in enough measure to make her a VERY formidable fighter in any combat situation; you definitely don’t ever want her as an opponent! She’s an intelligent, layered person with a capacity for strong feelings, an inner moral code, and a lot of loyalty; but she’s not necessarily likeable. A product of a rough childhood and adolescence and of a dysfunctional family, she harbors some secrets and has made some bad choices, one of them really dark. And her government has trained her, and used her, as a professional assassin for State-sanctioned killings, with attendant toll on her softer feelings. She’s also abrasive, arrogant, and hot-tempered. But Fisch manages to make her a person you care about.

Aroska Tarbic is also a well-developed character, a strong, tough male well able to handle himself in combat, and with no problems about fighting shoulder-to-shoulder alongside of a woman. (Commendably, Fisch shows both male and female characters routinely taking fighting responsibility, and handling it well.) Indeed, all of the important characters here come to life in the author’s words. Many of the situations and scenes here are powerfully emotionally evocative.

One aspect of the premise here is problematical: Haphez is a highly-developed, tech-savvy planet with a culture that undoubtedly boasts centuries of development. It seems implausible that they wouldn’t have developed a more efficient judicial system, and a more efficient way of carrying out capital punishment, than they apparently have here. We can say the same for a few key details of the plotting that don’t stand strenuous examination too well. And hard-SF buffs will quibble about the impossibility of real-time interplanetary radio communication between planets that are light-years apart, given the relatively slow speed of sound waves. (In Ursula LeGuin’s fictional Hainish universe, an invention called the “ansible” eliminates this problem –we’re not told how, it just does!– but as far as we know, Haphez doesn’t have the ansible.) None of these factors kept me from really liking the book, though! I absolutely plan to continue with the series.

Note: Bad language here (strictly of the d- and h-word sort) is minimal, and there’s no sex, explicit or implied. Very romance-phobic readers can approach this tale without fear.

Author: E. J. Fisch
Publisher: Transcendence Publishing, available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Sister Street Fighter

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★★★★
“The lady dragon just attacked our wig warehouse!”

sisterstreetfighterfI have reviewed this previously, way back at the birth of the site, as part of the Women Who Kick Butt box-set, where it was easily the best film present. However, that was in a dubbed version, and having recently got hold of a copy in the original Japanese, I thought it deserved a re-watch. I’m pleased to report it remains a supremely loopy bit of fun, fully meriting the seal of approval and deserving of its own page, However could it be otherwise, with dialogue such as the title caption above, or the unforgettable line, “I killed fifty bulls with my bare hands in South America, you know.” It’s 70’s martial arts plot #26: central character goes to look for missing relative. In this case, it’s Tina (Shihomi), whose brother, an undercover cop, vanished while looking into a Japanese drug cartel. She agrees to follow in his footsteps, and soon finds the gang, under boss Hayashi (Yamamoto), handle snoopers with extreme prejudice. As that caption suggests, they bring the merchandise in using heroin-infused wigs(!), and the eccentric boss is now keeping Tina’s brother as a plaything in his basement – presumably alongside the “men who know where they are and care, but don’t drink.”

Oh, and Hayashi also collects martial artists: “Some rich men buy race horses or keep an expensive dog as a pet. But I keep unusual humans instead of animals. It amuses me.” This includes everything from an expert in the Okinawan Kobudo, a chained sickle, through to a pack of Thai kickboxers called the “Amazon Seven.” There’s also a guy with a mohawk who shoots poisoned darts from his blowgun, and bunch of fairly ineffective minions, who walk around wearing what look kinda like ski-masks made of straw. Wisely, they remove these before going into battle, although this does make me wonder what the point is. These and more will all, at some point or other, be faced down by Tina and/or her own allies, including colleagues of her brother, Sonny Hibachi (Chiba) and Emmy Kawasaki (Hayakawa), as well as a ballet-school teacher, because everyone in Japan knows some version of karate, it appears. [I should also mention the unfortunate logo of the karate school is a swastika!] Though Tina’s most startling skill is her ability to fall hundreds of feet from a high bridge, then re-appear without the slightest explanation as to how she survived.

Yamaguchi’s directorial style appears to consist of tilting the camera semi-randomly, leading to some sequences being Everyday Etsuko Shiomis, seen from unusual angles. But he also is smart enough to stand back when appropriate, letting her and everyone else do their thing, and this is when the film earns its keep. Watching Shiomi duel with nunchakus is worth the cost of admission alone, with the rest of the fights, and the general lunatic approach, merely a bonus. Released almost exactly a year after Enter the Dragon, the debt owed to that classic is certainly clear, not least in the tiger claws wielded by Hayashi. If some performances may be on the functional side (watch the drug withdrawal scene for truly epic over-acting), it still does a better of job of repaying its debts than many other imitators of the time, being an enjoyable slab of excessive kung-fu action in its own right.

Dir: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
Star: Etsuko Shihomi, Shohei Yamamoto, May Hayakawa, Sonny Chiba

Eko Eko Azarak

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ekoekomanga“Into every generation a sorceress is born.”

No, Buffy was not the first schoolgirl with supernatural powers, tasked with ensuring the denizens of hell were kept under control. Beginning in 1975, Shinichi Koga’s manga series Eko Eko Azarak, serialized in Weekly Shōnen Champion, told the story of Misa Kuroi, a young girl who transfers in to a new school, bringing with her occult abilities as a witch. This is not the first, nor will it be the last, darkly-troubled educational establishment attended by Misa, whose name can loosely be translated in Japanese as “Black Mass”. In this case, it’s the focus of a Satanic cult, who are killing students at precise locations around the city, as ingredients in a ritual with the intended end result of summoning Lucifer himself.

This and the subsequent adventures of Misa, ran for three and a half years, and was subsequently collected into an 18-volume manga series. The title comes from a Wiccan chant, first recorded in the 1920’s, and which also shows up during a 1971 Doctor Who serial, The Dæmons. [Its meaning is obscure, but the names appear to belong to old gods and goddesses] But it took more than two decades for the series first to be turned into a live-action film. This pre-dated the breakout hit of Japanese horror, Ringu, by two years, which may explain why it didn’t receive a fraction of the attention. However, it did begin a series of adaptations which intermittently continued, across various media, for the following 15 years. This included six films, a pair of separate television version and something best described as pseudo-anime. Let’s take a look at some of those, pausing only to hold hands and chant as one:

“Eko Eko Azarak, Eko Eko Zamelak.
Eko Eko Kernonos, Eko Eko Aradia.”

Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness
★★★

ekoeko1Someone appears to be offing pupils at a Tokyo school, in messy “accidents”, such as getting their head crushed by a falling girder: the death scenes form a pentagram, with the school at its centre. Into this strained atmosphere comes Misa Kuroi (Yoshino), who soon established herself as someone with a solid knowledge of certain occult arts, by taking care of a grubby male teacher who has, shall we say, a “hands on” approach to education. She and 12 classmates are ordered to stay behind one day and take a test: on completion, they discover they can’t leave the school, with every exit either sealed, or taking them right back inside again. Worse soon follows, beginning with a drowning in a toilet cubicle: the number 13 which appeared mysteriously on the blackboard, becomes 12, and it’s clear that someone has malicious intent towards the group, with the aim of sacrificing them all, in order to resurrect Lucifer himself.

Who might that be? Creepy classmate Mizuno  (Takahashi), who is openly interested in black magic, yet keeps pointing the finger of suspicion at Misa? The predatory, lesbian teacher, Miss Shirai (Takaki)? And even if she finds out, what can Misa do, given the binding which traps her and the rest of her colleagues, has also severely weakened her own powers? While low-rent in nature, and obviously shot on video, this is decent enough, and despite being just past its 20th birthday, hasn’t dated too badly, in the wake of what seems like a million and one J-horror films set in similar establishments. There’s something of a Buffy echo (though the manga was decades before even the Kirsty Swanson version), in that Misa has come to a new school under murky circumstances, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. However, I’m not quite sure who the target audience is: one would presume a young adult one, based on the high-school age of the characters. Yet, there’s a lengthy lesbian sex sequence, which seems to be aimed at a rather different set of viewers, shall we say, and according to the (female) director, were required by the film’s producers. [I just realized she also did the Western film, Tale of a Vampire, starring Julian Sands, which I remember seeing and enjoying, not least since I was living near some of its South London locations]

The film does occasionally suffer from being too obvious. For instance, we really do not need repeated shots focusing on a pointy object, to foreshadow the fact that someone will shortly be falling onto it. Nor do we probably need 13 victims before we get the idea, and the film seems to realize this, wiping out half of them in once particularly messy incident. Misa, herself, is also somewhat disappointing: we never get any real appreciation for her powers, before she’s robbed of them for much of the film. Maybe this is better explained in the manga, though reports indicate her character there is much more of a vengeful bad-ass. Which, to be honest, sounds more interesting. However, as a messy romp, perhaps in the vein of a Japanese Dennis Wheatley adaptation, this was interesting enough to keep me interested and entertained.

Dir: Shimako Sato
Star: Kimika Yoshino. Miho Kanno, Naozumi Takahashi, Mio Takaki

Eko Eko Azarak II: Birth of the Wizard
★★½

ekoeko2It took me quite some time to realize that this in not actually a sequel, it’s a prequel, telling the story of how Misa (Yoshino) came to realize her powers, and what awakened them. The history of that actually dates back more than a century, when a misguided attempt to resurrect a dead woman, actually triggered the extermination of an entire village. The demon responsible then goes into hibernation for a century, waiting for an appropriate vessel to be born. A century later, this happens: that would be our heroine. When the demon’s mummified body is dug up by unwitting archaeologists, it is awakened, and it foes in search of its new home, possessing those unfortunate enough to cross its path. Saiga (Shihôdô) is sent forward in time from the 19th century to locate Misa. Plan A has her untapped potential being triggered, since she is the only one capable of killing the demon. Plan B, in the event of Plan A, not being possible, is to destroy Misa, since allowing her to be taken would lead to horrors of unimaginable proportion.

Yeah, it’s basically a shameless occult knock-off of the first two Terminator movies, albeit with the time-frame flipped and someone coming from the past to protect the future, rather than the other way around. There is a nice touch, in that Saiga has previously met Misa when she was a little girl, and she has held a candle for him ever since, even into high-school. However, the obviously derivative nature is definitely a step back from the first film, and nor does it help that Misa spends 95% of the time with her powers dormant, just as Linda Hamilton spends most of the first Terminator film running and screaming, reliant on the superior fire-power of her male protector. It’s a curious decision by Sato who, unlike for the first film, also wrote the script here. Everything seemed set up nicely at the end of part one, for a kick ass sequel that shows her putting her abilities to full use, so I was disappointed this went in, literally, the opposite direction, with an origin story.

Don’t interpret this criticism to mean it’s actually bad, for Sato again does wonders in terms of generating atmosphere on a low budget, and this also moves on at a steady pace, with few dull moments. For other purposes, this would certainly rank half a star, perhaps a full grade, higher. However, we’re all about the action heroine on this site, and the paucity of such here leaves me with a clear sense of disappointment and feeling it was a lost opportunity, failing to capitalize on the promise shown in the original.

Dir: Shimako Sato
Star: Kimika Yoshino, Wataru Shihôdô, Chieko Shiratori, Eisei Amamoto

Eko Eko Azarak: The TV series

In between the second and third entries of the movies, there was a television series that ran between February and May in 1997. Information on the show, which ran for 26 episodes of twenty-five minutes, is hard to come by, beyond it starring a new actress, Hinako Saeki in the role of Misa Kuroi. It appears in some ways to be a supernatural version of Sukeban Deka, with Kuroi acting as a roaming investigator, who attends various educational establishments where paranormal or occult events are taking place. I’ve only seen the first three episodes (one is embedded above, with English subtitles), but according to the IMDb synopsis, “Carrying a dagger and a heavy leather bag, she uses her powers to eliminate the evil forces that thrive on deadly sins of the human race… Her parents were changed into wooden miniatures and her beloved sister is captured by the demons. Her ultimate aim is to cleanse the earth and rebuild her broken family.”

The opening trio all take place in the same location, Huirigaoka High School, but tell separate stories. The first deals with a rash of suicides, which initially look like the work of a vengeful spirit, but it turns out there’s something nastier at work. This also sets up Misa’s  “Scooby Gang” of fellow pupils – Ikuo, Hiromi and Taketo – whom she saves from dark forces in this episode. The second is kicked off by an unofficial beauty pageant held by the pupils: when the reigning champion discovers Misa poses a threat to her crown, she attempt to use black magic to ensure her victory. But it isn’t Misa’s first time at the magical rodeo, and she reflects the curse back to its perpetrator, with face-melting results. The third sees a teacher at the school getting married, but Misa has serious qualms about her fiancé, especially when she sees the occult relic sitting in pride of place on their mantelpiece.

Having seen barely 10% of the series, I can’t give it a rating, but based on these three, I was generally impressed, particularly with the writing. Between opening and closing credits, there’s little more than twenty minutes to work with, but the show does a good job of telling a complete tale, without seeming rushed. The Misa we see is clearly experienced, well-versed in the dark arts, and largely doesn’t give a damn who knows it. When a dagger falls out of her bag and is spotted by Taketo, she straight up informs him, it’s for use “In rituals, to offer blood sacrifices.” Containing some surprising nudity – maybe it was a cable show? – there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of character development or an over-riding story arc – certainly none of the topics mentioned in the IMDb synopsis – but it’s still early. I just hope the fan-subbing group which did the first three, will eventually get back to working on the remaining 23.

Eko Eko Azarak III: Misa the Dark Angel
★★★½

ekoeko3With a new director and a new actress in the role of Misa Kuroi – Hinako having carried over her role in the TV series from the previous year – this has a somewhat different feel, but works better than the first sequel, simply because Mida is fully aware of her powers, which lets her kick more ass. The story kicks off with the discovery of a horribly disfigured dying young woman, who whispers “Misa Kuroi” with her last breath. Conveniently, the autopsy doctor is Misa’s uncle, so she is aware of the presence in the victim’s possession of a play script. This takes her to the unsubtly-named St. Salem School for Girls, where she hooks up with the local drama club, under head-girl Hikaru (Hagiwara). They are working on a play which, shall we say, appears to have more than its fair share of occult symbolism, and the dyfunctional bunch of teenagers are about to head off on their traditional summer camp in a remote mansion. What could possibly go wrong?

If you are in any way surprised to learn that the answer to that question is, “Just about everything.” you need to watch more Japanese horror movies. For what unfolds is unsurprising more in the details, which harken back to an earlier attempt, first, to create a homunculus – artificial life – and then, imbue it with a human soul, this lack being what distinguishes it from the rest of us. The process, again unsurprisingly, involves a lot of human sacrifice, and Misa is the only one savvy and gutsy enough to stand in the way. There also appears to be a Lovecraftian subplot, with the gods invoked in the ceremonies being taken from the Cthulhu mythos; unfortunately, the subtitler appears blithely unaware of this, so you get frequent references to “Yog Sototo” instead of Yog-Sothoth. It’s a small matter, but the lack of attention to detail does rub me the wrong way.

Hinako does bring a different approach to the character from Yoshino, both in look and temperament, she’s less “cutesy”, seeming more angular and cold, as if by this point Misa had seen too many things and failed a few saving throws on her “Humanity” skill.  Katsuhiro borrows liberally from the classics, in particular a shrubbery assault lifted from The Evil Dead, but more subtly, a sense of atmosphere that seems to echo Dario Argento’s Suspiria. But it’s also its own beast, and it’s good to see Misa getting a far greater chance to be the heroine whose potential has only been occasionally glimpsed in the first two episodes. The ending is both surprisingly poignant, and unexpectedly final: it doesn’t appear to leave significant room for a sequel – but just as in Western horror franchises, it appears that if the box-office returns prove adequate enough, a way will always be found for another entry…

Dir: Ueno Katsuhiro
Star: Saeki Hinako, Ayaka Nanami, Yuki Hagiwara, Chika Fujimura

Eko Eko Azarak IV: Awakening
★★★★

ekoeko4After a few years’ break, the series returned in 2001 with a fourth installment, that took a radically different approach – and one which, for my money, was all the better for it. It’s actually a reboot – the Japanese release was simply Eko Eko Azarak, with the suffixes only being added for the bootleg edition available in the West from the usual sources. Certainly, the Misa Kuroi we get is initially again one who is unaware of her powers. We first encounter her as the sole survivor of an apparent massacre in a forest which left five corpses, all badly mutilated. Misa (Kato) is carted off to hospital, unconscious, where the police wait to question her and find out what happened. But even as she lies unconscious, the body-count continues to mount.

Needless to say, the media has a field day, especially after Misa escapes the hospital, leaving the body of a nurse by her bed, turned into a starched-white popsicle. The film has a lot to say about how the media twists a story to its own purposes and sensationalizes or trivializes things in pursuit of ratings. For instance, they prepare two versions of the initial story, depending on whether they want to portray Misa as a virgin bravely defending her honour, or a psycho slut who was asking for it. As one hardbitten journalist puts it, “If you don’t come up with a sensationalist headline immediately you see something, you aren’t going to make it.” The defense for this is that television is just a mirror for society, and “A mirror doesn’t have a soul, does it?” So, they frame the story as they want, even going so far as to hire a fake to pretend to be Misa, leading to the climactic confrontation at the TV station between media, police, pseudo-Misa and the real thing, where the journalist taunts Misa into revealing her true powers

This goes about as well for him as you’d expect.

What works really well is the sense of foreboding, with a brooding atmosphere which is incredibly well realized. Rather than explicit shocks, it relies much more on things happening out of sight. While this can often be a cop-out [you don’t have to budget for what you don’t show!], in the right hands this can also be highly effective. Suzuki is clearly the right hands, and is a master at using sound – or even the lack of sound – to create apprehension in the viewer. This is reflected in things like a really creepy answering machine message left for Misa by her mother, or at the end, when the camera pulls slowly away from a closed studio door, leaving you to imagine what awful forces are at work on the other side. While the others are easy to write off as genre entertainment, that isn’t the case for the combination of social commentary and thoroughly effective chills that you get in this installment. Smart and scary like this is a rare combination.

Dir: Kosuke Suzuki
Star: Natsuki Kato, Mitsuho Otani, Hassei Takano, Ken Mitsuishi

To Be Reviewed

There are a number of other entries and adaptations of the character, which I have not yet been able to find, or which only exist at this point in Japanese language versions, without subtitles. First of all, 2004 brought a further television series to TV Tokyo, lasting 13 episodes, called Eko Eko Azarak -eye-. In 2006, there were a pair of features, released two weeks apart theatrically: R-Page and B-Page. The first saw a journalist investigating a string of mysterious deaths in a rural town, who teams up with Misa Kuroi to find the (supernatural, unsurprisingly) cause behind them. In the second,  Misa continued her search for the demon Ezekiel, bringing her into contact with a wheelchair-bound doll maker.

Around the same time, there was also an anime OAV with two stories in one volume – though by most accounts, this was less “animated” than using still images with voiceover narration (a medium known as “ga-nime”). Finally, there is The First Episode of Misa Kuroi, a 60-minute story which came out in January 2011. It was supposed to have been released in the West by Tokyo Shock, first in December 2013, then was delayed to August 2014, but does not appear to have turned up at all. As/when I get access to an understandable version of these, I’ll include them here.

misafirstepisode
Eko Eko Azarak: R-Page
Dir: Taichi Ito
Star: Narumi Konno, Mitsuki Koga		 Eko Eko Azarak: B-Page
Dir: Shinichi Koga
Star: Narumi Konno, Rina Takagi		 Eko Eko Azarak:
The First Episode of Misa Kuroi
Dir: Shinichi Koga
Star: Nozomi Maeda

Let Us Prey

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★★★★
“The devil’s in the details.”

letuspreyI’m not religious, but I do enjoy a good religious movie. Say what you like about the Bible, it has some great stories, and inspiration for a ton of others [some day, I want to see the Book of Revelations filmed by Paul Verhoeven]. This certainly falls into the latter camp, but the small cast and claustrophobic settings work for it very well. On the way to take up a new post at a police station in a small Scottish town, Rachel (McIntosh) witnesses a pedestrian being hit by a joy-riding teenager, though the victim is nowhere to be found. Taking the perp to the station, the victim (Cunningham), known only as “Six” (after his eventual cell number), is located and brought to the station: but the doctor brought in to check his wounds tries to kill him. It becomes clear that Six knows a lot more, not just about Rachel, but her new boss Sergeant MacReady (Russell), and the other inhabitants of the station, on both sides of the bars. That’s dangerous knowledge, since some of those are definitely not intended for public consumption. Rachel, whose secret involved hurt done to rather than by her, has to figure out Six’s agenda – Devil? Angel? Bit of both? – to survive the night.

Right from the opening credits, depicting Six against a variety of ominous backgrounds, the creep factor here is severely amped up, and it keeps increasing the rest of the way – just when you think it’s reached its peak, O’Malley turns the screw another notch. It also benefit from very good performances. Cunningham has been a house-approved actor since Dog Soldiers, and exudes presence even when quite, as he is particularly in the early going, while McIntosh was striking in an equally disturbing film, The Woman, and brings much the same sense of physicality to her character here. The director has said one of the inspirations was the original Assault on Precinct 13, and I can see that; however, in a psychological sense, it felt almost like a psychological version of another John Carpenter film, The Thing, with people’s “inner monsters” bursting out to wreak havoc on those unfortunate enough to be around them. There are a couple of embarrassing mis-steps: at one point, for example, a character carefully and ostentatiously removes his glasses, only for them immediately to re-appear on his face! That kind of sloppy mistake is disappointing, and could easily have been avoided.

We also wondered why no-one makes much effort to call in external help, be that from another station or emergency service. For a while, I was thinking it was going to reveal that all the participants were dead already, which would have been a tough act to pull off. Does it end up going that way? I couldn’t possibly comment. But if they ever decided to make a sequel, we’d love to see it.  We watched this the same day as Jurassic World, and both my wife and I think this was the better movie.

Dir: Brian O’Malley
Star: Pollyanna McIntosh, Liam Cunningham, Douglas Russell

Our Girl

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★★★★
“GI Molly”

ourgirlMolly Dawes (Turner) has just turned 18, works in a nail-salon, lives on a council estate with her five siblings, pregnant mom and unemployable father, and has a Muslim boyfriend who is cheating on her. Oh, she looks kinda like a chav version of Daenerys Targaryen too, but given her unsurprising lack of dragons, has no apparent future. Throwing up at the end of a night out with her gal pals, she finds herself in front of an Army recruitment office, and decides it offers a potential way out from her dead-end life. Naturally, it’s not quite as easy as that, since her boyfriend is unimpressed, and her parents think the big announcement is that she’s pregnant. But she persists, and the film follows her journey through basic training, as the mouthy peroxide blonde turns into a combat medical technician.

Yes, it’s a fair criticism that this is heavily pro-Army, occasionally feeling like a recruitment video more than a movie. But it doesn’t soft-pedal the dangers at all. Indeed, a constant thread in the second half is Molly’s reluctance to write the “letter from the grave” required for all recruits, to be sent home in the event of their death, and perhaps the film’s most poignant moment has a ceremony at a war memorial, with a veteran reading John McCrae’s poem, In Flanders Fields. But the film’s biggest strength is undeniably Turner, an escapee from long-running British soap EastEnders. She captures perfectly the multi-faceted character of Molly, who wants more out of life, but has no apparent way to get it. In that aspect, this reminded me somewhat of Dangerous Lady, and I could see the heroine here ending up slipping into crime to escape her situation – and doing just as well. But Molly lacks self-confidence – describing herself as stupid even when that clearly isn’t the case – and that, along with the opportunity, is what the military provides.

There’s an interesting subplot where Molly talks about basic training with another recruit, who compares the Army to a cult, designed to break an individual down so they can build you back up the way they want. He means it disparagingly – and later is tossed out, as “unfit for Army service”, apparently not having fooled anyone. But the film seems to be making the case that this is not necessarily a bad thing, because the end product, particularly in this case, appears to be a much more productive member of society than the one who enlisted in the cult. Even if it’s also someone who is now estranged from her pals, her boyfriend  and some of her family as a result. Thought-provoking and engaging, this was turned into a five-part series, that I think I may now have to track down.

Dir: David Drury
Star: Lacey Turner, Flossy Grounds, Daniel Black

1632, by Eric Flint

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

1632Veteran science-fiction writer Eric Flint, the author of this opening book in his Ring of Fire series, self-identifies with the political Left; but his is an old- fashioned, Jeffersonian sort of populist liberalism, which embraces democracy, human rights, religious freedom (as opposed to “freedom from religion”), personal moral responsibility, retributive justice, and widespread gun ownership. When the small town of Grantville, West Virginia is transported, through a super-advanced alien race’s meddling with the fabric of space-time, to Germany during the Thirty Years War, the residents are willing to fight for these principles, in the midst of a maelstrom of rampant evil and oppression; and the reader is soon caught up in cheering them on!

As one might expect, there’s a lot of graphic violence here –the real Thirty Years War was no Sunday school picnic either– but Flint’s characters (at least, the good guys and gals) employ violence only as an instrument of moral order, not in opposition to it. The premise here is really original, and it’s worked out in believable detail that brings it vividly to life; there’s a good balance between action and the quieter aspects of life that build our understanding of the characters and their relationships; the pacing is brisk, and the characters are well-rounded and thoroughly life-like. (Grantville’s local UMW leader, Mike Stearnes, is nominally the protagonist, but there’s really no one “main” hero or heroine; Flint follows a number of characters who play important roles.) Well-researched actual history is incorporated seamlessly into the narrative (I learned some fascinating stuff I didn’t know before, and I majored in history!).

For readers who follow this site, one of the main attractions here are three gun-toting ladies (all of them major characters) who earn the stars above for the kick-butt quotient. High school cheerleader Julie Sims becomes the ace sharpshooter for Grantville’s thrown-together army. (She was seriously training to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team in shooting events before the time-travel incident –and my guess is that she’d have not only qualified, but brought home the gold medal.) Sexually-abused camp follower Gretchen Richter, rescued by the Americans, becomes a force to be reckoned with when she learns to use a pistol. And while a young Jewish lady named Rebecca actually isn’t a very good shot, she doesn’t need to be when she’s packing a sawed-off shotgun. If you like your fictional heroines strong, tough, gutsy, and not a bit bothered by using lethal force, you’ll appreciate these gals. (The only ones who don’t are the bad guys –and their opinion doesn’t matter much once they’re pushing up daisies!)

Note: There are a few instances of unmarried sex here, but nothing explicit; the only sex scene that’s dealt with at length takes place on a couple’s wedding night and isn’t treated in a salacious way. There is quite a bit of bad language, which often includes profanity (Flint confuses this several times with “blasphemy;” but there actually isn’t any of the latter) or the f-word.

Author: Eric Flint
Publisher: Baen Books, available through Amazon in all formats.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Real Dangerous Job, by K. W. Jeter

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

kimoh2I was graciously given a free review e-copy of this second series installment by the author, with no strings attached. As in the case of the first one, I blazed through it; it’s compulsively readable, and I made every opportunity I could to log on to it. Had time permitted, I’d have read it in one sitting –it’s that compelling.

Much of the evaluation and background material in my review of Real Dangerous Girl applies to this sequel as well. Here, Jeter brings the immediate story arc begun there to a close, while leaving the future open. The themes of coming-of-age, “primitivism,” and darkness vs. light begun in the first book are also explored further here, to serious effect. Kim has to really grapple here with the significance of what she’s decided to do, and face the fact that it’s changing her into a person who’s less innocent and less gentle, and that this isn’t necessarily a good thing. But that’s set against other psychological factors of self-actualization and self-determination that aren’t wholly negative either. This isn’t the story of a good girl changing to a bad one. It’s the story of an essentially decent girl learning to balance who she is with a world that’s far from decent, with no other guides (besides a very dubious mentor) than her heart and her conscience. And this will be reflected in the real moral choices that come her way.

We get to know Kim better here, as a person as well as the fact that she’s only 17 (as an “emancipated minor” –though we already knew she was pretty young). Other supporting characters are back and developed in more depth as well –not surprisingly, Cole, Donnie, Monica, McIntire and his chief goon Michael (and more surprisingly, TV newswoman Karen Ibanez). Also, we learn that our setting is a city in upstate New York (a character comes “up from Albany,” an expression that wouldn’t apply to New York City, which is down the Hudson from there, but would to cities built in the higher ground above the river valley). Jeter has kept his moral vision and standards of literary quality here. Again, there’s no sex, and bad language is restrained. Action fans who felt that the first novel was light on violence (several people die there, but in only two parts of the book) will get more of it here, and Kim will be an active participant in more of it. Her development into someone who can both psychologically and physically handle that, as Jeter presents it over the course of the two books (rather than overnight) is believable. But again, the violence is handled tastefully, with no wallowing in gore for its own sake.

I didn’t have any issues with plot credibility here, and the pacing and developments are excellently crafted to keep a high level of suspense and tension, again building to a very powerful climax. Jeter imparts a lot of obviously well-researched information about guns and ammo, explosives, body armor and other technical equipment that adds verisimilitude without being info-dumped in in such large doses that it takes away from the movement of the story.

Kim’s a heroine I think many characters can relate to in her moral quandaries, even though they involve extreme situations most people don’t face –because, as she muses at one point, everybody, or just about everybody, at times has people who, at one level, they might like to kill, and figure the world would be better off without. The moral possibilities Jeter is using action-adventure fiction to explore are possibilities, or temptations, that confront us all.

One of the greatest strengths of these books, IMO, is the brother-sister relationship between Kim and Donnie, which is genuinely beautiful and touching (and a two-way street of caring and emotional support). As an only child, I never had a sister; but if I’d had a big sister like Kim, I think I’d have counted it an enormous blessing!

Author: K. W. Jeter
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, only as a Kindle e-book at this time.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Sukeban Deka: season one

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★★★★
“String theory for beginners.”

sukebandeka4Probably the only TV series ever with a credit for “yo-yo coach” – Masaya Taki, should you be concerned about such things – I must confess to having thoroughly enjoyed this. It is, of course, a concept that’s entirely idiotic, but it’s executed with such serious intent that you can’t help but be swept along with the earnestness of the production. There are no sly winks to the cameras here: everyone, but in particular Saito as Asamiya Saki, is deadly straight-faced about their mission. And that’s absolutely the only way this kind of melodramatic soap-opera (“Who is Saki’s father?), crossed with high-school angst and not-exactly realistic martial arts should be played. A moment’s acknowledgement of Otherwise, it would collapse under its

To start by filling you in on the background that took place before the show starts, Saki’s mother was sent to death row, after being framed for murder. To save her from being executed, Saki agrees to become “Sukeban Deka”, which roughly translates as “Delinquent Girl Detective”. Under the supervision of Jin (Naka), she goes into various educational establishments over the course of the 24 episodes that follow, uncovering malfeasance by those in charge and, not infrequently, the pupils too. But what distinguishes this from 21 Jump Street, say, is Saki’s weapon of choice: a yo-yo that pops open to reveal her official badge, but can also be used to knock people out, disarm them and even, courtesy of the string, as the equivalent of a pair of handcuffs.

For instance, the opening episode takes place at St. Anna High, where poor students are being bussed in to raise the school’s academic grade – but are then being forced to sit examinations on behalf of rich students, who are the ones that make the school profitable. Some subsequent stories demonstrate surprising social awareness for 1985, covering topics like bullying, competitive pressure and corporate bribery, but there are also more outrageous or exploitable elements, such as black magic, student-teacher relationships and high-school swimsuit models. Saki, however, doesn’t care, facing them all with the same expression of grim determination. Most of the episodes in the first half take place at Takanoha-Gakuen High, Saki’s old stomping ground, where the new queen bee is Miyako Yumekoji, who doesn’t take kindly to her predecessor’s return.

sukebandeka2In the second half, however, the structure changes. From about #11 on, instead of individual stories, there’s an increasing emphasis on a story arc involving a trio of girls, the Mizuchi sisters – daughters of a legendary Japanese industrialist. Initially, the girls seem intent merely on taking over Takanoha-Gakuen – though have no qualms about shooting Saki when she gets in their way. She initially manages to turn them back, but they then call big sis Remi (Takahashi), back from the United States, and she becomes the Big Bad for the rest of the first season. Saki has to survive a stint in reform school, and also deal with disturbing hints dropped by the patriarch of the family, that he had a close, personal relationship with her mother. [Remember the “Who is Saki’s father?” plot thread mentioned – that’s what we have here] Our heroine succeeds in taking him down, by broadcasting a conversation he doesn’t know is being recorded, and happiness beckons for Saki – unfortunately, Remi is having none of that.

Obviously, if you’re expecting anything like Go-Go Yubari from Kill Bill, you are going to be extremely disappointed. This is a television series, likely aimed at the contemporaries of Saki, and needs to be viewed as such. However, given that limitation, it’s remarkably engrossing, and does a very good job of telling a complete story inside little more than 20 minutes, as well as developing its characters. Sure, Saito will never be confused with Rina Takeda, but she gives it all she’s got, whether engaging in yo-yobatics, or spitting out her trademark introduction (something that, sadly, is also discarded during later episodes – even if it makes sense, given the longer story arc means she doesn’t need to introduce herself) with wonderful intensity.

The passage of this delinquent Asamiya Saki: what path of ruin do I follow? Now heading into the age of decadence. If I could laugh, I’d rather laugh. However, bastards like you, who don’t think anything of making students take exams illegally in the name of money… My soul ain’t sunk that low!

It takes a special level of deadpan talent to be able to unleash a slice of ripe Cheddar like that, and sell it with enough conviction that the reaction in this viewer – not exactly the intended teenage, Japanese, girl target audience, remember – is more “You go, girl!” rather than a derisive snort. It’s an interesting contrast to later entries, which had more of a team quality about them, with multiple yo-yo wielders. Here, Saki is a lone wolf, almost on her own: she has no parental guidance and Jin is interested only in practical help, furthering the success of her mission, rather than offering any personal support. The nearest thing she has a friend is schoolmate Sanpei Nowaki (Masuda), and he spends most of the show in a state of blithe ignorance about her real purpose. But I was particularly impressed by the final episode, which manages to kill off a surprising number of major characters, and leave even the fate of Saki and Remi uncertain. Subject to contract negotiation,. I imagine.

There are certain questions that remain opaque. It’s not quite clear how Saki becomes such a mistress of the flying cylinders either, or even why such a weapon was chosen. It doesn’t appear standard for the department, as another special agent shows up in one episode, and he’s entirely yo-yo deficient. Maybe such things are explained better in the 22-volume manga series by Shinji Wada on which this is based. It’s the kind of show where you need to have a willingness to accept such things for what they are, and if you go with the flow that results from the (admittedly, fairly barking-mad) idea, everything else will seem perfectly natural. While it’ll probably be a while before I get round to the second season, it’s something to which I am looking forward.

Dir: Hideo Tanaka
Star: Yuki Saito, Koji Naka, Yasuyuki Masuda, Hitomi Takahashisukebandeka3