Tag: m

Mercenaries

  By

mercenaries11★★★
“Somewhat Expendable…”

Credit to The Asylum for getting off their ass and actually making a female version of The Expendables, while every other producer to touch the idea, has so far been nothing but talk. Certainly, it’s a cast to die for, with some of the most renowned action heroine names from both the past (Cynthia Rothrock, albeit kicking less butt than I’d like – but hell, she’s 57 – and with a hairstyle which has to be seen to be believed) and present (Zoë Bell, whom we will watch in absolutely anything. And occasionally have). The rest of the cast is an interesting mix of has-beens (Brigitte Nielsen) and names you’ll recognize from other genre entries (Kristanna Loken, Vivica A. Fox). It’s not a bad cast, though one wished, instead of Nicole Bilderback, they’d got someone like Rina Takeda or Yanin Mitananda. On the other hand, having an Asian that’s not good at martial arts is about as close as this gets to going counter to stereotype.

The scenario is basic but serves its purpose. The President’s daughter is kidnapped while on a trip to Kazakhstan by local warlord Ulrika (Nielsen). Her hatred of men leaves the best rescue solution to send in a team of women, hand-picked by CIA section chief or something Mona (Rothrock) from various prisons. There’s disgraced agent Raven (Fox), sharpshooter Kat (Loken), explosives expert Mei-Lin (Bilderback) and all-round bad-ass Clay (Bell), who is given the task of leading the group into the remote corner of Asia, infiltrating Ulrika’s lair and rescuing the “First Daughter”. They do so by faking Mei-Lin’s identity, claiming she’s the daughter of a rich industrialist, whom they’ve kidnapped, and offering her to Ulrika for the ransom possibilities. Of course, getting in is one thing: finding the President’s offspring, setting her loose, and then everyone escaping from the middle of nowhere back to the good old US of A is quite another.

Directed by Christopher Olen Ray, son of noted B-movie maestro Fred Olen Ray, easily the best thing about this are the characters. Nielsen may not have aged well, to put it mildly, but she’s still six foot tall, and looks like she could spit nails into floorboards. On the side of good, Bell and Fox, in particular, also capture the necessary spirit of marginally-restrained irritability, with Loken and Bilderback providing a little lightness for contrast. The banter between them is a bit of a mixed bag: I mean, “fucking George Clooney with a strap-on” sounds more like bizarre wish-fulfillment from writer Edward DeRuiter than anything a real woman might say. However, other moments do have a nice sense of authenticity, and you get the sense that each of the main characters have enough back-story to fuel an entire feature on their own. That’s in part because most of the actresses already are more than familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in action heroines. Even Bilderback, the least-known, was in the unaired pilot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so has at least a minor role in the history of our genre. It might have been fun if the script had played off their history more, riffing on Loken’s part in Terminator 3 in some way, or Fox’s in Kill Bill. After all, that’s why they’re all here, and I can’t think of a more loaded cast in GWG film history.

Unfortunately, what doesn’t work is the action. The most obvious problem is an excess of mediocre digital effects, particularly in the areas of muzzle flashes and blood. Few things work so well at taking the audience out of the moment, as when you start spotting things like that: generally, you are better off not having muzzle flashes at all, than doing them badly. But a much more egregious crime by Olen Ray is having a crown jewel like Zoë Bell, but taking her action scenes and running them through a cinematic wood-chipper. You need to do this kind of thing when you have an actress who can’t do her own action, and you need to hide a stunt double or to make them look better than they are. You do not need to do either when you have Bell: you stand back, point the camera in her direction – and might as well get some popcorn, since you’ll be there a while. What you get here instead, is like hiring Maria Callas, then having her lip-sync, and it’s aggravating as hell, with only a few flashes of the talent we know to be present. Compare and contrast the approach of Raze, which largely just got out of Bell’s way.

It’s a shame, because the film did so much right, from intent through to assembling a rock-solid cast, yet couldn’t finish off the process. The Asylum are notorious for their mockbusters e.g. Atlantic Rim, but this has enough fresh about it that it could have been one of the best films in their catalog (and, I should know because, dammit, I’ve seen far more of them than most people!). Hopefully, it’s still successful enough to merit a sequel, perhaps under someone with a better handle on shooting the action.

Dir: Christopher Douglas Olen Ray
Star: Zoë Bell, Brigitte Nielsen, Kristanna Loken, Vivica A. Fox

mercenaries4a

Maidentrip

  By

★★
“A two-year round-the-world voyage. Filmed, apparently, in real time.”

MaidenTrip-posterWhat were you doing when you were 14? Going to school. Hanging out with friends. Being highly irritated by your parents. That’s probably fairly close. I’m quite sure the answer isn’t “spending two years sailing around the world by yourself.” Which would be Laura Dekker’s answer. The film chronicles her single-handed sailing expedition, as well as the path of her life which led her to the epic voyage, and the battle against the Dutch government, who considered the trip dangerous, and wanted to remove Laura from parental custody as a result.  [That aspect reminded me of Ready to Fly, where the women ski-jumpers also had to go to court as part of their battle for acceptance]

The bulk, however, is about the trip itself, with the on-board footage all filmed by Dekker herself, for obvious reasons connected to the word “single-handed” – fortunately, my fears of sub-Blair Witch shakycam proved unfounded. The main problem is the almost complete lack of any drama here. Maybe there’s more if you are a sailing enthusiast, but about as exciting as it gets, is a bit of rough weather and a bird that takes refuge on the deck. The only narrative tension is Laura’s decision to switch from sailing under the Dutch flag to that of the country where she was born (on a boat), New Zealand. I appreciate that you can’t manufacture drama where none happened, but this seems less like the taxing and potentially lethal endeavour it would seem to be, and more like a jaunt around a village pond on a slightly-overcast Saturday afternoon. One bit of ocean blends into another, and perhaps the most interesting parts are during Dekker’s sometimes lengthy stopovers en route, where she explores the local landscape.

Dekker herself generally comes over as remarkably mature for her age – 14 when she started, 16 by the time she completed the circumnavigation – albeit occasionally a bit bratty. That’s perhaps exacerbated by her basically fending for herself for two years, though if you’ve raised a teenage girl, you’ll know that’s pretty much par for the course, and any self-centredness is backed by an ability to handle whatever the world throws at her, well in excess of that possessed by a normal adolescent. However, nor is there much sense of character development, and you don’t get any sense the Laura you see at the end was changed in any significant way by her experience. The film definitely needs to dig deeper into what makes Dekker tick, and the apparent failure to do so, leaves it as not much more than a shallow, if pretty, travelogue. The heroine deserves a bit better.

Dir: Jillian Schlesinger
Star: Laura Dekker

Monika: A Wrong Way to Die

  By

★★½
“She spits on your grave.”

monikaI’m still in two minds as to whether the ending here is utter genius, or the worst cop-out since the entire seventh series of Dallas turned out to be a dream. You could argue a case for either, and I could see your point. On the one hand, there’s a case it renders the previous 80 minutes irrelevant. On the other, it’s also a mindbending twist, which deserves points for sheer audacity, and going to that well, not once but twice. However, the main problem is a central character who is a good deal less interesting than the femme fatale after whom the film is named.

Reagan (Wiles) heads to Vegas after his pal Double (C. Thomas Howell) sends him a pic of the titular hot chick, and tells him she is keen to hook up. On arrival, Reagan doesn’t find his friend; however, he does find Monika (Vincent), and a night of drinking, dancing and making the double-backed armadillo follows. The next morning, she’s gone, and when Reagan meets Double, he’s in for a shock, because he learns that Monika had, apparently, been gunned down the night before. She was the victim of Terry Joe (Branson), a local drug dealer from whom she had stolen a large sum of money, putting him in deep trouble with his boss, Eli (Howard). So, what the hell is going on here? We know that Reagan claims to have “visions,” which sometimes can be premonitions of future events? Is that what he’s seeing? Or is there an alternative explanation, which may or may not be more prosaic?

This isn’t Monroe’s first stab at the action heroine genre. He also gave us It Waits, which I summed up with the pithy, “It sucks.” This isn’t as bad, so I guess he has made some progress over the intervening seven years. There are some interesting aspects to be found and appreciated here, even things which don’t have any significant impact on the plot. For instance, Eli is actually English, but puts on a faux American accent some of the time. Why? It’s never explained, and that’s half the joy. Monika herself is also a fine creation, battling her way through Terry Joe and his minions , with an eye for style and no real regard for her own personal safety. Either of these would have made for a better focus than Reagan, who is very much reactive, rather than pro-active. By which I mean, he responds to the narrative as it unfolds, rather than driving it, and thus makes for an unsatisfying central character. Reagan seems to exist solely to execute the final twists, serving little or no other purpose, and I also have to agree with other reviewers, who have criticized the dialogue as clumsy and poorly-written. Overall, it just about passes muster as a way to occupy the time, providing you’re in an undemanding mood. But I can’t guarantee you’ll be as tolerant of the ending as I was.

Dir: Steven R. Monroe
Star: Jason Wiles, Cerina Vincent, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard
a.k.a. MoniKa

The Mini-skirt Gang

  By

★½
“So glad to have missed the seventies.”

miniskirtDear god, this is awful. The only reason this 1974 film manages the dizzy heights of 1 1/2 stars, is the finale, which is actually a pretty decent burst of comedy action, highlighted by the heroine receiving inspiration from a poster advertising a Peking Opera production of the Mulan legend. Up until then, it’s a rancid piece of film-making, wasting the talents of those involved. Well, the actresses anyway, since Lui Kei provides no evidence, in either his direction or script, that there was any talent present to begin with.

The gang in question are five female pickpockets, led by Ra Liao Liu (Danish actress Tove, whose presence in Hong Kong at the head of these thieves is never explained). When engaged on a job, they cross swords with a pair of bumbling male pickpockets, and inexplicably decide to join forces, even though the men are incompetent perverts. Cue the kind of behavior which would get you arrested these days, played by the movie in attempts at comedy which fall utterly flat. Man, if this is really what the decade was like, it must have been hell to be a woman. The rest of the film is filled with similarly “amusing” high-jinks, along with other scenes which serve little or no dramatic purpose, like the one where the good heart of Ra gets her deceived by a pair of con women, or an extended sequence where the whole gang pretend to be hookers. Oh, hold my aching sides, for I fear they may split.

Eventually, what passes for a meaningful plot finally shows up, as the gang rescue a woman from being forced into prostitution. Of course, the morality on view is a bit dubious, when their rescuee is then made pregnant by one of the men, who refuses to ‘fess up until he is made to believe he had sex with a leper. Yes, the laughs just never stop start in this Shaw Brothers production. Subsequently, her pimps come after them, and that’s what leads to the inadequate redemption of the big final battle, as well as an ending which offers no resolution, consisting entirely of the gang yelling out “We are the weird and crazy thieves!” Maybe that line lost something in translation from Chinese.

I thought my loathing might be strictly personal, but the first review I found called it, “The worst Shaw Brothers film I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen over 200 of them.” So, not just me, then. Any screen presence Tove and her co-heroines possess, is almost entirely countered by the crude and largely incompetent approach, resulting in a mix of comedy and sexploitation that is neither funny nor sexy. Maybe times have changed, but if this ever seemed other than creepy, change can only be a good thing.

Dir: Lui Kei
Star: Birte Tove, Chen Ping, Nancy Leung, Lee Fung-Laan

Marie-Chantal contre le Docteur Kha

  By

★★
“As if Stanley Kubrick had directed a Carry On film.”

I’d probably better start of by explaining the above tagline, Chabrol was one of the leading lights of the French ‘New Wave’ cinema, alongside the likes of Truffaut and Godard: I’ve enjoyed the films of his I’ve seen, mostly later works such as L’Enfer or La Fille coupée en deux. But in the mid-60’s, he basically sold out, churning out a number of light spy spoofs. Regarding another of his works around this time, he said, “I really wanted to get the full extent of the drivel. They were drivel, so OK, lets get into it up to our necks.” It’s easy to see what he meant, for Marie-Chantal is undeniable drivel, though lacks the necessary enthusiasm to overcome those limitations. Through a chance encounter on a train, the titular heroine (Laforet) is given a piece of jewellery by a stranger. That makes her the target for spies from Russia and America, as she travels from the Alps to Morocco, and also the minions of evil overlord Dr. Kha (Tamiroff), for it holds the secret to a weapon of potential global destruction, that everyone wants to acquire.

I was hoping for something along the same lines as Modesty Blaise – preferably the books rather than the wan cinematic adaptation which would appear the following year – but this struggled even to reach the low standards of the latter. Marie-Chantal isn’t as dumb as she appears, but for someone who is supposedly a third Dan in martial-arts, she doesn’t exactly put those skills into practice often. Indeed, there’s only one scene which would even qualify as a fight, and it’s more of the Honey West kind. You just get the feeling that Chabrol is not remotely interested in the action side of the genre, only the tropes. Some of the characters are endearingly quirky, not the least of whom is Kha, who can predict what everyone is going to do – except, of course, the mercurial Marie-Chantal. That’s perhaps because she’s not a secret agent, rather someone who just stumbled into the field by accident [this aspect reminded me somewhat of Robert Scheckley’s The Game of X, which was one of my favourite books as a teenager]; as a result, she doesn’t so much not play by the rules, as simply not know them.

It’s lightly-amusing, with some good photography and a nice 60’s sense of style; between the era and its Frenchness, you won’t be surprised to hear that everyone smokes like chimneys, which seems particularly taboo by modern standards. But there simply isn’t enough going on to make this more than marginally entertaining, and the Italian poster image on the right is an early example of false advertising. The ending leaves it open to a sequel which never materialized, so it seems that even the audience of the time were less than impressed, and it can’t be said to have improved with age. Still, commercial cinema’s loss is la nouvelle vague’s gain, I suppose.

Dir: Claude Chabrol
Star: Marie Laforet, Francisco Rabal, Serge Reggiani, Akim Tamiroff

Mother’s Day (2010)

  By

★★★★
“Hell hath no fury like a mother.”

A loose remake of a somewhat infamous 1980 horror movie [rejected by the BBFC and as yet unreleased in the UK], this is a nastily brutal and effective home-invasion story, with a maternal angle that’s both surprising and well done. On the run after a botched bank robbery, the three Koffin brothers end up in the wrong home, and end up with a houseful of hostages, who were visiting Beth Sohapi (King) and her husband. The criminals call on the rest of their family for help, led by their mother (De Mornay), who is 50% June Cleaver – even providing cake and ice-cream for the residents – and 50% Lizzie Borden, showing absolutely no restraint against anyone she perceives as threatening her brood. As the night progresses, a lot of skeletons come out and we discover the Sohapis definitely do not live up to their name…

What looks initially like another variant on the Last House on the Left takes an abrupt left-turn when Mrs. Koffin shows up. From there on, De Mornay holds the viewer’s attention with an effortless performance which makes you wonder where she has been for the last 20 years. There are certainly echoes of her character from The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, but I’m also reminded, in tone, of Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom. What I think is particularly disturbing is her rapid switch from homespun family wisdom to violence of a particularly cruel sort – and not just physical, but mental, as she is generally astute when it comes to pushing her victim’s buttons. I say “generally,” for Beth provides an opponent that even Mrs. Koffin can’t necessarily read accurately. It’s clear, almost from the start, that this will be heading towards a confrontation between the two.

At 112 minutes, it could seem long, but I can’t say my attention flagged at any point. If there is a criticism, it’s the not uncommon one for the genre, of characters who have to exhibit “stupidity necessary to the plot.” There were certainly points at which Chris rolled her eyes as the victims did not behave in the way she would have; I tend to find how much that impacts my appreciation depends on how blatant that is, and how much I’m enjoying the other aspects of the film. Here, watching De Mornay is so entertaining – I’m hard pushed to think of many comparable, deliciously villainous performances from an actress – that I’m happy to overlook those flaws. I’ve seen and enjoyed other home invasion films, like The Strangers; this takes a very different approach, replacing those faceless monsters with a twisted version of humanity. In some ways, it may be even more effective.

Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman
Star: Rebecca De Mornay, Jaime King, Briana Evigan, Patrick Flueger

Mulan (2009)

  By

★★★½
“Joan of Arc, without the religion. Or stake.”

Inspired by the same poem as Disney’s much-loved feature, this has the same basic idea – a young woman impersonates a man in order to save her father from being drafted in the army. However, this takes a rather different approach, being much darker in tone, not that’s this is much of a surprise, I guess. It’s also a lot longer in scope, with Mulan (Zhao, whom you may recognize as the heroine/goalkeeper from Shaolin Soccer), rather than fighting a single campaign, becoming a career soldier and rising through the ranks as a result of her bravery in battle, eventually becoming a general, tasked with defending the Wei nation from the villainous Mendu (Hu). He has killed his own father in order to take control, and has united the nomadic tribes of the Rouran, amassing an army of 200,000 to invade Mulan’s home territory. She comes up with a plan to lure him into a trap, but when she is betrayed by a cowardly commander, things look bleak indeed for Mulan and Wentai (Chen), one of the few who know her secret.

Initially, I was rather unconvinced by Zhao who, being in her mid-30s, is a tad old to be playing the dutiful daughter. But given the longer view taken by the movie, the casting makes sense, and she ends up fitting into the role nicely; there’s a steely determination which develops over the course of the film, and by the end, you can see why she has become a commander. That’s one of the themes of the movie: duty, contrasted with the terrible losses war can inflict on a personal level, Mulan being largely powerless to watch as almost all her friends end up dying in battle. “I’ve fought battle after battle,” she says, “Lost one after another of my brothers, I really don’t want to fight any more.” There’s almost a neo-totalitarian implication to the final message, however, which suggests that everyone – even those who have sacrificed everything already – need to put aside their personal interests for the greater good of the state.

There’s a nice balance between the action and emotional aspects, but Zhao doesn’t actually do much in the latter department after the battle which gets her noticed. She’s broken out of army jail to take part, after confessing to stealing a jade pendant, in order to avoid a strip-search [death before dishonour]. After that, she’s more a leader than an actual fighter: heavy is the head that wears the general’s helmet is the moral here, and it’s driven home effectively enough, thanks mostly to Zhao’s solid performance.

Dir: Jingle Ma
Star: Zhao Wei, Chen Kun, Hu Jun, Jaycee Chan

La Mujer Murcielago (The Batwoman)

  By

★★½
“If Batman was a woman. And a Mexican wrestler. Who swam. A lot.”

Someone is abducting wrestlers, extracting serum from their pineal glands and dumping the bodies in the ocean, at various locations around the world. Most recently, Acapulco. Investigating the crime is Batwoman (Monti), a rich socialite who has a masked alter-ego that fight crime. Oh, and is also a pro wrestler. Which makes her ideal for this case, since she can hang around the gym and check out suspicious characters, while working on moves with her fellow luchadorettes [Not a real word, but I like it]. Who is involved? The blind lottery ticket salesman? The chief of police? Or Dr. Williams (Cañedo), who won’t let anyone on to his ship, which is called Reptilicus, by tha way, and who possesses a sidekick called Igor? Go on, take a wild stab in the dark…

Turn out Williams is attempting to create a race of man-fish hybrids. When sneaking around his ship. Batwoman is caught, and only escapes by flinging a flask of something noxious into his face. Now a disfigured mad scientist, naturally, he vows vengeance on our heroine, sending his scaly creation off to bring her back, so that she can become the first literal fish-wife. The sight of which immediately turns her into a screaming, fainting kind of girlie, and it is a kinda creepy creation, even it’s obviously a man in a rubber-suit. Though as we see at the end, if you want to turn Batwoman into real terror, you need a staple from sit-coms of the era.

This 1968 film came only three years after Thunderball, and shows much the same amazed fascination with underwater photography, which has not aged well. Sure it was amazing at the time: now, not at all. Indeed, that could be the theme of the entire movie: I’m sure it was pretty daring, especially in sixties Hispanic culture, which wasn’t exactly at the forefront of women’s liberation. Now, the main thought it provokes, is wonder at how they managed to avoid someone from DC Comics driving down to slap the makers with a massive law-suit, purely on the basis of the poster.

In the film’s defense, it’s probably not its fault that I came down with a nasty spot of indigestion while watching, which doesn’t exactly leave me with fond memories of it. Monti certainly looks the part, an Italian-born actress and model stepping up from supporting roles in Santo films, as part of a ferocious blitz where she appeared in 30 films over five years, before becoming a TV host. She spends most of the time running about in her blue bikini and mask, which certainly beats George Clooney’s nippled Batsuit. If falling some way short of the promise of the very cool poster, it’s not entirely unwatchable as B-movies go, especially given its age.

Dir: René Cardona
Star: Maura Monti, Roberto Cañedo, Héctor Godoy, David Silva

My Girlfriend is an Agent

  By

★★★
“Mr and Mrs. Lee.”

No, seriously. That title was actually used for the movie in Germany, shamelessly evoking the Jolie vehicle. It’s understandable, since they do have a lot in common. Secret agent Ahn Su-Ji (Kim) splits up with her boyfriend Jae-Joon (Kang), who is upset over her deceit, not knowing it’s in the name of national security. Three years later, they meet up again, and it’s clear the spark is still there. However, she doesn’t know that he is now an agent for another branch of the Korean intelligence services. Of course, with the amazing luck that only ever happens in action rom-coms like this, they are working on the same case, and closing in on the same plan to detonate a biological weapon in Korea. Their actions each come to the attention of the other’s organization who both decide they are dealing with a traitor.

As is often the case with movies that stride across such disparate genres, the results are more inoffensive than memorable. As a romance, comedy or action pic, this is okay: solidly made, with decent production values and occasional moments that do work nicely in the context of their particular genre. For instance, a romantic dinner between the pair does show the depth of their feeling, and a nice sequence at a fair sees Jae-Joon take on his opponent in a pile of artificial guns – and one real one – in what is a good combination of fisticuffs and humour. But the usual rule, “Jack of all trades, master of none,” holds true as well, with the movie never diverging much from the expected and well-trodden path, in plot or characterization.

Kim does have decent presence, and there are a couple of good set-pieces, most notably a rousing finale, where the villainous Russian mob boss turns out to be not quite what he seems (ahem!). The sight of her jet-skiing after the bad guys at the start, in a wedding-dress, is also impressive, reminding me of a similar abuse of matrimonial attire in Queen’s High. However, that a costume choice is one of the most memorable moments of the film is probably a fair indication that is no more than a bit of frothy entertainment.

Dir: Shin Tae-Ra
Star: Kim Ha-Neul, Kang Ji-hwan, Jang Yeong-Nam, Ryoo Seung-Ryong

La Metralleta

  By

★★½
“Mexploitation, let down by shoddily-staged action.”

Mexican culture is just so damned macho, there isn’t much room for action heroines, though there have been a few. As well as Santo and Blue Demon, The Wrestling Women donned the lucha masks in the sixties, and La Reina del Sur had a surprisingly feisty heroine for the telenovela genre; we’ve covered a couple of other entries previously, also covering life on the criminal side of the tracks.

However, this would be the first I’ve seen where the heroine is a Mexican policewoman. It’s Lt. Diana Gonzalez (Dosamentes), who is focusing her efforts on catching drug lord Constantino, and has had some success in disrupting his operations. He takes revenge by targetting Diana’s younger sister Sandra (Buitron), turning her into a junkie and eventually killing her, making it look like she was taking part in an S&M party. But far from taking the hint, this just causes Diana to become even more determined, and reckles – starting with the nightclub singer who got Sandra hooked, she works her way up the food chain from there.

Diana is knows as “La Metralleta”, which is Spanish for machine-gun, due to her weapon of choice – which, in a testament to lax Mexican gun-control regulations in the early nineties, she takes home after work, in what appears to be a shopping bag. The two things this has going for it are the script and the central performance. The story is nice and direct, and it seems appropriate that Constantino and his henchmen really don’t take Diana seriously until it’s too late. Dosamentes also does well with her role, and is nowhere near as matronly as the sleeve on the right would suggest, despite being in her forties. She has a steely intensity, especially after the death of her sister, that works nicely.

What doesn’t work? Sadly, the action is completely crap. Constantino’s men are from the Imperial Stormtrooper school of marksmanship, unable to hit La Metralleta, even when she’s basically standing in front of them with no protection at all. Worst yet are the woeful attempts at fisticuffs: wisely, the makers keep these to a minimum, but the couple of scenes where Dosamantes tries to go hand-to-hand are unutterably awful. It’s a shame, since I’d have been prepared to settle for mere competence on this front, because there’s enough going on elsewhere in this to keep your interest.

Dir: Roberto Schlosser
Star: Susana Dosamantes, Carlos Cardán, Juan Gallardo, Blanca Buitron