Tag: p

Punch

  By

★★★★
“Girlfight Club”

Topless Female Boxing. There. The reader is paying attention. Yet, if the subject has been covered in a less appealing way than here, I probably don’t want to see it. Indeed, as the toplessness is neither vital to the plot, nor visually pleasing, you wonder why they bothered. The main character here is 18-year old Ariel (Bennett), whose relationship with her father (Riley) is disturbingly close, to the point that she punches his date Mary (Laskowski) for using – entirely aptly – the word “creepy”. This pisses-off Mary’s sister, Julie (McGeachie), an even badder-ass than Ariel, who channels anger into the previously mentioned TFB, with a 38-0 record. She confronts father and daughter, aiming to make them fix their mistake. Viewers will likely eagerly anticipate Ariel getting her ass handed to her by Julie…

I approached with caution, largely because the sleeve invokes Knockout, perhaps the worst boxing movie of all time [see the Trash City review, but don’t confuse with Knockouts]. Luckily, this is closer to Fight Club, not least in terms of violence as social therapy. We really liked Julie, who is entirely comfortable with her aggression, and McGeachie’s stare rivals Michelle Rodriguez for intensity. Generally though, it’s well written and acted; even minor characters such as a barman are fleshed out. The edgy, icky feel is enhanced by Bennett being the director’s daughter, inevitably raising questions about art and life. [I asked Chris what her reaction would be, if I directed a movie with our daughter doing full-frontal nudity. Unsurprisingly, her response involved my testicles and a dull blade.] Canadian, typically off-beat, and a good deal better than expected.

Dir: Guy Bennett
Star: Michael Riley, Sonja Bennett, Meredith McGeachie, Marcia Laskowski

Prisoner Maria: The Movie

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★★★½

Despite its title, Prisoner Maria: The Movie has a different set of influences altogether. First up heroine Maria is only a prisoner for a few minutes; the most obvious reference point is Nikita, and it’s not alone. As documented elsewhere, Luc Besson’s film has spawned a TV series, one remake, and a host of unofficial clones, all on the theme of a female criminal forced to become a government assassin. This tape is not the first Prisoner Maria adventure, and things have changed somewhat over time: her bosses have become kinder, and no longer use death-threats against her child to convince Maria they’re serious. She also gets a car to ship her around, rather than having to sprint back to beat their deadline: run, Maria, run! Now, she does the hits merely in return for access to her son, but it’s more poignant and altruistic than in Nikita, which was largely driven by pure self-interest.

Given the ongoing nature of the series, the set-up and background are understandably sketchy. However, it’s enough, and Maria (Noriko Aota) is swiftly hunting a serial killer who is a potential embarrassment to the government, since he’s a politician’s son. Were it this simple. it’d be a very short film – even as is, it’s only 75 minutes – and so she’s soon embroiled with the Taiwanese mafia, a nosy cop, and a particularly mad doctor, whose hobbies include mind-control, white slavery, organ bootlegging and saying typically mad-scientist things, such as “I am God! What’s wrong with God changing the minds of people?” It’s not giving much away to hint that a bad end awaits.

Based on a manga by Shigeru Tsuchiyama and Shintaro Iba, this is cheerfully shallow stuff, although the occasional sequences of abuse may have more liberal viewers twitching — the depiction of the serial killer at work is unlikely to survive any British release. Aota wears a selection of tight dresses and short skirts, and performs her action scenes creditably enough, though the likes of Michelle Yeoh will not be losing any sleep. In addition, some thought has clearly gone into the story, which is perhaps where it wins out most convincingly over Scorpion’s Revenge.

For the core of exploitation is countering the inevitable budgetary limitations. Usually it’s through something like nudity, which has been described as the cheapest special effect. However, just as cheap is imagination, and it tends to be this which lifts the better kind of trash cinema above the pack. When Scorpion’s Revenge leaves the familiar confines of the prison setting, it runs out of ideas, while Prisoner Maria does its best to keep the audience interested throughout. It also boast a stronger core concept, and that’s why it has the potential for a series, whereas Scorpion’s Revenge fails to get through one film – as for a series…I think not.

[A version of this article originally appeared in Manga Max]

Dir: Shuji Kataoka
Star: Noriko Aota, Tetsuo Kurata, Koji Shimizu

Point of No Return

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★★★

ponrThis was called The Assassin in Britain, though a more fitting title would be Remake of No Point. I hadn’t seen this since it originally came out, and it was a quite deliberate choice to watch it first for this article, hoping to escape the sense of deja-vu. Unfortunately, I couldn’t: its strengths are exactly those of Besson’s original, while the weaknesses are largely its own.

I can see the purpose of remakes, be they of old movies or foreign ones, when you bring something new to the table. However, it’s entirely understandable that Luc Besson passed on directing the American version, pointing out that he’d already made the movie he wanted. For Venice, read New Orleans. For Nikita, read Nina. For Jeanne Moreau, read Anne Bancroft. About the most significant difference in the storyline is that Fonda listens to Nina Simone.

Balancing the cast off, most are fractionally less effective than their French counterparts, although not so much that you’d notice. There are two exceptions: Dermot Mulroney fails miserably as Maggie’s boyfriend, J.P, to the point where I would have run screaming out the door, and that was after less than two hours in his company. Their relationship fails to convince, and since Badham places it close to the centre of the film, it’s a major flaw.

On the other hand, Harvey Keitel comes perilously close to stealing the whole show as Victor the Cleaner. Jean Reno was good in the original, yet Keitel brings a whole new dimension of menace, and clearly inspired Tarantino for Pulp Fiction. They missed the chance for a spin-off of genuine inventiveness there.

 But what little originality actually is brought to the film, largely doesn’t work, in particular a sappy romantic montage between Maggie and J.P. As a director, Badham does a good job with the action sequences – you’d expect nothing less given his track record in the likes of War Games – even when all he’s really doing, is recreating scenes such as the kitchen shoot-out (watch those desserts fly!). There does seem to be rather more Fonda underwear footage too… :-)

Relocating everything to the States is not such a bad thing. While I don’t know about the French government, a school for psychotic murderers is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility – the infamous School of the Americas does much the same for Latin American death squads. And, taken on its own, this is not a bad film. But if you have ever seen the French original, then the American remake becomes entirely superfluous and, as mentioned above, it feels more like you’re watching an English dub, albeit a credibly well-voiced one.

A remake was supposed to be necessary because American audiences wouldn’t watch a subtitled film, but when the box-office spoke, Point took only $30m. The original was a French take on a mostly-American genre, but something is definitely missing when it comes home. Perhaps Badham should have slept with Fonda during production, as Besson did with Parillaud.

Dir: John Badham
Stars: Bridget Fonda, Gabriel Byrne, Dermot Mulroney, Anne Bancroft

The Princess Blade

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

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

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

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

Prehistoric Women

  By

★★½
“Blondes vs. brunettes in the African jungle.”

You need to be in a fairly forgiving mood to sit through this daft premise, yet it’s never boring or particularly irritating, largely thanks to Beswick as the queen of a tribe of brunettes, somewhere (and, indeed, somewhen) in the African jungle, who has enslaved all the blondes. Michael Latimer is hunter/guide David Marchant who arrives in the midst of it all, after a questionable event with a rhinoceros idol, and finds himself lusted after both by the Queen, and blonde slave-girl Saria. She is played by Edina Ronay who, as Chris pointed out, bears some resemblance facially to a chimpanzee…

The men, meanwhile are a serious third on the food-chain; at least the blondes get to see daylight. When Marchant spurns the queen’s advances, he’s cast into the cells with the others of his sex, only for Saria to convince him they need an “inside man” if their upcoming rebellion is to be successful. Oh, and did I mention the “devils” who take a sacrificial blonde every once in a while? Or the tribal dancing? Or even veteran villain Steven Berkoff (Beverly Hills Cop and Octopussy), in his first credited movie role? [Want another Bond tie-in? Beswick was one of the gypsy fighting girls in From Russia With Love!] Plenty going on, to be sure, even if little of it makes sense off the back of the cigarette-packet where it was likely written. Former Miss Jamaica Beswick is great, scornfully regal, single-minded, and deserving of a better movie to be in. Latimer keeps a straight face – which is more than we did – and if it’s painfully obvious that this one never came anywhere near the African continent, it’s Saturday morning entertainment of a very acceptable nature.

Dir: Michael Carreras
Star: Martine Beswick, Michael Latimer, Edina Ronay

Pushed to the Limit

  By

★½
“A title equally applicable to heroine and viewer.”

If I ever become an evil overlord, I will conduct thorough background checks on all entrants to my martial arts tournament, to ensure they are not related to anyone I may previously have had killed. I will also teach my guards that if a prisoner is apparently not in his cell, they will use mirrors to examine all its corners, rather than rushing in and allowing him to drop from the ceiling onto them.

But I digress (if you can do so, before actually saying anything). In this film, wrestling champion Mimi Lesseos plays…wrestling champion Mimi Lesseos. Clearly a stretch for her there, then; think her brother and mother are perhaps also…her brother and mother. Is this a documentary? ‘Course not: real life would never be so cliched and predictable as this, which plods along, almost entirely as predicted. Mimi (Mimi) loses her brother to evil Oriental drug dealer Henry (Henry) – with hindsight, telling “gook” jokes was probably not a wise move on his part – who just happens to run a martial arts tournament. I trust I need say no more with regard to the plot.

Lesseos makes for a decent fighter and a tolerable actress, though the subplot which has her as a showgirl in Vegas is irrelevant, inane and positively wince-inducing. She does rely too much on wrestling moves – flying drop-kicks are not a genuinely viable tactic in deathmatches, I imagine. It’s the story that really kills this. There’s a moment when it seems that the bad guy is becoming infatuated with Mimi, regardless of her background, and this could have gone somewhere. Instead, it’s discarded as she works through a range of opponents, leading to the (yawn) final confrontation with her brother’s killer. The result is something which works, only if you’ve never seen any of this kind of film before – having a female lead is a nice idea, but much more effort is needed, rather than thinking this is sufficient, in and of itself.

Dir: Michael Mileham
Star: Mimi Lesseos, Verrel Reed, Henry Hayashi, Greg Ostrin

Policewomen

  By

★★★½
“Hard-hitting early female cop flick, stands the test of time better than most 70’s movies.”

This is the kind of film Chris describes as “hokey”. I’m not quite sure what that means – the last to get the label was Deathstalker II, so I suspect it’s Chris-speak for “sucks”*. Luckily for the movie, she isn’t writing this review: I actually liked it, but spent the 70’s in the far North of Scotland, so the fashions do not evoke ‘Nam-style flashbacks. Chris denies, with some venom, ever having a pair of patchwork pants; I just find them quaintly amusing.

Anyway, if you ignore the stylings, it’s not bad. Currie plays Lacy Bond, a cop sent to crack an all-female crime ring, after overcoming the sexism of her colleagues. It’s pretty hard-hitting, with Currie showing impressive action skills (along with Jeanie TNT Jackson Bell as a gang-girl). Unfortunately, in the middle, she and a partner are sent to Catalina. Their “investigation” involves sailing, horse-riding, eating hot-dogs and falling into bed with each other, to a hideous easy-listening soundtrack; the film dies for 15 minutes as a result. Otherwise, for 1974 this is impressively feminist, with Lacy rescuing her partners, rather than the other way round, and it has brisk, crisp plotting, although it’s a shame the title gives away a major plot point.

The tag-line for the DVD has inexplicably been changed to, “Before James Bond…there was Lacy Bond”. But when Policewomen came out, there had been eight Bonds released and we were already in the Roger Moore era. Go figure.

* Chris has since confirmed this, with the qualification that ‘hokey’ implies a particularly flavoured subset of suckiness…about which I’m still vague!

Dir: Lee Frost
Star: Sondra Currie, Tony Young, Elizabeth Stuart, Jeanie Bell

The Powerpuff Girls Movie

  By

★★★
“Rated PG, for non-stop frenetic animated action.”

Rarely have the MPAA spoken truer words than that – crack open the highly-caffeinated, carbonated beverages, tuck into those sugary snacks and sit through the equivalent of eight straight Powerpuff Girls episodes. Preceded in theatres by a startlingly unfunny Dexter’s Laboratory cartoon, the weakness here is the obvious one of translating a ten-minute TV show to feature length; going by the lack of a crowd when we saw it, few people saw the point of paying $8 for what they could get at home for free. Though this is actually less like eight episodes than one, really stretched out, covering the creation of the girls and how they came to be Townsville’s protector, taking on former lab monkey Mojo Jojo and his evil plot to take over the world through the creation of super-powered simians.

If the above seems breathless and short of full stops – so is the movie. It’s at its best when riffing off pop culture, with a host of Planet of the Apes and King Kong references – I was really expecting an “It was the beauties that killed the beast…” line at the end. The animation is rarely any better than the TV show, but this is mostly a stylistic decision and there are occasional more advanced techniques such as a CGI ball which are used effectively.

Otherwise, it’s largely business as usual, with the tiny heroic trio coming to terms with their superpowers, Bubbles sniffling a lot, etc. It’s just rolled out at greater length, e.g. a hyperdestructive game of tag which might last 30 seconds on TV, goes on here for what seems an eternity (but was probably only five minutes – blame the caffeine). And this is the problem. As the pile of dire Saturday Night Live movies shows, what works great in short bursts often becomes, if not tedious, merely average when extended to feature length.

Creator: Craig McCracken
Star (voice): Cathy Cavadini, Tara Strong, E.G.Daily, Roger L. Jackson

Pep Squad

  By

★★★½
“High school rivalries turn murderous; one fabulous character makes this worth a rent.”

This predates both Jawbreaker and Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and thanks to being a cheap, indie film, manages to out-do them both. No studio to enforce post-Columbine political correctness here: the fight is on to be declared Prom Queen at Oak Hill High, located in the heart of Kansas. And when I say “fight”, I mean it – going head to head are Terra (Kelly) and Cherry (Balderson), but running interference is a sideplot involving the kidnap and murder of the principal. Though since his idea of fun involves molesting his students, he largely deserves it. This all builds to a murderous finale at Prom Night, at which bullets fly and flags burn.

Seeing Balderson in the credits, and realising she was a relative of the director – sister, actually – had us fearing Godfather III-style nepotism. But Balderson (bottom left) is actually the best thing in the film, lifting every scene in which she appears with venom, attitude and lines like, “I’m not insane – I’m an artist!”, as she chews up the opposition and spits them out in her wake. The rest of the cast aren’t even close to being in the same league, the most startling thing being Dreiling’s resemblance to Juliette Lewis. Without Cherry the film positively drags its feet, and the whole ‘principal’ subplot never catches light.

There is still a bunch of stuff to like: the cheerleaders practicing obscene chants; Terra’s inability to walk in heels; the Xena-like swoosh every time Cherry turns her head; spats over yearbook photos, etc. and if the film had stayed focused on the hell of high-school, it might have been more effective. As is, you’ve got one fabulous character and performance, and the rest is variably effective satire.

[The UK title is I’ve Been Watching You 2: Prom Night. Which is strange, since I’ve Been Watching You itself retitled the David DeCoteau vampire-frat-boys-in-underwear romp, The Brotherhood. The two movies have absolutely nothing in common.]

Dir: Steve Balderson
Star: Jennifer Dreiling, Brooke Balderson, Amy Kelly, Summer Makovkin

PB 82 (Police Branch 82)

  By

★★★
“Dirty Harry with breasts. And angst. And a partner scared of roaches.”

Okay, pardon me if I’m confused. What the IMDB says is the plot for Metropolitan Police Branch 82 is actually Tokyo Blue: Case 1. However, there are multiple parts to the series, and I think that this tape from ADV may be the first. Or perhaps the second. Not that it’s important, but just so you know. :-) Mika (Inoue) is a cop with a liking for her Magnum, who loses her partner while capturing the criminal Nezu (Yamato). He then escapes, and she gets a new partner (Tayama), who is more concerned with fashion than the down and dirty world of criminal detection, and also hates cockroaches to the extent of unloading a full clip on one in the police station. Mika rolls her eyes a lot at this, but in Mika’s past lurks a dark secret when she shot first and asked questions later.

As they chase after Nezu and his accomplice (Lilico), there is a load of naked flesh, portrayed in the enthusiastic yet restrained approach typical of Japan. It probably isn’t worth your while, and you kinda wish they hadn’t bothered. In between times, there’s also a lot of the usual “mismatched cops” routine, and it’s no more fresh or interesting here, than in all the Hollywood movies which use it. However, the finale, set in a deserted amusement park, is well-staged and imaginative, with an underwater fight which makes you wish for more of the same. Inoue’s performance also lifts this one up a notch, doing a good job of the “hard case with a soft centre.” It’s still a cliche, but she brings enough life to it to deserve credit.

Dir: Daisuke Goto
Star: Harumi Inoue, Mamiko Tayama, Yukio Yamato, Lilico