Tag: r

Real Dangerous Girl, by K. W. Jeter

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

kimoh“I didn’t start out killing people,” the petite, under-21 Korean-American narrator of this first book in the author’s Kim Oh series observes matter-of-factly in the opening sentence. “I had to get to that point. Kind of a work ethic thing. But once I decided to do it –it worked out. I mean –not for them. The people who got killed. I mean for me.” This isn’t the voice of an egoistic sociopath, though. Kim has a conscience and sound moral instincts; she doesn’t pick up the gun readily, and when she does, the danger she poses isn’t to the innocent. (But the guilty had better watch out!)

When I read a glowing review of this novel by one of my Goodreads friends (who went on to glowingly review the subsequent books), it put the series on my radar; so when I saw that the first book was available for free on Kindle, as a hook for the series (it now costs 99 cents), I seized the opportunity to preview it in that format. Jeter is a very successful author with substantial Big Publishing credentials (he chose to go the self-publishing route with this series, and according to his website is excited enough about it that he’s no longer working on anything else). This was my first experience with his work, but I found his craftsmanship and professionalism very evident. It says something about the compulsive readability of this tale that I read the entire novel in two days, which I think is something of a record for me.

Kim’s world is, as a blurb puts it, “dark and gritty.” Orphaned young, she and Donnie, her wheelchair-bound and ailing younger brother, were shunted around through foster care most of their lives. Not yet 21, she’s put herself through junior college early by taking advanced placement classes, and taken advantage of bookkeeping skills picked up from a foster mom to get the only kind of job that offered, in order to be able to make a home for Donnie with her. But what offered was a low-paying job as accountant for what she’s come to realize is a really “dodgy” enterprise, run by a mobster who uses her, among other things, to write checks to pay a guy she suspects is his contract hit man. Pragmatic and a survivor, she’s able to tolerate that, though she doesn’t like it. She clings to the promise her boss made that when he takes the company legit (or at least gives it a more convincing “legit” facade), she’ll be CFO, with better pay and a better life for her little family unit. Instead, she’s shafted and thrown out in the alley like garbage, while a Harvard grad gets the big job. Hit man Cole is similarly downsized, except that his severance leaves him permanently crippled.

These two don’t immediately join forces, and when they do, she’s not motivated solely by wanting revenge (although Cole is). Jeter’s plotting is a lot more nuanced and developed than that. (Firing her didn’t exhaust Mr. McIntyre’s malice; if he survives, she and Donnie might not.) Kim’s a fascinating, three-dimensional character who develops in front of our eyes here, as she moves from what she calls her “Little Nerd Accountant Girl” persona to something else. We can see that she’s attracted to the feeling of empowerment that can come from learning to stand up for herself, and from handling a gun. Some of the same appeal of “primitivism” that readers find in Burroughs and Robert E. Howard is present here, with a protagonist who’s challenged to make her way in a world where the outward conventions of civilization no longer apply. And she gives voice to the anomie of vast numbers of contemporary Americans in her generation, growing up bereft of community and moral/spiritual guidance. (Not identifying with her Korean heritage, at one point she calls herself Feral-American, like the rest of the population. “Nobody tells us what we should do, what we should even freakin’ be…. I gotta try and figure out everything on my own, just like everybody else has to.”) But her instincts are sound, and she remains an essentially decent and likeable person.

The narration here is in first-person present tense, with creative modification where necessary. Jeter’s free-flowing prose never detracts from the story. He delivers violent but never gratuitous action here. with a high body count, but no stress on gore and no “pornography of violence.” (Most of the bodies aren’t dropped by Kim, given her relatively low kick-butt quotient above; but she’s just getting her start in action heroine-hood here. That quotient is apt to rise in the succeeding books.) His emphasis, though (and what makes the book as good as it is) is character development. Kim herself, of course, takes center stage, but all of the supporting characters are vividly drawn, too (though except for Donnie they’re unlikeable; and we can see that Cole’s a much darker personality than Kim is –and that he’s manipulating her for purposes of his own.)

The plot is finely crafted, building perfectly to a powerful denouement and conclusion (which makes it clear that the saga is just beginning). We aren’t told the location, except that it’s a city that has cold weather in winter; sense of place isn’t strong, but that adds to the milieu of rootlessness and atomization. In its way, this is a kind of coming-of-age story. Darkness abounds, but it’s not without light, and a sense of hope even when things are darkest. There’s no explicit sex and very little reference to sex at all, and no obscene speech –indeed, very little bad language at all, and what there is isn’t very rough for the most part. (Jeter uses it sparingly, for realism, but he demonstrates restraint and taste in how he does it.) One plot element, IMO, doesn’t stand examination too well; and real-life child welfare agencies wouldn’t, as here, put kids in foster care in different states (because they’re state-specific). But those were relatively minor quibbles. This is a great start to what promises to be an outstanding series!

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

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads

Raven Hawk

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★★★
“But is it Raven Hawk or Ravenhawk? “

ravenhawkThe sleeve and the IMDB seem to differ. Either way… In 1979, young Native American Rhyia Shadowfeather is forced to watch as her parents, opposed to the building of an industrial plant on native land, are killed in front of her. Rhyia, sent catatonic by the shock, is framed for the murders and sent to an asylum. 12 years later, the van transferring her to another facility crashes, and the adult Rhyia (McLish) is presumed killed. Except, of course, she’s still alive, and seizes the chance to extract vengeance on those responsible, who have profited from the plant, which was constructed after the opposition was disposed of, and is now belching pollution into the environment. Top of the food chain there is Philip Thorne (Atherton), but on Rhyia’s trail is federal marshal Del Wilkes (Enos), who may be on thin ice, investigating on the reservation.

McLish is a former bodybuilder, who was a two-time Ms. Olympia, and was featured in Pumping Iron II: The Women. Pyun seems to have something of a “thing” for those – see also Sue Price in Nemesis 4, but at least McLish doesn’t the same neo-alien look to her. Chiseled out of stone, certainly, but cinematographer George Mooradian does a good job of simply making her look fit. Indeed, credit Mooradian for a film that looks an awful lot better than most TV movies, taking full advantage of the spectacular landscapes and scenery (both physical and biological!). Some of it was shot here in Arizona, in and around Page, most notably the Glen Canyon Dam Bridge from which one of her targets topples; it’s a long way down, since the bridge was the highest arch bridge in the world when it was completed in the late fifties.

Probably wisely, the script doesn’t give McLish many lines, leaving the chat to the rest of the cast, a solid bunch of character actors, including Mitch Pileggi (The X Files). The story generally works well, the villains growing steadily more and more disturbed as the body count grows, Shadowfeather apparently able to vanish like a ghost. It is a little heavy on the “tormented and put-upon Indians” angle – yeah, I get it, give them a casino or something and let’s all move on. Disappointingly, Shadowfeather is also robbed of her ultimate vengeance, a strange scripting decision that significantly devalues everything which has gone before. However, it remains generally solid, and you’re left with a vague sense of disappointment that McLish didn’t keep on with the action flicks. She’s certainly no worse here than a certain other body-builder was, in his early genre efforts.

Dir: Albert Pyun
Star: Rachel McLish, John Enos III, Ed Lauter, William Atherton

Rika the Mixed-Blood Girl

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★★★
“Nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and breasts. In other words: quite a bit”

rica1Aoki appears to have streaked like a star across the pinky violence firmament, appearing only in the trilogy of which this is the first, and one other film, Gakusei yakuza, before returning to the streets whence she came. Or I like to think that was her origin, anyway, and this is less a dramatic work, than a documentary depicting her life. Sharing the same name, Rika is the child of rape, a GI impregnating her mother before being deployed to Korea, and it’s not long before one of her mother’s boyfriends/customers [the film is sketchy on this detail] has taken a similar approach to Rika. She ends up heading an all-girl gang, but is sent to a reformatory after an opposing, male gang leader accidentally dies during a fight with her. But it’s not long before our heroine escapes, only to find some rivals have taken advantage of her absence, and the rest of the gang has been abducted and are about to be sold off to Vietnam. The boss offers to sell them to her instead, and Rika blackmails her father into paying up, only for the women to be sold anyway.

There’s another plot thread where she witnesses a pickpocket stealing documents about a waterfront reclamation project. Then there’s one about her going back to the reformatory, being involved in another fight which leads to the death of the warden, Rika’s escape, and her search for the real murderer. Or a friend, Hanako, who has fallen for a GI, about to be shipped out to Vietnam. These storylines drift in and out without much regard to logic or coherence, generally being discarded without apparent further thought, whenever the makers turn their attention to the next gaudy bauble. That’s the main problem here: it is less a film, than a collection of scenes, with a severe lack of narrative flow, to the extent this feels almost like a four-hour movie edited into 90 minutes.

However, Aoki brings the necessary earnestness to proceedings: while a little short of the true mistresses of the pinky world, like Reiko Ike, she is not bad, especially considering her apparently limited (spelled “non-existent”) acting experience. Helping things out, some of the violence is spectacularly excessive, even for a time, place and genre that specialized in spectacular excess. For instance one bullet to the back of the skull results in arterial spray out of the victim’s forehead, like a novelty soda syphon. Rika also carves off one enemy’s forearm, marches up to his boss, and if not quite slapping him across the face repeatedly with the detached limb, comes damn close. This kind of madness keeps the film consistently entertaining, even allowing for its faults and flaws, which are no less obvious. By the end – which has Rika crashing a wedding and lobbing fireworks around, before whizzing off on her Electra Glide [or some similarly cool bike, I’ve no idea] – I was kinda sad to see the character go, if not the lazy screenwriting. Parts 2 + 3 will stray across my eyeballs onto this site in due course, I’ve no doubt.

Dir: Kō Nakahira
Star: Rika Aoki, Masane Tsukayama, Yoshihiro Nakadai, Masami Souda

Royal Warriors

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★★★½
“Royal pains.”

royalwarriorsIt’s really the finale which makes this stand out – not necessarily for its qualities (though it’s far from bad), more for the batshit insanity. It sees ex-cop Michelle Yip (Yeoh) storm a construction site in an armoured car, to rescue the coffin containing the body of a colleague, which has been suspended from a crane by the bad guy. How the hell did we get here? Good question. It all starts on a plane back from Japan, where among the passengers are Yip, Interpol agent Peter Yamamoto (Sanada, recently seen creating doomsday diseases in Helix) and security guard Michael Wong (Wong – a lot of thought clearly went into that character). On the flight, there’s a hijack, in an attempt to free a killer being extradited to Hong Kong; our heroic trio foil it, killing the hijackers. But that just brings down the wrath of the rest of the gang, who vow to take their revenge on the people who killed their colleagues. And they really don’t care who gets in their way, as a mass gun-battle at a night-club shows – it also gets Yip taken off the case.

Does the finale make sense now? The correct answer would be “kinda,” and the plot here is certainly the weakest element, forming more of a shaky bridge between the action scenes. Wong is particularly unimpressive, his romantic pursuit of Yip coming over as more in need of a restraining order than portraying him as endearingly romantic. In some ways, it also plays as 80’s Action Clichés, Volume 1, There’s a massive civilian body-count, the fate of Yamamoto’s family is painfully obvious, and we get things like Yip’s boss yelling at her, before she throws her badge in his face, and storms off to solve the case on her own. None of this takes away from the action, which is copious and hard-hitting (if, admittedly, sometimes frankly implausible, as noted). There could perhaps be some more Yeoh – you can never have too much – but watching her go up against the final villain (Ying) and his running chainsaw is a thoroughly adequate payoff.

Wong would show up in the fourth entry, again playing a character called Michael Wong, though by that time, Michelle Yeoh had been replaced as the series heroine by Cynthia Khan. Yeoh and Sanada would be paired again, but it would take a couple of decades and a lot of filmographic miles for each, before they worked together on Danny Boyle’s Sunshine. Chung would also direct Yeoh in her final action movie before “retiring” to marriage for a decade, Magnificent Warriors.

Dir: David Chung
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Wong, Ying Bai

Relic Hunter: season one

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★★★
“Sydney Fox and the Temple of Tomb.”

relichunterMore or less shamelessly ripping off Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider in equal measures, this Canadian TV series ran for three seasons and 66 episodes between 1999 and 2002. The heroine is Sydney Fox (Carrere), a Professor of history at “Trinity University,” who is renowned for her ability to track down historical artifacts lost for centuries – and, unlike some of her colleagues in the business, return them to their rightful owners. She is assisted on the road by Nigel (Anholt), her British assistant who is smart, but far happier in a library than taking part in the globe-trotting or fist-fighting, in which Sidney revels, and back at base by Claudia (Booth), her bubble-headed secretary who got the job largely because her father is a major donor to the college.

The episodes are almost completely standard, starting with a historical prologue, to show how the relic was lost. Someone goes to Trinity to ask for help finding it. Sydney and Nigel follow a series of clues bringing them closer to the relic. There’ll be another group hunting the same object, for mercenary or other reasons, often with an unexpected agent working for them. Expect secret passages and protective traps, some fisticuffs as Fox takes out the villain’s goons, light romantic tension, a mildly life-threatening situation and a happy ending as the treasure is found and something moral is done with it. The only things that change are the McGuffin and the country involved. The latter is generally as close as the Canadian shooting location can fake it, though the end of the season did appear to fund a trip for actual shooting: five of the last six episodes had a French setting.

It’s hardly challenging stuff, and the action is generally several level sub-Buffy, in part because Carrere lacks much physical presence. The history on view is particularly woeful too, with basic factual errors surrounding just about every “real” character. All told, after the first couple of episodes, which seemed particularly stilted, I contemplated quietly forgetting the entire idea. However, I persevered, and the series did slowly grow on me. Sydney and Nigel develop a nice chemistry, and there are occasional moments which suggest a more tongue-in-cheek approach than you might expect. For instance the line delivered on their entrance into an Amsterdam bar: “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m in a Kubrick film?”. Or, as shown below, there’s the muddy catfight between Sydney and a female adversary, which is almost as self-aware as the one between Denise Richards and Aunjanue Ellis in Undercover Brother.

Make no mistake: even by the low standards of network television, this is hardly great, being incredibly derivative, and unwilling to stray anywhere outside its comfort zone. And yet… Once I came to accept these limitations, I found myself increasingly entertained by the fluffy lack of envelope-pushing. This is the televisual equivalent of putting on a beloved bath-robe: well-worn, comfortable, and you know exactly what you’re going to get. If not something you probably want to wear all the time, there are occasions when it’s just what’s needed.

Star: Tia Carrere, Christian Anholt, Lindy Booth, Tony Rosato

RIN ~Daughters of Mnemosyne~

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★★★
“Harry Potter, with more lesbians.”

mnemosyne2There’s something to be said for not laying everything out on the line for your audience from the get-go, and only gradually revealing pertinent information. But do it too often, or for too long, and you run a significant risk of driving them away in bafflement. Such is probably the case here: for rather too long, it’s clear that the characters know a great deal more about what’s going on than the audience. The central character is Rin (Noto), a private investigator who, we soon discover, is immortal. We find this out because she keeps coming back after getting killed by Laura (Ohara), an assassin employed by the mysterious “Apos,” who thinks he/she is a god, and is intent on proving it. Turns out, this immortality is the result of Rin ingesting a spore from a tree known as Yggdrasil – yep, that’s ancient Norse. In Japan – which normal people can’t see. If a woman is infected, she becomes immortal. If a man does, he turns into an “angel”, a monster that hunts and eats the immortals, who have an irresistible urge to have sex with the angels.

There’s more. A lot more, spanning a century or so. Probably too much more than should be crammed in to six 45-minute episodes, but as I noted with AHS: Coven, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s fairly clear where it’s all going to end: a battle between Rin and He-who-must-not-be-named, Apos. Before we get there, however, there’s a lot of sex, much of it of the girl on girl variety, though with a significant quantity of BDSM as well, befitting is apparent origins on a Japanese version of Skinemax. That certainly makes this unsuitable for minors: some is necessary to the plot, but a lot of it feels more like fan service – a bit of a shame, because it needlessly devalues what’s a fairly intriguing concept, containing a good deal of imagination. Rin’s daily business, such as finding lost cats, always seems to end up dragging her into much more complex affairs, linked either to Apos or some big corporation.

Some of these are well done and are capable of standing alone, such as the third episode, which covers biological weapons and human testing, still something of a taboo subject in Japan (Don’t mention Unit 731. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it).  However, the closer we get to the big bad, the more confusing and less interesting things become. One review put it beautifully: “It feels like you’re just watching the characters explain what the hell is going on, while raping and eating each other.” I think the creators are trying to up the ante, but there’s little or no emotional wallop to the sexual sadism, with the result that it becomes kinda dull. However, it does also play to anime’s strengths, in that whatever the mind conceive, can be depicted. If you don’t get a frisson when the angel wings start sprouting, you’re a more phlegmatic individual than I. Overall, it’s worth a look, though you may want to track down the episode synopses first, and use them as a cheat-sheet.

Dir: Shigeru Ueda
Star (voice): Mamiko Noto, Rie Kugimiya, Nobuyuki Hiyama, Sayaka Ohara

[Random amusement: while looking for pics, I did a Google Search for images with “mnemosyne anime”. One of these things is not like the other. #AmyPondWTF?]

Ready to Fly

  By

★★★½
“Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”

readytoflyI took some skiing lessons back when I was at university, on the dry slope, but my sole experience of doing it on actual snow was a one-day trip: the real thing is considerably colder, faster and a great deal harder, let me assure you. So, the prospect of whizzing down a ramp, going off the end at 50-60 mph, and flying through the air for the length of a football field or thereabout… Well, anyone who does ski-jumping has my respect – and all the more so when, like the women in this documentary, as well as fighting gravity, they have to go up against the (literal) old boys’ network of the International Olympic Committee, who had succeeded in keeping women’s ski-jumping off the program, making it the sole “men only” sport in the winter games.

The documentary focuses, in particular, on Lindsey Van, who was the first ever women’s world champion, and was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the, IOC to force them to include ski-jumping in the 2010 Vancouver games. The judge agreed there was discrimination, but refused to make the IOC comply – ironic that, going into the Olympics, Van actually held the record for the longest jump on the hill where the games took place. Lindsey briefly quit the pastime to which she had dedicated her life, in disgust at that decision.

However, she couldn’t stay away for very long, and to date has gone through four knee surgeries and a ruptured spleen in pursuit of her sport, while also struggling to get sufficient funding, in part due to the lack of Olympic acceptance. But the IOC agreed to consider ski-jumping again for the 2014 games in Russia – providing the 2011 women’s world championships are deemed of acceptable standard. Will the fly-girls get their day? Or as one of their former vice-presidents hints, could the committee bear a grudge against the sport, for the embarrassment of the lawsuit with which they were targeted?

To be honest, there’s no particular drama here, since a quick Google will tell you that, yes, women’s ski-jumping is indeed in the 2014 edition, which start next week [making it particularly appropriate to write about this film now]. However, it’s still a solid and generally engrossing documentary, about a sport that certainly deserves more coverage than it has received, though this seems rather too reliant on over-dramatic music, and Nyad’s narration is unremarkable. It’s at its best when not actually on the slopes, presenting Van and her team-mates as people; never mind the jumping, perhaps the most heroic thing is her donation of bone marrow to save the life of someone whom she doesn’t even know. Her low-key approach to that can only be admired.

I’m not a great winter sports person, and my interest in the upcoming Olympics is generally likely to be light. But I think I might just tune in on February 11, and witness history in the making. I’d recommend checking this film out as well, because it’ll probably inspire you in a similar way – though you still won’t be seeing me on a chair-lift any time soon!

Dir: William A. Kerig
Star: Lindsey Van, Jessica Jerome, Alissa Johnson, Diana Nyad (narrator)

Raze

  By

★★★★
“Raze-ing the standard.”

It’s interesting to read other reviews, which span the range from “This ugly, dull and idiotic actioner doesn’t know if it wants be fun or grim. It winds up simply bring deplorable exploitation,” to “an incredible action film… giving viewers exactly what it promises to give without pulling any punches or wasting time. I absolutely loved it.” This seems to be one of the cases where your preexisting mindset may determine your reaction, as much as any qualities of the movie. There’s not really any other way I can see, to explain a reaction like the former. I mean, “deplorable exploitation”? Really? There’s no nudity at all, and indeed, the basic plot is familiar from any number of films with male protagonists, which somehow managed to avoid such sniffy critiques. Rather than JCVD, say, being forced to kick arse in an underground fighting tournament, it’s Zoë Bell. I’m down with this, and also find the complete lack of any romantic interest, for example, a refreshing change [as contrast, we watched this the same day as Killer Women, which wheeled out so many clichés, it needed a separate trailer for them].

It does throw something of a left-turn at the beginning, starting with Jamie (Rachel Nichols) waking to find herself in an underground bunker. More casual viewers – which would not be anyone here, we trust – will assume she’s the heroine. They’re in for a nasty shock, as she meets another prisoner, Sabrina (Bell), and in the ensuing fight, Jamie’s head is reduced to something resembling an uncooked pizza, in both shade and texture. Sabrina is apparently ahead of the curve, being aware of what’s going on. 50 women have been hand-picked for their fighting ability, and have been abducted to take part in a series of fights to the death, their participation ensured by threats to their loved ones [it’s implied that women are more susceptible even though, for example, Sabrina gave up the daughter at risk for adoption over a decade ago]. This is under the control of Joseph (Jones) and his equally-nutty wife Elizabeth (Fenn), who appear to have been at this for some time, providing viewing pleasure of a select group of spectators, though the logistics are left kinda vague.

Of the 50, we see only one small corner, less than ten of the women, focusing on Sabrina as she makes her way through the competition. It’s obvious from the first time we see the others who her nemesis is going to be. Phoebe (Marshall) appears to be genuinely enjoying the chance to unleash her inner psychopath, and to some extent, you’re left to twiddle your thumbs waiting for the inevitable face-off to occur. The other women, including fellow Death Proof alumni, Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thoms, aren’t given much more than extended cameos: while still personalities to some degree, these are quick sketches, not enough to do more than trigger a vague burst of sympathy, before their lifeless corpses are being dragged out of the stone-lined ring. However, Sabrina vs. Phoebe is far from being the end of the matter. Indeed, it’s thereafter that things become most interesting, as we eventually enter what the inter-title accurately calls “Sabrina vs. everybody.” This includes an amusing, brief appearance by Saw‘s Leigh Whannell, who disses Bell’s home country, and pays the price, almost before he can finish the sentence.

If the action is good to very good, it’s just a little disappointing, in part I suspect because none of the other women are up to Bell’s high standard of work. I should stress, they certainly don’t suck: however, the gap between her and them is obvious, and a longer climax, pitting Sabrina against guards closer to her skill-set would have been welcome. The fights are also much of a muchness in terms of style: while the tournament cliché often has different martial-arts forms battling for dominance, the cliché makes sense, as it allows for variety. Here, not so much, and the uniform look of white vest and sweat-pants worn by all competitors also tends to leave them merging in to each other as you look back. That said, they’re brutal to the max, Waller keeping the camera in very tight to enhance this aspect. There’s one moment, involving a face being repeatedly introduced to the wall, which reminded me of The Raid, and any comparison to the best action film of the last decade is a good thing. However, it’s perhaps telling that I couldn’t tell you without checking, which two competitors were fighting at the time.

slice-razeOn the other hand, the acting was certainly much better than in the male versions of the storyline mentioned earlier. You’ve seen Jones before, but probably under make-up, e.g. as Abe Sapien in the Hellboy films, and he chews the scenery at just the right level of intensity here for an insane villain, with Fenn not far behind, and as much fun to watch. [I was somewhat reminded of the antagonist in ferocious French horror film Martyrs: both have their own, vastly twisted agenda, and don’t give a damn who gets hurt as a result] I already mentioned Marshall, but it’s Bell who gets the most screen time, and the most difficult role, having to provide the film with an emotional heart while smashing heads, and not having much dialogue to speak of. Instead, it’s mostly a physical performance – which may work to Bell’s advantage. Regardless, I’d say it succeeds, particularly on a visceral level: if you don’t cheer when Sabrina charges out of the cell, on her way to the long-awaited, no-holds barred confrontation with Phoebe, you’re far more phlegmatic than I.

The makers have said they weren’t going for any deep philosophical or moral meaning, and just wanted a female take on a male genre. Inevitably, it’s going to be treated as more by a lot of people, and I suspect it’ll end up being a cinematic Rorschach test, where people will see whatever they want to see. Looking for feminism? You’ll find it. Expecting exploitation? It’s there. However, I’m happy to take the end result purely at face value, and considering the budget was below a million dollars, can only conclude that – much like Bell herself – it punches well above its weight. There will be bigger action heroine films this year, certainly. Will there be any better ones? We’ll have to wait and see, since this has set the bar at a decent height, particularly for early January.

Dir: Josh C. Waller
Star: Zoe Bell, Doug Jones, Rebecca Marshall, Sherilyn Fenn

"There will be bigger action heroine films this year, certainly. Will there be any better ones? We’ll have to wait and see, since this has set the bar at a decent height, particularly for early January."
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Resident Evil: Retribution

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★★★★
“Games without frontiers.”

While being (again) largely disappointed by the previous entry, Afterlife, I wrote: “There’s really only one reason we bother with this series: to see Milla Jovovich kicking righteous ass. Everything else is – or should be – secondary.” And that’s why this is the best Resident Evil movie in eight years. It may not be anything significant in the plot department. There are not hidden depths or great moments of character revelation. But it does contain entirely acceptable amounts of Milla Jovovich Kicking Righteous Ass, and succeeds as an entertainment spectacle, almost entirely due to this.

Though actually, this is almost a “greatest hits” package, especially in terms of participants. Not seen since the first film, are Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez) and James Shade (Colin Salmon). Apocalypse brought us Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) and Carlos Olivieira (oded Fehr), while Extinction introduced the audience to Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) and K-Mart (Spencer Locke). Finally, Afterlife was the debuts of Luther West (Boris Kodjoe) and Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller). But they are all present for this fifth edition: though the focus is kept, as it should be, on Alice (Jovovich). The others all play their parts – notably Valentine, who is now a brainwashed toy of the Umbrella Corporation, out to hunt Alice down – but it’s the MJKRA show, all the way.

The series has had a tendency to end its entries with a wallop, right from the original, with Alice discovering the infection has escaped the Hive. Part 4 was no exception, with Alice and assorted survivors on a supertanker, only for an F-sized swarm of attack helicopter to hove into view, commanded by Valentine. This takes off from there, but begins with Alice plunging into the water, only to rewind in slow-motion to the arrival of the helicopters, then playing forward again. It’s a striking sequence, that certainly hits the ground running. It ends with Alice waking to find herself in a suburban house, with a husband and daughter…or is she? Turns out it’s all an Umbrella simulation: she has been captured, and they still want her, even if she’s no longer the superhuman she was.

There’s an unlikely ally, who releases Alice, and tells her she has two hours to meet up with a rescue team coming in to the under-Siberian complex from the outside, and get out of the place before it all goes boom. To do so, both she and they have to make their way through the various simulated arenas, designed to demonstrate the T-virus effects in Tokyo, Moscow, suburbia, etc. All the while, naturally, Valentine and her many, many Umbrella minions are on their respective tails. It could hardly be a more video-gamesque storyline, and is pretty scant. Still, in an action pic, it’s better to be too simple than too clever (I recently watched both The Raid: Redemption and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, and will take dumb over aspirations to smart, any day!), providing you use the room freed up for plenty of MJKRA.

It might be wise for Jovovich to contemplate retirement from the series. After all, she turned 37 earlier this month, and there are few things sadder than an action hero/ine desperately clinging on, past their prime (see also, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning). She’s not quite there yet, being still capable of holding her own, but there does seem to be rather more wirework and greenscreen-fu here than in previous editions. Director Anderson. a.k.a. Mr. Milla Jovovich distracts us by putting his wife in a costume whose S/M inspiration is so obvious, even another character comments on it. On the other hand, we could probably have done without the efforts to imbue Alice with some kind of maternal instincts [inevitably inviting comparisons with Aliens].

The net result is something which doesn’t so much need to be watched, just simply pass in front of a receptive pair of eyeballs. As mentioned, there is not much new here, Anderson happy to recycle the best characters and monsters from the first four movies [though, regrettably, there are no zombie canines for Milla to engage in thigh-powered neck-snapping]. Certainly, it’s lazy film-making, but actually, that’s less of an insult than it sounds. It’s more like going round a friend’s house and he knows, without asking, to provide chips and beer. Sure, it can legitimately be described as lazy hospitality – but when this is just what you want, somehow it seems churlish to complain.

A sixth entry is already mooted, and Miila says that will be her last in the series [hang on: didn’t see say that after part 2?], with a reboot being considered by the producers beyond that. This decision may come as a surprise, if you look at the distinctly underwhelming US box-office figures: only $42 million, barely more than the original, even with a decade of inflation plus the cost of 3D tickets in its favor. However, as noted last time, the meat here is not North America, but overseas. This racked up more than $175 million there, easily enough to justify a further sequel. And, for the first time in a while, I am actually enthusiastic about the prospect: hopefully, Jovovich will go out with a bang like this one, not a whimper like the preceding two.

Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson
Star: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Ali Larter

"Something which doesn’t so much need to be watched, just simply pass in front of a receptive pair of eyeballs."

Robogeisha

  By

★★★½
“‘I, too, have an ass-sword.’ That quote about sums this up.”

Having been largely unimpressed by Iguchi’s other work, which seemed to have little to offer except megabytes of digital blood, I likely wouldn’t have watched this except an accident involving beer and my Apple TV remote has stopped me from much of my usual viewing. I could still stream from Netflix, however, though when I saw this was dubbed in English, I almost didn’t bother. But surprisingly, this has easily the best plot of his movies, with a slyly-twisted sense of imagination that’s very effective.

It centres on sisters Yoshie (Kiguchi) and Kikue (Hasebe), the latter a geisha who is cruel and vindictive to her younger sister. They are taken by Hikaru Kageno (Saito), the scion of Kageno Steel, to his castle and inducted as recruits into a geisha army, which he is using to take out opponents to his plans for national domination. Yoshie has an innate skill for assassination, soon surpassing Kikeu, who begs Hikaru to “upgrade” her mechanically, so she can best her sister. Yoshie, to keep up, is similarly enhanced.

The scenario shifts when Yoshie is sent to take out a group of senior citizens and discovers they are the families of other members of the geisha army – far from being willing volunteers, they were abducted and brainwashed by Kageno and his father. After narrowly escaping a suicide mission, Yoshie switches sides and joins the senior citizens, who add further to her artificial armoury. It’s up to her to stop Kageno, before he can drop a massive nuclear weapon into Mount Fuji, completing his plan.

This is certainly out there, but is a good deal lighter in tone than expected, often crossing the border into an outright silliness that is actually endearing. For instance the whose “castle-shaped robot” concept is beautifully ludicrous, not least as the building rampages around, whacking building that then spurt blood, for no readily apparent reason. There’s also shades of 60’s spy thrillers like Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs in the basic concept of the geisha army, though there’s still a certain ass-fetishism which I could have done without – swords and shuriken both come flying out of there.

Complaining that this is, to quote Monty Python, “too silly,” would be missing the point, and the fight sequences are well put-together, not least when involving Kageno’s lead henchwomen, the Tengu Twins. At over 100 minutes, it is likely a little too long and these are less performances, than hangers, on which to place lurid visuals of questionable taste. However, you will want to keep watching, simply to see what the heck Iguchi will come up with next.

Dir: Noboru Iguchi
Star: Aya Kiguchi, Hitomi Hasebe, Takumi Saito, Taro Shigaki