Tag: revenge

The Forbidden City

  By

★★★½
“Spaghetti Eastern.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Italian kung-fu movie before. To be fair, the bulk of the lifting in that department is done by Chinese actress Yaxi Liu, who was a stunt double in the live-action Mulan. She plays Xiao Mei – yes, this leads to amusing confusion about Xiao and “Ciao!” – who comes to Rome in search of her vanished sister, Yun. The triad folk who brought her from China expect Mei to work as a prostitute, and soon discover that will not be happening, in impressively violent fashion. She flees, and finds an unexpected ally in Marcello (Borello), whose restaurant owning father knew Yun, and who has similarly vanished. 

Meanwhile, behind the scenes is growing antagonism between Wang (Shanshan), who runs the local triad group, and Annibale (Giallini), in charge of the traditional organized crime in the area. Mei’s actions, attacking members of both gangs, are not helping, and things only escalate further when she and Marcello discover what happened to their missing relatives. You can probably work out the rest for yourself, providing the count of kung-fu movies seen previously is greater than about three. Just be prepared for it to take its time getting there. This runs a hundred and thirty-nine minutes, and I found that the main problem. While the basic story is solid, there’s a bunch of stuff on the edges that could be discarded, such as Wang’s rapper son. 

There are really only four genuine action scenes in this, and given the duration, that spreads them perilously thin. However, all four are really good, to the point you will certainly wish it had more. There’s Mei’s escape from migrant processing (which has a lovely sequence of kitchen-fu); a battle against two of Annibale’s minions; her frontal assault on the restaurant which serves as a front for Wang’s activities; and, finally, her one-on-one fight with Wang himself. The last named felt like it should have been the climax: instead, it takes place when there is still thirty minutes left on the clock, leaving a long, slow march to the end-credits. I’ve not seen such an over-extended ending to a movie since Return of the King. 

That said, I never particularly felt the film was boring: there’s stuff here’s which is superfluous, yet is still adequately interesting. This counts as a well-done gender reversal: typically it would be the male who shows up, looking for his sister, and is helped by a waitress. It helps that both Liu and Borello are left to act in their native tongues, communicating largely through Google Translate (!). This avoid the awkward “acting in a second language” which would otherwise have been necessary. I also enjoyed the backdrop of the Eternal City, filmed in a way which emphasizes its grandeur and history. I didn’t feel like my time – and it used up a lot of it – was wasted. Had Mainetti found reason to throw in a few more fights, this could have been a classic, rather than a well-rounded throwaway. 

Dir: Gabriele Mainetti
Star: Enrico Borello, Yaxi Liu, Marco Giallini, Chunyu Shanshan
a.k.a. Kung Fu in Rome

Hunting Jessica Brok

  By

★★★★
“What a silly hunt.”

This is a rough, to the point of savage, piece of cinema. If you do not like seeing people get their head blown apart, you should stay away, because that happens more then once here. The provider thereof is Jessica Brok (Jones), who was once part of a black ops operation which went across the border from South Africa into Angola, in search of a poaching ring, only to find far worse. The subsequent ambush wiped out most of her team, though she was able to kill the brother of the poacher’s leader. Over a decade later, she is finished with the business, and living quietly with her young daughter, under a new identity. The business, however, is not finished with her. 

For the leader, Lazar Ipacs (Lukunku), has been harbouring a grudge against Jessica, and has finally tracked her down. With the help of a former colleague, Daniel (Berning), he lures her into a trap and prepares to make her regret… Absolutely everything. But Daniel has second thoughts, throwing Jessica a lifeline which lets her escape. The hunt is on. The only question is, who is the hunter and who is the hunted? After a few lower-tier henchmen are taken out, Lazar’s wife Sherri (Mboya) discovers Jessica has a daughter, and Lazar kidnaps her, intending to use the child as leverage. If you’re thinking that might be a bit of a poor decision, give yourself two points. 

The best thing I can say about this is, while running comfortably over two hours, it doesn’t feel like it at all. There’s not much of a lull: a brief period of peace depicting Jessica’s new life working on a wildlife sanctuary is as quiet as things get. Once she is kidnapped, there is little pause for breath thereafter. It is fair to say that the action here is more inclined towards the comic-book, rather than the realistic. Jessica, for example, takes more damage than any normal human could be expected to survive. She takes an arrow right through the thigh, and basically shrugs it off, while stepping on a grenade booby-trap leaves her with little more than slight tinnitus. However, the same goes for Lazar and Daniel. 

Taken in that spirit, I enjoyed this a great deal, and it’s the first film I’ve watched in 2026 to merit our Seal of Approval. The characters here are broadly-drawn, yet no less effective for it. Credit especially to Lukunku and Mboya, who make a spousal pair who are the stuff of your worst nightmares. The script doesn’t do anything particularly new – especially obvious, the way Lazar and his men spurn opportunity after opportunity to kill Jessica, to the point it begins to feel like a deliberate running joke. Yet it feels like its simplicity leaves the film stripped-down and lean, rather than underwritten. I suspect director/co-writer Orr might be a big fan of Revenge. I am too: there’s much worse from which to take inspiration.

Dir: Alastair Orr
Star: Danica De La Rey Jones, Richard Lukunku, Clyde Berning, Hlubi Mboya

They Call Her Death

  By

★★½
“At no point, does anyone call her death…”

It’s clear what Snell is going for here. This is a throwback to the spaghetti Westerns of the seventies, along with Italian exploitation films from around the same time. I certainly admire the effort which went into this: for example, rather than shooting digitally and applying effects to imitate film, Snell actually shot on Kodak 16mm stock. I did not know that was still a thing, to be honest. Some of the other elements, like the music, also do a good job of reproducing the era – the movie poster is another one. I’ve seen enough of this kind of movie (mostly through Project Kinski), to appreciate what he’s doing.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen enough of this kind of thing, to be able to differentiate the good from the bad, and a fair bit of this skews towards the latter. Molly Pray (Rippel) can only watch as her husband is gunned down in front of her by a bounty-hunter, having been framed for the murder of a lawyer, But she will not accept this, and begins to unravel the threads of the conspiracy, which made Mr. Pray an unwitting victim. And when I say, “unravel”, I mean with extreme, bloody prejudice. She guts some, blows the faces off others, on her way up to the chain to the person pulling the strings at the top. She’s holding a stick of dynamite. We’ll leave it at that. 

If you are looking for a comparison, it would be something along the lines of Hobo With a Shotgun. That’s a film I love dearly, and that might be partly why I’m a little sniffy about this. Because if you compare Hobo to Death, the results do not favour this, almost across the board. Most obviously, while Rippel is decent, she’s barely in the same solar system as Rutger Hauer. The lack of a strong antagonist here is a problem too. Instead, Molly largely chews up one person after another. But because we don’t know much about them – beyond their connection, sometimes tangential, to the death of her husband – there’s a severe lack of emotional impact, even as she’s dismembering them for her pigs to eat. 

Finally, the pacing leaves something to be desired, especially the sections where the focus drifts off Molly, such as to the friendly new deputy, who is generally on her side. Almost any time he was on the screen, I found myself quickly losing interest, and keen for it to go back to the directly focused line of Mully’s vengeance. The reliance on mostly practical effects is laudable, and there are certainly some impressively gory moments of which Lucio Fulci and his ilk would be proud. But too many of the supporting performances feel like they come from people who were available. Given the shoot took several years from start to finish, that may not be much of a stretch. 

Dir: Austin Snell
Star: Sheri Rippel, Jeff Boyer, Devan R. Garcia, Shawn Nyberg

Unit 234

  By

★★
“Lock out while you rock out.”

File this synopsis under technically true: “After the shocking discovery of an unconscious man in a locked unit, the lone employee of a remote storage facility must fight to survive the night against a ruthless gang, dead set on retrieving their precious cargo – at any cost.” I guess the word with which I have the most reason to quibble is probably “fight”. For heroine Laurie Saltair (Fugrman) is more from the Brave Sir Robin school of fighting, if you’ve ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail. She’s much more inclined to avoid confrontation than seek it out. Which perhaps making sense when facing a larger, better armed and more experienced enemy. But where’s the fun in that?

The man in question is Clayton (Huston), who is on a gurney having been kidnapped from hospital by Jules (Johnson), who is keen to finish the job. What job is that? Well, you find this out towards the end, when Laurie does, and it certainly upends much of what has gone before, to the point you’d be forgiven for annoyance at the film having perhaps wasted your time. What unfolds is, Laurie rescuing Clayton, and they then have to try and escape the storage facility and/or call for help, while Jules and his men hunt them both. Naturally, neither prove exactly successful, and that’s hos the plot unfolds. Mostly through the maze of passages in the facility, with a brief excursion outside for fresh air. 

There’s potential here: imagine a film where the heroine can crack open storage units and use the contents against the villains. This kinda happens here – only in about the dumbest and most implausible way you could imagine. Seriously: of all the things potentially to utilize, this was the way Laurie went? I think it was probably the moment at which the film jumped the shark for me, and it was never able to… I guess, un-jump itself thereafter. I feel a vague sense of loss at this, since the central performance are fine. Fuhrman is an engaging heroine, and Johnson is effective in his role. Weirdly, after non-GWG film Day of Reckoning, it’s the second this week where an ambivalent character coughs up blood. Go figure. 

It also felt like Laurie only became pro-active at the end of the movie, when it was necessary for the plot. When it happened, part of me was relieved it had finally happened – it probably just pushed the film over the line for inclusion on this site. However, there was another part of me that wondered where the hell this had come from, because it simply didn’t fit in with Laurie’s passive approach to that point. I may have been somewhat prejudiced by Fuhrman’s track record in Orphan: First Kill, where she’s more aggressive. This definitely needed a heroine along similar lines, although it’s the script, and its inability to unlock the potential, which feels the biggest weakness. 

Dir: Andy Tennant
Star: Isabelle Fuhrman, Don Johnson, Jack Huston, James DuMont

Lamb Game

  By

★★★½
“Ribbons and bows.”

This kinda teetered on the edge of inclusion or not, for about 90% of the movie. The heroine is quite passive, and the action is largely handled by others. It’s still solidly entertaining, and is definitely upper-tier as Die Hard knockoffs go. But it didn’t have a sufficient action heroine quotient… until the very end. There, she finally gets her act together, and takes the fight to her opponents. Was it enough? I was still on the fence, until one bravura shot convinced me. It doesn’t necessarily make logical sense, sure. However, it was just so damn cool, I had no option but to stamp its card and allow the movie entrance through these hallowed portals.

It begins at a wedding, where Shirley (Hung) is about to get married. A gang of jewel thieves led by Di (Chan) shows up, and a firefight with the authorities breaks out. Her husband-to-be decides to have a go. It does not end well for him. A few years later, Shirley gets locked in the building where she works at an archery hall, during a typhoon. By chance, Di and his cronies are also there, working on another robbery. He’s not happy when he realizes Shirley has witnessed him killing his target, and sends his over-sexed brother and another minion to hunt her down. Fortunately for Shirley, another resident in the building is blind martial artist, Nan Ge (Cheng, who used to be married to Yukari Oshima).

This is supposed to be set in Hong Kong during the late nineties, not that any Western viewer could probably tell. But especially in the opening scene, at the wedding, it does feel like a throwback to the golden days of Hong Kong action cinema, before the British colony was handed back to the Chinese. There’s some glorious slo-mo, blood squibbing and gun-fu, that really had me thinking this might be an undiscovered gem. The rest can’t quite live up to the same, heady delights. Yet it’s still a nicely crafted piece of low-budget entertainment, with some particularly impressive photography, which seems to have strayed in from a much bigger production. The setting is cool too, although it appears nobody in Hong Kong has heard of “fire exits”.

Shirley does spend most of the early going running and hiding, with the most memorable bit of violence an encounter with a protruding nail. Eventually, though, Nan Ge is no longer around to protect her, because… of reasons, and she has to fend for herself. Shirley’s employment might be a factor there. It’s a shame, from our perspective, this took so long to show up, since there’s potential for a lot more. To be clear, I was still enjoying proceedings – just on a non-GWG level. When “Action Shirley’ finally does appear, it’s more like dessert than the main course. Go in with that as your expectation, and you should still find yourself enjoying the meal.

Dir: Huang Yi
Star: Lynn Hung, Ricky Chan, Mark Cheng, Zhao Jing Shu Yu

Rogue Angel

  By

★★
“Time is not on its side.”

There is certainly something laudable taking on the challenge of making a feature film in seven days, and on a budget of seven thousand dollars. Doing so, and coming out the far end with anything remotely watchable, requires discipline and commitment. However, it also comes with certain penalties. The end consumer isn’t going to care about any of those constraints. They’re going to look at the screen and see takes which are “good enough,” rather than good, and particularly among the supporting cast, performances by people selected more for availability than talent. I tend to suggest it might be better to put the time and resources into making the best movie you can, rather than the cheapest and/or quickest one. 

Here, we have Angie Baker (Gerhardy), former member of an all-women platoon in the Middle East, who has returned to the town where she was brought up, as her grandmother nears death. There’s a lot of baggage here, including the younger sister she left behind, Lexi (Krause), and the family mine, owned by the grandmother and coveted by certain other relations. Most significantly though, is her fraught to the point of non-existent relationship with her father, Jake (Woodman). There was an incident – we find out the details right at the end – which is why Angie left. And is why Jake ends up buried alive in the woods. Hey, his coffin does have a breathing tube: Angie is not a monster… 

This was Daly’s first feature, according to the IndieGoGo page, and while I have certainly seen a lot worse, you can tell that’s the case, along with the limitations of the schedule and budget. The highly unconvincing attempt to be Afghanistan should have been canned, for instance, and there is an inconsistency of tone in Angie’s character. Particularly at the end, she goes full Rambo, gouging out eyes and slicing off body parts, in a way that seems out of place. Admittedly, at that point we aren’t aware of the full truth – which may or may not justify such nastiness: I’d have preferred to know from the start, bringing us along on her journey of revenge. Trimming 15-20 minutes would have made for a tighter and leaner product too.

It’s interesting to note this was written and directed by a woman: not often the case in the movies we review. Although it’s not often the case in action film-making generally: without being prejudiced, the fact is that women tend to gravitate to other genres. Perhaps as a result, Daly does bring a different perspective to this, though it’s one which paints with a broad brush: about the only man here who isn’t a Neanderthal is the local sheriff (Fowlks). As a starting point, this is okay – it is obviously a start, however, and is likely more successful as a learning experience than as a feature, only occasionally achieving any genuine emotional connection. I would be curious to see what Daly could do, when she takes her time. 

Dir: Brenda Daly
Star: Jackie Gerhardy, Sheila Krause, Dan Fowlks, Allen Woodman

Paradise

  By

★★★
“Death in Paradise”

Despite coming in as a “Tubi Original” – a badge which has previously been as much a warning as an incentive – this isn’t bad at all. It doesn’t especially push any envelopes, yet what it does, it does well enough, and with sufficient variations on the theme to keep me interested. Ella Patchet (Allison) is the daughter of Dan, the local police chief on the island of Paradise (it was shot in Hawaii). She’s rather hot-headed and a big fan of guns, to the concern of her father, who prefers to do his job without being armed. He gets tipped off about the return to Paradise of the gang led by Lee Paige, whom he ran off the island years previously. Shortly after, Dan turns up dead.

Needless to say, Ella is not happy, and vows to bring Paige to justice, despite the warnings of local mayor Calvin Whitney (Donovan), who does not want her going all vigilante. His concerns are not Ella’s concerns, to put it mildly, and she begins working her way up the chain of crime to the reclusive and mysterious Paige. However, you likely won’t be surprised to learn there are surprises for her on the way, and things aren’t exactly as they initially appear. From the opening credits, it’s clear that Isaacson is going for an “ocean Western”, for want of a better word. He largely succeeds: you could relocate this to 1860’s Texas without too much effort, though it’s beach-centric.

Patchet makes for an interesting heroine, whom we first meet getting thrown out of a bar. In some ways, she acts like she is about fifteen, but in others comes across as very mature. Certainly, she’s an unstoppable force, who’s both intelligent and driven. It’s definitely a case where firearms act as a great equalizer. You don’t have to suspend your disbelief about a smaller woman taking down larger men, because she simply shoots them in the head. This is undeniably violent, Ella racking up a fair body-count, and it works both ways, with a couple of unexpected, almost shocking deaths. There’s a scene-stealing turn from Tia Carrere, while I  enjoyed the villain’s lead henchmen basically saying “Screw this” and walking away.

In general though, the plotting is nothing special: the twists come as far more of a shock to the characters than the viewers. It’s also a little implausible how Ella can leave a trail of corpses, including state police, without becoming the subject of a massive manhunt. [Also, in reality, Hawaii has some of the strictest gun laws in the whole country] It feels as if the script would have benefited from a further revision or two, and if you are paying attention, you’ll work out where the final confrontation is going, a long way before it happens. But between Ella’s charisma and the style with which Isaacson delivers things, it held my attention without these issues becoming problematic. 

Dir: Max Isaacson
Star: Patricia Allison, Tate Donovan, Myles Evans, Adam Lustick

Hole

  By

★★★½
“Tree’s a crowd.”

Well, this is unusual. We’ve never had a movie from Slovenia here before, a country I know almost entirely due to art-rock band Laibach. This seems to be barely known either, with a mere 26 votes on the IMDb at the time of writing. But it’s decent, and doesn’t hang about: at 75 minutes, there is not a lot of slack. Indeed, it’s a rare occasion where I would not have minded if this had been 15-20 minutes longer. It is certainly spare in terms of actors, with only three roles of significance. Mia (Cok) and Kevin (Plantan) are a couple of confidence operators, who prey on rich women: Kevin seduces them, and Mia robs them. Their latest mark is Ema (Krhin). 

Things go pear-shaped when Mia believes Kevin is getting too cosy with their target, and in a fit of jealousy, bludgeons Ema to death. To dispose of the body, they drive out into the woods [the only other Slovenian movie I have seen, horror movie Hillbillies, had a similarly rural setting]. However, while they are bickering about who should dig the grave, the corpse escapes, because Ema was merely unconscious, rather than dead. Mia and Kevin begin the hunt, knowing they’d be in real trouble if Ema makes it back to civilization. Kevin makes the ill-advised decision to snort some coke, followed by the consumption of some mushrooms he finds in the woods. That basically marks the end of his role as an active participant in the film. 

Thereafter, it’s the two women facing off, and this is where I would have liked to have seen things extended. It’s clear that both women are seeking to tap into their inner feral nature, and more of it (along the lines of Revenge, perhaps) would have been welcome. Mia and Ema appears to be under the protection of dark and light angels respectively – perhaps representing vengeance and survival? I dunno, I’m just speculating: it’s another angle which might have merited additional explanation. Though what we get in lieu of development is still fun: Mia may be the most foul-mouthed female character of the year, spraying F-bombs about, at a rate which would make Dexter Morgan’s sister blush. 

While the topic is clearly one which would lend itself to horror, events here play out as much in a vein of black comedy. For example, when Ema is wounded, she uses a sanitary pad as an impromptu Band-Aid. Hey, soaking up blood is soaking up blood, am I right? There are other moments which seem almost deliberately surreal, such as Mia hallucinating Kevin having sex with a tree. [Please read that sentence again, because it’s not one I expected to write when I got up this morning] It’s almost as if she was the one who had eaten the magic mushrooms. If there’s a lesson here, that’s probably it: when you go into any Slovenian woods, be sure to bring your own picnic. 

Dir: Dejan Babosek
Star: Lea Cok, Darja Krhin, Marko Plantan
a.k.a. Jama

No trailer I could find, but the clip below shows the final fight. Probably a spoiler :)

De La Cruz

  By

★★½
“Proverbs 21:15.”

Which, in case you were wondering, is: “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.” Though based on this, I would suggest adding “…eventually” to the end. Because you are going to need a lot of patience here. While this is a rape-revenge movie, the sexual assault in question takes almost an hour to show up. Until that point, there are two threads, and you’ll also be waiting for them to connect. By far the less interesting is the teenage soap opera of the pure and innocent Yoli De La Cruz (Diaz), and her friends, the somewhat annoying Daniella, and the immensely irritating Adriana. Boys, parties, etc. You know the score.

The other is rather more intriguing, being the struggle of former MMA fighter, now a cartel hitman, Lobo (Patiño), to leave the criminal life. This comes after a near-religious experience involving Santa Muerte, who is basically the personification of death in Mexican folklore. Meanwhile, Yoli ends up being raped by Victor (Issac GH). The moral here is, you’re clearly far better off being a slut like Adriana, and going with it. Victor is the son of the local police chief, so justice will not be done. However, this is where – after an hour and twenty minutes – the stories join up. Because Lobo turns out to be Daniella’s cousin, and agrees to teach Yoli a very particular set of skills, so she can administer her own vengeance. 

Things definitely improve in the latter stages, not least because Adriana is almost entirely absent. You will need to be extremely patient to get to the good stuff. Lobo holds the film together, and there’s a great scene where he’s talking to Yoli’s father (Gaviria), and explaining why he can’t do anything himself. The way Santa Muerte gets mixed in isn’t bad, though when she rises up behind Yoli before her first bout, it does look like someone cosplaying as the Grim Reaper. There is a reasonable amount of effort put into the heroine’s transition from shrinking violent to avenging angel, though it is a little montage heavy, writer/director Baez being unable to get out of his own way. 

It certainly needs a good half-hour edited out in the early stages, when there is simply far too much faffing around, to use a good old British phrase. There’s also a weird lack of location: while presumably set in Mexico, going by references to cockfighting arenas, etc. there’s a significant amount of English being spoken. It ends in “To be continued…” having opened, one hundred and thirty minutes earlier, with a “Part 1” caption. I had spent much of the previous two hours bracing for a cliffhanger, which mercifully never appears, this being relatively tidy. Would I mind a part two? That depends largely on whether Baez avoids the faffage which dragged the first half here down like an anchor. Lobo and Yoli going 100% vigilante might be of interest though. 

Dir: Michael Baez
Star: Sofia Diaz, Raul Patiño, Noe Issac GH, Fernando Gaviria

Thicha

  By

★★★½
“…dig two graves, Thai style”

As a child, Oo-yi came to Thailand with her mother as a migrant worker. They had the misfortune to work for the cruel Madam Bussara (Kingpayome), who had a particularly nasty habit of pimping out young girls to her lawyer, Methi. When she tried to do the same to Oo-yi, Mom stood up for her – and was beaten to death for her pains. Oo-yi was able to escape, and raised by Ni Wai (Sirikul). Now, an adult (Luevisadpaibul), she is set on vengeance, and intent on destroying Madam Bussara’s life. To do so, she becomes Thicha, “accidentally” bumps into Bussara’s son, Phatchai (Chirathivat), and begins cultivating a relationship with him. But that’s the story of revenge: it’s messy. Since her feelings for him start becoming genuine.

On the one hand, it might seem rather soapy, and I won’t deny the melodramatic nature of things. But it is held together by a pair of great performances from Luevisadpaibul and Kingpayome. The latter, in particular, is close to an all-time villain. I’m not sure what happened to her husband, but it probably wasn’t good. Witness this monologue: “No one understands just how thrilling it is to watch a living being fight for its life. When it’s someone who always thought they were invincible, it’s even more entertaining. And if that desperate fight for survival is caused by my own hands? It’s almost as good as an orgasm.” Yeah: not somebody you want to mess with.

When her son shows up with Thicha, she knows instinctively that something is not right with his new girlfriend. From there, through the eight x 45-minute episodes, unfolds a slew of twists, revelations, nastiness and questions. Thicha is pregnant! Or is she? Phatchai discovers her deceptions! What will he do? Thicha’s informant inside Bussara’s house is exposed! How will she survive? It all builds to a rather brutal battle between Thicha and Madam, on the very spot where her mother was buried, years before. I was about to apply a demerit for Thicha having to be rescued by Phatchai there, until… Well, it doesn’t end exactly like that, this being a case where the pursuit of vengeance is not a rewarding and cathartic experience.

It is a little distancing. While Madam is a right c… not very nice person, it’s perhaps Methi who is in direst need of drastic punitive action. I feel it would have been more satisfying if he had been the bad guy from the start, rather than a peripheral villain. However, there’s a good sense of escalation, with each episode ending at a point which lures you forward into the next installment. It’s the scenes where Thicha and Bussara face off – be that verbally or (eventually) physically – where the series comes to life, and I found myself holding my breath more than once. If it does take a while to reach the final payoff, I’d be hard pushed to call it unsatisfactory.

Dir: Ekkasit Trakulkasemsuk
Star: Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul, Metinee Kingpayome, Pachara Chirathivat, Penpak Sirikul