Tag: s

Sunland Heat

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★★★½
“Only really one thing badly missing: a logical storyline.”

This Brazillian-shot entry has a lot of good ideas, and some excellent moments, but comes up short with a script that borders on the incomprehensible. For example, in the middle of the film, the hero and heroine are both shot with tranquilizer darts – but no subsequent mention or explanation of this ever appears. This kind of sloppy plotting plagues the movie; it’s almost half-way through before the basic story becomes clear.

To save you the effort, here’s the main thread: Jennifer Howard (Van Hagen) is a top-class martial artist, coaxed into brutal matches by rich husband Daniel (Richardson). After killing an opponent, Jennifer has had enough; but will her ex-spouse, who has his own problems, with someone syphoning money off from his business, let her find sanctuary in Brazil? ‘Course not. Luckily, she meets a friendly photographer (Perry) – who just happens to be a top-notch martial artist too, naturally – and he’s there to assist her, when Daniel kidnaps her daughter.

There’s lots to appreciate, not least the actors. As opposed to many films, Hagen here actually looks like she could kick your ass, and the flashback fight sequence is excellent – I’d like to have seen more of that, and all the battles are well staged and shot. While Perry is somewhat bland, he’s effective in action; Richardson is a B-movie veteran for almost two decades (Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Attack of the 60-foot Centrefold, etc.), and has a nice, world-weary air here. But Putney (left) is perhaps the best find as Daniel’s gun-toting sidekick, Jackie; the final scene between her and her boss is fabulously intense. And there are other cool little aspects, in things like Daniel’s henchmen.

However, in an interview, the director says, “I had to cut almost 50 pages of the script.” A suggestion for next time: don’t just yank them out at random – as appears to have been the case here – and you might find the end product is rather more coherent.

Dir: Halder Gomes
Star: Alex Van Hagen, JJ Perry, Jay Richardson, Laura Putney

Superstarlet A.D.

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★★★½
“Couldn’t put it better than the tagline: Apocalypse Meow!”

After civilization’s collapse, men have regressed to the level of Neanderthals, while women live in clans decided by their hair colour, with names like the FayWrays, Satanas and Tempests. Clothing is in short supply: lingerie, it would appear, is not, and nor are large, automatic weapons. Unsurprisingly, this leads perhaps to the finest opening five minutes in girls/guns cinema ever – “My name is Rachel, and I am a blonde. Blondes are extinct” – as our heavily-armed, suspender-and-stiletto clad heroines stagger round a post-apocalyptic landscape. This looks fabulous, and totally belies the fact that it cost $16,000 and was made in sixteen days.

Once the story kicks in, it’s less satisfactory, with a rambling tale involving brunette Naomi’s search for a long-lost stag film starring her grandmother. There are also a couple of utterly interminable musical numbers; whatever McCarthy’s talents (and he has a great visual sense), Rodgers and Hammerstein he most definitely is not. Mind you, it didn’t help that the actress playing Rachel quit two days in – as a result, McCarthy fabricated an “insanity” subplot, and used no less than seven different women to play the role.

In the end, 68 minutes is a blessing rather than a problem; this would likely have been intolerable at full feature length, despite great use of locations and (mostly b/w) photography. Instead, it’s a quirkily mad project that strongly suggests too much watching Russ Meyer films and hanging round strip-clubs – as one femme fatale says, “I pop pills like I pop culture.” Any similarity to how I mis-spent my own youth, is purely coincidental.

Dir: John Michael McCarthy
Star: Helen Heaven, Gina Velour, Kerine Elkins, Rita D’Albert

Savage Sisters

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★★½
“Bit of an exaggeration, but Fairly Unpleasant Sisters likely wouldn’t have sold.”

This Philippino phlick doesn’t quite have the courage of its convictions, and is never quite sure whether it wants to be sexploitation or serious drama. The poster promises a lot more than the film actually delivers, which is a shame, as the performances from the three leading ladies are nicely judged – as well as refreshingly multicultural. Two of them (Caffaro and Ortiz, one Caucasian, the other “Oriental”) are sent to prison, but when their torturer (ex-Bond girl Hendry, who initially comes over almost like a Black Ilsa) discovers they may know the whereabouts of a million bucks in cash, she helps spring them, and the trio head off, along with a local hustler (Ashley).

Double-crosses abound, and it all ends in a massive gun-battle on the docks. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Black Mama, White Mama – also directed by Romero, and with Sid Haig as a slimeball – took a very similar route, two years previously. This is marginally more competent, though the attempts at comedy largely don’t work, and sit uneasily alongside the torture sequences, for example. But in the absence of Pam Grier, Hendry steps up nicely, in a role that could easily have been mere caricature, and delivers the right amount of amoral gung-ho.

Nobody’s going to mistake this for great art; even as exploitation, it’s not particularly…well, exploitative, earning its R-rating more through bad language than anything else. But it keeps moving, and is worth a look if you stumble across it on late-night cable.

Dir: Eddie Romero
Star: Gloria Hendry, Cheri Caffaro, Rosanna Ortiz, John Ashley

Silverhawk

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★★½
“Comic-book stuff – unfortunately, in the bad sense of the phrase.”

There’s no doubt about the aesthetic they’re aiming for here; heroine with secret identity, sneering evil nemesis, gadgets, etc. Take a Marvel comic from the 60’s, transplant it to the modern Far East, and there you are. Indeed, this period is apparently where SilverHawk originated; unfortunately, the makers failed to learn from similar failures such as The Avengers, The Mod Squad and Wild Wild West, and the results are lacklustre.

The problem here is mostly a script with no idea how to fill the gaps between the fight scenes, succumbing to the nemesis of so many HK films: juvenile humour. Jen is the worst offender, playing a cop out to track down Lulu Wong (Yeoh), a.k.a. SilverHawk, who is so incompetent we’re given no credible reason to believe he’d be put in charge of tea-making, never mind a high-profile investigation. They were in the same orphanage as kids: yes, it’s that kind of script. Inevitably, they team up to go against bad guy Alexander Wolfe (Goss) who wants to control people’s minds using mobile phones – the satirical potential in this idea is, inevitably, never realised. The potential for product placement, on the other hand…Nokia and BMW are the big winners there.

That’d all be okay, if the action was above average. It’s not. While still the best thing here, we actually fell asleep during the climax, and had to rewind once we woke up. There’s little sense of escalation: once you’ve seen the opening battle, that’s pretty much all the movie has to offer, save various gimmicks. Silverhawk battles thugs on bungee cords! [The producers were clearly hoping we’d all forgotten Tomb Raider, which at least made a thin pretense at explaining itself there] Thugs on roller-blades! Wolfe is clearly not short of imagination – except when it comes to giving his henchmen firearms, naturally.

It’s great to see Yeoh, now in her forties, still do a motorcycle jump across the Great Wall. However, things like the clunky mix of languages cripple this, and the result definitely won’t help Yeoh’s career. After Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, the world was at her feet, but projects such as The Touch and this one have proved very disappointing. Her talent remains clear; her judgement, on the other hand, is clearly very questionable.

Dir: Jingle Ma
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Richie Jen, Luke Goss, Brandon Chang

Silk & Steel (Police Branch 82 – Rebirth)

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★★
“Take a look at the cover, and work it out yourself.”

Another title in the ongoing Metropolitan Police Branch series, has much the same ingredients as the other entries: cheesecake and mildly competent action. I think this is the second entry, but as the three films have three different pairs of actresses playing policewomen heroines Mika and Rin (Hara + Iijima in this case), it’s clear continuity is less the purpose of the exercise than the aforementioned C + MCA.

Most of the gratuitous nonsense is got out of the way early, with the pair going undercover as dancers at a strip-club – hey, what are the odds against that? Though it’s notable that one of the actresses is notably reluctant to disrobe; I would tell you which one, but, really, I could hardly tell them apart and, in any case, it’s an informational nugget of absolutely no importance. After this, the film largely forgets the nudity, heading off in a subplot where Rin (or is it Mika?) gets kidnapped and brainwashed by an evil, noodle-slurping villain, and Mika (or is it Rin?) has to rescue her, which involves acting as bait and going through the whole procedure.

If you’re thinking this sounds like an excuse for some BDSM scenarios…you’d be right, though it’s relatively restrained – pun not intended! – in this area. Or perhaps it just seems that way, in comparison to Blood Gnome? There are a couple of acceptable catfights between Mika and Rin before the finale which, being totally honest, I can’t remember as being either good or bad. Actually, this is true for the film as a whole: a week after seeing it, very little remains in my memory. Either I’m getting old, or this was as forgettable as it seems.

Dir: Masahide Kuwabara
Stars: Kumiko Hara, Miyuki Iijima, Hajime Tsukomo, Edo Yamaguchi

Scorpion: Double Venom

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★★½
“Two helpings of trash for the price of one; but you get what you pay for…”

The DVD holds two films, Sasori: Joshuu 701-gô and Sasori: Korosu tenshi, only tangentially connected to Shunya Ito’s Sasori series (the best-known is Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41) – it also has a heroine who breaks out of jail, and that’s about it. Here, nurse Nami Matsushima (Komatsu) gets ten years for killing the guy who kidnapped and murdered her sister, though just before he dies, he reveals he had an accomplice. In jail, she faces the usual perils (thuggish cellmate, bisexual warden) and meets a girl on death row, framed for a murder committed by a politician – though she killed a prison guard too, so may deserve to die! As execution looms, Nami plans to save her friend. In part two, after her escape, she gets involved with a hitman, and goes back into the prison, in order to rescue his girlfriend.

While not avoiding nudity (it seems like a made-for-Japanese-cable film, complete with pauses for ads), these lack much of the sadism often seen in the WiP genre. Komatsu brings a fine earnestness to the role, but the films are barred from greatness by startlingly idiotic plotting. For example, judicial hanging causes death by a broken neck, not asphyxiation and, in any case, Nami’s resuscitation technique is bizarre beyond belief (the credits list a medical advisor – I plan to stay out of Japanese hospitals). While undeniably dumb, the opener is at least entertaining; the second film is largely just dull, save a final twist that really has to be seen to be beli…no, actually, you still won’t believe it. *** for the first part, ** for the second.

Dir: Ryouji Niimura
Star: Chiharu Komatsu, Tomoro Taguchi, Daisuke Ryuu, Aya Sasaki

So Close

  By

★★★½
“…and, yet, so far.”

For action alone, this is certainly worth a look, with some stunning and imaginative set-pieces. But the bits between are so badly-handled, I actually dozed off – twice – which is barely permissible in a drama, never mind an action movie. It’s a tale of two sisters, who form a team of assassins: big sis Lynn (Shu Qi, from The Transporter) does the deed, little sis Sue (Zhao) is hi-tech backup, using gadgetry handed down from their father. But the police, led by eccentric forensics expert Hung (Mok), are on the trail, so a client opts to tidy the loose ends by targeting all three women, forcing a partnership between cop and killers.

Unfortunately, as well as a bit of lesbian subtext between Hung and Sue, there’s a very poorly executed romance between Lynn and an old flame. Viewers should also know a cover of Carpenters’ ‘classic’ Close to You appears – repeatedly (once is amusing irony, twice is pushing it, and more than that…). These aspects suck the life from the film like a leech, though the fights remain sturdy enough, despite the presence of too much CGI glass [most obviously when Yuen repeats a stunt from Yes, Madam, which Michelle Yeoh did with real glass!] Overall, an ideal movie to watch on fast-forward, or with some other distraction to hand.

Dir: Corey Yuen
Star: Shu Qi, Zhao Wei, Karen Mok, Song Seoung-Heon

Satin Steel

  By

★★★½

This fast, furious, largely daft movie was Jade’s immediate follow up to the two Black Cat films. If they were based on Nikita, the inspiration here is clearly Lethal Weapon, with Leung as a headstrong cop (also named Jade Leung!) who believes in shooting first and asking questions…oh, somewhere between eventually and never. With her sensible partner (Lee), she chases evil weapons broker Mr. Fowler and his gang from Singapore to Indonesia. It eventually ends above a volcano, with Jade clinging desperately to a helicopter.

The elements here are hugely variable: Leung and Lee have great chemistry, but Lee’s boyfriend Paul (Chan) may be the most irritating bastard in cinema history – his every appearance provoked a strong desire to throw things at the TV, and we cheered loudly when he was gunned down, particularly since it shut him up for a bit. In contrast Russell Wong is more sympathetic as Fowler’s naive lawyer, though since we know what happened to Jade’s first husband, this relationship might as well be wearing a sweatshirt marked ‘Doomed’. One also wonders why an international arms dealer would employ a troupe of native dancers as henchmen.

While the plot and characterisation leaves a little to be desired in originality and execution, the action is plentiful and energetic. Of particular note is the previously-mentioned helicopter sequence – at first, we suspected heavy stunt doubling, but later on, there are a couple of shots which give pause for thought, and Jade deserves greater credit. It’s just a shame it ends so abruptly. Jade’s battle against the dancers is also pretty cool, and Lee has a good fight at a train station, culminating with a leap in front of an oncoming engine that merited an immediate rewind and rewatch.

There is, however, something obviously cheap and apparently rushed about the whole endeavour, and it feels like one of the later entries in Cynthia Khan’s filmography – particularly, Angel on Fire, which also had two policewomen from different lands, travelling to a third (and presumably, cheaper to film in!) country to find the villains. One suspects Jade was under pressure to make another movie while her star was still rising, regardless of the end product’s quality.

Dir: Tony Leung Siu-Hung
Stars: Jade Leung, Anita Lee, Russell Wong, Kenneth Chan

Sakuya, Slayer of Demons

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★★★½
“Into every generation, a slayer is born…even in 18th-century Japan.”

Any similarities to Buffy are purely coincidental – despite the fact that our heroine Sakuya (Ando), like the blond one, has a soft spot for what she’s supposed to be slaying. Here, she saves the child of her first demon victim, and raises him as her kid brother Taro, despite unnervingly rapid growth and green lump on his head. She takes him on the ultimate mission, travelling to the recently-erupted Mount Fuji, which is the hellmou…er, source of the demons, to face the Spider Queen.

The special effects here are probably the highlight, both simple (the blue flames enveloping Sakuya’s kills) and complex, such as the impressive volcanic eruption and climactic battle with the Spider Queen. En route, she also meets a range of imaginatively-realised creatures – though one set look particularly cheesy, they are, apparently, a nostalgic collection from some classic 60’s films, so we’ll let Haraguchi off with a slap on the wrist for his self-indulgence. The problem is that when there aren’t any demons around, the movie seems lost and is, frankly, pretty dull. The basic premise is established early on, and not much more happens, storywise.

It also doesn’t play by its own rules. It is carefully explained that Sakuya’s Vortex Sword feeds off her life-force, and only human blood is an acceptable substitute. This just doesn’t seem to happen – I was, admittedly, watching a Chinese dub (featuring Anita Mui as the Spider Queen), so maybe something got lost in translation. But between such shaky plotting and the song(!), can’t help feeling it was perhaps aimed at a more juvenile, less critical audience. And that’s something of a shame.

Dir: Tomoo Haraguchi
Star: Nozomi Ando, Kyusaku Shimoda, Keiichiro Sakagi, Yuki Kuroda

Satanik

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★★★
“The beauty is a beast, in lurid yet chaste 1960’s European comic adaptation.”

Originally, Satanik was the villain in a series of Italian photonovels/comics. But in 1964, writer Max Bunker changed the sex and this 1968 movie – set in Spain, made by Italians – followed, though Satanik isn’t mentioned by name (I guess, a little like Heavy Metal). The central character here is a disfigured scientist, temporarily turned beautiful by a potion which also removes all her morals and inhibitions. The body count mounts, and to escape the cops, she takes another woman’s identity; unfortunately, her victim was a police stoolpigeon, and those she grassed up are also very keen to find her. Plus, her medication is wearing off…

The comics had a broad range of supernatural themes, featuring vampires, etc. but the only extra-real element in the film is the potion. What delights here, is a villainess totally lacking in scruples, reliant only on herself, making the film years ahead of its time in this aspect. Less appealing are some truly horrible fashions, proving the 60’s match the 70’s for wardrobe atrocities.

Still, the soundtrack grooves, and some thought went into this, even if the ending leaves much to be desired, almost as if it was tacked on to appease the censors. Konopka was obviously cast for looks, as her (kinda tame) stripteases prove – in one, a homage to another comic-book character, Diabolik, the last item removed is a balaclava – yet doesn’t disgrace herself. Neither does anyone else, save perhaps the costume designer, though you won’t mistake this for less than 30 years old.

Spooky coincidence time: we finished watching it about 11pm, and went to sleep. Woke up next morning, turned the TV on…and the first thing we saw? Konopka’s only other film of note: When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Does this mean anything? No, not at all. But it was kinda cool. :-)

Dir: Piero Vivarelli
Star: Magda Konopka, Julio Pain, Umberto Raho, Luigi Montini