Tag: teenage

Cattle Annie and Little Britches

  By

★★★
“All legends end in bullshit.”

One of the subjects here almost lived long enough to see her story on the big screen: the woman who was Cattle Annie passed away only three years before the movie version was released in April 1981. Playing her was the daughter of Christopher Plummer, Amanda, in her screen debut (she already had stage experience off-Broadway), while the role of Little Britches went to another near-newcomer who would also go on to fame in her own right, Diane Lane. It was based on Robert Ward’s book – he co-wrote the screen-play – and seems to take a fairly fast and loose approach to the facts of the pair’s lives. Though given the huge uncertainty involved in those, it’s hard to complain too much.

For example, rather than being born and brought up in Oklahoma, the duo are portrayed as making their way out to California to seek their fortune, when they’re forcibly detoured to Guthrie, OK, There, they encounter Bill Doolin (Lancaster) when he and his gang visit the town. Annie falls for gang member Bittercreek Newcomb (John Savage) and they end up being taken by him to the gang’s hideout. Their knowledge of the Doolin Gang is entirely based on the embellished stories they’ve heard about them, and they’re disappointing to find reality comes up short.

The man they encounter, and whose gang they join, is considerably older than the real person. Lancaster was 67 at the time, while Doolin was in his late thirties. The girls are also played significantly older: 23 during filming, Plummer was a full decade older than the real Cattle Annie. The cinematic Doolin seems increasingly weary of the whole outlaw thing, of being pursued by the relentless Bill Tilghman (Steiger), and has little or no interest in living up to his own mythology when he meets the pair. But Cattle Annie’s belief in the legend, at least somewhat reignites the fire. Though after his capture, Doolin returns to fatalism, and it’s up to the girls to stage a rescue mission, when the rest of the gang would just let their leader hang.

You get something of the hardscrabble life about the pair, and how the outlaw life is one of the few routes by which they could escape their grinding poverty. As Annie says after their failed initial attempt to follow Doolin, “I’ll not be a white nigger slave woman! I’d rather burn like a fire!” But there isn’t an enormous amount going on, and the film seems to contain a fair bit of filler, such as an impromptu game of baseball, using equipment looted during a train robbery [As a baseball fan, seems doubtful the entire group of adult men would be so oblivious of the sport as they appear. This was the mid 1890’s: the National League had been running for close to 20 years, with a team in St. Louis, one state over] Though as a meditation on the dying embers of the “Wild West,” and the gap between heroic fiction and slogging through endless rain and mud, it’s effective enough, and you can see why both young leads would go on to greater fame.

Dir: Lamont Johnson
Star: Amanda Plummer, Diane Lane, Burt Lancaster, Rod Steiger

The Last Dragonslayer

  By

★★★½
“Here be dragons. Well, a dragon, anyway…”

This slice of British televisual fantasy was offered up on Christmas Day, and provides a pleasant, warm and unchallenging slice of family fare. It takes place in a world where magic has ruled, but is gradually fading from consciousness and being replaced by technology. The magic appears connected to the dragons with which humanity shared the planet, uneasily. After previous battles, a kind of apartheid was set up, with the world divided into dragon and human areas. Overseeing the peace is the Dragonslayer, who is charged with killing any dragons who violate the treaty and attack humans or their territory. But some members of mankind are casting envious eyes on the unspoiled territory of the dragons, and would love an excuse to take it over.

Into this comes Jennifer Strange (Chappell), an orphan who was adopted as an apprentice by the magician Zambini (Buchan). A decade or so later, he vanishes suddenly, and while Jennifer is still coming to terms with that, a bigger shock occurs. Fate has decreed she is to become the Dragonslayer, the one prophesied to kill the final dragon. Having grown to love magic in all its forms, she’s extremely reluctant to do so. But how is a teenage girl supposed to escape what the apparently immutable finger of fate has written? And never mind, having to cope with all the other unwanted attention, from interview requests to merchandising deals, that comes to Jennifer along with the unexpected position.

It’s a nicely constructed alternate world, part steampunk, part modern and a declining part magical – wizards, for example, are now reduced to doing rewiring work for employment, such is the low demand for their skills. This offers scope for satirical elements, such as the Dragonslayer having to do adverts for a soft drink to pay off an unexpected tax debt. There are also any number of faces you’ll recognize if you watch much British TV: Buchan is familiar from Broadchurch; Bradley, who plays Jennifer’s sidekick Gordon, is best-known as Jon Snow’s wingman Samwell Tarly in Game of Thrones; and King Snodd is Matt Berry, who played a similarly mad boss in The I.T. Crowd. Richard E. Grant voices the final fire-breather, though is largely wasted in the role.

Chappell makes for a good, plucky heroine, even if her willingness to accept the hand dealt to her is a little fatalistic. Why not just walk away? Can’t kill the last dragon if you don’t pick up the sword – even if it does have your name engraved on it. While light in tone, this does have its action beats, not least when Jennifer has to fend off an assassination attempt, and an occasional moment of surprising poignancy. The finale perhaps asks more questions than it answers, and it’s clear the aim is an ongoing saga of films to follow the books (there are three volumes in the series by Jasper Fforde with a fourth in preparation). Yet if this does become a Christmas Day media tradition in Britain, it’s one to which I’d not object at all,

Dir: Jamie Magnus Stone
Star: Ellise Chappell, Anna Chancellor, Andrew Buchan, John Bradley

The Feral Sentence by G. C. Julien

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

The handling of this story is a little different from the usual novel. Julien adopts an “episodic” approach, with the story initially released in novella-length installments (seven of which have come out to the point of writing), some with cliffhangers. In structure, this is almost like the movie serials of old. Book 1, reviewed here, compiles parts 1-4. It’s set in 2087, when the authorities have gone back to a retro version of penal punishment: exiling criminals to a remote tropical island, from which there’s no escape, and where prisoners can pose only a danger to each other. 18-year-old Lydia Brone is sentenced to three years for killing her mother’s abusive boyfriend, so is dropped off (literally – out of a helicopter offshore), and left to make her own way on Kormace Island.

She is almost immediately captured by one of the existing tribes, under the control of long-term inmate Murk. To survive, the women have implemented their own society, with each being assigned a role necessary to the survival of the group. Brone is initially made a needlewoman, but after an attack by the “Northers”, a rival tribe, she’s re-assigned to learn archery. Daily life is not without conflict, with Brone being shaken down by another inmate, and eventually she realizes that attempts at practicing non-aggression can simply get you tagged as an easy mark. However, it turns out, there are much bigger problems at hand, with her entire new “family” coming under threat.

It’s an interesting, if somewhat uneven, character arc for Brone (she abandons use of her own first name quickly), as she evolves, mostly out of necessity, from scared teenager to battle-hardened warrior for the tribe. I say “uneven”, because it feels slightly inconsistent. At one point, she appears to say she was almost obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness, hygiene, etc. yet this is rapidly discarded, and he has few apparent problems adapting to a primitive lifestyle. I’d also have welcomed background information about the outside world: what brought us to the point where this solution was adopted? It has been running for decades, going by how long Murk has been there, and the apparent one-way nature of the place would seem to raise obvious questions. Do none of the women have friends or relatives on the outside waiting for them?

Julien does a good job with drawing the rest of the inmates, creating a set of characters whom are generally distinguishable, even if their back stories have a certain “society’s to blame!” similarity [not many of the prisoners accept full responsibility for the consequences of their actions, there’s always some excuse]. The episodic approach also means, almost out of necessity, a constant stream of incidents: there is, literally, never a dull moment here. The ending, admittedly, falls a bit awkwardly between two stools: it’s neither a satisfactory conclusion, nor dramatic enough to lure you into the next volume. This remained entertaining, however, and the almost complete lack of romance – for obvious reasons! – was a refreshing change from some recent entries.

Author: G. C. Julien
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book.
Book 1 of 3

Fair Game (1982)

  By

★½
“Not to be confused with…”

In particular, not to be confused with the Cindy Crawford film of the same name. But for the purposes of this site, more importantly, not to be confused with the film of the same name, also from Australia, released four years later in 1986 and which became one of Quentin Tarantino’s inspirations for Death Proof. I say this, since I did confuse them, and got the wrong one. I have now rectified the error, and a review of the latter will be along really soon. We regret the mistake. No, seriously: look at the rating here. WE REGRET THE MISTAKE. It perhaps could also be confused with Hostile Intentions, which was watched the very same day, and similarly concerns three young women on a road-trip, that goes horribly wrong. [Interesting how often the “three women” trope shows up: Charlie’s Angels, Charmed… Hell, Destiny’s Child. Future article idea filed away!]

That I’ve spent 150 words without actually discussing the movie, likely tells you all you need to know about it. But if you insist…

Three schoolgirls – Jilly (Trengove), Joanne (Mack) and Liz (O’Loughlin) – head off for a weekend of fun at a beach-house owned by a relation. However, it’s not long before things start to get creepy, as their car is chased by a pair of mysterious black vehicles, driven by a group of local men. When they finally appear to elude their pursuers, and reach the sea-side, they meet their next-door neighbour, Pamela Wilkinson (West). She has a dark secret of her own to hide: she was part of a check forging scheme, but absconded with the loot from her last job. That puts her on the radar as well, and it’s not long before someone is (or someones are) lurking in the shrubbery nearby. What are their intentions?

It’s probably this split of focus which damages the film most. If it had stuck with Pamela or the schoolgirls, this could at least potentially have been a creepy thriller. The latter, for example, could have turned into a teenage version of Deliverance, which might have been a nice twist. Instead, just as the film begins to generate any degree of tension, for example, when the girls are being pursued by the black vans… It switches over to Pamela’s story, and effectively, has to start over. Then, when it gets going, we’re back with the schoolgirls – where were we again? Fitchett is so bad at meshing the elements together, it feels like you’re channel-hopping between two different movies, hoping (with steadily decreasing optimism) one or other of them will eventually make it worth your while to stick around.

Though West’s pedigree as Australian Penthouse‘s 1979 Pet of the Year is not in question, shall we say, the sleeve shown promises a great deal more salacious schoolgirl content than the film delivers. Again, it says a lot that, such are the film’s other flaws, even this level of blatant false advertising provokes no more than moderate irritation.

Dir: Christopher Fitchett
Star: Kim Trengove, Kerry Mack, Marie O’Loughlin, Karen West
a.k.a. Desolation Angels

Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm by Garrett Robinson

  By

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

One of the common problems I’ve found with fantasy novels is establishing the universe. It’s clearly going to be very different from the reader’s, and the author needs to get them up to speed on how things work in the book’s setting. If this isn’t done quickly and effectively, the reader can be left floundering in a world they know nothing about. Robinson uses a neat trick to get around this. His heroine, Loren, basically knows nothing about it either, because she has been brought up in a remote rural area. Virtually all she knows about life outside the woods comes from tales told to her by an itinerant tinker, and her dreams of becoming a heroic thief seem no more than fantasies.

That all changes when she encounters a fugitive, Xian the mage. Fed up with her life – and given the severely abusive parents, it’s hard to blame her – she throws her lot in with him. That’s how everything starts: as she discovers the world around her has a lot more to offer than household drudgery and arranged marriages, so do we. She has a couple of advantages over the usual runaway: she’s “country strong” having been brought up to hunt, providing her with a skill-set which will putt her in good stead to hold her own in a more urban environment. And on her departure, she takes a dagger, a family heirloom of sorts, which for some reason, strikes fear into the subset of those she encounters, who recognize it.

Loren is, perhaps, a little too well-prepared occasionally: while I can see how running and climbing trees would translate into parkour-like city skills, her adeptness at picking locks was a little eyebrow-raising. However, this ia a relatively minor issue, and more than outweighed by the strengths of Robinson’s writing. He draws a world which is easy to imagine in your mind’s eye, populated by a range of memorable characters. I appreciated the almost total lack of the near-compulsory romantic angles, and that Loren is far from the only strong woman to be found in these pages. Already, we have met Auntie, the shape-shifting mage who runs the underworld in the city of Cabrus, and Damaris, a scarily well-connected smuggler who helps Loren, yet appears to have her own agenda.

As the introductory book to a six-volume series, there is rather less than a complete story told here, though neither is there one of those oh-so annoying cliffhangers. There are instead questions, which will presumably be answered down the road. Where did Loren’s blade come from? What is its significance? What about the mysterious gems Damaris is smuggling? And who is Jordel, the man who is also after Xian, yet seems to keep encountering and assisting our heroine? I was left feeling fulfilled by what I had read, yet also wanting more, and that’s a combination which is not as frequently found as you’d expect.

Author: Garrett Robinson
Publisher: Legacy Books, available through Amazon, both as an e-book and a paperback
Book 1 of 6 in The Nightblade Epic series.

Viral

  By

★★½
“Facebook status: feeling infected.”

Firstly: it’s not a frickin’ virus at all! The threat here is a blood-borne parasite, which is completely different, so I have no idea where the title came from. Glad I got that off my chest. Where were we? Oh, yes… The Drakeford family have just moved in to a suburban community in California. Daughter Emma (Black-D’Elia) is trying to settle in at their new school. something at which her more extrovert older sister Stacey (Tipton) is better. This distraction is why they don’t notice the growing concern about a disease that’s spreading across the globe – until a classmate succumbs to this nasty ailment, which makes the infected highly aggressive.

From there, the siblings’ safe, stable world disintegrates rapidly. Mom is stuck at the airport, and when Dad goes to try and find her, he doesn’t come back. Matters escalate after Stacey drags the reluctant Emma to a particularly ill-advised house party [Maybe it’s just me, but in the event of any communicable epidemic breaking out, I would not exactly be attending social gatherings], where they get to see the effects of the illness first hand. Scurrying back to the sanctuary of their home, and hot local kid Evan (Tope), the sisters are thrust back on their own resources, as martial law is declared and the area comes under strict quarantine. This means fending off not only the infected; the military, too, pose a threat to what remains of the family.

Despite its title, the film makes a credible effort to ground its epidemic at least somewhat in real science. Specifically, it references the toxoplasma gondii parasite, which does affect the behaviour of its rat hosts. Of course, this is taken to extremes here, and you end up with something closer to what was seen in 28 Days Later: fast, neo-zombies, driven by hunger. Disappointingly, this is spun into a teen-centric story, which feels as if it might not be out of place on MTV. And, like most MTV shows, anyone older than the target audience will have to suppress a frequent urge to yell at characters for their poor life skills, e.g. the frequent removal of their face-masks (see Evan, above). Stacey fares especially poorly here, to the extent I suspect her brain being controlled by a parasitic worm might increase her IQ significantly.

The effects work is light, yet solid enough, and there is a shudder or two to be had, not least from the creepy parasites. If you can watch Emma hone her amateur surgeon skills – remembering a lesson given by her teacher father – without flinching, you’re tougher than I. Yet such moments are the exception, rather than the rule they need to be, and the lack of any real escalation is surpassed only by the underwhelming ending. Despite the unexpected death of one major character, as apocalypses go, this one feels more a moderate nuisance than life-threatening peril. “OMG, I can’t update my Instagram. This totally sux.” The movie certainly won’t be getting a “like” from me.

Dir: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
Star: Sofia Black-D’Elia, Analeigh Tipton, Travis Tope, Colson Baker

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun: Graduation

  By

★★
“Fails to make the grade.”

The 1981 original movie of which this is a part-remake, part-sequel, made an impression with some solid performances, lurking behind an obviously exploitative title. This? Not so much, despite sharing many of the same elements. For example, both films cast a pop idol singer in the lead role, and the central concept is similar – a schoolgirl finds herself suddenly thrust into the mantle of a Yakuza boss. Here, however, we initially find Izumi Hoshi (Hashimoto) already having gone through the situation she inherited after her uncle was assassinated. She took revenge on his killer’s after which her gang, the Medakas, was disbanded. Now a high-school senior, her sole retained asset is a small coffee-shop, though Izumi has trouble getting the employees, her former minions, to call her “Manager” rather than “Boss.”

She is dragged back into the underworld when a classmate begs for help in her problem with a sleazy “model” agency. It turns out that behind the agency were the gang who were once her enemy, the Hamaguchis, who are also selling drug-laced cookies on her turf. When one of these disco biscuits leads to the death of a schoolmate, Izumi decides to come out of retirement and take up arms once again. Unfortunately, she takes her time about it. Indeed, after the flashback which opens the film, you’ll have to wait 100+ minutes for the next machine-gun moment; in between, it’s entirely sailor-suit. There’s also an extended subplot involving Yasui (Ando), a corporate raider with plans to redevelop the entirety of Izumi’s neighbourhood, whether the inhabitants want it or not.

At virtually two hours long, it has huge pacing problems: that running time isn’t much more than the original, yet here, it drags terribly, and desperately needs to be at least thirty minutes shorter. It doesn’t help that Hashimoto is almost entirely bland, with nothing here to distinguish her from the millions of other idols. [The Hello Kitty tie-in marketing shows more personality, even if they replaced the machine-gun with a pop-gun!] This generic portrayal might make more sense if she was initially still an innocent schoolgirl, as in the original. Here, we’re supposed to believe she’s someone who has been the head of a Yakuza gang and come out the other side? I’m not buying that in the slightest.

In the film’s defense, I’ve read reviews suggesting elements of social satire which are likely not apparent or meaningful to a Western audience, such as the property shenanigans. That doesn’t do much to excuse the main issues, however, and even local critics were largely unimpressed by a largely forgettable feature, that only occasionally reaches the level of moderately interesting. Managing to waste such a cool concept, and in particular the iconic moment where the heroine sprays her automatic weapon while yelling “Kaikan!” – roughly translatable as “Feels so good!” – should be a jailable offense. I guess it’s nice to realize that pointless remakes are not purely a Hollywood problem.

Dir: Kôji Maeda
Star: Kanna Hashimoto, Hiroki Hasegawa, Masanobu Ando, Takurō Ōno

The Tribe

  By

★★½
“Who knew the post-apocalypse could be dull?”

Disease has wiped out most of civilization, and left those who have survived, scrambling to cope. Better equipped than most are sisters Jenny (Rothe), Sarah (Winters) and silent little Danika (Jones). For their father was a doomsday prepper, who created a “bug out” cabin in the desert, stocked with all the necessities to survive. However, neither he nor their mother are around any longer: the former died during the crisis, and the latter went out to seek help and never returned. So it’s all down to the sisters, who have been reminded about the golden rule, time and again, by their Dad: do not let anyone in, under any circumstances.

This rule is tested beyond its breaking point when Ryan (Nardelli) shows up. He seems to have a bond with Danika; the other two siblings are unable to agree on how to proceed. In the end, older sister Jenny over-rules the far more suspicious Sarah, and Ryan joins their little community. But as Jenny and Ryan start to form a relationship, seeds are being sown to destroy the peaceful and remote life the family have been fortunate enough to enjoy. And that’s not necessarily just the result of Ryan’s hidden agenda, either. Because the psychological pressures of living on the edge of survival will eventually take their toll on even the hardiest of personalities.

Although the bloody conclusion which results is somewhat satisfying, you have to sit through an enormous amount of “jaw-jaw” before you can get to the “war-war”. For the first hour-plus, the biggest threat in this apocalypse appears to be dying of boredom. This is likely a side-effect of the limited budget, perhaps in conjunction with the makers’ apparent interest in making this a relationship drama, rather than the action-packed survival story promised by the sleeve and trailer. The pacing is particularly awful: the question of whether Ryan is the innocent he seems, seems to be answered far too early. Once that happens, you’re left with very little in the way of development, the film doing the cinematic equivalent of endlessly circling the mall, looking for a really good parking spot.

I was reminded, significantly, of The Last Survivors, which takes a similar setting and teenage lead character, but does significantly better in the pacing department – although is still short of perfect. The main difference is that the payoff there is worth the wait, and it doesn’t try to make up for a leaden first half with a sudden late flurry of action. The flaws in that department here are a shame, since the performances here are not the problem, particularly Jones as the youngest, entirely mute sister. She has extraordinarily expressive eyes, and gets to use them to excellent effect in a number of scenes. She is probably the best mute post-apocalyptic child – a particularly niche character genre, I appreciate – since the Feral Kid in Mad Max 2.

Dir: Roxy Shih
Star: Jessica Rothe, Anne Winters, Chloe Beth Jones, Michael Nardelli

Girl of Fire, by Norma Hinkens

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½

You might be forgiven for expecting something Hunger Games-like, given Katniss was referred to frequently as the “girl on fire,” only one letter different from the title here. That really isn’t the case at all: though both are, broadly speaking, science-fiction, instead of an urban dystopia, this is sprawling space opera. The heroine, 17-year-old Trattora, lives on Cwelt, a fringe planet largely overlooked and bypassed by the rest of the galaxy. She’s a chieftain’s daughter there, but was adopted, and is clearly different from the rest of her people; she yearns to find the truth about her ancestry.

Her chance comes in the form of a trade-ship, captained by the untrustworthy Sarth. For it’s discovered that Cwelt is a source for dargonite, a mineral now in high demand for its use in cloaking technology. Before this can be announced, the planet comes under threat from the raiding Maulers, and Trattora strikes an uneasy bargain with the visiting captain, to sell dargonite in order to buy ships which can defend Cwelt. However, after an apparent double-cross, Trattora steals Sarth’s ship from under her nose, and strikes out on her own, to take care of business – and also locate her biological parents.

The latter thread doesn’t occupy much of this, the first volume in a trilogy called ‘The Expulsion Project’. That title is explained at the beginning: proceedings open with her parents on Mhakerta, sending Trattora into space, in a last-ditch effort to escape the clutches of an all-powerful AI who has taken over their planet. The only thing Trattora has left as a link with her parents is a bracelet – when she finds a similar item belonging to Velkan, an indentured serf in Serth’s crew, she realizes there are apparently others like her. But this book is more concerned with her attempting to sell the valuable minerals, and adapting to life in a universe very different from the one to which she is used.

The cover is rather misleading, since as soon as Trattora gets off the surface of Cwelt, she more or less abandons the “barbarian chic” aesthetic, as far as I can tell. Probably wise: carrying a spear around would likely attract undue attention in any space-faring civilization. Indeed, she largely avoids violence, hence the low kick-butt quotient. She still qualifies here, due to what would probably be described on her resume as “a pro-active approach to problem-solving, demonstrated ability at adapting to new situations, and proven leadership skills.” She’s certainly brave, prepared to risk everything to save her adopted home planet, loyal to her friends, and resourceful – all-round, she has the qualities of a good heroine.

I’m less convinced with the writing when it comes to the universe building, beginning with planet names which feel like the author made them up by pulling tiles from a Scrabble bag. You don’t get much sense of a structured universe, despite the apparently overwhelming presence of “The Syndicate”, a group whose power is vaguely ineffectual, except when necessary to the plot. This is where the “space opera” label becomes something of a double-edged sword. While I appreciated the brisk pace, Trattora and her pals whizzing from one incident to the next, the idea of a teenage girl hijacking a spaceship on her first trip off-world, from its far more world-wise captain, with most of the crew supporting her, was only one of a number of moments which stretched my credulity. It was just far too easy.

This probably falls into the category of a fun read rather than a good one, and is thoroughly disposable fluff. While there’s nothing wrong with that per se, this likely panders a little too much in the direction of the young adult audience, to be entirely acceptable for anyone who has grown out of that group.

Author: Norma Hinkens
Publisher: Dunecadia Publishing, available through Amazon in both printed and e-book versions.

The Eagle Huntress

  By

★★★★
“Where eagles dare.”

No matter how bad-ass you are, you’ll never attain “13-year-old Mongolian girl, standing astride a mountain, holding the trained golden eagle she raised from a chick, after climbing down a cliff to get it” levels of bad-ass. That’s what we have here, folks, in this documentary about Aisholpan. She’s a Mongolian teenager who wants to become an eagle huntress, a profession traditionally reserved for the male lineage. Her father Rys learned the skills necessary (and, presumably, inherited the really large, very well-padded glove) from his father, and so on.

In the absence of a suitably-aged son, and given Aisholpan’s interest, Rys is happy to show her the ropes. Literally. As in the ones used to prevent her falling off the steep cliff-face she has to descend to pluck her eaglet from its home. For, as we learn, there’s only a brief period between the chicks being able to survive away from their mother, and them leaving the nest, during which they can be taken. We also discover, there’s apparently no word in Mongolian for “child endangerment.” There’s then the training process, as the bird grows up, for instance to get it to come when called. Though “politely asked” would be wiser than “called”. You don’t order around something like the full-sized and scary creature shown on the right.

The first dramatic moment is Aisholpan’s participation in the annual golden eagle festival, which takes place in a nearby (by Mongolian standards – it’s only a day’s ride away) town. She’s not only the youngest participant, she’s the first woman ever to take part. Some of the veterans and elders are interviewed, and are not exactly happy about it. Though their opposition doesn’t appear to go any further than mild levels of harumphing; it’s not as if there’s any active attempt to stop her participation. This could be because the film does seem to over-state Aisholpan’s uniqueness for the sake of cinematic drama. History actually provides much evidence for her female predecessors.

However, there’s still an enormous amount here to appreciate and enjoy, not least a plethora of panoramas, sweeping across the staggeringly beautiful Mongolian plains. You also get a new respect for eagles, creatures whose size is not apparent in the air, and only when you see one perched on the heroine’s arm, it’s razor-sharp beak inches from her eye. Then there’s Aisholpan herself, who clearly gives not one damn for any constraints “tradition” might want to place on her, and goes about her eagle-training business with an infectious smile. Oh, and she’s studying to be a doctor when she grows up. If she went on her rounds with an eagle on her arm, so much the better, I’d say.

Finally, we get to bask in the gloriously stunned silence of the elders, after Aisholpan has demonstrated her skills (and, admittedly, those of her avian familiar) at the tournament. They then point out that, well, anybody – even a girl – can do well enough in the comfortable setting of a field. She could never withstand the harsh conditions faced by real hunters, in the mountains. Guess where Aisholpan’s next stop is? Yep. She takes her bird and heads off into those mountains, through snowdrifts which reach up to the flank of her horse, to hunt foxes for their fur. In terms of teenage empowerment, it sure beats getting a tattoo and hanging out at the mall.

Dir: Otto Bell
Star: Aisholpan Nurgaiv, Rys Nurgaiv, Daisy Ridley (narrator)