Tag: w

Wildflower Bride, by Mary Connealy

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

Barb and I discovered evangelical Christian author Mary Connealy through her Sophie’s Daughters trilogy, partially set in Montana in the years from 1878 to 1884. Several characters who figure in her earlier Montana Marriages trilogy, of which this novel is the third, also play important roles in the later one. So we were interested in their back stories; and when I found this book in a thrift store, it was a natural purchase! (We’ve also just started reading the second installment; long story!) This means we’re reading the trilogy in reverse order; so we started with much more knowledge of the characters’ future than the original readers would have (the read was more like a visit with old friends). However, I’ll avoid spoilers in this review. (Obviously, though, it might contain “spoilers” for the earlier Montana Marriages novels.)

This tale opens in late spring/early summer, 1877, as young Wade Sawyer is awakened by gunfire as he’s sleeping in his small cabin high in the Montana Rockies. The shots come from the nearby small Indian village, which is being massacred by four masked whites. Arriving too late to prevent the deaths of most of the inhabitants, Wade manages to wound one of the fleeing murderers, and finds Glowing Sun, a young woman raised for the past dozen years by the Salish (called Flathead by the whites), ever since they found her alone at about the age of eight after disease killed her white family, still alive. (One of the killers had tried to abduct her, but she slashed his face with her knife and escaped.) Her white name, as she recalls, is Abby, and she and Wade have met previously (as recounted, apparently, earlier in the trilogy), last fall –and were in fact attracted to each other; but she had an Indian fiance at the time, through an arranged engagement. He’s now dead; and when she’s cast out by a surviving matriarch who never liked her (and who blames her for attracting the massacre, assuming that the attackers’ motive was rape), she’s left alone in the world again. Soon after, Wade’s summoned to the bedside of his estranged rancher father, injured and maybe dying; and since he won’t desert Abby, and she believes responding to the summons is his duty, she comes along with him.

Like all Connealy novels, this is a clean “romance” (in the modern-day book trade sense); but it has more going for it than romance (otherwise, I wouldn’t have read and liked it!). For one thing, it’s a perceptive exploration of cross-cultural romance, of the specific clashing cultures of whites and Indians in the late 19th-century West, and an ethically-aware indictment of the former’s treatment of the latter. (Abby doesn’t have much use for the attitudes and practices of a white culture she’s mostly long abandoned, though she hasn’t forgotten the language, and a lot of her criticisms strike home.) It’s also a hard look at the dynamics of a dysfunctional, abusive family –because Wade’s estranged from his dad for good reason!– at co-dependency and how insidious it can be, and what does (or doesn’t) contribute to familial healing. There’s also a decided helping of Western-style mystery, because there’s intrigue afoot on the Sawyer ranch. Who’s behind the outbreak of cattle rustling in the area? And who were the attackers of Abby’s village, and what was their real motive?

Connealy’s a Christian author, whose world-view influences her writing. Christian characters are common in her novels (Red Dawson, a supporting character here, is a lay preacher as well as a rancher). Wade has a sincere Christian faith, as does Abby, fostered in her case by the missionary activity of real-life Jesuit Pierre-Jean De Smet (1801-1873) and his colleagues, who really did have considerable success in their work among the Salish, and whose treatment here is very positive. (The author’s approach to Christian faith is –commendably, IMO– nondenominational, though sectarian rivalries and animosities weren’t nonexistent in the real 19th-century West.) It’s seen here as a genuine source of moral reformation, courage in adversity, and guidance and help in daily life; but though it’s referred to more here than in the later trilogy, I wouldn’t describe this one as “preachy.”

Christian ethics, with its basis in the love commands, also raises a serious issue for reflection, when it needs to be lived out in a violent environment, among people some of whom are perfectly willing to kill you, and others, to get things they want. Wade wrestles with this some, as does Abby –in fact, more so, since while Wade wears a gun and can use it, she’s considerably more combat capable than he is. (She’s also a stronger-willed personality than he is, and the more dominant partner in the relationship –okay, that word’s not a spoiler, any reader knows these two are destined for each other!– and Wade’s willing to recognize that there’s nothing wrong with that.) While she’s not into guns (though if she slugs you in the head with one, you won’t get up for awhile), she’s handy with her knife, and it doesn’t leave her person –unless she needs to throw it. Her personality could best be described as hot-tempered and fierce. The conclusion she comes to is that forcibly defending yourself and others IS morally right, but relishing the damage done isn’t; and she’s honest enough to admit that she needs to work on her attitude in that area. So when the chips are down here, the main question may not be, will our hero rescue the damsel in distress? Given their respective skill sets, it might be, will our tough damsel rescue her guy in distress? :-)

Author: Mary Connealy
Publisher: Barbour Publishing; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

The Woman Prisoner No. 407 series

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★★½
“Cat’s entertainment.”

An apparent knock-off of Japan’s Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion and its sequels, there’s some uncertainty about the origins of this. I’ve seen it called Korean, Taiwanese or even from Hong Kong. While the cast suggest Taiwan, the director is from Korea, so that’s where I’m going to tag it. Indeed, it’s not quite clear how connected the two entries are: while they share a director and two leads, the plots don’t seem to connect up. Even the IMDb synopsis go to different countries. For the first, it says: “Kang-hie recalls from her cell how she was used by Japanese detectives to track down and destroy the Korean independence fighters. She manages to escape from prison during a break and proceeds to hunt down her former lover who was a Japanese agent.” The second? “Japan conquers China just before WW2 starts. Chinese women are captured and placed in concentration camps, where they are tortured and humiliated. Some try to escape incurring enormous risks, and death if they fail.” Insert shrug emoticon here.

Disentangling the plot for part one required me to deal with subtitles that barely even approach English, and were frequently vanishing off the side of the screen. I’m still not sure whether Don Wen Yue and Dwarn Tien Yu were the names of two different characters, or just sloppy mis-spellings of the same person’s name. Either way, the IMDb synopsis above seems rather inaccurate, unless you squint considerably. Don is an inmate at a Japanese prison-camp, where she is being harshly treated with the aim of making her give up a microfilm which her captors want to obtain. Her status as the daughter of a diplomat is of no help, apparently. However, help is on the way, as it turns out a newly arrived inmate has actually been inserted into the camp into order to assist Don in busting out – along with quite a few friends. Though escaping is only the beginning of their struggle for freedom.

The first chunk of this is painfully prosaic, with sadistic guards (though for a while I wondered if one of them was Yukari Oshima; certainly looks like her, but the era of the movie makes it unlikely). foiled escapes and generally the kind of shenanigans you would expect from the genre. There’s not much invention, and it’s hardly more than PG-rated. Things actually improve a bit once they escape, and it becomes a wilderness survival film. The women have to avoid the threats, not just of the guards in pursuit, but also crocodiles (or alligators, not that it matters) and even a killer plant which tries to wrap its tentacles around them. I’m a sucker for a good killer plant moment, and have to admit that this scene is likely responsible for about half a star of the rating above. There’s eventually an energetic battle on the beach after some betrayal, though it all feels too little, too late.

Moving onto part two, things have… changed. Part one ended with its sole survivor sailing off in a boat. This opens with its two heroines, Kuan Mou-Hua (Yip) and Kao Chuan Tze (Heo), back running through the jungle, apparently escaping from… something. I actually watched this part first, and initially presumed the specifics were all explained in the previous installment. I can now confidently state: nope. Like so much here, even down to the location, it’s unclear. Perhaps the untranslated captions shed light on this; the dubbing (the version I saw was in German with English subs!) certainly doesn’t.

Their bid for freedom is foiled, and they’re returned to captivity under their Japanese masters. Kuan is a bit of a flight risk, and the warden, Kato (Chen), decides the best thing to do is bump her off. However, rather than direct action, which would presumably cause too much paperwork, he’d rather she be killed in an “accident”. When plans to drop the pair off a cliff during their transfer fail, he tries to entrap them into escaping, drown them in a water tank, and finally burn them alive. [I guess the latter does at least prove somewhat successful, in that multiple prisoners are killed. Just not the ones they want]

With the aid of sympathetic guard , Kuan escapes – albeit without her friend, who commits suicide rather than going through further Japanese torture. Sorry: that probably merits a spoiler warning, I guess. Harried by their pursuers, Kuan and Lee make their way through the countryside – including probably the longest handcar chase in the history of cinema. So there’s that… Rather than slide into obscurity, her burning obsession is to take revenge on Kato. For he is about to escape punishment for all his crimes, including the death of Kao, being in cahoots with the judges. This burning quest to carry out vengeance, while relatively minor (it only plays a significant role in the last 15 minutes), is another element which echoes Prisoner Scorpion.

It’s all blandly forgettable: I watched it on Saturday, and by Monday, I’d forgotten so much, I couldn’t remember enough to write about it, until a swift re-view at 8x speed. This second screening largely confirmed its mediocrity, and the movie is in significant need of more, across the board. In particular, more energy: especially in its central performances, which wants someone like Meiko Kaji, around whom the plot can be anchored. Though I won’t lie, more sex and violence might have been no bad thing either, as it’s almost impressively tame. It has plenty of opportunities for nudity, right from an opening gratuitous swimming scene – it just chooses to pass them by. Viewers would likely be best off doing the same to this movie – and to be honest, perhaps the entire series.

Dir: Shin Sang-Ok
Star: Karen Yip, Heo Jin, Bong-jin Jin, Chen Hung-Lieh
a.k.a. Girl in the Tiger Cage and Revenge in the Tiger Cage

The Witch Files

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★★★
“The Breakfast Coven.”

If John Hughes directed a film about witchcraft, it’d probably end up like this. For you have five stereotypical high-school girls in detention: Brooke the rich bitch (Ziolkoski); Greta the jock (Adrienne Rose-White); M.J. the timid mouse (Robinson); Jules the goth (Flatmo); and Claire the nerd (Taylor), who isn’t actually in detention, just doing a report on it for the school TV channel. [90% of the film is the ‘found footage’ she shoots of subsequent events, a conceit for which I usually don’t have much time… and here is no different, occasionally requiring pretzel-like contrivance.] Jules mysteriously triggers the fire-alarm to get them all out early. After she reveals this no big thing was part of her witchy skills, the other four enthusiastically agree to take part in a ceremony binding them together, into a coven.

At first, it’s remarkably easy: they basically just chant whatever they want, and it shows up. Life becomes a bowl of free designer clothes and undeserved ‘A’ grades. But, inevitably, there’s a price to pay, and the young women start to find that minor physical ailments are accelerating at a highly disturbing rate. [This is nicely tied into the historical portrayal of witches as wizened crones, explained as a result of the magical energy expended] While some of the girls want to stop their dabbling in occult practices, others have become addicted to their new-found powers and refuse to stop. Given the previous binding, this is a problem. Additionally, the town’s past offers a long association with witchcraft, and a recurring pattern of strange events, taking place every seventeen years. As in almost every American high-school horror film since Carrie, this builds to a showdown at a school party.

This over-familiarity is likely the main problem, with both characters and story-line coming over decidedly as nothing you haven’t seen before. Even if you never watched Charmed or The Craft (or Swedish take on the same, The Circle), the tropes in question will be entirely recognizable, and the film offers few if any surprises. Credit is due to the actresses, however, who take their two-dimensional characters and do a good job of bringing them to life. This keeps the film rolling along, when on occasion it threatens to stall out completely. Ziolkoski probably does best, helping the audience understand the allure of mystical power, though the entire ensemble gel together nicely.

In the end though, there isn’t sufficient here to set it apart from those which have gone before. It doesn’t help that the magical battles in the final third are well beyond the capacity of the budget to depict. The optical/digital effects unfortunately mostly feel like they were copy-pasted in from an eighties Full Moon Features project. There is one nice bit of vehicular mayhem, though even there, Final Destination did it better. If you haven’t ever seen a film about teenage girls and witchcraft, you could certainly do a lot worse. But there can’t be many of you out there.

Dir: Kyle Rankin
Star: Britt Flatmo, Holly Taylor, Alice Ziolkoski, Tara Robinson

The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion

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★★★
“Lucy  in disguise…”

The first in an intended trilogy, this stands on its own reasonably well, balancing between tying up the loose ends and leaving the future uncertain. The heroine is Ja-Yoon (Kim), who begins by escaping from a shadowy, quasi-governmental facility as a raw eight-year-old, despite being hunted by the woman in charge, Dr. Baek (Jo) and her minions. She is found by husband and wife farmers, and they adopt Ja-Yoon, who has no apparent memory of her early life as their own. Ten years later, with Mom suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the farm struggling financially, Ja-Yoon enters a nationwide singing contest. However, the resulting attention brings her firmly back on the radar of Dr. Baek and Nobleman (Choi), the other survivor from that night a decade ago. The not-so-good doctor won’t let Ja-Yoon escape this time.

After a messy opening, which establishes Dr. Baek as someone specializing in giving no damns at all, this certainly takes its time to get going. For most of the first hour and a half, it’s mostly Ja-Yoon and perky best friend Myung-hee (Go) interacting and progressing through the competition. Though when you hear her… ah, let’s just say “startling” and leave it at that, rendition of Danny Boy, you’ll wonder if perhaps she was selected as the Korean version of William Hung. Meanwhile, the villains are hovering nearby in ways which appear so obvious and suspicious, they would be rejected as painfully unsubtle by Auric Goldfinger.

Eventually, even they realize a more direct approach is needed, i.e. Nobleman storming the farmhouse and threatening everyone Ja-Yoon cares about if she refuses to co-operate. This proves successful, and she meekly goes off to see Dr Baek at her new facility. But as the title and the cover both suggest, Ja-Yoon might be quite comfortable, coming to terms with her inner superwoman. The final 30 minutes show her to be not so meek after all. The movie certainly makes up for lost time, with a slew of well-choreographed mayhem, as our heroine goes all Lucy on the asses of everyone within reach, now she’s using more than 10% of her brain. Or maybe all Hanna? For, in many ways, this is a cross between them, with the pseudo-scientific approach of the former, and the “innocent who strikes back” of the latter.

At more than two hours in length, it would probably have benefited from being about half an hour shorter. The entire “talent show” angle could have been covered just as effectively in about five minutes. And if the bad guys has been more direct, instead of opting for lurking and dropping ominous hints, that would have been a major time-saver as well. However, the twist near the end is handled effectively, and the resulting carnage is brutal and effective. I was left with more than slight interest in the next entry. It will hopefully provide more in the action department, and less in the way of poorly-executed exposition.

Dir: Park Hoon-jung
Star: Kim Da-mi, Jo Min-su, Choi Woo-shik, Go Min-si
a.k.a. Manyeo

Wish Me Luck

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★★★½
“Life during wartime.”

This British TV series ran for three series from 1988 through 1990, with 23 episodes (each an hour long including commercials) in total. The same creators had previously been responsible for another WW2-based show, Tenko, about women in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp after the fall of Singapore. The time period here is similar – the second half of World War 2 – but the focus moves from the Far East to Occupied Europe, in particular, France. At this point, the Allies were sending in agents to assist the local Resistance – and as we’ve documented before, this was one of the few areas where women were used as much as men.

While partly inspired by the exploits of Nancy ‘The White Mouse’ Wake, the show cover a range of characters, both at home on London and on the ground in Vichy France. The main one present throughout is Faith Ashley (Asher), who eventually rises to run the department from London. She is responsible for recruiting (more or less) suitable candidates, getting them trained, and once they’re embedded, managing their needs. In the first season, it’s an exercise in contrasts: the two main agents sent over are an upper-class housewife Liz Grainger (Buffery), and factory worker from a refugee Jewish family, Matty Firman (Suzanna Hamilton). In the second and third series, the focus is more on Emily Whitbread (Snowden), an initially rather naive woman, barely old enough to join up. She quickly has to adapt and make some extremely difficult decisions.

It’s at its most effective when concentrating on ratcheting up the tension and depicting life in enemy territory, where the slightest slip can prove fatal. Interestingly, there’s no attempt made at the players speaking – or in most cases, even sounding – French. Yet, this is easy to forget, and soon seems natural, with their English accents still conveying information about their position and social standing. Less successful, with the exception of the final season, are the aspects portraying life in Britain. These are just not very interesting, save for the last batch of episodes. In those, Faith tries, with increasing desperation, to get much-needed resources for a rebellion, when the higher-ups are far more concerned with matters elsewhere. It’s an object lesson that the needs of the many may outweigh the needs of the few – yet the consequence for the few are no less tragic as a result.

The last season also has considerably loftier production values, with location shooting in France, and significantly more military hardware on view. However, the cheap music still undercuts this, apparently being played by a three-man band, when the action really needs something sweeping and orchestral. That still doesn’t destroy the tension of the final few episodes, when it becomes increasingly clear that the makers have no intention on letting all the characters walk off into the sunset unharmed. But you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because in wartime, there’s really no such thing as a happy ending.

Creators: : Jill Hyem & Lavinia Warner
Star: Jane Asher, Jane Snowden, Michael J. Jackson, Kate Buffery

What Keeps You Alive

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★★★★
“Predatory lesbian.”

In the modern, politically-correct era, it’s less common to see a film which has a sexual minority as an unabashed villain. Something like Basic Instinct got a lot of flak at the time, and would likely be rejected out of hand by gay-friendly Hollywood these days, as would Silence of the Lambs. So it was kinda refreshing to see a movie which brings us an unashamedly psycho lesbo in the form of Jackie (Anderson). Yet it’s not her sexuality which makes her evil, though she does feel she was “born this way” – or, as Jackie puts it: “It’s nature, not nurture.”

Certainly, the warning signs are there early, when she and her wife Jules (Allen) go for a first anniversary weekend in Jackie’s remote family cabin by a lake. Strike one: we rapidly discover Jackie is a fake name, something she hadn’t told her other half. Strike two: singing a song to Jules with lyrics like “There’s a demon inside / Blood, let it out.” Strike three: telling a story about a childhood hunting trip and a deer, ending in the line, “I just stood over it for the next 20 minutes and I watched the life slowly fade from her eyes.” If you’re not hearing alarm bells ringing loudly, you’ve clearly not seen enough movies. Jules, blinded by love, is about the only one apparently oblivious to the foreshadowing.

To the film’s credit, it doesn’t stretch this out [the trailer, below, is similarly open about the dynamic here], and it’s not too long before Jules is propelled off a cliff to her apparent doom. Except, by the time Jackie meanders down to the foot, ready for a tearful call to the authorities, the body has gone. The fall wasn’t as fatal as intended, and the rest of the film plays like a two-person version of Revenge, with Jules deciding, “I’m not going to let you do it again.” For did we mention Jackie’s first wife? Or the childhood friend who ‘drowned’ in the lake? Because she certainly does…

Almost inevitably for the genre, some suspension of disbelief is needed here. The injuries suffered by Jules in the initial fall are all but forgotten by the end, and there’s other foreshadowing which seems less than subtle, such as the very obvious gun hanging on a wall And was Jules a failed medical student? There’s one line of dialogue hinting towards that, and it would go some way to explaining a number of things. Couldn’t it perhaps have been made clearer?

Yet these are minor issues, which certainly did not impact my sheer enjoyment of this very much. There are two excellent lead performances, in addition to solid work by Minihan, which cranks up the tension impeccably – a rowing race across the lake is a particular highlight. It all makes for a sharp improvement on the director’s previous feature, It Stains the Sands Red – which also starred Allen and put her character in similarly perpetual peril – and is a fine example of a B-movie that punches above its weight.

Dir: Colin Minihan
Star: Hannah Emily Anderson, Brittany Allen, Martha MacIsaac, Joey Klein

Wonder Woman (2009)

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★★★½
“A little short of truly Wonder-ful.”

Often forgotten in the critical acclaim for the live-action feature, is the animated film released by Warner Brothers in 2009. It wasn’t an enormous hit – plans for a sequel were scrapped due to its slow sales – but is worth a revisit in the the wake of Gal Gadot’s subsequent portrayal. There are some strong overlaps in the two films’ plots: in both, the crash-landing of pilot Steve Trevor (Fillion) kicks off the Amazons’ re-connection to mortal mankind, and Ares (Molina) is the common villain.

The most obvious difference is the time-frame; rather than the middle of World War I, this takes place in the present day. Additionally, Ares is initially in Amazon custody, escaping with the help of Persephone, an Amazon he has seduced to his side. Diana (Russell) is tasked with re-capturing the god before he can bring about  Zeus’s first goal is to remove the bracers, put on him by Zeus, which limit his powers. They can only be removed by another god, and he seeks the help of his uncle, god of the underworld Hades (Oliver Platt). That done, he raises an army, including the Amazonian dead, and attacks Washington, which causes the President to launch a nuke at Themyscira, believing it to be behind the attack. It’s up to Diana to stop Zeus, and to Steve to stop the missile.

There are chunks of this which are really good, not least the action. Those scenes had to be trimmed down to avoid an R-rating (rumblings of that version getting a release, have yet to be proven true), and what remains is beautifully animated, yet brutal at the same time. This perhaps reaches its peak with the battle through Manhattan between Diana and Ares’s warrior-son, Deimos (below), which for my money is the equal of anything in the live-action film. The relationship between Steve and Diana is another strong suit, helped by strong voice-work from both actors. I think the contemporary setting helps, too, avoiding the rather obvious gender politics angle shoehorned into the more recent film, in favour of more subtle consideration of such points [I was impressed that even the traitor Amazon is given a philosophical motive for her betrayal, and it offers pause for thought].

However, there are other aspects which seem very poorly thought-out. After defeating Deimos, who commits suicide rather than reveal anything, Diana gets a medallion off the corpse. Next scene, they’re sneaking into Ares’s lair. Uh, what? It feels almost as if there was a chunk missing, a feeling enhanced by the relatively terse 75-minute running time. Perhaps this also explained the whole “invisible jet” thing – something wisely abandoned entirely by the live-action film, since it never made much sense. Here, it shows up with no explanation, later firing invisible missiles.

The final battle also relies upon too much contrivance (oh, look: someone pulls a spell out of thin air to free the Amazonian zombies), though at least Ares here proves a worthy adversary, unlike in the live-action film, where he was close to the weakest link. Still, even if it’s perhaps aimed at a younger audience than your humble author, and was missing the sense of awe generated by Gal Gadot’s sword-swinging, this was entertaining and well-made. Worth a look.

Dir: Lauren Montgomery
Star (voice): Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Alfred Molina, Rosario Dawson

Widows

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★★★½
“Widows piqued.”

This is based on a TV series from Britain, which ran for two seasons in the eighties – I’ve seen it, but for some reason never got round to writing about it. The show would have been right in our wheelhouse, being written by Lynda LaPlante, who also created Prime Suspect. This version transplants the action from London to Chicago, and retains the basis story at its core. When their husbands die in connection with an attempted armed robbery, the wives of the late participants decide to take up the mantle of criminal enterprise, using a dossier of plans left behind. However, the motive is different here. The money stolen, and subsequently destroyed, belonged to crime boss Jamal Manning, who demands Veronica Rawlings (Davis), wife of the robbers’ leader, repay it back. All two million dollars of it.

It ups the ante compared to the British version: there, it was largely a desire by Mrs. Rawlins, simply to follow in her husband’s footsteps. It probably makes Veronica more sympathetic, though she’s not quite as hard-ass as Dolly was, across the pond. Less effective is the desire to add various political and social subtexts to things. For Manning is standing for office in a local election, seeking to disrupt things by going up against Jack Mulligan (Farrell), the scion of a long-standing dynasty. While it turns out both the original robbery and Veronica’s planned crime play into this power struggle, it does divert from the main story. And don’t even get me started on the Rawlings’ son having been killed by the police, an entirely pointless thread. [Except when shooting people, the cops here are notable by their absence] With considerably less time available than in the original, which ran for six, hour-long episodes, this is problematic.

It’s especially so when it comes to depicting the rest of the widows beyond Veronica, who are given scant attention in term of their characters. This is a shame, especially in the case of Alice Gunner (Debicki). The actress cuts a striking figure, not least because she’s 6’2″ – or one inch shorter than Brienne of Tarth. :) Rodriguez is similarly wasted, in a role that doesn’t make much use of her presence. Fortunately, Davis is up to the task, and is just as impressive as she was in Lila & Eve. [Though despite some efforts, Chris still hasn’t got me to watch Davis in How to Get Away With Murder!]

Falling therefore into the category of good, rather than great, it would perhaps have been better to copy the British structure and make this a mini-series – though does anyone still make those any more? Shonda Rimes is, perhaps, the contemporary American version of LaPlante, and the creator of HtGAWM would have seemed an ideal person to do such an adaptation justice. Water under the bridge, however, and if you can overlook the occasionally over-earnest wokeness on display, this is still solid enough, anchored perfectly well by Davis’s fibe performance.

Dir: Steve McQueen
Star: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Colin Farrell

Women of Mafia

  By

★★★½
“Poles apart.”

This is new territory for me, being the first Polish film to qualify here. Turns out, director Vega has, largely single-handedly, driven a bit of a new wave of cinema from that country. Rather than the lugubrious dramas of Krzysztof Kieślowski, Vega is more like Guy Ritchie, making violent gangster flicks. In this case, the script came with direct input from the gangsters themselves, one of whom contacted Vega after being annoyed by their portrayal in a previous movie. Probably wisely, he opted to take their criticisms on board here…

It’s very much an ensemble piece, covering the stories of five different women. Though perhaps the film’s biggest issue is they’re not quite different enough, and for some time, I was sure that two were the same person! It starts with police officer Bela (Bołądź), being recruited to go undercover and infiltrate the Mokotowska organized crime gang, whose boss Padrino (Bogusław Linda) rules Warsaw with an iron fist. She becomes the lover of one of his top henchmen, known as Cieniu (Fabijański). When he eventually is arrested, his wife Anya (Warnke) and their nanny, Daria (Dygant), take on the mantle, and start working for Padrino instead.

It was Bela and Daria I conflated, initially thinking that Cieniu [which is Polish for “shadow” – never say we’re not educational here!] had got Bela a job in his house, after falling for her. I was eventually disavowed of that, not least because Daria has a real talent for the criminal world, in particular the brutality necessary to survive. This becomes particular apparent after the film’s most harrowing scene, where she takes her revenge on another gang who tried to muscle in on her drug-running business. By the time she’s done, all that’s left of them is their teeth. To be honest, Vega might have been better concentrating on her character, as Daria’s transition from mild-mannered nanny to bad-ass is awesome.

The rest of the stories and character arcs are more of a mixed bag. Bela largely vanishes from the film in the middle, which concentrated on Ania and Daria – the former is a real trophy wife, dumb as they come, and interested only in being able to spend money. There’s also Padrino’s daughter, known as “Futro” (Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz), who is the apple of her daddy’s eye – made apparent in a great scene where he praises her singing talent… and we then hear what she sounds like. That affection can be used against him, and when Futro’s drug use becomes a problem, Bela poses as a therapist to get into her father’s house that way. The fifth woman… I literally have no recollection of: Siekiera, played by Aleksandra Poplawska. Sorry. 

Even at 138 minutes long, the film is perhaps spread too thin: a mini series might have given the material more room to breathe. However, this is still an impressive, entertaining watch, and the time flies by. It’s slickly produced, and populated by figures who bear the shape of real-life – albeit perhaps in an exaggerated form. Vega has stated his intention is to make a trilogy, and the end certainly points that way. I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Dir:Patryk Vega
Star: Olga Bołądź, Sebastian Fabijański, Katarzyna Warnke, Agnieszka Dygant
a.k.a. Kobiety Mafii

WWE Evolution 2018

  By

★★★½
“The truth about the Evolution”

The WWE has had a fraught relationship with women’s wrestling over the years, but things seem to have been heading in a positive direction recently. They dropped the terrible “Divas” tag, renaming the belt back to being the women’s championship, and with Triple-H overseeing things, seemed to be bringing in talent based on wrestling ability, rather than just looks. While very much a work in progress, this led to ground being broken on October 28, with the company holding its first-ever pay-per-view show entirely filled with women’s matches. That there was enough talent to make such a show possible, in itself indicated how things had changed. However, it was not without controversy.

The event itself was announced in July, and may have been a reaction to criticism of WWE after their April Greatest Royal Rumble show in Saudi Arabia. Due to that country’s social climate, women were not allowed to wrestle there, and after a promo video included them in action, the Saudi General Sports Authority issued an apology for this “indecent material.” Having a women-only PPV seemed like an acknowledgement of the issues. Yet Evolution was overshadowed by another WWE event in Saudi Arabia, scheduled a week later – a situation not helped by the murder of local journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the country’s consulate in Istanbul. The concept also came in for criticism from those who felt the company was patting itself on the back for “evolving” out of depths which were entirely of Vince McMahon’s own making.

I can’t honestly say these factors had any impact on my interest in the largest women’s show ever – at least, in the United States. For back in 1994, AJW held their oddly-named Big Egg Wrestling Universe show at the Tokyo Dome, with a crowd of over thirty thousand in attendance. In comparison, attendance at the Nassau Coliseum was less than one-third that, at 10,900. Still, it was an order of magnitude up on the previous American high, likely belonging to Impact Wrestling‘s One Night Only: Knockouts Knockdown show, which took place before a crowd of 1,100 in May 2014. And, for me, the possible positives heavily outweigh any negatives: a good show could encourage viewers to check out all-women federations like Shimmer or Shine. A rising tide floats all boats – I note a local Arizona federation staged its first gyno-centric show the weekend after Evolution.

But would they deliver? Technically, it was a decent presentation by WWE, if a little smaller-scale than expected – the regular RAW set-up was elsewhere in the country, so they had to make do a bit in terms of lighting and spectacle. I did like the commentary team of Michael Cole, Beth Phoenix and Renee Young, who all seemed genuinely enthusiastic – even Cole, who can sometimes come over as a bit of a dick. With that said, let’s go through the seven matches on the official card (there was a ‘dark’ bout that took place before the broadcast began) and see how they fared. Spoilers. of necessity, follow the rest of the way.

1. Trish Stratus and Lita defeated Mickie James and Alicia Fox. Things started slowly, as two retired Hall of Famers returned to kick the show off. Though James has been around almost as long, and fought against Stratus and Lita when they were active (both retired in 2006). This seemed intended as a bridge, to link the past to the present, but the fact the veterans had been out of ring action for more than a decade inevitably meant this was mostly slow and careful. Though the biggest botch belonged to Fox, whose save on a pinfall attempt was so late, the referee had to stop counting. The icons won after Lita hit her signature moonsault. She was the first woman I ever saw doing that move, and it’s still impressive [especially now at the age of 43!].

2. Nia Jax won by the 20-woman Battle Royal. Never been a big fan of the Battle Royal; it makes the ring look like a brawl on a rush-hour train in the early stages. Still, it was nice to see some more veterans, including Alundra Blayze, and Molly Holly, whom we interviewed in 2006. Iy did showcase the depth of women’s talent now present in the WWE. There were times in the past when I doubt they could have found 20 women in the company for a bout like this, without including make-up artists and secretaries. Things became less chaotic once we eventually got down to the final few competitors, and I was pleased to see Jax win. She’s one of the furthest from the archetypal “Diva” – billed at six foot tall and 273 pounds – yet unlike some of the larger men, is no slouch in the ring. Fun fact: her cousin is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

3. Toni Storm defeated Io Shirai in the 2018 Mae Young Classic tournament final. The first singles match was an excellent one, despite being between two wrestlers not yet on the main roster. Both were familiar though: Storm had reached the semi-finals of the 2017 Mae Young Classic, while Shirai was part of one of our all-time favourite matches on Lucha Underground. Storm is an Australian, and could hardly be more archetypally Antipodean if she tried: tall, blond and fit. She’s going to be a star. For Shirai, the problem for WWE may be finding people of her level, against whom she can wrestle. I almost sensed her having to slow down and pull her punches here, to avoid overwhelming Storm. As with most Japanese wrestlers, the key to her success in the West will be if she can get her personality on the mic, something which has limited many of them in the past.

4. Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Natalya defeated The Riott Squad (Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, and Sarah Logan). There’s nothing like a good bad girl, and the Riott Squad provides three of them. They certainly had my backing – but then, I’ve never been impressed by Banks, and for some reason, Bayley irritates me more than anything (I think it’s at least partly the hair). I thought the Squad worked particularly well as a team. If the rumblings about WWE introducing a women’s tag division prove true, then you could pick any two of the trio and they’d be more than credible contenders. Their opponents though? Meh. Largely forgettable, even Natalya, who typically represents good value for money.

5. Shayna Baszler defeated Kairi Sane for the NXT Women’s Championship. The two, shown below, have been feuding in NXT  (the WWE’s top developmental brand), with former MMA fighter Baszler winning the title in April, but losing it to Sane in August. This was also a rematch of the final from the first Mae Young Classic, in which Sane prevailed over the “submission magician” Baszler – and was similar in content, with Bazler trying to ground and pound Sane, while the latter used her speed and agility to stay out of her opponent’s grasp. While Sane lost, it was largely only through the intervention of Baszler’s friends in the front-row, who helped her regain the title. That dubious interference helps solidify her heel status nicely, though she will need to do a better job of not seeming like Pepsi to Ronda Rousey’s Coke.

6. Becky Lynch defeated Charlotte Flair in a Last Woman Standing match for the WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship. This was pretty much a universal pick as match of the night: in Cageside Seats‘s poll, it got 86% of the votes, with nothing else at more than 4%. I can see why (though preferred Storm/Shirai). At almost half an hour long, it was epic in length: a stark contrast to the women’s match which started the #GiveDivasAChance trend on Twitter, and helped open the door for this show. That bout in 2015, pitted Paige & Emma against the Bella Twins, and lasted… 26 seconds. However, Lynch’s superior talent was often glaringly obvious, especially in the early stages, with Flair starting very slowly. She did improve as it went on, and this eventually blossomed into a full-on brawl, with kendo sticks and ladders used without mercy as weapons. It ended when Lynch powerbombed Flair through a table, and left her unable to beat the referee’s ten-count – the only way to win this match. It was certainly the fight that defined the event.

7. Ronda Rousey defeated Nikki Bella for the WWE Raw Women’s Championship. Our daughter went to school in Scottsdale with the Bella Twins. I’m sure she would have enjoyed seeing Nikki get the crap pounded out of her by “the most dangerous woman on the planet”. It was interesting how Nikki uses “diva” – WWE’s official designation for women wrestlers until April 2016 – as a term to get heel heat. In many ways, she is the last of that ‘old guard’, and to be honest, the sooner she’s gone the better, because she and her sister still can’t do more than take part in glorified catfights and make duck-faces. As such, Rousey is the anti-Bellas, and I’m fine with that. However, I’m unimpressed by WWE giving her the title, four months after her pro wrestling debut – at Wrestlemania. Considering the women who have honed their craft in obscurity for decades (hello, Mercedes Martinez), guess there’s still work to be done before WWE truly “gets” it.

All told, it was a solid event, especially considering it was the first of its kind. Yet if it is to be at all meaningful, it can’t be the last, and if WWE could avoid overshadowing it next time, simultaneously shooting itself in the foot, that would be just great… There won’t be quite the same novelty to promote Evolution II, yet that shouldn’t be a problem, as long as the weekly shows continue to provide a chance for the women to show their talents on a regular basis. It’s been a long time since I’ve been as optimistic about the potential future for women’s wrestling in the West, and despite the flaws, in future years we may look back to this event as a watershed in its blossoming.

Star: Ronda Rowsey, Nikki Bella, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair