"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Mercenaries From Hong Kong

You know who had a hell of a studio? Those Shaw Brothers. As far as a company that develops a formula and evolves an artform into a recognizable “brand,” those guys were tops. Within their voluminous catalog are hundreds of period martial arts films, including some of the best ever made, THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN and THE 8 DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER being my favorites of the small percentage I’ve seen. I’m sure I’ll be watching these for the rest of my life and never see all of the good ones or get tired of their approach.

But it’s still a special treat, an exotic delicacy, a rare limited edition collectors item when you see one that breaks out of the usual template. For example I love SUPER INFRA-MAN, their version of a kaiju movie. MERCENARIES FROM HONG KONG – the third film directed by Wong Jing, who recently did CHASING THE DRAGON with Donnie Yen – isn’t as unique as that, but it’s a beautiful thing: the talents of the Shaw Studios stunt teams and choreographers applied to a contemporary ’80s story with guns, grenades and motor vehicles. It came out in 1982, same year as FIRST BLOOD, but seems to predict that post-RAMBO-2 period with its Vietnam vets putting the team back together and returning to the jungle to fight drug lords. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as Sammo Hung’s amazing EASTERN CONDORS, but it’s a similar vibe of seeing tropes we love from American action being elaborated upon using techniques unique to Hong Kong cinema. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 31st, 2018 | 15 Comments »

Happy Death Day

HAPPY DEATH DAY is a nice little high concept horror movie. 90 minutes, fast paced, upbeat. When I first saw the teaser I thought “I can’t believe nobody’s thought to do that before!” and sure enough these people did it ably.

See, it’s GROUNDHOG DAY meets a slasher movie (specifically SCREAM 2 I would say). Oddly named sorority girl Tree (Jessica Rothe, LA LA LAND) wakes up hung over on her birthday in the dorm room of some geek she barely knows. She shame-walks out of there in her shoulderless sequin blouse, squinting at the bright sun, and goes through a busy day (rushed changing of clothes, late for class, awkward run-ins with guys, sorority meeting, avoiding her dad, attempted tryst with a teacher) before being stabbed to death by an unknown person in a baby mask (weird school mascot, good slasher mask). And then she wakes up in that dorm again, on her birthday again. So she has to keep re-living this day, but also solve her own murder so that maybe she can see tomorrow. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 30th, 2018 | 15 Comments »

Kickboxer: Retaliation

I don’t know what I was expecting from KICKBOXER: RETALIATION, the new sequel to 2016’s KICKBOXER: VENGEANCE, which was a remake of the 1989 Cannon classic KICKBOXER. I waited for midnight Thursday to watch it on V.O.D. as soon as it became available, so clearly I was excited. But I didn’t think it was gonna be this good.

The original Kurt Sloane, played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, only made it to his part 2 in the form of a body double unceremoniously shot to death in an alley, leaving three sequels to a never-mentioned-before Sloane brother played by Sasha Mitchell. The remake Kurt Sloane, played by stuntman Alain Moussi, gets to stick around. A different Van Damme character, Sloane’s mentor Master Durand, does survive for the sequel and continues to be the heart and soul of the series.

I love when sequels open with the character we know suddenly in a whole different place and life situation. My go-to example is RAMBO III, where we find John living in a temple in Thailand, winning underground stick fights for money. But this is more like a TEMPLE OF DOOM opening because we find Kurt in a tux, sexy salsa dancing with his now-wife Liu (Sara Malakul Lane, Seagal’s daughter in BELLY OF THE BEAST) on a train at night. They get attacked and he has to slow-motion fight some people, including on top of the train in pouring rain as it crosses a bridge, until they all fall off. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 29th, 2018 | 55 Comments »

Showdown in Manila

SHOWDOWN IN MANILA is the latest from Alexander Nevsky, the Russian bodybuilder turned b-movie actor who starred in and directed BLACK ROSE. This one is the directing debut of Mark Dacascos and it’s much more fun and ambitious than that last one, largely due to an EXPENDABLES-worthy cast of action icons.

Nevsky plays Nick Peyton, the leader of some sort of elite police strikeforce thing in Manila. In the prologue he leads a police raid and his whole team are wearing those giant helmets like in THE RAID – except for him, even though he’s 1-3 heads taller than all of them. Standing there ready to take it like a lightning rod. He doesn’t get shot in the head, but does get shot and fails to apprehend two ultimate b-action bad guys: Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (L.A. TAKEDOWN, KICKBOXER 2, SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO, MORTAL KOMBAT, BRIDGE OF DRAGONS) and Matthias Hues (NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER 2, I COME IN PEACE, BLACKBELT, MISSION OF JUSTICE, TALONS OF THE EAGLE, TC 2000). C-HT in particular looks like he’s enjoying the hell out of just strutting around in tropical gangster clothes being arrogant.

(read the rest of this shit…)

January 25th, 2018 | 11 Comments »

Ghost in the Shell (2017)

In my view Scarlett Johansson can do no wrong. But the live action manga and/or anime adaptation GHOST IN THE SHELL probly did itself a fatal wrong by casting her as the human-brained robot cop Major, a role that probly should’ve showcased an exciting up and coming Japanese-American actress.

I was skeptical about the controversy at first, because the animated version of the character looks white to my American eyes, and I mean she’s a robot she can look any way they want her to look, plus the story takes place in a very international future, and anyway it’s an American remake of a foreign film so by definition it’s gonna be changed for American culture, and additionally the director of the anime Momoru Oshii said that Johansson was perfect for the part, and it’s true that her roles in UNDER THE SKIN and LUCY prove that she’s uniquely qualified to play an ass-kicking almost-naked robot lady, and furthermore it’s not like it’s easy for her to get a lead role like this either, and anyway a couple years ago all the clamor was for Hollywood to make more big genre movies based around women, and back then nobody specified “white women don’t count.” So I feel bad for her.

But… I think the criticisms were legitimate. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 24th, 2018 | 37 Comments »

Accident Man

For those who came in late… The English actor and martial artist Scott Adkins is the reigning champ of low budget action. After catching our eye as the villain-turned-anti-hero Boyka in three UNDISPUTED sequels (2, 3, 4), as well as starring in two NINJA movies (1, 2) and the incredible UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING, he was clearly the era’s strongest answer to the iconic action stars of the ’90s like Jean-Claude Van Damme – who he co-starred with in THE SHEPHERD: BORDER PATROL, ASSASSINATION GAMES and EXPENDABLES 2. The latter was one of the many times we got hyped up for impending mainstream recognition only to find him playing Knife Guy Who Has Short Fight With Jason Statham. For years people hoped he’d be cast as Iron Fist or somebody in the Marvel Universe, until finally he was in DOCTOR STRANGE – and got beat up by a magic cape.

Little did we know that there was a comic book he’d been wanting to make into a movie since the age of 15, and this didn’t require a big special effects budget or a subduing of his talents. ACCIDENT MAN – starring, produced and co-written by Adkins – is an action-packed, darkly humorous hitman saga based on stories that appeared in the British comics anthology Toxic! in 1991, written by Pat Mills (Judge Dredd, etc.) (read the rest of this shit…)

January 23rd, 2018 | 59 Comments »

Breakaway

BREAKAWAY (1996) is another off-brand VHS-only b-movie of a type I like: clunky and obvious, but keeps it moving enough to be fun and allow me to appreciate the bits of personality. It’s not to be confused with the BREAKAWAY that stars Dean Cain or the one in my head about a breakdancer recruited to be an international spy during the Cold War. This is the one that stars Teri Thompson, who other than this and MARRIED PEOPLE, SINGLE SEX mostly had parts like “Murder Victim” in DARK AVENGER and “Restaurant Woman #2” in ALMOST DEAD and “Dildo Girl (uncredited)” in SORORITY BOYS before creating a Youtube series understandably titled “Hollywood Is Hard.” Here, though, she comes off as a star, overshadowing the other unfamiliar faces until Joe Estevez turns up as a hitman who becomes the main antagonist for a while.

Oh yeah, and “introducing Tonya Harding as Gina.” TONYA & NANCY: THE INSIDE STORY mentioned that the infamous Olympian wanted to start acting, maybe on a soap opera or something. This is what became of that aspiration. (Her only other acting credit is a 2003 film called THE PRIZE FIGHTER.) Here she plays a restaurant manager who the main character’s bombmaker boyfriend is cheating with. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 18th, 2018 | 7 Comments »

Tonya & Nancy: The Inside Story

When I moved a few months ago I found a box of VHS tapes deep in my closet, and on one of them had been taped the 1994 NBC Movie of the Week TONYA & NANCY: THE INSIDE STORY. I offer no explanation except that Elm Street’s own Nancy, Heather Langenkamp, plays Kerrigan. Anyway, I set it aside to watch after I, TONYA.

And when I did I was surprised to find how much the two biopics, made 23 years apart, have in common. Of course they hit many of the same famous moments and details, but also they both seem very self conscious about seeming exploitative and therefore attempt to elevate the material with a playful style involving mock interviews and contradictory viewpoints. Some of the scenes, like Tonya being chased by her stepbrother, her father leaving or the first time she meets Jeff Gillooly have weirdly similar staging. Both movies flash forward to Nancy screaming “Why?” early on and then take their time showing Harding’s life leading up to the attack (though this one does have scenes just about Kerrigan).

Both movies have a similar view of Tonya: her dad taught her boy things (shooting guns, shooting pool, fixing engines), her mom abused her, her step brother abused her, her husband abused her, she got swept up and either didn’t know or didn’t fully understand what these guys were doing on her behalf. Would you believe that both movies have a part where the fourth wall is broken to directly accuse the viewer of contributing to the abuse and exploitation of Tonya Harding? In this one it doesn’t come from the actor playing Harding, it comes from the actor playing the screenwriter of the TV movie! (read the rest of this shit…)

January 17th, 2018 | 8 Comments »

I, Tonya

From the naming convention that brought you I, ROBOT and I, FRANKENSTEIN comes I, TONYA. I, Vern, was concerned about this one from the second the production company logos started. Obviously I’m all for movies kicking off with a blast of funk, but I couldn’t see how such music represented Tonya Harding, the scandal-scarred bad girl of Olympic figure skating, icon of early ’90s teased bangs, discussed in this movie as going to a Richard Marx concert, disparaged for her allegedly low class music choices in competitions (“Sleeping Bag” by ZZ Top), declaring herself a redneck, marrying a white man who wears a turtleneck under a cardigan.

Okay, they got a Chicago song on there, I buy that. But Violent Femmes? Siouxsie and the Banshees covering Iggy Pop? And yes, there’s a prominent use of “Spirit in the Sky.” All movies that aspire to hipness have “Spirit in the Sky.”

Throughout the movie these wall-to-wall needle drops never said to me “This is the soul of Tonya Harding,” but instead “Guys, this is like BOOGIE NIGHTS! This is like GOODFELLAS! Right Guys? It’s like Scorsese!” An Entertainment Weekly  interview with music supervisor Susan Jacobs confirms that she sees it as “the soundtrack of AMERICAN HUSTLE or a Scorsese film.” She says they chose ’70s and early ’80s music because “there’s a warmth to the ’70s that does not exist to the ’80s and ’90s.” Sorry Richard Marx.

It’s a small thing. Most people shouldn’t care. But it felt false to me, and kept me a little skeptical. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 16th, 2018 | 42 Comments »

Florida Straits

Speaking of Florida projects, here’s one where three guys with very little in common set out on a small fishing boat to try to snatch some gold abandoned in Cuba. FLORIDA STRAITS (1986) is a fun little adventure from GET CARTER and I’LL SLEEP WHEN I’M DEAD director Mike Hodges.

Chalk another one up to video store browsing. I had never heard of this when the flashy painted art on the tape cover caught my eye. When I noticed who the director was and that Fred Ward was in the cast I decided to give it a shot. Apparently it was made for HBO, but it seems like a theatrical release (and was in many countries). I was thinking maybe it would be an attempt to cash in on Miami Vice. Instead, the way the setup unfolds in a series of compelling, non-expository scenes reminded me of the excellent Billy Dee Williams slow burn spy-revenge movie HIT!, and this is probly my best only-on-VHS discovery since that one (which has since been released on Blu-Ray and DVD). As of this writing, FLORIDA STRAITS doesn’t even have any external review links on IMDb, which is very rare and always something I will brag about. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 11th, 2018 | 12 Comments »

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