Korean Terminator
Korean Terminator
aka 터미네이터와 형사 곰팽이
1992
Directed by ???
 |
|
Terminator Beyond Thunderdome!
|
It’s time once again for a Korean kiddie comedy that will make you beg for a bullet to the brain to ease the pain. Korean Terminator is just as awful as you think a kids Terminator film would be. Like most of these Korean children’s films, there is a ridiculous fat guy who is supposed to be comedic. We saw one in Super Batman & Mazinger V, and there is one here. Though I am not 100% sure, I believe these are the spawn of D-War director Shim Hyung-rae’s character from the Wuroimae films, which were popular enough many of these similar films ganked from them just as much as these Korean kiddie films ganked from Japan and America. There are also often characters with some random stylized anime characteristics, most notably a red nose or drawn on freckles or eyebrows, which I think is an artifact of many of these films having their subjects stolen from anime/manga properties. Though other films will be a mix of live-action and cartoons, Korean Terminator is 100% live-action, so the anime people don’t really seem to belong and make the film much more surreal than it should be.
 |
|
Lady, you ask me about my salvation again, and I’ll Terminate you!
|
It looks like you can thank Jademan Comics Co. for this travesty, as that is the only thing in English in the “FBI” warning before the picture. Which is sort of funny because of the blatant copyright infringement going on in the actual movie. But do not steal this movie that steals so much from so many! If you are a time travel fan, you will be sad to know there is no time travel in this Terminator! There is only a guy who is turned into a Terminator by a crazy scientist who does stuff like that. Every once in a while there is an action sequence befitting a Korean children’s film, the rest of the time is mostly unfunny comedy. But we won’t get anywhere without knowing who we’re facing! I have no clue who any of the actors are or who even directed this. It was a minor miracle finding the Korean name of this film, which doesn’t seem to have an English translation beyond Korean Terminator (which is only the first part of the actual title!) There is also at least one other Korean Terminator ripoff film made around the same time, with a completely different cast.
 |
|
The true story of Real Doll vaginas!
|
|
 |
|
I won’t be back! *SOB!*
|
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Korea, We don't need no stinking subtitles
Trip To Moon
Trip to Moon
aka Chand Par Chadayee
1967
Written by Dr. P. Balakrishnan and T.R. Sundaram
Directed by T.P. Sundaram
 |
|
How you boys like my new goldfish bowl?
|
Trip to Moon is another Dara Singh adventure, as the famous wrestler has become far too manly and powerful to be confined to foes just upon Earth, he has to search the stars for new enemies. Luckily the Moon and Mars both contain a sizeable amount of wrestlers and monsters for him to battle with, and then there is the little matter of the love of a Princess and adverting war between the Moon and Mars. As we get an experience that’s obviously heavily influenced by serials like Flash Gordon, the audience comes along for the ride in one of the few instances of Indian science fiction film. It’s also a bonus entry into the MOSS (Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit) Conspiracy Big Muscle Tussle, because I am awesome like that.
 |
|
Rise of the Moon of the Apes!
|
Trip to Moon has several mysteries surrounding it. Though it was released in 1967, one of the actors – S. Nazir who plays a kidnapped scientist in the beginning – died earlier. He’s even listed as deceased in the credits. Theories abound as to when Trip to Moon was actually filmed, with guesses ranging from 1963-1967 – though it is possible additional scenes were added later. So why did it take so long for Trip to Moon to hit Indian theaters, if that was the case? Was it more distribution problems similar to what drove producers to start making stunt films in the first place, or was there something else going on? Or are these rumors all untrue and just made up by people with websites? Perhaps if you know Dara Singh, you can ask him. Tell him TarsTarkas.NET sent you! Then he won’t punch you as hard for bothering him.
 |
|
Only in India do you get crowd scenes with Devo and a herd of Phantoms from Krankor…
|
Much like his other films King Kong and Samson, although he’s given a character and backstory, Dara Singh is just Dara Singh. Much like how Arnold Schwarzenegger is Arnold in every movie, even if he is a robot or a believer in Free Mars. By now Dara is headlining films himself, no need for pretty boys to share the spotlight. He still has a comic relief guy, because you can’t escape their goofy grasps. Dara’s wrestling opponents are less billed than before, and though some make appearances, many are under layers of makeup or costumes playing various space monsters. There is a feeling in the air that Trip to Moon is using whatever costumes the studio had lying around for use, along with possibly monster costumes.
 |
|
It’s lonely out in space on such a timeless flight
|
The opening credits are filled with what look like stock scifi paintings as the credits role. Despite the trappings, there are relatively few Indian science fiction films. Others known or suspected to be (besides mythologicals or super hero films) include Dara Singh’s other film Rocket Tarzan (1963), Wahan Ke Log (1967), Rocket Girl (1962), Flying Circus (1965 – though that just has a robot), Flying Man (1965), Miss Chaalbaaz (1961), Atom Bomb (1949, dir. Homi Wadia), Kalai Arasi (1963), and Aditya 369 (1991). Thank MBarnum of Pedro the Ape Bomb for some of these titles. The either missing of unavailable status of many of those films prevents a good overview of older Indian science fiction. The more modern films are better known – Koi Mil Gaya, Krrish, Love Story 2050, Da.One, Aa Dekhen Zara, Endhiran (a Kollywood joint) and Krrish 2. But those are entries for new dawns and new days.
 |
|
I’ll be He-Man, and you’ll be Bee-rah, Princess of Honeypots!
|
Yes, this unsubtitled, badly encoded vcd just doesn’t want us to know what is going on. But here at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!
|
 |
|
Things went ugly quickly when a robot played 7 aces during Fizzbin
|
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Anwar Hussain, awful monster costumes, Bollywood, C. Ratna, cool robots, Dara Singh, Dr. P. Balakrishnan, Helen, India, Kanchanamala, M. Krishnaswamy, mad monkey time, Master Bhagwan, Panda, Rajrani, T.P. Sundaram, T.R. Sundaram, Usha Khanna
King Kong
King Kong
1962
Written by Vishwanath Panday, Pandit Mathur, Mastji, and Majrooh Sultanpuri (lyrics)
Directed by Babubhai Mistry
Not that King Kong, there are no giant apes in this movie, though there are guys who sort of look like giant apes when you squint, or at least fat blogs. Nope, this is 1962s Indian epic King Kong, starring the great Dara Singh in his first starring role. You remember Dara Singh from Samson right? The Infernal Brains Podcast about Dara Singh? Well, if not, you now have a bunch of extra listening and reading to do! For the rest of us, this is an entry in the MOSS (Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit) Conspiracy Big Muscle Tussle, featuring dudes and chicks with muscles doing muscular things in muscular ways. Said muscular ways usually means punching many things. Click on the MOSS Page to see many more entries, as long as your roid rage is low enough you won’t Hulk Smash all our webpages. As for King Kong, let’s just say that there is a giant monster in the beginning of the film, but it’s all downhill from there!
Dara Singh was born in 1928 in the Punjab village of Dharmuchak. He wrestled in local tournaments while growing up, but went to Singapore to seek employment as a laborer. He ended up learning East Asian wrestling techniques – in addition to the Indian (and surrounding regions) technique called Pehlwani – and returned to India. With his brother Randhawa, the two became professional wrestlers and soared through the ranks. By the 1970s, Dara and his brother were the highest paid wrestlers in India, earning 30-40 times the going rate for bouts. Dara was also the “world champion” in the local circuits.
Prior to his lead role here, Dara Singh had been relegated to stunt work in films like Sangdil (1952), Pehli Jhalak (First Sight) (1955), and Jagga Daku (1959). In King Kong and many of his later films, Dara helped do the fight choreography, as he thought the usual Indian choreography didn’t look real enough. As Dara Singh comes from a lower caste, there was often trouble finding leading women who would appear with him. Besides Kum Kum from this film, his usual partner was Mumtaz (seen here in Samson) Dara’s lower caste status helped instill him as a hero of the common man, though his films usually had him suddenly discover his noble roots (as this one does.) After his movie career slowed down, Dara Singh gained a new generation of fans when he appeared in the 1980s tv series Ramayana playing Hanuman.
The movie’s title King Kong is even taken from wrestling. Though a reference to the giant ape, King Kong became a wrestling title, one which Dara Singh soon claimed, winning it off of stocky Hungarian wrestler Emile Czaja – who often went billed as King Kong (including his appearance in this film!) Dara winning the King Kong title gave him enough fame that director Babubhai Mistri decided he would be bankable as a leading man. The added fact that it was cheaper for people to buy movie tickets than to pay for wrestling tickets was just gravy. Due to distribution politics/drama, low-budget stunt films like King Kong were usually exhibited in rural areas, often with the director or star in attendance presenting the film.
Director Babubhai Mistri did effects work at Wadia Movietone, and directed many mythologicals in the 1950s (mythologicals being a genre of Indian cinema that does stories from the religious texts.) by by the 60s was unable to direct big picture films, thus he turned to the B movie circuit and making Dara Singh a star.
Like most surviving Dara Singh films, King Kong is available on badly encoded unsubtitled vcd with the craptastic video quality you expect. And the vcd has commercials on it..in the middle of the film! Luckily, a few Dara films have started to migrate to DVD, so maybe, just maybe, we’ll get some of his awesome stunt films on DVD soon…
As this is the inaugural Dara Singh starring flick, they didn’t trust him to headline the picture by his lonesome, so they threw in another character, the handsome swashbuckler type Badal (played by Chandrashekhar) There is also a comic relief sidekick for Badal. Comic relief sidekicks were so in vogue at this time, the evil warrior character Evil Guy also has his own comic relief sidekick. As you have probably noticed by some of the names, I haven’t figured them all out yet.
|
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: awful monster costumes, Babubhai Mistry, Bollywood, Chandrashekhar, Dara Singh, India, Kamal Mehra, King Kong, Kum Kum, Leela Mishra, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Mastji, Pandit Mathur, Parveen Choudhary, Sheila Kashmiri, Uma Dutt, Vishwanath Panday, We don't need no stinking subtitles, yellowface
Mural
Mural
aka 畫壁
2011
Written by Gordon Chan Ka-Seung, Lau Ho-Leung, Frankie Tam Gong-Yuen, and Maria Wong Si-Man
Directed by Gordon Chan Ka-Seung and Danny Go Lam-Paau
Mural is another attempt from China to make bigger Hollywood-style pictures, which is both a good and a bad thing. It is good that money is being brought into make epic films. It is bad because the films being produced are all generic garbage. And as the money flows away from Hong Kong into the pack of upstart Mainland production companies, things are changing rapidly in both Hong Kong and Chinese cinema. But this review isn’t about that, it’s about Mural, a story about a guy who goes into a painting full of fairy women.
While Mural certainly looks nice, the story doesn’t hold up to the visuals and things become very bland. The visuals of creatures and monsters make good spectacles, even if the CGI isn’t up to par with Western films yet. Monsters and beauties are the two main attractions to Mural, there is enough of both you can let some things slide. Some good scenes and creativity in monster design help make certain points more memorable, but the underlying uninteresting characters and the obvious conclusion of the main love story cause things to not be so much a journey as just a trip through a museum.
Like Gordan Chan’s prior film Painted Skin, it is a tale from Pu Songling’s story collection Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. The tomb contains nearly 500 tales, and has been the basis for dozens of films and tv series, including the Chinese Ghost Story films.
There are far too many of the models/actresses/singers playing the fariy women to list them all in the Roll Call, but I should name drop a few, like model-actress Monica Mok Xiao-Qi, Xia Yi-Yao, and Bao Wen-Jing. And now we will never mention them again! Even Eric Tsang Chi-Wai shows up with ear extensions as a goofy monk.
|
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Ada Liu Yan, Andy On Chi-Kit, Bao Bei-Er, Bao Wen-Jing, Betty Sun Li, China, Deng Chao, Du Shi-Wu, Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Frankie Tam Gong-Yuen, Gordon Chan Ka-Seung, Lau Ho-Leung, Maria Wong Si-Man, Monica Mok Xiao-Qi, Ngai Sing, wuxia, Xia Yi-Yao, Xie Nan, Yan Ni, Zheng Shuang
This Means War
This Means War
2012
Written by Timothy Dowling, Simon Kinberg, and Marcus Gautesen
Directed by McG
Captain Kirk and Captain Picard’s evil clone battle for the heart of Legally Blonde! Yes, once again Tars has sold out and seen a movie in advance for free. This time, it’s the romantic comedy This Means War, where once again secret spies date hot chicks who know nothing about it, until getting involved in whatever spy stuff is happening in the third act. The twist is there are TWO spy guys who both want the hot chick and compete to be the best of the best of the best. Sure, it’s by the numbers, predictable at points, filled with wacky hijinks, and the action scenes aren’t given enough budge to be memorable in the slightest, but is it good? Meh. There are a few scenes that are hilarious, but the rest of the film is a mess of boring, stupid, or generic. This Means War is never going to top True Lies in the action department, so it shouldn’t even bother. I did not see Knight and Day, but from the reviews the action at least seems continual. This Means War features long sequences of our heroes riding their desks at the office after the brief beginning fight until the last act, so the weight of the film rests entirely on the romantic aspect of the story. That would probably be okay if we hadn’t felt like we’d already seen everything before.
FDR Foster and Tuck are CIA agents who in the opening sequence shoot up some bad guys and end up killing one brother of two, the second escaping and vowing revenge. We don’t know much about this guy except he’s bad, so forget about him. Tuck is a British CIA agent (whaaa?) who is divorced with a young son, while FDR is a playboy who has sex with anything that moves and anything that might move if it’s placed on a slope. As FDR’s wife is only hinted at dating again, but a boyfriend never presents himself as a threat, I can see the future clearer than the time I shoved crystal balls in my eyes and was banned from that Wiccan store downtown. Little do they know how many million$ I won from the lottery!
Read more…
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Angela Bassett, Chelsea Handler, Chris Pine, John Paul Ruttan, Marcus Gautesen, McG, Reese Witherspoon, Rosemary Harris, Simon Kinberg, Tars sells out!, Til Schweiger, Timothy Dowling, Tom Hardy
