Jane Bond – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 10
The Infernal Brains are back again, this time with a special Guest Brain, duriandave from Softfilm, Soft Tofu Tumblr, and Connie Chan Movie Fan Princess!
Actual photo of duriandave
As usual, we got more listening choices than you can shake an unsubtitled vcd at: downloadable mp3, embedded flash with slideshow, embedded audio player, and iTunes feed link. So many choices, you’ll have to call in your secret evil gang to select them all!
Download the mp3 (right click, save as)
Watch in slideshow form:
Click the graphic for Podcast Feed:
Films Discussed:
Black Rose – Tars Review, Todd Review, Dave Review
Spy With My Face
The Blonde Hair Monster – Dave Review
Lady Black Cat – Tars Review, Dave Review
Lady Black Cat Strikes Again
The Black Killer
The Professionals
Golden Skeleton
Dark Heroine Muk Lan-Fa – Tars Review, Todd’s series overview
Dark Heroins Muk Lan-Fa Shatters the Black Dragon Gang
Lady in Black Cracks the Gates of Hell
Gold Button
Temptress of 1000 Faces
Angel with Iron Fists
Angel Strikes Again
Wong Ang vs the flying tigers part 1 part 2
Jane Bond overview
More Cantonese Cinema information
Site Links:
Soft Tofu Tumblr
SoftFilm Blog
Connie Chan Movie Fan Princess
The Lucha Diaries
Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill!
Prior Infernal Brains:
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 1
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 2
Polly Shang Kuan
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 1
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 2
Dara Singh
Infernal Brains Podcast – 07 – Insee Daeng
Infernal Brains Podcast – 08 – Worst Podcast Ever
The Mummies of Guanajuato – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 09
Categories: Movies, Podcasts Tags: Chan Leung, Chor Yuen, Connie Chan Po-Chu, Fanny Fan Lai, Hong Kong, Infernal Brains, Jane Bond, Josephine Siao Fong-Fong, Law Oi-Seung, Lily Ho Li-Li, Podcast, Sek Kin, So Ching, Suet Nei, Tina Chin Fei, Yu So-chau
Gold Button
Gold Button
aka 金鈕扣
1966
Directed by Cheung Wai-Gwong
As the female-focused action films that later became collectively called Jane Bond films evolved, other studios quickly jumped into the action to capitalize on the Black Rose/Connie Chan mania. Besides the already reviews Dark Heroine Trilogy, another entry is Gold Button. Gold Button features mysterious star So Ching and shows off some of the James Bond spy influences that helped shape a good number of the Jane Bond films. We have such wonderful things as doomsday weapons, an all-powerful secret gang, female agents, gunfights, punching, gangs of girls in swimsuits, dozens of nameless henchmen, a masked boss of the evil gang, spy gadgets, a film named after a flower/characters named after a flower, and stolen theme music (including the James Bond theme!)
Things get a bit more sleazy than the female-audience targeted Connie and Josephine flicks. Fanny Fan is naked in the back, while female characters are forced to disrobe and threatened with rape, and we see undies tossed on the floor. But even the sleaze is held back, the women wear one-piece swimsuits instead of bikinis! I am not sure if Mingxing Film Company is imitating 1966′s Golden Buddha with the extra sexiness, or if these films began production before Golden Buddha and it is ramping up things for another reason. Gwan Jing-Leung did the stunt work, and Wong To produced.
So Ching displays not nearly as much charm as Connie Chan and Josephine Siao in her appearances in front of the camera, probably due to her not growing up while making movies like those two. But she does have that beauty contest winner appeal and serious tone (contrasted by Fanny Fan playing the sexpot here!) After making several Jane Bond type films and a few other pictures, So Ching seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth. So Ching, if you have ever returned to Earth, please let us know!
Fanny Fan Lai started acting in 1957 after winning that often entry point into Hong Kong cinema, a beauty contest. Acting under the name Wan Li-Hong in Shaw’s Cantonese division, she failed to achieve much success until she joined Shaw Brothers’s Mandarin division as Fanny Fan, and became a star with 1959′s The Pink Murder. She became known as a sexpot and bad girl, probably best for her role in The Golden Buddha. Her nickname was the Oriental Brigitte Bardot. She retired from film in 1969.
As you can probably guess from the craptacular images included in this review, Gold Button is not available on in any sort of format you can find acceptable. I scored this from a Hong Kong tv broadcast someone uploaded to a Chinese YouTube site, complete with the station’s squashed picture due to the widescreen not being anamorphic. The uploader took it upon himself to blur out the station logo, so the top right of the screencaps look like someone smeared vasoline all over them. There is also a small segment of the film missing, and the very small compression on YouKu means if I blew the images up any larger than I have, they’ll just look like a bunch of blurry squares. As there is little information on Gold Button out there, it is currently unknown of the three other films So Ching made that feature many of the same cast are also part of this series or their own thing. TarsTarkas.NET will let you know the second someone uploads squashed tv recordings of the film for us to gawk at and write lame jokes.
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Bowie Wu Fung, Cheung Wai-Gwong, Fanny Fan Lai, Fung Ngai, Gwan Jing-Leung, Hong Kong, Jane Bond, Roy Chiao Hung, Seung-Goon Yuk, So Ching, Spies, Wong To
Cicakman 2 – Planet Hitam
Cicak Man 2 – Planet Hitam
2008
Directed by Yusry Kru (Yusry Abdul Halim)
Written by Yusry Kru and Meor Shariman
Cicak Man 2: Planet Hitam is an improvement on the original Cicak Man in almost every aspect. And while the original film had a few moments, it was mired in annoyances that just turned me off. The sequel manages to drop almost everything bad about the original film while ramping up almost everything good. It’s good to see something that might get noticed come out of Malaysian cinema.
Much of the original cast returns, even some characters who are dead show up to continue the fun. Danny does not return, even though Yusry Kru wrote and directed this installment as well. I think a dream cameo was filmed, but didn’t make it into the cut, because production synopsis mention Danny helping. The two Gingers (Adlin Aman Ramlie and AC Mizal) return in ghost form to harass Cicakman. Also Malaysian model Linda Onn has a brief role as Tania’s man-hungry camerawoman.
The overall setting is far less grand. Metrofulus looks less like the city of fantasy and Libertarian excess it was in the original film and looks more like Kuala Lumpur. This probably helped budget-wise, without the added pressure to dress up the city, they were freer to spend the money on other things like action set pieces. Though I thought some of the culture of Metrofulus was some of the more interesting parts of the original, I am glad they set themselves free to do more things. Saiful Apek is far less annoying as Hairi/Cicak Man this time around. I don’t know if he’s supposed to be acting more mature now that his friend had died, or that Apek realized that if he toned it down a few notches the film would be much more palatable for overseas audiences. In any event, it is a welcome change, and helps push Cicakman 2 far beyond its predecessor in enjoyability, the one factor that really matters. The fact we aren’t stuck with filling much of the running time with an origin story helps put the plot on a more traditional arc. No new ground is broken in the super hero genre, but that genre is so saturated at the moment that you have to work very hard indeed to go somewhere that hasn’t been gone before. Cicakman instead is trying to take familiar elements and make them Malaysian. Hairi’s life seems much more relatable now than when he was a wacky scientist in the original, with the struggling to find a job and family responsibilities.
Remember, cicak=gecko, and hitam=black, so the flick is Geckoman 2 – Planet Black. Now you are an expert in Malaysian.
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: AC Mizal, Adlin Aman Ramlie, Aznil Nawawi, Fasha Sandha, geckos, Linda Onn, Louisa Chong, Malaysia, Saiful Apek, Sharifah Amani, super heroes, Yusry Kru
Sector 7
Sector 7
aka 7 gwanggu aka 7광구
2011
Written by Yun Je-gyun
Directed by Kim Ji-hun
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Okay, team, we’re going to get to the bottom of the question “Does this film have phallic and vaginal symbolisms, or is it just stupid?”
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Sector 7 is so by-the-numbers that if you squint really hard, you’ll learn how to count in Korean! Sector 7 decided that it wanted to take all the goodwill that The Host generated for Korean monster movies and throw it all away into the pit of despair, instead giving us a grab bag of scenes ganked from some of the most famous alien monster films of all time. Each scene is a roulette wheel spin random landing on what film they’re stealing from this time. Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Predator, Leviathan, Lethal Weapon 3, probably other films I just didn’t care enough to remember. Oddly enough, I don’t recall any scene ripped directly from Alien 4. It’s almost as if Alien 4 is so bad no one should copy it…
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Wait, am I a penis or a vagina? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??
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But enough of what this films steals from, let’s go over what this film is. Sector 7 is Korea’s first 3D film, and was obviously filmed on a soundstage with the outside backgrounds CGIed in, giving it a weird visual nature. That combined with me watching a 2D transfer of the 3D film probably caused it to look less visually stunning than it is supposed to. But since there wasn’t really any iconic cinematography in the first place, it’s no big deal.
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Shoot to kill any and all phallic references!
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We get a prologue that is set in the long distant year of 1985, where a man investigating troubles with an underwater drill at the uncharted Sector 7 finds tiny floating jelly things, then horrible disaster strikes. But that horrible disaster factors nothing at all to the rest of the film, so ignore all that and let’s jump to 2011, where there is still an oil rig in Sector 7 and it is still uncharted despite the 16 years and the freaking oil rig that probably cost millions of dollars to build in the middle of nowhere. That logic continues into the rest of the film, but before that, let’s get to the cast…
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You don’t look like my vagina to me!
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I bet there are phallic references here!
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Ahn Seong-gi, CGI trainwreck, Cha Ye-ryeon, Ha Ji-won, Korea, Oh Ji-ho, Park Jeong-hak, Park Yeong-soo, Women who kick butt
Golden Skeleton
Golden Skeleton
aka Jin ku lou aka 金骷髏
1967
Written and directed by Wong Fung
Josephine Siao Fong-Fong kicks butt in this crazy awesome groovy 60s spy conspiracy Jane Bondish thriller! Despite a slow start and a confusing last minute, Golden Skeleton has become one of my favorite female spy films because the villains are just so weird. The leader Golden Skeleton is a guy in a gold skull mask, his henchmen have space cadet uniforms and masks, and Golden Skeleton is seldom seen without a pair of babes in midriff-baring hot pink catsuits flanking him. Just what evil is Golden Skeleton up to? Does it matter? What matters is cool things happen. Just go with it and enjoy the spectacle. We don’t need no stinking subtitles. Okay, fine, I did a bit of Googlin’ and found some plot points not explained by watching and making up things.
Director and writer Wong Fung helmed 88 films, including How The Ape Girl Stole The Lotus Lamp, Blonde Hair Monster, Midnight Were-wolf, The Lady Killer, Blue Falcon, and a whole host of the Wong Fei Hung films (which he wrote even more installments than he directed!) Born in 1923 in Guangxi, he began writing films in 1950, and directing in 1959. Wong Fung joined Shaw Brothers in 1973, and retired in 1980. He passed on sometime in the 1990s. The cinematography was done by Lee Maan-Git, who also worked on Bruce Li in New Guinea.
The soundtrack is 100% jazzy jazz. It is interesting how the all jazz soundtrack makes everything seem cooler and cooler. I should use jazzy jazz to soundtrack my life, then I’ll live in a constant cool high that will come crashing down around me when my iPod runs out of batteries. Hopefully I won’t be near any tall buildings to hurl myself off of! Just kidding, I’d totally kill myself by feeding myself to lions at the zoo, not tall buildings.
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Banglar King Kong
Banglar King Kong
2010
Directed by Iftekar Jahan
The movie. The myth. The legend. Banglar King Kong! Yes, folks, we have an awesome treat for you today on TarsTarkas.NET! Straight from the heart of Bangladesh comes this Kong-tastic take on everyone’s favorite giant ape. The story of King Kong is timeless, and Kongs have appeared throughout the world, some more official than others. Is Banglar King Kong licensed and legal? Hell no! But it exists anyway and mirrors the plot of the King Kong films so closely that even without subtitles, you know exactly what is going on. The tale of King Kong will be one of those things that people 300 years from now will know. In future digi-hologram movies, Space Kong will climb to the top of the Space Elevator and toss around Starship Enterprises, and you know things will play out just like the 1933 classic. And it will be glorious.
Unofficial King Kong knockoffs have existed in foreign markets since 1933′s Wasei Kingu Kongu (和製キング・コング aka Japanese King Kong), which along with the 1938 King Kong Appears in Edo (江戸に現れたキングコング aka Edo ni Arawareta Kingu Kongu) are pre-WW2 tales that have not been seen since their initial theatrical runs. As we all know, Japan made two real King Kong films much later. Giant apes and Kong-ish story lines appear in such cinema classics as India’s Shikari, the Korean film A*P*E, the farcical Queen Kong, and the microbudget The Mighty Gorga. There might even be one in India’s 1953 film Gorilla. As far as I know, this is the first giant ape in Bangladeshi cinema.
The costume for Banglar King Kong is among the worst ape costumes ever put on film. I say among the worst, because there is no doubt a low budget Indian horror film (probably by Harinam Singh) that will have a worse ape costume. But it is by far the worse King Kong costume that ever existed. From the sneering mask to the visible spaces for socks, the whole thing is a Halloween disaster. Though I do give them props for the blinking eyes, that was a nice touch and made the ape have some actual feelings on display. We give credit where credit is due on TarsTarkas.NET.
The director Iftekar Jahan has directed several other films, of which I can find little information thanks to a billion sites copying the same Banglar King Kong article and clogging up Google. The actors is even a bigger mess, despite some of them having names spelled different every time I saw it typed out, I can find little information on any of them. What we do know is that Banglar King Kong was produced by Sharmin Osman for the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC), the main government body that overseas much of Banglar cinema, so this is some government funded B-grade fun! TarsTarkas.NET has encountered Banglar film once before, the actionfest Banglar Hero. And one of the stars of Banglar Hero, Tubby Buddy, has a role in Banglar King Kong playing another comic relief character. I still cannot figure out who is playing him. Of the cast list: Munmun, Danny Sedak, Shamim Osman, Afzal Sharif and Kazi Hayat, I was only able to identify Munmun as Milly and Kazi Hayat as the lead female tribeswoman Tubby Buddy pairs up with.
When you watch Banglar King Kong, try to keep in mind this film was made in 2010. But between the scratches on the print, the mistimed dubbing, and the blue screen effects that fan films put to shame, you could swear up and down that this is a product of 1961. Only the musical numbers, which were shot with some sort of HD camera and with professional lighting, look modern. But even those snippets are transferred from a film negative, and have scratches – though not nearly as much as the rest of Banglar King Kong, which looks like the print was shot up by helicopters and dumped off the top of a random tall building.
The non-singing soundtrack is 100% stolen. I recognized the themes from Gladiator, Empire Strikes Back, James Bond, King Kong 1976, Last of the Mohicans, and 2001 among those that were playing. I’m guessing they weren’t banking on an international release… The vcd must have been encoded by the anipal monkey Buntoo himself, because it is rife with errors and digital trash. The images suffer as well, with this 2 1/2 hour film compresses to just two vcds. I did my best to get clear shots, but as you can see, there is no refined BluRay clarity. Sometimes the discs have sounds problems so bad we might as well be getting the audio from the next theater over!
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Afzal Sharif. Kazi Hayat, Bangladesh, Danny Sedak, Iftekar Jahan, mad monkey time, Munmun, Shamim Osman, We don't need no stinking subtitles
