The Swords of Tien Shan
The Swords of Tien Shan
aka 天山龍鳳劍 aka Tian shan long feng jian aka 神劍女瘋俠 aka The Magic Sword and the Eccentric Lady Knight aka Shen Jian Nu Feng Xia
1961
Written and directed by Wong Fung
Mysterious super swords cause a whole heap of problems in The Swords of Tien Shan. This Cantonese wuxia flick is believed to be a coproduction of two different companies, each producing one part of the two-part feature film. According to reports, part 1 was produced by Hoo King Motion Picture Co., while part 2 is credited to Lap Tat Film Co. Wong Fung (How The Ape Girl Stole The Lotus Lamp, The Blonde Hair Monster, and Golden Skeleton) wrote and directed both parts, so this looks like just a unique way of crediting a coproduction. The two films were later edited down into a single film and retitled The Magic Sword and the Eccentric Lady Knight (神劍女瘋俠), which is the version I am reviewing as the original two films are unavailable (and might be lost?)
The editing of two films into one does cause a bit of a problem, because the flow of the film is now even more disjointed, and at times characters wander off for reasons not explained, or are introduced as already established people. This is complicated because there are already so many characters, and because this is an older Cantonese wuxia flick, the pacing is already a lot more casual than a modern film. The disjointedness hurts the film, but it doesn’t mean it’s awful, it just becomes a weirder wuxia epic. It also focuses on different actors than the story of the original films, downplaying and almost eliminating several major characters. Instead, the film focuses mainly on Josephine and Sek Kin, with a lot of Connie thrown in (though at least one major Connie Chan scene is MIA)
The important thing to remember is there is a guy in a gorilla costume! This is important, because that makes The Swrods of Tian Shan TarsTarkas.NET’s entry into the new MOSS conspiracy, Hairy Beasts! MOSS is the Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit, and is a collection of all the cool cats with cool websites/podcasts/shows who review and watch and read all sorts of crazy stuff. Check out other Hairy Beasts entries at the above link, including houseinrlyeh taking on Bigfoot, TeleportCity vs Red Riding Hood, and Monster Island Report and TheCulturalGutter discussing hairy beasts!
The gorilla costume looks like it is the same one used in How the Ape Girl Stole the Lotus Lamp, though this film was made first and the gorilla Yin-yin is a semi-major character here. I would theorize that the gorilla costume was made for this film, but I would not be surprised at all to see it show up in other earlier films, either.
Being a Cantonese wuxia flick from the 1960s, some of the familiar stars are here. Young Josephine Siao and Connie Chan are running around (Connie playing a boy once again!) Sek Kin is a former villain, Lau Hark-suen is a weirdo, Sai Gwa-Pau and Mui Yan are “comic relief”, and Simon Yuen Siu-Tin is an eccentric kung fu master and teacher. Because of how things were carved up as the two films were merged, I’ll add in some missing portions quoted directly from the HKFA synopsis. But there will be some gaps where things make little sense. And since this film is pretty darn rare, the film synopsis will be detailed detailed detailed.
|
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Connie Chan Po-Chu, Hong Kong, Josephine Siao Fong-Fong, Lau Hak-Suen, mad monkey time, Mui Yan, Sai Gwa-Pau, Sek Kin, Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, So Siu-Tong, Wong Fung, wuxia, Yam Yin
Bikini Pirates
Bikini Pirates
aka Harlots of the Caribbean
2006
Written by Fred Olen Ray
Directed by Fred Olen Ray (as Nicholas Medina)
You would think that one day we’ll get to the end of the Retromedia Bikini films, but you are wrong. They are being made faster than I’ve been getting copies of the films, so they’ll continue to appear on TarsTarkas.NET forever! Luckily, they are pretty entertaining, hence why they continue to appear and I haven’t given up and started reviewing The Dead End Kids films. (Okay, the Dead End Kids films are pretty good, too… Some of them.)
Bikini Pirates features a small cast, and thanks to moving the action to the remote woods, the small cast feels natural and not like they’re avoiding plot points on purpose to hide from hiring a bunch of extras. So a good call there, though it does keep people like Ted Newsom from popping up, which is sad. The opening credits play over stock footage of diving scenes set to a Pirates of the Caribbean-ish theme song. As most of these Retromedia Bikini tales open with credits over cgi effects or stills that have been run through Photoshop filters, this is a colorful and interesting diversion.
To keep from listing the prior Bikini films over and over again in the roll call below, we’ve switched to linking to the actor’s tag so you can just click that and see everything they’ve been in that we’ve covered so far:
|
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Beverly Lynne, bikini movie madness, Cassie Young, Evan Stone, Fred Olen Ray, Lesbians, Nicole Sheridan, Randy Spears, Rebecca Love, softcore, Voodoo/Alexandre Boisvert
Dark Shadows
Dark Shadows
2012
Written by John Augus and Seth Grahame-Smith
Based on characters created by Dan Curtis
Directed by Tim Burton
 |
|
Needs more spires…
|
The thing about Dark Shadows is it is the type of film that Tim Burton directing and Johnny Depp starring should make it a natural hit and an amazing cinematic experience. But instead things just don’t turn our right, in fact, they go pretty wrong pretty quickly. The dark and dreary atmosphere is unfortunately too familiar with Burton’s other works, even though it should stand out here. The plot is the weakest part, the whole jilted ex-lover out for revenge trope we’ve seen time and time again. Sure, it’s dandied up with all the spooky trappings, ghosts and vampires and witchcraft, but it’s nothing new. Unfortunately, that’s a big problem. Just reading through the plots for the series, there was a lot of things going on, most of which is ignored and discarded, though there are a few references. But what we end up with is bland.
 |
|
The Transylvanian version of The Help didn’t do as well
|
Though the period setting of 1971 is largely used on a few jokes that fall flat and hippie murder (killing hippies is soooo Kent State…) it does help in giving some characters a distinct look as they’re dressed in period clothing as opposed to modern fashion (and it helps that retro looks are in and what old is new!) Beyond that, you’ll not even notice that it is set in the past and not modern day, the few times older technology is used, it’s not intrusive and it keeps things from getting diluted with cell phone videos of vampire action being uploaded to YouTube.
The film is not all bad, there are bright spots. The strongest aspects of Dark Shadows are the actors. Everyone is bringing their A games. But they got little to work with, and the film can’t be carried by performances alone. And remember that it’s Collins, not Cullen. Let’s not say things we can’t take back and have sparkle vampires starting to wander around…
 |
|
Three Stooges witchcraft
|
|
 |
|
Actual photo of the original test audience five minutes after the film ended…
|
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Alice Cooper, Bella Heathcote, Chloë Moretz, Christopher Lee, Dan Curtis, David Selby, Eva Green, Gulliver McGrath, Helena Bonham Carter, John Augus, Johnny Depp, Jonathan Frid, Jonny Lee Miller, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ray Shirley, Seth Grahame-Smith, Tars sells out!, Tim Burton
Corporate Fantasy
Corporate Fantasy
1999
Directed by Charles Randazzo
Written by Catalina Larranaga and Garrett Clancy
Mystique films brings us some office-based romance with Corporate Fantasy. You know a softcore is more high class because pseudo-popish songs playing during the action scenes as opposed to light jazz. The film should be sexy, but parts of it are dry and parts crammed in. Catalina Larranaga wrote the film with Garrett Clancy, I get the feeling she wrote the main story and he “punched it up” with the models and other additional sex scenes. Which is fine, you gotta sell the film somehow, and the story is still intact.
The styles of the film date it as a 1990s film, even if it comes at the tail end of the 1990s. Office attire for women is so period specific that you can’t get around it. Thus, right now the film looks older than it is because of the fashion, but in 10 years the film will look less old because some of those fashions/hair styles will be back in style. And kids who weren’t just hitting the offices in the late 90′s won’t even be familiar enough with the fashions to recognize it as dated, so it will blow right past them. Those of use who grew up in the era and witnessed models wearing the same clothes with the same hairstyles don’t see the fashion as a big deal at all, and the glamorous fashion helps Corporate Fantasy look like a much more expensive film than it probably is.
|
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Anna Davidoff, Brian Nowak, Catalina Martone, Jaimee Mangel, Jarod Carey, John Gallucci, Karl Preston, Lesbians, Mystique films, softcore, Susan Featherly, Tracy Ryan, Vicca
A Little Bit of Heaven
A Little Bit of Heaven
2011
Directed by Nicole Kassell
There have been a few tries to put cancer in comedies in the past couple of years, most of which have had mixed-to-bad results, because cancer isn’t really that funny. So of course the next step is a weepy romantic comedy about dealing with cancer and finding love! Even weirder, it’s pretty much marketed as a romantic comedy even though is blurs more over into the drama category. But, despite the fact it’s getting awful awful reviews, A Little Bit of Heaven isn’t awful (or even awful awful), it’s far more complicated than that…
Marley Corbett is a carefree woman who seems like she has it all going on. She’s a young hip girl in the city, just scoring a big promotion and living life and partying. Working hard and playing hard. All that cliched jazz. Her biggest worry and biggest love is her pet bulldog, while men are nothing but a list of bootycalls. She has a whole cadre of friends who join her on her adventures.
But things aren’t going all that great in Marley’s life, unexplained loss of weight, bloody stools…something bad is on the horizon. After a visit to the very handsome Dr. Julian Goldstein, she’s diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. Of course, Marley is too busy having fun to take any of this seriously. She shocks her friends with her announcement done in a flippant way, unaware or uncaring about the shock she put them through. Her attitude begins to have some cracks after a colonoscopy shows things are worse than they thought and the only hope in an experimental procedure that might work or might not. It’s also during this colonoscopy that she has her first vision of the afterlife…
Read more…
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Alan Dale, Gael García Bernal, Kate Hudson, Kathy Bates, Lucy Punch, Peter Dinklage, Rosemarie DeWitt, Steven Weber, Tars sells out!, Treat Williams, Whoopi Goldberg
Sweet Prudence & the Erotic Adventure of Bigfoot
Sweet Prudence & the Erotic Adventure of Bigfoot
2011
Written and directed by William Burke
 |
|
I must go, but you can always catch my lone movie role in Robot Monster!
|
Sweet Prudence & the Erotic Adventure of Bigfoot gives us what we want – Bigfoot running around a nudist camp! Also we got UFOs, crazy dudes, the Loch Ness Monster, and goofy fun. It all rolls up into a Sasquatchtacular adventure and some fun late night viewing.
The overall plot is fun and quick paced, there never seems to be a point where things drag out, which can be a problem with some of the softcore films. The actors are all energetic, and most put on a naturalistic approach to acting, feeling like real friends that you are hanging out with rather than characters. Albina Nahar is the standout actress who almost steals the show, she’s having a lot of fun. But everyone does their jobs very well, the chemistry is great, even the chemistry of everyone hating Dirk! The Sasquatch costume is well built, though it looks a tad familiar. There are a few technical problems, some of the outdoor scenes are a bit overexposed. There is also an editing problem, where there are a few shots that seem to be focusing on an item (for either a joke or an emotional punch) but we either don’t get a clear view of the item or a shot of it wasn’t edited in in post. A notable examples is the floating tarot card of The Lovers at the end of Veruca and Flower’s sex scene, the card is not seen clearly and I only recognize it because I’ve seen a copy of the tarot deck they are using. This actually made me sad, because that stuff made the scenes more creative. William Burke obviously had fun setting up the many many many many weird positions for some of the sex scenes, and several other examples of having fun with sex scenes (i.e. the speed up sequence that explains why Mike is tired) show care was taken in every part of the film.
 |
|
Prudence and Veruca watch the funniest episode of 2 Broke Girls ever!
|
Let’s talk about Bigfoot! Longtime readers will probably not be surprised to know this is not the first film I’ve seen with Bigfoot sexing up a girl and with Bigfoot raping a dude. I’ve even seen Ape Canyon in a theater with the director there! There is a whole subgenre of films with Bigfoot sexing up women or raping them, and let’s not even get into the books/fan fiction. Just look up Sasquatchploitation for more info than you ever want to know. Another common Bigfoot trope is UFOs, both in films and in real life Bigfoot sightings. It’s just cooler to say you saw Bigfoot and UFOs instead of just one.
 |
|
Where did you find a waiter in the middle of the swamp??
|
The Sasquatch in Sweet Prudence & the Erotic Adventure of Bigfoot is not mean spirited or Bigfoot being overly perverted, he just seems to get aroused when the women are already running around naked for various reasons, though he’s perfectly willing to do the deed when offered (or not offered!) The opening credits take form of comic book cover and panels by Aaron Lane and help give us the feel that the whole thing is too pulpy to take serious. And will we see a whole series of Sweet Prudence dealing with erotic paranormal encounters? Maybe we will, if you buy enough DVDs/watch it on Cinemax/Maxgo!
 |
|
Hey, that UFO has a “Mystery Spot” bumper sticker!
|
|
 |
|
Nothing can go wrong with this plan!
|
