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
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
Flying Swordsgirl
Flying Swordsgirl
aka The Flying Killer aka Nu fei xia aka 女飛俠
1969
Directed by Lu Chun and Hu Peng
Written by Yang Tao
It’s a jungle girl action flick with a kid jungle girl and kung fu revenge with Flying Swordsgirl! Yes, this Tarzeena of the forest is just a jungle girl teaching her young sister how to jungle girl when a kung fu movie plot washes ashore and pulls them into the picture! Soon, revenge is revenging, secrets are revealing, jungle girls are murdering bad dudes, and monkeys are trapping people in nets. This rumble in the jungle is no bungle, but is quite entertaining. So let’s jump right in, warm up your kazoos, it’s Flying Swordsgirl time!
Presented in First Scope!! Whatever the frak that is! Thanks to this being old and Taiwan not taking care of their films, the print is all scratched up (like it was stored in an actual jungle or something…) and the colors washed out. The film goes by several titles as versions kept getting released with new names for extra money from suckers value. Heck, even this copy of the print has an alternate name (The Flying Killer!)
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: bungle in the jungle, Hu Peng, Lu Chun, Ma Chi, mad monkey time, martial arts, Ng Siu-Wai, Pai Yu, Taiwan, Tien Yeh, Ting Ying, Women who kick butt, Yang Tao, Yee Yuen
Judgment
Judgment
aka Apocalypse IV: Judgment
2001
Directed by André van Heerden
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God’s calling. He wants to know if our fridge is running…
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Judgment is not a film I would normally watch, because my recent film watching days have been filled with more obscure stuff from around the globe, and the time I’ve spent on direct to video fun has been limited at best. But thanks to my affiliation as a member of the Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit (aka M.O.S.S.), we did a Secret Santa where I was gifted this awesome DVD from Carol at The Cultural Gutter. And if you don’t read The Cultural Gutter, you are missing out. You should probably read it almost as much as you read this site! Other M.O.S.S. Secret Santa adventures can be found at this link. Go there to read and listen as M.O.S.S. members get sent things they wouldn’t normally review.
Christian rapture cinema has a not very long history, but has left behind a collection of films of various quality. I have watched a fair number of these from around a decade ago, when they were all over the local video stores. I can say that Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 is awesome. It’s everything you want your Rapture Cinema to be. Even the big guns like the Left Behind series of films (starring Kirk Cameron and from the same production company as the Apocalypse series) pale in comparison. Judgment is the fourth film in the Apocalypse series, and I have not seen the others. With the advent of digital cameras, the amount of Christian films have exploded in recent years, as have the amount of Rapture films. But beyond the few that make interesting trailers on YouTube, the films are largely ignored by the general movie going public, though a few breakout recent Christian films include C Me Dance, Three, and Suing the Devil.
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We may be poor, but we got lots of lightbulbs on strings!
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The continuity of the Apocalypse series is suspect at best. By the end of the previous film, former journalist Helen Hannah was executed but also released tapes of the Antichrist saying all his followers are idiots who will burn in Hell, and they begin to protest against him. All that protest stuff is forgotten, the people still love Franco Macalousso with only the few Christian rebels left to offer any resistance. Helen Hannah is saved from death for the trial plot.
I know it is not this movie’s purpose to be a deep philosophical source of arguments for or against the existence of God, but the trial format and the actual arguments introduced on both sides force a comparison of the arguments. To be fair, the arguments presented by both sides are largely shallow, targeting strawmen or misquotes, and some arguments aren’t even addressed or just dismissed without reason. The popcorn philosophy does have to be mentioned, even if it’s in a popcorn website response, because we got better things to do than to turn this site into a scholarly religious website. So microwave some popcorn before you read on. We’ll wait. Doo-do-do-do-dooo-do-dooo…. Got your snack food? Let’s begin!
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The People’s Court: The Next Generation
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Could God make a creek so full of crap even he couldn’t be up it without a paddle? We’ve just prove God is fake, hail Satan!
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: André van Heerden, Christian cinema, Corbin Bernsen, Jessica Steen, Leigh Lewis, Marium Carvell, Michael Copeman, Mr. T, Nick Mancuso, Paul Lalonde, Peter Lalonde, Sandra Caldwell
