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Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Review)

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Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

aka Di Renjie

2010
Directed by Tsui Hark

What they say: This is Tsui Hark’s best film in years, it’s one of the best films of 2010, Tsui Hark, Tsui Hark, Tsui Hark!

What you really need to know: Andy Lau gets into a kung fu fight with CGI deer.

Do you like yo-yos? Yo-yos go up and down, and so does Detective Dee. Some sequences in Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame are awesome, but other parts of the film are embarrassing and make you wonder why people were lavishing praise upon it.


If you’ve read any book on Hong Kong cinema that came out in the 90’s (which is when most of the books started appearing in the US), then you remember every single one had chapters on Tsui Hark. Tsui Hark was one of the Hong Kong New Wave directors that shook the industry to the core, and helped modernize Hong Kong film. Many of his earlier films are classics, though he had a few misfires. But even as the industry changed, Tsui Hark has seemed incapable of making film that is watchable since the mid-90’s. Those Jean-Claude Van Damme films were terrible, the Zu Warriors redux was boredom, and Seven Swords is a film so long that no one has ever gotten to the end of it. Despite all the technological achievements, Tsui Hark just wasn’t making good films anymore, and no amount of technology can change that. While Detective Dee isn’t a great film, it is at least the most watchable Tsui film since Black Mask, and something you should eventually get around to watching. You know, when it’s raining outside or something.


With Tsui Hark in the director’s chair, we are at least assured the film will look good, and it does. The cinematography is top notch. Elaborate CGI effects are needed to create ancient Chinese cities, palaces, giant Buddha statues, and underground meeting places – some are more believable than others, but you always know you are looking at a bunch of 1’s and 0’s in picture form. We do give props to action director Sammo Hung, as the actions sequences are the best parts of the film.


The stylized elements Tsui loves sometimes help the film, and sometimes hurt. As the opening scrawl is stylized to appear and disappear in wisps of smoke (which is nice), but a problem is the crawl is Star Warsian in length. In fact, the long text openings of Reefer Madness and Alone in the Dark are brought to mind. We are forced to read like half a sentence at a time, and have to wait for each piece one by one. It is what I like to call “annoying”.

Detective Dee (Andy Lau Tak-Wah) – Detective Dee is based on the real Di Renjie, who is a famous official during the Tang Dynasty. There have been countless books and references to Di Renjie over the years in both the East and the West. You should probably look them up if you want more information, this is only a small character box. Andy Lau is in every movie ever made! Just click on the Andy Lau tag to see all we’ve done…
Empress Wu Zetian (Carina Lau Ka-Ling) – Empress Wu Zetian is another real historical person, China’s only Empress and legendary for her ruthlessness. Though supposedly Di Renjie helped calm her down some. Carina Lau is also a real historical person, being an actress who has been in the industry for over 25 years and is married to the Tony Leung who is not in this movie.
Shangguan Jing’er (Li Bing-Bing) – Shangguan Jing’er is a made-up version of Shangguan Wan’er, famous female poet. As events transpire you can see why they went with a fictitious person for this character to keep with the stunning historical accuracy of the rest of the film. Li Bing-Bing was here before with white hair in The Forbidden Kingdom.
Pei Donglai (Deng Chao) – It’s an albino who isn’t a depraved mutant torturer! Although he does threaten people with torture… Pei Donglai is an investigator in the case who assists Detective Dee and whose own boss has burst into flames. Deng Chao is primarily a television drama actor.
Shatuo (Tony Leung Ka-Fai) – A former buddy of Detective Dee who now works in building the giant Buddha statue. This is the Tony Leung who was in 1992’s The Lover, not the one who was in Lust, Caution. Keep them straight!
Donkey Wang (Richard Ng Yiu-Hon) – A famous doctor hiding in the Phantom Bazaar, probably to escape taunting schoolkids over having the name “Donkey Wang”! Please don’t reveal the shocking secret of Donkey Wang. It’s good to see Richard Ng working again, as he is at the point in his career when he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to and can live in semi-retirement. I am a big fan of his through much of his earlier work through the 80’s and 90’s, including when he pops up in Future Cops.


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Psycho Shark (Review)

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Psycho Shark

aka Jaws in Japan

2009
Directed by John Hijiri
Written by Yasutoshi Murakawa

Psycho Shark is the worst thing to come from Japan since shotacon. Don’t Google that at work. Or ever. And don’t watch Psycho Shark ever, because it frakking sucks. It sucks even at 2.5x speed, and the same amount of things happen, which is nothing. Since large portions of the film is one character watching other characters on video and fast forwarding, perhaps the film is telling us what needs to be done. I answered the call, but I still had to watch Psycho Shark, so the effort was for naught.

That shark sure is psycho! This is the movie where the shark stabs someone in the shower.

Okay, that’s the easy jokes, neither of which are true, so let’s get to the actual review of this plotless piece of shark dung. Originally called Jaws in Japan, the title was changed to Psycho Shark to cash in on the lucrative psycho demographics. Or something. Maybe the distributors thought people would avoid the film because it was Japanese, and took the foreign name out of the title Except the Japanese bikini babes are the main non-shark selling point, so that makes little sense. I’ll give this as much thought as to why they changed the name as the producers of Psycho Shark took in making Psycho Shark a good film: none!

What we have here is a found footage mess masquerading as a shark attack film with lots of attractive Japanese chicks in bikinis. How unique, as it is almost impossible to find Japanese chicks in bikinis anywhere in this day and age of the internet.

Miki (Nonami Takizawa) – The member of the friends duo who isn’t stupid, and enjoys spying on people who are taped. Eat your heart out, reality tv! Miki figures out something is wrong, but then a big bad shark shows up and ruins everything. Except the film, that was already ruined. Nonami Takizawa is a gravure idol and we threw up a gallery to get cheap web traffic. So click on it so I can act all smug and stuff.
Mai (Airi Nakajima) – The member of the duo who isn’t interested in spying on people and is totally interested in dating creepy guys. Also can be a jerk.
Kenji (???) – A creepy guy who works at the hotel and gives out free rooms to hot chicks. This somehow makes him a babe magnet, because women love guys who make minimum wage at a hotel. He’s so creepy he should be in Creepies. Or Creepies 2.
Creepy Girl (???) – She is possibly Miki, but it is dark and I don’t care so I’ll never know who she is. Nor do I care. A framing device that’s not needed. I should call her Appendix Girl.
Psycho Shark (CGI from your old Vic-20) – This giant shark shows up too late and too cheap for me to care about him. And just how is he psycho? Or is he just at a motel where people get killed like in Psycho? The world will never know, because I don’t care enough to ask Mr. Owl the answer to that question. So let’s just go with “Three”, that’s a good answer!


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The Vanquisher (Review)

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The Vanquisher

aka Suay…Samurai aka Final Target

2009
Directed and written by Manop Udomdej

The Vanquisher starts out confusing and just gets more and more incoherent until you give up and go back to that one thing…what’s it called…reading! So just read this instead of watching The Vanquisher. Director (and writer) Manop Udomdej has graced TarsTarkas.NET before with his film Lizard Woman, and a few of the stars from that one make their way into this film. Sadly, the gecko women are not going to pop up and bit random characters. The Thai title Suay … Samurai translates to “Beautiful Samurai”. Because when you think “Samurai”, you think of hot Thai women.

HELP! The slow-motion rain burns!

The Vanquisher‘s troubles began before the film was even edited, when an actress in the film named “Amy” Chotiros Suriwong wore a dress at the 2007 Thailand National Film Awards that was so revealing that the entire nation of Thailand went insane. People couldn’t stop talking about how they were shocked, shocked that women had breasts. The government was overthrown 17 times, riots filled the streets, and Tony Jaa became a monk. So executive producer Somsak Techaratanaprasert chopped her out of the film, despite the fact this film is based on the premise that you will be staring at the breasts of the actresses in it.

It was obvious that this film was made with foreign distribution in mind. The film is mixed with English, Japanese, and a smattering of Thai. Why they bothered, I am not certain, as the English is so awful I can’t believe it was actually written and spoken by anyone who has heard English before. The sentence structure was beyond awkward, and even what I could pick up on seemed to be random statements. I needed the subtitles just to understand what was being said, unfortunately that was no help as the subtitles were autotranslated from either Thai or Chinese and were nothing more than broken sentence fragments. At least until halfway through the flick, when they just gave up entirely on having subtitles. As I have said before at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles. So I made up a story about how all those chicks were lesbians and it suddenly got far more interesting. You would think the white actors who are obvious native English speakers would at least be understandable, but you would be wrong. They must have had no input on the script as to writing sentences that people would actually say, or they don’t care and were just looking for a payday. Payday may be an awesome candy bar, but it made an awful time understanding the film.

I’ll take Psycho Women for $800, Alex

Genja (Sophita Sribanchean aka Sophita Sriban) – Genja is a cop who helps the CIA and gets almost killed for it. Then it is time for revenge! This is Sophita Sribanchean’s first film.
Sirin (“Nui” Kessarin Ektawatkul) – The Thai spy agency/CIA’s lead fighter, as well as non-insane female Nui Kessarin is a former national champion in tae kwon do and was in Born to Fight and Dangerous Flowers
Clare (Jacqueline Apithananont aka Jacqui A. Thananon) – Clare is the crazy as heck CIA lady who is in charge of the Vanquisher project, and is charged will killing all them ladies. She missed one, thus the film has sort of a plot. Jacqueline Apithananont was also in Queens of Langkasuka and The Bodyguard 2.
Mazaru (Pete Thongchua) – Mazaru is some sort of bad guy who is in charge of some ninjas, and is permanently having a scowl on his face. Pete Thongchua was in Lizard Woman.
Hana (Saito Kano) – A Yakuza chick who somehow is wandering around and has a sword. Saito Kana was also in Lizard Woman, as one of the women who take a shower and are then geckoed the frak up.
That’s sexual harassment. And I don’t have to take it!

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Sharktopus (Review)

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Sharktopus


2010
Directed by Declan O’Brien
Written by Mike MacLean

I hate it when people don’t leash their dogs at the beach

Sharktopus is Roger Corman’s latest, having found a new outlet to distribute his films through the SciFi Channel (never SyFy, never!), previous Corman films including Cyclops, Dinoshark, Supergator, and Dinocroc vs. Supergator. Thanks to me moving to a location without SciFi Channel at the moment, I have been slacking off on watching the newer flicks that don’t pop on DVD first, but Sharktopus is a special case so I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who I traded a rock shaped like Sarah Jessica Parker to for a copy of Sharktopus he recorded off of TV. This is the new economy. I think he got the better end of the deal, but then it’s easy to find rocks shaped like horses– I mean, Sarah Jessica Parker.

Hey, I have glasses AND a ponytail now, that mean’s I’m the smartest one in here

Sharktopus has also ridden the wave of internet interest, just by the name “Sharktopus”. Buzz started immediately, with people trying to figure out what the creature would look like. There had been a recent string of SciFi Channel movies that have produced internet buzz, including Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Megapihrana, and MegaMegaMegaMegaMegaMega earthworm vs Giant Mega Vampire Cow. Granted, internet films don’t really have a big history of succeeding (see Snakes on a Plane) but for a low-budget creature flick on a cable channel, the buzz actually works. It has even succeeded in making an ever-increasing amount of films with ridiculous creature names and films where ridiculous creatures battle ridiculous creatures. Have the films themselves been any good? That’s more of a mixed bag.

But forget the rest of the flicks, this review is about Sharktopus! So let’s judge it against its peers, other SciFi Channel films. Compared to the rest, the acting is pretty darn awful. We usually expect the acting to not be very good, but Sharktopus is a step beyond the normal SciFi Channel mediocrity, even the bit players are worse than the stock bit players. You got to hand it to Bulgarian extras – they aren’t as bad as the spring break extras they got for this one. Since Sharktopus likes to set up different kills, we see a lot of the minor actors for an extended period of time. This becomes disadvantageous as many of them couldn’t act their way out of a paper sharktopus.

Mega Sharktopus vs. Herbie the Love Bug

The good is we see the monster a LOT more than usual, and that’s awesome. Because we want monster monster monster! This also makes it more satisfying when the bad actors get killed.

Dr. Sands (Eric Roberts) – Dr. Sands is the head of Blue Ocean, which makes crazy biological monstrosities to sell to the US Navy. Thus, Sharktopus is born. Dr. Sands then gets more and more drunk and despondent as sharktopus escapes and goes on a rampage, because he’s gonna be out lots of money. But at least he goes good about two seconds before he dies.
Nicole Sands (Sara Malakul Lane) – Dr. Sand’s daughter, and like all smart girls in movies she has glasses. Glasses that disappear later in the film! Sara Malakul Lane is half-Thai, and even starred in at least one Thai film called Match Point.
Andy Flynn (Kerem Bursin) – Andy Flynn was fired for demanding a raise. That bastard! Now he’s rehired to out-sharktopus sharktopus! But Sharktopus is a crafty one. Andy Flynn spends the entire film being a jerky douche, but he’s the hero. Sigh…
Stacy Everheart (Liv Boughn) – A reporter chick and the best actor in the flick. Chases the Sharktopus story with her cameraman Bones and local fisherman Pez. Despite her crew being better and more sympathetic characters, they all die.
Santos (???) – Santos is awesome because we all know he’s going to die, and he does, but at least he’s cool. Only the good die young.
Sharktopus (CGI) – called S-11 probably because then they could use it for anything they decided on calling the film, be it Sharktopus or Octoshark or Jerry. The Sharktopus itself is a rather exceptional SciFi Channel monster, because it is freaking crazy! A shark with tentacle (and an extra octopus mouth on its belly) There was one prior tentacled shark I know about, the one from Shark rosso nell’oceano (aka the MST3K movie Devil Fish.) Whose gonna get sharktopussed? Everyone sharktopus can get his tentacles on!
Eric Roberts – now with 95% more smug

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Kung Fu Cyborg (Review)

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Kung Fu Cyborg

aka Kei hei hup aka Kung Fu Cyborg: Metallic Attraction

2009
Directed by Jeffery Lau

Jeffery Lau declared he wanted to do Chinese Transformers, and have his robots be “the incarnation of Oriental wisdom and strength.” Okay. Lau is no stranger to science fiction, as anyone who has seen A Chinese Tall Story can testify. Kung Fu Cyborg was originally titled Robot, then the title was turned into the easier to remember Metallic Attraction: Kung Fu Cyborg. Except for when it was called Kung Fu Cyborg: Metallic Attraction! Or just Kung Fu Cyborg. D’Oh! So we’ll just call it Kung Fu Cyborg when we refer to it, even if we slip up later. Just ignore the slip ups. They are not the droids you are looking for.

But in any event, here are a bunch of cool posters for Kung Fu Cyborg.

This is a long movie, approaching Korean standard of length. One could easily trim 30 minutes and it would do nothing but help the film along. The length is because it seems like two movies smooshed together, an origin story and a second story. Unfortunately, that means things will be dragging. And dragging. And lots of side plots happen. And it takes forever for the freaking robots to do their robot thing. Which is sort of why I watched the movie in the first place. Before this introduction gets as long as the pre-robot fight scenes in Kung Fu Cyborg, let’s just get to the Roll Call!


Xu Dachun (Hu Jun) – Xu Dachun is a tough cop who wants to get out of his small town and be a famous big town cop. Instead, he has to babysit a robot who moves in on the girl he loves. Then he dies and gets robotted himself. Tough break.
K-1 (Alex Fong Lik-Sun) – K-1 is just your average robot cyborg disguised as a normal human sent undercover to work as a police officer while secretly using his powers in very obvious ways that should blow his cover 5 times a day. But they never do because everyone in the film is crazy. Good for the film. Alex Fong Lik-Sun was on the 2000 Olympics swimming team and is a singer. Don’t confuse him with Alex Fong Chung-Sun, who I now realize I have seen almost 2 dozen of his films.
Zhou Sumei (Betty Sun Li) – A police officer in the small town who takes a shine to K-1. But Dachun likes her already, thus leading to a love triangle. Further love triangle problems are because K-1 is not allowed to love. Basically, lots of love problems, none of which is resolved by giant robot fights. I didn’t realize I knew who Betty Sun Li was until I remembered she was in a music video with Rain that my wife has watched 1000 times on Youtube. She rescues animals and wrote a book called Take Me Home: The Stories of I and Stray Animals.
K-88 (Wu Jing) – aka Chen Long, a rogue robot who will give the few lines of philosophical mumbo-jumbo the film tries to pass off as in depth commentary on man’s place in the universe. And he fights, thus we get action!
Xiao Jiang (Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei) – A local teacher and computer expert who has a crush on Sumei. Ronald Cheng is pretty famous considering his smaller role.
Zhou Suqing (Gan Wei) – Sumei’s sister who was off in college and thus not in part of the film. Spends most of the film with her hair covering her face. This is Gan Wei’s first acting role, but she did marketing work on films like CJ7, Warlords, and Red Cliff 2. Gan Wei also rescues animals like Betty Sun Li.
Lin Xiang (Eric Tsang Chi-Wai) – Eric Tsang spends most of his scenes looking like he is a millisecond from crying, which is an odd acting choice. Okay. Lin Xiang is the dude who invents all the robots for the government and in charged with making sure they don’t go all Skynet on the general population.


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Star Runners (Review)

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Star Runners

aka Termination Shock

2009
Directed by Mat King
Written by Rafael Jordan

In space no one can hear you run from stars. Or something. More likely, In space no one can hear you “borrow” from franchises.

Giant bugs in space…holy Starship Troopers, Batman! The special effects guys obviously love Battlestar Galactica, every shot of ships in space is done with the hand held camera zooms that were popularized on the cult remake series. The plot borrows heavily from Firefly and Starship Troopers, and characters are named after characters from Aliens. I give the movie props for trying to be more than just your average creature feature, but it also fails on a few other aspects. This mixed message actually hurts the film more than it should, which is unfortunate and a little unfair. I will always prefer a movie that tries and fails to be something better than a film that doesn’t even bother.

This film used to be known as Termination Shock. People saw it on the SciFi Channel news listings, knew it starred Connor Trinneer and James Kyson Lee, and nothing else. They went crazy trying to find out information. Then suddenly this mysterious film Star Runners was listed on the schedule. No one knew what it was. Finally, people figured out the movies were the same, and there were giant bugs! And then…it aired. Life went back to normal. That is the story of Star Runners.

Tycho ‘Ty’ Johns (Connor Trinneer) – Tycho Johns is a pilot who likes to smuggle and doesn’t like to get caught. But he does and is forced by Bishop to pick up some cargo, which turns out to be more trouble than he thought. And then giant bugs came… Connor Trinneer is best known for playing Trip Tucker on Star Trek: Enterprise and for having a rabid fanbase that was so desperate for information about this film before it aired on SciFi Channel they were asking me questions. Me!
Lei Chen (James Kyson Lee) – Lei Chen is Tycho’s sidekick and copilot in the future. It is nice to see more scifi media acknowledge that there will be a bunch of Asian people running around in space in the future because there are just so many Asian people. James Kyson Lee is famous from playing Ando in Heroes and he was also in a McDonald’s commercial!
Asta (Toni Trucks) – Our naked, mute, magical, amnesiac mystery girl! Poor girl finally gets her memory back, only to find out she was named after Nick and Nora Charles’s dog.
Jenessa (Aja Evans) – A crash survivor with a secret. Only her hairdresser knows for sure. Yes, that ad campaign is older than me, but I know about it thanks to Mad Magazine.
Bishop (Michael Culkin) – Bishop is an evil military dude in charge of blowing up stuff and taking possession of Asta. Thus, he is constantly chasing after Tycho, who he sent to get Asta. Besides Bishop, there is also a Hudson and a Hicks running around. How many Culkin kids are there?
Rebel Leader (???) – I don’t think he gets a name on screen, so I don’t know which actor played him or even his character name. He leads the local Rebellion against the UP, who are evil because the plot demands them to be.
Bugs (CGI) – Besides the normal bugs, there are bigger bugs and even huge bugs. You might ask how this desert planet supports a giant bug ecosystem, to which I would answer “Shut the hell up!”


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