Real Steel
Real Steel
2011
Directed by Shawn Levy
Is Real Steel a Reel Steal? I don’t even know what that sentence would mean, but the answer is yes. Yes it is.
Since that opening makes no sense, let’s delve deeper into the robotic heart of Real Steel. Loosely based on a short story by Richard Matheson (author of I am Legend and Star Trek‘s “The Enemy Within”) that has already been made into a Twilight Zone episode, Real Steel instead goes more Rocky and more father and son bonding movie. And there’s also the Rock’em Sock’em Robots.
As every review will mention the Rock’em Sock’em Robots, I might as well, because that’s what everyone thought when they saw the first trailer. And that’s about all I knew going in to the free advanced screening (once again, TarsTarkas.NET sells out!) So it is pretty good with the fighting robots, except the fact the film is about a father and son bonding, the training robots to fight aspect is just flavor. And to sell toys. Toys that are similar enough that well-meaning grandparents will buy them instead of Transformers. Well, the world needs Go-Bots. But Real Steel is beyond Go-Bots. Real Steel is a flick with some heart. A flick where robots who don’t talk and are controlled remotely by humans have more personality that most of the robots in Transformers. A flick where someone cared about the story almost as much as the robot fighting scenes. It isn’t a great flick, but it isn’t terrible.
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Categories: Bad, Movies Tags: cool robots, Dakota Goyo, Eddie Davenport, Evangeline Lilly, Hugh Jackman, Karl Yune, Olga Fonda, Phil LaMarr, Shawn Levy, Tars sells out!
Super Batman & Mazinger V
Super Batman & Mazinger V
aka Super Betaman aka 스타짱가 II 마징가V 슈퍼베타맨
1990
Written and Directed by Yeong-han Kim
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Viewmaster…Attack!
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What if Batman was some goofy Power Rangers kid show. And it sucked. Welcome to the world of Super Batman & Mazinger V! For those of you in the know, South Korea during the 80s and 90s produced a whole slew of copyright violating children’s programming that put the insane in the brain, much of which had tie-in low-quality toys. All of these films are horribly awful, and most of them are unknown in the West, rotting away on Korean VHS tapes. But occasionally some of them get brought out into the light of day, blinking in the sunlight, exposure to the bigger world a new and surreal experience for them. And TarsTarkas.NET tells them how much they suck!
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Coming soon to the next Nolan film!
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This time, Batman has gone all Power Rangers, and is either called Super Batman or Super Betaman (the film and related media cannot make up its mind!) He looks like he should be fighting Krankor and the Neptune Men, but instead fights a space witch and her crappy wolfman army. Besides making a horrific-looking Batman, they also steal wholesale from Mazinger V, an anime you’ve heard of if you’re into giant robot stuff, or will hear of once the new movie comes out in a few years (if you are reading this in the future and the movie already has come out, then read that sentence as past tense, but at least you get to fly hovercars!)
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Hey, Teen Wolf Cosplay Guy, carsurfing was outlawed for a reason!
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Other Korean kiddie programming includes Our Friend, Power 5 (Wurideul-ui chingu pawo 5) – A 1989 Ninja Turtles ripoff, Ddaeng-Chil and Double Light (땡칠이와 쌍라이트) – A 1990 alien invasion film where Yoda and apes show up, Eagle Man (who looks like another Batman clone), Dragonball: Goku Fights, Goku Wins (1990) – A Dragonball feature that follows the plot closer than any official Dragonball movie, and literally dozens more. Some of the films are all live action, some are all animation, and many are mixed in between, with models waved around and goofy alien costumes. The most frustrating part of the little information I’ve been able to find about these films is that they only have been released on decaying vhs tapes and will probably soon wither away into nothingness. The common denominator of many of this films seem to be to sell cheap toys, heck in this film a character carries around the toy of the giant robot! The legality of the toys I am sure is questionable at best.
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Hi, we’re going to go all Star Wars Holiday Special on your ass!
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As the film is in Korean with no subtitles (We don’t need no stinking subtitles!), character names are guesses or descriptions, and the plot is put together from what can be understood from the pictures. As it is a kid’s program, the plot isn’t that complicated, so no worries there. We’ve even found this handy plot synopsis: The witch Rinke rules over the plant Astro with an iron fist. She decides that she needs the super-powered robot, Zangga, to spread her rule to other planets. She learns that Zangga is lying dormant somewhere on Earth and sends her agents, Kats and Kobra, to find and collect him. However, she did not count on the intervention of Betaman and some Earth children who are also looking for Zangga.
That doesn’t help at all! Okay, it sort of has what is happening. Is Kobra the name of the Wolfman? I couldn’t ID any of the actors, but I added some names to the tags just in case. And I hope the mysterious II in the Korean title doesn’t mean there is another Super Batman film out there…because…::shudders::
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Batman poses for photos, thousands die.
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Looks like some lucky family got their family portraits back from JC Penney!
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Batmania, cool robots, giant spiders, Hie-ju Lee, Hyeon-gon Kim, Korea, super heroes, We don't need no stinking subtitles, Yeong-han Kim, Yu-seong Jeon
Discount Puppet Explosion 411 – Episode 104 – Creepies 2
Discount Puppet Explosion 411 – Two teams compete to give the best reviews of bad movies. In this episode, Team B reviews the sequel to Creepies in order to score over Team Jawesome. Featuring more giant spiders, more models, more awful CGI, and more Johnny Mustache! Will it be enough to score another win? And what is Team B’s reaction to Team A’s rebranding as Team Jawesome? Find out on this episode of Discount Puppet Explosion 411!
Categories: Movies, Video Reviews Tags: cool robots, Discount Puppet Explosion 411, Eric Spudic, giant spiders, Jeff Leroy, Star Hansen
Future X-Cops
Future X-Cops
aka Mei loi ging chaat
2010
Directed and written by Wong Jing
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The background spinning enrages me!
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Future X-Cops is a mixed bag, a film that is part-action, part-comedy, part-drama, part-romance. We got robot guys, time travel, yelling kids, loved ones dying, weird slapstick, a dude with a microwave on his head, a guy who is trapped in a TV, an insect cyborg gang, a giant industrial machine, a cyborg cat lady, and hundreds of cops murdered. It’s all part of Wong Jing’s strategy of throwing the whole buffet against the wall and hoping it turns into a Monet painting. But instead we get more of a Thomas Kinkade.
When Future X-Cops was first announced, it was announced as the title Future Cops, which instantly made everyone think it was a remake of Wong Jing’s Future Cops, especially since Wong Jing was writing and directing this one. But as more details came out, suddenly the film was titled Future X-Cops and bared little resemblance to Future Cops except ripping off the basic plot of cops from the future being sent back in time to protect someone from being killed by bad guys.
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In the future, gas shortages lead to go-kart madness!
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It has been nice seeing Hong Kong start to pump out some more SciFi movies, but between this and Kung Fu Cyborg we have a ways to go before Hong Kong becomes a SciFi action mainstay. But some day they’ll produce things on par with I Love Maria again!
Like recent movie Beauty on Duty, there are a bajillion production companies and a bajillion producers for this flick. At this point, anyone with a spare $5 can be a Hong Kong producer and you can just have your named added to the wall of text during the opening credits.
Originally I was going to write a short version of this review, but the more I kept watching, the more I kept getting confused and angry and weirdly entertained, but not at the parts I should be entertained at. Thus, the review now is pretty long. Feel free to skip reading it and just look at the pictures, I’m under no delusions that 90% of you don’t do just that anyway. This text is just for us cool 10%ers. You know, the ones who are awesome.
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Every one of these characters miss
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After The Dark Knight, there was nowhere for the franchise to go but down
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Barbie Hsu Hsi-Yuan, cool robots, Fan Bing-Bing, Fan Siu-Wong, Hong Kong, Tang Yi-Fei, Wong Jing, Xu Jiao
Kung Fu Cyborg
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!
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Alex Fong Lik-Sun, Betty Sun Li, CGI trainwreck, cool robots, Eric Tsang Chi-Wai, Gan Wei, Hong Kong, Hopping Vampires, Hu Jun, Jeffery Lau, Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei, Wu Jing
