Magnificent Warriors (Review)

May 14, 2019ByTars Tarkas

Magnificent Warriors

aka 中華戰士 aka Zhong hua zhan shi aka Dynamite Fighters aka Yes, Madam 3

1987
Written by Tsang Kan-Cheung
Directed by David Chung Chi-Man

Magnificent Warriors is a required Michelle Yeoh film to watch. There is so much energy and joy here as she gleefully beats the tar out of dozens of people while cracking whips, flying planes, and firing guns. She’s a pure pulp action hero who runs guns for rebels, flies her own plane, dogfights fighters despite being outmatched, goes on secret missions, does her job, helps inspire the people to fight, and stands tall against impossible odds.

Yeoh easily outshines costars Derek Yee and Richard Ng and the entire film is built around her mission against the invading Japanese. I don’t mean to cut Richard Ng short, he does hold his own as a live-action cartoon drifter con man who bumbles into all the action. Ng’s unnamed Drifter comes complete with his own cartoonish theme music that completely contrasts with the rest of the film’s adventury score, which totally works for hammering in the point that his character is a completely different archetype plopped into this mayhem. Together Ng and Yeoh overshadow Derek Yee so much that despite his character being a James Bond analogue he can barely keep up with them (and it stands out even more with Yeoh moving on to being an actual Bond girl!) Yee was from a prominent entertainment family and would eventually move into producing and directing and based on his output he seems to have found a good fit, several of his films being acclaimed as classics.

Magnificent Warriors is one of the Hong Kong films I rented from the late, lamented Le Video in San Francisco, I was working through Yeoh’s filmography (shockingly, most of her movies weren’t available in video stores in the Midwest!) and this one was amazing enough I watched it twice and ended up with a DVD myself soon after. It also begot my love for Richard Ng, as he popped up in some of the films I rented in rapid succession but was first memorable here.

InMovie Reviews

Perfect Game (Review)

May 7, 2019ByTars Tarkas

Perfect Game

aka 完全な遊戯 aka Kanzenna Yugi

1958
Based on the short story by Shintarô Ishihara
Screenplay by Yoshio Shirasaka
Directed by Toshio Masuda

This time we are beep-beep backing the truck up to 1958, where the Nikkatsu flicks were more disaffected youth culture than the thrillers and borderless action the genre will evolve into soon enough. Perfect Game still has plenty of strong characters, bad choices, and dangerous situations even with the slow leisurely pace the film begins it’s scheme setup with. The protagonists are introduced, their want of fast and easy money and willingness to bend the rules (past the breaking point!) to get said money. Like many youth they also think themselves invincible, the next score just being another quick job that will never have any bad repercussions. But if that were the case, then we wouldn’t have a movie, now would we? The fact that the protagonists all come from affluent families but still succumb to the temptations of their excesses makes this a solid Sun Tribe feature.

I love Nikkatsu’s films but I have to do them in spurts as you can only take so much bleak ruination of tragic endings before you want to watch Godzilla punch some monsters or Captain America punch some monsters (or Nazis, same thing!) Director Toshio Masuda (Rusty Knife, Red Pier) turns what could have easily been an ordinary film into a memorable tragic tale thanks to strong characters and skillfully constructed scenes that highlight the buildups to tragedy as the characters compromise their values more and more.

We got ourselves a quartet of young college students who want a bit of excitement in their lives, and gambling away the meager allowance their parents give them just ain’t cutting it. Mastermind Toda (Yasukiyo Umeno) is a straight-faced liar and owes his girlfriend Meiko (Mari Shiraki – Underworld Beauty) – the Mama of a hostess club – a large sum of money. There is also Soji Oki (Akira Kobayashi – in so many films he has a tag), who is usually called So-chan, he is the pretty one that makes the girls swoon. Jiro Akitani (Shirô Yanase) lies to both of his parents about his money issues but can manipulate his successful father into coughing up dough as needed. And finally Toshio, who I’m struggling to remember anything significant about beyond just being part of the gang. Sorry, buddy, get a personality!

InMovie Reviews

Atomic Shark (Review)

April 16, 2019ByTars Tarkas

Atomic Shark

aka Saltwater

2016
Written by Scott Foy, Griff Furst, and Jack Snyder
Directed by A.B. Stone

Atomic Shark is a pretty darn good SyFy shark flick, but the problem is, it was so close to being among the best that I’m angry it missed the boat! But I guess no one can live up to Ghost Shark, so we got to just accept the fact that you are good and fun, but not the new classic we were hoping for! Once again Tars is digging through his archive of shark films taped off of SyFy that he hasn’t gotten around to watching. This time the shark is glowing red hot because it has been mutated to become nuclear reactor! That gives this shark a unique look, and combine that with Atomic Shark throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the film to add flavor, and you got yourself some fun shark chomping!

We got burnt fish popping up on shores, environmental coverups, government coverups, a sunken soviet sub leaking radiation, and the shark is a bomb (though a glowing red from the heat shark that’s a bomb, not a shark with a literal bomb strapped to it like the posters seemed to suggest!) that without sea water it will overheat and explode all over the place. And it will probably explode if you shoot it! So that makes the plans to take it down a bit complicated. Luckily the plucky lifeguards and their cadre of friends and fellow shark-stopping enthusiasts are up to the challenge, even if the shark won’t be the only red stuff in the water (it’s blood, blood in the water is the other thing I am talking about here)

Old newsreel dialogue, footage of cold war atomic bomb information, and even Dr. Robert Oppenheimer quoting the Hindu Bagavad Gita “Now i am death, the destroyer of worlds”, plays we see a shark swimming through the ocean. It’s a crash course in setting the tone along with some of the great monster movies that use environmental tragedy as the foundation for their creatures’ destructive power. Atomic Shark takes a deep dive into the meta-textual with hashtags, emojis, and instragram filters on screen, yelp reviews of restaurants, the film becoming even more widescreen during an epic confrontation between a lifeguard and the atomic shark, and dramatic music playing that cuts out every time Gina blows out the lighter from the enraged documentary lady but comes right back once the lighter is re-lit. Atomic Shark even has it’s own surf theme song, and it’s own rap song and video! I’ve tried looking up A.B. Stone, the credited director, and that seems a pseudonym, so there may have been some things going on behind the scenes (or it is just someone at a specific production company who is smart enough to avoid all social media!)

InMovie Reviews

Ozark Sharks (Review)

March 19, 2019ByTars Tarkas

Ozark Sharks

aka Summer Shark Attack

2016
Written by Marcy Holland and Greg Mitchell
Directed by Misty Talley

Gender reveal videos just get weirder and weirder…

2019 is a year of getting stuff done. And one of the things i have is a bunch of recordings of SyFy shark movies from the past few years that I haven’t watched and reviewed, so that’s getting done! Especially since the era of SyFy showing shark movies is probably dead, this makes it the perfect time to strike, when the iron has cooled to room temperature and the blacksmith is watching episodes of Friends on NetFlix.

Ozark Sharks is from way back in 2016, when SyFy was promoting Sharknado 4: The One With a Sharknado. Sharks get into the Ozarks lake system due to movie magic, people get chomped, and more people seek revenge on the sharks! At this point all the shark movies needed a gimmick, and this one is the Arkansas setting and regional colloquialisms that brings. The film doesn’t even give a plausible explanation of where the sharks came from, it’s just a problem the people have to deal with. They can only wonder why the weird thing is going on, but never learn. And sometimes life is like that, there are problems that you just gotta take care of, regardless of how they happened. More films need to make the conscious decision to not explain anything and just go with it!

VVest side!

Ozark Sharks has some more elements in its favor. The main character Molly (Allisyn Ashley Arm) is a bookish goth teen who is a far cry from the usual actresses who model in their spare time as leads you often see in these things. Her family is on vacation to the Ozarks, the favorite location of their grandmother (Sharon Garrison) to go when she was a child. So they pack in her college aged brother Harrison (Dave Davis), Mom (Laura Cayouette) and Dad (Michael Papajohn), and Grandma, and head off for vacation. Stowing along is Molly’s boyfriend Curtis (Ross Britz), who is Bill to Harrison’s Ted.

Hawkeye is an amateur!

InMovie Reviews

Deadly Snail vs Kung Fu Killers (Review)

March 12, 2019ByTars Tarkas

Deadly Snail vs Kung Fu Killers

aka 天螺大破五行陣 aka Tin Loh Daai Poh Ng Hang Chan

1977
Written and directed by Heung Ling

Deadly Snail vs. Kung Fu Killers is one of those films where you see the title and think “this movie will be AWESOME!” and then you watch it and it can never live up to your expectations from the title alone. Especially since it isn’t some sort of genre exploitation monster flick but is instead a reconfiguration of an old Chinese fairy tale/opera into a romantic comedy with increasingly weirder and weirder kung fu. So judging it as the exploitation flick you mistake it to be is sort of unfair. It isn’t the type of movie that you can readily explain to someone that doesn’t watch a lot of weird stuff, but for the affectionandos, Deadly Snail vs. Kung Fu Killers has some fun things you don’t often see, and the rest of the film could be a lot worse to sit through while waiting for those scenes than it is.

We do have chicks who are fairies of the snail variety fighting some kung fu killers who are actually various elemental demons and a lizard guy. But I guess Fairy Chicks vs. Elemental Dudes doesn’t pack ’em in at the movie houses. The story at first follows the standard tale of a young man whose family is dead and his evil uncle and aunt are using him just to waste away his inheritance that he knows nothing about (at least they don’t make him live under the stairs!) But then thinks get more magical and the film gets more awesome!

The opening credits have red and blue sparlking lights, then a montage of snakes and a snail shell. This was the time when kung fu movies would have someone doing a bunch of jumps and kicks in the opening credits, so instead having snakes slither around and snail shells is sort of fun. I am not sure if a snail was killed at some point, though, so boo to that if it happened! What we do see is a bloody snail shell, but by the amount and color of the blood it is just fake human blood. A guy grabs the snail shell which has rolled over to him away from the snake. I can’t tell you how many times I see snail shells rolling away from snakes. Probably 19 times a day. But I live on a farm that raises rolling snails and also snakes that practice bowling, so maybe I’m biased.

InMovie Reviews

Reign of the Supermen (Review)

March 5, 2019ByTars Tarkas

Reign of the Supermen

2019
Written by James Krieg and Tim Sheridan
Directed by Sam Liu

Six months later….

Superman is dead, but since he’s also Jesus you know he’s got to come back to life. But if you also followed the comics, you know there was no way they’d let you off the hook that easily! As there were 4 concurrent Superman comic series, 4 pretenders to the throne emerged, one in each book, each out to be the new Superman. Sort of. Steel (John Henry Irons) wasn’t out to replace Superman, he was inspired by Superman to become a hero himself and go after the weapons he designed that were let loose on the streets. So he build himself a metal outfit, became the Man of Steel, and got to work. Superboy was a clone of Superman, aged to teen years so he could use the name from the Superboy comics, but with cool 90s sunglasses and a leather jacket. Eradicator and Cyborg Superman are different in that they were way less clear as to their origins or how seriously they were pretending to be Superman. As these stories are decades old, it isn’t a spoiler to reveal Eradicator was a computer program while Cyborg Superman was evil (He nuked Coast City! Then some dumb stuff happened and then they rebuilt it….) Eventually Superman comes back and saves the day. As a primarily Marvel reader, when all the Death of Superman/Funeral for a Friend/Reign of the Supermen stuff was going on, I actually read and enjoyed DC comics. Before then I didn’t really make any special effort, but these were good enough to keep me hooked.

This story follows many of the same beats, but is remixed and streamlined. There are still four pretenders running around, but Superboy is now a clone created by Lex Luthor in an attempt to brand Superman as his own property (he’s even launched as Superman, the launch party descending into chaos as the Eradicator shows up to fight Superboy for daring to declare himself the real Superman, and Steel popping up to try to stop the fighting (as John Irons was nearby investigating Luthor for his own reasons) Steel seems more Iron Man inspired, though to be fair the biggest interpretation of him prior was Shaq’s film.

	The Actual Weirdest Giant Monster Movies Ever Made
	Superman (Telugu)
	The 113 Must See Flicks From the American Film Market 2013
	Sweet Prudence & the Erotic Adventure of Bigfoot
	March of Godzilla Island
	Let the Bullets Fly
	I Married a Monster From Outer Space
	“They Look Like They Make Sense, Don’t They?” – A Reassessment of Prometheus
	James Band 007