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Zebraman

Zebraman (Review)

Zebraman

aka Zeburaman aka ゼブラーマン

2004
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Kankuro Kudo


If you know anything about cult cinema, you know Takashi Miike is awesome. Miike is always firing with all cylinders, and even on his weaker efforts he never does a half-assed job or sleepwalks through a film. Miike hops genres like Q*bert down a pyramid, able to make the most disgustingly violent film you’ve ever seen and follow that up with a kiddie flick. Zebraman is a love letter to tokusatsu heroes, particularly those from the 70s and 80s on Japanese television. Miike takes a fictitious hero and series and turn it into much more than just a simple tokusatsu film. It becomes a tale of finding yourself, of destiny, of belief, and about doing what’s right because you’re a hero. And it also has a guy riding a flying zebra while battling a giant goo monster. Zebraman takes these conventions and has fun with them, turning some deadly serious and others into more ridiculous fare than they’re treated by the real tokusatsu shows.

The fun with Zebraman is how all these different conventions and story bits add up to create a good story, despite the difference in tone and style. It’s a testament to Miike’s talent that he can take so many differently shaped parts and put together the puzzle with no missing pieces. My biggest fault with Zebraman is that the sequel outshines it at every turn. But I’ll worry about that when the review of the sequel goes up. For now, let’s learn about the man, the myth, the hero, Zebraman!

Shinichi Ichikawa (Show Aikawa) – Mild-mannered teacher who lets his wife and children walk all over him. Has no respect at home, so he retreats into his costume of Zebraman.
Zebraman (Show Aikawa) – Old 1970’s tokusatsu hero that Ichikawa was a fan of, tothe point where he made a Zebraman costume when he was grown and wears it to feel good about himself. Ichikawa then starts getting involved in incidents that match aspects of the old show as things develop.
Shinpei Asano (Naoki Yasukochi) – New student in a wheelchair that becomes Ichikawa’s new friend due to their common love of Zebraman. Becomes a surrogate son to Ichikawa.
Kana Asano (Kyoka Suzuki) – A nurse who is Shinpei’s mother and becomes a surrogate partner to Shinichi Ichikawa, and also becomes Zebra Nurse in his fantasies. Kyoka Suzuki is somewhere in Godzilla vs. Biollante
Kazuki (Yoshimasa Mishima) – Shinichi Ichikawa’s son who has no respect for his father. But once dad starts showing some heroics and saves him from alien goo possession, things will change between father and son.
Goo aliens (Yoshimasa Mishima) – Crazy aliens that are using the plot of the original Zebraman tv show to take over the planet. Their goo gets into people and corrupts them. They also can form the goo into monsters of increasing size.

Bikini Chain Gang (Review)

Bikini Chain Gang


2005
Directed by Fred Olen Ray (as Nicholas Medina)
Bikini Chain Gang
Yep, it’s another crazy Bikini movie! This time, Bikini Chain Gang takes us into the seedy world of women in prison, a sexploitaton genre that is used so often it has its own tropes and subgenres! Starring the usual cast from the 2005-2009 era Fred Olen Ray films, and featuring the usual songs, locations, and props. The only thing unusual is the nudity in the title screen shot, which I had to edit with the magic of free alternatives to Photoshop. We got a respectable family friendly website about bikini prison sex movies here, Bub!
Bikini Chain Gang

Previous TarsTarkas.NET reviews of Fred Olen Ray Bikini films include: Bewitched Housewives, Super Ninja Doll, Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet, Girl with the Sex-Ray Eyes, Tarzeena: Jiggle in the Jungle, Ghost in a Teeny Bikini, Voodoo Dollz: Lust Potion #9, Bikini Airways, Bikini Royale. Bikini Frankenstein. and Twilight Vamps Lust At First Bite. Most of the crew below show up in one or more of the previous titles.
Bikini Chain Gang

Jessie Owens (Beverly Lynne) – An innocent girl framed for robbery and sentenced to 5 years in jail. Set up to be killed while escaping, so escapes before she can be killed. Now she must prove her innocence before the film ends! Jessie Owens is the perfect name for someone on the run from the law.
Matron Togar (Nicole Sheridan) – Evil matron of the prison, answering only to the Warden, but she doesn’t even like him and does her own evil stuff. Remember, Togar is Ragot spelled backwards. I don’t know what that means, but it means something. Maybe. Okay, probably nothing. But pretend it does!
Leo (Voodoo as Alexandre Boisvert) – Prison guard who is a good guy stuck in the middle of Matron Togar’s games.
Warden Kendrick (Jay Richardson) – Prison warden who is no slouch in the being a good guy department. This must be the only women in prison film in history where the warden is a good guy!
Taffy (Belinda Gavin) – Jessie’s cellmate, a tough girl not afraid to beat the crap out of those who deserve it.
Tommy (Evan Stone) – Jessie’s loving boyfriend who sticks with her when she’s framed for robbery. He’s definitely not the Living Dead Bandit. Evan Stone is a male sex actor who has poked more than the Pillsbury Doughboy in such adult films as The Human Sexipede, Supertail and the Evil Wang, and Bring Me the Head of Shawna Leneé.
Living Dead Bandit (It is a mystery…) – We don’t know who he is. But there is no way he could be Tommy, that would be just crazy!
Mr. Ed Arst (Don Donason) – Owner of a bar who frames Jessie when she won’t put out after his sexual advances. A jerk!
Bartender (Eric Spudic) – The innocent bartender who gets held up by the Living Dead Bandit. Eric Spudic rocks.
Marcy (Brooke Banner as Brooke Taylor) – – Marcy likes to fantasize to kill everyone because she’s a bad girl. Brooke Banner is a porn actress who has been glazed more than a 12-pack of donuts in films such as Savanna’s Been Blackmaled 2, Are You Smarter Than a Porn Star?, and Who Let the Cats Out?
Chilly (Jassie) – The more ethical of the Marcy/Chilly pair, in that she doesn’t want to kill everyone they meet. Jassie is an adult actress who has seen more nuts than a squirrel in films such as 18 & Ready to Lick & Stick Lezbos, Sodomania 42: The Juice Is Loose, and Not a Romance.

Bikini Chain Gang

Cool Gel Attacks

Cool Gel Attacks (Review)

Cool Gel Attacks

aka Kradeub aka กระดึ้

2010
Directed by Jaturong “Mokjok” Phonboo

Alien goo monsters from space crashed into the Earth and start sucking the moisture/warmth from people. It’s up to two rival families to put aside their differences and save the planet. Cool Gel Attacks is a cool, refreshing burst of fun scifi monsterism in a world where fun romps are sorely lacking.

The cool gel monsters look like cool gel packs that you wear when you have fevers to cool down your body temperature. This method isn’t that common in the US, but at least according to this film, is the bee’s knees in Thailand. Ask anyone there, and they’ll tell you that they’re gellin’ like a felon. They eat melon because they’re gellin’. Magellan wishes he was as gellin’.

The beginning is a montagy showcase of a bicyclist who finds a mysterious gel thing on the road, which becomes a national phenomenon until scientists figure out it is just the insides of one of those cool gel packs. But by then, people are touching it for good luck and trying to determine lottery numbers.

You might think this is all fun and games, but it is 100% true! One woman even cooked up one of the gel packs and fed it to her kids to make them more intelligent. No word on what horrible brain damage eating the gel packs did to those poor kids. And now we know how the Thailand ET film will end! Just kidding, I have a Thailand ETish film that will get reviewed soon, and no one eats the alien. UFO interest has spiked up since the national headlines, and Thailand is becoming a minihotspot for alien activity. Aliens will even call you on the phone or communicate with you telepathically, as the many totally true alien stories from that link tell us.

Director Jaturong “Mokjok” Phonboon is a comedian who directs films on the side, and gets a bunch of his comedian buddies to star alongside him. Thsu, many of the goofy, silly Thai films you see when you go search on eThaicd have his fingerprints on them.

Teerachai (Jaturong “Mokjok” Phonboon) – Runs a steamed bun restaurant and feuds with his neighbor Maew. Father of Moo-Dang and Moo-sub. Has a special ingredient in his meat that is his secret, so don’t tell anyone it’s borax!
Maew (Jim Chuanchuen) – Runs an ice company next door to the steamed bun restaurant, the heat from which melts his ice prematurely. Is angry about that. Uncle of Sommhai and father of Shorty.
Sommhai (Nattapong “Freud” Chartpong) – Nephew of Maew who works at his plant, also in love with Moo-Dang, but Teerachai hates him.
Moo-Dang (Pattarasaya “Peak” Kruasuwansiri) – Daughter of Teerachai, who now works in his bun restaurant because she couldn’t find work after graduating. Carries on a secret love affair with Sommhai that’s always spoiled by her father. Moo-Dang means roasted pork. Daughter model who gained fame in the tv drama Ubat Ruk Kaam Kaub Fah (Love Beyond Frontier)
Cool Gel Aliens (CGI) – Alien space goo that fell to Earth and has come to remove all moisture and heat from their victims. Enter the bodies to best suck up the heat/moisture. The more they eat, the more they grow. Despite their gelatinous forms, these slugs reproduce sexually and lay dozens of eggs.

Jakkalan (Review)

Jakkalan

aka This Girl Is Bad-Ass aka จั๊กกะแหล๋น

2011
Directed by Petthai “Mum Jokmok” Wongkumlao
Jakkalan
Everyone who reads this site regularly (all four of you!) knows that TarsTarkas.NET has been following the career of Jeeja Yanin Vismitananda (or however her name is spelled this week!) From Chocolate to Raging Phoenix, we’ve watched her kick people in the head again and again. And now, with Jakkalan, there is more kicking of heads. But not that much more. And mostly weirdo Thai comedians being weird Thai comedians. So, it is disappointing, to say the least. A waste of time, to be more wordsmithy. Something to actively avoid, to be long-winded. That’s not really that long, but you get the idea.
Jakkalan
With the overseas name This Girl Is Bad-Ass, the distributors are obviously capitalizing on Jeeja’s popularity in the West as a cult female action star. The problem is most of the film is barely about her. I am not sure how this is going to get cut for overseas, because besides the lack of Jeeja and lack of fighting scenes, the rest of the film is Thai comedy, and that rarely translates well to Western audiences in the best of films. In Jakkalan, it’s mostly dialogue comedy, which translates even worse, and beyond worse if you’re watching with no subtitles like I did (at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!) What is weird is I am against cutting foreign films for American markets just on principle, so I’m technically against the only thing that could save Jakkalan. It’s like Sophie’s Choice! Jakkalan’s Choice.
Jakkalan
Jakkalan tries to do too much while also wandering around and not doing much of anything. Director Mum threw in so many random comedians who all get screentime, screeching the film to a halt as everyone acts goofy and does goofy things. That’s great and all, but we came for the fighting! But we’re inundated with goofy costumes and goofy voices as every comedian in Thailand has an excuse to run wild playing a gangster.
Jakkalan

Jakkalan (“Jeeja” Yanin Vismitananda) – Jakkalan is a tomboy bicycle messenger who beats up bullies and crushes on a rocker guy with a secret that was obvious even without subtitles. Despite being the title character and the entire focus of the marketing, she’s only in like half of the film and there are just three fights.
Uncle (Petthai “Mum Jokmok” Wongkumlao) – Jakkalan’s uncle, who raises her from a baby while struggling to also run his video store business. And is caught in the middle when all the gangster stuff happens. Mum Jokmok also directed the film, and is a Thai comedian, thus all the other comedians in the flick.
Suitor (Akhom Pridakun) – This man with the great teeth spends most of the film pursuing Jakkalan, who doesn’t have time to even look at him. Was saved from a bully by Jakkalan as a child, thus his crush.
Schoolgirl Fighter (Alisa Sonthirot) – It’s a schoolgirl because we need to make someone Jeeja fights slightly memorable! Slightly. The only info on Alisa Sonthirot is where I got her name from, WiseKwai’s site.

Jakkalan

Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill


2011
Directed by Dennis Dugan

jack and Jill
Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries…how did this movie get made???

Oh, boy.

Do you love jokes about explosive diarrhea? Do you love seeing great actors slumming it in a film where they’re sexually obsessed with a man in drag? Do you live films that give characters quirks instead of doing any characterization at all?

jack and Jill
Fictitious depiction of a Jack and Jill audience…

Finally, I can hush the naysayers who keep saying “nay” when I try to explain that just because I’ve sold out and get free movie passes and dump trucks filled with money and drugs and keep giving all those films positive reviews, that I’m not a shill. Because there is no way in Hell that Jack and Jill will get a positive review, because the dump truck was three minutes late! And also pretend I worked a “Knights who say ‘Ni'” joke in there that was actually funny, unlike every other reference to the Knights who say “Ni” ever. Even this one.

jack and Jill
Actual depiction of a Jack and Jill audience…

Jack and Jill sucks. I can’t say going into this one I had much high hopes. But I was wishing for maybe something passable. I like some of Sandler’s older work, but I can’t think of anything lately he’s done that I’ve even bothered with. Parts of Jack and Jill seem like they’re trying to ape the older style, but the jokes just do not work. A homeless guy randomly for Thanksgiving dinner, so he can say wacky things. A kid who tapes things to himself, because that is wacky. A bird that says random phrases, because it’s wacky. A daughter who is always in a costume and has a doll that is always in an identical costume…wacky! All seem like they would be funny, but no. Luckily, there are fart jokes to fall back on! Those work…if you’re high on wacky-tabacky! Which probably means you wandered into the wrong theater when trying to check out Harold and Kumar 3.

jack and Jill
She’s totally not crazy. Now can I have my dog back unharmed, Scientologists?

Jack (Adam Sandler) – Jack is an ad executive and a jerk, who will randomly do something sort of kind just as the audience is turning against him.
Jill (Adam Sandler) – Jill is his twin sister who is only slightly annoying. But the movie reassures us over and over that she’s the most annoying thing ever, despite evidence to the contrary.
jack and Jill
Jack and Jill treats women like it does to the audience

Ghanaian Video Tales

Ghanaian Video Tales


2004
Directed by Tobias Wendl

Ghanaian cinema has become more know worldwide, but where it comes from and how it is made is still a big mystery. Ghanaian Video Tales helps bring up information on the beginnings of the 80s video boom, and the producers and directors who helped make it happen and their involvement in film through 2001. Ghanaian Video Tales is most interested in the horror films coming out of Ghana, the interviews and clips are all geared in that direction. The influence of the church is mentioned, but as far as anyone who watches this knows, every film that comes out of Ghana is a horror film. We know that isn’t true, so there are still stories to be told.

The documentary goes over some of the more famous bits of Ghanaian film, from the hand painted movie posters to the vhs tape distribution to buildings packed with kids watching films off of a vcr. There is talk of growing up going to Accra cinemas (which played mostly Indian and kung fu films) and how those stories helped influence the types of stories the directors want to tell themselves.

But first, a Director/Producer Roll Call!

Richard Quartey
Producer and Director, and special effects and makeup guy who is very enthusiastic about his makeup effects and making films in general. Well read, especially horror books or reference of the occult. Some of the best parts are him showing off his book collection, including Sir Rider Haggard’s She Who Must Be Obeyed, an Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, many other books about the Devil (including Billy Graham’s!), and a Halloween makeup book that is used as a makeup inspiration for actual Ghanaian horror films. He entered the video industry back in the 80s, and likes writing dark stories with Jesus salvations.
Socrate Safo
Producer and Director, gives the most inspired comments about the video industry, but is one of the least featured directors. Which is a shame, considering how his name keeps popping up as a character in all the research I do on Ghanaian film.
William Akuffo
Producer and director, it was his idea to shoot on video and edit with two film decks in the beginning of Ghanaian film. Does witchcraft and juju money films even though he doesn’t believe in them, because those films sell.
Bob Smith Jr
Producer, director, writer, actor. Originally a star of films, became well known as the star of the Diabolo horror film series. Was illegally working in Holland and thrown in jail where he wrote Diabolo 3 script. Is often compared to Christopher Lee in Ghanaian media. Stars in his own productions more often than the other producer/directors. Some people think he actually can turn into snakes like his Diabolo character.
Ashiagbor Akwetey Kanyi
producer and director who isn’t featured much in the documentary, but wants to bring more modern special effects to Ghanaian films