Ultimate Dog Tease
via Variety
Ultimate Dog Tease
via Variety
2012
Written by Timothy Dowling, Simon Kinberg, and Marcus Gautesen
Directed by McG
Captain Kirk and Captain Picard’s evil clone battle for the heart of Legally Blonde! Yes, once again Tars has sold out and seen a movie in advance for free. This time, it’s the romantic comedy This Means War, where once again secret spies date hot chicks who know nothing about it, until getting involved in whatever spy stuff is happening in the third act. The twist is there are TWO spy guys who both want the hot chick and compete to be the best of the best of the best. Sure, it’s by the numbers, predictable at points, filled with wacky hijinks, and the action scenes aren’t given enough budge to be memorable in the slightest, but is it good? Meh. There are a few scenes that are hilarious, but the rest of the film is a mess of boring, stupid, or generic. This Means War is never going to top True Lies in the action department, so it shouldn’t even bother. I did not see Knight and Day, but from the reviews the action at least seems continual. This Means War features long sequences of our heroes riding their desks at the office after the brief beginning fight until the last act, so the weight of the film rests entirely on the romantic aspect of the story. That would probably be okay if we hadn’t felt like we’d already seen everything before.
FDR Foster and Tuck are CIA agents who in the opening sequence shoot up some bad guys and end up killing one brother of two, the second escaping and vowing revenge. We don’t know much about this guy except he’s bad, so forget about him. Tuck is a British CIA agent (whaaa?) who is divorced with a young son, while FDR is a playboy who has sex with anything that moves and anything that might move if it’s placed on a slope. As FDR’s wife is only hinted at dating again, but a boyfriend never presents himself as a threat, I can see the future clearer than the time I shoved crystal balls in my eyes and was banned from that Wiccan store downtown. Little do they know how many million$ I won from the lottery!
aka 鬼門太極
1971HKMDB Link
Written by Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong, Tyrone Hsu Tien-Yung, Lin Yu-Yuan
Directed by Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong
The Evil Karate (鬼門太極) is a great Taiwanese kung fu fantasy with all the common revenge and secret kung fu instruction elements you need to ensure a simple but action-filled story. Taiwan’s martial arts spectacles focused on crazy action, and they weren’t afraid to have every character have a gimmick. This film is no exception, beyond every character having their own specific weapon, we have a lady who wears a snake (and uses it as a weapon), a guy who fights with a fishing pole, and everyone teleporting and zooming around in the trees like they’re flying squirrels. The not afraid to try new and fun things is part of the joys of Taiwanese kung fu films, and makes up for the often awful condition we have to view the treasures in. Even getting this in a subtitled print is a minor miracle, usually I’d be forced to deal with a substandard dub where everyone has a random British accent.
The Evil Karate is a mix of man-on-the-run/girl-fighter/revenge films, complete with a character whose talent seems to be getting everyone who helps him horribly murdered. Luckily, the villain is even more comically evil than you would think, and his pack of goons are pretty hilarious even as they die by the score. It is set in a kung fu fantasy world where people can fly, smash boulders, train at secret techniques from childhood, and evil gangs control vast territory for decades without anyone bothering to stop them except the now-grown children of people they murdered. But the real reason to bother with The Evil Karate doesn’t show up until almost halfway through the film, and that is actress Cheung Ching-Ching.
Cheung Ching-Ching was active for about a decade as a martial arts actress, kicking butt all over Taiwan in a variety of movies, most of which are either not available anywhere or only on beat up VHS tapes, bargain DVDs, and grey market specials. Which is sort of a shame, because she’s pretty good, and has a high-energy charisma that you want to see in a goofy film like this. The actress who plays the young Chen-chen (for around half the film) is also pretty good, and is really into all the physical work required for the job. I almost though this would turn into an Annoying Flying Kid movie, but thankfully we had a montage where she turned into Cheung Ching-Ching. Director Joseph Kuo helmed the two 18 Bronzemen films among his 63 films, most of which were done in the 60s and 70s.
No one does karate, evil or otherwise.
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aka 東成西就2011 aka Eagle Shooting Heroes 2011
2011
Directed by Jeff Lau Chun-Wai
East Meets West 2011 is an update in tone of Jeff Lau’s 1993 film Eagle Shooting Heroes, a classic comedy film that boasted a huge cast (many of whom were borrowed from Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time, which was running over budget and needed another film to be made with the core cast to balance the books!) and has become one of the mainstay comedy films due to the crazy and energetic feel to the picture. East Meets West 2011 takes inspiration from that, transports the reincarnated gods to modern day, and adds super hero trappings and some philosophical discussion into the mix. And though it isn’t non-stop zaniness, it is still a good time and is one of my favorite recent Hong Kong films.
While Eagle Shooting Heroes/Ashes of Time are largely based on Jin Yong’s Condor Heroes trilogy, East Meets West 2011 instead takes from another of Jin Yong’s wuxia works, Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. The eight major characters known as the Eight Heavenly Dragons are based on the eight races of non-human entities described in Buddhist cosmology, called Tianlong Babu (天龍八部) the “8 kinds of beings that protect the Dharma” The Eight Races are the Deva, Nāga, Yaksha, Asura, Garuda, Kinnara, Gandharva and Mahoraga. Tianlong 天龍 means Heaven Dragon, but can also translate to deva-nāga “Devas and Nāgas”, the 2 highest categories of tianlong. The lower 6 categories are: yecha 夜叉 “Yaksha; cannibalistic devils; nature spirits”, gantapo 乾闥婆 “Gandharva; half-ghost music masters”, axiuluo 阿修羅 “Asura; evil and violent demigods”, jialouluo 迦樓羅 “Garuda; golden bird-like demons that eat dragons”, jinnaluo 緊那羅 “Kinnara; half-human half-bird celestial music masters”, maholuluojia 摩睺羅迦 “Mahoraga; earthly snake spirits”. And, yes, I ganked all that from Wikipedia.
Jeff Lau’s films are almost always crazy awesome, and he’s very good at bringing Western elements into his work. Lau’s films often look more advanced than their counterparts from the same year, and hold up much longer than normal. His vision can take the simplest tale and give it a grand scope. Even the title of East Meets West 2011 shows the clash of Western and Eastern styles, with the Eastern gods taking up Western super hero visuals in a modern Hong Kong, while still being connected to the ancient past and Jade Emperors and all that jazz. Even the music comes from both the West and East, with a remake of Happy Together used several times, as well as a redo of the James Bond theme (this might be one of the first times I’ve heard the score legitimately used in an overseas film, as I’ve been spending too much time watching old genre films that have been ripping it off wholesale), but also Karen Mok songs.
It is almost impossible to discuss parts of this without spoilers, so I am declaring this review SPOILER FILLED. Don’t come crying to me if you keep reading and everything is ruined.
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aka The Fruit Is Ripe 33D aka 蜜桃成熟時33D aka Mi Tao Cheng Shu Shi 33D
2011
Directed by Cash Chin Man-Kei
33D Invader is like a 1990s Hong Kong Cat III comedy time traveled to 2011 and unleashed itself on the public. And because time travel plays a part in the plot of 33D Invader, perhaps that was the subtle message they were going for. The male characters are direct out of an 80s American sex film. We have the Nice Guy (Lawrence), the Nerd (Danson), the Fat Guy (Stephen), and the Other Guy who has no real personality but is there to fill out the group (Felix). The female characters range from blank slate to blank slate to blank slate with slightly bigger boobs. And though we’re given a quick introduction to them, it is hard to remember which one is loose and which one is a virgin when they’re all running around naked. Only Future and Jeana get any sort of personality, even Xucker No. 2 is nothing but a generic villain.
Granted, the audience isn’t people who care about the plot, it is people who care about seeing naked girls be naked.
It is hard to determine exactly what is going on, because 33D Invader is all over the map. Every sex scene is completely different in tone, from the sensual and erotic, to the rough and filthy, to the rape rape rape, to the gross, to the woman on woman, to the man drugged for sex by a woman, to the guy is so gross you want to hit fast-forward.
33D Invader was originally called The Fruit Is Ripe 33D, betraying its namesake origins as the next The Fruit is Ripe film. Like almost all of the prior films, it has nothing to do with any of the others and was given a namechange makeover. The first film was 1993’s Crazy Love, which featured Loletta Lee being naked. 1997 gave us the second film in the series, which was given the English title The Fruit Is Swelling. It featured Jane Chung Chun as a character named Peach who was given the Big treatment and grew up overnight in a universe where everyone seems to have sex at the drop of the hat. By 1999, they just literally translated the Chinese title of the next sequel, and thus we had The Fruit is Ripe 3, which was confusing for people like me who saw that at the video store (while renting everything in the Hong Kong section) and wondered where the other two parts were, not knowing that I’d already seen them (as there was little information available on Hong Kong film at this point.) The third film features actress Jay Fong Ching as an angel named Peach who has come to Earth to help some loser with his love life, and many people are naked.
The 33D part of The 33D Invader is the lost promise of it being in 3D like 3D Sex and Zen, which at the time of announcement was pouring in the dough. But when The 33D Invader showed up in theaters, it was as flat as a pancake. Coincidentally, some of the actresses…
But let’s hit the cast, and then dive into the plot!
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