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InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Brutal River (Review)

November 27, 2006By

The Brutal River

aka Khoht phetchakhaat

2005
Starring
Chartchai Ngamsan as Jamnong Phimaan
Jirapat Wongpaisarn as Pikul Phimaan
Worapod Cha’am as Narinthorn
Lukana Lisani as Karaked
Directed by Anat Yuangngern

Hey, America is not the only country that can produce SciFi Channel films where a giant CGI animal kills people; Thailand can create them as well! Even though it probably has no chance of ever appearing on the SciFi Channel, Brutal River is in spirit similar to the many dozens of films that premiere to the world on that network. Sure, the opening scrawl claims it’s based on a true story, but CGI carnage is the same in every language. A few problems, the pacing is way off, and the movie has habits of dragging, making it seem like it’s much longer than it is, while SciFi Channel flicks usually try to show the monster every 10-15 minutes or so for fresh kills. Oddly enough, other parts of the movie are pulled off quite well, as the film jumps back into quality B-movie territory. Thai film has received a boost recently due to the works of Tony Jaa becoming popular, the quality film Beautiful Boxer, and works of director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. Thai horror has also started to creep around into the public conscious thanks to the general Asian horror leakage. Thus, Brutal River is born! The best selling point of The Brutal River is one of the neat poster one-sheets, which is included with the rest of the screencaps here. I don’t want to say that Brutal River is a terrible film, but it’s just infected with its plot slowdowns ruining the pacing of the film worse than a rogue crocodile would ruin the local canal of a Thai village. That makes it a terrible film, even if you can get enjoyment from it.

Though I’ve watched several Thai films (okay, 2 Thai films), I am still a novice in identifying the actors and local nuances that define Thai cinema and culture. Chartchai Ngamsan (who plays Nong) seems to be the local heartthrob to bring out the ladies. He’s probably best known over here for the cultish Tears of the Black Tiger. Chirapat Wongpaisanlux (or Jirapat Wongpaisarn as she went by in this film) playing Pikulwould be one of our hot women, as well as Lukana Lisani (playing Ked) as the other hot girl. Following traditional Asian fame, many of these people probably have singing careers in addition to their acting careers. It would be nice to know any of that, but English information on any of them is scanty, and Google translations are far more miss than hit. We’ll just make up some facts to fill out the rest of the paragraph. Chartchai Ngamsan owns a riverboat casino and spends most of his non-acting time singing lounge acts onboard. He is the best Robert Goulet impersonator in Asia. Chirapat Wongpaisanlux spends most of her spare time spelling her name in various different ways so she’ll never be credited under the same spelling twice. This compulsion is due to her being trapped alone in an empty closet as a child with only a Scrabble board game for company.

The Net 2.0
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Net 2.0 (Review)

November 20, 2006By

The Net 2.0


2006
Starring
Nikki Deloach as Hope Cassidy
Sebnem Dönmez as Roxelana
Demet Akbag as Dr. Kavak
Keegan Connor Tracy as Z.Z. Jackson
Neil Hopkins as James Haven
Güven Kirac as Osman
Directed by Charles Winkler

A rehash in the hashiest sense, The Net 2.0 is not only an inferior photocopy of the previous film’s plot, it ramps up the clichés to an exponential factor in reverse proportion to its shrinking in scope. In place of Sandra Bullock, we have Mickey Mouse Club alum Nikki Deloach (who went from a Mouseketeer dating N*SYNC’s JC to making DTV films in Turkey) as Hope Cassidy. That name wouldn’t be so bad if she didn’t keep repeating that Hope was all she has left (Following which we let loose more vomit than the sum printed on every Garbage Pail Kid sticker!) Being that the world was screaming for a sequel to The Net, to answer all those lingering questions left over from the TV series, such as “Are those Pi Symbol guys defeated?”, “Was that the movie that turned Dennis Miller from hilarious comedian to unfunny rightwing shill?” and “There was a TV series???” Instead of keeping the international conspiracy angle, this cheapened version also cheapens the plot, turning it into a simple robbery. This dropping of the conspiracy eliminates the only interesting angle of the original, while instead of an international supergroup the villains turn out to be just a pair of one-dimensional goons. WOOOoooOOOoOOOoOoOoOO! Fear the one-dimensional goons! They will erase your identity if you ever take a job in Turkey! Well, maybe you can get a job in a Cuneyt Arkin film, or the DTV Cocktail 2: Cock Harder!

Having never seen the TV series, I have no idea if it was cancelled in the middle of a plotline that this was originally intended to answer. Since 2.0 has zero connections story-wise, it was probably not greenlighted to finish any stories, but to jump onto the cash cow of DTV (Direct to Video) sequels that are now plaguing Blockbuster and Hollywood Video like locusts in Biblical Egypt. Movies like Single White Female 2: The Psycho, Species III, Wild Things 3: Diamonds in the Rough, and House of the Dead 2 pull in enough of a profit in video presales before they’re even released to make it worthwhile, so director turned producer Irwin Winkler placed his son in charge of direction (the original title was The Net 2.0: Nepotism) so they’d rake in all the dough, making the Winkler family even richer, and it’s not even Henry Winkler’s family. Can’t the Fonz catch a break? At least he was on Arrested Development.

With all the magic hacking power of the two villains, one wonders why they had to resort to this identity erasing as a frame-up for their robbery when they could put it to good use ripping off slightly smaller targets that would still make them rich enough to never have to work again. There are literally thousands of unsecured and easily accessible places to go, for people with that super power of hacking. The same super power of hacking that Matthew Broderick had in WarGames, or Wolverine possessed in Swordfish, these two idiots are using to goof around, and the heroine is even more super powered than them. Scary note on the WarGames reference, WarGames 2 has been greenlit for DTV! I’m sure it will be just as terrible as the title sounds.

InBad, Movie Reviews

Lady Iron Monkey

November 13, 2006By

Lady Iron Monkey

aka The Ape Girl aka Zui Hou Nu
Lady Iron Monkey
1979
Starring (This is guesswork)
Fung Ling Kam as Ming Ling Shur (the Ape Girl)
Lap Bo Au as Drunken Monk
Sing Chen as Prince Yan Shing
Man Tai Lee as Evil Advisor
Lo Lieh as Assassin Millenrapen
Directed by Chi-Hwa Chen
Lady Iron Monkey
Lady Iron Monkey (or The Ape Girl as it was known before producers tried to cash in on Iron Monkey getting a theatrical release in America) is a pretty fun flick that takes us to a world where a girl is raised by monkeys, and uses her monkey abilities to become a master of kung fu. She beats up plenty of people along the way, and her monkeyness gets her into several spots of trouble. The films doesn’t take itself too seriously, bordering on campy, but is serious enough that they don’t do any of the annoying “acknowledging that they’re in a movie” type stuff. The goofiness allows the movie to flow quickly and to the point, and you get disarmed from questioning the logic of certain events. In addition, some of the plot is centered on actual Chinese history, though that is prevalent in many Chinese Kung Fu films, some of which is ruined by terrible dubbing. Even if this is just a response to Charlton Heston demanding damn dirty ape stinking paws off him, it’s still pretty entertaining. Actress Fung Ling Kam/Gam Fung-Ling (or Kim Fung Li as she’s billed as) wasn’t in many films, IMDB has this as her sole credit and I only found two more that even listed her (thanks to Google) titled Iron Bridge Kung-Fu and The Gloomy Tower (aka Shaolin 36 Beads, which was released on DVD – UPDATE: I recently saw The Gloomy Tower and Gam Fung-Ling is nowhere to be found) IMDB being incomplete regarding Asian cinema? I never!! At least they even have a listing for this film. Lady Iron Monkey also has early roles for Lo Lieh, who plays an assassin and would go on to be a very famous martial arts star; as well as Chen Sing, who also had a long career despite not reaching the level of fame as Lo Lieh. With this information here, we will seemingly become the leading resource for information about The Ape Girl/Lady Iron Monkey

The opening credits is the traditional 1970’s kung fu movie opening with the star posing different stances as the credits run by. We get Ming Ling Shur, the Ape Girl, dancing around doing her monkey style kung fu, and who is she joined by? A chimpanzee! Chimpy is flipping around, doing some of the same flips and jumps Ming Ling Shur does as well. The print is pretty scratched up, but it’s suddenly clear as day when the title appears (because it’s a retitle.) Ming Ling Shur is a hairy girl, with hair on her arms and monkey makeup on her face. She’s also pretty good at acting like a monkey, with big, exaggerated movements. It adds to the charm of the film, as does the Ape Girl Theme which plays during the lighthearted moments. This is a film about an ape girl, it isn’t going to be the most serious thing in the universe.

Lady Iron Monkey

Buyu
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Büyü (Review)

November 6, 2006By

Büyü


2004
Starring
Nihat Ileri as Professor Hodja Ekrem
Özgü Namal as Sedef Ekrem
Dilek Serbest as Ceren
Ipek Tuzcuoglu as Ayse
Ebru Ürün as Zeynep
Ece Uslu as Ayden
Okan Yalabik as Cemil
Directed by Orhan Oguz

Watch Büyü and you will die, die, DIE!! Well, the theater will burn down! Okay, one theater, during opening night. And you might not die. In fact, no one died. But the movie is still cursed! Or not. Well, it sucks, so maybe it is cursed… Yes, the Opening Night Premiere truthfully ended in an inferno of the theater, but everyone got out okay. This fueled the curse speculation that lead to Büyü becoming a smash hit in Turkey. Note to self: burn down theater at premiere party for new independent film about a cursed film that burns down theaters in Turkey, make millions! Büyü is an attempt at some more serious horror, a shift away from Turkey’s history of goofy film. Instead, they borrow from some more obscure Western films and combine it with their own folk lore. Büyü, or Buyu as well call it from now on for ease of typing, translates to “Magic”, specifically Black Magic-type spells. The specific black magic is a ghost that slaughters a whole expedition of Turkish Archeologists, all of which but two are hot Turkish women. Turkey may have some problems, but their archeological departments must be funded to the hilt to attract all these hotties. Maybe they all think they’ll run into Harrison Ford or something. Some things never change in Turkish cinema, even back in the wild 1970’s and 1980’s they still packed their films full of bodacious babes, and the tradition lives on with Buyu and Valley of the Wolves: Iraq. Both films also have lots of blood and gore, another Turkish tradition. Some things have changed, though, for Buyu obviously is a more expensive offering than such cult films as Kilink or 3 Dev Adam, but it lacks the sense of fun and enjoyment those films offered. In that fact, Buyu is far much more of a failure than the Turkish Pop Cinema disasters that Turkey is better known for in the cult circles.

Shark Attack 3: Megalodon
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (Review)

October 30, 2006By

Shark Attack 3: Megalodon


2002
Starring
John Barrowman as Ben Carpenter
Jenny McShane as Cataline Stone
Ryan Cutrona as Chuck Rampart
George Stanchev as Esai
Harry Anichkin (Harry Aneachkin) as Jeff Tolley
Bashar Rahal as Luis Ruiz

“I’m really wired. What do you say, I take you home and eat your pussy?”

With that immortal dialogue, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon became the greatest movie of the Shark Attack franchise. Which is a little like being the fastest snail or the damnest, dirtiest ape. Taking Jaws and super-sizing it, we get a movie that combines two of the standard plotlines for SciFi Channel films: shark attacks and giant prehistoric monsters running amok. This film may be specially tailored for the SciFi Channel, but anywhere else, it leaves a thick, crusty residue behind. The ludicrous plot dares to copy the Jaws story from a universe where Steven Spielberg was replaced by a shaved chimp. Even a shaved chimp couldn’t be low enough to write the final half hour of this alleged film, that could have only been accomplished by a tub of wet cement. The finally where characters leap into the water into the mouth of the giant shark stretches believability for even a SciFi Channel movie. I’m there when prehistoric rhinoceros beetles live underground for centuries with no food. I’m there when cloned sabretooths are bulimic and shaped like walruses. I’m there when Komodos fight Cobras for thirty seconds of a two hour movie. But I can’t follow the logic of the characters at the end of this film.

Megalodon was the biggest shark that ever lived, estimated to get up to 16 meters (53 feet) in length. They are long dead, despite what a few lone nuts would have you believe. They are a perfect villain for a monster movie, but even the biggest screw-ups can ruin a perfect concept. The best part of Shark Attack 3 is enjoying the ride as the plane flies apart all around you, leaving you in perilous danger for your sanity as the movie slams into the Earth at 186,200 miles per second. Only those who are strong can escape without the scarring, both mentally and physically (you will try to gouge out eyes, slit wrists, and stick forks in sockets.) The reward is a large patch on the B-Movie Watcher’s Uniform, a symbol to be worn with pride. Joining the ranks of Troll 2, Cyber Seduction, Turkish Star Wars, Plan 9 From Outer Space, and dozens of other All Star films. Are you man enough to accept the challenge? Or will we be sending the Megalodon to go eat you, in a fury of terrible CGI?

In the meantime, enjoy the terrible animated gifs the encapsulate the abomination of video data files that stands before you, ready for the attack.

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Master Demon

October 23, 2006By

Master Demon


1991
Starring
Eric Lee as Tong Lee/The White Warrior
Gerald Okamura as Kwon Chang/Master Demon Dark Fury
Kay Baxter Young as Medusa
Ava Cadell as Jan
Steve Nave as Cameron Massey
Sid Campbell as Wayne Besecker
Directed by Samuel Oldham

It begins in the end…

So the movie begins. But instead of going backwards like that one episode of Seinfeld, instead we are thousands of years in the past. As two rejects from Tekken fight each other in a field, we have started The Master Demon, a film made as an Eric Lee vehicle. It’s the film that rocketed him to fame and starring roles in Enter the Shootfighter and The Education of a Vampire. The film’s villain, the resident Master Demon, is played by Gerald Okamura, previously seen here in Ninja Academy and also seen in many quality films such as Samurai Cop and Vampire Assassin. How both of these guys got signed on to this film seems to be a mystery, as the film’s budget might have hit three digits if they dug in the couches of the entire crew for loose change. Still, the low budget adds to some of the charm, the armies of endless bad guys are probably someone’s friends from the local martial arts house appearing free for their lone film credit, and a few of the endless goons get some creative costumes. The film’s plot is standard “demon trying to take over the world” scenario with the “one man who can take him down” and his goofy friends along for the ride. I bet you didn’t know that 50-ish police officers can defeat seven demonic martial artists bare-handed! See that, Kabuki thugs, Gerald Okamura’s head inflate, and much more in The Master Demon…

It begins in the end… (As we said.) The movie starts out with the narrator reciting that as two people fight in a field in Southern California (playing ancient China.) Gerald Okamura is locked in mortal combat with a blonde-haired Eric Lee dressed entirely in white. Gerald is dressed in red, and has giant boils on one side of his face, in addition to more eyeliner than a goth convention. Gerald is the Demon Master (our title character!), and he manages to stab the White Warrior (yes, that’s Eric Lee’s character’s name) in the stomach with his odd weapon, but the White Warrior retaliates by slicing off the hand of Demon Master. Demon Master screams in his funky demon language and vanishes, except for his missing hand, which is wiggling around with some simple animatronics. You know those moving hand gloves you can get at tourist shops? It’s like that. The wounded White Warrior (who doesn’t act at all like he’s stabbed in the stomach, must have taken a Tekken power up or something) picks up the hand and takes it with him. Give him a hand, people! HA! I kill me! At this point, we find out this is all an intense nightmare of Eric Lee, who is now playing Tong Lee, in modern day, and is still dreaming so we continue with the dream flashbacks. White Warrior wanders to a temple, possible a Shaolin Temple but maybe not, and there is a monk inside, who begins chanting. A second Narrator (there’ll be a lot of Narrators) explains that the chanting is to keep the Master Demon from making himself whole. Incantations and prayers are used, and the hand is put in a box and sealed.

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