Godfather's Daughter

Godfather’s Daughter (Review)

Godfather’s Daughter

aka Godfather’s Daughter Mafia Blues aka Lit foh ching sau

1992
Starring
Yukari Oshima as Amy
Mark Cheng as Wai
Alex Man
Ken Lo as Kuyama

Slooooooow pacing, hackneyed plot, genre indecision, this movie has it all! What becomes finally a revenge movie spends most of the time jumping back and forth between a terrible Goodfellows ripoff to being Godfather, until the lazy writers get around to killing off enough characters that it’s revenge time. Luckily this movie seems to have as many names as genres it becomes, in addition to Godfather’s Daughter, The Godfather’s Daughter Mafia Blues, and Lit foh ching sau, it’s also called Flaming Love Enemy which is what the Chinese title translates into. The journey is frought with pain and suffering, and mindcrushing boredom. This movie could have used a team of whipmasters to speed up the pacing, as scenes draaaaaaaaaaaag like a cripple’s foot.

Wild Child 2

Wild Child 2 (Review)

Wild Child 2

aka Silk n’ Sabotage

1994

Starring

Julia Skiru (aka Julia Kruis) as Jamie
Stephanie Champlin as Lynn
Cherilyn Shea as Dagny
Darren Foreman as Micheal
Marshall Hilliard as Robert
Aline Kassman as Tracy

A genre of films that males are intimately familiar with is the late-night Cinemax (Skinimax) or Showtime movie. Plots are inconsequencial as the point of the movies are to have the actresses that star get naked as often as possible without the movie drifting into the porn zone. Acting skills are not required, beyond the ability to thrash around. In this vein, Silk n Sabotage was born. This is a film I remember watching when I was in high school on cable, and now it’s released on DVD, with a brand new title (Wild Child 2? I never even saw the FIRST Wild Child. Not that this film is related at all…) This film has the hallmarks of this genre: fake breasted blondes, full frontal nudity, goofy dispensable male characters, “boing” style sound effects, terrible 90’s rock, plots that could fit on a fortune cookie message, acting so wooden Geppetto carved it late one night, more padding than all the bras at a Junior High dance combined, and budgets of $37.

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raiders (Review)

Tomb Raiders

aka Ba hai hong ying aka Avenging Quartet

1992
Starring
Cynthia Khan (Cynthia Luster) as Lisa
Yukari Oshima as Shoko
Moon Lee as Moon Lee
Michiko Nishiwaki as The Sister-in-law

This is called Tomb Raiders, despite the complete lack of tombs, lack of raiding, and lack of Lara Croft or Angelina Jolie. Any of those things would have helped this movie. In fact, Tomb Raiders is just a title repackage, as this was released under the name Avenging Quartet before, though that name is also misleading, as the women are not on the same side, and only two of them can be counted as avenging anything. At least they didn’t go with another Charlie’s Angels ripoff title, like many other movies some of these girls starred in.


Turist Omer Star Trek Turkish

Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda (Review)

Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda

aka Turist Omer in Star Trek aka Turkish Star Trek

1973
Starring
Sadri Alisik as Turist Omer
Erol Amac as Mister Spak (yes, Spak)
Cemil Sahbaz as Kaptan Kirk
Ferdi Merter as Duktur McCoy
Fusun (aka Fusun Olgac) as Uhura
Yilmaz Sahin as Scoty

More Turkish Shenanigans. Actually early Turkish film, from when ripping off American films had not been perfected. Yet this wholesale rip off of Star Trek not only has the honor of being the first Star Trek movie ever made, but features ripped off opening credits, ripped off music, ripped off sound effects. The Director went to the trouble of creating sets that look good enough you know what they are supposed to be despite the fact they probably cost eight cents on a six cents budget. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if an obnoxious dirty greasy Turkish guy was transported into the middle of the Star Trek episode The Man Trap then this is the movie for you. Too bad you are probably trapped in an asylum somewhere instead of free to track down Turkish films. Turist Omer is from a series of films involving said greasy cowboy hatted oaf encountering various wacky scenarios and hijinks ensue. The first Turist Omer dates to 1964, and he’s also been in Turist Omer dumenciler krali (1965 – no clue on the translation), and Turist Omer Almanya’da (1966 – Turist Omer in Germany). This was the last of the series that I am aware of, though I wouldn’t be surprised if there were thirty more entries that will never be seen again due to the state of Turkish film preservation (Which may be doing us a favor, as some of these films could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Imagine Osama bin Laden taking over the airwaves and sending us non-stop Turkish dramas? The horror is too great to imagine. Sadri Alisik is sadly no longer with us, taken before Turist Omer could invade the Star Wars universe.

They Live

They Live (Review)

They Live


1988

Starring

Roddy Piper as Nada
Keith David as Frank
Meg Foster as Holly Thompson
Directed by John Carpenter

A classic tough guy film from John Carpenter, complete with some of the coolest lines (often repeated and ripped off) ever to grace the silver screen. A very thinly disguised commentary on classism in America, luckily for us it’s buried beneath alien invaders and action sequences. I’ll incorporate the messages from the film into the summary, to better the flow of the text. If “Republicans from Space” is too hot for you to handle politically, then this probably isn’t your movie, go pick up a John Wayne movie. Rowdy Roddy Piper is perfect for the tough guy role, and Keith David makes any movie ten times cooler, except maybe the Riddick movies which fail for other reasons.




Clan of Amazons

Clan of Amazons (Review)

Clan of Amazons

aka Xiu hua da dao

1978
Lau Wing as Lu Xiaofeng
Ling Yun as Jin Juiling
Yueh Hua as Hua Manlou
Ching Li as Xue Bing
Shih Szu as Jiang Qingxia, 3rd Sister
Cheung Ying as Serpent

This Shaw Brother’s epic features no Amazons, instead you have red shoed women, police inspectors, blind kung fu, sword fu, needle fu, embroidery fu, burning boat fu, and prostitutes getting paid to look out a window.