Around the World in 80 Days

Around the World in 80 Days (Review)

Around the World in 80 Days


2004
Starring
Jackie Chan as Passepartout/Lau Xing
Steve Coogan as Phileas Fogg
Cecile De France as Monique La Roche
Karen Mok as General Fang
Arnold Schwarzenegger Around the World in 80 days
Jackie Chan, Jules Verne, 80 days, and 80 cameos, how could it lose? Apparently very very badly. Even the lovely Karen Mok cannot save this film. The worst part is, this could have been so great. All the pieces and potential is there, is just fails to materialize. This film is akin to working in chemistry lab, carefully adding every component to your reaction, then sitting in disappointment as it fails to do anything at all.

Protege De La Rose Noire

Protege De La Rose Noire (Review)

Protege De La Rose Noire

aka Gin chap hak mooi gwai

2004
Starring
Gillian Chung as Gillian Lo
Charlene Choi as Charlene
Ekin Cheng as Jim Lo/J-Lo
Teresa Mo as Rose
Directed by Donnie Yen and Chun-Chun Wong

The TWINS! Hong Kong pop stars Gillian Chung and Charlene Choi star in their second vehicle movie, partially directed by Donnie Yen. It’s campy eye candy.

High School Ghosthustlers

High School Ghosthustlers (Review)

High School Ghosthustlers


2000
Starring
Senna Matsuda as Kyoko
Yuka Nakamori as Emi
Yuko Kitamura as Mayu
Directed by Yoshinori Nishikiori


High School Girls, Ghosts, penis monsters, live action hentai, Japan, if you like that stuff, here is a movie containing it. It’s campy trash, but it’s somewhat fun. And with three Japanese Models as main characters, it has plenty of eye candy to cover the boring stretches. After a slow opening, quickly interswitched with a high school girl jumping to her death, and then Kyoko is bungee jumping while Mayu and Emi sit talking. They are members of the Supernatural Phenomenon Research Club at their school. Their club is sponsored by Mr Shimada, who tells Emi, Kyoko, and Mayu that people this was part of a series of suicides and people are talking about the school being cursed, and he wants the girls to investigate. Of the girls, Kyoko is most interested in supernatural phenomenon because she wishes to see her dead grandmother again. Emi is the daughter of some sort of monk that performs exorcisms, and has some psychic powers. Mayu is basically there to fall down and ghosts to catch, and uses a ghost detector that looks like a toy gun. But the brave Mr. Shimada now has three high school girls wandering around an empty high school at midnight knowing that many high school girls have recently killed themselves. Around 12:30, they hear piano music, which turns out to be the weird janitor. As Kyoko and Emi go to the bathroom, Mayu gets attacked by scissors which cut off part of her clothes (oh, the horror :P). It is, naturally, the weird janitor, and Kyoko and Emi show up to help, and the Janitor tries to hypnotize Kyoko to kill herself, but she just beats the crap out of him. And he was responsible for the other girls’ deaths, so now the trio are heroines.

Female Vampire

Female Vampire (Review)

Female Vampire

aka Les Avaleuses
1973
Starring
Lina Romay as Countess Irina Karlstein
Jack Taylor as Baron Von Rathony aka Lando
Anna Watican as Journalist
Jess Franco as Dr. Roberts
Directed by Jess Franco (as J.P. Johnson)

This Gem from Director Jess Franco is non-stop naked vampire action. Well, there is little action, but the naked vampire doesn’t stop. The most clothing the female lead wears is a dress that looks as if it were made out of a doily. There are about 8000000 different versions of this film running around, so I’m not even sure which version I watched, though the DVD claimed it was the Director’s Cut.

Opens with a woman walking in the woods. She is completely naked except for cape and belt. And the camera focuses on it all (though some of it is out of focus, a problem that plagues this movie like the locusts in Biblical Egypt). She is Vampire Countess Irina, who isn’t a traditional vampire as she is wandering around in the day and has reflections. But this particular day she is wandering in the woods and comes across a farmer who appears to be raising peacocks. The farmer must have spent all his cool points in a previous life, since he looks like Lord High Dork God. Anyway, it’s good enough for Countess, who starts going down on him immediately. He likes it until suddenly he cries out in pain loudly. So loudly it is heard far away from some ultra-seventies Eurotrash guy who looks like a strung out evil Will Ferrell. The dubbing identifies him as Lando or something similar, despite that name not appearing on the IMDB list of casts, and i think it is supposed to be the Baron Von Rathony character. But I will call him Lando non-the less, since the world needs more Landos.

Magic Serpent

The Magic Serpent (Review)

The Magic Serpent

aka Kairyu daikessen

1966

Starring

Hiroki Matsukata as Ikazuki Maru
Tomoko Ogawa as Sunate
Ryutaro Otomo as Oroki Maru
Bin Amatsu as Yuki Daijo


This Movie seems like it would have it all. Ninjas, Giant monsters, sword fighting. Yet somehow it manages only be average. It has a plot similar to Dune, or 5000 other movies where sons of murdered kings return for revenge. So let’s get Started…

NINJA ATTACK! The movie opens strong as a horde of ninjas attack a castle. The master awakens, but is betrayed by his subject Yuki Daijo and the evil wizard Oroki Maru. Master is killed, but his son Ikazuki Maru is shuttled off on a boat. But Oroki Maru turns into a dragon and gives chase. The Dragon has a very familiar roar, suspiciously like another giant lizard known to attack Tokyo and breathe fire. But let’s not dwell on that and get back to the chase. The Dragon destroys the boat and is about to kill the boy when a bird comes out of nowhere and slices the Dragon, with blood spraying EVERYWHERE! It is quite magnificent. The bird grabs little Ikazuki Maru and flies off. The bird also sounds suspiciously like another flying monster that attacks Tokyo on some regularity, but it is best not to dwell on that, either.

Blood Surf

Blood Surf (Review)

Blood Surf

aka Krocodylus

2000

Starring

Dax Miller as Bog Hall
Tara Reif as Arti
Joel West as Jeremy
Maureen Larrazabal as Lemmya
Kate Fischer as Cecily


You all remember the time when all the crazy kids were Blood Surfing, it was the biggest rage this side of Sidehacking. Or maybe not. But the fools in this movie do it, and I will venture to say this is the greatest Blood Surfing movie of all time! It opens in a plane full of doofuses who are getting psyched up to try Blood Surfing at some remote island known for surfing. Blood Surfing is when you cut your feet and then go surfing, trailing blood, and attracting sharks behind you. A documentary is planned on the blood surfing exploits of Bog (yes, Bog) and Jeremy, with camera lady Cecily and slimy producer Zack Jardine. Cecily is dating Jardine, but Bog has an interest in her. Jeremy, however, is your typical “Whoa, gnarly, totally awesome!” extreme sporter stereotype, while Bog is surf-obsessed who lives, breathes, and craps while surfing.