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Bloodrayne

Bloodrayne (Review)

Bloodrayne


2005
Starring
Kristanna Loken as Rayne
Michelle Rodriguez as Katarin
Ben Kingsley as Kagan
Michael Madsen as Vladimir
Matt Davis as Sebastian
Billy Zane as Elrich
Meat Loaf as Leonid
Directed by Uwe Boll

Uwe Boll is back! Dr. Boll returns with yet another lame video game to lamer movie adaptation! Miles away from House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne shows us how Dr. Boll has grown as a filmmaker. Like an inoperable brain tumor. Bloodrayne reaches new heights of lowness. That may not make sense, but it makes more sense than the movie. Bloodrayne the game is about a half-vampire girl named Rayne who kills Nazis, and the famous for losing money sequel involve her fighting her father Kagan in the year 2000 or so. Rayne is also pale white, and was in Playboy for some God forsaken reason. The German Uwe Boll apparently was not too keen on having Rayne kill a bunch of Germans, even though they were zombies, so he just rewrote everything and made it take place in the 1700s in Romania. Dr. Boll is to cinema what the desert is to a thirsty mouth. Defying all logic, Dr. Boll managed to score a plethora of big named stars, and will have even bigger names in his future projects. A juggernaut of suck, watch out you don’t get ran down.

TNT Jackson (Review)

TNT Jackson


1975
Starring
Jeanne Bell as Diana “TNT” Jackson
Stan Shaw as Charlie
Pat Anderson as Elaine
Ken Metcalf as Sid
Directed by Cirio H. Santiago
Writing credits Ken Metcalf and Dick Miller

It’s the Seventies! Let’s get some Malaise and impeach Nixon! Disco down now! The Seventies is not complete without some Blaxploitation, so we got that too! Turn down your radio and it’s cranking out of the seventies hits of Stray, Patto, Bakerloo, Frumpy, Gnidrolog, Cressida, Gong, Budgie, Osibisa, Klaatu, Gypsy, Cactus, Audience, Mandrill, or whatever other rare Seventies songs you like, for it is time for action. Black action. Blaction! It’s Sista Blaction as our star is October 1969 Playboy Playmate of the Month Jeanne Bell, who is TNT Jackson, flying to Hong Kong to search for her missing brother. Jeanne Bell’s martial arts training seems to be entirely composed of the rehearsal scene, but she has a double ( a suspiciously male-looking double) who takes care of some of the problems. Afros abound, and Jeanne Bell takes up the sassy black girl quota entirely herself. “Hong Kong” (aka somewhere in the Philippines) seems to be populated with every kind of ruffian and rogue on the planet, giving us plenty of fight scenes. Cirio H. Santiago directs (previously seen here helming The Destroyers and Wheels of Fire) and one of the writers (the one who didn’t write himself into the movie) is Dick Miller, famous for being in Gremlins and The Terminator. Will this Kung-Fu Sista kick some butt and find her bro? Will she get drowned in a sea of afros? What scene from this film did Quentin Tarantino “homage” (rip off)? All these questions and more can be answered by reading onward!

Asian Charlie’s Angels (Review)

Asian Charlie’s Angels


2001
Starring
Christy Chung! as An Qi
Kelly Lin Hsi-Lei as ???
Annie Wu Chen-Chun as ???/Zheng Ke Ren
Cheng Jutsi as ???
??? as Feng Ming
??? as Zhong Wen
??? as Pan Jai Xi

It seems America is not the only country where guys named Charlie hire beautiful women to solve crimes. Hong Kong has joined the fun, and their Charlie follows in his American counterpart’s footsteps. What results is a television pilot for a failed Chinese TV series (as best as I can gather from the few available sources) complete with all the bad parts left in that show you why it wasn’t ordered as a full series. Lots of bad spots. A few bright spots show up, but the show mostly contains some odd elements, some things left completely unexplained, and two main characters developed so flimsily that the VCD case this movie came in is thicker. The three Angels are played by some well known actresses, which puts the failure entirely on the shoulders of the writers/directors/producers. How you can score some big names and then fail in every other aspect must take some skill. Well, Uwe Boll pulls it off, but China should be emulating good directors. Christy Chung is the biggest name here of the three, not only is she super hot, but she’s pretty well known internationally. Kelly Lin is also known a bit outside of Hong Kong, as is Annie Wu, but neither to the extent of Christy Chung (Chung was previously seen here in Red Wolf.) Still, they are all big names in Hong Kong, and star power alone should have guaranteed a hit, even moderately. That it didn’t should be a warning sign. A big warning sign. Billboard size. Billboard seen from space size. Billboard seen from outside the galaxy size. What I’m saying is, pretty big. This is technically Part 2, seeming to be the second half of a two-hour pilot, yet it’s pretty stand alone as it is. If I ever run across Part 1, I’ll update this review, but there is no need to wait, especially since there is plenty of pain to go around for this episode, mixed with the guilty pleasure of seeing the hot Angels run around. From what little I’ve found of the missing first half, it has nothing to do with what happens here, anyway. So let’s sail away on the Angel train of adventure. Grab your halo and wings, it will be a bumpy ride…


Sister Street Fighter

Sister Street Fighter (Review)

Sister Street Fighter

aka Onna hissatsu ken

1974
Starring
Etsuko Shiomi (Sue Shiomi) as Tina Long (Sister Street Fighter)
Sonny Chiba as The Street Fighter
Hiroshi Miyauchi as Lee Long
Emi Hayakawa as Emi Kawasaki (I Think)
Eva Parrish as Eva Parrish, Karate Champion of Australia

This is the third Street Fighter Movie, and Sonny Chiba returns, if but briefly, and not as The same character. The movie is really an Estuko “Sue” Shiomi showcase, and she deserves it, as Sister Street Fighter kicks the butt of anyone who stands in her way. Besides her popping up in most of the other Street Fighter movies as various other characters, this movie is supposed to have spawned a few sequels of it’s own featuring Sue Shiomi’s character, Tina Long. Or at least they are just other films that were labeled as sequels to this when released in America, I’m still tracking some down before I can find out. This is a very enjoyable romp, the action is continuous, the plot is as good as you can expect from a revenge flick, especially female revenge. Rescuing your brother also plays well, it beats the often used “wronged woman” cliché. The only downfalls are little Sonny Chiba screentime, and many of the villains are more cartoonish than Skeletor. Plenty of Sue Shiomi beating the crap out of dozens of men more than makes up for it, as does the random nudity thrown in by the supporting female characters.


Wrestling Women Aztec Mummy

The Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy (review)

The Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy

aka Las Luchadoras contra la momia

1964
Starring
Lorena Velázquez as Gloria Venus (Loretta)
Armando Silvestre as Armando Rios
Elizabeth Campbell as Golden Rubi (Ruby)
Ramón Bugarini as Prince Fujiyata
Víctor Velázquez as Dr. Luis Trelles (Prof. Tracy)
Nathanael “Frankenstein” León as Fujiyata’s bald henchman

Mexico has a proud tradition of Los Luchadoros movies, from Santo fighting Martians to Blue Demon fighting Infernal Brains. Even the women get into the act, this is the second film featuring Las Luchadoras Gloria Venus and Golden Rubi, as well as the forth featuring the title villain, the Aztec Mummy (Earlier film Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.) It’s the Mexican version of Aliens vs. Predator, except from the 1960’s and thousands of times better. Like most of the Mexican Wrestling movies, it’s got lots of campy fun. However, this film has a dark side that scars it’s appeal this day. There is a gang of villains in the movie who are an Asian gang. Being that Mexico has like 2 Asian people in the 1960’s, they are all played by Mexicans. So the villains are a yellow-face stereotype similar to anti-Japan films made during World War II. The Yellow-faceness can be argued that they didn’t give the actors false slanted eyes, such as horrible examples on Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice and John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror, but they just had actors who looked vaguely Asian. Very vaguely. If you were drunk. And blind. And high on ‘shrooms. Barring that, the film holds together pretty well. Just view it for what it is, an artifact of the times. Sit back, relax, and pull a half-Nelson on your opponent while your tag-team partner distracts the ref so you can hit them with a chair.


She IS On Duty

She is on Duty (Review)

She is on Duty

aka Jambok-geunmu

2005
Starring
Kim Seon-a as Chun Jae-in (Jane Chun)
Nam Sang-mi as Cha Seung-hee
Kong Yu/Gong Yoo as Kang No-young
Kim Kap-su as Cha Young-jae
Kim Sang-ho as Detective Kang

Korea returns once again to TarsTarkas.NET with a Korean Cop Comedy with some familiar faces. Korean movies are consistently showing up with their “A” game, while Hollywood has been dragging their “R” game at best lately. You know it’s a bad year at the theaters when this only above average movie is still better than much of the dreck in theaters right now. A cop goes undercover in a high school, and it’s not Johnny Depp. There is no street to jump off 21 times or any of that nonsense. Main character Jane Chun is played by Kim Seon-a, who is a first timer here, though likely not a last timer, especially since one of her movies is called Happy Erotic Christmas, touted as the Korean American Pie with Reindeer sex. OK, maybe not any reindeer sex. But there could be… Also starring is Nam Sang-mi from Dead Friend, Too Beautiful to Lie, and Spygirl. Yep, we’ve done every movie she’s been in now, time for her to make more. Quickly, woman, quickly. Also reappearing is Korean Stud Kong Yu from Spygirl and My Tutor Friend. Happy day when Go-Bong is back! She is on Duty has some fun features such as the soundtrack, which sounds like it was taken from Riverdance. You feel like the characters should suddenly start dancing in sequence at various points in the movie. The Lord of the Dance would fit in perfectly here. It’s completely unique, because it’s too bizarre for anyone else to have tried. Some of the uniqueness takes away from the formulaic movie and enhances it, making it a better film.