reviews « One More Bullet

Karate-Robo Zaborgar Review

May 17, 2011

Noboru Iguchi is a funny guy. With his partner in crime Yoshihiro Nishimura, the duo have made films like Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police which push the levels of humorous perversion, nudity and gore to absurd levels. I’m not sure how they manage to make money off these films as I’ve always felt that their film trailers are more popular than the films themselves. Someone at Nikkatsu must have seen some hope for them, as Iguchi was hired to make this film which is his highest budgeted yet. Working with Nikkatsu has put limits on him, as it forced Iguchi to lower the levels of nudity and gore to a minimum. Has he gone soft? Sort of. This image should give you the idea of what playing it family friendly is for Iguchi.

He hasn’t gone that soft. The name does not represent the monster thankfully.

So yeah, less serious than the average Tokusatsu looking film, but that’s what I expected from these filmmakers. The original television series was not a terribly popular television series in the first place. It ran for one season and this television show hereshows an audience who are not familiar with it and just seem to laugh at it (which is totally understandable).

Popular or not, Iguchi seems to be a big enough fan to not deviate from the original series in too many ways. The film is about Daimon (Yasuhisa Furuhara) who uses his robot-motorcycle Zaborgar to battle Team Sigma led by Dr. Akunomiya (Akira Emoto) who is trying to develop a Jumbo Cyborg using the DNA from politicians around Japan. To accomplish his plan, Dr. Akunomiya’s cyborg assistant, Miss Borg (Mami Yamasaki) invades Japan with various robots and monsters to accomplish his goal. After several encounters, Miss Borg and Daimon begin to fall for each other which leads Daimon to question his own motives against Team Sigma.

Silly, but nothing too special, and it’s all littered with childish humor ranging from Zaborgar knowing Muay Thai to heads rocketing off shoulders and flying around to dragons shooting out of characters breasts and arses. The action scenes in the film are what I’ve come to expect from the Sushi Typhoon films, with lots of fake looking CG explosions and CG ricocheted bullet shots. I understand that the film is low budget, but a lack of pyrotechnics does make me less excited about the action as they distract my attention away from really getting into a fight scene. Outside a brief scene involving Zaborgar fighting the Bulldog truck, the action scenes spark little excitement.

Iguchi replaces the American football players found
in the original series with AV stars such as Asami.

My problem with this film is the same problem I have with most of Iguchi’s films. They start out alright with their goofy immature humor which at first makes me forgive a silly and fairly weak script, but towards the second half of the picture this kind of amusement begins to dry up. Despite having characters who talk on cellphones which make characters heads explode, we are also swamped with melodrama in the second half when we encounter Daimon’s family troubles. These characters are introduced far too quickly making it very hard to feel any sympathy for them at all. Not to mention that these plot elements feel really out of place in this kind of film. I’m not sure how audiences will react to Zaborgar as it lacks of the ultra-violence of his previous films and still has all the same problems that I bothered me in his other features. If you are fan of the goofy humor in the previous films then by all means explore this as it will be quite satisfying. If you demand more nudity and gore than there is still good news! Iguchi has announced a director’s cut involving more gore and even a sex scene between Miss Borg and Daimon. For me however, I hope that Iguchi and and Yoshihiro take a break from releasing two films a year to work on a script to match their crazy visual perversions. If they can accomplish this, then they might be able to make a film in the same league as Paul Verhoeven’s better works.

3 Comments | 2010s, japan, karate-robo zaborgar, noboru iguchi, reviews, yoshihiro nishimura | Permalink

Thunderball Blu-ray Review

April 29, 2011

Hover over this image for immense joy.

Time to take a last minute advantage of a blogalong deal with The Incredible Suit’s attempt at world blog domination. Want more details? Read about it here. (Warning: It’s in British English which I assume is slightly different and therefore inferior to my Canadian English). I sadly missed out on all opportunities to blog about the first three films which are sometimes known amongst fans as “the good ones” but I still want to take a shot at reviewing a Bond flick. So I’m stuck watching the two-hour-plus of Thunderball.

On paper, Thunderball should’ve been a lot better. It was directed Terence Young who directed Dr. No and From Russia with Love. Young’s not really a name spoken to often outside the Bond fan base, but he also made the great 1960s thriller Wait Until Dark and a film I haven’t seen called Soleil rouge that has the strange cast of Alain Delon, Ursula Andress, Toshirô Mifune, and Charles Bronson. It looks pretty bad, but that’s what I expect from a film where samurai’s fight euro-cowboys.

Outside having a good Bond director, we have other goodies to boast the appeal of the film. Thunderball had the highest budget of any Bond film to this point and was the first one shot at 2.35:1. This film is mint looking on blu and you can really appreciate the details of these sets since the image is an obvious step up from any other format this film’s been released on. I could watch the introductory scene of the attractive anonymous ladies swooshing around to the sound of Mr. Tom Jones on repeat for a good while. If you don’t care for Tom Jones, consider yourself lucky you didn’t get that other Bond theme made for Thunderball. Country singer Johnny Cash did his own Thunderball theme which was released on a few compilation albums and not used for the film. Works for me as the song would be more appropriate for some sort of underwater-western.

Johnny Cash sings Thunderball. Bizarre.

The Blu-ray is an easy recommendation if you love yourself some Thunderball. The Blu-ray contains all the bonus features from the 2006 Ultimate Edition disc and still has the confusingly titled menus called “minisitry of propaganda” and “007 mission control” so good luck finding what you are looking for. Cause, y’know, that three-second TV advert for the film on the disc will change your life I’m sure.

As for the film itself, it does feel like a drop in quality compared to Bond’s previous missions. The James Bond films at this point were still popular (Thunderball was the highest grossing Bond film and praised by critics in both the UK and US on it’s initial release), but I feel that a few decades later that the film is only good for a few selected moments and gets tiresome in the middle section. The good bits in the film for me are the action scenes and some of the underused cheesy spy gadgets.

Despite how they are edited and sped-up, I like the action scenes such as the first prop-oriented fight scene involving Bond dropping entire shelves on a knife-wielding cross-dressing villain. I even love the back-stretcher scene which never fails to bring a smile to my face in it’s utter goofiness. I don’t know why they would create a device like this that can be set at lethal speeds, but I don’t really question much that happens in the Bond universe. If Bond wants to escape five feet away in a Jet Pack than that’s fine by me, too bad the rest of the movie is set underwater. Some of the gadgets that Bond gets from Q are boring as they aren’t flashy are there to just fill potential plot-holes. No one cares that Bond is popping pills so he can be tracked later on or that he has a camera that can take pictures of the Disco Volante underwater. BORING.

Fig 1: How to spot gadget quality in Thunderball

For the plot, the film begins to feel like a chore around the time the Avro Vulcan is hijacked and sinks in the water. It leads to a series of pretty tedious and episodic events that don’t advance the plot a great deal. It’s great that we get to see Domino in her black-and-white bikini and it’s fun to see Bond tossed in a pool full of live sharks, but do we have to sit through the rest of the plodding story to get to these parts? The rest of the underwater scenes go on for an eternity. Were they ever interesting? Even technically? You can get all these Connery-based spy scenes done better and just as many attractive Bond girls without these water scenes in the earlier films and without all the filler.

I’m not the first person to trash the underwater scenes, but I am someone who is actually fond of the final scene involving various spear-men attacking each other underwater. This scene is a surprisingly violent, involving lots of kills within the seven minutes. Being underwater also stops the amount of puns that Bond must be aching to deliver as he’s killing the SPECTRE agents off one by one. I like this scene, but I understand that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea as it’s a bit chaotic. Terence Young didn’t like this scene either. He didn’t even like the whole film.

Not a great sign when the creator himself is trashing the film. If you didn’t like the earlier Bond films, than Thunderball will not change your mind. If you are someone who is willing to get up and do laundry or something in the middle part than you won’t miss too much and can find Thunderball to be a moderately enjoyable piece of sixties spy cinema. You can do much worse in the Bond series. How much worse? Check back in a few months when I get around to reviewing Never Say Never Again.

Sources: 1 | 2

3 Comments | 1960s, blu-ray, james bond, reviews, terence young, thunderball, united kingdom | Permalink

A Better Tomorrow Review

April 27, 2011

The controversy of whether you put a dash between Hard and Boiled continues

I’m still slightly recovering from the sensory overload that was the double feature of A Better Tomorrow and Hard-Boiled at the Mayfair theater weeks ago. Seeing these two films again is a good refresher on how to make a superior action film. I don’t want to waste too much time on these films as you probably know that they kick all sorts of ass, but let’s continue.

For now, let’s discuss a quick history of the impact of A Better Tomorrow. This was director John Woo’s first important hit. When it was released in 1986 in Hong Kong it was not only the highest grossing film of the year, but the highest grossing Hong Kong film at that point making HK$35 million. According to Karen Fang’s book A Better Tomorrow, the film grossed thirty-five million Hong Kong dollars. In comparison, the second highest grossing film of the year which was Millionaire’s Express (starring big names like Sammo Hung , Yuen Biao and Cynthia Rothrock) made HK$28 million. Sammo’s films were already popular but this was when John Woo was known as comedy filmmaker and Chow-Yun Fat was known a comedic actor in television. Hard to believe that was ever the case. The film had two sequels, a remake, and several derivatives such as Wong Jing’s Return to a Better Tomorrow.

Of course, sales and popularity mean nothing unless the product itself is strong and can holdup nearly 30 years later. I’m happy to report that A Better Tomorrow does hold up despite not being as popular as Woo’s other Hong Kong flicks, namely Hard-Boiled and The Killer. It is noticeably different, A Better Tomorrow is less action-oriented and more operatic than either of those films. But thankfully for fans who can be won over without truck loads of action, it’s just as flashy and stylish as Woo’s best work. How stylish?

Obviously very stylish.

Of course if it were all just slow-motion shots with a flimsy story than we wouldn’t be talking about A Better Tomorrow still today. Unlike many of Woo’s imitators who think it’s enough to have an actor flying across the screen with two-guns blazing, Woo does have the cinematic elements like characters, plot and his own pet-themes on his mind that give the stylish scenes the extra meat they need to last many views. Plot-wise, this film trumps Hard Boiled in my books. The films ganger-oriented story about honor and brotherhood between police offers and gangsters is a favourite theme of Woo’s, and he had been waiting for years to tell this type of story at this point in his career. It shows as it’s jam-packed with ideas with almost no wasted scenes. Everything is tightly woven and is delivered by some of the best actors Hong Kong has (including Chow Yun-fat and Leslie Chung who were showing up in all the best late 80s and early 90s Hong Kong films). Chow Yun-fat is especially enjoyable as he is given all the best lines in A Better Tomorrow. No wonder fans are still asking Woo to this day when they are working together next.

If the film has a sour note, I’d say it involves some earlier lighter scenes involving a music rehearsal. They seem out of place as they don’t make sense sequentially as comedic relief, nor are they particularly funny. You do get to see producer Tsui Hark as a music judge who gets his car’s rear-window smashed in however. On that note, Tsui Hark looks almost exactly the same now as he did 20 years ago too, does this guy ever age?

John Woo shows how he really feels about Tsui by smashing up his car.

The print at the Mayfair was excellent without a scratch or speckle. It was either brand new or from a private collector who takes very good care of their prints. It had English credits and only English subtitles which suggest it wasn’t a Hong Kong print, but it did include music that is not on my Anchor Bay DVD of the film. The main musical cue that I recall is the famous restaurant scene which you can see here. The YouTube video showcases the version I saw with it’s more quirky Cantonese music opposed to the saxophone and guitar music on the Anchor Bay release. I’ll take the original music over any soundtrack that involves a saxophone. Saxophone solos sound more dated than a synthesizer score to me. I haven’t seen the Region 2 UK disc of A Better Tomorrow, but from what reviews I’ve read, I find that it fares even worse than the Anchor Bay one.

I’m babbling like a fan boy here, but let’s just say that A Better Tomorrow could easily sneak into a list of the top crime films of the 1980s. If this print comes to your town, you owe yourself the pleasure to see this classic.

5 Comments | 1980s, a better tomorrow, chow-yun fat, hard boiled, john woo, leslie cheung, reviews | Permalink

The Butcher, The Chef, and the Swordsman Review

March 30, 2011

No one in my town was excited about The Butcher, The Chef, and the Swordsman. I’m basing this on the fact that I was the only one in the theater when I went to see it. The idea of a private screening is a shame though, as parts of the film are so delightfully psychedelic, that I would love to see how a casual audience would have reacted to it.

Not exactly an anthology film, the slightly confusing story of The Butcher, The Chef, and the Swordsmen starts with a butcher named Chopper (Liu Xiaoye) who falls for Madam Mei (Kitty Zhang), a woman living in the House of a Thousand Flowers. Chopper attempt to get Mei is interrupted by the swordsman Big Beard (Senggerenqin) and is ejected from the brothel. Chopper meets a stranger who carries a cleaver who tells Chopper a story of about a famous restaurant known for it’s glorious eight-course meals. Only the dwarf chef (Mi Dan) knows how to prepare these meals and takes on an apprentice (Ando Masanobu) to teach his secrets. The apprentice however, has a secret vengeful agenda, that comes to place as the chef tells his apprentice the story about Fat Tang and how he came into possession of the special cleaver.

Fig 1. Plot structure of the The Butcher, The Chef, and the Swordsmen

Take that Inception! We don’t have dream within a dream but a story within a story within a story. The plot in the film is scattered with the most interesting one being the second cooking themed story involving the chef. I can’t recall the last time that food has looked so good on film. The singularly-named director Wureshan’s background in television commercials must have had some part in this, but I’d also give praise to the Polish DP Michal Tywonluk.

I can’t exactly say who I would recommend this film too. If you are in it just for the action, the fight scenes are an editing mess with so much quick cutting it’s not easy to make out what’s exactly happening…and when you do it’s usually not as interesting. On the other hand, we have humorous scenes that are filmed exactly like a Street Fighter II battle complete with health bars. Wureshan says that he’s mostly influenced by American cinema, but the story in this film feels very Chinese while the energy and pacing feels more Hong Kong oriented. The acting in the film has it’s fair share of mugging and genuine talent, but it suits the story. Oh, and Kitty Zhang on the poster is a bit of a tease.

Kitty Zhang in The Butcher, The Chef, and the Swordsman

Yes, her rose-printed head is the most prominent one on the poster, but she’s hardly in this. Not that it’s a problem as I throughly had a good time watching The Butcher, The Chef, and the Swordsmen but I can’t say I’m rushing out to see it again or grab it on DVD. If what I mentioned above peaks your interest than I encourage you to seek it out. I’m definitely up for whatever Wuershan will release next time. Maybe cut it down to one story next time?

5 Comments | ando masanobu, china, hong kong, kitty zhang, reviews, the butcher the chef and the swordsman | Permalink

Drive Angry Review

March 14, 2011

Nicolas Cage is Milton, an escapee from Hell who’s on a mission to find his child in the dirty south. Along with a waitress named Piper (Amber Heard), Milton seeks out a Satanic cult who will perform a child sacrificing ritual in three days. Three groups are trying to stop Milton: the police, the cult itself, and a mysterious man known as The Accountant who is attempting to get Milton to return to the firey depths. Sounds like a deliriously fun mess but a quick look at director Patrick Lussier’s resume sums up what got my goat in Drive Angry.

Doing mostly sequels and remakes isn’t going to put you on my “Directors To Watch” list unfortunately. All the problems I associate with his filmography come to fruition in Drive Angry: it feels derivative of films with similar themes that were more fresh the first time around. It’s a schlocky story no doubt, but I’m a firm believer that even a simple story can be made interesting if the right talent are involved to inject it with excitement. In Drive Angry, we have the schlock set-up but none of the right ingredients that make this rocket take off.

Nicolas Cage as the lead of Milton doesn’t work. Cage must be a bit embarrassed from the wave of parodies of his over-the-top antics in films like The Wicker Man as he is totally sleep walking through his role of Milton and comes off as bored. Milton isn’t very interesting to begin with. Being undead, Milton is invincible against gunfire and other such punishment. That’s exciting when the character is a villain like The Terminator or Michael Myers, but as a hero, you never feel like Milton’s in any great danger. Perhaps if his main rival played by Billy Burke didn’t resemble a youthful Neil Young, he’d have a foe worthy to come back from the dead to fight with.

On a trivial note, Cage’s haircut is hidden on the poster. I think it’s because he’s beginning to resemble Chad Kroeger from Nickelback. They used to really look like each other in Con Air in the early 2000s, but I’m guessing that things have come full circle for 2011.

The action scenes are nothing to write home about. One scene involving Piper jumping between two speedy vehicles begins to build some excitement, but the chase ends as soon as that jump happens. Another scene involving a tanker truck crash is ruined by having the tanker become a blob of ugly CG as soon as it takes flight. I’m not anti-CG, but I prefer it when directors use it creatively to make the impossible happen. Good examples include the gonzo car chase in Wanted or the liquid metal T-1000 in Terminator 2. In Drive Angry, you just feel cheated seeing this blog of computer graphics leaping into the air. The last scene worth noting involves a gun fight between Milton and a host of baddies. While the shootout happens, Milton is having sex (fully clothed) with an anonymous woman who is stark naked! This might work if this film were more like Crank, but it does not fit the context of Cage’s brooding character as I have no idea why these two decide to fool around in bed. I can’t shake the feeling of theft either, as a similar sex-n’-shootin’ scene already happened a few years ago in Shoot ‘Em Up. Were you hoping to make Shoot ‘Em Up 2 at one point Lussier?

Despite a lack of storytelling skill or quality action, Drive Angry does boast some actors trying who try to resurrect a dead script. Amber Heard does tries very hard to give her character a bit of grit and William Fichtner’s role of the Accountant also manages to give the film a bit of a punch that it desperately needs. Fichtner chews on the scenery every time he appears. If these two were given a script worthy of their effort they put forth, I’d be able to give Drive Angry a recommendation. Otherwise, I’d suggest Drag Me to Hell and Grindhouse for a better slice of supernatural-tinged schlock.

2 Comments | 2010s, Amber heard, nicolas cage, patrick lussier, reviews | Permalink

One More Bullet

ONE MORE BULLET WON'T KILL YOU | ACTION FILM BLOG

Karate-Robo Zaborgar Review

Thunderball Blu-ray Review

A Better Tomorrow Review

The Butcher, The Chef, and the Swordsman Review

Drive Angry Review