Movie Reviews

The Silver Fox (1968)

The Silver Fox [玉面飛狐] (1968)

Starring Lily Ho Li Li, Chang Yi, Tien Feng, Wong Chung-Shun, Yue Wai, Helen Ma Hoi-Lun, Chiu Sam-Yin, Chiu Hung, Ma Ying, Lee Ho, Fan Mei-Sheng, Hung Lau, Goo Man-Chung, Wong Ching Ho, Lee Wan Chung

Directed by Hsu Cheng Hung

Expectations: Low, Hsu Cheng Hung seems unwilling so far to try much else other than the Chinese opera melodramas that I’m not to fond of.

The Silver Fox is a film that showcases the shifting nature of the Shaw Studio in early 1968. Directed by the less than exciting Hsu Cheng Hung, who made Temple of the Red Lotus & King Cat among others reviewed here, The Silver Fox is equal parts old school Chinese melodrama and new school Chang Cheh style vengeful violence. What keeps it from being a bad (as in bad) kung-fu movie is its wonderful story of betrayal and deceit, but what keeps it from being a bad (as in good) movie is its lackluster middle section that focuses on budding romance and the conflicted melodramatic feelings of the main characters.

The film opens with a stunning sequence involving the brotherly betrayal of Wong Chung-Shun and Tien Feng, as Wong steals two secret kung-fu manuals and then blames the theft on Tien Feng. Tien’s kung-fu is crippled by their master and then Wong throws poison darts into his face, disfiguring him for life and sowing the seeds of revenge. This is something of a different role for Tien Feng, playing a young martial student, but he does a great job with it and looks the part. Many years pass and now the Silver Fox is on the loose, trying to steal a gold plaque from the Jun Wai Security Bureau headed by the evil Wong.

Mini-Review: Valet Girls (1987)

Starring Meri Marshall, April Stewart, Mary Kohnert, Jack DeLeon, Jon Sharp, Patricia Scott Michel, Michael Karm, Steve Lyon, Randy Vasquez, Stuart Fratkin, Tony Cox

Directed by Rafal Zielinski

Expectations: Low. I don’t even know what to expect.

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

Welcome back to the screwball 80s sex comedy, courtesy of director Rafal Zielinski, the man who brought the world the Screwballs series and one of the final Empire films, Spellcaster. Y’know those pool party scenes that are inevitably in every 80s comedy? String three of them back-to-back and you’ve got Valet Girls! Surprisingly enough though, Valet Girls is much more female-positive than you’d expect from the genre, even if the whole movie is basically old men trying to hook up with eighteen-year-old girls casting couch style.

Lucy & Rosalind are a pair of girls looking for their big break, but so far, all they’re doing is parking cars for the Valet Girls company. They’re forced to wear lace stockings for the job, but they’re good sports about it and don’t take no shit from anyone. One day they catch wind that a big record producer is going to be at a party at Dirk Zebra’s house in Beverly Hills, so they drive over there after work post-haste. This leads into the first of the three pool party scenes.

Thankfully the comedy here is actually funny, which is always nice, but never taken for granted when viewing older “comedy” films. This is definitely one of those raunchy 80s comedies that laid it all out on the table: from cocaine to topless girls to dildo jokes, Valet Girls has it all. Consequentially the film seems a lot more timeless than it should because of the recent return of the raunchy comedy, although stupid shit like The Hangover would never dare have this many titties in it for fear of alienating the prospective female audience. This is a big part of the charm of Valet Girls, it is what it is, it doesn’t apologize and it’s a lot of fun for it. Also, at its heart the film has a strong female empowerment vibe which I enjoyed a lot, with the main girls throwing everything back into the misogynist’s faces and by the end, getting the ultimate revenge on the main offenders.

Valet Girls is not without its faults though, as there’s only so much pool party you can pack into one movie without it getting somewhat boring. It’s still rather successful for what it is though, and I had a good time watching it. This is sugary 80s bubblegum, and for my money, this is a million times better than the much more popular and well-known movie Valet Girls apes its title from, Valley Girl.

Next week, it’s the start of the 2nd Annual Horrific October! It’s all kickin’ off with the off-shoot entry into the Subspecies series, 1997’s Vampire Journals!

Thor (2011)

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgård, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, Colm Feore, Ray Stevenson, Tadanobu Asano, Joshua Dallas, Jaimie Alexander, Rene Russo, Clark Gregg

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Expectations: Moderate.

Growing up, I was a hardcore Marvel fan. DC could rot in hell for all I cared, except Batman of course; even a naive, reactionary kid had to give DC Batman. For all my Marvel love though, I was never much of a Thor fan. I enjoyed the Norse mythology and his kick-ass hammer that flew back to him when he threw it, but it was always a book that I read out of circumstance instead of desire. This led me to sit this one out in the theater, but after viewing Thor, I’m sad that I missed it on the big screen. Thor is everything you would want out of a Thor movie, delivering the Asgardian goods in spades.

Thor has so much working against its success, but the filmmakers managed to sidestep every stumbling block and bring the fantastic world of Asgard and Earth together in a believable way. Well, movie believable, but it’s still impressive regardless. Director Kenneth Branagh and the writers achieve this feat by having a short present day scene that leads directly into a nearly half-hour flashback detailing how we got to that initial scene. It may seem like an odd way to go about things, but it really serves the story and the character of Thor in the best way possible.

Announcing the 2nd Annual Horrific October!

Yep, it’s that time again. Time for me to completely lose all control and give in to my wild desires of only watching horror films. Last year was a blast, and even though I’m more pressed for time these days, I’m gonna do my best to make this year just as awesome. I’m dividing my efforts into three main categories this year, which are:

Classic Japanese Horror

Featuring:

The Ghost of Yotsuya [Tôkaidô Yotsuya Kaidan] (1959)
dir. Nobuo Nakagawa

Jigoku [The Sinners of Hell] (1960)
dir. Nobuo Nakagawa

Onibaba (1964)
dir. Kaneto Shindō

Kuroneko [Yabu no naka no kuroneko] (1968)
dir. Kaneto Shindō

Full Moon Films

Featuring:

Vampire Journals (1997)
dir. Ted Nicolaou

Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm (1998)
dir. Ted Nicolaou

Parasite (1982)
dir. Charles Band

Castle Freak (1995)
dir. Stuart Gordon

Hammer Horror

Featuring:

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
dir. Terence Fisher

Dracula [Horror of Dracula] (1958)
dir. Terence Fisher

The Mummy (1959)
dir. Terence Fisher

The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
dir. Terence Fisher

So there you have it! I’m pumped to finally be checking out these flicks, as just about every one has been on my ongoing “To Watch” list for several years. I’ve always heard about the Gothic beauty of Hammer Horror but now I will finally see what all the fuss is about for myself. Same goes for the work of Nakagawa and Shindō. Cannot wait. And depending on time I might sneak in a few more random movies, but I’m not promising anything.

The extravaganza kicks off October 4th with Vampire Journals!

Mictlan (2002)

Starring Manuel Ojeda, Jimmy (Jaime Huitrón), Marco Antonio Orozco, Julieta Carpinteiro, Iñaqui Goci, Yolanda Castañeda, Hilda Gonzalez, Yahayra Barba

Directed by Enrique Martinez

Expectations: High. For me, this is one of the most exciting moments in the history of this site.

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

Some background must be given before I start my review. About six or seven years ago, on a lazy weekend afternoon I flipped the channels around in hopes of finding something worth watching. Nothing caught my interest until I happened upon a nighttime desert scene where a guy shot electricity out of his staff, frying his enemy to a charred crisp. I immediately sat up to take notice. Telemundo was showing one hell of a film!

I watched in awe for the next twenty or thirty minutes, but I became bored and changed the channel when the film slowed down and moved into more dialogue-heavy sections. Despite taking two years of Spanish in high school, I don’t understand a lot of the language, and I convinced myself that the rest of the film wouldn’t contain anything as spectacular as the stunning FX-filled intro sequence. As the years passed, I regretted this decision more and more, and I found myself doing Internet searches for the film. They all returned almost no results, apparently no one else shared my fervor for Mictlan. One day I decided to check out my local library’s resources, wondering if perhaps they could acquire me a copy from another library through the magic of Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Three libraries in the country admitted to owning copies of the film: two on DVD, one on VHS. After multiple requests over the course of about a year, I finally managed to get the VHS copy sent to me and miraculously my multi-year search was over. The film built up a mystical vibe as my memories faded… How the fuck can any ultra low-budget film withstand this kind of unrealistic hype? With a shitload of electricity, flying kids and people morphing into animals, that’s how!

The Black Butterfly (1968)

The Black Butterfly [女俠黑蝴蝶] (1968)

Starring Lisa Chiao Chiao, Yueh Hua, Tien Feng, Yeung Chi Hing, Fan Mei-Sheng, Ku Feng, Lo Wei, Ma Ying, Chen Hung Lieh, Cheung Yuk-Kam, Han Ying Chieh, Fang Mian, Lee Wan Chung

Directed by Lo Wei

Expectations: Low, but hopeful, as Lo Wei is a notable director in later martial arts history.

The Black Butterfly is a movie with more potential than actual, quality goods. It starts off as a slight retelling of the classic Robin Hood tale, with the Black Butterfly stealing taels of gold and silver from the rich and then redistributing the wealth to the less fortunate. Some research uncovered that this is also a period remake of the 1965 Chor Yuen film, The Black Rose, but I haven’t seen that so I can’t specifically comment on the differences. Anyway, the entire first hour is concerned with this Hood storyline and frankly it’s pretty ho-hum and boring. Not a whole lot happens, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some interesting elements at work. The film is slick and professional in its direction, with Lo Wei composing beautifully constructed shots and moving the camera around with grace and purpose. Some of these lesser Shaw Brothers movies feel as low-budget & hasty as they probably all were, but The Black Butterfly definitely belongs to the group that transcends that quality and looks like a million bucks. It’s amazing what quality camerawork will do for a film.

Point Blank (2011)

Point Blank [À bout portant] (2011)

Starring Gilles Lellouche, Roschdy Zem, Gérard Lanvin, Elena Anaya, Mireille Perrier, Claire Perot, Moussa Maaskri, Pierre Benoist, Valérie Dashwood, Virgile Bramly, Nicky Naude

Directed by Fred Cavayé

Expectations: Pretty high, I’ve heard great things.

Point Blank sets out to make a high-octane, high-stakes thriller where an innocent man gets dragged into the middle of a web of corrupt cops and hardened criminals when his pregant wife is kidnapped. A film like this, with a slim eighty-four minute runtime, should fly by in a flash of excitement and gritty violence. Unfortunately, while Point Blank has its share of great moments, it’s more characterized by its inability to string these together flawlessly. With a story this simple and clichéd, the execution has to be perfect, but instead I found myself watching a cascade of moderately impressive action/chase sequences that I was emotionally disconnected from and I’m having a hard time remembering now, only a few days later.

So yeah, storywise this is remarkably simple, although it’s told in such a way that the viewer must unravel some of the more intricate plot points. The only thing is, when these are unraveled they are so incredibly clichéd and telegraphed that it’s neither a shock or very interesting. While watching Point Blank, I couldn’t escape the fact that I had seen this all done before and in films both better and more interesting. Look at Taken, for instance, a movie that shares many plot points and a very similar, short runtime. Taken never lets up the suspense and the dire situation of getting to Liam Neeson’s daughter as quick as possible is ever-present. In Point Blank, the husband is at the mercy of the people he’s with at the moment and there are large sections of the film where he must deal with the situation at hand, with both the character and the audience knowing that he’s getting no closer to his wife. Yeah… not so exciting.