Will’s Reviews

Black Eagle (1988)

Starring Sho Kosugi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Doran Clark, Bruce French, Vladimir Skomarovsky, William Bassett, Kane Kosugi, Shane Kosugi, Dorota Puzio, Jan Tríska, Gene Davis, Alfred Mallia

Directed by Eric Karson

Expectations: Sho Kosugi. JCVD. I heard it’s bad, but I gotta see it!

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

Hot off the heels of the amazing Bloodsport, Jean-Claude Van Damme landed the main villain role in this Sho Kosugi vehicle, and regardless of whatever flaws the film has, it definitely delivers on the schoolyard playground promise of “Sho vs. JCVD!” They face off a few times throughout the film, with two major battles occurring during the closing half hour. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, but Black Eagle is the type of movie that doesn’t lend itself much to beating around the bush.

Basically a low-budget version of the James Bond film Thunderball (but with better underwater sequences… fuck Thunderball‘s torturous underwater filmmaking), Black Eagle sees Sho Kosugi as the title character: a covert CIA operative capable of fucking up any evildoers holiday plans. An experimental plane went down off the coast of Malta and even though it’s Sho’s scheduled family vacation time, they force him to do the job. How does the U.S. government do that exactly? By picking up his kids and flying them directly into harm’s way in Malta, and then using their presence there to force him into a position where he has no choice but to agree, that’s how! Stand up guys those CIA suits. Of course, he’s not the only one looking for the plane, and this is where JCVD and all the requisite Russian baddies come from. It’s the Cold War as told through a mediocre James Bond rip-off starring two of the screen’s favorite Western martial arts stars.

Josh Kirby… Time Warrior: Chapter 5, Journey to the Magic Cavern (1996)

Starring Corbin Allred, Jennifer Burns, Derek Webster, Barrie Ingham, Matt Winston, Nick De Gruccio, Cindy Sorenson, Michael Hagiwara, Lomax Study, Mihai Niculescu

Directed by Ernest D. Farino

Expectations: Low. I kinda just want to be done with these, so anything more than absolute shit will be a win in my book.

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

Once again I find myself before my computer wondering just what I can write about a Josh Kirby film. I can say that at least this film is a definite improvement from the poor results of Part 3 and Part 4, but it’s still incredibly slow-paced and boring. That’s pretty much the Full Moon modus operandi though, stretching out every dialogue sequence and adding in about twice as many expository exchanges than there needs to be. Whatever, by this point in my trek through every one of the Empire International/Full Moon films I’m no longer surprised by this, but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier to sit through.

So at the end of Part 4 (and replayed here for our “enjoyment”), Josh Kirby and his buddies mysteriously transport to an unknown location because one of them puts the Nullifier back together in the wrong order. This leads them to another piece of the Nullifier, but soon after they fall through a crevice in the Earth. Once they get up and dust themselves off, they see a bunch of human size mushrooms all around them and Asabeth, claiming these are delicacies on in her homeland, quickly bites off a piece of one and enjoys. These aren’t your average six-foot mushrooms though, they’re alive! And poisonous! So Asabeth is pretty much out of commission for the movie and our heroes must venture to into the lair of The Muncher with the help of the mushroom people in order to rescue Puffball, the mushroom with the spores which act as antidote for the poison. Get all that?

Killers Five (1969)

Killers Five [豪俠傳] (1969)

Starring Tang Ching, Li Ching, Ku Feng, Cheng Miu, Wang Kuang-Yu, Tang Ti, Yeung Chi Hing, Carrie Ku Mei, Ou-Yang Sha-Fei, Tien Feng, Lau Leung-Wa, Wong Ching-Wan, Poon Oi-Lun

Directed by Cheng Kang

Expectations: High. Cheng Kang usually delivers.

The Duke’s daughter has been kidnapped by bandits! Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the duke’s daughter? That’s the question asked of our heroes in Killers Five and the answer is a resounding yes. Killers Five is debatably the best martial arts/action film to be produced by the Shaw Brothers up to this point. It includes everything I could want in a movie, providing entertainment at every turn. I went in expecting fights and intrigue, but I also got fun & charismatic characters, wonderful performances, awesome traps, suspenseful thrills, shocking double-crosses, over-the-top gore and absolute sophistication behind the camera. This movie is just flat-out awesome.

Unlike so many 60s Shaw Brothers martial arts films, Killers Five doesn’t fuck around with lengthy plot exposition and slow-moving narrative. The duke’s daughter is kidnapped and within a minute or so, our main hero played by Tang Ching is on a quest to create a martial team badass enough to take on the evil bandit lord Jin Tianlong (Tang Ti) who’s taken the duke daughter to his fortress on Mt. Jinlong. The film takes on something of a Western vibe, or even The Seven Samurai, during this section as the hero travels around the countryside collecting the best people for the job.

Contagion (2011)

Starring Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, Sanaa Lathan, Elliott Gould, Anna Jacoby-Heron

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Expectations: High, I have a good feeling about this one.

I’m not a huge Steven Soderbergh fan, but I respect him immensely. Where most Oscar-winning directors are happy to stay sheltered within the studio system once they receive their acclaim, Soderbergh is not one to be shackled to any one genre or tied to any specific type of film. He consistently makes the films he wants to make, casting unknown actors in one film and then following it up with a slickly produced Ocean’s Eleven film. If there’s one style that has become synonymous with his name though, it’s the ensemble cast drama, even if he hasn’t really made too many of them. Traffic was clearly his defining film for most people (and me as well), so going into Contagion I had an idea that it would be “Traffic with germs”.

That’s pretty much what I got, but that’s far too simple of a way to put it. It both sells the film short and fails to convey the triumph that Soderbergh has achieved with Contagion. There have been lots of viral epidemic movies throughout the years, but never have they been as hyper-realistic as this. Contagion methodically moves from day-to-day, tracking the course of the outbreak across the world. It focuses on a number of people in various locations around the world, and together their stories weave into an overall picture of the epidemic story that is Contagion. It’s like a disease procedural, so if you zoned out or got bored during this paragraph, then perhaps this film is not for you. If, on the other hand, this sounds interesting and up your alley, then definitely give Contagion a shot.

Josh Kirby… Time Warrior: Chapter 4, Eggs from 70 Million B.C. (1996)

Starring Corbin Allred, Jennifer Burns, Derek Webster, Barrie Ingham, Steve Wilder, Gary Kasper, Ilinca Goia

Directed by Mark S. Manos

Expectations: Low, these are really trying my patience as they wear on.

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

OK, I’m barely going to be able to gather the necessary energy to write about this one. It’s definitely better and more tolerable than Part 3, but only slightly. So slightly in fact that those not paying close attention might not even notice! In some ways, I actually think Part 3 was better, if for nothing else than it allowed me enough ridiculous occurrences during its runtime to make for a good review. I can’t exactly say the same for Eggs from 70 Million B.C., so perhaps this is the lesser film. Oh what the fuck am I saying? Am I actually trying to convince myself that the goddamned toy movie was better? Trapped in Toyworld was clearly the harder film to slog through.

In this one Josh Kirby and the gang are rocketing through time in the time pod. They start to slow for no reason and they discover some eggs that have attached themselves to the pod’s intake vent. The doctor wisely decides that they should bring the alien eggs inside to investigate them. Good idea, Doc. Thanks for all the help. The eggs quickly crack open revealing cartoonish worms, but it’s OK because they’re cute and cuddly. Look, he’s tickling me! Oh, but it was all a clever ruse by the lead worm, as before our heroes can realize what’s happened his wormy friends have eaten their way through every duct, vent and shielded cable the pod has to offer. Thankfully in this world all that means is that they drop out of the time stream and into the Earth inhabited by the Asabeth’s half-human people. Convenient.

My Name is Shanghai Joe (1973)

My Name is Shanghai Joe [Il mio nome è Shanghai Joe] (1973)
AKA The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe, The Dragon Strikes Back, Knochenbrecher im wilden Westen (literally translates to: Bone Crusher in the Wild West), Shanghai Joe, To Kill or to Die

Starring Chen Lee, Klaus Kinski, Gordon Mitchell, Claudio Undari, Katsutoshi Mikuriya, Carla Romanelli, Carla Mancini, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, George Wang, Federico Boido, Piero Lulli

Directed by Mario Caiano

Expectations: High, this one looks great and I’ve heard good things.

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

Usually in films where two distinct genres are mashed together, the end result is less than it could have been. In My Name is Shanghai Joe, I am happy to say that everything comes together in the best, most satisfying way possible. It is a western first, then a kung fu film, but it truly delivers on both levels. It is also nearly non-stop action, with Shanghai Joe moving briskly through the baddies in one great scene after another. I always go into mixed genre films with apprehension, especially ones that mix two of my favorite genres, but My Name is Shanghai Joe does it so well that I had an absolute blast watching it and will definitely be watching this one again.

There isn’t much of a plot to speak of. Shanghai Joe arrives off a presumably slow boat from China in San Francisco of 1882. He quickly buys a stagecoach ticket East to Texas. At every turn, Joe meets up with some of the most racist fuckers ever put onto celluloid, spouting shitty Chinaman jokes one after another. After working his way through tons of these bastards, Joe finally pisses off the wrong dude, who in turn hires four assassins to track down Joe and take him out. These assassins, with such names as Scalper Jack and Pedro the Cannibal, each go down in interesting and fun ways. My Name is Shanghai Joe is a revenge film, but not one to linger on the pain or the regret such killing might lead another hero to contemplate. Instead most of the scenes follow this general framework: Joe enters, the bad guys say some racist shit and attack, Joe fucking annihilates them. It’s truly gratifying to watch and literally never gets old.

Twin Blades of Doom (1969)

Twin Blades of Doom [陰陽刀] (1969)

Starring Ling Yun, Ching Li, Chen Hung Lieh, Yau Ching, Cheng Lui, Gai Yuen, Cheng Miu, Lam Kau, Fang Mian, Hao Li-Jen, Lau Gong, Hung Lau, Lee Ho

Directed by Doe Ching

Expectations: Moderately high. The name sounds fun.

Just like Smuckers, with a name like Twin Blades of Doom, it has to be good, right? Unfortunately not, as this is one of the most disjointed, boring Shaw Brothers films I’ve seen in a while. It’s not for lack of trying, the film exhibits lots of potential for greatness throughout, but at every turn the filmmakers choose to go in exactly the opposite direction. A lot of what’s wrong with this film can be traced back to its director, one Doe Ching.

Doe was a very successful, award-winning director during the 50s and 60s, specializing in melodrama, comedies and musicals. By the time Twin Blades of Doom was made, those genres had all faded in popularity and the focus of the Shaw Brothers had shifted primarily to the wuxia pian genre of swordplay, revenge and martial struggles. Doe Ching was pressured into making a martial arts film by the Shaws and the result is Twin Blades of Doom. You never want to resign yourself into making a film without any passion behind it, so the lackluster results are understandable. On top of all that, Doe Ching was very ill with stomach cancer and actually had to leave the shoot mid-way through. The film was finished up by Griffin Yueh Feng (a very competent martial arts director), but even he couldn’t salvage the film. If all that wasn’t enough of a downer, Doe Ching died only four months after this film was released, making Twin Blades of Doom his final work.