Weatherwoman

It’s a lewd comedy that gets increasingly bizarre as it continues, taking a single silly concept (what if a weatherwoman flashed her panties at the end of her broadcast?), runs with it and then goes insane with it all. As a comedy, the humour is mostly generated through just how bizarre it all is. It starts as a simple erotically charged farce but it continues to get more and more ridiculous as it continues, the insanity starting to build up for a finale that’s absolutely bizarre in both conception and execution. There’s something strongly, strangely, endearing about the film and its odd determination to be weird and erotic. This is not a movie you can watch with another person in the room (or in audible range), something I feel I need to specify, and it certainly isn’t the sort of DVD you want lying around.

 

Keiko, a sexually aggressive, strong willed young woman, is working as a lowly office lady at a failing television station. One day she fills in for the regular weather girl, Michiko. Keiko spices up her one-time broadcast by flashing her panties, becoming an overnight sensation that causes a massive boost to the TV station’s ratings. Keiko uses her massive popularity to gain power in the station, her report and conduct getting increasingly lewd as the station’s ratings soar and her popularity grows.

Her success causes problems for Michiko, the former weather woman, who finds her position usurped, is forced to appear in an ill-fated and gross show and ends up as Keiko’s maid (or sex slave if you’d prefer, for all the nude, lesbian making out they do). It also reinvigorates the feelings of Yamagishi, a young man in love with Keiko who feels inspired by her aggressive ambition and confidence.

A secret cabal of executives opposed to vulgarity join forces to take down Keiko, doing all they can to sabotage her image and popularity. Led by the powerful, sophisticated and ambitious Kaori, who wishes to destroy Keiko’s career and become the number one weather woman.

 

The movie is full of panty shots, bare breasts, lesbian sex, sex toys, female masturbation and all sorts of other ridiculous in-your-face sexuality. There are a lot of scenes of Keiko masturbating. More than you’d think necessary. Some of the sex stuff goes weird (the guy into ‘new fetishes’ with schoolgirl costumes and giant teddy bears) and some of it gets gross (like the random guy into enemas). Then it goes ridiculous with several BDSM scenes of Keiko getting tied up and whipped (for plot reasons actually – I’m serious, it’s for the story).

Despite all the ridiculous sex stuff, this is a movie with some surprising themes and ideas underneath its slutty exterior. The ideas of image, popularity and public opinion are dealt with, with how absurdly quickly one can rise to instant popularity over something inconsequential and just how fragile and quick to shatter that popularity can be. It’s done as a farce or blatant satire if you’d prefer; Keiko’s rise to power due to her panty shots is sudden and instantaneous, and her rise is shown in a silly little song number. You could call it all a parody.

It’s also all a silly joking jab at the importance of weather woman, here seen as some sort of divine medium of the weather expected to have control over the elements (not joking, this actually happens). There are more than a few jokes aimed at news broadcasts, with the presenters of the news shown as weirdos (particularly at the end when a duo of presenters commentates on a ‘weather battle’ between Keiko and Kaori).

 

More than that is the idea of powerful women. Under all the masturbating, lesbian sex and panty shots, this is a movie about strong-willed, ambitious women seizing power. Both Keiko and her nemesis Kaori seize and battle for power in both the TV station’s hierarchy and in public popularity. Keiko is strong willed and aggressive, with a determination that sees her forge ahead, unafraid of any consequences. She does falter once, when the story calls for it, which does feel out of place for such a headstrong character, but it isn’t long before she takes charge again in ridiculous, sexually fuelled flamboyance. Kaori is similar, though a little more uppity (she went to Paris, which apparently makes her ‘sophisticated’ as she keeps saying) and has no issues with using people to get her way.

Other characters are played mostly straight. Michiko is a somewhat tragic figure in that her career is all but destroyed by Keiko and Kaori’s rises to power, but it’s a little hard to properly sympathise with her once she’s nude and soaped up. Yamagishi feels like an odd outlier, existing to mostly be in awe of Keiko. The other cast are mostly nameless and there for random jokes (Michiko’s fetish obsessed boyfriend stands out, or the TV station head who just likes seeing panties).

It’s absolutely bizarre. A whole bunch of scenes feature baguettes for some baffling reason. There’ll either be a random character holding a baguette, or will have one just there in the scene somewhere and I have no idea why. The random song numbers are strange, but not as bizarre as the ‘weather report as a variety show event’ finale cooked up by ‘sophisticated’ Kaori. The insanity reaches its climax at the finale, where Kaori and Keiko, dressed in ridiculous costumes, have a ‘weather battle’, where the duo fight by controlling the elements, causing rainstorms, autumn winds and lighting strikes against each other.

 

Weatherwoman is a thoroughly strange, bizarrely entertaining movie all things considered with a thick vein of erotic nonsense. The nudity and sex isn’t used as flavouring, it’s in the meat of the movie, which just makes it all the stranger. It’s a strangely watchable movie, the sort where you become hooked in wanting to see how much weirder, cruder and ridiculous it can get – which, as it turns out, is a lot.   

Iceman

 

Donnie Yen is, at the moment, one of the most prolific Hong Kong action stars working today. His success hasn’t come overnight either, he’s been working in the industry for decades, not only acting but handling action choreography and producing and directing roles as well. He lends himself to some pretty awesome action scenes, with exciting choreography and physical prowess (made even more impressive by the fact that he’s now in his fifties). He also has great acting chops when it comes to it – he can handle dramatic roles with emotional complexity and depth (see Wu Xia and Ip Man) which is more than one can say of a lot of other Asian action stars (Iko Uwais and Tony Jaa, for all their awesome fighting skills, aren't exactly ‘actors’).

Yen has been active in the industry since the eighties, but it’s only been in the last decade or so that he has risen to lofty heights of being one of the greatest and most prolific Asian action stars working today. That’s largely thanks to roles in films like Ip Man, Wu Xia and SPL. But, like just about every action star out there, the movies he stars in aren’t always great even when he’s doing a good job. Even star vehicles can be shoddy, and that’s true of some of the more recent Yen movies, many of which are brought down by poor scripts and confused plots. I actually have a theory that Yen just accepts every single role that he gets offered. That would certainly explain some of the weirder roles he’s done recently (The Monkey King, which I’ll get to later).

And so we come to Iceman. Its part goofy comedy, part action movie and part oddly serious feudal drama and the parts don’t really come together well. Some bits are okay, there are some funny moments and some nice action but none of it comes together well. It’s too messy and unfocused, to the point where even with its ninety minute runtime it feels as though not much has happened. It’s also part one of a two part film (the second part I believe still in production), meaning it lacks a satisfying structure and leaves a lot of loose threads and half boiled characters and plot points when it ends with a to be continued cliff-hanger. If anything, I’d say this movie is nothing more than laying groundwork for the sequel, as by the end it feels like nothing has been accomplished other than to set up what might happen in the sequel (and even that seems vague).

 
A truck carrying cryogenic freezing tanks crashes, damaging its cargo. Emerging from the wreckage is Ying (Donnie Yen), a warrior from Ming Dynasty China who had been frozen in an avalanche for 400 years. He struggles to make sense of the modern world, his confusion amplified when he wanders into Hong Kong’s nightclub district during a rowdy costume party. There he meets May, a party girl with money issues. She doesn’t believe his story and wants to get rid of him, but changes her tune when she finds out his pockets are overflowing with ancient gold, so she latches onto him to fleece him of his money. But then romance blooms, because of course it does, and yadda yadda yadda she falls in love with him I guess.

Also unfrozen in the wreck are Sao and Niehu, two of Ying’s former comrades determined to track him down and kill him as a traitor. They adapt faster to modern society, taking over a street gang as they begin to hunt Ying down. In the background, a cruel and sinister police chief (Simon Yam) is tracking down mysterious artefacts linked to the frozen warriors, and becomes determined to recapture, or kill, the recently thawed warriors.

The comedy stuff is of the goofy, silly and gross-out variety. Sometimes it’s funny, other times its more groan worthy. A recently thawed Ying pisses like a fire hydrant, drinks from a toilet bowl and angrily karate chops a can of tomatoes when he can’t figure out how to open it. Ying’s martial arts combat skills involve the pressing of acupuncture points, leading to some silly scenes of him disabling people (and, in one scene, healing May’s ailing grandmother by pummelling her). In one fight scene a toilet explodes, sending shit flying everywhere. Some of the ‘fish out of water’ humour works, but others just don’t. I did like Sao and Niehu’s early reactions to modern society – the former becomes obsessed with curry chicken and the latter discovers the joys of smoking, guns and pornography.

Everything to do with the Ying’s past is serious which doesn’t mesh well at all with the silly comedy stuff. It’s played straight, giving the standard ‘feudal politics and betrayal’ but barely delving into it so we don’t really know or care about what happened. We constantly hear about a magical artefact that can give the user astounding time-based powers, but it never actually comes into play in the film; it all seems like groundwork for the sequel. Simon Yam’s scenes are straight out of a gritty crime thriller (par for the course for him, it’s basically his acting bread and butter). He’s got the slick high rise building he operates out of, the buttoned-up goons, access to high-tech police forces and even has someone horrifically tortured and murdered for failing him. The issue is that he’s barely in the movie at all – he’s in the background, and gets shown a few times (and towards the end, as they build up to the cliff-hanger ending, we get to know more about him). He’ll be the villain in the sequel one assumes.

The Ying/May romance stuff just doesn’t work, but we get so many scenes of the two of them. They don’t have chemistry and he doesn’t seem interested in her at all. It’s a one sided romance – she falls for his good, positive nature while he’s mostly oblivious as he’s too focused on solving the mystery behind his freezing/betrayal/whatever. It also doesn’t help that May isn’t likeable. She’s more annoying than anything, which makes it hard to sympathise with her when she falls for Ying or . May also might be a prostitute (?). It’s actually unclear what exactly she is meant to be – her ‘job’ seemed to consist of hanging out in an alley next to a club. Yen does a better job of things, playing almost everything as a comedy movie with the almost perpetually cheerful Ying (except in those few flashbacks to feudal times). He’s likeable, and his ‘fish out of water’ innocence leads to some funny moments, but it doesn’t mesh with the fluctuating tone of the movie.

Now the action scenes are only alright. There aren’t too many of them, and the choreography isn’t impressive, but they work for what they are. They’ve got some CGI effects and the like to spruce them up, and various feudal super-powered skills come into play. They just aren’t particularly memorable and many feel a bit anticlimactic. They also come across as silly or ridiculous, even when they’re meant to be serious (Ying ‘surfing’ an avalanche on the back of a shield is silly). Take the finale for instance, Ying fighting Sao and Niehu on a bridge – the villainous duo are wielding large swords and axes, Ying uses a length of chain and there’s even a horse involved. It’s a serious fight, but looks ridiculous because Sao and Niehu’s ‘modern’ clothing and hairstyles make them look completely silly. The scene also is disappointing for the finale, because it has the feel of a mid-film fight. The stakes aren’t high enough, and it ends in such a way where you feel you’re only part-way through the movie.

Iceman is half a movie, part one of two. It ends with a ‘to be continued’ cliffhanger, and the end credits has a scene that looks to build excitement for the sequel (it doesn’t). The biggest issue is that it doesn’t feel like a satisfying whole film. The characters mostly feel like they’re killing time, wandering around aimlessly for the most part, while plot points that get barely mentioned feel like useless padding. The loose tone also doesn’t help. It’s a movie that really needed a better focus – if it dedicated itself to being a comedy it could have worked much better, but throwing in the drama and serious flashbacks confuses the feel of the movie. It’s not an awful film mind you, it’s still entertaining when it isn’t in an odd dramatic lull, but it’s never satisfying or captivating. Yen does a good job in his role, but it’s definitely not one of his better films.     

Chanbara Beauty

It’s a movie based on a Japanese videogame series I don’t think we ever got over here, OneChanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers, which is about a bikini-clad sword-wielding girl who runs around slicing through zombies. And that’s fairly true of the film, which is also mostly about a bikini-clad sword-wielding girl who runs around slicing through zombies. It’s alright. Nothing mind blowing, but it’s entertaining for what it is and there’s a stylistic commitment that works pretty well. It’s a small film in terms of length, scope and scale but it is pretty entertaining. The problem is the tone. It’s a movie that seems almost determined to not have fun with its premise. It mostly plays it completely straight, which is simply baffling. With a more playful tone and better sense of fun then it’d be a much better movie.

In the near future, the large D3 Corporation was researching a way to resurrect the dead which ended up causing a zombie apocalypse, destroying civilisation and turning the world into a horrible wasteland where survivors struggle to fight off the undead. Travelling through this wasteland is Aya, the stoic bikini-clad swordswoman/zombie killer. She’s searching for her sister Saki, who might be evil. Travelling with her is a fat comic relief sidekick Katsuji. They’re joined by Reiko, a badass biker wielding a sawn-off shotgun who claims to know where Saki is – in the clutches of Dr Sugita, the scientist behind the zombie outbreak. She’ll lead them to D3 headquarters, and Saki, if they help her kill Sugita.

Not too much happens. I mean we get scenes of the two girls fighting zombies (fatty sort of bumbles around and hides for the most part), but between all that it’s a weirdly character-focused meander through fairly bland locations. The main three characters all get some sort of downer sadness moment. It’s weird, because one would assume that this movie would go for light and ridiculous action and comedy considering the premise and its videogame origins, but instead it plays it straight and tries to go emotional. It’s also largely what is used to fill out the film’s length – the mid-film action scene is specifically tailored to deliver emotional moments for the cast. Everyone has a scene where they cry because of something sad and personal happening. It’s a pretty short movie, but they manage to drag certain parts out. Within an hour the movie will mostly be over, barring a fifteen minute final fight between Aya and Saki that has a lot of flashbacks, contemplating and stoppages.

Another issue is the characters – Aya is stoic and serious for the entire movie, never smiling, rarely talking and always with a plain expression on her face. It sort of saps the fun out of the movie. It also causes a weird sort of divide between her character’s personality and design – I mean she’s in a freaking bikini for the entire movie. If she could have at least cracked a smile or made a joke a few times she’d be more memorable and likeable, but instead she’s just sort of boring. The comic relief guy isn’t actually funny, and doesn’t really give and relief, while Reiko doesn’t have much going on – she does at least seem to have something of a personality and actually cares about what happens to other people (while Aya doesn’t care). The villains have simplistic motivations. While I’m still unsure what exactly the nefarious Dr Sugita wanted, Saki’s motivations are so basic it’s astounding.

The zombies here are a mix of the slow shambling kind and much faster ones. Every now and then they shove in some additional weirdness, but they never go all out with it. The beginning scene has a knife-wielding karate zombie covered in chains, while the mid-film action scene has a ‘we just watched Kill Bill’ schoolgirl zombie with a spiked ball/chain combo weapon. I feel as though the film needed to go a bit more insane and creative with its silliness, instead of trying to go serious.

 

The production itself is actually pretty decent. It is nothing mind blowing, and one suspects the budget wasn’t massive, but it has a much better level of polish and style than other J-horror flicks. It’s a small movie in terms of scope and ideas, but they do it pretty well. Some scenes do tend to be dark and seemingly poorly lit, which is true of most of the night scenes. The locales are also quite dull and bland – while Aya and her attire is vibrant and ridiculous, the world of the film is sadly grey and drab. Not that it looks bad, just sort of uninteresting – abandoned schools, slums buildings, factories and prisons look ok but we’ve seen this sort of thing dozens of times before in other similar movies.

The action scenes are generally fun and stylish, sort of channelling the feel of the videogame inspiration I suppose. Fake CGI blood gushes plentifully from zombies as they’re cut down by Aya, splashing onto the screen as Aya flips and spins around swinging her sword impossibly fast. Sometimes she uses special attacks, where her blade glows and every slice explodes zombies (its less impressive than it sounds). Sword clashes cause sparks to fly out and in the finale Aya even throws out a fireball. It’s never given much of an in-film explanation, other than that Aya was from some kind of clan that involved teaching children how to fight with swords. Reiko, on the other hand, blows enemies away with her rapid-fire shotgun, which never seems to need to be reloaded.

There is something almost endearing in its design, though some goofy fakery shows up. Aya’s tattoos are obviously fake henna tattoos (you can see the edges where they’re peeling off), while the CGI blood is goofy.

The movie is alright, and has a decent level of polish over it. The action scenes are mostly fun, with the stylistic nonsense working pretty well. But the tone is what brings it down – they should have had a lighter, more fun tone to fit the premise. Instead they played things out seriously, which was to the films detriment. It scores points for trying though, especially considering this is a game-to-film adaptation.