Lone Wolf and Cub

I’ve always loved movies, ever since I was a kid. A lot of my childhood was based around watching films, whatever I could whenever I could. One of my fondest childhood memories was staying up late to catch the weird and wonderful films they’d play past midnight. That’s how my love of westerns was born, from staying up to 3am with my dad and younger brother watching ‘A Fistful of Dollars’. It’s also how I got my love of Asian movies, particularly the weirder, sexier, gratuitously violent ones. Back in my childhood of the nineties, foreign cinema was still a niche (you certainly wouldn’t be seeing any in the cinema) and was not often played at primetime slots on regular television. Instead they tended to play these so called ‘world movies’ late at night. Only they didn’t tend to play the family friendly, mainstream, ordinary movies. No, instead they played the most violent, gruesome, explosive, sex-filled titles they could, filling the late night with action and horror films with more blood than sense, and all of it uncensored. And I absolutely loved it.

Those were the golden years for me. I loved staying up late to catch those movies, or taping them on VHS. It wasn’t just the promise of ultra-bloody violence and bare breasts, two things I held in high regard (and still do), but the promise of something exciting, new and, most importantly of all, different. That was how I got my first exposure to Godzilla movies, to the weirdness of Takashi Miike and my favourite schlocky kung-fu horror/adventure film ever, ‘The Seventh Curse’.

But perhaps the most common staple of late night movies, and the basis to some nostalgic memories, was the Lone Wolf and Cub series: six films detailing the gloriously violent adventures of an assassin who pushes his infant son around in a pram decked out in various weapons. They were ridiculous and gruesome and a lot of fun. As the years have gone by, nostalgia has built up in that way it does and made me determined to go watch those movies again. So I’ve tracked them down on DVD and watched through them. I’m going ambitious here and reviewing the entire series. Well, maybe not ambitious – the films are all pretty similar – but whatever.

Let’s start with the series’ premise, as outlined in the first film. Ogami Itto is the executioner for the Shogunate, a position of great power and respect. A stoic and exceptional swordsman, possessing a body shape that can only be described as ‘tubby’, Itto assists lords ordered or forced to commit seppuku, decapitating them and acting as an agent of the Shogun’s will. The Yagyu clan, the Shogunate’s order of spies and assassins, are secretly evil with a Shadow-Clan sect led by the cunning Retsudo. They want to eliminate Itto and take his post as executioner for themselves, so they frame him for treason against the Shogunate and murder his wife. Itto doesn’t take it lying down – he decides to become ‘a demon’ by dedicating his life to slaughtering the Yagyu clan. He even takes his three year old son Daigoro with him on his murder crusade, pushing him along in a baby cart and becoming an assassin for hire to fund his revenge. Thus they become the ‘Lone Wolf and Cub’. That’s the premise for the series, though each one typically involves Itto travelling somewhere and being hired to perform an assassination while the Yagyu make attempts on his life.

In the first, ‘Sword of Vengeance’, Itto is hired to assassinate a group of brigands who are planning on killing a local lord. He finds himself seemingly unarmed and outnumbered, though reveals he has some tricks up his sleeve (or, more accurately, in his baby cart). Throughout the film we get Itto’s entire backstory that details his conflict with Retsudo and the Shadow-Yagyu clan. It’s a fun movie, but really it’s nothing more than an introduction for the series. A lot of the film (which is fairly short, as is every film in the series) is made up of flashbacks detailing Itto’s situation, so the main plot is less interesting. It’s like the first episode of a TV series; it introduces you to the set up and characters and leaves it open for what will happen next. Even the main conflict of the episode, the brigands, end up nothing more than an excuse for Itto to show off the weapons in his deadly baby cart. He slaughters them like they were nothing (though that’s true of most of the threats in the films). It is a fun movie, and acts as a mission statement for the series.

In the second, ‘Baby Cart at the River Styx’, Ogami is hired to assassinate a spy who has stolen the secrets to a much sought-after dye that will ruin a village if it gets out. The spy is being guarded by three brothers who are expert fighters. At the same time, a clan of ninja have teamed up with assassin Sayaka, who has her own team of lady fighters, to hunt down and kill Itto. The action in this one is pretty much relentless – Itto is constantly fighting either ninja or lady fighters even before he gets his mission. It gets to the point where Itto basically collapses due to the exhaustion of constantly having to fight people. It’s also the goriest in the series, with every fight ending in people getting mutilated. One scene, showing the skills of the lady assassins, has a guy get cut apart until he’s nothing more than a torso (which still moves). The final fight, in the sandy dunes of a desert, is good looking as well, culminating with one of the biggest blood geysers I’ve ever seen in a movie. I think this is my favourite one of them all – it keeps it tight and exciting throughout, has the best gore and action and is just really fun.
 

The third, ‘Baby Cart in Hades’, has Itto get hired to kill a corrupt lord who has a small army at his disposal. Itto also meets Kanbei, an honourable samurai who is now working for highway bandits and questioning his path, who wishes to duel Itto. This movie is much slower than the preceding film, to the point where not much happens for the entire first hour (barring a long scene where Itto is tortured just to show how tough he is). The other films typically dealt with two conflicts at the same time – the Yagyu threat and Itto’s assassination assignment – but this one focuses solely on the assassination, which in itself isn’t very interesting. The finale attempts to make up for this by being a big step up compared to the first two films in terms of body-count – Itto fights about fifty guys. It’s still fun in parts, and the scenes with Kanbei are really well done (with philosophical discussions as to what living by the sword really means), but overall it’s less interesting (and less gory) than the other films, and one of the weakest in the series.

 

In the fourth, ‘Baby Cart in Peril’, Itto is hired to kill a female assassin named Oyuki. She is out for revenge against those who have wronged her, and distracts her opponents by fighting bare chested. Itto also comes against Genrudo, Retsudo’s outcast son who had once almost bested Itto for the position of executioner (a sort of retcon as to why the Yagyu hate Itto so badly). Retsudo also turns up (the first time since the first film) to attempt to kill Itto personally. The scenes with Genrudo are kinda weak (they build up his fight but it’s over in seconds not even halfway through the film), but Oyuki is an interesting counterpart, similar to Kanbei from the previous film, and the finale against Retsudo and his forces, fought in a rocky trench, is cool. This is a good one – it brings more gore and action and is overall a better movie than its predecessor.

The fifth, ‘Baby Cart in the Land of Demons’, is another weak one. Itto is hired to retrieve a document that holds the fate of a clan whose wayward lord has made multiple poor decisions – he is also hired to ‘clean house’ for the clan’s benefit. There’s a subplot involving Daigoro and a lady pickpocket that has nothing to do with anything, other than to fill in time at the beginning. There isn’t as much gore or action here, and the story just plods along. Itto has a weird sort of philosophical debacle that stalls the main narrative. One of his numerous targets is a priest who questions Itto’s resolve so momentarily he abandons his mission, only to later have no problem lopping off the head of a five year old girl. It also has largely the same problems as the third film – a weirdly plodding pace and strange detour scenes (a part where Daigoro is publicly flogged mirrors Itto’s torture in being drawn out and not very interesting).

‘White Heaven in Hell’ is the final film in the series, though it doesn’t actually end the story. This time Itto comes against the Yagyu directly. Retsudo, with the reputation of the Yagyu Shadow-Clan tarnished, finally mobilises his full forces against Itto, including his dagger-wielding daughter Kaori, his crazed illegitimate son Hyoei, dozens of ninja and soldiers and he even gets the assistance of the Earth Spiders, zombie assassins who can burrow through the earth. The Earth Spiders stalk Itto and kill everybody he talks to or meets on the road, making life hell for him. There is no assassination plot in this movie as it focuses on the Yagyu trying to kill Itto, which makes it feel a bit sparse – we don’t even get that much of Itto or Daigoro, they’re almost side characters outside of the action scenes. There’s not much to it overall, and not even the weird detours into what’s going on in the Yagyu family (mostly detailing how Retsudo’s quest to kill Itto has completely ruined it) can spice things up much. A lot of the encounters are a bit weak – Hyoei dies pathetically in an uncomfortable way (while bleeding to death from a sword slash he rushes home to rape his sister for some reason, then Retsudo kills them both), and the Earth Spiders are taken out so anticlimactically it’s a joke (even Itto says it’s pathetic). The finale is ridiculous goofy fun though (Retsudo leading an army of skiing soldiers to attack Itto, who is using the baby cart as a sled), so they end things in a fun way with the biggest battle in the series (though not the goriest) and the biggest bodycount, though it doesn’t give any real closure when it ends.

 

Ogami Itto is a freaking hardcore psychopath. When you get right down to it, Lone Wolf and Cub is a story about a man who takes his infant son to watch him kill people. The best part has to be Itto, following his wife’s death and decision to get bloody revenge, making his one-year old son decide his fate. He presents the baby bubby Daigoro with a sword and a ball – if the boy goes for the ball, Itto will kill him and send him to the afterlife with his mother (something Itto considers to be the more peaceful option), while if he goes for the sword he’ll take him on his murder crusade. Itto even acknowledges that his infant son is unable to understand or comprehend what he’s telling him, but does it anyway.

A big fun inconsistency is that despite being considered an honourable swordsman and follower of the samurai code, Itto cheats and fights dirty all the time. If he isn’t using nasty hidden weapons on his cart, he uses decoys, lures and various tricks to mess up his opponents. Another piece of fun is how, despite his reputation (and the hundreds of folks he’s killed without blinking), people still either underestimate him or think they can beat him in a fight (even when they’ve seen him just murder somebody). Another inconsistency comes in Itto’s ‘protection’ of his son. In most cases Itto tends to leave Daigoro to his own devices, or Daigoro will wander off (usually towards food or music). The situation usually sorts itself out in a lot of these films. In fact, Daigoro himself is something of a non-entity – despite the title and main premise of ‘assassin and his son’ Daigoro never really says or does anything. He’s like a prop at times.

Hardcore is also the best way to describe the series in general. Hell, the first film begins with a child being executed (by Itto), has a woman get raped to death, has Itto be forced to have sex with a prostitute under duress and is really gory to boot. The violence in the series is bloody to a ridiculous degree. Every sword slash is immediately followed by massive sprays of blood, and heads and limbs are regularly lopped off. The movies don’t shy away from grim stuff, with murder, suicide, rape and torture being featured prominently, though I’d say the movies tend to take a bit of a lax approach to it all. They’re ultimately silly movies, even if they take the ideas of honour and feudal politics seriously.

 

While I wouldn’t call it masterclass filmmaking, the movies are good looking for what they are (essentially pulpy 70s samurai movies) with authentic, historically-accurate looking costumes and sets. Many locations are also quite impressive in their beauty, as Itto’s long journey takes us to rocky beaches, desert dunes, snowy mountains, lush forests and rushing rivers. Coupled with the set and costume design, it tends to look pretty great. They really capture the feel of natural Japan.

The weirdness of feudal Japan’s politics and culture come into play in a big way. In the first, when the Yagyu initially come to kill Itto, Itto gets away by wearing robes with the Shogunate’s symbol – the Yagyu aren’t allowed to strike him because doing so will be considered treason (you can’t damage even the symbol apparently). What you can and can’t do in various political feudal situations is a big deal in a lot of these movies, as is the correct way of keeping face and the way of the samurai. There are a lot of characters who are perfectly fine with dying, with many sacrificing themselves unto Itto’s blade so their masters can be sure of his identity. A lot of villains also use themselves as sacrificial pawns, allowing themselves to be stabbed or struck down to distract Itto (a ploy that gets used in almost every movie and absolutely never works).

While by the series end hundreds of men will have been cut down and hacked up, women really get a rough deal in the series. While it might be historically accurate in some cases (some of the films detail, in depth, the trials and tribulations that being a woman, performer, prostitute or wife in feudal Japan entailed), basically every film involves something really bad happening to women. The movies don’t pull punches either, there’s a lot of rape and murder of innocent women thrown in. Even weirder are the scenes where Itto has to interact with a woman (because the man seems unintentionally awkward around them). In the first he has to sleep with a prostitute under duress (which is funny because he’s so stoic and tubby), while in the second he strips his female nemesis nude so they can use their body warmth to survive the freezing cold. It’s really weird, but the film handles it so seriously it’s funny.

While there are only six Long Wolf and Cub films made in the early seventies, they did have a resurgence of popularity in Western countries in the eighties in the form of ‘Shogun Assassin’, an American dubbing that took the second film and edited some of the action scenes from the first film in. It changed the story, simplifying it vastly by removing all of the political and cultural aspects and had Daigoro narrate the events (because American films absolutely love to have a narrator explain everything). In that respect they at least used Daigoro for something more than a prop, but at the same time the story of revenge is silly because of a lack of understanding and weird changes. Itto’s fee for assassinations (which was 500 gold pieces in all six of the original movies) is now ‘ten gold pieces’ (why so low?), Retsudo is now ‘the Shogun’ (which means nothing in the edited film’s context, especially since Retsudo just looks like an old bearded homeless person), and Itto’s assassination target is now ‘the Shogun’s brother’. While I won’t claim the original films had perfect, in-depth stories, this oversimplification is really silly, especially with the added narration. The film is still fun, since they just got the best film in the series and mashed in scenes from the original then dubbed it over, but the Japanese versions are still better.

Lone Wolf and Cub is a fun series. It was fun when I was a kid, and it’s still fun now. One comment easily made is that the films sort of lack a sense of improvement or progression – they’re all pretty similar in feel and there isn’t too much of a difference between them besides the almost TV-series like ‘conflict of the week’ plots, but it’s understandable when you realise how quickly they were churned out. All six films were released in a three year period, between 1972 and 1974, which is insane when you think about it. I know a lot of filmmakers and film studios tend to want to ride the popularity train fast and hard, but that’s overkill in such a short period of time (though Godzilla largely did the same thing with almost yearly film releases). But even that doesn’t really mar the overall quality – they’re still well made, with beautiful scenery and sometimes really atmospheric moments, but the urge to rush them out seems to have dulled the creativity.

So that’s Lone Wolf and Cub done. I won’t be bothering with a review score, though I consider the first, second and fourth films the best (followed by the sixth, while the third and fifth are weaker). If you could only watch one, go for the second – it’s the most fun and gruesome of the lot.

Brotherhood of Blades

 

Brotherhood of Blades is a wuxia action thriller set in Ming Dynasty China. It’s a well-crafted film with a familiar story with familiar elements, and while the setting and action scenes give it a bit of flavouring they don’t quite lift the film up to be more than a sum of its parts. It’s entertaining and engaging for its length, but it feels like it falls just short of greatness despite the slick presentation and some good performances.

 

In Ming Dynasty China, a corrupt eunuch official named Wei has become too powerful, with his own clique of loyal followers and officials. The young emperor decides to be rid of him and has him removed from his position, then orders the Jinyiwei, the secret police and imperial assassins, to hunt down and kill Wei and his supporters.

Sir Shen is a member of the Jinyiwei, leading a team, including his two close friends Lian and Jianxing, in hunting down and assassinating Wei supporters. When Shen finally tracks down Wei himself, the man offers him a bounty of gold in return for letting him go. In a snap decision, Shen agrees and fakes Wei’s death for the gold, hoping to use it to buy better lives for himself and his friends. This decision has disastrous consequences for the three, who find themselves marked for death by those who want to keep Wei’s survival a secret.

It’s a familiar story, the sort we’ve seen plenty of times before in various different genres. It’s the plot of a lot of gangster flicks, political/corporate thrillers and a lot of similar wuxia/kung fu flicks. Brotherhood of Blades does a decent job pulling it off, bolstered by a good pace, exciting action and some decent performances. Political wheeling and dealing, backstabbing, plotting and conspiracy makes up the background of the movie, as characters try to manipulate situations to their own benefit. This includes Shen, who tries to work things out for his friends and himself. Of course, Shen does sort of screw his friends over by not disclosing everything to them. When he tries to help them out, he kinda leaves them in the lurch or makes their problems bigger. It has the inevitable scene of Shen coming clean to his friends about the gold and the trio making a desperate last dash to get out before they lose their heads. In this way it’s fairly predictable, though the movie does take one or two different turns and remains engaging throughout.

 

The three main characters are well acted and well-developed. They all have some sort of issue they’re dealing with, and honestly they’re all pretty basic and clichéd. Lian is being blackmailed and Jianxing is trying to bribe his way to a much-delayed promotion. Sir Shen has the odd/uncomfortable/somewhat common one of wanting to pay for a courtesan’s freedom – something she doesn’t seem interested in because she doesn’t love him. It makes Shen and a few scenes feel a bit creepy, even though it’s hinted that he has noble reasons for what he’s doing (which clash with some of his actions). The courtesan herself is a boring character. She’s the sort of delicate dainty figure who stands there uselessly in the way of danger.

The action tends to be up close, with fast edits and camerawork. It’s also bloody, with CG blood spurts a plenty. The fight choreography is nothing special, but fights have a good pace, great framing and are usually quick and brutal, giving them good impact. The battles aren’t large in grandeur (which is fitting with the plot) but they’re framed well and are entertaining, though there are some oddly missed opportunities towards the end (two of the bigger fights happen in the background). In a weirdly refreshing way, the film gives some justification for almost every villainous character or deed. While some are just plain or blasé (the fat captain is just greedy), others have somewhat complex motivations (the asshole blackmailing/bullying Lian turns out to be weirdly complex in a way).

Brotherhood of Blades is entertaining and well made, but it just lacks that special something to lift it up. There are a lot of similar films that have told the same type of plot, and while the feudal setting and wuxia styled action spice things up, the film doesn’t do anything different with its story. A big reason is that there are no big surprises from the plot. From the onset it’s made explicitly clear who is who and what is what. We know who the villains are and why they’re doing what they’re doing very early into the film, so there’re no big revelations or twists. It’s entertaining and engaging throughout despite this, but it feels like it's lacking that little something to make it truly great. If I were to use a rating system (which I feel I might need to, since a lot of my reviews tend to be vague) I’d score it a 3 ½ out of 5.

Tokyo Tribe

Sion Sono is a weird guy. That’s a statement I’ve used to start two previous reviews, and it’s one I’m sure I’ll use again. The Japanese director makes astoundingly bizarre movies, covering massive ranges of genres (usually in the same film),

Tokyo Tribe continues the weirdness streak. It’s a rap musical or ‘hip h-Opera’ if you’d prefer, and it’s as strange as it sounds. It’s mostly freestyling with beatboxing as back-up, with characters rapping their lines. There aren’t really any standalone ‘songs’ oddly enough. Sometimes an entire scene will be done in rap, and other times it might only be a few lines. The most you get from the background music is a simple beat. And yet it all weirdly works for the movie.

The movie is loosely structured, with an entire hour of its running time feeling more like set up and exposition, until the second half where things actually happen. The story itself is basic, and the characters are all two dimensional, but the film still sort of works. It is all style over substance but is entertaining. It just isn’t particularly deep or meaningful.

 

In near-future Tokyo, constant earthquakes have reduced the city into a gangland warzone with various street gangs, known as tribes, controlling the different districts and battling each other. The biggest and most violent tribe is the Bukuro Wu-ronz, led by the violent Meera. Meera is the son of psychopathic gangster Beppa, a powerful crime lord with eyes for taking over all of Tokyo. With Beppa’s support, Meera begins a war to take over the streets and eliminate all the tribes.

The Musashiro Saru tribe is peaceful, promoting love and understanding – they welcome anybody and have no interest in starting fights. Meera targets them to start his war, forcing peace-loving Kai to take charge and rally the other tribes together to bring Meera and Beppa down. Caught in the middle of this is runaway action girl Sunmita, who is being hunted by tough foreign fighters working for Satanist priests, and a young street boy determined to protect her.

The film takes a full hour before the plot actually gets rolling, and by the time it does you realise you don’t know anything about the main hero Kai (or that you haven’t actually seen/noticed him for an hour). Most of the movie is set up and preparation, flitting from the various characters rapping. We get more attention given to random evil characters (the foreign fighters, while cool, actually have no impact on any of the story at all). The movie is style over substance, but it’s still disappointing to know nothing about the characters you’re supposed to be rooting for.

Everything about Beppa and his family is absolutely insane and weird, on a completely different level to everything else. Beppa is played with psychotic relish by Riki Takeuchi, who has played Yakuza bosses in a bunch of Takashi Miike films, but nothing quite to vulgar and ridiculous as here. He’s like a horny, sadistic Elvis. There are two women, presumably his daughters (it’s really unclear). One is a hyperactive beatboxing girl who, for the finale, shows up in the iconic yellow Bruce Lee jumpsuit. The other has massive breasts. That’s honestly it for her; she sits around sipping from champagne glasses with ample cleavage on show. Meera’s weirdo brother has a room full of human furniture – nude people painted white who have to stand and sit in position as lamps, tables and chairs. The family is really bizarre, but sadly most are killed off in sudden, anticlimactic fashion.

The film does get a bit uncomfortable at times, usually in the treatment of women. At the beginning, before the main title has come up, the various gangs are introduced while Meera molests a topless police officer and runs a knife across her naked body. Sunmita also has a scene where she’s beaten, stripped and molested by Meera. By the end she’s running around kicking ass, but that scene (taking place in a makeshift brothel) can be uncomfortable. In fact the entirety of Beppa’s operations seems to involve abducting girls off the street and then either turning them into prostitutes or eating them

 

Sion Sono’s films all tend to have a fairly makeshift feel to them – there’s often something makeshift or low budget about the set designs and lighting (one suspects it’s all digital cameras), but he makes it work for his films. That’s especially true here, where the streets of Tokyo are brought to life in big style. The alleys and streets are full of bright neon lights, vibrant graffiti and assorted junk, with a real life to them. They look good and it really sells the whole ‘tokyo tribe’ setting that film wants to set up. The film does compromise this once, in a single shot that seems to have been shot in the middle of a busy, bustling Japanese city, but otherwise the look of the film is great. The various tribes’ hangouts all feel fitting, from disco clubs and nightclubs to abandoned shopping malls. Musashiro Saru hang out in a diner, while Beppa’s family lives in an absurdly luxurious mansion.

The biggest deciding factor in how you’ll like the film is in whether the rap musical gimmick works for you or not. The music isn’t particularly catchy, nor are the lyrics insightful, but it still works, even when some of the performers are lacking (one or two rap in monotone, in particular a narrator characters). The other issue is the odd pace – as I’ve said, the first hour is all build up and introductions, to the point where it feels like the payoff will never come. When it does it’s entertaining, though is does seem to abruptly jump past certain parts. One tribe has a tank that just goes missing, a cool fight in a booby trapped bamboo maze is over too quickly and some big encounters fizzle out completely.

Tokyo Tribe is a weird, entertaining movie, much like many of Sion Sono’s films. It is style over substance, but that style works, even though the movie takes a long time to get rolling. I enjoyed it, though I had more fun with Sono’s other recent movie, ‘Why Don’t You Play in Hell?’

The Monkey King

The Monkey King is a Hong Kong fantasy action film based on ‘Journey to the West’, a popular 14^th century Chinese serial that still has an enduring influence. It’d be perhaps more familiar to western audiences through the dubbed seventies TV series ‘Monkey Magic’, though the material has had its share of adaptations, more recently with the Hong Kong comedy film ‘Conquering the Demons’, the video game ‘Enslaved: Odyssey to the West’ and has even had an American film pseudo-adaptation with ‘The Forbidden Kingdom’ (which is actually not bad in terms of action for this sort of film). The Monkey King is the most recent and perhaps the biggest adaptation yet. It killed it in the Chinese box office, and stands as one of the highest grossing Chinese films or all time.

It’s a full-on fantasy film with a lot of special effects, intricate make-up and practical effects as well. The story is basic, the plot barely moves and the characters simplistic, to the point where it’s barely memorable in those respects, but it looks nice and is still entertaining for what it is, even if it’s just a light popcorn flick. It’s an effects heavy film, with prominent use of green screen and CGI, but also a lot of costumes and animatronics. Some of it looks nice, some of it looks bad and some of it is endearingly cheesy.

 

It’s a pretty familiar fantasy set-up. There are three realms, the divine in heaven, the humans and spirits on earth and the demons in hell. Out of jealousy (and plain evilness) the demons attacked and tried to destroy heaven but the Jade Emperor (Chow Yun Fat), ruler of the divine, managed to defeat them and banished them to a volcanic peak for eternity. To rebuild heaven a divine sacrificed herself by transforming into thousands of crystals, which also created a shield no demon could penetrate to protect it. One crystal fell to earth from the heavens, and from it was born Sun Wukong (Donnie Yen), the cheeky and irrepressible Monkey King. He is trained by the divine to be a warrior for virtue, though Monkey has a dual nature with his mischievous, destructive and high-energy personality. When he isn’t hanging out in the monkey kingdom, he’s harassing other deities by gate-crashing their palaces, smashing their stuff and stealing from them.

The Bull Demon King (Aaron Kwok), leader of the demons, teams up with a duplicitous divine to try and take heaven down again. To do this, they need Monkey - he was born from the crystals protecting heaven and thus may be able to break through it. The two go about manipulating the mischievous, simple minded Monkey into gate crashing heaven, hoping that the mischief he causes will cause disarray and destroy the shield, giving the demons access to heaven.

 

We get Donnie Yen in full-body monkey make-up. I’m talking thick hair covering him from head to toe, looking like a character from Tim Burton’s version of Planet of the Apes. I’d actually maybe go one further, and say he’s like Mike Myers in the Cat in the Hat. It looks completely ridiculous, is the point of what I’m saying, but then that’s true of the entire movie. I don’t know why they felt it necessary to go full simian with him, considering Aaron Kwok’s Bull Demon King is just a normal guy with horns. Yen has a high-pitched voice, constantly makes miscellaneous monkey noises and hops around like a mad monkey person. Which, I guess, is sorta the point of the character. Sun Wukong is an annoying, irritating character, and has been in pretty much every incarnation – it’s just part of who he is. Yen dials it up to eleven, to the point where one could wonder if he wasn’t high as shit on speed and caffeine during the entire shoot. The heavy face make-up also prevents him from emoting with his face, which he attempts to make up for it with the constant, exaggerated movement – Monkey never stops, not even for a second – it’s like the dude has ADHD. Your mileage will vary. One really has to wonder why he took the role – maybe it’s for his children? Yen isn’t returning for the sequel (which is currently filming I believe), and oddly Aaron Kwok is taking the reigns as Monkey, despite being the villain in this film (hopefully he’ll be more energetic than was here).

Chow Yun Fat has fun as the Jade Emperor, a guy who has been running heaven for so long that he finds Monkey’s antics refreshing and fun against the bureaucracy of heaven and the other divines – it’s a shame we don’t get much of him. Sadly almost everybody else just sucks. Aaron Kwok’s Bull Demon King is disappointingly bland. He has no personality – he wants to destroy heaven for some reason, and that’s all there is to it. He’s never maniacal or brooding, he’s just sort of stoic which makes for a dull villain. The Bull King is married to the Jade Emperor’s sister, yet absolutely nothing comes from this. She’s annoyed that he’s still trying to destroy heaven, and that’s literally all there is for the two of them. Likewise a fox girl that Monkey meets is literally just used as a plot device in his manipulation (which follows a pretty similar path as Anakin Skywalker’s manipulation in the third Star Wars movie).

 

This is an effects-heavy film, with seemingly the majority of the sets and scenes being green screen. Some of it actually looks quite good and there's a definite level of polish over everything (heaven’s gardens and palaces are suitably fancy) while others are less impressive (underwater palace looks weird with its ‘underwater’ filter effects). Similarly the action effects are often pretty good. Again, some of it looks shoddy (giant octopus tentacles are poor), but others look really quite great (Chow Yun Fat as a dragon is pretty slick). There are a lot of intricate costumes and effects around, the kind we just don’t see anymore. I’m talking puppet heads and moving parts, the kind of effects work that was mostly replaced with CGI in this day and age. I can understand why, but I still personally love the endearingly silly practical effects work for costumes and animatronics. My favourite for sheer silliness has to be the evil animatronic bear demon. Or, maybe even better, the crab guy who looks like a Power Ranger villain. He’s got human legs, but his torso is a crab costume.

The action scenes have the various spirits, demons and deities flying through the air as they battle, with various special attacks and abilities. Monkey has a plethora of (unexplained but it was in the book) abilities, like being able to change form, creating clones of himself from his hair and using a shape-shifting staff. Other characters have various effects in battle, like Chow Yun Fat’s weird whip/transforming dragon thing or the Bull Demon King’s demonic axe. One divine has what can best be described as flaming rollerblades. Characters zip around the screen, flying through flames and crystals, walloping each other with special effects.

Monkey King is primarily a family film. By that I mean it’s not taxing or complicated, it’s just straightforward with its characters and plot. The story is thin as are most of the characters, and whatever lessons or themes the film has are simplistic (I dunno, ‘be good’ or ‘don’t attack heaven’). There’s no real depth to it, and it doesn’t really have anything there that will stay with you. It’s a popcorn movie – simple entertainment. And I really didn’t mind it. I’m not going to call it a classic, and it isn’t something that will blow you away, but despite its many faults I found it hard not to enjoy the movie. Maybe it was the ridiculousness of it, the silly costumes or the overall slick presentation, but I had fun with it.

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.