April 12th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Martial Arts, Movie Reviews |
no comments
Sonny Chiba returns as Takuma Tsurugi for the orgy of violence that is Return of the Street Fighter. Chiba’s character may not be quite as cold and merciless as he was in the first film but he’s still one mean badass.
The movie ties in directly to its predecessor, with a couple of characters making return appearances, one of which is decidedly unexpected. The frequency of the fights has been upped from the first film, to such an extent that there’s barely enough space between to tell a coherent story. Basically Tsurugi finds himself on the wrong side of the Mafia when he turns down an assassination job and the Mafia don’t take his refusal lightly. Early in the film we see several martial arts masters displaying their mastery of various weapons, from nunchucks to a samurai sword, and you know it’s a safe bet that Tsurugi is going to be facing off against them at some point. Sure enough it’s these men that the Mafia send against him.
Tsurugi takes on many of these weapons masters in a fight in the snow, in which he wears not only his trademark black outfit but also, amusingly, a white woolly hat. The film is packed with memorable confrontations, including one in a massage parlour that allows Chiba to show off his impressive physique while taking on multiple opponents. And, just in case you thought he was going soft, he eliminates a beautiful assassin with cold efficiency…but only after, James Bond style, he samples her ample charms.
April 12th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Movie Reviews, Westerns |
no comments
When Ulzana leads a band of renegade Apaches off the reservation, Lieutenant DeBuin is assigned to capture or kill him. Along with his cavalry detachment DeBuin is assigned two scouts, McIntosh and Ke-Ni-Tay. McIntosh is a veteran who respects the Apache while Ke-Ni-Tay is an Apache who is bound by his word to serve or as he puts it “Ke-Ni-Tay sign paper. Ke-Ni-Tay soldier.” The film deals with DeBuin’s hunt for Ulzana and the atrocities they find in the Apache’s wake.
Robert Aldrich’s film doesn’t go in for the panoramic vistas of John Ford, he’s not interested in showing us the beauty of the west, focusing instead on the brutality of the people who inhabit it. Made at a time when the trend was to show Native Americans in a sympathetic light, with films like Little Big Man and Soldier Blue, Ulzana’s Raid instead shows them as savage killers. It’s not that Aldrich paints them as the villain, more that their idea of morality is so alien to men like DeBuin that they may as well be form another planet. Even McIntosh, who appreciates their single-minded simplicity doesn’t understand them, seeing them as almost a force of nature – a hard people for a hard land.
April 12th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Movie Reviews, Thriller |
no comments
Die screaming? Die of boredom more like. Pete Walker’s first venture into the horror genre after producing cheap sexploitation flicks is a pretty dull affair. More thriller than horror, its plot doesn’t bear too much examination but deals with a wandering go-go dancer, Marianne (played by Susan George), who holds the key (by way of the number of a Swiss bank account) to the family fortune. As well as money there are also incriminating documents that could convict her father, an ex-judge, of illegal activities, so he, and her half sister Hildegarde, want Marianne found. When Sebastian, a past acquaintance of Hildegarde, finds Marianne he attempts to marry her in hopes of getting his hands on the money. When that plan backfires he persuades her, and her new lover Eli, to return to her family home in Portugal.
This is a convoluted mess, there’s little logic behind much of what happens – why does Marianne suddenly decide to return home when she’s only days away from being able to access the account (she must turn 21 before she can get her hands on the money)? There’s no suspense, with Marianne never seeming to be in much danger, her most life threatening moment comes when she’s trapped in the sauna, a trap she easily escapes from.
