Lady Bloodfight

Title: Lady Bloodfight

Director: Chris Nahon

Released: 2016

Starring: Amy Johnston, Muriel Hofmann, Jenny Wu, Kathy Wu, Jet Tranter, Mayling Ng, Sunny Coelst, Rosemary Vandebrouck, Lisa Cheng

Plot: While attempting to escape her troubled homelife by backpacking in Hong Kong, Jane (Johnston) attracts the attention of Shu (Hofmann) when she is forced to fend off a group of thugs. Now under Shu’s training she enters into the all-female underground fighting tournament known as “The Kumite”.

Review: Originally created by writer / producer Bey Logan as a project to showcase the top female talent of Hong Kong martial arts cinema such as Maggie Q and Shu Qi only for the project to languish in development hell. Picked up by “Voltage Pictures” the film was instead turned into something for a more mainstream audience though surprisingly retaining a gritty edge to its action.

Directed by French director Chris Nahon who is no doubt best known for “Kiss of the Dragon” aswell as the live action adaptation of “Blood: The Last Vampire”. Here he once more brings a highly visual style to the film, though you might want to lower your expectations before you go into this expecting another “Kiss of the Dragon” arguably one of the best of Jet Li’s films. At the same time it should be noted that despite being given what essentially is a gender-swapped version of “Bloodsport” still manages to give us a surprisingly enjoyable brawler.

One of the big issues of this film really falls on the lack of plotting and character development which plagues this film throughout. Lets take Jane our heroine for example who arguably gets the most development of any of the cast and who we are introduced to working as a waitress were her zero tolerance for being harassed by pervert customers sees her being fired from her job and with only her slovenly chain smoking mother at home, she decides to find out what happened to her father who disappeared eight years previous while competing in the Kumite and well that’s about all we ever find out about her.

The other main plotline here involves rival masters Shu and Wei (Kathy Wu) who we see battling at the start of the film in the previous Kumite and from the large amount of time lapse photography spliced into their fight, we are lead to believe is also a fight which has gone on for hours, despite neither fighter seemingly any less dishevelled nor beat up than when they started. When the pair managed to ultimately fight to a draw they are tasked by the Kumite to each train a fighter to represent them in the following years competition which bring in Jane as the fighter of Shu while Wei finds her fighter in the thief and hoodrat Wai (Jenny Wu) who with her hotheaded nature could be seen as the closest the film really has to a villian outside of the psychotic Russian convict Svietta (Mayling Ng).

The fight scenes throughout are surprisingly brutal with this film certainly being more about attractive female fighters engaging in titillating catfights but rather them beating each other to a bloody pulp which is certainly the case for Jane who frequently comes off the worse in her fights. The fight scenes are further helped by the background of many of the actresses having a martial arts background which is certainly the case of Mayling Ng whose IMDB page features as demo real of her skills. Amy Johnston on the other hand has an extensive list of stunt woman credits and much like Zoe Bell who she also co-starred in “Raze” with makes the transition to actress with ease and believability here.

The downside to the action scenes comes from some seriously choppy editing and misguided attempts to include flashy camera work to heighten these scenes and add to the excitement. The other issues comes from Nahon shooting so close to the fight scenes rather than giving them the space to breathe and allow the audience to be able to see what is happening on the screen.

Despite being a DTV title certainly here on these rain soaked shores this film really fights above its expectations and while it might not be the most groundbreaking film of the year, while perhaps verging on blatant plagiarism of “Bloodsport” this is still an entertaining if slightly flawed brawler that’s still worth giving a look.

Elwood's Essentials #5: Battle Royale

Seeing how  “The Hunger Games” is still currently one of the most talked about releases of this year, even more so with the forthcoming sequel which will pointlessly split the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy in two what better time could there be to revisit the film which it essentially ripped off, despite Suzanne Collins frequently going on record to state that she “had never heard of that book until [her] book was turned in,” and unsurprisingly in return the fans of this film have continued to savage her book as a ripoff, while early promotional material for the book marketed it as “Battle Royale for Kids” only further questioning such shaky claims. So this week I essentially choose to add fuel to the fire and look at the original movie, which is undoubtedly one of my all time favorites. I should also warn that the videos do contain some scenes of violence which might be shocking for some readers and are used purely in the context of illustrating points raised, so if easily shocked do not view.

Set at the dawn of the millennium, Japan as a nation has collapsed and with unemployment on the rise and the youth boycotting the school system, the government makes the radical decision of passing the Millennium Education Reform Act, AKA the “BR Act”, Each year a class is chosen by lottery to take part and having been placed on a deserted island, the class are given three days to battle amongst themselves until only one student remains, with the survivor being used as an example of the lengths the government are willing to go, to maintain order in the nation.

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Released as what could be marked as the start of the new Asian invasion were the interest in Asian cinema literally exploded at the start of 2000, with films like “The Ring”, “Audition” and of course this film winning huge acclaim from not only established fans of Asian cinema, but many non fans of foreign cinema aswell, with these films paving the way for the slew of titles with followed in their wake, as they proved that there was more to Asian cinema than Kung fu and art house samurai movies.

Based on the Bestselling pulp novel by Koushun Takami, the film directed by Kinji Fukasaku manages to take a novel which would have made a perfectly good exploitation movie and turns it into what could almost be considered high art with exploitation undertones, let alone the fact he managed to find a way to mould the multi-stranded plotlines of the novel into a filmable script. At the heart of the film though we have Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) who has been finding his life growing increasingly difficult since the suicide of his father, a situation which only gets worse when his class find themselves unwittingly elected to participate in this year’s Battle Royale with each member of the class finding themselves fitted with an explosive collar and assigned a bag containing supplies and a randomly selected weapon (to help remove any natural advantages). Seeing the chaos erupting around him he takes it upon himself to try and save his friend and secret crush Noriko Nakagawa (Aki Maeda) while forming an uneasy alliance with transfer student and BR Veteran Shogo Kawada (Taro Yamamoto), who also hides his own secretive past.

What is most interesting about the film is how it manages to focus on so many characters at the same time, finding a way to explore their individual goals while even more skilfully managing to make them all unique and individual which is certainly no easy task especially when you consider that there are 42 students to account for. True some of these are mere cannon fodder or choose to leave the game early, opting for suicide over the choice to killing their classmates, but within these students are those with their own engaging agenda’s and while most of the class are busy just trying to survive or team up with others for safety, we have characters such the psychotic exchange student Kazuzo Kiriyama (Chiaki Kuriyama) and the beautiful and deadly Mitsuko Souma (Kou Shibaski) who happily kill friend and foe alike with Mitsuko especially using it as a chance for revenge against her former gang members and tormentors.

Meanwhile others pursue more legitimate goals, with Shinji Mimura (Takashi Tsukamoto) and his friends plotting to hack into the game’s military mainframe, while we also get a surprising love triangle on the battlefield between Hiroki Sugimura (Sosuke Takaoka), his best friend Takako Chigusa (Chiaki Kuriyama who is probably best known as “Kill Bill’s” Chain Whip / Meteor Hammer welding Gogo) and his love interest Kayako Kotohiki (Takayo Mimura) all adding surprising levels of depth to the film, which contains a lot more heart and emotion than you would usually expect from a film of it’s type, with director Fukasaku frequently managing to surprise the viewer with moments of real emotional intensity.

Although the film has characters who could be considered the villains, the real main bad guy here is Kitano, the former teacher turned government agent, played by the always amazing “Beat” Takashi Kitano who is once again on great form, as he provides a running commentary of the dead and acts as an unquestionable supporter of the government’s actions, no doubt due to his own fractured home life, which is highlighted through a phone call with his estranged daughter, who would later appears in a more pivotal role in the sequel “Battle Royale: Requiem”. Needless to say Kitano’s laid back and mysterious motives make him another fascinating character, especially when he chooses to involve himself in the game, while showing an especial fondness for Noriko.

Though incredibly violent, Fukasaku still manages to capture several moments of genuine humour from the day glow coloured training video complete with bubbly presenter, to the students which receive the more useless weapons from Pan lids to paper fans, which really puts them in a worse position considering that their fellow students could be armed with any one of the nasty weapons available from scythe’s and stun guns to shotguns and machine guns.

Needless to say with so much hardware available things do frequently get violent, with hosepipe arterial sprays, exploding heads and even a poisoning making up just some of the smorgus board of violence which Fukasaku has crafted, while at the same time carefully editing and reworking some of the more graphic sections of the book, so that while frequently shocking it is never prolonged so that the film descends into farce.

The soundtrack is comprised of popular classics and original music performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and composed by Masamichi Amano, who previously has composed music for anime classic’s “Urotsukidoji” and “Giant Robo”, aswell as more recently “Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games”. Here though he turns Verdi’s Requiem into the official “Battle Royale” theme which never fails to get me amped up for this film whenever I sit down to watch it, while also effectively using Bach’s Air from orchestral Suite No.3 In D Major and Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz, which will no doubt have a whole new set of imagery attached to it after seeing this movie, in much the same way that Oliver Stone did for Barber’s Adagio for Strings or what Quentin Tarantino has done to a number of pop obscurities.

A classic in every sense from the skilful direction, choice casting and superb soundtrack, it’s a brutal non stop ride, that only further highlights why film goers shouldn’t be narrowing their cinematic world view to just the English spoken productions, while no doubt opening a doorway for many into the exciting world of Asian cinema.

Predator

Title: Predator

Director: John McTiernan

Released: 1987

Staring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Richard Chaves, Shane Black, Elpidia Carrillo, Kevin Peter Hall

Plot: An elite Special Forces team lead by Dutch (Schwarzenegger) are sent on a rescue mission deep in guerrilla territory in Central America, unaware that his team are soon being hunted for sport by an extraterrestrial hunter.

Review: Another film from Arnie’s Golden period, this time towards the end of this career period, yet still showcasing all the usual trademarks I.E: One liners, cigars and a healthy dose of OTT action sequences, it is also one of my favourite Arnie movies and perhaps only rivaled by “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” for the number one spot, especially seeing how he is shown here at the peak of his career having established himself as a household name for 80’s action, a reputation he more than lives up to here.

Originally inspire by a joke regarding who Rocky would fight next following the release of “Rocky IV” were it seemed that he had run out of earthly opponents and hence meaning his next opponent would have to be an alien. Needless to say this was all the inspiration that writers Jim and John Thomas would need for their debut (aswell as thier best seeing how they would also be responsible for the likes of cinematic trash like “Wild Wild West”) script which was originally titled “Hunter”. Bizarrely Jean-Claude Van Damme was originally cast at the titular predator whose original design was that of an alien ninja, but proved to be a lot more clumsy than the now familiar Predator design created by Stan Winston with additional imput from James Cameron who would be responsible for the new look Predator design gaining a set of Mandibles, with the new design being commissioned after a frustrated Van Damme, tired of overheating in the clumsy original suit head butted a cameraman before storming off set and leaving the door open for  the 7’2 Kevin Peter Hall to take over the role and bringing the new look creature to life, while the voice was provided by Peter Cullen who is probably best known for voicing Optimus Prime and Winnie-the-Pooh’s Eeyore.

The film itself is a classic slice of 80’s action, especially considering that Dutch’s team are supposed to be a covert unit, yet not one of them is armed with a subtle weapon between them from Poncho’s (Chaves) grenade launcher to the memorable Minigun “Ol’ Painless” welded by Blain (Ventura) and in many ways they could be seen as the blueprint for the “The Expendables”, especially with their OTT antics as they clear out a guerrilla encampment, with Arnie spitting out some of his best one liners with nearly each bad guy he dispatches in what is possibly one of his best action sequences ever. Still up until this point the film is very much a men on a mission style movie, which is only given the sci-fi twist after this point with the introduction of the Predator. No doubt its a twist which would have been more effective back when the film was originally released than it is now, were the Predator like the xenomorph’s in “Alien” have become such iconic creations that you would be hard pushed to find someone who is still surprised to see the appearance of the Predator. Still it is a flawless switch in genres as the hunters soon become the hunted, with the technological advances and early nods to the warrior code of the Predator giving the film a nice twist, especially when the group are forced to resort to guerrilla tactics to defeat their foe, after memorably and downright bizzarely exhausting their ammo supplies shooting up a small section of empty jungle, not once to really question what exactly they are supposed to be shooting at in yet another classic moment of 80’s excess.   

This comparison to “The Expendables” can also be carried over to the rest of Dutch’s crew whom are mainly played by action heroes of the era with Weathers, Duke and Landham all having appeared in other 80’s action movies, meanwhile Shane Black who appears as the groups comic relief Hawkins was mainly cast to keep an eye on director McTiernan who’d previously only directed one feature previous to being given this film and whose inexperience in the directors chair worried producer Joel Silver, though ultimately history would show that this would be unheeded especially when McTiernan would go on from this film to direct the equally epic “Die Hard” while Black would use the time to work on his script for “The Last Boy Scout”. Still it would be a real baptism of fire of McTiernan into big budget action movies especially after his misfire of a debut “Nomads”, with the cast and crew having to deal with cold temperatures of the surrounding jungle which required heat lamps to be used at all times, while frequently working on rough terrain. Equally problematic was the new Predator design meaning that Hall was working blind, leading to numerous occasions during the final showdown between Arnie and the predator were he was hitting him in the face by accident. Unsurprisingly Hall would remember the experience as being more of a “survival story” with even McTiernan breaking his wrist during filming.

Unsurprisingly being an 80’s action movie, the gore quota is unrestrained here with skinned bodies hanging from trees, exploding bloody holes shot through characters and a weighty body count (mainly at the hands of Arnie) all being the order of the day. However despite the graphic nature of these scenes, the film is still for the most part largely restrained and only gives the audience its graphic moments when realistically needed rather than just because McTernan can.

What truly makes this film so effective though is the soundtrack composed by Alan Silvestri, whose manages to effectively control the mood throughout with the film using two distinct styles throughout, with Dutch’s team being represented by the heavily orchestral moments of score which holds a processes a real military feel to it, while the predator is represented by heavy tribal drumming whose intensity, frequently grows the closer the creature is and suitably builds a natural sense of tension, with these two styles effectivly being combined when we witness both Dutch and the predator preparing for their final showdown. Still Silvestri's soundtrack would prove to be highly influential and it's influence can still be heard in modern action movies today.

To view the film as a solo entry, it is hard to see how the Predator managed to spawn such a franchise, especially when it works so well as a stand alone film and while they continue to try and find a way to make the Aliens vs. Predator franchise work the Predator films have turned into a fairly decent trilogy and one which can certainly hold its own against the Alien saga, even if if never achieved the same level of scope. Still this film remains a stone cold classic and one of those rare occasions in film making were everything just works. Yes it's loud and dumb....but by god is it alot of fun!!

The Running Man

Title: The Running Man
Director: Paul Michael Glaser
Released: 1987
Staring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Yaphet Kotto, Marvin J. McIntyre, Mick Fleetwood, Professor Toru Tanaka, Gus Rethwisch, Jesse Ventura, Jim Brown, Erland Van Lidth, Dweezil Zappa

Plot: After being framed for a massacre he tried to prevent Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger), escapes from prison with two members of the underground resistance William (Kotto) and Harold (McIntyre). Plotting to escape the country he soon finds himself drawing the attention of Damon Killian (Dawson) who soon is pulling the strings to line up Ben and his friends as the latest contestants on his hit show “The Running Man” were they will be given a change to win their freedom, providing they can survive that is.




Review: Made at the tail end of his action films period before he moved onto more lighter subject matter, “The Running Man” for one reason or another seems to be frequently forgotten when fans reel of their favourite Arnie movies, which is a shame as it has all the trademarks of his Golden years I.E: One liners, cigars and a healthy dose of OTT action sequences, all of which are present and accounted for here, as well as the usual excuses for Arnie to show off his super strength. So if it ticks so many boxes why then is it so frequently overlooked? Sure that I was rating it so highly, due to the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia clouding my opinion I knew it was time to revisit what I honest belive is an underated classic.

Set in the near future of 2025 America, the film has the look of the majority of the 80’s post apocalyptic movies and when combined with a dated electro score by Harold Faltermeyer who with his synthesiser soundtracked some of the most iconic movies of the 80’s and it’s that same period were the score along with so many of this film keeps it firmly as a piece of classic 80’s nostalgia, while furthering the myth that the 80’s were better than they actually were. Still the idea of reality TV pushed to the extremes being explored in the film, feels only all the more relevant now, than it did upon the films release, with reality shows in recent years seeing contestants living on a rubbish dump as well as seeing who can stay awake for a week without sleep and with producers only continuing to scrape the barrel for ideas and push the boundaries of good taste, so how long is it before we see convicted criminals being executed for general entertainment?

It would seem that aswell as reality shows in 2025, society has also become a lot more obsessed with violence not only with the titular game show but also in a brief scene from “Climbing for Dollars” in which contests climb a rope to grab easy cash, while attack dogs jump eagerly directly below them, while a framed poster in Damon’s office advertising “The Hate Boat” only further emphasises the general mood of this alternative America, with TV being used as a general distraction from the failings of the government, giving TV Executives like Damon a power comparable to that of the government, as they essentially tell the masses what they should think and believe, even more emphasised by his audience shouting out their declaration of love for him at the start of the show and showering the audience with prizes to only further reinforce their material love for him. Still the casting of Dawson as Damon is an inspired piece of casting comparable to that of casting Jerry Springer in “Citizen Verdict” (2003), especially with Dawson being best known as the host of “Family Feud” and “Family Fortune” with his game show host persona jacked up to another level here, as Dawson is clearly having a blast playing Damon, as he plays the audience with smiles while having a truly ruthless side off camera, aswell as being the only baddie to have a comeback for Arnie’s trademark “I’ll be Back” in which he calmly responds with “Only in a rerun” which could honestly be one of my favourite moments of the film.

Plot wise the film rumbles along at a quick place, soon becoming a two thread story, as the action shifts between Ben and Co. as they make their way through the zones, facing off against the various stalkers, with the second main thread concerning Damon and his production team as they struggle to maintain control on the show, especially when Ben takes on a cult status with the audience who are soon backing him to win, rather than backing any of the shows stalkers with Ben inspiring the masses to fight against the brainwashing media and start thinking for themselves.

The cast outside of Arnie are all pretty much cult actors, with the majority of them getting their most recognisable roles, before slinking back into obscurity as is the case with the majority of the “Stalkers” with the only two perhaps recognisable for the more cult obsessed movie goer as is the case of Tanaka (still no idea what he is a professor of though) and more the more noteworthy Van Lidth, who is probably most memorable as the monstrous leader of “The Baldies” in the frequently over looked “The Wanderers” (1979) and here turns up as the opera singing Dynamo and who also seemingly drew the short straw when it came to costuming seeing how he is essentially a walking Christmas tree, while the other stalkers all get costumes more suiting of their personalities from Sub Zero’s (Tanaka) Psycho ice hockey gear, complete with razor sharp hockey stick to the road warrior Esq. get up of the chainsaw obsessed Buzzsaw (Rethwisch).

Gore wise it is surprisingly light, with only a couple of graphic deaths via barbed wire as well as an exploding head and while most of the gore is implied it still remains satisfying even if it’s holding back on some of the more gruesome moments, yet manages to convince the audience that they aren’t being short changed at the same time, which isn’t the easiest of things to pull off, especially when you consider how enthusiastic 80’s cinema was and even more so when it came to gore and violence.

It might bare much of a resemblance to the source novel, but the same could be said for “The Shining”, whose adaptation by Kubrick is frequently named amongst the best adaptations of Stephen King’s novels, unlike the more faithful and Stephen King approved adaptation by Mick Garris and here Glaser makes the smart choice of reeling in the scope of the novel for a more tight and restrained feel and all the more to max the talents of the assembled cast, while making the stalkers more like Gladiators with celebrity status, helps keep the action easy to follow especially with each of the stalkers having their own unique personality, it helps keep the action scenes fresh with each stalker posing their own challenges, unlike the novel who only had the one named hunter aswell as its gung-ho ending which now has unintentional echoes of 9/11.
It might lack subtly but didn’t all the best films of Arnie’s career and it might be more of the same, but it’s certainly not the worse and should definatly be ranked amongst his best, even if it doesn’t have the same cult following that some of the other key titles in his back catalogue have, one thing is clear and it's that everything else pretty much sucked about the 80's atleast they could make a decent action movie as this clearly proves.

BloodSport

Title: Bloodsport
Director: Newt Arnold
Released: 1988
Staring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Donald Glibb, Bolo Yeung, Norman Burton, Forest Whitaker, Leah Ayres

Plot: Frank Dux (Van Damme) has spent his life being training by his adopted father figure Tanaka, to compete in the Kumite, the ultimate and highly illegal underground martial arts competition were serious and injury are common place, while the current champion Chong Li (Yeung) is equally keen to retain his title at any cost.

Review: “Bloodsport” is a true nostalgic relic from the golden age of action movies which was the 80’s, with the film also providing the much needed showcase for the Kickboxing talents of Van Damme, which in turn launched him to superstar status and while his more recent efforts might be more forgettable like so many of the era’s action stars, it still remains one of his most talked about movies. So after being frequently reminded of it, while checking out “The Jaded Viewer” who has replaced the more traditional stars / thumbs up rating for one of the more iconic screenshots from this film, which honestly is a lot cooler, I thought I'd finally sit down and watch it.

Opening with the various fighters going through their assorted training regimes, Director Arnold wastes little time in setting the mood for what sort of movie your gonna be watching, with the true highlight of this sequence including the weird Zulu warrior punching coconuts while generally leaping around like a frenzied chimp, which does have me questioning how some of these fighters like this joker in particular even know about the tournament. Still the most badass fighter of all of them Chong Li, gets the best of these first introductions, as we are treated to the sight of him breaking blocks of ice with only the utmost ease. Essentially this is what the film is about. Fighters showing off their skills and beating the hell out of each other, with the plot only being something to string these assorted showcase pieces together.

Supposedly based on the real life of Martial Artist Frank Dux, who also wrote the original story which the film is based on, but seeing how the validity of many of his personal claims have frequently been disputed by both “Soldier of Fortune” and the “Los Angeles Times” feel free to believe what you want when it comes to credibility, as personally I seriously doubted the "based on real events" tagline and just thought it was just fun, rather than any kind of biopic. Still What struck me first about this film was just how young Van Damme looks here, as the fresh faced Frank, which was also his first leading role and despite not being the most convincing actor (well I guess something just never change) he allow his skills instead to do most of the talking, finding time to include his now trademark moves while relying on raw charisma for the rest to help carry him through. This film also established the trend with his early films for the training montages to usually involve torturing him as part of the part to being the ultimate fighter with the rack making the first of its memorable appearances, during a stupidly long flashback sequence, which frequently cuts to a close up of Franks eyes whenever the scene changes.

The fight scenes are all pretty fantastic even when none of the named fighters are competing, with the tournament attracting a wide range of fighting styles which only helps keep things interesting, from the kickboxing style of Frank to the more powerhouse style of Chong Li, who is perfectly written for Yeung who here, despite being 50 at the time of filming, looks absolutely monstrous and more bulked up then usual, though the script writers clearly doubted him being able to pull of the English dialogue, which might go a way to explaining why Chong Li only rarely speaks and when he does it’s usually to say something badass like

“You break my record, now I break you, like I break your friend”

Still like Van Damme, Yeung also lets his actions do a lot of the talking, as he demolishes all those who challenge him, frequently (and graphically) breaking bones and generally providing the deaths which the tournaments’ reputation promises, which judging by the unfazed reaction of the crowd, would seem usually happens a lot more frequently than it does with this tournament, with most of the fighters preferring bizarrely enough an honourable defeat over a more permanent one.

Outside of the fighting which honestly is most of the movie, we get the aforementioned attempts at plotting which pretty much boil down to the half assed attempts of the Military Police Officers Helmer (Burton) and Rawlins (Whitaker), who basically spend a lot of time running around and failing Frank to turn himself in having gone AWOL to compete in the tournament. The other unnecessary plot thread involves undercover journalist Janice (Ayres), who despite wanting to expose the Kumite, seems to forget about this as soon as she gets involved with Frank, with her sole obsession from that point being constantly telling Frank that he’s crazy for competiting, when perhaps she should be more worried about the Hole in the Ozone she’s creating with the sheer amount of hairspray she must be using to keep her huge hair in place, with her role as a romantic interest unneeded here, as it’s basically another excuse for Van Damme not to put on his shirt. Finally we have Ray (Gibb) the loud mouthed and brash American fighter, who is also competing in the Kumite and becomes a kind of Big Brother to Frank and is one of the few supporting characters who doesn’t feel like they are being included to fill screen time, even though Frank earns his respect by beating him on an arcade game rather than anything resembling fighting ability, which makes him a pretty easy person to impress it would seem.

“Bloodsport” is a fun piece of nostalgia of a more exciting time for action cinema and despite being a film which relies solely on it’s action sequences, it works surprisingly well, if meaning as a result that it is anything but high art, but then weren’t the best of Bruce Lee’s movies like this? Still it’s a fun movie and worth watching to see an action hero in his prime, especially as it was pretty much a downward spiral from this point onwards and the less said about “Street Fighter” the better really.

Series 7: The Contenders

Title: Series 7: The Contenders
Director: Daniel Minahan
Released: 2001
Staring: Will Arnett, Brooke Smith, Michael Kaycheck, Merrit Wever, Richard Venture, Marylouise Burke, Glenn Fitzgerald, Donna Hanover, Danton Stone

Rating: 4 / 5

Plot: The Contenders is the ultimate reality TV show, were six people are picked at random by a social security number lottery, before being given a gun and forced to hunt each other down, while the cameras follow their every move. Dawn (Smith) is the currently reigning champion, having won two seasons already and only needs to win one more season to be set free, but at eight months pregnant and faced with having to hunt down her high school sweet heart Jeff (Fitzgerald). will she be able to survive this final game.

Review: Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching “The Hills” marathon most of this week on MTV (It’s more to do with there being nothing else on, than watching out of any kind of necessity), which urged me to dig this film out from the collection again, especially seeing how the film is not only shot exactly like a reality TV show, with only the barest of title cards and none of the extensive crew listing which would mark it out as being a film, so it almost feels as if you’ve popped in a pilot taping of a TV show, while the illusion is only added to by having shown in a TV marathon format.
On it’s original release it was over looked, mainly due to reality TV not being as much of a cash cow, with reality TV only in it’s infant stages, which probably explains why I found it to be a much more effective film now than I did when I first watched it, though bizarrely enough, “Series 7” originally started as an idea for TV back in 1998, when director Minaham pitched it as a fake reality TV concept, only for one TV Executive to return to Minaham asking “Can it be more sexy and less violent?”. Still it was the experience gained by working on a reality TV show which inspired Minaham to pen the film in the first place.



The contestants (or contenders as they are known) are a real mixed bunch, who Dawn has standing between her and freedom, including student Lindsey (Wever), retired conspiracy nut Franklin (Venture), ER nurse and possible angel of death Connie (Burke), the cocaine snorting unemployed asbestos remover Anthony (Kaycheck) and of course her high school sweetheart Jeff, who is also dying of testicular cancer.
Each of these contestants are very different from each other and also have their own way of attending to the task they been given, as the film constantly switches between the camera crews following each of them, with Lindsey being driven around by her family values driven parents, giving her pep talks before sending her off to kill, while Dawn takes great delight in driving to the houses of her fellow contenders and taunting them over the phone. The camera crews also acting as a source of confession, as we learn more about each of them, though a mixture of their conversations with their cameraman, creating such great moments as Lindsey talking about her boyfriend buying her a bulletproof vest, with a sense of nievity, as if he’d just bought her flowers almost unaware of the danger she is in, or Connie talking about her work in a busy ER, which constantly alludes to her darker side. These are also added to though the info bursts, which randomly appear accompanied by the dry commentary of the show narrator (Arnett), who also comments on the action, while never allowing himself to show any emotion towards any of the contestants and their actions, almost as if he is passed being shocked by the things he has seen the contenders do to each other.
The fact that all of the contenders are played by unknowns really helps, with the tension and in many cases, provides a number of nasty shocks, especially when contenders you expected to be with the show to the end, suddenly meet a grisly death at the hands of one of their other contenders, much like the general public it would seem with their occasional interactions with the contenders, who take on it would seem a similar level of fame, achieved by reality TV contestants, seen in a brief scene of a maternity nurse asking Dawn to sign her scan photos of Dawn's baby.

Despite all of the contenders being given a standard handgun by the production team, surprisingly enough none of the contenders actually use this weapon, with the deaths seen here all pretty original including a savage beating to death and lethal injection both making an appearance and certainly pushing the film past my expectations, of what I expected to see, having originally expected a film heavy on shootouts, which are absent outside of the pot-shots contenders occasionally take at each other, with several of the deaths even proving quite disturbing to watch, even for a veteran of movie violence like myself, with each death being stripped down to it’s basics with the reality TV style camera work being used, with what your not seeing only adding to the imagery you are seeing. It’s in this perticular aspect that Connie really steps into her own, having been introduced as a timid character, she is soon proving more than willing to do what it takes to get the job done, never quite slipping into a psychotic state but instead reducing her world view into a more black and white state, seeing justification in everything she does and only showing weakness when this new world she has created for herself, is confronted by her duties as a nurse to actually save lives rather than taking them away, but it would seem even this has been infused with her own personal beliefs even before the show started.

The past which Jeff and Dawn share does take over a major part of the film, while also glancing at the issue of euthanasia, seeing how Jeff is using the show as a way to for him to escape his life dominated with fighting his terminal cancer. Still their back story in a way slowed down the film a little to much for me, but that could also be down the to use of “Love will tear us apart” by Joy Division which made this scene kind of drag for me, especially as I’ve never been the biggest fan of that band (New Order were okay though). Still these scenes are not without purpose, adding not only the love interest aspect to the show (something which is certainly a popular reality TV theme) but also helping to drive the story onwards, as you’re confronted with the prospect of Dawn killing her high school sweetheart, who she very clearly still cares for much to the resentment of Jeff’s current wife.

“Series 7” makes for an interesting study of reality TV and what lengths it can be stretched to provide the audience with an ever more real experience and even though, this idea has certainly been done before, with films like “The Running Man” (1987), it still manages to carve out it’s own unique and fresh way of presenting the idea, while clearly showing that the addictive like influence that these shows can have, as it ends with a trailer for series 8, an idea which was thankfully never followed up, leaving this film an undiluted study, even if Minaham choose to return to directing TV rather than features, its almost a teasingly glimpse of someone who could have been the next big visionary director, along side the likes of Gondry and Jonze, instead leaving this as his sole feature credit and no doubt a film which will continue to be looked at, as each new generation of critics and cinema junkies hunt it out.

Ozploitation Month: Turkey Shoot

Title: Turkey Shoot
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

Released: 1982

Staring: Steve Railsback, Oliva Hussey, Michael Craig, Carmen Duncan, Noel Ferrier, Lynda Stoner, Roger Ward, Michael Petrovich
Rating: 4/ 5

Plot: In the near future (or shud that be an alternate past seeing how it’s supposed to be 1995), people deemed as being Deviants by the totalitarian government are held at a rehabilitation camp, till theycan be reprogrammed as useful members of society. Camp director Thatcher (Craig) however, has chosen five inmates to be take part in his latest hunt, with the chance of freedom if they survive. The only catch is that they are the prey!

Review: Ever since the release of “Battle Royale” (2000) which along with the like of “Ringu” (1998) and “Audition” (1999) helped push Asian cinema, into the mainstream conscious, exposing films that would have largely been ignored by most of the cinema going public, other than cinema snobs and the foreign film fans. However since the release of “Battle Royale” it seems that when ever you have a film, come out which involves any group of people being hunted for sport, be it by people, zombies or pretty much anything else, you will always find critics quick to attach the label of a film being a “Battle Royale Clone”, which is ironic when that film is basically the same idea as “Turkey Shoot” except on a larger scale, increasing this films group of five to a school class of 42 pupils, but it’s clearly “Turkey shoot” that provides the groundwork and even though both films share the same idea, they both have enough originality to stand on their own, but if anything is a clone of anything, then it has to be of “Turkey Shoot”, but then at the same time you could say that this film is also a homage to Richard Connel’s "The Most Dangerous Game" and George Orwell's "1984", proving once again that like everything else it is just really a homage of a homage.

Opening with a montage of stock footage of riots around the world, which provides all the backdrop you need, to were society has been heading to the point, that the faceless government has set up concentration style camps, to re-educate those who wish to stand up against their Orwellian vision of society. We are quickly introduced to our so called heroes a resistance member Paul Anders (Railsback), an accused sex worker Rita (Stoner) and Chris (Hussey) who is a shopworker, who after attempting to stop the beating of a man, by government police is accused of being part of the resistance and sentenced to re-education at the camp along with Paul and Jennifer, who will soon be taking part in the hunt planned by the well spoken, pipe smoking camp director Thatcher, who is played effortlessly laid back here by Micheal Craig, who uses the sadistic camp guards to enforce his wrath on the camp detainee’s, rather than dirty his hands with such things.

With Paul having been sent to his camp, he now see’s this as the perfect time to hold a Turkey Shoot, gathering together several like minded fellow hunters, who each choose themselves a target prisoner to hunt with each prisoner then given twenty four hours to escape, with the promise of freedom if they do.
This simple plot, helps keep the pace of the film moving quickly and despite the lack of prisoners being hunted, a modest five compared to the 42 of “battle royale”, it still manages to remain satisfying enough for those of us, who heard the comparisons to “battle royale” and picked this film up hoping for a similar style bloodbath, as all four of the hunters have their own unique style of hunting with the well spoken Tito (Petrovich) preferring to chase after his target in what can best be described as a mini bulldozer and unleashing his sideshow freak / werewolf pet “Alph” to remove parts of his targets anatomy, including one scene in which he invites Alph to eat the toes of prisoner Dodge, before letting him go, so that he might enjoy hunting him again. Meanwhile Jennifer (Duncan) prefers to dress like she is going on a foxhunt, taking time with her crossbow, as she plays with her target, like a cat with a mouse, aswell as any other of the prisoners, she gets in her sights regardless of whether they are her target or not, only truly revelling the extent of her dark side towards the end, in one of the more surprising and chilling scenes, which works all the more strongly when the film is hardly subtle and pure grind house fodder for the majority of it’s run time.

Gore wise there is plenty of interesting moments, to rival that of “Battle Royale” which I know I keep drawing comparisons to, but that will be the film which most viewers will compare this film to and “Turkey Shoot” does have more than enough of it’s original moments, as limbs are removed and a memorable exploding head being only a few of the delights on offer.
On the soundtrack, Brian May adds his usual orchestral styling to the film soundtrack, once again like he did finding the perfect score to soundtrack, the events unfolding on screen, heightening the experience in the same way that he did with the “Mad Max” movies and here also it works perfectly to complement the film.

“Turkey Shoot” is defiantly a lost classic, that will now hopefully find it’s audience once more, especially since being featured in the “Ozplotiation” documentary “Not Quite Hollywood” which will no doubt have the “Battle Royale” fans hunting it down already, something that I urge you to do, even if this film has so many random moments, such as the werewolf create and most of the bad guys, appear to have come from the Star Trek school of villainy, it still possesses that grubby charm that makes it still a highly watchable movie, I’m now after seeing both this film and the documentary “Not Quite Hollywood” torn between which has the better story, the film or the making of the film, which if I’m to believe the documentary, had half the budget being funded, through betting funds at the dog track and live ammunition being fired at the actors, let alone the story of Oliva Hussey almost cutting Roger Wards real hands off with a machete, which all in all only helps further this films reputation as a Ozploitation classic!

The Condemned

Title: The Condemned
Director: Scott Wiper
Released: 2007
Staring: “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Vinnie Jones, Robert Mammone, Madeleine West and Rick Hoffman
Rating: 2 / 5

Plot: Jack Conrad (Austin) is a convict awaiting execution in a Salvadoran prison. "Purchased" by a wealthy television producer and transported to a deserted island in the South Pacific along with nine other condemned criminals (similarly purchased from prisons around the world), they are "offered" the opportunity to avoid capital punishment and win back their freedom by fighting to the death in an illegal game to be filmed and broadcast live over the Internet.

Review: Since the release of “Battle Royale” it’s been followed by a whole host of assorted clones, each giving their own spin to the death match setup and since it’s release it’s also been hard not draw comparisons between that film and any other film, which bares even the slightest of similarities. Sadly the condemned fails to bring anything new to the table and instead gives us nothing but a below par action flick and a vehicle for one of the biggest and certainly most popular of WWE names “Stone Cold Steve Austin”.
The third film to be released by “WWE Films” following the enjoyable horror romp “See No Evil” (With Kane taking on monster duties) and the daft popcorn action flick, as well as direct to DVD feature “The Marine” (with John Cena & which already has a sequel in the works at the time of writing), The Condemned much like “The Marine” has a simple enough setup though one which sadly never lives up to its full potential, as our group of convicts, who the majority of which we never discover their reasons for their imprisonment are dropped off (literally in this case as they are thrown from the helicopter carrying them) on the island to hunt and kill each other off, with the story from this point quickly dissolving into what amounts to mainly filler between fight scenes, as we watch members of the production crew have doubts about the program, while arguing about how moral it is to have people fighting each other to the death in the name of entertainment??? Surely they should have thought about these kinds of things earlier you can’t help but wonder really. As well as this we get some lazy character development for Jack, revolving around his girlfriend watching the show in a bar and two FBI agents who are trying to locate the island, yet failing at the same time to achieve anything outside of having a stupidly large amount of meetings, to the point that I’m sure they are challenging “Star Trek – The Next Generation” for the title of the most pointless amount of meetings ever.
The fights sequences which after all are main selling point of the film, however frustratingly are often hard to follow thanks to the shaky close up way in which they are filmed with only a couple of fights escaping this style of shooting, which is even more of a shame when one of those fights isn’t the confrontation between Jack and “The Russian” (Played by big hulking guy for hire Nathan Jones) seeing how Nathan Jones has shown on several occasions in films such as “Warrior King” and “Fearless” that he can put on a decent fight scene, which would make it all the more exciting when you remember that Austin is after all a professional wrestler and more than capable of faking a fight sequence, but this is again ruined by the bizarre fighting style which they lumber Austin with, which see’s him fighting more like a boxer than his usual brawler style, which director Scott Wiper is quick to comment on in the special features on the disc, attributing this style to the fact his character is ex special forces, while meanwhile the groans of Stone Cold fans can be heard throughout the land.
The next real gripe with the condemned is Vinnie Jones, whose performance is nothing new and further adds to the opinion that like Danny Dyer, the only thing which changes with each of his roles is the scenery, with him once again in sweary yobbo mob mode, which might have worked the first couple of times the audience is exposed to it, but the more often I see him recycling the same style the more tiresome it becomes, much like when ever a character is ex military and British, they have to be Ex SAS, which surprise surprise is exactly what the character of Ewan McStarley is. Seriously why even have him as ex military, why not just make him a Mercenary or a killer or something alittle more original than just the Brit version of Austin’s character! As for the rest of the assembled convicts we are left to draw our own conclusions, as to who they are and what they did, with the few bits we are told being patchy at best, as they are pushed to the background, further adding to the opinion that their sole purpose is to add to the body count.

Looking at the Condemned now that I have bared witness to the hasty battle royale knock off it is, I am less than surprised that this film almost bankrupted WWE films and is a disappointing stumble, after two perfectly expectable films and makes me hope that future titles will keep Austin off the screen and in the ring were he works best, or at least give us the Stone Cold we all love and adore, rather than some hindered knockoff were as the less that we see of Vinnie Jones in this genre the better really.


On a final note this film was almost as painful to write about as to sit through and at various points I considered giving up on it, but that would have then meaning finding another film to watch in it's place and true this kind of movie is what I expected to find when I choose to hunt out bad movies, but The Condemned sadly enough fails on far to many labels to even be redeemable enough to recommend even to WWE fans.