Pedicab Driver

Title: Pedicab Driver

Director: Sammo Hung

Released: 1989

Starring: Sammo Hung, Max Mok, Nina Li Chi, Fennie Yuen, Suen Yuet, John Sham, Billy Chow, Lau Kar-Leung, Sun Yueh

Plot: Lo Tung (Hung) and his friend Malted Candy (Mok) are pedicab drivers working in 1930’s Macao while hoping to win the hearts of their respective love interests which soon leads them into unwanted attention from the local gangster Master 5 (Sham)

Review: When I cast my mind back to the early titles which first got me into Martial Arts cinema there are the obvious classics like Jackie Chan’s “Police Story” and Bruce Lee’s “Enter The Dragon” but it was this film which first introduced me to the unlikely superstar Sammo Hung who despite being on first appearances looking like a parody of the traditional kung fu hero with his portly physique but as he proves throughout this film (not to mention his extensive career) he is more than capable of putting together some jaw dropping action scenes which is perhaps one of the reasons this film is held in such high regard by fans of Martial Arts cinema.

Blending comedic slapstick with hard hitting action scenes right from the start as Lo Tung and his friends engage in a tea house brawl with a group of rival pedicab drivers which includes light tubes being branded like lightsabers, while the number of people involved in this opening brawl is quite staggering when you look at how well choreographed the sequence is and only added to further by the brief appearance by Eric Tsang as the cleaver welding restaurant owner.

While the film certainly has it’s comedic elements largely provided by Hung as he battles the lecherous old baker Fang (Yueh) for the affections of Ping (Chi) who works for his aunts bakery. This plot line is perhaps played with alittle too much Benny Hill style humour which does make Ping suddenly falling for Lo Tung more than a little surprising especially when she doesn’t seem to really care for him. The darker elements however come with Malted Candy’s pursuit of Hsiao-Tsui (Yuen) who he doesn’t realise is also a prostitute owned by the gangster Master 5.

Considering how light hearted the film is in the first half its actually quite a shocking switch in tone that the film suddenly takes when it comes to Malted Candy’s romance, which at one point see’s him and his friends throwing drinks at her and generally treating her as being below them, even though she only became a prostitute to pay her sick father’s medical bills and now is trying to buy out her contract. Certainly on the first watch its a jaring shift in tone which does take you out of the film, especially considering how until this point the film has been playing things in a comedic slant.

As problematic as the plotting for the film might be the real draw is the action sequences which unquestionably more than deliver here. For those of you have never seen a Sammo Hung movie this more than showcases his talent with not one but three standout fight sequences for him as the first see’s him battling with poles the head of a gambling house played by another legend Lau Kar-leung who despite being setup for a return in the finale bizarrely never returns. We also get to see him battling Master 5 and his knife welding goons in the finale which also shows him demonstrating his usual surprisingly limber move set which is still jaw dropping to watch and worth watching the film for alone.

For some bizarre reason this film is notoriously difficult to find and only further argues the point for hanging onto so many of my VHS tapes, though why this film has not been given a better release is really quite baffling, especially when so many fans proclaim it as a high point in his career. True it might suffer from some sudden shifts in tone and questionable plotting but the action scenes alone make this one worth taking the effort to hunt down.

Big Game

Title: Big Game

Director: Jalmari Helander

Released: 2014

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Onni Tommila, Felicity Huffman, Victor Garber, Ted Levine, Jim Broadbent, Ray Stevenson

Plot: When Air Force One is shot down by terrorists President Moore (Jackson) his only hope of survival lies with the 13 year old Oskari (Tommila) who is on a hunting mission to prove his maturity to his kinsfolk, only not to find himself instead aiding the President to escape the terrorists now hunting them.

Review: After giving the world a truly unique take on the Father Christmas mythos with his debut film “Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale” which itself built on his short films “Rare Exports Inc.” and “The Official Rare Exports Inc. Safety Instructions” Finnish director Jalmari Helander shared with the world his unique world view were Santa was less the jolly fat man but rather a horned beast incased in a block of ice, while his elves were a bunch of naked old guys. Now four years after his memorable debut he takes a stab at the action genre while still carrying across many of the traits which made his debut so memorable.

The most expensive film to be produced in Finland with a budget of $10 million this is a film which for whatever reason seemed to disappear as quick as it appear on the release radar leaving me entering into this film with a sense of trepidation, especially when compared to “Rare Exports” which it seemed the blogging community were keen to discuss unlike this film which no one seemed to be talking about. Thankfully I shouldn’t have worried as Helander once again has delivered a film which is similar to “Rare Exports” in so many ways as Helander gives us his take on the action genre.

In much the same way that his take on Christmas was unique the same could be said for his take on the action genre which not only gives nods the action / adventure movies of the 80’s and early 90’s which arguably shot through what almost feels like the lens of a family film, alas one with terrorists and gunfights. Still thanks to a committed cast which see’s him bringing back cast members from “Rare Exports” aswell as casting American actors like Jackson who arn’t afraid to work with more unique material like this.

Opening to Oskari as he stands before the hunter wall of fame, showcasing the boys who’ve take the same right of passage he’s about to embark on were 13 year old boys from the village are sent into the Finnish wilderness to hunt by themselves, the photos all showing his predessorts all proudly posing with their kills including his father he idolises. Oskari on the other hand is not quite the hunter as we soon discover as he struggles to pull back on his bow a worrying sign when the trail is designed as a test of proving a young boys maturity into manhood. This kind of tough upbringing we saw in his previous film and once again its the same relationship we see between the gruff father figure who hides a softer side and his son which might be off putting to some, but this is the enviroment in which Oskari is growing up were life is tough and childhood fleeting as young boys are expected to be able to hunt skills the trial is designed to test.

It’s certainly far from your usual setup for this film, especially when you consider that featuring kids is usually the kiss of death for most action fans enthusiasm, but perhaps because of how Oskari is introduced its certainly less of an issue here even though Oskari still gives us a few moments of being a wise ass kid, using a cup and string phone to initially talk to Moore in a scene which actually was pretty charming and no doubt equally has a lot to do with Jackson’s ability to commit to the most random of material as highlighted by the 174 credits he currently has on IMDB at the time of writing this review.

Jackson’s Moore himself is an interesting character racked with concerns over his declining popularity, let alone his own concerns over being able to perform as a president and while his character might have benefited from more development the charisma of Jackson once more carries the character across. At the same time he’s played off against Secret Service agent Morris (Stevenson) along with the pychotic and insanely rich Hazar (Kurtulus) whose schemes are less about holding the President hostage and in keeping with his personality is more focused on hunting Moore for sport with the intention of having him stuffed and mounted as the ultimate hunting trophy.

While you might expect to know the direction the film will be heading, throughout the brisk run time Helander constantly manages to catch the audience off guard, which might be slightly disapointing to those who saw the trailer and went into the film expecting more of action fest, when here the action comes more in bursts with the focus being largely on the friendship between Moore and Oskari, while the frequent switches between humour and drama happen so often it can be hard to really latch onto any one mood for the film. The action scenes we do get though are enjoyably outlandish including a refrigerator escape sequence which makes the much lauded one from Crystal Skull seem quite plausible in comparison as we watch Oskari and Moore tumbling down the mountainside following the exciting chase through the woods as Hazar attempts to transport his prize off the mountain side inside said refrigerator. The ending though only up the ante further with Helander ending on a huge setpiece involving an ejector seat, a bow and arrow and an exploding lake!

While the action might be kept to the most part to the mountain side we do get the obligatory cuts to the pentagon crisis room were an enjoyable Victor Garber does a lot of hand wringing as the vice president and Jim Broadbent basically steals every scene he’s in as the head of the Terrorist Intel Unit while somehow managing to make a sandwich last the whole film, let alone showing a rare darker side we haven’t seen since “Art School Confidential” and one I would love to see more of. Yes at time these scenes can feel like throw away exposition but thankfully they do lead up to something bigger by the finale in a rather shocking twist that comes seemingly out of nowhere.

As with “Rare Exports” its hard to say who exactly the audience is for this film and with such a strange family adventure vibe running throughout the film, combined with Helander’s general refusal to commit to any one tone I’ve found myself refering to this as a “Starter Action Movie”. The kind of movie you could show the kids as a gateway into the genre before you show them the Schwarzenegger / Stallone / Van Damme classics. More so when this film is free of the usual bad language and ultra-violence you might not want to expose the kids to, still if we can have starter horror movies why not the same for action movies?

Zoom

Title: Zoom

Director: Pedro Morelli

Released: 2015

Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Alison Pill, Mariana Ximenes, Tyler Labine, Jason Priestley, Don McKellar, Claudia Ohana, Jennifer Irwin

Plot: A comic book artist who works in a sex doll factory, a model who wants to be a novelist and an egotistic film director discover that their lives be more inter dimensionally linked than they realised

 

Review: A random little indie film which seemingly slipped under the radar only to randomly turn up recently on Sky Movies in their independent cinema section, but at a loss for something to watch recently I thought I would give this a watch if only to cross off another Gael Garcia Bernal title off the watchlist.

Crafting the sort of tale that we’d expect to come from the mind of Charlie Kaufman, this is certainly an ambitious concept that director Pedro Morelli attempts to tackle for what is only his second film. Still here he attempts to craft this interconnected not to mention interdimensional tale which switches back and forth between its three leads.

First we have Emma (Pill) a comic book artist who works with her boyfriend in a sex doll factory, while she harbours her own fantasies of a comic book heroine figure. At the same time she is writing a comic book about the chauvinist director Edward (Bernal) unaware that what she is drawing is actually happening in Edward’s world.

Edward heads up the second plotline in particular him being struck down with a micro-penis thanks to some vengeance alterations on Emma’s side. Keeping in tune with the comic book theme his segments are all shot using rotoscoping which adds a unique element to the film and perfectly suits the reality he’s living in. Edward also provides the link to the third plotline with his film being about the model and aspiring writer Michelle (Ximenes)

Michelle’s story is also one of the weakest of the three as she has spent her life getting by on her looks, only to find that no one including her boyfriend Dale (Priestley) believe in her abilities as a writer. Of course the book she is writing also happens to be the one controlling Emma’s reality bringing everything full circle….still keeping up with us?

Initially this was film which didn’t sit with me and it was only after the first thirty minutes that it really clicked and all started to slowly pull together. It’s key to note this as I can see this being a film which a lot of people could dismiss on that opening half hour which serves to introduce the three plot lines while at the same time with perhaps the exception of Emma neither of the other two leads exactly jump out and this sadly remains the case for Michelle’s story which remains pretty much a non-starter throughout.

The main issue for Michelle’s story is that for the most part it feels like any “discover yourself” style story, as she skips out on the luxury apartment and good looking boyfriend to escape to Brazil to write her book, along the way of course discovering this sense that she doesn’t need any of the finary. Its the kind of story you can plot out pretty soon after it starts and its really once the worlds start to blend during the finale that things actually get interesting for her character. In fact its the moments of blending between the worlds that provide the actual moments of intrest for her character which is otherwise largely forgettable. I mean she’s not even featured on the poster or the DVD cover which kind of only further highlights what an afterthought her story was.

Emma’s story feels like it could have been its own film without the inter-dimensional cross over which if removed could have been a lightly comedic crime thriller as her story moves from her getting superheroine style breast implants to her and boyfriend Bob trying to move a large quantity of cocaine she gets in the mail thanks to a postal screw up. It could with these plot elements very much be a Coen Brothers style crime caper which we ultimately only get hints of here due to Morelli having to juggle the three plotlines.

Gael Garcia Bernal’s plotline as Edward takes alittle longer to warm up of the three as he initially comes off as a totally unlikeable character as he engages on sport lays and surrounds himself with people who massage his already inflated ego. This of course makes for the best setup for the main meat of his tale which see’s him suddenly being struck down with a micro penis thanks to the meddling from Emma’s side. This sends him on a quest to reclaim his manhood which includes experimenting with the Rolls Royce of fake phalluses.

Bernal here gives another great performance while somehow managing to work once more with unusual material which not only makes it easy to go with, but somehow manages to reflect in her performance the audiences confusion. His willingness to take on such unique material continues to make him such an enjoyable talent to watch while bringing back memories of Johnny Depp’s early work before the oddness essentially consumed his originality alongside his overwhelming amount of collaborations with Tim Burton. Its especially impressive that he can still project his performance as well as he does despite being rotoscoped while giving us such fun scenes as him drinking a cup of tea during a threesome or attempting to deal with a malfunctioning phallus its fascinating to watch.

While this might not be the greatest experience there is still a certain amount of originality which has to be commended even if it feels like an attempt to imitate Charlie Kaufman’s style, there is something to this film which make it worth giving a look, especially if you want to see something different and its to that extent that I wish that this was slightly more polished as when it works its great, but far too often it just doesn’t making it all the harder to recommend. Still in terms of originality its certainly up there.

The Fountain

Title: The Fountain

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Released: 2006

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Ellen Burstyn, Mark Margolis, Stephen McHattie, Fernando Hernandez, Cliff Curtis, Sean Patrick Thomas, Donna Murphy, Ethan Suplee

Plot: Three stories set in the past, present and future which intersect and run parallel to each other, based around the themes of love and morality.

Review: After flirting with mainstream film making with “Requiem for a Dream”, here Aronofsy returned to the arthouse roots which he established with his debut film “Pi”, while it also turned out to be his most troubled production to date, with his original concept having to be scraped when Brad Pitt pulled out over creative differences with Aronofsky combined with a spiralling budget which forced the studio to pull the plug on the production. Refusing to give up on the project, he instead reworked the script and recast the film with Jackman and Weisz taking on the lead roles (both working at reduced rate) which would allow him to work within the new budget of $35 million, a considerable drop from the original $70 million budget which had been assigned to the film.

One of his most personal films it is also the film which tends to divide opinion the most, with most of its detractors choosing to write it off as pretentious nonsense. It is also far from the easiest of films to explain, yet strangely at the same time it is still surprisingly a straightforward film to follow when you see it all on screen which was one the things which surprised me the most about this film the first time I watched it. After all here is a film which switches between Spanish conquistadors searching for the tree of life, a modern day scientist Tom desperately searching for a cure for his cancer-stricken wife and finally a man in the distant future travelling towards the nebula of Xibalba inside a self-contained bio-sphere. Aronfsky though rather than give any real reason for these genre hopping antics, instead wrote it off as being “Because it’s fun” which I’ve a feeling was also Zack Snyder’s reasoning for making “Sucker Punch”.

Even outlining these plots as you can see is confusing enough, even before Aronofsky starts to interweave them over the course of the film which works fine for the past and present segments, with the conquistador sequences taking place in the story which Tom’s wife is writing. Sadly the links to the future segment seem largely more forced and also the more art house moments of the film, as they consist mainly of a bald Jackman sitting around in his bubble, eating bark from the tree in its centre and having conversations with Tom’s wife, though the link between her and this future character is never properly explained and much like the moral of the film is left frustratingly obscure.

To his credit Aronofsky manages to bring something different to each of the segments, from self-flagellating inquisitors, conquistadors battling mayan’s through to Tom pushing his team to explore every more radical procedures in the search for the cure for his wife’s cancer, there is unquestionably a lot of different elements at play which does help to give it a mini-epic feel despite the minimalist timeline. At the same time Aronofsky manages to convincing portray the enduring love between Jackman and Weisz without things getting overly sacturine sweet, especially with the present day scenes which are played with a mixed of tender and frustrated moments as Tom tries desperately to speed up his search for a cure, while trying to make the most of what time he still has left with his wife.

As the two leads both Jackman and Weisz are engaging to watch and convincingly play each of their three alter-ego’s, even if most of the heavy lifting is left to Jackman whose performance here made me wonder how Pitt could ever have managed the range which Jackman achieves here, while ensuring that each of his three alter-egos’s remain strong throughout, even the navel gazing antics of spaceman Tommy, who is saved more by the stunning visual effects than by anything really happening on his particular story thread.

Returning once again to soundtrack the film Clint Mansell teams up with the Kronos Quartet, bringing a sense of familiarity to the films soundtrack especially after their soundtrack for “Requiem for a Dream” burned itself into the general conscious and perfectly suit the tone of the film, while this time they are further complimented by tracks provided by Mogwai with the soundtrack really coming into its own during the more spectacular set pieces like the supernova or human plant transformation.

One of Aronofsky’s weaker films but still well above the mathematical theory nightmare which was “Pi”, while the film only further suffers due to it being more of a personal project than one designed for mass audience consumption. At the same time while it has numerous good ideas and memorable sequences, the composition ultimately is where the film comes undone with too many ideas being thrown around and not enough structure to satisfactorily tie them all together, as Aronofsky prefers to leave it up to audience interpretation than confirm what anything is supposed to actually mean. Yes it might be very pretty to look at, but it is also a film which walks a tight rope between being a mini-epic and pretentious tosh making it really one for the completists than the first time viewer.

Machete Kills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Machete Kills
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Released: 2013

Staring: Danny Trejo, Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, Demian Bichir, Amber Heard, Lady Gaga, Sofia Vergara, Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr.

Plot: Following on from the events of the original film, Machete is put on the path of revenge when his girlfriend Sartana (Jessica Alba) is killed by a mysterious masked man while attempting to capture weapons dealers supplying the Mexican drug cartels. Now recruited by President Rathcock (Charlie Sheen, here appearing as Carlos Estevez) with the promise of citizenship, Machete is sent to eliminate Marcos Mendez (Demian Bichir) who is currently threatening to fire a nuclear missile at the White House.  Soon however Machete discovers that the mysterious masked man might also be linked to the plot aswell.

Review: For a film which started out as a joke trailer in the financial misfire (yet critically acclaimed) “Grindhouse”, Machete has turned into quite the trilogy while at the same time certainly doing no harm for Danny Trejo’s stock. Launching him from token bad guy to recognisable leading man as in the wake of the original “Machete” it seemed that everyone couldn’t get enough of the former bare knuckle boxing champion of San Quentin and young offender councillor. Needless to say it was only a matter of time before director Robert Rodriguez gave the world a follow up to his cult favourite.

While the original film might have been the tale of a badass seeking revenge after he is double crossed by his employers, this film decides to spin the franchise off in a new direction as Machete here takes on more of a “XXX” style spy role as he dashes for the border with Marcos, who has hardwired the nuke to his heart and eventually sets out to foil the Bond villain esq schemes of the “Star Wars” obsessed weapons manufacturer Luther Voz (Mel Gibson).  It’s a certainly an intresting change of pace and one which actually benefited the film, especially when the original always felt that it was being hampered by being built around its fake trailer and as such was just finding a way to link each of the trailers set pieces together.

This time taking sole ownership of the director’s chair having previously co-directed the original with his long term editor Ethan Maniquis, this time it is truly Rodriguez’s film and one which certainly finds him a playful mood once again, as he aims to maintain the Neo-Grindhouse aesthetic from the fake opening trailer for “Machete Kills Again… In Space” and classic feature presentation title card, through to even throwing in an old school 3D sequence (yes the old blue and green glasses style) to rival his breaking film scene in “Planet Terror”. Equally at the same time this also see’s him throwing plausibility out of the window as the franchise doesn’t so much jump the shark but the whole freaking aquarium! Needless to say this is a film which like its closest comparison “XXX” works best when you’re not questioning what you’re watching and just enjoy the ride. After all there are countless movies and franchises currently obsessed with realism so what’s wrong with alittle raw escapism which is what you get here.

Having established the Mexican James Bond vibe early on Rodriguez really works it in every conceivable way, with Machete getting to utilise a number of customised machete’s including a tri-bladed model which his beauty queen liason (Amber Heard) refers to as the swiss army knife of machete’s  while still managing to keep the character every bit as gritty as he was in the first film, with Trejo with his trademark tattoos and tanned leather features fully embodies this character even more so the second time around, as he makes even Machete’s habit of referring to himself in the third person sound cool. This Bond theme also continues to the main villain here as Voz is every bit the bond villain with his scheme sounding very familiar to that of Drax’s in “Moonraker”, but despite this similarity here we get to see Mel Gibson on truly bonkers form, as he embodies the role even when engaging in a machete / sword fight while wearing a cape! Thankfully Rodriguez is one of the few people in Hollywood able to separate Gibson’s troubled personal life from the actor as he is truly one of the big draws here and perhaps only rivalled by the multiple personality antic’s of Birchir’s Mexican revolutionary Mendez whose hyper personality makes him another fun character while never pushing it so far that it becomes irritating.

Much like the first film Rodriguez has assembled a great ensemble cast to flesh out this colourful world he continues to craft here and one which see’s “Modern Family” favourite Sofia Vergara cranks up her crazy to psychotic as brothel owner Madame Desdemona who not only has her own army of prostitute assassins (a nod to Blaxploitation favourite “Dolemite” ) aswell as a twin minigun bra she refers to as her “Double D’s”. Equally game is Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lady Gaga as the various faces of shape shifting assassin El Camaleón a role which not only sees Gooding Jr. giving his best performance in years, but also proving that Lady Gaga is more of an accomplished actor than first suspected, especially when I was left wanting to see more of her in this film and something which could be corrected in “Machete Kills Again…In Space” if the fake trailer is to be believed. True there are so which might argue that she has already had enough practice with the antics of her usual disco punk persona, but here she is in perfect form as she sneers her way through the film.

Upping the ante in every way possible from the first film, Rodriguez fully up the splatter as heads roll and helicopter blades especially are put to creative use on more than one occasion. The action scenes aswell are fully stepped up a number of fantastic set pieces including a “Mad Max” inspired car chase complete with George Miller style speeded up shots. Rodriguez though once again shows himself as a director with an eye for action, even if he might not be known as an action director, here he once more shows that he knows his way around a set piece and with his cousin Trejo he really does have the perfect grizzled action hero.

After the patchy “Machete” this film really steps up the fun of the first film, while correcting many of the mistakes made first time around, even if like the original it still suffers with a bloated third act. So with Sci-fi set to be the theme for the third and final part I can only imagine how Rodriguez plans on topping the madness of this film,  but if anything this film has certainly laid down a strong foundation, so leave your expectations at the door, just buy the ticket and enjoy the ride.

Konga

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Konga

Director: John Lemont
Released: 1961
Starring: Michael Gough, Margo Johns, Jess Conrad, Claire Gordon, Austin Trevor, Jack Watson, George Pastell, Vanda Godsell, Stanley Morgan

Plot: After his plane crashes in the African jungles, a year later after being presumed to be dead British botanist Dr. Charles Decker (Gough) suddenly comes back, while also having found a way of growing plants and animals to enormous size. Accompanied him aswell is his pet chimp “Konga” who is soon playing an important part in the doctors plans for revenge.

Review: For most people Michael Gough will always be associated with playing Batman’s butler Alfred and true it’s easy to understand why as he did truly own the iconic role. At the same time there are those who view Gough as an under the radar horror icon with his appearances in “Horrors of the Black Museum” and “Satan’s Slave” and it was during this horror period that he also made this film, which set out to give Britain its own version of “King Kong” which interestingly would also be the same year that we got our own version of “Godzilla” with the enjoyably daft “Gorgo”.

Unsurprisingly producer Herman Cohen while seemingly being inspired by “King Kong” it would be more precisely the idea of making a giant ape movie in colour that inspired him the most when it came to making this film, while developing the film under the working title of “I Was a Teenage Gorilla” a nod to his earlier success “I Was A Teenage Werewolf” regardless of how nonsensical the title would seem against the finished film. So paying RKO Pictures $25,000 for the rights to the name Kong with a focus purely on making an exploitation film, the end results are decidedly strange to say the least.

Right from the start it is clear that Dr. Decker is up to something as he is shown breeding man-eating Venus flytraps in his greenhouse lab as part of his tests of his serum which soon sees him testing it on his pet chimp Konga, turning him from a playful chimp to a man in a questionable Gorilla costume. Yes I know gorillas and chimpanzees are completely different breeds, so either Dr. Decker’s Serum changes an animal’s breed as well as causing monstrous growth or more likely Director Lemont just felt that the audience wouldn’t notice the difference. Still this is not any old gorilla suit, as it also belonged to legendry ape actor George Barrows who amongst his many ape roles also played the memorably unique looking Ro-Man The Monster in the trash classic “Robot Monster”. However Lemont only hired his gorilla suit rather than Barrows himself, only to return the costume in less than perfect condition, much to the distain of Barrows while only raising more questions as to what Lemont had been doing with the suit during the shoot?

Having grown so used to Gough in his Alfred persona, it was quite a thrill seeing him playing such a devious role, more so perhaps because of seeing him as this loveable old man and faithful butler to now see him scheming and sending his killer ape off to kill his enemies and it's a role he plays well, especially the more he gets caught up in his scheme especially as he frequently hams it up clearly knowing the standard of film being made,  hardly masking his evil genius as we are barely ten minutes into the film before he start dropping hints as he potters around his home laboratory while also finding time to letch over one of his pretty students Sandra (Gordon) who soon unwittingly become central to Dr. Deckers plans, especially when he is sending Konga off to kill her boyfriend.

The idea of Dr. Decker using his killer ape for murder through the power of hypnosis might be a slight disappointment for a film essentially sold as a giant ape on the rampage movie, though it does still provide a fair amount of unintentionally amusing moments such as Konga hiding in the bushes and generally looking like he should be wearing a trench coat and trilby hat, especially when he has such a shifty expression on his face. Still giant ape fans should fear not as the finale finally gives us our giant ape, as Konga gets a super-sized dose of serum causing him to grow to a monstrous size before heading off on a mini rampage while Dr. Decker also receives the Fay Wray treatment before they soon encounter possibly the most well prepared group of soldiers to ever be featured in a monster movie and all without the need of a giant map or lengthy discussion between Generals while they push small models around the map. So surprisingly prepared for the threat of a giant ape I half expected someone to pipe up with “This is what we prepared for boys!” especially considering how quickly they stop the giant ape threat and disappointingly before he has had chance to cause much carnage, but then seeng how the film is seemingly set in a quaint little village there is only so much damage he could really cause, while the film ultimately as a result misses a trick by not being set in London, which could have seen Konga climbing Big Ben or even Nelson’s Column swiping at Spitfire’s.

While the film moves at a quick place to set Dr. Decker and his schemes in motion, with everything pretty much in place by the first twenty minutes, it does however drag in other places, as we are forced to endure mind numbing conversations between minor characters such a Sandra’s boyfriend and his parents, which had me eager to see him taken out as quickly as possible, so I didn’t have to ensure anymore of his yammering. Meanwhile for a man so focused on revenge Dr. Decker’s targets are actually pretty minimal and more to do with personal snubs or threats on his research than any real form of planned revenge.

Ultimately the film never seems to know what it want to be as it skips from one B-movie genre to the next as Gough hams it up with his mad scientist antics, before it switches to being a killer ape movie, before finally giving us the long awaited giant ape on the rampage which the poster promises us. Still when you in the mood for a man in a hokey monkey costume this is one of the better ones and certainly more entertaining than my previous attempt at finding one of these film with the ho-hum “Bride of The Gorilla”. Still if you want to see us Brit's rip off someone else's monster movie personally I would stick with "Gorgo" or maybe just watch the originals.

Fish Story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Title: Fish Story

Director: Yoshihiro Makamura

Released: 2009
Starring: Atsushi Ito, Kengo Kora, Mikako Tabe, Gaku Hamada, Mirai Moriyama, Nao Omoroi, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Toshimitsu Okawa, Hidekazu Mashima, Noriko Eguchi, Takashi Yamanaka, Kazuki Namioka, Mai Takahashi, Kenjiro Ishimaru

Plot: Gerkirin a rock band from 1975 who having had no success, record one last song “Fish Story” before the band splits up, which years later could be the key to saving the world from its impending destruction from a meteor on a collision course.

Review: There are certain films which frequently remind me of the diffrences between the films being produced for the Asian film market and those being produced by Hollywood and this would especially being one of those films. A quick look at the plot summery alone is enough to confirm it, for can you see any major studio getting behind a film were the Earth is saved from a giant meteor by a song? No as “Armageddon” proved they would more likely get behind the film were they can spend millions of dollars giving Michael Bay another reason to make things go boom in some spectacular fashion or another.

What we get here though is something not only free of those usual cliché’s but altogether more special, as director Makamura not only pokes fun at the Michael Bay approach with mention of a failed attempt to stop the meteor by the Americans to detonate nuclear bombs on the Meteor called “Operation Armageddon”, while he also breaks the film into what could almost be seen as four short and seemingly unconnected films, as the film crosses multiple time frames from 1975 to 2012. Starting with timid driver (Hamada) being told a prophecy about him meeting a girl who will save the world, as he scouts for girls with his friends. Next the film gets a martial arts twist as a ferry cook (Moriyama) channels his inner Steven Segal to give us what is almost “Under Siege” on a budget as he saves schoolgirl (Tabe) from a group of gun toting hijackers. Finally we have the story of how Gerkirin, a band trying to kickstart a punk revolution a year before the Sex Pistols, while also explaining how they came up with the song “Fish Story”. Inbetween these seemingly unconnected shorts the film cuts back to the present were three strangers meet in a record shop discussing the song, while with five hours to impact the rest of Japan has fled to Mount Fuji in an attempt to escape the impending tsunami scenario, with the last hope resting with an attempt being launched by of all counties India….who’d have thought they’d have a space program, but then I thought the same for Australia until I saw “Iron Sky”.

While it frequently feels like these segments are unconnected, especially with the song being the only connection for one of these segments, you are left to trust in Makamura, who thankfully delivers a satisfying conclusion that confirms that no matter how random these segments might seem, they do in fact all link together and more often than not in the most surprising of ways aswell as thankfully none of the smugness that M. Night Shyamalan tends to bring with his twists. With Makamura it is more a case of presenting the maths and revealing the links that were always there and more often than not staring us right in our face, its just we didn’t know it.

The real strength though of this film though is how simply it tells, what could easily have been turned into a complex and confusing mess, while equally staring true to its main theme of fear which runs throughout, be it the fear of the end of the world via the ever approaching meteor, the fear of never achieving a dream or just the fear of being killed by a bunch of machine gun toting terrorists. It is also a surprising theme for a film filled with so many naturally comedic moments, let alone frequent genre shifts the likes of which I haven’t seen since “Save The Green Planet” with science fiction, kung fu and supernatural thriller to name but a few included within the films framework with a colourful and largely likeable mix of characters helps make it a fun if incredibly strange ride.

The main problem here though, is not so much the frequent genre changes or leaps in time, but more so the unbalanced nature of the segments with Moriyama’s kung fu antics easily stealing the show, thanks to his real-life background training as a ballet dancer, making his despatch of the bad guys only all the more graceful to watch. Elsewhere the final segment about the song being recorded is greatly helped by the raw enthusiasm of the band, which unlike so many movie bands actually have the feel of a proper band, rather than a group of actors thrown together, while the song which is supposedly going to save the world is thankfully catchy enough, so that you don’t mind hearing it on what feels like a continuous loop during this segment.

While it might seem out there (and it is) this is a simple enough film to follow if you focus on one segment at a time, rather than worrying about the larger picture and how it all links together, as like I stated at the start of this review, this truly is the sort of movie that you would never see coming from Hollywood and perhaps it is this uniqueness which makes it so much fun, while certainly helped by some strong writing and intriguing plotting, which ensures that you genuinely don’t know which way the story will go next, making it one of the more original let alone downright strange movies  that I have seen as of late.