PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 1039

Her Vengeance 1988 Written by Shirley Woo Suet-Lai and directed by Lam Nai-Choi. A Hong Kong rape-vengeance film. It's a remake of the 1973 Kiss of Death. I've seen a few of Nam's other films: The Seventh Curse, Peacock King, Erotic Ghost Story, Story of Ricky and The Cat.

A woman called Ying works at a nightclub in Macao. She gets attacked and raped by some customers she had thrown out for causing trouble. The 5 guys are Hong Kong triad scumbags who rob and kill for a living. Raping and beatings are just fun for these guys. Ying's blind sister encourages her to get revenge. Ying goes to see ex-triad Hung in Hong Kong, he won't help her with her vengeance, but he gives her a job in his club. Ying meets a reporter at the club, there's the start of a romance but it doesn't go anywhere other than death.

Ying meets one of the rapists outside Hung's club, she gets another club hostess to lure him into the club. Ying makes a play to get him out of the club. He takes her on his motorcycle, along the way the gang guy beats up a couple of guys in a bathroom and takes the car of one of his victims. Ying eventually kills the rapist and that opens a door to trouble for her friends and relatives. By the end of the movie all the baddies are dead, several other random people are dead and all her friends and  relatives are dead. Ying survives and wonders of into the distance as the credits roll.

The movie starts off with the gangsters acting up in a club, followed by the attack and rape scene, then it gets rather dull for a while. Once the revenge kicks in it gets more interesting. Ying makes some weapons, it's hard to get guns in Hong Kong. I hadn't noticed but someone pointed out that the police are noticeably absent. 

It was nice getting some revenge on such scumbags but poor Ying isn't very good at it. I did laugh out loud a couple of times, not at jokes, just some ludicrous scenes of violence. Some of Nam's other movies, especially Story Of Ricky, are known for some over the top action that often makes no sense.

We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray. Looks nice and Ryan, one of my pals, contributes to the commentary track. Looking forward to listening to that. There are two versions of the film on the disc and there's a second disc with another movie. We watched the CatIII version. There's a CatII version with less nudity and violence.

Legend Of The Eight Samurai 1983 Based on the 1982 novel Shin Satomi Hakkenden by Toshiro Kamata, screenplay by Toshio Kamata and Kinji Fukasaku, directed by Kinji Fukasaku. A Japanese fantasy film with Sonny Chiba. I saw this first in 2002, I don't remember watching it again. I've seen a few movies by Director Kinji: Black Lizard, The Green Slime, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Message From Space and Virus. His last two films were Battle Royal and Battle Royal II: Requiem. Some of them were better than others.

The family of Princess Shizu is killed and the princess goes on the run. She's aided by a young guy called Shinbei. On the way they meet Dōsetsu, played by Sonny, who tells her of the curse on her family. He shows her a glowy bead with writing on it. Eight warriors have these beads, eight warriors who can help her defeat the evil queen Tamazusa. They meet the bead holders on the way to Tamazusa's castle. There are some fights and plenty of running about before get there. Most everyone dies.

There's some entertaining bits but the movie is 136 mins and it seems bloated with padding. It's a bit pokey at times. It would be nice to tighten up some scenes and move the story along a bit quicker. After watching it I figured I wouldn't need the recent Blu-ray, especially at $30 on Amazon.

Bionic Ninja 1986

Bionic Ninja 1986 Written and directed by Godfrey Ho. A Hong Kong movie that uses scenes from the 1984 Hong Kong film The Daring Kung-Fu Refugee with some new footage.

KGB and CIA spies battle for a scientific discovery that could save or destroy the world. A Ninja organization has the secret, the CIA sends Agent Tommy to get the discovery back. There's some fighting but no bionic ninjas.

All in all a very poor film that I wouldn't watch again if you paid me. The producers even stole all the music from other films and TV shows. That's movie producers at their worst. They need a mighty punch in their gentleman's sausage from the flaming skull of Paul Naschy.

 

Friday Night Movies 1022

Demon Pond 1979 Based on the 1913 play Demon Pond by Izumi Kyōka, screenplay by Haruhiko Mimura and Tsutomu Tamura, directed by Masahiro Shinoda. A Japanese fantasy movie staring Tsutomu Yamazaki, he played Goro in Tampopo. We watched the Criterion Blu-ray. It looks very nice.

The movie is really a vehicle for Tamasaburô Bandô. He's an actor and director, he appeared in a lot of Kabuki plays, often playing a female part. He plays both Yuki and the Dragon Princess.

The movie starts with a man called Gakuen arriving in a small remote village only to find his friend Akira. The two taught at the same school, three years ago Akira had gone on summer vacation and never returned. No contact at all, with anyone, even his mom. Akira is now married to Yuki and they are both bound to the Demon Pond. Akira rings the bell three times a day to keep the Demon Pond from flooding the village and Yuki is some sort of sorceress.

The village is in the middle of a drought and the villagers think that the only way to reverse the drought is human sacrifice. They've got Yuri in mind. Akira and Yuri get helped by Gakuen, Princess Shirayuki and the pond spirits. Things go badly for our heroes, the villagers are a  horrible lot who need drowning. Lucky for us, the villagers suffer a mighty retribution for their nastiness. Don't poke the dragon.

Sadly it's rather slowly paced and not much happens. Lots of people staring into space and wondering lethargically about makes my mind wander. It looks pretty, the sets and costumes are nice and the spirits from the Demon Pond were entertaining. Still, it's not something I'm likely to see again.

Hundra 1983 Written by José Truchado, John F Goff and Matt Cimber, directed by Matt Cimber. An Italian, US and Spanish production with a bit of music by Ennio Morricone.

Hundra is a good hunter for her tribe of Amazons, she's not interested in staying home and having babies like most of the women. She's out on a hunt when the village is attacked by a horde of men. Hundra arrives at the village to find the town in heated battle. The women haven't been doing so well in the fight and Hundra arrived too late to turn the tide. She's the only one to survive in the village. She goes to see the old wise woman in the mountain only to be told to go have a baby. The old wise women is just one of several odd characters that really aren't much help to our rather dim heroine.

Hundra tries it on with some unsuitable suitors but things go poorly. Hundra finally settles on getting up the duff with the local healer in a small town. After the birth the child is kidnapped by the evil cult operating in the temple. They kidnap women to use as prostitutes for their flock. Hundra goes after the baby and gets beaten down by the local cult. Eventually she'll fight back.

It's a decent looking film but it meanders around way to slowly. At 109 mins it could use some editing, speed some bits up and strip some bloated scenes. It isn't something that I'm going to bother picking up.

Friday Night Movies 1018

Corpse Mania 1981 Written by Chih-Hung Kuei and On Szeto, directed by Chih-Hung Kuei. A Chinese police procedural involving murder and necrophilia from the Shaw Brothers. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome release.

A couple of women are murdered and then raped. They remind the cops of an old crime from several years back, turns out the rapist murder has been released from the mental home a month ago. The story uses flashback to fill in the back story. Much of the story takes place at the local brothel or the police station.The killer picks off a few of the women at the brothel. Eventually the police have a suspect and work to track him down. 

It's an average police story with a bit of action and plenty of meal worms. The print looks nice and it's not as gory as you'd think. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would but not enough to buy a copy.

The Ghost Dance 1982 Written by Peter F Buffa and Robert Sutton, directed by Peter F Buffa. Another new release from Vinegar Syndrome. The Wikipedia says the film was the first slasher film to have Native American characters.

An archaeologist, Dr Foster, has excavated a Native American corpse. It turns out to cause all sorts of trouble. The local elders are upset about the desecration. The corpse was a shaman, his unearthing has given him the chance to possess the local shaman. He starts killing people around the university. Dr Foster fights him off with the help of her boyfriend. 

Sadly it's below average and rather dull at times. It's one I wouldn't need to buy for myself.

Friday Night Movies 1004

Reptilicus 1961 Written by Ib Melchior and  Sidney W Pink, directed by Poul Bang. We watched the new Blu-ray of the Danish version of Reptilicus. The English and Danish versions of the film were shot at the same time with the same cast and crew. Pink directed the English version for AIP, when he delivered a poor film, Melchior made changes. Pink was so upset he sued AIP but after seeing the finished version he dropped the charges. Pink is not noted for his direction, he's more a producer.

Miners are drilling for copper in Lapland, they find a frozen dinosaur tail and bring that to Denmark's Aquarium in Copenhagen. Scientist put the tail in a big freezer but it accidentally gets thawed out. Poor Peter will pay deadly for falling asleep later in the film. Surprisingly the tail doesn't start to rot, it starts to regrow a whole Reptilicus. That's the name the head scientist gives the creature, he compares it's regrowth to the starfish.

There's not much going on while the creature is regrowing. The head scientist's daughter falls for the tall and moody miner, the head scientist's other daughter falls for the gruff American general. There's a goofy janitor for some comic relief, he sings a song to some kids in a park. The main characters are either at the Aquarium or gallivanting around Denmark. At one point they visit the Trivoli Gardens and hear a song.

When the tail regenerates it becomes a whole creature and breaks out of it's holding cell. During it's rampages around Denmark, many die. They're fighting a creature with the ability to regrown from a single bit of flesh. That makes it dangerous to use explosives to kill it. Eventually they figure out what to do. The beast is knocked out and the head scientist says he'll dispose of it. They leave us with an open door for a sequel. Sadly, there's never been one.

The Danish version hadn't been released in the US before this Vinegar Syndrome release. It's quite a bit longer, 94 mins instead of 81 mins, and Reptilicus flies. The monster is a puppet, he's not the greatest but Denmark isn't famous for it's giant monster movies. A lot of reviews of both versions sure don't care for the monster. At least he doesn't spit green slime in the Danish version, that green slime was so fake looking in the English version. The Danish version is nicely restored, it looks and sounds great. We were all a bit excited to see this version. Most of us have seen this movie more than a couple of times. The Danish version is definitely more of a movie than the English version. It's still not a great film but it's fun to watch. I had fun watching it and would want to get my own copy to rewatch.

Intrepidos Punks 1988 Writers Tomás Fuentes, Roberto Marroquin and Ulises Pérez Aquirre. A Mexican bikers vs cops film.

Bikers break their leader out of jail and start a crime spree. Two cops are on their tail. The cops get a bit of help but they keep getting beat down. When the bikers aren't robbing and raping they're taking drug and having orgies. There's plenty of driving about and fighting. Both would be less dull if they had managed to edit the film better, it drags way more than it should. The car chase is unambitious. The biker gang has it's own theme, a lackluster song at best, sadly it's repeated Ad infinitum. Not one I'm going to pick up for myself. I was glad to have seen it but only in the I've seen another movie way, yay for me.

Friday Night Movies 977

The Shaolin Invincibles 1977 Written by Chang Cheh and Ni Kuang, directed by Chang Cheh.

A family is attacked by the local leader, a young girl is rescued by a monk. Twelve years later she's trained up and ready for some vengeance. Her pal goes along to help fight the Emperor.

The Emperor has the usual gang of fighting guards. He's also got a pair of kung fu trained apes. It's kind of a sad costume but there you go, it's the 70s. There's plenty of kung fu action but not much story.

I enjoyed it well enough but not enough to desire the Blu-ray. You can see an edited copy of the movie on Tubi, link above. The Tubi version is dubbed and has a very heavily trimmed opening sequence. The scene depicts the killing of the heroine's family and her rescue by the monk that raised her and trained her in kung fu.

Million Dollar Mystery 1985 Written by Rudy De Luca, Tim Metcalfe and Miguel Tajada-Flores, directed by Richard Fleischer. It was Richard's last feature, he'd made some good films in the past: Armored Car Robbery, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Barabbas, Fantastic Voyage, Doctor Dolittle, The Boston Strangler, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Soylent Green and Mandingo.

Sadly this is a poor rip off of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World but without a good story, entertaining actors and comedians. There are a lot of jokes but mostly they are a sorry lot, hardly raising a chuckle.

It did poorly at the box office barely making 10% on it's $10,000,000 cost. There was a tie in with Glad bags. The movie ends abruptly with the two FBI agents talking to the camera explaining it's up to the movie audience to find the last million. Here's the bit on that from the Wikipedia.

Producer Dino De Laurentiis conceived the idea for Million Dollar Mystery when he visited New York and saw a row of people lining up for what he presumably thought was a movie. A companion told De Laurentiis that they were actually lining up for lottery tickets.

Glad Bags sponsored a sweepstakes timed for the film's release. The company gave away entry forms, and the audience would fill out these forms with their answer to where the last million is hiding, based on clues given in the film. De Laurentiis said of the film:

This is a really broad comedy with car chases, designed for the young major movie going audience, about 12 to 24 years old. The sweepstakes gives us the potential to reach even more people – the infrequent moviegoer, the person more interested in winning a million dollars than in going to the movies, and these are the kind of people who use Glad Bags, housewives who maybe go to the movies once or twice a year.

De Laurentiis had high expectations for the film, but it did not turn out to be a hit. The winner of the contest ended up being 14-year-old Alesia Lenae Jones of Bakersfield California, who successfully guessed that the loot was hidden in the bridge of the nose of the Statue of Liberty. Apparently, thousands of contestants had arrived at the same answer, and her entry was chosen in a random drawing.

I bought the Kino-Lorber Blu-ray on one of their sales and it looks nice. Too bad it's such a disappointment. I'm hoping that the commentary explains why it was so poor. One of the locations of the movie is Lake Havasu City Arizona, it's where they moved the London Bridge and rebuilt it as a tourist attraction. Never been.

As I was looking for a copy of the movie to link to I found this other movie that features the bridge. It's a time travel story about Jack the Ripper going through time and winding up in Arizona in the modern day. Terror at London Bridge came out in 1985 and you can watch it on YouTube. I still haven't seen more than the first 5 mins.

Friday Night Movies 975

The Young Master 1980 Written by Jackie Chan, Edward Tang, Lau Tin-chi and Tung Lu, directed by Jackie Chan. The second film directed by Jackie and the first at Golden Harvest. It's the 5th film in the Criterion set. The Blu-ray has the 106 min cut. Most of the previous US releases are of the 90 min international cut.

Jackie's brother Tiger is kicked out of kung fu school for cheating and Jackie goes after him. Tiger falls in with some scum who set him up during a robbery. Jackie has a series of adventures and fights that end with a big battle with the robber who set Tiger up.

There's all sorts of action, like a lion dance, and plenty of stunts and fights. Golden Harvest gave Jackie a good budget, nice sets and plenty of extras.

There's an info packed commentary by Frank Djeng.

My Lucky Stars 1985 Story by Lo Kin, Barry Wong and Cheuk-Hon Szeto, screenplay by Barry Wong, directed by Sammo Hung. The 6th and last film in the Criterion set.

Jackie is a cop called Muscles, he gathers his childhood friends to help him catch a yakuza crook in Japan. Sammo Hung plays Kidstuff, he's let out of jail to round up the old gang. They spend a good bit of time doing that. Eventually they meet up with the cop in charge of them. He's framed them with a bank robbery and forces them to work with Muscles. Sibelle Hu plays their handler Inspector Woo, she's nicked named Poison Ivy. They take a good long bit of the movie playing pranks on her. She should have punched them more.

There's a nice mix of goofy comedy and action. It's not all fighting, there's a nice car chase with a jump over a truck. There's not enough Jackie. He shows up at the start and then doesn't show up again for another hour. There's plenty of nice locations for the action. I especially liked the fight in the haunted house ride at the fairgrounds.

All the movies in the set look fine and there are some extras for most films.

Friday Night Movies 957

The Story Of Mankind 1957 Based on the 1921 novel of the same name by Hendrik Willem van Loon, screenplay by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennett, directed by Irwin Allen.

The Great Court Of Outer Space puts the human's of Earth on trail for the invention of the Super H-Bomb. The court will decide to stop the bomb or or let the human's destroy themselves.

Defending the human's is The Spirit Of Man, played by Ronald Colman, prosecuting the human's is the Devil, Mr Scratch, played by Vincent Price. They travel through time and space to visit various famous people from many times and places.

John Carradine plays Khufu and there were many other stars in similar roles. The poster has a list of most of the actors in the film. It's an impressive list and certainly one of the reasons I picked up the DVD. Even from an early age I tended to follow certain actors and would watch films because they appeared in them. I'm still keeping an eye out for films with them, I've not seen them all.

Groucho Marx plays colonist Peter Minuit, his brothers Harpo and Chico are also in the film but they don't appear in a scene together. It was the last film for the fellows and their first color film. Harpo played Sir Isaac Newton and Chico played a monk.

Dennis Hopper plays Napoleon Bonaparte and Marie Wilson played Marie Antoinette. Having 44 year old Hedy Lamarr playing 19 year old Joan Of Arc was a bit of an odd choice. Peter Lorre only has two lines of dialog playing Emperor Nero but he does get to laugh a lot, while Rome burns.

The Devil and The Spirit play tit for tat with human accomplishments and failures. Eventually the Court Of Outer Space has to make a decision. They fail and push the decision on to the future. Hopefully we'll keep from destroying ourselves.

I enjoyed the film despite it not being that good. It's more interesting for what it is than for it's story. You can try it out on YouTube. You might like it, or not, doesn't matter, it's what it is.

Miami Connection 1987 Story by Richard Park and Y K Kim, screenplay by Joseph Diamond, directed by Richard Park (Park Woo-Sang) and Y K Kim.

Dragon Sound is a band that plays at clubs to make money so they can go to college. The Dragon's live together in a house near the college. Y K Kim is Mark, he teaches the band Taekwondo and plays rhythm guitar. Singer  Jane and guitarist John are dating and Jane's brother Jeff doesn't approve of the relationship.

Jeff has a gang of thug and his pal Yashito has his own gang of Miami Ninjas. The Ninja's steal a big supply of cocaine from some other guys. The drug dealers seem to disappear from the film.

The Dragon's replaced another band who are mad at getting fired, they try to beat up the club owner but he's good at martial arts and kicks the band's collective butts. The failed band members get Jeff's gang to attack Dragon Sound but that fails too. Jeff is determined to separate the couple and kidnaps a band member. Y K leads a rescue and Jeff is killed. Yashito brings his Miami Ninjas for some revenge. Of course the Dragon's prevail.

I enjoyed the film despite it's many weaknesses. The script is poor but not much worse than the average American made martial arts film. The acting is bad, poor Y K can hardly speak English and he still does better than some of the other actors. The stunts range from good to absolutely dreadful.

On the plus side Maximo Munzi, the cinematographer and editor, did a good job shooting the film and putting it together. It got into a few theaters in 1988 but failed to pull in the crowds and disappeared for a number of years. It cost about a million and didn't make much money back. Alamo Drafthouse re-released the film in 2010 and recently Vinegar Syndrome released the film on 4K and Blu-ray. I don't know that I need to buy one as I doubt I'm going to need watching it again.

Friday Night Movies 954

Gore From Outer Space 2001 Directed by Hirohisa Sasaki.

I though I hadn't see the movie before but when I looked it up on the IMDb I had voted for it on 6-17-14. I looked it up on my watched movie list and sure enough it's listed as being seen on 6/6/14. It was an earlier FNM night. I gave the movie a score of 7 on the IMDb which means I liked it more that time than this time. I'll try not to watch it again.

The Return Of Captain Invincible 1983 Written by Steven E de Souza and Andrew Gaty, directed by Philippe Mora. I don't recall seeing this but it was out at a time I used to go to the theater more often.

It's an Australian superhero musical comedy with Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee. There's a new Blu-ray out from Severin, that's what we watched.  The original poster is on top and the cover to the Severin release is below, conveniently labeled. I don't care for the Severin cover much at all. The movie I have mixed feelings about, I enjoyed the parts with Christopher Lee as the villain but many of the scenes with Captain Invincible weren't as entertaining. I'm not that happy with the songs for the most part and many of the jokes fall flat. It did poorly at the Australian box office, grossing $55K on a $7mil cost. Another one that I was happy to see but I doubt I'd watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 950

Undefeatable 1993 Written by Tai Yim, Steve Harper and Robert Vassar, directed by Godfrey Ho under the name Godfrey Hall. It was filmed in English in the US but it's a Hong Kong production.

Cynthia Rothrock plays a waitress who's helping her younger sister through college. Cynthia supplements her income by street fighting. The whole subplot of the street fighters doesn't make much sense, it's almost like the screen writers had a vague idea of how it worked and made up the rest. It's similar to their approach in writing the script. They wrote in some character development but their script is trite and the actors aren't capable of much.

Don Niam plays a fighter called Stingray, he's abusive to his wife, she decides to leave him after he rapes her, he decides to get her back. Stingray has slipped a cog and he starts kidnapping women who resemble his wife. He kidnaps them, tortures them, murders them and gouges their eyes out. One of the women that gets kidnapped and murdered is Cynthia's sister.

A kung fu cop is assigned the case of the murdered women, he'd tangled with Cynthia early in the movie, they team up to catch the killer. There's a bit of a romance there amidst the fights. The kung fu is barely average, far weaker than you'd expect in a Hong Kong film. There's nothing new going on here. The only amusing thing in the film is watching Don try to act. He chews the scenery like one of those car shredders.

All in all deserving of the 4.6 score on the IMDb. I gave it a 4 it's definitely no 5. I'm not going to need to watch this one again. It's on YouTube.

Programmed To Kill 1987 Written by Robert Short, directed by Allan Holzman with additional scenes by Robert Short.

Robert Ginty is an operative for the CIA. He captures a terrorist played by Sandahl Bergman. In the capture she was stabbed, Ginty brings her to the US, she's operated on by some scientists and turned into a cyborg killing machine. Sandahl goes on her first assignment and kills her best terrorist pal. That triggers something in her head and she starts killing the men who changed her.

Ginty goes after Sandahl. There's plenty of fights and lots of shoot 'em ups. Nothing new or original, just plenty same old same old. I wouldn't need to see this one again. You can try it out on YouTube.