Our two movies had something in common tonight. Both of them had traitors in their midst. Joe brought a copy of China Seas he'd gotten from NetFlix. It's a 1935 film starring Clark Gable. He's the Captain of a steamer that plies the China Seas. C Aubry Smith is a guy with a huge pile of gold that Clark hids in a steamroller. Wallace Beery is a loud boisterious shady guy who's a pal of Clark's. Jean Harlow is the trampy blonde that has been having a fling with Clark. Rosalind Russell is the proper British lady who had a relationship with Clark. Her arrival puts a crimp in Jean's going's on when Clark tells her it's over. Jean takes up with Wallace. There's a bunch of passengers including Robert Benchley as a continiously drunken American writer, Lillian Bond as a ditzy brunette, Edward Brophy as her not so bright husband, and Akim Tamiroff as the sleazy guy with the pencil thin mustache. I like a lot of the secondary characters, though I have never been a big Gable, Harlow or Russell fan. There's a nice mix of melodrama, action and comedy, topped off with some pirates. There's even a torture scene when the pirates turn loose the "boot" on Clark. Who would have thought. He doesn't crack and the pirates leave only to be blown up. Ha ha, silly pirates, all blown up. The traitor gets caught and Clark gets the girl. Oh, which one? You'll have to watch it to see. An entertaining movie. I'll have to keep an eye out for it on TCM. It's out on DVD in a multi movie pack of Clark Gable films.
Zombie Hunter Rika is a Japanese zombie school girl movie from 2008. Rika and her friend skip school to go visit Rika's grandfather. He lives in a small countryside town and Rika hasn't seen him for a couple of years. Turns out his town is filled with zombies. It's why I don't travel much anymore. The girls encounter zombies and hook up with a guy. He's also looking for grampa's house. We meet the three stooges of Japan, who provide the comic relief, and more zombies. The girls and the guy find grampa's house and his young wife. Grampa is catatonic and his wife is sleazy. She can't wait to get her top off for the guy. He's her secret lover. He brings her poison to get rid of grampa. They are a sleazy couple. The zombies attack the house. Rika is bit and grampa comes out of his coma. He cuts off Rika's arm and sews on the magical arm of Zombie Hunter. Grampa was a champion swordsman and skilled surgeon when he was younger. The Zombie Hunter, and his severed arm, is a whole part of the movie that makes little sense. We just go with it, though we all comment on the poor quality of the makeup effect. We meet a zombie who wants to help the humans. He can talk fine and has a mouth guard to keep him from biting. He turns out to be the turncoat. He just wants to feed them to the super zombie out in the woods. Turns out that super zombie can be killed and everything will go back to normal. Low and behold it does. The dead live again, Rika has her arm back. So it's a dumb magical journey that has a few good scenes and some draggy bits. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the hard core fan of zombie movies.
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