Doberman Cop 1977 Based on the Doberman Deka manga written by Buronson and illustrated by Shinji Hiramatsu, screenplay by Kōji Takada, directed by Kinji Fukasaku. A Japanese cop movie starring Sony Chiba as a small town cop from Ishigaki Island.
Sonny plays Kano, he's come to Shinjuku because of the local police think the burnt corpse in an apartment is possibly Yuna Tamashiro. Kano knows Yuna's mother, she's a noro, a priestesses of the Ryukyuan religion. The mother predicts Kano and Yuna will marry. The Shinjuku police make fun of Kano for being a bumpkin, he brought a pig to give to the chief of detectives as a gift. The pig was turned down so Kano has to schlep the critter around for the rest of the movie.
Kano gets some big time new headlines for rescuing a singer held hostage from an obsessive fan in her 20th floor apartment by rappelling down the side of the building and smashing through the window. Kano believes that the singer Miki might be Yuna but she says she's not. Her manager Hidemori is a yakuza who's also in love with Miki. Things get more and more complicated and violent as Kano bashes his way around town. When the police don't help him he takes some help from the biker who was the burnt woman's friend and his pals. Eventually Kano blasts the real killer.
It's a non-stop riot of color and noise. I though the movie should have been called Saidaigen no sakebi or Maximum Yelling. There's plenty of fights, gun battles and lots of yelling. Everyone is yelling all the time and the volume ramps up the more emotional they get. Bodies pile up and Kano is often responsible. I enjoyed the heck out of it and would watch it again.
Angel With The Iron Fists 1967 Written by Wei Shih and directed by Wei Lo. A Chinese action film with secret agents infiltrating a criminal gang called the Dark Angels.
Agent 009 works for the police, she's infiltrating the Dark Angels. She pretends to be rich and the girlfriend of Baldy, a big time criminal who's locked up. Baldy's gang is after her because she refuses to share a suitcase of cash with them. Agent 009 makes contact with a jeweler who's part of the DA. The DA are a ruthless gang, they like robbing and killing. Cross them and you're dead, try to leave the gang and you're dead.I suspect that's their retirement plan too.
They have a nice underground secret base, imagine something like a James Bond villain might have but cheaper and smaller. There's plenty of sneaking about, some murders, some fights and plenty of driving about in cars. Sadly the movie is too long and the action rather tame. Some of the fights are a bit embarrassing, arms flailing like a windmill of bones. Some of the score was entertaining, not the singing parts, they were way tedious.
I still enjoyed it, it was pretty darn funny, not on purpose for most of it. It's part of a three film Blu-ray set from Eureka, all the films are of the same sort, the other two films are The Golden Buddha and The Singing Thief. I hope to get to that fairly soon.
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