PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 1043

Bohachi Bushido: Code Of The Forgotten Eight 1973 Based on the manga Bohachi Bushido by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, screenplay by Susumu Saji, directed by Teruo Ishi. A Japanese erotic action film set in the past.

An assassin called Shinō Ashita escapes some samurai by jumping into a river, members of the Bohachi clan rescue him. The head of the Bohachi offers him the job of killing the customers of the local low end prostitution rings operating out of tea houses in Edo. They're cutting into the Bohachi's trade. Ashita is ordered to bring the sex workers to the Bohachi clan, they have a royal warrant to run the Yoshiwara in Edo, they need huge flocks of naked ladies to supply their customers with good times. The Yoshiwara is a designated prostitution area. The Bohachi's warrant literately lets them get away with murder making Ashita safe from getting arrested for killing the local johns.

The Bohachi have a strict code of conduct that forgets the 8 traditional virtues,  justice, courage, benevolence, politeness, honesty, honor, loyalty and self-control. Any deviation from the code usually leads to death for the rule breaker. The leader of the Bohachi is Shirobei Daimon. He assigns 5 lady ninja's to keep an eye on Ashita, they run around naked a lot. Sending them back to the Yoshiwara turns Daimon against Ashita and they all fight among themselves until the Bohachi clan is nearly destroyed.

The film is packed with sword fights and sex. There's acres of naked skin on screen. For an action nudie flick it's well made and very colorful. It's quite entertaining and a movie I'd watch again some time. 

Postal 2007 Written by Uwe Boll and Bryan C Knight, directed by Ewe Boll. It's based on the Running With Scissors game called Postal. Boll was interested in the project because of the game's political incorrectness.

Zack Ward plays a loser who's lacking a job on top of all his other problems. He lives in a filthy trailer in a rundown park with his enormous wife. She's a vile monster who bangs all the locals while poor Zack is out of the trailer. Zack's uncle is played by Dave Foley, he's set up in a doomsday religious cult's compound with his followers. Sadly he's neglected to pay taxes and he could face some jail time. Dave's got a plan to raise some money, he's going to steal some Krotchy Dolls, they're penis shaped dolls that have become rare because of a shipping accident in which the production run was almost completely destroyed. They're selling for $4000 each and there's a stock of 2,000 in the German themed amusement park called Little Germany.

Osama bin Laden and his men also plan to steal the dolls, they want to hide a virus in them, this way they can kill thousands of Americans. Dave and his gals manage to get the dolls into a truck with Zack's help. There's plenty of gun fights among the terrorists, Dave's followers and the locals. Everyone has guns and an unlimited supply of bullets. Most of the characters get slaughtered but Zack manages to escape with his new lady friend. Lucky for him his awful wife gets blown up in the trailer park. She could have escaped but she was too fat to get out of the trailer's door. The movie ends with George W Bush and Osama romping in a field as the nukes rain down.

It's a comedy and it's packed with jokes. Not all the jokes are good ones but occasionally there's a laugh. Sometimes the laugh is one of those "what did we just see" sorts. It's definitely not for the squeamish. The critics hated it, justifiably so, and it did really poorly at the box office. That's typical of Uwe's movies , most of which were box office failures, this one made less than $150K on a $15 million budget. Uwe's not a good film maker, his only skill seems to be in raising a budget. Despite his poor track record he continues to make films. I enjoyed the film and would see it again. I can't say that about the other Boll films I've seen.

Friday Night Movies 1042

Trapped Ashes 2006 Written by Dennis Bartok, directed by Sean S Cunningham, Joe Dante, Ken Russell, Monte Hellman and John Gaeta.

Several people are taking the studio tour with driver and host Henry Gibson. He lets them into the haunted mansion where they get trapped in a big room. Henry tells them they might get out if they tell their most terrifying stories. Joe Dante directs this bit of the film.

Ken Russell directs The Girl With Golden Breasts, a story about a woman gets a breast augmentation to further her acting career and winds up with with blood sucking breast implants.

Sean S Cunningham directs Jibaku, a story about a couple that find a man who's hung himself in a wood, the wife gets seduced by a demon. The husband has to go to Hell to rescue here.

Monte Hellman directs Stanley's Girlfriend, a story about a blood sucking witch.

John Gaeta directs My Twin, The Worm, a story about a parasite that affects a woman's pregnancy.

Once the stories are told Henry drops a bit of bad news on the group. No one's going home. Sad, huh. Henry was the best character in the movie. He plays a delightfully demonic guy.

I wasn't sure if I had seen this, the opening tour ride seemed familiar. Turns out I had back in September of 2011. My comment on My Watched Movie List was "trapped people/tits". That's mostly what the stories were about: sex and breasts. It was OK but I'm not tempted to buy a copy now I've seen it again. I'd prefer watching Dr Terror's House of Horrors, The Vault Of Horror or Tales From The Crypt, a few of Amicus Productions anthology films.

The Boy And The Heron 2023 Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

Mihito is ten during WW2, his mother dies when the hospital is bombed. His father builds parts for planes, they move the factory into the countryside to escape the fire bombings. The father has married his dead wife's sister Natsuko and they have moved into her family estate. Mohito is rather cold to his step mother. He discovers the tower building designed by Natsuko's grand uncle who disappeared 30 years ago. Mohito has encounters with a grey heron who talks and has another being living inside of his body. The heron claims he could find Mohito's mother.

Natsuko wonders off into the forest and everyone searches for her. Mihito and Kiriko, one of the granny maids living in the house, enter the collapsing tower which turns out to be the gateway to the oceanic world. They have some adventures, meet Mohito's mother, rescue Natsuko and return home. Mohito has gotten to like his step mother better.

I enjoyed some of the movie but it felt it was less entertaining than some of my favorites, I've seen My Neighbor Totoro at least a couple of dozen times over the years and still enjoy it. Same with The Castle Of Cagliostro. I liked most of the other films he did through Howl's Moving Castle but haven't watched them anywhere near as often. Laputa and Kiki's Delivery Service are the most watched of that lot. I bought a DVD of Ponyo in 2010 but still haven't watched it. I don't have a copy of The Wind Rises. I just put one in my cart on Amazon.

Despite having a copy of TBATH I don't know that I'll return to it anytime soon. It seemed like a greatest hits of Miyazaki scenes.  Some of the later movies are in the 2 hour range but they move the story along quicker and seem less draggy. No matter, there's still the earlier lot of films to watch again. I've also got Miyazaki's Sherlock Hound to watch. He directed the first 6 episodes before trouble with the Doyle estate put a hold on production. Miyazaki moved on and someone else finished the series of 26 episodes. 

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.

Friday Night Movies 1036

Bloody Spear At Mount Fuji 1955 Original story by Kintaro Inoue, screenplay by Shintarō Mimura, Fuji Yahiro and Toshio Tamikado, directed by Tomu Uchida. A Japanese period drama. We watched the Arrow Blu-ray from 2018.

A group of people on the road to Edo interact with each other. There's Samurai Sakawa Kojūrō and his two servants Genta and Genpachi, a traveling musician and her daughter, a man selling his daughter Otane into prostitution, a policeman, a thief, a pilgrim, a young kid called Jirō and a man called Tōzaburō.

They often stay at the same inns. The Samurai is a bad drinker and he eventually has a run in with a group of drunk samurai scum that doesn't end well for him. Jirō learns the heard way it's not much of a life to be a spear carrier. Otane is saved from a life of prostitution and goes home with her father. She's saved by Tōzaburō who's daughter had died while being a prostitute. The musician and her daughter manage to make the trip mostly unscathed.

It's a pokey paced drama that reminds me what a shitty place it was to live in the days before the Meiji Restoration of 1868. It's not much better after either. It's mostly chatter and sitting about, there's hardly any action until the third act. The characters are mostly interesting but they don't do a whole lot. I enjoyed the movie but doubt I'll get around to it again too soon. Still, it was worth a gander.

Despicable Me 4 2024 Written by Mike White and Ken Daurio, directed by Chris Renaud.

A supervillain called Maxime escapes prison, his goal is to kill Gru. The AVL sends Gru and his family to a safe house. He's to pretend he's a solar panel salesman. Gru's wife Lucy is going to be a hairdresser and the three girls are going to the local school. Gru tries to be friendly to the uptight neighbors, only the wife seems to like Gru and Lucy. Poppy, the neighbor's daughter is a bit of a stuck up bitch but she comes to like the family after she blackmails Gru into helping her steal Gru's old schoolmaster's honey badger.

The Minions get taken in by AVL and 5 of them are enhanced with superpowers. They cause a lot of damage in the HQ and around the city. The safe house is outed and Maxime attacks. There's some running about, collateral damage and plenty of jeopardy. Eventually it all works out for Gru, his family and their pals.

There were some good laughs, even a couple of out loud ones. I'd watch it again some time, perhaps have a marathon of the series.

Friday Night Movies 1031

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.

 

The Thick-Walled Room 1956

The Thick-Walled Room 1956 Screenplay by Kōbō Abe, directed by Masaki Kobayashi. A Japanese film about war criminals in prison. Part of Criterion's Eclipse series of DVDs. Another drama.

The movie is about a few of the men in Sugamo Prison for their war crimes after WW2. The story is based on the actual diaries of real Japanese soldiers who were jailed after the was, the diaries were published in 1953. The film was filmed the same year but not released until 1956.

It's a very talky film as the men sit in prison. There's plenty of time for reflection on their cruelty and plenty of guilt to go around. One guy beat a man, Yamashita shot an Indonesian civilian under orders from his superior Hamada, another stabbed a prisoner with a bayonet and he felt so guilty he hung himself in his cell.

Hamada never got put into prison, he's into profiteering and Yamashita's mother and sister are victims of one of his scams. Yamashita is let out to go to his mother's funeral. He plans to kill Hamada but changes his mind when he visits the man and finds him a coward. He returns to prison.

It's mostly chatty and bleak. It was interesting enough to get to the end but it's another one I won't be returning to very soon.

I Will Buy You 1956

I Will Buy You 1956 Based on the novel by Minoru Ōno, screenplay by Zenzō Matsuyama, directed by Masaki Kobayashi. I normally would not watch a sports drama but it's included in this four pack of Kobayashi films from Criterion's Eclipse line of DVDs.

Kishimoto is a talent scout for the Tokyo Flowers baseball club. He's trying to hire a young guy called Kurita for his team. There's competition from two other teams. That's pretty much all that's goingon, the film is nearly endless conversations negotiating the deal. The price goes up and up before Kurita gets signed by one of the teams.

It's rather decidedly dull for someone not at all interested in sports. The Japanese cultural style is slightly interesting but it's not much different to what goes on in the west, the gifts and salaries are probably smaller then those from teams in the US. It's doubtful I'd ever get around to watching it. There are no extras.

Friday Night Movies 1026

The Snow Woman 1968 Based on the stroy Yuki-onna from Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn, screenplay by Fuji Yahiro, directed by Tanaka Tokuzō. A Japanese horror fantasy set in feudal times. Tokuzō's first assistant director job was on Rashomon, on his own he directed a good number of movies, including 3 in the Zatoichi series, before working in television in the 1970s and 1980s. The second film in the Radiance Box Set.

A wood carver and his apprentice are traveling through a forest looking for a special tree to use in the carving of a statue. They find one and rejoice. A sudden storm has the two men camp over night in a abandoned house. That night they are visited by the Snow Woman, she freezes the old man and tells the young apprentice she won't kill him if he never tells anyone he saw her. The young apprentice heads home the next day.

The young apprentice gets the commission that was to be his masters. The local temple wants the sculpture, the wood arrives but needs 5 years to cure. A young woman comes into his life, they marry and have a child. Five years pass and the young apprentice starts the carving. A local Lord wants the young apprentice's wife for a bit of rape. The Lord does some underhanded things to ruin the life of the young apprentice. He's not getting his way and the Lord becomes impatient, his attempts to rape the wife go poorly for him when it's revealed she is the Snow Woman. We were all suspecting that. The Lord and his scummy retainers are all frozen to death. The Snow Woman leaves the young apprentice and their son and disappears into the snow storm.

It's a rather sad tale. It usually is in feudal Japan. I'm reminded how awful it was in feudal Japan. The film looks nice. I enjoyed it but it's the weakest of the stories in the Radiance box set. You can see a watchable copy on YouTube in the link above.

Riddick 2013 Written and directed by David Twohey. The third of the Riddick films. We watched a 4K disc. We watched it back in 2014. Back then there was talk of a 4th film, I hoped it wouldn't take 9 years like it did between 2 and 3. I didn't get my wish but I'm told there should be a fourth film next year.

Riddick gets double crossed by the Necromancers and is abandoned on a crappy planet. He uses a distress signal to call in a ride. Two rival teams of bounty hunters show up and Riddick has to kill a bunch of them before he can escape in one of their ships. Hopefully to destroy as much of the Necromancer society as possible.

I enjoyed the movie but not as much as I did The Chronicles of Riddick when we watched it a few weeks back. I'll still want to watch it over again someday.

Gate Of Flesh 1964

Gate Of Flesh 1964 Written by Taijiro Tamura and Goro Tanada, directed by Seijun Suzuki. I hadn't seen this for a while and I had no DVD. I ordered the Criterion disc and enjoyed it the other night. Suzuki is one of my favorite directors, mostly for Tokyo Drifter and Branded To Kill.

The story is set in Tokyo just after WW2 has ended. Japan is in shambles and the US military are in charge. A group of prostitutes band together for mutual protection. They have taken over a bombed out building to live in. They have some rules and punishments for breaking them. They're harsh judges and meet out fierce punishment.

Joe Shishido is a ex-soldier, he's got no job prospects and no place to go. He takes part in a robbery at the US base, it gets him shot in the leg. He hides in the abandoned building the prostitutes are using. They let him stay and that interferes with their lives. He's a bad guy, women fall for him, jealousy breaks rules. No one comes out of that encounter any better.

Tokyo is a dark and dangerous place for the average citizen. Crime is rife, dead bodies turn up, no one cares. The police and US military work to stop black marketeers and thieves. People will double cross you in a heartbeat and turn you in for next to nothing.

Despite it's dark mood it's an entertaining film. I've enjoyed it every viewing. I certainly hope to see it again a time or two more.

The DVD has interviews with Suzuki and art director Takeo Kimura. Both men are interesting but I really liked Kimura's story about building the sets out of salvaged material from the studio lots. The used materials lent a rough look to everything and gave it a stage like look.

Jigoku 1960

Jigoku 1960 Screenplay by Nobuo Nakagawa and Ichirō Miyagawa, directed by Nobuo Nakagawa. A Japanese film about some horrible bunch of people who get thrown in Hell.

Shiro is a student, he's going to marry Yukiko, the daughter of his professor. Fellow student Tamura gives him a ride back to school. On the drive Tamura hits a man in the street with his car. He takes off and blames Shiro for making him drive down the street. Shiro is such a wimp he goes along with his wishes.

The run down man was a local gang leader, his mother saw the accident and she plans to kill the two students. Shiro want to go to the police but Tamura doesn't. A ride to the police station gets Yukiko killed in an accident, along with her unborn baby. Shiro gets involved with the gang leaders old girlfriend. She learns he was one of the people in the car. Things just get worse and worse and Hell gets some more  customers.

The scenes from Hell are pretty entertaining, almost makes me think it would be nice to send some people there. I enjoyed it as much as I could, there's hardly anyone to like, they seem to deserve Hell. The Criterion DVD is one of the poorest that I've ever seen from them. Especially the subtitles, very jagged looking. It was mastered in 2006 and that's pretty early on. I'd still watch it again someday. I do like the Japanese posters quite a bit.