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As usual, we got more listening choices than you can shake an unsubtitled vcd at: downloadable mp3, embedded flash with slideshow, embedded audio player, and iTunes feed link. So many choices, you’ll have to call in your secret evil gang to select them all!

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Watch in slideshow form:

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Films Discussed:
Black Rose – Tars Review, Todd Review, Dave Review
Spy With My Face
The Blonde Hair Monster – Dave Review
Lady Black Cat – Tars Review, Dave Review
Lady Black Cat Strikes Again
The Black Killer
The Professionals
Golden Skeleton
Dark Heroine Muk Lan-Fa – Tars Review, Todd’s series overview
Dark Heroins Muk Lan-Fa Shatters the Black Dragon Gang
Lady in Black Cracks the Gates of Hell
Gold Button
Temptress of 1000 Faces
Angel with Iron Fists
Angel Strikes Again
Wong Ang vs the flying tigers part 1 part 2

Jane Bond overview
More Cantonese Cinema information

Site Links:
Soft Tofu Tumblr
SoftFilm Blog
Connie Chan Movie Fan Princess
The Lucha Diaries
Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill!

Prior Infernal Brains:
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 1
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 2
Polly Shang Kuan
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 1
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 2
Dara Singh
Infernal Brains Podcast – 07 – Insee Daeng
Infernal Brains Podcast – 08 – Worst Podcast Ever
The Mummies of Guanajuato – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 09

Gold Button

aka 金鈕扣

1966
Directed by Cheung Wai-Gwong

As the female-focused action films that later became collectively called Jane Bond films evolved, other studios quickly jumped into the action to capitalize on the Black Rose/Connie Chan mania. Besides the already reviews Dark Heroine Trilogy, another entry is Gold Button. Gold Button features mysterious star So Ching and shows off some of the James Bond spy influences that helped shape a good number of the Jane Bond films. We have such wonderful things as doomsday weapons, an all-powerful secret gang, female agents, gunfights, punching, gangs of girls in swimsuits, dozens of nameless henchmen, a masked boss of the evil gang, spy gadgets, a film named after a flower/characters named after a flower, and stolen theme music (including the James Bond theme!)

Things get a bit more sleazy than the female-audience targeted Connie and Josephine flicks. Fanny Fan is naked in the back, while female characters are forced to disrobe and threatened with rape, and we see undies tossed on the floor. But even the sleaze is held back, the women wear one-piece swimsuits instead of bikinis! I am not sure if Mingxing Film Company is imitating 1966′s Golden Buddha with the extra sexiness, or if these films began production before Golden Buddha and it is ramping up things for another reason. Gwan Jing-Leung did the stunt work, and Wong To produced.

So Ching displays not nearly as much charm as Connie Chan and Josephine Siao in her appearances in front of the camera, probably due to her not growing up while making movies like those two. But she does have that beauty contest winner appeal and serious tone (contrasted by Fanny Fan playing the sexpot here!) After making several Jane Bond type films and a few other pictures, So Ching seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth. So Ching, if you have ever returned to Earth, please let us know!

Fanny Fan Lai started acting in 1957 after winning that often entry point into Hong Kong cinema, a beauty contest. Acting under the name Wan Li-Hong in Shaw’s Cantonese division, she failed to achieve much success until she joined Shaw Brothers’s Mandarin division as Fanny Fan, and became a star with 1959′s The Pink Murder. She became known as a sexpot and bad girl, probably best for her role in The Golden Buddha. Her nickname was the Oriental Brigitte Bardot. She retired from film in 1969.

As you can probably guess from the craptacular images included in this review, Gold Button is not available on in any sort of format you can find acceptable. I scored this from a Hong Kong tv broadcast someone uploaded to a Chinese YouTube site, complete with the station’s squashed picture due to the widescreen not being anamorphic. The uploader took it upon himself to blur out the station logo, so the top right of the screencaps look like someone smeared vasoline all over them. There is also a small segment of the film missing, and the very small compression on YouKu means if I blew the images up any larger than I have, they’ll just look like a bunch of blurry squares. As there is little information on Gold Button out there, it is currently unknown of the three other films So Ching made that feature many of the same cast are also part of this series or their own thing. TarsTarkas.NET will let you know the second someone uploads squashed tv recordings of the film for us to gawk at and write lame jokes.

Miss Peony Pai No. 1 (So Ching) – Her full name mentioned in the subtitles is Miss Peony Pai No. 1. As there are other Pai No.s and other Miss Pais, I guess her real name is Peony? The character is as mysterious as anything else. Her character is engaged to Chief Lin and calls Miss Pai No. 2 her sister, though probably in a sisterhood sense and not blood sisters. Miss Pai No. 2 (Fanny Fan Lai) – The sexpot member of the Pai crew who is kidnapped and replaced by a prototype from Mistress of 1000 Faces. Because her sexy double was sexy and sinful, Miss Pai No. 2′s character doesn’t live to the end of the film. Chief Lin Wen-Tsu (Wu Fung) – The Interpol Chief ho just can’t seem to catch those rascally Devils Gang members. Luckily, he’s engaged to one of the hot spy babes his unit outsources, which is totally not a conflict of interest that should be investigated by higherups at Interpol. Actor Bowie Wu Fung was a leading man for decades in Cantonese film, and has popped up in Lady Black Cat and The Red Wolf Yim Lam (Seung-Goon Yuk) – Interpol doesn’t outsource all their female talent, and officer Yim Lam is competent and confident enough to save the day and catch Interpol traitors. Assistant Chief (Roy Chiao Hung) – I’m sure this guy is an honest cop and is in no way evil… Roy Chaio Hung also shows up in The Dark Heroine Muk Lan-Fa Devils Gang Boss (It is a mystery…) – The villainous boss of the Devils Gang, who doesn’t get a cool name. He does get a cool costume, which looks like they stole it from a local high school band, gave him a cape and eyeless ski mask. No. 2 (Fung Ngai) – Fung Ngai shows up again in a film as a villain’s henchman, like he did in Spy With My Face. He does get to lead for once in Lady in Black Cracks the Gates of Hell

Gold Button starts out with an animated opening credits of a gold disk radiating circles set to the tune of Bonanza. But there is no dude ranch or cattle rustling going on. Instead, we have a mad scientist (yet another Professor Lee – that name being the default mad scientist name for Cantonese cinema!) who is hard at work testing his new deadly doomsday weapons on some poor helpless rabbits. I sure hope the rabbit skeletons we see are either fake or were killed for reasons unrelated to the making of this film.

The first thing you do when you are a mad scientist making a doomsday weapon is to call a female agent you are friends with for reasons never explained, so Professor Lee calls up Miss Pai No. 1 and explains how he invented the P-bomb, which could destroy the world in a few hours. He’s also made the Green Tear Bomb, because just one doomsday weapon isn’t enough. Professor Lee…or Professor Farnsworth?? Someone sneaks in the room and cuts the phone line, and also cuts Professor Lee’s life short.


Miss Pai No. 1 tells Pai No. 2 to call Interpol Chief Lin Wen-Tsu while she prepares to investigate. This involves dressing in an all-black action outfit, with no sleeves and two-gun holster. She suspects the Devils Gang, which we’re soon to find out are the bad guys responsible for everything ever that happens. The Pais and the cops arrive at the lab, where it takes them way too long to notice Professor Lee’s dead body in the middle of the lab. Even worse, Devils Gang members arrive, beat up and replace the outside policemen, and pose as coroners and take away the Professor’s body.

Eventually Pai No. 1 and Chief Lin figure out that something is wrong, and then the Devils Gang attacks! There is a big gunfight, where Devils Gang members get shot and have long death agony sequences. They even kill their own wounded members so no one is captured alive.

Devils Gang members attempt to catch Pai No. 2, who is wandering alone in the tall grasslands near the Professor’s place for some reason that ht film doesn’t bother to tell us. She hides in the lake as the Devils Gang men search and calls for help from Pai No. 1 via radio. Peony Pai No. 1 has returned to the Interpol HQ along with Chief Lin, and they say they’re going to send a speedboat.

The boat comes…she’s rescued! And by rescued, I mean immediately captured because the boat is filled with the Devils Gang! Oops! If you like shots of people riding a boat along a river, boy will this movie make you happy! There was lots of shots of the boat coming for Pai No. 2, and a long sequence of the real boat looking for Pai No. 2.

The Devils Gang take Pai No. 2 to the secret underground base – after a long walk along some cliffs. Inside, one gangmember blows himself up because he’s new and too dumb to know that there is a minefield just past the secret door. And now the audience and Pai No. 2 now knows! But it never comes into play, even when the cops storm the secret base in the final act. So, yeah, this whole sequence of moving magnets to open the door and stepping in pre-made footprints is pointless.

They enter the throne room, where a row of babes in red swimsuits stand in a row. There are also goons in all-black uniforms with devil head insignias covering the heart area lining part of the walls, and some shirtless goons with green faces, who look like B movie zombie monsters or something. The throne is empty, but a giant Devil Head (!!) beeps it’s eyelights and broadcasts orders to take Pai No. 2 to the secret jail!


The Devils Gang boss declares the leader of the group that captured Pai No. 2 a failure because he didn’t get Pai No. 1 or Chief Lin from Interpol, so he sentences him to death! Death by electric Chair! What a strict boss! Just imagine what he’d do if you hung up a Dilbert cartoon… The man is electricuted by the Devils Gang second in command, No. 2. The giant devil head laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs. And then it laughs.

At the police base, Pai No. 1 and Chief Lin discuss strategies when Pai No. 2 walks in, obviously hypnotized or brainwashed or something. She refuses to go to the hospital, and Miss Pai No. 1 takes her home. Pai No. 1 uses clock radio to call into the Pai Headquarters, and requests Pais No. 5, 7, and 13 to help. The plan is to search Professor Lee’s dead body, because no one thought to do that before. The best and brightest!


Pai No. 2 shoots darts at Pai No. 1, misses, and pretends to be asleep when Pai No. 1 investigates what just happened. Uh-huh. I don’t get this fake sleeping, because who else could be shooting darts in the same room when there is only two of you???

Pai 13 is some guy with a long beatnik goatee, though later he’ll have no goatee. He and Pai No. 1 leave for the morgue, while Pai No. 2 tattles on her sis to the Devils Gang. By the time they get to the morgue, Pais No. 5 and 7 have been replaced by evil guys that Pai No. 1 beats up. They find the real 5 and 7 unconscious.


Professor Lee and many of the other bodies at the morgue have been replaced by Devil’s Gang members who gas everyone to kidnap them. Pai No. 1 is not knocked out, but pretends she is and gets kidnapped anyway. So all this pretending to be asleep does nothing despite being a constant feature of Gold Button.

Interpol finally gets around to searching the morgue and realize Pai No. 1 is missing and something is wrong. Peony Pai No. 1 left a note disguised as a gold button that you put on a record player, saying she knows Pai No. 2 is a fake and went to the morgue, and is probably dead.


Pai No. 2 is now dressing in halter top and tight pants, and we find out she’s not hypnotized, but is a fake! Chief Lin is coming to see her. She’s ordered to capture him so she has knockout gas loaded in a fake tooth to give him via kiss. Won’t that knock her out too? I guess not, because women are tricky like that. He shows up and she’s in the shower, back naked! Also buck naked, but we only see the back. She has him bring her clothes, because she forgot to bring them with her to the bath… Chief Lin knows what she’s doing, but decides to pretend to go along with it, because it lets him go along with it. Also some other logic I don’t follow. Pai No. 2 says she is to replace Peony Pai No. 1 as fiance as she’s dead. But some guys in black masks are hiding in the curtains, and Chief Lin attacks!

While Chief Lin is beating them all up, Pai No. 2 must have changed clothes because she has a completely different outfit on right afterwards when she tries to kill him. Chief Lin rips off her fake face to reveal her real face (Holy Mission Impossible, Batman!) But the fake mask was glued on by knockout gas or something and he’s KOed and captured.

Peony Pai No. 1 is put in a room where there are doors and windows, but if she gets near them, they slam shut Star Trek style! And then reopen when she steps back, sort of a Tantalus torture or potential escape. A speaker voice mocks her (it seems every evil villain in these films uses a voice via speaker!) His gang of swimsuited girls come in, and are to force Miss Pai No. 1 to change into a swimsuit like them! She refuses and is insulted, so has a karate fight where she fights the girls and beats up all 7 of them. Then the Devils Boss brings in four of the big shirtless guys with green faces, and says if she doesn’t change, he’ll have them change her, and they might have hands that wander around a bit… He also says that if she kills herself via cyanide in her tooth, they’ll change her clothes regardless! So she agrees to change with the girls, and is given a white and black patterned swimsuit.

There is also a secret doorway on the bed, her and two girl guards get on the bed and lay belly down, and the bed slides forward into the next room. The Devils Gang boss is there, and boy does he look like he escaped from a Luchador film! His identity is a secret, hidden behind a black skimask on with no holes, over glasses. He’s wearing what looks like a gold and red band uniform with a gold devil head broach, and green pants with a gold cape.

The version I’m watching seems to have a few minutes missing…

We return when Chief Lin has Devils Gang guy No. 2 captive and is stopping other bad guys from repairing a switch. It turns into a fight and he beats them up. Chief Lin then tries to arrest the Devils Gang boss, which turns into a fight. The fight becomes a long struggle which results in Chief Lin ripping off the mask of Devils Gang boss – it’s the Assistant Chief at Interpol! Because he’s the only male character left!

The other cops coming led by Yim Lam, having captured Fake Pai No. 2. The real Pai No. 2 is free, and is hanging with Miss Pai No. 1 in the Devils Gang lair. Pai No. 2 has a huge machine gun, and when Assistant Chief escapes from Chief Lin, he convinces Pai No. 2 to give him the gun. Which he then shoots at Chief Lin. The two girls freak out, and Chief Lin yells that Assistant Chief is the Devils Gang leader. Devils Gang boss guns down Pai No. 2, but is then beaten and gunned down himself by Chief Lin.

We’re also told that Pais 5 and 7 were also killed by the gang by Pai No. 13, who is also there. Devils Gang members swarm, Chief Lin machine gun them down until he runs out of bullets. The Devils Gang prepares to attack, will the cops come in time? Yep, cops come in and slaughter everyone evil! And if you are wondering if Peony Pai No. 1 is sad that her sister and roommate is dead? She doesn’t even look at her dead body.

And everyone lives happily ever after. Except all the people who died. The end!

Pretty entertaining, though sadly overshadowed by bigger and better entries in the genre. Still, Gold Button isn’t a film to miss, it is just sadly not in a form to be appreciated by anyone until the magic remastered DVD fairy gets off her lazy butt and produces the dozens of flicks I’ve been calling for.

Rated 7/10 (hunting rabbits, round buttons, fridge magnets, give him the chair!, needle-shooting pin, the title button/recorder, Pai No. 13 is here to be useless!)

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Cicak Man 2 – Planet Hitam

2008
Directed by Yusry Kru (Yusry Abdul Halim)
Written by Yusry Kru and Meor Shariman

Cicak Man 2: Planet Hitam is an improvement on the original Cicak Man in almost every aspect. And while the original film had a few moments, it was mired in annoyances that just turned me off. The sequel manages to drop almost everything bad about the original film while ramping up almost everything good. It’s good to see something that might get noticed come out of Malaysian cinema.

Much of the original cast returns, even some characters who are dead show up to continue the fun. Danny does not return, even though Yusry Kru wrote and directed this installment as well. I think a dream cameo was filmed, but didn’t make it into the cut, because production synopsis mention Danny helping. The two Gingers (Adlin Aman Ramlie and AC Mizal) return in ghost form to harass Cicakman. Also Malaysian model Linda Onn has a brief role as Tania’s man-hungry camerawoman.

The overall setting is far less grand. Metrofulus looks less like the city of fantasy and Libertarian excess it was in the original film and looks more like Kuala Lumpur. This probably helped budget-wise, without the added pressure to dress up the city, they were freer to spend the money on other things like action set pieces. Though I thought some of the culture of Metrofulus was some of the more interesting parts of the original, I am glad they set themselves free to do more things. Saiful Apek is far less annoying as Hairi/Cicak Man this time around. I don’t know if he’s supposed to be acting more mature now that his friend had died, or that Apek realized that if he toned it down a few notches the film would be much more palatable for overseas audiences. In any event, it is a welcome change, and helps push Cicakman 2 far beyond its predecessor in enjoyability, the one factor that really matters. The fact we aren’t stuck with filling much of the running time with an origin story helps put the plot on a more traditional arc. No new ground is broken in the super hero genre, but that genre is so saturated at the moment that you have to work very hard indeed to go somewhere that hasn’t been gone before. Cicakman instead is trying to take familiar elements and make them Malaysian. Hairi’s life seems much more relatable now than when he was a wacky scientist in the original, with the struggling to find a job and family responsibilities.

Remember, cicak=gecko, and hitam=black, so the flick is Geckoman 2 – Planet Black. Now you are an expert in Malaysian.

Hairi (Saiful Apek) – Hairi has matured as Cicakman, but still deals with the struggle of being a super hero and trying to hold down a regular job, with the fact he has to run off and beat up bad guys all of the time. When Professor Klon returns with a new scheme, Hairi has more on his plate than ever before! Cicak-Man (Saiful Apek) – Cicakman has the power of geckos, the strength of geckos, the red costume of geckos. Geckos!! Tania (Fasha Sandha) – Hairi’s crush who used to like Dannial. Was Professor Klon’s secretary, but is now working at Fulus News. Is determined to find out who Cicakman is. We put up a Fasha Sandha gallery when we reviewed the original Cicakman Professor Klon (Aznil Nawawi) – Professor Klon is back, and comes in both crazy homeless guy and crazy Jim Carrey modes! This time, his scheme is to con the entire planet into buying water purifiers to clean water he pollutes. Oh, that dastardly Professor Klon! Will Cicakman be able to stop him? Rrama (Tamara Bleszynski) – A psychopathic killer who sees her murder sprees as artwork. she wants to make the ultimate masterpiece and kill Cicakman! And she teams up with Professor Klon to do it. Rrama is costumed after a butterfly, though she looks like many other masked female comic book characters. Yeah, yeah, get your Rendezvous with Rrama jokes out of the way. Tamara Bleszynski is an actress model based out of Indonesia, of mixed Polish/Sundanese heritage. Iman (Sharifah Amani) – Imam is Danny’s blind sister, who Cicakman now takes care of as a moral obligation to his late friend. She doesn’t know he is Cicakman, despite the fact he’ll change into Cicakman right in front of her. This is why all superheroes have blind friends. Look it up! Sharifah Amani is the second daughter of famous Malaysian actress Fatimah Abu Bakar. She is probably most famous for playing Orked in Yasmin Ahmad’s Orked trilogy (Sepet, Gubra, and Mukhsin) Miss Chee (Louisa Chong) – A Feng Shui guru who helps Cicakman deal with all the weirdo stuff happening. A former auditor and newsreader, Louisa Chong (born Louisa Alissa Chong Abdullah) gained fame from the tv series 2 Campur 1 (2 Plus 1)

Cicak Man 2 takes up a few months after the original leaves off. Hairi is still Cicak Man, and thanks to the antidote developed by his late friend Danny, he no longer has to worry about devolving into a gecko as long as he keeps up the medicine. Hairi has quit his job as a research scientist for Professor Klon’s disgraced company, wanting to work for a job that wasn’t against his morals. But every job he ends up getting he loses due to absences at work because of Cicak Man duties. Hairi is also looking after Danny’s blind sister Iman, who serves the function of giving him someone to talk to.

Tania is back as well, and her sworn hatred of Cicak Man at the end of the original film has turned to curiosity over who he truly is. She now works for Fulus News as a reporter. Not a very good reporter, much is shown of her fumbling around on air. We have a new female in the mix, a villainess named Rrama that looks like Catwoman – except she’s a butterfly, see! She has wings that show up once or twice. Rrama is a killer, but not a stone cold killer, she’s red hot as she enjoys it so much. Killing is an art to her, she performs her slaughters as though painting a masterpiece on canvas. She views killing Cicak Man as the ultimate art piece that she’s determined to finish.


A consortium of evil bad guys consisting of every villain stereotype in history – cowboy, American businessman, African witch doctor, scarred yakuza, Arab terrorist, etc. – are set to do some evil terrorist stuff. And they’re led by their secret leader – the disgraced Professor Klon! He and Rrama have a new plan, to poison the world’s water supply so they can profit from producing the cure to the poison, thus controlling the world! The best parts of these meetings is one guy randomly says “What in the wide wide world of sports?” during one of Klon’s speeches.

Professor Klon proceeds with his black water plan, turning the water of the city black. Then he goes on TV and declares the President of Metrofulus poisoned the water so they could jack up the price, and he’s going to counter with the water purifier to stop them. But he first needs the people to overthrow the government. The people are like “Sure!” How low are the President of Metrofulus’s approval ratings that people will join up with a supervillain? I’d complain about this more, but here in America we have many supervillains in elected positions, so it’s not that far fetched.


During attempts to stop muggers, Cicak Man is harassed either by Rrama or by the ghosts of the Gingers. He can’t seem to get any peace. The only way he can figure out to fight off the ghosts is to see a feng shui expert, Miss Chee, who is so dragon lady it hurts. She warns him to beware the butterfly – meaning Rrama.

The president resigns amid the protests and chaos, and Professor Klon shows up in a huge tank dressed like a low-rent Iron Man. He announces water purifiers have been given to leading businessmen to be sold to the public, then drives off in his tank. Cicak Man hitches a ride and finds the hidden base. But Cicak Man himself is tracked by Rrama, who’s secret identity is Amarr the cameralady for Tania. As Amarr is played by a different hot actress (Linda Onn), we see her rip off her face Mission Impossible style to reveal Rrama underneath.


After fighting Rrama once again, Cicak Man goes to the water reservoir to fight Professor Klon. There he has another battle with Rrama on a dirty railed walkway in the reservoir cave that looks like something out of Goldeneye.

Thanks to the power of his tongue, he goes from losing to winning. He demands she take him to Klon, but she says that was the idea and everything is a trap. Iron Man Klon is happy to see Cicak Man, because they have Iman held hostage over latex – which is also the weakness of Cicak Man (Wait a minute…) This leads to a battle with Klon and Rrama as Iman is slowly lowered into the latex and as the timer to release the black poison into the world’s water supply ticks down.

Time to be tongue-tied!

Rated 7/10 (butterfly dart, supermodel teacher, the President, camerawoman fakeout, tracker, don’t walk stand still, the longest don’t walk countdown in history!)

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Sector 7

aka 7 gwanggu aka 7광구

2011
Written by Yun Je-gyun
Directed by Kim Ji-hun

Okay, team, we’re going to get to the bottom of the question “Does this film have phallic and vaginal symbolisms, or is it just stupid?”

Sector 7 is so by-the-numbers that if you squint really hard, you’ll learn how to count in Korean! Sector 7 decided that it wanted to take all the goodwill that The Host generated for Korean monster movies and throw it all away into the pit of despair, instead giving us a grab bag of scenes ganked from some of the most famous alien monster films of all time. Each scene is a roulette wheel spin random landing on what film they’re stealing from this time. Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Predator, Leviathan, Lethal Weapon 3, probably other films I just didn’t care enough to remember. Oddly enough, I don’t recall any scene ripped directly from Alien 4. It’s almost as if Alien 4 is so bad no one should copy it…

Wait, am I a penis or a vagina? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??

But enough of what this films steals from, let’s go over what this film is. Sector 7 is Korea’s first 3D film, and was obviously filmed on a soundstage with the outside backgrounds CGIed in, giving it a weird visual nature. That combined with me watching a 2D transfer of the 3D film probably caused it to look less visually stunning than it is supposed to. But since there wasn’t really any iconic cinematography in the first place, it’s no big deal.

Shoot to kill any and all phallic references!

We get a prologue that is set in the long distant year of 1985, where a man investigating troubles with an underwater drill at the uncharted Sector 7 finds tiny floating jelly things, then horrible disaster strikes. But that horrible disaster factors nothing at all to the rest of the film, so ignore all that and let’s jump to 2011, where there is still an oil rig in Sector 7 and it is still uncharted despite the 16 years and the freaking oil rig that probably cost millions of dollars to build in the middle of nowhere. That logic continues into the rest of the film, but before that, let’s get to the cast…

You don’t look like my vagina to me!

Cha Hae-joon (Ha Ji-won) – A very driven oil hunter lady who searches Sector 7 desperately for oil because her father was the guy in the prologue and he died looking for oil. Sector 7 is desperate to let you know that Cha is driven and tough, between the scenes of her running around an averting oil rig disasters and the scenes of her running off to keep looking for oil after they’re ordered out, we learn that she’s driven to look for oil. She’s the Ripley of the film. Ha Ji-won can also be seen in Sex is Zero and Love So Divine. Kim Dong-soo (Oh Ji-ho) – Cha’s boyfriend who is the handsome guy on the oil platform. He’s better than her in motorcycling, but not in surviving monster attacks. SPOILERS! Lee Jeong-man (Ahn Seong-gi) – Lee Jeong-man is the Division Captain and also Cha’s uncle. He’s totally not involved in a conspiracy…. Hwang In-hyeok (Park Jeong-hak) – The oil rig captain who is a jerk, and will do jerkish things. Because he’s a jerk. So jerkish. Park Hyeon-jeong (Cha Ye-ryeon) – The oil rig’s genetic researcher, because we need genetic researches on oil rigs. For some reason. Definitely not conspiracy reasons! Why do you keep thinking there is a conspiracy going on? Jang Chi-soon (Park Yeong-soo) – a creepy guy who gets infected by one of the tiny underwater floating creatures when he tries to eat it. Also he does creepy stuff like perv on Park Heyon-jeong. Monster (CGI) – The nameless monster is like a generic generic version of the Host monster, but with less distinguishing characteristics and a bunch of goofy tentacle things for extra grossness. And that’s not to mention the prehensile tongue. Is set on fire more often than Beavis’s bedroom.

I bet there are phallic references here!

We’ve brought in the top scientists to find penis references…

The rest of the crew is rounded out by two comedy relief buddies, a rookie, and a doctor. We know all these people are toast, the only mystery is which order they’ll die in. Cha’s uncle arrives on the rig to oversea it shutting down, but he goes along with the rest of the crew as they declare they aren’t leaving and will still go look for oil. Good thing this came out a year after the Gulf Oil Spill, really capitalizing on the public’s love for people who mess up the environment. The lesson being don’t be five years in production on a film whose heroes could have a controversial job.

It was the best of times, it was the penis of times!?!?

I’ve seen enough Korean films to be used to the slow burn as the films go along at a leisurely pace. But Sector 7 pads the running time with more characterization of things we already know about the characters. We know creepy guy Jang Chi-soon is creepy, we don’t need him to act creepy many more times. We know Cha is tough, we don’t need to see her racing around on a motorcycle or showing off scars.

Driving this crotch rocket totally isn’t phallic!

But even though the crew finds some of the floaty tiny alien things underwater, they don’t find oil. Then people start dying, but not at first directly because of the monster. How the monster got on the rig is only barely hinted at, thanks to some unsatisfying flashbacks that explain some things, but not everything nor the giant leap of time between the flashbacks and monster creation vs the monster being loose and running around. Cha is centered around the first couple of deaths, causing her to become traumatized as her friends and coworkers die before her eyes.

Hooray for phalluses!

Once the goo monster is loose and actively killing people, it’s time to gank from other monster films. Guy gets impaled through the head and through the window behind him like Alien 3? Check. Guy on escape vessel when monster shows up and trashes it? Check. Monster bursts from someone’s chest and begins to sing vaudeville songs? No check, but it should have! The crew has one gun, a speargun, and a nail gun or two as their only weapons.

The vagina is purified of penii by fire and blade.

Cha’s uncle knows more than he says at first, because of course it is a conspiracy. A conspiracy to use the tiny floating gel creatures as fuel, as they burn at super-energetic temperatures and for a long long time. An oil based conspiracy, to make the oil company even more positive in the light. So they genetically made a huge version of the creature….because….uh…and they made it ultra-predatorish for some reason also not explained. And then it escaped, because of another reason not explained. And Cha’s dad may have been killed by the creature or murdered as part of the conspiracy. But they don’t explain any of this, it’s all a bunch of implications and almost explanations. Choose your own conspiracy.

Help! The vagina is fighting back…WITH A PENIS!!

Did you know that all oil rigs have self-destruct mechanisms? One would think packing an oil rig with lots of explosives would be exceedingly dangerous, but it looks like that isn’t the case. No wonder the cost of gas is so high, the oil companies are preparing to blow up anything they build in case monsters run loose on them. Maybe there was a monster in the Gulf Coast! It’s the only logical explanation. This rabbit hole goes all the way down to the very last turtle! Yep, we’re combining references that make no sense when they’re together, a TarsTarkas.NET trademark!

I’m confused, is this imagery penetration or just loss of virginity?

So Uncle sets off the self-destruct to go off eventually, the fights the monster using a flame thrower he just happened to have and never told anyone about. Or he built it from spare parts, yet didn’t bother to mention to anyone he knew how to build flamethrowers when they were originally went after the monster. And he dies because he sets himself on fire, but the monster is just burnt a little bit more, and kills Cha’s boyfriend in a hilarious manner.

I’m sure we can all agree this means something…

The finale is Cha vs the monster in a battle to the death. Luckily for them, the oil rig waits until the she kills the monster (SPOILER!!) to start exploding, and she escapes the exploding oil rig by jumping off the oil rig on her motorcycle. We’ve gone from weird to crazy town!

The spectre of womenhood looms large…

Sector 7 almost shows some originality by taking the phallic references from the original Alien and going full bore gross with them. The dead body of Park Hyeon-jeong has semen on it, and it is implied that it is monster jizz. Which makes all the monster slime we see later extra gross, and the fact the monster looks like a giant wang, has a prehensile stabbing tongue that looks like a giant wang, and has other random appendages that also look like giant wangs. It is like someone figured out the alien in Alien has a giant wang head and wanted to show off the knowledge. But then the film goes off the rails and we see how Park Hyeon-jeong really died, which was not by monster, so where did the jizz come from???? Did she just have jizz on her clothes randomly? Was it like There’s Something About Mary and she thought it was hair gel? Did she actually have sex with creepy guy? It the jizz-colored monster slime not really monster jizz? No questions will be answered, and the implied next level of monster perversion is thrown the the wayside.

Let’s ride the mechanical penis away from the exploding vagina penis thing!

Even better, with how the monster is killed (SPOILER AGAIN!!!) by the giant drill, the oil drills and squirting oil could easily be interpreted as more sexual imagery, and now we got a penis being killed by a bigger, badder penis. Long Dong Silver conquers all. But nothing else goes with this, and it’s just a big waste. At TarsTarkas.NET, we love it when movies try, even if they fail. Sector 7 doesn’t try. It just imitates. Badly.

This is a my favorite scene, because it’s a joke about mishearing a word that you should need to know Korean to get, but it is done well enough you don’t need to know Korean to understand it. It is the fact that little touches like this were done so well that makes the rest of the film’s failure that much larger.

This movie meant nothing despite everything it tried to copy. And now everyone is dead. Even the penis vagina monster.

Overall, a sad disappointment that you’ve all seen before and done much better those times.

What if…I’m a phallic reference?!?!

Rated 2/10 (JK Rowling???, burn it with fire!)

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Golden Skeleton

aka Jin ku lou aka 金骷髏

1967
Written and directed by Wong Fung

Josephine Siao Fong-Fong kicks butt in this crazy awesome groovy 60s spy conspiracy Jane Bondish thriller! Despite a slow start and a confusing last minute, Golden Skeleton has become one of my favorite female spy films because the villains are just so weird. The leader Golden Skeleton is a guy in a gold skull mask, his henchmen have space cadet uniforms and masks, and Golden Skeleton is seldom seen without a pair of babes in midriff-baring hot pink catsuits flanking him. Just what evil is Golden Skeleton up to? Does it matter? What matters is cool things happen. Just go with it and enjoy the spectacle. We don’t need no stinking subtitles. Okay, fine, I did a bit of Googlin’ and found some plot points not explained by watching and making up things.

Director and writer Wong Fung helmed 88 films, including How The Ape Girl Stole The Lotus Lamp, Blonde Hair Monster, Midnight Were-wolf, The Lady Killer, Blue Falcon, and a whole host of the Wong Fei Hung films (which he wrote even more installments than he directed!) Born in 1923 in Guangxi, he began writing films in 1950, and directing in 1959. Wong Fung joined Shaw Brothers in 1973, and retired in 1980. He passed on sometime in the 1990s. The cinematography was done by Lee Maan-Git, who also worked on Bruce Li in New Guinea.

The soundtrack is 100% jazzy jazz. It is interesting how the all jazz soundtrack makes everything seem cooler and cooler. I should use jazzy jazz to soundtrack my life, then I’ll live in a constant cool high that will come crashing down around me when my iPod runs out of batteries. Hopefully I won’t be near any tall buildings to hurl myself off of! Just kidding, I’d totally kill myself by feeding myself to lions at the zoo, not tall buildings.

Pink Bomb aka Agent SAA9 (Josephine Siao Fong-Fong) – The secret agent on the case against Golden Skeleton and his goons. She’s relucently forced to accept help from Agent Guy SAA6 under her boss’s orders. Spends as much time fending off his clumsy advances as she does kicking the butts of Golden Skeleton’s goons. Pink Bomb’s real name is Jenny Lin. See more Josephine Siao in How the Ape Girl Stole the Lotus Lamp and The Furious Buddha’s Palm. Agent Guy aka SAA6 (Cheung Ying-Tsoi) – Agent Guy is our James Bond wannabe. He spends most of the film clumsily trying to seduce everything he meets. Sometimes he almost makes it! He’s also bumbles away from attempt after attempt on his life, having the luck of fools. You cannot stop Agent Guy, because he’ll trip over his own shoelace and find a code to save the world. Chen Ho aka Agent SAA10 (Gwan Jing-Leung) – Agent SAA10 is also on the case, even though he seems to be more of a third wheel who can’t save the day himself. But he’s good to have along to absorb blows until Pink Bomb gets around to punching out the guy he’s fighting. Gwan Jing-Leung is a former Peking Opera actor (he trained under Yu Jim-yuen, father of Yu So-Chau and trainer of the Seven Fortunes (Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and all them.)) Golden Skeleton was the first film produced by Gwan Jing-Leung, who also did the fight choreography. He produced a few more films before focusing on stunt work. Agent SAA5 (Go Fung) – It’s yet another agent! This guy is totally not suspicious at all… Golden Skeleton (It is a mystery!) - Who could the mysterious Golden Skeleton be? He runs a giant criminal conspiracy that does…something. And he has lots of people in high places at secret agencies, because he has people everywhere! Golden Skeleton knows that having his followers dressed in ridiculous outfits is the way to go, along with having hot babes standing beside you. This is real supervillainry, folks!

Before Josephine Siao enters, we spend the first 15 minute following around the lamest James Bond knockoff who ever existed. He spends most of the film failing to get it on and waltzing into traps, narrowly escaping through dumb luck or Josephine Siao’s character saving him. He starts out getting called into work, forced to leave the women at his big mansion that practice kung fu moves on each other all alone while he pays the bills. He’s secret agent SAA6. Yep. A guy with a briefcase has come to make him go on the next case. You know it’s serious because the incidental music changes tone! SAA6 is supposed to meet up with SAA9, aka Pink Bomb.

At the airport, a woman played by Gam Lau pulls up and writes the SAA6 code on her windshield in lipstick, claiming to be Pink Bomb. At least she didn’t write “jerk”, because this isn’t the movie Mitchell. But Joe Don Baker should be in this flick. That would’ve been awesome! Agent Guy gets into the car because he’s a moron. And their car is so obviously being followed a blind lamprey eel could know. The pair immediately go to a hotel where he tries to nail her. The room is bugged, and we get tasteful back nudity!


The room buggers are a bunch of dudes in suits, but there is also a lady in a hot pink catsuit with gold gloves (one removed because she’s writing down notes) Forget this loser, let’s focus on the catsuit girl! She shows up later as one of the two women flanking Golden Skeleton. But for now, she’s the voice of reason in the bug room, not going all pervo like the rest of the technicians when Seducer Girl returns to the room wearing nothing but a towel, and SAA6 rips it off. Flanking girl declares it time to move, and they send in a man to put a gun to Agent Guy’s head.

Sending one guy was a mistake, as he’s soon karated to the head. Agent Guy flees the hotel, and is next seen wandering down a lonely ocean highway until he gets into a car with another hot babe in it who claims she is totally the real Pink Bomb. They drive off, but it’s another trap (!!!) as there is a guy in the backseat with a gun! This is the oddest trap I’ve ever seen. They struggle, the car stops and Agent Guy and the driver girl fall out of the passenger side and slide down a hillside while fighting. Our brave hero beats up the girl, rips off her clothes, and leaves them as a trail to lure the gunman down closer. He then stabs the gunman with a tiny brittle stick, somehow this kills the gunman instead of breaking the stick and getting Agent Guy shot.


Next, Agent Guy goes to Hong Kong Hilton, and there are people waiting for him there as well! He’s the worst spy ever. But Agent Guy is saved from his followers by a kung fu girl. It’s Josephine Siao Fong-Fong! And because she’s not incompetent, she beats the tar out of Agent Guy as well. We find out she’s actually his contact, Agent SAA9. As her wristwatch can detect bugs she quickly finds the one in the room and gets rid of it.

Another agent named Chen Ho is guarding an old guy (Lee Ying), when he’s hit by some knockout gas that leaks from a pen he was using! The old man is captured by enemy agents and the baddies begin to search the room. Agent Guy and SAA6 arrive and interrupt the goons, causing a big kung fu battle. Agent Guy leaps out the window onto the top of the car that is spiriting away the old man, though he is eventually forced off of the car after a long driving sequence. SAA6 spend her time beating up everyone bad in the hotel room and waking up Chen Ho.


Now Golden Skeleton cranks it up into awesome territory! This is the stage where it becomes a film I will mention to others as opposed to a film I’ll review and then not think about again. The scene where we see just how crazy comic book our villains are! In a room where there is a single throne chair on a stage, out through a secret door comes a man flanked by hot babes. The man has a golden skull helmet and gold suit, the babes are dressed in the midriff-baring pink catsuits with gold gloves, boots, and trims. The room is lined by a procession of masked trooper goons, who look like space cadets with bug eyed helmets with a single antenna at the top. Their uniforms looks like something out of Star Trek. You can just imagine Captain Kirk and Spock throwing down with these guys.

The bug troopers march in the old guy to threaten him by taking a prisoner and pressing him beneath a giant heat press. The man is heat pressed to dust! I am sure he didn’t think that was how he’d go out… The old guy finally agrees to do whatever it is they wanted him to do right before he’s heat pressed as well. I’m told the old guy came up with a cheap way to desalinize sea water, but as the bad guys never do anything with old guy, the kidnapping seems pointless.

The threat of a lifetime!

In comes the Seducer Lady from earlier along with a pack of goons. She’s dressed to the nines and has one of those foot long cigarette holders, puffing away. She stops by to try to ruin Agent Guy’s game, and a fight breaks out. SAA6 has to come to the rescue again, knifing a guy through the hand, and kung fuing other dudes so hard they’re spitting up blood.


A mysterious man in sunglasses just sits and smokes as all this goes down, then leaves. SAA6 and Chen Ho escape, leaving Agent Guy to get a ride from the singer. Chen Ho was attempting some sort of undercover work dressing up as one of the goons, but that plan just gets abandoned and he and SAA6 just follow a car filled with goons very obviously. Maybe you shouldn’t tailgate the car you are following when you two are the only cars on the lonely country road. Just a secret agent protip! Chen Ho and SAA6 are stopped in their pursuit first by a landslide and then by a blazing inferno on the highway. Ambushed, SAA6 and Seducer Lady fight, with Seducer Lady randomly losing her clothes! She continues fighting in her bra and panties with no shame. This lady can’t keep clothes on for the life of her! SAA6 can beat up people clothed or naked, but even she has to stop when people point guns at her head.

Chen Ho and SAA6 are taken to the lair of Golden Skeleton and locked in a room. There, Golden Skeleton mocks them via speaker and gasses them. But someone secretly lets them out of the room. They were let out by a guy who claims to be SAA5, one of his men was the sunglasses guy in the club


Goons attack Agent Guy, interrupting his date. Agent Guy has an ability to suddenly be on a lonely road somewhere, and uses that ability. Two Golden Skeleton agents burst through empty boxes while on motorcycles to chase Agent Guy, but are then foiled when they crash into different empty boxes, defeated. A third motorcycle guy just drives off of a truck, and a fourth drives into a fence. Agent Guy has done nothing but not get ran over here, but somehow is the victor.

Everyone goes back to the hotel to talk with SAA5. The new plan is to send SAA5 to try his luck with Seducer Girl, who is hanging out at a pool in a bikini, because that’s what evil agent girls do. Look it up! SAA5 scores a success, and is taken back to her room. This inspires Agent Guy to try his luck with SAA6. He gets a smack to the mouth for his trouble. Haw-HAW!


Our four agents scout out the enemy’s island base, which gives us an excuse to pad time with long shots of a motorboat leaving the dock and heading to the island. And they’re spotted before they even get ashore, so good job being stealthy! The heroes sneak inside, which requires they pass by some area that looks like it’s where fireworks are constantly being set off. Is it supposed to be a volcano? Who knows. Once inside, it’s kung fu time! Chop! Punch! Kick! Snuh! Bork!

Agent SAA5 mysteriously is too injured to continue into the throne room and stays behind. Hmmmm… The rest go on, jumping over the giant heat press machine.

In another room, Golden Skeleton calls in the Old Guy to yell at him, rips off his mask, and it’s who we know it is, SAA5. Old Guy is injected with something. We’ve not seen old guy do much of anything, but now he’s drugged, so he’ll be even less useful!


Fight in the throne room time! SAA6 fights one of the catsuit girls! Golden Skeleton wanders in after being summoned by the escaped catsuit girl, but is instantly captured by SAA6, who puts a gun on him. That was easy. Too easy. The heroes leave with old guy, but outside there is a running firefight to the boat. Chen Ho is captured at one point. But to get to the dock where the boat is, everyone has to pass by a bunch of bamboo lumber and we soon have a running kung fu battle atop the stacks of bamboo polls.

Golden Skeleton is there calls in lots of goons, arriving by a big boat. But all the bad guys run back to the boat and drive away. Our three heroes run after the boat and shoot, but nothing happens except Seducer Lady is shot on the boat. Then the boat explodes, only we see a very tiny model of the boat explode, and our heroes are happy. It took me a second to realize that all of the bad guys were just killed. There are a few glimpses of a very far away helicopter, and it is implied that the chopper blew up the boat (or Agent Guy destroyed it by throwing something at it, not 100% sure.)


Everyone congratulates themselves for victory and goes home triumphant. Yep.

Okay.

Except for that abrupt and confusing ending, the majority of Golden Skeleton rocked! Too bad this doesn’t seem to have a good DVD release, the only release has been tv broadcasts that good people have taped. I call for a remastered version to hit DVD now. Failure to do so will result in bad news for whoever holds the rights. Because I’ll send my armies of bugeyed troopers, pink dressed flanking women, and my gold masked self to set things right!

Rated 8/10 (Japanese fighter, bug town, flanking babe, magic watch, Lee Ying, Pervo McOldPants, bigger bugger, skull motif)

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UPDATE: Thanks to the sharp eye of Todd from FourDK, we have determined that the helmets worn by the Golden Skeleton gang are toy helmets from the 1960s Hamilton’s Invaders line!

Banglar King Kong

2010
Directed by Iftekar Jahan

The movie. The myth. The legend. Banglar King Kong! Yes, folks, we have an awesome treat for you today on TarsTarkas.NET! Straight from the heart of Bangladesh comes this Kong-tastic take on everyone’s favorite giant ape. The story of King Kong is timeless, and Kongs have appeared throughout the world, some more official than others. Is Banglar King Kong licensed and legal? Hell no! But it exists anyway and mirrors the plot of the King Kong films so closely that even without subtitles, you know exactly what is going on. The tale of King Kong will be one of those things that people 300 years from now will know. In future digi-hologram movies, Space Kong will climb to the top of the Space Elevator and toss around Starship Enterprises, and you know things will play out just like the 1933 classic. And it will be glorious.

Unofficial King Kong knockoffs have existed in foreign markets since 1933′s Wasei Kingu Kongu (和製キング・コング aka Japanese King Kong), which along with the 1938 King Kong Appears in Edo (江戸に現れたキングコング aka Edo ni Arawareta Kingu Kongu) are pre-WW2 tales that have not been seen since their initial theatrical runs. As we all know, Japan made two real King Kong films much later. Giant apes and Kong-ish story lines appear in such cinema classics as India’s Shikari, the Korean film A*P*E, the farcical Queen Kong, and the microbudget The Mighty Gorga. There might even be one in India’s 1953 film Gorilla. As far as I know, this is the first giant ape in Bangladeshi cinema.

The costume for Banglar King Kong is among the worst ape costumes ever put on film. I say among the worst, because there is no doubt a low budget Indian horror film (probably by Harinam Singh) that will have a worse ape costume. But it is by far the worse King Kong costume that ever existed. From the sneering mask to the visible spaces for socks, the whole thing is a Halloween disaster. Though I do give them props for the blinking eyes, that was a nice touch and made the ape have some actual feelings on display. We give credit where credit is due on TarsTarkas.NET.

The director Iftekar Jahan has directed several other films, of which I can find little information thanks to a billion sites copying the same Banglar King Kong article and clogging up Google. The actors is even a bigger mess, despite some of them having names spelled different every time I saw it typed out, I can find little information on any of them. What we do know is that Banglar King Kong was produced by Sharmin Osman for the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC), the main government body that overseas much of Banglar cinema, so this is some government funded B-grade fun! TarsTarkas.NET has encountered Banglar film once before, the actionfest Banglar Hero. And one of the stars of Banglar Hero, Tubby Buddy, has a role in Banglar King Kong playing another comic relief character. I still cannot figure out who is playing him. Of the cast list: Munmun, Danny Sedak, Shamim Osman, Afzal Sharif and Kazi Hayat, I was only able to identify Munmun as Milly and Kazi Hayat as the lead female tribeswoman Tubby Buddy pairs up with.

When you watch Banglar King Kong, try to keep in mind this film was made in 2010. But between the scratches on the print, the mistimed dubbing, and the blue screen effects that fan films put to shame, you could swear up and down that this is a product of 1961. Only the musical numbers, which were shot with some sort of HD camera and with professional lighting, look modern. But even those snippets are transferred from a film negative, and have scratches – though not nearly as much as the rest of Banglar King Kong, which looks like the print was shot up by helicopters and dumped off the top of a random tall building.

The non-singing soundtrack is 100% stolen. I recognized the themes from Gladiator, Empire Strikes Back, James Bond, King Kong 1976, Last of the Mohicans, and 2001 among those that were playing. I’m guessing they weren’t banking on an international release… The vcd must have been encoded by the anipal monkey Buntoo himself, because it is rife with errors and digital trash. The images suffer as well, with this 2 1/2 hour film compresses to just two vcds. I did my best to get clear shots, but as you can see, there is no refined BluRay clarity. Sometimes the discs have sounds problems so bad we might as well be getting the audio from the next theater over!

Milly (Munmun) - An actress recruited to be in a film on a tropical island. Her father Rakul accompanies her on this journey, though he is killed on the island. She herself is kidnapped by the natives and given to King Kong, who falls in love with her. When Kong is kidnapped and displayed in Bangladesh, she tries in vain to save him from his predestined fate. Munmun is an actress of B-cinema in Bangladesh. One of her bigger roles was in a film called Moron Kamor. Rocky (???) – Rocky is a famous film star and we can’t believe how lucky the film crew was to score him for their weird nature documentary. But there you go. Rocky takes and immediate shine to Milly, and when she’s Kongnapped he does numerous rescue attempts in between musical numbers. Tubby Buddy (???) – Tubby Buddy is back and as wacky as ever! Goofy banjo music announce his entrance. Tubby Buddy works on the movie shoot and helps recruit Milly into the film. Captain Ashool (???) – The ship captain, who along with first officer Mr. Jones, take King Kong back to Bangladesh and put him on a stage show. This works as well as it does in all the other versions of King Kong, and Captain Ashool is soon squashed. Once the Captain goes evil and kidnaps King Kong, he’s suddenly wearing black! King Kong (Man in Suit!) – The King. He’s Kongtastic. The Great Ape. The King of Skull Island, or whatever island this is. He’s fought airplanes, Godzilla, mechanical doubles, helicopters, giant snakes, tyrannosauruses, all sorts of ugly things. But now he fights his greatest battle: $0 budgets! Buntoo (A monkey) – Buntoo is the film’s anipal, betraying the influences of Indian cinema on this Banglar film. Like all anipals, Buntoo helps the hero and is used to save the girl and to steal tickets to the King Kong stage show. I think Buntoo is the same word that Milly calls Kong, but thanks to lack of subtitles I can’t find the exact word.

Just to show you how awesome things are, the company G Series steals their logo from Paramount Films. I’ve never seen a film company steal a logo before. But there we are.


Milly is a bored Banglar 20-something living at home with a normal life, until her friend Tubby Buddy stops by. Tubby Buddy works for a film company, and they need a woman to put in their new movie – starring Mr. Rocky! Everyone loves Mr. Rocky! She agrees, and dad Rakul will go along to make sure nothing bad happens to his daughter. This is among the bigger deviations from the traditional story, I suspect because having the Milly/Ann character be a street urchin who is caught stealing food would not have nearly the same level of cultural sympathy as in the US. We have to make sure Milly is as wholesome as possible to get the audience to care. I could be wrong, but that’s my guess. In addition, this scene features a stuffed toy dog on the living room table that looks pretty cool. want that dog.

The ship is a cruise ship, except when stock footage uses shots of a different ship. In any event, it’s time for a music video about…boats… or something. This is the first musical number in the film, and it sets the tone for the rest of the musical numbers. Completely goofy, but shot on far better film stock (probably digital HD cameras) with professional lighting (the rest of the film looks like it is lit by one lamp, if at all!) Everyone just has fun and dances and smiles. The actors look like they are in a way better mood during these musical shots vs. the rest of the film.


The director begins setting up shots for the film, dressing Milly and Rocky up in costumes. Rocky has black leather cowboy costume, like Neo in the Old West Matrix, complete with fencing sword and giant dollar sign belt buckle. Milly’s costume is a bright red-orange dress with cowgirl hat. But the ship is sailing into danger. Yes, this three hour tour has hit weather that is getting rough, and the stock footage ship is tossed! Tossed right onto an uncharted isle! The theme from Last of the Mohicans blares out to tell us how lost they are. It is a lost island of souls. No, wait, it’s just an island. But I’m sure some lost souls will show up sometime. Any day now.

Despite the fact they are lost, they start filming the movie anyway. Because, why not? Besides filming, they wander around the island’s forest and streams. We know the island is dangerous because of the nature documentary footage of a snake eating a parrot set to a stolen film score I don’t recognize. Danger! Parrot danger! Also there is a white bunny there! Milly runs after it, having never seen Monty Python’s Holy Grail! The fool, the poor poor fool. She isn’t murdered, but the film crew is ambushed by natives! The natives are promptly massacred with the film crews’ guns! Rocky also beats up and kills many natives to protect Milly, and the pair hide by a waterfall.


A storm comes as we see via stock footage of a storm and the clouds badly digitally edited into the background of the natives wandering around looking for Rocky and Milly.

A Lemur! It scares Milly while Rocky laughs and explains that the animal is harmless. Or is it??? Milly goes to sleep and dreams, so it’s time for another musical number in high definition film stock! Her and rocky run around on a beach and it’s love. LOVE!!!!

In the morning, Rocky gets bananas, then they’re attacked by more natives! Rocky beats and punches and slices and stabs a whole host of natives as the undercranked camera makes the action look faster, and the goofiness of bodies flying around makes it all a big cartoon. I’m just waiting for the Acme Batman costume. They also play some Empire Strikes Back score as they fight, so I’m now having Hoth flashbacks and wampa night terrors. There are too many natives for even Rocky to defeat, so they grab Milly and take her to the sacrifice area to give to King Kong. The natives jump around and go “ack!” a lot – are they based on Bill the Cat on caffeine? I must also point out the most realistic skull ever on the head of the staff of the native chief.


King Kong arrives…boy does he arrive! Holy fraknuts is this an awful monkey costume! The immobile mask, except for yellow eyes. Yellow eyes! He had yellow eyes! And an overly scarred right half of his face, showing someone watched Peter Jackson’s King Kong when designing the mask! From the mask’s many wrinkles and scrunched face, we can assumed this is a very old Kong who is constantly smelling something awful.

King Kong grabs Milly and wanders off with the Milly Barbie doll, dropping her off at the Kong Cave. Then they steal the scenes where Kong imitates Milly’s physical movements. He then gets her bananas, as inspired by Gwen Stephani. So she briefly sings to him, but this part is suspiciously not shot in HD, because it’s just a classic melody and not a radio single.

The crew decides they don’t give a frak about saving Milly, so the Captain and his first officer Mr. Jones are the only ones who will help Rocky. Then the natives attack the crew, beating some up and even killing one before being driven off by the Captain. This action prevents them from helping Rocky. Tubby Buddy is a lazy moron who gets menaced by a crocodile and a snake, then is capture by a bunch of amazon tribeswomen in a turn of events not from any of the other Kong movies!


Milly and Kong play hide and seek, which turns into a song sequence with HQ video! Kong dances….badly… But where else will you see King Kong music videos? The giant Kong hand they build for this film is another piece of wonder. It has wobbly wobbly fingers that shake when Milly sits on it. Kong even gets Milly flowers, but she is also secretly dancing with Rocky.

Rocky tries to rescue Milly as Kong goes to get more food, but her dress gets caught on a bush so she stays behind and acts all innocent. King Kong is mad that night, the two “hmfph” at each other and keep adjusting their seats so they aren’t facing the same way. It’s funny, and is about the depth of characterization we’ll get for King Kong. Sigh…

Then a giant snake attacks! A giant fake cartoon screaming snake! Kong is like “WTF?” and strangles a giant rubber version of the snake! He rips off its head, cuz he’s KING KONG! This Kong totally has something on Denzel Washington’s character in Training Day, unlike those other Kongs. Kong-posters. Pretenders to the throne.


Rocky finds an injured monkey and nurses it back to health with water, thus claiming an anipal for the film! It’s Buntoo the monkey. Buntoo leads him to fruit, and Rocky uses the monkey to pass a note to Milly. Milly tells Kong it’s nap time, so they go to sleep, with Kong instantly snoring. While Kong is asleep, the mask goes flat and it looks horrifying!

Milly sneaks off with Rocky, and the two have another musical interlude that completely doesn’t fit, with the different clothes and daytime instead of night in addition to the jarring video quality and the characters acting with energy and fun vs the more boring characters in the actual film. And if they hadn’t wasted all that time singing, then they’d have gotten father away as King Kong is coming to get them! They hide in a cave and Kong tries to reach in with his Kong hand.


So Rocky sets Kong’s arm on fire!

CGI fire! (Mostly) Kong runs to a lake to put it out, and the pair escape to the boat while Kong goes back to the cave to try to look inside. The Captain is like “let’s kidnap Kong!”, so Milly and Rocky are sent back to get him.

Milly lures King Kong to the beach, and convinces Kong to pour chloroform all over his face because she says it is water! This actually happens! Then his face starts smoking! Luckily, King Kong is knocked out before the chloroform sets him on fire or something else horrible.

But while they were getting Kong, natives attack and sunk their boat, and fatally wounded Milly’s father, who dies in her arms. Tubby Buddy is in tribe dressed up in costume with the amazon women, and the only way he can see to make the now-stranded crew less miserable is to do a song and dance with the lead amazon woman, also in high quality. The entire tribe joins in. The miserable crew finally starts joining in on the dancing during the final verse.

After the dance, a boat arrives to rescue everyone! The natives wave goodbye, and the lead amazon woman is going with Tubby Buddy back to Bangladesh. Their story ends here, as we don’t see either character again. Anipal Buntoo is also there! No, wait, just a delusion! No, wait, he shows up later in the film, so it is not a delusion, even though the monkey fades away from view.


At this point, Banglar King Kong has 20 minutes to escape and be murdered, but they didn’t even bother to show him chained in the ship. We don’t even know that Captain got him off the island until after Milly tells her mom that her dad died on the island. Then Rocky sees the ad for the King Kong stage show! Thrill as Rocky copies down the entire mobile number for the Captain and repeats it out loud!

Milly is mad mad mad at the Captain, even though she was involved in the kidnapping and drugging of Kong. By now, the Captain is bad so he is dressing in all black and has an eviler hairdo. Milly and Rocky use the anipal monkey to steal tickets to the King Kong stage show. The stock footage of the audience is from some award show, except for the closeup where Rocky and Milly are.

At the show, we finally see King Kong chained up, and Milly yells at the Captain for kidnapping (ape-napping) and animal cruelty. Milly’s big plan is to turn into Statler and Waldorf??? King Kong breaks free to the sound of the Gladiator soundtrack! The audience sits there until the stars are safely out of the way, then they finally run for their lives. What a polite audience!

Kong is busting out all over!

The next scene is a sound stage which has obviously flat plywood buildings with windows painted on them lining an empty street, and the Kong actor stomps through them. It’s like KONG! The musical. Kong stomps along until a remote control car (driven by a hot babe) drives up, Kong picks it up, looks at it, then tosses it aside, and stock footage of an exploding car is shown!

Kong then starts smashing plywood! I mean, actual buildings!

Kong destroys the community theater sets!

While Kong climbs the building, Rocky runs up the stairs. The building is so high I’m amazed Rocky didn’t have a heart attack and die at the top.


Kong pushes Milly out of the way so she doesn’t get hurt. The scenes they are using from ’76 Kong film blend seamlessly—if you’re on drugs and lost your glasses! We start out with the shot of Kong trashing one copter, then King Kong is gunned down very quickly by the other helicopters. This is mostly just direct shots from 76 Kong, but there is one shot original to Banglar King Kong of the costume getting blood-packed the frak up. I guess there ain’t going to be a sequel, not with that costume! Kong falls on the roof, then rolls off the building and drops to his doom!

Milly goes to the dying Kong on the road. There are flashbacks of island memories as she sings to the dying Kong. Who dies.

The end!


Despite the lack of subtitles, Banglar King Kong was pretty accessible. However, I don’t recommend it to the fan who has never seen any film from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, or other countries where the action is interrupted by musical numbers. I’ve seen well enough of these films by now that some of the songs are pretty darn enjoyable. I even have the soundtrack to a few of the Dara Singh films stored away somewhere! But Banglar King Kong is cheap, and is rife with stolen footage and bad effects. The stage set of the downtown area during the climax is so laughably bad I am not sure what they were even thinking. But beyond the flaws, Banglar King Kong teaches us that the message of modern stories transcending boarders and language, and how Beauty slays those the world over.

Rated 4/10 (G series, belt buckle, dog toy, helicopters from another film!)

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Flying Swordsgirl

aka The Flying Killer aka Nu fei xia aka 女飛俠

1969
Directed by Lu Chun and Hu Peng
Written by Yang Tao

It’s a jungle girl action flick with a kid jungle girl and kung fu revenge with Flying Swordsgirl! Yes, this Tarzeena of the forest is just a jungle girl teaching her young sister how to jungle girl when a kung fu movie plot washes ashore and pulls them into the picture! Soon, revenge is revenging, secrets are revealing, jungle girls are murdering bad dudes, and monkeys are trapping people in nets. This rumble in the jungle is no bungle, but is quite entertaining. So let’s jump right in, warm up your kazoos, it’s Flying Swordsgirl time!

Presented in First Scope!! Whatever the frak that is! Thanks to this being old and Taiwan not taking care of their films, the print is all scratched up (like it was stored in an actual jungle or something…) and the colors washed out. The film goes by several titles as versions kept getting released with new names for extra money from suckers value. Heck, even this copy of the print has an alternate name (The Flying Killer!)

Chin Feng Yao (Ting Ying) – It’s our jungle girl Why does she live in the jungle? They never bother to tell us. She just does, alright? Deal with it. And she’s also a kung fu master, because all jungle girls are. Ting Ying also starred in Tigress Is Coming (which also starred Ng Siu-Wai), The International Secret Agents, and The Young Avengeress. This was near the end of her acting career, after which she disappeared from my ability to look up information about her. Hsiao Wei (Ng Siu-Wai) – The younger jungle girl who also lives in the jungle for reasons unknown. Spends much of the film learning how to be a jungle girl. Ng Siu-Wai also appeared in Silver Maid Grandpa (Ma Chi) – Old hermit who also lives in the jungle, but he at least has a reason! Was run off from his home estate when his wife decided that she wanted to date other people. Actor Ma Chi also appeared in these awesomely titled films: The Seisure Soul Sword of a Blind Devil, Bow Kung’s Jurisdiction in the Hades, and Drunk Fish, Drunk Frog, Drunk Crab Ku Tien Pen of the Feng Yun Manor (Pai Yu) – Ku Tien Pen is found half-drowned by the jungle girls, who nurse him back to health and get involved in his home manor drama, which has been invaded by a criminal gang. Lo Ta Lung (Yee Yuen) – The main bad guy who invades Feng Yun Manor looking for treasure that doesn’t really exist, but causes a whole bunch of trouble for the jungle girls! Yee Yuen often played a villain in his long film career in movies such as The Bravest Revenge, 18 Bronzemen, and The Silver Spear Wen Fu (Tien Yeh) – Son of Lo Ta Lung who has a secret past even he doesn’t know about. Until the secret is revealed and the world changes. Spends much of the film either captured or being defeated by monkeys and jungle girls. Tien Yeh is also in The One Armed Boxer, Revenge of the Iron Fist Maiden, and Jade Dagger Ninja Chin Chin (A monkey) – A monkey who works for the jungle girls, and springs all sorts of tricks and traps on the bad guys, even though the actor monkey doesn’t really do anything.

In the jungle, everyone constantly wipes their nose with their hand and scratches their hair. There are no Kleenex or allergy pills in the jungle! In addition, every time jungle girl flies, we get a kazoo blast. This is pretty hilarious, because why not? Flight of the kazoo girl!

We open with Feng Yao teaching her younger sister Hsiao Wei how to fly in the trees. We also meet Grandpa, an old hermit in the forest who tells the girls about how he became a recluse. After his first wife was killed and his son kidnapped when Grandpa was lured away by false claims of treasure, he eventually became a knight at Feng Yun Manor, controlling a large estate. But his new wife poisoned him with aid of her lover, and he was barely saved and ran off to be a hermit, leaving behind his son and daughter.

The jungle girls go fishing, but the catch of the day is a guy who is half drowned! They save him, and find out he is Ku Tien Pen of the Feng Yun Manor. He tells that his home was invaded by bad guys with swords, led by the evil Lo Ta Lung. Everyone was killed – including grandpa’s former wife and her lover – and he barely escaped. His sister Ku Hsiu Lien was captured, and is interrogated about the location of a treasure she knows nothing about.


Ku Tien Pen is still badly injured, and Feng Yao mocks him when he tries to return for revenge, instead disabling his raft and trapping him. She goes herself, stopping a bad guy named Wen Fu from raping a girl and bringing them both back – mistakenly thinking the girl is the sister Ku Hsiu Lien.

The captured baddie Wen Fu is put in a cave and guarded by Chin Chin. Now, there is a rope handle next to Chin Chin, and I am convinced the point was to show the monkey pulling the rope to trigger the net trap that pops up when Wen Fu tries to escape, but the monkey just looks at the rope and walks away. Monkeys.

Ku Tien Pen tries to kill Wen Fu, only to be caught in a net himself. Again, Chin Chin doesn’t move and it is just implied that he captured him with the net. Monkeys.

Humiliated, Ku Tien Pen runs back to the manor for revenge and to prove his manhood. He has an odd fighting stance -back stiff, head slightly bowed, sword arm low, other arm limp – that arm is supposed to be injured, so this must be some sort of injured fighting stance. In any event, he’s easily outclassed by Lo Ta Lung, and Feng Yao saves him again.

But now Hsiao Wei is missing, and so is Wen Fu. Yes, she’s kidnapped and brought back to manor by Wen Fu, then forced to lead men to the jungle location where Ku Tien Pen is at. Chin Chin drops a bunch of rocks on the goons thanks to a trap – Chin Chin is written as like a super genius monkey, too bad the real monkey just sits there. That must be why they then write him out of the film all together and he’s not seen again. Monkeys.

Monkey rock attack!

Grandpa gives her medicine to help heal the wound, but the bad guys have returned to the jungle, this time bringing everyone, including Wen Fu and Lo Ta Lung. Hsaio Wei starts hitting them with a coconut catapult that fires four nuts at once. But it is not enough to stop the large amount of evil goons. The heroes are forced to hide at Grandpa’s place, who agrees to help and fights Lo Ta Lung. Feng Yao and Ku Tien Pen fight the remaining goons and Wen Fu, with Hsiao Wei occasionally throwing a knife into the back of a baddie. After each time she gets a huge thumbs up from Feng Yao.


Lo Ta Lung is given a fatal blow, but he has enough time before dying to say that Wen Fu was Grandpa’s first son, and since Wen Fu just killed Ku Tien Pen, he killed his own brother! Then he dies, and Wen Fu has a huge mental breakdown after realizing who he really is and what he has done. I like that they show this happening, too many of these older flicks end the second after the bad guy dies (or even occasionally, just as the bad guy dies and before he even has had a chance to fall to the ground dead!) Flying Swordsgirl is not afraid to show the consequences of the traumatic battle and the result of being kidnapped and brainwashed into doing horrible things your entire life. Wen Fu vows to atone for his deeds by giving up all worldly possessions and joining his father as a hermit in the jungle. They will even divide up the manor and give it to the poor. Hey, remember the SISTER??? No? She’s still in a cage at the home you are selling, and might not want to sell it. Oh well. The film is ending now.

There was a fair amount of action, but it was more of a juvenile bent, with not a lot of blood and guts or bad things happening, and the kid sidekick thrown in. Some of it – such as the coconut catapult – was just downright silly. And the kazoo sound as Feng Yao flies is also funny. But the pacing was pretty fast, and even though a few fights showed obvious choreography and slowing down of the actors to do the complicated movies, it was still fun. We all know that Feng Yao isn’t going to die, and she just does one superheroic deed after another. She’s an unstoppable force. You won’t be bored when watching Flying Swordsgirl. I also liked that they didn’t shoehorn in a love interest for Feng Yao, she helps Ku Tien Pen because it is the right thing to do, not because she loves him.

Rated 8/10 (firsties, traitor wife, her new man, daughter Judy, village in the treetops, rescued random girl, tiger darts, wounds that hurt)

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As usual, we got a stranglehold of choices for you: downloadable mp3, embedded flash with slideshow, embedded audio player, and iTunes feed link. So many choices, you’ll cry for your mummy!

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Links
The Mummies of Guanajuato on Teleport City
The Lucha Diaries
Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill!

Prior Infernal Brains:
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 1
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 2
Polly Shang Kuan
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 1
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 2
Dara Singh
Infernal Brains Podcast – 07 – Insee Daeng
Infernal Brains Podcast – 08 – Worst Podcast Ever

Judgment

aka Apocalypse IV: Judgment

2001
Directed by André van Heerden

God’s calling. He wants to know if our fridge is running…

Judgment is not a film I would normally watch, because my recent film watching days have been filled with more obscure stuff from around the globe, and the time I’ve spent on direct to video fun has been limited at best. But thanks to my affiliation as a member of the Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit (aka M.O.S.S.), we did a Secret Santa where I was gifted this awesome DVD from Carol at The Cultural Gutter. And if you don’t read The Cultural Gutter, you are missing out. You should probably read it almost as much as you read this site! Other M.O.S.S. Secret Santa adventures can be found at this link. Go there to read and listen as M.O.S.S. members get sent things they wouldn’t normally review.

Christian rapture cinema has a not very long history, but has left behind a collection of films of various quality. I have watched a fair number of these from around a decade ago, when they were all over the local video stores. I can say that Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 is awesome. It’s everything you want your Rapture Cinema to be. Even the big guns like the Left Behind series of films (starring Kirk Cameron and from the same production company as the Apocalypse series) pale in comparison. Judgment is the fourth film in the Apocalypse series, and I have not seen the others. With the advent of digital cameras, the amount of Christian films have exploded in recent years, as have the amount of Rapture films. But beyond the few that make interesting trailers on YouTube, the films are largely ignored by the general movie going public, though a few breakout recent Christian films include C Me Dance, Three, and Suing the Devil.

We may be poor, but we got lots of lightbulbs on strings!

The continuity of the Apocalypse series is suspect at best. By the end of the previous film, former journalist Helen Hannah was executed but also released tapes of the Antichrist saying all his followers are idiots who will burn in Hell, and they begin to protest against him. All that protest stuff is forgotten, the people still love Franco Macalousso with only the few Christian rebels left to offer any resistance. Helen Hannah is saved from death for the trial plot.

I know it is not this movie’s purpose to be a deep philosophical source of arguments for or against the existence of God, but the trial format and the actual arguments introduced on both sides force a comparison of the arguments. To be fair, the arguments presented by both sides are largely shallow, targeting strawmen or misquotes, and some arguments aren’t even addressed or just dismissed without reason. The popcorn philosophy does have to be mentioned, even if it’s in a popcorn website response, because we got better things to do than to turn this site into a scholarly religious website. So microwave some popcorn before you read on. We’ll wait. Doo-do-do-do-dooo-do-dooo…. Got your snack food? Let’s begin!

The People’s Court: The Next Generation

Mitch Kendrick (Corbin Bernsen) – Embittered lawyer who looks out for Number One, and I don’t mean Will Riker. Blackmailed into defending Helen Hannah at the Trial of the Century. Doesn’t buy into that Jesus stuff, and also doesn’t buy into that Anti-Christ stuff. I like to think this is Corbin Bernsen’s character from L.A. Law, because that would be cool. Victoria Thorne (Jessica Steen) – The prosecuting attorney on the case Humankind vs. Hannah and Jesus. The kind of prosecutor that would let OJ Simpson walk. Helen Hannah (Leigh Lewis) – Former reporter and Christian resistance member who has been captured by Franco Macalousso and will be used in his latest scheme, a goofy show trial! J.T. Quincy (Mr. T) – A Christian trying to live under the tyrannical rule of Franco Macalousso, and a man of action. Violent action! Mr. T is freaking awesome, and I pity the fools who don’t like Mr. T. Because they are stupid. Franco Macalousso (Nick Mancuso) – OMG it’s Lucifer! The most evil world leader ever. How this guy is so charismatic he controls the world, I’ll never know. But then, a lot of evil politicians have massive support in real life, so maybe it’s like that.

Could God make a creek so full of crap even he couldn’t be up it without a paddle? We’ve just prove God is fake, hail Satan!

One more thing, Kate Mulgrew is supposed to be in this film as an extra, but try as I might, I can’t find her at all! If anyone knows where she is, give us a comment! I think she’s probably in one of the trial crowds.

Franco Macalousso has united the world in a one world government called One Nation Earth (O.N.E.). Because he’s the Anti-Christ! Seriously. The first film in the series had the Rapture happen, and since then we’ve gone all book of Revelations. They even call him Lucifer occasionally, though I’m not sure why.

There has got to be a better way to cut fingernails…

Christians who are still around are branded Haters, because they are said to hate mankind. Exactly why they are persecuted I am not sure, because they don’t seem to be doing much of anything. It’s just because Macalousso is a jerk and a cartoon villain. All he needs is a big mustache to twirl when he’s torturing Christians.

I think the label “haters” is sort of funny. Because haters gonna hate. But from how much people on Twitter keep yakking about haters, it’s probably the best choice ever for a slur. Helen Hannah is branded the hater we should hate the most, which is good because it is alliteration. The Bible is banned because Macalousso wanted to go all Fahrenheit 451 on this bitch.

There are only a few resisters left, who we are told by the news bomb things like hospitals, which is totally what you need to do to get people to your side! Granted, that’s the point, as we find out later the resistance isn’t bombing things, it is all a frameup by the evil O.N.E. government.

As the non-stop action continues, Corbin proves he paid admission to the club for readmittance.

Everyone has the Mark of the Beast on their hand to do business, or you get shut out of buying goods and services. For some reason, all these awful people have decided that creating a black market/under the table economy for unmarked people is just too immoral for them to bother with, so there is no alternative except begging. The Mark is a black triangle with three 6′s in it in a stylized pattern. Completely cartoonish.

Macalousso is mad that no one is snitching on the resistance Christian groups anymore. Don’t you know snitches get stitches? To keep things interesting, he decides to put Helen Hannah on trial, she is a former reporter turned religious activist from the previous films. Franco personally stops the guillotine from chopping off her head with his hand, so he can do this trial business. Thankfully, the guillotine blade is as sharp as a hacky sack and does no damage to Macalousso, and probably would do nothing to Hannah except slightly annoy her. THE ANTI-CHRIST!!!

Lawyer Mitch Kendrick is recruited to do the defense by Macalousso’s assistant, Victoria Thorne. Mitch is a former lover of Victoria Thorne, and she knows a few secrets over him that help force him to do the trial. Mitch’s dad was a Pastor who led a church and Mitch defended him when he was put on trial by O.N.E. Why Mitch’s dad didn’t go to Heaven during the Rapture is not explained.

For only having one government, there sure are a lot of laws!

The entire trial is to be scripted as a gigantic show to drum up more hatred of the Haters and get people to narc them out. Hannah is charged with hatred of humanity – the world’s highest crime. Yes, in the One Nation Earth, hatred of people is bad, so I guess whiny goth/emo kids are shot on sight. No wonder Macalousso is so popular! One wonders how this film would had looked had this film been made a few years later after reality tv became more normal. As for the trial, imagine the most ridiculous show trial you ever did see. Then kick it up a notch, because that’s where we are. We got armed guards all over, an audience watching from up on high who scream down “BOOOOOOOO!!!”s and taunts at the accused, and even throw trash at the chained prisoner. The judge is also on a high pedestal. When a witness is sworn in, instead of swearing on the bible, they swear on a scroll of something or other. They also say “For the unity of all people” at the end of “nothing but the truth” instead of “so help you God”.

Prosecutor Victoria Thorne starts with some crazy analogy of boat Earth, which is so moving it causes one audience member to go nuts and charge Helen with a knife. But he’s just arrested. Mitch then figures out a way to flip the script and make this the showiest show trial that ever did show trial. He says Helen is just a pawn, we must put God on trial! Of course, he’s yanked into judge’s chambers to get yelled at, but Franco is there like a bad super-villain, the chair slowly turning around to show his surprise appearance. There ain’t no subtlety in Judgment. Franco is all for putting God on trial, because he can’t see at all how this could go bad.

I got your phallic symbol right here, buddy!

For the Christian Resistance Groups, we see them briefly as the trial action continues. Most notably, Mr. T is a member and he’s dedicated to action, wanting to bust Helen out of jail. His wife Sherry says “you’re gonna make me a widow!” Mr. T is sick of sitting on his hands and waiting for God, goes out to do something, including getting a fake Mark of the Beast. The doctor who gives him the Mark is killed seconds later by O.N.E. agents. In fact, what Mr. T does most is get people around him killed. He recruits some homeless people without Marks to help with promises of food, but one quits in fear and the other gets killed the second Mr. T starts his breakout plan. O.N.E. agents even raid the hideout, and Mr. T’s wife is killed and dozens of cgi boxes are exploded. We at TarsTarkas.NET mourn the death of the digital cardboard. Mr. T gives us some good quotes like “If those 6-6-6es are set on going to Hell, I say why not help send them there!” – which he says right after pulling out a machine gun. Then Mr. T then quotes Edmund Burke like it was from the bible. Finally, he says “It ain’t God’s world anymore, it belongs to the Devil!” What is weird is he is sort of right, since this is post-Rapture, it is Satan’s world. But if we’re following the Bible here, shouldn’t we all be aware of that fact, and not try to stop the Anti-Christ, but just try to convert as many people as possible before it all ends? All you need to do is show how closely things are following the Bible. It’s not rocket surgery, it’s brain science!

CGI Box Explosion 411

Back at the trial, we find out from a general that Franco has created world peace. We also bring in an annoying Italian stereotype who had his paralysis cured by the science of Franco. Evil science. BOOOOOOOOO!! to science! And he has crazy psychic powers that give him the ability to make pitchers of water fall over from across the room. Yes, this guy has the powers of Roald Dahl’s Matilda! This is all thanks to Franco Macalousso, who is one of those guys who can’t see the downside to giving lots of people crazy telekenetic powers. Heck, the third movie in the series (Tribulation) has this as a major plot point. But the telekenetic people never go full out Scanners and start blowing up heads left and right. More the pity. So Italian stereotype guy is Helen’s half-brother, who we find out told him he shouldn’t have accepted Evil Science help and stayed crippled. And he says he doesn’t love his sister any more, which is shocking to everyone.

Corbin Bernsen is Mitchell!

Victoria then calls Hannah to the stand to berate her about hating peace and never meeting God. Hannah admits she would sacrifice world peace for God. Mitch does the 2+2=5 argument, asking if you are prejudice if everyone else wants it to be 5. To deflect this, Victoria calls Jesus to the stand! This is all to get Mitch to admit Jesus is powerless to show up. Next called to the stand is Franco Macalousso, who gets a standing O from the audience. He’s also freely called Lucifer, but no one bothers to point out that makes him the Anti-Christ and Bible true. In fact, if he is Satan, then there has to be God, because where did Satan come from? “This is a real god!” says about Lucifer.

One of the Resistance group takes up to the stand, and when pressed for proof that Jesus was resurrected, she quotes that there are 500 documented accounts of seeing Jesus alive after crucifixion and that Simon Greenleaf said it was established. I am not sure if the former claim is part of the latter book or something else. This all makes Victoria look dumb in front of the whole world. The judge is made, and the directive is the trial ends tomorrow. At some point Mitch is saved from being killed by Victoria’s secret agent harasser goon by O.N.E. agents. I think Mitch gave the guy’s license plates to the agents as if they were Hater plates, but I’m not sure why he was saved. Maybe the agents were secretly good?

Those bastards have even taken over crowded bullitine boards!

During the final day of the trial, Mitch calls Franco to witness stand again, and Franco says Jesus is a lie. Mitch puts a gun to the Anti-Christ’s head, says will call a witness who will take a bullet for Franco. If someone wants to take a bullet for Franco. No one steps forward. Odd, because usually that’s what security guards are for. Mitch says dying for someone is the greatest of sacrifices. And that Christians know the next world is better than this one, so that’s why they reject this world and Franco.

Exhibit G, for gun!

That’s cool and all, but the big flaw in this argument is no one died for Jesus, either! In fact, Peter denied him thrice! The real way to play this would be for Mitch to get Franco to shoot himself so the would would lose the last bit of turmoil it had, the Christian resistance groups, because they’d no longer have a central figure to opposed and he’d save his followers from the “bombings”. But that ending would be very complicated to write correctly and would probably be just as lame. A real cool ending would be if Mr. T challenged Franco to a boxing match, and won, thanks to the power of God. That’s what I want to see for the next installment. Make it happen, people!

Mitch renounces mark and get arrested, and Victoria shoots him dead in court! On live tv! Well, we needed a blood sacrifice. This who thing causes the papers to declare a mistrial, while Mr. T gets Helen and another Christian out of jail in the confusion (and once he rejects using violence on a guard!) and that’s where we end. The final installment of the series has been delayed for almost a decade at the production company had a spat with one of the authors of the Left Behind series and was tied up in court. But now they have that settled and the Left Behind movie rights back, so they’re free to make some big budget Left Behind films and to finish this series up.

We’ve determined our fridge is NOT running. Take that!

Rated 4/10 (New time, he works for chocolate, fellow hater, O.N.E. agent goon)

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Revenge of the Zebra Miniskirt Police

aka Zebura Minisuka Porisu no Gyakushuu aka ゼブラミニスカポリスの逆襲

2010
Directed by Nishiumi Kenichiro

Revenge of the Zebra Miniskirt Police is a spinoff prequel to Zebraman 2. In the future of 2024, Tokyo is a crime-ridden cesspool, but Governor Kouzo has just come to power and has turned the town into Zebra City. He’s formed Zebra Police to clear the streets of criminals (and anyone else) with lethal force during Zebra Time, and just because we need to get 1000% more fascist, now Governor Kouzo is setting up his personal bodyguards, the Zebra Miniskirt Police!

The Zebra Miniskirt Police are three chicks in identical miniskirt uniforms that are way more fetish-driven than the normal fascist police military industrial complex uniforms used by the rest of the Zebra Police. Their black skirts are so short you see their white panties when they kick, because the black uniforms with white panties are zebra stripes…I guess. It’s hard to say that it’s symbolism, because Revenge of the Zebra Miniskirt Police is way more black and white than Zebraman 2 (pun both intended and not intended), but the uniform designs are probably from the parent film Zebraman 2 and not this spinoff. In any event, I’ve mentioned white panties often enough I’ll probably get some weird Google referrals. Hello, pervos, welcome to the site!

This is an origin film for the Zebra Miniskirt Police, because that is a story that demanded to be told. By someone. His name is Jerry. Go bother him. The three actresses chosen to star got the roles through a reality television series where Zebraman himself, Show Aikawa, choose the three women from 776 applicants. Thus they are mostly unknown models who have done little and will probably continue to do so.

Being a low budget direct to video affair, it shows blatantly. The makeup and production values are not up to par to the original film. The video even looks different, as it was shot on a different type of camera. Most of the money seemingly went into the action choreography, which is never a bad thing. The film is helmed by Nishiumi Kenichiro – Miike’s assistant director on Zebraman 2, but while Miike could have turned this low budget affair into something fun and excessive, Nishiumi Kenichiro plays it more straight and similar to a lot of the low-budget Japanese flicks I’ve seen in tone and in content. I don’t know if that was the order, or if Kenichiro just hasn’t learned enough from Miike. It basically turns into one of the hundreds of direct to video Japanese films produced each year for specific fetish audiences, this one for those who like seeing women beat up and have large bruise makeup all over them. That’s the only reason I can figure for the excessive bruise makeup. The tone is a mix of the depressing Cool Dimension and the blatant exploitation of Sukeban Fighter Misaki.

And once again, at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!

Yumi Kisaragi (Miki Inase) – a former rebel cell member, whose group fought against the Governor’s power grabs. She lived as a poor girl in the slum with a bad attitude and computer hacking skills. Before all that, she had happy parents who were killed by the Zebra Police Risako Yuki (Sayoko Ohashi) – Zebra Miniskirt Police recruit who is out to revenge a friend. Sayoko Ohashi is a model best known for appearing in the video game Need for Speed: ProStreet. Yu Maki (Yuko Shimizu) – Zebra Minkskirt Police recruit who gets almost no characterization at all. And I can’t find any information on Yuko Shimizu, because she has the same name as the lady who created Hello Kitty! Governor Aihara Kouzo (Guadalcanal Taka) – The crazed governor who converts Tokyo into Zebra City. Dresses like every day is Halloween!

Yumi Kisaragi is living it up in the slums as a computer hacker before she’s arrested and thrown in a training camp with two other girls – Risako Yuki and Yu Maki. Training and brainwashing and depression of captivity and the ultimate defeat of their spirits await the girls. You know, fun stuff! First they’ll watch A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila until their brains turn to mush, then they’ll meet Tila Tequila until the last bits of their spirits die, and then Tila Tequila makes a sex tape with their dead spirits and posts it on the internet.

Yumi attempts an escape, even shooting Risako in the shoulder when confronted, though Yumi throws up immediately
and is recaptured. Yu Maki reveals that she and Risako are there primarily to help avenge their friend who was raped. At least they avoided the “we were raped ourselves so now are kick ass chicks” trope. Because that trope can go suck a lemon…IN HELL! These girls are just as much victims as everyone else in this society, growing up poor and destitute in the slums, or having their happy lives taken from them. We don’t need an extra layer of rape revenge thrown in to satisfy some dumb subsection of the audience. For once, I support something that happens in a Japanese exploitation film!


The three girls train and graduate to Zebra Mini Skirt Police, and guard the Governor himself. But the facility is attacked and Yumi is captured by rebels – the very same rebel group she used to belong to! The other two burst in and save her. This leads to a long combat sequence that shows where the entire production budget went. For a ~40 minute film, you should try to avoid having the best part be in a small enough chunk to put up on YouTube!

In fact, this whole sequence is basically an exercise in Yumi learning to commit violence without throwing up. They even transpose shots of her birthday party as a child with the shots of her committing violent acts on her former allies to show her rebirth as a Zebra Miniskirt Police. She has achieved a new life.

Fightu Desu

Rated 3/10 (The error is the film, SYMBOLISM!!!, I’m a cop I wear a badge!)

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