Horse Woman Dog 1990
Criminal Woman Killing Melody (1973)
Her first knife attack on them in a nightclub lands her in prison. She’s soon befriended by Chiyoko Kazama, Yumiko Katayama and others, but becomes rivals with inmate Miki Sugimoto, who happens to be Hayama’s mistress. There are wild flashbacks showing how some of the girls ended up behind bars. One of the most amusing shows Kazama, a girl who went on a drunken motorcycle rampage and injured a pursuing cop when her tossed-beer bottle conked him on the head. Ike and the girls get released mid-film, and her new playmates opt to aid her in her vendetta. Soon they’re fomenting a Machivellian gang war between debauched hood, Takeo Chii’s bunch and Hayama’s mob. Inevitably, Sugimoto, though once more securely ensconced as the only woman in Hayama’s stronghold, decides to offer help in sabotaging the gang from the inside.
The climax sees every yakuza exterminated. When the dust settles, all the girls have miraculously survived. But Ike and Sugimoto immediately feel the need to rekindle hostilities, first with knives, then with their fists on the corpse-strewn battlefield. Muddy, bloody and their energy at last spent, the two shakily rise up as true comrades. Director Mibori acquits himself well with exhilirating action, intoxicating visuals and a sense of humor that is more often than not effective (compared to the broad slapstick in various other ‘pinky violence’ pictures).
Review: Once in the same prison at will doom will be together for five girls. Behind every crime will be of varying severity. First, the girls will arise between a conflict, but then the relationship will improve. A few years later, already in the wild, fate will bring them again to check the strength of female friendship. After all, the girls will be participating in the disassembly of the two groups yakuza. And all because of one of the former zechek vengeance is ready for the most desperate things.
7 SOULS IN THE SKULL CASTLE
Vanquished Foes (1964)
Forced bythe code of the yakuza to put one's life on the line for a Boss who offered a meal and lodging, each side manages to get hold of powerful swordsmen who will stop at nothing to pay their obligations. A truly stunning motion picture that is not to be missed!
13 steps of Maki: the young aristocrats (1975)
One day as Maki and the girls are out having a good time, a spoiled rich girl insults them. Maki demands an apology. The rich girl says she never apologizes. This is a mistake. One quickly humiliated rich girl is furious. Her father is a businessman tied to a white slaver, with eyes for the rich girl. What follows is a series of grudge matches between Maki's gang and the underworld until Maki is set up and sent to a work farm. Maki must then fight the girl gang who runs the work farm before she can plot her revenge on those outside.
At just under 80 minutes, the 13 Steps of Maki is almost non-stop action with nudity and sleaze liberally spiked throughout. Most of Etsuko Shihomi's starring vehicles leave me wanting. They usually feature good fights but also dead time in between (see Dragon Princess). This one delivers from start to finish! Fans of The Street fighter should love it. Sonny Chiba appears briefly in a flashback scene playing Maki's brother.
Once Upon a Time in China (1991)
Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976)
Once again another awesome movie from a genre that can do no wrong. The chpo socky samurai and ninja movie of the late 60's to the early 80's where a genre of movies that never were big on substance but they more than made up for it with an overabundence of style. Here we have a colorful cast of token good and bad guys each with some unique charecter aspect that allows them to stand out. I'm sure that in the early nineties when the Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter games where coming out the makers had had some of this movie's charecters in mind. Most notably the future street fighter charecter who is Indian and can stretch his limbs way out of proportion. The movie moves along through some really wonderful fight sequences with the usual array of weird weapons and fighting techniques. Thank god Quentin Tarantino has done enough name dropping to single handedly bring this genre back to life. For most of the eighties and early nineties finding these movies was next to impossible. Now their occasionaly even on cable. Way to go.
Dirty Ho (1976)
This is one of the films that sears itself into your mind forever unless kung fu films are a real turn off. Even when it was only watchable in poorly centered TV prints the brilliance of the action shined thru. Filmed towards the end of the golden age of the Shaw Brothers Studios, Dirty Ho rates as the top of the genre. The way the fights are choreographed is mesmerizing and I have spent hours rewinding the scenes to see exactly how the director orchestrated the camera and actors. It incredible how the movement progresses. I defy anyone to come up with something as subtle yet outrageous as the wine scene or the antique scene. The scenes in "House of Flying Daggers" are quite impressive but everything is computer assisted exaggeration. Here the only tricks are what could be done with editing and camera movement (O.K. maybe a few wires). You can see that most of the work is being done by the highly talented actors.
When this is re-released, buy it!
Human Lanterns (1982)
Hammer horror meets wuxia. It makes about as much sense tonally as it sounds. Storywise, it's a barely coherent morality play about pride and greed that comes across like an excuse to string together some swordplay, some reasonably nasty flaying scenes, and very pretty setpieces. It is a great looking movie, I have to admit--the use of lighting is otherworldly. Sun Chung was easily one of the best directors Shaw Bros ever had, but when he wasn't doing cookie cutter martial arts stuff, he was seriously wasted on misguided crap (let's face it) like this.
There's something really "off" about how simultaneously Asian and European this movie feels. My instincts tell me it's not supposed to exist. Dramatically it never really takes off, but it's interesting enough in the context of "what were they thinking?" curio.
For Y'ur Height Only (1981)
This is easily one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Weng Weng is agent 00, and he's two foot 9". From the opening "montage" of him running around looking cool to the extreme shocker/twist ending, this film had me roaring with laughter and cheering on Weng Weng as he battles the Crime Syndicate and Mr. Giant. There are endless scenes of Weng Weng looking around and then sneaking up on people and then killing them. And he's ruthless. He laughs and smiles after killing bad guys. The bad guys are great, too. "All forces of good are our sworn enemies," one says at one point. There is something about this movie, and I can't really put my finger on it, but its really a magical film. One that should be enjoyed by all.
Horny House of Horror
The three female leads are all played by former AV (adult video) starlets. The most famous is Asami, who has been in a lot of films like this and is relatively talented in that she can play both a badass and a more traditionally submissive female role. She gets to do both here. And if you find it either funny or sexy (I don't really), she and her male partner here both end up farting in each others' faces at different points. Asami and the other girls show a lot of "T", but not enough "A", and of course no "V" (or "P"?) since this is Japanese. The Japanese optical fogging here is downright bizarre. The dismembered, uh, members of the male victims turn up at several points, but they optically fog only the tips so they look like Vienna sausages (and wouldn't they deflate after all the blood ran out of them?). More annoying though is the optical fogging of the front of Asami's see-through, chain-mail underwear.
This movie is actually pretty entertaining though aside from the less- than-hot sexual content. It holds together well throughout with martial arts and sword fighting at the end (including a memorable scene of one character having her eyes literally knocked out). There's also a nice mean-spirited twist at the very end involving one the male characters, who is a virgin and has resisted the deadly hookers because he is trying to stay faithful to his fianceé. Don't necessarily expect a hot sex romp, but this is kind of a FUN movie.
Camping Cosmos (1996)
