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Showing posts with the label film review - action

DEATH WARRIOR

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Original Title : Ölüm Savasçisi Year : 1984 Director : Cüneyt Arkin , Çetin Inanç Writer : Cüneyt Arkin , Çetin Inanç IMDb : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183597/ Genre : Action Synopsis: A group of invincible ninjas in the U.S, start killing everybody, and the NYPD chief can’t solve the problem. The mayor thinks 'ONLY a Turkish detective can handle the situation', so they call for Inspector Murat (Kemal?) for help... and he comes to U.S. That’s when the action starts! Three posts in the past two months. I rule. Sorry to all zero of you who are let down that I didn't finish my number film countdown thingamajig. For anyone interested, the other films were Three The Hard Way  (which I'd score an 8.5 ), The Two Of Us  (which I'd score an 8.0 ), and.................. ONE ARMED BOXER  (which also gets an 8.0 ). Taaaa daaaaaaaa! And what brings me out of my hibernation? Turkish ninjas of course. See, these ninjas are a samurai family that become darkness ninjas after dying...

1973: The Year of the Joe Don

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The Chinese Zodiac chart says that 1973 was the Year of the Buffalo. But the Americana Genre Fan Zodiac chart has 1973 possibly as the year of Joe Don Baker . Per my usual, I was informed of quite a few films this week that I of course had not seen. I had asked Will of The Gentlemen's Guide podcast what Joe Don Baker films I should check out. Samurai and Will as well as a few callers over the months have mentioned him, and I just wasn't sure who he was. Sure, I could have just looked him up, but I'm a lazy bastard, remember? If you don't recognize his name by now, you will probably recognize his face. See what I mean? Anyway, to beef up on Mr. Baker before he started cashing some turd-soaked paychecks by the mid-1980s ( Leonard Part 6 ... Dukes of Hazzard remake... Joe Dirt ...), I was recommended a handful of films he was in, all of which happened to fall in 1973. So it was triple feature time! I call it the year of Joe Don because this was certainly his time to shin...

DEATHCHEATERS

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Original Title : Deathcheaters Year : 1976 Director : Brian Trenchard-Smith Writer : Michael Cove , Brian Trenchard-Smith (story) IMDb : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074385/ Genre : Action, Comedy Synopsis: Two stuntmen and war buddies are recruited by a man known only as Mr. Culpepper to retrieve papers from a remote At least Stunt Rock had the ridiculous stage act to offset the lack of actual movie. Deathcheaters was I suppose Trenchard-Smith's attempt at a comedy. As the film started, I actually felt a little confident in this realization, as the laughs weren't gut-busting, but at least entertaining. John Hargreaves playing stuntman Steve Hall and Grant Page playing stuntman Rodney Cann had good chemistry at first. Steve was sort of the voice to Rodney's peculiarities (such as wearing a Seinfeld-style pirate shirt and talking to his Bassett hound a la Roscoe and Flash from The Dukes of Hazzard). This film was released before either Seinfeld of Dukes though. Can't ...

THE MAN FROM HONG KONG

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Original Title : The Man From Hong Kong Year : 1975 Director : Brian Trenchard-Smith , Jimmy Wang Yu Writer : Brian Trenchard-Smith IMDb : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073343/ Genre : Action Synopsis: Special Agent Fang Sing Leng is called in from Hong Kong to Sydney, Australia to interrogate and extradite a Chinese drug dealer, but becomes increasingly involved in a larger criminal network despite protests of the local law enforcement. As far as I can tell, The Man From Hong Kong is Trenchard-Smith's first feature length film, and boy what a fucking doozy of a first film. To be a rookie in the 70s and get to blow shit up like this certainly took some sway somewhere. This film stars Jimmy Wang Yu, who was apparently quite the problem actor. I had heard of his being tough to work with in a review long ago by Cinema Diabolica about his 1976 film The Master of the Flying Guillotine. Yu and Trenchard-Smith had issues on this set as well with who was directing who, but the pairing here...

STUNT ROCK

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Original Title : Stunt Rock Year : 1978 Director : Brian Trenchard-Smith Writer : Paul-Michel Mielche Jr. , Brian Trenchard-Smith IMDb : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078335/ Genre : Action Synopsis: Australian stuntman Grant Page goes to Los Angeles to work on a television series. He uses his spare time to lend his expertise to rock band Sorcery, whose act features duels between the King of the Wizards and the Prince of Darkness, with his cousin playing the Prince. OK, I'm not always a fan of saying there's not much to say about this movie... but... Stunt Rock was certainly not what I expected. Instead of a standard action flick, what we get is sort of a Grant Page highlight show. Trenchard-Smith creates a very barebones story with Grant Page coming to Los Angeles to work as a stuntman on a new television show, meeting a lady there who is writing a story about people making sacrifices for their profession.... or something. Enter Mr. Page who throughout the film tells whatsher...

NINJA vs. NINJA ASSASSIN

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I've heard a lot of you roody-poo candy asses arguing Ninja is better than Ninja Assassin or vice versa Well I'm here to set the record straight. It's pretty much a draw, suckers! How's THAT for taking a controversial, hard lined stance? Wishy-washerman Loaf himself is here to say that maybe perhaps I enjoyed Ninja Assassin a little more for its ridiculousness, but Ninja was still solid and I will root for Scott Adkins until I find out about him torturing puppies or something in the future. Ninja's title is a bit misleading because it largely follows the traditional Hong Kong approach to ninjitsu in having the ninja be mainly a villain as opposed to a hero. None of the acting here is fantastic by any stretch of the imagination, and honestly after seeing Adkins' moves in Undisputed II  (another solid fuckin action flick) recently, I felt like some of the martial arts were a bit tame as well. But the story here was decent and definitely a more traditional marti...

DEATH WISH: A Retrospective

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A.K.A. Falling In and Out of Love With A Vigilante It's possible there may be some mild spoilers in this entry, although I will keep them as mild as possible! As many of you know, I am super inexperienced in genre film watching to this day. While my appetite for trashy cinema may be high, my naivety may outshine it still. Death Wish is one genre staple I was minutely familiar with. Granted, I was a child most likely when I saw it, and it was probably on some local channel on a Saturday night (fuck, those were the days), but there were still parts of the film that brought back memories of sitting cross legged in front of the old wood paneled Zenith. This week I sat down with all five (yes, all five) Death Wish films. I realized a few things while watching them. Most notably: 1) Charles Bronson likes ice cream. and 2) I definitely had not seen any Death Wishes after the first. So for the unknowing, uninitiated , or even uncaring, here's my general thoughts on this classic pentalo...

LADY TERMINATOR

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Original Title : Pembalasan ratu pantai selatan Year : 1988 Director : H. Tjut Djalil Writer : Karr Kruinowz IMDb : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095483/ Genre : Action Synopsis: The spirit of an ancient evil queen posesses the body of a young anthropological student, who then goes on a murderous rampage. When I started watching Lady Terminator, I was concerned that I somehow had obtained the wrong movie. I had heard that it was a ripoff of James Cameron 's The Terminator , but what I was watching was set hundreds of years in the past. There was some sort of sorceress that fucks dudes to death and a hero that pulls a DEADLY EEL OF DOOM out of her vag and turns it into wiggly little knife as she curses his family upon escaping. WTF, right? (And what a douchebag that guy looks like) While this honestly did not feel out of place for an Indonesian horror film, it just was not what I expected. And herein lies my biggest gripe with the film. I suppose I have been spoiled by other Indonesi...