SANCTUARY and FATAL CHASE

Sanctuary (USA. 1997)

Made for TV fluff. In this slimmed down production, Marc Dacascos barely get a chance to show off his moves. Due to budge limitations most fights last a whopping two kicks and a punch. It adopts a rather confusing flashback structure onto a relatively simple story of a secret government assassin organization. For some reason, it features a lot of out of place Suspira-ish multi colored lighting. Set up for a much more interesting “Catholic Sanctioned Killer” sequel that never appeared. Director Tibor Takas (Mansquitto and Ice Spiders!) is up to his usual director-for-hire tricks. He’s a long way from his masterpiece THE GATE.

Fatal Chase (Hong Kong. 1992)

A perfect example of a generic Hong Kong Action film: Characters drop in and out as we follow a free flowing (Does that mean it's arty?) structure that features boring talk, a pointless unfunny comedy scene, painfully dangerous action chaos, followed by MORE boring talking. Repeat until the generic COP VS ROBERS storyline comes to its rousing (if unearned) squib filled climax. Another solid entry to the bargain bin action film library from stuntman/director auteur Phillip Ko. He churned these out in the Phillipine’s on a seemingly bi-weekly basis in the 90’s. Bonus points for featuring a leather clad bad ass midget. The version I have (a VHS rip) dubs every male character in a booming “Smokes four packs a day” gravelly voice. (Even Mr. Wimpy himself Waise Lee gets an air of gravitas!). It’s fun for all the eye popping “He must have died doing that” stunt work, but not really worth seeking out otherwise. I picked this one up because Robin Chou (Mortal Kombat and Red Trousers) starred. Sadly, he doesn’t sport his flowing horse mane of shoulder length hair.

For the last time, I’m not gay.

I think.

Yukari Oshima looks hot kicking ass in this (For the five minutes she's actually on screen)

SEE!

Not gay.

***

Red to Kill (1994) HONG KONG

Hong Kong CAT III films (The equivalent of an NC-17) are usually trashy, moronic and filled with out of place humor. Leave it to Director Billy Tang (Of DR.LAMB fame) to deliver a straight up masterpiece in the genre with RED TO KILL. All the ingredients are in place: A shirtless muscle bound killer who viciously rapes his victims, an apartment building filled with mentally retarded adults and gracious helpings of painful gore. Under Tang's sure handed direction they come together perfectly and deliver sickening mixture of exploitative horror. The blue tinted cinematography lends the proceedings an Argento-ish feel, but the pure depravity brings to mind the sleaze of the grimy 70’s grindhouse cinema. The only thing missing is a whacked out performance by CAT III alumni Anthony Wong and Simon Yam.

You can rent or buy this film at EYESORE CINEMA (801 Queen West, Toronto, Ontario)

Superfights (USA.1996)

An earlier film from the crew that spewed out the enjoyable Blood Moon (Director/Action Choreographer Tony Leung, Writer Keith W. Strandberg, Cinematographer Derek Wan ), Superfights is another helping of the same: Candy colored comic book cinematography, a flat and predictable plot and heaps of creative low budget action. The only difference here is that Bloodmoon had one cardboard, but watchable lead, while Superfights only has nerve grating characters that are acted in a fashion that causes uncontrollably bodily expulsion. The guy playing our ‘innocent’ hero Jack is one of the worst actors I’ve seen in a long time and he’s only topped by the villain (who can barely get his lines out), the female love interest, the hero’s mother, the disturbingly buff female fighter ‘Angel’ and…well…You get the drift. All of the acting is bad. When was the last time a film had a montage set to its custom theme song? (SuperFights! Superfights! SUPERFIGHTS) If you’re in desperate need for some quality-grade action cinema, see Bloodmoon, if you liked it, see Superfights, but don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. I would recommend watching it on mute and making up your own story.

KORKUSUZ- RAMPAGE! (TURKISH RAMBO)

RAMPAGE -Korkusuz(TURKISH RAMBO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AEZJPS4SB4

Welcome to the land of the foreign rip-off! You have heard of the bloated Bollywood (Indian Cinema) copies, but have you suffered through some incredible low budget Turkish monstrosities? RAMPAGE is a film that is stiffly acted, has dull direction, and doesn’t have an original bone in its body. Then why watch it? Well, for the mind boggling straight faced goofiness that’s one display: The cheapest rocket launcher around, unconvincing wall breaking, the marble visage of our literally invincible hero (KNIVES CAN’T CUIT HIM!) It’s not quite as crazy as Turkish Star Wars (Even though it shares the same director) but it does have enough standout scenes to make it a memorable evening in copyright free land. The gang at Dark Maze Cinema (http://www.darkmaze.com/) for picking up this piece of trash cinema and giving it a release it never deserved. Due to copyright issues (The use of Jerry Goldsmith’s score in the original track) they’ve had to re-dub every single line, write their own music and re-create the sound design. The choice of playing it relatively straight and not going the KUNG POW root is admirable, because the film is so silly it really speaks for itself. The epic score and the professionally polished action movie sound effects (The highlight being the rocket launcher of cour) add extra points to the films humor. The DVD comes with a helpful commentary from the founder of Dark Maze and the Sound Designer/Composer and a nice little 20 minute documentary about the film and Turkish cinema in general.

DOUBLE DRAGON (USA. 1994)

Silly. Stupid. Worthless. All of those words can easily apply to this head scratching adaptation of hit 8 bit video game DOUBLE DRAGON. It all takes place in a bizzaro world run by Saturday morning cartoon gangs and a cackling evil millionaire villain (Robert Patrick) that are after the two brother heroes (Marc Dacascos and Scott Wolf). It all involves some murkily explained supernatural medallion that grants invincibility and body hopping powers. If you want a course in overacting and cringe worthy dialogue, this is the place to settle down. The comedy is composed of screaming uncontrollably when something dangerous arises, running away and then defeating them in some heeeeelllaaarious way. Action scenes are nearly non-existent even with the amazing Marc Dacascos (See DRIVE and BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) going to waste once again. As previously stated there’s nothing of real worth here, just silliness that rolls by before your eyes and causes only minor physical pain. It suffers from SUPER MARIO BROS syndrome of making everything WACKY while at the same time frightening (Mario Bros had the ‘effin scary shrunken headed Koopas and Double Dragon has the freakish giant muscle man. Guaranteed to haunt kids dreams!)

EXPLORERS (USA. 1995)

I’m a massive fan of Director Joe Dante's (Gremlins) brand of goofy old school style of filmaking and when he made a picture about Children, Science and Aliens, my interest was peaked. All of those are the building blocks for Dante genius, and it’s a shame that what he delivered has some shining parts, but falls apart the second it leaves the atmosphere. It’s a surprisingly uneventful picture in which a bunch of kids discover a blue alien sphere (through computer science), build a spaceship, and then go out into space. There’s no conflict, no big bad, or any real point. The kids are charming (River Pheonix and Ehthan Hawke) and the world that Dante builds feels real, but there’s really no meat on a story that is forcibly stretched out to an hour and forty six minutes. It wins points for not talking down to its audience, but loses a chunk for feeling like a twist episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

Far Cry - Shakedown (Blue Jeans Cop)

FAR CRY (USA?. 2008)

The world’s most hated director does it again! Far Cry was never much of a story driven game (an amnesiac man fights a bunch of people on an island), but did he really have to add an entire vampire people subplot to make it interesting? The only thing in common this film has with its source material is some font and the fact that the guy wears a Hawaiian shirt. Otherwise, it’s a fairly dull action movie where a German (?) ex-special forces man takes on a bunch of genetically altered humans on an island. Nothing much happens for forty minutes, and when the action heats up all we get are some generic shootouts and punch-up’s tinged with a few nifty gore gags. I miss the old Uwe that would deliver films so bad the entertainment factor jumped tenfold. With Far Cry he just does a casual workman like job and lures the audience into a comfortable slumber.

SHAKEDOWN (USA. 1988)


“Not enough action”. That’s the biggest complaint I have when it comes to my all time favorite genre – THE ACTION FILM! The audience expects it and if the filmmakers don’t deliver, no matter how quick the pace is, people are going to leave disappointed. Blue Jeans Cop is one of those films that really needs 2-3 extra action sequences to liven up a rather straightforward courtroom drama. It’s an even bigger loss because the two action scenes that do appear in the film are fantastic (if completely unmotivated). The plot concerns attorney Ronal Dalton (A surprisingly charming Peter Weller) having to defend a drug dealer who killed a cop he swears was trying to rob him. All of this leads to a big conspiracy of involving a l crooked cops and and Sam Elliot as Weller’s grizzled (Does Elliot play any other role?) as a buddy cop. The two characters have a great repartee, but it feels more like an episode of a long standing television series then a live action film. Director/Writer James Glickenhaus is skilled when the action appears and he does keep the plot moving, but this is nothing more then a thriller that has two action scenes shoehorned in awkwardly. Keep that in mind and you won’t be disappointed.

The city is a dangerous place filled with KUNG FU!

Fear City (USA. 1984)

Director Abbel Ferrera phones in the story of a kung fu serial killer knocking off a bunch of strippers with a tiny little blade. There’s nothing particular wrong with the picture, but there’s nothing real notable about it either. The two lead pimps are pretty dull characters, the stripers get little development before their knocked off, and the serial killer’s martial art hook is barely played up and just ends up being goofily out of place. It’s as if Abel had to his ‘dirty New York film’ quota and pumped this one out till he jumped to the next thing.

Bloodmoon (USA. 1997)

Now that’s how you shoot an exciting martial arts film! You get a talented crew of athletes, a skilled director/action choreographer and you pack your film to the rafters with sequence after sequence of punch ups that feels fresher then the last. While the action in this film is damn exciting (Especially for an American production) the stiff acting, retarded script and merely okay direction (of the non-action bits) lowers everything else on the cinematic scale. Director Tony Leung has worked in Hong Kong for years and he ditches reality and give everything a wire assisted comic book feel. Star Gary Daniels (As the cop with a troubled past. Weighty) is the same stiff board he’s always been (but man can he kick ass!) and lead villain Darren Shalavi knows how to lay down the crazy kicks between his cringe worthy dialogue (“AND NOW THE END GAME HAS BEGUN!”) Make special note of “Should we find him annoying or slightly amusing?” comic relief black sidekick (Played by Chuck Jeffreys) who happens to be a magician? It's refreshing to see everyone do their own fighting, even if the actual dialogue and emoting suffer are gutted in the process.

CONSENSUS: Action! Boredom! Action! Action! Everything is lit like a Argento film! Neat!

Are we back?

Don't throw parties just yet. Film Junkies has not risen from the grave quite yet, but may be experience an evolution of sorts in the next few days. Watch this space and all will be revealed soon enough to everyone patient enough.