THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN (2007)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*

Everyone knows that the 2008 IRON MAN proved to be not only the dark horse that came in first, but the initiator of an entire "Marvel Cinematic Universe." The various animated OAVs that came out before and after the live-action movies didn't make up any sort of consistent universe, and most of them were forgettable, though I found the DOCTOR STRANGE video superior to the Cumberbatch film.

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN was probably completed while the 2008 IRON MAN was finishing up production. But though the scriptwriters probably had access to some or all of the live-action film's storyline, the only strong likeness is that INVINCIBLE duplicates the film's characterization of Tony Stark, prior to his taking up the superhero mantle. Tony, despite being a scientific polymath, is also an irrepressible ladies' man, with INVINCIBLE even suggesting outright sexual intercourse. Also duplicated is the characterization of Tony's secretary Pepper Potts, who loves him and is sardonically jealous of his hookups. But everything else is changed, both from the original comics and the MCU version.

The 1960s comic-book Iron Man sustains injuries while issuing new munitions to American troops in Vietnam. The 2008 adaptation advances the military setting to Afghanistan, but with the same outcome for the hero. In order to deal with both his life-threatening wounds and with his tyrannical captors, Tony invents the armored suit that leads to his becoming Iron Man. But INVINCIBLE avoids the military angle completely, except to state early-on that Stark Industries was a munitions industry under Tony's father Howard but converted to more humanitarian activities thanks to Tony's genius. The sense of the son having exceeded the father is here the root of estrangement between them, whereas the conflicts of the same characters in the live-action series is vague and unsatisfying.

The crucible in which Iron Man is formed does still take place in "The Orient," however. The live-action series never got the character of The Mandarin right, choosing to view him only as a facile Fu Manchu knockoff. Yet to be sure, the comic-book Mandarin didn't fulfill his potential. There was at most the suggestion that the villain represented the tyranny of the pre-industrial world, while his opponent symbolized the rise of rational democracy. Ironically, INVINCIBLE does a better job with the Mandarin character by keeping him largely offstage-- which was actually the case with the prose version of Fu Manchu.         

Tony Stark's rational, scientific view of life is shaken when he uses his tech-genius (with the aid of chief engineer James Rhodes) to unearth the palace of The Mandarin, a mass-murdering emperor from the prehistoric era of China. Tony's archeologists and engineers are challenged by a dissident group, the Jade Dragons, who in part duplicate the function of the Vietnamese troops who captured Comics-Tony. The inventor flies to China, gets near-fatally wounded by the Dragons, and is pressed into their service-- but principally to consign the unearthed palace back to the depths of the earth. One of the Dragons, the beauteous Li Mei, seems willing to help Tony and Rhodes, possibly because she like Tony has had conflicts with a paternal unit. Even she doesn't suspect that the charming genius has long had the idea of Iron Man armor in mind for a long time, and he uses it to escape. However, in contrast to the other versions, Tony gets back to America and faces a frame-up by political schemers-- and then must return to the Orient to banish the evil he unleashed there.

Both the animated action and the dialogue are far better than most such OAVs. As mentioned, the Mandarin is kept mostly offstage, while Iron Man engages in combat with various super-powered pawns of the evil emperor, including a giant dragon given no name in the script, but obviously modeled upon a Marvel Comics monster, name of "Fin Fang Foom." Li Mei's destiny turns out to be implicated with the Mandarin's recrudescence, which follows through on the parallel of Tony's conflicts with his father. To be sure, the being called The Mandarin is only "on stage" for a few minutes, with a handful of lines voiced by Fred Tatasciore. Yet the sense of the villain's pervasive menace is far more compelling, as I said, than in any previous adaptation, and in most of the original comics. Since the two live-action IRON MAN movies that followed the 2008 flick weren't all that great, maybe the MCU would have done better to have emulated the better aspects of INVINCIBLE.        

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (2013)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*                                                                                                                                                   There's so little entertainment in RETALIATION that I had less fun re-watching it (having barely remembered the first viewing) than in concocting the following theory: that these two live-action G.I. JOE feature films recapitulate the unrelated (save by content) history of the MCU phases.                                                                                       

 From what I've read about the making of the 2009 RISE OF COBRA (which appeared one year after the debut of the MCU's breakout hit IRON MAN), the filmmakers didn't originally intend to make a close adaptation of their source material. How those original intentions would have turned out, no one can say, but some insider leaked those plans to the Internet. The makers, who in those days actually wanted to please their audience and thereby make money, reworked their existing script to work in all the usual gang of Cobra-crooks as adversaries for the heroic Joes. RISE is no classic, but it is, like the majority of the MCU's first three phases, generally decent formula-fare. In contrast, RETALIATION is like nearly everything that followed the MCU's Phase Three, stuffed with cynical grandstanding, poorly conceived spectacles, and overconfidence as to the makers' ability to make the customers line up and pay for tickets.                                                                                                       

You might think, for instance, that after the financial success of RISE, no production team would be dumb enough not to copy the essence of both the preceding film and the successful franchise-- said essence being the appeal of seeing America defended by a cadre of gonzo commandos with wacky code-names and oddball gimmicks. True, RISE focused mostly on four of the heroes (Scarlett, Ripcord, Snake Eyes and Duke) and the three main villains (The Baroness, Cobra Commander and Destro). But there were six or seven other Joes contributing to the heroic goings-on, so the sense of the franchise's original intent was preserved. Not so RETALIATION. Channing Tatum's Duke is only in the movie long enough to get killed off, as are various other Joes, thanks to a "first strike" by Zartan, who was left on the loose at the end of RISE. Most of the narrative follows three surviving Joes, none of whom were in the previous film, as they seek a means to retaliate: Flint (DJ Cotrona), Lady Jaye (Adrienne Palicki), and, perhaps most consequentially, Roadblock as played by that 300-pound gorilla Dwayne Johnson. Given how Johnson's history of spotlight-stealing negatively impacted 2022's BLACK ADAM, I think I'm justified in speculating that the script was written to play up Johnson's dubious charms at the box office. Palicki and Cotrona have almost nothing to do, as does Bruce Willis in a throwaway support-role. The other two heroes in the film's ensemble-- Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Jinx (Elodie Yung) -- are not so sidelined, but only because they occupy a separate story-arc, in which they pursue another of Cobra's allies: the elusive Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-Hun).                                               

 Though RETALIATION is poorly paced and only a few spectacles are worth looking at, I will admit that Cobra's evil plot makes more sense than the one in RISE. This time the villains aren't unleashing a superweapon capable of destroying the world they too occupy. They've simply got their disguise-master Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) impersonating the President in order to destroy the Joes and to put Cobra in control of the world. Aside from that Storm Shadow subplot, it's almost entirely Cobra Commander's show, for the master villain leaves his former comrade Destro in prison and the fate of the reformed Baroness is never revealed. The leader does bring a minor henchman out of mothballs, Firefly (Ray Stevenson), but his only function is to have a couple of throwdowns with Johnson's Roadblock. (I almost want to say it's just "Johnson," because this role feels like almost every other part "The Rock" ever essayed.)       

 The only actor well-served by the script is the aforementioned Storm Shadow. The first film set up the quasi-sibling rivalry he shared with Snake Eyes and alluded to his supposed murder of his uncle/mentor, and RETALIATION does at least provide closure for that storyline. One of the few praiseworthy spectacles in the film is a bang-up ninja-battle between Snake and Shadow, concluded only when Jinx renders Shadow unconscious with knockout gas. Since Jinx is said to be Shadow's niece, I assume there was some idea of building up some drama in this conflict, but nothing is done with the subject; she gets a couple of decent fights but on the whole she's as underserved as Palicki and Cotrona. But in both films Lee Byung-Hun projects indomitable ferocity in this potentially cartoonish character, putting Johnson and his "ain't-I-a-cute-asskicker" routine to shame. In any case, though RETALIATION made decent box office, no sequel manifested, possibly because the filmmakers holding the franchise couldn't figure out what to do next. I know simple incompetence is not usually the thing that kills franchises-- certainly the MCU just keeps chugging along despite numerous failures-- but I find it pretty to think so.

  

DEMON FIGHTER KOCHO (1997)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological* 

Here's another one of those one-shot anime OVAs. KOCHO seems to have been released in Japan alongside a couple of live-action movies that same year, all of which adapted a manga of the same name. The manga only endured about two years and is not well known today, so it's likely that both the anime and live-action projects were a quick cash-grab for a franchise winding up in the same year as the videos. As for the American market, it was much easier to place a translated 30-minute anime into video stores than any of the full-fledged serial shows.

Only a couple of translated manga-adventures were available to me online, but they were enough to give me a sense as to how ordinary high-school boy Kosaku gets mixed up with a ditzy girl exorcist named Kocho. These are almost the only continuing characters in the series' first two episodes, but the anime clearly jumps forward in time to introduce two or three other characters, one being Kocho's sister, who competes with the titular heroine for Kosaku's heart. The demons with which Kocho contends are not especially imaginative, so it's quite possible that the anime is not a direct adaptation of any story. The action takes a back seat to sexy fanservice, with Kocho's persona being that of a ditz who's often not aware of her own pulchritudinous charms, but who can also deal out a few hard slaps to any male caught ogling her. The use of traditional Japanese exorcism methods provides the only hint of symbolic complexity here, but I doubt that the full series ever got much better than this offshoot.

       

      

SWORDSMAN (1990)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

I've seen reviews touting this 1990 Tsui Hark film as starting Hong Kong's wuxia craze of the 1990s. Historically, this may well be true; maybe it's the first expensive film of the period to focus on the battles of wuxia practitioners, who can wreak all sorts of magical phenomena with their kung fu. But for me SWORDSMAN is all but indistinguishable from a dozen other chopsockies in which martial masters show off incredible powers-- often in stories that throw far too many characters at the audience.

 In addition, SWORDSMAN is mostly about two or more clans fighting over a prized item: one of those tomes of martial lore with which the possessor can Take Over the Kung Fu World. This unoriginal plot-setup is not that much of a deficit, but to get past that predictability, a kung-fu film needs one or more likable protagonists, with whom to identify even when one can't keep track of all the rest of the cast.

Producer Hark chose to adapt a work by popular novelist Louis Cha, and his original director of choice was the celebrated King Hu, though Hu departed the project after some time and SWORDSMAN had to be finished up by other hands. The change in creative administrators may be responsible for the sponginess of the two main characters, though it might also be a factor stemming from the original novel. Though I'm unlikely to ever read a Cha novel even in translation, I can form some tentative conclusions based on my experience of his works in movies-- such as DRAGON CHRONICLES. Like SWORDSMAN, CHRONICLES offered a lot of wild FX, but barely any characters worth identifying with.

After the Big Book of Kung Fu is stolen from the emperor's library, two young kung-fu students of a particular school travel to meet with a noble named Lam, master of a divergent school. Ling (Sam Hui, apparently best known as a comedy actor) and Kiddo (Michelle Reis, a female masquerading as a young man) eventually find their emissary-duties compromised when Lam involves them in caring for the missing tome. Okay-- but why is Lam's theft of the volume justified, and why do Ling and Kiddo feel honor-bound to help him keep hold of stolen merchandise? Later the duo is attacked by two distinct killers, one sent by the emperor and one from their own school. What greater good do Ling and Kiddo serve by keeping hold of the book for the betterment of Lam's school?

A lot of Chinese kung-fu movies have come up with good takes on the schtick of a female masquerading as a male in the company of men, but SWORDSMAN seems routine at every pass. Even a scene in which Kiddo is bathing and Ling refuses to get out of the room seemed tedious. Later, another female, Blue Phoenix (Fennie Yuen) seems to be competing for Ling's interest, but this too doesn't seem to get started-- though Phoenix has the most noteworthy wuxia stunt, somehow projecting snakes out of her gown-sleeves. The various kung-fu magicks lacked panache, and I've frankly seen more interesting effects in much cheaper chopsockies. 

I saw this over 20 years ago and remembered nothing about it, but I must admit that the same is true of the purportedly superior sequel SWORDMAN II, which used the same characters but kept almost none of the actors from the original film.       

PLANET OF THE VAMPIRE WOMEN (2011)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

Imagine that in the sleaziest era of Roger Corman's career-- I'll say the eighties, just for fun-- someone gave Corman, free and clear, the script to Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES. Of course Corman would monetize the gift by making his own version of PLANET, with not only vampires but lots of tits and blood, and a few scenes swiped from his 1981 New World messterpiece, GALAXY OF TERROR.

That's what writer-director Darin Wood put together with PLANET OF THE VAMPIRE WOMEN, with numerous STAR TREK in-jokes as well. Surprisingly, I liked this goofy thing despite its extremely derivative nature. It's crap, but it's lively crap, and the quantity of cute actresses willing to provide upper-body nudity didn't hurt.

Quick summary: a crew of colorful space-pirates led by Capt, Richards (Paquita Estrada) raid a mammoth space-mall and escape with their booty. Space cop Falco in his own ship pursues the pirate craft, so Richards steers her ship onto a mysterious forbidden planet. Richards pays for her rashness, for some sort of energy-beings infect her, and she becomes a fanged space-vampire. She kills a couple of her crewmates and sabotages the ship. After she flees, the other pirates do recon on the planet. They find it's inhabited by such weird creatures as flying stinger-bugs and bipedal boar-people. Cop Falco also lands on the planet, but though he wants to arrest the pirates, he soon realizes that the vampire is creating more creatures like herself and thus is the greater cosmic danger. The cop and the pirates-- those don't get vampirized-- make a truce to get away in his ship, which proves extremely necessary because there's an ancient computer system on the planet that comes alive, attempting to destroy the whole planet to keep the vampire beings from escaping. However, Richards and her allies escape in the other ship and head for the space-mall, where they begin randomly killing people. The cop and the pirates join forces to save the day, but alas-- saving the day is not in the cards.

In addition to boobs and blood, there's a lot of fighting in the film, and though none of it is well-done, Wood and his costumers make the whole thing look super-colorful, not unlike the day-glo look of Sixties Batman. It's such a pleasure to see a cheapo SF-film that looks fairly pleasing to the senses-- even not counting the nudity--that I give PLANET extra mythicity points just for getting across the look of a PLAYBOY style future full of cheerful degeneracy. And besides-- who can hate a movie that shows space vampires shooting lightning from their eyes?             

REBIRTH OF MOTHRA II (1997)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological,metaphysical*

Though the same writers worked on both REBIRTH I and II, there's a much better integration in II's script between all the disparte elements-- the two good Elias and their monstrous protector Mothra, vengeful Belvera and her desire to eliminate humankind, humanity's short-sighted abuse of the planet, an ancient civilization that unleashed a demon-creature (albeit out of good intentions), and happily, a new set of kids to be the viewpoint characters. There are practically no human adults in the story except a couple of fishermen whom Belvera brainwashes into becoming her flunkies.

I liked this set of kids because the script gives them a few scenes at school, enabling them to take on a modicum of personality. Grade school boys Yoji and Kohei are mischief-making scamps, and they get in trouble with the school authorities when their female classmate Shiori rats on them. This sets up a brief conflict in which the boys try to get even with their betrayer. However, Shiori happens to come across a weird little furball called Ghogo, and then all three kids get dragged into the hunt for an arcane treasure by the three Elias fairies. None of the fairy-girls know exactly what the treasure is, except that it can ward off a new monster-menace. Said menace is Dagahra, who plagues the already polluted oceans with dangerous starfish-creatures, the "Barem," whom Dagahra spawns from its own reptilian body.

Moll, Lora and the three kids journey to the area where the city of Nilakanai sank beneath the waves. More covertly, Belvera and her henchmen show up in the area as well. Dagahra, originally designed by the Nilakanaians to consume pollution, surfaces from the ocean and tries to attack the Elias. The fairies' protector Mothra flies in and battles the reptile creature, almost overcoming the beast. However, Dagahra unleashes the parasitic Barem onto the kindly moth, and drains Mothra's energies. Just then, the lost city of Nilakanai rises from the waves, making possible for Mothra to land on the island. Further, the island's defenses repel Dagahra, allowing both of the competing contigents to land as well.

After some minor scuffles between the kids and the mesmerized fishermen, the last surviving Nilakanaian, Princess Yuna, rises from some centuries-long sleep. Yuna challenges the two groups as to why either of them should possess Nilakanai's treasure. Not surprisinigly, Yuna finds in favor of the group linked to the human kids, who are "the hope of the future" or something like that. The treasure turns out to be Furball Ghogo, who holds the key to re-energizing Mothra so that the giant arthropod can rise again and defeat the destructive monster. Nilakanai returns beneath the waves with the body of Daghara and his spawn, and Belvera escapes for yet another sally in the third film.             

REBIRTH I seemed a little predictable re its visuals, but I liked Number Two's combination of traditional models, suitmation, and animated energy-effects as much as any of the best seen in Toho's Golden Age. REBIRTH II is a rare example of a sequel outpacing the original.  

HONOR ROLL #294

 DAGAHRA, the monster with a name like a gargle, gives Mothra a good tussle.

PAQUITA ESTRADA gets her space-vamp thing on.

A wandering swordsman SAM HUI; a thing of shreds and patches.

KOCHO does more breast-baring than demon-fighting.
 

The only good thing about the second Joe flick is that it gave LEE BYUNG-HUN a chance to shine again as Storm Shadow.

 How iron-ic that the Armored Avengers' most famous foe, THE MANDARIN, should get his best turn in an Iron Man cartoon? 

SANTO VS. LAS LOBAS (1976)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Researchers better than me have speculated that this choppy film, boasting two directors, may have been started as early as 1972, abandoned for a while, and then finished up in 1976. This doesn't sound like the usual assembly-line production for other entries in the long-running Santo series. But then, LOBAS is barely like any other Santo film I've seen.

Of the two directors, Jaime Pons also has credits for both writing and executive production for the film. and one reviewer even speculates that Pons may have a minor acting role in the film's early sections. It seems axiomatic that someone decided to make a moody werewolf film with Santo in it, in contrast to the many more action-oriented movies in which the masked wrestler contended with less formidable fiends. I'd also say that the first half is the better organized of the two.

LOBAS begins with what proves to be its best scene. In a mundane car park, a young blonde woman (Erika Carlsson) is accosted by an older female. The old woman, name of Luba, says that her time is at an end and that the blonde must become the new Luba. Possibly using magical persuasion, Old Luba compels New Luba to stab her to death. Then, out of the shadows spring various shaggy women, who proceed to feast on Dead Luba. From then on, New Luba is totally a monster through and through, and she makes a beeline for Santo, the Silver Mask, to prevent his interference with the wolf-cult's plans.

  Luba approaches Santo in his dressing-room at a wrestling-ring, trying without success to seduce the hero. After she leaves, a werewolf-hunter tries to convince Santo to oppose the werewolf-cult. This version of Santo has apparently never met any monsters before, for he scoffs at the possibility of lycanthropes. However, while Luba later ambushes and kills the werewolf-hunter, in his room Santo is attacked by what is supposed to be a wolf (though it's clearly a dog). Santo's bitten and this convinces him to investigate further. He goes looking for another of the hunter's allies, but while they talk, a young woman in a swimming-pool signals that she's having trouble. The hunter-guy goes to her rescue, but it's another ambush, for she almost drowns the fellow, obliging the luchador to rescue him. Hunter-guy also informs Santo that if he doesn't kill off the leader of the werewolf cult by the time of the Red Moon, the wrestler will become a lycanthrope as well.

Everything in the first half suggests that Luba, repeatedly called the Queen of Werewolves, will bring about the coming apocalypse, in which werewolves destroy humanity. However, Luba is killed, so Santo needs a new Big Bad. He leaves the big city for a country town where the brother of the original hunter lives, and learns that there's a Werewolf King, name of Licar, who's going to bring about the chaos. After a lot of running battles with wolves and wolf-people, and a few scenes of werewolves trying to usurp regular mortals as Young Luba was possessed, Santo finally slays the King and wins his own freedom.

The makeup in LOBAS is the weakest element, but nevertheless both directors created a lot of forbidding scenes that feel more like a regular horror-flick than a masked wrestler movie. If the hero were just a strong guy without the charisma of Santo. I might have labeled LOBAS a horror-drama.   

TOTAL FORCE (1996)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

It's a terrible injustice that IMDB reviewers compared Steven Kaman, the writer-director of TOTAL FORCE, with Ed Wood-- an injustice, that is, to Ed Wood.

Wood had a long list of failings, without a doubt. But one thing I like about Wood is that in most (though not all) of his cinematic efforts, I can keep track of his major characters. I may not care that much about them, but watching PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, I'm never in doubt as to which character is the pilot who witnesses a UFO, and which one is the balmy cop who scratches his own head with his service revolver.

TOTAL FORCE presents the viewer with an extremely standard adventure-scenario: a mad scientist (Richard Lynch) invents a laser beam that can turn enemy soldiers into rampaging zombies that, in theory, will attack their own allies. When the scientist turns his weapon to the purpose of blackmail, it's logical enough that the government unleashes some special-forces group to take out the threat. And all that a moderately competent filmmaker has to do is to introduce the roster of heroes with whom the audience is supposed to identify.

But who are the good guys in the paramilitary group "Total Force?" Well, I THINK the characters played by Timothy Bottoms and Calista (daughter of David) Carradine are in the main group. But for some obscure reason, Kanam also introduces some other "terrorist" group headed by Frank Stallone, with whom Total Force has to collaborate. There's some vague past relationship between the Bottoms and Stallone characters, but Kanam shows zero ability to make this background even halfway interesting. Predictably, Carradine is there to provide some of the kung-fu action for which her dad became famous. But there are also three other kung-fu girls running around, billed on IMDB as "fighting hostesses" 1.2, and 3. Who do they work for, the mad scientist? Or for the Stallone character? Kanam can't be bothered to spell things out, for he's too busy setting up a lot of boring battle-scenes in some static warehouse locale.

One or two fight scenes are all that keep FORCE from being totally worthless.

VIOLENCE JACK (1986, 1988, 1990)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

If people say you can’t do something, then you want to do it even more. Things that are considered forbidden, means other people aren’t doing them yet! -- Go Nagai

From what spotty English-language reviews I found online, I don't get a sense that all, if any, of these three OVAs were totally faithful to Go Nagai's manga VIOLENCE JACK. But I have no doubt that they had total fidelity to Nagai's aesthetic of transgressive sex and violence. 

Before watching these productions, I read a few months' worth of the manga online, just to get a sense of its parameters, and I got the sense that it's a fairly loose concept. Such looseness was probably ideal for an OAV series, in that it wouldn't be expected to adapt an accepted continuity, and to date the original JACK material has proved too hardcore for even the Japanese to adapt fully into an anime series. In addition to being far more violent than even a lot of Nagai's other works, JACK is alleged to be the first manga/anime to delve into the post-apoc disaster genre-- which had been around a long time but was not usually melded with the genre of high-octane adventure. (Roger Zelazny's DAMNATION ALLEY was one predecessor.)  But this mainly allowed the protagonist-- a ten-foot-tall giant capable of brutal retaliation to protect the innocent-- to wander from situation to situation as he pleased. So I don't believe the original manga followed a strict continuity, and neither do the OVAs.

       

HAREM BOMBER was the first-released OVA in Japan, but it doesn't make any concessions regarding introducing Jack, and it only provides a sketchy backstory for its world. It all takes place in the Kanto region of Japan, which was so devastated by a meteor strike that it became a pocket world of ravaged human cliques. What happened to the rest of Japan, or the rest of the world? You'll never learn from the anime. As in many later genre-pieces, roving gangs of plunderers comprise the only authority, and the most powerful gang-leader is a warlord, Slum King, who comes into conflict with Jack. The two fight a bit, get separated, and the rest of the film concerns Jack protecting a young couple from the motorbike-riding looters. Slum King steals women to sell to sex slave-rings, and he's an equal opportunity employer, given that he has a whip-wielding lesbian henchwoman who sorts out the new acquisitions. Since Nagai probably intended to have some more climactic clash between the hero and Slum King down the line, the story's big fight concentrates on Jack vanquishing one of the warlord's henchmen, the titular Harem Bomber. In a twist of expectations, the girl lives and the boy dies, and there's a fuzzy reference to some Nagai concept about Jack has some sort of link to an ethereal bird-creature.

EVIL TOWN, the second OVA, feels more like an intro to Jack. A huge section of a Kanto city is swallowed by an earthquake, with the result that several humans are confined to the sunken area, unable to get back to the surface. The survivors break into three groups-- A, B and C-- and A's citizens are the ones who unearth Jack from a pile of rubble, where he's apparently been comatose. Jack at first tells the A-guys that he has no name but then dubs himself "Violence Jack" because he happens to have a huge jackknife with him. Though at first the taciturn hero defends the A-group from the freakish and malevolent denizens of the B-group, eventually Jack turns on both when he learns that the C-group is totally made up of women who have been abused and preyed upon by both groups. Though some of the women can fight-- particularly one muscular babe-- Jack defends them and makes it possible for them to return to the surface. TOWN seems to state a key tenet of Nagai's creative philosophy: that the "freaks" are not intrinsically less moral than the "straights," given that the latter group is willing to descend into rapine at the drop of a hat. TOWN is unquestionably the most extreme of the three OVAs, barraging the viewer with scenes of nudity, rape, bloody slaughter, cannibalism and even a little necrophilia.

HELL'S WIND, as well as being the name of a predacious gang of bikers, is the weakest of the OVAs. The gang menaces a small town seeking to get back to normal civilization, but the bikers, who report to the warlord Slum King, continually prey on the innocents. Long before Jack makes the scene, Hell's Wind assaults a young couple, killing the man and raping the woman, one Jun. She trains herself to become an Action Girl so that she can take revenge, but Jack more or less saves her the trouble, so that Jun doesn't have a satisfactory arc. Jack, though never demonstrative, seems to have a special liking for a young boy, and based on what little I read of the manga, I think that the two characters were intertwined in some way, though this never becomes explicit.

EVIL TOWN has the strongest sociological motif, implying that when men and women are confined together in a figurative prison with no outside contact, the men will become inveterate rapists. But though this is an intriguing idea, it's just a side-dish to the main course, which is loads and loads of sex and violence.

                       

SNOW MONSTER VS. ICE SHARK (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

I don't get the sense that the SYFY channel, whatever its status these days, produces as many giant-beast films as it used to. However, I've been seeing more of them on streaming with Asian names in the billing, so I gather one or more Chinese studios have moved in to make up the deficit.

And just like the SYFY monster-flicks, this one, SNOW MONSTER VS ICE SHARK, is just as bereft of entertainment value as most of the American offerings. Actors who may or may not be talented are stuck reciting bland dialogue. One partial online review asserts that the movie was originally just called SNOW MONSTER, which was more accurate since SM is basically a routine emulation of KING KONG, but with a somewhat larger Abominable Snowman, albeit one with atypical goat-horns.

A fanatical Chinese scientist. name of Lin, sends an expedition into some snowy terrain-- the Arctic, possibly-- in search of a fabled snow monster. The expedition is headed by Lin's own niece Xiaoquin, but all members of the party go missing when a giant creature attacks them.

The government funding the project promptly sends an all-male task force to find the lost scientists, and once the soldiers are there, they stumble around for about half an hour before finally meeting a giant monster. Yet it's not the Snow Monster, but a predacious Ice Shark, leaping out of the water beneath the frozen ice. However, since the shark can't be allowed to take out all the heroes, the Snow Monster shows up and easily defeats the fish (which is nowhere near the snowman's size) by grabbing its tail and slamming it against a mountain. So much for the "vs." promised by the title-makers.

The soldiers are then taken prisoner by some snow-dwelling tribal humans who worship the Snow Monster. But as in more than one KONG remake, the natives and their monster are both benign, and the soldiers encounter at least one of the scientists they sought, Xiaoquin. So no more reason for fighting, right? Wrong; Uncle Lin is a corrupt dirtbag who brings in a lot more soldiers, and even a plane with a sonic weapon, in order to kill the Monster and harvest its genes for-- something or other. 

As in most of the SYFY monster-flicks, there's a lot of limited CGI fighting by the big critter, and he has a kung-fu priestess (Li Ruoxi) who provides most of the human-to-human conflict. Uncle Lin and his forces (were they government-controlled?) are wiped out, the tribe gets to keep its god-monster, and all the good people live and go home.

I will say the production values for this looked a little better than most of the SYFY items this genre, and though there's not a big monster-battle at least it is a valid monster-mashup. But those are the only merits of this forgettable bit of tripe.        

SWORDSMAN II (1992)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

It's a minor puzzle to me that the 1990 Swordsman is so mediocre next to its sequel. They used the same characters (though barely any of the same actors) and the same source material. Two of the credited directors for S2, Tsui Hark and Ching Sui-Ting, had forged major pathways for Hong Kong cinema of the late eighties, particularly with the stylish, wonder-filled CHINESE GHOST STORY trilogy. I mentioned that the 1990 film had some mixed backstage history, in that original director King Hu departed the project, but why weren't Hark and Ching able to pull the 1990 film together? 

Whatever the reasons for the first film's failures, S2 finds an admirable way to provide some dramatic compass for the movie, even though this movie like S1 still focuses upon the often-confusing interplay between various kung-fu clans. During the Ming dynasty the generals of a Japanese militia, expelled from their own country, land in China and conspire to usurp the rule of the Emperor. These invaders, at least some of whom are ninjas, join forces with a kung-fu clan seen in the first film, the Sun Moon Clan. This alliance is made possible when the "good" masters of the Clan, one of whom is Ren Yingying (Rosamund Kwan), get expelled by a new master, Invincible Dawn (Brigitte Lin). Though Dawn is male and speaks with a deep voice, he underwent one of those many mystical transformations possible in wuxia movies, becoming female in terms of outward appearance-- though only his courtiers know his true nature. 

After this conspiracy is detailed, the script focuses upon the same two main characters of the first film, Ling (Jet Li) and Kiddo (Michelle Reis). Though both are still young albeit skilled members of the Hua sect, they're thinking about ditching the constant strife of the martial arts world. Kiddo, secretly in love with Ling, wishes that he could see her as a woman, though I have no idea why she constantly runs around in men's attire in the first place. Ling for his part has some romantic attachment to the aforementioned Ren. I confess I barely remember Ren from the first film, but she's a more interesting character this time, having some fun badinage with her serving-woman Blue Phoenix (Fennie Yuen, returning from the 1990 film). 

The assault of Dawn's forces on Ren's Sun Moon court provides one of the film's most memorable scenes, as ninjas ride into battle on their own flying nunchakus and toss scorpions at the guardians, who in turn toss snakes back at the invaders. Ren has to flee. Slightly later, Ling and Kiddo show up at the Hua pavilion and almost get into a fatal fight with their own young colleagues. Once they recognize one another, the martial artists-- all of whom plan to foreswear the martial life-- nevertheless enjoy their old camaraderie, though Kiddo finds herself not embracing being "one of the boys" so much. The youths all get a false message that Ren is being held by Dawn's forces, so they attempt to rescue her, only to get directed to the real location of the exiled Sun Moon luminaries. 

Somewhat later Ling makes a solo assault on Dawn's stronghold, but when he meets the "master," he mistakes him for a female prisoner and tries to shield Dawn from his own guards. Ling apparently falls for Dawn, who remains silent to conceal her deep voice. (Later the evil martial master learns how to modulate his voice into a feminine register, allowing Brigitte Lin to use her own speech.) Later, during a fractious encounter with Woxing, the father of Ren-- who's secretly colluding with Dawn-- Ling refuses to marry Ren, clearly breaking her heart (but giving Kiddo new hope).

The final battle shows the original Sun Moon acolytes and their Hua allies taking on Dawn's forces, and this results in Dawn's apparent death (though Lin returns as the character in the final sequel). In a nice if acrimonious scene between Ling and Woxing, Woxing mocks the younger man's naivete, saying it's impossible to really leave the martial world. "As long as there are people, there will be grievances. Where there are grievances, there is the martial arts world." I found that such realistic assessments of the Nature of Man acted as a pleasing counterpoint to the many wild wuxia wonders--- killing opponents with thrown needles, uprooting trees when opponents hide inside them. Additionally, though often I think that "queer theory" proponents overstate the significance of male characters masquerading as women, or even transforming magically into women, here t Ahe screenwriters might've had some "genderfluid" ideas going on in their conception of Dawn, though it should be noted that he is still an unregenerate villain as a woman.  At the end of the film, Ling and Kiddo depart the Sun Moon Sect and don't return for the sequel. This may imply that Kiddo's constancy may finally be reciprocated once they leave behind the world of senseless strife.                   

XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Maybe I was just in the mood for near-mindless action, but I enjoyed this retread more than either of the first two films. My snap judgment is that I enjoyed the directorial moxie of DJ Caruso, who'd done a couple of previous high-ticket thrillers before this, but who's not exactly known as an action-guy.

Both of the previous films involved marvelous technology kept somewhat on the margins. CAGE foregrounds a major tech-threat involving "Pandora's Box," a device that can cause US satellites to crash to Earth like ballistic missiles. The heroes themselves don't use many gadgets themselves, except for a pair of briefly-seen "strength gloves" with which one can punch through steel. It's possible that in reviving the franchise the producers decided they would go full-bore with the "James Bond As Science Fiction" trope.  

Xander Cage, said to have been knocked off in the second franchise-movie, is really alive and off the grid, not wanting to get drawn into further espionage games. However, the Pandora's Box device is stolen by a bunch of extreme-sports agents, and one of those crashing satellites apparently kills Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson), the former head of the XXX program. The spy-chief in charge (Toni Collette) figures out that Cage is still alive and coaxes him into using his extreme-sports skills in the service of Good, even if he doesn't believe that the government is a good in itself. "It's all just rebels and tyrants," Cage tells the chief. Her response of "which are you" somehow gets him to sign up. She tries to give him a team of Marines for his support-team and Cage kicks them to the curb, selecting his own backup.

Understandably, none of the secondary players are as charismatic as Diesel's Cage, and the same is true as the enemy-team, with the possible exception of the other team's Really Hot Girl, Serena (Deepika Padukone). I'll give away one of the film's reveals by noting that the other team is also an XXX team that had been recruited by the maybe-not-dead Gibbons, and so you have another example of different government agents getting pitted against one another. The identity of the villain who has the deadly device is only a minor twist, but just when you think all is well-- it's time for another spyjinks-doublecross! Also, if anyone was missing Ice Cube's XXX 2.0 from the second movie, he comes in at the end, making this another crossover-movie.

The dialogue generally counterpoints the action: airy and light and thus matching Diesel's encore performance. Padukone and Ruby Rose (as a sniper) provide some femme-fight action, while Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa furnish representation on the XY side. Nina Dobrev as a non-combatant agent drawn into the chaos provides some humorous moments. The flick was a success, and thus I'm surprised that no further installments have appeared as yet.   
       

HONOR ROLL #293

 XXX marked the spot for DEEPIKA PADUKONE.

MICHELLE REIS gets a happier ending than the hero of the next movie in the series.

"Nobody cry when THE SNOW MONSTER die."

 

 If you think you know VIOLENCE, you don't know JACK.

TIMOTHY BOTTOMS hit rock-bottom with this dud.

Not Santo's usual monster mash, thanks partly to ERIKA CARLSSON.