Close Escape (1989)

Close Escape (1989)
Chinese Title: 飛越危牆
Translation: Leaping Over Dangerous Walls

Starring: Aaron Kwok, Max Mok, Michael Miu Kiu-Wai, Charine Chan Ka-Ling, Dick Wei, Yukari Oshima, Chan Chik-Wai, Albert Cheung Miu-Hau, Pomson Shi
Director: Chow Jan-Wing
Action Director: Phillip Kwok

Although nominally considered a Girls n’ Guns film because of the presence of Yukari Oshima in the cast, this is actually a more male-centric crime thriller with Oshima showing up in a supporting role. She delivers the film’s second best fighting performance, with top honors going to Dick Wei, whose speed and power were legendary during the heyday of his career.

Max Mox plays Lam Wai-Leung, a fencing student who has dreams of going abroad to study. Unfortunately, he is not all that well off in terms of money and his brother, a widower named Wai-Tung (Michael Miu, of Fatal Termination and The Fortune Code) isn’t much better. Wai-Tung lost a lot of money on the Stock Market in recent years and these days only has his apartment and a second property, a bungalow that he shared with his deceased wife (and his one major memory of her). The two men talk of selling it to finance Wai-Leung’s trip, but Wai-Tung has other ideas.

Another person who was hit by bad Stock Market decisions is a suave businessman named Chiu Ying-Kau (Dick Wei, of Project A and Yes, Madam!). Chiu, however, is the unscrupulous sort whose shift into crime was almost a given after legitimate investing went south. His current racket is diamonds, which involves buying diamonds and selling them to wealthier collectors for a small profit. Although, like many criminals in these movies, he is always looking for a way to get out of paying, which is where Wai-Tung comes in. Wai-Tung rigs the hotel’s AV system to fill the seller/buyers’ room with smoke and then breaks in and steals the diamonds.

Unfortunately, the criminal who betrays his vendor’s trust will ultimately betray the hired help he needed to swindle the former in the first place. When Leung Wai-Tung meets up with Chiu Ying-Kau the next night to hand over the diamonds, Chiu has him ambushed and killed on his way home. The murder is witnessed by both his brother and his brother’s best friend, Sgt. Ben Kwok (Aaron Kwok, of Divergence and The Storm Riders) of the Hong Kong Royal Police. Ben identifies one of the killers, Big Head Man (Albert Cheung), whom Ben’s colleague Uncle Kwut (Chan Chik-Wai, of Dragon Strikes and Return to Action) identifies as being one of Chiu’s men.

Much to Chiu Ying-Kau’s dismay, the diamonds that Lam Wai-Tung gave him were fake, a sort of guarantee on for his life (or a life insurance policy for his brother). Chiu sends his men to trash the Lam residence (and murder their dog) in search of the diamonds. When that doesn’t work, they kidnap Wai-Leung and try to torture the information out of him. When that also doesn’t produce results, Chiu murders Big Head Man—the police were already snooping around about him—and frames Lam Wai-Leung for it. He flees and is hit by a car driven by a Japanese reporter, Miko (Yukari Oshima, of A Book of Heroes and Ultracop 2000). Wai-Leung takes her hostage (he still has the gun that Chiu left in his hands) and forces her to go to his bungalow while he recovers and hides from the police. And maybe, just maybe, that may be where Chiu left the diamonds…

Although Close Escape’s plot is perfectly serviceable for a low-budget 80s/early 90s action flick, the film does suffer from a paucity of action, especially in the draggy middle act. There is a period of 30-40 minutes where Wai-Leung is convalescing in his brother’s bungalow and Sgt. Kwok is going above the law and observing Chiu, whom he knows has framed Wai-Leung. This section of the film may test any viewer’s patience.

It does start to pick up in the last half hour or so, starting with a fight between Yukari Oshima and chopsockey veteran Pomson Shi (Snake in the Monkey’s Shadow), who plays Chiu’s lead enforcer. There is an assassination attempt by Wai-Leung on Chiu, which leads to some fighting. And then there is the final fight in the cramped bungalow, where Yukari Oshima throws down with Dick Wei while Aaron Kwok and Max Mok team up against Pomson (what an interesting Anglican name). There is some good martial arts on display and that finale is very brutal and vicious. I would even venture to nominate this for Phillip Kwok’s best choreographed martial arts sequence of his post-Venom Mob career.

Aaron Kwok and Max Mok do well with the choreography, but it is really Yukari Oshima and Dick Wei who shine. Dick Wei, a Taekwondo expert, was never the flashiest of the kickers, especially given his particular style. But what Dick could do is the basics with speed, precision and ferocity. His roundhouse, side, and spin kicks look and feel like they hurt—oftentimes because they actually did. Yukari Oshima looks as good as ever, even though she only gets two fight sequences. We get to see her perform an “over-the-shoulder” kick and a scorpion kick, which is great.

The two are well matched, even though the script foregoes the usual HK action approach of “a sufficiently-trained woman is just as good as an equally-trained man” (which us fans can easily suspend our disbelief on) and goes for something a little more realistic: if two individuals, a man and a woman, have about equal training and skills in the absolute sense, the man will stay at the advantage based on his musculature and body structure. Dick Wei did it in Angel Enforcers and he does it again here.

Zeiram (1991)

Zeiram (1991)
Aka: Zeram

Starring: Yuko Moriyama, Kunihiro Ida, Yukijiro Hotaru, Masakazu Handa, Mizuho Yoshido
Director: Keita Amemiya
Action Director: Mitsuo Abe
Special FX Director: Hajime Matsumoto, Hiroshi Onodera

This one of those films that I caught on TV at the tail-end and wondered just what it was I was watching. It was cable TV back in the mid-1990s when I was channel surfing and happened upon a Japanese movie I was unfamiliar with (despite being a huge Godzilla fan at the time) and watched the last ten or fifteen minutes, which was full of action and monsters. A year or so later, I came across it again, probably on the Sci-Fi Channel (back when it was still cool) and watched all of it. It was neat. Then, when the Sci-Fi Channel did their Saturday Anime cycle, I noticed that the anime adaptation of this movie was on and taped it (over the course of two Saturdays). It is one of my favorite animes of all time. I eventually got this movie (and its sequel) on VHS from Video Daikaiju near the end of the 1990s (or early 2000s).

The movie opens with some high contrast black-and-white photography of a strange, mushroom-headed being walking through a corridor, viciously slaughtering all the soldiers standing in its way. Enter: Zeiram.

Switch to our Earth, where we meet our two main male protagonists: Kamiya (Yukijiro Hotaru, Gamera, Guardian of the Universe and Deep Sea Monster Reigo) and Teppei (Kunihiro Ida, of Weather Girl and Moon Over Tao). Both men work for an electronics company and seem to specialize mainly in equipment repairs. They’re working on a Sunday, which both men resent for differing reasons: Kamiya has scored high on his latest race bet and wants to celebrate with his friends; Teppei has a date with one of his female co-workers (whom we’ll never meet). Their last job of the day is to investigate a claim of someone stealing power from the grid. I would think that would be the job for the power company and not an electronics company, but maybe it’s a Japanese thing.

They show up at the apartment in question, which is inhabited by a mysterious woman named Iria (Yuko Moriyama, of Kunoichi Lady Ninja and Tokyo Raiders) and her talking computer, Bob (voiced by Masakazu Handa). Before our heroes’ arrival, we had met Iria and Bob, who were talking about setting up “the Zone” and earning money from their latest job. Yes, they are intergalactic bounty hunters and their next target is Zeiram, whom we saw in the opening scene. “The Zone” refers to a temporary pocket dimension which can mimic the surrounding area up to a certain radius and thus can be used to carry out jobs without endangering the locals. Zeiram is on its way to Earth and Iria wants to capture him. So, she creates a version of the Zone to resemble to the industrial zone of Tokyo and sets up a portal for Zeiram’s travel pod to land directly in it. Unfortunately, when Kamiya and Teppei show up to find out why she’s stealing power—we learn that the Earth has been evaluated as being naturally unfriendly and uncooperative to outsiders from space (even friendly ones), so she’s working on the sly—they are accidentally transported into the Zone. That means that Iria will have to work twice as hard to fight Zeiram and protect the two humans (the dialog suggests that she and Bob will lose their bounty hunter license if any of the locals dies on the job, probably something about the “prime directive”).

From there on out, we have martial arts battles with monsters, gunplay and explosions, lots of slimy special effects (Zeiram can create little monsters from the DNA of other organisms it has assimilated), more gunplay and fighting, and even a scene of Teppei eating a space cockroach. At one point, Iria is transported out of the Zone and has to direct Teppei and Kamiya while she fixes the transporter. And Zeiram is not just powerful, he has several different forms he takes on whenever it looks like the humans are going to defeat him.

Zeiram is a highly entertaining Tokusatsu film from Keita Amemiya, an artist an effects man who became a director of some renown in Japan. This is one of his earlier films and he shows a good eye for monster designs and action sequences. These days, Amemiya is probably most well known for his work on the “Garo” TV series/franchise, which is sort of a more adult-oriented Tokusatsu series. He also directed Mechanical Violator Hakaider and Cyber Ninja, the latter of which was available to rent at places like Blockbuster Video back in the 1990s. He also directed an episode of “Dinosaur Squadron Zyuranger,” which corresponds with the first season of the “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” (specifically the episode with the Terror Toad villain).

The movie takes a little while to get going, but once the characters enter the Zone, the pace picks up considerably. My main complaint is the interval in which Iria is temporarily trapped outside the Zone, leaving our clumsy heroes to fend for themselves. It’s a good way of upping the ante and the stakes, since the two men have no skills and have to improvise to not die, but Yuko Moriyama is so compelling as Iria that watching her just hang around doing nothing is a bit of a letdown. Thankfully, she eventually finds her way back into the film, which sets up a triple-climax for the movie. And director Amemiya is really good at drawing out the suspense and upping the stakes so that deliverance really comes at the last possible second.

Most people will never forget the design of Zeiram, with its hulking green body, mushroom-shaped head, and a tiny, white, humanoid face in its head that can extend, much like the secondary mouth of the Xenomorph. Zeiram can engage in hand-to-hand combat, wield a gun, and produce clones of its victims to use as his minions. The effects are attributed to Hajime Matsumoto and Hiroshi Onodera. The former is best known for his work on Gamera: Guardian of the Universe and later Godzilla-Mothra-King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack and Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla. Onodera, on the other hand, worked on the FX teams for all of the Heisei Godzilla and Mothra movies, plus some of the early 2000s Ultraman movies. Their job is to give life to Keito Amemiya’s monster designs, which they do handily, mixing rod puppets, man-in-suit techniques, and even some stop motion animation.

The martial arts is a little limited, and its clear that Yuko Moriyama is doubled for the flashier moves. Japanese cinema was not the place to turn to for quality martial arts in the 1990s, but watching a beautiful woman like Moriyama (and her stunt double) karate-kicking a giant, four-legged stop-motion skeleton is just the epitome of entertainment.

 

Brave Young Girls (1990)

Brave Brave Young Girls (1990)
Aka: Blood Sisters
Chinese Title: 黑海霸王花
Translation: Black Sea Queen Flower

Starring: Yukari Oshima, Margaret Lee Din-Long, Jo Jo Ngan Lai-Yue, Ha Chi-Chun, Shing Fui-On, Leung Kar-Yan, Pak Yan, Chan Pooi-Kei, Kara Hui Ying-Hung
Director: Luk Bong
Action Director: Chiang Tao

Brave Young Girls is a lesser-known entry in both the Girls n’ Guns genre and Yukari Oshima’s filmography. It is notable as the final film of director Luk Bong, who had been in the director’s chair since the early 1950s. Luk Bong’s wasn’t particularly distinguished among fans, with his notable martial arts films being Blind Fist of Bruce and Rocky’s Love Affairs, of which he was producer. The film is more of a(n) (unfocused) melodrama, revolving around three girls who are more or less compelled to enter the prostitution business.

The three girls are connected by Cheng Ga (Shing Fui-On, of City Cops and The Killer), a mid-level criminal who runs a handful of small rackets: a hotel for prostitution, a hostess club (which often ends in prostitution), and a loan shark business. He also tries to get into the parking lot extortion racket, which results in a random fight between his men and Kara Hui (My Young Auntie and Lady is the Boss).

Anyway, first their Hong (The Centipede Horror’s Margaret Lee), a fugitive from the Mainland. Hong and her brother need to raise money for a sick relative back in the PRC and is on the lam after getting in a shootout with the police. She eventually runs into Cheng Ga, who offers her 20,000 HKD in exchange for a year’s worth of turning tricks.

Next we have Li (JoJo Ngan, of Fury in Red and City Warrior), who appears to the daughter of Cheng Ga’s borrowers (Gam Biu, of The Lama Avenger and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold). The old man owes a lot of money and has asked for a second loan, so Li is given as collateral to work at the hostess club. But soon she learns that it is assumed that she’ll have to service clients at Cheng’s hotel, too. And that is something she did not sign up for.

Finally we have Jenny (Ha Chi-Chun, of Eastern Condors and Aces Go Places V), who is a veteran prostitute at this point. She’s pretty good at what she does, but soon finds herself in trouble with the law. Her savior, so to speak, is “Lady Overlord” (Yukari Oshima), a Japanese policewoman who has arrived in Hong Kong in order to arrest Cheng Ga’s boss (Leung Kar-Yan, of The Thundering Mantis and Cantonen Iron Kung Fu).

The film mainly goes back and forth between Hong’s and Li’s stories, with frequent intervals of Cheng Ga running things like the scuzzbucket we the viewer expect from Shing Fui-On. Jenny’s character has less to do until the final half hour, when they team up to find dirt on Leung Kar-Yan’s character. It all leads up to a final battle royale, with Yukari Oshima trading blows with Beardy, while the other girls just blow away Shing Fui-On…because of course, they do. Despite dealing with forced prostitution, the film is quite chaste (at least the cut I watched was) and may feel sleazy, but never is sleazy.

There are four action sequences in this film, the first of which starts out the movie and the others coming in intervals of 20 minutes or so. The opening sequence is a drug deal in which Cheng Ga’s men buy drugs and then ambush the vendors so as to get their money back. It is mainly gunplay, but at one point they engage in fisticuffs, too. That is followed the aforementioned scene with Kara Hui, who is only in the film for that one scene. Her fight scene is with Cheng Ga’s men at a parking garage, much like her big fight in the previous year’s Burning Ambition. Later on, Yukari Oshima is introduced and gets in a fight with the same guys at a pier. And finally, Yukari gets to beat up Shing Fui-On’s men again at a mansion before squaring off with Leung Kar-Yan. Yukari does some fine work, especially in the extended one-on-one fight with Beardy, and the sequence may be one of Oshima’s better one-on-one duels. Ha Chi-Chun gets to show off some bootwork, too, despite never having been established as a fighter up to that point. But that’s the thing we love about vintage HK action: any character will suddenly start throwing down with the kickboxing, even those whom we least expect.