Moon Over Tao (1997)

Moon Over Tao (1997)
Aka: Moon Over Tao: Makaraga
Japanese Title: Tao no Tsuki
Translation: Tao’s Moon

Starring: Hiroshi Abe, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Sayaka Yoshino, Yuko Moriyama, Takaaki Enoki, Kei Tani, Yukijiro Hotaru
Director: Keita Amemiya
Special FX: Tomo Hyakutake, Hajime Matsumoto
Action Director: Akira Ohashi

A few years after making Mechanical Violator Hakaider and the two Zeiram movies, writer-director-monster artist Keita Amemiya’s next project was a rather ambitious one. It was basically a Zeiram film set in period, albeit with lower-tech weapons and no “Zone” for our heroes to run around in—I guess filming in the forests of Japan is requires less extras than trying to set a believable action film in an urban setting. The film features alien babes (once more played by the pretty Yuko Moriyama), an indestructible alien monster, and earthlings caught in the middle. But it also features samurai sword fights, magical duels, and a more ambitious human story.

The film is set some time in the Sengoku Period (or some time before), opening at the fortress belonging to a daimyo named Tadaoki (Kei Tani, of Red Shadow and Samurai Fiction). Tadaoki’s men have recently come across a powerful sword while slaying bandits. The lord gives the sword to his trusted retainer, Hayate (Hiroshi Abe, of Godzilla 2000 and Chocolate), and asks him to find the source of the sword. Accompanying him is a warrior monk/magician named Suikyou (Toshiyuki Nagashima, of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Gamera 2: Attack of Legion), who had previously served Tadaoki as a military advisor (though he tends to just up and disappear at times, much to his lord’s chagrin).

The two men decide to start their search in the bandit-infested (and sinister-looking) mountain not far from the fortress. The first person they meet there, however, is not a bandit, but a young peasant named Renge (Sayaka Yoshino, of Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger Shushûto the Movie). Renge is out collecting honey from the local beehives and trying to steer clear of the bandits. Later that evening, Renge is awakened by the strange light in her window. She witnesses a trio of spacemen descending from what looks like a portal of light. The three spacemen get into an argument—they communicate telepathically, so we don’t hear it—and one of them strikes down their compadre with a sword. The other two depart to take their conflict elsewhere.

The fallen spaceman is actually a space woman named Kuzto (Yuko Moriyama) who has her mechanical support insect inject something into Renge so that they can communicate telepathically. Kuzto gives Renge a space gizmo called “the Tao” and tells her to either give it to one of her sisters, or to use it against “Makaraga”, should the entity appear. Kuzto gives Renge a special space tattoo that will allow her to use the Tao…and then expires.

The next day, Renge fulls around with the Tao and activates it, alerting the other two space woman—Marien and Abira (both of whom are also played by Yuko Moriayama, albeit in different wigs and make-up)—and the bandits. You see, the bandits in the vicinity are armed with the same sword that was given to Hayate and the loud sound produced by the gizmo causes the swords to shake violently. Renge turns off the Tao before anything else can happen, but the bandits are alerted to her location. They try to kidnap her, but she is rescued at the last moment by Hayate and Suikyou.

The three decide to follow the bandits back to their lair, where they discover that the brigands are led by a powerful magician named Kakugyou (Takaaki Enoki, of Heaven and Earth and Sailor Suit and Machine Gun: Graduation). We learn that Kakugyou and his men discovered a meteorite some time ago made of a powerful iron they’d never seen before. The iron of the meteorite was used to forge the special katana blades. What is more interesting is that at the core of the meteorite was a little white ball that kind of looks like a human brain.

What is that object? Well, that would be the Makaraga. We learn that the Makaraga is a biological weapon (see Zeiram) and is immortal (see also Zeiram). The Spacewomen got in a fight over it because Marien and Kuzto wanted to send it into the darkest reaches of space, while Abira wanted to use it in whatever revolution her clan was involved in on their home planet. There is a big fight between the good guys (including Marien) and Kakugyou’s bandit army, which inevitably results in the Makaraga being splashed with blood (see Zeiram 2). This awakens the creature and causes it to mutate, first into some worm-like parasites and then into a dinosaur-sized kaiju monstrosity. Will Suikyou, Hayate, Renge, and Marien be able to defeat the creature with their limited Earth weapons?

So, is Moon Over Tao any good? In my opinion, it’s pretty good…I guess. It has a lot going on: from sword fights to magical duels (similar to Big Trouble in Little China), cute space girls to giant ugly monsters, from buckets of blood to even a(n) (extremely) random gratuitous breast shot! There is no reason for people—i.e. people like me, fans of B-movie goodness—to NOT like this film.

That is, unless the execution of the cool concept(s) is less than the concepts themselves.

To me, the big problem is that Japanese fight direction in the 1990s was often (most of the time) rather dire. I personally like the fight scenes in the Zeiram movies, but I won’t ever compare them to even the most mediocre Hong Kong action flick from the same period. A few movies tried mimic their HK counterparts, most notably in Kunoichi: Lady Ninja, but I don’t think Japanese fight choreography was truly revitalized from its older Sonny Chiba days until Ryuhei Kitamura and Yuji Shimomura revolutionized the industry with Versus.

What I mean by all this is that the action direction is severely lacking in Moon Over Tao. I guess it’s not terrible, but it should have been a lot better. Hiroshi Abe showed us in Chocolate that he can swing a sword convincingly. And I personally enjoy watching Yuko Moriyama fake it. But I thought the martial arts in this film was rather weak. The showstopper was supposed to be a big three-vs-an-army sequence, but the choreography just didn’t grab me, especially on Yuko’s end. Akira Ohashi, who is credited with the stunts, has done both monster suitmation and fight choreography, but I guess he was too early in his game to do much with this.

The special effects are also questionable. Well, mainly the CGI used to animated the Makaraga monster from a distance. The design is certainly unique: the beast as a quadrupedal “base” with four crab-like legs, a large neck, and an even larger head with two horns protruding from its forehead and another from below its chin. But this is 90s CGI in a low-budget Japanese films. Even the most expensive Japanese movies at the time cost a small fraction of what a Hollywood blockbuster would have cost; a low-budget Japanese movie was fighting an impossible battle if it wants to use CGI.

I can see people watching this and enjoying its combination of science fiction, fantasy, and chambara elements, but it didn’t really grab me. And Yuko Moriyama looked a lot cuter as a female ninja or as Iria than she does in any of the three space women she plays here.

Kunoichi: Deadly Mirage (1997)

Kunoichi: Deadly Mirage (1997)
Japanese Title: Genma Sappōchō: Shinsengumi Hisho
Translation: Genma Demonic Murder Arts Chronicle: Secret Writings of the Shinsengumi

Starring: Miho Kiuchi, Hitomi Shiraishi, Michie Tomizawa, Mayu Ohara, Yumiko Mori, Motoko Nagino, Ryûshi Mizukami, Hiroyuki Watanabe, Takahiko Tatsuke
Director: Yutaka Akiyama
Action Director: Hideo Saito

Despite its title and the (strange) decision by Media Blasters/Tokyo Shock to package this in a double feature with Kunoichi: Lady Ninja, this movie is not part of the popular (for its niche) Kunoichi Ninpô-chô series. This was actually a low-budget, shot-on-video V-cinema release from Daiei from the same time period. Although it shares the same luridness as its more well-known contemporaries, it lacks the head-scratching outlandishness that made the Female Ninja Magic Chronicles films so unforgettable among B-movie enthusiasts.

The film is set around 1867, at a time that Japan was entering a certain civil conflict as the Imperialists, who wanted to modernize Japan and strengthen the emperor, fought against the Isolationists, who wanted to maintain the then-ruling Tokugawa Shogunate. An opening info dump informs us that the shogun set up the Shinsen-Gumi, a group of Ronin loyal to the shogun, to defend its interests. On the other hand, a number of powerful clans, including the Satsuma Clan (which is referenced by name throughout the film) have pooled together resources to support the Imperialists.

The Satsuma Clan hires the Hiryu Ninja Clan, led by Kegorou (failed Idol Miho Kiuchi, of Scorpion: Double Venom), to retrieve a secret letter in the hands of the Shinsen-Gumi, which … something … historical … I guess. Kegorou and her team of kunoichi—Kikyou, Ayame, Koyuki (Motoko Nagino, who did stunt double work for two incarnations of Super Sentai), and Kurenai (prolific voice actress Michie Tomizawa)—sneak into the Shinsen-Gumi headquarters, but don’t manage to find the letter. A fight breaks out between the lady ninjas and the Ronin, and Kegorou is only able to escape because Kikyou stays behind and lets herself get captured.

While the head of the Shinsen-Gumi, Toshi (Hiroyuki Watanabe, of Everly and Reborn from Hell: Samurai Armageddon), and his men are busy torturing and raping Kikyou, we learn that the secret letter is the hands of Senshiro and his lover, Saya (Hitomo Shiraishi, of The Bondage Master and Tokyo Decameron). Senshiro and Saya flee the Shinsen-Gumi after a random visit from a monk while the two are enjoying some sexy time.

The two are hunted by their fellow Shinsen-Gumi ronin and Senshiro is decapitated in the ensuing battle. Kegorou and her remaining ninja girls step in to fight the bad guys while Saya runs off with her lover’s severed head and goes crazy. The monk decides to try to resurrect Senshiro, only for his body to possessed by a demon and not Senshiro’s spirit. The demon seduces Saya with some purple goo and possesses her. Ayame, who had followed Saya into the woods, tries to steal the letter, but Saya beats her and allows her to get raped by the purple demon goo. At that point, the demon sends samurai monsters after the remaining Hiryu girls. Only two of them escape.

Kegorou and Koyuki go to the village where the monk had taken Senshiro’s body. There, they make an uneasy alliance with Soji (Takahiko Tatsuke), a member of the Shinsen-Gumi, to defeat the demon and its monster minions.

Running at a scant 72 minutes, Kunoichi: Deadly Mirage is a little more than cheap excuse for some female nudity and bad 90s CGI. Three of the six main actresses doff the duds and show their boobies to the camera. You get torture boobs, consensual sex boobs, and (unfortunately) some rape boobs. And the CGI used to depict the demon’s slime is pretty dire.

The fight choreography was provided by Hideo Saito, whose credits include stunt coordinator on the two Hollywood Grudge movies. As those movies are not known for their stuntwork, I don’t know what to make of that. The fighting feels more like your traditional jidai-geki sword choreography rather than Kunoichi: Lady Ninja’s more ambitious attempt to ape early 1990s wuxia pian. The problem is that as these young women were probably chosen more on their sex appeal (and willingness to get naked) than their martial skills, the fight scenes are pretty bland and forgettable. And the absence of over-the-top ninja magic just compounds that problem.

So, unless you have a penchant for naughty naked ninja movies—and there were a lot made between 1991 and 2010—there isn’t much of a reason to watch Kunoichi: Deadly Mirage.

Kunoichi: Lady Ninja (1998)

Kunoichi: Lady Ninja (1998)
Japanese Title: Kunoichi Ninpô-chô Yagyû Gaiden
Translation: Female Ninja Magic Chronicles: Yagyu Side Story

Starring: Yûko Moriyama, Kazuki Takeda, Momoka Saeki, NON, Kaoru Ukawa, Fuyu Ooba, Akiko Sugawara, Hitoshi Ozawa, Ryûshi Mizukami, Ryuji Katagiri, Akaji Maro
Director: Hitoshi Ozawa
Action Director: Yuta Morokaji

Released stateside as Kunoichi: Lady Ninja—which is essentially a Japanese word and its English translation—the 1998 film Kunoichi Ninpô-chô: Yagyû Gaiden is actually an adaptation of a novel written by famed Japanese author Futaro Yamada. Yamada’s books often dealt mixed Japanese history with fantasy themes and have oft been adapted to film, manga, anime and television. For example, The Kouga Ninja Scrolls were adapted into the manga and anime “Basilisk” and the film Shinobi: Heart Under Blade. Or Iga Ninja Scrolls was adapted into Ninja Wars in 1982.

A lot of his novels were adapted into sexy female ninja movies in the 1990s within the Kunoichi Ninpô-chô franchises. Some of them had already been adapted as early as 1964. Kunoichi: Lady Ninja is actually the seventh entry in the franchise, the first of which to star Zeiram alumni Yuko Moriyama. The movie, and its immediate sequel, are both based on the novel Yagyû Ninpô-chô, or “Yagyu Ninja Chronicles,” as they feature the famous samurai, Jubei Yagyu, in the narrative.

At some point during the Edo Period, there is a powerful Daimaiyo ruling over the Aizu prefecture. His name is Akinari Katoh (Ryûshi Mizukami) and he is a one lecherous son of a gun. He has amassed dozens, if not hundreds, of concubines from around the land. The movie opens with his bodyguards, known as the Seven Beasts, storming a convent and slaughtering its inhabitants. The reason is a bit fuzzy, although I figured that the seven nuns who survive, formerly members of the Hori Ninja Clan, had been chosen by Akinari for his lustful pursuits and they took vows in order to escape his clutches. Since the Shogun would never let a Daimyo, no matter how powerful he is, get away with seducing nuns, it’s easier to kill them than to rape them. The seven ninja-turned-nuns are saved at the last second by the arrival of Princess Sen, the former wife (or mother) of the current shogun.

She resolves to train the seven nuns in the arts of ninja magic in order to avenge the murders committed at the convent and punish Akinari for his misdeeds. After their training has ended, they receive some help from outside. That would be the prestigious Buddhist monk Takuwan (Ryuji Katagiri) and the famed one-eyed samurai, Jubei Yagyu (Hitoshi Ozawa)—his father is currently serving the Shogun as the official court instructor. The seven kunoichi are led by Ochie (Yuko Moriyama) and their goal is to wipe out the Seven Beasts one by one before eliminating Akinari Katoh himself.

Now, the problem with the Seven Beasts is that most of them are either expert swordsmen, magicians, or ninja with magical powers. The first one manages to infect one of the kunoichi, Ofue (Momoko Saeki), with a magical curse that will rot her from the inside. There is another one who can remove his eyes and cause them to grow into cycloptic samurai warriors. There is a monkey-like ninja warrior, a pretty boy swordsman, an albino samurai, a hulking fighter who can shoot fireballs, and sadistic, whip-wielding eunuch.

The film’s plot goes back and forth between the ninja girls targeting one of the Seven Beasts, a fight breaking out, one of the girls discovering her ninja powers, and sometimes a tragic death. This goes on for about 100 minutes before the ends. The film does up the stakes—kind of—as it goes into the third act with the introduction of Akinari’s personal priest, Dohaku. Dohaku is not only a powerful magician, but he is virtually indestructible thanks to his sharing a lifeline with his twin brother Tenkai, who is the Head Priest of the entire shogun’s court. His daughter, Oyura, appears to be Akinari’s number one wife, or at least she acts that way…initially.

So, most people who sit down to watch this will note the outlandish “ninja magic” being performed by the female protagonists. Now, when my generation was young, we became accustomed to the idea of ninja magic through Sega’s “Shinobi” games. This movie has stuff like that, albeit frequently with a “sexy twist” to it. In one sequence, the kunoichi Sakura (Akiko Sugawara), goes undercover as a bride—while in Edo, Akinari has his minions kidnap brides so he can [seduce] them—with Yagyu, going undercover as a blind man, as her groom. They both get captured and left inside of a deep pit. Sakura has the idea to let Yagyu deflower her so that she can let her hymen blood charge up Yagyu’s sword and make it shoot fiery phoenix animations(!).

Even more memorable are the ninjas Otori (Fuyu Ôba) and Okei (NON). The first one discovers that she can go into ninja magic mode, miraculously lose her clothing, and shoot concussive bolts of lightning out of her chest. This magic is referred to as the “Nipple Wave.” Okei’s is even weirder, in which she can absorb energy blasts through her “ladyparts” and then spit them back out at whomever she wishes. The movie refers to that move as the “Reverse Echo.” As of today, you can see videos of that one posted all over YouTube.

The rest of the action was staged by first-timer Yuta Morokaji. Morokaji would go on to choreograph a number of video games and some other films, most notably the first Azumi film by Ryuhei Kitamura and the two Battle Royale movies. What is interesting is that Morokaji honestly tries to stage the fight scenes as if he were making an early 1990s wuxia in Hong Kong. There are lots of wire-assisted jumps and moves, quick cuts, and “Qi blasts.” Unlike Chinese cinema, the qi blasts are more than the stuntman extending his hand and causing explosions: the Japanese filmmakers have state-of-the-art optical printers so they can animate the lightning and energy bolts. They also use some composite shots and matte work for some of the people flying, which is very noticeable. If you have seen early 90s wuxia films like The Three Swordsmen and Kung Fu Cult Master, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The action scenes are along the lines of those films, even if the actual martial artistry on display is limited in both quantity and quality. The wuxia works of Tony Ching Siu-Tung were full of wirework and “qi blasts,” but they still had some beautiful moments of balletic martial artistry. That last part is largely missing from here. On the other hand, there are A LOT of blood geysers in the fights here, so that may count for something.

Much like its predecessors, this movie features more than its fair share of female flesh on display. The character of Akinari Katoh is often seen with multiple women in varying states of undress draped over him. At one point, we get to see a prison room full of kidnapped women who appear to have been brainwashed: when Yagyu is thrown in inside, all the women fawn over and paw him…Best. Prison. Sentence. Ever. And there are other moments where women strut around wearing…well…not much of anything. But for fans of Yuko Moriyama—of which I am one—know that she stays modest the entire time.

Kunoichi: Lady Ninja is far from perfect. I’ve seen the Japanese-language version, which features some insane overacting from all the villains. The English dub on the Tokyo Shock DVD is largely considered inferior, not too unlike the Tri-Star dubs of the Heisei Godzilla movies. The pacing is solid, but the story structure can sometimes be repetitive. And things happen that are not always explained, or require a second viewing to make sense of. Like the scene with Oyura being “summoned” by her father in his inner sanctum, which looks like he’s invoking her from hell, sending her back, and then calling her back again. It’s such an odd scene that I had the slightest idea what was actually going on. Although, I suppose that’s the point, given that the entire film is almost one big head-scratcher.

2 Capsule Reviews - The "Yam Can Kill" Series

The Cyprus Tigers (1990) 

Starring: Simon Yam, Conan Lee, Collin Cheung, Phillip Ko Fei, Joey Wong, Robin Shou, Luk Chuen, Winston Ellis, Sophia Crawford
Director: Phillip Ko Fei
Action Director: Luk Chuen (Yasuyoshi Shikamura), 

Released on VHS in the late 1990s as part of the "Yam Can Kill" series--the others being Mission Kill and Killer's Romance (see review below). I've yet to read anything remotely positive about this film, from Asian Cult Cinema to "View from the Brooklyn Bridge". So, I took it as a challenge.

On the island of Cyprus, the local police force employs a trio of Chinese immigrants, who are known on the force as "The Cyprus Tigers." They are: Rick (Simon Yam, of Bullet in the Head and Hitman); Bob (Conan Lee, of Tiger on the Beat and Ninja in the Dragon's Den); and Alan, or "Kid" (Collin Cheung Chi-Tak, of Angel's Mission and Fatal Termination). They are the both the biggest hotshots and goof-offs of the force. The film opens with them foiling a hostage situation by having Bob taking their own police chief hostage and confusing the bad guys.

Anyway, after a few random asides involving a nude beach (lots of bare breasts here) and a gag involving an attempt to get Bob to pay for everyone's expensive dinner (makes sense in context), the film settles down for a story, such as it is. The three are assigned to a case to bust some counterfeiters, who are working for the town's stand-out citizen, Mr. King (Phillip Ko Fei, of The Fearless Dragons and too many low-budget films of the 1990s). They lose the counterfeit plates during the bust, which gets the chief on their back. They try to bust Mr. King's bodyguard (Winston Ellis, of Operation Condor), but that leads to Rick and Bob being held at gunpoint and ordered to undress each other--which leads the bad guys to take the security tape and release it as a bestselling gay porno movie.

Rick and Bob are suspended. Rick goes back to Hong Kong to try to patch things up with his ex-wife, Joey (Joey Wong, of A Chinese Ghost Story and The East is Red). Bob gets in trouble with the law when Mr. King's men murder some tart whom he'd gone home with and frame him for the killing. Mr. King overplays his hand when he sends his girlfriend (Sophia Crawford, of Beauty Investigator and U.S. Seals II) to Hong Kong to (unsuccessfully) eliminate Rick. Rick goes back to Cyprus and convinces his boss to let Bob out in order to bust Mr. King and find evidence of his counterfeiting activities.

Most of the film is very dumb comedy, like watching Conan Lee and Collin Cheung walk around the police station with baseball caps that have a mouth with a tongue on it and one with female breasts sculpted on it, respectively. The bad guys are not intimidating, even when they bring in a pair of supposedly crazy Japanese criminals (action director Luk Chuen and a young Robin Shou) to help his operation. The Japanese characters are depicted as being racist against blacks (i.e. Winston Ellis). Conan Lee's hothead cop is annoying and basically unlikeable. And the subplot involving Joey Wong is more filler than anything else.

Some of this may be forgivable if there was more and better action. The fight choreography was provided by Luk Chuen (aka Yasuyoshi Shikamura, whose action direction credits include A Boxer's Omen and Bamboo House of Dolls). It's actually not all that bad, but the problem is that the fights are all short and tend to end before they even begin. Among the fights, we get: Conan Lee vs. Winston Ellis and a roomful of goons; Robin Shou vs. Winston Ellis; Simon Yam vs. Sophia Crawford; Conan Lee vs. Luk Chuen; Simon Yam vs. Robin Shou; Simon Yam vs. Winston Ellis; Conan Lee vs. Robin Shou; and Simon Yam vs. Phillip Ko. It is pretty clear that Simon Yam is being doubled for much of his fights. His throwdown with Winston Ellis is undercranked (purposely) to the point of absurdity. The final throwdown between Robin Shou and Conan Lee is disappointingly one-sided in favor of the latter.

The film's ending is surprisingly somber given the film's tone overall. But all things considered, this is only for completists of the filmographies of Conan Lee, Simon Yam, or Robin Shou.

Killer's Romance (1990)

Starring: Simon Yam, Joey Wong, Phillip Ko Fei, Luk Chuen, Lau Siu-Ming, Foo Wong-Tat, Ishida Kenichi
Director: Phillip Ko Fei
Action Director: Luk Chuen (Yasuyoshi Shikamura), Wong Coh-Wah

Phillip Ko's low-budget action films--well, mainly Final Run, seemed to do well enough around the turn of the 1980s that he was able to scrounge up enough money to film abroad. One of those was the dire Cyprus Tigers, which wasted a great cast on unfunny comedy and an unlikable lead (Conan Lee). Surprisingly, it did okay at the box office. Then there is this film, the low-budget answer to Clarence Ford and Tsui Hark's Dragon from Russia: a loose adaptation of the popular manga "The Crying Freeman".

The movie opens with Jeffrey (Simon Yam, of Sha Po Lang and Exiled) coming back to London following the murder of his father (Foo Wang-Tat, of A Better Tomorrow III and An Eye for an Eye). His dad was one of the heads of the Yamada Gumi crime syndicate, which means that violent revenge is an acceptable response. According to his dad's top lieutenant, Yoshikawa (Luk Chuen, of City Cops and Ninja Over the Great Wall), his dad was murdered by the Chinatown triads of London, under the command of Ma Tin (Lau Siu-Ming, of Swordsman and A Chinese Ghost Story).

So, Jeffrey goes on a mission of revenge, killing the top three leaders of the gang, including Ma Tin himself. While committing one of the murders, he is witnessed by Paula (Joey Wong, of A Chinese Ghost Story III and An Eternal Combat), a dance student in London who is also an amateur photographer. She manages to photograph Jeffrey and becomes mildly obsessed with him. They (coincidentally) run into each other after another killing, which leads to both the police, represented by a Chinese detective (Siu Yuk-Lung), and the Triads to think that Paula is in cahoots with Jeffrey.

The Triads, now led by Charlie (Phillip Ko Fei, of Eight Diagram Pole Fighter and Shaolin Intruders), show up at Paula's house and a huge gunfight breaks out. Paula is injured and Jeffrey goes into hiding. Meanwhile, we learn that both Charlie and Yoshikawa had Jeffrey's father killed so that he would wipe out Charlie's bosses and the two could rise to the top of their respective gangs. The only loose ends left are Jeffrey and Paula, and sooner or later the latter will lead the bad guys to the former.

I'm admittedly not familiar with the source material for "The Crying Freeman" or its accompanying anime--I've only seen Dragon from Russia and that very well may have been unsubbed, too. That said, I'm not really sure what the similarities are between Killer's Romance and the manga. Perhaps it deals with Japanese assassins and mobsters and a guy is supposed to kill a female witness to his activities, but falls in love with her instead? I'll let more educated people school me on that.

The movie was shot entirely in London--or at least it looks to have been, so I'm guessing that ate up much of the budget and left less money for explosive action sequences. It does feel more like a real movie than a lot of low-budget Phillip Ko opuses (opera?), with a beginning, middle, and end, a greater emphasis on characters, and a decent attempt to add genuine stakes to the action. It is also brutal and unforgiving, even to characters who might normally hold plot armor if Hollywood tried to do the same thing. So, I will applaud attempts to be legitimately dramatic over some of the lulls in story.

Simon Yam plays his character with limited dialog. Not John Wick level of "limited," but there are a lot of scenes where he does more acting with his eyes and facial expressions than with his mouth. Joey Wong is Joey Wong: lovely, adorable, and someone you just want to give a SMOOSHY hug to. And despite the unlikelihood of a normal girl falling for a sociopathic killer, one only need to remember the worldwide popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey to know how popular that sort of thing is. I would say that Phillip Ko often overplays his Charlie character, especially during a scene where he's getting a bullet extracted from him, in a way that takes away from the film's otherwise serious tone.

The action was choreographed by Luk Chuen (Yasuyoshi Shikamura) and Wong Coh-Wah (billed as "Panther Wong"). Much of the action is made up of gunplay, which is fairly well staged. The big shootout at Charlie's house is a definitely highlight, with all the carnage and "shooting guns in the air" that we would expect from a vintage John Woo movie. I'm just surprised that, given the size of the pistols that Simon Yam uses in that scene, he wasn't taking off entire heads and limbs with those babies.

The martial arts are limited to the last 20 minutes or so. There is a nice fight between Simon Yam and some Japanese assassins sent to take him out, led by Ishida Kenichi (Final Run and Drugs Fighters). Ishida is an excellent kicker--he even recreates the jump-over-the-table spinning side kick that Casanova Wong did in Warriors Two--and I wish we could've seen more of him in Hong Kong cinema. The film ends with an extended, two-part sword fight between Jeffrey and his fellow Yamada Gumi members, capped off with very good throwdown (with katana) between Simon Yam and Luk Chuen--this was included in the now-defunct Wasted Life's Top 100 Fight Scenes of All Time. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it goes a long way to justify the film's earlier pacing issues.

Retreat of the Godfather (1991)

Retreat of the Godfather (1991)
Chinese Title: 大哥讓位
Translation: Big Brother (Godfather) Steps Back

Starring: Lam Wai, Wong Mau-Chow, Ko Chun-Hsiung, Wan Lai-Jing, Dick Wei, Tsai Chia-Hung, Long Shao-Hua, Kam Kong, Wu Ma
Director: Chen Chi-Hwa
Action Director: Wang Yao

A lesser-known Hong Kong triad action film from the Golden Age of Hong Kong Action. It had an entry in Thomas Weisser's Asian Cult Cinema, but he gave it a lukewarm rating that suggested it was a low-grade heroic bloodshed film. Yeah....no. As usual, it's clear that Weisser did not watch it (he said that the main villain was played by Wu Ma) and to dismiss it that way is unfair. Directed by longtime Jackie Chan friend and collaborator Chen Chi-Hwa, the film excels in the action department, even if it suffers from a lack of clear direction with regards to the plot.

Ko Chun-Hsiung (Miracles and Island of Fire) plays Kwan, a crime boss who is trying to move smuggle some antiques out of Hong Kong and into the hands of wealthy clients. One day, a shipment of priceless vases is stolen from two of his enforcers: Andy (Lam Wai, of Project A II and Long Arm of the Law) and Phil (Wong Mau-Chow, of Shaolin Temple Against Lama and Ninja vs. the Shaolin Guards). They find out that the thief is Uncle Siu (Kam Kong, of The Crane Fighters and Against the Drunken Cat's Paws), Kwan's main rival.

Andy and Phil go to see Uncle Siu and he says that he stole the vases as a way to arrange a visit with them so he can try to persuade them to join his side. They refuse, but he gives them the vases back as a sign of good faith. Psych! He gives them forgeries, which puts them on the wrong side of their boss. Anyway, Phil gets shot and they go into hiding. Meanwhile, their mutual friend Chen (Dick Wei, of Millionaire's Express and Paper Marriage) gets out of jail. He initially joins up with his friends, but eventually goes to work as a bouncer for Uncle Siu. He also blows off his girlfriend, Emma (Tsai Chia-Hung, of Dragon Kid and King Swindler), who has become a bar girl-cum-prostitute.

Long story short, Kwan kidnaps Andy's girlfriend, Tina (Wan Lai-Jing), as a way to squeeze him a little into getting the vases back. This reveals that Kwan's lawyer, Tony (Long Shao-Hua), may or may not being planning a coup d'état against Kwan. A lot of people are killed (or commit suicide) and Andy and Phil are forced to go against Siu on their own when Chen is killed and Tina is kidnapped...a second time.

The film is rare enough that I feel justified in a more detailed plot synopsis than usual. The main problem is that the main characters spend much of the middle act hanging around one of their safehouses until the bad guys show up...and then move to a second safehouse (a warehouse). The stolen vases are nothing more than McGuffins and disappear from the narrative for large swaths of the film.

Thankfully, the action comes at frequent and regular intervals. The fight scenes were staged by Wang Yao, one of the first members of the Sing Ga Ban (although he seemed to leave once Jackie set up shop at Golden Harvest). The fighting is standard 1980s-era Hong Kong kickboxing, plus lots of painful falls. The fisticuffs are generally "solid" whenever it's Lam Wai or Wong Mau-Chow performing them, although they jump to "quite good" whenever Dick Wei is onscreen (unsurprisingly). There are about 7 or 8 small fights before the climax.

The finale is where the film really shines. It is a crazy mix of more kickboxing, chopper action, Bullet Ballet, and stuntwork that will make you wince. The characters are in a warehouse full of cardboard boxes and water drums and a huge melee breaks out between Kwan's and Tony's subordinates, with Andy and Phil caught in the middle. Prepare for lots of painful falls, people being thrown from glass, people flying back 10 feet whenever they get shot, and all sorts of mayhem. It's just good action cinema right there. And just to further the Jackie Chan connection, the film ends with the outtakes.

Zeiram 2 (1994)

Zeiram 2 (1994)

Starring: Yuko Moriyama, Yukijiro Hotaru, Kunihiro Ida, Sabu, Kazuhiko Inoue (voice), Mizuho Yoshida
Director: Keita Amemiya
Special FX Director: Hiroshi Kidokoro
Action Director: Akira Ohashi, Mitsuo Abe

Zeiram 2 is an interesting sequel in that it tries to take some of lore created in the (superior) anime Iria: Zeiram the Animation and insert it into the context of the live-action films. It is only partially successful, thanks to the fact that Iria’s long-time rival Fujikuro (actor-director Sabu, who was in Don’t Look Up and Shinjuku Triad Society) has gone from a seasoned veteran trying to exploit Iria’s lack of experience to an annoying punk. But it does have flying umbrellas!

The film is set a few years after the events of the first film. Kamiya (a returning Yukijiro Hotaru) is trying to patch things up with his estranged wife. Teppei is about to marry his long-time girlfriend. And Iria is back on Earth with Bob (Kazuhiko Inoue) and Fujikuro in order to intercept a valuable teleportation device called the Karmelite from a band of space mercenaries. While that particular mission goes off without a hitch, the trouble begins when Iria is given a second, complementary mission.

The Intergalactic Bounty Hunters Union has recently built a new battle robot from the remains of Zeiram, the indestructible alien whom Iria had faced off with a few years earlier. Normally, that would be a very bad idea…wait for it. In any case, Iria supposed to have a duel of sorts with the robot to test its capabilities against a superior target (as opposed to robots and remote-controlled tanks). When Iria shows up in the outskirts of Tokyo to meet it, she is met by even more galactic ruffians. Zeiram does show up and, as per its programming, will not let the interstellar brigands harm her, so it switches into Turbo Mode and slaughters the lot.

The robot is initially not supposed to engage with Iria until a) she gives it orders to and b) they are isolated in a Zone (a pocket dimension meant for doing interplanetary dirty work without alarming the locals). This is where things get complicated. Iria and Bob are betrayed by Fujikuro, who wants to sell the Karmelite on the black market and retire early. To this end, he disables Bob’s hardware and kidnaps Teppei, who had coincidentally caught a glimpse of Iria earlier. So, while Iria is trying to rescue Teppei, she is not around to stop the last surviving star thug from spitting blood all over the Zeiram robot, awakening the little head that was built into it…really people?

This is the equivalent of setting a Krusty doll on “Evil” and Zeiram starts the “exercise,” creating a Zone and trapping itself, Iria, Fujikuro, and Teppei inside. Meanwhile, Kamiya has found his way to the abandoned building that Iria is working out of and fixes Bob and the teleporter. Get ready for more action in the vein of the first film.

The main problem with Zeiram 2 is that after the initial set-up (which probably takes longer than the first movie), it becomes a clone of its predecessor. It’s the same beats: Iria fights with Zeiram and wins; something happens for Zeiram to be revived; Iria is separated from the heroes for an extended period (she doesn’t even interact with them directly until the end); and then there is a final battle set to the Zone slowly deleting itself. Other than the monster designs—and we don’t get any stop-motion this time around (boo!)—there isn’t much to distinguish this from the first movie.

That said, one thing that director Keita Amemiya does well is suspense. There are several situations in which the protagonists find themselves fighting against impossible odds, like when Teppei is tied up with his foot on a landmine while Iria is trapped in a trash compactor room while holding onto a wasp-shaped missile (!) that is trying to fly toward Teppei. Or the climax, where Iria is engaging in a pitched martial arts battle with Zeiram at the top of a Kanon Statue as it “dissolves” from the ground up while the heroes scramble for the Karmelite. And the final scene will have even mildly-invested viewers at the edge of their seat…

The action is pretty good by Japanese standards, although it might pale in comparison to its Hong Kong cousins. The martial arts definitely have the feel of a Super Sentai series (or similar Tokusatsu show), although watching them performed by a GORGEOUS Japanese actress (and her stunt double) makes it more interesting then some Metal Hero. The rest of the action involves LOTS of gunplay and explosions. I enjoy the climax, which starts out as a sword fight, then becomes an aerial dogfight involving a winged Zeiram and Iria on a flying umbrella, and then becomes a martial arts fight, followed by ripping off the end of The Terminator.

The film is filled with early 1990s CGI (not great), miniature explosions, and your standard Japanese suitmation. I like the redesign for Zeiram. What I don’t like is the dog monster it creates—both the suit and the way the monster is created. Anyway, there’s enough fun action to keep most viewers entertained, plus Yuko Moriyama is always easy on the eyes. I just wish the film tried to set itself apart more form its predecessor.

The Seventh Curse (1986)

The Seventh Curse (1986)
Chinese Title: 原振俠與衛斯理
Translation: Yuen Zan-Hap and Wisely

Starring: Chin Siu-Ho, Maggie Cheung, Dick Wei, Chui Sau-Lai, Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong, Chow Yun-Fat, Sibelle Hu Hui-Chung, Ni Kuang, Chor Yuen, Yasuaki Kurata, Wong Jing
Director: Lam Nai-Choi
Action Director: Yuen Bun

This is one of those films that could only be made in Hong Kong. It is a bizarre mixture of occult horror, gross-out graphic violence, and 80s Hong Kong action beats, with a helping of (dumb) comedy and nudity for good measure. I learned of it from Asian Cult Cinema, but never made any effort to find it because the book’s description made it sound like a nauseating gorefest. It is that, sorta, although the film moves at such a fast clip that it never stops to dwell on the gore.

The film opens at a party attended by a pair of adventurers—Yuen Zan-Hap (Chin Siu-Ho, of Fist of Legend and Masked Avengers) and Wisely (Chow Yun-Fat, of A Better Tomorrow 2 and Hard Boiled)—and a famous author (legendary screenwriter Ni Kuang). The movie suddenly cuts to a hostage situation somewhere else in town, where the police (led by Yasuaki Kurata in a non-fighting role) enlist the assistance of Yuen to play a fake doctor (he is a doctor of something) and attend to a hostage who has just had a heart attack. Although a policewoman (Kara Hui in a cameo) is supposed to accompany him dressed as a nurse, she gets knocked out by a reporter, Tsui Hung (Maggie Cheung, Police Story and The Heroic Trio), who dons her clothing. Once inside, things go south, but Yuen manages to detonate a flash bomb, which allows the SWAT team to storm the place.

What does this have to do with the rest of the movie? Nothing, other than introduce Chin Siu-Ho’s and Maggie Cheung’s characters.

Back at home, Yuen is about to engage in sexy time with his girlfriend (Fairlie Ruth Kordick, of In the Line of Duty IV and Live Hard) when he is assaulted from behind by a mysterious man named Black Dragon (Dick Wei). After a scuffle involving kickboxing and broken furniture—standard 80s action fare—Black Dragon informs Yuen that his Blood Curse has been activated and that he needs to go to Thailand before it kills him. He also warns Yuen to abstain from sex, but Yuen ignores him and suffers a ruptured blood vessel in his leg as a result.

Yuen goes to see Wisely and tells him the story of how he got cursed. A year before, Yuen was a medical trip to the boonies of Thailand. While walking around and taking in scenery, he came across a bathing beauty, “Betsy” (Tsui Sau-Lai, of Killer’s Nocturne and The Last Blood), who is a princess of the Worm Tribe. Later on, he and the other adventurers come across a ritual of the Worm Tribe in which a man and a woman are chosen to be sacrificed to the “Old Ancestor,” a reanimated skeleton monster. Yuen saves Betsy from the monster, although the evil sorcerer Aquala (Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong, of Butterfly and Sword and Girls Unbuttoned) has his flunkies kill the entire team, including the leader (Ken Boyle), by pouring a potion on him and causing him to explode into a mess of maggots. Betsy and Yuen are cursed with the Blood Curse, but Betsy prolongs the latter’s life by cutting her tits open and giving him a parasite to swallow…TF???

Back to the present, Wisely tells Yuen to do back to Thailand and find the Black Dragon. Yuen goes there and is followed by Tsui Hung, who is rich enough to hire a team of mercenaries to go with them into the jungles of Thailand. They eventually meet up with Wisely and his mercenaries. And then things get weird.

The Seventh Curse is not very scary per se, but it is graphic and full of slimy monsters and horrible deaths. The film moves at a mile a minute and crams A LOT of material into a scant 83-minute run time. The breathless pacing means that some over-the-top death scenes that many cameramen would spend time leering at are treated in almost an offhand manner, because there is more madness to portray. Then again, this is the sort of movie that has the balls to place actually children under a two-ton stone grinder (even Western horror movies are loathe to kill of children characters).

The monsters include the Little Ghost, a fetus-like monster that can burrow into a victim’s body and pop out of the stomach; the Old Ancestor, which is a well-designed skeleton rod puppet; and the second form of the Old Ancestor, which looks like the winged version of the Xenomorph that got its own toy, but never actually showed up in the movies(!!!).

There are a handful of fight scenes, choreographed by Seven Fortune Yuen Bun, best known for his numerous Tsui Hark collaborations. The choreography itself is pretty standard 80s kickboxing, of the sort you’d find in a Sammo Hung or Corey Yuen movie of the same period. Chin Siu-Ho and Dick Wei are great martial artists and get a decent showcase for their talents—and this is a rare good guy role for Dick. During the opening hostage sequence, Chin Siu-Ho gets to trade blows with Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, who plays the head of the terrorists. Then Dick and Chin get to throwdown, with people getting thrown through tables in the most painful looking ways possible. Near the end, both men have to fight a bunch of Thai monks atop of a giant Buddha statue, which ends on a visual cribbed from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

People expecting Chow Yun-Fat to do a lot in this movie will be disappointed. His Wisely character (also the subject of The Legend of Wisely and The Cat) is mainly a glorified cameo, showing up early on and whenever black magic exposition is needed. Nonetheless, most people who stumble across The Seventh Curse will never forget the finale, where Chow Yun-Fat shows up out of nowhere in order to blow up a Xenomorph-esque demon with a rocket launcher. That sort of randomness is just the perfect way to end an equally random movie.

The Beekeeper (2024)

The Beekeeper (2024)

Starring: Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Minnie Driver, Phylicia Rashad, Jeremy Irons
Director: David Ayer
Action Director: Jeremy Marinas

It was on any one of The Critical Drinker’s videos, probably his review of A Working Man, where he basically said that Jason Statham had become this generation’s Steven Seagal. Although his action movies have been reasonably successful—I think this one was his most, raking in over 160 million dollars on a 40-million-dollar budget—they do have a certain degree of “saminess” that Seagal’s films have. You know, the one where Statham plays a former special forces/CIA badass who’s living the quiet life, until something compels him to get back in the game and crush skulls, which his character can do better than everybody else around him. You know the drill.

This one has an especially “interesting” premise.

When we meet Adam Clay (Statham, of The Expendables and The Transporter), he is working as a beekeeper at the estate of retired teacher Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad, best known as Claire Huxtable on “The Cosby Show”). Parker lives out in the sticks away from her daughter, mainly running a children’s charity with her free time. She also cooks and “takes care of” Adam, which makes the quiet loner especially grateful.

One evening, Eloise Parker is on her laptop when a window pops up declaring that the data on her computer has been compromised and that her data is in danger. She calls the Hot Line, which puts her in contact with Mickey Garnett (David Witts, who later had small role in A Working Man), the manager of a data scamming outfit that preys on the elderly, robbing them of their retirement, savings, inheritances, etc. Mickey “helpfully” gets Eloise to install some shady software, which allows his employees to hack into her computer and clean out all her accounts, including 20 million dollars from the charity. Parker doesn’t take it so well: she shoots herself that same evening.

When Adam Clay shows up at the house to check in on her, he comes across her dead body and is immediately mistaken for her killer by Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman, who mainly works in theater, but will return for this movie’s sequel), Eloise’s FBI agent daughter. She has Adam arrested, although forensic testing quickly rules out foul play and her mother’s death is declared to be a suicide. Verona did happen to look at the laptop and see the name of the data company that Eloise had called, which she passes onto Adam.

At this point, we get to the part we all were expecting. Adam pulls a secret phone out of a beehive (heh) and calls his old employers, asking for a favor: find the address of the data company. It takes a little while, but these are Ops of the Blackest Sort, so they can get [shiz] done. Adam pays them a visit, beating up all the security guards and burning the rather large building to the ground. At this point, Mickey is forced to bring the matter to his boss, Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson, of the Hunger Games movies). Danforth is head of Danforth Enterprises, a company that used to belong to his father, but has since lapsed to the son and his (unseen at the moment) mother. The company runs multiple businesses, all of which are meant to run tech support scams.

Danforth tells Mickey to “handle” the situation, which results in him and some Hired Goons going to Parker’s house, burning it down, and following Clay to the barn he rents. As we might expect in a Jason Statham movie, Clay kills the hired help and lets Mickey go, albeit minus four fingers. From this point, Clay takes his fight to Danforth, although not before killing Mickey by putting him into a bungee vest, strapping the cord to a truck, and running the truck off a bridge. Wouldn’t have been easier just to have killed him back at the barn?

But all of Clay’s rhetoric about “protecting the hive” gets back to Danforth. He tells his “conservator”, Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), about the situation. Westwyld is a former CIA director and (I think) may have been Danforth’s stepfather for a while, but now he just babysits the young punk…or bails him out when his penchant for drugs and hookers gets him in trouble. That said, Westwyld is well aware that the term “Beekeeper” is Intelligence jargon for something really bad, which at one point results in Westwyld giving Danforth the “John Wick Speech”…or the Col. Trautman speech.

Westwyld calls in a favor to the current CIA chief, Janet Harward (Minnie Driver, of Grosse Pointe Blank), and asks her to help them. She contacts the Beekeepers and accuses Clay of being a rogue agent. When their own assassin (Megan Le) cannot stop him, the CIA has no choice but to get their best men together and stop Clay. At the same time, the FBI (led by Verona) is on Clay’s trail, too. And when we learn the truth about Danforth and his family connections, several other intelligence agencies will end up getting involved, too.

So, what is a Beekeeper? It is essentially an intelligence agency working on the periphery (or perhaps even farther away) from the likes of the FBI, CIA, or NSA. One might say that they are forever working in “Ghost Protocol” mode and basically answer to nobody but themselves. They have the right to eliminate any entity they see as a threat to the good ol’ US of A (“the hive”) with no bureaucracy to stand in their way. Adam Clay is a former Beekeeper, which is why he can kick so much ass, even before he starts using a gun.

That is a very Steven Seagal movie plot. Former CIA black ops agent? Unbeatable in combat? A government conspiracy and intelligence agents trying to silence him? You get that in most of Seagal’s movies. The main difference between Seagal and Statham is that the latter has a lot of natural charisma and, in the 25 years or so since he became an action actor, Statham has stayed in reasonably good shape. Yes, he more or less plays the same character in all his movies—although his British crime movies and some of his earlier films allowed him some more leeway—but if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

I do find it interesting how the story in this one gradually grows in scope. It starts off with Statham taking on a single computer data center. He then takes his fight to the parent company. By the end, he is practically facing off with the entire US government and all of its major intelligence agencies. When one of the characters picks up a book on beekeeping and reads about a bee whose job it is to kill the queen when the current one can no longer perform her function, it is supposed to be foreshadowing that Clay may very well take his fight to the President (themselves).

If you like this kind of action movie, you should enjoy The Beekeeper. The action scenes were staged by Jeremy Marinas, who is best known for his work on John Wick 4 and From the World of John Wick: The Ballerina. Most of the fight scenes are very short, with Statham dispatching a roomful of baddies in a few punches each, with the occasional front kick or side kick thrown for good measure. His enemies do “level up” as the film progresses: security guards -> hired goons -> FBI SWAT team -> CIA Swat Team -> the best mercenaries in the world. If you like Jason Statham and his screen fighting skills, there is no reason to not like this movie. There is a lot of action and it’s all well staged. The main thing is that Statham is nearly invincible in this, only taking damage in his fight with the head of the mercenaries, Lazarus (Taylor James).

The violence is often quite graphic, such as him blowing up an elevator, which results in one character getting bisected when it falls down the shaft. And yet…the sequel is being directed by Indonesian director Timo Tjahjanto. That guy did the hyper-violent movies Headshot; The Night Comes For Us; and Shadow Strays (which may be the worst of the three). So, I can see The Beekeeper 2 getting spectacularly violent.

My main qualm with this film was the profanity. Although I'm not totally against it, this one had so many F-bombs being dropped that it became distracting. I accept that sort of thing in a 90s "In the hood" films or a Tarantino movie, but in a fun, check-your-brain-at-the-door actioner, you don't need 100+ uses of the word f*ck.

Statham is now pushing 60 and shows no signs of slowing down. The year after this, he did A Working Man, which brought in 89 million on a similar budget to this. This year he has given us Shelter, which didn’t do as well as his previous two films, and will soon release Mutiny, which will be Statham’s Under Siege (at least in general premise). Plus he has the sequel to this one due out next year. I really have to applaud Statham for keeping up this action hero shtick for as long as he has. Too bad that by the time he reaches Stallone’s age, we’ll probably no longer have any action heroes of his caliber to do an Expendables reboot.

Death Kappa (2010)

Death Kappa (2010)
Director: Tomoo Haraguchi 

So, Monster X Strikes Back was more or less a sequel-cum-remake-cum-parody from the start. Big Man Japan was something of a satire of both the genre and Japanese society until the final reel, at which point it became an outright parody. Death Kappa, which came out two years after Monster X Strikes Back, sort of straddles the line between "affectionate homage" and "genre parody", with some of the human scenes being played more or less seriously, others not, some of the FX being good (by suitmation standards), and some of them almost looking intentionally fake.

The film stars Misato Hirata (of the Ultraman Mebius series) as Kanako, a woman hailing from a small village in Northern(?) Japan who is returning home after a disastrously failed bid to become an idol. As soon as she returns home, her grandmother is killed in front of her by reckless, drunken youth. Kanako takes it upon herself to continue her grandmother's legacy and become a miko (or shrine maiden) and tend to the local kami, a kappa. Thanks to the the aforementioned youth, one of the kappa idols is knocked into sea, which awakens into a real kappa. Funnily enough, the creature is enamored by the stupid pop single that Kanako released--lyrics like "I'm wearing panties again today" and "I promise I'll bleed for you as I wait on the beach" suggest that Kanako was the Japanese equivalent to Rebecca Black.

Anyway, there is an evil outfit known as the National Guard operating inside the same village. They are creating a race of evil fish men in order to restore Japan to its Nationalists, militaristic roots--watch for Shin Godzilla director Hideaki Anno as the director of the Guard. The evil scientist is a black-clad lady (Mika, of Abashiri Ikka: The Movie) who sometimes dresses as a witch, and sometimes as a dominatrix. She is the granddaughter of a WW2-era scientist who had started the fish man project and wants to continue his legacy. We are meant to draw parallels between the two women with regards to continuing their grandparents' legacy: one good, one evil.

Anyway, Kanako is kidnapped by the National Guard, who try to transform her into fish girl. She is rescued by the kappa, who sumo wrestles the guards into submission. Evil Scientist Girl goes insane and shoots everyone--including her grandfather's dessicated corpse--with a machine gun before detonating a nuclear weapon inside the base. The explosion mutates one of the fishmen into a Godzilla-esque monster called Hangyolas, who attacks "the city". After all the military hardware fails to destroy it, a kaiju-sized Kappa shows up. Let the monster wrestling begin...

On one hand, the monster suits are really detailed and look great on screen. There are some good miniatures and old school kaiju fans may enjoy the old school effects (tanks, maser cannons, jets, etc.). The monster wrestling is also more entertaining than the Guilala-vs-Take-Majin fight in Monster X Strikes Back. And the first half is strange enough that some might find it entertaining. The monster Hangyolas is very reminiscent of Titanosaurus from Terror of Mechagodzilla--and Kappa's entrance into the final fight by blasting Hangyolas from offscreen with a blue-colored blast is a callback to that movie. Director Tomoo Haraguchi, who did creature design on the Heisei Gamera films and directed Sakuya, Slayer of Demons, really knows his way around the genre.

The problem is the rest. The human element disappears almost entirely from the second half of the movie, except for the nameless military brass. There is a running joke of the soldiers being asked to shoot the monster with their standard-issue assault rifles, only to get scared and scream out for their mothers. The movie ends with Kanako reappearing out of nowhere to charm and calm down an angry Kappa, which begs the question: "Wasn't she killed in the atomic explosion?" And the early scenes of the fishmen killing youth are rather graphic for an otherwise cheesy, goofy film. And speaking of goofy, as good as the miniatures are, the scenes of fighter jets attacking Hangyolas show the piano wire suspending them, which makes me wonder if it was intentional (making it a parody) or something they just didn't know how to hide (which just makes it bad).

In the end, this movie is a lot like how I view Eight-Legged Freaks, which didn't know if it wanted to be Tremors (an update of 50s, desert-set sci-fi) or a spoof. Although both types of films can have humor, the humor of each is of a different sort. And that is how I felt about Death Kappa. It needed a clearer idea of its own identity.