It was obvious from the start it wouldn’t have much to do with the terrible (but strangely popular) Dragonball Z series. Well it is meant to be pre-DBZ to be fair. However it didn’t really look like it would have an awful lot to do with that either. Obviously being as I’m not a fan of the series, this is no problem for me. It did still look pretty terrible in its own right though. In a fun kind of way. So why is it that I actually seemed to rather enjoy it?

If you’re a DB/DBZ/DBGT fan you’ll probably want to know what they’ve changed. The answer is pretty much everything. Goku appears to be much older in this than in the original Dragonball and he doesn’t have a tail. Bulma doesn’t have funny coloured hair. Well apart from a streak of colour. Also it starts out as American high school bully vs nerd situation. Where Goku is the nerd, except he’s been told by his grandfather not to fight even though he could flatten them. Which is a bit different to the average nerd thing but quite a lot like the spiderman style of things. They’ve greatly condensed the story as well. It’s only 84 minutes long when the book series went on forever (or seemed to). So they have to quickly find all the Dragonballs, have a big battle and save the day all in about an hour. Which doesn’t take a lot of doing.

A lot of the acting is quite poor, especially from the actress playing Bulma but yet strangely I seemed to quite like the guy playing Goku. The legend that is Chow Yun Fat plays master Roshi in a quite zany wacky style which would probably work in Hong Kong but doesn’t seem to quite work here. You can’t help but like Chow Yun Fat, regardless. He really should go back to Hong Kong, take John Woo with him and make a good movie again though. James Marsters plays Picolo in quite sinister fashion but barely gets any screen time to develop himself as a decent bad guy. Park Joon plays Yamcha. He plays the part in quite terrible fashion. But then he’s Korean acting in American so he can be forgiven.

So yeah, having pointed out that the cast are all terrible and the film is a mess, what did I actually like about it? Well despite it being obviously a cynical hollywood cash in, it was still quite fun. It had a great sense of adventure and would be thoroughly good watch as a fun film in its own right, if you’re after a harmless teen adventure flick. The action is exciting and reasonably convincing (for what it is). It looks pretty nice too. It’s paced well enough to avoid being boring whilst giving you time to settle in to the story. It’s just a throwaway bit of fun. Anyone complaining it’s not true to source should go away and er do something else. Probably. The source material was a bit rubbish as well. Well DBZ is.

Gosh this review of a slightly poor film is quite long. Just be glad the word count isn’t OVER 9000!!

In case you don’t know, it’s the story of Brian Clough’s rise to fame and his 44 day run as manager of Leeds United. And his bitter rivalry with the Leeds manager Don Revie. That’s it.

It is supposedly a fiction based on fact. And that’s something that annoys me about docu-drama films. Knowing how much you’re supposed to take as fact and what is just silly made up nonsense. Thankfully some parts of the film are based on events that have actual tv footage, such as the Clough/Revie interview (Warning: this links to ITV). Looking at that after the film makes me question why Martin Sheen plays Brian Clough in such a manic way. Clough in the film seems completely scatty and crazy but in clips (often recreated in the film) he’s much more calm and relaxed. Sure he does make a few funny faces and such in the clips but not to the extent Martin Sheen does. It’s clear that he’s desperately trying to recreate Brian Clough but ultimately he appears to be more of a manic version of his David Frost interpretation. His accent sounds all wrong to me. But anyway regardless of that, he does a fairly good job of getting the idea of the man over, I guess. The flashy, arrogant, rash but ultimately good hearted guy who really cares about what he does.

The film is obviously very much on Clough’s side and does portray him as something of a hero, despite all his shortcomings. It raises the question of whether the things he did wrong were brought about by a misinterpretation of events due to an inflated ego or not. Such as the rivalry with Don Revie. Did Revie really blank him on purpose when their teams first met or was it just that he didn’t notice him? In the film, it’s said that it was this event that really made everything happen. Clough became obsessed with beating Don Revie.

Regardless of whether or not you’re interested in football you should really find a gripping drama about obsession and determination here. It’s entertaining and pretty well put together. All the supporting cast does a great job, particularly the excellent Timothy Spall (though Jim Broadbent just feels like Zidler from Moulin Rouge, due to being the chairman of Derby). If only Martin Sheen hadn’t tried quite so hard.

When the director of this film shouted ‘ACTION’ I don’t know if people knew exactly how much he meant just that. He clearly understands that you don’t need those boring things you sometimes get in movies like characters or plot. You just need action. Forget love scenese or any kind of emotion. Just blow stuff up. And shoot lots. It’s much like the whole missing reel gag in Planet Terror (which has way too much plot compared to this). However, I suppose it would help if the actors are at least vaguely capable of making it believable.

This is the plot according to the blurb:
( Long ridiclous blurb )
Which is remarkably more involved than I could gather from watching the film. From what I could gather from watching it, three near invincible commando guys were trying to get a helicopter from a bad guy’s base. Probably.

All three lead actors are quite terrible. Their use of guns laughable at best. Holding them at arms length and waving them about like a toddler might with a toy. However it seems to work pretty well for them as that usually results in around 30 kills. Sometimes the bad guys continue to fall over even though the firing has stopped. I presume that’s because our heroes are so awesome that they planned some clever ricochets from trees in the distance. Probably. Still the bad guys pose minimal threat along the way. Even when the heroes are out in the open not one of the 30-50 adversaries can get a good shot on them.

Miles O’Keeffe leads the trio and manages to look quite handsome, adopting some cool action hero poses on occasion. The others do little of interest. The black guy (who dies first) gets a leg gnawed off by pirahnas and the fat olderbloke gets heroically killed in the enemy camp. Things get particularly silly in the enemy camp as we see soldiers running around in all directions. All their running about merely serves to swap positions of the soliders on each side of the camp. There’s lookouts who resolutely stare in one direction and a tank and APC which continually swap places.

Oh gosh I haven’t mentioned the body count yet. It’s high. Very high. Very very high. It must be around the 300 mark. I’m going to try and have a quick look to see. Cripes. I’ve just watched 30 seconds and it’s already at least 30. So many it’s hard to keep track.

It can be a little bit wearing with the constant sound of gunfire for the 90(ish) minutes and the seeming invincibility of the heroes ensures there’s absolutely no tension. You can tell the moments where some is definitely going to die; it’s when it’s dramatically appropriate to do so. But I still found it great fun. Sure it’s gash and tripe, full of plot holes and ridiculous inconsistencies but it doesn’t matter. It’s totally silly fun, even if the film doesn’t quite realise it.

Oh and much like that Mark Dacascos film DNA, there’s some atrocious helicopter crashes/explosions. The most nonsensical of these can be found in this video at around the 1m mark.

Well that’s a bit unfair actually. It seems the film is trying to say a couple of things but it never really gets its point past the drab direction and characterless acting. That isn’t to say the acting isn’t the bad style I usually encounter but just somehow lifeless. What it’s about is a video of a 50s sci fi film which makes people kill other people. Some video rental store guy discovers this and sets out to try and stop it. That’s it really. The film seems to have this guy and some woman who look a bit 50s but also 80s who are connected with the video butnever really makes it clear how. All we really know is the woman is quite pretty, has great hair and rental store guy fancies her. Oh and she likes an old foreign film called Stolen Kisses. The other guy is a fairly handsome chap who manages a sneer not dissimilar from Gary/Jake Busey.

The main suggestion of the film seems to be that the VCR is an entity of evil that could cause people to go and kill. Presumably inspired by the notion of video nasties. Some reviewer has written something about the way the video always changes to what’s happening in the room as people watch it reflecting society’s love of watching itself but I wasn’t really paying enough attention or looking deep enough to spot that. Also I feel that last sentance was too long. Kind of reminds me of Ring really. Except it’s more of if you watch it, rather than you dying in 7 days, it’s more likely you’ll kill someone within a couple of minutes. Or be killed by someone else who happens to watch it with you.

It turns out in the end that the video was created by aliens as an attempt to take over the earth. Which is really quite a silly idea. (OR IS IT? – The Disclosure Project)

With better actors involved and a better director, maybe it could have got its point over a little better but you’re not going to do it by disengaging the viewer. They had their chance by having Jennifer Tilly in it but they foolishly kill her off after 10 minutes. Its point was clearly silly anyway.

Lately I’ve become interested in finding out if there’s anything more to the Women in Prison style of film than just basic exploitation. It seems the general aim of these films is to provide men with titilation or is it? My thorough in depth investigation into the genre will undoubtedly prove the definitive answer to the question! (Two films, how torough – Ed)

So what’s the plot line of this one? Well there’s this stuntwoman whose sister ends up in Jail because of killing some guy who raped her. The sister ends up in jail for manslaughter. She gets in trouble with the top dog or queen bee or whatever you want to call her and ends up dead. The authorities turn a blind eye to this. So Stuntwoman is quiet angry and deliberately gets arrested and put in jail to get revenge. She seeks to kill those responsible. And she does. Mostly on purpose too.

Typically there’s much nudity. In both situations of people arriving in jail there’s shower scenes with plenty of nude female bodies. There’s frequent situations later in the film involving clothing ripped revealing breasts. There’s plenty of scenes featuring rather a lot of cruel violence. Most of the deaths in the film are in cruel and unusual ways. Sometimes it’s just cruelty and no death. In particular a girl gets her hand smashed to pieces by the top dog. Oh and there’s drug taking as well. Don’t forget the suggestions of lesbianism as well. Well, what do you expect? It is an exploitative genre.

So does it try to achieve anything more than just this exploitation? Well no not really. It tries to justify itself with a fairly plausible storyline and not all of the situations are unbelievable. The top dog controlling via drugs seems a likely scenario. It seems less likely they’d be able to get away with quite so much violence but who knows. Also it seems pretty much all the guards are evil and on the take. Apart from one female guard who has very pleasant hair. But even so she seems to ignore the violence within the prison. That is until the end where she kills the top dog with a shotgun and asks of the stuntwoman “Did it bring [your sister] back?”. So there the film asks if the violence was justified as it to perhaps justify itself. It can in no way be interpreted as a thought provoking contemplation on the nature of revenge or brutality in womens prisons.

Yet I too can understand a certain compulsion to the genre. I don’t approve of the exploitative sexual element but I think there is interest in the wranglings, however fake, inside the womens prison. It is exciting to see sneaky ways in which people are kept under control and exactly how a top dog can maintain power. Would I care at all about the same situation if it was all men? Probably not. Being attracted to women, having a bunch of attractive women on screen is er.. attractive. Not that many of them were in this. But naturally I do find women more interesting than other men. Am I of dual standards or something when I can live with the violence in the film and not the sexual element? I mean it’s not like I desire violence toward women. The interest is really in the women being powerful strong people, which I dare say is one of the exploitations being aimed at. Take into account the likes of Faster Fussycat Kill Kill which features strippers being violent toward men (hmm sounds a bit like forthcoming movie Bitch Slap). But yet we have the likes of Prisoner Cell Block H from australia which is a bit like all this stuff but without the exploitation and with more soap opera nature. And gradually being more and more ridiculous. And that has a huge gay following. So I don’t really understand at all.

So to sum up: where was I? I forgot the point that I was making.

Gosh that was an unusually short intro. You’ll be wanting to know what this is about obviously. Allow me to tell you. Or don’t and go clicking on a link to somewhere else…. NOW! Still with me? Okay then. Now those smelly idiots have gone I can tell you. It’s about some hero bloke who rescues a princess and saves the land from an evil assassination plot by a corrupt advisort to the king. Here’s more detail.. It starts with some people in a stagecoach riding through a desert. A little girl and some other people. Adam Ant mixed with Captain Jack Sparrow attacks, along with his band of slightly arab looking raiders. Their faces are hidden possibly for reasons similar to Deathstalker 2; there’s not many of them so the actors are probably re-used. Garret, the Lone Ranger Runner saves them. Makes impression on girl. Next she’s about 10 years older and gets attacked again and saved by Mr Runner. The cycle continues a few times and a plot is uncovered involving some noble guy who serves the king. He’s after some secret diamonds which will give him power over the land or something. He’s arranged the kidnapping of the princess and stuff you see. Strange thing is though that despite it clearly being at least 10 years later, Captain Adam Sparrow hasn’t aged at all and nor has Garret. Peculiar. Anyway Garret manages to be pretty undefeatable apart from when he gets poisoned by a poison dart but even that doesn’t keep him down for long. Everyone lives happily ever after.

One funny thing about it is that despite it being a 1986 production, it feels like a TV pilot from about 89/90. I think it was probably video tape recorded as it tends to have that flat look to it. It’s also interesting in that it’s post apocalypse and features no technology. It might as well have been set in the past. Or as a fantasy setting. It seems though it is meant to be after some unspecified apocalypse. Global warming perhaps? So everyone rides about on horses and stuff. So it’s a bit like a western as well. If it wasn’t for the middle eastern kind of look to things you could take it as being that.

The raiders are amusingly inept at guarding their base. Still I suppose if you’re a bunch of chaotic raiders you’re not necessarily going to be that well organised. Oh and I must mention there’s a scene of the classic ‘bash two guards’ heads together: knock them unconcious’. But apart from this occasional amusement there’s nothing much to this one. Not a great deal happens and there’s really very little tension with the Lone Runner being almost completely invincible.

So there you go, a little bit boring with an occasional glimmer of something slightly interesting and a few things to laugh at because they’re crap.

I’ll leave you now with some screenshots I took of an AVI file I made for http://cinemageddon.org
( screenshots cut because it’s a really big image )

I mainly watched this film because of how it was described over at Tough to Kill – The Euro Action Film Depot. You see I was creating the listing on Amazon and when I do that I always research the film a little. It can help me know if it’s known by any alternative titles and thus if it’s already on Amazon. This one was difficult to track down on imdb. The name Mayhem crops up so often and there was so little information on the box as to date. In fact on Imdb it’s listed as Born to Fight I believe. Searching the name of the video and the actors lead me to the blog in question. That glowing report I’ve linked to made me think it would be worth a look. It was too.

I like that review so much I’m going to steal his plot outline from it “With Stavin posing as reporter Marilaine Kain for the U.S.I News channel she travels to a province on the border of Vietnam, looking to seek out jaded Vietnam War survivor and decorated hero Sam Wood, as played by Brent Huff. Her apparent brief is to offer him $50,000 for his story relating to his escape from the infamously reviled Lutam Prison. The truth lies behind her seeking out his services to aid her in rescuing her own father from the still illegally active incarceration hell camp, and the connection that links Sam to the feisty woman’s parent.”

I was a little distracted whilst watching it so I didn’t quite know what was going off. It didn’t really matter though as it was thoroughly enjoyable all the same. It’s really pretty much non stop action from start to finish. Which is something most b-movies fail to achieve. There’s so many which clearly can’t afford even the most basic pyrotechnics and as such try and get away with people talking. This has more explosions and people falling down dead from being gunned down by two m-16s than pretty much any film I’ve ever watched. The lead character is an interesting mixture of Crocodile Dundee, Indiana Jones, Rambo and Clint Eastwood. He’s a bit of a wisecracker and he’s a super action hero. And a man of few words. All at once. Most commonly seen with gun ammo belts wrapped around him. Much like this:

There’s a delightfully over the top villain involved as well. I think he’s meant to be german but I’m not sure. When the time comes for his death, he milks it like a true professional.

Best scene of the film? That’ll be where the hero is in captured mode and being shot by his captors as they force him into a river, he ducks under and re-appears with about 10 grenades in his hands which get thrown at the bad guys blowing up another hundred more huts.

It’s got great pace, it’s utterly absurd and it’s really quite enjoyable. It should, in theory, make you laugh. As it were.

I first encountered this film way back when. It was a time of rental videos for me. Lots of rental videos. Pretty much every week it was 2 or 3 videos rented from Woodlands shop fronts. Mainly two actually as it was difficult to watch 3. It was always a difficult task choosing a video as I would be watching it with my grandparents. Not that they had any objection to sex and violence, they just didn’t like ‘the stupid stuff’ I like. Their liking was more for your standard action thriller. Martial Arts usually went down fairly well but anything sci fi or absurd horror was a no no. But still they usually let me get away with one silly film I could watch first and then something more crowd pleasing later. It was exactly at the period this film was released that my video watching began in earnest. Which would be when I Was 14 then. 4 years too early for most 18 films but I’ve turned out okay right? Right? Hello?

Of course I’d been watching 18s secretly for a fair number of years. Secretly because my dad always disapproved strongly and still does of things with sex and swearing in. And horrible bloody violence. The taboo nature of it perhaps made it more appealing. I’m not sure. I just wanted to see these films regardless anyway. But shall I actually get on with this review rather than recount my history with rental videos? I shall in just a moment but I felt it was necessary to put some context in here. The trailer for this film was on practically every video we rented. I wanted to see it for years. But my Auntie Norma who lived with my grandparents, has a phobia of puppets so it was always forbidden.

How delighted I was when this came in to the stall a few days back. After a 20 year wait (near enough) I finally get to see the film. Did it live up to expectations? Well kind of but that’s only taking into account what I know now. Knowing what to expect from b-movie nonsense from the likes of Full Moon pictures, I knew it wouldn’t actually amount to much. Had I not had such b-movie experience I would have been expecting much more. As it is, it’s just about good enough.

It’s about some psychic types who are summoned to this huge abandoned hotel where some bloke died. And a friend of theirs has just died there as well. He’s the reason they’re going. He’d bought the place too. It was probably his wife that summoned them or something. Or their psychic visions. Or something like that. The original dead bloke had somehow managed to make puppets come to life and do things. He killed himself to stop them falling into the wrong hands. It seems though that dead friend bloke is the wrong hands as he’s got them going again and they kill off a fair number of his friends.

The puppets are a pretty good gimmick and each has their own particular trait. Pinhead has a small head but a large body and huge arms and has incredible strength, Ms Leech is able to spew out deadly leeches, Tunneler has a drill on top of his head, and there’s another one with knives for hands. It’s a shame they don’t do much until about the 50 minute mark.

Here’s a nice trailer for the film just to break things up a little.

Most of it up to then are the friends experiencing things that tell of bad things going to happen. The leader of the friends seems to be Garth Marenghi but the star of them is the fortune teller white witch with something of a southern drawl. She’s a strong character, has the best lines and puts up a good fight against some of the puppets. Her unfortunate death is not without putting up an incredible fight, despite being crippled early on. Pretty much everyone else is rather bland, servingly only to be meat for the puppets.

The final death scene is quite unpleasant despite us not actually seeing much. It actually manages to convey more horror by not showing everything, which shows at least a slight bit of skill in film making. The puppet animation is also pretty good and quite effective.

To enjoy this film you’ve really got to have a taste for low budget horror. It’s nothing particularly special but has just enough good ideas to keep you entertained. As it is I found myself skipping through a lot until the puppets got active.