Category Archives: revenge

Sometimes It Takes EVIL To Bring Out the EVIL In Us All. “Jacob” reviewed! (Crazed House and MVDVisual / Unrated, Director’s Cut Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Jacob’s” EVIL is Coming to Blu-ray! Order Here!

In the Texas smalltown of Melvin Falls, a dark history engulfs the Kell family.  Edith Kell and her two children have lived in ostracized notoriety for years amongst their neighbors as Edith’s husband, obsessed with restoring a suddently inherited house immersed in haunted opine, walked into the town crowded bar and started violently killing patrons before being shot dead by the local sheriff.  Years later, Edith’s son Jacob is now a quiet, large, and lumbering young man with a death stare that’s akin to looking into the abyss, but Jacob’s underlining rage and psychopathic tendencies are comforted by his younger sister, Sissy, when tensions rise between his mother and her boyfriend, the abusive town drunk Otis.  When Otis inadvertently kills Sissy, Jacob’s bloody rampage is unleashed and the townspeople, led by a capital punitive sheriff, form a posse to bring down the vengeful Jacob, if they even can, in another Kell family massacre.

IMDB.com

Larry Wade Carrell writes-and-directs the dysfunction family and rural community horror “Jacob,” released over a decade ago in 2012.  The film is Carrell’s debut solo directorial that earned the filmmaker best Indie Fantasy-Horror, Best Young Actress, and Best Music Score at the WorldFest Houston before embarking into more recent horror of the last decade with “She Rises,” “Girl Next,” and “The Quantum Devil” that run the subgenre gamut with supernatural terror, trafficking abductions, and evil on a whole other plane of existence.  Carrell’s humble backwoods basket case thriller has broad stroke inklings of a supernatural catalyst.  Filmed in and around Richmond, Texas, “Jacob” is the last feature from Odyssee Pictures and the first for Javaline 98 Productions, produced on a low budget by Carrell, Odyssee Picture’s Stacy Davidson and Jeremy Sumrall (“Domain of the Damned,” “Sweatshop”), William B. Davis, Catherine and Frederick Rushford, James Martinelli, and Chuck Norfolk (“Conjoined”).

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Like most indie features, multiple hats are being worn in front of and behind the camera.  Not only does director Larry Wade Carrell write the script, he also dons the twin brother roles of drunkard abuser Otis and the gentile deputy Billy.  Edited so the two characters are never fully faced in a scene together, Carrell manages to pull off contrast personalities by portraying, essentially, the epitome of bad versus good with the no-good delinquent and intoxicated aggressor Otis up against the mild-mannered solicitous nature of Billy, a deputy.  While Carrell may be the core of the story playing two characters, he’s written a narrative that has to battle out against the titular character Jacob, played by Dylan Horne, and the venerated genre name of Michael Biehn (“Terminator”), in what can be considered as the worst impersonation of a whoopie-exclaiming Podunk, literally with the character yelling whoopie when learning of inheriting a house.  Aside from Biehn’s cringy performance, the acting is generally positive and compelling.  Carrell goes beyond the bar in melodramatics but manages to keep grounded by much of dynamic interactions supplied by scrupulous actors with Krystn Caldwell (“Psychic Experiment”) as Edith Kell, the staying in victim of abuse, Leo D. Wheeler (“Domain of the Damned”) as the manbun sheriff with a firm but gentle approach, and Grace Powell (“Hell of a Night”) as Jacob’s soothing little sister Sissy.  Horne, in the Jacob role, is voiceless throughout but imparts Jacob’s ogre-esque killer from inside out but is still overshadowed by Carrell’s double-edge role that takes away from his menancing run through the simpleminded townsfolk.   Dustin Lane (“The Darq’), Travis Hester, Sandy Ray (“Hairmetal Shotgun Zombie Massacre: The Movie”), Shane Stewart, Karen Schlag (“Domain of the Dead”), Nick W. Nicholson (“Pickaxe”), and Deke Garner (“The Void”) rounds out the “Jacob” cast.

IMDB.com

“Jacob” is one of those horror-thrillers that wears the trope suit of a large, quiet, countryside hulk with little intelligence but makes up for with strength and goes on a killing spree when a cataclysmic moment, usually spurred by external elements like peer bullying or the death of significant person, in this case the death of his sister, Sissy, breaks Jacob’s dammed violent tendencies and what ensues is a deluge of body mangling carnage in a big ole heap of misunderstanding as the Melvin Falls residents believe, with prior judgement and without a doubt, Jacob finally snapped and murdered his sweet baby sister, though far from the truth.  However, the reason for Jacob’s turn to madness is a little more complex than just dead sister vindictiveness.  In this case, less is more would have suited Carrell’s film more aptly as Carrell adds in a supernatural element with Jacob’s father inheriting a supposed haunted house.  As the father attends to the house rehab, a montage of him finding a book and able to read and be beguiled by the demon scripture inside causes him to slowly become obsessed and insane while fixing their newfound home which then leads to the bar massacre Jacob witnesses.  Jacob also comes in contact with his father’s spilled blood that night and that presumably passes whatever supernatural forces the father was affected by to his son, an evident metaphorical theme of hereditary genes gone wild through blood lineage that’s also demonstrated within Sissy who mentions hearing the house’s callings to her but she was not tainted by the touch of her father’s blood with her being inside mother’s womb. There’s a lot to digest and decipher but not properly arranged or the demonic mainspring is sorely underplayed to really nail the occult supernaturality on its head.

The Unrated, Director’s Cut of Larry Wade Carrell’s “Jacob” lands onto Blu-ray from Carrell’s current release company Crazed House and distributor MVDVisual.  The AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50 and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Picture quality is a bit all over the place and its likely not from the compression codec but rather stylistic choices for flashbacks for a narrative that goes into a flashback while already inside a flashback, creating multiple tonal layers to distinguish the vying eras.    Carrell really gets his hands into a sepia and desaturated grading that sucks the color out in a fit leaning toward overexposure taking with it much of the finer detail points.  Combined with digital stock, the gritty tone Carrell goes for often loses the battle to an ultra-sheen effect.  The English LPCM 5.1 surround sound plays to the rigors of the dialogue.  The loquacious script, delivered on point by the actors, goes unobstructed with a prominent dialogue layer underscored by its Iain Kelso score that evokes a slightly better grittier tone Carrell attempts to achieve with the film’s appearance.  Range is limited to just what’s in frame and within the nucleus bubble and that often goes together with eliminating much of the depth when all the centered focus objects are making all the noise in the room and scene, diegetic speaking.  English subtitles are available.  The director’s cut has special features that include two commentaries with one including writer-director Larry Wade Carrell and the other including Stacy Davidson, a behind-the-scenes documentary The Journey of Jacob that has retrospective cast and crew interviews as well as raw footage and film footage of the film’s from alpha to omega, an interview at the “Jacob” Canadian premiere hosted by Yell Magazine, actors screen test, extended and deleted scenes with Carrell commentary, a storyboard comparison with Carrell commentary, and the theatrical trailer.  There is no stinger scene post credit.  The cover art screams low-budget and photoshop but is an adequate shoe that fits the rural horror and lumbering maniac concept.  “Jacob” comes in a standard Blu-ray Amaray for its region free, 92-minute feature presentation.

Last Rites: “Jacob’s” a good first effort in the big chair for filmmaker Larry Wade Carrell with solid acting, interesting characters, and palpable bloodshed. Where the weaknesses lie is with the story’s inability to connect the demonic, haunted house, ghost story, or whatever supernatural force may be to the essence of backwater calamity and dysfunctional family lineage.

“Jacob’s” EVIL is Coming to Blu-ray! Order Here!

The Empire of EVIL Reduced to Prostitution, Corruption, and a Wasteland. “Gate of Flesh” reviewed! (88 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

88 Films’ “Gate of Flesh” Now Available in the U.S.!

The American occupation of Japan post-World War II was the result of not only the Iwo Jima atomic bomb but also the relentless destruction of carpet-bombing Tokyo.  Left in near ruins and swarming with the presence of American soldiers, the Japanese people have disseminated into gangs and territories for financial gains and power.  For Kanto Komasa, she and her gang of highly motivated women prostitute themselves for sex-starved American soldiers to accure money for Paradise, the future name of their bomb-ruined, leftover-skeletal building structure revamped into an elegant dance hall where they run the show.  When a rival male gang threatens their business, another all-woman gang challenges them, an inducted outsider betrays them, and a bloodied stranger is found inside their bombed out homebase, all with the Americans military police continuously rounding up prostitutes nightly, Komasa and her gang must walk the paved road through Hell to scratch and claw toward Paradise, even if that means going against their set principles.

Since the end of the World War II Pacific campaign, Japanese novelist Taijirô Tamura’s “Gate of Flesh” has been filmically adapted a handful of times just after the war in 1947.  In 1948, directors Masahir Makino and Ozaki Masafusa first adapted the novel, followed by the Seijun Suzuki version in 1964 and Shōgorō Nishimura’s adaptation in 1977.  In this review, Hideo Gosha’s “Gate of Flesh,” also known as “Carmen 1945,” moves from samurai period actioners, such as “Sword of the Beast,” “Three Outlaw Samurai,” and “Samurai Wolf,” and into a yakuza era of storytelling that came on strong in the 1980s.  “Gate of Flesh” is no different with plenty of yakuza tropes without actually affirming the term in the dialogue.  Gosha’s tale provides more glamour, style, and substance, especially around themes of inner turmoil under outsider control and the divine praise for an enemy-built weapon of destruction, from a screenplay by prolific writer Kazuo Kasahara of “Hiroshima Death Machine” and “Yakuza Graveyard.”  The Toei Company production is produced by Shigeru Okada (“Inferno of Torture”).

“Gate of Flesh” has the interweaving stories of an ensemble with the various faceted chess piece pawns aimed to promote themselves, by cutthroat and sordid means, to a higher degree of social status and wealth improvement like queens and kings within a crummy economical and degraded societal Tokyo commune of prostitution, gambling, and survival.  There are also a few other pieces stealthier knighted behind enemy lines with more noble goals in mind.  While different storylines unfold and merge, Kanto Komasa becomes the generally sensed centerpiece, played by Rino Katase of previously directed Gosha films, “Yakuza Ladies” and “Tokyo Bordello.”  Her preparedness to take on the “Gate of Flesh” role as the female-led gang leader promising Paradise has been success before of her previous performances in Gosha’s films that contain similar traits but Katase delivers a powerhouse, immensely conflicted, act as Komasa’s hopes and dreams to dig herself out of poverty and into high-class are thwarted by deceptive ranks, a haunting past, and, of course, the more present occupation troubles of inner city gang-on-gang wardom, battling advances, negotiates, and the potential for mediation between fellow gang leaders Yoshio Hakamada (Jinpachi Nezu, “Ran”), who wants her building that’ll be lucrative in the future, and Rakucho no Osumi (Yūko Natori, “Stranger”).  Of course, there’s more to bereft Komasa’s mind with the sudden wounded appearance and peculiarity familiarity of stranger Shintaro Ibuki (Tsunehiko Watase, “The Rapacious Jailbreaker”) who has protective parallelism with the 2-ton bomb that also acts as a rival gang repellant and an explosive safety net for Komasa.  Secondary characters provide a layered depth to Hideo Gosha’s charismatic and gender-battling narrative with Miyuki Kanō, Yūko Natori, Senri Yamazaki, Shinsuke Ashida, Naomi Hase, Chie Matsuoka, and Yoshimi Ashikawa.

Surreal like a dystopian science-fiction and wasteland thriller, “Gate of Flesh” has that otherworldly, alternate reality appeal accentuated by Hideo Gosha’s colorfully grim realism that doesn’t convey truth or fact.  In fact, “Gate of Flesh” is very much rooted in reality, truth, and fact in regard to U.S. occupation of Japan after the country’s surrender between 1945 and 1952.  This drops a non-fictionalized period as “Gate of Flesh’s” backlot, corroded by the illicit prostitution that spread to satisfy and bank off allied forces.  Gosha’s film is a game of wits amongst crooks and connivers while the developing sympathy envelopes around the seemingly tough of nails Kanto Kamase with a violin-pining and sympathetic backstory colliding with the injured Colt Shin aka Shintaro Ibuki.  Ibuki himself has history, or perhaps even beef history, with the iron rule of Hakamada, but through thick and thin, Ibuki’s clearly maneuvering the chess board around protecting Kamase for clued in reasons only to be precisely unveiled near the end.  The American presence doesn’t even feel weighty, reduced to hooker johns, voiceless military police, and a one uncouthly boisterous and unpleasant Sergeant to become the poster boy from Japan’s perspective of the occupational paradigm. Other than that, the U.S. forces are background noise, a sidestepped component of a much bigger, domestic ordeal amongst the Japanese people but are still the cause of so much heartache, gangsterism, and civil war.  Sex is also a huge theme as strictly a monetary activity rather than a joyful expression of romance and liberating relief from oppression, which there is none from U.S. forces.  Kazuo Kasahara’s script skirts around the inkling of affection between two people as much of everything else is for ostentatious and desperation means in a time when there was not much else to hold onto in Tokyo after suffering defeat, aside from ruined property, cash for hope, and tattoos to honor the past. 

88 Films proudly presents “Gate of Flesh” from their UK catalogue to their quickly growing US list of titles.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 is the first home video release for the rest of the world outside of Japan with a limited-edition release, presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen.  Hideo Gosha’s style brilliance flourishes with this impeccably detailed and graded release that pedestals a rich and sustaining color palette.  The stabilization of color extends to the details as textures pop from the screen, especially in Kamase’s gang where each one has a distinct color flair and different pattern design to have them stand out amongst each other in a story that’s greatly character-individualized aware and often tangents into side characters to be worked into the parent plot.  No compression issues to note, day and night transitions have equal clarity and depth, and the Gosha and Yuko Morita’s aesthetic brings the stylistic aspects to the forefront without taking away from the schemes of skin tones and milieu details in the set design of a tumbledown Tokyo.  The Japanese LPCM 2.0 Mono mix diffuses perfectly into the single channel fold and aligns well with the picture, casting synchronous UK English optional subtitles that only had a single misspelling that I had caught.  “Gate of Flesh” has plenty of range and depth captured precisely on this 88 Films release that doesn’t show signs of audio layer wear or any compression issues.  The summiting explosion capitalizes the full potential of the mix with a story grand exit designed to be immersive as possible in its limited capacity through an assistant of visual means.  The special features include an audio commentary by film critics and analysts Amber T and Jasper Sharp, critic Earl Jackson provides an introduction on the many adaptations of Taijiro Tamura’s “Gate of Flesh” with timelines, history, and his own preference accompanied by stills, posters, and video clips, an exclusive interview with tattoo artist Seiji Mouri Flesh & Blood Tattoos who doesn’t view the Gosha’s work as a yakuza-spiced, and rounds out the content with a still gallery and a pair of trailers.  The limited-edition and numbered set, that includes an Obi strip over top a commissioned illustrative composition covert art by Ilan Sheady and housed in a clear Scanova case, contains a 23-page booklet with color photos and posters and essay notes by Robin Gatto and Irene González-López.  The cover art has a reversible side with the original Japanese poster.  Only playable in region A and B, the not rated 88 Films disc comes not rated and with a 119 runtime.

Last Rites: “Gate of Flesh” bears the weight of Taijiro Tamura’s prostitution-laden tale of survival, revenge, and hope with Hideo Gosha’s cinematic eye that captures the beauty and indomitability in the badlands of the occupied proud.

88 Films’ “Gate of Flesh” Now Available in the U.S.!

Fulci Turns Back Time to Bring EVIL Back from the Dead! “The House of Clocks” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The House of Clocks” Delivers Time as an Illusion. Blu-ray now available!

An isolated Italian villa becomes the looting target for three thieves looking for an easy score.  Villa residents, an elderly couple, are tricked into letting them into their estate adorned with elegant clocks of all shapes and sizes but as the plane unfolds it goes awry when the imposing grounds man arrives and both homeowners are killed.  Yet, the villa owners were no saints and no ordinary couple as soon as the husband’s heart stops, the clocks begin to move counterclockwise and that’s when the peaceful villa turns into a strange nightmare where time goes in reverse and those short and long dead come back to life with wounds miraculously healed as if it never happened.  As time continues to reverse, the thieves find themselves trapped inside the house and on estate grounds being hunted down by the merciless grounds man, but the skeletons in the elderly couple’s closet will soon resurrect and be thirsty for vengeance.

“The House of Clocks” is the Lucio Fulci made-for-TV movie that never saw the light of television programing.  Deemed too gory and violent for public broadcast, Fulci’s 1989 Italian film, to which he created the concept for and the screenplay treated by the duo team of Gianfranco Clerici  of “Cannibal Holocaust” and Daniele Stroppa of “Delirium,” was shelved for many years until it’s eventual home video release because, as you can tell just from the high-powered Italian horror names attached to the project, the finished film would certainly frighten those general audiences with easy turn-of-the-knob and bunny ear-antenna access.  Also known natively as “La casa nel Tempo,” was a part of a four-film horror special surrounding a theme of the houses of doom and was a production of Dania Film and Reteitalia production companies with “You’ll Die at Midnight” and “Delirium” producers Massimo Manasse and Marco Grillo Spina serving as executive producers.

The film initially opens with Maria, the nosy for her own good housemaid, discovering two rotting corpses ostentatiously displayed in the villa’s chapel.  Why Maria (Carla Cassola, “Demonia” and “The Sect”) decides to snoop around is not explained but the act does start a chain events, leading up to elder Villa owners in Sara Corsini and her clock obsessed husband Vittorio, played by the role age appropriate Bettine Milne (“The King’s Whore”) and Paolo Paoloni (“Cannibal Holocaust”) in a lot more makeup and prosthetics to make him appear as an older man.  As mysterious senior citizens go, Milne and Paoloni are the malevolently cryptic under a façade of geniality, possessing and maintaining the corpses of their niece and nephew they’ve murdered in order to keep their wealth.  The backstory between the two pairs has vague clarity but there’s enough to keep the pistons pumping toward the crux of why the uncanny time about-face.  While, again, no sense of explanation on why time reverses, we’re under the assumption Paolo is essentially Father Time, a personification of the time concept represented as an old, bearded man with an hour glass and a scythe to represent a span from life to death.  When thieves Paul (Peter Hintz, “Zone Troopers”), Tony (Keith Van Hoven, “Black Demons”), and Sandra (Karina Huff, “Voices from Beyond”) put an end to the Corsinis, that is when time stops and reverses itself, affecting the once dead to return back to life, and creating a nightmare scenario for now three trapped thieves under the chase of not only the Corsinis but those also killed by the Corsinis as their deteriorating bodies rejuvenate into active flesh and bone as well as flesh and blood.  “The Beyond” and “Zombie’s” Al Cliver rounds out the principal cast and the overall cast with his menacingly evil, Corsini’s jack-of-all-trades grounds man with a scarred over eye and a double barrel shotgun to hunt down the thieves.

“The House of Clock’s” is quite an interesting concept without a durably designed reason for all the madnesses.  At its core, three thieves home invade an older couple for their valuable objects and accidently kill them in the process when the standoff goes bad.  With that oversimplified version of events, a hellish cog in the pocket watch gearbox links the old man’s ticker with the tons of tickers that adorn his villa home, causing a chain reaction of turn back the clock proportions to which audiences never receive a proper understanding and while this may bother a sample size few, most will find the story too weird, gory, and trepidatious tense to care in what becomes a fair-game free-for-all against all characters who don’t have an ounce of virtue.  The lot of thieves, schemers, and murders are all trapped inside time’s ill-reverse affect without a sign of slowing down and while it might seem advantageous at first for some, as time continues to revert, the worse the situation becomes as old adversaries emerge from their graves and tombs.  Fulci’s visualized gore also emerges through with the fantastic effects by Guiseppe Ferranti, including a high right through the crotch impalement.  Ferranti would also be behind the effects for two other the house of doom television movies.

“The House of Clocks” may not have been safe for television but for a new Cauldron Films Blu-ray, the Lucio Fulci film fits right in and comes in the nick of time!  Restored from a 2K scan of the 35mm film negative, the AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 offers a visually invigorated, audibly astounding, and special features saturated release that presents Fulci’s lesser known and once previously shelved work!  Presented in a European widescreen 1.66:1, color saturation is beyond reproach with a beautifully natural grading that pops textures and objects right off the screen, adding density and tangibility to each.  Disc capacity affords the codec compression with no artefact issues in the reproducing of the encoded image that nearly replicates an ideal exhibition and appearance of a made-for-TV movie, especially in the macabre moment where extra slimy ooziness of the decaying corpses or the perforation of the servant’s crotch area is as clear as clear can get without misinterpretation.  Skin tones aren’t flared and are naturally set within a healthy, though smoother, grain layer.  The release comes with two audio mixes – a PCM English 2.0 mono and a PCM Italian 2.0 mono.  Both tracks are produced from ADR and have been scrubbed with no issues of hissing or crackling.  There’s a brilliant touch of echoing within the estate to create reverberations and a range, open quality to the exterior dialogue.  Vince Tempera’s synth piano is a ticking measure of modified vocals and integrated milieu elements with a organ tone like quality that’s ghoulishly soft.  English subtitles are optional on both mixes.  Special features include a handful of new interviews from behind-the-camera with cinematographer Nino Celeste Lighting the House of Time, composer Vince Tempera Time and Music, first assistant director Michele De Angelis Working with a Master, FX artist Elio Terribili Time with Fulci, as well as unmentioned archival interviews with actors Paolo Paoloni, Al Cliver, and Carla Cassola.  There’s a parallel audio commentary with film historians and critics Eugenio Ercolani, Nathaniel Thompson, and Troy Howarth who regularly step in to commentate on Italian horror.  Graphic artist Matthew Therrien designs an illustrative composition artwork, pulling inspiration from the film’s most iconic and chaotic moments, while Eric Lee designs the titular logo sitting pretty dead center.  The reverse side of the cover art displays a rotting hand still from the movie.  The 19th title has a clear Amaray that houses a cropped version of the front cover image pressed onto the disc, which is region free, uncut, and has an 83-minute runtime.

Last Rites: Most people wish they could turn back time. For Lucio Fulci and his penchant for beyond death, going counterclockwise in “The House of Clocks” is more frightening and deadly as time can’t be owned and controlled. Simply put, there’s just no stopping the sands of time, forwards or backwards, for the past will catch up to you and the future is mercilessly uncertain.

“The House of Clocks” Delivers Time as an Illusion. Blu-ray now available!

A Young Man Has to Become Someone Else to Exact Revenge on EVIL! “The Adventurers” (Eureka Entertainment / Special Limited-Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Limited Edition “The Adventurers” Now on Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment!

A Cambodian boy’s family is brutally murdered by the family friend and covert colleague Ray Lui, in front of him.  Alone and distraught, Wai Lok-yan is taken under the wing of his Uncle Shang, a CIA operative living in Thailand, and grows up to be a military fighter pilot still haunted by the violent death of his family.  When a newspaper headline names the now wealthy-by-gun-smuggling Ray Lui is to attend a public event, Wai Lok-yan is hellbent to kill Ray Lui at any cost, despite his career and his life, but a horribly failed assassination attempt puts his life in danger.  Uncle Shang strikes a deal with the CIA, who also want Ray Liu dead, to allow Wai Lok-yan in the United Staes in exchange to be an undercover operative named Mandy Chan, a gang boss seeking to kidnap Liu’s estranged daughter Crystal to get closer to the murderous arms smuggler.  However, what Wai Lok-yan didn’t expect in his mission was to fall in love.

The 1995 Ringo Lam gun action-thriller “The Adventurers” starring Andy Lau is in no way related to the 2017 Stephen Fung gun action-thriller “The Adventurers” also starring Andy Lau.  I just wanted to get that out there and over with.  Moving on.  Ringo Lam, director of the Jean-Claude Van Damme films “Maximum Risk,” “Replicant,” and “In Hell,” cowrites what is known in Hong Kong as a heroic bloodshed feature with “Supercop 2’s” Sandy Shaw and Kwong-Yam Yip.  Heroic bloodshed is a popular subgenre stemmed and coined from the 1980s that surrounded themes of duty, honor, and violent gunplay while embroiled in a web of drama and plot complexities that make it seem almost impossible for the hero to come out alive.  The internationally filmed production, spearheaded between China Star Entertainment and Win’s Entertainment Ltd., is produced by “Black Mask’s” Tiffany Chan and Charles Heung.

As stated earlier, Andy Lau stars as the protagonist lead playing a dueled dual life as the orphaned Woai Lok-yan seeking vengeance through the pseudonym of Mandy Chan, criminal boss infiltrating as a spy and assassin against his family’s murderer Ray Lui, played by the longstanding actor Paul Chun (“In the Line of Duty III,” “Hong Kong 1941”).  The “Internal Affairs,” Hong Kong action star Lau seizes and harbors his character’s plotted difficult choice:  to do whatever it takes to get within arm’s length trust of the man who killed his family versus falling gradually in love with that same murderer’s innocent daughter.  There’s plenty of back and forth for Lau to engage in both footsteps that teeter a line between duty, responsibility, and the heart but one side does swallow the other and in a negative way as the romance with love interest Crystal (Chien-Lien Wu, “Beyond Hypothermia”) is sorely underplayed against the Ray Lui mission and a competing love interest in Lui’s arm candy flavor of the month Mona, played by Rosamund Kwan (“The Head Hunter”).  Mona’s desperation to leave or kill Ray Lui, and subsequently be with Wai Lok-yan, is to the point of letting the mission and the love between Mandy and Crystal burn to the ground and that greatly built up and infringes upon the lack of genuine connection provided to give Mandy and Crystal a sympathetic understanding, especially when Ringo Lam’s storytelling isn’t scene successive and time is basically nonexistent.  Less detrimental to story, Mona’s subplot also does take a bite out of the whole operative mission itself, as it creates more complexities for Mandy when a gun smuggler’s woman wants out and will reluctantly do anything to achieve that goal, even backstab the Mandy who she wants to be with.  As the zippy story hits all the highlights, one downside aspect is also zipping through interesting supporting roles from David Chiang (“Murder Plot”), Ben Ngai-Cheung Ng (“The Eternal Evil of Asia”), Victor Wong (“Big Trouble in Little China,” “Tremors”), George Cheung (“Robocop 2”), Van Darkholme, Ron Yuan (“Godzilla 2000”), Phillip Ko (“Cannibal Curse”) and Andy Tse (“Naked Ambition”).

A powerfully engaging opening, heighted for full empathetic effect and visceral distress, of little Wai Lok-yan’s family being mercilessly slaughtered right before his eyes immediately has audiences on his side, especially when the boy, whose no more than 6-8 years old, bawls and collapses right into the arms of Uncle Shang shortly after the bloody aftermath.  What ensues is a flash forward to years later with Wai Lok-yan, now a grown man and a Thai fighter pilot, haunted by his past when his family’s killer Ray Lui surfaces in the paper.  At this point is where the story begins to snowball downhill, gaining speed at an inconceivable rate and growing bigger and bigger by the scene.  The action is pleasingly palatable with excellent gunplay and hand-to-hand fight choreographies that’s squib-tastically bloody and hard-hitting.  Where the story struggles typically reside, perhaps on a more subjective level, is the pacing that’s aimed to fly through the Wai Lok-yan/Mandy Chan timeline at a breakneck speed in order to capture the loops and hoops the hero has to jump through to reach Ray Lui but the way he infiltrates the public ceremony to assassinate Ray Lui, being integrated into the San Francisco Asian street gang, and even his sudden marriage to Crystal without the imprinting buildup of romance shocks the critical thinking system, tricking the brain into a stagnant state by time lapsing forward not in days or in weeks but in months or in years of time passed without the ease of a better transition to work into the time and space in-between.  Also, “The Adventurers” severe lack the motorized mayhem in the land, air, and sea, and despite the film’s select advert one sheets of Wai Lok-yan in full fighter pilot gear and his soaring adult introduction, hurts the image the film portrays that’s more grounded in melee combat or in a barrage of bullets with only bookend combat jet and helicopter sequences and a brief car chase in the middle that impress just above the par bar. 

UK label Eureka Entertainment brings to North American shelves, and audiences, a special, limited-edition Blu-ray edition of “The Adventurers,” stored onto an AVC encoded, high-resolution, 1080p, BD50.  Visual aspects on the Eureka’s brand new 2k restoration release is impeccable with a clear delineation, a sharp detail-driven style, and a clean, desaturated color scheme that’s hard, gritty, and muted, catering extensively to the intense violence and fast-paced action themes of the heroic bloodshed subgenre film.  Lam’s Dutch angles are dramatically harnessed in the Hi-Def scan with additional pixels emphasizing every element in the frame that makes the scene that more dramatic and a concentrated actioner in the anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  Even the jetfighters are clearer and distinct with the camera and object movements that render the plane as a fighter plane rather than the vague blur that maybe is a plane or could be bird.  There are three Cantonese audio tracks, including a restored LPCM stereo, a restored DTS-HD MA 5.1, and the original unrestored stereo.  The unrestored stereo is quite indelicate with plenty of flawed rudiments that have a hard time sustaining with “The Adventurer’s” range.  The restored stereo is an efficient, effective, and adequate exaltation of the original audio track but A/V enthusiast will definitely be pleased with the surround sound DTS-HD 5.1 that completely is immersive where it counts, such as the bookend aerials and channel diffused gunplay that brings the action’ to your ears rather than your ears trying to capture the action.  The 5.1 absolutely feels more robust without being artificially broached.  Newly translated English subtitles are optionally available for an inhouse dialogue that’s clear and present at all times throughout the story.  Special features include a new audio commentary by film critic David West, a new interview with Asian Journal’s editor-in-chief Gary Bettinson Two Adventurers, unearthed archive interview with writer and producer Sandy Shaw, and the theatrical trailer.  What’ makes Eureka Entertainment’s release a limited edition is the cardboard O-card slipcase overtop the clear Blu-ray Amaray case with new artwork by Time Tomorrow, which is a composition of stills bathed in yellow and shadowed in black.  The Amaray has the more egregiously misleading original poster art of the protagonist in jetfighter attire and the New York City’s twin towers in the background for the pre 9/11 film; however, Andy Lau is only briefly in the gear during his adult character’s introduction and his character does not end up in New York City, but rather San Francisco.  A collector’s 19-page booklet resides in the insert section with color photos, more misleading promotional stills, an essay by Hong Kong cinema scholar Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park from the University of Hong Kong, film credits list, Blu-ray credits list, and tips and tricks for viewing the film properly according to your cinema setup settings.  The release is not rated, has a runtime of 110 minutes, and is encoded with a region A and B playback.

Last Rites: Eureka Entertainment brings Andy Lau back into the spotlight with a slick new transfer for “The Adventurers,” action-packed revenge bottled to be less romantic and more fervid in nature.

Limited Edition “The Adventurers” Now on Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment!

Desert Rats Doing EVIL To Anyone Crossing Their Path! “Motorpsycho!” reviewed! (Severin Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Motorpsycho!” on a new 4K scan Blu-ray from Severin Films!

Three motorcycle hooligans on their way to Las Vegas through the Mojave Desert ride up on a smalltown Veterinarian named Cory Maddox and his voluptuous wife Gail.  A minor brush with the gang does little harm to the Maddoxes and the couple move on with their life certain the gang has moved on to the next town, but little does Cory know while on a professional checkup of a local mare, the gang invades his home and violently rapes his wife.  Hellbent for vengeance, Cory tracks their transgressive escapades through the arid landscape and comes across Ruby, a beautiful woman left for dead after her husband is gunned down and she herself being grazed by a bullet fired by the same delinquents.  The two track them down into an inescapable, unidirectional corner of the desert but with both sides facing car trouble, injury, and seeping slowly into mental instability, only one side will come out alive. 

By and large, “Motorpsycho!” is the Russ Meyer helmed B-picture that side straddles less explicit content.  The 1965 exploitational action feature, that sported less-than-speedy Honda Trials, flirted with bare-chested women, and immersed itself in light and dark innuendo, is nestled amongst two other Meyer films, “Mudhoney” and “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!,” released the same year and are showcase of unscrupulous violence and sexual content and innately sets the stage for Meyer’s bosomy and barren set movies that bestowed the former World War II photographer turned sexploitation director accolade success later in his career with the “Vixen!” branded films.  “Motorpsycho!” is co-written by Meyer and fellow “Mudhoney” writer William E. Sprague from an original idea from the screenwriters along with James Griffith (“Russ Meyer’s Lorna”) and Hal Hopper.  The Meyers, being Russ and wife Eve, produce the story in cahoots with Ross Massbaum (“Beach House”) and is produced and distributed theatrically by Eve Meyer’s Eve Productions.

The way Meyer sequences the “Motorpsycho!” story is an ebb and flow of events that culminate into a showdown and audiences, perhaps, won’t know exactly who the leads are until well into the chaos, such as with the female principal lead Ruby, a Cajun woman down on her luck travelling in a forced by necessity marriage to an older man in order ot start a new life in California, played by Haji, a Canadian dancer with a unique face and beautiful curves who caught Meyer’s eye for “Faster, Pussycat!  Kill!  Kill!”   For a new actress, Haji is impeccable and easy on the eyes while working off another first-time actor, principal lead Alex Rocco (“The Godfather”), playing vengeful veterinarian Cory Maddox.  Haji and Maddox have unquestionable sexual chemistry and tension despite their slight platonic relationship of seeking revenge as Meyer provides a great deal of sexual innuendo and reference instead, beating around the bush for the ultimate tease.  Don’t worry, “Motorpsycho!” doesn’t hang around the coquettish scene for entire duration as there’s plenty of one-on-one racy and salivating spiciness to sate sexploitation fans between the playful bedtime arousals of Rocco and on-screen wife Lane Carroll (“The Crazies”) and the playfully aggressive rape of Carroll and a fisherman’s wife a bikini-cladded large bosom.  “Motorpsycho!” has a man to woman ratio that strays from the normal Russ Meyer credits with the female cast rounding out with Sharon Lee in her usual typecasted role of a blonde bombshell and, more specifically in this story, a mare-owning flirt for Cory Maddox’s services.  While not a large breasted woman craving sex in every episodic scenario, this Meyer run has an interesting arc for the three ruffians who initially start with copasetic unity in their troublemaking fun through the Mojave only to end themselves in disbandment of backstabbing and derangement in unswerving performances from Timothy Scott (“Lolly-Madonna XXX”) as the handheld radio melomaniac, Joseph Cellini (“Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”) as a hip cat love-taker, Steve Oliver (“Werewolves on Wheels”) as their military vet leader with a stoic expression but unpredictably violent.  “Motorpsycho!” rounds out the cast with Coleman Francis (“Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”), Steve Masters, Fred Owens (“Supervixens!”), George Costello and Russ Meyer as the unsympathetic, cynical Sheriff.

Not as sordidly sleazy or insatiably randy as many of the Russ Meyer films we all know and love for their perky antics, voluptuous vixens, and zany comedy with a isolated desert town backdrop, “Motorpsycho!” is virtually nudity free in comparison to his thereafter work and shot entirely in black and white that, too, tones down the situationally shaded situations of diverging sexual overdrives that conclude around a centered focus, usually around something sexually themed.  That’s not to say just because production year is in the cinema puritanical early 60s and is in black and white does that mean the film goes without a fair amount of brief nudity as Meyer slips into a couple of nipple slipping instances and countless sideboob that would be deemed too salacious for media content harking back 60-years ago.  Innuendo has always been fair game in all sorts of production sizes and studios but couple what Meyer has done with the sexualized material with the gang violence and what you have is one of the earliest known grindhouse pictures prior to its monikered labeling in the 1970s.  Production value and authenticity floats around the low-budget spectrum with a film titled “Motorpsycho!” that spends what little funds there is to supply Honda Trials that are more the speed and look of Mopeds than motorcycles, but Meyer competently adds and edits fast paced car chases, the discharging of a single pump action rifle, and a curtain calling explosion with body prop fragmenting special effects to level up the value where it counts. 

The Museum of Modern Art and Severin Films restore and scan Russ Meyer’s “Motorpsycho!” onto a new 4K transfer from the original camera negative and encode the transfer onto a new Blu-ray release as part of the Russ Meyer’s Bosomania collection.  The region free AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 is a perfect, snug fit for a well-endowed black-and-white feature restored to a virtually free of dust, dirt, and damage.  Meyer’s an eclectic electric editor and every transition is smooth and robust without fading reduction of quality in the rapid, rambunctious edits of his assembling panache.  Though in black-and-white, details don’t suffer from monochromic flattening and every inch of desert is captured with precision, every bodily curve is shapely contoured, and even when a resembled nights dims the lights, there’s plenty of definition of outline to let the mind do the rest of the work with textures and delineation within the presented 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio.  The English LPCM 1.0 track is about as expected, flat, but pumps through the single channel with great vitality and strength to be an effective, agreeable sound mix that, again, sees little-to-no distortion or interference.  Dialogue renders over clean and clearly without hissing or crackling in its ADR form with obvious but little asynchronous measure between visual and audio.  Closed captioning English subtitles are available.  Severin Films compiled special features, in association with the Russ Meyer Trust, include an audio commentary with queer film historian Elizabeth Purchell and “Malevolent” editor and filmmaker Zach Clark, archived interviews with stars Haji and Alex Rocco Desert Rats on Hondas, and the film’s trailer.  Primary red boxes in a mustard yellow background cover art with Steve Oliver and Sharon Lee providing the film’s genre caliber with fast bikes and big breasts plastically encased inside a black Blu-ray Amaray with the inside disc pressed with the same image, following suit to the previous first three Bosomania installments of “Vixen,” “Supervixens,” and “Beneath the Valley of Ultra-Vixens.”   The region free release has a runtime of 74-minutes.

Last Rites: “Motorpsycho!” is Russ Meyer convincing us he’s more than just a T&A sex hound with a 100% pure exploitation revved up with revenge, violence, and sordid sexual behavior.

“Motorpsycho!” on a new 4K scan Blu-ray from Severin Films!