To Be an Intolerant Human Is to Be EVIL! “Lion-Girl” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on February 2, 2024

Here is “Lion-Girl.” Hear Her Roar on Blu-ray!

In the year 2045, a rain of meteorites harbingers the possible destruction of the human race as the space rocks contain harmful, radioactive rays that either kill a human within seconds or doesn’t kill them at all but transformers them into bloodletting, mutated beasts with superhuman abilities known as Anoroc. While the rest of the world collapses, only Tokyo remains as the last human stronghold governed by a fascist dictator Nobuhide Fujinaga and his band of ruthless, police state Shogun led by despotic Kaisei Kishi. Fujinaga and Kishi’s prejudices extend decades later when children in utero are exposed to Anoroc rays that keep their human appearances and behaviors only to have gained the psychokinetic energy powers. These evolved man and Anoroc are labeled Man-Anoroc and are sought out for extermination but one defender of the weak and less fortunate, known as Lion-Girl, takes a stand against the forces of evil and bigotry, making Lion-Girl Earth’s last and only hope.

Inspired by the prolific manga works of Gô Nagai (“Cutie Honey,” “Devilman”) and Nagai providing the conceptual illustrations, the Japanese filmmaker behind the pulse-pounding pistol-whipper “Gun Woman,” starring cult erotic-actress Asami, and the Italian yellow picture, or giallo, influenced “Maniac Driver” turns his eclectic, electric style to reproduce his love for manga and the classic Japanese superhero canon with a new heroine in “Lion Girl.” Kurando Mitsutake endears to his audiences through passion for cutting-edge manga’s commanding nudity, a hero’s odyssey in a dystopian future, and a comic’s style depicting graphically good versus evil. The COVID era stymied production costs due to supply issues, affecting various departments such as special effects and even the cast with relative unknown faces, but Mitsutake pushes forward with the Japanese Toei Video Company (“Battle Royale”) co-production with America’s Flag Productions and Nagai’s Dynamic Planning. Masayuki Yamada, Gaku Kawasaki (“The Parasite Doctor Suzune”), and Mami Akari (“Maniac Driver”) produce the film.

As stated, “Lion-Girl” is filled with unrecognizable faces save for one, an actor who is usually behind the masks, such as in “The Hills Have Eyes 2” ’07,” “Predators,” and even donning the iconic hockey mask for the 2009 reboot of “Friday the 13^th” as Jason Voorhees. Derek Mears headlines being the film’s core villain, shogun Kaisei Kishi, the remorseless, power-hungry right-hand man of the Fujinaga state, as Mears’ towering 6’5” stature and unique facial features pit him against a then 22-year-old newcomer Tori Griffith in a highly visibly protagonist role requiring fully onboard nudity and choreographed physical altercations. Griffith pulls off both requirements going through the tokusatsu, hoodoo cliffside and other desert terrain, geometries of motion that fortunately conceal a more softened performance when compared to Mears’ who actually puts a fair amount of attitude into the shogun role. As the Lion-Girl’s sworn protector, as well as one-eyed uncle, Damian Toofeek Raven (“Komodo vs. Cobra”) resembles the sempai fostering and mentoring a younger, stronger apprentice to one day save the world. Raven, like most of the film’s cross-cultural influences, is able to ride the line as force into an honorable fatherhood with Ken Shishikura but the character poorly exorcises compassion of a father substitute until the very end when the right moment in the script calls for it. One flaw in “Lion-Girl’s” casting stitch is the feature could have been meatier as keystone supporting characters come and go so quickly that it could rival the likes of “Mortal Kombat 2: Annihilation.” Thus, rapid firing subordinate roles just to progress the story creates more questions than answers and creates more plot holes than necessary. Nobuhide Fujinaga (Tomoki Kimura, “A Beast in Love”) leads as the iron fist of bigotry in a tyrannically society but barely has presence other than on television announcements, a pair of Kishi entourage lackeys (David Sakurai, “Karate Kill,” and Jenny Brezinski, “From Jennifer”) get lifted up by the dialogue and some action but have the rug cut out from under them from really being developed and explored, and even principal character Marion Nagata (Joey Iwanaga, “Tokyo Vampire Hotel”), the gunslinging coyote, has zero foundational building blocks being a love interest for Lion-Girl yet crowns as such at the story’s climatic showdown. “Lion-Girl” is saturated with supporting cast and stock characters with round out by Marianne Bourg, Matt Standley, Shelby Lee Parks, Hideotoshi Imura, Holgie Forrester, Katarina Severen, Stefanie Estes, and Wes Armstrong.

“Lion-Girl” roars as a wild, untamed animal, mangy in its worst moments but also majestic at the same time. This paradoxical cultural expression befits the co-superpowers production, blending Japanese and American flavors and faults into one oversized bag of live-action manga. With a derision mostly toward western affairs, such as the media circus surrounding the xenophobic administration’s handling of the corona virus, to which the filmic beasts known as Anaroc is corona spelled backwards, the haughty, bullying state doesn’t stray far from Kurando Mitsutake’s pen-to-paper handiwork as he also invokes Gô Nagai’s freedom sense of nudity and violence aimed to shake up with acculturation in high level eroticism that’s not seen as sleazy or objectifying but rather empowering and artistic. What Mitsutake does really well and what’s also to the film’s misstep for today’s audiences is the complete blitzkrieg of background setup that’s bombastically overwhelming with incident backstory, dystopian factions, and the new terminologies in a single, longwinded breath, culminating to an early point in the film with a fight between Lion-Girl and an Anaroc beast where mutated breasts are essentially turned into a flamethrower and psychokinetic battles are commissioned in headspace. That’s the kind of psychotronic tone that bears the cult seal of approval, or in this film, the lion’s share of cult approval.

Cleopatra Entertainment, the filmic subsidiary company of Cleopatra Records, scores big with Kurando Mitsutake retro-fitted superhero “Lion-Girl” on Blu-ray. The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, single-layered BD25 is literally stuffed to the brim, presented in a 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio. Compression bitrate swings the pendulum, decoding between low 30s and high teens resulting in smoothed over details. To the film’s advantage, the abated details play into the old-style Japanese action flicks of yore, creating a pseudo-illusion of a flatten color palette and lower resolution last seen on tube televisions. Okay, might not be to that extent as therein lies decently popping color scheme and rough contouring and lighting in more scarce settings to make the scenes less complex and rely on more smoke and mirrors to stretch the interior-exterior location budget. The lossy English language Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track is accompanied with also a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. While nothing to negatively harp on in regard to “Lion-Girl’s” sound design and soundtrack as a whole, there’s plenty to like about the wide-ranged, heavy rock-riffing audio with unequivocal balance between the sounds and channeling albeit a lesser fidelity. Peppered with Japanese words, the dialogue is forefront and clear that red-carpet the numerous monologues with all-day importance. The release does not come with any subtitle option. Bonus content includes a director’s commentary track, a conversation between Kurando Mitsutake and manage artist Gô Nagai as they discuss nudity, working in America, genesis for “Lion-Girl,” and their COVID era collaborations, the making-of “Lion-Girl,” “The Hollywood premier screen with cast and director Q&A, a picture slideshow, and the theatrical trailer. Cleopatra’s release caters to a conventional standard retail market with a commonplace Amaray and disc release and nothing more. The front cover design is not terribly appeasing with a crowded image composite bathed in an eye-deafening and searing red. Disc represents the same front cover image and there is no insert inside the Amaray casing. The region free release is unrated and has an impressively entertaining runtime of a 121-minutes. Marketed to be a different kind of superhero movie, “Lion-Girl” is certainly more than that, portrayed by Kurando Mitsutake as a love song toward the pulp exposure of his childhood and the film really glows passionately like an Anaroc with supernatural powers ready to strike with nostalgia at the heart of Japanese pop culture.

Here is “Lion-Girl.” Hear Her Roar on Blu-ray!

EVIL Must Be Broken In Before Being Used. “The Wheel” reviewed!

Posted by Steven Lewis on December 10, 2019

In the near future, paraplegic inmate Matthew Mills volunteers under pressure to join a Satoshi-Telefair Industries experimental treatment program that not only promises to reduce his sentence, but to also to regain mobility in his legs. With nothing more than the hope to return to his daughter, Mills is enticed by the agreement and gives himself to a shadow company who regularly contracts with the military, facilitating deep underground at an isolated site. Shortly after signing the release form, he awakes in a dark, steel cell known as The Wheel and is able to move his legs again, but the jubilation quickly subsides as armored men with batons visit his cell to beat and break his body in order for the nano technology, injected amongst his anatomy, to rebuild damaged tissue and make him stronger. The ordeal torments him, but to the researchers observing every detail of his recovery and behavior, Mills is just subject 2-1, another potential subject destined for the Future Soldier Initiative where the unethical testing must continue.

Shady shadow corporations, experimental nano-material rehabilitation and enhancement, and high level science fiction noir from writer James S. Abrams and director Dee McLachlan with 2019’s “The Wheel.” As if not already obvious from filmmaker’s nationalities, “The Wheel” is produced by and shot by Australian production companies SunJive Studios and Film Victoria, a state government agency that advocates funding and other filming assistances for shooting films in sectors of Victoria, Australia. “The Wheel’s” steely posture mirrors the frigid winter snow of Melbourne, Victoria’s covered forests that’s beautiful, yet deadly in the conventional beauty of nature. Yet, “The Wheel” delves into the meddling of what makes man and what also drives man as the story persists on the subject of redesigning the human body, but what that notion doesn’t take into account is what if the human body’s reactions doesn’t go as planed and a clapback ensues with all the synthetic re-wiring behind it? This is what Abrams and McLachlan intended to explore.

Australian actor Jackson Gallagher stars as Matthew Mills, a cripple with a purpose. The “Patrick” actor has been adrift from the darker roles since 2013 until up now with his main role in “The Wheel” that demanded a certain physicality that involved fight sequences with one, or two, or even three opponents and some ariel ropes work. The physically fit Gallagher not only survives the daunting workload, but hastily pulls Mills through his character’s tough transition from hopeful paraplegic to overly confident ultimate fighting weapon without an earnest core of struggle. The same can be said with Dr. Allison Turner played by Kendal Rae (“Out of the Shadows”). Turner’s a rogue researcher who had her practicing credentials revoked after the mistreatment of lab monkeys and was sought after by the Satoshi-Telefair for her detachment qualities, but her Turner’s character also didn’t quite arc properly and resembled a midway plateau from the moment Mills became her research subject. The only character that stayed the course was Dr. Emmett Snyder, a loyal Sataoshi-Telefair researcher to the bone. When he’s not suplexing or drop kicking in a championship wrestling match, David Arquette does dabble in acting. The “Scream” veteran actor fills in a rather unlikely antagonistic role, but the wild eye Arquette remains taut in his performance. “The Wheel” also costars Belinda McClory (“Matrix”). Christopher Kirby (“Daybreakers”), Victoria Liu, and Ben Still.

The spoke of the “The Wheel” rotates on a monotonic and frosty shoulder axle colored in gun metal and iced with dystopian immoralities. Every breathing element and inanimate objects is in a state of distant identity being bestowed labels in a combination of letters and numbers. The utilitarian wheel, an underground experiment facility that shifts rooms up and down and can be rotated to the other side, has no windows or any kind of necessary function other than to test subjects. Where “The Wheel” goes full “Equilibrium” by lacking emotional depth and substance without a coup d’état of the bleak authority, “The Wheel” also lacks vigor to break the blank uniformity and tries to speed through Mills patriarchal fluff to provide reason for his endurance and to provide reason for audiences to care. The epicenter theme to Mills motivation and escape is the thought of getting back to his daughter by any means necessary and was deemed fit to lay by the waist side to rely more on the hand-to-hand fighting like an overly glorified 70’s martial arts film.

Umbrella Entertainment distributes the sci-fi, action film, “The Wheel,” produced by SunJive Studios and Film Victoria onto a region free DVD home video. The clean digital picture in a widescreen, 2.35:1 aspect ratio, has a crisp demeanor that exact a bunch of natural lighting outside with a bit of a lower contrast inside dark “The Wheel” itself. What I found more appealing the anti-aliasing of the drone footage over the snowy covered Victoria forest, suggesting a higher bitrate compression that offers a seamless and smooth recording. The 5.1 English language Dolby audio is offered up with no whiff of an Australian accent in a lossless track that sounds good on the surround channels during action scenes. Dialogue is clear amongst the ample range and depth of ambient layers of researches watching and speaking through comms from inside a box watching another guy inside a box. Like other Umbrella releases, “The Wheel” has no special features nor a static menu. “The Wheel” has ice in the veins, but no warmth in it’s heart that seems vertically challenged on a horizontal slope of dystopian disorder.

The Wheel on DVD

Planning a Jailbreak off an Evil Corporation’s Island Prison! “Escape from Absolom” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on August 23, 2018

In the year 2022, Special Forces solider, Captain Robbins, is court martialed for putting a bullet in the head of his commanding officer. After escaping two maximum security prisons and a record of rebellious activity, a corrupt and power hungry warden of the Lactivus prison ships Robbins off to an off shore island called Absolom, where prisoners can roam free with no chance of escape due to 24/7 surveillance by Satellite and rocket launcher armed helicopter gunships surrounding the island perimeter. Island prisoners separate into two factions: the Outsiders and the Insiders. Each with the respective camps, the lawless Outsiders overwhelm the Insider’s numbers by 6 to 1, leaving the small manned community in constant fear of attack and pillage by the Outsider’s merciless leader, Walter Marek. When the insiders learn than Robbins has faced Marek and lived, they take the former solider into their community, but Robbins sole desire is to escape off the condemning rock and with the help of a few good men from the Insiders’ camp, the chances of escape and survival are greater together as long as Marek and his band of starving cutthroats don’t seize the endangered community first.

“Escape from Absolom,” also known as simply “No Escape” in the U.S., is a Martin Campbell directed action film from 1994 that’s futuristic and violent, fun and thrilling, and kitschy without being too cheesy. Campbell, who went on to direct not one, but two, James Bond films, begins a base of epic action that’s toweringly ambitious and pulled off nicely with the stunts and the editing. Based off the Richard Herley novel “The Penal Coloney,” the script is penned by Michael Gaylin who puts pen to paper to scribe a playful, passively aggressive dialogue, but fun and energetic on a the same coy lines of other high visibility action films. Gaylin was able to conform to a story that has no dynamic with the opposite sex in one of the few films that exhibits a rare all male cast.

“Goodfella’s” star Ray Liotta finally got his time to shine as the butch and badass action hero that is Captain Robbins, a highly skilled special forces solider and killing machine whose pragmatic intentions, at first, are hard to read. The cockiness overtop a well-cloaked deadly skill set works to the advantage of the blue-eyed actor for New Jersey. Opposite Liotta is Stuart Wilson (“Hot Fuzz”) as Walter Marek, a 7-year island lifer with dreadlocks and nose bridge piercings to match his psychotic leadership. Wilson does psychotic just fine, but the look resembles John Travolta’s atrocious attire from Battlefield Earth. Lance Henriksen, One of the most recognizable legendary genre actors, has a more serene approach in being a mentor and the leadership figurehead of the Insiders camp when compared to conventionally eccentric, sometimes maniacal performances, but Henriksen has a mellow side to him that conveys are very affectionate kumbaya approach, but any personality compared to Stuart Wilson’s internal rampage would be a stark contrast. “Ghostbusters'” Ernie Hudson has his role as security office in the Insiders camp and the sole black man of the film, for obvious reasons, stands out, but Hudson just adapts to anything you put him in though the Michigan born tended to sway toward the thrilling fantasy/sci-fi genre in the height of his career. Rounding out the cast is Kevin Dillon (“The Blob” remake), Kevin J. O’Conner (“Lord of Illusions”), Don Henderson (“The Ghoul”), Ian McNeice (“Dune”), and Michael Lerner (“Maniac Cop 2”).

All things considered, “Escape from Absolom” is a torrent men-in-prison extravaganza that’s one part Sylvester Stallone “Judge Dredd,” one part Chuck Norris “Missing in Action,” and, as a whole, an endangered brand of droll entertainment. Speaking of Stallone, Ray Liotta did it first as a character who is an expert at escaping the inescapable maximum security penitentiaries and instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dave Bautista as contentious, yet supportive allies, the friendly, yet solidly statured Ernie Hudson and Lance Henriksen share Liotta’s Captain Robbin’s unquenchable lust for freedom, even if it to provide unsheathe exposition of the unethical corporate penal system practices. Far from being a perfect film and extremely blantant on a no underlying message, Martin Campbell undoubtedly has a fine tuned niche of capturing the casual eye with large scale action sequences and an affable character allure.

Umbrella Entertainment releases “Escape from Absolom” on a region-all Blu-ray, presented in 1080p, widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. The coloring is phenomenally remastered and stable compared to previous transfers. There are times when depth becomes two-dimensional or flat, skewing the picture noticeably, but the overall picture quality is spectacular in the vast amount of Australian landscapes and even in the night scenes that show hardly any enhancing, such as sharpening or contrast. The English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track is laid out nicely with audible poise and precision balance. Dialogue is prominent while explosions have just the right amount of oomph under an exact LFE recipe. The release sports other language Dolby Digital audio tracks such as a German 2.0, Spanish 2.0, Italian 2.0, and a French 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are available. Bonus material includes a two part making of featurette from around the production of the film with interviews with cast and crew, four TV spots, trailer, and a reversible cover. Runtime is 118 minutes. Martin Campbell’s “Escape from Absolom” is dystopian dynamite, explosive and aggressive with a flare for enjoyable banter amongst defined and diversified characters inhabiting an utopian island of mostly societal scum.

Evil Scores Big by Burning Rubber! “Death Race 2050” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on January 26, 2017

In the dystopian America of 2050, commercialism presides over the middle and lower classes in the constructed wasteland that is United Corporation of States led by an impeccable and blood thirsty Chairman. A popular, carnage-laden sport known as the high octane Death Race has become beloved by all Americans, giving them an escape from their mundane and pitiful existence. The Death Race is simple: war-modified cars trek across the United Corporation of States in a 3-day race to score points by running down citizens of an overpopulated nation as an encouraged way of resetting the out of control producing rate and racers can also seek glory to reach the finish line with best time. Four-time champion, Frankenstein, is the returning crowd favorite and seeks to win a fifth crown, unless the powerful and conniving Chairman decides otherwise.

Under Universal Studio’s filmic sequel and reboot sublabel, Universal 1440 Entertainment’s “Death Race 2050” is a rip-roaring start toward 2017’s best intense action cinema and despite being pre-labeled as just another diluted and benign remake of the Roger Corman produced, Paul Bartel directed “Death Race 2000” from 1975, the modern day G.J. Echternkamp directed and co-directed film with Matt Tamashita honorably doesn’t lose the rich, yet full of cheap thrills, heritage that makes the original “Death Race” so fun, so entertaining, and so campy keeping the pandemonium on four high-performance, face-shearing tires. Even though Death Race has been quiet for over thirty years since 1975, the last decade has been riddled with Death Race films produced by the legendary low-budget filmmaker Roger Corman and all have been complimentary exclusive in their charm, mayhem, and versions of the lead character Frankenstein to thrill audiences, but it’s “Death Race 2050” that revs in true remake fashion of similar plot structure that changes all but one character.

New Zealander Manu Bennet carries the torch in portraying the original character Frankenstein, a four time champion with a leather covered body that’s been ravaged and cybernetically repaired from previous race crashes. Manu’s charisma and rugged image will win over audiences as he perfectly embodies a conflicted champion on the brink of doing what’s right; a tone very similar in all “Death Race” films. Manu is paired with actress Marci Miller, as Frankenstein’s passenger proxy, who dishes out the good girl sex appeal with a self-reliant rind. Beyond these two characters, even with a moniker like Frankenstein, the remaining characters make Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy” a college course of rocket science! Deliveries were timely, actions were precise, and performances couldn’t have been more meticulous in scenes with Jed Perfectus, the genetically engineered and ambiguous pretty boy played by Burt Grinstead, Minerva Jefferson, the wealthy ghetto rapper forged to life by Folake Olowofoyeku, and with Tammy the Terrorist, a cult leader with a celebrity high power portrayed by 2007’s “The Signal’s” Anessa Ramsey. The relatively unknown cast is whole-heartedly glued together by the flamboyant performance of “Clockwork Orange’s” and “31’s” Malcolm McDowell as the Chairman.

One could take a good stab in the dark on what the quality of the effects would be like for any Roger Corman produced film. In this instance, “Death Race 2050” channels much of Corman’s style with Echternkamp and his visual effects supervisor Anthony J. Rickert-Epstein (“Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf”) supplying rotoscope blood and dismemberments that pin-pricks a visual stimulate into the vein of the snobbiest of film aficionados and can be on an everlasting high. The simple, but effect, gasoline based pyrotechnics attest to the dedication of the crew and to the stunt work to know that if they miss their spot, they’re literally toast. However, the sometimes choppy, rapid editing drains some of the juice from the kills that attempt to piece coherent death sequences with humor and action. In fact, “Death Race 2050” redlines just like the modified, manslaughter vehicles used to rundown babies and the elderly to score points by quickly jumping to the next segment in order to sustain all the gory story’s girth.

“Death Race 2050” is adrenaline flowing wildly adjacent with gasoline, exploding with gore, and is terrifically enjoyable. Echternkamp’s script bares no sense with the sensitivities, secreting American wealth, greed, and stupidity in an environmentally degraded America filled with large high fructose corn syrup soda, an addictive cheese whiz byproduct, and borders that are named after corporate conglomerate of brands such as Walmart or Texaco. Universal’s R rated Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD release of the New Horizon film is an 1080p of the 1.78:1 widescreen presentation that makes the film look cheap due it’s hi-def attributes. The image quality is sleek and vibrant with a wide range of rainbow hues and the definition doesn’t ever thrown in the towel. The three option audio selection that consists of an English DTS-HD Master Audio has a lossless appetite that delectable distinguishes the channels where explosions are bombastically LFE and the gory parts are viscerally squishy. The dialogue is surprisingly clear through the amount of chaos. Bonus features include “The Making of Roger Corman’s Death Race 2050,” “The Look of 2050″ featurette,” a closer look at the cars in a segment entitled “Cars! Cars! Cars!,” a cast car tour, and deleted scenes. Even if the story’s timing is a spastic, “Death Race 2050’s” a guilty pleasure from start to finish line under the caustic cinematic eye of Roger Corman!