Tag Archives: Justin Coffee

EVIL Versus EVIL to the Death! “Mad Foxes” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Limited Edition 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Mad Foxes” LE 4K UHD and Blu-ray Still Available to Get Before X-Max!

Playboy Hal drives fast cars and enjoys a good time.  While driving his girlfriend out for a night on the town, a road rage run-in with a Nazi biker gang leaves one of biker’s dead and Hal continues on his way to the nightclub for bubbly and music.  The bikers track him down, beating Hal to a pulp and raping his date as the night ends.  Not to roll over and be passive take to insult, Hal recruit’s a friend’s dojo class for an all-out brawl during the outside funeral ceremony for the biker’s fallen comrade, taking violence to the extreme by castrating the gang leader.  In retaliation, the entire dojo class is gunned down in a vengeful massacre days later.  Hal and the biker gang continue their back-and-forth as they embark on a short-term blood feud aimed to annihilate each other’s lives, spilling violence beyond friends and into family ties without mercy. 

A tale of perpetual revenge and exploitation from Spain, “Mad Foxes” takes one-upping to a whole new grotesque level.  After production manager Paul Grau worked on the tantalizing pictures “Secrets of the French Maid,” “Caged Women,” and “The Amorous Sisters” and before helming the comedic sexploitation “Six Swedish Girls in the Alps,” the Nordic born filmmaker debuted with tit-for-tat terror in the streets film cowritten between Grau and softcore, erotic film producers Hans R. Walthard (“Six Swedes in Paradise”) and Jaime Jesús Balcázar (“The Couple’s Sexual World”), leaving no surprise to the shocking and provocative nature of this Euro-nasty that castrates Nazi bikers, shotguns old ladies in wheelchairs, and blows up entire apartment buildings all in the name of spite.  Erwin C. Dietrich and Hans R. Walthard serve as producer and executive producer under the production collaboration of Jaime Jesús Balcázar’s  Balcázar Producciones Cinematográficas and Reflection Film.

A biker gang revenge story sounds right up there with “Death Wish” starring Charles Bronson, but instead of Bronson’s character going up against the impossible odds by way of an organized and self-controlled planning, executing, and removing the threat for good, “Mad Foxes” strikes impulsively while the iron is hot with such ferocity it’ll make your head spin right off the neck.  José Gras (“Hell of the Living Dead,” “Conquest”) envelopes himself to the solo side as Hal in contra the larger Neo-Nazi biker gang.  Hal’s a bit of a philanderer though it’s not entirely explicit but his raped date Babsy (Andrea Albani aka Laly Espinet, “The Hot Girl Juliet”) is a quickly and inexplicably out of the picture before he picks up free-spirited nomad Silvia (Laura Premic) and, by then, Hal seemingly doesn’t have any other care in the world though the aforesaid date Babsy, or perhaps it was his young girlfriend, was raped, and his good friend’s entire dojo, plus said friend (Paul Grau), are massacred in an open fire execution of bullets after they wipe the floor with the Neo-Nazis in a karate skirmish that ends in the gang leader being gratuitously castrated.  Having already cross paths with the gang at least four times, Hal hops in his fast car and drives to the countryside to get away from it all, picking up Silvia on the way, but he inadvertently leads the ruthless camo and leather-cladded gang, led by character played by Peter Saunders and Eric Falk (“Blue Rita,” “Ilsa:  The Wicked Warden”), to his wealthy, elderly, and impaired parents and their house servants.  From there you can imagine the bloodshed that quickly spirals into payback but all throughout the retaliatory strikes, one begins to question who the actually is the good guy in all of this because Hal actually initially ran one of the biker’s off the ran and to his death, driving away with speed and a serene sense of no remorse or concern.  Does Hal bring an ill-fated war upon himself?  One could argue a case for it.  “Mad Foxes” rounds out with Helmi Sigg, Brian Billings, Garry Membrini, Ana Roca, Hank Sutter, Iren Semmling, Hans R. Walthard, Esther Studer and Guillermo Balcazar.

“Mad Foxes” is a gratuitous showcase of trashy Euro cinema, the grindhouse champagne of Spanish sleaze, and has little worth toward elevated commentary or technical grandeur.  Yet, within our miniscule cinema-thirsty molecules and riding along our less trodden synapse highways, a spark of interest can’t keep our eyes off the lurid lunacy that’s unfolding before us.  Paul Grau has invested, produced, and released an entertaining indelicate that won’t bore, won’t tire, and won’t be a total waste of time in its eye-for-an-eye format.  Does one man’s need for revenge need to make self-preservation sense?  No.  Does a bike gang have the wherewithal to track down one man from city-to-rural without breaking a sweat?  No.  One aspect of the story that holds relatable consistency through the years, decades, or even millennia is that violence remains a universal truth, and “Mad Foxes” has plenty of teeth to tout when an act of pettiness turns into the next World War for one man and a biker gang.  The story is no “Death Wish” or “Death Sentence” but it does remove rationality from the shackles of a rancorous reality and plops viewers into the throes of an odd quarrel that won’t seemingly end until the very last standing have turned vertical, and all signs of life has ceased.  Hal’s no rogue ex-cop or former elite marine, just a regular playboy with friends in karate places and has a stubborn will to take on the gang singlehandedly on their own sordid turf.  Grau’s unabashed violence never stumbles or wanes to be implied with the Switzerland director helming a Spanish produce movie that churns out Italian-like shock with the closeup carnage and the cynical nature of a fatalistic bout. 

Cauldron Films proudly presents “Mad Foxes” Ultra High-Definition debut to the world featuring a new 4K restoration with Dolby Vision HDR color grading on an HVEC encoded BD66 with 2164p.  This limited-edition 2-disc set also includes a standard Blu-ray presentation that’s AVC encoded on a BD50 with a 1080p resolution.  The Dolby Vision HDR 10 offers extensive and immense saturation that’s balanced, stable, and more vibrant in it’s support of a wider pixel range.  Without compromising the story’s gritty nature with an unflexed amount of detail, textures retain their respective fabric types from the sheen of Hal’s silveresque bomber jacket to the taut leather of the neo-Nazi bikers.  The skin tones appear organic with a surface appeal that denotes and defines body hair, wrinkles, and other skin imperfections, more notably in close ups.  Focal depth does not completely wash out objects or landscapes with careful delineating a sandy beach and wavy ocean with distinction while the cityscape has the light and tone range in clarity of the object.  Only the UHD was covered for the image review, but the Blu-ray pulls from the same 4K restoration that I suspect has most of the same results but with a lesser pixel count in the quality that may be not as perceptible.  Both formats include an English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio, a DTS-HD 2.0 mono, and a Spanish DTS-HD 2.0 mono mix.  All include optional English subtitles in, what I consider horrendous, ADR mixing.  Dialogue has clarity and is clean throughout, but the voice acting is just beyond reproach with drab inflection to express the right emotion during the scene, its all fairly monotonic and automaton deliveries through the asynchronous matching of voice and mouth.  With no innate recording during filming, the milieu sounds are limited to the immediate action of post-production kick and punch skirmishes, a volley of gunshots, car and motorcycle engines, and murderous snikts of blade strikes.  This, in turn, limits and relegates the surround sound channels to mostly the front with only a flutter of immersive quality, mostly with the revving car engines and the occasional gunfire.  Special features on the UHD only include the commentary by film critics Nanni Cobretti and Merlyn Roberts.  The commentary is also on the standard Blu-ray along with additional content in The Untold Story of Robert O’Neal:  a near feature-length interview with leading man José Gras discussing his career in Europe, Erwin and the Foxes offers interviews with producer Erwin C. Dietrich and actors Eric Falk and Helmi Sigg discussing their roles and the production, an additional interview Mad Eric has a second interview with actor Eric Falk, and Troy Howarth provides a video essay with stills and video snippets in Nazi Fox Bikers Must Die.  The special features round out with an image gallery and a feature trailer.  The curated packaging comes in a rigid slipbox with new compositional artwork by Justin Coffee.  Inside, is a clear Amaray Blu-ray case that display same primary artwork and is accompanied with an adjacent folded mini poster, also of Coffee’s art.  The UHD is region free and the Blu-ray is region A for playback as both films carry an unrated designation and have na 80-minute runtime in their widescreen, 1.85:1 aspect ratio, presentation. 

Last Rites: Revenge films are often formulaic but “Mad Foxes” is no ordinary payback thriller that continues to the hit back well into last man standing. The new Cauldron Films’ limited-edition boxset pushes the media technology to max superiority sure to squash any rival, unlike Paul Grau’s ceaseless chaos.

“Mad Foxes” LE 4K UHD and Blu-ray Still Available to Get Before X-Max!

The Golden Ninja Warrior Turns Good Ninja Masters to EVIL! “Ninja Terminator” reviewed! (Neon Eagle Video / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Golden Ninja Warrior is the corrupt Ninja Empire’s most valued and powerful artifact with mystical powers to whomever posses it’s three pieces, granting them near invincibility against enemy attacks.  The Supreme Ninja leader displays the power of the golden bust, resembling a beastly torse and head wielding a katana, to three of the Empire’s Ninja Masters – Tamashi, Baron, and Harry.  The three Ninja Masters betray their supreme leader, each stealing a piece of the statue for their own intent and purposes.  With one piece back in the hands of the Supreme Ninja leader after Tamashi’s demise, the now crime boss Baron seeks Tamashi’s piece and will do anything, and kill anyone, to get it with the aid of his cruel right hand man Tiger Chan.  Meanwhile, Harry resigned from the Ninja Empire to reform the organization’s criminality but has been unearthed by the Empire’s Supreme leader with an ultimatum to return the pieces of the Golden Ninja Warrior.  With the help of his cocky and confident partner, Jaguar Wong, Harry and Jaguar investigate into Tamashi and his brother’s death, try and protect their surviving sister from those looking for Tamashi’s piece of the Golden Ninja warrior, and defeat any Baron or Empire warriors that stand in their way.

One of the numerous released Godfrey Ho productions in which the director shot new scenes with Caucasian, abroad actors and edited them into an pre-existing film his company owned the international rights.  “Ninja Terminator,” a bestowed title at the height of James Cameron’s highly popular cybernetic, time-travelling thriller “The Terminator,” is the 1986 Hong Kong feature that breathes new life into the South Korean,1984 released, martial arts gangster film “Uninvited Guest” as Ho splices new additional footage to create his own, half-cocked storyline for a cost-effective ninja themed film starring a recognizable white actor.  Ho writes and directs the IFD Films production that’s produced by Ho’s makeshift Ninja feature team of Betty Chan (“Ninja Strike Force”), Joseph Lai (“Full Metal Ninja”), and Steve Kam who regularly took popular U.S. tiltes and integrated them into their own for advantageous marketing.

Where to start with actors and actresses?  Two films shot in two completely different times with renamed characters and additional characters in a jumbled-up mesh of a ninja film.  Lets start with Richard Harrison, an American actor with muscles and good looks who couldn’t quite land the parts he wanted in his home country but found lead man success in other parts of the world, especially in the filmic industries of Italy (“Orgasmo Nero,” “One Hundred Thousand Dollars for Ringo”) earlier in his career and, in this case, Hong Kong (“Inferno Thunderbolt,” Diamond Ninja Force”) later in his career collaborating a handful of times with filmmaker Godfrey Ho.  For “Ninja Terminator,” Harrison isn’t a stealthy cybernetic ninja master but rather an idealistic, benevolent ninja master sporting a unique camo ninja-yoroi to, I guess, blend in around his home and urban environment…?  Still, the camouflaged attire has to be more clandestine than the hot red ninja-yorois of the Ninja Empire.  At least fellow western actor, Jonathan Wattis, as one of the three ninjas who stole a piece of the Golden Ninja Warrior statue and became a crime lord himself, donned a near traditional, black-dyed ninja garb.  Harrison and Wattis do the best they can being spliced into Jack Lam’s film “Uninvited Guest.”  Reconstructed or replayed to be named Jaguar Wong, for his character’s Jaguar fighting style, Jack Lam bests Wattis and levels with Harrison for screen time as a fellow principal lead despite the 2-3 year difference between principal photography but Jaguar fits in aptly enough into an inept chaos of a near nonsensical ninja narrative that jumps to inconclusive subplots with little connective tissue to the core plot.  Maria Francesca, Jeong-lee Hwang, James Chan, Simon Kim, Phillip Ko, Keith Mak, Tae-Joon Lee, Nancy Chan, Gerald Kim, Andrew Lee, and Eric Leung costar.

Cheaply made knockoffs and spirited, gung-ho capitalizing on popular film titles saw fists-of-fury in Hong Kong circa 1970s through the 1980s, much the same way the Italians also didn’t believe the copyright laws when they too took advantage with unofficial sequels, especially in the horror genre.  “Ninja Terminator” is obvious one of those projects and the sly Godfrey Ho manipulated the international market to garner new public interest in what is basically an old film with additional scene, a scheme done pretty much on the regular in various countries, even in the United States.  However, “Ninja Terminator” is not a good movie but rather a hilariously bad one weighed down by irrelevant offshoots to flesh out a scantily structured half-script.  With the additional scenes of Richard Harrison and the others spliced in, plus Jack Lam’s one-man army showdowns against henchmen and sub-bosses, the combat saves “Ninja Terminator” from full frontal embarrassment with competent choreographed fights, plenty of sword, ninja star, and ninja trickery play, and a fair amount of acrobatics, even if some of the scenes are just gratuitous cartwheels and flips in an ostentatious display of skill and of trying to raise the value of a low-budget production.  Granted, there are no cartwheels or flips in Jack Lam’s storyline, nor is there a single ninja, but Lam’s take-on-the-world scenes are confidently hip for the period and that is the jelly to the bold Ninja peanut butter that makes “Ninja Terminator” work on an amusingly bad level. 

Neon Eagle Video, a subsidiary label of Cauldron Films that focuses on the best of the worse of Asian cinema, scour the globe and deliver the best and authorized reproduction of “Ninja Terminator” on Blu-ray in North America, restored from a 4K scan of the original negative and presented in its proper anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of CinemaScope 2.39:1. I must agree with Neon Video Eagle that this transfer renders the cleanest and clearest reproduction to date, likely ever, in this compilation of source materials to render a corrective, singular 4K scan. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-def resolution, BD50 offers ample storage to limit or squash any compression indelicacies on an already delicate Godfrey Ho production that’s been bootlegged to bastardization for decades. Corrected color timing sizes up the landscape, the mise-en-scene elements, and the characters too with a diffused scheme that holds firm vibrancy across an early 1980’s hip and preppy Japanese fashion. The audio is a forced English dub with an encoded LPCM 2.0 mono. The ADR definitely is seen and sounded as expected with total unsynchronized lips and dialogue, especially when the story is forged from splitting two films into one. What’s also evident amongst the three-prong, rough-and-ready sound design is the unrealistic fighting sounds, overzealous and overexerted to be more like the Hong Kong Kung-Fu movies of the decade before. The last element is the soundtrack that’s got some funk and groove in its ninja-yorois that likely borrowed and repurposed from another Godfrey Ho production to fit this particular need. Optional English subtitles are avaialble.. Special features include brand new material, including an audio commentary by Kenneth Brorsson and Phil Gillon of the Podcast on Fire Network, a second audio commentary by Asian film expert Arne Venema and Mike Leeder, an interview with director Godfrey Ho Ninja Master discussing the popularity of ninja films in the United States and the appropriation of the “Terminator” title as well as touching upon Richard Harrison and his onboarding onto the film, a second Godfrey Ho interview alongside separately dubber Simon Broad Golden Ninja Dubs discussing the quick and loose ADR of Hong Kong cinema, an interview with “These Fits Break Bricks” co-author Chris Poggiali Ninjamania, and the trailer. Neon Eagle Video’s standard release, showcased inside a clear Blu-ray Amaray, presents new artwork by graphic artist Justin Coffee. The reverse side of the cover holds the still capture composition of the original one-sheet. No insert material included, and the disc is pressed with the same Coffee illustration. The region free disc has a runtime of 90 minutes and though not listed as unrated, the film is surely such.

The First Authorized Blu-ray of “Ninja Terminator” Now Available!

A Gang’s EVIL Ransom Elicits the Wrath of “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” reviewed! (Neon Eagle Video / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” is Number One on Our Must Have Lists!

When undercover officer Rei lets her overwhelming emotions kill a suspect on an assignment, her displeased colleagues lock her into a cell, unable to decide her fate with fear of public outcry of police brutality that would blemish the department and force leadership regsinations.  When a prime minister candidate’s daughter is kidnapped by a ruthless gang of rapists and murderers and brought to a cathouse for sale, the brothel madam believes the young woman is better exploited by issuing a large ransom for her safe return.  Unwilling to face public scandal, the politician and a rigid yet loyal investigator of the clandestine Zero Division rig up a covert plan to eliminate every person involved with the kidnapping by offering a murderous deal to Rei in exchange for her freedom.  Rei’s able to infiltrate the gang’s inner circle only to see the plan devolve into chaos and blood between the gang and corrupt authorities.   

Japan doesn’t make films like “Zero Woman:  Red Handcuffs” anymore!  The violent Toei company pinkusploitation production, released in 1974, played a major role in unifying the sexual appetites of Japan’s pink pornos with the rough-and-tumble violence of exploitation action films.  The rising of Nikkatsu Roman Pornos forced the hand of the Toei Company to expand their portfolio, creating such as combinational conquest over salivating grindhouse cinema patrons that the radical subgenre deserved a new sublet coinage labeled pinky violence.  Toei company man Yukio Noda, a staple yakuza filmmaker for the company, helms the visuals translated from a script penned by “Female Prisoner #701:  Scorpion” writers Fumio Kônami and Hirô Matsuda.  Loosely based off the manga written by Tooru Shinohara (who also penned the manga of “Female Prison Scorpion series”), “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” stitches its own blood soaked and sexually provocative clothing that would later continue “Zero Woman’s” adventures throughout the years with more films.

Cladded in a chic long red coat, black boats strapped up just below the knee, and wielding an extra-long connector chain pair of red handcuffs, Rei is the anti-heroine of our manga fantasies.  Miki Sugimoto works deep into that fantasy vision as Rei, Division Zero’s lady cop who will do anything and everything, clothed or undressed, to get the job done, even with extreme prejudice.  A frequent delinquent girl portrayer for Toei Company’s gritty bad girl gang pink pictures (try saying that five times fast), Sugimoto’s filmography include the “Girl Boss” series, “Terrifying Girls’ High School:  Women’s Violent Classroom, and “Criminal Woman:  Killing Melody,” and so Sugimoto already had established this foundational layer for Rei as a fortitude of badassery and now tacking on another layer of a moral high ground, justified only by seeing her word through to the end.  Rei is up against a gang of five – four street thugs led by the recent prison released Nagumo (Eiji Go,” The Executioner”) and one lesbian brothel madam (Yôko Mihara, “Sex & Fury”) – as she agrees to a back-against-the-wall deal and slyly subverts the gang by helping Nagumo during a faux ransom sting operation.  Along with Sugimoto’s stoicism, the Toei porn actress retains her promiscuous allure, one where she doesn’t have to do anything to be seductive but just be herself, working not only toward the favor of her character, who continuously is taken advantage of sexually without shame, but also keeping the integrity of the Toei élan for Japanese sleaze.  “Harakiri’s” Tetsurô “Tiger” Tanba resides to the general’s overlooking hill as the prime minister candidate who sends his battlefield colonel in Hideo Murota (“Rape and Death of a Housewife”) to be the Zero Woman’s handler.  Their scheme quickly devolves as their plan evolve when the operation goes slower than expected and the gang’s leader Nagumo begins feel the pressure of paranoia and starts to unhinge, especially around his ruffian acolytes played by Seiji Endô, Rokkô Toura, Iwao Dan, Kôji Fujiyama, and Ichirô Araki as Saburo the mysteriously quiet, aviator-waring knifeman who in himself is an interesting character.  Cast fills in with the Japanese speaking Westerner Ralph Jesser in a wild opening sequence that results in a gunshot to the groin!  

Like most pinky films, “Zero Woman:  Red Handcuff’s” incorporates an X-rated sexual violence but unlike most pinky films, the pinky violence subgenre omits the softer side of sensuality, creating more of a nihilistic viewpoint toward sex of taking what you want, when you want it, and aggressively at that.  Yukio Noda picture contains hostile lesbianism, gang rape, and pressurized perversions that take control thematically in pinky violence.  The corrosive context that has a guilty pleasure pull in most patriarchal dominated cultures and fleapit cinemagoers goes hand-in-hand with the over-the-top violence conjoined at the hip of cause-and-effect.  Usually, the narrative goes an ugly rape equals hard-fought revenge; in Noda’s film, the cause is the kidnapping, and subsequent deflowering of a power politician’s little girl leas to the Zero Woman effect of silencing with corporal punishment that circumvents the law.  Stylish like a spaghetti western and brutally violent, “Zero Woman:  Red Handcuffs” is a meanspirited, out-for-blood, femme fatale engendered on the verge of the pinkusploitation genesis.

Neon Eagle Video, a collaborative boutique label effort between Cauldron Films and Mondo Macabro’s Jared Auner, releases “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” onto a new Blu-ray, restored in 4K from the 35mm print. The transfer is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, onto a BD50 and shown in the widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1. A relatively clean 50-year-old print hardly displays any age wear, if any at all. Scarcely marred by blue vertical emulsion scratches in only a single scene, the print retains and is stored with care to diffuse the range of color and to effectuate as much detail as possible in textures and skin while without taking away from Noda’s underbelly surrealism. The lower contrast infuses a pulpy layer to create softer shadows, but contouring manages to stick an outline thanks to key Rembrandt lighting precision, akin to Hammer Horror with a splash of Kensington gore. The uncompressed Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono peaks with the best possible optical audio. While not much in the way of depth creation, there’s plenty of range in the Foley, even if it’s artificially abstract and illogical compared to shotgun microphone captured audio. The ADR synch is one of the best inlaid post-recordings with visuals that renders hardly any feedback or unnatural noises on the audio layer. English subtitles are burned into the only available Japanese language picture on the release. Special features include a feature length audio commentary by author and producer for Vinegar Syndrome Samm Deighan, Sex + Violence = Pink Violence TokyoScope author Patrick Macias analyzes “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs,” and an image gallery. Graphic designer Justin Coffee produces a new, rich-in-red, and taletelling composite illustration of what kind of film to expect on the front cover art of the clear Amaray Blu-ray. The reverse cover houses another illustration, one pulled from the feature’s original poster line. The BD is pressed with more Coffee fiery and red-laced artwork. This particular copy reviewed is not the limited edition set with accompanying slipcover and neither copy contains insert material. The region A playback release comes unrated and has a runtime of 88 minutes.

Last Rites: “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” is a fine introductory film into the world of Pinky Violence, a starting line for those perverse-thirsty for the unification of sex and violence in Japanese cinema. Neon Eagle Video delivers excellences with their restored print, second to none in its picture and audio quality that will provide a sterling experience.

“Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” is Number One on Our Must Have Lists!