Project A - A Political Commentary for the Ages

So, as long as we're back on the Jackie Chan bandwagon (see the last blog), we're just going to go right ahead and help ourselves to blogging about the fantastic movie that is “Project A”. Now, we don’t often start off a blog with a summary (of sorts), but in the case of this film you can guarantee that it is awesome as it stars the dynamic trio of Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, and Sammo Hung. And, if you’ve never seen these three in a film together… then you MIGHT want to get out more and rent a film or two.

BUT SERIOUSLY! This film is great and our “review” is really going to be more like an interpretive play-by-play, because you can’t improve upon comedic perfection… with punching and acrobatics.

 

The BEST bad photoshop E-V-A-R!!

Project A is a 1983 film written by Jackie Chan (uh… hello) and Edward Tang (pretty much EVERY crazy Jackie Chan film ever), produced by Raymond Chow of Golden Harvest (Bruce Lee fame), and stars the aforementioned folks. The film is all about the Chinese Coast Guard seeking out and fighting off Chinese Pirates off the coast of Hong Kong during British rule. And, though this is a sort of confusing arrangement of “context”, don’t get too hung up on it as it really only plays a minor role in the totally ridiculous, insanely choreographed bits to come.

SO, get your popcorn and beverage, and prepare for a whole lot of unbelievable ridiculousness.

Our film starts in the late 1800's in Hong Kong, though the costuming is really more 1910. Hong Kong is under British rule and you can see some of the influences seeping in to society... mostly in those crazy military uniforms and pith helmets. Now, despite all of the riches and trade and civilization brought by the Brits, there are some crazy pirates off the coast of Hong Kong that are out to get some serious booty.

NOT THAT BOOTY!!! (sheesh people)

Now though it's not readily noted, there is a significant kerfuffle between the Coast Guard and the Navy... which I (Kelly) don't get, so I ask my former Navy spouse for details. According to him "The Coast Guard isn't real military." (rolls eyes)

Ok. So. They stand around and look good on the coast, with their zinc nose protection... and pith helmets. And they somehow believe this makes them better than the bumbling Navy. Right. Got it.

Now, everyone know that Sailors + Bars = Trouble. So of course, said kerfuffle is demonstrated via a bar fight, in which beer is spilled, people are punched, and stuff is broken. The ensuing fight is entirely epic. BEST... BAR... BRAWL... EVAR! We counted:

1 chair

2 tables

12 chairs

The whole bar

... and two bottles of ketchup.

NOT THE KETCHUP!!!

Oh with the flying and the punching and stage diving with the acrobatic and comedic "OUCH THAT HURTS" bits! Jackie Chan and Yuen Bao (as Inspector Chi, a rising star in the Coast Guard) win a big gold star!

Anyway, the Navy fellas get in trouble for the fight, and the other guys don't. Because otherwise there wouldn't be a movie. So now the Navy's been shamed, had a finger wagged in their face, etc. And to add insult to injury that same evening, they go through all the pomp and circumstance of getting ready to leave on their mission to find and destroy the pirates, only to have their ships captured and blown up before they've even boarded them. This does not impress the Grand Poobah of British Officers (the one who MUST be in charge because he's British and has a large feathery hat) or the commander of the Coast Guard, who seems to have come by just to watch the ridiculousness unfold. So the Navy is a failure, and even Jackie Chan can't save it. For now, anyway.

Insert Pirate Scene in the brightly lit dinner/night club. Strangly enough, that guy doesn't look like a pirate. Rather, he looks like a 1970's Mutton chopped, leisure suit suit wearin', fro-totin' throwback. There is some plan hatching that involves the thwarting of the Coast Guard (via inside information from Inspector Chi... say whaaaaaaa??) and the stealing of some big guns.

In a last ditch effort to save his guys, the Admiral proposes the execution of "Project A" by his navy. And, as it so happens, this time their plan involves ACTUALLY catching the pirates... but the plan is shot down, the Admiral is demoted, and all the sailors are turned into police officers, which involves a significant amount of hilarious humiliation at the hand of Inspector Chi, aka the bar jackass. In which people almost die. Insert a little hand grenade humor and a deadly prank causing significant destruction.

Apparently death and burning is no big deal though, as everyone (Chan, Chi, and some other dudes) heads out to the starkly lit supper club/nightclub/gangster pirate hangout for an investigation and drinks... and the utter destruction of said establishment. To be fair, they ARE actually on a mission to arrest the gangster people, but they don't exactly go about it in the most covert fashion, dressed like newsies and flashing their badges, and...

OH MY TEA SERVICE!!! 

This is not going to go well...

Now, after a significant amount of destruction (and the near death of an entirely comfy looking blue chair), the corrupt police chief shows up and starts pointing his "blamethrower" at Chi and Chan (which I just realized makes me laugh when I say that), and whatever wasn't decimated in the previous fight now gets ENTIRELY trashed in round two of "catch the bad guy"... who just happens to be in an obscure upstairs room, straightening his tie.

When the police bigwigs show up to shut down the fight, Chan becomes enraged at the corruption on the force and goes all Three Muskateers off of a chandelier. And the balcony. And that guy's face. And OH NO!!! NOT THAT BLUE CHAIR AGAIN!!! It is here that it become entirely apparent that this film has an ENORMOUS chair budget. Oh, and Chan quits the force, by the way.

By the end of the fight, the bad guy is caught and drywall mysteriously cascades from his face. It's amazing. Here's a clip...

And Chan, having resigned, hands over the bad guy to the cops and then storms out of the establishment where he is promptly met by "Fats", played by Sammo Hung. Apparently now, Fats has just gotten out of jail and is seeking to get into some hijacked weapons trading business. And, for some reason Chan agrees to help him and they choose to sneak onto the scene in the darkness of night, under the subtle cloak of what can only be described as the equivelant of a brightly colored butterfly.

But, they surprise the gangsters, steal the guns, and then Fats reveals his plan to sell the stolen police guns, that he re-stole, to the gangsters. And, this pretty much ticks Chan off seeing as he is in fact a police officer. And, this all results in the most severe log-trolling EVER! Oh, and Sammo Hung log rolling in a top hat. We can't forget that, because that's just adorable. Whole movie, entirely worth it, right there.

Fats gets angry, hunts down Chan, and the gangsters hunt down Fats, and the resulting debacle turns into a Scooby Doo style chase through town, complete with the most brutal bike chase business EVER SEEN!

-Jousting

-Clothes Line (classic move)

- Chamber Pot toss

- Ladder to the face

- Pole into spokes

- Bike slap

- Butt jam

- Balcony crash

- Entire restaurant destroyed.

... and somehow EVERYONE is very pleased by the destruction. Well played Chan and Fats. Well Played.

Now, part of the whole cluster of bodies and bikes was comprised of the Chinese Bowie Gangster and his goons, and naturally they are very displeased about this whole guns thing. So, they manage to catch up with Chan and, before they can give him the beat down, he (Chan) turns himself into the police chief for "various bike related incidents" which have caused a disturbance. And, under normal circumstances this would have been a pretty good way to ensure safe escort back to the police station. However, this is a Jackie Chan film and such a thing would be boring. SO, no.

Chan gets handcuffed to a flagpole while the chief and his men chase Fats, leaving him entirely exposed to the gang's brutality. His only escape? Up the flagpole and onto the not-so-close-to-the-flagpole rooftop. Yes folks. He really and truly does it. And then a ridiculously acrobatic kickassery fight takes place inside the clock tower with the swinging pendulum, whizzing clock bits, and giant turning gears. And in normal Jackie Chan form, he dangles hundreds of feet in the air with no safety supports, only to crash to his imminent death through awning bits... Twice. Because you didn't quite get the bone crunching pain in that first take.

Chan's not dead, but with the everyone safely distracted by the gangster people on land, the Pirates and their leader, Danny Trejo, have a heyday taking over a ship with some very important British people on it (namely the Read Admiral who was coming to holler at the Navy people), stealing their top hats and women. While all that is going on, Chan magically recovers and sneaks in to the Grand Poobah's chambers (Ok, so he's a British Colonel. I like the word Poobah.), catching him making corrupt deals with the gangster dude. Chan jumps out of the fireplace (the best place to hid, you know), confronts the Colonel, gives a big dramatic speech about soldier's duty and such, and VOILA! The Navy is reinstated and headed out to complete Project A and rescue the Rear Admiral. Way to go, Chan!

And now, the infamous Mavens FLASH FORWARD! 33 minutes of film in a run-on sentence! **deep breath**....

Chan beats a witness into submission, dons a monacle, talks his way onto a gangster boat that inexplicably has Sammo Hung hiding in storage, and heads off to a mysterious island to find the pirates and rescue the Rear Admiral, where he meets the Pirate King (whose name is Sam, and yes that really is Danny Trejo's voice, we weren't kidding), gets in everyone's good graces, enjoyes some colorful pirate festivities, and finds the stolen guns, only to eventually be backed up by the entire Navy AND police force, get in a whole lot of trouble, and battle Pirate Sam to an asplodie death involving a rolled up persian rug and a hand grenade.

TA-DAAAAAAAH!!! 

And there you have "Project A". A wonderfully punchy, super entertaining, pirates vs. Navy vs. painful stunts packed film. We give it a big time thumbs up, as we've easily watched it three times each. Rent it, legally download it, buy it... do whatever you have to do to see this film!

So, until our ADD kicks back in for another rousing movie review/interpretation...

XOXO

- The Mavens

Blade of Kings - TONIGHT with Donnie Yen...

Ok. We don't think it's any secret anymore that we have some pretty serious fan adoration for the work and times of Donnie Yen. Seriously. Who doesn't? And, in all honesty, this is what led us to our film for this week, "Blade of Kings"... aka Twins Effect 2; Chin gei bin 2: Fa dou daai jin... or as Charles Sadler (Kelly's husband) called it 1/2 way through the film, "Tonight with Donnie Yen". Yeah, this joke will make sense later on in this review.

So, let's get to the technicalities of this film. Blade of Kings is a 2004 release starring Donnie Yen, Bing Bing Fan, Jaycee Chan (son of Jackie Chan), and... JACKIE CHAN!!!! Seriously! How great is this film going to be, right??? 

It was written by Kin Chung Chan, Suet Lam, Roy Szeto, Peter Tsi and Michelle Tsi, and directed by Patrick Leung (Wu Dang), and Corey Yuen (The Transporter, Legend of the Dragon, Legend, Legend II, and about a bajillion acting roles). A pretty solid group of folks with a pretty good resume behind them. 

So, ON TO THE FILM!!!

EPIC TABLET!!

The very first thing we see is a monk-looking guy digging an intricately decorated rock out of the
ground. Oooh, mysterious and promising, yes? Credits... epic orchestration... yada yada yada...

Our film opens onto a time in history, and OBVIOUSLY in a parallel universe, where women are in charge and men are entirely subservient. And, not that our film choice was at all influenced out of our frustrations with our respective spouses for pulling late night flicking on the lights business (but we digress), the concept was entertaining to us none-the-less and we clicked play. So, the women run everything and go out into the wilderness to kidnap/capture men, force them into collars with bells on them, sell them in the open market, and refer to them as "Dumb bells". (snirk.. yeah, we laughed at this for the entirety of the movie.)

So within mere minutes of the film starting, we are presented with a largely female populated society. Just ladies in armor and everyday attire everywhere. And, for ONCE it is so nice to not be greeted with copious amounts of derpy females and excessive T&A. The downside? EVERYTHING is decorated in various tints and shades of pink and lavender. And honestly, we resent that the writers/directors presume that if women were in charge we'd made everything purple, pink, and glammy gold. SERIOUSLY! We're more likely to paint everything black & red, and change our names to something like "She Beast of the upper Tundra", or "Thunder Legs the Mighty". (pfftt...) 

ANYWAY!!!!

So, there is a woman selling men to the highest bidder, some laughable stereotypical female jokes, some wheeling and dealing, and then we see a .2 second flash of Donnie Yen (playing he role of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon... yes, that's his name) clad in black and a cape. Which... uh. Weird. But remember that monk who dug up the rock during the opening credits? He's entirely clumsy, and runs into the den of man-sales, dropping his rock. We've determined that he is the only reason for Donnie's presence here, as he swoops down, frees the enslaved men, scoops up the monk and his decorative rock, and flees. At which point there is an entirely confusing conversation about how the rock (ok, it's a stone tablet I guess) was stolen from the Queen's palace by the monk, and that he will be meeting Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in 3 days to discuss why the heck that matters.

Chaos, chaos, chaos, Star of Rex (what?), rampage.... and ooh, a fight!

Now the slave trader (13th Master) decides to pick a fight with the Bluebird, an apparent badass in black and chain mail. Which was apparently not a good idea, because she gets kicked in the face, and somehow the already not entirely awesome battle quickly devolves into the sissiest girl fight we've ever seen. And when we say "not entirely awesome", we mean OBVIOUSLY the writers/director has never seen a real chick fight. 
HEAVENS TO MURGATROID a chick fight can be as brutal as any Tony Jaa/Quentin Tarantino produced fight scene. However, there's some word exchanging, cabled fighting, and a bit of pouting, and the scene is over. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! Jeeja Yanin can throw down. Rhonda Rousey can tear it up. Is there any need for a sissy fight in a woman dominated world???? (throws hands up in the air..)

 
Ok. But with the movie... So, the fight is stopped by Red Vulture, Bluebird's partner in crime. After
the fight this enormity of a woman shows up being hauled by a caravan, and NO we don't mean a minivan. She's got a flock of at least 20 men carrying her. She is obviously important and demands that Bluebird find the man she lusts after, or her assets will be frozen, aka "I will take all of your luscious men." To clarify her demand she produces and entirely crappy sketch that pretty much could be anyone. She further clarifies the identity of said man by stating that he works with the side show on the edge of town and that his ears turn bright red if you make eye contact with him. Oh, and he has a smell. Sounds like a keeper.

MMMMMMMmmm... Well. Ok then.

So, we now get thrown to the other side of the fence where the two headhunters are getting their butts reamed by the Queen's mystical right hand henchman... and eunuch. It's sort of like "videos and tanning" or "laundromat and pub", though the exact explanation here is quite unclear. Either way, he pissed off because the two female headhunters didn't find the Star of Rex, or whatever they are calling the male savior these days. And, it is fairly clear that he intends to lay the smack down on them for allowing the monk to escape with the decorative rock tablet thingy.

Of course, to prove his manhood, despite not actually having any, he goes straight to the power hungry, absolutely crazy "Queen of Quite-a-lot", who has subsequently trapped the soul of her sister in a cave. 

"HEY! Nobody puts baby in a cave!"

(snirk)

Ok. For the sake of time, we're going to just wrap up this opening bit here. So, we're 20 minutes in and here's the the lowdown: 

There are two sisters. Sister one is in love and is willing to give up her throne for love, which is in essence forbidden as men are a slave class. Sister two will not hear of it, casts a spell, sleeps with the lover of sister one, causes a subsequent spell trapping the sister in the cave, the jilted sister one chops off the bits of her lover now turned crazy eunuch, and the only thing that can stop her insane hormone rampage is the Star of Rex, the mythical male emperor to be. So, jilted sister one is on a manhunt to find "the one". No, seriously. She's on a hunt to find and destroy the unknown man who will become emperor, but doesn't know he is supposed to become the emperor.

Did you get all that??? 

GOOD. 

Let's move on.

So Bluebird heads to the sideshow to find the Star of Rex. The 13th Master heads the same direction to find the cute guy with the red ears, using only the horrible sketch as her guide. However, due to stellar communication the women presume that they are looking for the same guy, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense at all when you really think about it.

So, we see a young, handsome, but ENTIRELY derpy kid (Blockhead) and an entirely adorable kid that looks entirely like a young Jackie Chan (looks up IMBD and whaddayah know! It IS Jackie
Chan's son. That's Charcoal Head.), a bossy, coke bottle glasses older man, some chickens, and the monk, who turns out not to be a monk at all, but a young man named Peachy, dressed in drag, running around stealing people's tablets. They are retelling the story of the two sisters, the Queen and her cave sister when the guards show up to shut down the show and more chaos. And chickens.

During this whole debacle, Bluebird mistakes Charcoal Head as the Star of Rex, and 13th Master thinks Melon Seed is the cute red-eared guy. Red Vulture shows up to make sure that Bluebird is doing her job, but goes a little overboard, killing Peachy, and resulting in a big ole fight with Bluebird (a good one this time!) during which a line is drawn in the sand between the two. Literally.
With a bat'leth stolen from the Star Trek set. But alas, the stolen tablet is not to be found with Peachy, and the ladies are confused. And pissed at each other.

NEXT MORNING!

Turns out Peachy handed off the tablet to Charcoal Head, who is a moron, and has no idea what he has in his possession. He plans to sell the tablet, until he realizes that the decorative markings are actually a map. But not really, because it's really a slide puzzle. Yeah, we were confused too. But he recognizes a mountain on the map and decides to strike off in search of the treasure that the map must lead to. Because nobody makes maps that don't lead to treasure. Anyway, this hawk is flying around, sees the map, and somehow notifies Bluebird that he has found her man, via a series of squawks and flaps.

Long story short, Charcoal Head and Melon Seed run off to meet with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, who is actually elsewhere at the time, trying to track down the missing tablet. Oh the irony. The girls plot to sell the boys as dumbbells after the treasure is found, and then there's a weird rabbit catching scene.

Completely inexplicable mustache

13th Master meets up with the boys sporting an inexplicable mustache, and talks them out of the map, pretending to be CTHD. Bluebird shows up at the same time, also claiming to be CTHD (sans mustache), thus confusing the heck out of everyone. In a clever attempt to fool the men, the ladies quickly team up, pretending that one is CT and the other is HD, and those boys blindly follow them into the wilderness in search of treasure using a slide puzzle as their guide.

Enter Charles, Kelly's husband, joining us 36 minutes into the film:

Charles: "WHAT?"

Kelly: "Exaaactly."

So then Master Blackwood (we met him at the sideshow earlier, the dude with the coke bottle glasses) shows up in the best drag gettup you EVER saw in an attempt to rescue the boys from their slave-masters. But one broken cookie and Donnie Yen later, there is a full apology, and a declaration that the Star of Rex savior dude may be in their midst. Emperor Melon Seed or Supreme Leader Charcoal Head. Yeah, no. But either way, that tablet is somehow going to reveal the savior of all MAN kind and overthrow the evil queen to restore peace and male rule. Which doesn't sound so hot to us, but I digress.

To keep from blowing their cover as CTHD, 13th Master gives Master Blackwood and the real CTHD (that's Donnie Yen, remember) a love potion that has them fully enamored of each other. Eww. Then they escape again with the boys into the night and down a river.

Werewolf? Or rabid Ewok? Discuss.

They reach the banks of the Haunted City, where they are greeted by werewolves and ghosts playing
theramins. Suddenly, we're launched into "Evil Dead: On the Banks of the Yellow River", complete with magical, mystical chipper shredder sand, sucking people into the earth. DEAR GOD! THIS IS NOT CHINA! IT'S FLORIDA! NO, DUNE! NO, TREMORS!!! NO... MONGOLIAN SANDWORMS!!!

Apparently Red Vulture thinks this movie has gone on too long, because she shows up again demanding that they hand the plaque/tablet over to her. But that was obviously a mistake, and the producers had other ideas, because everyone gets sucked into a hole in the ground (they filmed in Florida, I'm telling you), where Red Vulture is probably digested over thousands of years while Bluebird and Charcoal Head apparently didn't taste very good, because they somehow end up on the set of Chud.

No seriously. Insert strange emotional mirror people in an underground lair that far too closely resemble Fraggles, with no explanation whatsoever. The real title of the film suddenly becomes " CHUD: A love story... with Fraggles" But wait, where are the Doozers?? OH NO! CHUD ATE THE
DOOZERS!! Not really, we lost it a bit here, we were bored, and wondering when Donnie Yen would become disenchanted with the drag queen and join us for more fighting to clarify his role in this film.

On the other side of the Haunted Forest, 13th Master and Melon Seed fall out of a tree and into love. "Spock" pipes in from the couch, "This is highly illogical" and Bluebird and Charcoal Head also realize that they've been in love for about the last 20 minutes, then everyone somehow ends up above ground on a very foggy beach that somehow also happens to be exactly where they need to be.

 No seriously, they've come out right smack in front of the hidden palace, just where the mystical slide puzzle needs to be inserted into the massive floppy drive in the front of the mountain. Rrrrrrrrrng... rrrrrng.... Insert disk 2 to continue. The only way they could possibly have known how to operate this massive slot style structure... would be that they watched the opening credits of this film. Clever. Because otherwise, we have no idea how they figured that contraption out. We would have been standing on those steps for hours waiting for a locksmith.

But anyway, they get in, and happen upon a amazingly crappy chamber, which contains stuff, but not treasure. Except for Donnie Yen, and his leather pants. We finally figured out what he's doing in this film... leather pants and cape. Mmmmhm.

Showing any more would cause joyous spontaneous combustion.

 And then Jackie Chan busts out of a stone statue and attacks Donnie Yen. We hope against all hopes that this will result in an epic, though pointless and inexplicable fight scene, but are quickly disappointed by the CG and turn our attention back to Donnie's pants.

Weapons: Check
Flames: Check
Badassery: Check

Note his glow. This means he's "it".

The boys and girls run ahead of the old guys fighting in the crappy chamber and come across some water that is falling up that has Excalibur in the middle of it. Literally. And now we're watching a He-Man meets King Arthur kind of thing, during which we find out that Charcoal Head is the savior of MAN kind, and the boys find out the girls' true motives. Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen abruptly stop fighting when they realize that the Star of Rex has found Excalibur, Jackie turns back into a statue, and Donnie is put in charge of making sure the rest of the movie goes smoothly.

 The next 30 minutes in a nutshell:

(Takes a deep breath, aaaand...)

Bluebird returns to the Empress empty handed. The 13th Master loses everything for Melon Seed. Charcoal Head and the Fraggle People wage war against the Empress. Wereboobs, love prevails, epic battle, bloodshed, more love prevails, rebar beats icicle, icicle beats force, all elements cancel each other out. All get skewered and die in a love/death scene. With the Empress defeated, Charcoal Head declines the throne, gives it to Melon Seed, and runs off with Bluebird to live off the land.

In short, pants.

Leather pants.

And in reality, if we took all of the Donnie Yen bits and assembled them end to end, we would have an epic 6.5 minute film. Instead, we just watched 106 minutes of 'Harruwaaaah???' So if you're in the mood for an extremely complicated plot line with drag queens, wereboobs, mustaches and fraggles, by all means, see this film, please. Otherwise, always read the cast list as a list of ingredients, and if Donnie Yen isn't in the first three people, this is junk food.

In fact, you might be better off just eating a cupcake and browsing Donnie Yen pics on the interwebs. We're gonna go do that now.

~The Mavens

Mugamoodi - The Mavens Do Bollywood

OPENING NOTE: Ok. We'd like to preface this whole review with this "warning". If you plan on watching a Bollywood style film, ANY Bollywood style film, clear your entire schedule as you WILL have at least 2.5+ hours worth of film to get through. And, with that having been said, we will now attempt to shave down a rather long film into a quick, 10 minute read, complete with the flying action sequences and Donnie Yen style WHA-PUT-CHA's.

SO, for the first week in February we decided to watch the film Moogamudi, a dynamic Bollywood Batman/Greatest American Hero-esque film. And yes, it is now officially the first week of March. And by that measure, you can guess how easy it has been to summarize all 150 minutes of this film.

Yes. I DID in fact say 150 minutes. 1...5...0.

OK. So, our film opens up to some generalized thievery going on in the home of an elderly couple. The culprits are what can only be described as "thin Walrus Ninja", mainly due to their costumes. They are in fact far more agile than a herd of Walrus. But they made Kelly think of Walrus, so the title stays.

So, these guys are all sneaky and covert, stealing "the goods" from the house of an Indian Kung Fu master.

SSSSSCCREAAAAAAACH!!!!

Yeah, you heard me. INDIAN Kung Fu Master. Tuck that bit away. It MAY be helpful further down the road.

Insert an abrupt scene change and we are all transported to a "Karate Kid" style Kung Fu match. Team "bad guys", because you can just tell this by their uniforms, win the mega trophy and Anand (aka Bruce Lee. Seriously, that's what they call him.) is upset about it, though he didn't participate in the tournament himself so... (Scratches head)

ANYWAY! We are suddenly parked in a dark alley hiding from the cops... driving a 1980's Renault. SERIOUSLY!!! That cop car honestly looked like an 80's Renault!!

WORST... COP CAR... E-V-A-R!!! 

Anand is now wearing his best "Anarchist out on the town" attire and decides to confront the winner of the trophy, who just happens to be riding by on a motorcycle, without a helmet, and cradling this ridiculously large trophy in his arms.

WHO WOULD DO THIS???

SO, a wicked whaputcha fight ensues and you are left wondering WHY Anand didn't enter the tournament with mad skills like that... except perhaps that he forgot all about the entry form until after the final date had passed and that he couldn't bribe his way in and thusly was forced to sit in the bleachers with the rest of his brooding, plaid and denim draped team mates. (shrug)

Anand wins. He and his buddies go out to the local swill to booze it up, and insert an elaborate and somewhat clumsy Bollywood dance bit, complete with "little people", about how the phases of all life circulates around the bar. And for about 3 minutes, we were following his train of thought. But then at minute 5 the train derailed, flew off a cliff, and jokes about the Scott Pilgrim and Matthew Patel fight from "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" and how "...if your turned off the music track and inserted Maroon 5 you'd think that his were a GAP ad" kicked in and our A.D.D. ramped to an 11. Without having gone back to YouTube to find a clip for you, we had no idea how long this bar bit was. But it felt long. Really... really long.

SO, after a night of drunken carousing, Anand goes home only to have his father verbally berate him for whatever reason he can come up with and Anand takes his mat and storms out of the kitchen and to his grandfather's area of the building. It is here that you get a little back story on the "Bruce Lee"moniker that he uses.  And there is this sort of touching scene with Grandpa TechHead surrounding "I don't know what to do with my life. I don't want a meaningless existence." And it is at this point that you can see Anand toying with the idea of becoming a superhero.

The next day he meets up with his buddies in a fish market. You know, that place where all the cool kids hang out? The "gang" is discussing that recent loss of their master (flashback to the opening scene with the Walrus Ninja), and how they will save their precious but penniless Kung Fu school. So, Anand in a hasty gesture, which perhaps best describes his entire character in this film, calls out a fish vendor with a big choppy knife thing, challenging him to chop off his hand, or pay for Kung Fu lessons. Sort of a reverse psychology thing with butcher attire here. There's some swooshing, and chopping, and chaos, and baskets flying all over the place with the screaming, and this girl. Oh this lovely, lovely, smart mouthed girl who takes a picture with her camera phone and then whacks that crap out of Anand, disabling him for the police to arrest.

So, now he's arrested. The girl's father is the police chief in what can only be described in a "Meh, whatever" sort of police station/jail. Because, God only knows NO ONE would ever just break out those wooden spindles and walk away.

No... criminals would NEVER do that.

And, now that Anand has been publicly disgraced, he gets to go home for even more verbal abuse by his Dad. PERFECT!!! And yes. He's pretty pissed off and is hell bent on finding and confronting this girl... which he does on his friend's motorcycle. And, I'm not entirely sure that by any standard two dudes tooling around on a motorcycle EVER appears "TOUGH". (shrug)

So anyway, after a merciless beatdown of her neighborhood "gang" that she hangs with, the girl (and NO, she apparently doesn't have a name according to IMDB) shows up and starts throwing crap at Anand... you know, the standard bricks and things... all the while he falls in love with her and slips into another crazy strange Bollywood montage of love, strange suits, Swiss mountains, song and dance.

And, it is at this point that I (Kelly) fear that I am rambling and decide to attempt to wrap up this film into a neat little package with a lovely red bow.

Ok. So, Anand is in love with "pretty girl" and decides that he has two missions in life.

1) He must become a real tights sporting, underpants on the outside, color coordinated cape, chest emblem wearing superhero. But, he lacks superpowers and ends up looking like a luger (looszher... see what I did there?) in the party costume fashioned by one of his grandfathers.

2) He must win the heart of "pretty girl", which will in fact be difficult because she hates him.

Insert comedic and awkward bits of Anand showing up at the wrong time as either himself OR Mugamoodi, his superhero name. Add a twisted, long, and winding crime plot, of which we absolutely CANNOT remember, a few musical numbers, and epic death battle in a hollowed out building, a falling in love eye batting scene, a sooped up superhero suit, some crane running and jumping...

AND THERE YOU HAVE MUGAMOODI!

But seriously. All in all this isn't a BAD movie. It's just not a high-action-punching-with the-blood spooting-martial arts film that it is sort of advertised to be. Rent it if you are looking for a humorous film with some really great martial arts action sequences sprinkled in. But Jackie Chan, Yuen Bao, Sammo Hung this absolutely is not.

And speaking of which, tune in next week as we give you our review and "take" on the classic film, Project A, starring:

- Jackie Chan
- Yuen Bao
- Sammo Hung

Until next time!

- The Mavens.

Assualt Girls - aka Easiest Blog Ever...

Ok. This week we chose to spin the roulette wheel of "foreign action films" and pick something we knew nothing about. And, sometimes when playing roulette you win big.

That was not the case with "Assault Girls" - aka Easiest Blog EVER! Why you ask? Well, let's get down to brass tacks here folks...

"Assault Girls" is a 2009 release written and directed by Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in a Shell, Ghost in a Shell 2, and various other anime titles). And, one would have thought perhaps that with such experience and directorial clout that this film would have been knocked straight out of the park.

No.

ABSOLUTELY no.


Our story begins with the longest, most epic backstory of all backstories in the history of backstories. However, there are no subtitles and the narration is drown out by the orchestration and electronic/video game blips, whirs, squees, etc. Only through the assistance of a few online resources (mainly IMDB) were we able to piece together that this is a movie about video game play.

(And with that, Kelly should have shut the movie off. ^_^)

ANYWAY!!!

So the film starts with "HOLY BACKSTORY BATMAN", which eats up a solid 5+ minutes and still somehow communicates nothing. Then you are dumped into the middle of the desert to watch an un-named man with a ridiculously large gun walk... for another solid 5+ minutes.  Where is this going? Not even the character seems to know. And so he walks, with the wind, and the sand, and the sun, and the gun, and the clanging cookware on his back, and the clouds. OH THE CLOUDS!!!! And as he walks you get the sense the he is all alone, and he shouldn't need the gun. But, he must be hunting.

And he's walking... and he's walking... and you're wondering if Netflix is somehow playing the wrong movie because you're a good 10 minutes in and there have been no girls or assaults as of yet. Oh, and there's some napping, too! At some point he stops and sets up his gun and decides, for no apparent reason, that this place of all places is going to be a really great spot to shoot stuff. And then promptly goes to sleep in what looks like the rubber chips they cover playgrounds with.

Then come the sand worms. Ok, so maybe his spot selection wasn't entirely random. Or maybe he just got lucky. But now these big land whale/worm things that look like they *may* have been stolen from a Kevin Bacon movie start popping up out of the ground. Jäger (that's the name of our hobo renegade) jumps up, starts shooting, and it suddenly clicks that this dude is playing a fully immersive RPG.

NOTE: If you read the description on Netflix before you press play (which we obviously didn't) you would know this. And now we all slap our foreheads.

So anyway, Mr. Hobo kills some big wormie things with lasers mounted on their heads. And while you are wondering where the land whale/worms got lasers, and how they managed to get them mounted up there, and whether they are controlling these lasers telapathically or what, the girls FINALLY show up, and get Mr. Hobo eaten by a wormy whale thing.

MMMMMMmmm NOM NOM NOM...Tastes like chicken.

A brief rundown of the "girls" in the movie, as is also provided at this point in the film, which is now already 25% over (yay!):

Gray - Just about as boring as her namesake, she flies about in a fighter plane with a cloaking device, and occasionally stops to snipe worms.

Colonel - Machine gun lady in a red feathery cape.

Lucifer - Conveniently, her player number is 666. She wears all black, and a little bowler hat, can turn into a giant raven, and dances. A lot. An unreasonable amount. Remember playing in your favorite MUD, there was always some jerk sitting in a corner of the tavern typing:

"dance <enter> dance <enter> dance <enter> dance <enter> dance <enter> dance <enter>" 

... and everyone had to holler at them to cut it out because no one could see what else was going on in the room? No, just me? Anyway, that jerk is Lucifer. Though more entertaining than the other two, she's like a semi-evil Charlie Chaplin that can sprout wings.

And NOW we get a title screen. 17 minutes into a 70 minute movie. What? There are also these chapter screen break things throughout the film that read like an RPG bible and make you feel like you're watching live action anime (oxymoron?) and teach you nothing.

It is also here in the coming scenes that we learn that the entire film is subtitled, despite the fact that most of it is in english. Very very bad english that is spoken only because its use is required within the game... which makes NO sense at all. OH... and it's all spoken through crazy gas masks that serve little to no purpose, as well as gunfire, screaming beasts, and Lucifer's squawking.. *sigh*

"Player 0538 (Hobo Renegade), it's too bad that you had to die. Do you wish to access the field again?" 

You're gonna hear this line a lot, from the disembodied voice that is the Game Master. He's going to float around in the ether giving advice and regenerating people

So Mr. Hobo is regenerated, and starts walking around again. The girls duke it out over a bunch of worms they are each trying to kill, blah blah blah, petty childish banter, blah blah blah, and then the Game Master tells them all they've pretty much used up all of their resources for the day and they should all just go home.

Kelly's dog and husband are now snoring. And the movie is.... 38% complete. *sigh again*

And then we notice, you know who's not subtitled? The freaking Game Master. The random dude from New Zealand who has so much reverb the television speakers threaten to go on strike. The man we could not understand in the beginning, and cannot understand now. Nice. So what is he trying to say?

In his very convoluted, roundabout and entirely garbled way, he tells each of the four players individually that they should probably consider joining a party to beat the biggest worm thing in the level, the name of which is incomprehensible, otherwise it will take them months to level up. What's this? A plot point? No... it can't be! He also tells hobo boy that he should probably look for some kind of transportation, which would not only help us out so we don't have to watch him walk everywhere, but is also ironic foreshadowing. It would be funny later, if you cared at all about the film.

The players promise to think about forming a party. And they do think. For the next 7 minutes. Staring into space, contemplative thinking, complete with lots of cloud scenes, no talking except for a replay of the Game Master's advice, a really bizarre solo dance scene for Lucifer.

And then there's a snail on a rock. It's a metaphor... BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN??? We don't know. We looked it up, and we still don't know.

More walking. Now everyone! More thinking. It has now been... oh wait, more clouds. More "better form a party because you cannot win this level solo" repetition from the Game Master. It's been 10 minutes. TEN! T-E-N!

And anyone who ever considered playing WoW but didn't is breathing a sigh of relief. If this film were a hard sell for video game play, we will all take a PASS, thank you.

So now Colonel comes across this statue of a person kneeling with a pack on their back and reading some kind of book. I can has cheat guide? Hmm... no, not so much. The statue appears to serve no purpose, except that it seems Colonel has picked up the previously aforementioned snail from the rock he was so happily sitting upon, and has walked him miles across the desert to place him on the head of this statue.

"Dammit woman! Do you have any idea how long it took me to get over there??? Now I'll never get home! YOU OWE ME RESTITUTION!!!!" 

- The Snail

(We're bored. Can you tell?)

We watch the snail crawl around on the statue for another few minutes (more clouds), Lucifer comes and puts her hat over the snail, who is now blinded and terrified and far from home. Hobo comes along a moment later, picks him up, and eats him. Right out of his shell. Umm. What? He puts the shell back on the statue, and then Gray comes along and smashes it.

WE DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU! 

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?????

More nature shots. Random dog wandering by statue. Probably looking for his friend snail who has been snail-napped and brutally slain. And then there's this really angry looking shaking daisy that's all like "ERHAMAGERRRRRRD!! CAN WE END THIS ALREADY???" 2/3 of the way in and there hasn't been a single assault. Well. Ok. Perhaps upon my intelligence and time. And maybe that empty snail shell. No assualt. No with the waputcha. And we really were looking for the waputcha.

Ok, we're gonna take a breath and recommit to this film. Hey look, eggs. And a lot of things written on the screen of augury. Hobo appears to be making a dinner of bread and eggs and bacon whilst the Game Master attempts to teach us about characters used in augury. What is Augury? And why aren't his eggs cooked properly? And why is he haphazardly slicing sectioned off bread?

OH THE HUMANITY WITH THE SLOPPY FOOD SCENE!?!!?!? 

What is it with the friggin Japanese and their slurping 10 minute food molesting scenes?? He hasn't even finished chewing and he's stuffing more... oh god... oh... blech.

And now the film is suddenly in Japanese. Sort of. What? Gray shows up to be a buzz kill and ruins the bacon molesting. Hobo renegade is angry, but follows her anyway. She leads him to a different middle of nowhere. Apparently somewhere in all of the cloudy business the three girls formed a party, and feel that they need this guy and his massive gun to join to help them kill the big boss wormy whale thing. Lucifer laughs like a bird, Gray and Mr. Hobo have a ridiculous Mortal Combat style four round fight to decide whether he will join their party (yay, some really bad punching!!!), he loses badly, they try to make it funny.... and... moving on.

So now they're all off to fight the big bad guy. 12 minutes left! The end is in sight! Aaaaaah, it's called a Madara. We know this only because it's written plainly on someone's GPS. Ummm... Oh no!! General Grievous has just popped out of the Apollo 13 space capsule and is plummeting toward earth! Or something. And I hope, for a moment, that the YS I just noticed on the back of Hobo's hat is somehow paying homage to the RPG of the same name, but that's neither here nor there.

Hobo is set up to shoot, the girls are all set to distract, and General Grievous is on his way, though we're not sure why. Ooooh, that's why. Colonel apparently ordered him and is now controlling his large crazy body telepathically to blow things up. Lucifer dances some more. DAMMIT WOMAN STOPPIT! Oh wait. Apparently when she decides to stop dancing, Lucifer has the power of green aspoldie hands. So there's some asploding.... hobo shoots... and the madara is dead. Holy anticlimactic. Even Luke Skywalker missed once.

So everyone gets all excited, Mr. Hobo gets all emotional and weepy, celebrations abound... and then the girls take off in their transport devices, leaving hobo in their dust to go collect their points. He gets ticked and tries to shoot the girls down.

And it's over. Wait, what? Where did the movie go? Stuff was blowing up. I... wait... oh never mind.

Brimming with high-impact action and breathtaking special effects, this film will... hahaha. Just kidding. Don't watch it. Seriously. Unless you really like clouds. And the angry flower is ok. And maybe Lucifer's dance stuff is entertaining for a second. It's only 70 minutes of your life I guess, but I'm sure you could come up with better things to do with 70 minutes.

So, until next blog... don't watch this film.

- The Mavens

Sacrifice -

SACRIFICE - 

An epic tail of manipulation, betrayal, murder, and what happens when you just can't let things go.

So, we started our year off with a bang, watching "Sacrfice", a classic, epic, loooooong Chinese style tale of epic manipulation and tragedy. We weren't sure of the punching, kicking, swords, with the SCHA-WIIIIING... but it looked good, and there is a cute baby involved. And who doesn't love a classic Chinese tail of manipulation, betrayal, death and burning?

Sacrifice is a 2010 film written by Ningyu Zhao, directed by Kaige Chen, and stars:

-You Ge

-Xueqi Wang

-Xioaming Huang

- Bing Bing Fan

... and a WHOLE other huge cast of poeple.

Our film starts during one of the MANY feudal time in Chinese history. Is this story based on real events ? Pffft... we don't really know. Could be. China has probably one of the most complex, diverse, socially colorful, never ending, massively sized feudal histories that has ever been documented.

None-the-less!!!

The story is set in the Jin state (11th Century BC), which was part of the Zhou Dynasty. The Jin state has fallen apart and has been split into three squabbling states: Han, Zhou, and Wei. This move ended the "Spring & Autumn Period", and marks the beginning of the "Warring States Period". Good times...

Ok so, our story begins as follows: The leader of the state is a bumbling moron. He was put into place as a puppet for the General of Badassery, Tu'An Gu, and has pretty much been manipulated the entirety of his life. And, this is not uncommon in these stories. The leader's sister is Princess Zhuang, and she is married into the Zhao family.  Soon the Princess Zhuang shows up on the scene preggers and with husband (General Zhao Shuo), in tow. General Zhao and his Dad, Zhao Dun, have a bit of a terse relationship with Tu'An Gu. 

NOW, in a random noodle house along the processional route, you are introduced to Dr. Chen Ying, who has been asked to check up on the pregnant princess as she prepares to deliver a son, and heir, to the Zhao family. Dr. Chen's wife has juuuust delivered a son of their own. Keep that in your mind for later. It's important.

Ok. So, in the interest of you all, and to prevent an insane amount of confusing story line twists and turns, and subtleties that are larger implications of stuff and things... we will sum up the structure of the first half of the film as follows:

Tu'An Gu is a bad man. A very, VERY bad man. His interested are in power and domination. And, since he has no wife to keep him in check or to soften his demeanor (as is the case in most historical films), no children to lose to war, he's just a bad man.

He sets up an elaborate scheme to kill the ruler of the state, but frame the Zhao family. Upon this framing, he intends to "justifiably" slaughter the Zhao family as traitors... including the unborn baby. BUT, he sort of wants to spare Princess Zhuang... because she's pretty hott. 

Death and burning, General Zhao dies in the arms of Princess Zhuang. She goes into labor. Baby is born. She asks the doctor to sneak the baby out of the guest house. Right hand man to Tu'An Gu shows up to confiscate said baby. Wrestle, wrestle, wrestle... sword drawn, bad guy slips on a fish, baby flies through the air, princess kills herself as a distraction technique and point of bargaining, baby escapes with doctor, right hand man gets his eye cut out for letting it happen.

Ok. Ya' got all of that? 

Good. 

Let's move on.

So, Doctor Chen is trying to rush home with the Zhao family baby. His wife has a newborn baby as well, so the doctor "asks" her to be the wet nurse to the baby. Naturally she's a bit pissed off by this as her husband has now put his entirely family in peril as the baby-hunt is on by Tu'An and his henchmen. He heads out to find the "point man" that he has been instructed to hand the baby off to. While the doctor is out, the henchmen go door-to-door all "Moses and the Pharoah" like, collecting all of the baby boys for ransom. See, their going to find this Zhao kid, even if it wastes time and resources and makes Tu'An look like a giant jackass. Because Tu'An WILL have the last word. And that's final. Period.

So, the Zhao baby get's taken, the doctor's baby get's left behind. The husband is irate with his wife. He  quickly develops an elaborate scheme wherein he sends his wife and son into hiding while he tries to get the Zhao baby back, claiming a switched at the crib scenario. 

The guards and Tu'An threaten to kill all of the boy babies unless the pilferer of the Zhao baby comes forth. Yaddah yaddah yaddah, the doctor gets the baby back, claims that his wife escaped the city with the baby and Mr. Point Man. Tu'An heads out to investigate, find the Point Man, the Doctor's wife, and their son... slaughters them all, punting their sun into the floor as if he'd made a Hail Mary touchdown, and then hands the living Zhao family baby back to Doctor Chen, because... well, let's be honest. I think even Tu'An was confused by all of this Scooby Doo back and forth business. 

And it is at this point that you WILL want a box of kleenex as this whole thing is about 60 minutes of sad, sad, sad slaughter of innocent people. 

Ok. NOW to get into the meat portion of the movie. You are left with the inconsolably destroyed Dr. Chen and the helplessly orphaned Zhao baby. Dr. Chen goes home, locks the baby safely away and proceeds to drink himself stupid. How many days is he out? Who knows. But when Chen awakens, he realizes what he's done and rushes off to check on the well being of the baby. THANK GOD all is ok. He dedicates himself at this point to raise the baby as his son, according to the wishes of Princess Zhuang. Insert montage of him scraggly and worn looking, feeding rice porridge to this infant, mumbling to himself... (insert the crying here)

All of sudden, one night, a young man with a gashed up face comes to his door for help. He's obviously an outcast or bandit trying to NOT be seen... OH WAAAAAAIT!!! It's that fish slipper from the palace! His life was spare, his face mangled, and essentially given a "dishonorable discharge" for being an utter screwup. Dr. Chen heals his face, and over time they become friends and discuss the future of the infant Zhao. With time it is revealed that Dr. Chen intends to raise the child, allow him to get close to Tu'An so that he may murder and thus avenge his family line AND Dr. Chen's family as well.

Shortly after this conversation, Dr. Chen marches to the palace and pretty much demands that Tu'An take him in because "YOU OWE ME!!!", which in our book was a pretty bold step. Bravo Chen. Bravo. And so the painstaking process of "forming a bond between the man you despise and the surrogate child you have come to love in order to pull off THE BEST payback of epic burnination ever" begins.

Insert a long montage regarding Tu'An becoming close to Chen's adopted son, spoiling, training to become a guard, lectures on trusting no-one, angst, burning, rejection, denial... And yes, we're sort of glossing over this because, if we give too much away there will be nothing for you to truly enjoy in this film.

The whole film ends with a gut wrenching "Go into the light" montage that one cannot aptly summarize for the purposes of this blog. However, the story is good, the ending is in fact gut wrenching, the costuming is SUPERAWESOMAZING, the cinematography great, the storyline is one of classical Chinese political power struggles. Not a whole lot of WHAPUTCAH (punching) in this film. But, it is a good film. 

SO, enough with this typing and talking. Go rent it. Watch it. Love it. Bring your Kleenex. Meet us here again next week (hopefully) where we will discuss the finer points of "Merantau: Becoming a Man, Indonesia style"

- The Mavens

Year End Martial Arts Movie Mayhem Montage...

Ok. So, over the last 5 months we have watched a lot of crappy movies. And when we say "crappy", we REALLY mean crappy. These movies have been so fantastically crappy that we struggle to find balance between 5,000 word hijinx, and drawing a blank slate due to the crappiness. SO... in an attempt to bring us all up to speed on what we've been watching, how we're doing, and what's news... We, The Mavens, are heretofore writing our year end "Martial Arts Movie Mayhem Montage". Yeah. That IS a lot of "M" words. And with that, we begin...

Back in July we watched "Breathing Fire", aka Foam Pizza of Doom. Why would we call it this? Because the movie starts out with a pack a gangsters casting a GINORMOUS safe key into the back of a foam prop pizza. The key is so large that it is takes on a circus clown ridiculousness of epic and strange proportions. The film stars "that kid" from The Goonies (insert name here), and has a WEIRD scene with pool hall ruffians of minute stature. Yeah. Little People peeps. With the flying kicks and the pool stick whacking. Needless to say, this film is NOT a feather in the cap of (insert goonies kid name), and is perhaps the reason that he never developed a booming career in martial arts films... which is entirely a shame as he had some SERIOUSLY mad skills.

The purpose of the cut up foam pizza, the fighting, the karate, the... Senior bad guy steals gold. Gold is kept in safe. Safe is locked up by ginormo key. The pizza is split up amongst corroborators. Corroborators kill each other off. Goonies kid was adopted by Senior bad guy after he killed his mother in Nam. Because Goonies kid is Asian, he is NATURALLY endowed with the power of awesome martial arts. So awesome in fact that he borders on superhero-crime-fighting epic-ness, which in saves the day by the end of the film.

Did you get all of that??

We then watched "Alien vs. Ninja (2010)", as written and directed by Seiji Chiba, produced by Nikkatsu and North CKY, and starring Shuji Kashibara, Mika Hijii, and a slew of other folks who seem to have been suckered into this "Made for SyFy channel" style film. The whole story is about a clan of Ninja living in the forest. The relationships and structure of the film are complex, yet entirely odd. The action really begins when they see a meteor zoom over their heads. They think it's an invading clan and set out on a quest to capture the invader. Little do they know that the invaders are Power Ranger-esque aliens with relatively cute symbiant brain sucker babies that zombify everyone they come in contact with. The film is loaded with awkward actions scenes, ridiculous costuming, and LOOOOOOONG "bite my crotch" fight scene that has absolutely NO explanation whatsoever, other than "it's a cultural thing".

If you're looking for a hokie Alien Ninja flick... then this one's it, complete with scantily clad, leatherbound Ninja chicks and dolphin-like alien critters.

Oh man... then there was "Hard Target". And if there was ever a point in your life where you MAY have respected Van Damme, this film would immediately make you turn on your heels and retreat. From his greasy Gerry Curl mullet, to the improbable circumstances behind his thick Belgian accent (born in the Bayou... snirk), this film is non-stop, belly rolling, eye watering ridiculous. Even that part near the end where he pulls the no handed "Shark-jumping Fonz" on his motorcycle. Impossibly improbable. ENTIRELY hilarious! The entirety of the film centers around the very real issue of homeless Vets and their struggle to try to do right by their families after having been broken by war. HOWEVER, that having been said, the rest of the film involves a "human hunting" of homeless folks down on their luck, and how a foot-forward daughter and plucky boy from the Bayou bring down said crime syndicate. If you're looking for a drinking game where you take a shot every time something entirely cliche or improbable happens, then THIS is your film. You'll be wasted 30 minutes in.

Now, we have Charles (Kelly's husband) to thank for the WEIRDNESS that is "Norwegian Ninja", aka "Kommander Terholt & Ninjatroppen". This film lies somewhere between poorly made film intended to be serious, and hokey film intended to be tongue in cheek and in the style of crappy films from the 70's. It borders along the lines of "Life Aquatic". It was... well... uh. Imagine white guys training in a military style camp out on the frozen tundra, dressed entirely in black wool, sipping coffee and befriending animals. I just don't... I. Yeah. That pretty much sums it up. Essentially, it is about the TRUE STORY of how Commander Terholt led his team of Norwegian Ninja's against Russian during the cold war. And, if this film is LITERALLY what is passing for true stories in Norway, we question what Norway has been pumping into their water and air these days... 'cause this film is straight up Bill Murray weird.

The One. Oh, "The One". Oh Jet Li in your infinite, tiny, utterly deadly cuteness. You were the salvation of this film. You in your transdimensional multiplicity. (sigh) This film is about an escaped convict from another dimension, travel throughout multiple dimensions killing off his "copies" in order to ensure his sole existence... which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense when you think about. If you were a criminal and there were like 50 copies of yourself, wouldn't that give you an opportunity to hide in the crowd and not get thrown back into the clink?(shrug) And the irony of the film lies in that you have bad, criminal Jet Li trying to kill off good, police officer Jet Li. And after several flying table kicks, an MRI, several kicks to the face, some confusion, and some gunfire, you end up with the equivalent of the "Find the painted lady" game. You honestly have NO IDEA which Jet Li is which. Either way, the action sequences are good, the story line *meh*, and Jet Li's accent entirely ADORABLE!!! It's worth a $.99 rental.

Next, we have "The Raid". And, we would like to go on record as calling this one of THE most fantastically action-packed, violent Indonesian martial arts films of all time. The premise is simple. Cops go into a slum apartment building to flush out the bad guys and their drug Kingpin. Something goes awry. Cops are trapped inside and must fight their way out of the building. We've got shooting, and stabbing, and collapsing floors, and hidden passage ways. Flying knees, and broken bones and swinging neckbreakers on shards of broken doors... Yeah. It IS just that bloody and violent. This film provides minimum thinking and maximum devistation. And, for that we have to give it "10 punches" on our rating scale.

The Hebrew Hammer was our holiday pick this year. Needless to say, this is hands down one of the funniest films we've viewed in 2012. And yes, while it is more of a comedy, it was written to mirror the hokie exploitation Kung Fu films of the 70's. Loaded with funny action scenes, entirely inappropriate social and cultural jokes, and tons of kitsch, Hebrew Hammer left us in tears. Side-splitting, non-stop giggling tears.

Lastly, "Game of Death". And, we are posting this one last, not because it was the last film we watched, but rather due to the nature of the film. Our deep, indebted love for Bruce Lee is so great that we didn't want to dishonor his memory by this ridiculously pieced together mish-mash of Kung-Fu-ery. Yes, Kung-Fu-ery. See, this film has a load of real-life back story that gets tossed in the film-making blender with the fictional screenplay that was "Game of Death", resulting in a bizarre collage of colliding storylines and imagery. Long story short, Lee started making this film just prior to "Enter the Dragon" (ETD). When offered the Hollywood contract for ETD, Lee pressed pause on the Golden Harvest production of Game of Death, with the intention to return to it after filming and finish the whole thing off. Unfortunately, he died and parts of the film were lost. None-the-less, Golden Harvest had sunk money into this film and wanted to see through to release.

What we all ended up with what a strange Dada-esque collage of the life and film fantasty times of Bruce Lee, as played by Lee, non-talking paper cut outs of Lee, a crappy body double of Lee, film footage of Bruce Lee's funeral, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Seriously. On a weirdness scale of 1-5, this film rates a 12... and that makes us sad because Bruce Lee is every shade of awesome, and this film is absolutely not. THOUGH YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST SEE IT FOR THE WEIRDNESS THAT IT IS!!!! We only wish we had a copy of the original story/screenplay so that we could imagine Bruce Lee in all of his punchy, yellow jumpsuit glory. (sigh)

<3 BRUCE LEE <3

NOTE: There were many more films that we watched. But, we don't want to overkill you in this blog post. Thus, we just chose the most stand-out-ish films that we could remember.

So, as we put a wrap on 2012, we want to wish you the happiest of Happy New Year's, and hope that we can collectively punch 2013 in the face and make it awesome!

xoxo

- The Mavens

(Kelly & MJ)

Kill Zone - Two Crimes for the Price of One

OK. School has started, our brains are settling back in to a schedule, winter is rapidly arriving here in the Frozen North, and we are back on track for your all of your blog reading pleasure.

So, what is this deliciousness that we speak of this week? Why, yes. It is YET ANOTHER Donnie Yen film. And, if you are unfamiliar with how the Mavens feel about Mr. Yen, I suggest that you go back several blogs to read our dissertation on how amazing he truly is. (insert angel choir here)

But, rather than overkill you with adoration and drooliness, let's just talk about the awesomazing film that is  "Kill Zone" (Saat Po Long), starring Donnie Yen (swoon), Sammo Hung (pumps fist), Jacky Wu (Oh, THAT guy), and Simon Yam (NICE HAIR!!!). It is in fact an epically sad, unbelievably tragic, kidney punching, high action Hong Kong cop flick with as many twists and turns as the Iroha-Zaka road in Japan. Seriously. This movie is a series of:

"You... me...you...wait... me? No. NO! NOOOOO!"

And that is what makes his a great film!

So, the technicalities: "Kill Zone" was written by Wilson Yip (IP Man 1 & 2, Flash Point, Dragon Tiger Gate, etc), Kam-Yuen Szeto (Exiled, Flash Point, Shamo, etc.) , and Wai Lun Ng. It was directed by Wilson Yip and released in 2005 by Dragon Dynasty. (YAAAY!!!) And yes, it is presently 2012. But no matter how you slice it, or in this case beat the living daylights out of it with your bare knuckles of brutality, this film is rather timeless and still brings us to our feet in all of its brutal punchy glory!

OK, so... on with the film, right? RIGHT!

Our movie opens up to a beautiful oceanside beach scene. We see Inspector Chan Kwok-Chung (Simon Yam) walking along with perhaps the most adorable little girl to have graced the screen in the last 10 years. It's a loving scene, heart wrenching with love... AAAAAND you're going to need to remember this. So, "put a pin in it" and be prepared to come back to that later.

Insert credits... Insert images of Sammo Hung playing the role of a super bad-guy... Aaand we're launched onto the scene of a twisted, bloody car wreck involving two cars.  Just tires and glass and blood and metal bits all over the place.So, what happened here?

Wait for it... 

wait for iiiiit... 

(insert flashback montage)

See, 15 minutes ago Inspector Chan was transporting a witness and his family, including the aforementioned painfully adorable little girl, to a courthouse to testify against the infamous Wong Po (Sammo Hung). Being the super supreme bad guy that he is, OF COURSE Wong Po doesn't want this witness to testify. So, in 3 flicks of the wrist Wong Po calls his "goon squad" into action. Short and sweet here, they T-bone the car, killing 5 of the 7 passengers inside, none of which were wearing their seatbelt, so this doesn't come as a surprise. And, to make matters just about 25% worse, some kid in a white "Thriller" style outfit walks up to the car and slits the throat of the witness, "just to be sure" that he can't testify. Write this down. You'll need to remember it later.

The only survivors are Inspector Chan, who has a HUGE chunk of glass shoved into the back of his head (shudder), and the little girl who is banged up really badly. Now, being the man of ultimate responsibility that he is, he adopts the girl and raises her as his own child. And quite honestly, you really get the sense that he has deep fatherly love for this little girl. And who wouldn't? SHE'S SO DARN CUTE!!!! But enough with the girl... for now.

We're launched forward several months to find Inspector Chan and the little girl back at the hospital where he is having a following screening for his accident. It is here that the doctor tells him that he has an incurable/inoperable brain tumor growing at the site of the aforementioned "glass in the skull" wound.

OH GOD NO!!! 

Donnie Yen's character hasn't even shown up yet and we're already getting punched in the gut emotionally! 

HOW CAN THIS BE???

Ok, so. While Insp. Chan and the doctor talk about the situation, his adopted daughter wanders off, and eventually happens upon Wong Po who is visiting his wife who has recently had another miscarriage. Naturally mourning the situation, he is a little teary and the adorable little girl asks him what is wrong and shares her candy with him. (OH GOD... it's so cute and endearing that it hurts.)

When Chan finds her talking to his arch-nemesis of all crime-dom (yes, this is a new official word), he yanks the little girl back to him and lays down an "I am SO gonna bust you Wong Po" threat, which naturally doesn't  ruffle Wong Po's feathers, because he's juuuust that bad. This starts a storm of insults and threats that will help motivate the action and punching for the rest of the movie, including a crazy bumper cars, car-bashing, golf clubs sword fight in the middle of a country rode which is entirely out of the blue, but sort of awesome none-the-less.

All in all, this just affirms the hatred, contempt, cat & mouse relationship between these two men.

Now, back at police headquarters we see Insp. Chan having a meeting with his special ops group. They're about to send in an ever-so-hesitant officer into an undercover scenario within Wong Po's ranks. And, it is at this point that our minds get totally distracted wondering how an undercover cop can slip into the ranks and immediately move into the position of "secondary right hand man to senior bad guy", because we're pretty sure that job position is far more difficult to acquire than your regular old job promotion "within the company". And, let's be honest, that crap ain't happening for "average Joe" in this economy either, undercover or not.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT!!!

The point here is that Wong Po is big and powerful, and without seriously solid evidence, they're never going to be able to bring him down.

So, once the meeting is over, Insp. Chan tells his bestest buddy on the squad about his brain cancer over the slurpiest, sloppiest lunch ever. And it is here that we realize why very few "eating scenes" are ever shot. (shudder) Now, his bestest buddy happens to be known to us as "Angry Guy", because this guy manages stress and anger as well as my 8 year old handles the mere presence of hornets/moths/spiders/bees/flies/gnats/butterflies...

UTTER... FREAKING... OUT!

SO, while Insp. Chan sort of nonchalantly blows off the fact that he is dying and his "daughter" will be left as an orphan again, and that Wong Po will never get caught before he dies, and... and... and... Angry Guy slams down his coffee cup and makes a scene in the middle of the restaurant. He then proceeds to tell the other guys on the squad which forms the beginning of an elaborate plan to ensure the safety, security, and long term provisions for Chan's daughter.

Now, for reasons not explained, we soon find out that Chan is retiring "tomorrow", which feels entirely abrupt and poorly planned considering where the "team" is at in the busting of the Wong Po posse. But, he's retiring none-the-less and he will be replaced by Insp. Ma Kwun (Donnie Yen). Chan's superior gives him a verbal lashing about stepping outside the bounds of the law to accomplish his task, and then makes sure that he prepares everything well for Kwun. But, with a smile, a nod, and a "James Bond driving an economy car"sort of way, the team takes off to bust one of Wong Po's posse's who are trafficking women and drugs just around the corner.

As they make their speedy getaway, they nearly run headlong into the arriving Insp. Kwun. Insp Chan tells the men who he is, that he's taking over, and then out come the urban legends about Insp. Kwun... that he's a super bada$$, that he used to be a special ops force, that he killed a guy with one punch... And, for that most part all of that is true. All but the killing part. No, no, no... he just caused severe brain damage to a guy with one punch. Just launched him up and nearly over his car with one punch. But no. No death. Just maiming the brain into a pile of pulsating tapioca. And, it is here that Mr. Angry has another fit and calls the whole thing a bunch of crap.

Dude... they make meds for that ya' know.

OK. SO, the team flies onto the scene in their "economy wheels" and bust up the drugs/hookers party, shoot a bunch of guys, make a few arrests, and then grab a bag full of money and hide it in the trunk.

HEY WAIT! 

These are the cops, right? 

What are they doing with that drug money? 

(insert the reminder of the elaborate scheme from the aforementioned scene). 

And, for a minute there the guys honestly thought they were going to get away with it... considering that they actually hid the whole deal from Insp. Chan. But, as everyone knows there is ALWAYS a snitch just around the corner.

Now, through a fairly epic juxtaposed montage we see Kwun arriving at the precinct, walking through the special ops department with some SERIOUS swagger, observing the desks of the various men, profiling them on what he sees, attempting to get to know them a bit before their first official meeting... His intentions are pure. His swagger is tough. His fists, deadly. (drooool)

WOW... That was a COMPLETE aside!

...and now we're back to the here and now and "first in line to senior bad guy", aka "The Snitch", who just happens to be dressed like an organ grinder's monkey, arrives to tell Wong Po that his business has been broken up by the cops and that his money has been confiscated. And, we're not talking $500 here. We're talking hundreds of thousands of moolah having been stolen. SO, what does any bad guy do when he's been ratted out by a double agent? He takes that agent out to the swamp, plays golf with his head, and then has him snuffed out by an organ grinder's monkey... Errr, I mean his first in command.

NOW, tucked in here is a moment where Insp. Kwun goes out for an obligatory visitation with the guy who's brain he destroyed. The mentally reduced individual is adorable, the exchange is sweet, the "flashback of destruction" is awesome and reaffirms that Kelly HONESTLY believes that Donnie Yen could outrun a cheetah, and through it all we learn a bit more about the man that Insp. Kwun has become as a result of the circumstances. AAaaawww...

The next day Kwun is introduced to his team, and then they collectively head out to the swamp to check out the dead body, who just happens to be the secret agent that Chan sent into the lion's den a few days back, filled with promises of being protected and all. Hhhrrmmm, I guess that didn't work out too well. On the hiking trail to the murder scene they run into an odd character carrying a video camera. They sort of harass this "special" kid. But... meh. Whatever right?

So, there he (the special agent) is. Dead as dead can be, and containing no physical evidence as to whom the specific perpetrator is. Though the ops team has their own opinions on the matter.

"But if only we had some evidence. 

Like some evidence caught on film... 

Like the film you would put in a video camera..."

(scratches chin amusingly)

Back at the station the guys are sitting around rolling the utter lack of clues around in their head, completely ignoring that Kwun is in the room, talking to each other as if he were not there at all. Their obvious dislike and lack of acceptance of him is apparent here. The distrust is so thick in fact that you could spread it over toast and eat it for breakfast like Nutella. MMmmm, Nutella...



OH... and, remember that odd kid from the swamp? Well, while he was out trying to film swamp creatures and alien abductions, he just happened to get footage of the aforementioned golfing/murder spree.

"OOOOH!!! THAT filmed evidence!"

(slaps forehead)

"Angry guy" harasses the kid, confiscates the tape, gives Kwun the shifty "uh, I think your Mom's calling" look and then the team runs into a conference room whereupon they lock the door, draw the blinds, and view the tape... sans Insp. Kwun, their new team leader.

AWKWAAAAARD!!!

The team sees what really happened, and then they collectively decide that a little creative editing will help them make Wong Po guilty, even if he wasn't the trigger man. Does this sound like a bad idea? You can bet your sweet steamed sticky buns it is! While they show the film the Insp. Kwun, "Angry Guy" is sent out to harass the odd kid who provided the evidence, which he seems to be a pro at, and then confiscates all of his tapes in order to keep the "evidence" air tight... OR DOES HE??? 

And, as if that wasn't a bad enough idea, the team sans Kwun heads out to catch the actual trigger man and "take care of him". But they take two cars because "Angry Guy" is busy messin' up the weird kid's electronics shop (according to wiki). Sensing that something isn't right, and who wouldn't after that awkward video viewing exchange, Kwun follows the team out.


It is here that he witnesses the team murder the "organ grinder's trigger monkey", which results in a merciless beat down of flying gas cans in your face, fists, bloody bits and arguing in equal proportions.

And it...is... awesome, with all the sweat and blood and stuff. Kwun get's angry that they're using dirty tactics to fight crime. They point out that he nearly killed a man thus justifying their right to do illegal things to bring illegal behaviors to justice.

Wait! 2+9...+14...carry the one... divide by the square root...

(Yeah. We don't really understand the philosophical math on this one either.)

So, back at the office hundreds of young Wong Po punks show up stating that they are the killer, causing a near riot in the precinct. Kwun whiggs out and shouts to book them all and take their statements. Then, in the upper room the team, INCLUDING Kwun now discuss what they're going to do... They decide to head out and quickly arrest Wong Po who is celebrating the one month birthday of his actual child who has been born for real this time. And, let's be honest here. A beat down involving BOTH Donnie Yen AND Sammo Hung is going to be epic EVERY time. Except this time there is a stuffed pink panther involved, flying, punching, kicking, Donnie Yen laying down the "WAHPUTCHA WAHPUTCHA" in leather, some busted up furniture, and multiple guys needed to finally restrain Wong Po after they thoroughly re-arrange the lounge area of the department store in a fraternity party style manner.

Bloody Mess... 

and we're moving on.

Ok. Now, there has been a lot of back story here in the first half of the movie. However, the rest of the movie just completely flies by with the kicking, punching, Whaputcha's, spooty blood, etc. So, buckle in and be prepared to move at top speed here...

So, they go harass Wong Po down in his jail cell, trying to intimidate him into "confessing his crime". Great idea, right? Pfffft...  This is where Wong Po tells them that they'll never leave the station alive and they won't live to see morning. Nice move guys...

By now you've naturally figured out that the team has half screwed up, half jeopordized their employment status, and has completely guilted and dragged Kwun into their swirling whirlpool of lies, deception, and "two rights makes a wrong" situation. As a group they realize that they are still short on evidence and need to lie more to make the lies they've been telling MORE true so that Wong Po will be convicted.  Insp. Chun heads down to the evidence room to confiscate the bullet pulled off of the dead undercover guy. The youngest member of the team arranges to purchase a gun of the exact same model that was used so that they can fire off another round, replace the evidence, and then place the gun in Wong Po's penthouse. Angry guy and the "fourth Beatle"sit around, smoke, and drink coffee, waiting for the other foot to fall.

Hands in the center

GO TEAM!

While in the evidence room, Chun develops a nose bleed and passes out. Pesky brain tumor! So, smuggling the bullet out ain't happening.

Wong Po: 1

Special Ops: 0

The young officer and Kwun head out to the pickup point. There's a sort of "shirt vs. skin" style soccer match going on... in the parking ramp. (... and yes. Our minds were a-whirl with all sorts of questions here) There are geeky girls dancing in the corner with a HUGE 1980's boom box. All is well on this typical night of late teens hooliganism. The gun arrives, the price has changed. The guys lack the monetary clams to cover it, so Kwun heads back to the station to get more money, leaving "young guy" all alone. Everything should be ok, right? (slaps head)


Not too soon after everyone runs out of the parking garage, leaving the young officer all alone. Well, wait. OK. He's not entirely alone. Remember that bad guy dressed in white at the beginning of the movie? Yeah. He's there. He goes by "Jack", and he unleashes the bloodiest, most brutal thrashing in all of murderdom.




Kwun arrives just before his death and is unable to stop the perpetrator of the hanous slicery, which pisses him off. And, if you recall from the "I will punch your brains through your head" montage earlier in the film, you know that you DON'T want Kwun pissed off. You will die.

So, now the tampering with evidence plan is out.

Wong Po: 2

Special Ops: 0

Wong Po sends his guys out and retrieves the extra video tape, and they ask nicely, thus proving Wong Po's innocence, though his generalized golf club douchebaggery is apparent. He is released from jail and you can BET that it's going to be a no holds barred payback of epic epicness, because this is Sammo Hung, and he's playing a bad guy.

Wong Po: 3

Special Ops: 0

This is looking bleak.

The "fourth Beatle" frets over the fact that his daughter is leaving "tonight" and that he doesn't know when he'll see her again. It is imperative that he get out, but he's also afraid of dying. WHAT TO DO!!! So, he and "Angry Guy" go out together... because after all there is safety in numbers. They meet the daughter, and while "Angry Guy" looks on at the loving scene, he realizes that he really ought to call home and check up on his "Angry Dad".

Turns out his Dad died three months back. Crushed, he hangs up the phone... and is promptly stabbed to stabby, bloody death by "Jack". And then, he runs up on the "Fourth Beatle" and murders him in a hanously pokey in the back fashion just as his daughter is walking away. Kwun happens upon the scene just in time to close "Angry Man's" throat up and hear the crime confession of a lifetime. And, this death scene is UTTERLY epic in a truly believable struggling to breath and fighting death the end sort of way. It is here that Kwun finds out about the hot money in the trunk, why Wong Po is as pissed off as he is, and the realization of the F-dom that they are in becomes apparent.

Kwun heads back to the precinct to confront Chan...

Back at the precinct, the duplicate tape is delivered, Wong Po is released, and the "man hunt" is ON for Chan and his posse. Chan pulls a "Ninja Cop" move in an attempt to get out of the precinct, but gets cornered in the mens room.

When they finally catch up to one another, Chan is SHOCKED to learn of the hidden money. Really and sincerely shocked! He and Kwun have a conversation about being cops, and then determine that the best course of action is to return the money and apologize for the situation. But, of course Chan couldn't agree to just that. No, no, no, no... he pulls a "fingers crossed behind the back" move and takes a fake bag to Wong Po's penthouse, where upon he pulls out a gun hoping to snuff out everyone and end this ridiculousness once and for all! But... Jack's in the room, and therefore squat gets accomplished.

When Kwun finds out that Chan left without him AND left the money behind, he gets pissed off and heads out to "fix" the situation. The Chief tries to stop him, there is an outburst, Kwun resigns, placing his gun and badge on top of a car. And, for those of you who are familiar with Donnie Yen's work... when you've got fists THAT lethal, a gun is just another accessory that matches your wardrobe.

Kwun arrives at the penthouse and heads to the alley entrance, where he is met by "Jack". And, what happens here is one of the most glorious, deliciously brutal, punchy McWhip fest I think I have EVER withnessed. Words can't really describe the brilliance of the choreography, staging, fighting skills, blood budget, etc that went into this.

But, "Jack" dies, Kwun awesome leather jacket is ruined, and he still has to get the money to its destination.

And, this next scene is one I will remember forever as MJ loudly proclaims "Oh.. HELLO Donnie Yen" when she saw it for the first time. And, to be perfectly honest, you are likely to do the same thing. Within mere seconds, two of our top favorite martial arts guys are brutalizing each other... and it's amazing. You're in awe. Sammo Hung throws down hard, Donnie Yen convinces us that you can in fact fight MMA style in dockers and still be bada$$. And, MJ personally adores the broken bottles bit. It's her favorite and she "squees" each time.

...and in the end you find yourself saying:

YAAaaay!!!

NO!! 

NO!!! 

OH NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

OH SWEET JESUS NO!!!!

...But we can't give you the details because you REALLY need to experience this one on your own! So, hustle your bustle and get this bad boy rented for Friday night. You won't regret it!

Sincerely,

The Mavens