Hellsing (2001–2002)

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Series)/A 1000 Anime Crossover

For a tangent, I return back to an anime series I had not seen until the 2000s when I got into the medium. Naturally, there was nostalgia in this one case, as the likes of the original Hellsing come from a specific period of anime which I got into by the mid-2000s and no longer exists. ADV Films, who released this in the United Kingdom, no longer existed by the end of the decade due to financial problems, and Gainax, the divisive anime studio who produced this, were a prolific studio whose titles came out at the time I was getting into anime, and also suffered from severe financial problems by the end of the decade too. They still exist, but they are not the same big budget studio who divided people in terms of the quality of their work. This was also the era, for whatever bizarre reason, someone thought releasing three to four episodes a DVD disc, at full price as separate releases, was a good idea until sanity prevailed and we just got box sets.

Hellsing is an action horror about a secret group of vampire hunters in England, with the really cool choice to cast actual British voice actors (or try for proper regional accents) in a rare moment of English dub acting where, even notoriously as with certain Manga Entertainment dubs, even British recording productions pretended to have American accents. The issue comes with the knowledge this was the "original" adaptation of the source manga. Gainax, as the review gets into, were seemingly cursed with an inability get stories properly finished, and this one was struggled worse because said manga had barely started with material yet to reach when the show was in production. It tries its hardest with wrapping together the plot threads already there into a new story and having to bring in new series only content. Sadly, one of the most interesting inclusions in terms a new villain, for a 2000s production, touches on problematic stereotypes in horror fiction of African mysticism, and it still struggles by its end. Now it also has been entirely wiped from the slate due to Hellsing Ultimate, a more faithful adaption for straight to video which had a high budget, the manga fully to work from, and didn't need to censor the gore whatsoever for television.

The virtues are here, least in style, and I learnt a long time ago, I can find things to appreciate even in really bad anime, but this is exactly the reason, for all the things I think are great, I don't believe in having nostalgia. I would rather return to these productions of my memories as new again, strike that nostalgia dead, and find virtues even in a work like this I admit has huge crippling flaws.

For the full review, follow the blog link here.

BloodRayne I and II: Deliverance (2005/2007)

 

Director: Uwe Boll

Screenplay: Guinevere Turner (BloodRayne); Christopher Donaldson and Neil Every (BloodRayne II)

Cast:

BloodRayne: Kristanna Loken as Rayne; Michael Madsen as Vladimir; Ben Kingsley as Kagan; Michelle Rodriguez as Katarin; Matthew Davis as Sebastian; Meat Loaf as Leonid; Billy Zane as Elrich

BloodRayne II: Natassia Malthe as Rayne; Zack Ward as Billy "The Kid"; Michael Paré as Pat Garrett; Chris Coppola as Newton Pyles; Chris Spencer as Bob, The Bartender; Brendan Fletcher as Muller; Sarah-Jane Redmond as Martha; Michael Teigen as "Slime Bag" Franson; Michael Eklund as The Preacher

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

People reading this will immediately think, if this is first review of mine they have read, that this will be a burial. With hindsight, I held these two as among two of the worst films I had ever seen once, so I was in that camp, but alongside the fact I liked the second film Deliverance, the tale I want to write specifically with BloodRayne is what happens when you can have all the resources at your hands but, if rushed, leads to something that gained the notoriety it did rather than present the entertaining film we would have all rather had. I would want to know what happened with the first BloodRayne specifically, and how it came as it did considering its resources include its cast - Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez, Sir Ben Kinsley, Kristanna Loken, even a cameo by Meatloaf - in its writer Guinevere Turner, who will stand out for many as the one who adapted Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho to the screen, and enough of the budget here to have gotten something as a video game film. Especially as I would be one of the first to defend the Street Fighter (1994) film with Raul Julia, and even find Super Mario Bros. (1993) a compellingly weird adaptation, videogame adaptations even if they are ridiculous are not something I will dismiss. Even in terms of hardcore, cult cinema niche, among the multiple roles he had in the production including the special effects team is Olaf Ittenbach, a German splatter film director I am aware of, as others may be, for the truly twisted pieced of no-budget gore cinema known as The Burning Moon (1992), and even if he barely contributed onscreen you can even see in BloodRayne splatter film influences in some of the gnarlier moments. There was enough here to adapt this videogame into something distinct.

BloodRayne was originally developed by Terminal Reality, who started in 1994 and worked through the computer era of the nineties videogames until the point the original 2002 game allowed them to spread their wings onto multiple consoles, and the game was clearly made under the shadow of Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series of the attractive female lead who could actually be a pinup in magazines with real models. This comes to mind that, yes, Rayne appeared in a Playboy magazine as a fictional character, the first videogame character in October 2004, and that, published by Majesco Entertainment, they focused grouped the character to explicitly attract a young male audience at the time. Liz Buckley, product manager for Majesco from this time, had her designers learning what boys and young men in focus groups prefered¹, which drastically revised how the character originally was from initial design², all in mind to a time now washing away in the past as we have had sexually appealing female videogame characters become more of a contentious concept, even to the point Mortal Kombat, which was sexualising its characters in the 2000s games, have back peddled from this, and even Dead or Alive, a beat-em-up franchise infamous for this, had to include measures least in the costume choices suitable for videogame fighting tournaments.

After BloodRayne 2 (2004) however, the games also leaning on Terminal Reality having worked on horror games beforehand among other genres, there was a huge period of silence for this franchise, lost to the original Xbox/Playstation 2 era of games as a franchise. Alongside the original games being having remasters in the 2020s, there was then BloodRayne: Betrayal (2011), which showed how much changed in trends including with its 2021 enhanced version BloodRayne: Betrayal - Fresh Bites. Gone were the three dimensional levels, now a 2D side-scrolling platform game befitting the growing interesting in two dimensional and "retro" games of the past, and even a significant change in Rayne the dhampir. Whilst still the attractive vampire, gone is the voluptuous pin-up of Playboy, evoked in the two film adaptations by Uwe Boll too, but a version influenced by comic books and even Japanese animation and manga in appearance who is less explicitly sexualised.

This is worth bringing up as, with how Uwe Boll was making these films, he picked up upon not the biggest licenses but ones even from Sega (House of the Dead) which were cult hits, this review finding itself in his most controversial era between 2003 to 2008 when he was making these videogame adaptations, where Far Cry (2008) was adapting a game from its origins and not when it became the ultra-expensive Triple A franchise that would have been out of Boll's franchise nowadays to adapt. His infamous run, which barely covers a long career, is of this era, and taking an immediate change of pace from the first game, where Rayne is hunting Nazis, and starting in 18th-century Romania, he came to this clearly without heart for the material, not even the dangerous (but inventive) spinning camera scenes or Clint Howard from House of the Dead, and made a film which was not carefully through in its creation.

Immediately problems arise with the film in how there is no stop to the exposition and events, charging along without pace. There is the anecdote Guinevere Turner has talked of that, with her script late by two weeks, Uwe Boll had been angered by this and that, even when she still sent him a first draft after this moment, he worked from that version and even let the story deviate entirely from her work³. Honestly, so much more feels amiss with the film, even when one realises that most b-movies have little time to be produced and are rushed. The plot can be written on a napkin - evil vampire lord (Kingsley) clashes with the dhampir he sired (as played here by Kristanna Loken) over ancient artefacts which would allow him greater power, whilst vampire hunters led by Michael Madsen take her in as a potential ally - but it is amazing to feel and heard this film not take time to breath and coordinate itself.

It feels like a production which suffers at the hands of juggling all its variables, not just in terms of the screenplay anecdote, but also with the cast a great example of seeing this in a variety of ways. Billy Zane, who is on screen in only a few moments and has no ties to the end despite being a vampire, feels at ease, one of the more rewarding figures whilst others are hustled through scenes awkwardly, Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriquez and Kristanna Loken among the noticeable examples. Geraldine Chaplin, daughter of that Charlie Chaplin, is a tarot reader for one scene, all her lines exposition, but feels at ease too, as does Udo Kier, who is also comfortable onscreen, whilst it feels like there is both the script and the lack of pause which forces the acting along with many of the bigger stars, who feel the most struggling with the scenario. With no time to step back and see how the mood is, as it hurtles along, and you cannot really gather yourself in both the content and the performances.

Which sucks as you can see the production design was trying. This is a rich world even on a budget where there is enough to stand out. Even in mind to its practical effects team, there is grotesqueness too, such as the monstrous helper of a monastery's secret, mallet in hand, or when we get to the Meatloaf scene and the best moment of the entire prequel. Meatloaf's hall of orgies and splatter film approved horrors, prosthetic effects and nudity crossing in ways normally not found in a more mainstream film, sticks out alongside the fact that Meatloaf, surrounded by naked actresses when introduced, came correct for the role and steals the entire production eating the scenery. Even this is rushed however, and there is a sense that Boll was forced to churn out a film against the right intentions he should have done. Some of this could not be helped, as it is clear they only had Ben Kinsley for a day or so, filming all his scenes in the same two rooms, but you see so much more to the production not being appreciated as a film has to be quickly put together within it. You can see this is in how the film skips past its plot points, skips through fight scenes, even when they have hired actors who have martial arts skills too, or the sex scene. Sold entirely on Kristanna Loken herself, after her role in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), and sold off titillation, it does make little sense, beginning a romance with a male vampire hunter which is abrupt, and feels so cynically shoved in whether it made to or not, both in Loken's comfortableness to do the scene, and Rayne being sold as a sexual videogame hero back in that era.

In vast contrast, made after the BloodRayne games would go on their hiatus, BloodRayne 2: Deliverance is a film with none of the recognisable names, barring Michael Paré as Pat Garrett, but is actually an entertaining movie with a pace and reward. Set later in history in the Wild West, westerns are a genre cheap to make but that is not an insult in the slightest, as whilst they no longer exist as a mainstream genre, they are still being made straight to DVD and other mediums from this period on when this one was produced. Following the idea of what outlaw Billy the Kid would be like as a vampire, this with Norwegian actress Natassia Malthe now Rayne has also recast the pace with one which allows this film to breathe, with care to take in its plot.

It is a b-movie horror western, which not everyone will enjoy, but in contrast to the first film, I enjoyed a film immensely which was not heavily compromised, even if I miss the practical effects team from the first production. I can be happy to see Uwe Boll here make a genre film which is entertaining like this, which no expectations but the execution accomplished, working around its limited production and retelling western clichés only with significantly cruder dialogue at points. Even the slow-mo he uses was not that bad to experience, and the aspects which could have been fleshed out, such as a band of vampire hunters consisting of Pat Garret and a corrupt preacher conman, still crackle with personality. Even how Rayne herself is no longer the figure of the first film, but just a strong female lead, feels like a considerable change in pace, and whilst there is a third film, BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011), that feels its own review to consider, particularly as that is also in a different time period for Boll as a filmmaker to these two. Set in World War II, made in mind to the original game having its lead fighting Nazis, that film deserves its own focus as three films came from one production - The Third Reich itself, Blubberella (2011), which is a terrible parody film I will say Boll should not have made, and Auschwitz (2011), which was a serious and grim depiction of the Nazis, all based around the locations built for the time period.

The only thing more interesting than this director making a watchable genre film was whenever Uwe Boll made "serious" films, the heavy handedness of a film like Hearts of America (2002), tackling school shootings, yet contrasting with material which do have interesting things to examine within them. By the point of the first BllodRayne, a German tax law, where the German Tax Fund makes film production costs immediately tax-deductible, was dashed from existence in 2006^4&5, and whilst it did not end his productivity, it was something he had clearly used and it makes for the unfortunate argument that, as with the first BloodRayne, he focused on a string of films, videogame adaptations, which were not made with as much interest from him as a creative figure. This was the  time when he was notorious as a bad filmmaker for many, not as a filmmaker to dissect, and in 2006 came the "Raging Boll" publicity stunt, competing with critics of his films in boxing matches which would be compiled into a 2010 documentary of the same name. It became less the Boll behind films like Seed (2007), which at least presented things of interest even if the viewer hated them, but this period would make his infamy rather than these more interesting films, entirely focused on video game adaptations in the mid-2000s which feels like a compromise. The irony is that his notoriety is based really on 2003 to 2005 films, not the video game films from the years after - House of the Dead (2003), Alone in the Dark (2005) and BloodRayne - whilst by the time of BloodRayne II, I am watching a film that, regardless of its video game license, is more a working director juggling genre films and dramas in the straight-to-video era. The worst part is that the later is far more interesting and arguably more focused, but not what we talk about with this German filmmaker. What made Boll's infamy, stepping away from filmmaking by the mid-2010s as things changed, with the streaming industry coming into being, is frankly the less rewarding side to him if the first BloodRayne is to be considered.  

 

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1) Fighting Women Enter the Arena, No Holds Barred, written by Michel Marriott and published for the New York Times on May 15th 2003.

2) Getting the Girl: The myths, misconceptions, and misdemeanors of females in games, written by Zoe Flower and published for 1UP.com on 18th December 2007. Retrieved 12th July 2009 by Web Archive.

3) Bloodrayne screenwriter explains the perils of working with Uwe Boll, written by Ben Gilbert for Engadget and published October 26th 2011.

4) Uwe Boll and the German Tax Code, written by Allen Varney and published by The Escapist on January 23rd 2007.

5) Tax changes threaten German film, written for the Guardian on November 9th 2005.

Swordfish (2001)

 

Director: Dominic Sena

Screenplay: Skip Woods

Cast: John Travolta as Gabriel Shear; Hugh Jackman as Stanley Jobson; Halle Berry as Ginger Knowles; Don Cheadle as Agent J.T. Roberts; Sam Shepard as Senator James Reisman; Vinnie Jones as Marco; Drea de Matteo as Melissa; Rudolf Martin as Axl Torvalds

Ephemeral Waves

 

Swordfish takes a huge risk from the first scene, one willingly waving a red flag at the film critics of the time of its release, with John Travolta speaking to the camera about how unrealistic crime films are over an espresso. He even speaks about how even Dog Day Afternoon (1975) is unrealistic despite being an acclaimed film in the genre, [Huge Spoiler for that film] all because Sidney Lumet did not let the bank robbers get away with it [Spoilers End]. Swordfish as I will get into is a ridiculous film, so the brass balls of presumption to have this opening is hilarious, probably with full knowledge of the ridiculous gubbins the film gets into. Swordfish is an absurd film, and if I had to put a finger on why I hated this film once, as one of the worst films I ever saw, it is likely that I once held a stigma against "boring" Hollywood films. This was an era, the golden era of DVD rental stores, where I saw too many when my parents used to rent everything from a Global Video here in my English town. With the one or two weird titles that came through the exceptions to many of the big promoted titles of the 2000s, such as the low budget films which were able to slip in between the big budget films and be rented by accident, I saw a glut of the 2000 to 2005, to 2003 at least in terms of Hollywood. These are the titles, the pre-HD versus Blu-Ray war era of 2006, which lead to me having an allergy to big CGI explosions and remotely any sign the score was dictating the emotional cues in a film.

Swordfish is now an old film, and it presents a transitional period in Hollywood cinema, beginning with its co-producer Joel Silver. Silver would work throughout the 2000s and 2010s onwards, but his golden era is that of the golden age of American action films, from producing Lethal Weapon (1987) to Die Hard (1988), someone who expanded the types of films he was producing in the nineties with titles like The Matrix (1999) earning him success. He was however still returning to the bread-and-butter of his earlier career with action films, the changes to how they were presented how he continued from the eighties with films like the one covered in this review. Swordfish also presents us with a director, Dominic Sena, who came from the lineage of music video directors who were especially making their voices known in the nineties, working with the likes of Janet Jackson. Then there is a screenwriter with a tiny writer career altogether, Skip Woods, who was early within his work here but with the likes of The A-Team (2010), attempting to reboot the legendary eighties TV series, to X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), a divisive spin-off in the X-Men superhero series, I can now see where the cartoonish nature of Swordfish comes from. This is not detraction to this film, as the flaws are a greater problem than the tonal choices, but the later films showing where this one was coming from in terms of its screenwriter’s voice. Swordfish has the mentality to throw anything at the wall, even if nonsensical, and it is to the point this can be held responsible for an urban myth of a man being personally executed by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson for treason, which just added a ridiculous cherry on top of this deeply flawed film. In many ways, tame in places but attempting edginess in others, this is a grindhouse exploitation film but on a Hollywood budget, if one with many issues that show blockbusters and exploitation films can share similar issues.

It has a plot, and that I had wrote that with tongue-in-cheek comes from this feeling like a pastiche of crime films, and not a detriment either. Hugh Jackman does find himself in a schism as someone who can played the washed and embittered figure of Stanley Jobson, old enough here to look like an aged renegade who went to prison, and crashed-and-burned after being a cool hot shot, but not as a hacker. It does not capsize his performance, but he feels like the Golden Age of Hollywood star who could never be this person in real life. If he as this character was anyone but a computer hacker, the image and style of performance would work in terms of verisimilitude. As a computer hacker, due to how it is portrayed here, it is up to Jackman's natural charisma to suspend disbelief. He has the virtue of the classical matinee idol, even when his big breakthrough was a 2000s plus phenomenon, the superhero becoming a more respectable casting choices as the films were making money, whose character in any other circumstances would not work if a similar actor like him was cast. Anyone else would have stuck out like a sore thumb, but he can make this matinee take on a hacker work in the same way Cary Grant would have stuck out, as we would have not minded, if dieselpunk was a concept in thirties Hollywood cinema.

The lynchpin that helps with the film to improve it, Jackson's character is a hero willing to commit a major hacking crime to steal millions from the US government, but he does so to earn the money needed to get legal custody of his daughter. In what could be an odd conservative slant, but I think is more a weird quirk of a film that is PG-13 for most of its tone, but prods at the older Joel Silver films which had more R-rated content, the ex-wife has connections in the adult film industry. The ex-wife is a troupe of action cinema anyway from John McClane, here a porn actress with her porn mogul boyfriend with a possible drama in a more complex melodrama even in a blockbuster action film left on the table. One where she is unhappy regardless of her career being porn or not, drinking all the time, in which no matter how she tries to connect to her daughter, her hatred for the husband pushes the adolescent away. Like some Hollywood films, i.e. many, that is not the case and she is an archetype that does cause one to wonder how many screenwriters accidentally showed axes to grind, and in the case of Skip Woods here, may have just taken a troop from films he had seen before. The demonization of porn was an idiosyncratic spin but is so slight it is a weird quirk among many.

More so as, whilst this has moments of adult risqué, factoring the one infamous moment of the film involving the lead actress Halle Berry, playing the femme fatale who brings Jackman into John Travolta's plan, this is a film a world away from a gristly reality. This makes the sudden moments of adult tone more surprising with hindsight, considering Jackman's test for the job is literally attempting to hack the US government's secret website whilst former soccer/football player Vinnie Jones has a gun to his head, and a woman is giving him oral under the work table, flickering of an old R-rated film here and there abrupt when it happens. Most of the film however is a broad over-the-top story; even if there are casualties, including one hostage in the opening at the heist blown up by a contraption she has on, one foot is in the nineties Hollywood mould and one in the new era means that everything is broad, of archetypes and lack of causality. Considering as well hacking is the title premise too, expect none of it to be realistic at all, with actors talking jargon and all meant to look cool in a "cinematic way". It is also less a concern than being a bank heist film, which presents in itself the sense of this film trying to match a new era, where the internet would become more prominent, only to still feel awkward.

The prominence of John Travolta is notable for the tone, and another factor affecting your ability to enjoy this or not is how you gauge his character and performance, the villain Gabriel Shear already idiosyncratic before you have later era Travolta acting interpreting him. I do not mind him here, and actually found him one of the more entertaining aspects, if with a caveat that the performance does expose too much. Travolta, already by this point having played Nicolas Cage, who played him, in John Woo's Face/Off (1997), an example of strange Hollywood cinema when it is done right, can have good scenery chewing. He really was knee capped, even if you do not factor in the controversies of the Church of Scientology, when Battlefield Earth (2000) was released, an adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction novel which a) had the controversies of Scientology, from its founder's voice in the text, as an albatross, b) had a drubbing that lasted to the modern day, and c) presented John Travolta as the lead evil alien in dreadlocks, giant platforms and leather costume hamming the performance so much it could turn some vegetarian. The Face/Off reference is appropriate as Travolta could have done a Nicolas Cage, who managed to ride financial debt and mockery to be an unsung hero in terms of committing himself to acting both well and/or so far up to eleven he transcended the mockery. Travolta here, since he is the most prominent aspect of Swordfish, struggles with a sense of self seriousness here, trying to be "cool" in his suits, slicked back hair, taste in expensive coffee and high lofty musings provided by Skip Woods' script. He is meant to be the awesome real anti-hero, but if Nicolas Cage had played this role, it would have worked despite the other problems with the film, whilst there is a sense of artificiality with the performance with Travolta that does undercut this. Despite being one of the memorable aspects for the better with the film, it does accidentally expose something beyond the film to consider with any other performance of his when I encounter it.

The biggest problem with a film like this for all its mad turns, a film about hacking that eventually however leads to a bus of hostages being carried along in the air by a helicopter, entirely in the fantastical more over the top than most fantasy, is one that lead to me being ambivalent to blockbusters from youth. So many, as here, we would dismiss as "mindless" to munch popcorn to, but in truth, for all of us saying we want to have serious profound dramas all the time, most of us just want to have a fun time but with the issue always instead finding something wanting. So many of these films as here you could pluck out cast members and plot points entirely underutilized and see the problem was always that the films skimmed over their most interesting aspects. With the aspects you begin the count being underutilized, the real folly of many blockbusters I dismissed in my youth were where you had weirder, more tantalising premises never fulfilled.

Whatever you think of the acting potential of Vinnie Jones, the notorious Wimbledon F.C. soccer player who was as known for his aggressive on-pitch style as much as for the work he did as a player in a variety of team, he gets little here it is strange he was even cast. Considering the only time you see him stand out, threatening to use rocker launcher ammunition as a suppository on one of the hostages, is just near his end of a role as a generic thug, all the real issues with blockbusters was always the lesser sum of all the parts of their high budgets and casts. The example which stands out is with Halle Berry. It is tasteless to say this, but Swordfish became the film where she as an actress was comfortable going a topless nude scene sunbathing. It only becomes sleazy when reduced to the images of a celebrity as a sexualised object, rather than the actress comfortable committing to the image of eroticism, something you get from the "Mr. Skin" attitude of reducing an actress' entire career to a compilation of her nude scenes out of context, a reference to a real life website that specializes in locating, posting, and rating instances of female nudity in television and film¹. In context, the scene is not tasteless, but plays as a sex comedy bit where Berry, who did the scene to become more confident in her own body onscreen², becomes the figure in control, whilst it is Hugh Jackman who becomes the punch line to the empowered and comfortable woman, even blushing in his character in the moment. Far more insulting with time having past is simply how little Berry actually has to do. It is more egregious your sole female lead has nothing to do, a femme fatale who may be playing both sides but is a blank slate. Even a "dumb" action film could have benefited from what film noir did, the ability to give actresses in these potentially dubious roles meaty performances as compelling figures, something you could see Halle Berry do in what little she has here, but never gets.

Swordfish is okay, where really the issue is of how so many of these films have everything but feel like disparate parts. This is more so the case as, for a film released a few months before the 9/11 Twin Towers tragedy and the start of the second Gulf War, one of the more compelling loose ends is the knowledge that Travolta's character is actually a black ops agent, a thief who is stealing his own country's money to fund protecting the country from terrorist threats. This kind of subversive touch, lost in the ballyhoo, could have been something to let breathe and allow this a knowing air of subversion and weirdness. This is more so now, as mentioned in the review, it is likely due to this film, from one glib comment in this film from Travolta about U.S. President Thomas Jefferson personally seeing to a treasonous person, that people thought this actually happened despite the fact the screenwriter clearly added that into the dialogue as a fictitious flourish^{3a & 3b}. This perverse afterlife to the film is weirder than fiction, making one wonder what this series of fragments, proudly as over-the-top as possible, could have been if playing more to these crime tropes fully committed to a mad edge. Far from the worst film ever made nowadays, Swordfish however from my teen years, like many of those films, could have been lodged fully into the memory if it had the courage to go up to eleven than just come off as silly. Face/Off, brought up earlier in this review, was a silly film I first saw in my teenage years, but it is remembered for good reasons, which is not surprising as director John Woo, able to fully unleash his style from his eighties Hong Kong films, came from a style of filmmaking that never let the stranger or even kitsch aspects undercut taking their dramas seriously nor not making the action scenes as inventive as possible. If this got sillier and Travolta got to pontificate more on movies over espressos, Swordfish could have been something more even if it had become a favourite “so-bad-it’s-good” movie for people to talk of on podcasts, but instead what it is cautious as too many of these films are.

 

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1) The nadir of this, which I am amazed was allowed to go forth, is of course when Seth MacFarlane hosted the 2013 Oscars and performed the song We Saw Your Boobs, which came off as a demeaning when, to be honest, a song called "We Saw Your Butt" about male nude scenes might have avoided this by playing to a jovial glee without the gender bias.

2) Halle Berry bares her soul, written by Bruce Kirkland for Canoe.ca, archived from the original published July 11^th 2012, originally published July 20^th 2009.

3a) Execution on the White House Lawn, taken from Monticell.org.

3b) Jefferson still survives, unlike the other guy, written by Anna Berkes for Jefferson Library.wordpress, published November 5th 2008.

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

 

Director: Tony Scott

Screenplay: Shane Black

Cast: Bruce Willis as Joseph Cornelius "Joe" Hallenbeck; Damon Wayans as James "Jimmy" Dix; Chelsea Field as Sarah Hallenbeck; Noble Willingham as Sheldon "Shelly" Marcone; Taylor Negron as Milo; Danielle Harris as Darian Hallenbeck; Halle Berry as Cory; Bruce McGill as Mike Matthews

Ephemeral Waves

 

Shit, we’re being beaten up by the inventor of Scrabble!

I have no idea why I hated The Last Boy Scout back in the day. I guess I was not vibing to these types of action films. We had a lot of them in the family DVD collection, among the early Warner Brothers ones where they released them in cardboard DVD cases, and alongside not really appreciating action films for what they were, I likely dismissed this film outright too for being offensive rather than carefully pinpointing what aged in films from the past. The Last Boy Scout, and Shane Black’s more profane and witty storytelling, vibes for me more now even if arch, part of a solid film from a fascinating era when Hollywood movies could be very adult in tone.

The first scene really is a highlight to a production that, to my surprise, was an absolute nightmare to even get to the finish line as a final production, melding Black’s snark, Tony Scott’s skill as a director, and great Hollywood production value, a grim existential breakdown of a football player who, in the rain during a game, brings a gun on the pitch. And it is Billy Blanks, a wonderful cameo from a b-movie star, usually in martial arts films from this period, which he can be proud of and stands out more as a scene if you recognize him. I come to this film too as an unapologetic Tony Scott defender, always with the sense of him being an underdog even next to his brother Ridley, and that sequence the best in here showing his skill. Top Gun (1986) was propaganda, but it is beautiful to look at whilst the melodramatic and eighties lush tone adds the work where the story and its soundtrack win you. (Even all the jokes about its homoerotic tone (if by accident) adds to this to make it more rewarding). Days of Thunder (1990) is a melodrama, only rather than what were once called “women’s pictures”, it is about male NASCAR racers with Tom Cruise and Michael Rooker’s love-hate relationship as the leads a proto-bromance. The run of films with the likes of Domino (2005) and Déjà vu (2006) that ended Tony Scott’s career, which I need to return to, showed he how interesting a director he was when he went full bore into visual experimentation, some of the most unique of the time and genre, and with Déjà vu’s science fiction premise, producing one of the most unique and mind bending car chases using a form of split screen Brian De Palma would be proud of.

Among these films, The Last Boy Scout is more conventional even next to The Hunger (1983), but this is in mind to how much this film struggled to get finished. Alongside the script from the original Shane Black version being drastically changed, as expected with all script revisions, Damon Wayans and Bruce Willis were hostile to each other, producer Joel Silver steered it to the more conventional action scenes, and Tony Scott’s habit of shooting extensive footage took multiple people to edit it all into final results¹. He however was staying his ground on what he wanted to shoot, so this film if it has an auteur, even if compromised, is his and Shane Black’s together, and you can still see the virtues of both in this. Here Scott is the traditional stylist to a modern day noir, made at a time when Shane Black was a low end in life and feeding off pulp crime paperbacks¹, taking the broken down detective from them and making Joseph Hallenbeck (Willis), the detective at his lowest among others before him crossing with James "Jimmy" Dix (Wayans), a disgraced American football star, finding themselves forced together over one of the former’s protection jobs. This leads to a conspiracy with the US football league and politics, whose flaw in not being fleshed out is explained by how the film went through a long process in being actually completed. There is a lot more cursing than in traditional film noir but humour is literally a self defensive weapon in Shane Black’s world, an effective self defensive maneuver multiple times including “your wife” jokes being able to leave someone defenseless to a broken bottle to the neck. Alongside the setting being Christmas, an obsession for Black, and this feels like his work to the point even Danielle Harris, playing Willis’ thirteen year old daughter, gets one liners.

The interesting thing is knowing, whilst an action film at heart which Joel Silver steered more towards the one liners and action, this has a vein of melancholia in its macho bravado which is explained by the place Shane Black was said to have at the time, one of great depression at a time when he was not part of films with his scripts. This is a film where the one liners are literally self defensive not just to villains but against male anxiety and angst, hiding behind snark to cope through the likes of addiction and the loss of loved ones, With credit to Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans, despite tensions on set, they were two perfect casting choices for a Shane Black script. Willis in particular, in mind to his career’s very erratic history, including the turbulent time even here with Hudson Hawk (1991), is someone capable of a great deal in his roles, someone who could balance pathos and comedy perfectly with his work, taking what was a generic noir protagonist and making him have flesh in this case.

The film would in delicious irony be accused of being woke nowadays. This is lost a little in how much the film plays it safe with car chases and action scenes, the film turned into a production for the box office first, but with Willis’ back story as a secret service agent fired due to a corrupt politician, and corrupt politics and gambling the central themes, it is amazing even if shooting people are the answer in these films how many would not fly in certain parties minds nowadays in how suspicious of authority they are, a film noir trope Shane Black definitely took the heart. Whether it is one of the best of this time is with the caveat that, once you known how nightmarish the production history was, you can see it in the plotting pace, but so much does work. Some of the dialogue is un-pc, which has not aged the film well when they appear, but alongside how rare they are, most of the film shines instead. For a film I was once dismissed, even its inclusions as an action film, including twists involving an unfortunate accident with a helicopter blade, stand out because in spite of the chaos making this film, it gelled together as a rewarding film with too many good one liners, too much interesting pathos and Bruce Willis dancing a jig in the least expected of times.

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1) Who killed The Last Boy Scout? Bruce Willis, Shane Black and the making of an action masterpiece, written by Owen Williams for The Telegraph, published 31st May 2016.

Versus (2000)

Director: Ryuhei Kitamura

Screenplay: Ryuhei Kitamura and Yūdai Yamaguchi

Cast: Tak Sakaguchi as Prisoner KSC2-303, Hideo Sakaki as The Man, Chieko Misaka as The Girl, Kenji Matsuda as Yakuza Leader with butterfly knife, Yuichiro Arai as Motorcycle-riding yakuza with revolver, Minoru Matsumoto as Crazy yakuza with amulet, Kazuhito Ohba as Yakuza with glasses, Takehiro Katayama as Red-haired assassin, Ayumi Yoshihara as Long-haired female assassin, Shōichirō Masumoto as One-handed cop, Toshiro Kamiaka as Samurai warrior, Yukihito Tanikado as Cop with Barrett

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Why did I hate a film once made with hard work and independent grit, a two hour epic combining martial arts, splatter horror and post-Matrix cool? Apparently, because a younger self could not appreciate such good aspects, thus providing evidence youth does not mean good taste. There is unfortunately details I came to learn in regards to this production, which is not the fault of Versus but the inherent problem with any work with people involved who can reveal through themselves the ugly side of human beings, that I had to begin this review with and will have to talk of, as these came like sudden thunderbolts to learn at the worse time, when coming finally around the Versus as a film. As a film itself, this tragic detail is a shame as I can at least appreciate now that Ryuhei Kitamura put his time and effort into this project, one which was a difficult production just from the decision to make it an outdoor shot in the woodlands, liable to constant issues of weather conditions and practicality in getting through the shots with expected strain. Based on a mid-length film before, a lower budgeted project Down to Hell (1997), he took the idea from that of woodlands where those killed within its unholy grounds immediately return undead, and expanded upon it in a film which spun away from a sequel to its own concept. One evoking Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (1981), and its lore of gates directly to Hell, but specifying that there are 666 of them confirmed in Kitamura's world, and at the Forest of Resurrection where this film is set, this has the 444th.

The premise is very simple, and with hindsight, one can envision Versus, as a true independent production, as being the equivalent of a lot of micro-budgeted films from the West, usually shot in VHS in the past, which showed its creators wanting to make the films they grew up watching. The only difference with this was how it was able to put together production to create something very elaborate, one which managed to breakout to a wider audience through film festivals and distributors, in the case of the United Kingdom riding the wave of interest in Asian cinema into the 2000s that distributor Tartan Films made a huge part of their DVD era, with the Tartan Asian Extreme line this belonged to. Like a micro-budget film, the premise is simple, that two convicts have escaped the law, one of our lead and the closest with an actual name as Prisoner KSC2-303, played by future actor star Tak Sakaguchi in a breakout role. The set up is that these two convicts where to met a group of yakuza, only for this to immediately go south when they argue and the leader of the yakuza is killed, immediately bringing to their concern the forest they have chosen to meet at having rejuvenating properties. They have a woman they have kidnapped, played by Chieko Misaka, in tow, and there will be more goons, and two cops, one not impressed his severed hand was still connected to KSC2-303 by handcuffs, the other a braggart who yet has access to a cannon masquerading a long distance rifle. A big bad, set up in a chambara period prologue, is pulling the strings with intentions to unlock the powers of Hell's 444th gate for himself. Neither helping anyone but this villain is that this forest was where the yakuza were dumping their victims quietly in, leading now to there being undead who still had their firearms on them when buried and attempt to still use them.

Sadly this is where what was a celebratory review, with a sense of humour, has to nose dive into reality. It can sadly be confirmed that said villain is played by Hideo Sakaki, a prolific actor and director after this for film and television, who was arrested for accusations of sexual assault in 2024, part of a series of accusations Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine reported in March 2022 about him coercing actresses in sexual situations under the pretence of helping their careers¹. Sadly lead Tak Sakaguchi is connected to another scandal, all connected to a huge MeToo movement which began in the Japanese cinema industry in the late 2010s, where he was directly connected to allegations connected to Sion Sono. Unfortunately, this is a director I had immense fascination in for films like Love Exposure (2008), Sono having allegations of sexual harassment published by a Shukan Josei PRIME article from April 4th, Tak Sakaguchi apologising for his part in luring a woman to Sono in one incident². Details like this unfortunately make it difficult to engage with any production, worse in this case as this is your two lead actors, but this is sadly what happens with hindsight, a film left stranded in the past in knowledge that those involved can be alleged, or in the case of Hideo Sakaki arrested, for undefendable crimes, squandering artistic creativity in favour of absolutely indefensible actions if proven true. I could not consciously ignore this, even if this leaves a bitter taste to the review from onwards, which is a shame as everything else in context to this film is fun and entertaining, and do deserve their place in the sun as someone originally not a fan of Versus, only with this happy ending having a bitter undercurrent too running side-by-side.

Versus itself, back to the film itself and its virtues, was made with overt interest in international cinema as Ryuhei Kitamura, trained in filmmaking whilst living in Australia, wanted to make the films he liked, not only the older action films from Japan itself which he felt had died out, but also with proud influence from international cinema. This is from action films from the West, martial arts films from other countries, and also the splatter horror of the likes of Peter Jackson's early work like Bad Taste (1987), another homemade low budget breakout hit, to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films. You can see this was a work of love having to deal with what resources they could access - they had a limited time with certain camera equipment at one point, hence why there are abrupt moments of spinning the camera around with close-ups in style - but this was thankfully the case where the crew and cast were committed to the project. This is not surprising considering the individuals involved in this project that would go on to shape a lot of pop culture into the 2000s. Thankfully, there are individuals in this production without accusations published who have contributed a lot to Japanese pop culture, especially its face in international fandoms. Co-writer Yūdai Yamaguchi is among that trend, that the likes of Sushi Typhoon started to lean into, of unconventional genre mash-ups which were more focused for Western audiences, becoming a director in his own right with the likes of Meatball Machine (2005). Composer Nobuhiko Morino, bring some nineties drum n bass to the proceedings, became a frequent collaborator with Yamaguchi and Ryuhei Kitamura. There is also the figure of Yûji Shimomura, the action director, someone who would become a huge name not necessarily in cinema, but in terms of video games, as the director the cinematic and action scenes for the likes of the Devil May Cry and Bayonetta franchises, a figure in that field who brought a level of spectacle into cut scenes and helped pave their cult statuses for memorable sequences as much as the acclaim of their gameplay.

The slightness of the film in plot, a simple tale of someone who wishes to open the door to the realm beyond death, is contrasted by the sense of personality to the film. The influences are seen, between a sword being held in the air like the Highlander films, to a Peter Jackson Brain Dead (1992) era joke of someone having their head punched through, with the camera showing us the shot between the elaborately designed (and impressive) special effect. But the sense of humour and playfulness is the film's, even when making jokes of that era of cinema when the first Matrix film was a huge global hit and this is making jokes about the lead not finding any of the sunglasses he finds being cool enough to wear, or that he needs to steal the leather jacket among other clothes of a dead man who stayed so. Versus arguably has a virtue that, even if tragically marked by the sins of those who made it, so many people were involved, and everyone onscreen, even if they do not even have proper names for the characters, has a personality and can heal with issues of watching the film with hindsight to real life. This can vary from the short yakuza, the runt, who constantly has additional firearms on his person even one piece is stolen, and is going full method in acting like a caffeinated ferret, to the cops, one with the issue his primary hand for punching was taken, and the "Expert" who claims to have trained with the FBI, and learnt to be an expert of woodland tracking living in Yellowstone Park in the USA. A personal favourite of mine in the cast, actor Kenji Matsuda, thankfully got a career in the likes of Kamen Rider series and other tokusatsu work, the flamboyant figure as vivid in his performance as the character's suave dress sense, eventually turning into a literal cat-goblin when characters join the necromancer heavy's side. Even what was something I was not a fan of in my youth, the ongoing joke the lead has to knock the female lead out to keep her safe, is contrasted with hindsight with two women in the cast who get to play as tough as the male cast and take part in the fight scenes. These characters may not have as much screen time as hoped, but they all get a scene to stand out in.

 It is a spectacle film, the logical conclusion to every film fan who wanted to make a film in the woods, where everything is based on what is cool. It is not enough to punch a man's heart out, you need to take a bite from the freshly produced object. Swords can have laser sights regardless of their practical use, and everyone manages to find new armaments regardless of how and where they are stored. Even in terms of an actual plot, it is ambitious to cut to a chambara setting for the back-story, and the ending, which is more of a twist for the sake of it, does feel unpredictable. [Huge Spoilers] Considering how it is built up KSC2-303 is not exactly a true pure hero, but an amoral figure with some virtues, it is built up that one day he could just become an amoral figure in another reincarnation who wants to destroy everything, and the villain was at least moral evil. [Spoilers End] Like a few micro budget films, there was an alternative cut, an Ultimate Cut, where Ryuhei Kitamura wanted to improve aspects with some new footage. There is nothing drastic thankfully barring CGI planets in space in the opening with an emphasis over the lead as more amoral than presumed; instead, this version adds some additional scenes which do not jar explicitly new content, some improvements in the practical effects and just a general tweak in places. It is telling though I am happy, now on the film's wavelength, that I am happy with the original theatrical version as is, even if you do get a blood spurt for a decapitation in the original version that is a mere trickle among moments changed.

It also was a happy conclusion as, whilst sadly spoilt be the horrible tales in real life beyond films, it did lead to Ryuhei Kitamura becoming a director for a Godzilla sequel, and even getting to work in Hollywood, the same journey that Peter Jackson would have. That is enough to place a better opinion on Versus, even without the entertainment I found from this with a fresh perspective, as this was the case of one of these home spun films which became a true calling card, and because of this, I cannot hold anything but a positive bias for this film.

 

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1) Japanese film director arrested over sexual assault allegations, published by Kyodo News on February 21st 2024.

2) Sono Sion Accused of Sexual Harassment, published by Arama Japan in 2023.

Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam aka. Turkish Star Wars (1982)

 

Director: Çetin Inanç

Screenplay: Cüneyt Arkın

Cast: Cüneyt Arkın as Murat; Aytekin Akkaya as Ali; Necla Fide as the Queen; Hüseyin Peyda as Bilgin; Hikmet Taşdemir as Sihirbaz

 

I considered films through a black and white viewpoint when I was younger. They had to have clear narratives and be well made, something which made “Turkish Star Wars”, as I first learnt of it as, one of the worst films I had ever saw when I viewed it at sixteen or so in a bender of Google Video viewings. Now my views have changed, where films of immense quality become greater but I can appreciate something like this, which comes in the context where Turkey’s film board was not allowing Western films like Star Wars (1977) into the country¹, leading to one of the most infamous “Turkploitation” films to be produced by a director known as a “jet director” for getting films made within ten days¹. Let us not kid ourselves, even next to other Turksploitation films, this is one of the more erratic I have ever seen, its infamy deserved for its shamelessness and how, honestly, it is an utter mess even if its unpredictability is something to also admire.

After centuries of change where atomic wars have decimated most of it and pieces of the continents have drifted off into space, Earth (which suspiciously looks like squashed Death Star) is under attack by an immortal wizard. With the planet protected by a force field created from human brainwaves, the wizard needs human brains, or at least one, to destroy it and attack Earth, forcing two Turkish space pilots onto his own planet where they must face his bizarre hordes of monsters and stop his plans of galactic destruction. Turkish Star Wars is infamous, as a low budget Turksploitation film, for taking footage from Star Wars and using music from everything from that film to Flash Gordon (1980). The montage of attractions theory created by Sergei E. Eisenstein is decimated by the slapdash editing of this, where even the use of music and sound clips is as hastily put together as the visuals, and yet has a drastic effect on the viewer when viewed together in this narrative. The difference is that, while Eisenstein wanted to elicit certain emotions from the viewer, this film causes stupefied amazement instead.

Turkish Star Wars, revisiting it, is a glorious mess, the plot synopsis my attempt to comprehend a film which can suddenly lunge forward, even into the middle of a fight without warning, to the next plot point, where monsters suddenly appear out of nowhere and the theme from Indiana Jones, used behind the main hero, suddenly battles with the villain’s Flash Gordon synth within the same scene. Random zombies or the fact there are nunchaku in space are the less strange aspects to this film, which is frankly a disaster in terms of the material being put together if you were to judge it severely for its technical qualities.  Even with the English subtitles over the years not being perfect, this as well in terms of the script feels an over-elaborate take, where its lead actor Cüneyt Arkın, a well regarded and prolific figure in his homeland, got to write the script too but it feels like everything he wanted to go with too ambitious for its production craft. For what is a simple tale of heroes versus a human blood drinking space wizard who just wants a human brain, not plural, to destroy the Earth he was once a person on, this lost a lot of the point with everything else Arkın wanted to include for profoundness. The result in watching it, and trying to understand it, is like becoming a paper bag in the wind which drops you off by the end confused and alarmed.

The decision to use so much pre-existing work is as much part of the confusion, as using the Star Wars footage for production value makes less sense as the film goes, a detriment to sanity as none of the re-appropriated Star Wars footage makes sense, especially if suggested (by the Death Star in another role) the Earth is destroyed at one point only to not. It is as much a collage of pre-existing science fiction and fantasy works beyond that film, in its premise and pieces, including things that were not directly included in the film but evoked for me accidentally, as the creators of the film could cram into a single movie and made into a cabinet of baffling curiosities. With our main hero (played by Cüneyt Arkın), who bounces around like Taylor Kitsch in John Carter (of Mars) (2012), and his womanising friend whose famous whistle to attract women accidentally conjures up skeletal horsemen to his annoyance, we see them fight everything from TV headed robots and cybermen from a fifties b-movie, toilet paper mummies out of genre, and to paraphrase a description my younger self used when he viewed this the first time, the bastard feral children of Elmo from Sesame Street. There are even henchmen clearly wearing budget Fu Manchu and Devil masks among the goons. My struggles with the film still are softened because of this, where the film does drag but, if you can tolerate its tone, is starling and hilarious in a positive way. Between the lengthy narrative exposition, it is effective a series of long, continuous fight scenes where anti-war philosophy and appropriated Western iconography is matched with a beast having its head karate chopped off or a severed head thrown at another so hard they explode.

The philosophy and mythology in the film adds the cherry to the top of its cake, where knowing its lead actor is writing this provides a sympathy for the film even if, from the first few minutes in with the narration trying to explain the world it is setting up, his script did not translate onscreen in a way that would be coherent for everyone. The film is a stream of consciousness of unconventional ideas, quaint ideas of hope, and erratic science fiction ideas that adds to the incomprehensible but delightfully creative mass you see (and hear and read) onscreen. That it includes religion, with an Islamic subtext, adds to the sincerity of the film that is an unexpected turn as well, even if it goes towards putting context to a sacred sword and a brain. There is also the bromance between the leads which also is admirable, one so strong your brains are psychically linked and, regardless of the running gag of one of them believing himself to be a womanizer, becomes the real romance of the production.

The flaws even in terms of this type of cinema is that it does rush through so much of itself with far more concern, for all things, for its lore about the “13^th Tribe” of Earth’s ancestors blown off the planet, literally, rather than making sure the work is a little bit more cohesive to appreciate its simple premise. When it can stay for a minute and take a breath, even some of its goofier moments also become better for this, like the training montage of punching rocks, tying them to ones legs to run and jump, or just kicking then as projectile weapons. It is a film on a purely silly level something you are glad exists, because it has someone karate chop a monster’s arms off and then impale them claw first into their torsos, and it would be improved simply if this had been a little bit more cohesive then what we got. What you get nonetheless, as an artefact from filmmaking history is nonetheless compelling if you have the patience for this.

For those people, over eighty minutes, this is the kind of janky spluttering that would be a breath of fresh air for those willing to experience it. There is more pain to be experienced with something which is technically more cohesive but has no effect, whilst here the vividness of Turkish Star Wars and its own unpredictability is worth cherishing even if we all admit that would never win any technical awards for quality. It is a film you need to see once, even if you hate it, and now that my tastes have changed and I can see its virtues, I look back at my younger self who found it unbearable and ponder how much of a naive sourpuss he was.

 

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1) The strange case of Turkish Star Wars, written for Esquire Middle East.

Wild Zero (1999)

Director: Tetsuro Takeuchi

Screenplay: Satoshi Takagi

Cast: Seiji as himself / Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf as himself, Drum Wolf as himself, Masashi Endō as Ace, Kwancharu Shitichai as Tobio, Yōko Asada as the voice of Tobio, Nakajo Haruka as Yamazaki, Kazuko Yanaga as the voice of Yamazaki, Taneko as Hanako, Yoshiyuki Morishita as Toshi, Masao as Masao, Fusamori Tawaki as Mori, Murata Akihiko as Toshio, Shiro Namiki as Kondo

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Love has no borders, nationalities, or genders!

[Update: This review was written before the announcement of Wild Zero 2, which was revealed with a trailer in early 2024 to at least be a film intended to be finished and released.]

Dismissed in my youth, the older self sees how much of an idiot I was back then with my opinion on Wild Zero, though I see the aspect which likely caused such a negative reaction, that this is more of a film enjoy its wacky premise than fully executing it in an elaborate way. In Britain, you would have to have the Beatles make as weird a film like Magical Mystery Tour (1967) or Yellow Submarine (1968) because of their reputation, The Monkees in the United States making the ill-fated decision at the time to make Head (1968) to rise above their reputation as a manufactured band, and in this case, Guitar Wolf as a cult rock band having the advantage instead of the vibrant Japanese genre film industry between V-Cinema and straight-to-video productions to theatrical. That and your director Tetsuro Takeuchi being the man behind your music videos, as a figure you can trust, and shooting this film in Thailand¹.

This particular film, before they in general became a pop culture concept in the mainstream fully, is an early example of taking the legacy of George Romero's zombie films, and the concept of zombies, and returning to them even as here in a playful way of fans of the films. Already in a film like this you have characters bring up Night of the Living Dead (1968) and whether each one in the moment has seen it or wants to in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. There are probably too many characters in general in Wild Zero too, but the personality is there, set around what is actually closer to the premise of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), where aliens only seen in gold UFOS are resurrecting the dead, leaving a motley series of characters to cope with this transpiring. Ace (Masashi Endō) is our proxy, a Guitar Wolf fan who earns the respect of their titular leader Guitar Wolf (Seiji), and can literally whistle them from a town away if in danger. Guitar Wolf the band, starting in 1987, have been continuing over the decades, even after the tragically young passing of Bass Wolf ("Billy") in 2005 at only thirty eight², and here they live the rock n roll music ideal of being outlaw enough to shot people but with a personal morality; Seiji himself is the leader who can appear, figuratively as much as in the flesh ,as the Obi-Wan Kenobi to guide Ace to act as a rock hero should whilst Bass and Drum Wolf offer back up. Tobio (Kwancharu Shitichai, with Yōko Asada as their voice) is the female lead and potential love interest for Ace, and there are also two lovable thieves who botch a convenience store robbery when we met them, male and female, and a female arms dealer whose business with the yakuza was halted by the zombies. The later, standing out as a side character physically, especially shows a moral ambivalence that, even in this silly premise, emphasises figures that can be on the fringes of society, and even in her case more interested in survival and money, but not be the villainess. The villain in this world is a shady club owner, who wears wigs and rocks stylish sets of hot pants, who has a casting car seat for female singers, deals with drugs, and wants revenge on Guitar Wolf and their lead singer in particular for fingers shot off during a standoff.

On the type of urban/country landscape, the luminal space and the wasteland, I find compelling in Japanese pop culture between cult films and anime, even factoring in that this is actually Thailand standing in for its setting, you get a pot pourri of scenes between guitar picks as throwing weapons, matching grenade launchers with said hot pants to go out on a night of the town for revenge, and the equivalent of throwing the kitchen sink in a cult film with abrupt eye lasers. There is also the least expected story of love and overcoming bias to someone you could ever see appear in a cult film, as this has a trans female lead in Tobia. Some of how it is dealt with not aged well and clearly played in the same wackiness as when the digitally added golden UFOs are spliced over famous world landmarks, but in the end, it becomes actually beautiful in how it plays out and progressive with hindsight. Of all the films to deal with this subject, the least expect where someone like Ace has the horrible reaction he initially has, only to feel remorse, realise his true love for her, and have the Guitar Wolf of the band be the one who tells him love exists beyond boundaries and nationalities, is spectacular more now time has passed. It is not something you find in cinema dealt with enough decades after this film was released, let alone dealt with, in an applaudable way, in a film where the military female character has to put on a plaid one piece due to zombies ripping her cloths up out of spite. It is as punk rock in the truest sense as a major subplot just placed within this tale with a happy conclusion.

A lot of this message fits the entire ethos the film has in terms of rock n roll music. Ace's introduction in his room shows the history of music, including Western bands, on posters on his wall, and it goes back to the likes of Burst City (1982) by Gakuryū "Sogo" Ishii in films showing the underdogs in their own world, in these bands or their fans. This ethos is one you can even find in other mediums within Japanese pop culture, such as with Daisuke Ishiwatari, the mind behind the Guilty Gear video game franchise. A creator of a fighting game franchise which references rock and heavy metal even in character names, he has also went out of his way to point out a character he created named Bridget was always meant to be a transgender female character, regardless of fans' attitudes and previous translations of the games in the past³, and depicting characters who straddle moral ambivalences who are still heroic or just badasses.

That Wild Zero itself is merely playing at its premise with humour will be something that will annoy some, as I found when I was younger, but that in itself befits this ethos. Considering you have a soundtrack where inexplicably Bikini Kill's Rebel Girl blasts in out of nowhere, you should see Wild Zero as a film made by fans of this type of music and movie making what they think is cool, and managing to actually make it stand out in many great ways such as its moments of showing this music truly meaning its progressive, anti-authoritarian nature even when being goofy. Even a joke about lovers meeting again as zombies and having their own happy ending, played off as actually sweet as much as funny, fits this tone perfectly. The plot becomes less a priority, the zombies merely cannon fodder and your aliens only depicted as those UFOs, and instead it is the ride that stands out. Sadly its director Tetsuro Takeuchi, barring work with Guitar Wolf and musical groups, has not directed much in terms of cinema, whilst Wild Zero itself feels like it is ready for a proper revival as a cult film, i.e. not on old DVDs being the way to see this, and allowed to be seen in a pristine restoration with the possibility of learning how the film came to be. Even if learnt to be a fun improvisation throwing caution to the wind, it would be a pleasure in itself to learn how this ride came to be.

 

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1) Wild Zero review by Ken Eisner, published for Variety on November 5th 2000. [Some of this has aged of the past even if slight.]

2) Guitar Wolf Biography by Mark Deming for All Music.com.

3) Guilty Gear Creator Clarifies Once Again That, Yes, Bridget is Trans by Kenneth Shepard, published for Fanbyte on September 14th 2022.