Tag Archives: 1985

Capsules

CAPSULE: VAMPIRE HUNTER D (1985)

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DIRECTED BY: Toyoo Ashida

FEATURING: Voices of Kaneto Shiozawa, Michie Tomizawa, Seizô Katô

PLOT: Millennia in the future, vampires rule over much of the land; one woman fights back, enlisting the aid of a mysterious stranger in her quest to kill Count Lee, a vampire of great power.

VampireHunterD1985

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Vampire Hunter D is undeniably a groundbreaking classic of Gothic anime that conveys a wonderfully realized retro-future. However, aside from some unlikely Bakshi-an monsters and a couple of bursts of eyebrow-raising gore, Toyoo Ashida’s film rests firmly in the realm of the traditionally fantastic.

COMMENTS: It seems only right that I admit to the reader from the start that this movie stands as the only anime film I have ever seen. Through all my years of pursuing leads on offbeat movies, I have somehow missed what is perhaps one of the largest figurative boats ever launched. That said, my experience with Vampire Hunter D has done much to open my eyes. With a limited budget and an unlimited tap of imagination and artistic talent, Toyoo Ashida and Ashi Productions created a stellar vision of a far-flung future world tormented by Dark Ages evil.

Beginning with the title card, “This story takes place in the distant future—when mutants and demons slither through a world of darkness”, the action quickly takes off as a young Hunter—armed with a cross, electric whip, and bayonnetted laser gun—pursues an obviously infernal beastie. The encounter quickly goes south when her horse is slaughtered and, from nowhere, a humanoid creature appears and bites her on the neck. Now she must find a way to destroy this powerful being before becoming a vamp herself. Fate provides her with the assistance of a mysterious stranger, whom she comes to learn is also a Hunter of considerable strength.

From that introduction, the movie proceeds apace with run ins with eldritch creatures, the haughty vampire “nobles,” as well as human scum in the form of a mayor’s son and his cronies. To ward off the nasties that lurk outside, city-dwellers have made barriers combing both the Old and New World Techs, using crosses and energy fields to repel the undead. As with all townsfolk living in the shadow of great evil, they are wary both of strangers and those possibly afflicted. This leaves the heroine, Doris, and the eponymous “D” with scant safe havens. Unsurprisingly (but still very satisfactorily), they seem to need none.

There are splashes of weird to be found throughout the movie. That “D” has two personalities (and, one learns, two faces) adds a compelling layer to his character. On the one hand he strives to maintain an honorable existence while fighting the scourge of vampires around him; on the other (in this case, left) hand, he harbors a secret about his true nature. His scuffles with a flippant space-warping mutant, a Golem that really likes the word “Golem,” a three-headed sex medusa, and ultimately the sinister Count Lee provide brushes with the strange. Particularly worth noting is the Count’s castle: a forbidding heap of ancient ruin atop a massive industrial wasteland.

With its little nods to Stoker’s original work (e.g. a property known as “old man Harker’s” and a strangely Victorian-looking portrait of an unspecified “ancestor”), neat twists in the vampire genre (the local sheriff sports a six-pointed badge with an overlaid cross), and its temporal mélange, Vampire Hunter D provides a unique take on the legend. Be warned, though: do your best to stop the movie after it fades to black on the final scene. Somehow, this chilling adventure is capped by what stands as one of the worst end-credits songs I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The middle of the film features a wonderfully hallucinatory journey across wasted landscapes into the chief vampire’s labyrinthine castle… the rest, especially the showdown with the chief vampire, is anticlimactic in comparison.”–Richard Scheib, Moria: The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review (DVD)

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: A ZED & TWO NOUGHTS (1985)

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AKA ZOO

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Brian Deacon, Eric Deacon, , , Frances Barber

PLOT: After the deaths of their wives in a freak car crash, the brothers Oswald and Oliver, both zoologists, pursue different paths of obsession in an attempt to cope with their losses.

Still from A Zed & Two Nougts (1985)

WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: As an art-house film, A Zed & Two Noughts succeeds with its precise interiors, high-minded dialogue, and a cavalcade of mise en scène goodies. Smashed into its philosophizing and clever conversation are decomposing animals, two differently unhinged brothers, a surgeon with an unhealthy obsession with Vermeer, and a borderline-spastic score from long-time Greenaway collaborator, Michael Nyman.

COMMENTS: Taking the idea of in medias res to its logical conclusion, A Zed & Two Noughts (hereafter to be referred to as ZOO) starts with a flash of photography and a smash of a white swan onto a white car. Inside, two women perish—and a third survives, only to have had her leg crushed beyond repair. So far, so good—but not so “art house”, I hear you think. Yet this unlikely (and grisly) beginning somehow morphs into one of the most precisely arranged specimens of film I’ve had the pleasure to watch. After climaxing in the first few minutes, the remainder acts as something of an extended dénouement, culminating in a comparably macabre, though more peaceful, conclusion.

Stylistically, ZOO is like nothing more than a painting. Every shot is impeccably staged, suggesting that director Peter Greenaway could give even a lesson or two on orderliness in the frame. Scene after scene exhibits meticulous use of vertical and horizontal framing: doorways, windows, mirrors. Those who know a thing or two about Greenaway will be unsurprised: he trained as a painter before beginning his career as a film-maker. The precision of the film’s look is mirrored within it by the surgeon Van Meegeren, who obsesses over the Dutch painter Vermeer, going so far as to try and recreate the latter’s masterpieces Lady Seated at Virginal and The Music Lesson, using the fiery-haired Alba Bewick (the survivor of the opening car crash) as a template. During her first surgery we see him lightly caress her exposed body; after convincing her that her second leg needs removal, we see the surgeon’s assistant provide Alba with a new hair-do and earrings to make her look more like the young women in the Vermeer paintings.

Somehow I have as yet to mention the centerpiece of this refined ostentation, the Deuce brothers. Oliver and Oswald Deuce are, combined, the main character of ZOO. At the film’s beginning, they are obviously identifiable as separate people. Oswald is, so to speak, the left brain: he starts by trying to work out the facts, the tiniest specifics, leading up the deadly car crash that took his wife’s life. Oliver, on the other hand, is right-brained. He contemplates the greater role that the cosmos played in the tragedy as part of his mourning process, watching David Attenborough’s “Life on Earth” program. He feels he needs to start from scratch–the TV series spans some millions of years of natural history—in order to work his way to how events conspired to take his wife from him.

Events proceed in a sinister direction. The brothers’ work starts as time-lapse photographs of rotting fruit, then small fish, and finally works up to their penultimate project: the recording of a zebra’s decomposition. Thrown into this mess of decay, philosophy, paintings, and obtrusive music is an aspiring bestiality writer, a zoo warden who moonlights procuring exotic meats, and sundry “unexplained” escapes of animals. ZOO poses some tough questions, perhaps the most important of which is educed by the zoo’s chief administrator: “What valuable conclusion can be gained from all this rotting meat?”

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…Greenaway’s eccentric exploration of where all life’s absurd varieties must begin and end is, like a road accident, always fascinating, if not exactly pleasurable, to watch.”–Anton Bitel, Movie Gazette

Capsules

CAPSULE: THE LAST DRAGON (1985)

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AKA Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon

DIRECTED BY: 

FEATURING: Taimak, Vanity, Julius Carry, Christopher Murney

PLOT:  Leroy Green (nicknamed “Bruce Leroy”), a kung fu student in Harlem, searches for a master to achieve “the glow,” while defending a music video hostess from an evil businessman and his army of toughs.

Still from The Last Dragon (1985)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The Last Dragon isn’t truly weird, but it’s unusual, quirky, and culty enough to earn an honorable mention, and the recent Blu-ray release gives us an excuse to recommend it to those inclined towards 1980s camp.

COMMENTS: The Last Dragon, a mix of blaxploitation and kung fu tropes performed in the innocent style of The Karate Kid, blooms with camp pleasures. A scene early in the picture embodies the curious aesthetic, which reflects urban audiences’ fondness for East Asian martial arts movies (Shaw Brothers pics were staples of Times Square grindhouses, where cheap chopsocky imports played next to peep shows). In one such theater, an awed “Bruce Leroy” watches Enter the Dragon (eating his popcorn with chopsticks!) among a multiracial crowd who howl at the screen. The disreputable patrons include a transvestite, a Rastafarian indulging in his sacrament, and a couple of teenagers who disrespectfully set up a boombox in the aisle and start breakdancing (!) In bursts giant Sho’Nuff (“the Shogun of Harlem”) and his retinue to challenge the skilled but humble Leroy to dishonorable combat.

Sho’Nuff, who says things like “kiss my Converse, sucka!” and dresses like a samurai pimp in an outfit stitched together from leftovers from a Michael Jackson music video, is The Last Dragon‘s batty heart and soul. Hero Bruce Leroy, who walks through Harlem streets wearing a conical bamboo hat and is mocked by his streetwise companions for being a “jive coolie,” doesn’t make nearly the same impression. Leroy is played by Taimak, who was hired for his considerable martial arts prowess rather than his inconsiderable acting talent. His lack of emotion is put to good use, however; his flat line readings make him a true ghetto outsider, someone who has devoted his life to absorbing stoic Asian philosophy rather than learning how to smooth talk girls. Which is bad luck for him, as the girl in his life turns out to be none other than 80s bombshell Vanity. Vanity doesn’t get to do much other than be endangered and pretty, but she undeniably lights up the screen. Other characters include Leroy’s wisecracking younger brother (who also has a crush on Vanity) and a gangsterish video game magnate with a wannabe pop star girlfriend (she’s a cross between Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, with less talent than the two combined). You should also watch closely for bit parts by a young William H. Macy and Keisha Knight Pulliam (“The Cosby Show”‘s Rudy).

The Last Dragon was criticized for its predictable “damsel in distress” plot, but its crazy cartoonish characters and remarkable set pieces (including the aforementioned grindhouse showdown and a climactic battle where Sho’Nuff and Leroy glow while fighting) made it into a box office hit with younger audiences. Its legend only grew when it became a pay cable programming staple. Watch it for nostalgia, or to see what your parents thought was rad when they were teenagers. On a technical level its not great moviemaking, but as a guilty pleasure, it’s a blast.

The alternate title Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon naturally raises the question, who the hell is Berry Gordy? Turns out Berry was the founder of Motown records. He put up the dough for this one, and made sure that acts he controlled found their way onto the soundtrack (Debarge’s horrid “Rhythm of the Night,” featured prominently here, became a #3 Billboard charting hit). Why Gordy thought his name would bring kids into the theaters is a mystery. Vanity, thy name is Berry Gordy. (Well, in this case that’s confusing, but you get the idea).

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…utterly wigged-out kung-fu disco extravaganza…”–Time Out London

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: COME AND SEE (1985)

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Come and See has been promoted to the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies Ever Made. Please visit the official Certified Weird entry.

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DIRECTED BY: Elem Klimov

FEATURING: Aleksey Kravechenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Lauciavicius, Jüri Lumiste

PLOT: A teenage boy loses his innocence when he joins partisans fighting against the Nazis in 1943 Belarus.

Still from Come and See
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: Although in a number of ways Come and See is a conventional war movie, its unremitting bleakness, violent interruptions, and dream-like passages make it transcend the mold.

COMMENTS: The difficulty in writing about this movie is apparent from the title. The sights and sounds of Come and See carry the movie, and much of the narrative is embedded in the grimy and beautiful imagery. Although the string of events is fairly straightforward, our sense of time is thrown to the wind. Everything happens over the course of a few days, but the young protagonist, at the same time, ages decades from his experiences. I have not seen a  more harrowing war movie, nor would I really care to.

Come and See tells the story of a young man who is eager to join the local partisans who are charged with causing havoc with the occupying German forces. The opening shot is of the back of an older man’s head as he looks over a sandy field. “Hey, are you crazy?” he asks an unseen character, “What do you think you’re doing? Playing a game?” Soon after issuing some nebulous warnings, we find the man’s son, Florya, with a friend. They are looking for a rifle, as that is the requirement to join the partisans. They scour filled-in trenches, hoping to find a ticket into the group. An odd shot shows young Florya seemingly making love to the ground, his arms buried deep. He makes a climatic grunt and rises, holding in his hands a muck coated SVT-40 rifle. In this quasi-sexual act, he takes his first step in becoming a man.

Much to his mother’s distress, the partisans take him in. Thus begins a recurring series of close-up faces. Time and again, Klimov relies on the actors’ faces to convey the mood of the scene; sometimes full of wonder, sometimes eager, often tragic. He juxtaposes the mother’s anguished face at the news of her son’s enlistment with the happy grin of the boy who finally feels he has grown up. He meets with the partisans and seems to be accepted, even posing in a large group photo of the squad, taken by an enthusiastic Soviet sporting a jokey Hitler-mustache.

Shortly thereafter, when he is left behind by the militia, he cannot control his tears, until he finds Glasha, a girl around his age. Together they have an innocent encounter, set in a lush wet forest. This invocation of Eden is quickly cut off by a warplane. Bombs soon drop, along with paratroopers. Eden is destroyed—to be found again in a dreamlike sequence that starts off the next morning.

After that point, Come and See allows the viewer no hope of beauty. Continue reading LIST CANDIDATE: COME AND SEE (1985) →

Canonically Weird (The List)

184. NINJA CHAMPION (1985)

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“The script… for one thing, it would be written in twice translated English. So we would be sitting there looking at it saying ‘what the hell does this mean?’ for one thing. And then Godfrey would sort of explain the plot, in his kind of hyper, babbling way, and then we’d sort of make it up on the spot and try to figure out for him what he wanted. Then they’d splice it together and really the only time I’d see what he was going for was when I’d see the thing in the dubbing studio when we’d come back a month later when it was edited. But even then, as you know, they really really don’t… make… sense. There’s the merest suggestion of a hint of a plot somewhere in there. But no, it was very much making it up as we went along.”–Actor Ed Chworowsky on the experience of working on Godfrey Ho movies

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Nancy Chan, Jack Lam, Bruce Baron,  Pierre Tremblay,

PLOT: Rose infiltrates a diamond-smuggling ring intending to kill the three men who raped her. Rose’s ex-lover George, an ex-Interpol agent, leaves his new wife to help her attain her vengeance. Meanwhile, another Interpol agent, who is also a ninja, gradually kills off other ninjas who, though a convoluted scheme, are behind both the smuggling operation and the rape.

Still from Ninja Champion (1985)
BACKGROUND:

  • Ninja Champion was selected to go on the List of the 366 Weirdest Movies in the 5th Readers Choice Poll.
  • The 1981 movie Enter the Ninja (with Sho Kosugi and Franco Nero) was a modest exploitation hit that introduced Western moviegoers to the concept of the stealthy Japanese assassin. In the early and mid 1980s there was a mini-craze for ninja movies, which producers Joseph Lai and Betty Chan and director Godfrey Ho attempted to cash in on by making dozens of movies with “Ninja” in the title. Ho’s methodology was to acquire older martial arts movies (some unfinished or unreleased) and shoot new footage involving ninjas, which would then be clumsily spliced into the older film to make a new movie. This filmmaking technique is known as “cut-and-paste,” and Lai’s Hong Kong-based IFD Films and Arts Limited released almost a hundred of them before the fad died out.
  • Godfrey Ho may have directed IFD movies under other pseudonyms, and sometimes cut-and-paste movies have been attributed to him although there’s no clear evidence Ho worked on them. The Internet Movie Database credits Ho with directing 119 movies. Of these, 50 incorporate the word “Ninja,” including such titles as Ninja the Violent Sorcerer, Ninja in the Killing Fields, Ninja Terminator, Clash of the Ninjas, Bionic Ninja, and Full Metal Ninja.
  • According to the website Neon Harbor, the base film to which Godfrey Ho added the ninja footage to create Ninja Champion was a Korean movie called Bam-eul Beosgineun Dogjangmi (translated as Poisonous Rose Stripping the Night).
  • Prolific, down-on-his-luck B-movie actor Richard Harrison contracted to make a few movies in Hong Kong for Ho; unbeknownst to him, the footage he shot was cut up and used in approximately twenty-one new pictures. He was sometimes re-dubbed so he could speak lines related to the new plot. In multiple movies (including this one) he plays an Interpol agent named Gordon who is seen delivering orders to field agents while speaking into a telephone shaped like popular comic strip cat Garfield.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Normally, you would say the image of two Caucasian ninjas engaged in a duel to the death while wearing headbands that read “ninja” would be hard to beat. In this movie, however, the unforgettable image has to be Nancy Chan’s topless scene, where the luminescence of her diamond-studded breasts makes the bottom half of the screen look like someone smeared Vaseline all over the lens.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: It’s two weird movies in one, as a ridiculous Korean rape revenge martial arts movie gets a Godfrey Ho makeover with an overlaid Interpol/ninja plot that turns the original from a baffling trifle into a truly deranged and nearly incomprehensible example of exploitation cinema.


Clip from Ninja Champion (courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment)

COMMENTS: Ninja Champion doesn’t necessarily make it onto the Continue reading 184. NINJA CHAMPION (1985) →