MovieComment

Lady Snowblood

Posted by Player under Foreign

Known to many people as one of the many films that helped to inspire Tarentino to come up with Kill Bill, Lady Snowblood is an outright seek revenge film, where a young woman, known as Yuki (Meiko Kaji), is born for the single purpose of vengeance. We never know who Yuki’s father is, all we know is that Yuki must find the four murderers who killed her mother’s husband and son. From the beginning Yuki is an unflinching killer and it is only later that she discovers any sort of individual wants, when she meets a writer who insists on making her a source for his writings. It is through his words that Yuki becomes a legend and an annoyance to the criminal world. Kill Bill fans will recognize some of the soundtrack, as Tarentino used one of the main theme songs from Lady Snowblood.

In Love Song of Vengeance, the story picks up exactly where the first film leaves off. Some will find the production value of Love Song to be more up-to-date, and while the first film was clearly a kill movie, Love Song is more of a political drama. Yuki is now famous for her murders, but she is also wanted by the government’s secret police. They want to use Yuki as an agent to infiltrate the radical rebels who want to change the country’s political system. However Yuki is tired of her empty life of killing and is instead seduced by the radical leader’s philosophy. Yuki instead becomes an agent of the rebels and their struggle for independent freedom from government oppression. Or course this all leads to plenty of fighting in the end, but unlike the first film, Love Song has more developed characters and Yuki’s role sometimes plays secondary to the social issues that the film presents.

Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion

Posted by Player under Foreign

This 1972 Japanese film will seem a bit dated by today’s standards, especially if you have seen any of the Kill Bill films which borrow heavily from Japanese films as this one. Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion is suppose to be a graphic view of women in prison but today’s sensibilities being what they are, it may actually cause some laughter if you do not take the plot too seriously. And the plot is classic revenge, in which Meiko Kaji plays a young woman betrayed by her first love, a cop who uses her as bait to blackmail the crime syndicate. This leaves the young woman shattered and when she tries to kill her lover, she is then sent to prison where she is known as prisoner 701. In prison, she must survive even more betrayal, and eventually escape to seek revenge on the crime syndicate leaders and ex-lover.

The film features multiple scenes with violence, rape, and nudity. Although much of the violence seems obviously fake, the tempo of the story never wanes, and the film still manages to be disturbing on many different levels. Towards the end, Prisoner 701’s revenge kills are some of the best scenes in the film, for example the crime lord is hung outside his office using his own telephone’s wires is an incredibly powerful statement. Other than the horror, the film tries to present a picture of feminism that is quite daring and open. Prisoner 701 does not only kill men, she no longer needs them either as what little love she has left is only for other women like herself.

I’m Not Scared

Posted by Player under Foreign

I’m Not Scared (Io Non ho Paura) is an Italian film that tells the story of two young boys: Michele and the Filippo who he discovers living in a hole by an old farm house. The two boys form a friendship, and in time Michele discovers the sad truths of life, but his bond with Filippo holds true till the end.

I’m Not Scared is so innocent in places, that it made me think why can’t Hollywood make a film this charming, this simplistic. It seems that the best Hollywood can do is give us fluff and never anything serious or touching. While watching this film, you get a true sense of a child’s point of view and why things don’t make sense to them when the adult world invades their sensibilities. Best of all the film is not very dark at all, it is still realistic, but it does not shock you with violence for no reason, and holds true till the end with its theme of friendship and boys who are just trying to live in the world as they see it.

The DVD release has English subtitles, which you will hardly notice, because there is not much excessive dialogue in the film. Even though the subject matter is children, the film is an adult drama and not intended for children.

Godzilla: Final Wars

Posted by Player under Foreign

Godzilla is still the king of all monster movies, and in Final Wars, he is definitely back to save the earth again. This time aliens are threatening to level humanity back to the stone age and have unleashed various giant monsters to get the job done, but of course they did not expect Godzilla to wake up and do some destruction of his own.

Unlike other Godzilla movies where you sit through three fourths of the movie waiting for the star to show up, Final Wars actually manages to throw in some interesting action by the humans. In order to protect the world against monsters the Defense Force has banded together special mutants and trained them to be an elite fighting force. However when the aliens show up and end up controlling the special mutant army of humans, the earth is left defenseless. This is where Godzilla becomes their only choice. The human mutant fighting though is interesting to see, as clearly Final Wars borrows heavily from other Asian action films and even does some Matrix like action sequences. However, unlike the Matrix films, Final Wars was made with a smaller budget and it shows in some places. The main alien mothership’s orange background is just plain strange when compared to the black Matrix style cyberpunk look of the main alien character.

But the second half of the film is where Godzilla comes in and battles monster after monster and this is really why we watch Godzilla movies! One of the first monsters is in fact the lizard like Godzilla of the terrible American made Godzilla film. I guess the director could not resist making fun of the Roland Emerich film, and Godzilla quickly tosses aside the weak imposter Godzilla. After a few more monsters, the main monster shows up. A three headed dragon beast that manages to weaken Godzilla, but you all know who has to win this right?

While some younger movie fans may not understand what the Godzilla fascination is all about, true fans will appreciate Final Wars as one of the better Godzilla films and perhaps the last one to be made, as Godzilla is being retired.