Bastard Swordsman ( 1983 )
This is basically the plot from Eagle Shadow and a lot of other early Jackie Chan and Jackie Chan clone films. An orphan taken in at a martial arts school and working there as a servant is bullied by the other students and instructors. The head of the school shows some sympathy to the orphan, but refuses to allow him to learn Kung Fu. Fortunately a mysterious masked man has agreed to teach the orphan late at night, as long as he doesn't tell anyone he is learning Kung Fu or reveal he has any martial arts skills. So far this sounds exactly like a Jackie Chan film. The thing is, it is not a comedy. A lot of the script suggests it should be a comedy, but it isn't. It is as if after years of making comedies to capitalize on the martial arts comedy trend started by Jackie Chan, Shaw Brothers suddenly changed direction just before principle photography began. Instead, it capitalizes on another trend. The one started by Tsui Hark with Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain earlier that same year. The Hong Kong special effect fantasy film. In the case of Bastard Swordsman, the martial arts practiced in this film occasionally involves shooting colorful energy beams from your hands, and in the climatic battle, the ability to incase your opponent in a cocoon.
The mid 80s was not my favorite period for Shaw Brothers films. This was just before the Shaws decided to shut down their own studio so they could put all their money into a television network, and most of the films have the feel of being farmed out to independent productions rather than being a studio product. And most of the familiar faces who made up the Shaw Brothers contract players are gone. But there are a few films from this period worth watching, and this was one of them.
The Darkest Minds ( 2018 )
This movie was just recently added to Wikipedia's list of American Superhero films. Much like Push and Jumper, it is a film about mutants with super powers, which shouldn't be enough to qualify as a superhero film. After all, superheroes wear costumes. This is why Batman and Punisher qualify as superheroes even though they have no powers whatsoever. But thanks to Marvel Comics, a grey area exists. It began with the X-Men, who did wear costumes, but then came the spin-off books with mutants who didn't wear costumes. Add to that the television series Heroes which had powerful mutants, none of which ever officially became superheroes. So basically, this film does technically fall within the Superhero category.
But really, it is in a different category with Maze Runner and Hunger Games. It came from a popular book series about teenagers in a dystopian society. There are five books in the series, which means Fox was planning on making six movies. One movie for each book, with the last book being split into two separate films. Which probably will never happen as this film bombed at the box office. This film was in theaters five months ago, and I don't even remember hearing about it or seeing any trailers. It was basically dumped in theaters against Christopher Robin where it was allowed to die. It also got terrible reviews. The Blu-ray only cost me $5 from a third party seller on eBay. So I went into this with very low expectations.
The plot: some mystery disease which attacks kids under the age of 20 kills off 98% of the Earth's children. The ones that survive the disease gain powers, so the government has all children locked up in concentration camps. The film follows a group of kids who have escape from the camps and in their journeys, become a family. I actually liked this film a lot. The only thing I didn't like about it was the ending, which left the kids split up, and just set things up for the sequels. Almost a cliff hanger. Now I am hoping they film the rest of the books.
Streets of Fire: A Rock & Roll Fable ( 1984 )
Had enough time this week for a third film. There were moments in the 80s when a studio would woo a director with a winning steak by allowing them to make the craziest film they could think of. That's how we got films like John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China. After the success of 48 Hours, producer Joel Silver asked director Walter Hill what film he would like to do next. Hill proposed making a musical biker film that he originally dreamed up as a boy in the 1950s. Furthermore, it would be the first film in a proposed trilogy featuring an action hero called Tom Cody. And it was to be based around the Springsteen song Streets of Fire which was originally set to be the final song sung by the film's heroine, rock star Ellen Aim. But then Springsteen withdrew his consent when he realized there would be a cover version, and it was replaced with an original song called Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young. However, the title stuck.
The plot for Streets of Fire is pretty slim. Ellen Aim and her band The Attackers are throwing a concert in her childhood neighborhood when a local bike gang called The Bombers raids the theater she is performing in and kidnaps her. Ellan's old boyfriend, soldier of fortune Tom Cody, is called back to the neighborhood to rescue her. Not to thrilled by their breakup years earlier, Cody only agrees to the rescue mission after Ellen's new boyfriend and manager Billy Fish agrees to pay him $10,000. Ellen is rescued, but is furious that Cody did it for money. Still deep within Bomber territory which includes a corrupt police force, Cody and the rescue party spend the rest of the night sneaking back to the safety of their neighborhood. However, Raven, the leader of the bombers, announces that he intends to wreck the town and take Ellen back unless Cody faces him in a duel. The local police warn Cody not to accept the duel, and for him and Ellen to leave town immediately. After Cody decides not to take his payment from Fish, Ellen realizes she is still in love with him and chases after him, ending up in bed with him. Realizing that he is no good for Ellen, he tricks her into leaving town without him and shows up for the duel.
This was one of my all time favorite films, and one of only three of my top 25 favorite films I can say I saw in the theaters. I loved it back then, and now having seen it for the first time in decades, can say I still love it. It is not really much of an action film ( American action films were still lethargically paced back in the 80s ) but the adventure element and musical elements were great. And the romantic element ( or anti-romantic element ) works. It is one of those films you just can't help but like.
It also has one of those perfect casts. Michael Paré plays Tom Cody, a part that almost went to Tom Cruise, but he turned it down to do Risky Business ( another one of my top 25 favorite films ). At the time Paré was best known as one of Ralph Hinkley's students in the series The Greatest American Hero. He had previously starred in Eddie and the Cruisers, another 50s era Rock & Roll musical that had bombed at the box office, although it would later become a surprise hit on home video. This was pretty much the peak of Peré's career as this and his next film, The Philadelphia Experiment, also bombed. His career had one brief reprise when a sequel was made to Eddie and the Cruisers, but that film got a limited release and was pulled from theaters after a week. Ellan Aim was played by Diane Lane, one of a handful of actresses who I had a crush on in the 80s, and it began with this film. Lane came to fame with two Francis Ford Coppola directed adaptions of S. E. Hinton novels, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish. Still a teenager at the time and unable to sing, she convinced Hill to allow her play the 28 year old Ellan Aim after auditioning for him in tight leather pants and a mesh top. ( that outfit was, unfortunately, not in the film. ) Singers Laurie Sargent and Holly Sherwood were brought in to dub Lane's singing voice, and were credited as Fire Inc. on the soundtrack album. Rick Moranis played Billy Fish. He was best known as a cast member of Second City Television, and his only previous screen credit was for Strange Brew, a comedy that spun off of a Second City recurring skit called Great White North ( which also spun off a hit song with Moranis. ) After completing Streets of Fire Moranis would begin work on his third movie Ghostbusters. It was also an early film for Amy Madigan who plays McCoy, a female ex-soldier who aids Cody on his rescue mission and ends up being his best friend, and Willem Dafoe as Bomber leader Raven. Both would later become Academy Award nominees, Defoe just loosing a Best Actor category tonight. It also had Bill Paxton, Robert Townsend, Ed Begley Jr and E.G. Daily in small roles. It also had two veterans from The Warriors, Deborah Van Valkenburgh who plays Cody's sister, and Lynne Thigpen, the DJ from The Warriors who in this film has a small role as a subway motorwoman . In fact, this movie was promoted as a sort of musical version of The Warriors. It wasn't, but the Warriors connection was one of the reasons m and my friends went to see it.
Streets of Fire bombed. It's only lasting legacy, other than having a cult following, was that it spawned the hit Dan Hartman song I Can Dream About You, the movie tie-in video which VH1 and MTV still air to this day on their classics channel. I wasn't planning to see it this week, but didn't realize that SNL was having another off week. With Bastard Swordsman which was a very decent Shaw Brothers mid-80s potboiler, The Darkest Minds which turned out to be a guilty pleasure, and this, one of my favorite films, this has turned out to be a very good weekend for movies.
Topic: What was the last movie you watched? (Read 1586461 times)
