Dragon Squad ( a.k.a. Dragon Heat ) ( 2005 )
I like the title Dragon Squad, and have no idea why Dragon Dynasty felt they had to rename the film Dragon Heat. It is not as if they found a better name for the film. Perhaps there is still a copyright from the American distributor of the 1974 Dragon Squad starring Jimmy Wang Yu and Dragon Dynasty was forced to change the title for their release?
Dragon Squad falls into the same category as Gen-X Cops ( 1999 ) and Invisible Target ( 2007 ) where a group of young police detectives ban together to form a team. In this film the police announce they have formed a squad of their best young detectives to transport the crime boss Panther from his jail cell to the courthouse. Sure enough while transporting Panther's van, the road is blocked by a merchant who spills his apples from his cart. Suspecting a trap, the young detectives pull out their guns and surround the merchant, discovering he has no weapons on him. They check Panther's van only to discover it is empty. It is then they realize the formation of their squad was a sham, and they were actually part of a decoy transport. However, news breaks out over the radio that the real transport is being hit. Disregarding their superiors command for them to stay put, they jump into a police van and race to the scene, resulting in a shootout with the mercenaries breaking Panther out. Despite their efforts the mercenaries get away with Panther, and the squad is put on suspension for disobeying orders. They wind up being supervised by Kong Long ( Sammo Hung ), a former police lieutenant who himself was demoted down to a lower rank when his failure to wait for backup in a bank robbery resulted in some police officers getting killed. The squad son discovers that Panther was not rescued by his own gang, but others looking to turn him into a hostage against his brother, the gang leader Tiger. And that everything is connected to the same bank robbery that Kong interfeared with.
Dragon Squad has an international cast ( which includes Michael Beihn and Maggie Q ), is partially in English, and was definitely aimed at the American market. A shame it ended up being bought for distribution by the Weinsteins who only gave it a low key release to home video in the states. It started off like a potboiler, but by the second act begins to work it's charms, so by the third act you were truly rooting for the good guys. That is something missing from a lot of action films. Something the Shaw brothers films ( those of Chang Cheh in particular ) were very good at. Even in the films where the martial arts was not memorable, you found yourself invested in the story, and cheering when the hero ( or antihero ) got his revenge. In that way Dragon Squad has a classic Shaw Brothers feel. Even though the martial arts is not memorable, and the gun fights are nowhere near the standards of John Woo, you want to see the good guys succeed and the bad guys defeated. The overall result is an enjoyable film.
Spiderman Homecoming ( 2017 )
I wish there were more MCU films like this. Not plotwise, but studiowise. Currently Disney can only handle about two or three MCU films a year at the most. So why not have other studios participate? Spiderman Homecoming takes place in the MCU and has enough of Iron Man that it is almost Iron Man IV, but is a Sony film. This could have been done with Universal who could have easily made a third Hulk film, instead of the third Hulk film ending up as the third Thor film. And with Disney buying 20th Century Fox, one can only hope they keep both studios running instead of merging into one so that the eventuality of the X-Men and Fantastic Four entering the MCU could be done separate from Disney. The MCU has grown too big for only three films a year. Farming entrees out to other studios ( while still being produced by Marvel Studios ) and we could see ten or more MCU films a year. Considering the wealth of material from six decades of Marvel comics, that we haven't even scratched the surface when it comes to Marvel super villains, and how the actors currently playing the heroes are not getting any younger, I'd say we need to release as many of the MCU films as possible in the next decade.
My only complaint about this film is that Spider-Man is too young. ( Hell, Aunt May is too young. Aunt May is not suppose to be a MILF. ) Not that Spider-man being a kid is a bad thing. But he was never this young in the comic books. We got a Spiderman who cant prowl the streets because he is stuck in detention? And has a curfew? The film is still enjoyable, but I would rather have the older version of Spiderman than Spiderkid.
And why does the villain in every Spider-Man film have to figure out his identity? That is beginning to get old.
Bride of the Gorilla ( 1951 )
Hey. Saturday Night Live is a rerun again this week. A bit of a shock considering they just came out of an extended three week break due to the Olympics, and that after just coming out of the four week Christmas break. Anyway, whenever SNL goes on break, that gives me time for an extra movie on Saturday evening. Which means that once again I go to the Sons of Kong collection. Next up is Bride of the Gorilla, the first film directed by Curt Siodmak, a veteran script writer who was responsible for at least a third of the classic Universal horror films, most notably the Wolfman series. In fact, this film stars Lon Chaney who was The Wolfman. The story itself, written by Siodmak, is basically a variation on he Wolfman story, with a man cursed to turn into a creature at night. Strangely though, Lon Chaney is not the man who is cursed. Despite getting second billing, he is barely in this film at all. He plays he head of the police who only appears in a few scenes. Raymond Burr, who gets third billing, is the cursed man. Barbara Payton, as the bride, gets first billing. Although there is no gorilla in this film for her to be a bride of. ( this despite movie posters and publicity photos of an ape carrying a passed out Barbara. )
Okay, let me explain. Siodmak's script begins in the jungles of South America. already you are saying "There are no gorillas in South America! Gorillas come from Africa!" I am sure Siodmak realized this when he was writing the script. The story begins on a plantation located on the edge of a jungle. The owner has married a trophy wife ( Barbara Payton ) who the foreman of his plantation ( Burr ) has fallen in love with. Suspecting this, the owner fires his foreman, but instead the foreman tells him he is in love with the trophy wife, knocks him to the ground, and does nothing while a snake he has fallen on bites him. Although everyone suspects the foreman killed the plantation owner, the trophy wife lies and claims that the foreman was with her the entire night. And nothing they can do when a few weeks later he marries the trophy wife. However, someone did witness the murder. One of the plantation owners trusted servants, an old lady who also happens to practice black magic. Using the leaves from a plant, she places a curse on the foreman that will turn him into a creature at night. A south American monster called a succarath. It is a monster from South American mythology that resembles a deformed puma. I guess the producers realized they did not have the budget to build a succarath costume, so instead just used a Gorilla costume. Every night the forman starts acting crazy and wanders into the jungle where when he looks into a river he sees the ape in a reflection. The movie never actually makes it clear if the foreman is really turning into a succarath, or if he is just hallucinating from the poisonous leaves the servant keeps putting in his drinks. We only see the gorilla in reflections, or from it's own point of view. Although reports come in from the locals that they have seen a strange creature that is either a cat or gorilla, and later something has begun killing the livestock.
No humans get killed though, even though the movie sets up a lot of potential victims who cross the foreman throughout the film. Not one of them, not the doctor who also lusts after the trophy wife and thinks h can have the foreman committed, not the head of the police who wants to prove the foreman killed the plantation owner, not the ex girlfriend who wants revenge for being dumped, or even the old servant gets killed. The trophy wife does seem to die at the end ( not much of a spoiler here. Old films always killed off those guilty of any crime by the final reel. A sort of requirement of the Hayes Code. You knew the trophy wife was going to get bumped off the second she lied and gave the foreman an alibi for the murder of her husband. ) But even though she is lying on the ground dead, it is unclear if the succarath killed her, or she was gunned down by the doctor and the police chief when they fired blindly into the bushes when they heard her screaming.
The only thing that makes this film the least bit decent is that it is unclear if the foreman ever did turn into a succarath, or was just imagining he did. Otherwise, this is a dumb ripoff of The Wolfman. Of course, once the producers used a gorilla costume for the few scenes where you see the reflection of the monster, they decided to go all out and promote it as a gorilla film. They could have promoted it as a succarath film, but I guess a film about a monster most Americans never heard of before would not sell many tickets. But otherwise, this is not a gorilla film. Strangely enough, the next film in the collection is The Ape ( 1940 ), which was also scripted by Siodmak. Hopefully that one will actually have an ape in it.
Topic: What was the last movie you watched? (Read 1786993 times)
