Chinese peasants give the Japs what-for!

This month, it's 65 years since the United States of America dropped two atom bombs on Japan and brought an end to World War II. This is one of several reviews I'm posting to mark the anniversary.


Blood on the Sun (aka "The Big Fight") (1972)
Starring: Roc Tien and Ching Ching Chang
Director: Ting Mei Sung
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

During the Japanese occupation of northern China during WW2, a local commander of the forces occupying a small town and its corrupt, collaborating leadership engage in a campaign of oppression and terror. When resistance fighters start appearing and successfully challenging, the Japanese stage a competition where they invite the villagers to test their fighting skills against the best of martial artists in the region's occupying force, hoping pride will draw out the rebels and allow them to be killed.


"Blood on the Sun" is nicely staged martial arts drama with thoroughly despicable, perverted villains (the Japanese troops and their Chinese collaborators harass and/or rape any woman they come across... and that's just to warm up) and brave, morally upstanding peasant heroes.

This movie is one of countless Chinese movies that portray the Japanese military as evil, perverted butchers... and given what happened in places like Nanking and in backwaters like the one portrayed in this film, it's understandable. However, it is also a great martial arts movie with some great set-piece fight scenes--like the one where the girl resistance fighter whips off her skirt and reveals it to be lined with dozens of razor-sharp metal disks and ready for use as a weapon--and better-than-average dubbing (as far as obscure 1970s martial arts flicks go).


The film will also entertain those who appreciate down-to-earth, realistic martial arts battles. The most fantastic the film even gets is when the hero throws a dagger at a Japanese soldier and kills him without even turning around to draw aim. And please don't mistake down-to-earth with boring in this case. Every single fight in this film is very dramatic and exciting. In fact, I think I this film may now rank among my favorite martial arts movies of all time.

Of course, with a movie like this, one has to just live in the moment and not consider what happens to the heroes once the film is over. Given the historical truth regarding the brutality of the Japanese Imperial Army, I doubt any of the villagers in the film would survive for long once more troops arrived and that the burning rubble of their homes would serve as their graves. The triumph at the end of this film is a fleeting one at best, and while the Japanese were ultimately defeated, uprisings such as the one in this film in reality ended badly for the rebels.

Still, "Blood on the Sun" is an entertaining and well-paced film. The only real complaint I have is with the abrupt ending, but I'm not sure if the version I saw is complete. The print used for the DVD transfer was pretty ragged in places, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few seconds were completely missing at the end. (Despite this flaw, I count this film among the many pleasant surprises that I've found in the "Martial Arts 50 Movie Pack" DVD collection.

Tom Mankiewicz dead at 68

Tom Mankiewicz, screenwriter for three of my favorite James Bond movies--'The Man with the Golden Gun', 'Live and Let Die' and 'Diamonds Are Forever'--died this past Saturday at the age of 68. He had been battling pancreatic cancer for some time,and he passed at his Los Angeles home.

Tasty Tuesday: Chicken ala Walken

This installment of Tasty Tuesday brings a video from actor Christopher Walken. The man knows how to cook a chicken.

'God's Gun' is flawed but worthwhile

God's Gun (aka "A Bullet From God") (1977)
Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, Leif Garrett, Sybil Danning, Robert Lipton, Heinz Bernard, and Richard Boone
Director: Frank Kramer
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When the vicious outlaw Sam Clayton (Palance) and his gang murder a small-town priest (Van Cleef), the church's altar boy, Johnny (Garrett) and the priest's twin brother (also Van Cleef) set about getting revenge and stopping the outlaws in a most unusual fashion.


"God's Gun" is a dirty, grimy western in the mold of "For a Fistful of Dollars." Even the good guys are somewhat questionable when it comes to their morals, virtuous acts are tainted with blood and evil, and you can almost smell the sweat and feel the dust gritting between your teeth as the wind blows from the screen. It also features fairly convoluted storyline that rivals those found in more famous westerns from the same period, and while there aren't any developments that are particularly surprising to viewers paying attention or who are well-versed in the western genre, the twists and turns of the plot are well executed.

The film also features some fine acting from Lee Van Cleef, who plays the dual role of twin brothers who are retired gunslingers. One has become a priest, the other a rancher just across the border with Mexico,but both have sworn off violence and have committed themselves to lives of peace. It's rare that we get to see Van Cleef actually act in a film--beyond his usual "I Can Stare At You And You'll Drop Dead"-type characters--and to see him in in an almost Obi-Wan Kenobi-esque role is pretty cool. (As the priest, Father John, he is attempting to mold young Johnny into a responsible adult. Even as Lewis, the gunslinger-turned-rancher, he attempts to direct Johnny away from a life of violence.)

Another remarkable part of the film is Jack Palance. Although he once again is playing a psycho--and a psycho who is so far around the bend that the quiet menace that so often hangs around Palance's characters is all but dispelled by naked brutality--he is fun to watch as he brutalizes everyone from townsfolk to the members of his own gang. His idea of family values is also creepy, or unintentionally hilarious, as his idea of getting to know the son he never knew had in the second half of the movie is to bellow, "Come out here, or I'll kill your mother!"

Speaking of Sam Clayton's son, Leif Garrett does an okay job, but he's like most child actors... in some scenes, he overacts slightly while in others he barely seems to be running lines. He's not exactly bad, but he's not exactly good either.

Every other actor in the film is decent enough, but they aren't portraying characters so much as they're just filling the shoes of figures that populate any western (the druken sheriff, the cowardly townsfolk, the plucky saloon girls, the sleazy bandits, and so on). None of them detract from their place in the scenery, so they're all good. (Although a few of the bandits get to shine a bit during the gang-rape scene in the saloon, and durning the sequence when Johnny and Lewis are executing their unusual revenge scheme against the Clayton Gang),

Despite all its good points, the film suffers from a lack of moral focus. The writer and director seem to want to give Sam Clayton an eleventh hour redemption after he discovers Johnny is his son, but the character's actions--and Palance's portrayal of him--have been so repulsive and over the top that there is absolutely no way that any amount of speeches about how he now just wants to raise his son in peace will win viewers onto his side, nor make us believe that even Clayton himself believes what he is saying. So, while Clayton's ultimate end has a degree of irony to it, the climax of the film is undermined by the way the filmmakers suddenly seem to desire to invoke sympathy for him. This weakness in the ending is what keeps this movie from rating any higher than average.

"God's Gun" is an undeservedly obscure entry in the Spaghetti Western canon (and I'm using the term loosely here, as it was actually shot in Israel and produced by the Israeli team of Golan-Globus) that fans of the western genre should check out. It may be a tad too confused about its own moral viewpoint, but it's still worth seeing.

Today is Elke Sommer Day!

Today, we celebrate Elke Sommer, a German actress who was the very definition of Teutonic Beauty (and, to a lesser extent, big hair) during the 1960s and 1970s. This post has links to places you should visit in accordance with the spirit of the day (although it's mostly an excuse to post more pictures of Elke Sommer).

Elke Sommer Biographical Data:
At The Official Elke Sommer Website
At Internet Movie Database
At Cult Sirens
At Vintage Culture (with lots of pictures)

At Watching the Detectives
Elke Sommer at the Cinema Steve Blogs
Articles at Terror Titans
Articles at Watching the Detectives


To the left is a picture of Elke Sommer as she appears today--or, rather, as she appeared on my birthday of last year. Below, we have a picture of Sommer as she appeared in 1974, the year she made "Lisa and the Devil". It may be one of the few pictures of her that even the woman-hating Imam Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi might be able to gaze upon without having a fit. (Okay... maybe not.)

Coming soon to a bookstore near you....

"150 Movies You Should (Die Before You) See" has been in the works for some time; has been through two distinctly different incarnations; and has plenty of stuff to entertain and amuse those who love watching bad movies (as well as those who love hating bad movies).

Now, if only I can convince someone that the world DOES need a book that contains both movie reviews and themed recipes that are easy to prepare (for hosting the bad movie parties).

If you want to help a fellow out, you can pre-order the book at a discount from Amazon.com by clicking on the link below. A portion of every dollar you spend goes to feed my two hungry cats!

Best to keep 'Ali G' out of your house

Ali G Indahouse: The Movie (2004)
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Charles Dance, Michael Gambon, Kate Hedges, and Kellie Bright
Director: Mark Mylod
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

British gansta-rapper wanna-be and village-dwelling moron Ali G (Cohen) becomes the pawn of an evil politician (Dance) who wants to discredit the Prime Minister (Gambon) so he can seize the reins of power.


"Ali G Indahouse" is one of those comedies I have a hard time watching. Its main character is so stupid that I am so embarrassed on his behalf that it pains me to watch the story unfold. I am also embarrassed on the behalf of the people he interacts with. The end result is that the comedy is a bit muted for me, and I suspect that things others are falling off the couch in fits over have me merely chuckling.

However, the fact that the character of Ali G is such a moron that my pity for him overwhelms the fun I might otherwise have with this movie is but a small part of the problems with it.

A far bigger problem is that it's too slow in the wind-up. The first half hour is tortuously slow and the jokes are fairly unfunny (even when allowing for my personality quirks). I understand the film's desire to establish its cast of British "wiggers", but it does so in too languid a pace and it doesn't give quite enough contrast between them and normal society to make this part of the movie entertaining.

Things start picking up when the villains (the evil Deputy Prince Minister and his personal assistant, played with perfect English upper-crust snobbishness by veteran actor Charles Dance and the gorgeous Kate Hedges) are firmly placed in the picture and Ali G. runs his campaign for election to the House of Commons. And by the time Ali G. is dealing with British and global politics, screwing up an audience with the Queen, and proving to be the worst thing for a villain's master plot ever, the film finally obtains the break-neck pace it should have started with. And the jokes are also funnier.

Despite getting better in its second and third acts, the biggest problem with the film is that the character of Ali G. doesn't work very well outside the context it was originally created in. Ali G. originated as a faux reporter who would hold interviews with real politicians and public figures who didn't know they being set up. Ali G. the interviewer generated humor by mocking rap culture stereotypes and confusing people with utter stupidity, a mix that doesn't quite work in this film. Out of his intended context, Ali G. is simply too dumb to be believable or even entertaining, particularly when surrounded by a fairly tame and realistic world.

That said, the actors who belong in that tame and realistic world that Ali G's antics unfold against all perform superbly, and the film works far better for the fact that serious actors like Michael Gambon and the aforementioned Dance and Hedges play their characters straight. But that's still not enough to fully make "Ali G indahouse" worth sitting through. (Check out "Hot Fuzz" for far more effective British satire.)