Dir - Eiichi Yamamoto
Overall: GOOD
The last in Mushi Production's Animerama trilogy, (all of which were directed by Eiichi Yamamoto), Belladonna of Sadness, (Kanashimi no Beradonna), is a striking combination of Faustian pacts, medieval savagery, women's suffrage, psychedelic aesthetics, and violent adult imagery. Concocting a narrative out of Jules Michelet's 1862 text Satanism and Witchcraft which depicted the alleged uprising of occult practices as being linked to peasant rebellion against the Roman Catholic Church and the feudal system, it is an unflinching and continuously surreal trek into class struggle, particularly that of women who were brutalized more than their male counterparts. Depicted in a combination of traditional animation and still watercolor paintings, (which were inspired by Art Nouveau painters with a distinct Japanese leniency), the images alone are evocative, which is a plus since the story is threadbare. As the doomed lower class lovers Jeanne and Jean suffer hardship after hardship, the kingdom is threatened by the former farmer's maiden long before she gives into Satanic temptation which grants her power and influence. The soundtrack uses a combination of avant-garde jazz and lush vocal melodies, and even if its depictions of rape and misogyny prove too heavy for some pallets, it remains a captivating watch.
(1975)
Dir - Chun-Ku Lu/Wen-Po Tu
Overall: MEH
A Hong Kong/Philippines co-production that combines the jungle savage and black magic sub-genres, The Magic Curse, (Cui hua du jiang tou), is silly business and one of the more absurd romance stories in any such movie. Different directors were credited with the finished result, and the cast is a mixed bag of busy actors from various Asian countries. While nobody here does particularly exceptional work, it achieves its exploitative value well enough. Jason Pai Piao goes to look for both his uncle and jewels in the treacherous island of Borneo, runs into a cackling bad guy wizard, also runs into a scantily-clad lady wizard, and said lady puts a curse on him when he returns to the mainland that if he sticks his ding-a-ling in any other woman, than that woman will die a horrible death. Of course Piao cannot keep it in his pants, so a few unfortunate one night stands get killed by snakes and supernatural winds, then the whole thing ends with an anticlimactic magical showdown back in Borneo. The pacing is all over the place, sometimes edited to smithereens and sometimes slow enough to put a PCP-ridden horse to sleep, but its nudity, misogyny, and mean-spirited nature should do the trick for trash fans.
(1977)
Dir - Ho Meng-hua
Overall: MEH
Drugs were apparently in the air when the Shaw Brothers decided to cash-in on Dino De Laurentiis' King Kong remake by also throwing disco and a female Tarzan into the mix. The resulting The Mighty Pecking Man, (Xīngxing Wáng, Goliathon), is a camp-heavy watch and idiotic by design, but it is at least amusingly terrible. Zero effort was put into the plot since it does the only thing that movies like this can ever think to do, which is to venture into the remote jungle, find a giant beast, and bring him back to civilization so people can gawk at it and it can inevitably break free and run amok. Clearly none of the moronic characters in this movie ever saw the original King Kong. The addition of Evelyne Kraft as a feral woman who grew up into a blonde bombshell with make-up and no body hair is the differentiating factor here, but even that plays into the same ole tropes where the big Abominable Snowman gorilla is infatuated with her to the point where he goes on a rampage once witnessing a cartoonishly sleazy businessman raping her. Because rape is the one thing that every kid-friendly kaiju movie needs. The monster looks stupid and the miniature and rear projection work is silly, but the subpar special effects are at least done on an elaborate scale, especially in the destruction-fueled finale which again because lazy, of course ends with the title monkey climbing the city's tallest building so that the military can throw explosions at it.
No comments:
Post a Comment