Werewolf Game, Co-Starring the Late, Great Tony Todd

Obviously, people deeply distrust social media tech companies, if horror movie makers believe the public will accept a company that somewhat resembles Meta kidnapping innocent people to produce a life-and-death dark web survival game. If you are wondering, the evil corporate entity sounds more Meta than X, because of all the references to their AI division. Regardless, their behavior is unambiguously criminal, but apparently, they have been getting away with it for quite a while in Cara Claymore & Jacki Payne’s Werewolf Game, which releases today on VOD.

The “Judge” will explain the rules to the distressed abductees, but viewers who have played the parlor game “Mafia,” also known as “Werewolf,” already know how it works. Two lucky “contestants” are designated werewolves. The rest are villagers. During the night, the two wolves hunt the villagers. By day, the sheep try to identify their hunters, before each fatal elimination vote, resulting in a bullet to the back of the head.

Frankly, nobody (including myself) would be particularly interested in Werewolf Game were it not one of the final films starring the late, great horror legend Tony Todd. It really is a nasty, brutish piece of work. Yet, the violence is eclipsed by the impossibly bad decision-making. Perversely, the villagers constantly vote to eliminate the least dangerous players, including the homeless basket case, who could hardly get out of bed. Very little makes sense, including placing Raymond, a former IT guy with the tech company, into the game.

Of course, Todd has the perfect, malevolent voice for the Judge, but it is rather a shame he must mask up for most of the film. Arguably, the best work comes from Robert Picardo (Star Trek’s holographic doctor), who plays Bill, a former police detective, who at least tries to apply a little deductive reasoning.

Tiananmen Square on TV: The Spirit of Liberty Moon

Lately, Hollywood has been roundly and justifiably criticized for self-censoring to pander to China, but the major studios and networks have never been especially bold addressing the CCP’s human rights abuses. The Tiananmen Square massacre was a huge international story, but you will be hard-pressed to find it turn up as an element in dramatic storylines. As far as we can tell, there have only been Tiananmen-themed episodes of MacGyver (the 1980s one), Psi Factor (technically Canadian), and Touched by an Angel. The latter is not exactly our cup of tea, but fair is fair and credit is due where its deserved. A survivor of the Massacre returns with the show’s three angels in search of her missing daughter in the two-part episode “The Spirit of Liberty Moon,” which airs this Monday and Tuesday mornings on Start TV (whatever that is).

If you’ve never seen this show before, apparently Monica is an angel who takes an active role helping people in need. Tess is her boss, who turns up periodically to give them a nudge and Andrew is the utility angel. In this episode, Jean Chang is a former Chinese dissident living modestly in America, who yearns to reunite with her daughter Liberty Moon, but it is her boss at the toy company, Edward Tanner, whose soul needs saving. Frankly, his obnoxious partner Alex Stella is probably a lost cause.

Tanner and Stella are determined to move their manufacturing to China, for obvious cost reasons. Magically, Monic appears as their Chinese management consultant. Chang happens to be the only Chinese speaker on staff, but she is reluctant to join their trip. With the angel’s coaxing, she explains her story to her bosses. It turns out, both of her parents died as a result of the Cultural Revolution. As an orphan, she took inspiration from what she eventually learned was a picture of the Statue of Liberty.

Eventually, Chang moved to Beijing and married “Gus” Gang, a poet and democracy activist. Unfortunately, he was presumed murdered while conducting a hunger strike on Tiananmen Square. Their friend “George” was caring for their infant daughter during the protests, but they both disappeared by the time Chang returned to their home. Somehow, Monica thinks she can slip Chang through Chinese immigration, which seems like a tall order even for the Archangel Michael, but it is a dramatic necessity to get Chang back to Beijing.

The first episode of this two-parter does a fantastic job integrating flashback and archival footage into the narrative. Referencing the Cultural Revolution as well as the Tiananmen Square massacre earns it bonus points. However, the most pointed material is the brutal depiction of China’s so-called justice system. Viewers should be warned writer Martha Williamson never cops out regarding the CCP’s ruthlessness, which gives the episodes a tragic edge.

She also really leans into the religious aspects of the show’s premise. There is some heavy God talk down the stretch, but you have to respect it for having the courage of its convictions.

The Legion: Why Rome Fell

During the less glorious years of the Roman Empire, the Emperor often promoted favored generals over their more talented colleagues. Thankfully, that sort of politicization of the military never happens here. Regardless, the embittered Gen. Corbulo is convinced Nero should have dispatched him to quell the Armenian uprising rather than his rival, Gen. Paetus. He certainly seems to have a point, since Paetus managed to get his troops precariously boxed in. All the men under Paetus’s command could be wiped out if a rugged centurion cannot reach Corbulo with a request for reinforcements in Jose Magan’s The Legion, which releases today on DVD.

Frankly, it could already be too late, but Pateus is finally willing to swallow his pride and ask Corbulo’s aid, for the sake of his men. The insurgents have blocked off all reasonable lines of communication, so the general’s senior aide-de-camp hatches a desperate plan. Noreno, a loyal half-roman mountain man will scale the ridge their backs are pinned against and then make his way to Syria with an official eating-crow letter for Corbulo, whose hands are otherwise tied, per Nero’s orders.

Of course, Noreno only sets off with two comrades to cover him and they are quickly dispatched. However, Noreno is made of sturdier stuff. He keeps plodding through snowy mountains and parched deserts. Yet, somehow his pursuers always to get ahead of him, while staying fresh as daisies.

There is an awful lot of Noreno trudging through snow in this movie. It will remind MST3K fans of the bots’ “rock-climbing” commentary for The Lost Continent. Generally speaking, that isn’t what a film should be going for. Unfortunately, long stretches of this short film really are a tough slog to get through.

Still, there is one part when the film suddenly perks up. During his unending march, Noreno finds shelter with “Saul,” a Christian convert transparently implied to be Paul the Apostle. Irish thesp Bosco Hogan is terrific as Saul, making us wonder how he was never cast in Game of Thrones. As for ostensive lead Lee Partridge, he has the right physicality for all of Noreno’s climbing and occasional fighting, but Magan never gives him much opportunity to display any real acting chops.

Maximum Impact: The FSB and the Secret Service, Working Together

You would think the U.S. Secret Service would more likely deal with the Russian Federal Protective Service (FSO) than the FSB, the cosmetically revamped successor to the KGB, if it were tasked with protecting a top secret summit in Moscow. However, the FSB needs more good press, so Russian D-minus-list action star Alexander Nevsky duly plays a FSB agent in his latest outing. This time, he gets to partner up with Kelly Hu, but she can’t redeem Andrzej Bartkowiak’s Maximum Impact (trailer here), which opens today in select theaters.

Maxim Kadurin is built like a tank, but he is actually a FSB computer jockey supporting the deceptively small of stature Andrei Durov, a.k.a. “The Hammer from Hell.” However, a concussion forces the agents to swap roles right before the arrival of the American Secretary of State for a double-secret gab session with his counterpart. However, Sec. Jacobs’ granddaughter Brittany manages to stowaway on the State Department plane, so she can rendezvous with her internet flirtation, a Russian boy band idol.

When Kadurin foils an assassination attempt, the shticky pack of fedora wearing villains fall back on an improvised plan B: kidnapping the granddaughter. Since the two airheaded kids are weirdly competent at avoiding detection, it leads to much certainty regarding her status and safety. Fearing the worst, Kadurin and Secret Service Agent Kate Desmond to find and secure the wayward granddaughter before their bosses know she is missing.

Nevsky might be well-connected in Russia (he also represents the country in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association), but his films just are not catching on anywhere else. To be fair, Showdown in Manila is not terrible, but Black Rose was just a lifeless mess. He is not totally unlikable on-screen, but comedy is clearly a challenge for him. That is a real problem, because the jokes and gags are much higher in Impact’s mix than it was for his prior films.

Kelly Hu gets to do a lot of kick-boxing to the extent of almost eclipsing Nevsky as the film’s primary action lead. On the other hand, she has to suffer the indignity of a bleach blond bowl-cut disguise. However, that is nothing compared to humiliating shtick forced on Mark Dacascos, playing Tony Lin, a former Z-list TV star now fronting the gang of mercenaries. However, there is plenty of additional embarrassment to go around, including Tom Arnold playing a senior Secret Service agent obsessed with his prostate and Bai Ling as Scanlon, the over-sexed Under-Secretary for Security. Only Eric Roberts seems to glide through unfazed as Sec. Jacobs.

Take it from someone who appreciates a scrappy B-movie: this is just a bad film. It is more like an employment project for Nevsky’s contacts than something anyone should actually watch. As a cinematographer, Bartkowiak shot classics like The Verdict and Prizzi’s Honor, but his work as a director has been less auspicious. Yet, in this case, most of the creative decisions were most likely out of his control. Not recommended, Maximum Impact opens somewhere today (9/28) and hits VOD next Tuesday (10/2).

Asian World ’17: Lord of Shanghai

In the early Twentieth Century, Shanghai was an open city and a divided city. According to Hong Ying’s source novel, fugitives could enter the front door of Madam Xin’s brothel from Qing controlled territory and exit through the back door into the French Concession. Pedantic spoil sports argue this was geographically impossible, but it captures the chaotic nature of the times. Xiao Yuegui (a.k.a. Cassia) was sold into the brothel as a mere servant girl, but she will become a major player in the city’s power games during the course of Sherwood Hu’s Lord of Shanghai (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Asian World Film Festival.

Since Cassia’s feet were never bound, Madam Xin considers her only fit for scrubbing floors. However, both “Lord” Chang Lixiong, leader of Shanghai’s most powerful Triad and Song, the venal regional Qing military commander would beg to differ. Fortunately for Cassia, Lord Chang wins that battle, becoming her protector and eventually lover, while ironically boarding her in Madam’s Xin’s. He and Song also disagree over the revolution. After a long flirtation, Lord Chang has formally aligned himself with the Republican cause, whereas Song naturally seeks to protect the source of his power.

When the revolutionary envoy, Huang Peiyu rescues Cassia from Song’s goons, it forges even closer ties between Lord Chang and Huang’s faction. In fact, when Lord Chang is murdered, Huang succeeds him as the new Lord of Shanghai. However, the circumstances of his death were somewhat murky, as Cassia will discover. By that point, she has become the toast of the Shanghai opera world and Huang’s companion-lover, in a case of history repeating itself.

Lord is a ripping good period piece that probably boasts more brothel scenes than a season of Game of Thrones, but of course, few naughty parts to speak of. Basically, think of it as Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai with Kung Fu and gun fights.

Hu Jun is terrific as Lord Chang. Frankly, he looks ten or fifteen years older than he has in hits like As the Lights Go Out, but he wears the advanced maturity well. As the tandem of adolescent and adult Cassia, Li Meng and Yu Nan could practically pass for the same person. It is kind of spooky. They also do a nice job of tracking Cassia’s development into forceful woman, who takes responsibility for her own destiny. Qin Hao seems uncomfortable with Huang’s swagger, but seriously how much fun is it to watch Bai Ling vamp it up as Madam Xin?

Lord is loaded with action and scandal, but for some reason it underperformed at the Mainland box office, leaving the already completed sequel in an uncertain position. We can clearly see where its headed, but the first film ends at a fully satisfying juncture. Although it is more stylistically conventional, the two-part adaptation of Hong’s novel clearly represents another ambitious production from Hu, whose Tibetan Hamlet, Prince of the Himalayas is truly a visual stunner. Highly recommended for fans of action-driven historicals, Lord of Shanghai screens this Tuesday (10/31), as part of the 2017 Asian World Film Festival, in Culver City.

The Lost Empire: Shock the Monkey King

Media experts have observed China’s latest round of censorship guidelines would most likely prevent further adaptations of China’s most celebrated novel, Wu Cheng’en’s Journey to the West, if they were duly applied, since they prohibit subjects involving superstition, reincarnation, vengeance, and most forms of the fantastical. Where would that leave Chinese film and TV? Pretty damn impoverished. Sadly, this Western non-adaptation might sort of make their case. Xuanzang is gone (too religious), replaced by a Western scholar, but don’t bother getting worked up about whitewashing. The problems run deeper than that in the miniseries The Lost Empire (a.k.a. The Monkey King, trailer here), directed by Peter MacDonald, which releases today on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment.

Nicholas Orton is a Sinophile-scholar reduced to hustling business consulting gigs in China. Journey to the West is fiction in his world, but its example has inspired China and all of mankind to greatness. Unfortunately, poor old Author Wu does not currently see it that way. For centuries, the brainwashed scribe has been held captive in the Heavenly realm by the demonic Five Masters, who would remove all traces of his novel, just as they tried to do when they possessed Ming era censors. Alas, few in the Heavenly realm understand the book’s merits, besides Kwan Ying, the love goddess. She half-tricks the bedazzled Orton into journeying into her world to save Wu’s disintegrating original manuscript.

Right from the start, the romantic tension between goddess and mortal is hot and heavy, but not so with Orton’s teacher, the newly freed Sun Wukong, a.k.a. the Monkey King. Of course, Pigsy and “Friar” Sand will soon join their merry band. Their challenge will be to convince the heavenly Jade Emperor to save the last remaining copy of Journey in the ethereal realm, in order to preserve it in our world as well.  Inconveniently, the duplicitous Confucius has rigged the proceedings in favor of the Five Masters and Kwan Ying is losing her powers, because she is following for the incredibly white-bread Orton.

The idea that censorship could be the earthly and cosmic Macguffin for our heroes to overcome is actually quite provocative. Presumably, that was the chief contribution of screenwriter David Henry Hwang, the well-regarded playwright of M. Butterfly fame. So much of Lost Empire is just too cheesy for words, but we can’t blame him for the chintzy special effects. They must be unspeakably painful for MacDonald to watch, considering he helmed Rambo III and did second unit work on blockbusters like The Empire Strikes Back and Superman.

Thomas Gibson has carved out a surprisingly long career on network television by being stiff and waspy, but it makes him a woefully underwhelming romantic hero. Russell Wong’s monkeyisms cause plenty of wincing, but the really embarrassing shtick comes from Eddie Marsan’s Pigsy and Ric Young’s horrifyingly prissy Confucius. Somehow, Bai Ling earns credit in the real Heaven for trying to elevate the film with her surprisingly warm (but wasted) portrayal of Kwan Ying and Kabir Bedi’s distinctive voice makes Friar Sand, unusually commanding. (“Sandy” is always the tricky Journey to the West character. Sometimes he is sand-like, other times not.)

Frankly, it is pretty lame they could not fit Xuanzang into the narrative, but maybe it is just as well for him. Journey to the West survived this miniseries and it will survive Xi-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed’s current censorship strictures. If you want a family-friendly introduction to Sun Wukong, check out the animated films, The Monkey King—Uproar in Heaven and Monkey King: Hero is Back, but skip The Lost Empire when it releases today on DVD.

HFF ’15: The Key

Tackling a novel previously adapted by the great Kon Ichikawa and the notorious Tinto Brass ought to intimidate most filmmakers. Arguably, Ichikawa was perfectly suited to convey the psychological complexity of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s The Key, whereas Brass has a strong handle on its sexual content. Jumping in with both feet where wiser directors might fear to tread, Jefery Levy reconceives it as a dreamlike fantasia, with generous nods to silent era cinema. Prepare yourself for the overload of visual stylization in Levy’s The Key (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Hollywood Film Festival.

Despite erroneous online references, Tanizaki did not win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but one of the most prestigious Japanese literary awards is named in his honor, so he is still important. To convey the epistolary nature of Tanizaki’s novel, most of the film is relayed through the voice-over narration of a dysfunctional married couple writing in their respective journals. They have basically have one thing on their minds, especially Jack.

It is safe to say Jack is way more into Ida than vice versa. As the film opens, Jack resents her frigidity, even while reproaching himself for being an inadequate lover. Ida largely confirms his unsatisfactory skills, but claims to have mixed feelings about him overall. After all, they live in opulent splendor, nestled in the Hollywood Hills. They also have a grown daughter who still lives on the estate, resenting Jack for being weak and her mother for being more beautiful than her.

Knowing they both keep diaries, Jack and Ida each deliberately write assuming the other reading, while making a show of not stooping to such an invasive low themselves—or so they claim. Exploiting Ida’s fondness for wine, Jack starts regularly exploiting her during the stupors he encourages, yet he half-suspects she might actually be conscious and passing judgement the entire time. To indulge his emotional masochism, he also pushes her into having an affair with his young assistant Kim (a dude, whose name is derived from Kimura).

If you enjoy deliberate over-exposure, faux distressed film stock, and the juxtaposition of color and black-and-white cinematography, than The Key just might be your aesthetic ideal. However, if you would prefer a smooth viewing experience, The Key will drive you to distraction with its never ending trick bag of visual distortions and pretentiously arty camera angles. Levy and cinematographer William MacCollum are not exactly Orson Welles and Gregg Toland, but there is something tragically compelling about their over-reaching ambition.

Sadly, Levy takes Tanizaki’s celebrated novel and turns it into purple prose. Still, somehow David Arquette and Bai Ling deliver their narration with level voices, in all scrupulous earnestness. Frankly, Ling has some surprisingly potent moments, giving a hint of what she might have done had better roles been available when she first made a name for herself. She also has absolutely no fear or self-consciousness when it comes to playing Ida’s more physically and psychologically revealing sequences. In contrast, the awkward Arquette never looks right as the dissipated Jack, sticking out like Deputy Dewey in his straight dramatic scenes.

The Key could be considered the Calvin Klein commercial Guy Maddin never made. It fancies itself an avant-garde exploration of sexuality and codependency, but it has the maturity of Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Almost worth seeing just to confirm it exists, The Key screens this Sunday (9/27), as part of this year’s Hollywood Film Festival.

6 Ways to Die: Vinnie Jones Explains Them All

Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder knew there were eight million ways to die, but Vinnie Jones only gets six. At least he will make full use of each of them. He will not merely kill his nemesis, Sonny “Sundown” Garcia, he will target the drug lord’s reputation, money, loved ones, sentimental attachments, and his very liberty. However, narrative logic will be the first casualty of Nadeem Soumah’s 6 Ways to Die (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

“John Doe” has it in for Garcia. He has his reasons, but he is very Picard about it all, never setting foot from his old school Oldsmobuick. Somehow, he gets some of the Los Angeles underworld’s most talented to come to him. He needs their skills to torment Garcia and his valuable inside knowledge will make it worth their while. It would seem that they will succeed spectacularly, since it is all told in a bizarre flashback structure. Oh sure, there is a big reveal that changes everything, but it makes absolutely no sense.

Still, 6 Ways offers an opportunity to watch a veritable B–movie all-star team at work. For the starting line-up we have Jones, Bai Ling, Dominique Swain, Vivica A. Fox, and Tom Sizemore. Most of them have real roles to play, but Sizemore appears in a completely tangential prologue. It looks like Soumah had only one day of shooting with him, so he just improvised something on the fly. In reserve, 6 Ways also features Chris Jai Alex and Kinga Philipps, who maybe aren’t so familiar, but have volumes of imdb credits already.

There are times you have to ask just what does this movie think its doing, but not in a resentful way. You sort of have to give it credit for being a grubby striver. It is determined to impress us by riding its bike with no hands, no matter how many times it wipes out on the pavement.

With no action scenes whatsoever, Jones is completely wasted as the mystery man and his role in the big twist defies the evidence of our senses. However, Alex shows real B-movie star power as Frank Casper, the hitman. Bai Ling also adds some serious cool as high class con artist June Lee. Unfortunately, Michael Rene Walton is way too reserved and colorless for a ruthless heavy like Garcia. Fortunately, chewing the scenery is not a problem for Fox, who vamps it up something fierce as the corrupt cop, Veronica Smith.

Soumah has seen way too much Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez for his own good. The resulting product is overly clever and then some. That said, if you enjoy watching B-movie veterans doing B-movie things, 6 Ways will be a satisfying guilty pleasure when it streams on Netflix (which should be imminently). In the short term, it opens this Friday (7/31) in New York, at the Cinema Village.