'Sister Street Fighter': The cutest girl to ever kick ass

Sister Street Fighter (1978)
Starring: Sue Shiomi, Masashi Ishibashi, Emi Hayakawa, and Sonny Chiba
Director: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When her older brother goes missing while on an undercover assignment for the Hong Kong police, teenaged martial arts prodigy Tina Long (Shiomi) travels to Japan where the drug-ring he was investigating is headquartered in the hopes of finding him. Her search brings her into conflict with dozens of martial artists in the employ of the gangsters, including the deadly Hammerhead (Ishibashi), a sworn foe of her brother. One young girl can't possibly prevail against such an array of evil, so she is joined by two Japanese martial artists (Chiba and Hayakawa) who, although belonging to a Karate school that espouses pacifism, kicks ass every bit as efficiently as Tina.

"Sister Street Fighter" is an immensely amusing and entertaining martial arts film. Sue Shiomi is quite possibly the cutest ass-kicker this side of anime. Like most actors in chop-socky movies from this period, she actually knows how to fight... and the extended battle scenes are all the more entertaining for it.

Another aspect of the film I found entertaining was the downright weirdness of it all. Although Tina is on a serious quest and fighting some very deadly enemies, the film has a cartoonish (and later video-gameish) quality to it that starts when she sets foot in Japan and feeds flies she skewers on toothpicks to drunken sailors who harass her, and continues through to the film's final battle royale. We have villains with odd quirks and signature weapons or outfits, we have trap doors that Tina just happens to stand on, we have gravity-defying leaps and martial arts moves, and we have distinct "encounter areas" where Tina faces bad guys that get progressively tougher and more bizarre.

The film also has a very little plot to get in the way of the fight scenes. The reason the bad guys go after Tina is flimsy in the extreme, and the ability she seems to have to pop up where needed (not to mention survive certain death) isn't explained, and the film moves so fast that the viewer doesn't really care. This is one movie where a lack of logic actually works!

This is not to say that the film might at one point featured a more logical, less video-game like story progression. The cut I viewed, which by all accounts is the standard North American release, had been subjected to some fairly obvious editing. Tina's first fight with Hammerhead starts in a forested area by a fence, but one jump-cut later, they are suddenly on cliffs by the sea--a chase or the beginning of the fight is clearly missing. Several gory deaths and a very unpleasant rape scene have also been truncated or completely cut from the film. These clumsy edits have probably gone a long way to making the movie seem as cartoonish as it is. (I suspect Tina's amazing survival after falling from a rope-bridge is actually explained in a version of the film somewhere out there.)

If you want to see one of the cutest martial artists to ever grace the silver screen in her first starring role--and aren't particularly bothered by logical lapses--I recommend checking out this movie.

I do want to caution those of you who might be interested in "Sister Street Fighter" because you believe it to be part of Sonny Chiba's "Street Fighter" series. The title and even the film's credits would lead you to believe that it is... and I've seen more than one online movie reviewer make a similar claim. However, the truth is that this film has nothing to do with Chiba's "Street Fighter" movies. Yes, the share several actors, including Chiba, but Chiba does not play Takuma "Terry" Tsurugi. Further, the tone of this film is completely different than the grittiness found in the Street Fighter movies... they are filled with outlandish violence, but they still feel more down-to-earth than the cartoony vibe that pervades "Sister Street Fighter". (In fact, this film was the first entry in an entirely separate series of martial arts movies that focused on Shiomi as Tina.)

'The Specialist' isn't very special

The Specialist (1975)
Starring: Adam West, John Anderson, Ahna Capri, Marlene Schmidt, Howard Avedis, Harvey Jason, and Alvy Moore
Director: Hikmet Avedis
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A small-town attorney/political strongman (Anderson) sets out to discredit and crush a young attorney (West) who has not only set up practice in "his town," but has also stolen away one of his clients. His plan involves framing him for jury tampering using an out-of-town "specialist" (Capri)... whose specialty is seducing men.

This is a film that is a failure in almost every way. It's got a weak script that keeps drifting between being comedy to being courtroom drama to being suspense to half-assed attempts at soft-core porn, and failing utterly to succeed even in the slightest way at any of those genres. It's also indifferently filmed and flatly directed, with techniques that seem to emphasize the cheapness of the production rather than gloss over it.

But neither of those are really what damns this film to a low Three Rating, although they certainly play a part. No, it's the performance, as well as the character portrayed, by Ahna Capri, a buxom actress who enjoyed a long and successful career as a supporting player on television shows from age 13 in 1956 through her retirement from the profession in 1979. Simply put, while Capri is unquestionably beautiful, she doesn't have the screen presence to make one believe that a happily married, extremely intelligent, and extremely canny lawyer would be so dazzled by her charms to risk marriage and career just because she batted her eyes at him. While Capri certainly is attractive enough to be a "specialist" in the arena where "every body has a price" (to quote the film's tagline), the situation in this film is so unbelievable--or maybe just poorly and thinly written--that even the most willing suspension of disbelief can't make it work.

And then there's the fact it has one of the worst endings I've ever been subjected to. While it's kinda-sorta set up earlier in the film, it still feels completely unsatisfying and so badly motivated that one wonders if it didn't come about by Adam West saying, "Look, my contract says I'm DONE with this shoot in 20 minutes... and believe me, I am going to be DONE and all of you are going to be in my review mirror in 25 minutes!"

I guess it says something about the film's watchability that I got to the end, but the only reasons for that was a hope that it was about to get better every time it shifted genres, the fact that Adam West is almost always entertaining, and a rather nice bit of acting from former Miss Germany Marlene Schmidt as West's fiercely devoted wife. Schmidt was like a shining light in the darkness whenever she appeared on screen, giving a far better performance than this film deserved.

'Infernal Street' is not worth visiting

Infernal Street (1973)
Starring: Yui Tin-Lung and Feng Chang
Director: Chiang Shen
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

When a doctor in rural northern China starts a program at his health clinic to help opium addicts kick the habit, the local Japanese crime syndicate decides to shut him down. They didn't count on his hotheadeded young assistant (who also happens to be a kick-ass martial artist) who hates drugs as much as he hates the Japanese.

"Infernal Street" is an obscure martial arts flick that is deserving of obscurity. It's got a badly conceived script with bad guys who love violence as much as they love nonsensical, overly complicated schemes (like the one where they frame Our Hero for murder, only to have fake cops arrest him and take him to their headquarters). The terrible voice actors in the dubbed version included in the "Martial Arts" pack only make an already bad film worse.

The only two things "Infernal Street" has going for it are the decent martial arts fights and a fairly charismatic male lead who is interesting to watch. These elements keep the film from sinking to a rating of 3, but only just. This film is nothing but filler in this set, and it's one you can save until after you've watched the good ones.

One of Bruce Lee's best efforts

The Chinese Connection (aka "Fist of Fury") (1972)
Starring: Bruce Lee, James Tien, Nora Miao, and Riki Hashimoto
Director: Lo Wei
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A martial arts student (Lee) goes on a murderous rampage against a corrupt Japanese martial arts dojo to avenge the death of his teacher and the loss of honor to his school.

"The Chinese Connection" is one of the best martial arts movies and revenge flicks ever made. There is no Wire Fu, no trick photography, and no stunt doubles standing in for the lead actor. Also, while the viewer shares in the hero's brutal revenge against the Japanese scum-dogs, there is never any doubt throughout the picture that Bruce Lee's character Chen is giving up his soul and lowering himself to the level of those he has set out to destroy. When Chen's quest for revenge reaches its inevitable conclusion--with the destruction not only of his enemies but also himself--we've been treated to a well-crafted polemic against racism and cycles of revenge and violence.

Like so many Chinese movies of its day, this one features Japanese villains of the darkest and most vile sort, but unlike most of the others, this movie takes a more complex stand than just "Japanese Bad and Perverted, Chinese Good and Virtuous". And this makes it an imminently watchable movie, even in this day and age of overly hysterical attitudes toward portrayals of racism and bigotry in fiction and movies.

The superior quality of the story and the great acting performances not only from Bruce Lee but every single member of the cast are such that they can even overcome one of the very worst dubbing jobs I've experienced since renting my first Kung Fu movies with friends from the local grocery store some 30 years ago. Not only was the English tortured in many cases, but the entire cast was dubbed by what may have been one single actor. Lee's voice characterized as laughably deep, and he did the women by speaking in a high-pitched falsetto, while everyone in between sounded roughly similar to one another.

But, even with the eccentric dubbing, this was a very entertaining film. The fight scenes are cool and fast-moving, and Lee's methods for stalking and killing the students and hirelings of the Japanese dojo were amusing and a little scary at the same time. But always, ultimately mercilessly brutal.

"The Chinese Connection" was Bruce Lee's second feature film, and it rightly solidified him as an international superstar. If he had continued to involve himself with such high quality projects as this one, he would have gone onto becoming a movie legend of a stature that not even Jackie Chan managed to achieve. Action movie lovers truly lost out when an allergic relation to an over-the-counter medication killed Lee in 1973, but at least he left us with a small number of great films. Including this one, which is so great that not even pathetic dubbing can ruin it.

Bruce Lee explodes with 'Fists of Fury'

Fists of Fury (aka "The Big Boss") (1971)
Starring: Bruce Lee, James Tien, Maria Yi, Ying-Chieh Han, and Tso Chen
Director: Wei Lo
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Country-boy Cheng (Lee) travels to the city to live with relatives and to take a job at an ice factory. But the business is a front for vicious drug smugglers, and when his friends and family start to run afoul their evil, Cheng must choose to join them or fight them. Either choice will cost him dearly.

"Fists of Fury" is the of four films that legendary actor and martial artist Bruce Lee made in Hong Kong, and it's the one that made him an international super-star. While some parts of the film haven't weathered the passage of four decades since its release very well, one can still understand why it was such a big hit in its day. One can also enjoy it tremendously if one likes well-crafted martial arts films.

First, the film's modern setting would have been a startling change of pace for movie audiences as this was the first martial arts film to be set in modern times. Secondly, the film presents a number of surprising twists as it unfolds, not the least of which is the surprising death of a major supporting character who was neck-in-neck with Lee's character to be the film's main hero... not to mention the shocking massacre of virtually every other supporting character as the film heads toward its climax, as well as the climax itself (which is one of the most successfully executed downer endings I've ever witnessed in an action movie). Finally, there are the two set-piece martial arts battles of the film that remain thrilling to this day... fight sequences that are equally good showcases for Bruce Lee's fighting skills and his charm as an actor.

Speaking of Bruce Lee's acting skills and charm, they are both what carry the film through its slow first half, particularly during the clumsy attempts at levity and/or scenes designed to show the camaraderie between the factory workers that probably were unique to the 1970s audiences who were used to martial arts melodramas set during various historical periods in China but who had never experienced one taking place "down the street". Lee outshines everyone he shares the screen with, with the exception of James Tien. Tien shared Lee's good looks and on-screen radiance, so they are believable as buddies during the film's early part. (Tien would go onto appear in Lee's other Hong Kong movies as well.)

Lee's acting skills are also what makes the film's climax so moving and effective. As brutal and shocking as the violence in the fights at the factory and on the lawn in front of the Big Boss's house are, it is the way Lee effective portrays the shock that gives way to rage when he discovers the dual secrets of the ice factory, followed by the horror when he later realizes that he had only seen the tiniest sliver of the Big Boss's depravity. The sense of resignation and defeat in victory that Lee exudes during the film's final moments also demonstrate strongly how tragic it was that he was to die a mere two years later with much promise unfulfilled.

'Medusa' is a twisted crime drama full of quirky characters

Medusa (1973)
Starring: George Hamilton, Luciana Paluzzi, Cameron Mitchell, Theodor Rambow, and Takis Kavouras
Direector: Gordon Hessler
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Jeffrey (Hamilton) is a drunken playboy living in Greece and whooping it up like the quintessential Ugly American. However, when word gets out that a last minute change to their father's will might leave Jeffrey and Sarah penniless, Jeffrey's life takes a turn for the serious, as a local mobbed-up casino owner (Mitchell) starts squeezing him to settle his $170K+ debts, and a mysterious strangler starts following him around, killing everyone connected with the rumored will. Is this masked killer real, or simply a figment Jeffrey's cracked mind?


"Medusa" is an offbeat crime drama that, despite an excess of padding in the form of Greeks singing, dancing, throwing plates, and otherwise behaving as though they're in an "Official Production of the Greek Travel and Tourism Department," is a fun and entertaining ride. Its populated by quirky characters, many of whom have an almost classic film-noir sense about them, such as the omni-present, nameless homicide detective (Kavouras) and Mitchell's health-nut gangster. In fact, I think Mitchell may well give the best performance of his career in this film.

Hamilton also gives the best performance I think I've ever seen from him--and while that may sound like I'm damning with faint praise, I'm not. I've always seen him as a comedic actor, and while he certainly plays a goofball here, he plays a dangerous, crazy goofball... and the menace oozes from his glittering smile when the scene calls for it.

In fact, this film was good enough that I almost feel inclined to forgive Gordon Hessler for the awful piece of crap that was "Scream and Scream Again".

'High Anxiety' is a Mel Brooks masterpiece

High Anxiety (1977)
Starring: Mel Brooks, Madeline Khan, Harvey Korman, and Cloris Leachman
Director: Mel Brooks
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When psychiatrist Richard Thorndyke (Brooks) takes a new job as director of the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous, he finds that something is amiss. Before he can take action, he is framed for murder and set on the run. In order to clear his name, he must face his own neurotic condition, "high anxiety."


In "High Anxiety", one of cinema's greatest satirists takes on the works of Alfred Hitchcock, and he does so beautifully. In theory, this should be a movie that doesn't work, because making a satire of a body of work that's already rich in comedy--Hitchcock's movies mostly mix suspense and humor in near equal amounts--but Brooks manages to deliver a film that keeps viewers chuckling, giggling, and issuing full belly laughs in order to clear his name. Fans of Hitchcock will be laughing especially loudly and consistently, as Brooks not only offers spot-on spoofs of some of Hitchcock's most famous scenes, but provides affectionate mockery of many of his most-used stylistic flourishes. (And when Brooks isn't spoofing Hitchcock, he's delivering random insanity, such as Leachman's Nazi nurse character.)

And then there's the catchy tune of the theme song. Some twenty years after first seeing the film, the melody still stuck with me, and now that I've heard it again, it'll probably be in my head for days. (I find myself humming it as I type this review!) It's also nifty how it gets used in Bernard Hermann music score parodies in the film, too.

Lovers of well-done satires should get a big laugh out of this suspense movie spoof, and fans of Hitchcock's work absolutely must see this loving send-up.



For reviews of some of Hitchcock's actual films, click here for the ones I've reviewed at the Shades of Gray blog. (For ones reviewed here, click on the Alfred Hitchcock tag at the bottom of this post.)

You can read reviews of other Mel Brooks films by clicking here to Cinema Steve, the hub for all my review blogs.

'Ninja Heat' is 100% Ninja Free!

Ninja Heat (1978 (?))
Starring: Chan Sheng, Chan Wai Mang, Sze Ming, YuYang, Shan Qu, Tse Yuen, and Fong Lam
Directors: Lo Mar and Leung Siu Chang
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Released after spending six years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, a martial arts expert and his brother take revenge on the men who framed him (not to mention killed his mother, raped his girlfriend, and probably shaved all the hair off his dog).


"Ninja Heat" is a straight-forward revenge flick that follows the two brothers as they track down the men on their "Black List" and beat them to death one by one. The film is so straight forward that it doesn't even bother with the standard twists, including one that seemed so clearly telegraphed I was pleasently surprised when it never materialized.

With a cinematic style that leans heavily on Sergio Leone (of all people), well-choreographed and filmed fight and chase scenes, and more melodrama than I think I've ever experienced crammed into a single movie (EVERY bad guy had a drawn-out death scene, and most got to have flashbacks as they died... seeing their wifes or girlfriends and regretting their lives of crime in their last moments), and a nice music soundtrack with a catchy main theme that, like the look of the film, seems like it belongs in a Sergio Leone movie, I think those who like the low-tech, gritty martial arts features from the late 1970s and early 1980s will enjoy this movie.

It has one problem: There are no Ninja anywhere to be seen in this movie! Maybe "Ninja Heat" refers to the weather that makes so many of the characters in this movie sweat more profusely than a fat man chained on a runaway treadmill?

Or maybe the Ninjas are there, but they're hiding really, REALLY well! (That might make sense. There might be obscure Ninja Secrets that are hidden within this film... it would explain why it's so obscure that it doesn't even have a listing at Internet Movie Database, nor at Rotten Tomatoes. I can't even find any other reviews of the film out there! Could this be the Ninja equivalent of "The DaVinci Code"?!)

If you've seen this movie (it's included in the "Martial Arts 50-Movie Pack" and a few other multipacks) and if you have an idea of what its "aka" may be, I'd love to know. It's not a bad little little movie (even if it is 100% Ninja Free), so it's surprsing to me that it' so completely obscure as far as the Web goes.





(Programming Note: The lack of Ninja in this film will be made up for in November with Nine Days of the Ninja. Mark it on your calendar, and perhaps even consider posting a few reviews of Ninja movies of your own!)

Why does that 'one last job' never goes well?

The Squeeze (aka "Diamond Thieves", "Gretchko", "The Rip-Off" and "The Heist") (1978)
Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Karen Black, Edward Albert, and Lionel Stander
Director: Antonio Margheriti (or Anthony M. Dawson, depending on source)
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Chris Gretchko (Van Cleef), legendary but long-retired safe cracker comes out of retirement to help the son of an old friend (Albert) who needs to steal some diamonds for German gangsters to extract himself from trouble. He's barely arrived in New York City before the crossing and double-crossing begins and "the simple job" starts spinning out of control.

"The Squeeze" is a pretty straight-forward crime drama, with a couple of surprising twists--surprising because most of the movie is so by the numbers that what might seem like a mild twist in other movies is quite surprising in this one. Still, the script is well-paced, the complications arising on cue, and the revelations of the various double-crosses, lies, and deceptions undertaken by the various characters are all handled well.

The cast are all good, with Van Cleef (cool-beyond-cool, as usual, but in a role that fit his age... he was obviously a sensible actor who didn't try to hang onto the youthful tough guy parts past the due date) and Black (as a studiously ditzy New Yorker who ends up as Van Cleef's helper) being particularly excellent. The film, however, is severely crippled by a soundtrack that is so 1979 and low-budget Italian that it's painful. (There are also, if comments on www.imdb.com can be believed, some really badly edited pan-and-scan prints of this one floating around; the version I saw was in excellent shape, and can be found in the Brentwood DVD four-pack "Perfect Heists", along with three other classic heist movies.)

If you can be sure you're not getting a chopped-up print, I think this is a fairly enjoyable film... it's not great, but it's good enough.

When Harry Met Affirmative Action

The Enforcer (1976)
Starring: Clint Eastwood and Tyne Daly
Director: James Fargo
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When a terrorist group attempts to blackmail San Francisco with bombings, murders, and ultimately by kidnapping the mayor, even the unorthodox methods of Police Inspector Harry Callahan (Eastwood) might not be enough to overcome both the bad guys and the touchy-feely approach of the "new" San-Fran city government.


In "The Enforcer", the real-world San Francisco finally seems to catch up with Dirty Harry, as he spends as much time fighting against style-over-substance politics as he does tracking down the villains. Although the bad guys here are not up to the standards set by the first two movies--they may be more violent, but they're no where near as sinister--this movie is a vast improvement over "Magnum Force", not only because it actually has a well-focused storyline, but also because the character of Harry comes off as multi-faceted... and, for that matter, a true believer in justice and equality. From his interactions with black militants to his approach to his new female partner (Daly) who has been foisted on him in the name of women's-lib, Harry shows a constant willingness to accept anyone who proves themselves worthy of his trust and respect.

Like previous "Dirty Harry" movies, this film is blessed with excellent camera work and a great cast. In addition, the script is excellent, with the rookie homicide detective who gets promoted just because she's a woman, but who shows she definitely has the chops, being a great character (as well as a source of some of the film's more humorous moments.) What's more, out of all the films in the series, this is the one where Harry Callahan comes across the strongest and most likable. This is why the film has one of the saddest endings I think I've ever seen to a cop drama.

So, despite somewhat weakly realized foes for our gun-toting, morally unbendable homicide detective, "The Enforcer" stands as the second-best film in the "Dirty Harry" series.

Dirty Harry investigates murders of crooks

Magnum Force (1974)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, and David Soul
Director: Ted Post
Rating: Six of Ten

When San Francisco's biggest crime figures fall victim to a series of execution-style hits, homicide detective Harry Callahan (Eastwood) first believes that someone must be impersonating police officers to get as close to the victims as they are, but his boss, Lt. Briggs (Holbrook) is convinced that the murders the result of a typical gangster power-struggle. As Callahan investigates, he uncovers a frightening possiblity--that maybe the "fake cop" is a real cop, and that a secret death squad exists within the SFPD.


"Magnum Force" is a somewhat dissapointing follow-up to "Dirty Harry",and it's possibly the weakest of the series. The movie seems to drag on and on, in part due to some exceptionally dull cinematagraphy, and a lack of story focus until the third act, and a near-total lack of humor throughout. (The exception being an encounter totally unrelated to the rest of the movie, except to establish Harry's renegade ways, when Harry prevents a plane from bing hijacked,)

The film is still superior to most cop dramas out there--mostly thanks to its great cast--but it's a weak link in the "Dirty Harry" cycle.

Moore becomes Bond in 'Live and Let Die'

Live and Let Die (1973)
Starring: Roger Moore, Jane Seymour, Yaphet Kotto, and Geoffrey Holder
Director: Guy Hamilton
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

British secret agent James Bond (Moore) is dispatched to find and eliminate the leak that's caused the death of several of Her Majesty's secret agents in the Americas. He soon finds himself pitted against Mr. Big (Kotto), a powerful drug lord who has more than just thugs and weapons at his disposal: He is allied with a sexy Tarot-reading psychic (Seymore) and draws upon the seemingly very real voodoo powers of Baron Samdei himself (Holder)!


With "Live and Let Die", Guy Hamilton helmed yet another of my favorite James Bond movies. It's a little darker than most, the horror/ overtones are incorporated with great skill into the high-tech world super-spy world of Bond, and it's got one of the all-time classic Bond chases that has all the humor, action, suspense, and stunts that we've come to expect. It also delivers one of the most interesting Bond Girls to appear in the series, the may-or-may-not-be psychic, Solitaire. For final icing on the cake, the usual Bond-with-the-girl denouement even has a little bit of a horror twist to it.

Acting-wise, I think everyone made a fine show of themselves, even if I would have liked to see more of Seymour as Solitaire(in both senses of that). I also prefer the somewhat grimmer portrayal of Bond that Moore gives here than the increasingly good-humor-glint-in-eye Bond that we get in later films; it really seemed more in keeping with the character. In fact, that the humor was kept somewhat restrained in this film compared to the Roger Moore vehicles that were to come is one of the reasons this movies is so effective.

'The Cheap Detective' brings mystery and mirth

The Cheap Detective (1978)
Starring: Peter Falk, Louise Fletcher, Madeline Kahn, Marsha Mason, Eileen Brennan, James Coco, Ann-Margaret, Ferndando Lamas, Dom Deluise, John Houseman, Nicol Williams, Stockard Channing, and Sid Ceaser
Director: Robert Moore
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

The year 1939 is not turning out to be a good one for gumshoe Lou Peckinpaugh (Falk). His partner has been murdered and he's the prime suspect because he's been having an affair with his wife (Mason). But before he can clear his name, he first has to solve the mystery of some missing Albanian diamonds, stop the Nazi consul to Cincinatti (Williams) from destroying the French restraunt being run by the current husband (Lamas) of an old flame (Fletcher), and avoid getting too entangled with overheated vamps (Kahn and Brennan) or his demure secretary (Channing).


"The Cheap Detective" is a spoof of hardboiled detective tales and the film noir pictures from the 1940s and 1950s, and it plays as though the script emerged after someone tossed the movies "The Maltese Falcon" and "Casablanca", a collection of the Complete Works of Dasheil Hammett, and some copies of MAD Magazine into a blender set on high.

The result is a hilarious, but uneven, movie that's loaded with absurd situations, ridiculous puns, and a crazy, chaotic storyline that anticipates comedies like "Airplane" and "The Naked Gun". If you're a fan of those movies, you're bound to enjoy this one. The film starts weak--with a gag involving a killer so efficient his victims don't even fall down when they die stretched so thin in loses all comedy value--and ends with a nonsensical and unfunny scene that seems to exist only to fit in one more cameo, but almost everything between the two badly done bookends is great stuff.

You're also bound to enjoy "The Cheap Detective" if you love the movies and the actors being spoofed. Peter Falk in particular is hilarious with his very effective Humphrey Bogart imitation, but Louise Fletcher's Ingrid Bergman is also great fun, as is Ann-Margaret's generic oversexed femme fatale and Nicol Williams. Much credit also goes, of course, to Neil Simon for the absurd dialogue and even more absurd situations.

Whether you're a fan of classic detective films and the film noir genre, or whether you simply enjoy crazy comedies, I think you'll find something to laugh about in "The Cheap Detective".

The image of Bruce Lee will not be appearing in tonight's presentation

The Image of Bruce Lee (aka "Storming Attacks") (1978)
Starring: Bruce Li, Chang Leih, John Cheung, Yin-Chieh Han, Bolo Yeun, and Dana Lei
Director: Kuen Yeung
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A pair of Hong Kong police inspectors, Dragon and Wang (Li and Leih), must break the counterfeiting ring of local crimelord Han (Han) before he completes a deal with Japanese organized crime and floods Hong Kong and Japan with fake United States dollars. Bands of Kung Fu fighters wait to beat on them around every corner, however. And a femme fatale (Lei) strips naked every chance she has.


"The Image of Bruce Lee" has a razor thin plot that exists only to get the main characters from one fight scene to the next. Unless you're watching the film because you're interested in staged martial arts fights, you're going to start getting bored after the second or third, because most of them are just like the one that happened a few minutes before. (Only two of the combats are remotely interesting--one where a Japanese gangster (played by Bolo Yeun) takes on a bunch of Chinese hoods while using a pair of handcuffs as a slashing weapon, and another where Bruce Li take on the same gang of thugs a little later and ends up in a battle that seems like an early version of the sort of Prop Fu material that Jackie Chan would make his trademark a few years later. The rest just aren't all that good, even taking into account the period this movie dates from.)

An even bigger problem than the lackluster fight scenes is the fact that what little story we have is as boring as they are. Not only boring, but badly constructed. Li and Leih (Police Inspectors Dragon and "Moustache" Wang) have got to be the very worst inspectors in all of Hong Kong, as they can't tail a suspect without getting spotted and getting into a fight, they can't conduct surveillance without getting spotted and getting into a fight, and they can't ask a suspect to come down to the station without violating all sorts of police procedures and getting into a fight. If played for laughs--and the film's opening scene makes you think that you're actually in for a comedy--these incompetent boobs might have made for amusing viewing, but this film takes itself so seriously that it doesn't even feature the Standard Issue Comic Relief Character that seemed to be a must in films from this period. Although, I suppose the slutty femme fatale from England (whose clothes came off to treat the viewer to some full-frontal nudity whenever the film got really boring) might vaguely fill that slot. But not quite. This is one humorless movie... despite the fact the man bad guy's gimmick is the throw silver coins so hard they embed themselves deeply in wood and might thus presumable kill someone, even if he never shown doing so.)

Actually, the opening scene is probably the best part of the movie. Dragon scales the side of a building to save a man who is about to commit suicide, because he lost his business and reputation because of the counterfeiting ring Dragon will soon be called upon to break. Dragon's attempt ends in a blackly humorous way that didn't set the tone for the film, but should have.

All in all, "The Image of Bruce Lee" is one that you should probably avoid looking at. Of course, it could also be that this is a police comedy/martial arts spoof of the magnitude of "Hot Fuzz" that I just didn't get because I'm not as well-versed in Chinese culture as I am in English. It could be, but I don't think so... I think this is just an ineptly made film.

(By the way, the title is drawn from a single line in the film, when its suggested that Inspector Dragon should become an actor because he looks like Bruce Lee. While I don't think he looks very much like Bruce Lee, Bruce Li DID spend much of his career in Bruceplotation movies. This is not one of those, so I suspect that line was an attempt at levity... that got the film turned into a Bruceploitation movie when it was exported to America. There are no images of Bruce Lee that I noticed anywhere in the film. Although it would have made for a better movie if the gangsters were counterfeiting limited edition Bruce Lee collector plates or some-such.)

Bond targeted for death by world's top assassin

The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)
Starring: Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Herve Villechaize, Maud Adams, and Clifton James
Director: Guy Hamilton
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When British spy James Bond (Moore) learns someone has hired the world's most expensive assassin to kill him, he decides to take the fight to the shadowy killer. However, Bond soon discovers that Francisco Scaramanga (Lee), his midget partner in murder (Villechaize) and his exotic girlfriend Andrea Anders (Adams) actually have their sights set on a target more lucrative than even Britain's top Code-00 agent.


"The Man With the Golden Gun" is a beautfilly shot film that takes full advantage of the exotic China Sea islands, and in which Christopher Lee gives one of his career's best performances as the megalomaniacal assassin with a game room that matches both his ego and occupation. It's also got a pair of very beautiful women on prominant display in the film (Adams and Ekland), and it's got a story that's closer to being real-world in nature than any Bond since "From Russia With Love" (with the exception of certain elements). It's also got another fabulous score by John Barry.

However, the film is also strangely slow-moving and lethargic-feeling. I can't quite put my finger on why, but "Golden Gun" never seems to quite build up the steam that just about all the other James Bond films do. Even the awful Timothy Dalton entries had more fire in them. And with a great cast like this, and with the director that helmed "Live and Let Die", "Diamonds Are Forever" and the very best Bond movie "Goldfinger", this should have been a great entry in the series.

I suspect it might be a problem with the script. The sense of urgency and danger surrounding Bond's mission seems downplayed throughout the film, not really manifesting itself until the last 45 minutes or so, where in other Bond movies there interlocking mission arcs where each new one is more deadly and expansive than the one that went before.

Whatever the flaw here--and I really can't quite put my finger on it--this is a decent entry in the series, and it's worth seeing if you enjoyed "From Russia With Love". I think this is probably the other Bond movie in the series to which this "Golden Gun" can most closely be compared.

'Dirty Harry' still stands above the rest

Dirty Harry (1971)
Starring: Clint Eastwood and Andy Robinson
Director: Don Seigel
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

When a madman who calls himself Scorpio (Robinson) sets about to terrorize and extort the city of San Francisco with sniper attacks and kidnappings, only the unorthodox methods of homicide inspector Harry Callahan (Eastwood) can stop him.


"Dirty Harry" stands as one of the greatest police dramas ever made, and the bad guy--the monstrous, utterly insane Scorpio--is so extreme that it even has elements that appeal to lovers of horror films. From the opening shots, the tension in the film keeps building and it doesn't let up until Harry and Scorpio have their final confrontation. Everything in this movie works perfectly, from the casting, to the camera and Foley work, to the great score by Lalo Shafrin (with the eerie "Scorpio Theme" adding a lot to the film).

Eastwood is also great as Harry, a cop who dislikes bureaucracy and who always puts the well-being and rights of crime victims ahead of the criminals that prey on them. And he does it within the boundaries of the law, with no consideration for politics. He's the sort of cop who can only get away with what he does in the fantasy land of movies.

Robinson also makes a fantastic bad guy. Between the actions of the character and the way the actor plays him, even the most hardcore member of the "violence in movies is bad" and "every criminal has rights" has got to be cheering for Harry to give the justice he has earned.

This film lays the foundation for the Dirty Harry sequels that followed, and I think it was just as much the fantasy of a cop who can buck the system and bag in a bad guy who knows how to play it, as it was Eastwood's portrayal of Harry that made the character so popular. (If you watch the movie carefully, you can see the depth that Eastwood brings to Harry's character.)

"Dirty Harry" is well-deserving of its reputation of being a classic. It is a great movie, and while it has been imitated over and over, it's never been matched... even by its own sequels.

'The Black Godfather' is predictable and dated

Black Godfather (1974)
Starring: Rod Perry, Don Chastain, Jimmy Witherspoon, Damu King,and Duncan McLeod
Director: John Evans
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Career criminal JJ (Perry) sets about uniting black hoods and militants under his leadership so he can drive the mafia from the black neighborhoods and take over their criminal rackets in the name of black liberation and money for JJ.


"The Black Godfather" is a 1970s crime drama/action film of the blacksploitation school, with all the stereotypes that implies. Nothing that happens and nothing that is said is any surprise--except perhaps for the drag-queen assassin with the blowgun--and my guess is that you've seen what this film has to offer done better elsewhere. Plus, it's short on drama and action, but long on talkie bits espousing black power, coming from a guy who ultimately is just looking to enrich himself. (At least there's the counterpoint in the form of a thug who truly is devoted to the concept of black empowerment.)

The one thing this movie has going for is is a cast of actors who are better-than-usual for movies of this type and in this budget range. Despite the movie's sluggish pacing and cliched story and characters, these excellent actors manage to keep the viewers engaged. (In fact, I don't think there's anyone who appears in a speaking role who didn't deserve to be in a better movie than this.)

Could the detective be the killer?

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Starring: Albert Finney, Martin Balsam, Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, Anthony Perkins, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Jean Pierre Cassel, Michael York, Jacqueline Bisset, and Vanessa Redgrave
Director: Sidney Lumet
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

While traveling westward on the Orient Express, celebrated detective Hercule Poirot (Finney) must solve the murder of an unpleasant passenger as the train is halted by a mudslide. The case is complicated by the fact that virtually none of his fellow passengers are telling the truth or are who they appear to be, and that Poirot is apparently the only person without an iron-clad alibi.


"Murder on the Orient Express" is an excellent adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's best mystery tales. It manages to streamline a very complex and tangled scenario while keeping Christie's original narraive mostly intact. It also features an excellent cast giving great performances, with Albert Finney as the Great Detective, Lauren Bacall as an annoying American widow, and John Gielgud as an acid-tongued gentleman's gentleman being particularly noteworthy.

The weakness of the film is that it's slow in getting underway and that when it's finally got a good head of steam going, the mystery is solved and the movie ends. It causes the viewer to swing from a "get on with it!" sensibility to a "wait... that's all?" mindset. I think that if the movie had been more carefully edited, losing perhaps as little as five or ten minutes of running time during its first act, the film would have carried alot more tension.

That's not to say that what's here isn't good... it's very good and it's definately worth seeing for fans of period films and "cozy" mysteries. (On a personal note, the solution to the mystery in this film really creeped me out as a child, and I partially watched it again to see if it had remained as impactful. I didn't have quite the reaction I remember, but it is well delivered.)

Going for the gold with 'Kelly's Heroes'

Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland and Caroll O'Connor
Director: Brian G. Hutton
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When disgraced US Army Lt. Kelly (Eastwood) discovers the location of a cache of Nazi gold, he decides it would make a nice little bonus for himself and his squad. Never mind that the gold is locked in a bank vault, deep within territory still held by the Germans. Never mind the gung-ho general (O'Connor) who is convinced they are intent on winning WW2 by themsevles and that he is following their every move. For Kelly and his men, the gold is what it's all about.


"Kelly's Heroes" is one of my favorite war movies. With a perfect cast, a script that perfectly balances action and humor, a director who fluidly moves between the two and is equally skilled at staging the intimate scenes as he is at those involving tank battles and exploding buildings, and a music score that's flawless, there's virtually nothing wrong with this movie.

The only complaint I have is Sutherland's character. His hippy-esque tank commander character seems terribly out-of-place in a WW2 environment; I thought such characters were annoying when they showed up in Bob Kanigher's "Sgt. Rock of Easy Company" stories, and I think they're just as misplaced here. But, damn it, if Sutherland doesn't give such a great performance, and the character doesn't have such great lines (not to mention crazy ideas) that I can't help but like him. Still, it's a character that dates the movie, and I'm sure he was far funnier to the doobie-smoking audiences in 1970.

Whether you enjoy good war movies or good comedies, I think you'll like "Kelly's Heroes."

Churchill targeted in last-ditch Nazi plot

The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
Starring: Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance, Jenny Agutter, and Jean Marsh
Director: John Sturges
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

As defeat looks increasily inevitable for Germany, Heinrich Himmler (Pleasance) greenlights a long-shot mission to kidnap Winston Churchill. An elite force of German paratroopers under the command of Colonel Steiner (Caine) infiltrate a village near where Churchill will be taking a vacation, and with the aid of German agents already in place (Sutherland and Marsh), get everything in place for their audacious strike. However, when a series of events cause Steiner's force to be revealed, Steiner takes one last desperate gamble and turns the kidnap mission into one of assassination.


"The Eagle Has Landed" is a great WW2 suspense movie. It's got good acting--even if Sutherland's assumed Irish accent was irritatingly inconsistent--excellent pacing, and characters that for the most part are believable. (The only truly weak aspects of the story involved an insta-romance between Sutherland and Agutter's characters, and a twist at the end that I think the film could have done without.)

If you like WW films and spy thrillers, I think you'll enjoy "The Eagle Has Landed."