Review #897: 'Robin Hood' (1973)

Robin Hood rarely features on many people's favourite Disney movies, and there's a good reason why. Disney's original concept was an adaptation of Reynard the Fox, a collection of allegorical fables from Europe. The deceptive fox was seen as an amoral leading figure for their squeaky-clean and child-friendly output, so the plan was abolished in favour of adapting a more familiar folk-tale, Robin Hood and his Merry Men. This sudden change of plan causes Robin Hood to feel almost like an afterthought, written in such a hurry that the plot seems to shift around without focus, and characters feel like abandoned first draft's of the classic Disney heroes and villains.

With King Richard away fighting his crusade, the kingdom is left in the hands of his thumb-sucking, mommy's-boy younger brother Prince John (Peter Ustinov). Our narrator Allan-a-Dale (Roger Miller) informs us that the poor are being bled dry by the astronomical taxes set by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Pat Buttram), and rely on the exploits of local hero Robin Hood (Brian Bedford) and his companion Little John (Phil Harris), who routinely steal from the rich to give to the poor. Robin enters into an archery tournament dressed as a stork in the hope of winning the heart of old flame Maid Marian (Monica Evans), under the watchful eye of Prince John and his hypnotic sidekick Sir Hiss (Terry-Thomas), who want Robin's head.

Despite the mediocrity of the final film, Robin Hood is certainly bolstered by the impressive array of vocal talent. Bedford provides the charming twang of an English gent and Terry-Thomas is suitably and simultaneously reptilian and hilarious, but Peter Ustinov walks away with the film - his whiny rich-boy Prince John is one the greatest characters Disney have ever created. The presence of such quality British talent makes it strange that a lot of the cast sound like cowboys who have somehow wandered into a distinctly English setting. Some sequences are recycled directly from Disney classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) and The Jungle Book (1967), and some characters are even borrowed and simply re-named. It's an up-and-down experience, where the plot occasionally wanders and lingers without any sense of narrative, but when Bedford, Thomas and Ustinov share a scene, that familiar Disney magic re-emerges.


Directed by: Wolfgang Reitherman
Voices: Brian Bedford, Peter Ustinov, Terry-Thomas, Phil Harris, Monica Evans
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #896: 'The Interview' (2014)

The alleged attack on Sony by North Korean cyber-hackers in protest over The Interview's depiction of their divine ruler, Kim Jong-un, did nothing but wonders for the film. Scandalising a film does little more than promote it to a wider audience, so directors Evan Goldberg and Seth Green must have been rubbing their hands together when Sony hit the panic button. It raised questions over the futility of censorship and led to a wonderful middle-finger salute on IMDb, with the average user rating bumped to a perfect 10 before it had even been released. Now that the furore has died down, The Interview can be seen for what it is: a scattershot comedy that raises a few laughs but ultimately lacks the balls required to make a decent satire.

TV producer Aaron Rapaport (Rogen) starts to question his body of work after receiving a dressing down from a former school friend, who is now working on the highly respected 60 Minutes. Aaron works on Skylark Tonight, a glossy chat-show in which his friend Dave Skylark (James Franco) interviews various celebrities about a variety of shallow topics (when rumours break that Matthew McConaughey has been caught having sex with a goat, Dave demands that they get the goat). Dave hears a rumour that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (Randall Park), who is threatening the U.S. with a nuclear attack, is a big fan of the show, so Aaron sees this as the perfect opportunity to cover some serious news and travels to rural China in the hope of arranging a historic interview.

When the two are approached by CIA Agent Lacey (Lizzy Caplan) to assassinate the chubby dictator, an air-tight plan is set in motion that only these two idiots could possibly screw up. A hand plaster containing a deadly ricin strip is all that it will take, but as seen when Dave lets loose a sneeze during a rehearsal, things most likely won't go to plan. The scene is set for comedy set-pieces aplenty, but the film only occasionally hits its mark. Whether this is down to the growing trend of using improvisation for laughs, the over-reliance on dick jokes, or the inclusion of yet another manifestation of the familiar Seth Rogen persona, The Interview rarely rises above amusing. Personally, I find James Franco's crazy-eyed lunacy both hilarious and quite intense at times, but here even the most hardcore Franco fans may have their patience stretched by his over-acting.

Yet, when it's good, it's very good. When Dave is waltzed away for a night of drinking, womanising, bromanctic heart-to-heart's, and listening to Katy Perry in a huge tank, Franco and Park have great chemistry and Park clearly has a fun time with his character, to the point that it becomes difficult to hate Kim even though it becomes clear that he is a master manipulator. It's a perfectly enjoyable experience for the most part, but is too blighted by haphazard plotting and toothless satire to be the film that Goldberg and Rogen are really capable of. Perhaps some more time spent on the script and less time making it up as they went along would have tightened their grip, and some real courage and ambition may have put it in the same league one of cinema's greatest on-the-nose satires, Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940), which left a certain floppy-haired anti-Semite seething


Directed by: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen
Starring: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Lizzy Caplan, Randall Park
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #895: 'The People Under the Stairs' (1991)

Poindexter 'Fool' Williams (Brandon Quintin Adams) is a kid from a poor black neighbourhood with a terminally ill mother and whose family are facing imminent eviction from their run-down apartment. His mother's disease is operable, but they do not have the funds to pay for her treatment, nor can they afford the extortionate rent set by their greedy landlords the Robesons (Twin Peaks' Wendy Robie and Everett McGill). Fool's criminal 'friend' Leroy (Ving Rhames) suggest that they break into the Robesons rich suburban home to steal the store of loot rumoured to be hoarded somewhere in the house. Once inside, they find themselves facing angry dogs and a bunch of cannibalistic freaks in the basement.

Although packaged and labelled as a horror and helmed by genre legend Wes Craven, The People Under the Stairs feels more akin to a boy's adventure movie, specifically those that emerged in the 1980's with children as their protagonists. The tone is often light-hearted and playful, with Fool playing the role of terrified but gadget-savvy child. Adams thankfully keep the levels of precociousness to a minimum, so we can cheer him on while he dodges the shotgun blasts from the insane Robesons, who refer to each other as Mommy and Daddy while they are actually brother and sister. They keep their only daughter Alice (A.J. Langer) under a strict, watchful eye, so she proves to be valuable to asset to Fool once he befriends her.

The lurking creatures under the stairs scowl and grab but do little else. Anyone hoping for a twisted, incestuous gore-fest like the title and presence of the director's name may suggest will be disappointed, for this is relatively mild stuff for the most part, and it does feel like an opportunity was missed somewhat. The 100 minute running-time drags towards the end, with various false climaxes stretching the patience. But for the most part, this is entertaining fluff, with Craven managing to squeeze some excitement out of every tiny crevice of the setting, and there's even a bit of social commentary in there somewhere.


Directed by: Wes Craven
Starring: Brandon Quintin Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A.J. Langer, Ving Rhames
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #894: 'The Boys from Brazil' (1978)

The re-birth of the Third Reich has proven to be an oddly desirable topic for many an inspiring schlock-maker. Titles such as They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968) and Gestapo's Last Orgy (1977) come to mind - movies from a bygone era when cinema-goer's would travel to like their local drive-in or tune into their TV sets late at night and expect to see something cheap, awful, but most likely hilarious. The Boys from Brazil, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (Planet of the Apes (1968), Patton (1970)), is an event movie with a budget and an A-list cast that plots a Jewish Nazi-hunter against a tyrannical doctor hell-bent on creating a new fuhrer.

Such a mainstream movie could be labelled as insensitive for creating outlandish fiction out of such a terrible event and for profiteering from it, but The Boys from Brazil, although handsomely filmed and mostly well-performed, is pure pantomime exploitation. This is evident from the moment we meet Ezra Lieberman, an ageing Austrian Nazi hunter played by Laurence Olivier, who delivers his lines in an accent so ludicrous he could be voicing a Disney character. When a conspiracy to assassinate 94 civil servants headed by SS surgeon Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck) is brought to Lieberman's attention by young Jewish activist Kohler (Steve Guttenberg) - who quickly vanishes - the old man travels throughout Europe to investigate the potential targets.

Mengele's plot seems like random, senseless madness at first, but it doesn't take long to figure out what's going on. The goal, when revealed, is utterly preposterous but may have been scarily plausible if executed with care. But The Boys from Brazil is often camp, with Peck especially hamming it up and gobbling up the scene whenever he appears. He's the best thing in it - a moustached, maniacal lunk with the complexion of a pint of milk - and has greatest line of the film when he shouts "shut up, you ugly bitch!" to the unfortunate wife of an SS officer. It all leads to fisticuffs at the climax between the frail Lieberman and the bulky Mengele, which despite the extraordinary levels of gore and the presence of three angry Doberman, is unintentionally hilarious. Weird, absurd, but undeniably fun, this is pure nazisploitation polished by a talented director.


Directed by: Franklin J. Schaffner
Starring: Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Steve Guttenberg, Denholm Elliott, Bruno Ganz
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #893: 'Inherent Vice' (2014)

Following in the footsteps of Raymond Chandler and the Coen brothers' Chandler homage The Big Lebowski (1998), Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's 2009 novel of the same name, Inherent Vice, has its permanently perplexed gumshoe trying to navigate his way through a labyrinthine plot that never really makes sense. Joaquin Phoenix's mutton-chopped 'Doc' Sportello is rarely too far away from his next joint in a hungover 1970's, where free love and hippydom is starting to fade and Richard Nixon reigns in the White House. The plot plays second fiddle to the hazy atmosphere and distinct sense of place, so if you find yourself constantly scratching your head as the story 'unfolds', it really doesn't matter.

If Paul Thomas Anderson's work is noticeably divided by 2007's masterpiece There Will Be Blood, when his work seemed to transform from absorbing, oddball ensembles (and even an Adam Sandler comedy) into sweeping, completely hypnotic works of art, Inherent Vice is a curious combination of the two era's. While never spilling over into full-blown comedy, the film makes frequent use of slapstick and moments of surreal absurdity, all delivered with perfect comic timing by its extremely talented cast. However, there's something else going on; a bigger picture that Anderson never really grasps (and doesn't really need to), and an eeriness that may or may not be fuelled by Doc's drug-induced paranoia and bewilderment.

The story kicks off when Doc is visited by old flame Shasta Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), who informs Doc of her affair with real estate developer Mickey Z. Wolfmann (Eric Roberts) and a possible plot to kidnap and commit him to a mental asylum. Doc's investigations force him into constant conflict with former colleague Lt. Detective 'Bigfoot' Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), a buzzcut-donning hippy-hater, who assists Doc with the news that Wolfmann has disappeared without a trace. Doc is also tasked with locating two others - a member of the Aryan Brotherhood who owes money to Black Guerilla Family member Tariq (Michael Kenneth Williams), and missing husband Coy (Owen Wilson), whose wife Hope (Jena Malone) has been informed of his death. The cases all may be linked by a mysterious boat known as the Golden Fang.

The head-scratching antics and doped-up conversations can cause extreme brain fatigue at times, so this is far from Anderson's best work. But Inherent Vice is still distinctly the work of Anderson, who wraps the film in an unpredictable and unsettling atmosphere at times, with the favouring of close-up's, a technique adopted in The Master (2012), heightening the deliriousness of the experience. The real find here is undoubtedly Waterston, whose twist on the femme fatale is played with a free-spirited seductiveness that would drive most men crazy. Phoenix is predictably convincing as the permanently red-eyed and well-meaning private dick, and Brolin overshadows anyone in the same room as him with his intense and idiosyncratic stiff, demanding waffles in bawled Spanish and deep-throating a popsicle much to Doc's disgust. Anyone expecting to be satisfied come the climax may be disappointed, and, like The Master, it can be difficult to love at times, but Inherent Vice is a one-of-a-kind experience; constantly baffling, funny, frustrating and beautiful.


Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Katherine Waterston, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Benicio Del Toro, Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, Joanna Newsom, Martin Short
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #892: 'The Tingler' (1959)

Eager pathologist Dr. Warren Chapin (Vincent Price) studies the strange effects experiencing terror has on the human body. Operating on a convict recently executed in the electric chair, he notices that the dead man's spine has been almost completely severed in two. A silent movie theatre owner, Ollie Higgins (Philip Coolidge), befriends Chapin and introduces the doctor to his deaf-mute wife Martha (Judith Evelyn), who passes out from fright at the sight of Chapin drawing blood after cutting his finger. Chapin believes that the tingling in our spine when we are frightened is the work of the 'Tingler' a microscopic creature that grows rapidly when its host is scared, only to be neutralised by letting out a powerful scream.

Director William Castle, best known for B-movie gems such as House on Haunted Hill (1959) and The Old Dark House (1963), was a man who knew how to sell a ticket. Introducing the film and warning of the horrors to come, we are then treated to various heads screaming in terror at the screen. It's schlocky and camp - two factors that have endeared Castle to a dedicated cult following - but it immediately draws you into its giddy clutches. The premise itself is utterly ludicrous and little more than an excuse for Castle to use his new gimmick Percepto! - where audience members would receive small vibrations through their seat whenever the tingler - a rather cheap-looking rubber giant velvet worm - appeared on screen.

It's a time capsule of an era when the cinema was a communal experience rather than somewhere to have your ears damaged by the sound of fighting robots. At the climax, the tingler is on the loose inside a cinema showing silent movie Tol'able David (1924) while Chapin frantically searches for it. The screen goes black while Price's voice warns us not to panic and to scream as loud as we can. Of course, the full effect is lost when watching the movie through your laptop, but you can picture the excitement that must have been buzzing throughout the theatre back in 1959, whether it be with genuine terror or in stitches at the playful goofiness of it all. Although it is far from his best film, Castle knows how to put on a show and The Tingler is a fine example of his campy appeal. As a bonus, it also has Vincent Price on LSD in cinema's first acid trip.


Directed by: William Castle
Starring: Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, Philip Coolidge, Judith Evelyn
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #891: 'Jupiter Ascending' (2015)

Ever since 1999's The Matrix have people been waiting for the Wachowski siblings to live up their potential. Although it can be said that their breakthrough hit borrowed heavily from other sources, it was without question unlike anything before seen in mainstream cinema, weaving philosophy and mysticism into a sci-fi loaded with gunplay and kung-fu. Four critical (and two financial) flops later, and we're still waiting. Their latest, Jupiter Ascending, is an intriguing tale of a young Earthling girl caught up in a tug-of-war between three intergalactic royals, but once again the Wachowskis have sacrificed everything in favour of aesthetic, creating a film so devoid of character and logic that you have to wonder if any producer will put faith in them again.

Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) is a young Russian girl living in America, who scrubs the toilets of her wealthy neighbours for a living. We feel sorry for her because her father was killed before she was born, and she is currently living in the same house as her stereotypical Russian family. Whilst undergoing an operation to remove her eggs to make some quick cash in a money-making scheme with her brother, she is attacked by a group of extra-terrestrial's called 'Keepers'. However, she is saved by the hulking half-man half-wolf soldier Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), who whisks her away to safety and takes her to the home of his former comrade Stinger Apini (Sean Bean).

Stinger informs Jupiter that she is indeed royalty, and that she shares the exact genetic make-up of a long-dead matriarch of the powerful Abrasax alien dynasty. Her existence has three siblings - Balem (Eddie Redmayne), Titus (Douglas Booth) and Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) - squabbling over Jupiter, as she unwittingly holds the rights to a huge chunk of space real estate that each of the three feel is their birthright. Earth happens to be a pot of gold to the Abrasax's, as the planet has reached overpopulation and the human race is ripe for harvesting in order to extract a powerful elixir that prolongs the lives of the elite class.

For a film that spends so much time delivering exposition, the movie fails to explain itself very well. From start to finish, it feels as if the Wachowski's are spoon-feeding us the hardly complicated plot while building up the familiar messiah subtext and delivering extended CGI action scenes. It's also strange that the two director's, who are capable of writing strong female roles (see 1996's Bound), have written their female protagonist as existing solely to be sent screaming off a cliff, into outer space etc., only to be rescued at the last minute by Wise, the goatee'd, pointy-eared superhero. This happens time and time again to the point that it became laughable, especially in today's age.

The cast try their best. Bean somehow comes out of it completely unscathed, and Redmayne - Oscar-winner for The Theory of Everything (2014) - at least stands out, hamming it up to quite ludicrous levels and delivering his sinister lines with a whisper. Tatum is clearly capable of more, but is given little to work with, but Kunis is completely miscast. Her heroine is terribly written, but she looks awkward as a leading lady and unconvincing as a 'chosen one'. It's an empty, boring experience, with the Wachowski's demonstrating little care with the script ("Bee's don't lie," - one character says with a straight face), and even less with avoiding lazy plot-holes (it takes one crashed ship to bring down a planetary base?). It will take something special for the Wachowski's to recover from their work over the last 16 years.


Directed by: Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
Starring: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton
Country: USA/UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #890: 'The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll' (1960)

Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has provided inspiration for many a film-maker throughout the years, with various degrees of faithfulness shown to the source. Always eager to put their own gothic spin on a popular tale, Hammer Films tackled the story in 1960, not only ensuring that debauchery levels were maximised, but changed a key aspect to the plot that makes the whole experience all the more delightfully wicked. Here, in Terence Fisher's film, Dr. Jekyll is dull and ugly, while Mr. Hyde is handsome and highly charismatic, as well as being an utter bastard.

Believing the human mind to consist of two personalities from opposite sides of the spectrum - good and evil - outcast Dr. Jekyll (Paul Massie) sets out to separate the two in order to help mankind embrace the good. Living almost in solitude, he neglects his wife Kitty (Dawn Addams), a promiscuous, spoilt woman currently embarking on an affair with her husband's best friend, Paul Allen (Christopher Lee). Jekyll drinks his newly created potion and Hyde emerges, introducing himself at a social gathering with swagger and charm (and getting into a fight with a young Oliver Reed). There he meets Paul and Kitty, who don't recognise him, and begins to toy with the two of them, all the while indulging on the many seductive pleasures of London.

Although it's difficult to believe that Jekyll's wife and best friend wouldn't recognise him without his ludicrous fake beard and mono-brow, The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll is a enjoyable romp from start to finish. Massie is clearly having a ball in the dual role, and convinces as Hyde grows bored with money, gambling and women, and soon turns to darker alternatives, notably murder and manipulation. It doesn't pull it's punches either, portraying Hyde's journey into the further extremities of debauchery as intoxicating as Hyde clearly finds it, featuring the odd swear word and a scene of heavily implied rape. Special mention must also go to the recently departed Lee, who somehow finds a shred of sympathy for his cocky and pathetic rich boy character. One of Hammer's most effortlessly gratifying gems.


Directed by: Terence Fisher
Starring: Paul Massie, Dawn Addams, Christopher Lee, David Kossoff
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #889: 'Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan' (1989)

After sitting through seven rather torturous experiences with the Friday the 13th franchise - with perhaps one or two exceptions - part 8's title promises a break from the formula, finally removing everyone's favourite hockey mask-wearing serial killer from his favourite stomping ground Camp Crystal Lake and plonking him in an unfamiliar setting. However, this series made its fortune from repeating the same formula over and over again, so we get the same dull hack-and-slash hokum that came before. A more apt title would be Jason Takes a Boat Ride then Walks Around Manhattan for a Bit at the End. 

The film begins with a young couple frolicking on a boat, where the young boy tells the girl the story of Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder), the deformed mass murderer responsible for the death's of many a teenage archetype. Jason, having been left chained to the bottom of the lake at the end of the previous film, is freed when the boat sails over some underwater cables, resurrecting Jason with electricity. Naturally, the young couple are butchered and Jason is on the loose again. Meanwhile, the SS Lazarus is bound for New York City and young aquaphobe Rennie (Jensen Daggett) is boarded, much to the annoyance of her uncle and stick-in-the-mud biology teacher Charles McCulloch (Peter Mark Richman). Rennie is plagued by visions of a young deformed boy, and soon enough the mutilated corpses of teenagers start to appear.

Notice how Manhattan is not mentioned once in the synopsis. Whether it was for budgetary reasons or plain bad writing, Jason's feet don't touch land until the final act. So the opportunity for Jason to be let loose in a city that may just be as deranged as he is - leaving a trail of guts in his wake - is wasted, choosing instead to have Jason chase the leads around smoky back-alleys. When Jason finally stumbles through Times Square barely noticed by passers-by, it's an amusing moment and proves what a wasted opportunity this was. The rest of the movie consists of the same slasher routine as every entry that came before, only less inventive and featuring characters even more grating than usual. Possibly the worst in the series, yet the franchise would somehow prevail.


Directed by: Rob Hedden
Starring: Jensen Daggett, Peter Mark Richman, Scott Reeves, Kane Hodder
Country: USA/Canada

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #888: 'Shaun the Sheep Movie' (2015)

For those of you without children or not currently attending University, Shaun the Sheep is an immensely (globally) popular children's TV show. Episodes are short, generally seven minutes long, and feature no dialogue whatsoever. No doubt the young adults who grew up on the Wallace & Gromit shorts will remember Shaun as the loveable sheep who managed to avoid becoming minced meat in the Oscar-winning short A Close Shave. Aardman Animations have created a monumental task for themselves in bringing the smart-alec sheep to the big screen and have him up there for a whole 90 minutes. Rest assured, Shaun the Sheep Movie is side-splittingly brilliant, and serves as a middle finger to anyone who doubts claymation's modern relevance.

Shaun (Justin Fletcher) is tired of his daily routine. In an early montage, we see Shaun and his flock grow up with the fun-loving Farmer (John Sparkes), who is always willing to boogie to his favourite tune and take selfies of himself with his four-legged family. But over time, Farmer grows weary and resigned to his work-heavy lifestyle. Shaun comes up with a plan to trick Farmer into sleeping all day in his caravan so Shaun and his friends can enjoy a day off in front of the TV. However, the caravan rolls away and heads for the city, leaving Farmer suffering from concussion and clueless as to who he is or where he came from. So Shaun and his less-intelligent friends form a rescue party that will see them, along with loyal dog Bitzer, dining in a classy restaurant and escaping from a gloomy pound.

The bulk of Shaun the Sheep's charm comes from the absence of dialogue. Rather than exchanging words, the character's balk and grunt at each other, conveying more emotion with the raising of an eyebrow than a few A-list actors could manage with an extended monologue. Animation-wise, this is Aardman's loveliest work to date, portraying a quaint England setting with a distinct modern touch, with hoodie's roaming the streets and a trendy high-street hairdresser serving as the location for one of the movie's more off-the-wall but hilarious sub-plots. The set-pieces are breathless and genuinely exciting, never missing an opportunity to slip in a clever gag. Shaun will no doubt keep children gripped to their seats and adults lapping up the slapstick and occasional fart joke, while no doubt charming both at the same time.


Directed by: Mark Burton, Richard Starzak
Voices: Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Omid Djalili, Richard Webber
Country: UK/France

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #887: 'Blind Woman's Curse' (1970)

The dragon-tattooed leader of the Tachibana Yakuza gang, Akemi (Lady Snowblood's Meiko Kaji) tries to avenge the death of her father in a rain-drenched showdown, only when she is about to deal the final death blow, she slashes at the eyes of the rival's boss younger sister, rendering her blind while a mysterious black cat laps up her blood. Akemi spends three years in jail before returning to the head of the Tachibana clan, where she intends to stop the violence that is causing her city to bleed and live out her days in peace. With the help of a Tachibana turncloak, a rival gang headed by Dobashi (Toru Abe) starts to invade Akemi's territory, planting drugs in their stalls and fighting them in the streets.

Dobashi finds some unexpected help with the arrival of a blind female swordsman, Aiko (Hoki Tokuda), the woman from the opening scene who is seeking vengeance. It's here that the film starts to get seriously weird. Working as a knife-thrower at a carnival show, Aiko is accompanied by two assistants, a grotesque hunchback with a fetish for decapitation, and the black cat that Akemi believed put a curse upon her for mutilating an innocent. Soon enough, Akemi's gang are turning up dead, often with their dragon tattoo flayed from their back. Less of a threat and providing most of the film's comic relief is another gang boss permanently adorned in a thong and cursed with foul-smelling body odour.

Blind Woman's Curse's mix of sword opera, Yakuza gangster movie, horror and surrealism is an unbalanced and occasionally frustrating concoction. If the story wasn't out-there enough, Kaji's disappointingly limited screen-time means that there is little holding everything together. The supernatural elements occur so sporadically that they seem out of place, but thanks to cinematographer Shigeru Kitaizumi, are beautiful to behold. The carnival scene is a montage of macabre and vibrant colours, with strange dancing and avant-garde plays from it's performers, and the climactic showdown between Akemi and Aiko plays out against a lavish painted backdrop of spiralling clouds. It's completely nonsensical, but it's an experience like no other.


Directed by: Teruo Ishii
Starring: Meiko Kaji, Hoki Tokuda, Makoto Satô, Hideo Sunazuka
Country: Japan

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie