Movie review - "The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (2008) **1/2

 It was a bright idea to move the setting to China and deal with those mummies. There's fast action and colours. The whiteness of the leads is distracting - even the supporting characters, I mean, come on - and there's too many heroes to service. There's Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello (not as good as Rachel W) and their son, Luke Ford. In particular Fraser and Ford are too similar - swashbuckler-y types. Really they should have had Ford be a kidnap victim and have his parents go to rescue him. 

If they couldn't have Rachel Weisz back they should have killed her character off screen and had Fraser romance a Chinese lady for fresh romance.

Fun to see Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh just a shame they couldn't have bigger parts. Ditto one feels more could've been done with John Hannah.

Movie review - "The Meg" (2018) **

Silly fun but too silly to be a good movie and not silly enough to be crap-tacular. It feels very Chinese not just with its positive Chinese characters and settings but also family schmaltz and cute kidness. Which is fine. I just wish they'd done more with the concept of a prehistoric shark.

I mean, there's no scientific stuff, no paleontologist, nothing really other than the creature running amok. It also feels very Australian-New Zealand with the cast including Jess MacNamee, Ruby Rose, Cliff Curtis.

It passed the time and I hope they make another one because the potential is there for this to be quite good.

Movie review - "Attack Force Z" (1981) **1/2

Some random thoughts:
* always good to rewatch but it's never as good as you want it to be
* great opening with the foreword and troops climbing out of the sub and canoeing to the island
* action sequences are perfunctory rather than well done and I really wish Phil Noyce had done it instead of Tim Burstall - Burstall was excellent on casting and story choices but Noyce was the better director
* the cast are extremely good and deliver strong performances - Mel Gibson does well in a relatively thankless role (his one thing is being bullied into letting the Japanese diplomat live by that diplomat), but he definitely feels very Z Force
* the ending rips off The Wild Geese and is a needless bummer - the whole ending has fashionable 70s nihilism with pretty much all the goodies dead for absolutely no reason which actually is kind of more true of the typical Z Special Unit mission (those were the locals didn't betray them) but makes you feel depressed watching it and might be responsible for the film underperforming at the box office
* disappointingly little is made of Jon Phillip Law being Dutch - a great idea (could have explored the colonial issues etc), thrown away
* it's really distracting that everyone is Chinese when it should be Malaya/Indonesia/New Guinea - they just should have said "island off the coast of Taiwan"
* best role: Sam Neill - the ruthless operative who shoots John Waters but who then points out the locals will be killed if they rise up
* the Japanese are really stupid for believing that kid
* there's a lack of pace and energy - too much ambling when they get on the island when it should be fast paced
* production values are very good.

Movie review - "The Great Wall" (2016) **

A film which caused controversy on release out of fear of bringing in a "white saviour" - Matt Damon was going to star in a Chinese story about the Chinese fighting off evil serpents at the great wall. Well he's not really a white saviour - it's the Chinese who drive the action and have the stakes.

Indeed part of the film's problem is that Damon could be cut out of the film and there'd be no real difference. The same problem happened with Keanu Reeves in 47 Ronin - he wasn't necessary for the story, the stakes weren't about him.

I got the feeling this wasn't an issue for Richard Chamberlain in Shogun - I could be wrong it had been a long time since I saw it. But it felt like there were stakes on Chamberlain - he was always at risk of being killed, he fell for a local girl which could've gotten them killed.

Damon didn't have much of a character to play. Come to think of it no one had a great character - the girl general (the actor playing her didn't feel convincing) isn't much of a character, nor was the Emperor. Damon's sidekick wasn't funny or even particularly treacherous. Willem Dafoe looked as though he was going to do something interesting but didn't.

Some impressive production values and decent action sequences. But it felt undercooked. The determination to not offend I think hurt this.

How would you do it? Maybe make the battle more personal for Damon. Have his offsider be his brother - his brother fights for the baddies. Have more treacherous humans (they can ally with the baddies). Have Damon constantly at risk of being killed. Give him a romance instead of just a respectful friendship.

Movie review - "Game of Death" (1978) **

One of the most bizarre films ever made. When he died, Bruce Lee left behind some fighting footage for a movie he never got to complete (which was to star George Lazenby incidentally). Golden Harvest decided they couldn't let it go to waste, so they brought in Robert Clouse, director of Enter the Dragon, and cobbled together a plot about a Bruce Lee style actor who upsets the mob, who then try to kill him... so he goes into hiding and seeks his revenge via way of various disguises. They added a bunch of Hollywood actors to help make it more appealing for the world market.

Now that's actually a decent idea for a movie - its similar to the premise of Return to Eden, and is based in strong emotion (desire for revenge, watching your partner think you are dead). But the kick off is weak - I didn't buy that they would go to all this trouble to shoot Lee just to prove a point. (I wish they'd had more history with Lee, like was a childhood friend he owed a favour too or something).)

And the doubling of him isn't very effective - Bruce Lee was so distinctive it's really obvious when someone is impersonating him. They try to add extra Bruce by putting in clips from Way of the Dragon and Fists of Fury but that makes things even more distracting.

Because Bruce Lee made so few movies as a star this is still worth seeing. The fight stuff at the end is pretty good, especially the bout he has with Kareem Abdul Jabar. Colleen Camp does the best she can with her role as Lee's girlfriend (a singer who at one point is so deranged with grief she decides to shoot his assassin). Gig Young adds some professional sheen as his journalist friend, Dean Jagger is fine as a mob boss, and Hugh O'Brien good as a baddie... until he has to do kung fu. I really liked this as a kid but it so didn't hold up.

Movie review - "Enter the Dragon" (1973) ***** (warning: spoilers)

Dynamic, exciting, brilliantly successful attempt to present Bruce Lee in a Hollywood movie. It plunders all sorts of inspirations, from James Bond to the house of mirrors finale in Lady from Shanghai, in this perfectly acceptable tale of Lee being asked by a vague intelligence organisation (Mr Braithwaite) to take part in a martial arts competition on an island run by an evil doctor. To add some personal connection it turns out one of the doctor's lackeys was responsible for the death of Lee's sister (in a flashback scene we get to see a girl do some martial arts, very successfully for the most part - there's also a female undercover agent on the island which makes this the Bruce Lee film with the two strongest female roles, ie. they're not just simpering good girls).

Two other men are invited to the island - Jim Kelly, who has one of the best Affros you'll ever see, and a great, wry presence, plus a fun gag where he takes a whole lot of women to bed (hey I said there were some good female parts, not all).... and a quite shocking death. There's also John Saxon, who isn't entirely convincing as a top rank martial artist (he looks too heavy and slow) but he's an excellent actor with perhaps the best character in the film - a dodgy guy who still has his own code of honour, and helps Lee in the end. I really enjoyed the mutual respect that grows between Saxon and Lee (yes I know that's in part because he's my Western surrogate in the movie but it's still true), as exemplified by their nod at the end. I was also a fan of the little subplot between him and the girl on the island who winds up dead.

Some fantastic fight scenes and plenty of them. Again, Lee tackles a really old dude at the end but it feels more equal here because the guy has a claw. All time classic music score and it looks fantastic - the extra money from Warners was well spent.

Movie review - "Way of the Dragon" (1972) *** (warning: spoilers)

Directors of Bruce Lee films who aren't Bruce Lee (eg Robert Clouse, Lo Wei) sometimes get a bad wrap, with critics tending to attribute everything good in the movies to Lee. This was Lee's properly credited directorial debut - but it isn't as good as his first two films with Lo Wei, so Wei obviously bought something to the party.

It's still entertaining, mind, and the fight scenes are excellent - particularly the climactic battle between Lee and Chuck Norris in the Colosseum - but the handling is flabby, the acting campier (check out the black guy among the villains), and there is far too much dopey comedy. (This is all a matter of personal taste of course but Lee wouldn't be the first auteur who went over board on the hyuck factor).

Story wise the movie is weak too - and Lee wrote the script - because the stakes are so small: who cares if the Mob take over Lee's relative's restaurant in Rome? There's not even a good old racial element that could've been used because there are so many Chinese in the mob. (Though I did like the twist that the uncle turns dodgy and kills his own staff with a view to getting all the carnage over and done with.) Still, definitely worth watching.

Movie review - "The Big Boss" (1971) ***

Bruce Lee became a star with this Hong Kong kung fu epic. Like many of them the basic story could have been done as a Western - he's a country hick who moves to Thailand where his family work for an ice factory. It turns out this factory is the front for a drug operation.

Lee doesn't do much in the first bit of this film, being more of a watcher. (The first fight scene he literally just watches as James Tien - who was in Fists of Fury - does the chop socky against the forces of evil.) Story wise he doesn't get roused for a long time - in Fists he was angry from the get go but here he goes through this whole period where he is tempted by the dark side when the boss makes him foreman and plies him with drink and gives him a hooker to sleep with (he has sex with her too; she goes topless which did surprise me for a Bruce Lee movie).

However then his family members start getting knocked off and he fires up and in the second half he really kicks arse and takes part in some top fight scenes (even if the Boss he defeats at the end is kind of whimpy and not worth Lee's skill.)

There's some great music. The scenery isn't that pretty - it doesn't feel much like Thailand. (I'm not sure where it was shot.)

Movie review - "Fists of Fury" (1972) ***1/2*

For my money, this is the Bruce Lee classic - an excellent story, which is simple but has historical basis and lots of emotional power, a strong support cast, superb fight scenes. It's set in early 20th century Shanghai, where the Chinese were second class citizens in their own country - in particularly, according to this movie, they were persecuted by the Japanese.

Bruce Lee is the student of a real life Chinese martial arts guy who genuinely died under mysterious circumstances (we never meet him) who is determined not to take it from the Japanese. There are some very rousing moments like the Japanese (who are pretty much racially vilified in this film) taunting the Chinese, the sign that says "No dogs or Chinese allowed" (with a Sikh guard played by a browned-up Chinese), Lee's spectacular final leap (freeze frame death).

This movie has a great atmosphere of doom and menace - the constant racism of the Japanese, the struggle of the school to survive, Lee taking out the baddies one by one but ultimately being doomed, the massacre of the Chinese school. The love affair subplot is simple stock stuff but provides some necessarily relief.

Of course there are the fight scenes which are incredible - particularly the one where Lee walks alone into the enemy school and takes them apart. All the others are of high quality too. Lee is in stunningly good form - lithe, charismatic, furious, deadly. Fantastic music score.

Movie review - "Attack Force Z" (1981) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

I remember seeing this film in the video store when I was a kid and thinking it was so cool - an Aussie guys on a mission action movie, how awesome! - then being disappointed when I saw it. Re watching it years down the track the same feelings remain. This should have been could, it could have been good, but it's never more than average.

It starts well - the terrific title, a scroll explaining what Z Force was, touching on their two famous missions, then listing the cast with their characters full name and rank. And there's a great opening of a submarine dropping off the men - and the beginning sequence where one of the gang shoot their own is striking. But then it gets bogged down with too many scenes of people peering over ridges and firing machine guns. That sounds exciting, even writing it, but not as you see it.

It's a fairly rudimentary trudge through the jungle. They could have done great things with Jon Philip Law being a Dutchman from the area whose family was killed by the Japanese, but its thrown away. (Is this island meant to be a former Dutch colony? It's never clear.) His romance with local Sylvia Change is very chaste (they snuggle, not have sex), and there are some silly bits like local resistance leader going all kung fu fighter on the Japanese. And the ending rips of The Wild Geese with the human McGuffin carking it at the last minute.

I will say this for it - the cast is great, and they all have distinct roles to play: callow Mel Gibson, who is bullied into the final battle by the Japanese diplomatic (who looks like a caricature of a Japanese from a war comic); ruthless Sam Neill who nonetheless has sympathy for the villagers; cheery Chris Haywood; sensitive Jon Philip Law. It's a great opportunity missed- they should look at remaking this.

Movie review – “Legend of the Seven Vampires” (1974) **1/2

Hammer tried to get a bit more life out of it’s Dracula series by putting him out East, allowing them to cash in on the kung fu craze as well. It’s actually a terrific idea, and this starts brilliantly with a Chinese man servant going to Transylvania to ask for help of Count Dracula – here not played by Christopher Lee, which is a major shame (personally I think if they couldn’t have gotten him they shouldn’t have bothered, just had another vampire).

But Peter Cushing is back as Van Helsing, touring China and asked to help fight vampires in a visit. He’s accompanied by his son (Robin Phillips from Bless this House and Aussie sex comedy non-classic Pacific Banana), who actually spends a lot of the film being beaten up by Chinese; more useful assistance comes from a family from the village who are all excellent at kung fu (including a kung fu-ing girl). There’s also a blonde Swede who tags along for some extra glamour.

This has an energy lacking in so many later Hammer films – there’s great production value, heaps of kung fu, impressive vampires. There is also some laughably gratuitous breast action (during a raid on a town the vampires randomly rip the shirts off girls). 

It’s a shame they couldn’t have put a bit more thought into the story – they don’t use the Dracula factor at all (the could have just used Van Helsing and Chinese vampires), Van Helsing is passive a lot of the time. It’s a bit of a mess but a lot of fun.

Movie review - "Curse of the Golden Flower" (2007) ***

Kind of like The Lion in Winter meets Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in 922 or whenever in China. There's plenty of colour and spectacle in the opening few minutes (and lots of squeezed cleavage - at times it all seems very Restoration) but then you realise we're not leaving the palace, with all the ensuring shenanigans there.

Chow Yun Fat is always charismatic but isn't quite well cast as the ruthless Emperor who has to deal with his wife and three sons, most of whom seem like decent enough sticks - some are and some aren't, as we find out.
There's much plotting and too much walking around corridors and abrupt cuts, but just as you're about to get sick of it the action scenes start and don't let up til the end. Some of these are thrilling (scenes of ninjas flying down along ropes in the dead of night), some a bit silly (all the dead bodies and no groaning?), all of it is spectacular. The body count is extremely high and there is a fair bit of blood which may put off some of this film's target market in the Western world (i.e. middle aged women)