sarahpartridge Reviews

Daimajin (1966)

i thought I hallucinated this one

[10 July 2005]

I saw this at least twice on Channel 56 (Boston) Creature Double Feature when I was a kid- and it's the kind of movie you remember but can't believe existed. It was pretty amazing! This giant ancient Japanese warrior statue comes out of the sea and starts kicking ass. I had to wait for the internet and the debut of Google to find that I was right---it does exist. Now I am psyched and want to get the DVD if it exists. Right on !

Other films on Channel 56 were the original War of the Worlds, which scared the hell out of me (it's really scary for a bad old sci fi flick---its the tentacles which I could psyche myself could be outside my window) and also the X from outer space and some other weird stuff that I will no doubt find out about someday, but this is really hallucinatory and amazing.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

how could this piece of crap get ANY academy nominations...

[2/10 · 21 June 2005]

this is straight up kids fare. I mean I just saw the last twenty minutes on TV and it was horrible! It reminded me of the original Treasure Island, which I saw at age 10 or so. The "romance" was horrible, the dialogue was horrible, it was unbearably corny, Johnny Depp turns into a skeleton man and then back, why I don't know, Orlando Bloom was cute but not much use. Johnny must have done this in order to get the free dread extensions, which were also horrible and changed ornaments every five minutes---would he have time to do his hair while waiting to get hanged??????????? ARrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhh the gold stuff looked like stuff you get at Burger King. Ick!

Da Ming ying lie (1975)

identifying this movie

[5/10 · 27 April 2005]

This movie is also known as The Snake, The Tiger, The Crane and features martial arts hottie Carter Wong (Hwang/Huang) etc and a bunch of other 70s stars. Not a bad plot, print was bad, with what looked like bad focus in the original negative.

If you like Michelle Yeoh you will like this---the women kick butt. Here is a synopsis.

The Emperor is under attack and he is so depressed with his failure to protect his people so of course he decides to kill himself. He also decides to maim his daughter, Third Princess by cutting of her arm (There is a tradition of one armed fighters in Hong Kong cinema) She wanders around and tried to get people to help her who either prove to weak to fight off the bandits or betray her. Her faithful servant girl cuts her own arm off to impersonate Third Princess (also called, unbelievably, "Champagne") and dies. Third Princess goes crazy until she meets handsome Carter Wong, the gentle brute of a butcher who is caring for his Buddhist nun mother. He promises his mom on her death bed he will marry the now lunatic princess.

I won't wreck the end but I thought the above shows what kind of movie this is---the kind of fearless Hong Kong cinema where there are the kind of plot twists that Hollywood would never allow. Also, Hollywood would never allow two sword wielding women to star in their own movie either, certainly not in 1979 when this was apparently released.

Not bad overall, not Ang Lee but kind of fun. Carter Wong as the hero a definite plus.