Movieline Online

Road Warrior   rip-offs are legion. After the success of George Miller’s post-apocalyptic actioner, every two-bit producer with access to a stretch of desert and a box of leftover shoulder pads scrambled to cash in. In the U.S., Roger Corman unleashed   Battletruck , Charles Band gave birth to   Metalstorm   (in 3D, no less), while Italy cranked out so many copycat productions it’s a wonder the Colosseum didn’t wind up with a gun turret and a flamethrower. But France—ah, France—they just might have delivered the most bafflingly sideways homage of them all: 1987’s   Terminus . Set in a near future where a tricked-out truck must pass through hostile territory to reach a predetermined “terminus,” the story begins with its hired driver (Karen Allen) captured and killed by rival gangs. That leaves Stump (Johnny Hallyday), a mysterious ex-con, to complete the journey—accompanied by a mute 8-year-old named Princess. Their mission is guided by an AI system called Monste...

Although they’re a rare commodity these days, the recipe for creating a movie star still seems to be casting the right actor in the right role at the right time. Whether it’s science, sorcery, or luck, you can watch it happen in real time in   Hong Kong 1941   (1984), with Chow Yun-Fat at the center of a love triangle during the city’s Japanese occupation. The film follows three friends as they navigate personal dreams, political oppression, and rising romantic tensions. Chow plays Fei, an almost mystical drifter who allows himself to be recruited by the Japanese in order to aid the revolution from within. But his first challenge is rescuing his best friend, Keung (Alex Man), who’s been kidnapped by local collaborators. Meanwhile, Keung’s fiancée, Nam (Cecilia Yip), is torn by her own feelings—unsure which of the two men she’s truly in love with. Director Po-Chih Leong keeps things relatively intimate for a wartime film, focusing less on battlefront spectacle and more on stree...

When a new album comes out, every band likes to claim that  their  sound is  evolving . But from a fan perspective, I’ve always preferred the “same but different” approach. If I wanted things to sound different, I’d just buy something from another band! All of which leads to the review of Eureka’s Blu-ray release of   Exact Revenge , a curated double feature of Shaw Brothers titles that focuses exactly on what the studio does best: blood-spitting, high-jumping, double-bladed action films that no one should ever get tired of. The Eunuch   (1971) is a wuxia in the classic style, with a power-hungry political tyrant out to eliminate the sole heir to the throne and keep his illegitimate daughter under wraps. But when both of them team up to take him down, family secrets and old grudges threaten to destroy his evil plan. Made up mostly of beautiful master shots that take advantage of the Shaw Brothers’ meticulously painted sets and some impressive location photograph...

Female comedians are a rare breed. Female comedy duos even more so.   They seem to pop up on television every few decades (Lucy and Ethel, Laverne & Shirley, Edina and Patsy), like some sort of pop culture menstrual cycle—made only more interesting by their exotic infrequency. But the internet opened up a new audience where “funny” wasn’t necessarily defined by sexist executives.   Broad City   jumped from a web series to a full-fledged Comedy Central sitcom, and Netflix seems to be an equal-opportunity showcase when it comes to stand-up specials. Which is a long-winded way of introducing   Sour Party ( 2023) , the first feature from The Drextons, a married writer-director power couple who reimagine the bromance/slob comedy from a distinctly feminine perspective. Roommates James (Amanda Drexton) and Gwen (Samantha Westervelt) are living on the fringes of poverty in Los Angeles, working any scam to pay the rent. So when Gwen’s sister reminds them her baby shower i...

Japanese cinema can be a maze of cultural references, historical details, and religious flip-flops. But one thing that translates very well is its obsession with folk tales and urban legends, which are often reinterpreted generation after generation. That’s certainly the case with the ghost story of Yotsuya. Adapted for the stage, cinema, and television more than 30 times, it tells the tale of a woman disfigured and killed by her husband, who returns from beyond the grave to settle the score. Director Tai Kato’s 1961 version,   The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost , is a viciously modern take on the material—despite retaining the traditional   jidai-geki   (period drama) setting. Unsatisfied with his lot in life and looking for a fresh start, lower-class samurai Tamiya (Tomisaburo Wakayama) seeks a way to rid himself of his sickly wife, Oiwa (Ayuko Fujishiro). Slipping her a deadly poison that hideously scars her face and leads to her death, Tamiya publicly brands her an adulterer an...

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first:   Tunnel Vision  (1976), writer-director Neal Israel’s sketch-comedy spoof of network TV trailers, game shows, and product endorsements, is not funny. Like, ever. Even for those of us who grew up in the three-channel culture, the jokes are dated, inappropriate, and just plain lame—blink-and-you-miss-them cameos from Chevy Chase, John Candy, and Laraine Newman notwithstanding. But Israel clearly had an eye for where comedy was heading. His film was among the first to tap into the caustic, satirical current that would later crest with   The Groove Tube ,   The Kentucky Fried Movie , and   Saturday Night Live . Set in a near-future 1985 where the Tunnel Vision network has achieved ratings dominance despite featuring nothing but crude, shocking, and straight-up ridiculous programming, the CEO is brought before a government hearing to defend the station’s lowbrow content. This serves as a bookend for non-stop fake news bro...

What if 1960s-era Walt Disney made a chanbara film?   Well, instead of   The Shaggy D.A.   or   The Absent-Minded Professor , you’d wind up with   The Invisible Swordsman   (1970), a kid-friendly, mostly bloodless samurai film about a cowardly teen who must avenge his father’s death. How, you ask? With a secret formula that renders him (and his kimono) invisible for 30 minutes at a time. Sanshiro calls upon mystical spirits to grant him the power to extract justice from the Phantom Thieves responsible for his father’s murder. His newfound invisibility is usually enough to scare his opponents into submission—but when the gang leader discovers his secret identity, Sanshiro is forced to call upon his own strength to save the day. Put together with a whimsical, all-ages appeal,   The Invisible Swordsman   takes the traditional hero story and modernizes it with wires and trick photography (much the same way Lucas did in   Star Wars ). But the emph...