Reaction & Review | The Bloody Fists

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a martial arts film from 1972. That movie is "The Bloody Fists", which is the second film that's apart of the "Martial Arts Classic Double Feature" that I'm gonna be reviewing tonight.

Now, earlier this month, I reviewed the other film from that 2 pack, which was "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion". And to give you guys a summarization of my thoughts on it, the film wasn't very good. It had a *lot* of problems, such as the story not making any sense, the dub being atrocious, half of the movie's title being a lie, and the technical stuff was also an issue, too, mostly in regards to the picture quality and sound-mixing. That said, I was still kinda able to recommend it mainly for the fight choreography alone, because that was honestly one of the only highlights I could praise about the movie. Just don't expect much of anything else if you ever plan to watch it.

So with that said, let's move on to the other film from this 2 pack, which is "The Bloody Fists". And much like with "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion", I don't really know much about the film itself. And even the description that's written on the back of the DVD case for it doesn't really tell me much either. The best I could get out of it is that there's some lone fugitive that is defending villagers from some intruders. Why? I don't know. I'm hoping that there's more context to it, but I really won't know unless I quit stalling and I actually watch this thing.

Now I'm really hoping for this movie to be better than "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion". That said, I'm kinda lowering my expectations with this one, because this movie could honestly suffer the same problems as that other film did. But hey, who knows? This movie could surprise me somehow, and could actually wind up being halfway decent. But there's really only one way for me to find out. And the only way I am gonna know as to whether or not this movie is any good at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Bloody Fists".

3 minutes later

OK, I have a really dumb question here. So our main character has just stolen money, and is on the run from the police. And while he's doing that, he's also crossing a river while holding the money inside the brown bag that he has on his back. And I should mention that the bag itself has gotten wet from being in the water. Wouldn't that damage the money as well? Because all the money he's taken is paper money and I'm pretty sure that if you kept it underwater, even if it's inside a bag, then there's a *strong* chance that the money's gonna be useless to him by this point. Granted, I understand that it probably has nothing to do with the movie itself, but it's the logic behind our main character's thought process that I'm sorta questioning right now.

14 minutes later

Well, guys, I am able to say this so far. The fight choreography is just as good as it was in "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion". I really wish I could tell you anything about the film's plot, but, so far, I haven't been able to find much of anything, outside of them mentioning something about Dragon Herbs and the Japanese wanting to build a gymnasium. I'm hoping, maybe, that there's more to this, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see, now won't I?

20 minutes later

You know, guys, I mentioned before that I'm not the biggest fan of martial arts films...but I don't remember a lot of them being this fucking boring. I honestly have been struggling to stay the fuck awake, but this movie is somehow putting me to sleep. I never thought I'd say that about a martial arts film, but this movie is actually proving that to me in spades! I'm hoping the next hour or so is gonna do something interesting and soon, but I don't really know if it will or not.

11 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a stupid question here, but I want to ask it anyway. Now, I am not an expert on the art of torturing people, but is raising someone's tied up feet on a pair of brick rocks suppose to be torture? I admit, there might be some sort of method to that effect, but I honestly don't see it. It just looks more like an inconvenience to me, you know?

2 minutes later

All right, this is starting to annoy me now, but this is the 4th time that they've used this fucking song and I'm getting sick of it! I really wish this movie would stop playing this stupid song because it just sounds incredibly unnecessary when they're trying to build some sort of dramatic tension. It wasn't working then and it's not working now, so can we *please* move on from this song? Please?! Oh, and now they're bringing in the annoying piano music, too...great. I'm thankful you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but for me, I still have more of this shit to listen to. Yippie...

15 minutes later

Guys, do you happen to remember earlier when I was talking about the description that was written on the back of this film's DVD case? About how a lone fugitive was defending villagers from some sort of intruders? Well, guess what? That still hasn't fucking happened yet! I've been waiting for him to recover from this "plague* that he's been suffering from since getting the Dragon Herb medicine from a couple of the villagers, but that still hasn't happened yet. This movie better have some sort of payoff to his absence, otherwise, I'm probably gonna be very disappointed.

12 minutes later

You know, guys, out of all the things I was expecting to see from a martial arts film, a scumbag raping a dead woman's corpse was not one of them. Yeah...that was...totally what I needed to see in my martial arts films. I mean...it's kinda different, and totally fucking disgusting. But still, I wasn't really expecting that of all things to happen in this movie.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Bloody Fists". And thank god, this movie is finally over. Let me shut this horrendous thing off now...OK. I'm thankful now because, not only do I ever have to watch this movie ever again, but I can also rejoice that I never have to listen this movie's horrible music ever again! Holy shit...

You know what? Since I'm just on this subject, let's start with the biggest problem that this movie suffers from the most, which would be it's music. And the reason why it's so bad is because, one, it's incredibly repetitive. You're gonna hear 3 different types of music in this movie that's gonna stand out to you. One of them sounds like you're prepping up to go to war. The second one has this annoying piano music that, I swear, almost rivals the god-awful piano music that I heard when I watched "Deathday". Which is really fucking sad, especially considering how awful the music was for that movie in general. And then the third piece of music that plays a quite a bit is this choir-esque music that basically plays in scenes that are completely unnecessary. The biggest example is when during the beginning of the movie, you have two of our characters playfully splashing each other in the water, and then this particular music plays and it sounds *incredibly* dramatic. Now, when I first heard that music, I honestly thought that something tragic was about to happen to either one of those characters. But instead, the music suddenly *stops*, because some other character comes running towards them to warn them about something. And you're gonna hear that kind of thing for most of the movie, because it's just so poorly utilized.

And on that note, there's another thing I want to mention about this movie's awfully repetitive score. I didn't notice this, up until I complained about that choir music playing for the 4th time in this movie. And I can confirm this to you guys, because it's something that honestly shocked me. See, the movie's score that I've been complaining about to you guys is *not* the original score that this movie had. It was almost completely dubbed over, with a couple of exceptions in which I could hear a bit of the original movie's score, and I have a couple of theories as to why that is. One of them could be simply because of licensing issues. I could totally see that happening, though I obviously have no proof of it. Another theory is because some of the original audio for this movie has somehow been damaged and that it couldn't be recovered, thus is the reason why we got this dubbed over music. Which is actually justifiable, if that is the case. And I would be fine with this if, one, it didn't overlap a lot of the dialogue in this movie. I'll talk about that later when talking about sound-mixing. And the other thing would obviously have to be if the music was actually good, which it wasn't. So yeah, again, I have no proof of this whatsoever, however, it just surprises me that I would actually get to encounter this sort of thing when watching a movie, so it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth.

So anyway, let's move on with the rest of the review and talk about the writing. And really, guys, the best way I can summarize this movie's story is that it feels really plotless. Which is in stark contrast when compared to "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion", because that movie's plot was confusing as hell and was all over the place. This movie barely has any fucking plot, outside of what little I garnered out of it. Apparently, this gang of Japanese martial artists want to obtain these Dragon Herbs for themselves from the Chinese people, since they're the ones who made it. Why? Well, it's never really properly explained. It might be because these herbs contain a cure that is known to cure the plague, which is what our main character comes down with later on in the movie. And also, the Japanese want to build a gymnasium. Why? Again, I don't really know. Probably because they want to keep up with their training so that they can become superior to the Chinese. Mind you, I'm just spit-balling there because the movie never properly explained it.

Now since we have a really plotless story, we would also naturally have no characters that are worth caring about. And, what do you know, we have exactly just that. There are no characters that have any shred of depth or personality to themselves. Our main character is out of the movie for almost half of it, despite the fact that's he suppose to be the hero in all this. And when he comes down with the plague, I find myself with no reason to care about him because the movie didn't take the time to develop his character. OK yes, he's a fugitive, but is there anything else beyond that? Well...sometimes, he combs his hair before getting into a fight. Granted, that's not really saying much, but I guess that's something. However, you don't learn anything about him or why exactly he ended up becoming a fugitive. You also don't know anything else about any of the other characters because they honestly have nothing resembling an interesting personality or backstory to them.

So yeah, guys, the writing in this movie is really poor at best. Now yes, it could be possible that this movie might've suffered from a mis-translation, but I honestly don't know if that's the case or not. I'm only working with what we got for this movie's English dub. And speaking of which, let's get into the acting. Specifically, I have to talk about it's English dub. And much like with "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion", the dub here is just as atrocious as that thing was. I'd probably say it's worse here, and that mostly ties into the sound-mixing. However, I'll get to that in a second. But sticking with the acting for a bit longer, everybody sounds about as wooden and jaded as possible. Nobody here put in any actual effort, which is probably not surprising, considering how these sorts of movies were made back then. And unfortunately, similar to "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion", there is no option for you to switch it over to the subtitled version on this combo pack. You are stuck with an over 50 year old dub that has aged about as well as moldy bread has. So...yeah, don't expect any real quality with this dub if you ever plan on watching this movie. You could probably find the subtitled version of the movie online, though I don't know if it will make the movie a better viewing experience for you or not.

I will say, though, that if there is one thing both this and "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion" have in common, is that they both have amazing fight choreography. This movie definitely makes the fight scenes much more grounded and intense, though admittedly, it's not as overly cartoony as it was in "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion". That said, I'm not gonna take anything away from how well choreographed the fights were in this movie. And I can also say the title lives up to it's name, because there is quite a bit of blood in this movie. So I can at least add the blood effects as another positive for this thing.

Camerawork here is OK. The lighting is decent, except for one scene where the filtering on the camera makes one of the fight scenes look dark as shit, and at times, makes the fight scene almost unwatchable. But aside from that, the lighting is OK. Sound-mixing, though, is pretty awful. Both in the fights where the foley artists kinda took liberties with how a punch and a kick would sound like on impact, but it's also an issue with this film's English dub. See, earlier, I mentioned about the possibility of this movie's score being dubbed over due to various circumstances, whether it's because of licensing issues or the original score being lost due to the film being possibly damaged. Well, I probably would've given some of this awful dubbed-over music some slack *if* it didn't overlap a good portion of the dialogue. I swear to God, guys, the music in this movie sounds *way* too fucking loud. And I thought maybe it was because I had my TV's volume up pretty high, but no, that's how it naturally sounds. And because of that, there are some scenes in this movie where the dialogue is drowned out by the loud music. So if there was any important dialogue that might've been said, then I couldn't make heads or tails of it because the audio was just too fucking loud. Now granted, like I said, it only happens for *some* scenes, but it's still a really big issue, and it could've definitely used some fine tuning, if given the proper care.

So yeah, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "The Bloody Fists"? Um...no. I honestly can't really recommend this thing, even if you are a fan of martial arts films. Because while the fight choreography is really well done, it just doesn't feel as creative as "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion" was. Yeah sure, that film wasn't really good either, however, I could still see a couple of positives in that thing that could be worth a single viewing experience. This thing, though, I just don't see a whole lot of positives out of. And considering this movie has a lot of problems, both storywise and technical issues, I can't find much of a reason for me to recommend this thing at all. *Maybe* if you wanted to watch it with friends on a bad movie night, but personally, I just don't see a whole lot of riffing material out of this thing. And I wanted to like this movie, too, because I wanted to see if it would be better than the other movie that I watched from this 2-pack. But unfortunately, it was kinda worse. And because of that, I'm most definitely not going to be holding onto this DVD combo pack, because both movies were just not really that good. So...yeah, I think I'm gonna go and do something else. Maybe I'll pop in my copy of Smash Ultimate and play a few online matches or something, I don't know. I'm just gonna find something better to do after spending time dealing with both of these movies.

But anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Arena

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a sci-fi film from 1989. That movie is "Arena".

Now I've been wanting to watch this movie for quite a long time. However, due to various circumstances, such as not finding a decent copy of it online somewhere on YouTube, and certain scheduling conflicts, I was never able to get around to actually watching it. That said, I was able to pick up a 4 movie combo pack on DVD, which thankfully features this movie. Now in regards as to whether or not I'll cover any of those other movies in that 4 pack is something I haven't decided yet. For now, though, I really just want to cover this movie in particular.

Now if you've never heard anything about this movie, the premise of it is pretty simple. It's basically a fighting tournament, where a human is trying to rise the ranks against the aliens and become the champion. And...yeah, that's pretty much it. Now admittedly, I am a little curious as to how exactly a human ends up in a fighting tournament like this against a bunch of alien monsters, but hopefully, it'll make some level of sense when I get around to watching the movie. I'm also hoping for it to be really good, but there's really only one way to find out. And the only way I am gonna find out if it's any good at all is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Arena".

14 minutes later

So...there is an underground base for homeless people who have nowhere to go. And our main character's friend happens to live there. Interesting. Normally, whenever I see these sorts of tropes in sci-fi films, I would usually think of an underground resistance group trying to band together and fight to retake their world. Here though, in this movie, that's not the case. In fact, it's just a place where our main character's friend happens to live and is offering him to crash here. I gotta say, that is actually somewhat different.

14 minutes later

I am gonna say, guys, that I'm really liking the make-up effects and the costuming on all of these aliens. They look pretty cool. I really wish I had much else to say about the movie itself, but, so far, I haven't been given much to work with. That said, the movie has been pretty enjoyable so far, and I'm hoping it stays that way.

2 minutes later

O...K. I don't know what kind of music this is suppose to be, but it sounds...awful. Like, *really* awful. The singing is OK, but...my god, the music itself is fucking terrible. Thankfully, you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, so at least you'll be spared the terrible music that I have listen to. God, you will please shut up, already?!

20 minutes later

You know, guys, how I said earlier that this woman's music sounded awful but she had a decent singing voice? Well, we're getting another song with her, and uh...well, it doesn't sound that much better. Granted, this music here is nowhere near as awful as it was the first time she started singing. But her singing here feels...a little bit off to me. I don't know why, exactly, but it just doesn't sound right to me for some reason.

12 minutes later

OK, I need to ask this because it's kinda bugging me slightly. But what the hell kind of dress is Jade suppose to be wearing?! It looks like she's wearing half-green leather with what looks to be like a black trash bag that was stitched together with it. It just looks really ugly when you mix the two together. But hey, you know what? Perhaps maybe I'm not into the fashion sense of what women wear in this universe, so what the hell do I know?

13 minutes later

You know what I just realized, guys? Well admittedly, I realized this a little while back, but Horn, the Arena Champion, looks kinda like the cyberdemon from DOOM. Except he's nowhere near as big as the cyberdemon was. Which, if that were the case here, then Armstrong would probably stand no chance against him whatsoever, especially in the condition that he's been in since he got poisoned. Granted, I understand what I'm saying is all trivial and stupid, but it's just something I wanted share with you guys is all.

The Review

Well, guys that was "Arena". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So...where to begin here...? Well, earlier, I did say that I had been wanting to watch this movie for a long time, and now that I finally got a chance to watch it for myself here, I can ultimately say that it was certainly worth the wait. Mind you, the movie does stumble in a couple of areas, but for the most part, the movie is still really enjoyable. At least, to me, it was.

So now, I gotta try and talk about this thing in a little more detail here. Let's start this review off proper here by talking about the writing. The story is honestly nothing special, where we have someone entering a tournament and trying to fight their way to the top to become number one. And in this case, we have our main character, Steve Armstrong, who is the first human to enter "The Arena" tournament, where the whole thing is set in space and there's a bunch of alien monsters who also partake in the tournament. Steve ends up being the first human fighter in 50 years to enter the tournament and wants to prove that he, as a human, can win it. Since the only other human that ever won the tournament was, as I just said, 50 years ago. And really, guys, it's a very simplistic plot, and if you've seen these kinds of movies before where it involves a fighting tournament, you kinda already know where it's going to end up. And this movie is no exception.

That said, the one thing that makes this movie rather unique is how the fights are set up here. Now for the most part, it's very similar to movies like "Bloodsport" where you can knock out your opponent out of the ring, or through a 10 count. However, unlike "Bloodsport", where it's mostly aiming for realistic standards, the fights in this movie are set up a little bit uniquely. Because throughout the fights with Steve, there are these colored spotlights that hover above you, which is apart of some handicap technology, in which it ensures that all of the fighters battle on equal grounds. So even if you're an alien monster of some sorts, you're not gonna be ridiculously overpowered as long as the lights are in effects. And because of that concept, the villains try to rig it against Steve in the final fight against the champion, and, well, like I said, if you've seen these sorts of movies before, you kinda already know how it ends, by which it backfires and the hero wins. And I know, to some people, that I kinda already spoiled the movie for you. However, it's not really much of a spoiler, because I've seen these sorts of movies before. And even for some people who haven't been exposed much to these sorts of movies, there's a very good chance that someone will pick up on the film's predictability and notice it. Mind you, just because the film is predictable, doesn't mean that it's automatically bad. It's just something you have to take for what it's worth depending on your experience with these sorts of movies.

There is one thing I do want to comment on in regards to what I talked about involving the handicap lights. During the final fight, the lights are being manipulated by Rogor's henchman, in order to rig the fight in Horn's favor. And shortly after the light gets manipulated, Shorty, who is Steve's friend, ends up noticing the lights are being tinkered against Steve's favor, so he goes to find the perpetrators and stop them. And while that's all well and good, the one question I had in my mind is why didn't he tell Quinn, who is Steve's trainer/captain about this before he went to go stop them by himself? If he told her, then I'm sure someone else on Steve's team could've came out to help him while Quinn remained there to give Steve moral support. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to go do this by himself when there was a possibility that he could've been killed by one of Rogor's henchman and it could've backfired on him. You know, it's those kind of lapses in logic that could potentially hurt the film a bit if you try to think on it too much.

Our characters here are mostly really likable. Our main character, Steve, originally just wanted to get back home to Earth after losing his job during a fight. However, through various circumstances involving Shorty, he ends up fighting in the tournament and you do feel like you have a reason to care about him through all that he's been through. Our supporting characters are also really likable, though admittedly, they don't have as much depth as our main character does. The only ones I feel are a little bit lacking are our villains. Specifically, I'm only gonna mention Jade and Rogor's henchman. Jade is suppose to be Rogor's girl and her personality is nothing short of flat and sorta lifeless. His henchman, I don't really remember much of anything about them other than their cool make-up effects. Rogor himself is a little bit weak, personality wise, but what ends up saving a bit is his acting, which I'll get to in a second. But I will say, for the most part, the characters are mostly written decently. So if anything else, I gotta give the writing team some credit in trying to flesh out some of these characters.

Now with that said, let's get into the acting. For the most part, the acting here is decent. There is one actor I want to give a special mention to, which would have to be the guy who plays Rogor. He goes by the name of Marc Alaimo. For those of you who don't know, he is mostly known for playing Gul Dukat, the main villain from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". It was a show that I briefly watched when I was younger, but I do remember his performance in that thing being great. And while his performance in this movie is nowhere near as good as his DS9 counterpart, it's still pretty good for what he had to work with. In fact, most of the cast did a pretty good job on their roles. The only one I have to contest is the actress who played Jade. She sounds very one-noted and doesn't have much of a range within her voice. I could also include her singing, however, I'll save that for when I cover music. But aside from her, the acting from everyone else is pretty good, and I can't say much else beyond that.

Special effects are mostly great. The make-up effects on the aliens are probably the biggest highlights of the entire movie, as a lot of them look really unique and creative-looking. The only one that looks sorta questionable is the make-up on Rogor's face. Now when I say that, I'm mostly referring to certain shots in the beginning where you see that some of his makeup looks like it hasn't properly applied yet. I should mention that his entire face is entirely silver-colored, and like I said, it looks really good, save for a couple of shots here and there where the make-up looks like it hasn't been fully applied. However, these are only noticeable if you really look for them. I did, because I'm a little more trained to noticed the smaller details. But it could be possible that you won't notice it, so it's just take it or leave it, really.

In terms of other special effects, the CG is a little cheap-looking. However, there really isn't a whole lot of CG used here, as most of the effects are practical, and the practical stuff is really good. That said, I am going to give the cheap-looking CG here a bit of a pass, considering that this movie was made on a lower budget. That said, the costuming here is a little bit questionable, and there's a couple of examples I want to bring up in regards to that. The first one has to do with that ugly colored dress that Jade wears where it's a mixture between green and black, and the material on this dress honestly looks like it was made out of trash bags that been knitted into a dress. Well, the black one does, anyway. The green part of it I don't know. It could be possible it came from a trash bag, but still, it doesn't stop the dress from looking ugly as shit. The other costume I wanted to mention was the wrestling singlet that Steve wears during his matches. Now admittedly, I haven't really seen a whole lot of wrestlers use training singlets like these in a long time, but I don't remember any of them looking as cheap as the one Steve wears! It looks really ugly-looking, and I have no idea if it looks that way because they bought a really cheap-looking singlet at some department store if they had hand-crafted it and they did a poor job at it. Either way, it looks terrible, though admittedly, it's only visible during the fights and not anywhere else.

Setting aside the costuming, the camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting here is lit really well. The sound-mix is mixed fine. The music, at least in terms of it's score anyway, is actually pretty good. I can't say the same, though, about the songs. Admittedly, there are only two songs in this movie that are sung by Jade's actress and they're both horrible. Now I have no idea if she really is a professional singer or not, but if this is the best she's able to give out, then I'm probably never going to listen to a single song she's put out ever again because these songs are just shit. Well...correction, the first song is pure shit, the second one is just really forgettable. Now why is the first song pure shit? Well, it's kinda hard to put into words, because I have no idea if the music was suppose to be some lame ass version of techno or not. But I'm gonna tell you, guys, if you ever get a chance to listen to this song while watching the movie, then prepare for some major ear rape, because the music for that thing sucked so much ass that I'm almost getting a migraine from even remembering it again! But anyway, guys, aside from those two awful songs, the music is mostly pretty good in it's score area. 

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, can I recommend "Arena"? Yes, I definitely can. Especially if you're a fan of these type of movies like, say, "Bloodsport", "Rocky", or even the first "Karate Kid" movie, where the main character has to take part in a fighting tournament and all, then you're most definitely gonna feel right at home here. And if you're also looking for something that's a little bit unique what with alien monsters taking part in the tournament, then it's possible that you're gonna end up loving this thing. Myself, personally, I really enjoyed it. Now, mind you, it's nowhere near as good as a couple of the movies I just mentioned, but I would still definitely rewatch it again at some point. And you know what? Considering the other 3 movies I have on this 4 pack, I may end up covering those at some point, maybe. It's not a guarantee, but it is definitely possible. For now, though, I think I'm gonna go and rewatch my copy of "Bloodsport" again, because just thinking about it now honestly makes me realize how much I love that thing. So I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done putting this review together.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Shakma

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 1990. That movie is "Shakma".

I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, that title's been bugging me ever since I first discovered this movie. And it's not so much that I hate it or anything, it's more so of how the hell you even pronounce it. Do you pronounce it as 'Shackma" or "Shockma"? I originally was just gonna go for the former here, however, I do know that the a's pronunciation can be interpreted as 'ah', hence why it could also be possible that it's pronounced as "Shockma". Now I know this is probably just a trivial thing to be bitching about, and the movie's more than likely gonna answer that question for me, but it is something that I wanted to share with you guys, since I thought it was worth mentioning at least.

Now setting aside on how the title's supposed to be pronounced, the only thing I can really tell you that I know about this movie is that it's about a killer baboon monkey that has escaped from a lab...I think. I'm not totally sure if it's from a lab or if it's from some secret military base like Area 51. Either way, I do know that it's about a killer baboon that has escaped and is killing people there. That's it. I don't know anything else beyond what I just told you.

That said, I am still interested in checking it out because it could be one of those B movie horror flicks that could wind up being cheesy as hell, but still has some kind of charm to it. A similar movie I can think of right off the bat is "Chopping Mall". I loved "Chopping Mall" because it had a lot of the elements of what I adore out of B movies. This movie could be one of those, too. I don't know if it will end up being any good, but I am about to find out momentarily. And the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is any good at all, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Shakma".

7 minutes later

Well...even though it was just a minor scratch, Shakma has already made his first mark. I'm hoping that this is gonna be a good sign of things to come if what I just saw was any indication.

14 minutes later

OK, I have a question that I've been sorta curious about for a while now. So they're playing this game where the only way to win is to save a princess at the top floor and defeat a demon. And they've locked all the doors to the building until the game is finished. I'm happy that they explained why they're locking themselves in just so we can later have our killer baboon do his thing, but what I want to know is *what* exactly is the purpose of this game? Is it like, an experiment of some sorts? Are they game testers? Or are they just playing this game simply because fuck you, that is why? I'm really curious about this, guys, and I don't know if they're gonna explain that at all at some point. I'm hoping that they do, but I'm not totally sure if they will or not.

14 minutes later

Well, guys, I have a bit of good news to share. I believe Richard is now dead, thanks to Shakma, and I couldn't be happier, because he was kind of an annoying piece of shit. I'm hoping Shakma will continue his rampage, because, so far, he's been the only likable character in this entire movie.

3 minutes later

O...K...well, I clearly underestimated how much damage Shakma actually did to Richard. Apparently, it was so bad that half of his face has been torn off, along with an eyeball missing, and the lower half of his face clearly soaked in his own blood! That looked pretty nasty, guys, I'm not gonna lie.

16 minutes later

You know, guys, I find it kinda funny how earlier, when Sam discovered Sorenson's dead body, his reaction was kind of a mixture between confused and scared. Now when he discovers Richard's body, he looks fucking terrified and looks like he's about to throw up. I don't know why I find that funny, I just sorta noticed it and felt like sharing it with you guys.

16 minutes later

So, let me see if I understand this. Kimberly is using kitchen utensils to throw out the window from the top floor so that they can hit Laura's car and get her attention. And her aiming *really* sucks, too, especially considering how she's throwing them from a locked window. And she's *still* doing this!...OK, never mind, she *finally* gets the idea to stop because it's clearly not fucking working. I was gonna question her intelligence there for a minute, considering she hasn't really done much of anything in this movie so far other than be a waiting princess for a game that's already gone way off the rails for obvious reasons.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Shakma". Let me go ahead and shut the film off here...OK. By the way, just to clarify, the baboon's name is pronounced as "Shockma". So, at *least* that much was answered, and I was right on the pronunciation bit from earlier. As for the movie itself, well...um, it was kind of disappointing, to say the least.

Let's just start this review off proper by talking about the writing. Now, at the start of this thing, I was predicting this movie to be something along the lines of cheesy B movie horror flicks. And for the most part, it actually meets those standards. We have a simple yet ridiculous plot, we have tons of blood and gore, and we have characters that have little to no depth as they try to survive against the murderous baboon. All of that is there and would normally make for an interesting horror flick. And while this movie certainly does have a couple of interesting moments, there's one thing here that is missing from most of the other B movie horror films that I enjoy watching, which is the fun factor. This movie lacks that almost entirely, and it's really disappointing, because you had a premise that sounded interesting on paper, but when it comes to execution, it falters a bit. And there's a few things that's stops this movie from being great.

To begin with, let's start off with the setting. Now, as I stated earlier, the movie takes place in a laboratory in which our main characters are basically playing a weird version of DnD that they play overnight. Why are they doing this? Well, simply because, fuck you that is why. That is *literally* the only reason why they're doing this. Now I honestly don't have a problem with the setup of it. The problem is the setting of this premise. And in order for me to talk about this, I want to compare it to a film I mentioned earlier that has a very similar premise, that film being of course "Chopping Mall". With that movie, our characters were trapped overnight in a mall with robotic security guards that go haywire as they hunt down and try to kill our characters. And the reason why it worked there was because the setting took place at an actual mall. And because it took place at a mall, the characters had more creative freedom on how and where to deal with the robots by having access to guns and other weapons at their disposal.

This movie, on the other hand, is, as I just stated, taking place in a laboratory. And most of the time, you'll see our characters trying to run away and hide from Shakma, as the murderous baboon starts to bang on the doors as wildly as possible. And that is sort of interesting...the first couple of times, because it feels really tense and you have no idea if they're gonna be able to fend off Shakma. But by the fourth or fifth time that they do this shtick, it starts to get old and it gets old really quickly because they don't have anything else to do *other* than hold onto the door so that Shakma won't be able to get in. OK yes, it's really cool to see that the movie was able to work with a real baboon rather than puppetry or CG, but unfortunately, because of the setting, it leaves little room for our characters to do anything interesting or creative other than hide from Shakma behind closed doors.

Another reason why this movie's premise falters a bit is another thing I stated earlier, in which it doesn't feel fun to watch. Again, there are certain moments here where it shines, and that mostly ties into the special effects. However, I'm gonna get into all of that later when I cover that subject. But anyway, this movie doesn't really feel all that fun, and one of the big reasons why that is, is because of it's runtime. This movie clocks in at an hour and 40 minutes long, and by the last half hour or so, you can start to see that for yourself. And again, when I compare this to "Chopping Mall" that movie had a runtime of 77 minutes. And it was perfect for that movie because it didn't feel like it overstayed it's welcome, especially when you consider the premise for it I described earlier. This movie, however, doesn't have that luxury. And because it goes on for way too long, it starts to lose steam by around the last half hour of the film. It probably would've been paced better, had the film been about less than 90 minutes or so. Because you really can only do so much with this sort of premise before you start to run out of ideas, and this movie unfortunately didn't really have many ideas to begin with.

Our characters here are all flat and lifeless. Now again, I kinda expected this to happen, considering the nature of a lot of B movie horror flicks. However, again, you still want to find a reason to care about them. As with "Chopping Mall", while the characters there lacked depth, you still could find a reason to care about them and the situation that they were in. With this movie, though, I honestly could not find a reason to care about them at all. And none of them really do much, outside of what I just stated earlier by hiding behind the doors every time Shakma bangs on them really hard. And one other thing that stops this movie from being fun is the fact that it kinda takes itself a little too seriously at times, especially towards the latter half of the movie. Again, with "Chopping Mall", it knew it's premise was silly and stupid, and yet, it was still able to have fun with itself. I was kinda hoping for this movie to follow those sort of roots, however, because it decided to take itself seriously, it ends up sorta killing itself in the process. And that's really disappointing to see a movie end up like this because it had so much potential for something sorta cool and interesting, but thanks to it's somewhat bleak tone, that potential gets squandered pretty quickly.

Overall, guys, the writing here is really disappointing. Again, it had a lot of potential to be really fun and interesting, but it just ends up being rather boring and disappointing really quickly. And as for the acting...the acting here was OK. It isn't great by any stretch, but I can at least say that it's passable, and the actors tried to work with what they could, given the shallow script and all. So, if anything else, I can at least say the acting here was serviceable from all of the actors.

One positive I can definitely give this movie, though, is the special effects. These are some great special effects for a low budget movie. And what I was more surprised by was the fact that the movie's only made for about 1.5 million dollars. I was expecting something a little bit higher, but for a movie with that kind of budget, it definitely took advantage of it's special effects. The blood and gore effects are really good, and are quite possibly the biggest highlights of the entire movie. And again, the fact that they were able to work in a real baboon for this movie is also really cool to see. Now I imagine if someone were to remake this, the baboon itself would most definitely be rendered in CG. Not that I'm saying CG is entirely a bad thing, however, given how over-bloated it's been used in recent big budget Hollywood movies, I'm kinda glad to see something different here from a time that CG was still in it's infancy phase. So yeah, to make a long story short, the special effects here are really good, especially for low budget standards.

Camerawork here is also really good, especially considering it was shot with a 35 mm camera. And I'm sort of a sucker for those, as long as it's shot well, which again, this movie was shot very well. The lighting is also really good. The sound-mix is also mixed well. The score here is OK, though at times, feels a little bit over-dramatic. But then again, considering the movie decided to take itself slightly seriously, I guess the music works here for that tone, as unnecessary as it was.

So ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, can I recommend "Shakma"? Um...probably not. Given how the film decided to take itself a little too seriously with it's premise, it's sort of difficult for me to recommend this to anyone, unless if the premise itself really intrigues them. And I admit, the premise did intrigue me a bit. However, given that the characters feel flat and lifeless, and the fact that the film runs a little bit too long for my tastes, I'm probably not gonna end up watching this movie again. Which is really disappointing, because I did want this movie to sort of live up to those cheesy B movie horror flicks that I really enjoy. And while this movie has almost all of those traits, the one big factor it's missing is it's fun. This movie doesn't really feel that fun to me, and because of that missing factor, I'm unfortunately never gonna watch this thing again or even add it to my DVD collection. Mind you, I watched the movie on YouTube, and I'm kinda thankful I watched it on there. Because if I had a physical copy of this thing, I would probably feel slightly ripped off, no matter how much I would potentially pay for it. But anyway, yeah, if you seriously want to watch this movie, it's on YouTube, and if you really want to blow away an hour and 40 minutes of your time, go ahead and knock yourself out. But as for myself, I'm not gonna do that again. Instead, I'm gonna go and rewatch "Chopping Mall" again, because that is a B movie I enjoy watching a lot. So I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done typing this review up.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a martial arts film from 1977. That movie is "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion".

Now, throughout my time in doing this series, I have covered a wide variety of genres. The most notable ones I seem to cover are horror, action, animation, and family friendly films. And while there are couple of new exceptions to all this, one genre I seem to gloss over a lot is martial arts films. I guess my reasoning for this is that I just don't find many of them to look very interesting to me. And while I do enjoy films such as "Bloodport" and that live action "City Hunter" film, I just don't find myself very interested in the genre. Now that could be simply because I haven't really had a chance to dip myself more into these particular movies yet, and I feel like I would be doing some sort of disservice if I don't cover more of these films.

Which is why, tonight, I'm gonna be covering a couple of these movies, thanks to me picking up something called the "Martial Arts Classics Double Feature" on DVD, which features the movie I'm gonna be covering tonight and the other movie that I'll review later on this month. And I'm gonna start with tonight's movie, which is "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion". And I really wish I could tell you anything else about it, beyond the fact that it's a martial arts movie, however, I don't really know anything about it beyond that.

So basically, guys, I'm going into this movie as blind as possible here. And who knows? It might end up being really good. But I won't know for sure unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion".

6 minutes later

Guys, I know this is still very early in the film, but I need to ask: Why exactly is our main character trying to find her teacher's brother? I'm asking this because we haven't been given *any* explanation, so far, as to why she's been sent out to look for him. Again, I understand it's still early, and there's plenty of time for the movie to give out some sort of answer, but it's just leaving me a little bit confused at the moment.

10 minutes later

So, guys, I'm still kinda lost as to what's going on here. I sorta get the gist as to why our main character is trying to search for her teacher's brother, but it's still very vague. All we know so far is that two months ago, he received a letter from some guy, and has disappeared since. And now she has to find someone else in order to find out where her brother is. But as to *why* he's disappeared is something I still don't know about. I'm hoping we'll get something resembling a plot soon, but as of right now, this running around our main character is doing is kind of getting dull.

6 minutes later

OK, you know what? As much as I can say that this story is still plotless, I am willing to grant that this movie's fight choreography is fucking great! It seriously is really cool and innovative to watch. So yeah, I can definitely say it's the movie's biggest positive so far.

9 minutes later

So these guys in black were harassing this woman and her daughter, just so they can claim the young girl as their own. Moments later, this other guy comes in and tells them that he's going to teach them a lesson that they soon won't forget. And after only doing two moves, the guys just up and retreat like cowards! Wow, that was just...stupidly easy, I'm kinda surprised by that.

17 minutes later

You know, guys, I am gonna say that this, I guess, dance performance here from these girls is kinda cool. I'm not sure what the point is to it, but I can at least say that it looks sort of cool.

2 minutes later

OK, so we *finally* get a confirmation about this movie's title...well, sort of. The Jade Lion that our villain possesses is only one half of a medallion. And if he can get his hands on the second half of it, then he will become the master of the kung-fu world. I have a *bunch* of questions about this, however, I'm gonna save all that for later when I eventually review this thing.

18 minutes later

All right, guys, I'm just gonna say this much right now, this movie is still confusing as hell, and I kinda stopped making sense of it a long time ago. But if there is any other positive to this movie, outside of the fight choreography, is the fact that the movie is almost over. It has less than 25 minutes to go, and I'm just counting down the minutes until this movie is finished.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion". And the movie just ends, so there's no ending credits, it just brings me back to the DVD menu screen. So, I'm just gonna go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Holy shit, um...where do I even start here...? Well, uh...I can at least say that the film was interesting. Um...yeah, I'm not kidding, guys, that's *literally* the best thing I can say about this thing. I wish I could tell you that it's good, but um...that would be sort of a lie.

So, let me go ahead and try to dissect this movie apart by talking about it the best way I can. I'm gonna start with writing, which is probably gonna be somewhat of a herculean feat here, because this story just doesn't make any sense. Now, my original thought process while I was watching the movie was that there was no writing here at all. I thought this was just gonna be some pointless fetch quest where our main character, Chu Siew Yen is on a mission from her teacher to find his missing brother. Why? Well, it's almost never explained...up until the very end of the movie. Which, even then, it makes almost no sense because it comes right the fuck out of nowhere. It tries to justify a reason as to why Chu was sent out on this particular mission, because she was apparently looking for him to find out who killed her parents when she was a baby. But again, it comes right near the end of the movie, and any character development she might've had beforehand never existed. The only sort of motivation we knew about her was that she was sent out to find her teacher's missing brother that disappeared two months ago. But in regards to finding out who killed her parents was something that was never even brought up for almost the entirety of the movie, so you're left wondering as to why she was even on this journey to begin with.

And that's the movie's biggest problem overall is the fact that almost *nothing* in this movie is ever explained. The best example of this has to involve the Jade Lion. Now, as I mentioned earlier, our villain for this movie, who's name I don't fucking remember, has half of the Jade Lion, and he needs the other half in order to became the master of the kung-fu world. And no, I am not joking, that is *literally* his entire explanation. And I have a bunch of questions about this. For starters, what exactly makes these Jade Lions so special when they're together? Does it give you some kind of kung-fu superpower that makes you the master of the kung-fu world? I would love to know more about these things, but the movie never explains it, despite the fact that they decided to bring it up a little over halfway into the movie. And as for the other half of the title, the Moonlight Sword, well...I'm not even joking when I say this, but that part is *never* explained. At all. It plays no part in this movie whatsoever, and it makes me wonder if that was a translation issue when they were dubbing the movie into English? It could be possible, but I'm ultimately just theorizing there. It's also possible that it was thrown in there because the title of the movie would sound cooler, I guess. I honestly don't know, but that's just my guess, really.

As for our characters, there is honestly no character here that has any sort of depth or personality. In fact, I can't even remember over half of their names, because they're so fucking forgettable. The only character I can remember by name is Chu, because they repeat her name so many times. But as for everyone else, I couldn't tell you a single thing about these characters or their motivations because it's all over the fucking place. It's honestly so bad to a point where I couldn't even tell you who is suppose to be a hero or a villain in this movie because the film did such a bad job in telling a coherent story. Now again, it could be possible that it's just a translation issue, and it's possible that it might've been explained better in the subtitled version. However, I can't give you a straight answer on that, and I'll tell you why in just a second. But I just want to say, first and foremost, that the writing here is just bad. It's bad on a storytelling level, because it doesn't really explain a lot of things.

Now let's talk about the acting. Specifically, let's talk about the film's English dub. To put it simply, guys, the English dub is fucking *atrocious*. Everybody sounds either wooden or they're trying to overact their lines, and almost none of it sounds natural in any way. Now, I can somewhat forgive this, because a lot of martial movies from this time period, from what I've heard, had this habit of having terrible English dubs, and this movie could most certainly be one of those cases. However, what I can't forgive is the fact that this movie, at least the version I have on DVD which contains the two movies I mentioned earlier, does not have an option to where you can just switch it over to the subtitled version. You're basically just stuck with an English dub that is roughly about 4 and a half decades old. And unless you're use to these god-awful dubs, then you're probably gonna hate this, mostly just because of it's English dub. However, I wanted to let you some of you know, firsthand, because anyone who may not have this kind of knowledge about these kinds of movies would probably not understand why they have these particularly bad English dubs. So again, I can forgive the film a bit for having a terrible English dub, but I can't forgive Warner Bros. for not at least including a subtitled version of the movie as an option on the DVD, since they're the ones who published this 2-pack and all.

Now there is another aspect to this movie's dub which ties into another problem with the film, which is the sound-mix. I have no idea who they got to dub over Chu's lines, but for some reason, every time she shouts out her lines, it sounds *really* loud. Now that could be just me having my TV up full volume, because the movie honestly sounds really quiet at times, however, it's something that I happened to notice almost *every* time that Chu's English voice actor has to shout her lines, and it sounds really grating, too. The sound-mix is also kind of an issue during the fight scenes, where whenever a character is getting hit, there's metal clanging sound that goes off, and it happens a lot, no matter whether it's someone getting punch or kicked, it happens quite often. And that could also just be part of how these particular movies were made back then when the foley artists just did what they wanted when mixing in the sounds of the fight sequences. Now I may have some of that information wrong, but it is still possible.

Speaking of the fight sequences, I actually do want to praise this movie on that front alone, because the fight choreography is honestly one of the only things that saves this movie from becoming shit. It is very fluent and really fun to watch, especially towards the beginning of the movie. One scene in particular that will really stand out is the fight sequence at the dumpling restaurant. It is very creative and it's quite honestly the best part of the entire movie. In fact, if you seriously want a reason to watch this movie, watch it for the fight sequences alone, it really is a lot of fun to watch, especially if you're someone who likes to watch a lot of martial arts movies.

Camerawork here is decent for what it is, but I do want to touch upon the picture quality, though, for just a moment. Because this is another thing that bothered the shit out of me when watching this film. Now I have no idea if this is just how the film was presented when it was being filmed, but for some reason, the filtering on the camera, at times, looks *awful*. There are scenes in this, including the fight scenes that have these odd-looking filters that just ruins the quality of the movie. Basically, you'll have some shots in this movie where with each cut, the filter looks like it's changed color. And it's especially bad during the fight scenes. There's a fight scene that happens at night where some random ninja-looking dude was ambushing one of our characters wearing a white garb, and the filtering on the camera will turn to red and then *slowly* fade out back to normal color. And then there was another fight scene towards the end, probably the final fight, where the color will change from orange, to clear white, to looking like normal again. It's really bad-looking, and I don't know if, again, that's how the film was originally made or if it was just a poor transfer onto DVD, but it just looks awful and kinda ruins a decent-looking movie. So yeah, just a heads up, if you ever plan to watch this movie, good luck on tolerating the filtering, because that shit interferes quite bit in this movie.

But other than that, guys, the lighting here is OK, and the music is also decent, but it's something you're not gonna remember the movie by. So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion"? Um...kinda sort of. Allow me to explain. If you're somehow able to overlook the atrocious English dub and you want to watch it for the fight scenes, then it could prove to be an interesting viewing experience, at least for a once-over. I sincerely don't know if it would be worth watching multiple times over, unless if you just want to riff on it with friends on a bad movie night. Because, hey, you know what? As much as I didn't really care for the movie myself, I could see this movie potentially being used for some decent riffing material. So if you have a bunch of friends over on a bad movie night, go right ahead and riff to your hearts content. However, if you're looking for something that's different and new, then I'm not totally sure if this would be the movie for you. It might be, assuming, of course, you've had some experience with these kinds of movies. If not, then you might just want to skip over it entirely. Especially if you're someone who can't tolerate terrible English dubs. Myself personally, as atrocious as this dub was, it's not the worst I've heard. I've heard far worse English dubs than this. However, that's not really saying much to begin with. So yeah, ultimately, the movie might be interesting for you to watch once. However, I don't really think it's worth multiple viewings. At least, for me it isn't.

So...now that I've gotten that out of my system, I think I'm gonna go and watch another martial arts movie. In fact, I mentioned it earlier when I referenced movies like "Bloodsport". I'm gonna go and watch that next because it's certainly one of the finer martial arts movies I've seen in a long time. And as for the other movie on this 2-pack that I'm gonna review later this month, well...I'm hoping that it's better than what I just watched. However, we'll just have to wait and see when I eventually get to it.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.