2020 Texas Gladiators (1982)

The Rangers (Nisus [pronounced “Nexus,” played by Al Cliver], Halakron [Peter Hooten], Jab [Harrison Muller, Jr], Catch Dog [Daniel Stephen], and Red Wolfe Al Yamanouchi]) wander post-atomic-war Texas with only one mission in mind: kill all the bad people who (we assume) have only just sprung up after the bombs dropped.  In the wake of wasting some savages (and failing to save the priest and nuns they were attacking), they find the lovely, half-naked Maida (Sabrina Siani), whom Catch Dog tries to rape, but winds up getting himself ousted from the group for it instead.  Once Nisus and Maida settle down in a peaceful community, it’s only a question of time until guys like The Black One (Donald O’Brien) show up (Catch Dog in tow) to cause trouble and wreak havoc.

Being set in Texas, it comes as little surprise that Joe D’Amato’s 2020 Texas Gladiators (aka Anno 2020 I Gladiatori Del Futuro, aka 2020 Freedom Fighters) borrows heavily from the Western genre.  It begins with a posse of hardasses cleaning up the territory.  Nisus joins a peaceful community who produce petrol (I’m pretty sure), and come off like agrarian homesteaders (substitute gas for vegetables).  This community is set upon by a ruthless gang, which can be seen as simply desperadoes or (I thought) as Native Americans on the warpath, which was the first thing that sprang to my mind while watching the initial assault.  There are also actual Native Americans (though I’m almost positive that none of them were played by Native Americans) who ride horses, shoot arrows, and live in teepees.  There is a saloon/brothel where men play Russian Roulette for money (the champion of which seems to fail to realize that his winning streak is luck, not skill), and video games and sloppy joes occupy folks’ time and whatever passes for money.  Our heroes are even sentenced to time in a salt mine at one point.    

The Post-Apocalyptic subgenre fits very well with the Western, because they share themes.  They both deal with the struggle against barbarism, but here the external forces of this are not Native Americans, as they typically are in Westerns, but fascists (something with which Italians are very much familiar).  In fact, the Native Americans are good guys, and this is one of those things that Italian films do regularly (with varying degrees of effectiveness): completely subvert generic expectations (I mean, the Native Americans still have a trial by combat of sorts with the Rangers, but still…).  

Likewise, these two genres are about the meaning of civilization itself, often rooted in its creation in the face of lawlessness and savagery.  In Westerns, small towns are built and strive to survive in areas where civilization (as we now think of it) didn’t exist, bringing civilization to the wilderness (for better or worse).  The same applies to Post-Apocalyptic films, where there are frequently collectives endeavoring to rebuild civilization under extremely inhospitable conditions.  In both, the underlying idea remains the same.  The difference lies in the direction from which civilization is coming to the wild.  In Westerns, the land is pre-civilized, and in Post-Apocalyptic stories, it’s post-civilized.  Consequently, both also bear notions that perhaps civilization is more destructive than it is beneficial (although this was certainly not a predominant theme with Westerns up until about the Sixties, it has been a constant theme in them from then on).  The Rangers, after all, are extremely adept at killing people, and they are merciless in what they view as a cleaning up of post-society’s dregs.

2020 also deals with concepts of violence, but the way it does so can be seen as contradictory.  As stated, the Rangers believe in killing all the people they deem bad (Halakron states, “Let’s make sure nobody’s left alive”).  Even after Nisus goes all peacenik, turning away from his violent past, he and his neighbors still have plenty of guns to defend themselves, and there is barbed wire fencing around the perimeter of their town.  For all the preaching about killing that Maida does (“A man who kills a killer is a killer”), she doesn’t shy away from swinging around a shotgun, either.  Nisus intentionally shoots someone in order to piss off one of the marauders.  An old lady begs for her young son (grandson?) to be left alone, but he’s raped in front of her, and later on she takes bloody vengeance.  After Jab wrestles with a Native American and wins, the Native Americans claim that the Rangers’ “cause must be just.”  The film’s surface philosophy is that violence is no good, and yet, it disproves this idea over and over again by having its characters prevail through violence.  Moreover, the film states that a non-violent lifestyle is doomed to failure, and only invites trouble from people for whom violence comes easy.  If Nisus hadn’t given up his life with the Rangers, none of the bad stuff that happens to him would have occurred.  This film posits peace through violence (make no mistake, this as common as air for motifs in this type of film), but the incongruities in its ideologies gives it a rather bleak tone, because violence in this world is ineluctable.  This is (to my mind) reinforced by the cryptic line, “From now on, it’ll be like it was before.”  If “before” is what got them to this point, perhaps alternate paths should be investigated.

The odd grimness of the film is bolstered by D’Amato’s (and possibly uncredited co-director George Eastman’s) connate penchant for nastiness (he did, after all, give us the necrophilic sleazefest Beyond the Darkness amongst others, while Eastman, primarily recognized for his acting, did direct some skanky fare like Dog Lay Afternoon).  In the opening moments, a priest is nailed to a cross, one nun is raped, and another cuts her own throat in despair with a sliver of glass.  Maida is introduced to us with one breast hanging out of her dress, and she makes no effort to cover herself up, though she has terror in her eyes (she knows what Catch Dog is thinking, and the way it’s shot, we’re meant to think the same).  There are at least three rapes (all surprisingly offscreen) and one attempted rape.  There are numerous closeups of gore effects to highlight just how vicious the violence in the film is, they approach Horror film levels of graphic detail.  As with its disparate philosophies, however, these seedier elements work quite well with its more traditional action beats, making 2020 a stand out in the subgenre and certainly a unique viewing experience.

MVT:  There is a great amount of energy in the film, and the pacing never lags, so that even if you notice things that don’t seem to fit, there are already three other things happening that will carry you along and away from the distractions.

Make or Break:  The opening set piece is simultaneously skeevy and satisfying, and it sets the film’s peculiar tone handily.

Score:  6.75/10     

Killer Workout (1987)

Back in my college years (you wouldn’t know it from speaking to me, but yes, I went to college), I tipped the scales at about two-hundred-and-sixty pounds, soaking wet.  This wasn’t because of a glandular condition or emotional issues.  I loved eating (and still do, make no mistake).  The problem was I would eat any crap that hovered under my nose for long enough, with nary a vegetable in sight (the lettuce on Taco Bell’s soft tacos notwithstanding).  Combine this with a binge drinking mentality and a sedentary lifestyle (let’s simply call it laziness), and it’s really little wonder that I reached the proportions I did.  

I went to work in an office a while after graduating, and it was only then that I began to lose weight.  You see, I had a nervous stomach due to certain anxieties over working in that setting, so a large portion of my diet (at work, anyway) consisted of pretzels.  After several months of eating those crunchy, golden-brown, salty glories almost exclusively, I discovered that I had accidentally begun to drop weight.  From there, I began to actively monitor what I would eat, and I also started to exercise, going so far as to join a gym (something anathema to my worldview until then).  I won’t say that the weight melted off, but I did get down to a more healthy poundage.  Naturally, I continued drinking and smoking during all of this, so I won’t pretend like I was the picture of healthy living, nor was I what anyone would consider a physical specimen at any time.  I guess the point (if there is one outside of the nebulous connection to (the late) David A. Prior’s Killer Workout [aka Aerobicide]) is that sometimes good things occur simply by happenstance.  Because I know for a fact that things rarely come together the way I’d like them to if I actively plan for them (your mileage may vary).

Valerie is a young model who just scored the cover of Cosmopolitan.  Hooray!  To celebrate, she treats herself to a tanning session, but things go horrible awry when the machine malfunctions and bursts into flames.  Some time later, Rhonda (Marcia Karr, whom you might know better as Stevie in Savage Streets) tries to keep her shit together as some maniac runs around her gym, killing her clientele willy-nilly.  Enter craggy Lieutenant Morgan (David James Campbell) and beefy Chuck Dawson (Ted Prior) who may just get to the bottom of things if everyone hasn’t already been killed first.

Transitions can be a tricky thing in films.  They can be invisible or conspicuous, stylish or modest, depending on the device the filmmaker chooses to use, but above all, their purpose is to create chapter breaks for the audience.  What Prior does in Killer Workout is give us aerobics montages for his transitions.  So, whenever the story needs to take a pause and move forward a tiny bit in time (or just because why not?), we get to watch extensive scenes of women in spandex gyrating, splaying their legs, and dry-humping the air, all set to some fantastic Eighties pop.  Well-played, sir!  Aside from the surface greatness of these interstitials, they do serve to reinforce part of the film’s major theme: vanity.  The women doing their aerobics are very concerned about how they look, and the film’s audience loves to look at them because of this.  They’re two sides of the same coin; one wanting to watch, the other wanting to be watched.  This extends to some of the men working out, particularly our introduction to Chuck, who is first shown doing barbell curls, and there are several closeups of his large, glistening biceps, hitting the nail directly on its head.  

The killer, who we already know is going to turn out to be Valerie since we’re never shown her face in the prologue, has a hatred of the beautiful people (and the beautiful people at this gym are pretty easy to hate).  This despite the fact that in order for her to walk among the gym’s patrons undetected, she would also have to be outwardly beautiful.  More than this, I think that Valerie’s hatred stems from her own vanity rather than from simple resentment.  After all, the whole reason she got burned is because she was doing something in order to make herself look better outwardly.  Her inability to recognize this is interesting to me as a metaphor for beauty being only skin deep.

The film is also focused largely on the male characters’ assertions of their dominance (aka dick swinging).  The men at this club gossip like they’re bragging about their latest sexual conquests and blatantly hit on the female members in the most meatheaded ways imaginable.  Chuck loves getting into fights at the drop of a hat, going so far as to jump a set of stairs (read: to conclusions) in order to whale on Tommy (Richard Bravo), whom he suspects may be the killer (due to some specious reasoning, naturally).  Chuck also thinks nothing of taking a ride with Debbie (the voluminous Dianne Copeland) and banging her right in the middle of his first day at work.  More than all of this, he chomps at the bit to throw down with local sleazeball Jimmy (Fritz Matthews) at every opportunity, and he really can’t be faulted for that, because Jimmy is truly an odious dickweed (after one altercation between the two, Debbie exclaims, “That was rad,” thus summing up all you need to know about these scenes, I think).  Jimmy is dying to get into Rhonda’s pants, and from the aggressively skanky way he goes about it, you really have to wonder how he’s allowed to remain a member at the gym at all.  The tension between Chuck and Jimmy is, appropriately enough, where the majority of the film’s action is.  There is more time spent showing these two guys beat the crap out of each other than there is showing the murders, some of which are only shown momentarily and one major one which is handled completely offscreen.  

Killer Workout is a movie disconnected from reality, aside from its world being entirely centered on flesh (an intriguing commentary by itself).  Morgan handles evidence with his bare hands.  The killer’s weapon of choice is a giant safety pin (yes, really).  Gym employees routinely work with the lights off.  Chuck blatantly tells Morgan that he committed breaking and entering, and this not only passes like it was nothing, but later on after catching Chuck doing it again, Morgan gives him the keys to waltz right into the gym.  Morgan tries to protect a potential victim by pounding on her door and barking that he’s a cop.  The film doesn’t have a central character.  It has characters who run through the story, but none of them are all that interesting, and we don’t follow any of them in any sort of depth (again referring to the notion of a superficial meat culture).  They just pop up now and again to do whatever it is they do and then kind of move into the background until they’re needed again.  The film’s last act is absolutely insane, with mind-numbingly improbable twists and turns flying in rapid succession.  Nevertheless, Prior and company keep things so breezy and loaded with interesting visuals (read: hot bodies in tight clothing, because, let’s face it, we’re all shallow in this regard to one degree or another), the whole thing somehow transcends its flaws and, in fact, incorporates them all into one of its greatest strengths.  I suppose sometimes two (or three, or four, or…) wrongs do make a right.

MVT:  The characters are the sort of forcefully vapid, sneering, catty people you love to watch butt heads.  And they’re almost uniformly batshit crazy.

Make or Break:  I still cannot wrap my head completely around the big reveal of the killer’s identity, the offhanded reasoning given for the killing spree, and the events that transpire around and after it.  And this makes me love it all the more.

Score:  6.75/10             

Angel Terminators 2 (1993)

One of the fascinating things about words (aside from the power they can wield; I do believe they can be mightier than the proverbial sword) is their ability to be misunderstood.  I’m not simply referring to the varying extents of people’s vocabularies and the confusion that can cause.  I’m talking about the misinterpretation of words, and how people react to such misinterpretations.  For example (and I am completely stealing this from local radio personality John Webster, so if he happens to be reading this [which is doubtful], thanks and sorry), if you say, “throw the cow over the fence some hay before you leave,” the syntax is funny, first because of the mental image it immediately conjures (throwing a cow over a fence, at least momentarily), and second because we know these words don’t go in this order, and we love to laugh (however lightly or cruelly) at the mistakes of others.  

Another way misinterpretation can be a positive is in its ability to inspire.  A great many writers mis-hear phrases, and it stimulates something in their brains that ignites an idea for an essay or story (I’m thinking specifically here about Harlan Ellison as the first author from whom I heard this [as the impetus for his story Jeffty is Five], but I also think it’s one of those innate skills/quirks of scribes, seasoned and neophytic).  This leads into this week’s film, Tony Liu Jun-Guk and Chan Lau’s Angel Terminators 2 (aka Huo Zhong aka The Best of the Lady Kickboxer), which is one in an avalanche of Hong-Kong-produced films whose English subtitles are so literal they’ve become a trope in and of themselves.  You get such gems as, “You shall be responsible if I suffer loss today,” “You come only now?” and “Hey, you’re nut.”  This oddity doesn’t detract from the quality of the better-made Hong Kong films, but it does add a layer of fun to both accomplished and less polished efforts alike.  Thankfully, this film falls in the former category. 

After cops Great Aunt (Sibelle Hu, who wears sweat pants almost exclusively while on duty) and Bao (Jason Pai Piao) bust up a robbery, they head on over to the local prison.  Bao’s daughter Bullet (Yukari Oshima, who also wears some tragically baggy pants throughout the film) is being released, but she wants nothing to do with her old man.  Bullet’s best friend Chitty (Moon Lee, who we first see wearing a sweatsuit, notice a trend here?) and a gaggle of friends show up and take her into their care.  But vile gangster Mad (Anthony Cho Cheuk-Nin) entangles himself in all of their lives, and the only way out is through blood.

One of the things this “girls with guns” film has at its heart is a theme of bonds between people (like a great many Hong Kong movies).  Great Aunt and Bao are tight as partners.  She is the loose cannon, while he is usually the voice of reason (though he can certainly handle himself in a fight).  It’s a trait she admires in him, and she looks up to him both as an equal and (I got the impression) a surrogate daughter.  Likewise, Chitty and Bullet are best friends from way back, and they look out for each other to the extent that Bullet will defy people she probably shouldn’t (and this points to a key aspect of her character, as well).  Their friendship is primarily expressed physically in the fights in which the two girls seem to take great delight (with other people, not one another).  

But for how alike they are in that respect, Bullet and Chitty are different in how they relate to their actual families.  Bullet unrepentantly hates her father and displays her disdain openly (and considering her reason, you can’t really blame her).  Bao tries to reach out to his daughter, but his apparent lack of emotion, his detachment from what family means, and his belief in duty over all, only helps keep the two at odds.  Consequently, Bullet joined a gang in her youth and sought some form of acceptance in that lifestyle (this is never developed outside of a plot point, but it does make a certain sense for Oshima’s character).  Conversely, Chitty’s Uncle Tiger (the late, great Lo Lieh) is a retired gangster, and Chitty does her best to make him believe that she is straitlaced (she changes into demure eyeglasses directly before seeing him).  For how much she rebels, however, Chitty cares a great deal for Uncle Tiger.  She has what Bullet doesn’t have (more precisely, what Bullet rejects) – a family – and so, she is a kind of substitute family for Bullet.  As you may have guessed, these relationships become bonded by blood in a very actual sense, and it is in this way that the film resonates, as the best heroic bloodshed films (and action films in general) do.

These bonds and interrelationships carry over into ideas of individuality and conformity.  Chitty rebels in her friendship with Bullet and their skirmishes together, but she plays the part of a nice young woman for her uncle.  She wants to fit the mold she perceives as the norm, to please others over herself.  Bullet is fiercely independent, though she has to rely on her friends for support.  At one point, she tells Chitty, “If you don’t resist, others will beat you,” and this is the summation of her character from start to finish. This is not necessarily a philosophy she picked up in prison, although it would certainly aid in surviving on the inside.  It’s a wall she has built up over time to protect herself from harm: hurt others before they can hurt you.  By that same token, Bao is the model of conformity (and the film does make a point of emphasizing aspects of the British colonialism extant at the time of its production; so, there’s that).  While Great Aunt does act out in the same sort of way that Bullet does, she is able to be reined in to some extent by Bao and the powers that be.  Ultimately, it’s the two characters between the extremes (Chitty and Great Aunt) who will decide how they choose to live their lives for themselves and benefit from the lessons from both ends of this spectrum.

The fight choreography in Angel Terminators 2 is truly outstanding, and the participants (particularly the three main female characters) are a pure joy to watch (while I suspect there may have been some undercranking used to speed up the fights just a little, and if it wasn’t, color me even more impressed), and they are liberally sprinkled across the runtime.  The filmmakers, in the Hong Kong tradition, use stylistic flourishes to emphasize the kinetic characteristics of their action scenes with Dutch angles, quick tracking shots, slow motion, low angle shots, and wide angle lenses all thrown into the mix rather smoothly.  Also as is the norm in Hong Kong action films, the story brings up plot points that it forgets about and reintroduces them much later on, granting them more emotional weight than they probably should have for their lack of development.  Ergo, its pace moves in fits and starts in spite of the frequency and velocity of its action beats.  Despite its deceptive (some would say “sloppy,” and to be fair, I would probably prefer the term “ambitious”) structure, there is a ton to love about this film, and any fan of action films, foreign and domestic, should give it a whirl.  

MVT:  Yukari Oshima carries a lot of the film’s weight with a constant intensity that impressed me, her magnificent martial arts skills notwithstanding.

Make or Break:  Coming as no surprise to anyone, the Make for me is a scene towards the end involving Bullet, some Molotov cocktails, and a very large knife.  The first shot by itself was enough to engrain it in my head until the day I die.

Score:  7/10      

Black Scorpion II: Aftershock (1997)

Directed by: Jonathan Winfrey
Runtime: 86 minutes

This is the last of the Black Scorpion movies. It is cheesy, the hero has a tendency to kill villains, has nudity to encourage rental sales, and it is low budget. Despite this it is fun, feels like a comic book hero movie, and does not require antidepressants after viewing.

The opening title sequence also doubles as a montage to show what happened in the last film. Which leads into the movie proper with villains dressed as newly weds in a car chase with police. So of course the Black Scorpion shows up right after the only marked police car crashes and she goes after the newly wed bandits. Once she catches up to the bandits she promptly blows up the car because the villains just ran out of plot immunity.

This movie has three plots running at the same time. Plot A involves the Gangster Prankster. A low budget version of the Joker that has half of his face damaged and uses clown makeup to cover the scaring. He and his gang are out to cause as much mayhem as possible and destroy the Black Scorpion. Plot B involves Darcy and her relationship with her alter ego the Black Scorpion. Darcy is wanting to be cop less and being the Black Scorpion more. This is leads to all kinds of problems at work and in her personal life. At work her partner is not sure if he can trust her as she seems to be unwilling to go into dangerous situations. Her personal life is just as complicated as she wants her partner in bed without the aid of a costume and a taser. Finally Plot C deals with the fact that Angel City is broke due to the mayor stealing money from city and is hoping for earthquakes and federal disaster funds will help hide his crimes. However a scientist has found a way to stop earthquakes and the mayor can't have that. So he send some yes men to destroy the scientist machine and end up turn the scientist in the villain Aftershock.

In short that is the whole movie. There is not much else to talk about plot wise. A few scenes of female nudity at the beginning to sucker anyone who rented back when movie rental was a thing. There is no rape in this movie unlike the first movie. Also the villains suck in this movie the Gangster Prankster is an insufferable tool that is annoying in every scene he is in. Aftershock is just boring, she was created by a lab accident and mcguffin radiation and doesn't do much other than to advance Plot A.

Unless you are a hardcore Black Scorpion fan or suffer from clinical completion syndrome I can't really recommend owning this movie. This is a great movie if it happens to show up on one of the movie streaming sites or randomly on cable. Also if you are trapped inside due to heavy rain, snow, or a media circus has  taken up camp on your front lawn.

MVT: They use the 67 Stingray in this movie as well.

Make or Break: Every scene that has the Gangster Prankster is annoying and painful. Best way to put how annoying he is into words, a twelve year old high on sugar and adderall screaming fifty year old jokes and hitting you about the head with the book he got them from. 

Score: 4.3 out of 10