Even fiends need a vacation

Some of you may have noticed that Fighting Femmes, Fiends, and Fanatics, the video review series produced by Steve Mayhem with help from yours truly, has been missing from 4DK for a few weeks now. That's because we've decided to put it on a bit of a hiatus for the Summer. Rest assured, however, that FFFF will be back, and with new episodes guaranteed to stir your soul and make you question the very nature of reality. In the meantime, enjoy this picture of Mustafa Qureshi as a girly scion of Hitler.

Friday's best pop song ever

Gigantes Planetarios (Mexico, 1965)

It didn’t occur to me until after I’d started watching it that Gigantes Planetarios was a somewhat poignant viewing choice in light of my country’s recently drawing the curtain on its participation in the space age. It takes itself a bit more seriously than your average Mexican sci-fi film, and, as such, serves as a reminder that, at its time of production, the project of exploring space generated genuine excitement across the globe. Just as homegrown spy films enabled the not-so-super powers to represent themselves as important players on the world stage, films like Gigantes Planetarios -- with their focus on the well publicized particulars of manned space travel -- to some extent, served as a means for countries without their own space programs to present the space race as a global endeavor, one in which they were equal participants.

Mind you, being a bit more serious than your average Mexican sci-fi film still leaves a lot of room for Gigantes Planetarios to be goofy as hell. After all, while the “sexy ladies from outer space” genre has proven to be startlingly universal, it is Mexico that is its undisputed king. Not only did the country’s film industry basically define the concept with 1960s La Nave de los Monstruos, but they then went on to improve upon it with the addition of masked wrestlers in films like Blue Demon contra las Invasoras and Santo contra la Invasion de los Marcianos. So basically what I’m saying is that, by refraining from showing us Martian beauties in chorus girl outfits doing the Watusi as Santo stands by, Gigantes Planetarios has established itself as nearly Kubrikian in comparison to its peers. (The same can’t be said, however, for its hastily made sequel, El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras, aka Planet of the Female Invaders. D'oh!)

The film starts with a rash of flying saucer sightings and related mayhem, culminating in the murder of Professor Walter (Mario Orea), an Earth scientist who's developing a fleet of rockets capable of reaching the planet from which the UFOs emanate. Before dying, Walter informs the young scientist Daniel Wolf (Guillermo Murray) that he had previously been in contact with the aliens -- who live on a world called the Planet of Eternal Night in the “Romania” galaxy -- but that, ever since the takeover of the planet by a dictator known as The Great Protector (Jose Galvez), that contact had been cut off.

As the aliens are human in appearance, and appear to be depending upon human agents to accomplish their various acts of sabotage, Wolf decides to start exhibiting signs of a “dissolute life” in the hope of drawing one of the alien agents to him. It turns out that all this entails is him going to a not at all sleazy seeming nightclub with his dishy and devoted secretary Silvia (Adriana Roel) and dropping some casual references to his gambling debts. Before the night is through, he is approached by the beautiful alien spy Mara (the wonderfully named Jaqueline Fellay), who, in turn, introduces him to another spy, played by the wrestler Nathanael “Frankenstein” Leon (who, thanks to his appearance in countless lucha films, was, for me, the lone familiar face in this film.)

After rejecting Leon’s offer of a million bucks to betray his planet, Wolf scuffles with the brawny spy, who ends up being killed in the fight. However, this is not before he reveals to Wolf that the aliens’ human emissaries are all being controlled remotely by a device located on The Planet of Eternal Night. As a full scale invasion seems imminent, Wolf decides that he must travel to the planet in Martin’s prototype rocket to destroy the control device, and begins assembling a crew for the task.

Sadly, the crew that Wolf assembles does not end up being the one he gets. Not only does Silvia saunter her way onto the ship at the last moment (launch site security being particularly lax, it appears), but he also finds, post takeoff, that he has a pair of stowaways on board in the form of doltish prizefighter Marcos Godoy (Rogelio Guerra) and his manager Taquito (Jose Angel Espinoza, aka “Ferrusquilla”). It seems that these two, in an attempt to escape a mob angry over Marcos’ most recent thrown fight, stole the spacesuits of the actual crew members and took their place, not knowing that actual interstellar travel was in store for them.

And with the appearance of Godoy and Taquito, two obvious comic relief characters, my heart sank considerably. Because, up to that point, the tone of Gigantes Planetarios had been wonderfully solemn --which of course made it all the more easy to savor all that was silly and cartoonish within it. Now it seemed we were going to have this pair bumbling their way through the remainder of the movie, Franco and Ciccio style, taking the air out of any situation that had the potential, by way of its unwarranted portentousness, to be genuinely fun. Thus I was happily surprised to see that Godoy, once in the thick of things, takes it as an opportunity to redeem himself and takes heroic action to save the day. This still leaves Taquito to complain about the lack of tacos on the planet, but at least he’s mostly kept to the background.

The set representing the interior of Wolf and company’s spaceship looks more like the inside of a city bus, which renders all the more amusing the film’s dutiful attempts to illustrate the various peeves and perils of space travel -- G force, lack of gravity, the treacherous spacewalks, the concentrated food -- commonly seen in more science-y takes on the subject. Once touched down on the alien planet, however, we’re back in space opera territory, and the alien civilization itself is revealed to be one of those many with a fondness for Roman columns, togas and clunky helmets. Wolf, for his part, in turn reveals himself to be a movie scientist in the grand, two-fisted tradition of the best 50s sci-fi, as precise in the measuring out of knuckle sandwiches as he is in the labeling of isotopes.

One of the things that really struck me about Gigantes Planetarios -- aside from the fact that it’s an Alfredo B. Crevenna film in which I recognize almost none of the players -- is how self contained it is. Unlike a lot of Mexican science fiction films of its time, which depended largely upon stock footage and bits pilfered from other movies for their special effects, all of Planetarios’ effects appear to be unique to it. These, it has to be said, are crude, but to the film’s credit, they are only so by contrast with their ambition. Crevenna shows us the launch of the rocket from Professor Walter’s laboratory, its traverse across the vast expanses of space, and its crash landing on the surface of the Planet of Eternal Night, all of which are realized about as convincingly as in one of the Flash Gordon serials from the 30’s -- which by the standards of Mexican cinema of the time, is actually not too shabby. Another sign of attention to craft is Antonio Gomez Muriel’s modernist sounding original score to the film, which builds atonal elements on top of a base of dissonant chords chopped out on an electric guitar.

All of the above goes to show that, despite its plentiful evidence of budgetary shortfall, Gigantes Planetarios was a film with which a not inconsiderable amount of care was taken. This, the po-faced tone of its opening act, and the fact that even its worthless comic relief characters end up manning up to the cause, all indicate to me a level of seriousness commensurate with the real world endeavor of space exploration. Of course, if that real world endeavor had turned up a race of sexy space ladies in mini togas, as opposed to all those moon rocks and space dust, we might still be seeing funding for the space program today.

King Drummer (Hong Kong, 1967)

I've jawed on at length about Shaw Brothers director Umetsugu Inoue elsewhere, so I'll keep it brief here. Inoue, out of all the Japanese directors who jumped over to Shaw during the 60s and 70s, was both the most prolific and the most distinctive. Yet his career in Japan was equally distinguished, especially in terms of his work for Nikkatsu.

Inoue's 1957 film The Man Who Caused a Storm, a vehicle for Nikkatsu's then top star Yujiro Ishihara, was a massive hit for the studio, and went on to become so iconic that Nikkatsu later remade it in 1966 as a vehicle for its then current top dog Tetsuya Watari. The following year, Inoue, having established himself at Shaw with the success of his candy coated musical trifle Hong Kong Nocturne, created his own remake in the form of King Drummer, though this time in Mandarin and with a cast of Shaw contract stars familiar to the Hong Kong audience.

It's Hong Kong in 1967, and apparently the whole city has gone crazy for drum solos.  Young people flock to nightclubs to see swinging combos like The Sparks, but in this crazy, upside-down world, it's not the singer or lead guitarist, but the drummer who takes home the choice groupies at the end of the night. (Sorry, drummers. I can never resist a dig at your expense.) And of all these stick men, none holds the female populace in more of a dreamy, eroticized thrall than The Sparks' own "Golden Arm" Charlie Zhao.

Charlie is played by regular Shaw bad guy Chen Hung-Lieh (Come Drink With Me, Fearless Fighters), and as such is not above following the money to greener pastures and, in the process, breaking the heart of The Sparks' manager Li Zhen Huang, played by Inoue's, and my, favorite Shaw leading lady Lily Ho (Angel with the Iron Fist, The Brain Stealers). This betrayal is orchestrated by Li Yuan Ming, a powerful music critic (just savor that current oxymoron) who wants Charlie out of the way so that he can woo Li Zhen himself. Thus does Li Yuan entice Charlie into the fold of the more than a little sketchy seeming mogul Jiang Da Chen, leaving a vacancy in The Sparks that Li Zhen is desperate to fill.

Enter The Sparks' resident songwriter Yi Qiang (Yan Fang), who introduces Li Zhen to his brother, Zhi Qiang (Chor Yuen regular Ling Yun), a rough-edged young merchant seaman who entertains local beachcombers by banging away on oil drums on the deck of his old boat. The product of a poor family, Zhi Qiang has long struggled to support his younger brother's musical studies, and, by doing so, help Yi Qiang realize his apparent dream of becoming Hong Kong's answer to Gershwin. (Throughout the film, we hear snippets of Yi Qiang's masterwork in progress "Hong Kong Symphony".) These efforts, good hearted as they are,  have earned Zhi Qiang the resentment of their mother, who wants her favored youngest to pursue a "respectable" profession, rather than just being a no good bum of a musician like their father was.

Li Zhen sees a raw talent in Zhi Qiang. A debut gig with The Sparks proves successful, and earns Zhi Qiang the stage name "Thunderbolt", but Li Zhen decrees that he needs to spend more time honing his skills before he can earn a permanent place in the band. She also decrees that this time should be spent within the confines of her opulently appointed home, and so the young drummer is moved in, traps and all. Though Zhi Qiang's brawling, hard drinking ways prove an obstacle, he nonetheless dedicates himself to the task, no doubt spurred on by the budding affection between him and Li Zhen.

And soon, in little more than the space of a montage, Zhi Qiang has become the beater to beat -- a fact not lost on Charlie, who, at the urging of his handlers, challenges him to a drum-off to determine which of them is the "king drummer" of Hong Kong. This competition is the central show piece of King Drummer, allowing Inoue to give free reign to his taste for dazzling musical pageantry. The use of moving drum risers and counter tracking camera movements gives the appearance that Charlie and Zhi Qiang are circling each other predatorily as they trade off wild solos, albeit while seated on what look like garish giant birthday cakes. On the eve of the event, Jiang Da Chen's goons have made sure to lure Zhi Qiang into a fight that has left his right hand crippled, but he nonetheless secures the win by, at a crucial moment, throwing down his stick, grabbing a mike, and crooning out a catchy tune about what an awesome drummer he is.

Of course, Zhi Qiang's victory only fuels the resolve of those opposed to him, a group which now includes, in addition to Charlie and Jiang Da Chen, Li Yuan Ming, who is jealous of his romance with Li Zhen. This seedy gang's efforts to bring Zhi Qiang down lend the film a noirish element that no doubt played well within the Nikkatsu version. Meanwhile, alongside this plays out the family drama of Zhi Qiang's quest to gain his mother's approval. This finally starts to happen when the younger Yi Qiang's opus is chosen by the stuffy representatives of a British musical foundation for their next big concert. Yes, indeed, the hipster Zhi Qiang is ultimately redeemed by the classics -- which makes King Drummer, despite its flirtations with youth oriented rebel histrionics, pretty stodgy in its politics in the long run.

With his love of frothy spectacle, Inoue is a director especially suited to the Shaw's trademark use of bright Eastmancolor and wide screen Shawscope presentation. Given this, and the fact that Nikkatsu's output is today so disproportionately represented by its black and white crime thrillers, it's tempting for me to imagine him feeling hemmed in by that studio's austere house style. However, the clips of The Man Who Caused a Storm that I can find reveal that it is every bit as panoramic and colorful as King Drummer, and, furthermore, that some of its scenes appear to have been fairly faithfully recreated in the latter. This makes King Drummer, in addition to being a giddily enjoyable film in its own right, a compelling advertisement for its predecessor, and ensures that I'll be hasty in correcting my error of not seeing the original.

The Man Who Caused a Storm appears to have been a film very close to Inoue's heart. Or, at least, one would hope so, as it seems he was unable to escape it. In 1983, he again remade the film, this time for Toho, under the title Arashi O Yobu Otoko. And all these years later, the original remains enough of a pop cultural touchstone to have been the basis of a recent Kirin beer ad campaign. For those of us outside it's cultural sphere of influence, a once removed film like King Drummer might not explicate the movie's enduring appeal. It's nonetheless worth checking out, however, if only for how it so successfully immerses us in Inoue's alluring world of backstage glitz, flush faced melodrama, and fanciful urban fairy tale. That applies doubly if you're a drummer.

Scenes from The Man Who Caused a Storm (1957)

King Drummer (1967)

The Infernal Brains Podcast, Episode 7

The Infernal Brains are back! This time, Tars Tarkas and I say a lot of mean things about Wisit Sasanatieng's 2010 Insee Daeng reboot and a lot of nice things about the original series of Insee Daeng movies featuring Thai megastar Mitr Chaibancha. As usual, you can download the episode here. or view it along with a sexy, sexy slideshow below. 

Friday's best pop song ever

Monkey King With 72 Magic (Taiwan, 1976)

The many Chinese language films based on the classic novel Journey to the West may be a mixed bag, but to the extent that they focus on that epic’s most memorable character, the Hanuman-like Monkey King, they at least guaranty a good time. Case in point, Monkey King With 72 Magic. Though many of its sets are composed of little more than fog and painted backgrounds, this Taiwanese fantasy compensates for its material shortcomings with an antic energy that would do its mischievous subject proud.

Monkey King With 72 Magic concerns itself with those chapters in the Monkey King’s life that occurred long before he teamed up with Monk Xuanzang, Pigsy and the rest for Journey to the West’s titular pilgrimage. And as far as I can tell, it sticks pretty close to the source material in doing so. We first see how the Monkey King was birthed from a large stone on the mythical Flower Fruit Mountain -- in a giant red egg that conjures up warm memories of Thrilling Sword -- bursting into the world fully formed and overflowing with manic energy. Actor Ting Wa-Chung -- who the previous year starred as Red Boy in Chang Cheh’s pass at the Monkey King Mythos, Fantastic Magic Baby –- plays the character as the usual ticcy perpetual motion machine, employing constant acrobatics that place the film’s action somewhere between the more mannered, Chinese Opera style of the aforementioned Cheh joint and that of more typical Taiwanese kung fu films.

Once he’s introduced, the major events of the Monkey King’s fabled life are then paraded before our eyes at a dizzying clip. His becoming the leader of an unruly tribe of capering little monkey children provides the opportunity for the face-pissing humor so essential to any Taiwanese fantasy martial arts film (hello disappointed Google-using golden shower enthusiasts), and then we’re off with the King on his quest for literal immortality. This leads him to the Taoist priest who trains him in the use of the 72 Magics of the film’s title -- a reference to the 72 forms that the Monkey King can transform himself into. This ability is later put to the test when our hero fights the heavenly warrior Yang Chien (Lung Siu Fei), who can transform into 73 forms. The result is a head-spinning sequence in which the two of them rapidly change from chickens to snakes to ducks to centipedes to rats to tigers to pigs to giant puppet birds, all between exchanging blows in their human forms.

The film’s effects were created by cinematographer and special effects man Chujio Shintaro, aka Gozo Matsui, who, despite the Japanese name, appears to have only worked on Taiwanese films. Among those was the notably Kaiju Eiga influenced 1982 film King of Snake, which Godfrey Ho would later work his own breed of dark magic on, turning it into the every-bit-as-ungrammatically-titled Thunder of Gigantic Serpent. Here Shintaro’s obviously limited means are nonetheless employed toward charming ends, perhaps best exemplified by the goofy giant octopus that the Monkey King transforms himself into for his storied visit to the Dragon Palace.

The majority of Monkey King With 72 Magic’s running time is dedicated to its hero’s misadventures in heaven, which occur after the powers that be in the celestial kingdom decide to try to temper his shenanigans by basically giving him a job. But Once the Monkey King realizes that this job -- rather than the lofty title he feels he deserves -- is to shovel heavenly horse dung, he appropriately loses his shit. After tearing through the place like a meth addled Tazmanian Devil, he finalizes the insult by taking a handful of “Divine Pills” (uh huh) and then stealing the fruit from a divine peach free. In short, if this were an American film, it would have the tagline, “He came to Heaven… just to raise a little Hell.”

The Monkey King returns to Flower Fruit Mountain with his ill-gotten heavenly gains, only to be pursued by the Heavenly monarch Jade Emperor (Kong Yeung) and his forces. Among those forces is Na Cha, he of the flying wheeled feet, who was himself no stranger to the cinematic treatment, perhaps most famously being personified by Alexander Fu Sheng in another Chang Cheh film, 1974’s Na Cha the Great. Here he is portrayed, in classic gender bending Taiwanese martial arts movie fashion, by Liu Chuan Hua, an actress who bears a striking resemblance to a young Cheng Pei-Pei. Along with Na Cha are the aforementioned Yang Chien and Na Cha’s brother, Ma Cha, who together set the stage for a wild, all flipping, all fighting climax. In the end, it takes the intervention of Buddha himself to finally calm things down.

This being something of a fable, the Monkey King is ultimately punished for his arrogance. But there’s still no mistaking the delight we’re meant to take in his rampage through heaven. There’s a Marx Brothers-like irreverence to this notion, that of a heaven full of righteous stuffed shirts taken down a peg by the cheeky antics of a scruffy interloper, that appeals no matter how scruffy the context itself may be. Thus, with its dodgy effects, cardboard sets, mannered action, and copious urine-based humor, Monkey King With 72 Magic still comes out a winner. Maybe not the best that the world of zany Taiwanese martial arts fantasies has to offer, but still proudly keeping up the tradition. You really can’t go wrong with the Monkey King, after all.

I ain't afraid'a no Beelzebub

Though some might call us heathens, the fact is that we at Teleport City practice a very "hands on" version of Christianity. That's why Keith has initiated an irregular series of reviews under the heading Punching Satan in the Face. Our last entry was a dissection of Wong Jing's Satan Returns by The Cultural Gutter's Carol Borden. For my own turn at the ol' cloven hoofed punching bag, I've chosen to take on that most two-fistedly pious of Filipino filmic oddities, The Killing of Satan. Dare you turn your back on God by ignoring this review, or shall you instead step into the light and bask in the glory it so graciously provides? The choice is yours.

Friday's best pop song ever

(Drawing) Rings Around The World from pivic on Vimeo.

Bride of the Nile (Egypt, 1961)

The changing role of women in an increasingly liberal society was a subject not left untouched by the Egyptian popular cinema of the late 50s and 60s, with probably the most well regarded treatment of the topic being Salah Abouseif’s 1958 drama I Am Free. In that film, actress Lobna Abdel Aziz portrays an educated young Egyptian woman who, after much searching, finds her life’s purpose through political action. Three years later, the same actress would contribute to a very different strain of Egyptian films that also dealt with women’s power, albeit in a more reactionary -- if at once whimsical -- way.

The blueprint for Egyptian films like Bride of the Nile can be clearly seen in the beloved 1949 classic Afrita Hanem, as well as in the later Ismail Yassin’s Phantom, which held the template set by that earlier film pretty much sacrosanct. All three films show us a man’s world turned upside down by the sudden appearance of some kind of magically empowered female enchantress. Americans with no knowledge whatsoever of Egyptian movies will be familiar with this scenario from long-lived TV sitcoms like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie. And, here as there, we’re asked to accept that a woman with almost godlike supernatural powers would content herself simply with being a persistent nuisance in the life of the story’s male protagonist.

Bride of the Nile begins with Sami Fouad, an engineer with an Egyptian oil company, arriving in Luxor with his best buddy in tow. Sami is played by actor Roushdy Abaza, who coincidentally enjoyed the longest of his several marriages with Afrita Hanem leading lady Samia Gamal. His buddy, Fathi, is played by Abdel Moneim Ibrahim, whose shrill comic stylings were discoursed upon in my review of The Secret of the Vanishing Cap, and hence will go unremarked upon here. Sami’s assigned task is to begin the drilling of an oil well smack dab in the middle of the city’s renowned ruins. In this he meets with spirited opposition from Dr. Hassan, an archeologist who objects to this project’s potential to disturb the graves of the pharaohs.

However, Hassan’s interference is the least of Sami’s problems, as, from the outset, the well project is beset by mysterious mishaps. Sami at first suspects Hassan, until it is revealed to him that the culprit is actually Hamis (Lobna Abdel Aziz), a mischievous spirit sent by the pharaohs to dissuade Sami from going forward with his task. Hamis is the ghost of the last “Bride of the Nile”, a virgin sacrificed to the river nearly 5000 years previous as part of an annual ritual to influence the outcome of the flood season. Unfortunately, Hamis is “revealed” only to Sami and no one else, and his flustered reactions to her constant punking cause those around him to increasingly doubt his sanity.

This last set of circumstances leads to Sami being committed to a mental institution, and to Hamis subsequently breaking him out using her magical powers. At this point the sprite reveals to Sami that she has fallen in love with him, because that’s just what happens in these movies, and Sami -- for, I imagine, much the same reasons -- responds reciprocally. Complicating this state of affairs somewhat is the fact that Sami is already engaged to his boss’s daughter. This leads to the faithful replaying of a scene found in both Afrita Hanem and Ismail Yassin’s Phantom, in which the jealous enchantress wreaks supernatural havoc at the wedding with an equally supernatural flare for lowbrow slapstick. In response, Sami leaves a groom-shaped cloud of dust at the altar in his haste to hightail it with Hamis, never giving a second thought to his fiancé or prospective in-laws (who, at this point, conveniently disappear entirely from the narrative).

However, Hamis’ love has a price, in that she demands Sami abandon the well project in return for her making herself visible to the world at large, thus lifting from Sami the stigma of appearing bat shit crazy. This he agrees to with surprisingly few signs of inner conflict, and the two hastily wed. However, come morning, once Hamis has awakened beside Sami with a post-coital glow that is surprisingly unmistakable for a film of this vintage, the problems inherent in their particular May/December romance start to make themselves apparent.

Bride of the Nile doesn’t seem to have much on its agenda beside the good-natured unfurling of its well tested premise, and makes no bones about that fact. Thus, once its central romance is established, its middle section plays out like an easygoing blend of travelogue and patriotic pageant. Hamis tours the pyramids with Sami, explaining to him that, rather than the product of slave labor, they were in fact the embodiment of an ancient jobs program(!). In response, Sami -- romantic sop that he is -- takes her to an auto plant and shows her the production line, thus demonstrating the modern manufacturing techniques that evolved from her contemporaries’ totally non-slavery based industriousness. Then follows a lengthy and colorful sequence in which we watch a modern version of the Nile Festival, including a sacrificial reenactment that ends up taking a somewhat surprising and somber turn.

Elsewhere, Bride of the Nile mines comedy from Hamis’ fish-out-of-water confrontations with the breathtaking future world of 1961. There’s her delighted introduction to the wonders of television, the obligatory makeover scene, and a bit where she mistakes a refrigerator for a sarcophagus.

As agreeable as they are on their own, these aforementioned scenes’ greatest contribution to the film might be the opportunity provided by them for the display of some pretty fabulous mid-century interior design.

Bride of the Nile indeed conforms so closely to the pattern set by its predecessors that perhaps the only ways to distinguish it qualitatively is to focus on its performances. And Lobna Abdel Aziz is certainly as beguiling as one could ask for in the role of Hamis, deftly negotiating a role that requires her to be equal parts vamp and imp (a vimp?), while at the same time maintaining enough gravity to carry the film through the more tragic turn it takes during its third act. Alongside this, the glee she exhibits during her moments as a bringer of chaos is both infectious and seemingly genuine -- as well it might have been; how often does an actress get to raise so much giddy hell with so much impunity, remaining a “heroine” while also being a ferocious engine of anarchy?

As for Roushdy, he does a fine job of being the immovable slab of beef off of which Aziz can happily ricochet. Male star power aside, these films tend to be showcases for their female leads. And, in her own way, Aziz proves to be every bit as delightful as Gamal was as the lady genie in Afrita Hanem and the Greek actress Kitty was as the oddly upbeat murder victim in Phantom. Having seen all three films, I have to say that, in this respect, Aziz beat the odds. Bride of the Nile may be fluff. But if it’s fluff you want, it is essential fluff. And, thanks to Aziz, the familiarity of its motions does nothing to reduce that fact.