Lone Wolf And Cub: Baby Cart To Hades (1972)

There’s something about Tomisaburo Wakayama’s portly stature and sullen demeanour as Ogami Itto, the wandering ronin, at the centre of the Lone Wolf And Cub series. A highly skilled and almost invincible assassin, Wakayama grounds everything with his grumpy stoicism and physicality, particularly in the face of enemy hordes and gushing blood sprays. Or in the case of Lone Wolf And Cub: Baby Cart To Hades (1972), the third entry in the series, withstanding a sequence of prolonged torture. This forms one of the main storylines in this episodic tale, where Ogami submits himself for punishment in place of a woman who has killed the consort who sold her into sex slavery; the yakuza led by Torizo (Yuko Hamada) expecting justice to be served by the woman’s punishment until Ogami, whose son has taken a liking to her, steps in to take her place. Bloodied and beaten, there’s still jobs for Ogami to be offered, paid to assassinate an enemy of Torizo’s father who has fallen from grace due to feudal political manoeuvring. One of the other plot strands is a wandering samurai, Kanbei (Go Kato), who crosses Ogami’s paths and wants a duel to satisfy the question of what is a “true samurai”. Throughout Baby Cart To Hades, there is some unpleasant grimy exploitation material including a roadside assault by bandits on a mother and her daughter, several assassins denoted by their choice of weapon (duelling hand-guns, for example), sepia-toned flashbacks of palatial intrigue, close-ups of Daigoro the baby boy gazing at a cricket in the rain or remaining impassive as his father butchers through enemy samurai, and finally, a great climax where the lone warrior and his baby cart face an assembled army in their path within a gigantic sand-pit. The third film in this series was still entertaining, despite a few moments of unpleasantness, and has a great showdown and conclusion that makes it memorable, even if it doesn’t reach the heights of the previous chapter, Baby Cart At The River Styx. I’m halfway through “the demon way to Hell”, three more movies to go on the Criterion Collection box-set. Great score by Eiken Sakurai and a jazzy, melancholic closing credits tune. Directed by Kenji Misumi who helmed the previous two entries. Recommended.

Blastfighter (1984)

One golden rule about Italian genre flicks if you can’t get Franco Nero as the lead, then get a guy who looks him. Maurizio Merli was busy, so for the motion picture titled Blastfighter (1984) Michael Sopkiw steps in with an effective moustache, playing the role of “Tiger” Sharp, an ex-cop released from prison for killing his wife’s murderer. Even though he’s gifted with a technologically advanced shotgun with a variety of explosive shells, Tiger decides on a quiet life in his backwoods Appalachian hometown. However, fate has other plans for him, and what you’ve got on your hands is a Deliverance/First Blood rip-off made by Italians in the woods of America, with a strong engine for suspense: when is our hero gonna bust out that shotgun? Call it Chekov’s explosive shotgun. You can also tell its a Deliverance rip-off because they get the ‘Duelling Banjos’ kid, Billy Redden, to show up in a cameo as a banjo-picking teen. An inexhaustible supply of beer-swilling rednecks (or as close as the Italian film industry could get with their voice dubbing actors approximating a “shitkicker” yee-haw accent) make Tiger’s life hell even as he tries to bond with his absent daughter (Valentina Forte) in his isolated cabin. There’s even George Eastman, a familiar bearded face from spaghetti westerns and Italo-genre staples like 1990: The Bronx Warriors, as Tiger’s former best friend/quasi-adversary who has become head of the lumber mill, and its illegal operations in drug-smuggling and animal organ harvesting. Look, this is a grimy, trashy outdoors revenge movie that delivers in its last ten minutes, and has a great Fabio Frizzi (credited as “Andreww Barrymore”) crusty synth score powering through (when it’s not playing the one country-western ballad ad nausem). Director Lamberto Bava, who is credited here as “John Old Jr”, apparently viewed this as work-for-hire and would be one year away from his horror classic Demons. Even the future director of Dellamorte Dellamore, Michele Soavi, turns up in a supporting role, bound to be taken out by giggling hillbilly dirtbags. Fans of Italian genre exploitation apply (the era of VHS boxes with amazing illustrated artwork) and witness the firepower of Blastfighter! Found a decent copy on YouTube. Recommended.

Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (1972)

Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (1972) belongs undeniably to a sleazy exploitation category, the “women in prison” sub-genre. Yet if you can stomach that grubbiness, this entry proves to be an artistic triumph because of two strong elements: (1) the theatrical and surreal style that director Shunya Ito (his debut film!) brings to it, and (2) lead actor Meiko Kaji’s electrifying, mostly silent performance in the title role – her iconic stare has the fire of a thousand suns!

Opening cold on a prison break where Nami Matsushima (Kaji) is recaptured along with her friend, thrown into solitary tied up. We flashback, with revolving stages and lighting changes like a theatrical production, to the origins of her incarceration. In love with a crooked detective Sugumi (Isao Natsuyagi), Matsushima is used for an undercover sting, abused by gangsters, and eventually thrown away when the detective takes payment from the mob boss he is extorting. Arrested after attempting to stab Sugumi, Matsu’s revenge burns deeply and fuels her indomitable repose as she is crossed and cornered by monstrous prisoner officers and a sinister female gang (a member of which is eventually hired by Sugumi to assassinate Matsu). There’s a clear point where the director drops the already heightened prison “realism” for bold surrealism, while taking aesthetic power from simply following Meiko Kaji’s glowering look with the camera and a spotlight.

Through its 90 minute run time, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion drops one dynamic, strange, memorable sequence after another, and Kaji’s character, Matsu, becomes the type of stalwart avenger withstanding pain and suffering to eventually turn the tables, all of which that is just completely satisfying and superheroic (complete with Matsu’s fashionable prison hair and post-prison costuming with black hat and cloak). An obvious inspiration for Kill Bill and a clear Tarantino reference point, the film is a premiere example of “diamonds in the rough” of a disreputable genre flick. Remastered Arrow Video version is available to stream on Tubi in Australia, along with other chapters of the on-going Female Prisoner #701 series. Recommended for those who can handle it.

The New Kids (1985)

The New Kids (1985) is a better poster than a movie. Along with the VHS cover to Class Of 1999, this was a poster that I became obsessed with, the teen gang horror vibes, on the level of an illustrated paperback cover, the heightened drama and off-frame implication. The movie itself, which sets its climax at a theme park called Santaland, is very much like that theme park: cheap, rickety and serviceable. It’s still a good time, mainly for fans of teen movies and grimy revenge thrillers. Shannon Presby and Lori Loughlin play brother and sister military brats raised and trained by their loving father Tom Atkins (of Halloween III and Night Of The Creeps fame). I knew the film had me by the opening credits where the trio go for an athletic run set to an inspirational Eighties power rock anthem. Unfortunately, an off-screen tragedy causes Presby and Loughlin to live with their uncle and aunt in Florida, who run a petrol station and a rundown theme park. At high school, they run afoul of a white trash gang of creeps led by a blonde James Spader with a flaky accent and a sneer, rocking an open collar to show off a tight gold chain around his neck, probably giving the most enjoyable over-the-top performance. The ‘new kids’ and the lecherous bullies go back and forth between intimidation and fighting back, until it all ends up in an action climax set at the theme park at night. Directed by Sean S. Cunningham and written by Stephen Gyllenhaal, its functional with bursts of blood and sleaze that push it beyond its TV level flair; you could imagine someone more imaginative and talented like Wes Craven really pushing the teen siblings’ eventual use of the theme park as a weapon against the violent jerks. The other Spader Eighties teen movie Tuff Turf, which almost has the same plot but with him as the out of town hero is probably a better, more fun version of this formula. Available to rent on iTunes.

Walking The Edge (1985)

Walking The Edge (1985) had been discussed so much on the Pure Cinema Podcast that when Fun City Editions put out their Blu-ray, I had to get a copy. Mid-1980s revenge thriller starring the late, great Robert Forster? I’m there! Factor in lots of driving scenes across LA and a pumping synth-and-sax score by Jay Chattaway – I was hooked in by the opening credits alone. It’s a low budget exploitation flick, which you can tell by the stolen locations and grisly horror movie level violence. The story: Nancy Kwan is out for revenge against the gang (led by an enjoyably seedy Joe Spinell) who decimated her family and she takes a cab driven by a former baseball pro turned gambling debt collector (Forster) to help visit her targets. The idea of a cab being used to make murderous stops with an unwilling driver gives it a proto-Collateral vibe. However, some of the posters gave me the mistaken impression that this was a ‘one long night’ thriller, but it’s a bit more like an Elmore Leonard thing – characters circle around the plot and each other before the shit goes down. This has some similarities in the relationship that develops between Forster and Kwan’s characters to Jackie Brown, almost functioning as a prequel to Forster’s character Max Cherry. Forster is just so good; there’s a frazzled reluctance and a beaten affability that comes through in his performance, and he helps ground everything even as the narrative heads towards gory torture revenge. Quite a revelation in the closing credits that Forster’s character is named Jason Walk, which feels like a real stretch to tie in that title! The action and suspense might not be as sharp as you’d expect – there’s a flat tone to the direction, which is really made up for by the energy of the locations and the vibes of the time (yes, contains a bar where LA punkers play). The Blu-ray transfer looks beautiful and sharp, and it’s great to see such a flick given a beautiful treatment when it would have lived so long on blurry video tapes. Recommended.