Sunday, September 03, 2017

Bike Week Bonanza: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Every Which Way But Loose, Heroes of the East

I've taken to riding an exercise bike and watching a movie every day to kill two birds with one stone.



Mortal Kombat (1995)
Surprisingly good and probably the best video game movie adaptation. It plays smart by keeping it close to the original “Deathmatch Tournament” plot with broadly-drawn archetypes meeting up to punch each other.

Set design is outstanding and the CGI isn't overused beyond the limits of mid-90s graphics. Christopher Lambert is a stroke of genius as Raiden. The rest of the heroes are well handled, especially Johnny Cage's story arc. The Goro costume/effects are impressive. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa steals the show as douchebag sorcerer Shang Tsung.

The fight scenes rely too much on quick cuts. Scorpion doesn't do much except have a cool fight with Cage. Sub-Zero dies like a bitch.

Unpretentious and a lot of fun. Probably the best Paul W. S. Anderson movie I've seen.



Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
The sequel that replaces almost the entire cast except Liu Kang and Kitana. James Remar (from the Warriors) does a serviceable job as Raiden, but lacks the touch of amused madness that made Lambert's version so good. Brian Thompson (the bad guy from Cobra) is halfway to a good Shao-Kahn, but making him into a daddy's boy hurts the character badly, but that's also because Shinnok ruins everything.

Surprisingly faithful to Mortal Kombat 3's plot, it suffers from a plot that's more ambitious than its budget can allow. Smoke and Cyrax get fun fights. Nightwolf shows up for one scene to spout vision quest nonsense about animalities to Liu Kang. The heroic Sub-Zero II (yes, that's canon) shows up to fight Scorpion, spout some ninja nonsense, and then vanishes entirely from the movie in a complete waste of one of the series' most popular characters. Sheeva, Rain, and Baraka die like chumps. Which I guess is in character, but still...

CGI is more heavily used, to its detriment. Motaro looks like ass. Liu Kang and Shao-Kahn's dragon vs hydra Animality fight is AWFUL. Set design remains pretty good.

Considerably weaker than the first. Pretty bad, but entertaining at least.



Every Which Way But Loose (1978)
Clint Eastwood as street fighting trucker Philo Beddoe with a pet orangutan named Clyde. No reason given for Clyde. No reason needed.

Philo falls in love with a mysterious country-western singer Lynn Halsey-Taylor who leaves him one night and he takes off after her with his ape and his best friend Orville (Geoffrey Lewis).

Philo's something of an asshole since he keeps provoking fights everywhere he goes. He pisses off an idiot biker gang and a short-fused pair of cops. Both groups chase after him.

Its funny, and shows the American working class as affable and heroic. His sidekick Orville finds love with a young Beverly D'Angelo, but Philo himself discovers that the woman he's followed to Denver from California is a shallow, selfish manipulator.

Its good, but fairly subversive toward the idea of romance. Doesn't really stick the landing. Its got an old lady blowing up motorcycles with a shotgun, though, so there's that.


Heroes of the East AKA Shaolin Challenges Ninja AKA Zhong hua zhang fu (1978)
Shaw Brothers production. Directed by veteran martial artist/stunt actor/director Chia-Liang Liu and starring Shaw Brothers staple Gordon Liu/Chia-Hui Liu. Action comedy about a Chinese man put into an arranged marriage with a Japanese woman. Both like each other, but both are martial artists and deeply proud of their respective heritages/styles.

Misunderstandings lead to arguments, which lead to some Taming of the Shrew moments and then lead to him inadvertently insulting all of her martial arts teachers, who show up looking to avenge the insult.

Cue a series of fights where Liu has to fight them off one by one, using different Chinese Kung Fu styles against their varied Japanese styles.

Its got a light touch and (typical of the genre) the fight scenes are where it shines. Nunchaku, katana, jian swords, spears, sai, butterfly swords, three-sectioned-staff, judo, karate, drunken boxing, crane style, ninjutsu, etc. Watch Kung Fu movie fight choreography, and you'll see how just about every modern Western action director needs to be slapped in the face repeatedly for their terrible editing choices.


Naturally, the Chinese protagonist wins (reconciling with his wife along the way), but the Japanese fighters aren't treated like cartoon villains like in a lot of other Kung Fu cinema (remember, WWII Japan was not kind to China). Its a showcase and celebration of different styles of martial arts. Entertaining and impressive. 

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