Golgo 13: The Professional (English Dubbed Version)

I watched a movie and it is called Golgo 13: The Professional, directed by Osamu Dezaki, released in 1983. It stars Gregory Snegoff as Golgo 13. I watched the English dubbed version. It is a story about a professional assassin who is assigned a job to kill the son of a wealthy oil tycoon. Having completed the job, Golgo 13 travels to Italy to assassinate a powerful crime boss. Accomplishing that, he is attacked by the U.S. military and secret services and must find out who is after him. It is an interesting spy kind of thriller that is very well made. It is based on the manga series released in May 1983. Golgo 13 is the longest running manga series, starting in 1968 and has had 3 movie adaptations made and a series of episodes made. Golgo 13 is a cool character throughout and has no emotions through the entire movie, which one might say is off putting but he is a professional assassin. I’m not sure if this is the way he is in the manga books but for all intents and purposes, I’d like to think so. This is one of the earlier anime moves that have a distinct drawing style. It has both rich lines and a lot of reflections which give it a film noir style. All of the figures are drawn a little long/tall but it works for this kind of movie. There is a little bit of suspension of disbelief for some of the animatics but like I say, it works for the subject matter being presented. I was quite surprised at the nudity (for which there is a lot right in the first 20 minutes) and the sex. Golgo 13 is basically Bond with the women in this movie but it is covered tastefully and not off putting save for one sequence that involves one of the bad guys, Snake. There was a fair amount of bloody violence as well as dismemberment which was not all that surprising. The music is a kind of jazz/blues hybrid kind of music that fits well with the noir style of the action. The animation is superb. There are striking framing shots of action that look like panels from the manga and they are gloriously detailed, adding much to the action pieces in the movie. There is some early adopted CGI in the climax of the movie that looks cheesy by today’s standards (though, it depends on what movie you are talking about because cheap CGI is cheap CGI) but I admire the director and the studio for attempting something different that would be a technology used later. The CGI isnt all that bad really considering its 1983.
I came across this movie from a review I watched regarding a video game adaptation of Golgo 13 for NES and I thought I’d try to see if I could find it. I have watched many anime movies, Akira, Ninja Scroll, Grave of the Fireflies, Fist of the North Star and a few more so I thought this was a great entry as far as something different. I am always impressed by the creativity it takes to make these films and how they adapt from such great source material (for the most part). This particular movie I really didn’t know anything about apart from the game review and that was enough to get me to watch it. Golgo 13 did remind me of Diabolik, who is an Italian thief which was in graphic novel form later to be adapted into a movie directed by Mario Bava, released in 1968 (and famously riffed as the last episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 tv series). That doesn’t detract from this Golgo 13 movie at all, it was just something I noticed.
Overall, I thought it was a great story with great characters and very compelling to watch. I would suggest tracking it down. It is graphic both in violent imagery and sexual imagery so your mileage may vary.

The Hobbit-1977 Animated Version

I watched a movie and it is called The Hobbit, directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr., released in 1977. It stars Orson Bean, Brother Theodore, Richard Boone, John Huston and Hans Conried, to name a few. This is the abridged animated musical version. The story concerns Bilbo Baggins who is enlisted by Gandalf and the Company of Dwarves of Thorin Oakenshield to accompany them as their burgler, “lucky number” back to the Lonely Mountain to reclaim their gold. Like I said, it is an abridged version that is only 77 minutes long. That is not to say that it deviates from the source material however. In fact, the opening lines of the movie introducing Hobbits and Bilbo are taken straight from the book. It is a pretty faithful adaptation in that respect, even if it cuts out many of the side stories and rushes through a few moments to get to the end goal of getting to the mountain. There really isnt all that much additional explanations of the seasons or any of that to make the story longer. Some would cry foul on this but I think it works because of that simplicity but still maintaining the heart of the story or core of the story, if you will. The animation style predates the big eyes characters that we later see in other anime movies and in fact, this can be considered an anime movie since the studio that produced it, Topcraft was a precursor to Studio Ghibli that produced some pretty great and well known anime movies themselves. The style lends itself to the nature of the fantasy that is Middle Earth and what fanciful creatures there are in this place. I must say that all of the bad characters, such as the spider of Mirkwood Forest, the trolls, the goblins and the wargs are drawn to a degree that is pretty frightening. Gollum is also quite frightening looking, not at all what Peter Jackson made him up to be. All of the good characters have stern faces, emotive faces and can be frightening at times but are mostly easy to look at, with the exception of the Wood Elves; not sure what happened there. The animation is fluid and though there are some hiccups, overall it looks beautiful, not cheap or rushed. There are some scaling problems during Bilbo and Gollum’s scenes but it should bother too much.

The voice acting is top notch as you might expect. All the actors put so much soul into their performance that you forget that you are watching an animated feature. They even put little extras, like certain intonations/inflections in their voices to really sell a lot of the scenes which, again, adds so much more depth to this movie than being some simple cartoon. Orson Bean plays Bilbo with a wit and a bit tongue in cheek but with bravado, John Huston plays Gandalf, both commanding and nurturing, Richard Boone plays Smaug with a with and bravado that is both deliciously mischievous also very ruthless, Hans Conried plays Thorin as both pompous and heroic, and finally, Brother Theodore plays Gollum with quiet intensity until he notices that his “precious” has gone missing, which will stay with you for long after the movie ends. All of the other characters: additional dwarves, Bard the Guardsman, Elrond, and the Wood Elf King and others, also give the intense performances that you might expect. It might seem over the top or scenery chewing but it works, I think.
The music, adapted by Rankin-Bass is lifted from the book which is one of its best highlights. Additional music was contributed by Glenn Yarbourgh, including the theme song “The Greatest Adventure (The Ballad of the Hobbit)”, sung by Yarbough. Many of the other songs were sung by either Yarbourgh or men and women singers.  You’d think that a folk soundtrack would be kind of out of place but again, it works because of its simplicity and power behind the words and the actions on screen. Trust me when I say that is works as well.
I know a few people who hate this movie, though that might be from other things associated with the 70’s but I feel that it was quite ambitious of Rankin-Bass to attempt to adapt such a famous book in this fashion, because all manner of things could’ve made this bomb, especially with the limited nature of movie to book adaptations. I personally grew up with this movie and it was on a play list all through my childhood and motivated me to read the book when I got to school. I loved seeing the words from the songs on pages and singing them as I read the book. Later in life, I still came back to it, as I do for this review. The more recent adaptations of the Hobbit made me ambivalent because I had such investment in the material, unlike Lord of the Rings before it (which I loved). I saw all Jackson movies and they are hit or miss for me. I already knew the plot and the story so it was like watching another adaptation but not really. I understand that adaptations go with the generations that support it so this 1977 animated version was and is my adaptation. Check it out. It has a different atmosphere and vibe to it, not just 1970’s vibe either, more like a rich story telling vibe that both kids and adults can enjoy. Together.

Killing Zoe

I watched a movie and it was called Killing Zoe, directed by Roger Avary, released in 1993. It stars Eric Stoltz, Julie Delpy and Jean-Hughes Anglade. It is a story about Zed, played by Stoltz, who comes to France to assist his childhood friend, Eric, played by Anglade in what turns out to be a bank heist on Bastille Day and Zed is Eric’s safecracker. Will the heist go well?

This is another one of those films I spoke of before in my review of Four Rooms (http://movedbymovingimages.blogspot.com/2015/01/four-rooms.html), from the golden period of the 1990’s when independent films were making a comeback. This particular film, I feel, fell under the radar and got lost in the Pulp Fictions and Desperados and dare I say, Reservoir Dogs before that. This is a pretty simple bank heist movie, granted, but what makes it unique from other bank heist movies is that it takes place in France, and that the only professional is Zed. We really don’t know about any of his counterparts other than Eric, who is his friend and that becomes shady after the first 20 minutes he is on screen. He is a wild card of a person, played masterfully by Jean-Hughes Anglade and his character is quite morally ambiguous to say the least, compared to the more down to Earth Zed. Zed is calm and just there, not really joining in but still a part of the job, basically going along with it because it is a job; aloof, some might say.  Stoltz makes Zed likable from the moment he gets in the cab in the very first scene he is in. Julie Delpy plays Zoe, who is a prostitute escort that the French cab driver, Maurice, sets Zed up with. She is very pretty and plays her part well. For the record, this is the first time I saw her on screen, in a movie so any movie she has been in since, I always think of this movie. She has a heart and is very human in her acting style. All of the other players, the robbers, are played with vigor as well. You get a sense of how screwed up they are and how very nonprofessional this job is going to be right from the beginning. The music by TomandAndy is sparse but used in a great way to raise tension, though the most intense scenes have no music which works so well. Most of the movie takes place in the bank and though you might think that is boring, it makes for a nail biter for sure.
When I saw this originally, back in the 90’s, I thought it was gold. I still think it holds up because it is so different, very hard and not sentimental. It isnt nihilistic as the dvd cover would have you believe. It is dark in some ways because it is a bank heist movie. 
If you want to see a different kind of bank heist movie, don’t mind some French (with subtitles) and like that 90’s independent period, I think you will like this. Hell, just give it a look because it’s so underrated.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie

I watched a movie and it was called Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, directed by Jim Mallon, released in 1995. It stars Michael J. Nelson, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy and Trace Beaulieu. This is a movie based on the tv series of the same name, where a scientist (and his assistant) submits a man and the robots he built to terrible movies to see if they will crack, in a satellite in space. It’s a simple show that really needs no explanation. The thing that makes it funny is that these three “riff” aka make funny comments about how terrible the movies are. It’s basically like watching a movie with three wiseacres making comments throughout. It is an acquired taste and requires some knowledge of pop culture to be fully appreciated, at least I think so. This is the movie version of the show, like I said so there are some slight differences but not too much to stray away from the roots of the original show. In this incarnation, the human is Mike Nelson. He is joined by Crow T. Robot, Tom Servo and Gypsy, who pilots the Satellite of Love where they have the actual experiments. The scientist is Dr. Forrester and he is evil. Well, mad. He actually is the first person you see and does an introduction to what we are about to see and the concept of the movie so you can be up to speed, basically forgoing the explanation via theme song like in the show, which actually works. We then see the Satellite of Love float across the sky (looking suspiciously like a bone) and we see Mike inside running on a treadmill…more like hamster wheel complete with water bottle. This is the first sketch of the movie, which was something that tv show did as well before going to commercial, also known as host segments. Basically there would be an introduction and something crazy happening, in this case its Crow using a pick ax to “dig” out of the Satellite of Love to get to Earth, which will be the running theme of all the host segments for the movie. The movie they watch is the “terrible” Universal classic This Island Earth. One of the interesting aspects of these host segments is you get to see Servo’s room, which was not explored in the show. All I can say is underpants.
The production value of the show went up quite a bit because it is a movie, where the sets don’t look as cheap, which again, totally works. The hallway to the theater gets a special upgrade (and is not used again when the series resumes on Sci-Fi channel later) and even the bots get an upgrade, though that might be the lighting. The movie that is chosen has some quality riffs on it and is pretty consistent throughout. One of the best parts is the guys even riff on their own credits, which they didn’t ever do it the show.
This is a special part of the show and to me personally. This movie has the distinction of being one of the movies I have seen more than 100 times. Im not even exaggerating. I worked at  video store for 3 years and one of my co workers who was my manager in the first year I worked there, would watch it every time we closed, which was basically every night for that first year. He moved and I still kept the tradition, in his honor, for the remaining 2 years I worked there. I am still amazed that this movie even got made as I have read many articles and commentaries that say it had quite a bit of executive meddling so that made it quite difficult. So much in fact that Trace Beaulieu left after this film.
This is a great little movie and hilarious to boot. I may be biased because I’m a fan of the show and the movie but I think you might like too if you give it chance.

Sex and Fury

I watched a movie and it was called Sex and Fury, translated Story of Delinquent Female Boss: o-Chō Inoshika (不良姐御伝 猪の鹿お蝶 Furyō anego den: Inoshika o-Chō?), directed by Norifumi Suzuki , released 1973.  It stars Reiko Ike and an American Christina Lindberg.  The story is that a little girl’s father is murdered by two thugs and one of them drops these little cards with characters on them as they struggle to get a briefcase from the dying man. The girl grows up and becomes a thief, in an effort to find the men who killed her father. Will she find those men? This is an action-thriller but it is also a Japanese sexploitation film. There are many elements that Tarantino likely lifted to put into Kill Bill movies, woman out for revenge, swordfight in the snow, gushing blood, though to be fair that is a Japanese movie convention so he didn’t lift that entirely. The music is well done, very 1970’s, much like you might expect from this ear of Japanese movies. Reiko Ike is very attractive and certainly not shy when it comes to the nude scenes that she does. I admit however, she isnt doing anything particularly sexy, she is either killing people and getting sprayed with cheap red blood or well, pretty much that is the only time she is naked in this movie. Christina Lindberg plays a role in this too as a gambler and surprisingly, she speaks English. It is kind of comical because the Japanese subtitles take up the lower half of the screen but later on she speaks Japanese. Kind of weird but not too uncommon I suppose. All her parts are quite sensual though in context of the scenes, it can be off putting. 

The movie itself is pretty good, basic plot but has a few twists and turns to it because it gets deeper than just a simple murder. This is the first Japanese sexploitation movie I have seen and I only looked for it because I saw a gif that looked pretty intense. It can get a bit boring in some parts but that might’ve been just me. The shots were all well done, very nice close ups of eyes and lots of interesting set ups to for the fight scenes. Some of them were a bit too close quarters for me though that might be the intention of the filmmaker to show how claustrophobic sword fighting a large group of men can be.
I would recommend this though be aware that is full of sex and fury, it isnt just a clever translation.