Drealmer Reviews

Stigma (1972)

very different, very worthwhile

[6/10 · 25 July 2020]

This is a VERY unusual one - nothing psychedelic or bizarre or even 'out there', just atypical, unique. I wouldn't call it a thriller at all. I see some people call it exploitation - no, it's really not at all either, though I can see how it can be confusing with a bit of its style and content. This is just a drama with a small budget, a few 'tense' moments, and a nonchalance and unusual frankness with its nudity and sexual content. It has a clear primary goal that it achieves unquestionably and admirably: to inform about a serious topic whilst still being entertaining and interesting - it also wants to do that while being a compelling drama, and it does and is. I actually picked this thinking it was going to be meh and being okay falling asleep to it, but it grabbed me and had me the whole time.

There were times when the directing felt amateurish, like he was a bit out of his depth and either didn't know what he was going for or didn't know how to achieve what he was going for, but it didn't at all detract from the movie and actually gave it a bit of charm. Then there were times (much more of these) that it was handled with such a deft touch I was impressed and taken slightly aback.

This movie did at least a handful of things I've not seen done in a movie before. Highly recommended for anyone all of that sounds good to. Not to hype it or anything, it's still just a 'good' movie.

6.5/10

When a Stranger Calls (1979)

contrived junk

[3/10 · 20 January 2019]

This movie is bad. The character motivations are non-existent, the plot holes are many, ranging from tiny to gigantic, and there's an entire separate story in the middle of the story that comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere for no reasons. The director didn't have any idea what they were doing but did manage to get passable performances from the actors, leaving them to try and make up for everything wrong with the movie, which no amount of good acting can do when the directing and script are so bad.

Contrivances and nonsense abound.

mild spoiler:

If someone is being paid to watch children and a house and some creep calls and says "have you checked on the children?" - wouldn't they then check the children? Yes, they would, but the director/writer can't have that happen here because then what they're trying to do wouldn't work...oh wait, it doesn't work anyway.

Why this gets so many accolades is baffling except for the average viewer being very stupid.

An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty (1984)

A taste of something unusual.

[6/10 · 9 December 2018]

This was so unusual and interesting. It was like free-flowing poetry, moving from verse to verse without definitive structure or unifying theme, but undeniably all part of the same piece centered on the subject (the amorous woman.) Excellent direction and compelling cinematography. It's definitely worth a re-watch. 6.3/10 on a first viewing.

Deaths in Tokimeki (1984)

more than what is on the surface

[6/10 · 10 November 2018]

This is almost a minimalistic art piece, but there is practically no attention drawn to the artistic side of it making it work more like a moody drama, however, attached to that mood and drama is the ever-present awareness that death in the form of murder is going to happen. "Deaths" in the title and the first thing the movie tells us is that someone is going to be killed - inevitable death surrounds the mood. Who, how, why? It's not at all made clear for most of the movie, and we don't need to know because the characters clearly have a set purpose and we believe it - we just have to wait, like they do. By the start of the 3rd act everything is made clear what is supposed to happen, but we still don't know if it is going to or how it is going to play out.

The directing is excellent. A lesser hand and this would have been a bore-fest. As it was, I was almost enchanted.

This is not really a "crime" movie, definitely more a drama with a subtle backdrop of crime elements. A bit weird, a bit haunting. Recommended for those looking for something different who don't need action in their crime dramas.

6.6/10

Tai yin zhi (1972)

Finger of Doom - multiple fingers of much doom

[6/10 · 7 November 2018]

This is an action drama that takes itself mostly seriously but not quite all of the time (to be clear, it's not somber or super-serious.) It looks like everyone had fun making it and it's a solid movie all around. The director had a firm grasp on what he wanted to do and how to accomplish it, and the movie never suffers from lack of direction or uncertainty (many martial arts movies geared towards 'get me to the main baddie' tend to have a period that drags on between the 2nd and 3rd acts, non-existent here.)

Heavier on the story and plot points than many movies in a similar vein, I never found myself bored or wanting (it's unique too), and there were plenty of action sequences too. The kung-fu is pretty below-average, but not in any way jokey, dull, or hackneyed, and is pretty much all done with swords.

Great sets and decent choreography and cinematography serve the action sequences well, as it's very much the "swooshing motions with dancing around" (again, done well) and not much at all real kung-fu. Minimal blood and cutting, but not non-existent, this movie definitely cared about the story, sets, cinematography, and acting, and was not just looking for a way to show some slicing+gushing - not at all a 'fast sword motion show the sliced body' type movie.

There are a handful of main characters and each is introduced and continuingly presented in a thoughtful way, and while it is clear who the good and bad guy's are, this is no obvious movie and predictability is relatively low. It gets props for originality but it's not at all outstanding and didn't wow me in any way.

Enjoyable and worth watching. 5.9stars

Revenge of the Stolen Stars (1986)

bad, but not unbearably so

[4/10 · 2 November 2018]

The "acting" is very bad because the directing is very bad. It has a bunch of nonsense and a tacked-on forced plot via voice-over. Yet, it was semi-enjoyable bad not "OMG is it over yet?" 20 minutes into the movie bad. The locations and colors were nice and saved it from looking like something anyone with a camera could have made. Kinski is limited in his appearance and doesn't give any notable performance (again, bad acting thanks to the director, but not the enjoyable over-acting you can see Kinski to lots in other movies.) Most likely if you watch this you'll just sit around going "why did I decide to watch this?" as you twiddle your thumbs and shake your head.

The One-Armed Swordsman (1967)

come back to reality, this movie stinks

[5/10 · 25 October 2018]

I see all these glowing reviews with 8, 9, 10 stars, and I'm utterly baffled. This movie was 2 hours of a 5-line story with practically zero martial arts. It's a tedious snoozer. I've seen plenty SB kung-fu movies, so I'm not simply out of my element. Does this want to be a serious drama or a martial arts movie? The script/story says it wants to be a serious drama, the directing/execution says it wants to be a martial arts movie. It fails as both, nothing works.

The Golden Sword (1969)

Very good adventure drama.

[7/10 · 8 October 2018]

Since there's only 1 other review, I'll add some thoughts. Mostly I echo a lot of what Manuli says in their review, and I might have even enjoyed it a bit more than they did? I'll definitely be re-visiting this one, I had a good time!

It's got a good amount of light moments, it's got some heavier moments that don't at all feel as heavy as they would if the light mood weren't prevalent, and it works very well all-around. The scope of what was covered in the story without it feeling 'loose' or shoddy was impressive. It made me want to know more about the main location of interest and get more stories from its lore, but at the same time it did not make me feel like it was lacking in what it had at all. Every character in the movie was well-done, from the mains to the handful of secondaries.

Very minimal on the martial-arts and what bits there are are not at all stand-out choreographed scenes or anything, but the fight scenes are still good because they're compelling, well-acted, and well-directed, just like the rest of the movie.

Very good and unique story very well directed. Definitely recommended.

Shaolin and Wu Tang (1983)

Solid Kung Fu movie

[6/10 · 6 October 2018]

I liked the classic plot of this one and didn't find it too convoluted or forced. There's not much elaborate choreographed kung-fu through most of the movie (you get little snippets and teases throughout), but the end fight sequence is elaborate (they saved all their choreography for here) and quite good and exciting to see the two styles get combined to overcome the main baddie. You can really feel the chemistry between the two opposing stars, friends with conflict, and when they fight, it's a lot of fun.

I'd love to see a better print of this, as I watched an old VHS copy with lots of scanlines and cropping that I'm sure take away from it all.

Grab it and see it if you have the chance and like kung fu movies.

5.7 stars!

The Sword of Swords (1968)

a drawn-out clang fest - not recommended

[4/10 · 1 October 2018]

This was a doozy. It started out alright, but then it got boring, and then it got lame, and then it just kept going, and then it finally ended.

There is pretty much ZERO martial arts in this movie and pretty much no choreography. There's just a lot of motion back and forth and swooshing and lots of clanging of swords. Sure they had to have a choreographer and it's not completely void of some stunt skill, but it's the bottom of the barrel. Everyone in the movie has the exact same sword style too (well we see 1 other sword type briefly from 1 character, but 500000 other swords all the same style.)

The story actually had some potential, but it's all lost on the bad directing (it could have been a good drama if they had less pointless clanging and a better director.) There was 1 aspect that came across VERY well and it's a shame it got lost in a crappy movie. Because it was so good, I'm going to explain it all here. Spoilers ahead:

The main character's wife gets kidnapped by the baddies trying to draw him to them, he doesn't bite (they just want his magic sword with which they can conquer the kingdoms) - so they beat her up and send her back to him hoping to make him pissed to come at them. When they beat her up they very much are like 'we could rape you, but we're not going to' and when she gets back to him she is very worried he won't accept her because he will think she's been raped. He believes that she wasn't when she says she wasn't, but then she's like 'but can you still take me back? everyone else will think I was raped and will talk behind your back' and he's like "I don't care, I'm sticking with you, I love you."

Later they get separated for a while, and in the meantime he loses his vision and has to learn to fight by sound. Finally he goes to kill the baddies who have again kidnapped his wife and the older woman she was staying with (and her family.) He does alright fighting the baddies a bit but then they begin using the old woman's family as body shields and the main character ends up killing off the entire family unknowingly as he's fighting the baddies. Then he kills the old woman in the same way. The wife is like "they're having you kill the family, you just killed granny!" Pretty tragic. Then when he finally gets all the baddies killed and kills the main baddie his wife is still there and he's just wracked with guilt and will live the rest of his life blind and she says something like "don't worry, I'll be with you always."

Five Deadly Venoms (1978)

Not very good at all - don't believe the hype!

[5/10 · 28 September 2018]

I felt the need to write a review in light of all these glowing reviews that claim it is excellent or the best and all that nonsense. I have no idea what these people watched but this movie is mediocre and boring. It's not even a kung-fu movie! Like I understand the 1 guy who'd only seen 90's Jackie Chan action crap, but, that doesn't account for all the other 7-10 star ratings.

If this hadn't been a Cheng Cheh movie, I would have turned it off halfway through.

It tries to be a movie of compelling intrigue - with a little kung-fu thrown in. It fails horribly. It's as if they had a story outline that was solid for a kung-fu movie and then the writer wrote a first draft from that and they filmed the first draft without considering revision. It kind of can't get out of its own way trying to set up all the super-weak angles to the plot to make them align so there can be the final conflict. It felt like the movie was pacing back and forth twiddling its thumbs waiting to get on with it.

I caught myself looking at the timestamp at 1hr 5mins in and was like "omg I still have 35 minutes?!" It got slightly better in the last 35 but at that point I was just like "get to it" and when they got to it it was a let down.

I don't need face-paced or full of action, I don't need a good story. What I do need for a kung-fu movie like this is for it to be well-directed which means 1.) good kung-fu and 2.) keep me interested - it failed on both fronts.

It wasn't BAD, but there was barely anything good to it. Boring and mediocre and not worth the time. If you're a Cheh completionist, it's not going to hurt you, but don't seek this movie out thinking it's even close to a good kung-fu movie, much less a great one.

Willow Springs (1973)

horrible in every way

[1/10 · 15 August 2018]

I only made it about 30 minutes into this movie before I couldn't bear it any more. There were moments where you could tell the director was telling the 'actors' what to do, some of the worst acting and directing I've seen. Then the male voice-over started and it was as if the actor had never before read the lines. This tried to be an artsy piece, but it was just a piece of crap.

Boarding School (1978)

Surprisingly good!

[6/10 · 19 June 2018]

I went into this figuring I was in for sleazy trashy perhaps barely watchable junk, especially as it starts off with a bunch of teenage girls in their shared room in their undies acting silly and being giggly, but was pleasantly surprised to find a real movie here. It has a much better title as "The Passion Flower Hotel" and holds up as a nice coming-of-age romance.

The director does a great job of taking the viewer through a variety of feelings empathizing with the variety of characters expressing what it is to be a young person dealing with entering the world of sex and romance. Curiosity and desire, excitement and anticipation, nervousness and anxiousness, embarrassment and shame, joy and pleasure, sexuality and romance; all very genuine, never over-dramatized.

And it's fun and funny!

Beyond the Law (1993)

Charlie Sheen's best ?

[7/10 · 9 June 2018]

7.5 stars!

While I can't say I've seen everything he's done, this certainly stands out to me as the best acting I've seen Charlie Sheen do. I can't help but be curious how accurate the portrayal of the character and story is (it's based on a true story), but given the nature of it, I don't see why they'd have to exaggerate or take license with anything.

It may seem to start slightly expeditious, but it doesn't feel rushed once it gets going and, again, it's a true story and screen time is limited, so it really does a great job of setting everything up and getting the viewer into the bulk to the happenings and through them.

Great atmosphere, well-paced. Raw and engaging. A good script and the directing is more than solid in every aspect (he gets TOPS out of all of the actors, the use of music and sound is outstanding, non-intrusive yet evocative camera work, etc.) It's somewhat minimalistic which allows the great acting backed by all of it to shine through. It almost feels like a play in the desert.

If you've thought to yourself "eh, Charlie Sheen in some crime movie? looks like B-cheese I'll pass" or similar, you should re-consider. It's not easily-digestible crime-actionflick fare either.

This movie is serious, dark, and kind of like a surprise hit in the gut if you aren't ready for it.