Part of a Czech film festival travelling around North America in 2003, WHO KILLED JESSI? (on screen title - WHO WANTS TO KILL JESSI?) is a charming SF Fantasy that is too little seen. Seek it out if you can.
Certainly, some of the "Eastern Bloc" humor of the piece is both dated and obscure for Western audiences, but this isn't the kind of turgid Pro-Communist tract that scare away many. No, JESSI was part of the brief Czech artistic freedom era that produced Milos Forman among others.
All that stated, JESSI stands as one of the most successful fusions of Comic Books and Cinema ever. Similar in some ways to THE PROJECTIONIST, JESSI is about a man's comic book dreams becoming a reality thru a serum invented by his wife. The heroine of the comic, JESSI, fleshed out (literally!) by the gorgeous Olga Schoberová (her looks alone should end all the jokes about babushkas named Olga!), is chased by two...uh...Terminators. The Terminators are comic book stereotypes - a "Superman" and a Cowboy.
Before Jane Fonda/BARBARELLA, Lynda Carter/WONDER WOMAN or the TV & Film trios of CHARLIE'S ANGELS - there was JESSI! Jessi looks great, wears the sexiest of clothes, eludes her would-be captors, and sports a super-strength pair of Gloves! Much charm and genuine wit develop as the trio of comic book characters invade the "real world" - complete with Comic Book Dialogue Balloons instead of actual speech! To give away too many particulars might spoil the fun of this brief 80 minute fantasy. There are the requisite mildly anti-government jibes (in particular, a police guard who doggedly guards his post - a sewer opening!), some disarmingly simple Special Effects and every Comic Book geek's fantasy ending.
A discovery waiting to happen!
Certainly, some of the "Eastern Bloc" humor of the piece is both dated and obscure for Western audiences, but this isn't the kind of turgid Pro-Communist tract that scare away many. No, JESSI was part of the brief Czech artistic freedom era that produced Milos Forman among others.
All that stated, JESSI stands as one of the most successful fusions of Comic Books and Cinema ever. Similar in some ways to THE PROJECTIONIST, JESSI is about a man's comic book dreams becoming a reality thru a serum invented by his wife. The heroine of the comic, JESSI, fleshed out (literally!) by the gorgeous Olga Schoberová (her looks alone should end all the jokes about babushkas named Olga!), is chased by two...uh...Terminators. The Terminators are comic book stereotypes - a "Superman" and a Cowboy.
Before Jane Fonda/BARBARELLA, Lynda Carter/WONDER WOMAN or the TV & Film trios of CHARLIE'S ANGELS - there was JESSI! Jessi looks great, wears the sexiest of clothes, eludes her would-be captors, and sports a super-strength pair of Gloves! Much charm and genuine wit develop as the trio of comic book characters invade the "real world" - complete with Comic Book Dialogue Balloons instead of actual speech! To give away too many particulars might spoil the fun of this brief 80 minute fantasy. There are the requisite mildly anti-government jibes (in particular, a police guard who doggedly guards his post - a sewer opening!), some disarmingly simple Special Effects and every Comic Book geek's fantasy ending.
A discovery waiting to happen!