Most fans of 80s HK flicks have a soft spot for the Girls With Guns genre and, well, so do I. xD. I've been a fan of HK cinema for 20 yrs and one of the very first films I watched around 1991 was ANGEL. The film spawned both a handful of sequels and dozens of imitators. Unfortunately, a lot of them were very difficult and/or expensive to get hold of back then so needless to say there's quite a few I've never seen before. Well, until now that is! Now I'm actually tracking down many of these gems and enjoying them heaps. And I'm gonna start reviewing some of them from now on. I know, I know, don't tell me; in order to do this properly I ought to start off with the original ANGEL series but I just couldn't be arsed. It's been reviewed so many times already.
Pakistani poster
I wanna go straight to the knock-offs and tonight I watched the highly entertaining ANGEL ENFORCERS directed by Godfrey Ho. Unfortunately, it's never been released on DVD but I watched it in the best video version there is; the UK tape from M.I.A. I also own the laserdisc version of the same release but I haven't got my LD player hooked up so for now the ol'e VHS will have to do. It's both letterboxed and has good, proper subtitles. I'll watch it again and get a review done. Hmm, come to think of it, apart from last night's review of Obskuriøst #11 (on the Danish section of this blog) I haven't reviewed anything properly for years (almost). Gee. Anyhoo, I'll give the flick another spin tomorrow and get a review done. Until then, have a look at the English dubbed trailer (and thanks to Spannick for uploading it!).
PS: And yes that is the music from HALLOWEEN! LOL.
While I generally don't review recent theatrical releases, I'm going to make an exception here because I feel this is an important, nay, essential, viewing experience for fans of action cinema. Quite simply, this is the best 80's action film to be made in the past twenty years and director/co-scripter/star Sylvester Stallone has single-handedly restored my faith in American action cinema. It's not perfect, mind you, but it is the most rousing, bloody, audience-pleasing action flick that I have seen in theaters in many years.
- and I fully agree! Read the rest of the review here. Anyway, for quite some time there's been rumours of a new sequel, RAMBO V. I must admit I wasn't too happy about this new film as, well, just how do you top RAMBO 4!!! Also, the rumours about it being a quieter film didn't sit well with me. Well, no need to worry now; Sly has called off the film! Here's a bit from an interview that was just posted on Empire's website. Interestingly enough he also talks about a director's cut of RAMBO 4 (weird that the original version wasn't a "director's cut" since he directed it himself!?):
“I think Rambo’s pretty well done. I don’t think there’ll be any more. I’m about 99% sure,” said Stallone, which comes as something of a surprise. After all, Rambo V was considered to be something of an inevitability after the last movie, the ultra-violent Rambo, made $113 million worldwide in 2008. But The Expendables has made Sly think long and hard about his future; and Rambo doesn’t feature in it.
“I was going to do it,” he said. “I said I’d never talk about this, but with I feel that with Rocky Balboa, that character came complete circle. He went home. But for Rambo to go on another adventure might be, I think, misinterpreted as a mercenary gesture and not necessary. I don’t want that to happen.
“I’m very happy with the last Burmese episode, because I didn’t pull any punches on it,” he continued. “I wanted it to be what civil war really is – rough. You can’t candy coat it, and where do you go from there? So that’s [Rambo V] going to go.”
Stallone’s not done with Rambo completely, though. He told Empire that he’s at work on a director’s cut of Rambo which will restore twelve minutes to the movie, including a surprising outburst of loquaciousness for the mumbling man of action at the movie’s beginning.
“He does a speech at the beginning of the movie to Julie Benz where he lays out why his life has been a complete disappointment and why war is natural and peace is an accident,” added Stallone. “And how he just feels that his life has been a waste. It’s very important to hear that and I didn’t think so at the time. I’m going to go back and put in some stuff.”
