Whoever decided to give this film the English-audience title of Chinese Midnight Express would seem not to have seen the original Midnight Express (1978). For starters, this flick features a Chinese national – bunged up not in some awful foreign jail, but in a Chinese prison. What’s more, he’s an innocent Chinese national in a Chinese prison, and an innocent Chinese national who doesn’t catch the Midnight Express (that is, escape). In fact, no-one escapes, or even tries. It’s a bit bewildering. (more…)
Posted on April 22nd, 2011 at 4:02 pm. Updated on April 22nd, 2011 at 4:18 pm.
This is a simple murder mystery based in a prison, suspended in dense allusions to the past and the future, and lapsing in and out of an avant garde stage play. ‘Homoerotic’ is the word most commonly used to describe it, and the Japanese title apparently translates literally into ‘4.6 Billion Years of Love’, creating anticipation of a monumental love story, or preparing one for a passion which is a mere speck in the universe. As it turns out, it is love which ends not with a Big Bang but a whimper. (more…)
Posted on April 5th, 2011 at 10:30 pm. Updated on April 9th, 2011 at 5:59 pm.
Remember when ‘Made in Taiwan’ instantly suggested an inferior copy of the real thing? Perhaps you don’t, but Island of Fire evokes that era perfectly; it is a woeful agglomeration of martial arts action drama, crime thriller, and unashamed rip-offs of other films, notably Cool Hand Luke (1967). (more…)
Posted on February 27th, 2011 at 6:01 pm. Updated on February 27th, 2011 at 6:01 pm.
Given the choice of five nights in the box in this unpleasant island prison or being forced to watch this piece of feculence, you might just choose the former. (more…)
Posted on February 6th, 2011 at 7:06 pm. Updated on August 11th, 2013 at 12:04 pm.
Now, I don’t play computer games but I imagine that this is pretty much what they are like: two cartoonishly muscled protagonists in 3D-animation-enhanced combat, with a rather flimsy plot to justify the fighting. But probably without the mushy ending. (more…)
Posted on January 17th, 2011 at 9:45 pm. Updated on April 9th, 2011 at 5:57 pm.
A trans-Atlantic Scum, this is… based on that acclaimed British movie from 1979, and every bit as bleak. (more…)
Posted on January 3rd, 2011 at 5:15 pm. Updated on January 3rd, 2011 at 5:18 pm.
Paul Ramsey (Gregg Henry) is happily married, blonde (a bit too blonde), and of gentle disposition. The same can be said of neither Captain Omar Kinsman (George Kennedy) or his beloved Doberman Pinscher, Rattler. You know that it will be messy when all three inevitably tangle. (more…)
Posted on December 28th, 2010 at 9:12 pm. Updated on January 27th, 2013 at 12:35 pm.
At the intersection of movies about undercover cops in prison [eg Behind Prison Gates (1939), White Heat (1949), Death Warrant (1990), Club Fed (1990), Half Past Dead (2002)], and action movies starring blokes with ponytails (eg just about anything with Steven Seagal) is this number. It might not be as far-fetched as some of those others, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. (more…)
Posted on December 26th, 2010 at 10:44 pm. Updated on December 26th, 2010 at 10:49 pm.
I’d read the reverential, slightly fawning reviews and was looking forward to seeing this arty ‘throwback’ (Steve Balderson’s contemporary tale filmed in the manner of a noirish 50s black-and-whiter) with great anticipation. Sadly, I found that it not only failed to live up to the hype, but is not a patch on the Women in Prison films of the 50s, the style of which it seems to try to recreate. If you like the period, watch Women’s Prison (1955), Girls in Prison (1956) or the British Yield to the Night (1956) instead, is my tip. (more…)
Posted on December 4th, 2010 at 10:34 pm. Updated on August 11th, 2013 at 12:03 pm.
Lockdown is a prison movie for traditionalists – murders, stabbings, drug use, drug deals, racial tension, rapes, crooked guards… and in the middle of it all, a good, innocent man struggling to survive. (more…)
Posted on November 26th, 2010 at 9:55 pm. Updated on March 6th, 2016 at 5:06 pm.