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Indian Cinema Roundup: SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON is on Prime
Hindi-language film about filmmaking is one of the year’s surprise cinematic treasures.
A surprise delight for me this year was the Hindi-language film Superboys of Malegaon, a heartbreaking dramedy based on true events that were previously the subject of the similarly-named documentary film Supermen of Malegaon.
Shortly after its brief theatrical run, the film is now more widely available on Amazon Prime. It’s expressive, warm, and rooted in a deep love for movies and filmmaking. It’s certainly a must-watch for anyone who has dreamed about picking up a camera and grabbing your friends to, as Lloyd Kaufman would put it, “make your own damn movie”. The narrative is incredibly moving and one of my favorite movies of 2025 as we approach the midpoint of the year.
I try to avoid too much plot exposition in reviews but in this case I feel it’s necessary to set the stage as a tantalizing hook. The film chronicles a group of pals living in the town of Malegaon in Western India in the 90s who taste success, and are almost destroyed by it.
Nasir Shaikh operates an independent movie theater with help from his friends, showcasing films with a focus on action and genre pictures. But because the boys are showing movies without the proper licensing, it’s essentially a pirate operation. And just when things are looking up, they’re forced to shut down.
And that’s when the idea hits: the police can’t stop them from showing movies if it’s their movies.
Overnight, a scrappy group of friends becomes a filmmaking team, intent on saving their humble theater. Nasir directs the effort. Farogh, a newspaper reporter, becomes their writer. Shy but lovable Shafique aspires to play a lead role but settles to help with the production. Other friends and family pitch in both behind and in front of the camera.
Rallying the village to get involved with the production and risking a large part of his budget on hiring a single professional actress, Trupti, Nasir becomes the director of a locally produced shoestring film, a Sweded remake version of the popular Sholay.
This first half of the film is a scrappy and inspiring look at what people can accomplish when they work together. In this sense, I’m reminded of Michel Gondry’s Be Kind, Rewind, which shares a nearly identical premise about the employees and supporters of a dying video store who start making their own movies to try to save it. But there’s an impending darkness at the edges in this version of the story.
Because it’s a film about filmmaking, Superboys naturally introduces certain thoughts and criticisms about both the business and craft of cinema: conversations around originality versus parodies and remakes, and the cynical views of the business and the way it’s run by powerful executives rather than passionate artists. Even the inciting incident, in which the boys were unfairly raided for showing unauthorized screenings of foreign movies, is a statement about access. The boys screen these films to share their love for them, not to profiteer from them.
The locally-produced Sholay parody becomes a regional hit, but from here things get dicey with a whole new set of challenges and the group becomes increasingly fractured on what to do next. Success exacts a heavy toll.
Nasier, as the director and theater operator, enjoys both the credit and financial reward of the film’s success, while those he rallied to volunteer their help don’t reap any of the benefits. Having tasted success, his only concern is to try to recapture lightning in a bottle and increase his own celebrity profile. Upset by his selfishness, many of the friends disassociate themselves from his projects and from the group.
Farogh, eager to prove himself as a capable writer, is ready to move on from the realm of parody and remake to showcase an original screenplay, and increasingly frustrated by Nasier’s broken promises.
Gentle Shafique dreams of being a movie star but remains loyal in helping Nasier and contents himself to assist from a production role, and tries to be the glue in the group’s collapsing friendships. The bright spot in his world is Trupti, the beautiful starlet who, ironically, seems to be the only person who truly understands him.
Instead of moving on to greater things, the group’s fabric is destroyed and they go their separate ways, never achieving any greatness apart like they could when working together. It’s only when an unexpected tragedy strikes that the friends put aside their differences to work together again toward a common goal that unites them in love, and to make the film that they were destined to make.
I’m keeping these details spoiler free, but it’s an incredibly moving last act that reminds both the characters and the audience what’s truly important.
Superboys of Malegaon is a movie for people who are in love with movies, but also itself a wonderful movie in its own right that succeeds at both reverence for cinema and also for being approached on its own quality. The story is raw and the performances are earnest, delivering up one of the year’s most emotionally charged screen treasures.
A/V Out.
Watch it on Amazon Prime: https://amzn.to/4jRxJZn
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FEAR STREET Returns with PROM QUEEN
Netflix’s R. L. Stine-inspired slasher series is back
Netflix released their well-received Fear Street trilogy in 2021, a sprawling chronicle of terror across multiple generations and centuries, from 1994 to 1978 to 1666. The films garnered generally positive reactions and invited the possibility of more tales from the world of R. L. Stine’s Fear Street series of novels, the teen horror step-up from his better known kid-lit, Goosebumps.
Prom Queen, the new entry in the franchise, based on the Fear Street novel The Prom Queen, takes place in the 80s – the era that many horror fans would consider the Golden Age of slasher moviess and their most iconic villains.
The high-school themed flick takes inspiration and cues from horror movies like Prom Night and Carrie, centering on Lori (renamed from the novel’s Lizzie, probably as a nod to Halloween‘s Laurie Strode), a nice girl who’s not somewhat well-liked but decidedly not part of the in-crowd, for a couple of reasons. The first is the rumors that swirl around her family: her father was mysterious murdered many years ago, and many believe it was her mother who did the deed.
The other is the company she keeps – her longtime best friend is Megan, the queer-coded school misanthrope who loves punk rock and horror movies.
Lori becomes the dark horse candidate for Prom Queen as the fifth contender, alongside the clique of four popular girls who rule the school. But social maneuvering and catty power plays give way to other more pressing concerns on Prom Night, when the prom queen candidates and others start disappearing.(Spoiler: they’re getting murdered).
Prom Queen feels pretty modern in style and tone while also definitely being a throwback. The 80s setting is definitely a tip of the hat to the classic slasher era, and the incredible, pulsating synthwave score provides a modern twist on a vintage-rooted sound.
There’s some light humor peppered in but for the most part it plays pretty straight, if a little familiar. The killer does have a pretty striking design, reminiscent of the masked, rain-coated figure in Alice, Sweet Alice.
While I definitely enjoyed Prom Queen, it doesn’t feel like particularly vital watching. To draw comparisons another recent teen slasher, Clown in a Cornfield, which is still playing in theaters, Clown handles very similar themes and characters with more success and a little less reliance on replaying the hit tropes. It’s definitely the better film of this pairing, while Prom Queen feels more like, well, a movie streaming on Netflix.
But entertain Prom Queen does, with plenty of carnage, attitude, and a killer soundtrack.
A/V Out
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Criterion Review: Abbas Kiarostami’s THE WIND WILL CARRY US
Over a long opening shot that follows a car as it winds its way around the countryside, we hear men having a conversation. What they say isn’t all that important, though they repeatedly mention looking for a specific tree. The tree is the landmark on the way to their destination. There’s a particular comfort that comes from following directions like that rather than the meticulous plotting of GPS. It implies a level of intimacy from the direction-givers, as well as a level of trust from the direction-takers: If you’ll get where you’re meant to be. It’s important that we don’t see the men while we listen to them talk. It’s more important for us, the viewers, to settle in and take in the beauty of the hills, the grass, the trees, the sky, and everything else the camera captures. It’ll be important for the men in the car as well, but that’s something they’ll have to learn over the course of the film.
Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us has all the hallmarks of the late Iranian director’s work. A simple plot gives way to an emotionally complex and deep narrative about human connection. The film is full of lengthy shots that allow the characters to come to life and allow the performances to breathe. The world of the film is lived in, bringing viewers into a fully formed world and letting the nuance of everyday life take precedence.
The languid pace allows the film to spend time with multiple people and build out the village. Like the first meeting between Farzad, a pre-teen who shows Behzad around the village, and Behzad (Behzad Dorani). As they talk, Farzad leads Behzad up the steep and rocky hill to his village before telling him there are other, easier ways to get there. This scene works as a metaphor on a couple levels. The first is that it upends Behzad’s expectations for how his trip will go. The second way gets at one of Kiarostami’s recurring themes: life is circuitous.
Behzad is a documentarian visiting the Siah Dareh with the intention of filming the communities rituals after someone passes away. There’s an elderly woman who is sick and nearing the end, and Behzad is laying in wait. While waiting he spends time with various people throughout the village in their day to day lives. Behzad is there under the guise of an engineer, hiding his true purpose. There’s a distance between Behzad and the people he meets that he can’t close. That’s really the central tension of the film. In the booklet accompanying the film’s Criterion release, the cast is listed as “Behzad Dorani and The Villagers of Siah Dareh.”
One thing that immediately stands out is how accommodating the villagers are. It starts with Farzad. He’s in the midst of testing at school and focused on that, but he repeatedly takes time to show Behzad around. Early in the film Behzad asks about getting fresh milk and is disappointed when he can’t get it. Yet, later in the film, when he’s found someone to milk a goat for him, Behzad is focused on reciting poetry to the teenage girl doing the milking. He offers to pay for the milk, after interrupting the work of the girl and her family, only for the family to return the money and tell Behzad he’s an honored guest. In one of the film’s standout scenes, Behzad is at a small cafe when he tries to take pictures of the older woman in charge and is immediately scolded by her. Behzad is a selfish man in a selfless community. But, he’s still worthy of grace and welcoming, both of which the villagers offer.
As the film progresses, another of Kiarostami’s fascinations comes to the fore. The meta examination of life through an interloper trying to document something real and genuine reveals the artifice of Behzad’s work. By capturing life and death and their rituals on film, Behzad is introducing a level of falseness. Everyone in Siah Dareh goes about their daily business, but Behzad’s presence breaks up the rhythm of daily life. So whatever he’s hoping to document is not going to be “real” in the way it would be without him or his camera. It’s only fitting that when the death he’s been waiting for finally happens, Behzad isn’t ready for it.
Late in the film there is a wonderful conversation between Behzad and a local doctor. The doctor speaks dubiously about the alleged beauty of the afterlife and what lies ahead for us in death, asking rhetorically, “but who has come back to tell us?” It’s maybe the most eloquent and succinct expression for savoring each moment and every day we’re lucky to get. This comes after he’s spoken on the pleasures life has to offer, between people and nature. As he says this, he and Behzad are riding on a scooter, in a gorgeous shot with wheat and long grass blowing in the wind. It’s a tremendous note to end the film on, with Kiarostami rewarding the trust given to him by viewers.
The Wind Will Carry Us enters the Criterion Collection with a lovingly curated blu-ray edition. The film’s 4K restoration gives the images new life, looking like it could’ve been filmed last week rather than a quarter century ago. The extras include Yuji Mohara’s feature-length making of doc A Week with Kiarostami, a lengthy 2002 interview with Kiarostami, and a video essay by Kiarostami’s translator and creative collaborator Massoumeh Lahiji. The booklet essay is by novelist and poet Kaveh Akbar.
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SHALL WE DANCE(1996) is a Pure Cinematic Delight
As a fan of Japanese cinema, when I heard a new 4K restoration of the fully uncut Japanese version of Shall We Dance (1996) was hitting theaters today I was a bit curious. While I was well aware of the 2004 romantic comedy starring Richard Gere and Stanley Tucci, what most don’t know is that film was a Miramax remake of a Japanese film starring Kôji Yakusho, who most will probably know from his excellent turn as Hirayama the whimsical washroom attendant in Perfect Days. Like most foreign films released by Miramax, the original version was purchased by Weinsteins, who promptly cut 15 minutes and released with not a lot of fanfare as not to detract from the eventual remake that was to be released.
For those not familiar, Shall We Dance follows salaryman Shohei Sugiyama (Kôji Yakusho), who’s struggling with a bit of mid-life crisis. He’s got a beautiful wife, a loving daughter and he just purchased his dream home, but he’s still depressed. While waiting for the train home one night he spots a young woman out of the corner of his eye, Mai Kishikawa (Tamiyo Kusakari). She is standing at the window of a ballroom dancing studio and he sees in her expression the same melancholy that he is currently struggling with. After noticing her day after day he slowly works up the courage to take classes at the studio to meet the young woman, and instead of a simple affair, he finds a new reason for existing thanks to the art of ballroom dancing.
The new restoration begins with the following statement to set the cultural stage:
In Japan Ballroom Dance is regarded with much suspicion in a country where married couples don’t go out arm in arm, much less say “I love you” out loud, intuitive understanding is everything. The idea that a husband and wife should embrace and dance in front of others is beyond embarrassing. However, to go out dancing with someone else would be misunderstood and prove more shameful.
Nonetheless, even for Japanese people, there is a secret wonder about the joys that dance may bring.
While both the original and remake have narratives that are fueled by the fragility of masculinity, in its story of a man stuck in the doldrums of his day to day who discovers joy in the art of dance. There’s a cultural component to the Japanese version that makes its narrative even more audacious. In a culture where conformity is the status quo, and emotional expression is seen as a sign of weakness, Shohei’s journey is fraught on all sides by fear, embarrassment and shame. While he begins his journey because of that young woman, it’s the awakening that happens in the process that causes him the most internal turmoil; it’s at odds with everything that’s helped him attain the Japanese status quo.
While masquerading as a quirky romantic comedy, the journey of self discovery at the heart of Shall We Dance is timeless as it is transcendent. That’s not only thanks to a script that really digs into these characters and their lives, but how they are brought to life with some truly superb performances. There’s a quiet vulnerability to Shohei Sugiyama that you don’t see often in films with male protagonists. Sure he’s trying to uphold the appearance of what’s expected of him as a successful Japanese salaryman, but there are moments when you can see right through the surface into his internal struggle of fighting what is expected of him, but what his heart yearns to do and that joy it unlocks. He’s surrounded by a cast who rise to the occasion around him crafting a memorable cadre of characters who tug at your heartstrings when you least suspect it.
Coming into Shall We Dance, in this new 4K restoration, which also adds back in almost 15 minutes deleted from its initial US release was the best way I could imagine experiencing this cinematic delight. While it lures you in with its romantic comedy trappings, it’s the personal explorations at the heart of the film, experienced by not just by its male lead, but his romantic interest Tamiyo Kusakari as well that doesn’t end in a union, but still manages to offer up something more emotional and satisfying than you’d expect on the outset and its Rom-Com label. If you couldn’t tell I simply adored the film and I think this new uncut version deserves to be seen complete and theatrically, where it can inspire hope for all who are also looking for joy in their own dreary existences.
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Criterion Review: THE THREE MUSKETEERS and THE FOUR MUSKETEERS
Criterion’s anticipated 2-film collection of The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers arrived on Blu-ray and 4K UHD this week.
If the swashbuckling 70s duology The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers seem extremely well put-together as a pairing, that’s not by accident. The two films were originally planned as a single film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ most famous novel, but faced with a sprawling narrative that would result in either cutting too much material or having an overly long film, was split into two more comfortable runtimes. (Salkind would go on to produce the first two Superman films together, undoubtedly influenced by the efficiency he found in accidentally doing so on Musketeers).
While popular depictions of the Musketeers often paint them with a reductively heroic brush, the filmmakers – including producer Ilya Salkind, director Richard Lester, and writer George MacDonald Fraser – drew directly from the novel, with its rapscallious protagonists, adult themes of scandal and infidelity, and political power struggles between royalty and religion.
The films’ casts are stacked with significant start power, with as much or more attention on the antagonists as the musketeers and their friends. The films employ swashbuckling action, lavish design, and surprisingly heavy dose of comedy and even outright slapstick for a saucy and amusing result.
The Three Musketeers
Young D’Artagnan (Michael York) leaves his rural home with the goal of joining the King’s elite guard, known as the Musketeers. His unrefined rural ways and youthful passions tend to make him a fish out of water and land him in trouble, but also imbue him a certain vitality that makes him an interesting protagonist as he navigates a new world fraught with villains, scandals, espionage, and dirty, high-stakes politics.
D’Artagnan befriends a trio of Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis (Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, and Richard Chamberlain), and becomes infatuated with his landlord’s beautiful wife Constance (Raquel Welch), who serves the Queen (Geraldine Chaplin) as a seamstress but also her most trusted confidante.
In the affairs of state, a power struggle is ongoing between the King (Jean-Pierre Cassell) and the Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston), which filters down to their respective guards, who carry an ongoing enmity.
A plot by the Cardinal to reveal the queen’s affair with the Duke of Buckingham prompts Constance and D’Artagnan to save her honor, sending the young man and his three new Musketeer friends on a perilous race across France and England, contending against the Cardinal’s own heavies, the Comte de Rochefort (Christopher Lee), the fearsome captain of his Guard, and the beautiful but deadly spy Milady (Faye Dunaway).
The Four Musketeers
After successfully foiling the Cardinal’s plans and saving the Queen’s honor, D’Artagnan achieves his goal of becoming a Musketeer. But his path is beset by new challenges as he is now fully entrenched in this new world: the disappearance of Constance, an affair with Milady, and a growing personal rivalry with Rochefort.
While the film carries on the fun and freewheeling tone of the first film, it’s also a darker chapter. We learn from Athos of his secret and tragic past. D’Artagnan maintains that he loves Constance (despite her being married), but in her absence after an apparently kidnapping, readily avails himself to bed other women. And the tale’s end isn’t en entirely happy one – some of the tale’s twists and turns may surprise viewers who aren’t already familiar with the story.
Together, the pair of films do a pretty marvelous job of capturing the essence and narrative of the lengthy novel.
The Package
The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers duology arrive as a single collected edition from Criterion Collection. (The later 1989 sequel, Return of the Musketeers, is not included), available as a 2-Disc Blu-ray edition (each film and its features to its own disc), and a 4-disc UHD edition which includes additional 4K versions.
Included is a 12-page folded folded booklet with an essay by Stephanie Zacharek and a whimsical 3-panel illustration by Mattias Adolfsson, similar in style to Where’s Waldo.
The 4K version of the package comes in a transparent clamshell case similar to the usual Criterion case, but thicker (almost twice the thickness of a standard blue case). This case design doesn’t have the usual tabs for inserts due to its raised trays, so the booklet just sits loose in the middle when the case is closed (and might fall out when opening the case if unanticipated).
This new Criterion edition features three generations of supplementary features, each more detailed than the last: a short BTS from 1973, a more substantial one from the DVD era, and finally a sprawling multipart documentary new to this edition.
These weigh in pretty heavily at over 3 hours, and are almost as much fun to watch as the films, which each era capturing a different historical, critical, and production perspectives.
Special Features on The Three Musketeers
- Two For One
- Pre-Production (29:54)
- Principal Photography (43:03)
This new documentary by David Cairns is a substantial revisit to the creation of the films, approaching the material as a production narrative. The format is heavily illustrated with clips and images, and primarily narrated as a history rather than a series of interviews, only occasionally pulling in other audio clips or interview segments, most notably and consistently from Executive in Charge of Production Pierre Spengler.
- Saga of the Musketeers, Part 1 (23:03)
This 2002 DVD feature is a more traditional and completely interview-driven telling, with one major advantage over the newer doc: many of the cast were still alive at the time, and there are on-camera interviews with Michael York as well as a lineup of legends (Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, Frank Finlay) who are no longer with us. On the production side, the narrative is framed around Executive Producer Ilya Salkind, along with Spengler.
- The Making of “The Three Musketeers” (6:50)
This breezy 1973 presskit-style BTS doc isn’t as substantial as the modern ones in terms of any meaningful narrative, but has the notable distinction of being shot on location – a chance to visit the set.
- The Three Musketeers Trailer (3:01)
Special Features on The Four Musketeers
- Two For One
- Principal Photography, Part 2 (42:07)
- Post-Production (26:06)
- Saga of the Musketeers, Part 2 (24:53)
- The Four Musketeers Trailer (2:51)
- Two For One
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Warner Archive Deals out a Blaxploitation double dose of HIT MAN and THREE THE HARD WAY
Hit Man is a bleak helping of Blaxploitation that just hit Blu-ray thanks to Warner Archives. The film is a remake of sorts, of the 1971 gangster classic Get Carter, which was based on the 1970 novel by Ted Lewis – Jack’s Return Home, Hit Man relocates the story from the UK, to Hollywood, a year after the genre classic’s initial release. While the film is pretty much a beat for beat adaptation, director George Armitage claimed to have never seen Get Carter or read the book it was based on. The film stars a young Bernie Casey as our titular Hit Man, who is probably best known as Bill and Ted’s history teacher, who had just left football for acting, along with Pam Grier here credited as “Pamela Grier” fresh off her woman in prison triple bill of The Big Bird Cage, Women in Cages and the Big Doll House.
After a far-out retro intro credit sequence, the film follows Tyrone Tackett (Bernie Casey), a retired Oakland officer with a dark past, who returns to LA after the suspicious death of his brother Cornell, who was the opposite of his law-abiding sibling and had embedded himself into various organized crime rackets. Tyrone quickly sets up camp at a seedy local hotel and begins a descent into the underbelly of late 60s Los Angeles looking for answers and ultimately loses himself. Luckily it has been decades since I saw the original or the Stallone remake, so I was simply along for the ride and it’s something that this film does rather well, first disarming the viewer with its campier Blaxploitation trappings, until the third act when we discover what really happened to Cornell and Tyrone gets his bloody revenge.
While these characters are your familiar archetypes in the subgenre, I think the cast here is what really makes this film as good as it is. While Casey does the tough guy just fine, there are some tender moments with his niece that offer an unexpected glimpse into him as a caring uncle that adds some real gravity to his relationship of trying to look out for his wayward niece. Same with Grier, who’s lust for stardom allows her to offer up a bit of legitimate vulnerability to the rather dapper detective. That being the case, the film also has one of the most insane kills in a Blaxploitation I’ve ever seen involving an actual lion, which along with a dog fighting scene early on may feel a bit too real for some viewers.
Hit Man was a one two punch of old school Blaxploitation, that hit harder than I was expecting. Forget the Blaxploitation angle, I think the reason this film hits as hard as it does was transplanting the story of Get Carter into the seedy Hollywood underbelly post the Tate-LaBianca murders. It’s that event that really brought to light the dangers that lie slumbering in the city of dreams. That was nothing less than a stroke of pure genius given that third act twist that sets all the pieces into motion and having that history really makes it feel just that much more authentic.
Next up was 1974’s Three the Hard Way, another Warner Archives Blu-ray release starring Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, and Jim Kelly who at the time were at the height of their game and are directed here by Gordon Parks Jr. who made the film as a follow up to Super Fly. While Jimmy Lait (Brown) is attempting to uncover the mystery behind his friend’s attack, he accidentally unravels a plot by a group of neo-nazi white supremacists, who are gearing poison the water supplies of Washington, D.C., Detroit, and Los Angeles, with a diabolical concoction that will kill anyone who is African American. To complicate matters, the group not only kills his friend, but kidnaps Jimmy’s girl (Sheila Frazier), so he’s got to save her too,
Three the Hard Way, is a fun enough action film that loses itself trying to balance the narrative between its trio of leading kickers of nazi ass. The interaction between the trio is great when they’re together, but no sooner do they assemble to battle the man, they have to split back up to save their respective cities. It’s serviceable, but never gets too deep, unlike Hit Man that is much more densely layered. While the bad guys are the worst possible kind, except for the opening they are kept to parody and feel relatively harmless and cartoonish compared to our trio of lethal heroes. The big draw here for fans however is this is the first time this film is presented fully uncut with its original music intact, scanned from the negative.
Both films are presented in new HD transfers thanks to the Warner Archive from the negatives and they have never looked better. I think Hit Man definitely stands out from the pair with not only its hard hitting narrative, but its snapshot of Los Angeles in the late 60s early 70s, which is as much a character in the film as the enigmatic lead. It’s that boulevard of broken dreams thematic tissue that lets it transcend being simply an action film and gives it some real teeth compared to most films in this sub-genre. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see so many neo nazi’s meet their maker in Three the Hard Way, especially in this day and age, but I also think it’s how they’re presented here that makes them feel more like canon fodder than an actual threat.
If you’re a fan of action or Blaxploitation both films are worth a pickup because unlike some in the sub-genre they deliver on what the poster and trailer promises.
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Celluloid Dreams Unearths another Giallo Gem in SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS
Celluloid Dreams, the intriguing indie label unearthing lost thrillers returns with their latest release, another deep-cut Italian Giallo – writer Aldo Lado directorial debut, Short Night of the Glass Dolls, AKA Paralyzed. The pulpy thriller’s inventive narrative premise is what makes it stand out in a subgenre that is as complex in its convoluted mysteries as it is transgressive. The film begins as most of these films do with the discovery of a corpse, American journalist Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel) who was working in Prague and appears to have died of a heart attack. The only problem is we soon realize that Greg is indeed very much alive, but unable to move as he begins to try and piece together what got him incapacitated and hopefully break out of it before he is embalmed.
The film then sidetracks into another mystery, as Greg begins to recount how his beautiful young girlfriend, Mira (Barbara Bach) was kidnapped one night from his apartment, while he was dispatched to check out a hot tip that turned out to have been a distraction to get him to leave her alone. It’s how the film flip flops between the whodunit mystery of Greg’s girlfriend’s abduction and the question of will Greg be able to prove he’s alive, before his autopsy that drives the suspense and ramps up the tension throughout the runtime. It’s a slow yet feverish burn as the pieces fall into place. But once things get moving in the back half of the film, it’s definitely a unique and gripping take on the Giallo formula.
Like their previous release the feminist Giallo The Case of the Bloody Iris, this release is packed to the gills with extras, both physical and digital. Along with lobby card reproductions – true to size, and a piece of what appears to be an actual theatrical print of the film, also included is a 64 page booklet that is packaged along with the discs in a sturdy hard box. Contained inside are 3 unique versions of the film across 4 discs, the VHS (Standard Def) version of Paralyzed, the 4K UHD restoration and my personal favorite an un-retouched HD scan of the film. For fans that appreciate the look of a well worn piece of celluloid, this is the closest most will get to seeing in a darkened theater and I appreciate that they offer that as an option.
There over 4 hours of interviews with cast, crew and critics allows Celluloid Dreams to really help to contextualize the film in a way that gives anyone with the time the ability to fully appreciate the many nuances of this title. I got about 50% through these extras for this review and I wished this was the norm rather than the exception when it comes to releases. The film is presented in a new 4K UHD transfer and a restoration that was over a year in the making and looks it. The film presentation is nothing short of flawless, with a pleasant contrast and pleasing grain presence throughout the image. There is HDR, but it’s used minimally to highly the existing colors, not to overhaul them. This was shot of film and it’s great to see labels embrace the look of celluloid, not just as a filter for their intros.
To be honest, I had never heard of Short Night of the Glass Dolls before watching this 4K UHD, but like their previous release, I haven’t shut up about it since. As someone who’s seen his fair share of these Italian thrillers, it’s not often something like this comes along and grabs you like Glass Dolls does. I think Celluloid Dreams has carved out a great niche for themselves thanks to this second release by not only digging up these underseen titles, but delivering them in a presentation usually reserved for an Argento or Bava release.
The full disc breakdown is as follows.
Disc 1 (4K UHD)
- Brand new 4K transfer and full restoration
- HDR-10
- Isolated Score
- Commentary Track by writer/director Aldo Lado and Federico Caddeo
- (NEW) Commentary Track by film critic Guido Henkel
- (NEW) English Trailer in 4K resolution
- (NEW) Italian Trailer in 4K resolution
- (NEW) Grindhouse Trailer in 4K resolution
- (NEW) Unreleased English Trailer (as “Catalepsis”) in 4K resolution
Disc 2 (Blu-ray)
- Brand new transfer from 4K master and full restoration
- Isolated Score
- Commentary Track by writer/director Aldo Lado and Federico Caddeo
- (NEW) Commentary Track by film critic Guido Henkel
- (NEW) English Trailer
- (NEW) Italian Trailer
- (NEW) Grindhouse Trailer
- (NEW) Unreleased English Trailer (as “Catalepsis”)
Disc 3 (Blu-ray)
- “The Nights of Malastrana” 2015 Interview with writer/director Aldo Lado and actor Jean Sorel (97 mins)
- (NEW) “All About Lado” 2018 Interview with writer/director Aldo Lado (32 mins)
- “The Most Beautiful Voice in the World” Interview with soprano Edda Dell’Orso (21 mins)
- “The Quest for Money” Interview with producer Enzo Doria (20 mins)
- “Cuts Like a Knife” Interview with film editor Mario Morra (23 mins)
- “To Italy and Back” Interview with co-producer Dieter Geissler (29 mins)
- (NEW) “The Man on the Bridge” Featurette by Howard Berger (23 mins)
- (NEW) Image Gallery
- (NEW) Long-lost, export “Malastrana” credits
Disc 4 (Blu-ray)
- (NEW) Grindhouse Version from 35mm archival lab print
- (NEW) US VHS Pan&Scan Version (as “Paralyzed”)
Booklet
(NEW) A 64-page booklet with a commemorative essay on Aldo Lado by Andy Marshall-Roberts, additional information and many photographs.
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Digging into V-CINEMA ESSENTIALS Part 1: CRIME HUNTER: BULLETS OF RAGE & NEO CHINPIRA: ZOOM GOES THE BULLET
A bi-weekly deep dive into the world of Japanese V-Cinema curtesy of Arrow Film’s comprehensive set
Before I dig into the set a bit of background on the genre of V-Cinema:
Back in 1969 Toho was the first studio in Japan to create a home video division to capitalize on the up and coming technology, and would be followed a year later by Toei and Nikkatsu. The three would later collaborate on one of Japan’s first video stores in 1977 in the Ginza shopping district, while the country was still figuring out the strategy for home video as a platform. A big influence on Toei’s approach would be Kinji Fukasaku’s yakuza masterpiece the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series (Also released by Arrow), which consists of five films with an eight and a half hour runtime that chronicled the rise of the Yakuza in Japan post World War 2. While these films were a staple of all night repertoire screenings with the advent of video, it was now possible to do this in the comfort of your own home.
The story goes, when Toei producer Tatsu Yoshida famously asked a video store patron how they managed to rent and watch all five films in a single night and return them the next morning – they admitted to fast forwarding past the slower bits of the films to get right to the action. This conversation cemented Toei’s approach that would be copied by every studio in Japan, movies that dropped the exposition and wouldn’t be fast forwarded. While the advent of direct to video anime or OVA was already an established cash cow at this point with the ability to release more adult themed titles, the concept of direct to video films had yet to be the movement it would be after the release of Crime Hunter, the first film on Arrow’s set that would begin the V-Cinema craze.
While some studios toyed with a day and date release with theatrical, Toei had the idea of producing direct films optimized for this format with more skin and more action delivering more bang for your buck. Exposition scenes would be kept to a minimum, as these films were the junk food of cinema created to deliver nothing more than pure entertainment value and the first two films on V-Cinema Essentials do just that – with two very different flavors of these films. Tom Mes lays this all out in his excellent visual essay on the set Crime Hunter and the Dawn of V-Cinema, that’s as dense as it is thorough in its telling of the sub-genres origin story. I first became aware of Tom’s writing about his appearance on Samm Deighan’s podcast Eros + Massacre, which led me to his writing on Midnight Eye, which I highly recommend.
The first film 1989’s Crime Hunter: Bullets Of Rage was the first V-Cinema film and sets the bar going forward. Highly influenced by western action movies, it’s the kind of insane and over the top film I couldn’t believe I was watching for the first time. Fueled by American action tropes Crime Hunter takes place in Little Tokyo in America and begins with the Murder of Joe’s (Masanori Sera) partner Ahiru, played by a fresh faced Riki Takeuchi. They are about to arrest Bruce Yamamoto (Matano), who just stole five million dollars from a church, when a third party dressed up as droogs from A Clockwork Orange shows up and opens fire. This sends both Joe and Bruce off to try and figure out who this third party is before they track down the missing money. Joe is aided by a shotgun toting nun who out to get the money back for the church and its just as great as you’d expect.
The film is American action through the Japanese lens and its pure insanity as you’d expect. I think the main reason for the film location being the US is so they can just have guns spawn everywhere, chrome plated shotguns, machine guns and pistols. By the end of the film Joe is sporting a headband and doing his best Rambo impersonation, as he makes his way through this group of baddies, eventually joining forces with Bruce to get the money back, definitely a nod to Hong Kong’s heroic bloodshed trend. The most surprising part is how derivative the film is while still feeling like its own thing, AND STILL somehow pushing the envelope of action with plenty of shootouts and set pieces that had me in constant disbelief at just how hard it went.
Next up was 1990’s Neo Chinpira: Zoom Goes The Bullet, which was the exact opposite side of the V-Cinema coin with a very Japanese entry into the Sub-genre. This film focuses on a low level Yakuza, Junko (Shô Aikawa) who definitely got into the life because of his love of gangster films. One day he finally gets his first big assignment from the boss – he’s to be the look for an assassination of a rival boss. The problem is his two older brothers get cold feet due to the possibility of a 9 year jail stint and injure themselves leaving the task to young Junko. Its just as this opportunity is set before him that Junko forms a relationship with the troubled Yomeko (Chikako Aoyama), a beautiful young runaway, who ends up living with him as he quickly ascends the Yakuza ladder thanks to this assignment.
Given Crime Hunter felt very American, with heavy emphasis on the action, with little to no exposition, Neo Chimpira feels very Japanese in its narrative language. While we don’t get blocks of actually verbal exposition, we spend a lot of quality time with Junko and Yomeko as the two begin to see something equally broken in one another. Junko is obsessed with this life of crime he’s seen in the movies and wishes to be this embodiment of the tough guy, while he is still only a child. Yomeko on the other hand has been forced to grow up too fast and she helps to give Junko that confidence to do the job put before him. I mean it’s either that or possibly get killed by his own boss. The film is just as fascinating as an exploration of Yakuza culture as it is a character study of these two individuals.
That first disc is not only a stunning introduction to V-Cinema, but a great look at the origins of the two icons of the sub-genre Shô Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi. Ironically while Takeuchi plays a cop in Crime Hunter he is probably best known as for his iconic Yakuza roles – to the point he had his own clothing brand that was geared towards real Yakuza in Japan. You will probably recognize the pair of stars from Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive series (Also released by Arrow), where I first encountered the pair at the peak of their popularity. Also of note, when Miike came up as a director in the Japanese studio system, V-Cinema was then used as a training ground for young directors where his over the top transgressive style and work ethic allowed him to prove himself a force to be reckoned with.
Probably the most surprising thing for me as a fan to realize watching these newly restored editions is they were indeed shot on film. Unlike American direct to video that seemingly cut every corner it could, V-Cinema shot and edited on film and looks amazing here on this new release. These are also probably the same restorations that recently hit Japanese theaters in a celebration of V-Cinema not too long ago. Thanks to this upgrade in quality it is apparent these films have actual real budgets with some impressive cinematography, even presented in 1:33 and some impressive production design that is on full display here. Like the spray painted Camaro car Joe drives in Crime Hunter that is effectively just waiting to be blown up and all the posters and gangster ephemera in Junko’s room in Zoom.
The first disc comes with the below extras included:
- Newly filmed introductions to both films by Japanese film critic Masaki Tanioka
- Loose Cannon, a newly filmed interview with Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage director Shundo Okawa
- Zooming Out, a newly filmed interview with Neo Chinpira: Zoom Goes the Bullet writer-director Banmei Takahashi
- Crime Hunter and the Dawn of V-Cinema, a brand new video essay on Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage by Japanese cinema expert Tom Mes
- Original trailers for both films
The first two films offer a very strong start to this set and highlight two very different takes on the same sub-genre, that are both well worth your time for different reasons. Crime Hunter was pure American action insanity, while Zoom Goes the Bullet was more an understated Japanese character study that mixed the director’s pre-filmography in the pink film genre, with a coming of age Yakuza story that hits unexpectedly hard. It’s a double feature that alone is worth the price of the set and I don’t say that lightly and given what’s to come, I can’t wait.
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Weir Watch: The Price of Awareness Is THE LAST WAVE
Richard Chamberlain shines in this dark fable of privilege and injustice.
“We’ve lost our dreams. Then they come back and we don’t know what they mean.”
This line, spoken by the recently departed Richard Chamberlain playing David Burton, is at the heart of what Weir is up to in The Last Wave, his third feature film and in many ways his most challenging one yet. Dreams play a big part into the plot of The Last Wave, both literal and figurative, and specifically the idea of that dreams exist somewhere between perceived reality and that which is unknown. But what happens when those dreams are punctured, transforming into nightmares? What happens when the carefully crafted world you have established around you suddenly seems to be falling apart?
Weir being Weir, this narrative plays out against the individual. Quite literally one person’s (Burton’s) dream splinters apart, and his whole life becomes a dark shadow of itself. But it is impossible to talk about The Last Wave without digging deeper into the larger scale narrative Weir is exploring. Yes this is the story of, as Weir himself put it, “someone with a very pragmatic approach to life” finding his reality being deconstructed. But it is also a story about Australians, specifically white Australians, having to confront the nature of their very nation.
Let me get this out of the way here: while all of Weir’s films up to this point have touched upon Australian national identity as a subtext, The Last Wave puts it front and center. Specifically it is a film that explores the nature of white Australian citizens’ relationship with Aboriginal tribes. This creates a slight barrier between American viewers and the original intended Australian audience, but one that is worth exploring if for no other reason to consider commonalities.
David Burton is a tax lawyer who finds himself wrapped up in being drafted to serve as a public defender for five Aboriginal men who have been accused of a grisly murder. This is due to once helping with an Aboriginal land deal, but there is a larger coincidence: Burton has on suffered from frightening, Apocalyptic dreams, some of which include an Aboriginal man. When one of the accused turns out to be the literal man in his dreams, it feels like more than a coincidence that this occurred.
Meanwhile across Sydney, strange meteorological patterns have been occurring. This includes massive rain and hail storms, which causes Burton’s dreams and visions to transfer into grisly scenes of a massive flood. In the midst of all of this, Burton becomes increasingly convinced he may be Mulkurul, a piece of Aboriginal belief that entails people having divine visions of the future.
As you might expect, all these plotlines converge and cross and compound across each other. The Last Wave is dense in themes, mixing conversations about 1970s Australian society and the place Aboriginal citizens play within it with startling doomsday iconography. Cinematographer Russell Boyd, a regular Weir collaborator, expertly shoots these segments, blending dreamlike visuals with realistic grounding to make it unclear what is actually occurring and what is a dream.
A big theme throughout the film is the idea colonialism as a means of modernization. Namely, several people surrounding Burton assure him that the Aboriginals in this case are not part of any sort of “tribal” culture, that they are woven and assimilated into the very fabric of white Australian life. Burton remains uncertain, seeing them as set apart and of a distinctly different culture. The reality of course lies in between these two extremes. There is a balance that Weir is teetering on here, of showing admiration and respect for Aboriginal culture, while also falling into the occasional trap of exoticizing and romanticizing it. For both Weir and Burton there is something tragic in the lost civilization that was flattened by European influence, but that civilization is presented as strange, magical and unknowable.
The inherent tension there is assisted by Chamberlain’s performance. There is a soulfulness to his depiction of Burton, of someone who is struggling with his growing awareness of the pain inherent to the society he lives in, and mournful for the comfort he surrenders. Those in his sphere, especially his wife Annie (Olivia Hamnett), feel like they are losing him as he shows increasing compassion and concern for the Aboriginal men he is defending. What was supposed to be an easy case to convince them to plea guilty to get a minimal sentence turns him attempting to coerce them into saying out loud what has long been buried.
It also helps that Weir went to great lengths to include Aboriginal people in the creation of the film, including several actors and a special collaborator to assure he presented the culture respectfully. The main two actors were David Gulpilil, credit as simply Gulpilil, who plays Chris Lee the dream man who guides Burton deeper down into the storm, and Nanjiwarra Amagula as Charlie, the shaman who attempts to keep Burton at arm’s length. The fact Amagula was an actual tribal shaman gives his performance particular gravity, even as he plays an ostensibly antagonistic character.
Burton is in many ways a trademark of the Weir individual, despite having a guide in the person of Chris. The Individual is a central theme that will show up throughout Weir’s work. But Burton’s rallying cry against the unacceptable shape of the world he resies in is also his own undoing. By confronting the social injustices that led to his own position of leisure and power, he must be confronted with his own previous blindness. Put more contemporarily, Burton must check his privilege, and the price is ultimately his life as he knows it.
Similar to Picnic at Hanging Rock, the final climactic moments of The Last Wave are purposefully vague and open to interpretation. But unlike that film, the uncertainty isn’t at the heart of what the film is attempting to dig into. Rather, it is the burden of knowing. To widen your perception and compassion does come with a price. For Button, that compassion and empathy is felt so deeply that it becomes an obsession, and in seeing and confronting the imbalances his very presence illicit, he realizes that there is no way that this could all end but destruction. But when precisely that destruction came, either in the future or past, remains shrouded in mystery.
Next Week: Weir returns briefly to his grimier roots with The Plumber.
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The Archivist: THREE THE HARD WAY (1974): A Team Up From A Simpler Time
In some ways ahead of its time, 1974’s Three The Hard Way from Gordon Parks, Jr. was a bit of an “Avengers Assemble” cinematic moment, bringing together some of the most meteoric stars of blaxploitation cinema in one irresistible package. Even the marketing tagline at the time sold this picture as an event around its casting: “Action explodes all over the place, when the big three join forces to save their race”. It’s clearly led by Jim Brown as L.A. record exec Jimmy Lait. When his old friend escapes from a nightmare death camp and, on his deathbed, exposes a diabolical plot to exterminate black folks via a 007 villain-esque bio-weapon that only kills them, Lait has to recruit his best ass kicking friends to save the day and rescue his kidnapped girlfriend Wendy (Sheila Frazier). His first stop is to Chicago for his old friend Jagger Daniels (Fred Williamson), a well-dressed player who takes some convincing. But when a literal army of evil Nazis try to kill them, Jagger is all in with a bullet. Lastly, it’s off to NYC to recruit their kung fu master buddy Mister Keyes (Jim Kelly).
Bond Villain-esque Nazi race killer Monroe Feather (Jay Robinson) has recruited his own mad scientist and they’ve already created a sci-fi looking red elixir they plan to introduce into water supplies in 3 different cities across the US, to begin immediately killing millions of unsuspecting black people. It’s diabolical, over the top, and conveniently divided into 3 batches so each of our heroes can foil plans in each of the three cities.
There’s definitely a major entertainment factor running through the entirety of Three The Hard Way. Eddie Murphy’s version of Rudy Ray Moore, in Dolemite Is My Name, makes an incisive comment at one point in criticism of a mainstream movie: “it’s got no titties, no funny, and no Kung Fu.” Well, Dolemite need not worry about Three The Hard Way, because it aims to please and throws everything and the kitchen sink at its contemporary audiences. Not only do you have these big stars, you’ve got them taking time to bed some ladies, rock the most stylish outfits known to 1974 mankind, roll out in fancy cars, and even do it all set to one of those soundtracks written just for the movie featuring lyrics that talk directly about the plot and characters from the movie from The Impressions. It’s simple entertainment. It sells beautiful black people, black excellence, contemporary music, and yes, even some Kung Fu. And for a 90 minute cinematic romp from Super Fly director Gordon Parks, Jr (himself a rare black director of blaxploitation films), it works.
I couldn’t help but bring a modern lens to it as I revisited Three The Hard Way via this Warner Archive Blu-ray release. And it hit me pretty profoundly that with all the entertainment this film throws out to the audience, from stunt casting, to contemporary soundtrack, to over the top and salacious plotting… it still represents a formula that used to be enough from a major motion picture, but which might not be enough today to make a dent in the cultural zeitgeist. Star vehicles alone aren’t enough in today’s crowded pop culture landscape. A catchy soundtrack featuring an up and coming recording artist might not equate to box office gold. Movies were simpler in 1974 (though humanity itself, race relations, etc, were no less complex). Three The Hard Way is formulaic, but formulas used to work! And it works here! It’s just a depressing feeling I couldn’t shake thinking about how even the “Avengers Assemble” approach that worked in 1974 simply wouldn’t be enough today. Alas, we’ll always have the cinematic legends of the past as long as these classic titles continue to be available to us.
And I’m Out.
Three The Hard Way is available on Warner Archive Blu-ray and features the 97 minute theatrical cut of the film (as opposed to a truncated 89 minute home video version that was apparently widely available for many years) in high definition and a theatrical trailer.
