Carmilla
(2018/Film Movement DVD)/Invisible
Dragon + Legend
Of Tomiris (both
2019/Well Go Blu-ray)/Point
Of No Return (1994/PAL
Import DVD)/VFW
+ Bliss
(Import Blu-ray/both 2019/Umbrella)
Picture:
C/A-/A-/C+/B/B- Sound: C+/B/B+/C+/B/B- Extras: C/D/D/D/C/C
Films: C+/B+/B+/C/C/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Bliss
/ VFW
Blu-ray and Point
Of No Return
Import DVD is now only available from our friends at Umbrella
Entertainment in Australia, the DVD can only play on Blu-ray, 4K and
DVD players that can handle the PAL DVD format and can be ordered
from the link below.
These
next genre films are more stylized than usual and usually more
dramatic...
Emily
Harris' Carmilla
(2018) is a vampire tale that is more interested in mood and style
than blood and gore, which is a nice change of pace, except that it
also comes across as a vampire film that plays like it is afraid of
being a vampire film. Another adaptation of the 1872 Joseph Sheridan
Le Fanu novel, albeit 'inspired' by it, I'll give the U.K. production
points for ambition and trying to take another approach.
That
is especially nice in the face of so many bad film and TV shows on
the subject that seem more interested in hiring make-up effects
(digitally enhanced at times at that) and then taylor a bad script to
their work. It is like a bad Halloween party that you've seen a
thousand times, so the film takes its sources seriously and has a few
good moments. Unfortunately, even with the efforts of a decent cast
of unknowns, it never gels.
Extras
include trailers, a Behind The Scenes featurette and a short
14-minutes-long film Harris co-directed with Jonathan Bentovim
entitled Three
Towers.
Officer
Kow Loon (Max Zhang) is a maverick officer who is known for taking
out criminals, with extreme prejudice, but when a serial killer
starts killing policewomen, Kow Loon's fiancee becomes one of the
victims and escapes Kow Loon pushes him off the deep end. Just as
sudden, the killing stops and the trail goes cold. But years later,
only ex-detective Kowloon can find and discover who killed his
fiancee in Fruit Chan's The
Invisible Dragon (2019).
Kow
Loon doesn't like criminals, more often he uses his fists and
excessive force to bring them to justice and sends them to the
hospital first. Even though he gets results, the police force
demotes him for 'police brutality' and forced him to transfer to the
country police. Kow Loon's fiancee is killed by a serial killer and
escapes Kowloon and disappears. But years later, the killings start
again in another district, Kow Loon will find his fiancee's killer at
any cost, even if it means breaking the law or enemies of police.
Unbeknownst to him, the killer is connected to his past when he
defeated an ex-boxer Alexander Sinclair (Anderson Silva) and he
blames Kowloon for the death of his son in a freak accident.
This
was an action pack martial arts movie with a trigger-happy cop, who
becomes depressed after the death of his fiancee, but then goes after
revenge when the killer reappears. I would say this WAS an
action/martial arts movie except for dragon that appears at the very
end and knocks back the criminal from escaping again. Extras include
trailers.
Based
on a true story, Tomiris (Almira Tursyn) was daughter of one of the
chiefs of the waring nomadic tribe on the plains of the Steppe, but
after the murder of her father she survived to get revenge and return
to her tribe. Later, when Babylon King threatens the entire Steppe,
Tomiris unites all the tribes to show the Persian armies the might of
Nomadic tribes and becomes the first Queen of the Nomadic tribes in
Akan Satayev's
The
Legend Of Tomiris
(2019).
Tomiris
was a girl, born to the ruthless nomadic chief Spargap, their tribes
lived, died and survived by raiding travelers and the other tribes on
the Steppe. After her father was killed, Tomiris escape and survived
the assassins and was raised by another tribe who took in girl
orphans from the raids. After she grew up, she returned and avenged
her father's death and took back her tribe. When The King of Babylon
assassinates her husband and son, thinking a widow would be easier to
manipulate, she saw through his lies and deceptions and instead
united the tribes to defeat the Persian whose armies were twice their
size. She ruled with wisdom and mercy and even her enemies came to
respect her.
Watching
this film to me seemed like a Turkish version of Mulan (which
is likely why it is coming to video now) as a female warrior who
showed she could fight and lead as well as any man. This film was
more like two movies, first half was on how the main character grew
up and got revenge for her father, the second half was more of her
adult years and how she reigned as a Queen. Extras includes
trailers.
Vincent
Monton's Point
Of No Return
(1994, not to be confused with the U.S. remake of La
Femme Nikita)
is an Australian crime drama about a soldier named Grady (Marcus
Graham) who got busted for a money-laundering scheme only to find out
while imprisoned that his brother has been murdered. He decides to
escape jail and get revenge.
He
turns to an old girlfriend (Nikki Coghill) for help, but she can only
do so much as what is really going on becomes more twisted than even
they expect and the tale goes from there. I was not as impressed by
the twists or turns and some of the moments are bad, but I liked some
of the styling, which makes sense as Director Monton was Director of
Photography on films like Long
Weekend
and Road
Games
(both reviewed elsewhere on this site) making it a curio on top of
the fact it has apparently been unavailable for a long time.
Again,
another film trying to be ambitious in a genre all involved are
taking seriously, along with the audience. That again is pleasantly
ambitious, but there are just too many moments that do not work and
the overuse of old analog video (people are spying on each other here
often that way) ages the film in unfortunate ways. Still, those very
curious might want to check it out. Stephen Whittaker and John
Arnold also star.
There
are no extras.
We
conclude with two films by writer/director Joe Begos': VFW
and Bliss
(both 2019) that includes one we reviewed before. Here is our
coverage of Bliss
on Umbrella's DVD version:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15663/Art+Of+The+Dead+(2019*)/Bliss+(2019*)/Chain
I
agree with my fellow writer that it is not so good and reminded me of
better films like Blue
Sunshine
(surprisingly getting 4K treatment it deserves) and suggests John
Carpenter and a bit of George Romero. The Carpenter connection
(imitation?) continues with VFW,
when a group of old soldiers in the title locale have to fight young
punky drug dealers when a young lady bring a big bag of their drugs
into the place. Assault
On Precinct 13
is definitely the model here (by way of Howard Hawks, but does Begos
know that?) and it is not any more memorable than the other film.
He
did get a name cast here including William Sadler, Fred Williamson,
Stephen Lang, Martin Kove and (also in Bliss)
George Wendt, all in an attempt to imitate the kind of cast Carpenter
(and Hawks) would like. See both for maybe kicks, but don't expect
anything original. Maybe he'll improve in his next films, but who
knows.
Extras
include Original Theatrical Trailers on both, feature length audio
commentary tracks on both film by Begos (Two sets each!!!): with
Actress Dora Madison and then Producer/Editor Josh Ethier,
Co-Producer Matt Mercer and Make-Up Effects Artists Joe Lynch &
Adam Green on Bliss, then Ethier and Associate Producer Brian
Dutton and then Producer/Editor Josh Ethier, Co-Producer Matt Mercer
and Make-Up Effects Artists Josh and Sierra from Russell FX. Bliss
adds Deleted Scenes, while VFW adds a SFX featurette, Making
Of featurette and Meet The Cast & Crew featurette.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition
image on Bliss is an improvement on the DVD to some extent
with a little more definition and better color, but like VFW,
both have their share of motion blur and more sloppiness than they
should. The DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on both are not great, though VFW
sounds better by default, they all have flaws that they should not
have at this point in time.
Much
better is the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers
on Dragon and Tomiris, new HD shoots with money and
hard work in them that have fine color, detail and depth, easily
making them the best-looking releases her. The
Cantonese DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Dragon
and Turkish DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Tomiris
also have fine soundfields to go with those shoots, but Tomiris
is the sonic champ here just being that much more well recorded,
edited and mixed.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Carmilla is stylized
to be soft, but this transfer is additionally soft and the format
just cannot resolve the shoot as much as it needs to, while the lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 mix may be better, but the film is on the quiet
side often, so only expect so much sound.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Point
looks decent for its age and was shot on film, of course, but the PAL
DVD's definition gives us slightly better color than if this were an
NTSC U.S. DVD. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo
at best if that and sounds fine for its age, though it could sound a
little better.
To
order either of the
Umbrella imports, the Bliss
/ VFW
Blu-rays and/or Point
Of No Return
DVD, go to this link for them and other hard to find titles at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo and Ricky Chiang (Well Go)