far-off signals from far-out cinema
I’ve used plenty of ride share apps and I’d like to think that if my driver ever said, “if you gotta piss, piss out the window. Cause I’m on a quest … I’m searching for the gates of hell,” that I would launch myself from the moving vehicle ASAP. If I somehow survived, I would never get in a stranger’s car again. This is one of the lessons from BLUE VENGEANCE, a strange film I enjoyed.
It seems almost far-fetched now, but there was once a time when San Francisco was filled with leather bars and martial arts schools instead of unaffordable housing and tech startups. Like a limp body flying over the bar and smashing only the bottom-shelf vodka, THE WEAPONS OF DEATH comes out of nowhere to surprise and delight.
When his brother overdoses on a new designer drug called “nirvana,” a fresh MBA graduate must choose between the stable pursuits of marriage and a burgeoning family business, or traveling to Hong Kong to learn kung fu and fight drug dealers.
This is a lean and mean 1970s yakuza exploitation picture that plays with a lot of genre tropes – rival groups, old ways versus young guns, etc. – all capped off by a deeply fatalistic streak. And mannequins!
This is an action film featuring the sort of hero who strains spaghetti on his kitchen countertop instead of doing it in the sink, and gets hit by two speeding cars in a row before bounding off into the woods like a fucking deer.
American cowboys have whisky, James Bond has the martini, and Euro-Cops have J&B. The Greek protagonist of 1985’s CRIME KILLER, has ouzo, the anise-flavored liqueur best served before, during, or after a meal.
Death Ray Dive 