BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #70:

If I find the fishing minigame too tedious to endure will I be forgiven if I leave the fishies be, and just hit up the drive thru for cheeseburger and fries with soda and/or shake like normal people do?

THE NEW PARADIGMS IN BRAGGING RIGHTS #2:

 

I’m so watchable YouTube videos like and subscribe to me!

THE NEW OBVIOUS #3:

The time has come to defy gravity for some reason.

THE NEW DREAM #22:

 

In the New Dream

robots disguised as this or that nation state

all looking at me

peeping in my windows

clogging my email spam filters

trafficking counterfeit Fuller Brushes

I ask ‘em why they go to the trouble

we’re all robots here

no need to put on costumes and stuff

and then

I’m watching a TV program

about the renewing powers of ritual

I don’t like it

I yell at the screen

I breathe fire all over the emptiness and arbitrariness and tediousness of ritual

of course

the learned presenter on the screen

knows I’m right

knows I can’t go unpunished

fixes me with a basilisk glare

the walls around me fly away

steroid abusers in matching uniforms rush in from all sides

to pound and pummel me

the whole thing live streamed

you see

we go through this rigmarole

same time every year

and then

after a break

I spend the rest of my 360

as a freelance nation state

pulling on the guise of this or that robot

peeping in people’s online transaction spheres

playing impromptu synth sax instrumental cover versions

of whatever national anthems

I think will lure people out of their bunkers

into a corny old dark forest

of fairy tale’n’myth

where we can all go crazy

tear off our job selves

all for a crisp monthly fee

live it up

before the work maw

gobbles up every last morsel 

of you

and me

not even bloody skeletons left

which is impressive

at some point

another Orson Welles shows up

and eats-

MOVIE REVIEW: RUBBER'S LOVER (1996)

Written/Directed by Shozin Fukui

Music by Tanizaki Tetora

Starring

Yota Kawase as Shimika

Nao as Kiku

Norimitsu Ameya as Hitotsubashi

Sasuke Saito as Motomiya

Mika Kunihiro as Akari

Ziko Uchiyama as Tanizaki

. . .

COGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECOGITATECO-

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Rubber’s Lover begins with cold-blooded reptilian machinations. We proceed to indulge hot-blooded mammalian hysteria. We shall end in a higher state of consciousness that merely costs us our place in mainstream employable society.

Sinister businessmen coolly discuss forbidden human experimentation. Basically, they’ve been bankrolling a secret research project that’s trying to use extreme sound amplification to unlock psychic powers in the human brain. The mad scientists in charge of this endeavor have set up shop in one of those abandoned yet meticulously art directed industrial warehouse type of places that countless low budget genre pictures depend upon for hideouts, shootouts, martial arts battles, and shadowy horror scenarios. Rubber’s Lover is an unusually ambitious demonstration of how low budget filmmakers can conjure tension, dread, and production value by precisely framing, lighting, and dressing existing locations. Everything you see exists. No computer graphics. Pay special attention to how this movie exploits the big freight elevator whenever it’s on screen. 

But let’s not forget the human element. The early passages include scenes of mostly men and one woman in business attire delivering perfunctory dialogue about mundane responsibilities: project oversight, plans for marriage, scheduling stuff. Even the mad scientists are sensibly dressed, and speak calmly. In the fullness of time, everyone is gibbering madly, ripping their clothes off, and manifesting X-Men levels of psychic powers. All of this is brilliantly played by committed actors, who infuse much of the running time with a building sense of hysterical agitation. Something is constantly bubbling beneath the surface which the mad science gimmicks exist to catalyze into bursting forth from some howlingly repressed id. Much of Rubber’s Lover is about people locked inside a terrible place losing their minds. Two of the scenes are so violent and awful you may decide to stop watching. I wouldn’t blame you if you did even though I do admire this film.

Ultimately, the depravity spirals beyond the control of business and politics. If there’s a lesson here it seems to have to do with desire and power. Those who desire power the most are also the most likely to abuse it and be consumed by it. The only character of consequence who survives is the one who wanted nothing to do with the results of the sonic experiments. But none are left unaffected by the power that is unleashed. 

I should also mention that Rubber’s Lover is a thematic sequel to 964 Pinocchio, a film exploring abandoned sex slaves adrift in train stations and shopping districts in early 1990s Tokyo. Both are written and directed by Shozin Fukui, however they are not related in terms of literal plot points or shared cinematic universe continuity minutiae. 964 Pinocchio’s most memorable scenes contrast antisocial outsider characters against crowds of clueless consumers and employees creating tension around how long the weirdos will be tolerated before getting swept under the rug. Rubber’s Lover is a more conventional genre film in its use of a contained, claustrophobic setting but the intensity of the characters’ hysteria is dialed up to eleven. 964 Pinocchio has some rough technical aspects, but its core pair of protagonists are endearingly strange. Rubber’s Lover is a technical masterwork of low budget filmmaking, but we are kept at an emotional distance from the characters. I think this distancing works for the harsh scenario, but it did make it somewhat less memorable for me than 964 Pinocchio. I was amused that Rubber’s Lover had scenes in which people inexplicably explode into powder which may have been an homage to 1986’s Death Powder, another example of what people have come to think of as Japanese cyberpunk. Rubber’s Lover even has a few scenes suggesting psychic transference of consciousness from one brain to another which also evokes the theme of newly innovated upon life cycles in Death Powder.

Rubber’s Lover isn’t especially convinced by the proverbial thin veneer of civilization. This is one of those movies that glories in perverse and shocking behavior well past the limits of contemporary Hollywood horror movies. Rubber’s Lover is an actual horror movie, expertly filmed, edited, scored, acted, and directed, not ersatz streaming crap. It may not be for everyone, but it is exactly what it wants to be.

HUMPDAY THINGS I LIKE #18:

 

When action movie characters fire off all their bullets, and then cavalierly throw away their spent weapons. They don’t even bother to reload. Just toss that junk aside. Total freedom from materialism. Love it!

MOVIE REVIEW: 964 PINOCCHIO (1991)

Direction/Screen Story/Editing by Shozin Fukui

Screenplay by Shozin Fukui, Makoto Hamaguchi, Naoshi Goda

Cinematography by Kazunori Hirasawa

Music by Hiroyuki Nagashima

Starring

Haji Suzuki as 964 Pinocchio

Onn-chan as Himiko

. . .

“After we complete this map, people like us will have a better life. Then we won’t need a memory to live in this town.”

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Once upon a time in 1990s Japan you have a psychosurgically brainwashed sex slave named/labelled/numbered 964 Pinocchio. For mysterious reasons, Pinocchio ran away from his owner, a woman with an insatiable sexual appetite. This horny woman contacts the criminal organization who created Pinocchio, perhaps hoping for a replacement or, failing that, a refund, but these sinister entrepreneurs threaten her life. The horny lady’s out her costs, but as long as she stays quiet she gets to live. Meanwhile, a trio of flunkies of the sex slavers take to the streets to attempt to hunt down the missing living product. This depraved operation is so out of touch with mainstream society that the flunkies don’t really know how to approach folks. It doesn’t help that they dress like cult members while acting like total creeps. 

Pinocchio wanders the street, grunting, and flailing, and wailing inarticulately. He’s pale, skinny, twitchy, and has a tuft of goofy orange hair near his widow’s peak. He’s a sight. We see him shambling and freaking out among huge crowds of early 1990s shoppers and salarymen in a large city in Japan. Throughout 964 Pinocchio we get scenes of science fantasy hysteria played against real world commercial locations that create the sensation of underground fetish sex club people bursting out among normie consumers like supernatural intrusions of poltergeists or demons or yokai. You sort of expect the Ghostbusters to get called on the scene.

We are introduced to a homeless, unemployed woman named Himiko, who passes the time by sitting on a sidewalk drawing maps of the city. She is frequently approached by salarymen on lunch breaks who think she’s a sex worker. Himiko has lost her memory, and so she draws maps for herself and to help out other amnesiacs. One day, she sees Pinocchio freaking out in the street. He sees her back, and dives into her lap. There’s a spark between these two. Himiko, as it happens, is all too happy to adopt a stray sex slave. At first, she seems to be a source of hope in Pinocchio’s cursed existence. But we soon enough discover that Himiko, despite her also being an outsider, gets off on abusing him. Somehow, her relationship with Pinocchio awakens her buried memories of working as a nurse at the evil sex slave company. Ultimately, we are left with the implication that both Himiko and Pinocchio were victims and products of hideous psychosurgical experiments. 

Pinocchio’s inexpressible rage and trauma cause slimy, low budget mutational effects, that are greatly enhanced by actor Haji Suzuki’s wild physical performance. Himiko’s buried sadist identity expresses itself when she constructs a steel leash, shackles, and weight to torment Pinocchio. There’s an impressively filmed and edited sequence where Pinocchio gains super speed powers and races out of the city, into a rural area, and to a factory which seems to conceal the sex slave operation which is strongly reminiscent of a sequence in Tetsuo the Iron Man. Another standout scene involves Himiko freaking out and copiously vomiting while wandering underground pedestrian tunnels that is obviously inspired by Isabelle Adjani’s memorable meltdown in Possession. 

A less successful sequence involves the sex slaver flunkies attacking Pinocchio with an experimental weapon. It’s too dark, and too frenetic to follow the action, but this is the one dud in an otherwise sharp and propulsive low budget production. 

By the end of it all, I found myself wondering who wasn’t a product of brainwashing in 964 Pinocchio. The mad scientist who runs the sex slave business is a total nut-he seems to have brainwashed himself. Himiko says she draws maps for other amnesiacs-so it isn’t just Pinocchio, it could be lots of malfunctioning sex slaves who have crossed her path. And when you consider the recurring images of normie crowds observing these crazy characters but staying the hell back . . . well, it left me with the sense of a society with a howling open secret. This is also a clever move for a low budget film which can only afford to spend so much time shooting in malls and department stores and train stations before overstaying their welcome. Just use the detachment and impatience of anonymous passersby to further alienate the weirdo outsider protagonists. 

964 Pinocchio is a purposeful blast of Japanese cyberpunk hysteria. You get a doomed sadomasochistic Romeo and Juliet raising hell among clueless, checked-out shoppers who both mutate towards a grotesque final coupling. Yes, it’s mostly about the vibe, but there’s more story and characterization than I expected. It even has a touch of that Blade Runner ambiguity about who is and who isn’t a manufactured being. 964 Pinocchio suggests that in a hyperconsumerist society even people will become product components if such markets become attractive to capital. Mutants freaking out in the department store are the canaries in the coal mine. 

So stay alert!

BONUS: Stick around for the mid-credits scene. It’s fun.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #80:

CHEESEBURGER CHRIST DENIES ALL ALLEGATIONS OF CHICKEN PATTYISM.

THE NEW PARADIGMS IN BRAGGING RIGHTS #1:

I’m so fascinating drugs get addicted to me!

ONE LINE MOVIE REVIEWS #31: AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM (2023)

 

Makes me root for massive Exxon Valdez style oil spills.

MOVIE REVIEW: EXECUTIONERS (1993)

Directed by Johnnie To and Ching Siu-tung

Produced by Ching Siu-tung, Johnnie To, and Yeung Kwok-fai

Fight Direction by Ching Siu-tung

Story and Characters by Sandy Shaw

Written by Suzanne Chan

Cinematography by Poon Hang-Sang

Production Design by Pui-Wah Chan and Catherine Hun

Edited by Ah-Chik

Music by Cacine Wong

Starring 

Anita Mui as Wonder Woman

Michelle Yeoh as Invisible Woman

Maggie Cheung as Thief Catcher

Damian Lau as Inspector Lau

Lau Ching Wen as Tak, a mercenary smuggler

Paul Chun as the Colonel, promoted from Police Chief

Takeshi Kaneshiro as Chong Hon, a Charismatic Religious Leader

Eddy Ko as President’s Deputy

Shan Kwan as the President

Anthony Wong Chau-sang as Mr. Kim, Gothic Megalomaniac; and as Kau, Ex-Decapitator, Ex-Landmine Enthusiast, Ex-Villain 

. . .

“Just because you can’t watch it on TV doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Executioners is a direct sequel to the comic book wuxia fantasia The Heroic Trio . . . so direct that I consider it less of a standard sequel and more like Act II of a two act dramatic structure. Yes, sure, The Heroic Trio is perfectly watchable all on its own, and you are, of course, free to resist sequelization if it vexes you; but Executioners offers a more complex and unpredictable set of outcomes for the characters we meet in the first movie. Heroes fight among themselves. A bumbling side character rises to villainous heights. A ruthless killing machine yokes himself to an honorable mistress. The forces of oppression employ some truly underhanded brutality in their pursuit of total power. Executioners is a cynical downer in which the comic book fantasia of The Heroic Trio is mutated towards a dystopian totalitarian vision. But what good are our heroes if they are never tested to the limits of their mortality? Executioners is not consequence free Marvel and DC nonsense-although it takes inspiration from the American superhero comics-where no one ever really dies because of merchandising. Batman, Spider-Man, and Iron Man must live on because plastic bullshit must be sold. When people die in Executioners they die hard, they die in pain, and they do not come back. Heroism comes at the highest cost in this dark fantasy realm. 

Executioners returns us to The Heroic Trio’s precisely art-directed Hong-Kong-by-way-of-Batman’89’s-Gotham City-style metropolis a few years down a very dark road. Nuclear war has decimated the planet. Hong Kong stands as a city state bastion of civilization in a world radically desertified by atomic fire. Clean drinking water uncontaminated by rads has become both a desired resource and a cause for battle. Mercenary smugglers deal in scarce goods. Cutthroat raiders use violence to dominate. Against these chaotic circumstances, four political actors offer the people competing visions of order: the President, Chong Hon, the Colonel, and Mr. Kim.

The democratically elected President isn’t above doing some dirty deeds in service of the greater good. He and his supporters don’t have all the answers, but they’re trying to pull everybody together on a basis of considered choice as opposed to brute force dictatorship. It’s something worth considering.

Chong Hon is a charismatic religious leader who preaches an inspirational message of social justice by way of the spirit, and is played by Takeshi Kaneshiro in what I believe is his film acting debut. Pray hard enough and the radiation vacates the aquifers in the name of God. Yeah. Sure . . .

The Colonel offers a harsh, face-stomping military dictatorship-later for all that weak liberal democracy shit. The Colonel is played by Paul Chun, who played a comically bumbling Police Chief in The Heroic Trio. Here, Chun is hard-as-nails as an aspiring tyrant, who casts out compassion in favor of ambition. There’s also the disturbing implication of harsh circumstances bringing out people’s dark sides. The Colonel seems to think if he can secure his dictatorship-for-life then the ecological disaster will resolve itself; or maybe he’s too focused on his own game to grok the bigger picture. Watching The Heroic Trio and Executioners back-to-back offers a chance to see contrasting performances by Chun. 

And finally we have the obvious Final Boss: the Gothically perverse Mr. Kim, a decadent technologist who dresses like the Phantom of the Opera, and loves collecting severed heads. Mr. Kim claims to have innovated a revolutionary water purification technology that can defeat the pervasive radioactive contamination. All he’s asking for is total power to pursue his sadistic pleasures without limit. Mr. Kim is a kind of right wing libertarian techbro, though his dandified style distinguishes him from the usual macho posturing of contemporary examples of the species who eat up so many news cycles. The amusing thing about Mr. Kim is that, in his own twisted way, he’s rather, well, not honest, exactly, but he is authentic. Mr. Kim makes no attempt to hide his bizarre depravities. He’s an example of someone who looks at the post-nuclear wasteland and decides to have as much fun as possible. Of course, he is played by Anthony Wong with gruesome gusto.

But what about our Heroic Trio?

Well . . .

. . . Anita Mui’s Wonder Woman has seemingly given up her superhero identity to raise a child with hubby Inspector Lau. Of course, she is drawn back into the game by a series of ordeals comparable to what Christian Bale’s Batman would go through in The Dark Knight Rises. Mui’s Wonder Woman rises to the occasion, offering a shining example that even brings out the inner swashbuckler in one of her enemies. She’s that kind of heroine. Wonder Woman inspires even the villains to raise their standards of evil. 

Michelle Yeoh’s Invisible Woman conducts military operations against wasteland raiders. She’s also taken on a new sidekick: Kau, the former head-collecting henchman of the Evil Master from The Heroic Trio. Kau was horribly burned in the previous adventure, and so he now acts like a human attack dog wrapped up in head-to-toe bandages. Kau embodies the comic book logic of “better living through horrible mad science accidents.” Of course, Invisible Woman also served the Evil Master, and her journey in the first movie embodied the struggle between good and evil within a person’s conscience. She has a very tough road to walk in Executioners.

Maggie Cheung’s Thief Catcher is as capitalistic as before, still acting as a bounty hunter, but now taking on smuggling as a side hustle. She becomes frenemies with rival black marketeer Tak. Her journey crashes her entrepreneurial desire against the greater good.

And I shouldn’t neglect the honorary Fourth Man: Inspector Lau. In The Heroic Trio he played a classic Movie Cop of the Hong Kong style, blasting a maniac rampaging through a maternity ward, looking tragically cool with a cigarette in hand, and surviving getting blown up by a landmine. In Executioners Inspector Lau is pressured by his superiors to carry out a cold blooded assassination. Lau’s ethics are cruelly tested. His fate is a lesson. 

Wonder Woman, Invisible Woman, and Thief Catcher all have their separate questlines that must be sorted before the trio can be reunited. These quests involve a bewildering array of ordeals: combat against superhuman persecutors; assassination attempts; journeys into atomic wastelands and subterranean city depths; and struggle against disillusionment with flawed political processes that sputter and choke against globally scaled ecological catastrophe. Yes, this is a pro-democracy movie . . . but nothing comes easy. Even idealized comic book champions must reckon with betrayal, defeat, and death in Executioners.

HUMPDAY THINGS I LIKE #17:

The true lesson of giant enemy crab: We all have a weak point that can be attacked for massive damage.

. . . TWO WORDS . . .

. . . OH RUDY . . .

. . . you’re always gettin’ into some shit.

And where oh where will you get the money to pay all that you owe?

Good thing you got all those rich friends.

Huh?

What’s that you say?

Your rich friends are giving you nothing but cold shoulders?

Oh, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.

I’m feelin’ so sad for you.

Like watch ninety-six tears pour out of each of my two eyes just for you, Rudy Dear!

How’s that?

You still need some fuckin’ Cash American?

Oh, I see.

My moral support isn’t enough.

What’s next, eh?

You’re gonna tell me to un-cry those tears I just cried for you?

Oh, well, I get it.

You need money.

Well, let me see . . . I do need someone to clean my bathroom. It is completely covered in shit. Floor. Walls. Mirror. Sink. Ceiling. Bathtub. I’m all about enthusiasm. I get enthusiastic about things. Even my bathroom habits. Why approach things with dread when you can hit them with enthusiasm, y’know? That’s my approach.

Now the toilet is pristine. Virgin even. You could eat off it, if you wanted to . . .

. . . or did I . . . erm . . .

Oh, wait, I forgot I clogged that sucker last night with a truly buxom bowel movement.

My bad, Big Dawg!

So, yeah, the toilet has to be unclogged, and scrubbed into dinner serviceable status-yep, yep, yep!

So, uh, let’s talk wages.

Produces six crisp one dollar bills in his hot hairy hands.

Whoa! Baybee! Look at that cash, my son-wow! That’s what we call sin-on-paper where I’m from. This kinda money could get you into some adventure on that Taco Bell menu, Rudy, so play responsibly.

But that’s fun stuff.

First, we gotta handle administrative matters, you dig?

Hot hairy hand fingers a crisp one as it places it into a back pocket.

See, Rudy, I gotta charge you a dollar labor counselor’s fee. Because of all this great labor counseling I’m providing for you.

Hot hairy hand places two dollars into a back pocket.

Another two dollars goes to cover the Non-refundable Fee. Don’t look so butthurt, Rudy, everybody pays the Non-refundable Fee. I’m not just picking on you, Big Dawg.

Hot hairy hand places a dollar bill into a back pocket. 

That dollar covers supplies. Which is cheap, right? And it’s cheap because the only supplies you need are spiritual in nature. Basically, you say a prayer that you won’t catch a disease from licking this bathroom clean, Big Dawg, HAW! HAW! HAW!

Hairy hand closes into a fist crumpling up the last two bills. Hairy hand opens-but the bills are magically gone!

Whoa. Dude. Feature that magic, Rudy. Or, y’know, is it inflation? Who knows, but everybody’s feeling it, babe.

Hairy hand on the bathroom doorknob.

Well, time to put your ass to work.

Hairy hand turns the door knob. Door opens to reveal impenetrable darkness. 

Oooo, Ruuuuuudy, what filthy mysteries hide in the dark?! Ooooooooooo! Is your ass ready to be haunted? Oooooo!

Hairy hand flips a light switch . . . revealing . . .

My, my, my Rudy. Would you just look at that?

. . . a pristine bathroom. Like it has never been used.

I totally forgot. I clean up my own mess pretty good these days, Rudy. Perhaps there’s a lesson in this for you, Big Dawg.

Hairy hands hold up a bundle of job applications for entry level fast food, retail, and landscaping jobs.

Get on that employment tip, my son, ‘cause your bills are only increasing. 

Rudy’s goblin hands reach up for the job applications, but the hairy hands keep pulling the applications up, up, and away and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with some beautiful balloon, not even a little bit.

You gotta want it, Rudy, you gotta want it hard, my son!

Rudy’s goblin hands grasp ever upwards, but those hairy hands keep pulling up and up into the sky ever out of reach. Soon it’s just goblin hands grasping at air. 

Heaven is for those who want it hard enough, Rudy Dear . . . 

Shadows and night and grasping goblin hands and no more Cash American and no more job applications and no more enthusiasm for all is dread and dread and dread again . . .