Just the one US movie this time, and that’s from nearly thirty years ago. To be honest, I had a feeling I’d seen Demolition Man before, but having now watched it I’m still not sure – and I generally have a really good memory for movies…

These Movie roundup posts – and their precursors, the Moving pictures posts – don’t seem to be as popular as my book reviews, but I think it’s important to demonstrate to Anglophone readers there are shitloads of really good films out there that are tons better that the latest glib and simplistic Hollywood blockbuster. Put a bit of intelligence into your movie watching and you will find they can be as intellectually and artistically rewarding as books.

Bacurau, Kleber Mendonça Filho (2019, Brazil). Not entirely sure what to make of this one. It’s Brazilian. But it stars Udo Kier. It’s supposedly set in the near-future, but I don’t recall much that signalled as much. A remote village begins to fall apart after the death of the matriarch, and random strangers turn up and kill people. It probably deserves a second watch, but I didn’t get much out of it – and I’ve seen a number of Brazilian films.

Demolition Man, Marco Brambilla (1993, USA). Risible near-future action from Hollywood, in which Wesley Snipes overplays a violent criminal defrosted in a utopian California in 2032 but has been secretly programmed to sabotage the utopia in order to turn it into a dictatorship. Unfortunately, the authorities defrost his historical enemy, Sylvester Stallone, to catch him and Stallone demonstrates the freedom to starve is worth more than utopia, and he’ll kill to prove it. The whole thing plays like an advert for Reaganomics. No thanks. A story based on a bullshit argument from the rich people who have the most to gain from it. Avoid.

Tiger on the Beat, Lau Kar Leung (1988, China). Hong Kong cop duo action comedy, with Chow Yun-fat as a lazy and ineffectual police officer teamed up with by-the-book go-getter Conan Lee. Takes a while to get going, but there’s some good comedy, and the final fight scene with chainsaws has to be seen to be believed.

Tokyo Raiders, Jingle Ma (2000, China). This was apparently the last film ever released on laser disc, although there were many films released in that format that have never made it to DVD or Blu-ray. With the success of streaming, recent years have seen DVD/Blu-ray labels turn boutique and specialise in collectible and cult films. Which I applaud. A man misses his wedding, and the bride-to-be teams up with an interior decorator who is owed money (yes, really), and they head to Tokyo to track down the missing man’s business partner, who is apparently wanted by gangsters, and there’s a private detective with three female sidekicks, and the story goes round in so many circles it’s astonishing it makes some sort of sense at the end. Worth seeing.

The Sister of Ursula, Enzo Miloni (1978, Italy). Another giallo. Two sisters visit a seaside hotel, indulge in much nudity, while a mysterious killer stalks and kills the female guests. A review on imdb probably describes it best: “spends too much time on the rumpy-pumpy and not enough on the stabby-stabby”.

The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven’s Palace, Soi Cheang (2014, China). I tweeted while watching this that it seemed to be some unholy mashup of Avatar and Cats. And, a week later, that’s pretty much all I can remember. Monkey is a common and popular figure in Chinese mythology, and variations  of him have worked their way into Western culture. I admit I know little about him, so my view of this film is pretty much based entirely on the visuals. Which were… weird. I think the film was shot entirely in green screen, with CGI backgrounds, and to be honest I lost track a bit of whose side Monkey was on, with demons fighting angels but the demons acting like they’re the good guys. All very strange.

A Better Tomorrow I & II, John Woo (1986 and 1987, China). I’ve been aware of Woo’s influence on Hong Kong cinema since first seeing Hard Boiled back in the mid-1990s, and Chow Yun-fat’s popularity as an action star, but it’s only after watching several 1980s Woo movies on the trot recently that I’ve come to appreciate precisely how much he changed Hong Kong, and then world, action cinema. In A Better Tomorrow, the brother of an enforcer for a gangster joins the police, but then their father is killed in a bungled attempt to kidnap him to put pressure on the enforcer after a fall-out with a Taiwanese gang. The enforcer gives himself up after a drug deal gone wrong and spends three years in prison. When he gets out he wants to go straight but everyone else is determined otherwise. A good solid thriller. The sequel is more of the same, but in New York. Chow Yun-fat’s character, who died in the first film, was so popular he was resurrected as his twin brother in the second. While both movies are knotty thrillers, the fight scenes, particularly in the second, weren’t as good as some I’ve seen in other films. But it’s weird seeing how Woo “Americanised” Hong Kong thrillers so effectively that later HK thrillers would be remade by Hollywood…

Bahu Begum, Mohammed Sadiq (1967, India). A classic Bollywood film – and there are a surprising number of them available free to watch on Amazon Prime – set in Lucknow, which was apparently a popular setting. A woman falls in love with one man but is married off to another, not realising until the ceremony it’s a different man. Um, that sounds a bit dumb but it makes sense in the film. I was surprised to see Johnny Walker playing a serious role, as most of the Bollywood films I’ve seen him in he plays comic characters.

Andaz Apna Apna, Rajkumar Santoshi (1994, India). This film was apparently so successful it’s become a cultural phenomenon. Certainly, if its humour were any broader, it would rival the Indian Ocean. An heiress from London visits India to find a husband. Two wastrels decide to win her hand and end up in competition. Complicating matters is the fact the heiress’s assistant is really the heiress, but somehow or other one of the wastrels transfer his affections to her. This is definitely one of the funniest films I’ve seen for along time, despite being such a hackneyed plot.