Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #10 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Masks and helmets are a big part of the Star Wars universe. Whether it’s one of the dozens of types of stormtroopers, Sith Lords, or pirate raiders, it seems like half the characters in the Star Wars universe hide away their features. As such, building up a character around their mask, adding a sense of mystery to them and giving them a unique look, then deciding to take that away is a brave move. This issue sees the destruction of the skull mask that Jedi Padawan Quort has worn since his introduction, and considering the removal of this mask could change how people look at this character completely, it’s kind of a bold decision.

At the end of the previous issue, the Jedi temple on Takodana came under attack from Nihil ships, whilst a bomb was detonated within the temple itself, reducing it to rubble. Whilst our heroes seemed to weather that destruction, left with only minor injuries, it did result in Quort’s mask being destroyed. The previous issue had told us the importance of that mask, how for his people it was something sacred and special to them, how it was to help the young grow and become an adult; and this issue reminds readers how important it is right at the start with a flashback to a young Quort being told that when the time is right he’ll choose to take the mask off. But now that choice has been removed from him, his agency has been taken away.

We also know that the mask helps with anger and violent tendencies, so its sudden loss adds a new worry: will it result in Quort losing control and veering dangerously close to the Dark Side? Thankfully, this seems to be a misplaced worry, and if anything the loss of the mask had Quort finally standing up and believing in himself, acting with a bravery and confidence that he’s not had this entire series. I really liked this change, I liked to see him realising that the time had come for him to grow up, and how it gave him a new sense of self.

The design for Quort was really good too. We’d been given small hints at what he might look like over the course of the series; a glimpse of blue skin, and his white hair, but there were still big questions around if he’d look fairly human, or if he’d be truly alien. What we got was a nice mixture of recognisably human, but with elements like his ears that had an animal, almost feline look to them. Without his mask he has a sense of grace and smoothness to him that he didn’t before; he’s less bulky and lumpy, and I think that his confidence and his abilities are only going to continue to grow from this point.

Elsewhere in the issue we got further development on the Nihil story, and saw that Krix seems pretty settled into his position as a leader within the group. The more we see of him and his story the more it seems like he’s being pushed towards a point where it will be impossible for him to ever really come back from this dark path that he’s on; though redemption is a big theme in Star Wars, so that possibility is never really off the table.

The art in this issue is provided by Toni Bruno and Rebecca Nalty, who have worked together on the previous issues in this art. Their styles work well together, and they have produced some of my favourite work on Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures so far, delivering a simple look that still manages to appear detailed and neat. They also don’t make the younger characters look too young, which I really like. At the start of the series many of the Padawans looked to be close to ten years of age, whereas now they’re looking like they’re in their mid-teens, which definitely suits it much better.

This story arc has been a lot of fun, and it feels like Quort has come on leaps and bounds and has firmly established himself as one of my favourites in the entire High Republic. And this issue absolutely flew by for me, I had to double check it was the regular length because it felt like it was a very quick read; but I think that just shows that I had a blast with it. I’m looking forward to seeing more great stories with Quort in the future.

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Sailor Suit and Machine Gun – Blu-ray Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

As a fan of Asian cinema there will be times where you hear about a film, probably multiple times, that you think sounds like it would be something you’d love to see, but finding a copy of it is hard, if not impossible. If you do manage to track one down it’s often a bad recording, with subtitles or a dub that haven’t been given enough care or attention; leaving you with a film that makes little sense.

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun is one of these films for me. I’d heard about it so many times, but had never been able to find a copy. I’d all but given up hoping to ever see it. Fortunately, Arrow Video have come through, providing an excellent new Blu-ray release for this classic film. This marks the first time that this film, or any of the films by director Shinji Sômai, has been released in the west, and it’s very much worth your attention.

If you’ve ever been left anything in someone’s will you’ll be aware of how strange it can be to suddenly find yourself in possession of something you’re not expecting, especially if you never thought you’d get left anything. Getting left money is a strange experience, as you have the joy of better finances whilst dealing with the grief of losing a loved one, and being left items can be odd because you’ve got to work out whether you want to keep them or sell them on. But I don’t think anyone has ever inherited anything as strange as high-schooler Hoshi Izumi (Hiroko Yakushimaru) does, who shortly after losing her father finds out she’s inherited his Yakuza gang.

Izumi is dragged out of the world of study and tests and finds herself in command of a group of hardened criminals and killers, though only a small one to be fair. At first she rejects the offer of leading the criminal gang, but when she discovers that this means the men under her command are honour bound to go out in a blaze of glory attacking one of the bigger gangs, she agrees to lead them just to keep them from needlessly dying.

This begins a series of events that sees Izumi being expelled from school, forming friendships with her gang, and being drawn deeper and deeper into the world of organised crime. When she and her gang become the targets of a particularly sadistic rival crime boss, who thinks that Izumi has also inherited a shipment of drugs that was meant for him, Izumi and her gang find themselves fighting for their lives.

Despite the subject matter, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun isn’t really a Yakuza movie in the sense that many of the tropes of the genre are so wonderfully subverted. We’re used to seeing strong characters full of machismo, who dare not show their sensitive side for fear of having it used against them. But here we have this high-school girl being suddenly dropped into this world, and that just wouldn’t work. The men around her, the four people who make up her tiny criminal gang, are incredibly affectionate towards her. They care about her, they want her to be happy, they go out of their way to make sure that she has fun, even redecorating their shabby office into a bright and colourful place filled with comforts.

It’s clear that Izumi has an effect on the men around her, and none of them feel like the usual kind of people that you’d expect to find in a mob movie. Even her right hand man, a hardened killer and life long criminal takes on a fatherly role to her, going out of his way to make sure she’s alright. It would have been very easy to write this story where Izumi is just a figurehead, where those under her don’t respect her or listen to her, but instead she really does become their boss, and it’s rather delightful.

Of course, one of the main themes in crime movies is how power can corrupt, with decent people becoming cold hearted over time. And this does happen somewhat here, as Izumi embraces her role as a crime boss over the course of the film, making threats to other gangs, and threatening to kill people to avenge one of her fallen men. But you never get the sense that Izumi has changed, that this life has made her a bad person at all. She maintains her delight at the world and her sense of innocence, even when she’s shooting up a room with a machine gun. And this is what makes this film rather special, the very fine line it walks between a mob movie and a delightful comedy.

Alongside the regular version of the film the new release also comes with a restored version of the ‘Complete Version’, the extended cut of the film that was released a year after the original. These extra and extended scenes are great, and make the movie a lot more fun. We also get a decent 50 minute documentary called ‘Girls, Guns, and Gangsters’ which features cast and crew of the film coming together to talk about making of the film, its director, and the legacy that the movie created.

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun is one of those rare, delightful movies that goes against expectations and blends genres together in ways that you don’t expect. It’s the kind of film that you don’t really get outside of Japan, and one that is shocking that it took 40 years to get a western release. Whether you’re a fan of crime movies or not this is a film that you should definitely see, even if just for the ridiculously fun premise.

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Doctor Who: Survivors of the Flux - TV Review

 

Well, I was hoping that the Doctor being turned into a Weeping Angel would be something that would have some weight to it, something that wouldn't just be resolved within the first few moments of the next episode; but it looks as if that was perhaps hoping for too much. The dramatic conclusion of the previous episode seems to be just a slight inconvenience more than anything else, a momentary distraction for the Doctor as her transformation is simply used as a way of transporting her to the Division. Luckily, the rest of the episode moves with such a pace, and has so many entertaining moments, that this didn't even really bother me until after the episode was done and I was looking back at it all.

'Survivors of the Flux' covers a lot of things, and we follow several stories during this episode. With the Doctor having been taken away, and being separated from them by more than sixty years, Yaz, Dan, and Professor Jericho has spent the last three years travelling the Earth searching for answers, for a way back to the Doctor, and for information that can help them against the disaster awaiting them in the present day.

Whilst the companion stories can sometimes feel a bit flat, like the minor side plot that keeps them busy so that the Doctor can do whatever she needs to do to save the day, this is the first episode this series where their story actually felt like it meant something, and it was all the better for that. The trio begin in Mexico, searching for an artefact that could contain an important date, a date that could be the end of the world. From there they travel to India to get it translated, to Nepal to seek out a wise man (best single scene appearance in years), visit the Great Wall of China to leave an important message, before finally travelling to Liverpool to investigate the Williamson tunnels. 

It's very globetrotting, and the use of maps with dotted lines to show their routes, along with the historical setting and having to fight off mysterious attackers, gives it a very Indiana Jones kind of feel. It's also feels that Yaz and Dan have really grown into close friends over this time, and means that even if the Doctor doesn't know Dan very well it's entirely believable that he would want to continue on with the adventures after this series due to him and Yaz having spent years surviving in the past together. I also loved the fact that Professor Jericho has stuck around, as he fits in with the others well and brings a nice energy to the mix.

It's through these three that we finally get something of an explanation for the sudden appearances of Joseph Williamson across the series; though there are still some things left to be explained with him in the final episode. It seems that whilst constructing his underground tunnels he's found portals, doorways to different times and places that allow him access to the times we've seen him in the previous episodes. This might very well end up being an important piece of the puzzle in the final episode, some way to help resolve things, as well as providing Dan, Yaz, and Jericho with a way of getting back to the Doctor.

Speaking of the Doctor, her story definitely packs a lot into a relatively little amount of time this week, as we get to learn a lot about Division and its goals. The Doctor awakens inside some kind of station or ship, filled with strange technology, an Ood, and the mysterious woman she met whilst stuck in the time stream a few weeks ago. It turns out this place is Division itself, the place from which they operate, and the woman is none-other than its leader, the Doctors adoptive mother, Tecteun.

Tecteun reveals that the Division began on Galifrey, as a secret society that began shaping events across time and space. As its influence and its goals grew it recruited operatives from all races, in all dimensions, in order to shape reality to whatever form they wanted. Unfortunatley, thanks to the Doctor being the kind of person who would always fight against them and their goals they've given up on this reality, have unleashed the Flux as a way of destroying everything, and giving them the power to travel across the void into a parallel universe. Lofty goals to say the least.

The revelations here feels like we're getting a lot, like we're learning all about Division and their goals, whilst still leaving a lot of the details vague enough that nothing is contradicted by what we already know, and that we're not worrying about the details. Division could have had its hand in any of the events from across the history of the franchise, it could have operatives in any of the stories we've seen, and it could have any goals. But, because we don't know all of these tiny details yet it means that despite learning a huge amount this episode there's still a swathe of stories that can be told across all of the Doctor Who media range.

Outside of these two groups we also catch up with Bel and Vinder a little. Bel has tracked down Swarm and Azure, who are collecting up the various survivors of the Flux, and bringing them to some kind of construct in space. However, Bel has no sooner arrived when her craft is recalled to Earth by the Lupari, meaning that not only does she not get to continue in her investigation, but misses Vinder by mere moments. Vinder himself stumbles across Swarm and Azure disintegrating dozens of their captives in order to power themselves towards whatever goal they have in mind. Unfortunately, his arrival isn't a secret, and he's captured by the siblings, who trap him inside the same Passenger as Di.

We also get the surprise return of the Grand Serpent this episode, who seems to be using time travel to get himself a position of power on Earth. We follow him across a handful of decades across the years as he helps to establish UNIT, as well as getting himself placed as its head. These segments are a wonderful insight into the origins of the organisation, even if it does borrow the idea of an evil force being inside our hero organisation a little from Hydra and the MCU. These scenes also gives us a chance to check in with one of the more beloved families in the Doctor Who universe. 

Thanks to the use of some cleverly sourced and used dialogue we hear a young corporal Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in the background of a scene from a time before he'd have met the Doctor; as well as the return of his daughter Kate. A lot of fans were upset a few years ago when it seemed like Chibnall was doing away with UNIT, but now it seems like perhaps this was part of a plan, and now we're seeing that Kate had 'gone dark' in order to deal with a threat within the organisation. It's clear that this will be playing a large part in the final episode, and it's a relief that UNIT isn't gone; as well as a treat that the Lethbridge-Stewart family keeps getting to come back. Also, it's incredibly humorous to think that UNIT have been looking after this Doctor's Tardis for decades, especially as the third Doctor spent years alongside UNIT, trapped on Earth, when they had a spare Tardis sitting around.

The episode ends with the Grand Serpent helping to launch a Sontaran attack on Earth, and attack that bleeds through time and brings the aliens to Yaz, Dan, and Jericho in the early 1900's, and sees Bel and Karvanista having to team up to stay alive. Meanwhile, Swarm and Azure have used the power that they've been building to use their connection with the Doctor to reach Division. The Doctor is forced to watch as they kill her mother, the only person who can give her answers.

Going into the final part of this series it feels like the stakes have never been higher. The universe itself is on the brink of destruction, Earth is under siege with its heroes compromised from within, the companions are lost and don't know where the Doctor is, and the Doctor is in the clutches of the villains, with her lost memories just out of reach. It feels like the final episode is going to be a non-stop affair, even if just to wrap everything up in a satisfying way.

It kind of feels like a shame that the series has only been six episodes long, as even though things have been done at a great, break-neck pace, it doesn't feel like we've had enough time with the characters and the story. And whilst I'd have loved to have seen this story be given more time and taken longer I've loved the journey we've had, and am genuinely excited for the finale; something that I've not felt in the Chibnall era until now. Perhaps things won't all be wrapped up, maybe some mysteries will be left, maybe some things will continue on over the course of next years specials, but whatever happens, I think the next episode is going to be a memorable one.

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Reviled Author (Not That One) Promotes Trans Genocide

 

Richard Dawkins is no stranger to making awful comments about trans people. In 2015 he tweeted out a comment asking if trans women are really women; and in April 2021 he was stripped of his Humanist of the Year award for making comments that compared trans women to black-face. He's made it clear in the past that he does not consider trans people's identities to be real, and has focused on trans women in particular when making such comments.

As such, it should be no surprise that he's gone on to make further comments, people who openly hate minority groups rarely stop themselves at just the single nasty comment, and has put his support behind a document that calls for the full legalised genocide of trans people.

On the 29th November 2021 Dawkins tweeted out a link to the 'WHRC Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights', stating 'Please sign the Declaration on Women's Sex-based Rights. I just have.'

Dawkins' tweet promoting the WHRC document.

The WHRC Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights is a large document that contains a number of 'concerns' around the 1979 United Nations international human rights law framework, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Specifically, the WHRC document calls for the complete and total eradication of all legal rights and protections for trans people, effectively stripping them of their human rights.

The document was written by Maureen O'Hara, Sheila Jeffreys, and Heather Brunskell-Evans. The three of them are regular fixtures in the Gender Critical sphere, often engaging in conversations and debates around trans rights. In the past Jeffreys has called trans women 'parasites', as well as calling trans people perverts and sexual predators; whilst Brunskell-Evans has been a backer of the antisemitic theory that trans people are being funded by Jewish millionaires.

The WHRC declaration claims that trans people are upholding gendered stereotypes, and that by existing as the gender they identify as they are promoting harmful stereotypes about what it means to be a particular gender; and they claim this is in direct contravention to the aims set out in the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. In essence, it makes the argument that trans women even existing is a form of discrimination against cis women, because trans women can only ever act up to a harmful stereotype.

'the concept of ‘gender identity’ has enabled men who claim a female ‘gender identity’ to assert, in law, policies, and practice, that they are members of the category of women, which is a category based upon sex.' is one claim in the WHRC document.

The WHRC document goes on to complain that trans women are able to call themselves mothers, and that they feel it is harmful that they can do this, without outlining any way in which that actually impacts any form of maternity rights or women's protections. The document takes this strange stance on motherhood and giving birth further, by declaring that it's wrong to engage in surrogate pregnancies. It in effect pushes for the ban on surrogate pregnancies as a whole, thereby taking rights away from women.

Heather Brunskell-Evans, one of the authors of the WHRC document.

The document makes claims that trans people should not be allowed access to certain public spaces, saying that trans women should not be allowed access to domestic or sexual violence help, public toilets, changing rooms, and other single sex spaces that trans people currently have every legal right to use, and have been using without incident for decades. The document, by wishing to remove these rights from trans people, is effectively calling for the banning of trans people from public life.

This might not seem like much, but imagine if you knew you could never use a public toilet, that the only place you could pee is you own home. Imagine that you would be prevented from using changing rooms, that you would be denied support in extreme circumstances. How would you be able to go to the gym? How would you be able to try on clothes whilst shopping? How would you be able to go out for a meal, to the cinema, or even hold down a job if it meant that every time you needed to pee you had to travel back to your house to do so?

It would be impossible to live your life that way. You couldn't go out of your house for more than an hour at a time, and could only travel a short distance for fear of having to rush home. You couldn't hold down a job that wasn't working from home. You wouldn't be able to attend school or engage in education. You wouldn't be able to live your life. And that's what this document is calling for. It wants every legal right and protection taken away from trans people so that we would be unable to leave our homes. These people don't want us to exist in the world. And Richard Dawkins has told the world that that's the kind of world that he wants by signing and promoting this document.

If you see the simple act of being trans as an attack on womanhood you're advocating for trans genocide. If you're calling for trans people to be stopped from existing in pubic you're advocating for trans genocide. If you're pushing for the removal of trans healthcare you're advocating for trans genocide.

Maybe Dawkins has failed to really look at what's in this document, maybe he's been taken in by the surface level 'concerns' about women's safety. But I doubt that. This isn't the first time that Dawkins has made transphobic comments. It's not the first time he's made misogynistic comments aimed at trans people. So I doubt that he's signed a document targeting trans people, and making a point of centring trans women, is anything but a deliberate act of hatred and abuse in the hopes that trans people are erased from the world.

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The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula by Christian Klaver - Book Review

 

'The first in a stylish new series, in which the worlds of Sherlock and the uncanny collide.

'Sherlock Holmes is dead. His body lies in a solitary grave on the Sussex Downs. But Dr. Watson survives, and is now given permission to release tales in Sherlock's 'black box', those cases that are, dear reader, unbelievable - for their subject matter is of the most outré and grotesque nature.

'Beginning with 'The Adventure of the Lady's Finger', Holmes and Watson discover a dark, uncanny world beyond their imagining. It starts with a victim whose flesh reacts adversely to silver and sunlight, whose blood does not thicken when exposed to oxygen. And then a Transylvanian nobleman arrives at Baker Street demanding Holmes's assistance in the kidnapping of his beloved wife, Mina.'

I honestly knew nothing about this book before I began reading it. I saw the title, saw how pretty the hardcover release for it was and went 'hell yeah I'm reading that', so I hadn't even glanced at the blurb before beginning to read the book. I think if I had it would have saved me from the first surprise of the book, that this wasn't going to be another story that pitted the great detective against the world's most famous vampire, such as Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula which was also published by Titan Books, but would see the two icons working together.

Like with the vast majority of Sherlock Holmes books this tale is written from the perspective of Doctor John Watson, who has chronicled many of Holmes' adventures. What marks this one as more unusual than most, however, is that this story has waited until the titular detective has died before being published. The introduction from Watson begins by telling us that Holmes is dead, and only now can a series of cases from his 'black box' be shown to the world.

The story begins when Holmes and Watson are presented with a strange piece of evidence by Scotland Yard, a severed woman's finger. Whilst this is grizzly and strange enough in itself it only becomes more and more disturbing when the finger doesn't act in a way you'd expect, and doesn't seem to be normal dead flesh. Even stranger, it reacts violently to both sunlight and silver. This pushes Holmes towards a shocking conclusion, that the finger must have come from a vampire.

This deduction is only confirmed when the two of them are approached by Count Dracula himself. Not only do the two of them now have to wrestle with the idea that vampires are real, but that the account made of Dracula within Stoker's novel was far from the truth, and the 'monster' from the story is a man who needs their help in order to save his kidnapped wife, Mina.

Over the course of their investigation they discover that London has become targeted by mysterious 'elder' vampire working from the shadows, known only as the Mariner Priest, who is amassing an army of newly turned creatures. Not only that, but tragic events will befall Holmes and Watson that will forever change their lives, and change the way that you look at the stories Watson has shared with the public. Over the course of this first volume they will learn of other, even more amazing creatures as they battle to stop this mysterious menace from turning London into a nest of vicious vampires.

From very early on in the book Christian Klaver does one of the best things that he could do for this story, he gets Sherock Holmes on board with the supernatural. I've seen stories where Holmes has had to deal with monsters and other paranormal entities, and his staunch belief in science and things having a rational explanation often drag down the start of those tails, making the detective feel a little foolish because we know he's wrong in those assertions. But this story not only has Holmes getting on board with vampires being real, but does so withing the first dozen or so pages. Yes, he believes that vampires are rooted more in science than curses and magic, but he fully accepts that they exist. 

Once that particular hurdle is out of the way we're able to get into the real meat of the novel, which is seeing our two leads getting to grips with the supernatural being real. They still engage in investigations, and use their past experience and knowledge to get them through the trials that they face here, but they also come prepared with silver bullets too. The book is split into four interconnected stories, spread out over roughly a years time. These stories begin by introducing the world of the supernatural, show how Holmes and Watson adjust to this knowledge and deal with these challenges, before finally coming round to dealing with the threat of the Mariner Priest; though leaving enough dangling at the end to set up for further supernatural adventures.

The book incorporates the supernatural elements into the Holmes canon really well, and it feels like a pretty natural fit for the most part. It doesn't contradict too much, and in the introduction Watson talks about things not quite lining up perfectly with the other stories hes released due to having had to change certain details and pieces to hide the truth from the public on a whole. This is a pretty reasonable explanation, and it does fit with some of the stuff that readers will be familiar with for sure.

Despite the name, Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula, the Count isn't in a huge amount of the book. The focus here is very much Holmes and Watson. I think that this is a smart choice. Dracula is one of those characters best used sparingly. Even in his own original story he was a presence that dipped in and out of the narrative, rather than being the dominant focus. To use him in a similar way here is a good choice. It means that we get the much more human connection with Holmes and Watson, and we get to learn about this new supernatural world through the eyes of people freshly exposed to it, rather than someone who has been a part of it for centuries.

The book doesn't just introduce us to vampires, however, as the final pages of the book have Holmes showing Watson several letters asking for assistance with bizarre and unusual cases that seem to involve ghosts and other strange entities. This give the reader some hints at the kinds of things that may come in future volumes, and assures us that the duo's time dealing with the paranormal will be far from over; but it also gives an indication that there are more than just vampires in the world. The second main chunk of this book also does that too, as it deals with a mysterious body and a strange ship docked in London that travelled from Innsmouth. I'm sure that name will ring bells with certain readers, an I won't say more about that particular part of the book other than it's a rather interesting adventure that begins to introduce creatures other than vampires to the series.

Outside of the supernatural elements, Klaver does a wonderful job at bringing Holmes and Watson to life. Watson goes through a lot over the course of the book. I won't go into too many details so as not to spoil the book, but the events of the story will forever alter his life, and those of his loved ones, and because of this we get some times where we see Watson having to grapple with some truly dark and painful emotions. But Klaver is also one of those writers who seems to understand Holmes too, and doesn't make him insufferably rude.

There are a lot of versions of the character, and one of the things I think people who don't read a huge amount of Sherlock Holmes fiction seem to conclude, and put into their versions of the character, is that Holmes is a rude person. They write him as being so much smarter than the people around him that it ends up with him looking down on other people, treating them like they're beneath him, or simply being cruel because he has no desire to be nice. This, for me anyway, is the complete opposite to what Holmes really is, and Klaver seems to get that. Holmes does feel removed at times yes, but he's also incredibly kind and caring throughout this book. He's polite to others, he cares about Watson, and he makes jokes with people, not at others expense.

Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula is an incredibly imaginative new take on these characters, and Klaver not only brings a fresh spin to Holmes and Watson, but the Dracula mythos too. It establishes a bold new status quo for the world's greatest detective, one that I can't wait to see more of in future volumes.

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Cinematic Vengeance – Blu-ray Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

There are a lot of big names in the martial arts film industry that people will be familiar with, but these will often be the names of those appearing in front of the camera: actors like Jackie Chan, Bruce Li, or Donnie Yen. It’s not as often that audiences will be familiar with the people who make the films, with the exceptions of a handful of directors who have made such an impact outside of China that their names become recognised.

A director who is often overlooked by the larger cinema-going audiences but who very much deserves to have their films seen is Joseph Kuo, who is responsible for more than sixty films across a thirty year career from the 1960s through to the 1980s. Luckily, Eureka Entertainment have gathered together eight amazing examples of his films in the new Cinematic Vengeance boxset.

Cinematic Vengeance brings together eight examples of Kou’s work, presenting these cult favourite films in new high definition restorations for the first time, alongside a host of new artwork and feature length commentaries by martial arts and Asian film experts, giving both long term fans and new viewers the chance to discover this director’s work as it’s never been seen before.

The first film in the set is 7 Grandmasters (1977), and follows an old grand master named Sang Kuan Chun (Jack Long) as he travels the country to challenge several martial arts masters to prove that he is worthy of receiving the king’s blessing. Along the way he picks up a new student and begins to train him, though it turns out a plot of revenge against Sag Kuan Chun has also been put into motion. This film is one of the later films in this set, and seems to have been filmed quite quickly as it features a snappier, quicker form of camera work and choreography to the other films on offer here, but is also very well paced and gets right into the action.

36 Deadly Styles (1982) has a much more comedic tone, and has some truly fun and bizarre moments as it follows Wah-jee (Cheung Lik) and his uncle as they’re beset by a group of bandits. Making their way to the nearby Buddhist temple, Wah-jee is able to find safety, but his uncle dies. A fighter turned monk agrees to take Wah-jee in, and he’s soon put to work around the temple. Unfortunately, the bandits haven’t stopped their pursuit and have made it their mission to get Wah-jee, even if they have to fight their way through the temple to do so.

World of Drunken Master (1979), despite the name, has no connection to the hit Jackie Chan film Drunken Master, other than the fact that Joseph Kuo wanted to cash in on the mega hit as soon as he could. Despite being something of a cash-in, the film manages to have a lot of heart as it follows two Drunker Masters named Fan Ta-Pei (Jack Long) and Beggar Su Hua-Tzu (Simon Yuen) who meet up after thirty years. As the pair reminisce over their past we discover how the two of them came to be friends and trained with the same master, and how tragedy united them.

The film that’s the biggest cash in on other martial arts hits is The Old Master (1979). With Jackie Chan having become the biggest star in China, and with his films making it across to the US, Kuo wanted to get some of that hype and money for his own films. The Old Master didn’t have Jackie Chan, but it did have Jim-Yuen Yu, the man who trained Jackie Chan. The film was literally built around his inclusion, with him refusing to travel from LA resulting in it being set in modern day California as a result. Whilst it might not be the best film around, the different vibe it has makes it stand out amongst the other films in this set, and it has some genuinely enjoyable moments.

Shaolin Kung-Fu (1974) has a very different feel, however, and returns to some undefined period of China’s past as it sees a gang of criminals move into a small town to help a business owner push other rickshaw drivers out of business. One of the men they target, Lin Fung (Chiang-Lung Wen) refuses to back down and gets into a few fights with the gang. Unfortunately this results in his blind wife being kidnapped, spurring Lin Fung into a quest to take them down once and for all to save the woman he loves.

The Shaolin Kids (1975) is possibly one of Kuo’s most lavish and ambitious films, and certainly stands out as something a bit different from the others in this set. The film opens big, with crowd scenes and lavish sets that show an ancient China. Despite its name, there’s very little in the film to do with Shaolin, and it feels closer to a wuxia movie than it does a standard martial arts film, with a bigger focus on swords and spears than unarmed combat in a film filled with political intrigue.

A film with a bigger focus on Shaolin than the previous mentioned film is 18 Bronzemen (1976), which sees the surviving family of a political coup hiding out in a Shaolin temple so that the enemies hunting them can’t find them. This also allows the opportunity for Shaolung (Tien Peng) to train in martial arts so that once he’s ready he can leave to get revenge for his family; but before he can he must prove himself through a series of trials against the 18 Bronzemen of the temple.

Return of the 18 Bronzemen (1976) is unusual as it’s the only sequel present in this set, if sequel is the right word for it. Filmed alongside the first, featuring many of the same sets, and with the same cast returning but in different roles, the film doesn’t have too much of a direct relation to the first. Rather than attempting to continue that story or doing more with the characters it simply tries to recreate the look and feel of the first film, and features a similar flair for the dramatic as the heroes fight their way through the Shaolin trials once again.

Each of the films in this set come with a feature length commentary that goes into good detail about the movies, and sheds light not only on how they were made, but martial arts cinema and the people involved as a whole. It’s interesting stuff, but it’s sadly the only extras that come with this set outside of some art prints and a booklet with a series of essays about the film. Despite being low on extras, the chance to see several classic martial arts films, given the care and attention they have been in their Blu-ray restoration is worth the price alone.

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? No, wait, sorry. That always happens whenever I think about Skyrim.

Skyrim, or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to use its full title, is the fifth game in the long running and popular Elder Scrolls series that came out ten years ago, and is still going strong as one of the most popular games of all time.

Having been producing Elder Scrolls games since 1994 with the release of Elder Scrolls: Arena, publisher Bethesda had been expanding the fantasy universe that they’d created with each new addition to the franchise; setting each game in new, expansive locations with large additions to the lore. When it was announced that the fifth game in the series was going to be set in the new land of Skyrim this was nothing too groundbreaking for fans. We all expected a new land to discover. However, the one thing that was announced that really caught people’s attention was that the game would include dragons.

Dragons had been a part of the series for a long time, but only mentioned in passing or in books found around the game world. They were something from the long past eras of the world, creatures that had become legends. But Skyrim was bringing them back, and players were going to get to fight them. To say that people were excited is a bit of an understatement.

Upon release The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim put players in control of a character who wakes up in the back of a cart, bound in chains, as they’re being taken to the Imperial fort of Helgen in the province of Skyrim, a land that the Empire has ruled for many years, but is on the edge of civil war, as many of the inhabitants wish for freedom. Upon arriving at the fort the player is able to chose the gender and race of their character, able to select between ten races. From here you’ll probably spend the first half hour or so of the game customising your character to your liking (even though you’ll probably never take the game out of first person view and won’t ever see their face again).

From here you’re walked to the executioner’s block where you’re about to be killed. Pretty short game really. Except, seconds before the axe is brought down to cut off your head a huge dragon lands in the middle of the settlement and all hell breaks loose. Skyrim certainly doesn’t mess around for starting things with a bang. From here you have to work your way through the fort as the dragon tears it down around you, dodging blasts of fire and frightened people as you escape to freedom. And from here the game is pretty much yours to do with as you wish. There is a main story to pursue, one that sees you investigating the return of the dragons and discovering your own special powers connected to them, resulting in you becoming a Dragonborn, but this is very much optional.

As with other games in the series, Skyrim allows you to go pretty much anywhere and do pretty much anything you want. You can follow the main quest, or you can join a magic school. You can become an assassin and try to kill the Emperor, or you can help restore the thieves’ guild to former glory. You can hunt down the emerging vampire threat, or join their ranks yourself. Or you can ignore every faction and every quest and just wander around collecting flowers and catching butterflies. The amount of freedom you get is exceptional. I’ve played this game for literally thousands of hours over the past decade, and I’m still finding new things every time.

Skyrim received huge critical acclaim on release, quickly generating perfect or near perfect scores and reviews from multiple publications. The game was praised for its visual improvements over the last entry in the series, as well as game play improvements to things such as the user interface and the removal of the class system for a more customisable approach to character progression and skills. It also sold extremely well, with 3.4 million physical copies of the game sold in just the first two days of release. Sales of the game remained strong, making it one of the highest selling games of all time, and was reported to have sold over 30 million copies by 2016.

Whilst there has been no Elder Scrolls game since Skyrim (a sixth entry in the series has been in development for a number of years), Skyrim itself has been re-released across a number of platforms, as well as having received a remastered edition due to be released on the 10th anniversary. However long it takes for the next game in the series to come out one thing is sure, Skyrim will be there to keep players entertained until it arrives.

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Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty – Throwback 20

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Despite having been a thing since 1987, with the release of Metal Gear on the MSX Home Computer, whenever you say the words Metal Gear most people will think of Metal Gear Solid, or one of its subsequent games.

And that’s fair; the first three games in the franchise are pretty dated, and haven’t really been given much attention outside of brief references in a few games within the rest of the series. Metal Gear Solid, however, was a game that made a huge impact upon the gaming world upon its release on the Playstation in 1998. Thanks to its unique stealth game-play, its focus on character and story, and some frankly ridiculous moments, it became a stand-out hit, and a sequel was pretty much guaranteed.

That sequel was Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, released three years later on the Playstation 2. As soon as the game was announced there was hype around it. People couldn’t wait to get back to this whacky story and play as Solid Snake, and whilst they certainly got that there were a few caveats attached.

In the build up to the release, trailers and screenshots of the game showed Solid Snake as the main protagonist, infiltrating a tanker ship, battling soldiers, fighting a Harrier jet on the George Washington Bridge, and even going up against a new cyborg ninja. It looked exciting, and the graphical upgrades certainly sold this a beautiful new, cinematic experience. And when the game came out that was certainly what people got. For the first few hours at least.

You see, Hideo Kojima wanted to do something a little different with this game. He wanted to show Solid Snake to be an even better soldier, to be an astonishing hero worthy of awe, and thought the best way of doing that would to have the player take on the role of another character, watching as they try to keep up with the ultimate hero that is Snake. As such, shortly into the game, following a prologue section set on board a tanker ship, the player switches over from Solid Snake and takes on the role of a new hero, Raiden.

Fans were, at the time, less than pleased with this, and whilst this didn’t really alter the game-play in any great way it did leave people feeling like they were controlling a character that just wasn’t as good. And that’s a fair assessment. Raiden is new, he’s untested out in the real world battlefields, having trained in virtual reality, and is something of a fish-out-of-water as he tries to keep up with the weird villains and the complex plot. Raiden was so disliked by fans of the series that he was used for a brief joke in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, before being given a huge makeover and made into a pretty awesome character in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

But back to Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the story is complex to say the least, but I’ll do my best to summarise. The game begins a few years after the first game, with Solid Snake and Otacon having made it their mission to stop the development of new Metal Gears. As such, Snake infiltrates a tanker ship being used by the US military to transport Metal Gear RAY, their new battle tank. When the tanker is seized by a group of Russian mercenaries being led by Revolver Ocelot, Snake has to fight his way through to the Metal Gear. Unfortunately, Ocelot steals the machine, sinking the tanker and all on board, including Snake.

Two years later players are put in control of Raiden, a member of the FOXHOUND group. He gets sent to Big Shell, an off-shore cleanup facility created to manage the oil spill from the tanker incident. Big Shell has been taken over by the terrorist group the Sons of Liberty, who have taken the visiting US President hostage. During his mission to save the President, Raiden must fight his way through the strange powered members of the group as well as their soldiers, meet a mysterious ally who looks a lot like Solid Snake, and uncovers a global conspiracy of massive proportions.

The game-play managed to retain a lot of what made the previous entry in the series great, with its heavy focus and reliance of stealth. There were a number of upgrades made to this system, including a first-person mode that allowed the player to ‘hold-up’ enemies to get them to surrender supplies and collectable dog-tags. As with the last game, a focus was given to the boss fights, with these moments given particular focus and flair, including a fight where you have to disarm bombs whilst battling a man on roller blades, and a vampire-like boss who can run across water and up walls.

Upon release the game received huge praise, despite the surprise protagonist switch. The game was praised for the innovations to the game-play, as well for its plot that explored complex social and political themes. It has since been labelled “the first postmodern video game“. Sales were also good, with 500,000 copies sold in the first two days of release, and 680,000 by the end of the first week. Thanks to this success the game was later released on the Xbox as Metal Gear Solid 2: Subsistance, an updated version of the game that included 500 stand-alone VR missions, as well as small tweaks to the main game.

Over the years Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has landed on many top games of all times lists, and has received an HD re-release as part of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection ten years after it was first released, alongside Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. However you felt about the game when it first came out, if you were happy or dissapointed with the introduction of Raiden, the game has more than earned the critical acclaim it has received.

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Doctor Who: Village of the Angels - TV Review

 

Now that might just be one of the best cliffhanger endings that Doctor Who has ever had. With a series where each episode is ending on a cliffhanger, especially ones that seem to be resolved relatively quickly and easily the next episode, I was beginning to worry that they'd start to become stale; but this episode seems to have really pulled out all the stops to deliver a dramatic conclusion that feels like something that's going to be hard to get a positive resolution from. But before we get to the end, the rest of the episode.

Picking up where the previous week's episode left off, a Weeping Angel has the Tardis within their control. As the Doctor and her companions cower in the corner, trying to keep the Angel within sight, it flips switches, uses the controls, and sends the Tardis through space and time to an unknown destination. Whilst the Doctor is able to get the Angel out of the ship they end up unable to use the Tardis for a while, so head out to explore exactly where the Angel brought them.

The where is a small English village in Devon, the when happens to be November 21st 1967. Upon exiting the Tardis the trio come across a couple looking for their missing 10-year-old niece, Peggy. Whilst Yaz and Dan help search for the missing girl the Doctor decides to investigate the strange readings she's detecting from one of the houses. You'd think by now they'd learn not to split the party.

As Dan and Yaz search through the local fields, searching for Peggy, they come across a Weeping Angel, cannily disguised as a scarecrow. This isn't the first time that we've seen the Angels make themselves look different, but their disguises usually end up being other types of statues; and whilst I suppose you could argue that a scarecrow is a very shoddily made statue, it's definitely a surprise to see them looking this way. We've hardly had time to deal with this, however, before the Angel is able to drain their torch and send the two of them back in time to 1901.

Searching through the same village, sixty years earlier, they're shocked to find Peggy there, who reveals to them that the Angels are in this time period too, and that they've made everyone else there vanish. Trying to find a way to escape the village, they learn that the whole place seems to have been removed from regular time, leaving no escape. Eventually they discover a portal back to 1967, though one that they're unable to pass through.

Meanwhile, the Doctor discovers the source of her strange readings is none-other than Claire, who we met briefly in the first episode of the season, who has been living in the 60's for the last couple of years. It turns out that she'd had psychic visions of the Doctor, the Angels, and the village, before she was sent back in time. She's been working with scientist Eustacious Jericho, played wonderfully by Kevin McNally, to try and learn more about her psychic abilities.

No sooner has the Doctor found Claire and Eustacious than the house comes under siege from dozens of Angels. The Doctor learns that there is an Angel inside Claire's mind, thanks to the psychic vision she had, and that the other Angels are trying to retrieve it. The Angel inside Claire reveals to the Doctor that it, and the others, work for Division, and that if the Doctor saves it they'll share with her the memories that she has lost. Thus begins a deadly mission to try and survive the Angels, one that leads to one of the most shocking moments in Doctor Who history.

Weeping Angels are some of the best creatures that Doctor Who has ever created. They're so simple in their concept that it feels shocking that it's never really been done before, and it's lead to some incredibly creative episodes featuring them. This isn't the first episode to have Angels in them since the Matt Smith era, but it is the first time that they've been the main threat of an episode since 'The Angels Take Manhattan', meaning that we've had nearly a decade without them as the big baddies. As such, there was going to be a lot riding on this episode.

Luckily, Chris Chibnall and Maxine Alderton, who wrote the episode, kept to the established rules of the Angels (for the most part at least). With each new episode featuring them the writers have brought in new rules for them, given them new powers to make them more dangerous, and had them try new tricks. This episode doesn't really do that, but does put new twists on these ideas. The Angels have disguised themselves as statues in the past, they look like scarecrows here. The Angels have gotten into people's minds in the past, one hides inside Claire here. An angel came out of a screen in the past, they come out of a screen and a drawing here. The episode adds new dimensions to the established lore without adding more rules or making them even more powerful; plus it does so in interesting ways such as the drawing Angel crumpling as the Doctor balls up the paper.

The biggest additions to the Angels, however, comes in two places. The first is the revelation that the Angels here work for the Division. Now, it's not made clear if that's all of the Weeping Angels, or just this particular grouping of them, so it's not revealing everything about them. It does certainly add more credible weight to the fan theories that the Angels have a connection to the Time Lords, however. The second new addition to their abilities comes with what they do at the end, skip to the next paragraph if you don't want a spoiler. The Angels summon the Doctor back to the Division, turning her into a Weeping Angel. There is a lot to unpack with this, and it's not clear what everything means as we don't know if this is how all the Angels were created, if this is something they themselves did to the Doctor, or if they simply activated some kind of fail-safe the Division put inside her. Hopefully these are answers we will get in the next few episodes, but so far there's still a lot of mystery around the whole thing.

Another highlight of the episode has been the guest cast. We get to see more of Annabel Scholey as Claire here, after her brief appearance in the first episode, and she plays the role really well as someone being pursued by the Angels. You get a sense that this has been something that she's been living with for a long while, that the Angels have been messing with her and interfering in her life. This episode revealed how she knew about the Doctor and the Angels in the first episode, and seems to have proven wrong a lot of fan theories online. I saw a number of people putting forward theories ranging from 'she sends herself a message from the past' to 'she's a version of the Doctor', and theories only got wilder when images of this episode were released and some folks convinced themselves she was either a Time Lord or Clara when she was holding her arm in a photo (they assumed she had just taken her own pulse and had either felt two heart betas, or none). The choice to simply be that the rogue Angel was sending her visions was perfect in its simplicity, and highlighted how complex and odd a lot of the fan theories get in the Doctor Who community.

The best of the guest actors has to be Kevin McNally as Professor Jericho though. he began the episode as an academic trying to research into the existence of psychic phenomena, balking at the idea of the Weeping Angels, to defiantly shouting them down as they assaulted his home. There were scenes in which he played the role with a quiet kindness, and others where you believed he was capable of standing up against these creatures without an ounce of fear. There have been some amazing guest actors in the Weeping Angels episodes, but McNally might be the best so far.

'Village of the Angels' was a definite stand out in a series that's shaping up to be some of the best stuff since the Chibnall era began. This is also the second time that writer Maxine Alderton has taken an existing Doctor Who monster and made them feel fresh and interesting, crafting a wonderfully creepy and dark episode. I don't know where the story is going to go from here, but it's definitely got a lot to try and deal with now thanks to the revelations this episode, and that amazing final scene.

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Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction by Xueting Christine Ni – Book Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Science fiction is a genre that has been used to explore the possible futures of humanity, normally using the fears and culture of the time and place it was written to do so. From what is widely considered to be the first science fiction story, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which explored the fears around advancing medical technology and teachings, to something like 1984, which examined the dangers of authoritarian regimes in response of fascism in the 1940s, and All The Birds in the Sky, which focuses on epidemics, climate change, and mass starvation.

However, as much as science fiction has been used to explore themes relevant to our times, it has often done so through the lens of western creators and western cultures. Xueting Christine Ni, who compiled the stories collected together in Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction talks about this in the book’s introduction, and how looking at the literature of a country can give an insight into the everyday concerns and considerations of a people. But she also notes that when exploring books shops in China she noted a lack of genre fiction, and the fact that science fiction is more often than not filed away alongside science text books.

At first this might seem like someone’s making something of a mistake in their stocking of books, or that science fiction itself might not be recognised as works of fiction and given the respect it deserves. But it’s very quickly clear through the kinds of stories being told in this book, as well as the people telling them, that science fiction isn’t necessarily seen simply as fiction. Chinese science fiction seems to take a very different approach to the genre, and it’s a shame that it’s not more widely circulated around the rest of the world. Luckily, this is is something being rectified by Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction.

All of the stories collected for this book, all from the late 20th Century and onward, have been specifically picked out by Xueting Christine Ni not just because they’re decent stories, but because that all have something uniquely and intrinsically Chinese about them; something that you don’t normally find in western science fiction. The stories focus on themes such as identity, history, culture, and legacy in ways that normally get overlooked in this genre, and as such, for someone who doesn’t get to read much Chinese fiction, it all felt so different and new.

There are a lot of stories in this collection, and I simply don’t have the space to cover all of them, but there are some that immediately stand out to me when I think back to reading this book, that speak well to why this is such as good read. ‘Flowers of the Other Shore’ by A Que comes about midway through the book, and is one of the longest stories in this collection. It also stands out from the others on offer here because its a story about the zombie apocalypse. But rather than being focused on the horror side of things, or following human protagonists, the story is told from the point of view of a zombie, someone who has becomes infected and lost themselves, only to reacquire their memories and fight against their urge to hurt people.

‘The Last Save’ by Gu Shi looks at a future where people are able to record moments in time, to save a specific event that they might want to go back to one day. These people have the ability to give up on the timeline they’re currently living through and return to their saved point, allowing them to make other choices and live life another way. The problem with this is that it doesn’t erase the time you’re living in now, simply removes you from it as you essentially create a new reality based upon your saved state. The story raises questions about choice, about the consequences of your actions, as well as the fear of suddenly losing someone forever as they abandon you to try and make a new life.

Zhao Haihong’s ‘Rendevous: 1937’ is one of the darker stories in the book, focusing on a cat-and-mouse chase through time as one person travels back in time to the Nanjing Massacre in 1937, whilst another travels back to stop her. This is easily one of the most hard hitting and impactful stories in the collection, as it sheds some light on the events that happened in Nanjing, and the thousands who lost their lives in the atrocities there. The story challenges the idea of thinking you’d be strong enough and brave enough to stand up for yourself and others when faced with something so repugnant, yet that when faced with that reality even the hardiest of people can become overwhelmed by the sheer scale of human evil.

‘Qiankun and Alex’ by Hao Jingfang is a complete opposite in tone, and explores a future where an AI is tasked with learning from a young boy as he acts as guardian, carer, and teacher for the child whilst his parents are away all the time. The story looks at the changing usage of AIs, and how they’re evolving and changing in their integration into society, as well as how much technology and people can learn and grow from each other.

There are a lot of stories on offer in Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction, and they range is scope and style; some are light and fun, whilst others are darker, but all of them bring something new an interesting to readers, especially those who don’t often get to read Chinese fiction.

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