Epoch (2001) – When a bizarre monolith that’s apparently been buried in the earth for four billions years decides to resurface in Bhutan and heal everyone in the surrounding vicinity, the US government (by invitation) sends a team to examine it, consisting of a bunch of army grunts, the requisite Pretty Lady Scientist, and a crotchety retired whiz kid forcibly unretired for the mission because they couldn’t think of ANYONE ELSE to send.
The plot is 2001: A Space Odyssey Lite, which means it’s probably above the median for SciFi Channel Original movies, and it was obviously written with an intent to make an interesting, engaging SF movie. But it’s hampered from the git-go by two big problems:
- The CGI is embarrassingly bad, even on shots that could have been done with stock footage, like a military transport in the air.
- You just can’t shoot your exteriors at Vasquez Rocks and expect anyone to take it seriously.
On the other hand — jeez, what a B-movie fan’s dream cast! David Keith, Brian Thompson, James Avery, James Hong… we even get William Zabka giving a few lines into a mic, and Marc McClure with a single line. Paychecks all around!
Parasyte: Part 1 (2014) – No, this isn’t the Korean film that won all those awards last month. This is a Japanese feature based on an anime (which I didn’t know when I watched it). Mysterious parasite creepy-crawlies are invading people’s brains through their ears, and turning their heads into people-eating, shape-shifting aliens. But one teenage boy, Shinichi, manages to keep the parasite out of his head — it instead burrows into and merges with his hand, so the two of them have to set up an uneasy truce to keep each other alive. And in the meantime, the other parasite-replaced people go from bloodthirsty to more insidious, keeping themselves hidden as they take over the planet.
The CG is terrific, there’s real pathos, and the comic relief bits are neither incongruent nor unwelcome (and humor is the hardest thing to translate well from culture to culture). Bravo.
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) – For ugly Americans like me who only have the shakiest grip on Chinese history, here’s all you really need to know about the era in which this story takes place:
Manchu = BAD
Shaolin = GOOD
Young man San-Te (Gordon Liu) is a student at a school where the teacher is part of an underground rebellion against the Manchu rulers. When an ill-placed word in public from San-Te alerts the Manchus that there are rebellious thoughts around, pretty much everyone San-Te knows is killed, and he escapes alone to the Shaolin temple to learn kung fu.
And that leads to the entire central part of the movie: SO MUCH TRAINING. You could seriously craft a regimen for learning basics like balance, alertness, etc. from what you see here. (There’s not much actual teaching of fighting techniques shown here, but if you want to see young initiates falling off logs into water-filled pits, this is the movie for you. Shaolin masters love them some slapstick.)
The “chambers” of the title are thirty-five literal chambers in the temple, in each of which is taught a successive technique. In only five years (!), San-Te graduates through all thirty-five, at which point he supplicates to establish a thirty-sixth one, which is to take the Shaolin martial teachings outside the temple to the common people. He’s dismissed from the temple for making the suggestion, which is pretty much what he wanted anyway; he then goes home, kills a lot of people that needed killing, and starts teaching kung fu. The end.
Look, what were you expecting?
Abandoned movies: Octopus, Vipers, I Was a Teenage Wereskunk.