War (2019) – Bollywood does Mission: Impossible! A young covert operative is tasked to track down his trainer (Hrithik Roshan, beloved around my house for Koi Mil Gaya) as the latter goes rogue and starts killing high-level government functionaries with no pattern… or is there?
Roshan looks like the toughest damned 45-year-old in the world (check out those guns!), there are naturally a couple of musical dance numbers (because you can’t have a movie with Hrithik Roshan without letting him cut loose), plus there are globe-trotting chases (shot in seven countries), big explosions, tons and tons of fistfights and firefights, huge long flashbacks, an obligatory romance, snazzy cars driven snazzily, disguises and mistaken identities… It’s easy to tell that this was a frickin’ expensive movie, and all of it is right there on the screen, either exploding or glistening with sweat.
Seven Warriors (1989) – It’s a version of Shichinin no Samurai/The Magnificent Seven set in 1920s China. And really, that’s all you need to know; it apes its antecedents, especially The Magnificent Seven, very closely in some regards, including the treasure-hunting Eli Wallach character, the knife-throwing James Coburn character, and the not-as-good-as-he-wants-people-to-think-he-is-young-tough-who-stays-behind-with-a-local-girl Horst Buchholz. Not bad for what it is, but it’ll definitely make you want to watch the excellent antecedents instead.
(Co-directed by Sammo Hung, which is why Sammo Hung appears and then gets killed before the opening credits.)
Devil Girl From Mars (1954) – A prim dominatrix from Mars sets down in Scotland, in the middle of a soap opera story already in progress. She proceeds to talk. A lot. And walk back and forth to her ship. A lot. And did I mention she talks? A lot. “Monologuing,” mostly. Based on a stage play, don’t you know (though I can’t imagine the venue in which it would have played).