B.o.Y.: The Women of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Part XX – Erica Gavin, Pt. II (1973-2020)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Knight of Shadows: Between Yin and Yang (China, 2019)

Here's a pleasant little film — okay, going by its obvious budget, perhaps not all that little — that agitates a little bit outside the norm of Jackie Chan's contemporary oeuvre, an oeuvre that (going by the trailers that have crossed our way) has long wallowed above all else in action.

Not that The Knight of Shadows: Between Yin and Yang lacks action, for there is a lot, but whereas so many of Chan's recent past films have guns and explosions and car chases alongside his signatory stunts and hand-to-hand combat scenes, The Knight of Shadows is a full-blown costume fantasy comedy that owes more to the non-Chan A Chinese Ghost Story (1987 / trailer)* than, say, Rumble in the Bronx (1995 / trailer) or Under Control (1999 / German trailer). 

* A movie likewise based on the same source as this movie, and to which this movie makes diverse visual references and, likewise, shares some characters (or at least their names).

Trailer to

The Knight of Shadows:

The second directorial effort of Vash (or Jia Yan), this fun and over-the-top costume fantasy film is a far cry from his feature film directorial debut, total Chinese genre rarity Bugs / Shi ren chong (2014 / trailer). "Rarity" in that Bugs is a 3-D sci-fi horror trash comedy which, despite coming from mainland China and having an entirely Asian cast — but for its mad scientist — feels and plays like a cheap slice of American SyFy-channel cheese. Nothing about The Knight of Shadows, however, feels cheap or trashy or American; for that, it is both far too reminiscent of wuxia fantasy and far too lavish, even if the excessive amount of CGI does occasionally verge on almost making the movie look like an animation movie.

The Knight of Shadows opens with a voiceover explaining how Chan's character has been making the world safe for humanity by capturing bad demons and banishing them inside his magic book. The film promptly segues into a prolonged CGI scene of him, with the assistance of some good demons, chasing a demon fish through rough waters. Upon his victory, it is revealed that the voiceover is actually Chan's character, Pu Songling, reading his latest "story" to a group of children in the hope of milking them for some cash.

While it is doubtful that there is much basis of reality in Jackie Chan's characterization of Pu Songling, the storyteller himself was indeed a real person, once upon a time. Much like the Brothers Grimm of Germany collected the folklore of their day — including virtually every classic fairytale that was eventually made into a classic Disney feature animation film — slightly less than a century earlier in China, the Chinese tutor and author Pu Songling (5 June 1640 – 25 February 1715) did something similar, his collection eventually being published as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Some of the tales in that collection are loosely worked into the narrative of The Knight of Shadows, but it is doubtful that that the real Pu Songling was ever the magical demon hunter that is found in this entertaining, family-suitable movie.

The Knight of Shadows has two main storylines that intersect to create the narrative. The first is that of the hapless, low-level village policeman Yan Fei (Austin Lin of Marry My Dead Body [2022 / trailer]) who, upon discovering that Pu Songling (Chan) is a demon hunter, tries to convince the unwilling Pu to take him on as his student. But within their town, two beautiful demonesses are at work, one of whom, Nie Xiaoqian (Elane Zhong Vhuxi), was once human; out of love, she traded her shadow for the soul of the demon Ning Caichen (Ethan Juan of The Liquidator [2017 / trailer] and The Guillotines [2012 / trailer]). Corrupted and evil, she and the now-human Ning are in constant battle, despite their unquenchable love. As one might imagine, especially when Nie begins kidnapping and stealing the souls of the local beauties, Pu and Yan are soon after her, with Ning is an unwilling ally of sorts...

That Pu Songling's weapon of choice is a magic brush doesn't prevent the movie from having some pretty nifty action scenes, not all of which include Chan, who has probably has reached the point in his career where he is happy to occasionally let others get kicked around. The most typically Jackie Chan fight is undoubtedly that in which he faces off against possessed officers in a theatre, but the best one of the whole film is probably the wonderfully phantastic battle in a mirror shop in which Pu, his upper body separated from his lower body, does battle with a beautiful mirror demoness (Lin Peng of the Chinese Ghost Story remake [2011 / trailer]).

While often light-hearted, The Knight of Shadows has its share of heartbreak and tragedy thanks, above all, to the doomed love between Nie and Ning. This love story — the background of which is explained in a visually enchanting style of a painting come to life — is appropriately tragic, and comes to its logical and tragic conclusion during the movie's big, spectacular CGI-overdose showdown in a magical realm one-step away from nonexistence. Still, the segment almost seems tacked on as an afterthought as the film could have easily concluded, perhaps somewhat anti-climactically, at an earlier point. While visually impressive, the final segment's excess of CGI — much like the overly child-friendly and fake looking "good demons" throughout the movie — almost undermines the detailed and well-rounded environment featured in the movie up until that point. Sometimes, whether special effects or MAGA Republicans, too much is simply too much.

That said, The Knight of Shadows is definitely worth a gander and unjustly unknown (well, at least in the lands of "milk-drinkers"). The child in you might enjoy it as much as the brat in the room with you.

Slipstream (UK, 1989)

(Mild spoilers ahead.) Not to be confused with Slipstream (1973 / a Canadian talks), Slipstream (2005) or Slipstream (2007 / trailer).

One must admit, this movie incorporates some pretty impressive landscape. A big budget, internationally filmed science fiction production produced by Gary Kurtz (27 Jul 1940 – 23 Sept 2018), the man who helped George Lucas birth the Star Wars franchise, Slipstream promptly slipped off the radar when it was released: a flop in Australia and the UK, it never even reached the cinemas in the US of Animosity, where it was only released on home media, and was a driving force behind Kurtz's subsequent bankruptcy. The last is perhaps the reason why the film has since slipped into the public domain, and can be found easily online and as old, one-dollar DVDs at thrift stores. (Our Slipstream came as a one-dollar double feature with the trashier and funnier anti-classic Creature [1985].)

Trailer to

Slipstream:

The to-date last directorial effort of Steven Lisberger, whose best film (in accordance to a wasted life's low brow tastes) is probably the animated comedy Animalympics (1980 / trailer), his choice as director perhaps had to do with the most famous film that he directed: Disney's "classic", Tron (1989 / trailer). His directorial style, if one goes so far as to say he has one, is unobtrusiveness, and as such he does a competent job that is easy on the eye and has no notable or excessive flourishes — other than, perhaps, soaring shots of scenery, as befits a movie in which much flying occurs — but never sinks to the visual staleness of, say, most TV movies of the time. Thus, the film does move along at a pleasant pace and never truly drags — although, in all truth, were the landscapes not sometimes so gobsmack amazing and fitting for the somewhat contrived tale, some of the flight scenes would definitely overstay their welcome.

A western road-trip buddy flick in science-fiction clothing, Slipstream trades horses or cars for airplanes while keeping the basic concept of two mismatched individuals growing closer and growing personally as they travel on down the highway (or gallop across the plains) with someone in hot pursuit. But instead of down highways or across plains, in the semi-dystopian future of Slipstream — a time after the "Harmonic Convergence" caused by catastrophic climate change, where civilization and the world as we know has been obliterated* — their road journey is mostly by flying machines and down a massive wind current, the titular "Slipstream", that now blows across the world, a world in which humanity survives as best as it can in scattered settlements.

* It surely happened during the MAGA dictatorship that lies ahead currently.

Although we never see a larger town or small city in the film, there must at least one somewhere, for as the film opens we see what looks like a businessman, who inadvertently later attains the name of Byron (Bob Peck [23 Aug 1945 – 4 Apr 1999]) while on the run through a barren but visually impressive landscape, and as we all know business needs larger conglomerates of people to exploit in order to do business. In the airplane pursuing him: Will Tasker (Mark Hamill of Corvette Summer [1978 / trailer, with Dick Miler], Jess Franco's Night of the Eagles [1989 / trailer], Black Magic Woman [1991 / trailer], Sleepwalkers [1992], Time Runner [1993 / trailer], Village of the Damned [1995], and Laserhawk [1997 / trailer]) and Belitski (Kitty Aldridge), a duo that are either bounty hunters or representatives of the law as it exists in that world — the movie is never really clear on which. They eventually catch Byron, shooting a grappling hook through his arm and pulling him off a cliff at height that would kill you or me, but despite his crashing fall he survives unscathed and quoting what appears to be poetry but is in fact a famous tombstone inscription: "I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, put out my hand and touched the Face of God." And thus we gain an inkling of what is soon stated: the pleasant, passive and acquiescent Byron is not human. He is an android, and he is wanted for murder.

God is mentioned often in Slipstream because not only has much of the world turned to blind worship, as is common when times are hard (or Republicans are in charge), but the basic idea of what it is that makes humans human is a subliminal theme of the movie. Can an android achieve "humanity"? The question is never fully answered, but definitely tends towards a specific answer.

The buddy Slipstream film kicks in soon afterwards, when Tasker & Belitski stop off at an airstrip for refueling and dinner. It is there that the paths cross with dunderhead Matt Owens (Bill Paxton [17 May 1955 – 25 Feb 2017] of Mortuary [1983 / trailer], Near Dark [1987 / trailer], A Simple Plan [1998 / trailer], Brain Dead [1990 / trailer], Predator 2 [1990 / trailer], The Dark Backward [1991 / trailer], and, of course, the music video to the song Fish Heads [video below]), a character that can best be described as Hans Doofus. (Paxton channels the fun-loving side of kick-ass Private Hudson from Aliens [1986 / trailer] with Hans Solo's wardrobe to create an annoyingly airheaded, kill-reluctant and fun-happy frat boy.) Upon learning of the big reward on Byron's head, Hans Doofus robs Tasker & Belitski of their bounty and, instead of hightailing for the city to turn his purloined bounty in, flies further down the slipstream to his home. For diverse reasons, and with the kill-happy duo Tasker & Belitski always close behind, Hans Doofus decides to travel with Byron further down the slipstream, deeper into areas unknown, always through barren but visually impressive landscapes and ancient ruins, towards an alleged refuge populated by androids — and no matter where they go, or what they do, they never seem to have to pay or barter for anything. (Amazing.)

Starring and directed by Bill Paxton —

the music video to Barnes & Barnes' Fish Heads:

As already mentioned, and as to be expected of a buddy movie, over the course of the film the dissimilar duo survive diverse near-death adventures and grow closer, and as individuals, even as Tasker & Belitski leave a body-strewn path behind themselves as they follow in close pursuit. Perhaps less genre-typical, if not extremely forced, however, is the romantic spark — based on a shared dream of a life with a white-picket fenced house — that ignites between Belitski and Hans Doofus.

Along the way, big interludes occur, including at a religious cave settlement headed by the religiously blind Avatar (Krishna Pandit Bhanji, otherwise known as Sir Ben Kingsley of Species [1995 / trailer], Sexy Beast [2000 / trailer], BloodRayne [2005 / trailer], The Last Legion [2007 / trailer], Stonehearst Asylum [2014 / trailer] and Robot Overlords [2014 / trailer]) and, later, the far more refined underground settlement in a former museum led by Cornelius (F. Murray Abraham of The Ritz [1976 / trailer], The Name of the Rose [1986 / trailer], Last Action Hero [1993 / trailer], Surviving the Game [1994 / trailer], Mimic [1997 / trailer], Thir13en Ghosts [2001 / trailer], Blood Monkey [2007 / trailer], and The Grand Budapest Hotel [2014 / trailer]).

In what are basically glorified cameos, Ben Kingsley plays hammy and F. Murray Abraham plays it down, but neither are on screen long enough to register as anything more than the name that they were hired to be. Neither can be blamed for what the film is: an interesting failure that looks all its huge budget. Likewise, no blame deserves to be cast upon either Mark Hamill or Bob Peck, who both manage to inhabit their roles completely and make them believable. As Belitski, Kitty Aldridge has a bit more difficulty making her character or her development convincing; she achieves greater verisimilitude as a kill-happy bounty hunter than as suddenly emotionally attached love interest. 

The thespian mistake of the movie, however, is without doubt the usually dependable Bill Paxton as Hans Doofus, whose fun-loving idiocy is annoying and motivations continually questionable — and as he is arguably the main identification figure of the Slipstream, he is a major blow to the movie.

But regardless of the quality of the acting, the true flaw of the movie is its story, by Bill Bauer, and its script, by TV scribe Tony Kayden, whose limited feature-film screenplay output includes such generic fair as Out of Bounds (1986 / trailer) and When Justice Fails (1999 / trailer). The narrative may touch upon numerous interesting ideas, but also resorts to too many generic and unconvincing plot developments, starting with Hans Doofus' out-of-the-blue decision to steal Byron and the ease and idiocy of his decision to travel down the slipstream instead of hightailing for the reward on Byron's head.

And if Belitski's slow rejection of Tasker's kill-for-the-lord happiness is subtly conveyed, the sudden development of romantic feelings between her and Doofus is clumsy and unconvincing, especially since it comes a few scenes after she just helped slaughter all of Doofus' male friends from his hometown of Hell's Kitchen. Byron's later romantic interlude is perhaps handled better — the whole playing-cats-in-the-museum love scene is nevertheless an embarrassment — but the focus of his attention, Ariel (Eleanor David of Topsy-Turvy [1999 / trailer] and The King's Whore [1990 / trailer]), is never anything more than an obvious deus ex machina for the character and plot development of others. 

As for the ending, it is thrilling enough and ends happily for most of those it should, but let's be honest: while it might conceivable that androids will one day be built without kill-switches, no business in any capitalist-based society — and despite the fact that no money ever changes anyone's hands throughout the movie, one must assume that at least the city whence Byron comes functions on some form of fascist capitalism — would ever build an android (a consumer product, like a washing machine or electric toothbrush) that is indestructible and lasts forever. Built-in obsolescence or contrived durability is a given. Ending fail. Like Bill Paxton's entire acting turn as Hans Doofus.

For all its obvious big budget, Slipstream never manages to become a big movie or artistic success. It is watchable and seldom truly boring, but the movie does demand that one check in one's brain a bit too much for a movie of Slipstream's intended caliber. It isn't surprising that Slipstream failed as it did; what is surprising is that anyone would, as producer Gary Kurtz did, gamble everything they have on its success.

Full film: