Japanese Laser Discs 3

And here rounds out this weeks trilogy of Japanese LD sleeves!  The big brain one is for the cool (and unseen by me for at least 15 years...I should dig it out) Death Warmed Up.  If anyone has scans of the gatefold for Gates of Hell (with the film frame!) please pass it along-sniff, I don't feel complete without it.  I hope you have all enjoyed looking at these as much as I have.
Tomorrow we finish a week of LD Mania with one more post.
Ah...look at the mad doc Freudstein, what a jacket!!!  They just don't make 'em like any more!

Japanese Laser Disc Fun 2

More Japanese LDs!  The Argento ones bring back many many fond memories-these were the source of most boots for a long time and were certainly treasured prizes!  I've never owned a Violent Breed disc, but I would really like to.  Good times...good times.  And speaking of Sight and Sound, if you want to see me blush (or at least imagine it)-you can go HERE and check through the old ilovelaser.com site. My 1999-2002 "blog" page was part news, part goofy humor and a whole lot of fun (for me probably more than anyone else!)--plus, without it I never would have met my wife!  "All the news that's fit to upload" indeed!

Japanese Laser Disc Fun

I worked for Sight and Sound (and Laser Exchange and Playback Trading), so I certainly spent a lot of time with Laserdisc.  I love the jackets and here are a few interesting ones from Japan to keep you smiling today!  Some of these discs would go for HUGE money in the late 90s-some still may!

Heatseeker-Cyborg Kickboxing Overdrive

Heatseeker is my favorite cyborg kickboxing tournament film.  Now, that may not be a huge genre, but it should be! Could there be anything better than a bunch of fight scenes, well staged ones at that, which end with head stompings that reveal smooshed up cyberfaces?  Nope? Heatseeker gives you exactly what you want if you are watching it, and as a piece of the Pyuniverse it delivers in spades!

Keith Cooke stars as Chance O'Brien, kickboxing champion.  When we first meet him he is delivering a beat down to Xao, played by the always welcome Gary Daniels-the only guy that could play a Wing Chun practicing CyberFighter that wears white hi-top sneakers!  With his gal pal / trainer Jo (the beautiful Pyun regular Tina Cote) looking on, Chance is on top of the world of ass kickers.  Too bad for him the Sianon Corporation wants to make an example of him in their big Cyborg Enhanced Kickboxing Challenge Of The Century For All The Money In The CyberEnhancedCyborgKickBoxer Market DeathMatch Battle.  The creepy Tsui Tung, played with massive screen devouring presence by Norbert Weisser, puts his life on the line with the even creepier board of directors of his MegaCorp-and that includes a red haired and long fingernailed Tim Thomerson as Fu Man Pyun!  Tung captures Jo, implants her with a chip that makes her passive enough for him to use the Tung Tongue on her-and forces her to work with Xao to not only train him, but show him LOVE!!!

Chance fights, tournament battles of varying awesomeness occur, and Xao rips through his competition as Chance seeks to find his way back to Jo and out of the cyberfisticuffs alive.  Lucky for him, the always cool Thom Matthews is around as a CyberCEO / Fighter working for the bad guys who helps him along.  A fight is about to happen, and we know what it is...who will survive, what percentage will be left of them, and could we get one additional nude scene with Jo?  Well, I'm hopeful...

Heatseeker is a fun film in a little sub genre of martial arts that benefits from some really strong fight choreography by Burton Richardson-so if you want low budget ass kicking with a little cybertwist than you should already be satisfied by this film. But for Pyuniversal Soldiers this film is total paydirt!  Every bit as eccentric as an Albert Pyun film should be, it takes that familiar tourney trope and twists it all over the place by adding odd detail upon weird visual in every scene.  Heatseeker isn't looking to revolutionize science fiction fight flicks, but I doubt you'll see another one like it.

First off, we have the Pyun Players in full effect.  Keith Cooke, who I always associate with China O'Brien (for better or worse) is really game to be earnest at times and then run around naked through the Phillipines at others.  This scene is hysterical as it takes the serious "Will I be able to save my lady love" moment of Dudley Do-Rightism and slings a real bit of what in the Sam Hill are the people on the streets thinking as they cower from the cameras and the naked white guy surrealism. Also, Cooke may not be a master thespian, but he does great cinematic kung fu kicks and facial expressions.  I'm ready for Heatseeker 2 Mr. Pyun...today. Kathy Long and Keith Cooke would make a great pair of Mutated MMA Fighters...but I digress.  Thom Matthews is funny and does all his fight scenes proud-but it isn't his acting or fighting I'll remember, it is his clothes. The guy looks like a giant Kung Fu Christmas Tree in weird suits and strange hypnofashions that you can laugh at, but not in front of Big Brandon!  He'd kick your head to a mess of circuits and pseudoflesh!  I love Tina Cote's look in this film, she has a great face and can rock the short and spiked up hair cut with great aplomb-and manages to keep a mostly straight face as she acts frozen and gets munched like 25 pages of script in one reading by Norbert Weisser.

And speaking of the man...Norbert Weisser may have his best scene of all Pyuntime here as he explains that his cyborg friend just needs LOOOOOVE!!!  I'm going to try and get that clip for preservation on the Pyuniverse.  I can't stress it enough-Weisser is great and he puts everything out there in this film.  Watch as he rubs Thom Matthews leg a little bit closer to the epicenter of his chi than was probably in the script...I don't know how anyone works across from him when he is in the zone.  Truly awesome. Norbert Weisser...you are the maximum Pyunamatic Performer!

And what the hell...you have to see Tim Thomerson all CyberGothPulpCrazy...yikes.

And that brings us to Gary Daniels. He can go either way for me...he does great screen kung fu, but many of his non-HK films don't really use him very well. Not so here, his fights as Xao are excellent, if not a bit brief because he is putting over how powerful the character is.  Maybe less personality and more fist flinging suits him. He was the same way in Fist of the North Star and that turned out great. 

Pyun pulls out the stops, using the weird lighting effects and letting the fight scenes work for themselves without a ton of additional editing.  The man knows Cyborg Kickboxing, sit back and let him drive...  Joined by the boopdadeeboopchakkachakkaPYUNPUMPINchakaboom score by Tony Riparetti-the two are an audio visual Cerebrus (the third head is George Mooradian) and Heatseeker delivers what was expected and as happens in the best corners of the Pyuniverse, much much more for those wearing the proper tuning gear in their teeth!

Love it.

Rondo Awards-The Final Call

The last day for the Rondo Awards voting is upon us. There are so many good things to celebrate this year I hope each of you takes the time to vote and show some of the people working hard to entertain and inform a little love!  A few of my friends are up for awards this year, but I think everyone should just go and slip in those last votes for the ones they enjoyed the most. 

Now then, this weeks LINA ROMAY CASUAL (un)DRESS FRIDAY was missing in action...your humble blogger was busy being Easter Bunny like and running around with a neighborhood full of kids doing egg hiding and seeking and all that good stuff-so, no time for perusing the Cinema of La Lina yesterday.  It may be back...or it may be time for a month of another scintillating bit of salacious screengrabbing and scanning! 

Also, I'm participating in this years SCRIPT FRENZY and that may slow things down a bit, though I'm making good progress so far!  As a hint, THIS is finally getting written. Finding someone to illustrate it is another matter...but it is the exercise and motivation of doing it that is the entire reason to show up for online events like this. 

March Viewing List

And somehow I managed to play a few games along the way...some really good entertainment this month, which also saw the launch of THE PYUNIVERSE!

Tiger Gang (Kommissar X 7) - 8 (sniff, the final film...I liked it!)

Ninja - 8 (Florentine strips away story and brings us an 82 minute fight fest that embraces the American Ninja fan in it's shuriken-y sharpness)

Giant of the Evil Island -7 (EuroPirates!!  Good fun, no monster.)

Hunter of the Unknown-8 (kick ass Eurospy from Sergio Sollima)

Transmorphers-Fall of Man-3 (Abysmal film from The Asylum, though it had some fun robot stuff that made Power Rangers look like Avatar)

Five Element Ninja - 10 (If you need to ask, go watch it)

Second Skin -6 (MMO player documentary...nuff said.)

The Base -5 (Mark Dacascos has done better)

Bulletface-8  Commentary-9  (review)

Left For Dead: Inferno 8  (review)

Nemesis 2-7  (I was sick one weekend...
Nemesis 3-5  (so this was trippy...
Nemesis 4-5  (and Sue Price cyberfucking Norbert Weisser to death was just what I needed)

Price of Power-7
13th Is A Judas-7

(These two westerns I did not post about. Price of Power is more a thriller than Spaghetti western on rewatch, really good but not action packed.  13th is a Judas is totally worth watching also, it has a lot of twists and turns and a great performance from Donald O'Brien.)

Knights-9 (Post Nuke mayhem with CyberVampires and Lance Henrikson and a giant bloodsucking RoboArm)

Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold-7 (Cleo Kung Fu!)

Price of Death -7

They Call Him Graveyard-6  (A little more comedy than I prefer, but very entertaining.)

Kickboxer 2:The Road Back-7
Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor-6

Bora Bora-5 (Italian only, no subs-not anything like Survivors of the Bounty, but what is. Best scene has the "native curious" hottie having her husband spy on her while she gets it on with a local man. When the guy sees the husband he gets up and adopts this weird wrestling pose, chokes and punches the guy around, gets in his canoe and paddles away. Island Cool defined.)

Corrupt-3
Wrecking Crew-5
Urban Menace-5
(Urban Trilogy time...thoughts here)

American Cyborg-Steel Warrior-7 (Surprising post nuker with fight choreography by Isaac Florentine)

Farewell, Terminator (30 minute Florentine debut...Hebrew Language post-apoc-a-fight-o-rama)

TC 2000-7 (Nobody told me this Billy Blanks film was AWESOME!)

Kung Fu Zombie-10
Kung Fu Wonder Child-10
(You need a few hours completely divorced from reality? These are so bizarre they are out of movie reality!)

Heatseeker-7 (Keith Cooke runs through Manila in the nude and then battles cyborg kickboxers in groovy fashion)