Avenue Kurtodrome

As Pompeii and Rome weren’t the only cities around over 2000 years ago, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that other countries thought: “Hey, we have history too, let’s make a movie about it.” Nevertheless, the peplum genre was mostly popular in Italy and Hollywood. Meanwhile the Germans thought  it necessary to make another movie adaptation of the Nibelungen - and who should blame them? It’s a good story after all.

If you have read my reviews of other Onar Films releases, you’ll know the Turkish people never thought twice about making homegrown adaptations of hit movies. And so they noticed the success of peplum movies, thought about their history and made movies like Kizil Tug Cengiz Han. In Kizil Tug Otsukarci, a slightly boorish but brave warrior, meets three famous warriors (amongst them Genghis Khan - in case you hadn’t figured that out from the title) and manages to put up quite a good fight. A fight that becomes mean business when a small army shows up and tries to kill Khan. Khan’s life is saved by Otsukarci and so Genghis Khan gives our hero a job. Otsukarci is asked to go to a king who still ows Khan some money. And so Otsukarci ends up in a castle where the king’s son is about to defend his honour - it’s just that he’s a bit of a wussy. No prizes for guessing what happens next.

That brings me neatly to my next point: some of the fights in Kizil Tug are nicely executed and highly paced, which means the movie doesn’t get a chance to bore you (even though some of the plot is a bit convoluted - wait, who was this again?).
This isn’t helped by the fact that Onar Films only found one remaining copy of this 1952 film and had to restore the movie from that one source, which wasn’t in the best shape by the way. From time to time you’ll see a roll and a scratch and even the audio is far from perfect: sometimes a word falls off the soundtrack (good things the subtitles work just fine) and a couple of times the sound track even seems eager to start a hiphop record (if you’re not into music, that means you’ll hear some scratching). Whereas that is definitely annoying, it’s good to remind yourself you’re watching an old movie restored from one source (if you ever saw the YouTube trailer that was made before the movie was restored, you’ll see the improvement).

Kizil Tug (translated as both “The Red Plume” and “The Red Banner”) is the tenth Onar Films release, which means it’s okay to look at the progress. The DVD menu looks better and more active than big companies like Fox and Universal would use for their releases of older movies. The quality of the subtitles has increased substantially. Kizil Tug is almost flawless when it comes to the English subtitles (I’m not qualified to say anything about the Greek subtitles), which is a more than welcome change compared to the Kilink movies where I had to rewind the disc to try and understand what some of those sentences meant.

And then there’s the extras. There are trailers for upcoming releases, text biographies on two of the film’s actors and a photogallery. But that’s not all… Kizil Tug comes accompanied by part of a Turkish documentary on Turkey’s movie history. The segment about Turkish history movies can be seen on this DVD. Onar Films have bought the entire documentary (92 minutes, allegedly) and will release it in segments (so the sci-fi segment will be on a sci-fi movie release).
And if you’re a discerning viewer and a dozen minutes of documentary aren’t enough, you’re in luck! Kizil Tug also comes with a 40-page booklet on Turkish Fantastic Cinema. Onar’s very own Bill Barounis opens the booklet with a one-page foreword and then it’s cinema history time. Divided into genres, the booklet lists Turkish movies in chronological order. The director and cast are named and, if available, a short synopsis. There’s also a brief introduction for each genre (the genres are horror/mystery, fantasy/fairytales, karate, historical, western, science fiction, (general) fantasy and superheroes). Even if you’ll watch Kizil Tug only once (I know I will: it was okay, but once is enough - yeah, I’m not a big peplum fan), you’ll definitely return to the booklet.

KIZIL TUG CENGIZ HAN (1952)
R: Aydin Arakon
Cast: Turan Seyfioglu (Otarkarci), Mesihi Yelda, Atif Kaptan and Cahit Irgat.
Audio language: Turkish (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Subtitles: English / Greek
Original full frame (4:3) presentation
B&W, 73 minutes

Watch out: Onar Films movies are now released on 500 copies only.

I’ll leave you with the trailer:

P.S. Definitely worth mentioning, all summer long Onar Films will be a lot cheaper. Depending on the title, you’ll get a 2 to 6 euro discount if you buy the movie straight from Onar Films. You can also buy the movie from Xploited Cinema.

The Notorious Concubines is as odd an entry in Koji Wakamatsu’s oeuvre as The Straight Story was an a-typical David Lynch film. Wakamatsu isn’t the most typical filmmaker and he’s often the discussion of heavy debates. To date, there hasn’t been a Wakamatsu review on Delirium Vault, but there was a forum topic on whether he was an excellent filmmaker or a misogynistic and sadistic bastard. Maybe Wakamatsu proves you can be both.

Some of Wakamatsu’s movies have odd titles: The Embryo Hunts In Secret or Go Go, Second Time Virgin, to name but two. In Embryo the male protagonist does little else than beat the female protagonist up. In fact, male violence is often shown in Wakamatsu’s movies. He did this (allegedly) to give a bleak portrait of Japanese society. Many of his films were extremely low budget: Embryo showed you only needed a man, a woman and a room. Wakamatsu was also quite prolific: he made almost 80 pictures in the 1960s and 70s.

The Notorious Concubines (or Kinpeibei) is different in that it was in colour, involved lots of actors and actresses and had a much bigger budget. It is also an odd one out in that Harry Novak bought the rights to the movie and had it dubbed for the American market. It is that version you can buy on Something Weird Video’s DVD release.

Chin Lien is a beautiful but unsatisfied wife. When her brother-in-law, Wu Song, doesn’t want her as his lover, she turns to an official with an equally large libido. Man Ching poisons her husband and so Chin Lien becomes his fifth wife. Wu Song’s anger outbursts lead him to prison, but when he’s released, he swears revenge on Chin Lien and Man Ching. And he’s not alone: he is now the leader of a small army, all intent on revenge.

If this sounds exciting, I must disappoint you: this is definitely not Wakamatsu’s best movie. Maybe this is because of the atrocious dubbing, which doesn’t seem eager to conceal the dubbed soundtrack was recorded in a studio. Everything sounds flat and the dialogue actors sound like they were forced to read their lines before they could go out for lunch.

The imagery looks much better, but then again, that was always one of Wakamatsu’s stronger points. The most typical Wakamatsu scene is when Man Ching’s sixth wife loses her child and the man takes revenge on all his women by brutally having sex with them. Afterwards the camera pans out and you see the room with the naked women lying on their stomachs. It is at the same time brutal and beautiful, vintage Wakamatsu.
Nevertheless, The Notorious Concubines isn’t that brutal compared to some of Wakamatsu’s movies. Or is that just because of the version we’re watching? Because yes, in the scene where soldiers are ‘playing’ with the women (again shot for far away) everytime the woman in the middle is not on her stomach, a blurry dot pops up onscreen. Yes, my friends, this version is slightly censored. Because after all, we may have seen a man whose ear was cut off and there’s nothing wrong with that, but heaven forbid we would’ve seen the sight of a vagina from twenty metres away. Societies have crumbled for less!

That Something Weird have released this in a dubbed version is awful, but if you’re somewhat familiar with Wakamatsu’s work, you’ll be eager to watch this anyhow: most of his work is either unavailable on DVD or only on Asian releases without English subtitles. It is also not the sort of movie you’ll be able to watch on television (with the exception of Italian viewers, who might have seen Violated Angels pop up somewhere in the middle of the night).

On the plus side, this being a SWV release after all, there are many other things you get for free to take away some of your pain. First and foremost, there’s another movie: Violated Paradise, a fake documentary by Marion Gering. This film tells the story of a young woman, who has jobs as a geisha, a variety entertainer and finally an ama (pearl diver). Oh, and she’ll marry the man of her dreams too. Ain’t life wonderful? Apparently, this was meant to tell us about the exotic life of oriental women, but it’s fairly boring and probably a little bit inaccurate (did you know Japanese women had no trouble with being nude in front of others?). An American narrator (Paulette Girard) translates this woman’s thoughts into English language, but there are a couple of scenes with a male voice-over. I still haven’t figured out why.

But no, that isn’t all: SWV has dug up a couple of featurettes with exotic women, enough to keep you in your chair for another hour. After which you can still watch a handful of trailers which they also managed to include on the disc.
In retrospect, it is easy to see why SWV was one of my first reasons I switched from video to DVD. The amount of extras this company has to offer is just flabbergasting. And even if the film you’ve bought the disc for isn’t as great as you’d expected chances are you’ll still get your money’s worth on the extras.

In the end, was this a good movie? Not really, even if you can still see it would’ve been better if presented in a better version, you’re still left unfulfilled. If it’s your first introduction to Wakamatsu’s work, it’s also a faux pas: better options are Ecstasy of the Angels (1972) or Go Go, Second Time Virgin (released in 1969, just like The Notorious Concubines and 7 other movies - told you he was prolific). Both were released on Region 1 by Image Entertainment and are now no longer available, but maybe eBay can help you out.
If only because a real movie collector should also get a dose of nihilistic degrading cinema. And - one shouldn’t forget - take a shower afterwards.

THE NOTORIOUS CONCUBINES (KINPEIBEI)
R: Koji Wakamatsu (Japan, 1969)
Released on DVD by Something Weird Video (Region 1)
Image: 2.35:1 (enhanced for 16×9 televisions)
Language: English
Extras: bonus feature (Violated Paradise), several trailers, several featurettes

The Dutch label Filmfreaks has launched a sublabel, Sodemented Cinema, which - according to the blurb on their covers - aims to release “the very best in badbad taste”.
If you don’t take their word for that, feel free to watch one of their first releases, Nuda Per Satana (a.k.a. Naked For Satan) by Luigi Batzella.

Not that it should surprise you from the director of The Beast in Heat, but Nuda Per Satana is one hell of a weird movie: it features two people, a man and a woman, who crash their car on virtually the same spot.
One of them, the man, tries to get help at a nearby castle, only to be lured into a weird world where he encounters several people, including the exact image of the crashed woman (but she is not her). After a while the woman regains consciousness and goes to the castle herself, only to find an 18th century version of the man she saw at the crash and, erm, Satan.

And if scantily clad women weren’t enough, Sodemented offers a proud first: this is the first time the XXX-rated sequences were inserted into the film.

And by XXX-rated we really mean XXX-rated, even if this isn’t as extreme as what you’d find in some exploitation movies of the 70s, this is still very much “in your face”. Speaking of faces, one of the XXX-rated actresses does the most peculiar thing with her tongue: it doesn’t really look like she’s licking the bodies of her partners, more as if she’s imitating a blender.

Never mind that weird sight, because there isn’t anything normal about Nuda Per Satana. Now I’ve seen a fair amount of cult movies, but few are so warped and confusing as this one. Partially it’s intentional, partially it’s because they just didn’t seem what to do with this movie.
While, on any regular basis, that should be a ‘no no’, for this sort of movie it’s a big plus. Just try and wrap your head around this story, just try and feel aroused by the sex scenes and just try and be scared by the giant spider sequence. Yes, if ever there was a movie that dared to fight The Giant Spider Invasion (remember the Volkswagens dressed as spiders?) for “most unbelievable spider in a movie”, it’s Nuda Per Satana. This prop is so awfully made it won’t even scare a two-year-old.

So why would you need to own Nuda Per Satana? Well, first of all, if you’re completely bonkers and like your movies as weird as they can come, this is an absolute must. If there is still some sense floating around in your brain, you might have second (and third) thoughts about buying this, but please bear in mind that Nuda Per SatanaNuda had a regular and a hardcore version). Tacky plots, countless scenes with derobing because they could and special effects for $0.35 because that’s as much as the budget would allow… welcome to the Seventies, the decade when movies seemed to be made by people still suffering from the effects of a bad LSD trip. is a child of its time: no other decade dared to produce movies as genuinely weird as the seventies. This was the “anything goes” era with nonsensical plots and countless versions of movies (like this one had a regular and hardcore version).

Nuda per Satana has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and that’s what makes it so appealing.

As for the DVD release, the images look very nice, in a quality much higher than one could expect from this sort of movie. The XXX scenes (which are quite tame for 2008’s standards) look different from other scenes, but were probably filmed with other cameras, so this was to be expected. It is also handy, because you can feel warned the woman with the weird tongue might be approaching again.

The movie is presented in widescreen format with English or Italian sound (Dolby 2.0). You can choose between Dutch, French and English subtitles. Not many extra features, but you do get a couple of trailers.

We end on a bit of trivia: apparently this movie was a big influence on The Rocky Horror Picture Show. To be honest, we aren’t that surprised.

If you’d force me to limit my George A. Romero collection to three movies, my choices would be Night of the Living Dead (for evident reasons), Martin (where Romero manages to keep you guessing what’s true and what’s not) and The Crazies. In The Crazies (which occasionally is also named Code Name: Trixie) a small town has more than a bit of bad luck. The water supply gets infected by a biological warfare virus and it doesn’t take long before people start attacking each other. And that’s when the army is sent in.

I had to think of The Crazies as much as of Night when I was watching Diary of the Dead recently. Day of the Dead will probably the bleakest zombie movie (by Romero) up to Diary, but The Crazies manages to outshine Day in its bleak vision. The President appears (well, an actor of course), but his words will only make your blood boil. Romero’s vision is one with hardly any hope, the undertone you’d expect from a movie made in the years of Watergate and Vietnam, made by a director who isn’t afraid to show what’s on his mind (and nowhere does Romero do this more evident than in Diary of the Dead).

The good news is that Anolis Entertainment, an Austrian DVD company, have just released The Crazies. Limited to 1500 editions only, the double dvd release is available as a steelbook with many extras which focus on director Romero and star Lynn Lowry. Anolis is a name you may remember: they were also the ones who released that wonderful velvet edition of Blood and Black Lace (by Mario Bava). This should already tell you someone took care of this release, enough to make it a wonderful must-have.

The extras include two commentaries (one by Romero, one by Lowry), a featurette on Lowry (with the lovely title “The Mute Hippie Girl on Acid with Rabies”) and several trailers (for The Crazies and other films by Romero).

If you don’t own The Crazies by now, it should be one of your next purchases. There are several versions of the movie out right now, but this R2 double disc steelbook by Anolis give this essential Romero a look you’ll cherish forever.

(Anolis will refer you to Amazon.de, but you can also get the movie at Xploited Cinema.)

THE CRAZIES - 2 DISC STEELBOOK
Anamorphic widescreen (16:9)
Language options: English, German
Subtitles: German (optional)

Granted… “Me Tarzan, you Netzia” does sound a bit odder than the original, but that never stopped the Turks from remaking Tarzan.
In fact, there isn’t much that stops them: we’ve already been treated to Turkish remakes of Superman, ET, Star Trek, Star Wars, Captain America, Santo and Spiderman… there’s always room for another famous ripoff, no?

Anyway, what sets Dracula in Istanbul and Tarzan in Istanbul apart from that lot is that both were made in the fifties and were attempts to make a decent adaptation.
One can debate as to whether that has worked in the case of Tarzan in Istanbul, but at least one can debate about that after seeing the movie.

Onar Films has released this extremely rare movie and - prepare to be surprised - it’s not that bad, really.
Time to review it then…

Granted, I’m not a big fan of Tarzan movies. However, I do own a couple of them as I am a movie collector and because some old Tarzan movies made it to the 50 movies packs we reviewed last year. I always give them a shot, but it doesn’t take too long before I start looking for the remote with that ever-so-handy fast forward button. Nevertheless, I can conclude that the 30s Tarzan movies were better than the 50s Tarzan movies.

In the meantime, the Tarzan movies had made it across the pond and were quite successful in Turkey. I can only imagine this, why else would they consider a Turkish version of these movies?

An expedition in Africa finds the remains of a Turkish man and his diary. It turns out he and his family were attacked and murdered. The expedition notifies the man’s brother in Istanbul and hands him a letter from the deceased. It turns out the letter refers to a location where a treasure can be found and the brother thinks it is time for a new expedition. Of course there is one woman on the crew: it wouldn’t be a real Tarzan movie without a Jane, wouldn’t it? And of course, not the entire family ended up killed… one boy survived and - no surprises there - became the legend that is Tarzan. Tarzan encounters the expedition crew and even manages to save them from a local tribe who are keen to feed them to the crocodiles. That’s our hero!
He also lures Netzia away from the expedition and shows her his life: the wild animals that listen to him, swimming in the river and fresh delicious fruit. Other than Jane, Netzia isn’t immediately wooed by this: no, she asks to be taken back to her friends.

One could complain that the film is full of stock footage and that a lot of scenes don’t look like they were shot in the jungle, but rather somewhere in a Turkish field, but to be honest… can’t we say the same about the original Tarzan movies? (Some stock footage seems so familiar it may have just been taken from older Tarzan movies.)

That Tarzan in Istanbul borrows so much from the 30s movies isn’t a bad thing: I recognized bits of plot from Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1935) and Tarzan’s Revenge (1938). It looks as if director Orhan Atadeniz watched the movies, took the best ideas and made a new version for the Turkish market. The result is a better film than the originals.

All in all, Tarzan in Istanbul wasn’t as silly or awful as I’d anticipated. My big criticism of the American Tarzan movies was that they often felt like one idea stretched out to end up with a feature-length film. Tarzan in Istanbul at least offers more plot in an equally long movie. Sadly, not all the characters get the attention they deserved from the screenwriters: most characters have no depth whatsoever (including the one-dimensional comedian they always seem to smuggle into this sort of movie) and the romance between Tarzan and Netzia is sadly missing from most of the movie (and thus not entirely credible in the last scenes of the film).

So who should buy this? Tarzan enthusiasts of course, but also the sort of movie collection who’d like to have at least one movie of each genre in his or her collection. If there still isn’t a Tarzan movie in your collection, Tarzan’s Revenge or Tarzan in Istanbul are the better options.

Onar Films made sure the DVD was as cleaned up as they could get it: the print looks very good for a Turkish movie that’s more than 50 years old (especially given the state most Turkish movies were kept in), but this does have one negative effect: it is now a bit more obvious to hear that the voices were recorded in a studio. This won’t bother you that much in the end though (and it’s something you’re probably used to if you like watching cheaper genre movies).

The extras should get a mention too. You’re probably used to the extras of Onar Films releases and this movie is no exception: yes, there are a couple of trailers and there is a half-an-hour long conversation with Turkish director Kunt Tulgar. But the real gem is a 30 second clip of archive footage where you can see the director set up a scene. It’s short but sweet and a nice find.

A great release from a movie that deserved to get a bit more attention: Tarzan Istanbul’da will always remain an oddity, but it will give you 90 minutes of escapism. To the Turkish jungle, that is.

6/10

P.S. You can buy the movie from Onar Films (http://www.onarfilms.com) or Xploited Cinema (http://www.xploitedcinema.com).

Oh, and let’s not forget the trailer:

Are you interested in eternal life? Well, listen carefully, there exists a scroll that - if translated - may reveal all your secrets. Interested? Well, lots of people are and this is the basis of Karanlik Sular, a Turkish movie from 1995. Though there are a couple of genres you could force this movie into, I’d shove it in the box of gothic horror.

Onar Films, the archeologists of Turkish B cinema, have dug up this relatively unknown movie. Karanlik Sular is unlike other releases by Onar Films: a lot of their output are Turkish versions of international superheroes (anything from Turkish Superman to Tarzan in Istanbul), but this movie is a genuine slice of Turkish horror. In fact, I wasn’t aware that this sort of cinema was being made in Turkey.

Amongst the people dwelling in this movie are a mother whose dead son shows himself to an American man (whose business in Turkey looks a bit shady), an eight-year-old girl who may be the incarnation of a 800-year-old Byzantine princess and/or a vampire, a French translator and the mysterious “they”.
Sounds odd enough? Well, Karanlik Sular (or, The Serpent’s Tale, to use its international title) is odd enough to make you scratch your head several times.

Like other movies in similar genres, Karanlik Sular tries its best to keep you as confused as possible? Is the son dead or not? Is the little girl a vampire or is it an act? Is the mother hallucinating or is she being plagued by the netherworld? Questions, questions, questions… and you may have to sit through the entire 82 minutes before some of your questions will be answered. That’s right: some, not all.

Mondo Macabro described the movie as “an Argento script directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet”. Now whereas I can see what they’re referring to, it may just be a bit too much praise for the movie. I don’t think it’s the sort of movie that can stomach any expectations, let alone high. It works best if you start the movie with an open mind and allow yourself to be taken by surprise. And if you are a fan of those occult horror movies that were made by the dozens in the seventies.In fact, had it been made twenty years earlier, Karanlik Sular would’ve been a cult classic nowadays. Now it’s just an underrated gothic horror movie born in Turkey in the wrong era (then again, being born in the wrong period is not the worst thing that can happen to an occult horror movie).

In order to look a bit more international, the cast features two foreign actors (one French, one American). Hence the movie features dialogue in both Turkish and English. It doesn’t really matter that most of the local actors have a peculiar English accent: they only use it when talking to the foreign actors.
This is why the movie is presented with English subtitles for the Turkish scenes. The subtitles are legible enough and were burnt into the film, so don’t try to switch them off (well, not that you would, chances are high you don’t speak Turkish).

For a movie that isn’t even 15 years old, it is a bit of a shame that the original negatives aren’t available anymore. Onar Films were handed a tape and cleaned it up as good as possible. The result is that you will have to endure a handful of seconds of tape damage, but only in two scenes will you really notice that.

The DVD presentation also features an interview with director E. Kutlug Ataman. Surprisingly, Karanlik Sular was his debut and ever since he only released two other movies and a documentary on Veronica Read, an expert in the cultivation of amaryllis flowers.
Despite a couple of scenes which are too hard and obvious in their attempt to confuse you, Karanlik Sular doesn’t look like it’s someone’s first movie. If the director had had a bit more experience, this might have become a classic in the lines of Kumel’s  Daughters of Darkness. Now, it is just a very good effort and a unique slice of Turkish horror cinema. Or maybe that is a bit unfair: have you seen the occult thrillers that were released in the nineties? Most of them felt pretty shallow if you compared them to the occult movies of the 70s. If you compare Karanlik Sular with most of its international contemporaries, you’ll find it has little to be ashamed of.
Our verdict is a pleasant 7 out of 10.

Onar Films: http://www.onarfilms.com (or available via Xploited Cinema)
The DVD is a Region 0 PAL release.

I was going to review the series Harsh Realm, but it looks as if Lt. Thomas Hobbes has an important message, so I’ll give him access to my keyboard for a couple of seconds. Lt. Hobbes?

A world exists exactly like ours. You live in this world, your family and friends. And though you may not know it, I was sent to save you.

[Here the lieutenant pauses for a moment.]

It’s just a game.

Thank you, Lt. Hobbes.

Harsh Realm is a television series, though this might have slipped your mind. In fact, the only reason you may have known about it was that the creator was Chris Carter (you know, from The X-Files). The most acceptable reason you never heard of it: it only aired for three weeks and then was shelved for five years before someone decided to release what was out there on DVD. Which meant all three episodes as shown on tv, plus the six episodes that were already canned when Fox took the series off the air.

What follows now is a DVD review in two parts: the first will focus on the series outline and the three episodes that made it to the air (albeit that I only saw them 9 years later on DVD), the second will focus on the DVD exclusives (which include episodes 4 to 9).

If history will remember Chris Carter (and it will), this will mainly be for one thing: The X-Files, the hugely successful sci-fi series Carter and c° launched in the early 90s. The series was so popular (after a while - as even the first season ended with the closing of the FBI’s least liked department because Fox wanted to take the show off air) Fox asked Carter to come up with other shows.
Millennium never got the attention it should’ve deserved: although some episodes were in fact quite weak and it took a couple of episodes to get into the series’ arc (a cult inside the FBI that got bleaker every episode), it was generally quite watchable. Sadly, Carter and friends never seemed to decide whether the show was sci-fi or not, which did make the show bounce everywhere and occasionally look like the semi-retarded nephew of Mulder and Scully.

In 1999 (after three seasons) Millennium ended and Carter wanted to dive into new territory. Virtual territory, that is. Like Millennium reminded you of Profiler (NBC’s stab in the dark to copy the success of The X-Files), Harsh Realm reminded me of VR, another short-lived series you may have picked up late at night on BBC2. I guess, what I’m saying is: don’t write a series about virtual reality, there’s a fair chance it’ll be pulled.

Harsh Realm introduces you to Lt. Thomas Hobbes as portayed by Scott Bairstow. Bairstow worked for Carter before, in an X-Files episode (Miracle Man). If I draw this parallel, there’s a reason: Carter’s shows tended to refer to each other. The first episode includes Millennium’s Lance Henriksen as a guest star, Gillian Anderson is the voice of the introduction video Hobbes gets to see and Terry O’Quinn is even more evil in Harsh Realm than he was in Millennium.

Lt. Hobbes, happily sharing some time with his pregnant fiancee, is given a new task and has to leave for base immediately. It is there he learns there’s a virtual game (Harsh Realm) that was hacked by one of the first people to be sent there, a man called Santiago (O’Quinn). He is now a dictator in Harsh Realm and uses it as a test for the real world. Thus he must be stopped and Hobbes is the man to do it. Hobbes is hooked to a machine and off to virtual reality he is.

Soon Hobbes finds out that Harsh Realm is a copy of the real world (well, a copy that’s gone off a bit - quite a bit). Which means that there is a Sophie in Harsh Realm, but she only looks like the Sophie Hobbes is engaged to in the real world. Virtual characters (this means the people who aren’t sent to Harsh Realm by the enemy) can die like a tv set being switched off, but it’s best not to die if you’re an army officer playing the game. And as the first episode (bearing the wonderful title “Pilot”) ends, we discover Hobbes was lied to: we see his body in the real world, attached to wires to live in Harsh Realm, but the camera zooms out and we see Hobbes is part of hundreds of people taking part in this virtual game.

I guess you’ve discovered one of the biigest problems with Harsh Realm: it’s an immense stretch to believe all this information (even now, nine years later). Something which heavily annoys me (but Carter liked, according to his commentary) is the voice-over by either Hobbes or Sophie, writing letters to each other (most of those undelivered as he’s stuck in the virtual world and she’s stuck in the real world, having been told her partner died on duty). To me they sound quite contrived and I feel the constant urge to fast forward them, as they only tell their lover they’d like to be reunited again. Anyway yes, Sophie is told Hobbes died on his secret mission, but a mysterious woman tells her this is a lie and gives her a couple of clues Sophie may want to investigate. It turns out that this mysterious woman (named Inga Fossa - oh Carter, you and your silly names) has the ability to switch between the real world and the virtual world.

Hobbes wants to locate Santiago and gets help from two people, Pinnochio and Florence. Florence is a mute woman with a gift: she can heal people. Oh, and she’s a real fighting machine. Pinnochio is like Hobbes, but he doesn’t seem keen to leave Harsh Realm. His secret is explained in episode three: in real life he has a disfigured face.
This was good for the series: a complaint often heard is that it was hard to relate to the main characters. This gave at least Pinnochio a bit of background to make him look less like a one-dimensional virtual character.

As for Hobbes, it is a bit irritating that he’s so ‘good’ he seems to get into trouble almost every episode. The Jesus references aside, it’s a bit unlikely this sort of character could last long in Harsh Realm. Which is why Pinnochio and Florence stay with him, to get him out of the trouble he manage to get himself into time and again.

If you watch Harsh Realm, it becomes clear that the series is clever enough to have an intrigue you’ll only discover after a couple of episodes. Sadly the viewers didn’t show this patience and the series was pulled after three weeks. A shame really, as one of the better episodes was up next. But more on that later, in part two of this review.
What’s there to conclude after three episodes? That Hobbes is annoyingly good, that part of the build-up was excellent (the idea of the Harsh Realm world, Sophie being told Hobbes is dead, the mystery of certain characters…) and some of it annoying (the letters, the voice-over). But mainly the notion that there was so much more discover, stuff you couldn’t find out in three episodes. So let’s look forward then to part two of this review: the stuff viewers never got to see…

Why are some evil people opening a coffin and giving some serum to a dead body? Because they’re evil and they want to revive the corpse, none other than evil mastermind Kilink. Blimey, it works too! Kilink needs only one second of life before he wants to get his hands on a secret formula, because that formula will help him take over the world (evil laugh). Yes, nothing says ‘overdose of ambition’ quite like an evil mastermind wanting to rule the world and Kilink truly is the embodiment of evil.

And speaking of evil… wonderful suit!

Kilink is the ’star’ in a series of Turkish crime/superhero series. The film movie, Kilink Istanbul’da (or Kilink in Istanbul, for those of us who don’t speak Turkish) was released in 1967 and has been released on DVD by Onar Films.
In fact, it was the first release by Onar Films, the small Greek label that specializes in bringing incredibly rare movies (from Turkey) out on DVD. So rare that the original sources are often missing or destroyed and that Onar has to work with whatever material they can find to release a movie “as good as it gets”. Kilink in Istanbul is a prime example of this: the original negative masters don’t exist anymore and Onar had to use the only source they could get their hands on: a Betacam master.
This says something about dedication, as a first release often does.

High time for a in-depth review then…

Kilink is the Turkish version of the evil mastermind that popped up in Italy in the comic Killing, which in turn was a lookalike of another Italian comic character, Kriminal. Welcome to another instalment of “Robbing The Robbers”.
Kilink became a popular character in Turkish cinema too: no less than eleven movies were made about this evil mastermind’s plans to rule the world. Quite often, the movies would end on a cliffhanger: Kilink was still loose and planning on new plans… what would happen next? Kilink In Istanbul ends on such a cliffhanger, a story that would be continued in Kilink vs. Superman (also released by Onar Films).

Does that mean you can’t enjoy Kilink in Istanbul? Oh no, by all means can you enjoy this 70-minute action fest of who’s beating up who now and who’ll be kidnapped next. In fact, almost every scene in Kilink in Istanbul seems to feature either a masquerade or a kidnapping. You won’t be bored then.

Kilink tries to get his hands on a secret formula, but the professor who’s responsible for the formula doesn’t want to hand it over and ends up being killed by Kilink. The professor’s son, Orhan, swears revenge and is visited by a godlike creature (slash magician in funny costume) who grants Orhan special powers.
Orhan is now Superhero (according to the translation, but it’s clearly a copy of Superman - that’ll be the first time a Turkish movie tried to avoid legal issues) and, as such, the perfect man to stop Kilink in his quest to rule the world (but not before seventy-odd kidnappings and a sequel). And Kilink is not sitting still either: he’s determined to get his hands on the formula and he’s sure one family member will be able to help him.

Which reminds me, can one speak of hands in the case of Kilink? The movie tries to leave it open for discussion as to whether it’s a costume worn by Kilink or whether the man is truly a walking skeleton. There’s even a trick in the movie to make people believe Kilink can’t be hurt by bullets (evil characters break in first, take the real bullets out of the gun, so Kilink won’t be able to end up shot). Sneaky but handy!

Kilink in Istanbul is a fast-paced movie, you won’t be able to get bored in these 70 minutes. You might get a bit confused from time to time, though: as mentioned earlier, Onar Films had to restore the movie from a Betamax master. One that had been used plenty, it seems: some scenes are incredibly scratched and a couple of times a few bits of seconds are even missing from the movie.
Which is a bit annoying… however, this does enable you to see the movie and it’ll only take a few seconds before your mind has adapted and filled in the blank seconds.
While some scenes are scratched beyond repair, most scenes are neatly cleaned up. Well, “neat”, we’re not talking crisp Blue Underground releases here, but as good as one can restore a Betamax master.
Onar Films tried to restore the sound even more and have done a great job. There are a couple of scenes where the sound still fails (once the sound just drops and one scene sounds as if it was redubbed in an aquarium), but overall the sound got a magnificent treatment, so praise to Onar for that.

As far as extras go, this was the first Onar Films release and it doesn’t have the standards of Onar’s later releases (plenty of interviews as extras). You do get three trailers (for Onar’s later releases 3 Dev Adam, Turkish Spiderman and a  so-far unreleased and even unannounced Superman in Istanbul), a filmography of the director and of Kilink (plus a short synopsis of each Kilink movie) and a photogallery.
Yes, that’s definitely fewer extras than later Onar Films DVDs, but then again, you can’t expect too much from a first release, can you?

The menu was beautifully done by the way. You can choose between an English or Greek menu (and subtitles).

Overall a nice welcome from Onar Films to a world of worldwide fans of superrare movies and a gentle reminder that Turkish cinema was more than men in silly costumes (see 3 Dev Adam, Badi, Turkish Superman, Turkish Wizard of Oz, Turk Trek, Turkish Star Wars…). The budget was low and some of the fighting scenes are nowhere near convincing, but overall Kilink can stand proudly next to the evil superheroes of Italian B cinema.

Kilink in Istanbul is a Region 0 release by Onar Films. You can also buy the movie from Xploited Cinema.

That Massimo Dallamano’s movie Venus in Furs (starring Laura Antonelli) has been released on DVD by Shameless (UK, Region 2) sounds as good news to anyone who’s seen some of Dallamano’s other movies (What Have You Done To Solange, What Have They Done To Your Daughters, The Cursed Medallion), but we would like to warn you not to get too pleased.

The DVD has been cut by BBFC. A minute of footage is not included: “Cut by 1:05s when submitted in 2007 as specified by the BBFC: Remove all sight of woman’s tearful screams turning to pleasure as man continues to rape her (this pleasure being indicated by her making moaning sounds and winding her arms around his neck). Intervening shots of other people may remain.”

I once saw this movie in a cut version and wasn’t terribly impressed by it. Maybe it was because of the cuts, maybe it just isn’t a very good movie, I don’t know. Anyway, be sure to avoid this release if you don’t want to end up disappointed because over a minute of footage is gone. Then again, apart from a Japanese fullscreen release the movie still isn’t available on DVD, so if you really want it, this widescreen but cut release may just be your only option.

UK Region 0 (PAL) release (Shameless): CUT
English audio
Widescreen release
Extras: trailer (+ trailers for other releases)
Xploited Cinema offers it for $24.95.

Japanese Region 2 (NTSC) release: UNCUT
Fullscreen
English audio with forced Japanese subtitles
Xploited Cinema offers it for $39.95.

Somewhere in the nineties I was switching channels and came across a silent serial on Arte. The title was A Woman in Grey and each fifteen minutes long episode revealed more secrets about the mysterious Ruth Hope. And, at the end of every episode, Ruth found herself in mortal peril.

I had missed the first episode(s) and hoped that someday the series would be repeated. Sadly, that never happened. The only way to get A Woman in Grey in your home collection was on VHS copies of questionable quality.

Now the wait is finally over: Grapevine Video has released A Woman in Grey on DVD. Now you can finally discover the mysteries of the Amory house for yourself.

Years ago a murder happened at the Amory house. Whether the right person was jailed for the murder was never sure and with the convict having died in prison, the mystery may never be solved.
Enter Ruth Hope, author of the book A Woman in Grey about the Amory house and herself often clad in grey. She is found browsing through the Amory house, but she is not alone: J. Havilland Hunter is also snooping around. This mysterious man is obviously up to no good, but what we do not know is why he is so interested in the Amory house. Or why Ruth Hope often tries to hide one of her hands. Lots of mysteries and no answers, it seems…

Alongside The Perils of Pauline, A Woman in Grey is undoubtedly one of the best “damsel in distress” serials. However, this wonderful 1920 production never seemed to get the glory it deserved. A shame, as there’s good direction, lots of action, high-quality editing and a more than able cast. Grapevine Video praised its release with these words: “There is a hint of Griffith’s influence with experimental lighting and camera angles occurring throughout the film. The extraordinary rhythmic momentum of the film is never lost despite the films complex plot turns. This is the best of the surviving serials from the silent era. ” Generally, it’s the sort of blurb one can expect from a production company, but in this case it is not a lie. Why else can one explain my frantic search to get this serial into my own collection? (And yes, every now and then I pestered Grapevine Video with a request to release this on DVD. Finally, this has come through.)

Spread over two discs, the 15 chapters are the only thing you’ll find on this release, but - and this is definitely much more important for such an old series - this means the quality is kept as high as possible.
Of course, the material is old and not every episode was in good state to begin with, but the results are great. Sadly the first episode is one of those that look a bit more scarred, so don’t feel too disappointed when you start watching it: the quality will improve.

Unless you have a genuine distaste for silent serials, this is a release you should own if you call yourself a movie buff. It’s ideal to watch one episode per day just before bed time: two weeks of joy are ensured.

To end this review, a bit of eye candy: I found one of the cliffhanger endings on YouTube. Here are 20 seconds of mortal peril for poor Ruth Hope…