Wolfish Creature Features

There is no doubt that Tom Cruise has taken up much of the action attention over the past couple years with his possible finale of the Mission: Impossible franchise... which was released earlier this summer. Yet, there is another action franchise that also deserves some viewership –Jackie Chan’s Police Story, which started in 1985 and most recently hit theatres in 2013 (though there is talk of another one in the works). With parts one and two already reviewed here on Filmizon.com, here goes number three – which is sometimes called Police Story3: Supercop, but in North America is usually referred to simply as Supercop (1992). Directed by Stanley Tong – his first of six directorial collaborations with Jackie Chan, the star returns once more as Insp. Chan Ka Kui, this time often being referenced as the titular Supercop. Grudgingly sent by his longtime friend and boss ‘Uncle’ Bill Wong (Bill Tung) from his home in Hong Kong over to mainland China to help run a dangerous undercover sting on an underground drug smuggling operation, he must also leave behind his longtime girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung) for at least a month.

Sometimes a movie just doesn’t fit perfectly within its own genre... going against a few of the tropes that define what something is, all while hitting enough of them to still be what it is – confusing! That’s the case with this latter-day Italian giallo, Mystère... sometimes better known by its English title Dagger Eyes (1983). Co-written and directed by Carlo Vanzina, the film opens with a rather impressive, though more crime inspired assassination in Rome... resembling the real life John F. Kennedy car killing. It will start a chain reaction of murders that will rock the Eternal City.

Some might know that icon Mario Bava is often considered to be the first filmmaker to make a giallo with 1963's The Girl Who Knew Too Much... though unless you’re a big fan of the genre, many will probably not know that his son, Lamberto Bava, continued on with the gialli tradition well past its heyday in the early 1970s – releasing a number of horror tinged mystery thrillers, including today’s Delirium (1987)... sometimes also known as The Photo of Gioia. Welcome to what very well could be the Italian rival of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy, fluffily called Pussycat – a high end nudie magazine that brings some class (and a bit of kitsch) to artistic nude photography. Run by former supermodel Gloria (Serena Grandi), she inherited the business when her husband tragically died.

There is no denying that gialli can be a bit out there. These Italian twisty murder mysteries can often combine abstract writing, new age technologies of the 1960s and 70s, and some sex and drugs to make for a trippy experience... but you ain’t seen nothing yet. The most surrealist giallo of them all might just be 1968's Death Laid an Egg, directed by Giulio Questi. Welcome to the most posh chicken farm you’ll ever see. With a scientist (Biagio Pelligra) working nearly around the clock to genetically produce a new form of poultry that will almost instantly fatten with limited bone structure... all while countless chickens are being prepared for market by some new fangled automated technology, wife Anna (Gina Lollobrigida) and her secretary cousin Gabrielle (Ewa Aulin) lounge around their resort-like swimming pool as the former’s hubby, Marco (Jean-Louis Trintignant), gets his kinky rocks off with prostitutes at a hotel as he falls deeper and deeper into a fugue state.

Park Chan-wook has never hidden the fact that he is a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock – frequently highlighting Vertigo as the movie that got him into film making. Like many before him, perhaps most notably Brian De Palma, he has found clever ways to integrate influences from The Master of Suspense within his own work, the easiest comparison being Stoker... a loose remake of Shadow of a Doubt. But his most recent feature, Decision to Leave (2022), which he co-writes and directs, might even be more so – though crafted so subtly that you really need to know your Hitchcockian filmography to see where he is pulling from. Originally getting the idea from the song “Mist” by Jung Hoon Hee and Song Chang-sik, which fuses quite nicely with the above quotation from Confucius, this mystery crime thriller flits between the always mist filled skies of seaside Ipo and the mountainous city of Busan. Though insomniac detective Jang Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) resides in the former with his wife Jeong-ahn (Lee Jung-hyun), he lives six days a week in the latter – a place that he has moved to for his job.

With its rather edgy, alluring title, 1968's Naked You Die (also known as The Young, the Evil and the Savage, as well as Schoolgirl Killer), you’d think you are in for a highly controversial giallo, but, as this dates from the 60s, a few years prior to when this style of film started pushing the boundaries of violence and sex, you’re actually in for a slightly more traditional murder mystery compared to what the title might suggest. After an unknown piece of luggage in the form of a giant, heavy trunk arrives at St. Hilda’s College (which is basically a posh boarding school for young women) along with a few new staff members, including husky voiced, goth like science teacher Mrs. Clay (Betty Low) and ultra athletic gym teacher and swim instructor Di Brazzi (Giovanni Di Benedetto), things turn unexpectedly murderous rather quickly.