Reviews

This is the type of movie that one would expect to see at a drive-in on a Friday or Saturday Night wedged between two better crap movies. Except this one would probably send everybody to the concession stands if not running to the exits.

Four horny teenage couples in California run around looking for places to make out and have sex. That's pretty much the whole plot. Throw in a retired aging actress with a ten bedroom mansion, a horny bumbling cop, a really bad Fonzie rip-off named "The Fenz", a drunk Spanish beach bum, a dwarf mechanic, a silly gay French teacher, some of the wors t songs in history ever used as a soundtrack, not-even-junior high-level-drama acting, and a six minute food right and there you go. No plot or story. Except for the aging actress, the rest of the supporting characters pass through with no real link to the story (and remember, there IS no story). The only reason I was able to sit through this is bc the four girls were quite hot and sexy and there were some great T&A shots as they were either dressed in hot pants or bikini-clad. Otherwise this is totally non-essential viewing even if you're a fan of the B-movie/drive-in genre like me.

I recently bought this from my local video franchise which was closing it's store. It had a similar title and design to a Jet Li film I had seen called "The Legend of the Red Dragon". Of course I thought it was a sequel to the Li action flick I liked so I bought it, especially seeing it was starring talented Donnie Yen and the action choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping. Though this was a period actioner and did feature a lot of comedy like the Li movie, this one isn't a sequel. It was actually made before "Legend of..." but it's not a prequel either. Just a clever DVD design. And like that one, we never find out who or what the red dragon is. Also my version unfortunately didn't include either a cantonese or mandarin audio track. English and French only with subtitles. The English dubbing was terrible. But it made the comedy all the more funny, embarrassingly so.

Can't say I was too impressed after watching it. The action was OK but not the high standard I was used to from Ping. Too much silly wirework and a lot of the camera tricks were too obvious like the speeding. The fight with the Fire Lotus ladies at the temple was very good though as well as Donnie's fight with the prince in the finale. Not one of Ping's better movies, however.

The story played like an after school special about the dangers of opium and alcohol. Boy refuses drug, boy is seduced by drug, boy is addicted, boy is saved and seeks revenge and redemption. Unfortunately a lot of the subplots were left open-ended while it jumps from one action scene to another. I could swear this played more like a comedy than an action period piece. The two actors playing Yen's father and aunt were hysterical, especially Sheila Chan. I almost wanted to see more of their story than Yen's but then that little subplot gets pushed aside and we're back with the action.

"Night Stalker" intends to update the popular horror series by giving the show a dark, brooding atmosphere. Produced by Frank Spotniz ("The X-Files"), NS feels like a light version of X-Files (without the sci-fi elements) and "MilleniuM" (another series by the X-Files producer Chris Carter). The episodes are ritualistic and a little gruesome (the network censors probably had a field day neutering this in the editing room) which may have partly been responsible for its demise since it was on Disney (ABC). The show is basically a "monster of the week" format.

Stuart Townsend stars as Carl Kolchak. The updated Kolchak has been given a Mulder-ish past where he has a dark secret that he hopes to solve and overcome. Gabrielle Union is Perry Reed, a senior reporter for the same paper, who starts out as a skeptical rival but quickly becomes his skeptical partner. See a pattern forming? Mulder and Scully anyone? Along with a third younger partner, they inject themselves into supernatural cases while Kolchak tries to find a connection to his own dilemma. Cotter Smith is Tony Vincenzo, Kolchak's boss and editor.

On the plus side, this show was a welcome sight for fans of X-FIles style genre TV ("XFiles" producer Chris Carter heavily based his popular series on the Night Stalker series). It's dark and atmospheric and there are plenty of familiar character actors from Carter's two most popular series. The stories could easily have fit into the last two XF seasons, especially with Agent Monica Reyes. Similar to "Supernatural" in some ways.

On the negative side, though the plots were interesting, the execution was choppy and the show relied too much on the darkness and shadows that made Carter's series so spooky. Many of the episodes don't make much sense. As if parts of the script were erased and they just filmed what they had. The comic elements of the Kolchak/Vincenzo relationship are gone. Where they used to bicker and argue back and forth in the 70s series, now they just brood at each other. Townsend was a poor choice for Kolchak. Im not big on remakes and Im glad they didn't try to recapture the personality of the original Kolchak. Darren MacGavin's Kolchak was a casual, outgoing, stumbling slob of a reporter whose open mind enabled him to solve supernatural cases. Any attempt to copy that would be seen as just that: an unoriginal copy of a great TV character. But Townsend does nothing with this role. His performance is bland and uninteresting. He just stands there looking like a bored mannequin. Gabrielle Union is a beautiful woman, I fall in love with in everything I've seen her in but here she's miscast. I appreciate the producers trying to create a different look for the show but this should have been much better.

Again on the plus side, the complete series/season 1 is on now DVD and among the extras is four unaired episodes, script summaries for episodes never produced, deleted scenes and commentaries. It's still well worth a look.