Hurricane Smith (Colin Budds, 1992)

Did anyone else find it odd that a black man, a black American  man, is greeted at the airport by two women without booties? (They must have had some booty?) I don't think so. Aerobicized to the point of nonexistence, the booties attached to the two blonde Australian women who welcome Carl Weathers to Gold Coast by handing him a stuffed Koala Bear and giving him a peck on the cheek were as flat as a board. Now, I'm not trying to body shame these two ladies by pointing out the minuscule nature of their respective booties. I'm just saying, Carl Weathers looks like the kind of guy who likes a little junk in the trunk. If you know what I mean. (Yeah, I think we all know what you mean. You openly ridicule two Aussie women from 1992 for not having "booties" and you're a racist who thinks all black men like big butts.) Hey, man. I'm just going by what esteemed linguist Sir Mix-a-Lot taught us back in, coincidentally, 1992. (He actually raps, "I like big butts." Not, "All black men like big butts.") True, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and declare that Carl Weathers' character, Billy Ray 'Hurricane' Smith, in Hurricane Smith likes his asses to be as thick as Tallahassee molasses.

You can clearly see it on his face every time an Australian person would say to him, "No worries, mate." I mean, if anything, he's got nothing but worries. Think about it. The first women he comes across on this kooky continent are sporting absolutely no oomph in the bum department (which does nothing for his slumbering trouser anaconda). But most worrying of all, his sister is missing. So, no worries, mate? More like, lot's of worries, mate, or, a shitload of worries, mate.

What the Gold Coast airport lacks in big bootied greeters, the rest of the city makes up for it with its robust leggy floozy population.

Of course, I don't mean to imply that the entire city is teeming with leggy floozies (on the contrary, the city seems to have a nice balance between those who are leggy floozies and those who are not... leggy floozies). I'm just saying, Billy Ray 'Hurricane' Smith seems to have hit the leggy floozy jackpot. Check this out: the first house he stumbles upon upon arriving in Queensland happens to contain the mother of all leggy floozies.

While most non-leggy floozies like to lounge around their places of residence eating Aussie Cheetos (each bag comes with a complementary tub of Vegimite - mmm, dark brown food paste) in hole-ridden sweatpants and ratty bathrobes (watching Neighbours, no doubt), leggy floozies like to slink about in black lace teddies and black nylons... and black heels.

Lucky guy. I mean, one moment he's a humble construction worker from Marshall, Texas, U.S.A., the next he's in Australia playing two-up, wooing leggy floozies and being called a "septic" by the locals. Now, you could classify Billy Ray 'Hurricane' Smith (Carl Weathers) as your classic fish out of water. But I wouldn't recommend doing that. You see, Billy Ray wants to find his sister (who was last seen in the resort town of Gold Coast), and, by the looks of things, he's in no mood for overused idioms.

Using clues he obtained from his sisters letters and postcards, Billy Ray ends up at the door of Julie (Cassandra Delaney, Fair Game), a leggy floozy/prostitute. Well, it's not really her door, she just works there... Anyway, Julie, who initially mistakes Billy Ray for a client, seems willing to help the handsome septic in the white jean jacket find his sestra ("septic," by the way, is Aussie slang for Americans and "sestra" is the Ukrainglish word for "sister" - Orphan Black is my shit!!!!). After all, Julie and his sestra, I mean, sister, knew one another before she went missing. However, just as Julie is about to fix Billy Ray a drink, Shanks (David Argue), Julie's "manager," storms in and sends Billy Ray packing.

If you're wondering what the difference between a leggy floozy and prostitute is. It's simple, really. A leggy floozy is what you call a female prostitute when she's not having sex for money. So, if you see a prostitute sitting in, let's say, a bar, she's actually a leggy floozy. On the other hand, if you spot the very same leggy floozy in the alleyway behind the bar she was just sitting in inhaling a man's cock with her mouth, she's now a prostitute. Any questions?

Oh, and the reason I didn't call Shanks Julie's pimp is because I didn't want to make Charlie Dowd (Jürgen Prochnow), Julie's actual pimp, cross. Trust me, he's not someone you want to make cross. Besides, I don't think Shanks has what it takes to be a pimp. I mean, look at how understanding he is when Julie tells him that she doesn't feel like having sex with Mr. Nelson, a regular who had an appointment. Pimps are not understanding.

Undeterred by what transpired at Julie's brothel, Billy Ray breaks into Charlie Dowd's beach house to look for clues. Only problem being, Charlie Dowd, Shanks, some henchmen and a ton of leggy floozies show up for a party.

As Billy Ray is poking around upstairs and Charlie Dowd is giving Shanks a refresher course on how to be a pimp, you'll notice that you can see the stocking tops of one of the leggy floozies. At first I thought: Oh, the reason you can see the tops of her stockings is because she's sitting in a manner that is conducive to stocking top display. But that's just it, she wasn't sitting down.

You know what that means, right? Exactly. The top portion of the stockings attached to the legs that belong to Rochelle (Suzie MacKenzie), "Ro" to her fellow leggy floozies, are always visible. Yep, you heard right. I said, always visible.

Whether she's changing a flat tire, doing jumping jacks in the rain, cramming for an algebra exam... in the rain, buying a new toothbrush, listening to the radio while lying in a hammock, painting a self-portrait, or putting another shrimp on the barbie, the tops of Ro's stockings will always be visible.

In an ironic twist, Ro can be seen sitting at a bar in the next scene. How is that an ironic twist, you ask? Well, if you had been paying attention earlier, you would have noticed that I basically said that sitting at a bar is what leggy floozies do best. And, I have to say, after watching Ro sit at a bar for a minute or two, I'm going to have to agree with myself. Leggy floozies and bar sitting go hand and hand.

Getting back to the plot for second. When Jürgen Prochnow (I didn't buy that his name was "Charlie Dowd" for a second - Jürgen is such a Jürgen) gets wind that an American is snooping around his criminal enterprise, and that Julie might be helping him, he sets in a motion a series of events designed to stop these unwanted incursions into his affairs.

Animal lovers beware, one of these so-called "series of events" involves the murder of an Australian cattle dog.

While I'm happy to report that no leggy floozies were harmed during the making of this movie, the same can't be said for stylish gangster's molls with fluctuating loyalties. It should come as no surprise, but it would seem that dating German-accented Aussie crime bosses who pimp on the side can be bad for your health.

Oh, and if you doubt my claim that she's stylish. All you have to do is take a look at the red blazer she wears at the horse track.

Sticking with fashion. Fans of volumizing scrunchies will want to keep an eye out for the blonde extra who appears in two scenes. That's right, I said two scenes.

You can see her in a crowd when Billy Ray and Julie are walking down the street and again when Billy Ray and Julie stop at a cafe to discuss strategy.

In closing: I like Carl Weathers, I loved the sudden influx of leggy floozies, David Argue is funny at times as Shanks (the fact that he wore a Warrant t-shirt helped a bit - Warrant apparel = Comedy gold), Cassandra Delaney is hot and I learned a little bit about Aussie culture.

Turkish Mad Max (Çetin Inanç, 1983)

Are they cops? I doubt it. Are they secret agents? In a past life maybe. Are they badasses? Most definitely. Oh, hi, don't mind me, I'm just trying to determine the profession of the three lead characters in Turkish Mad Max (a.k.a. Ölüme Son Adim or Last Step To Death), come for the excessive coin tossing, stay for the crazy amount of upskirts, or, I should say, stay for the crazy amount of Turkish upskirts. (What's the difference between a Turkish upskirt and a non-Turkish upskirt?) I don't know, what's the difference? (Um, no. I was, uh, hoping you might tell me.) I know, I'm just fucking with you. While I would love to explain to you (in unnecessarily intricate detail) the difference between a Turkish upskirt and a non-Turkish upskirt, I don't think it would be fair to those who haven't experienced the mind-blowing spectacle that is this motion picture. Let me put this way, once you witness a Turkish upskirt, all other upskirts will seem yawn-worthy by comparison.

Believe it or not, there's more to Turkish Mad Max than Turkish upskirts... (You mean Turkish continuity errors?) Very funny. I was actually referring Turkish bikini babes, Turkish leggy floozies, Turkish drinking contests and Turkish kung-fu (which I like to call "Turk-fu," because the participants are Turks, you know, as opposed to non-Turkish Chinese dudes).

(Well played, my friend. Or, I should say, my Turkish friend. Clearly annoyed by my attempt to mock your habit of putting the word "Turkish" before almost everything that takes place in this film, you managed to turn my veiled attack on your unique brand of idiocy and transform it into something that is on the cusp of being clever. Kudos.)

Thanks, it's what I do.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, Turkish Mad Max. I think I was extolling the soft, yet surprisingly sturdy virtues of Emel Tümer's Turkish thighs. What's that? You're saying I have made no mention of Emel Tümer's Turkish thighs up until this point?!? That can't be right. Let me double check.

Well, I did mention Turkish leggy floozies. But, as most people know, there's a big difference between Turkish leggy floozies and Turkish thighs that are soft yet sturdy. More importantly, Emel Tümer is no Turkish leggy floozy. She's a Turkish goddess. I'd even go as far as to say that Emel Tümer is one of the most attractive women I've ever seen. I mean, hell, even her Turkish machine gun face is sexy.

(I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what exactly is a "Turkish machine gun face"?)

It's simple, really. Unable to produce muzzle flashes for their prop machine guns, writer-director Çetin Inanç and his crew would instruct the cast to shake their heads during close-ups in order to mimic the movements one might experience while firing an automatic weapon.

In some cases, they were able to add muzzle flashes during post-production. But for the most part, the cast,  Emel Tümer in particular, were told to employ their Turkish machine gun face. And since Emel Tümer  is so freakin' hot in this movie, her innate sex appeal could not be dampened by the spastic rigors of fake machine gun usage. Anyway, I hope that answers your question.

It's obvious right from the get-go that Kagan (Cüneyt Arkin) is one agile mother-scratcher. Infiltrating the hideout of a notorious drug kingpin with a quiet brand of efficiency, Kagen suddenly changes  tactics when he unleashes a thunderous cacophony of kicks and punches in the general direction of the hapless henchmen that have been haphazardly put in his way.

Eventually cornering the lead drug dealer in his office, Kagan forces him to eat a bag of heroin while a babe in a yellow bikini watches in horror.

Patiently awaiting the arrival of the fedora-wearing henchmen that have no doubt been sent to "take care" of him in response to his recent drug den busting shenanigans, Kagan calmly plays cards on his bed. I know, you're thinking to yourself, how is Kagan going to prevent these thugs from doing him grave bodily harm? After all, they're packing some serious heat. It's simple, really, he stabs them. (All of them?) It's no secret, Kagan rarely ever leaves the house without at least ten knives.

Impressed by Kagan's ability to overcome adversity, another gangster decides to seek out his services. Feeding him a load of nonsense about rescuing some professor (one who has apparently developed a revolutionary leukemia medicine) from a gang of militants, the gangster (a real twitchy bastard) manages to convince Kagan to take the job.

It would seem that one of the perks of being a low-life in this film's universe is that every room comes equipped with either a leggy floozy or a bikini babe. In the case of Saban (Yildirim Gencer), a tactical expert and frequent coin toss loser, his room has been furnished with a bikini babe.

Making out with a bikini babe in a periwinkle bikini while Turkish disco pop blasts on the soundtrack, Saban is living the life. Not only is his bikini babe shapely in all the places, she's... uh... I seemed to have lost my train of thought.

After some playful leg pulling, Kagan asks Saban to accompany him on his mission to rescue the professor.

While it's a tough assignment, Kagan and Saban manage to rescue the professor. The End.

(Wait a minute, what about Emel Tümer and her many Turkish upskirts?) Oh yeah, I'm sorry about that. They must have slipped my mind. Just kidding. If anything, Turkish upskirts are always on my mind.

When Kagan and Saban approach Emel Tümer's character, oh, let's call her, Yağmur, she's doing what most Turkish women do in their spare time: Participate in beer drinking contests.

Wearing a teal and black-ish polka dot dress, tan pantyhose, white panties and cyan new wave space boots, Yağmur is currently drinking this shirtless lout under the table.

(If Yağmur, like you say, is wearing a dress, how do you know her panties are white?)

Two words: Turkish upskirt.
 

Clearly annoyed that the guy they put their money on lost the beer drinking contest, the soused rabble become belligerent and start pawing at Yağmur in an aggressive manner. In order to placate the mob's grabby advances, Yağmur employs a combination of punches and kicks. And since the act of kicking involves the raising of one's leg in an upward fashion, Yağmur's pantyhose and pantie-ensnared crotch area would briefly see the light of day during the implementation of each kick.

And since the bar is packed with unruly drunks, that means Yağmur is going to have to be doing a lot of kicking. And more kicking means more Turkish upskirts. What a country!

In later scenes, Yağmur can be seen wearing short shorts. Now, you would think, given the non-skirt temperament that short shorts repeatedly put out there, that there would be a major shortage of Turkish upskirts in Turkish Mad Max from this point on. You don't think the director is going to let a tiny swath of denim prevent him from giving us the Turkish upskirts we crave? Think again.

In a weird twist, Yağmur is wearing denim short shorts when she begins her descent down a cliffside, but she is clearly wearing a denim skirt when she finishes her descent. Did she change outfits mid-descent? Who's to say? All I know is, if you're thinking about getting into Turkish cinema, only an idiot wouldn't start their journey off with Turkish Mad Max. If you can't find it, try Head-On, that one's good, too.

The Untold Story (Herman Yau, 1993)

It's official, Anthony Wong is my new favourite actor. Sure, I've only seen him in Herman Yau's The Untold Story (the film I'm currently writing about), and Herman Yau's Taxi Hunter, but based on the sheer intensity he displays in both these movies, I think I can safely declare that he in fact rules. Now, a lot of you are probably wondering why I didn't open with a bit about the insane amount of leggy floozies that appear in this film, or why I didn't open with a snarky remark about Parkman Wong Pak-Man's San Antonio Spurs baseball hat. First of all, I don't make snarky remarks. In fact, my remarks are, for the most part, completely snark-free. And secondly, why would a gruesome tale about a psychotic restaurant owner who murders men, women and children, chops up their bodies into tiny little pieces and then serves them to his customers have leggy floozies? I'm just messing with you, this film is filled with leggy floozies. And I don't feel guilty at all for calling them leggy floozies. They're leggy, they're floozies and they're ready to party.
 

  
All kidding aside, the inclusion of so many leggy floozies just goes to show why I consider pre-handover Hong Kong cinema to be superior to all other types of cinema. Filled with bizarre shifts in tone, kooky subplots, chopstick rape, unaware cannibalism, highly inappropriate humour and grisly violence (the kind that would make Lucio Fulci stop and say, "Mamma Mia, dat iz, uh, how you say? some really fucked up shit), The Untold Story was able to earn the fullness of my attention with a breathtaking ease.
  

  
I've noticed that my interest in films has been gradually waning over the past few months. Itching for most films to hurry up and finish already, I've been wading through  a lot of dreck that's not even worth reviewing. Some of you might be thinking to yourself: Aren't the majority of the films you review not worth reviewing? Ah, just because a film is awful, doesn't mean it's not worth reviewing. No, the film's I'm talking about are neither good or bad, they're just plain bland.
  

  
Well, long story short, The Untold Story managed to briefly rekindle my love of cinema, as, like I said earlier, it contains everything I like. Of course, I don't mean to imply that I "like" watching little kids brutally murdered with a meat clever. What I think I meant to say is, I like it when movies aren't afraid to show the gory unpleasantness of close quarter child homicide. Yet, as much as I appreciate arterial spray, even I had to wonder if showing a crying five year-old spew neck blood all over his assailant's face was a little too much.
  

  
(Hey, enough about dead children...) Aw, man, some of the kids are doing cadaveric spasms. (What did I just say? Let's get back to discussing what's important, and that is the pantyhose-adorned plethora of leggy floozies Danny Lee hooks up with in this movie.)
  

  
Okay, I'll do that. But first, I'd like to inquire as to why Bo (Emily Kwan), a desperate to please female lady cop who works for the Macau police department, is dressed in army fatigues. I think I just answered my inquiry when I described Bo as "desperate to please." In other words, I think the reason Bo dresses the way she does is because she wants to be taken seriously as a female lady cop.
  

  
You could also say the reason Bo wears men's clothes is because if she didn't, her male co-workers would be hitting on her around the clock.
  

  
Don't believe me? Just ask the armada of leggy floozies who accompany Danny Lee's Officer Lee to the office, as they're inundated with untoward advances. Except, they're not really "untoward advances," are they? Leggy floozies want you to hit on them, it's what they're there for.
  

  
Anyway, Danny Lee's Officer Lee doesn't just bring leggy floozies to the office, he brings them to crime scenes too.
  

  
After some kids discover a bag of severed human limbs washed up on a beach, a group of detectives, the aforementioned Bo (who is wearing, like I said, army fatigues), Robert (Eric Kei Ka-Fat), King Kong (Lam King-Kong) and Bull (Parkman Wong Pak-Man), get in an argument over who's going remove the severed limbs from the beach.
 

  
As their argument is about to come to blows, Danny Lee's Officer Lee shows up, with a leggy floozie in yellow hot pants on his arm, and gets the investigative ball rolling by ordering them to take the body parts back to the lab.
  

  
Meanwhile, at a nearby restaurant, the establishment's new owner, Wong Chi-Hang (Anthony Wong), is cutting up a pig with a meat clever. Hmmm, I wonder if he's connected to the body parts from the beach? What am I saying? Of course he's connected.
  

  
Identifying the people who used to be attached to the severed limbs is proving difficult for the detectives (the limbs are rotten).
  

  
Even if they could get usable fingerprints from the severed hand, it would be impossible for the detectives to concentrate on their work. (Don't tell me, Danny Lee's Officer Lee has brought another leggy floozy to the office?) That's right, he has. And get this, she's a white chick. (All right, it's official, Danny Lee's Officer Lee is a pimp.)
  

  
Noticing that Robert, Bull and King Kong are salivating over the leggy floozy's large tits, Bo starts to feel self-conscious about her lack heft in the bra department.
  

  
Perfectly encapsulating the film's twisted sense of humour, one of the male detectives tells Bo that even if the leggy floozy currently skanking up a storm in the office got breast cancer and had to have half her tits surgically removed, Bo's tiny boobs would still be inferior to that of the mammarily reduced leggy floozy.
  

 
Getting nowhere fast, Bo gets an idea. No, this idea has nothing with tracking down a lead, she gets an idea after watching Danny Lee's Officer Lee leave the office with yet another leggy floozy, a slinky whore in a floral-style mini-dress.
  

  
While Bo is busy noodling with her idea, Wong Chi-Hang is cutting up another pig. Wait, that's not a pig, that's the cook he just hired. After the new cook accuses him of cheating at mahjong, Wong Chi-Hang decides to kill him. However, instead of dumping his body in the ocean (like a normal person), Wong Chi-Hang uses the cook's body to make cha siu bao (buns filled with barbecue-flavoured cha siu pork). Except instead of being filled with barbecue-flavoured cha siu pork, they're filled with barbecue-flavoured cha siu people.
  

  
Seriously, Danny Lee's Officer Lee should really think about leaving the leggy floozies at home. I mean, how is anyone supposed to get any work done? Hold up, that's no leggy floozy, that's Bo!!!
  

  
Wearing a tight mini-dress (covered in a black and purple diamond pattern), Bo wields her black nylon-adorned gams like a pair of shapely batons. Beating the men over the head with said gams (metaphorically, of course), Bo seems to be enjoying her new-found status as a leggy floozy.
  

  
Her enjoyment, however, is short-lived when the detectives get a break in the case. It would seem that the family that used to own Wong Chi-Hang's restaurant have relatives on the mainland. And these relatives are constantly sending letters to Macau inquiring about their whereabouts. Well, this leads the detectives to Wong Chi-Hang's restaurant.
  

  
Told to stop being a leggy floozy, Bo and her co-workers head over to have a "chat" with Wong Chi-Hang.

  
You would think that Danny Lee's Officer Lee would have put a moratorium on parading leggy floozies through the office–you know, since they're this close to catching a serial killer. But no, Danny Lee's Officer Lee brings another leggy floozy to work. Not counting Bo's brief stint as a leggy floozy, he brings a total of four leggy floozies to the workplace.
  

  
Fake bemoaning aside, it's a good thing the film had leggy floozies. Think about it, imagine if it didn't. That's right, if it didn't, we'd be talking about one of the sickest movies of all-time. Don't get me wrong, the film is still sick. It's just that the leggy floozies, and a couple of other factors, managed to mollify some of the film's more grisly aspects.
  

  
Of course, there's no way to mollify the scene where Wong Chi-Hang murders five small children. This sequence has to be the most heinous act ever to be captured on film. I don't know what it is about the Hong Kong sensibility that allows such barbarism to be shown, but there's nothing I think of that comes to topping the gruesomeness of the child murder scene in The Untold Story. I feel bad about ending this on such a dour note, but the last thirty minutes are brutal. Let me put it this way, it makes Red to Kill and Run and Kill look like walks in the motherhumpin' park compared to this.