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Showing posts from October 30, 2011

Review: Undisputed III: Redemption

Like the previous film, the loser of the final fight of “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , surly Russian pulveriser Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) returns to be the main focus of this third film. Having suffered a shattering (literally) knee injury, Boyka has become a shell of the man he used to be. In fact, when we first meet him, he looks kinda like the long-haired disabled guy who shovelled shit in “Undisputed II” . When he gets wind of a martial arts tournament taking place in a Georgian prison, with fighters/prisoners being brought in from all over the globe (with a release and full pardon promised to the winner), Boyka’s interest is piqued. Despite his war wounds, he decides to give fighting another go. I mean, who wants to spend their days shovelling shit in an Eastern European hellhole? Not Boyka, it seems, who arranges for well-connected mobster Gaga (Mark Ivanir, returning from the previous film) to enter him into the tournament. This proves to be a bit of a problem for the to

Review: Wake in Fright

Gary Bond plays a genteel city schoolteacher assigned to a small school in Tiboonda, a remote outback town. It’s now the holidays and Bond wants to get to Sydney to meet up with his girlfriend at the beach. In order to do this he must first travel to nearby mining town Bundayabba, AKA ‘The Yabba’ to catch his flight. This is a town of outward cheerfulness and hospitality, including that of local cop Chips Rafferty, but something not-quite right seems to be bubbling just beneath the surface. Unfortunately, Bond soon becomes addicted to the popular Aussie gambling game of ‘two-up’ (still played in Australia every Anzac Day) and loses all of his funds and therefore stranded in ‘The Yabba’. He’s taken in by Al Thomas’s buxom (but rather ‘handsome’, to be charitable) daughter Sylvia Kay, and he’s also introduced to Thomas’ loutish mates including Dick (Jack Thompson), and Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasence), a medical practitioner who has settled into a life of alcoholism in ‘The Yabba’. Lots of

Review: Tomorrow, When the War Began

  Small-town farm girl Ellie (Caitlin Stasey) and her best friend Corrie (Rachel Hurd-Wood) decide to go on a camping trip in the bushland. Other teens are invited; tearaway Greek kid Homer (Deniz Akdeniz) who was once a childhood friend of Ellie’s, Corrie’s blokey boyfriend Kevin (Lincoln Lewis), pampered but insecure and ditzy beauty queen Fiona (Phoebe Tonkin), religious pacifist Robyn (Ashleigh Cummings), and introverted Asian kid Lee (Christopher Pang), who has a thing for Ellie. When their trip is over, the kids come back to a very changed town. Foreign invaders have taken over and rounded everyone up. Their families are nowhere to be seen, the streets are eerily unpopulated. Tanks and choppers are looming about, however. The teens, spurred on by headstrong Ellie, decide to band together and fight their foreign oppressors to save their families and their town. Colin Friels turns up as the one freely roaming adult they encounter, a local dentist. Andrew Ryan plays a local stoner