EXPLOITATION PROCLAMATION: ROUND 2

EXPLOITATION PROCLAMATION: ROUND 2

Here we go! I haven't gone insane yet!

Lik Wong (aka. Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky) (1991, HK/JAP, dir. Ngai Kai Lam)
Category: General Exploitation/Foreign Exploitation

The Asian name alone should have you gripped. By comparison to Mighty Peking Man, Riki-Oh isn’t all that awful. Okay, yes it is, but not quite on the same level. This is certainly the most modern film that I’ll watch for this, but it IS an exploitation film. For anyone who remembers the heyday of The Daily Show (when the host was funny), you may remember this one. Based on a popular manga/anime character, this is (probably) the 2nd goriest film I’ve ever seen, with the first obviously going to Peter Jackson’s zombie opus Brain Dead (aka. Dead Alive). Feel free to argue with me if you must, refresh my memory. It was originally slapped with an NC-17, but now goes unrated. In China, it was branded with the first adult only Category III rating for violence as opposed to sex. This film is horrifically brutal and caked in blood and gore, yet each death brings about nothing but cackles! Not just laughter, but wheezing, cackling laughter. The effects are incredibly cheap and though this is probably exactly how you would imagine anime violence playing out in real life, it’s still terribly funny. If you want an awesome night, gather some similarly minded friends, get entirely drunk or toasted, and put this on. With poor English dubbing, naturally. It’s hard to figure out each time I watch this if any of the comical feel is intentional or not, and I still have yet to decide one way or another. The story is my first entry into the prison side of exploitation flicks, though not in a seedy sort of way. This is some kind of superpowered prison, where the appointed "guards" will punish you severely! It’s also a male prison, and there is no real discussion of anything "fun" happening. Instead, the "fun" happens when somebody meets your fist with their fist, and your fist makes their arm blast apart like play-dough. You also get to see what it would be like if someone were able to punch through your throat and into your mouth. Does it sound funny? Maybe, but trust me when I say it’s much funnier seeing it happen.

DID IT TURN ME ON?
My favorite death involves one swift swipe of a knife removing the skin and muscles from the lower half of a man’s face, which even in manga/anime world isn’t even possible. It doesn’t make me hard, though. Thank you for asking.

CHOICE CUT
Warden: You’ve got a lot of guts, Oscar! (As Oscar strangles Riki with his own exposed intestines)

Truck Turner (1974, USA, dir. Jonathan Kaplan)
Category: Blacksploitation

Famed scientologist Isaac Hayes gets in front of the camera AND the soundboard on this one! Is the soundtrack good? Of course! Does he have presence? Hell yeah. Is he a good actor? Uh, no. But it doesn’t matter, because this big, black, empowering bounty hunter character with a name like Truck Turner could have starred Prince as the lead and would likely still be alright. Nearly every white face in this film manages to be racist, and thus the words "nigger" and "redneck" get thrown all around back and forth like candy from a pinata loaded with C4. What does that mean? I don’t even know. There’s not a lot of lovemaking involved here, and it’s a pity because we all know Isaac’s voice makes the ladies wet just as fast as Barry White or Al Green does. Call it a missed opportunity. This movie is full of ultra-violence, and is easily the bloodiest of the blacksploitation flicks I’ve seen thus far. Kudos to that, and thus it gets my seal of exploitive approval.

DOES WHITEY GET IT?
Through whitey is STILL the devil (and won’t he always be?), the main villains here are a black man and a black woman who are trying to kill Truck! So while whitey may get beat down, and plenty of them die, it’s refreshing to see black on black crime. I don’t know how often I’ll ever get the opportunity to say that ever again.

CHOICE CUT
Dorinda: We call her turnpike, cause you gotta pay to get on and pay to get off!

Superfly (1972, USA, dir. Gordon Parks Jr.)
Category: Blacksploitation

Here’s one classic that actually holds up to its reputation. Much like Shaft, the film is mostly known for Curtis Mayfield’s smouldering, funky soul soundtrack that contains the title cut, as well as the most pleasant song about a drug pusher. The main character is not a hero. He’s a bad man. He’s looking to get out of the drug game with one big score, yet he does about as much blow as he sells, it would seem. The character of Youngblood Priest (what a name!) is deep and conflicted, and despite some of the cheesiness that’s bound to exude from a 70s production, and some misguided long shots of people on streets, this is full of style and substance while still maintaining that blacksploitation feel. A love scene in a bathtub is one of the sexiest and artistic I’ve ever seen. Did I mention how great this soundtrack is?

DOES WHITEY GET IT?
Oh, he sticks it to whitey good. To not ruin the surprise ending, I’ll only say that he’s a smart guy, and he gets them BETTER than killing them.

CHOICE CUT
Youngblood: You better take real good care of me. Nothin’, NOTHING better happen to one hair on my gorgeous head. Can you dig it?

Big Doll House (1971, USA/PHI, dir. Jack Hill)
Category: Sexploitation/Blacksploitation

Finally! It’s a women in prison film, that most quintessential of sexploitation themes! It’s a Roger Corman production, which should tell you enough. It’s set in the Phillipines, yet all of the inmates appear to be American. What doesn’t this have??? We get lesbians! We get drug addiction! We get strange torture devices, and some guy in a black executioner mask watching it happen! We get gratuitous nudity galore, including some legendary shower sequences! We get catfights, including an unnecessary romp in the mud between Pam Greer and some white trash! We get a food fight followed by a hose down! We get guys with plans to rape the prisoners! We get an evil foreign warden! We get a plan to escape! To top it all off, we get a lovely theme song. It’s horrible, but has there ever been a GOOD women in prison film?

DID IT TURN ME ON?
It’s women! In prison! No, it’s not at all hot in the least. I think I was more turned on by Van Damme’s prison masterpiece Death Warrant.

CHOICE CUT
Pam Greer: And don’t you FORGET IT!

Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song (1971, USA, dir. Melvin Van Peebles)
Category: Blacksploitation/Sexploitation

"They bled my mommaaaaaaaaaa! They bled my sistuhhhhhhhh! But they won’t bleed me!"

Often credited as the first blacksploitation film, and made for as little money as possible, Sweetback is more notable for its ferocity and fearlessness than its actual substance. It’s sometimes artistic, and sometimes aimless, and sometimes poignant, and often kind of like a dream or a nightmare because of the marriage of images and sounds. The music is like a giant group of jazz musicians jamming at the same time, while taking breaks to sing about what’s happening on screen. It’s really fucking weird. Peebles takes on subjects and ideas that had never been touched on before, though, and that’s the main value. He’s fighting for his people, single handedly. It’s one of the most bizarre films I’ve ever seen, and I have seen some of the most obscure and strange shit imaginable. The ending is cryptic and...well, it’s just some shots of some dead dogs. Real, dead dogs, followed by a warning that "a baad asssss nigger is coming to collect some dues...." Uh...okay? Given how little was spent, mostly because nobody would finance the thing because it wasn’t thought to make any money (who wants to see a black film?), I was rather impressed by portions. I’ve seen much worse done with much more. Sweetback spawned a million copycats, but none as personal and inspired as this. In order to appreciate the film completely, it’s worth seeing Melvin’s son Mario’s awesome picture Badasssss, which accurately portrays the production of the film, as remembered by Mario and those involved. Melvin lost an eye, and nearly his life, trying to get this thing made, and he did it ALL himself (with some financial help from, of all people, Bill Cosby). It’s a voice for the voiceless, for those who needed it, and for that it’s absolutely respected.

DOES WHITEY GET IT?
Of course! Whitey is the absolute worst here! They bled his mama AND his sister! Evil pricks. Sweetback beats two cops with handcuffed knuckles, and another gets his eyes burned. BUT... whitey gave this the dreaded "X" rating when it was released in the 70s, for the graphic depictions of sex (which there is an ABUNDANCE of) and brutal violence. Did whitey win this round???? It still got released, and led a generation...so no.

CHOICE CUT
Crazy bitch: LEAVE! SPLIT! LEAVE, MOTHAFUCKUH!

And with this, I leave you for a few days while I watch some more "awfulsome" flicks. As always, comments are appreciated.
-M