Pulpmovies Reviews

Burned out war photographer, Yuji Nishizaki (Takao Osawa) is camping out in the mountains when he sees – and photographs – a plane crash. And then things get interesting…

As the film gets going, we are also introduced to Yuji’s sister in law, Keiko (Yuko Takeuchi) and Ochiai (Hiroshi Tamaki), both of whom happen to be journalists. Both of them sense a story brewing and Yuji quickly finds himself drawn into their investigations – especially in the case of Ochiai.

The story, as it emerges, is quite a major one, to say the lease. It turns out that some euphemistically referred to “Northern agents” have broken into a nearby Air Force base and sabotaged one of the American B52 bombers flying out of there. This is the plane that Yuji saw crash and it is carrying something that the Japanese government are both desperate to recover and very keen to keep from the public.

While Keiko finds herself investigating the incident at the US base, Ochiai manages to talk Yuji into going into the mountains with him to try and locate the crashed plane. And it’s in the mountains that the action gets going.

As well as the journalist and photographer, there are also two units from Japan’s self-defence force also trying to converge on the plane. And, to make matters difficult, the mountains are also heavily infiltrated with the aforementioned “Northern agents.”

The main problem that I had with Midnight Eagle is that the film seems to be quite uncertain as to whether it’s an action film or a conspiracy thriller. We do have a conspiracy, centring on what was on the crashed plane and why the Japanese government are so desperate not only to recover the plane, but also to keep the whole affair under wraps. But it’s not much of a conspiracy and figuring out what is going on is far from difficult which makes the reveal a bit of a let-down.

So on to the action and here the film suffers by being quite slow. The action sequences are competently done, but there is a limit to the number of ways that you can film a couple of men trudging through snowy mountains while avoiding various white-clad villains hiding in the snow. Consequently, we have a very high dialogue to action ratio.

Perversely, though, it’s in the dialogue that the film scores most strongly. There is a great deal of discussion in the film about Japan’s military and foreign policies and, while some of this probably does assume a greater understanding of the country’s politics than the average Westerner has, none of it is so intricate as to lose you and the broad themes are understandable to all.

There is also much said about the nature of journalistic integrity, the value of truth and – although not explored as fully as I’d have liked – the question of what happens when reporters uncover explosive secrets.

All of this comes together in a very powerful and genuinely moving climactic scene which very effectively pulls together the films themes of sacrifice and loyalty and which – on it’s own – makes Midnight Eagle a film well worth seeing.

Writer/director Randy Greif certainly has a very unique vision, as is amply demonstrated in The Three Trials, the story of Catherine (Molinee Green), a nun with a unique form of narcolepsy.

Catherine’s troubles start when she stumbles across the priest of her church (Michael Q. Schmidt) indulging in fetish sex with the convent’s dominatrix Mother Superior (Sirena Scott). Aroused and in trouble, her troubles start when she is sent to the wonderfully grimy basement of a nearby cathedral to face the first of her trials.

The film starts very firmly in nunsploitation territory, but quickly takes a very surreal turn and becomes much, much more as Catherine is forced to confront and accept her sexuality.

Moving beyond the religious life, by way of a montage that reflects both the reality of her secular life and the submissive fantasies that are now – and maybe always were – a part of her being, Catherine finds herself living in Blackheart’s Castle.

In terms of narrative, this is the most explicitly dream-like part of the film. No attempt is made to explain how she arrived here, or even where ‘here’ is – and, as such, it works more as a fantasy, and a deliberately adolescent one at that. Catherine the nymph, like Catherine the nun, has a deep desire for devotion but this time around the desire is more romantic than religious.

Although the narrative here is the most dream-like, the imagery in this part of the film is the least. And Greif does manage to come up with some very striking imagery that does manage to very effectively convey the eroticism of Catherine’s personality. The imagery is also often quite erotic in its own right.

It also has to be noted that, regardless of the description of the synopsis so far, the film does not follow a linear narrative. It is divided into three broad sections, each of which deals with a different aspect of Catherine’s submissive sexuality. But, as with both personality and sexuality, these aspects do impinge on each other and – consequently – the events in the three sections do refer, backwards and forwards, to each other.

The end of the second section of the film sees Catherine being rescued by Beast (Maximilien Herholz), a sasquatch-like creature who, by the beginning of the final section, has become a man. And, as this man is more than happy to accommodate Catherine’s desires, we see her relationship with him becoming increasingly extreme and masochistic.

More than anything, this part of the film made me think of The Story of O and really does capture the same sense of utter submission that is portrayed in the novel. And, as with O, Catherine’s journey is one that follows an unrelenting logic of its own and one that is engaging, erotic and more than a little disturbing.

Where The Three Trials is unique, however, is in Greif’s use of a surreal and genuinely dream-like approach to narrative, along with some deliberately absurdist elements, to obscure the boundaries between reality and fantasy. And, although the imagery does become a little self-indulgent at times, it does come together to generate a very striking, and very memorable, visual experience.

This is a film that doesn’t sit comfortably in any genre but one that very effectively pulls together elements from a variety of influences to create something that both unique and very powerful indeed.

A thrill-seeking businessman (Daniel J. Fox) hears about Dreamscape Inc, a company that provides ‘electronic dreams’ – custom fantasies that are delivered directly to your brain as you sleep – and becomes very interested. After listening to the sales pitch, he signs up to have a little widget attached to the back of his skull and, still feeling groggy, is returned home where he collapses on his bed.

Then we’re into the main part of the film, a spy thriller fantasy that sees the businessman in the role of a courier, tasked with delivering a mcguffin to a contact. As The Courier (in keeping with the film’s noirish aspirations, no-one has a name), he takes on countless secret service agents, gets the girl (Magda Rodriguez) and attempts to stay ahead of The Investigator (Mark Ellingham) long enough to complete his mission.

This is all good solid stuff and works well as an action oriented spy thriller. It’s also beautifully shot and really does show what can be achieved now with some intelligent use of digital effects.

The sets and the scenery really do come together superbly to give the film a very effective near-future noir feel. I don’t think I’ve seen a digital landscape this well realised since, well, since Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. As with Sky Captain – and unlike many subsequent films – writer/director, Daniel J. Fox is confident enough that he doesn’t feel the need to constantly ask you to marvel at his CGI ingenuity. Instead, the sets and the design do what these things are supposed to do – deliver a well-realised and believable world that fits the story perfectly.

The film does have some weaknesses, however, most notably the slightly clunky dialogue and an air of predictability to the plot – the predictability being my major gripe.

The back of the DVD case promises that: “illusion quickly turns into nightmare as reality and fantasy blur.” Unfortunately, reality and fantasy don’t blur nearly enough. What I was hoping for was something like eXistenZ in which both the characters and the audience are deliberately confused as to what is real and what isn’t.

Although the businessman believes he is in a dream, the truth is quite apparent to the rest of us. And this makes for a rather disappointing reveal at the end.

A longer version of this Dreamscape is currently in progress. If this version makes more of the dream/reality divide or extends the final act, then Daniel J. Fox could have a truly unique film on his hands.