I found a Mario Bava movie at National Market! Woo Hoo Hoo!!!

The movie I found, after hours and hours ( or so it seemed) of flipping through the crap that lands at NM following the latest Oscars, was La maschera del demonio – on the DVD cover, it said Black Sunday, which was the name under which it was released in the US. My trip had been made! This one happens to be the very first horror movie directed by Mario Bava, and had been banned in the UK until recently.

Also found this movie called Shatter Dead. I hadn’t heard about it before, but the plot at the back of the DVD case was convincing enough. The keywords used in IMDB for this movie are “Gun In Vagina / Zombie / Independent Film / Cult Favorite / Psychotronic”, and if that doesn’t prove that I was right, well, go figure.

Other movies of note: Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny, Little Miss Sunshine ( the only piece of post-Oscar flotsam I am interested enough to watch), Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower, the unrated director’s cut of Hostel, which I had promised myself I would buy, the extended edition of 28 Days Later, Khubsoorat and Chupke Chupke – the Hrishikesh Mukherjee versions, Gulzar’s Mausam. DOA: Dead or Alive, about which I will talk about in a minute. Some other titles I don’t really remember.

Right, so today morning, I decided to watch a bit of some movie while sipping on my morning tea – and put on DOA: Dead or Alive. In a couple of minutes, the tea was forgotten, as DOA seared my eyeballs with twenty thousand volts of unadulterated pleasure. Fuck, this was moviemaking – this was the kind of visual spectacle I want from my films. Four Ass-kicking leading ladies, one of them Devon Aoki, who played Deadly Little Miho in Sin City ( and I think I know now why she was cast in the role of the silent Miho – the moment she opens her mouth, her onscreen appeal reduces by 40 percent), and the others Jaime Pressly, Holly Valance and Natassia Malthe. And what’s this? Natassia Malthe played Typhoid Mary in Elektra? I need to buy Elektra then, and fast! Quick searches also reveal that Skin Walkers and BloodRayne II: Deliverance are movies in which Ms Malthe’s delicate ( NOT!) Norwegian frame will make an appearance, hence buying budgets adjusted accordingly.

DOA: Dead or Alive is a movie based on a video game, which would make a normal Oscar-watching snob turn up his nose at it – but trust me, this is a movie made by a man who respects good cinema. Consider the opening sequence, a pan through a huge courtyard covered with soldiers, an establishing shot that goes up the stairs of the royal palace and into the courtroom, where princess Kasumi is indulging in histrionics-with-an-English-accent. The scene is a tribute to the universality of cinema – the shot itself is a ripoff homage to Zhang Yimou’s Hero. Erm, ignore for a moment the fact that Hero is Chinese while Kasumi is a Japanese princess – and that Ninja clans don’t really stay in palaces. She escapes, and her kimono expands itself into a hang-glider, and all of a sudden, a spinning shuriken whirls into Princess Kasumi’s hand. “You are invited to DOA”, the shuriken says, apparently a hi-tech courier object that finds its destination by tracking the DNA of the invitee. We then shift to the other protagonists of the movie – a master-thief and assassin called the Bride..er…named Christie (Holly Valance) who knocks the wind out of the Hong Kong Police dressed in a towel and her panties, and then gets the Chief Inspector to hook her bra while she points a gun at his lower abdomen. Dude, I love Female Empowerment!

The whole introductory sequence establishes what the whole movie will be about- hot women kicking arse, with multiple sub-plots thrown in. Just to show you how much this movie rocks, here’s a checklist of what I expect in a movie and what I got in DOA: Dead or Alive.

• Hot women – check
• Hot women attacking thousands of ninjas – check
• Hot women out for revenge – check
• Hot women beating the shit out of obnoxious men – check

• while in a state of semi-undress – check

• Gratituous fight sequence in the rain – check
• Fight sequence in a bamboo forest – check
• Lots of bamboo trees being cut down by errant Samurai sword – check ( I love seeing bamboo trees being sliced by samurai swords. )
• Stupid villain who thinks he can defeat four hot women – check
• Irritating non-violent character who is into computers and thus saves the day – check

• and who manages to get one of the hot women for himself – Whaddya think? ( That’s wish fulfilment for 90% of the core audience for the movie)

• Electronica playing as background music – DOUBLE CHECK.
• Random trenchcoat scene – check.
• Random funny scene in a lift – check.

Do yourself a favour and watch the movie. Forget all that Oscar stuff, it’s movies like DOA: Dead or Alive that makes you feel…er….alive. Makes you want to skip office, buy a PS2 and play all possible versions of DOA released so far.