Super Cyclone (2012)

With this being Women's History Month, and knowing that one of my favorite films directed by a woman is the Asylum Mega Shark vs Gatoroid directed by Mary Lambert, I thought I'd go back to the Asylum well and found this potential gem written and directed by Liz Adams, and starring one of my favorite actors, Ming-Na Wen. Let's see how it did.

Super Cyclone is about an oil rig off the coast of LA that digs a little too deep and taps into an active volcano--or something like that. Engineer Nick Turturro realizes they're in trouble, and it only gets worse as a storm forms out of the super-heated volcano ocean water. When expert meteorologist Ming-Na and her partner are called in to help, the manager of the oil rig thinks it's best if Turturro goes with them back to the mainland, as a Super Cyclone is forming, and it's headed straight for LA. Now it's a race against time, as our crew needs to out-maneuver all manner of shaky cams and CGI obstacles to get to the local military base, where they can liaise with some stern upper military types, and come up with an off-the-wall solution that just may work.

And where does that leave us? With this pre-Sharknado era of The Asylum disaster film, who knows? We're looking for something special in this sea of CGI monsters and natural disasters complete with shaky cams and actors looking for a quick buck while waiting for their agents to come to them with something better, and despite the presence of Ming-Na, I don't know if this movie has it. Also, the guys working on the oil rig who were thrown into the ocean were essentially being boiled alive, and while "boiled alive" consisted of thrashing around in the water and yelling, the idea of it was still less fun and more grotesque--I mean, I turn the hot water up too much in the shower and the pain is pretty rough, I don't want to imagine anyone going through that. And therein lies the rub, for one of these movies to work, it needs to be fun, and I think this one, while it had its fun moments, overall didn't have as much fun in it for what I'd want.

When we look at Ming-Na's career at the time this film was made, this was just before Agents of SHIELD, and you can see that she doesn't do anymore Asylum flicks after that. As I mentioned above, I've always been a fan of hers, and think it's great that she's had this career resurgence through Agents of SHIELD, and now the Boba Fett series on Disney+. I think in this film we can at least see why she's been so successful on these other shows, because she brings a little extra to what is otherwise a pumped out paint-by-number jawn that The Asylum could sell to Sy-Fy so they could fill another time slot and rake in the ad revenue. At the very least, it seemed like she was having fun with it--but I imagine she's having much more fun with the work she's doing now.

When I started the DTVC, The Asylum was bigger with their Mockbusters--Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, etc. At a certain point, they transitioned to these disaster movies, I think in part because they had a deal with Sy-Fy to air the movies on there. As The Asylum is wont to do, they pumped out tons of these, while at the same time pumping out Mockbusters. Here I think is where Liz Adams comes in. She gives them two scripts--this and another film, Air Collision, and I imagine they're saying "if you can direct them for X amount of money, go for it," and then that's it, Liz Adams hasn't directed anything since, and really hasn't done much else in the movie industry since. She also wrote Shark Week in 2012, but that was directed by Fred Olen Ray's son Christopher, who is still pumping out DTV flicks, his most recent being Assault on VA-33. I don't know if that's telling, if there's something about doing this Asylum stuff that can be difficult to the point it turns someone off from movie making altogether, and you have to be the son of one of the greatest schlock auteurs of all time to want to keep working in that ecosystem. Maybe there is a sense of "did I get into this industry to write and direct a movie where I'm telling Ming-Na Wen and Nicholas Turturro to thrash around and act like their SUV was picked up by a super cyclone?"

And that gets us back to The Asylum. It's almost like they made our Hall of Fame last fall through sheer force of will. This is now 34 of their movies we've covered, and as much as I want to deride them or hate them, the volume of their output means it's too much of a statistical probability that I'll need to review more of their movies in the future, meaning they're a certainty for the 40 Club and beyond. I looked them up on IMDb, and it's showing they released 14 movies in 2021, plus 8 episodes of their series Black Summer. Again, it's a mix of Mockbusters and disaster movies, but nothing is really remarkable. By the same token, Fast and Furious: Death Race from 2020 is one of the most read reviews I've done since I've come back from hiatus, so it does highlight the fact that with that volume of output, they can still get hits from time to time--by the same token, my Sharknado 3 review is the least-viewed of my reviews since I've come back, which shows they can also overdo it to the point of fatigue.

Speaking of that volume, when I was seeing what pictures IMDb had of this movie, I saw some from the film's red carpet premier. The what now? This movie had a red carpet premier? Do all Asylum releases have a red carpet premiers? I looked, and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid also did. When I looked up Fast and Furious: Death Race, I didn't see one, nor did I for some others I looked at, but I was just going off the pictures on the IMDb page. I can't imagine they do 14 red carpet premiers a year, I feel like that would be worth another movie and a half for them. Anyway, when I looked at the pics of the premier for this film, it seemed like two actors from the film posted all of them, Andy Clemence, who was third billed in this and has 10 IMDb credits to his name; and Mitch Lerner, who has more credits on IMDb, but a lot of them are for shorts. It's like "hey, look at me with Ming-Na and Nicholas Turturro!" and they have the "yes, I'll do this picture with you" smile. Don't get me wrong, I would definitely get my picture with them too, it's just by posting it on the photos section of the IMDb page, we now know there was a red carpet premier for this movie, and we know Ming-Na and Nicholas Turturro had to get pictures with Mitch Lerner while they were at it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. It seems like this is on all the major streamers for free, including Tubi here in the States. I think if you're a Ming-Na fan like me, the better bet is to watch her on Agents of SHIELD or the Boba Fett show--or the short lived sitcom The Single Guy from the 90s if you can find it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381317

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

 

 

 

Hong Kong 97 (1994)

This one was placed on my radar after Albert Pyun himself commented on my Spitfire post that he shot that, this, and Heatseeker all at the same time, which was why there was some overlap in the actors. I liked the Robert Patrick and Ming Na on the cover, and couldn't wait to see what Brion James and Tim Thomserson were like. If anything, it would be a fun ride with that kind of cast.

Hong Kong 97 takes place as control of Hong Kong was being transferred back to China. With that expectation and potential upheaval as the backdrop, we have Robert Patrick, a hired assassin for a major corporation based in the city. After he kills or upsets the wrong person, a large bounty is put on his head. Co-workers Thomerson and James try to help him, while he seeks refuge at the home of former flame Ming Na, who needs to get out of dodge herself with her grandfather, because he's wanted for defecting from China, and could be arrested by the army if he's not out before the transfer. Now Patrick is trying to figure out who's after him, how he can get Ming Na and her grandfather out of the city, and clear his debts, all at once.



I liked this one. It might either be too light on the action and too heavy on the Noir for some people, or too heavy on the action and too light on the Noir for others, but it worked for me. The down times, where we either had Brion James talking in his British accent with Thomerson or Patrick, or the catching up with one another/sexual tension scenes between Ming Na and Patrick, didn't feel boring or like padding. The best element was the use of Hong Kong's transfer to add to the tension. I think the move Pyun made by setting a scene in Ming Na's place while she's packing her things to move out really added that tension the best, because maybe we can't all relate to Hong Kong moving from British to Chinese hands, but we can relate to the feeling of moving, and the time when the move is almost there, that feeling of inevitability and impending change. It pervaded every other element of the movie, and for me, tied it all together.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, this was shot at the same time as Spitfire and Heatseeker. I think out of all three, Hong Kong 97 worked the best. The biggest cast overlap was Tim Thomerson, who appeared in all three films. Then you have Brion James, who was in the beginning of Spitfire, then had a major role in this, and Tina Cote, who had a major role in Heatseeker, then appeared in the opening credits to Spitfire. I thought I remembered Robert Patrick being in Spitfire for a second too, but I can't find any proof of that. What would've been cool is more Thom Mathews and Norbert Weisser, even Vincent Klyn. There should be some kind of Albert Pyun mainstay battle royale with all of these guys together-- maybe that could be the Mean Guns remake...



You're probably wondering why I included an image of Robert Patrick nude, crouching down, and shooting a gun. I just wanted to say I was impressed with Pyun's excellent Skin-a-max style directing in this scene. He displayed a great ability to avoid showing Patrick's junk without making it look like he was purposefully obscuring that area. I wonder what Patrick thought when he saw that in the script: "sweet, I'm having sex with a hot chick, and then... I run around the hotel room buck naked, dodging bullets and firing at gunmen crashing through my window? I need to talk to my agent..."

I know a lot of the readers are big Tim Thomerson fans, so I should warn you now that he gets killed off about midway through. He's great while he's there, especially talking with Brion James, and Brion James survives, so at least you have him to make up for anything you're missing with Thomerson. Seeing Thomerson reminds me yet again that I need to get those Trancer films up, so hopefully I'll do that soon.



You gotta love Ming Na. She was also great as Chun Li in Street Fighter, which came out the same year as this. You could see here, though, playing off Robert Patrick in their non-action scenes, where she would start the ball rolling into her better acting gigs, like ER. As far as Van Damme leading ladies go, I'd say she's in a tie with Mia Sara for best of all time.

This is only available on VHS. Amazon has it pretty cheap used, so that's a great avenue to go. I personally liked it, and it has a great cast to boot. Definitely worth giving a look.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110052/