Shelf Life #4: Unsubtitled Edition

As promised in my last blog post (I Don’t Go to the Movies to Read), I will review 3 foreign films for this edition of Shelf Life without the aid of English subtitles. Some might call me crazy – to remove one of the most important, basic aspects of watching and reviewing movies, i.e. to UNDERSTAND what you’re watching – but with the following movies (well, at least 2 out of 3), I’m hoping to prove my case that subtitles are not always required.

Okay, so these aren’t traditionally “good” movies, where normal logical/technical conventions of filmmaking apply, but the mindset I’m coming to this with doesn’t so much have to do with notions of what’s good or bad, but that there is so much undiscovered cinema out there, buried in far-flung corners of the world, not having subtitles might not be such a problem if you have the hunger and drive to seek these out no matter what.

It’s both a frustrating and liberating exercise. Exciting even. I’ve never been bungy jumping but perhaps one could make the analogy that it’s like the movie-viewing equivalent of bungy jumping. That leap into the great unknown. Who are these actors? What language are they speaking? What the heck is it about? What IS it?? When everything is spoon-(or force)-fed to us by media these days, sometimes picking up a Malaysian VCD (remember those?) of an Indonesian movie based solely on its cover art can be the most refreshing experience you ever have. The flipside is that the language barrier means that your comprehension of the movie is considerably stripped down. One could argue that enjoying a movie based on its “exotic” nature isn’t intellectually fulfilling or constructive, but I don’t care. To engage in the exercise is stimulating in itself.

NAGA SAKTI

I just looked back at my notes I wrote for this film and it’s some of the most insane shorthand I’ve ever done: “body brought in, still alive?? starts talking family members looking sad/angry, dying telling them to avenge/? what to do after he’s dead? handing over the dagger throne? package take care of it”. Yes, watching a foreign movie sans subs works your brain twice as much; you’re forced to make a lot of assumptions and ascribe broad descriptions to characters and situations. But you’d be surprised how intelligible the story can be after you’ve seen the entire thing.

Naga Sakti is a martial arts/fantasy adventure from Indonesia, made in 1986 – if the title card in the opening credits is to be believed. It opens with an old guy fighting a trio of rice hat-wearing warriors (one of whom has only one arm). There’s a cool bit where they’re clashing on top of water lilies. He’s badly injured and in the next scene is taken back to his home on the brink of death. His family gathers around him, and it’s clear he’s a patriarchal figure of some importance as imparts his last wishes to his sons and daughter. But it turns out that his daughter is rotten, wanting control over the family. She has the other brothers killed, but one escapes – I’ll refer to him as Goatee Guy from now on.

Goatee goes on the run with his pregnant wife and daughter. Henchmen catch up with them and kill his wife and daughter. Oh yeah, the baby’s born at this stage. Years pass and Goatee trains her up to be a martial artist. She’s pretty decent, able to run through the forest and cut down a bunch of bamboo trees with her hands. I’ll call her Bamboo Girl. They’re ambushed by pirates and taken on a ship. But Goatee defeats Head Pirate in a fight and befriends the crew. More fighting with henchmen ensue. There’s another guy after them, whom I’ll call Snake Blood Boy, since he seems to have been brought to life in a cave where an old wizard-like fella beheads a snake and pours blood into his mouth. Basically where it’s heading is that Goatee, Bamboo Girl and Pirate Crew are going back to avenge Goatee’s father’s death. It’s only a bit later that I/we (?) realise that Snake Blood Boy is on the good team, and it’s actually Goatee’s father that brought him to life. As far as I can make out anyway.

Apart from the confusing subplot involving Snake Blood Boy, Naga Sakti has a fairly bog-standard easy-to-follow revenge story. It helps that it’s short (75 minutes), brisk and packed with action. Barely five minutes go by without a fight so there’s never a dull moment. The fights are fast, albeit crudely staged and shot, but what really makes the film entertaining is the combination of weird stuff and spectacular gore. There are no less than 3 sequences where guts are graphically ripped out (telekinetically!), plus at least 3 beheadings and 2 severed hands. One guy gets decapitated, but grows a new head. Not enough? How about a rubbery flame-breathing dragon? Sharks. Laser-shooting eyes. Boomeranging hats. Ninja stars. If you’re accustomed to Indo-weirdness via Barry Prima’s work like The Devil’s Sword or The Warrior, or films like Mystics in Bali, you’ll know what to expect. If not, oh boy…

COBRA

This is another unknown Indonesian movie I bought at the same time as Naga Sakti (reasoning behind purchase: a martial arts film with the title Cobra can’t be all that bad can it??). Its “star” Steven Lee appears to be a Bruce Lee rip-off (complete with Bruce’s nose-thumbing and squealing) and judging by the fashion in this movie, I’d say it was made in the late ‘70s. Again, a routine revenge plot. Lee’s white-bearded master is killed in the opening scene by a villain using a staff with a three-headed cobra. Lee moves to the big city with his master’s daughter, they get married and she’s expecting soon but he’s still jobless. Out looking for work, he stumbles onto a fight where a group of red-jacket, scorpion-insignia-wearing thugs are beating on a bald man in a car. Lee intervenes with his skillz and wards them off. The bald man is impressed and lo and behold – offers him a job.

Unfortunately the job involves going into a life of crime for a cigar-chomping bad guy who’s in the business of moving contraband to and off his island. Lee doesn’t seem to notice but behind Cigar Boss’ table is a huge shield with the three-headed cobra from the first scene. But it doesn’t matter just yet. Lee’s making a bit of money, supporting the wife, effectively balancing his criminal life with being a good hubbie/father. He also has a new buddy in the gang. The Scorpion gang’s still at large though and there are a few skirmishes along the way with the Cobras. But Lee gets double-crossed by Cigar Boss – for reasons that I’m not quite sure of – and his wife is killed and young daughter gets thrown out of a window (!). The rest of the film is payback time.

Cobra is by-the-numbers Bruceploitation, with a few pretty brutal moments to be had (Lee stabbing a guy in the gut with a broken plank of wood; Cigar Boss dunking his girl’s face in a tub of hot bath water). But none of it compares to the death of Lee’s daughter, which is one incredibly jaded and ruthless scene that I didn’t see coming. It’s made even more tasteless by a transition shot to a doll falling on the floor and the film not once, but twice cutting to her body splayed on the ground. Anyway Cigar Boss gets his comeuppance in the end, the identity of the man who killed Lee’s master is revealed, and the film throws in a lame twin-brother twist for good measure (“Oh you think you killed me, that was my twin brother hah hah”).

SHAITANI DRACULA

This Hindi movie made me regret ever doing this. Watching Naga Sakti and Cobra felt like a breeze compared to Shaitani Dracula. At least those two resembled proper movies with relatable themes and tropes. I’ve seen a lot of terrible movies in my time but Shaitani is something else. I wanna say it’d make Ed Wood or Andy Milligan weep or something but I dunno. Seems too easy. Written, produced and directed by Harinam Singh, who should never have been allowed anywhere near a camera, this mind-numbing monstrosity gives trash cinema a bad name; it’s not so much a “movie” but an artifact, a piece of evidence, “for those who think they’ve seen it all”.

I ordered the VCD a few years ago after reading the exhaustive, astonishing write-up by Keith Allison at Teleport City but it’s sat unwatched on the shelf until now. I’m not as enamored by Shaitani as Allison is, but having experienced it, I can attest that it is very close to one of the worst and weirdest films in existence. A very simple outline of the plot might say that Dracula and his scantily dressed ladies are terrorising a group of campers in the forest. But the reality is so much more painfully incoherent and monotonous.

Even when you’re watching a film in a language you don’t understand, you can generally get a feel for the story by recognising plot developments and conventions; you’re shit outta luck with Shaitani. It moves from one scene to the next with a complete disregard for continuity, establishing characters or plot, and looks unbelievably GHASTLY (I swear 80% of the film is out of focus!!). The creature make-up and costumes are so cheap Geoff’s Emporium might even be embarrassed to stock it. You know when you’re invited to a costume or Halloween party and can’t be assed buying/hiring something so decide to put something together with whatever materials you have lying around in the house? Shaitani’s like that.