The death of boxing champ Ken Norton has produced some nice tributes, but we wanted to mention that he also made a couple of interesting movies. The one most worth watching is 1975’s Mandingo, a slavery tale that has gone unsurpassed for realism in depicting America’s antebellum South. A few movies are at the same level of historical accuracy (including the amazing Addio Zio Tom, which we’re going to feature here in a couple of weeks), but Mandingo remains notable for its sweaty, oppressive feel and rich cinematography. Norton wasn’t chosen for the pivotal role of Ganymede because he could act. He was chosen because of his physical build and good looks—the first was necessary for scenes in which his character takes part in brutal pit fights, and the second makes the movie’s subplot of forbidden sexual desire plausible. When we featured Mandingo a few years ago we didn’t recommend it fully, but any film which some prominent critics have hailed as a classic and was a clear influence on Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, but which Robert Ebert originally rated a zero has to be worth watching, if only to see what the fuss is all about. 

 

Above is one of our recent finds, a 1966 French edition from De Noël of British writer Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise, based on his iconic comic strip of the same name. If by chance you aren’t familiar with the character of Modesty Blaise, let’s just say she’s the archetype for every female ass-kicker from Lara Croft to Charlie’s Angels. Her background is too complex to get into in a short post, but the quick version is she began life as an orphan somewhere in the Middle East and rose at a young age to become the head of a vast crime syndicate called the Network. She eventually retired, but sometimes works as a sort of a freelance spy for the British government.

The cover art here is a screen of Italian actress Monica Vitti, who played the lead in a 1966 film adaptation that failed to capture the essence of the character or the scope of her adventures. A 1982 television adaptation didn’t do much better, and a cheapie 2004 effort that was made so the rights wouldn’t revert from the then-owners was monumentally bad. One of those owners was Quentin Tarantino, but he hasn't said if he’ll helm a fresh adaptation. If you haven’t read any Modesty Blaise, we recommend you remedy that immediately. It’s light, but O’Donnell still manages to deliver some thrills along with a healthy dose of eroticism and humor. And in the meantime us Modesty fans will just keep waiting for a film that does the character justice. 

We saw Sonatine a few years ago and were simply stunned by it. It’s a gangster drama that derives inspiration from the same Hong Kong crime films that inspired Quentin Tarantino. We’re talking about classics like Ringo Lam’s City on Fire and John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow. But the difference is Sonatine is doggedly introspective. There’s plenty of violence, but the overall pace is measured, and the film features a long interlude during which hired gun Aniki Murakawa—played by Takeshi “Beat” Kitano—enjoys some idyllic rest and recreation at the beach with his criminal cohorts. This interlude, wedged between the bookends of the film’s main story, was our favorite part by far, because it humanizes Murakawa, shows him to be a man capable of laughter, even dreams. But it also highlights his insatiable appetite for self-destruction, and the utter emptiness of his soul. In the hands of a lesser director these sequences could have been nonsensical, but Kitano, handling the chores himself, constructs the pieces perfectly and you come away with real feeling for his anti-hero Murakawa. When the problems Murakawa avoided finally come to roost, we can’t help but cheer for him to win. But nothing is as simple as it seems in Sonatine, and nothing about it is predictable. Maybe that’s why, after its spring premiere in Japan, it went on to create a sensation at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival and make Kitano an international icon. Watch this one and you’ll see why. 

Below we have top-notch promo posters from South Korea for Seung-wan Ryoo’s actioner Jjackpae, aka City of Violence. The film is exactly what you’d expect from looking at the art—two men driven by vengeance fight their way through swarms of baddies until finally reaching the evil kingpin who caused all their troubles. But even if it’s the type of tale we’ve seen made by every director from Woo to Tarantino, it’s done with style and delivers a mighty nice kick. Jjackpae premiered in South Korea today in 2006.

You know we love film anniversaries around here, which means there was no way we could let the day pass without commemorating Kill Bill—or more precisely, the second half of it. Quentin Tarantino pretty much made pulp a household term, and remains the foremost practitioner of the cinematic version. Below we have five Japanese posters for Kill Bill, Vol. 2. It was released in Japan today in 2004.