cock robin.

Occasionally a movie comes along that is so magnificent, so splendid that you experience an almost religious awakening whilst viewing.

A film that can truly claim the title of cinematic perfection.

Ladies and gentlemen celluloid alchemy does indeed exist and its name is....

Robin Hood: Ghosts Of Sherwood (2012).
Dir: Oliver Krekel.
Cast:  Martin Thon, Ramona Kuen, Martin Hentschel, Kai Borchardt, Anika Neubauer, Dennis Zachmann, Kane Hodder, Dave Kaufmann, Carolina Grigorov and Lord Tom Savini.

"And I kill you now!"

Our tale begins in the mystical woods of Sherwood Forest (magnificently played by a children's playground behind the directors house),where a bedraggled group of homeless men in makeshift medieval uniforms (the tea towel budget must have almost bankrupt the production) stumble about aimlessly before falling down (quite carefully I must add, you don't want to get a splinter) in a manner usually reserved for a child’s deflating bop-bag toy.

Meanwhile, just behind the swings and across from the sandpit, another group of totally dissimilar medieval men are wandering around in what looks like an alcohol fuelled haze whilst attempting to construct a tent out of a washing pole and an old bed sheet as two disembodied voices explain the films storyline in the manner of someone who has only just discovered the ability to read.

But sod the speech we're here for the fighting and as luck would have it a small group (Re: three) of the king’s men are engaged in an exciting and incredibly well choreographed* sword fight against a band of angry tinkers.

Thankfully the director, being aware of how overwhelming such an incredibly exciting fight scene can be has thoughtfully placed the actors in such a way that the camera can just sit peacefully and capture the whole thing without needing to move from the old apple box that it's perched on.

This not only makes the whole thing much more peaceful to watch but ensures that our excitement levels don't get too high, leading to fainting and/or panic attacks.

The action hots up during the 1979 Cradley Heath dogging finals. If you don't believe me ask your dad (he came second).

But who is that dodging and diving 'tween the arse-kicking kingsmen?

Why it must be Maid Marian! (played it seems by Helen Hunt's younger, plainer sister, the real Ramona Kuen).

C'mon it's a Robin Hood story, I mean what other female do you know hangs around the park looking for groups of men?

Apart from your mum.

Anyway whilst kicking arse in a rather fetching knock-off Frozen dress from the market our bubble-bonced babe is being watched from afar by that lank-haired, pube bearded, jug-eared rocker dude that we all know from our college days.

Remember?

The one who was always trying to sneakily smoke hash at the back of the class and was forever doing the fish-lip face whenever Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen came on?

Oh no, hang on....it's actually Robin Of Loxley, the hooded man himself, Robin Hood (Thon, check out his frankly stunning show reel here).

T'was the lack of hood that confused me obviously.

And the lack of height.

And charisma.

Leaping (over the camera in an obvious homage to The Red Hand Gang) to her rescue our hero half heartedly kicks a few bad men up the arse before attempting to shoot them with his bow and arrow.

But lo! He misses because in a fantastic twist on the legend he's actually really shit with a quiver.

But dead handy with a ballpoint pen and a packet of Quavers.

Or so I'm told.

Insert cock here.

With the fight finished it's on to the plot good and proper and in a scene of soft-porn style overdubbing not seen since the heady days of Zombie(s) Lake  Robin discovers that Marian is actually the Sheriff of Nottingham's niece and that she's spent the last five years back-packing around Europe in an attempt to forge alliances and stuff. Liking her style (if not her scary inability to even breathe convincingly) Robin invites her back to his camp to meet his so called “merry men” who, in a change from accepted facts are no longer a hundred strong band of rough 'n' ready bandits willing to do anything for a righteous cause but are in fact a small group of  knitted trouser wearing homeless people sitting about on logs with their teeth blacked out pretending to chat after being promised a pork pie and a glass of Tizer.

Having never encountered women with bad teeth and hairy legs - not to mention short, beardy men with greasy barnets before (what did she have her eyes shut when she travelled thru' France?), Marian is intrigued to learn more of their customs but is shocked to find that the group not only don't work for a living and just sit about drinking (no doubt paid for out of their benefits) but supplement this by stealing stuff from the rich.

And I bet a fair few of them are immigrants too.

Bloody lefties.

Angrily confronting Robin about his frankly Pikey-like ways our hero responds with an impassioned (for a plank of wood) speech about international Marxism, the joys of commune living and eating toadstools which utterly convinces Marion to give up her rich kid lifestyle for a place amongst the Proletariat.

Right on.

Not only that but in a fit of zealot rage agrees to help Robin - alongside Friar Tuck (a man with a sinister lack of leg hair) and Will (son of Captain) Scarlet - to rob her uncle and redistribute his wealth by disguising themselves (via a face-changing magical potion no less - methinks certain cast members were busy this day) as monks before climbing up the toilet pipe and pocketing his gold.

It's not like he has any dignity left to steal.

Talking of absolutely no dignity it's at this point that The Sheriff of Nottingham himself finally makes an appearance.

In the form of the moustachioed god of gore (not to mention magician, photographer, pilot, highwayman, dentist etc.) himself Lord Tom of Savini.

With a Pittsburgh drawl, leather trousers and a beanie hat.

Genius.

SAVINI!

Obviously tho' (because the plan was conceived by madmen) this whole operation fails resulting in not only the deaths of Will and Tuck (thank fuck) but Robin getting a kicking before being hung on a wall like a discarded condom.

Which gives us just enough time to wonder why Marian needed to take the face-changing potion at all, I mean surely she wont have changed that much in five years?

Oh hang on it's because wannabe pop star and runner up of Kiddy Contest 2005 Carolina Grigorov was free for a few hours wasn't it.

Well fair play to them because she is fairly lovely.

In that mid 80's East Berlin kinda way.

Look what can I say? I went to art school in 1986....it's not my fault.

Can I also throw in at this point a totally random references to the town of Chestershire?

I don't see why not seeing as the cast seem to every five minutes.

Back to the action where, much to the guards confusion the face changing magic has worn off giving Robin a chance to escape  but not before being mortally wounded by some archers.

Of the bow carrying kind I mean he doesn't overdo the peach schnapps.

Tho' by this point I was on my third bottle.

Waking up in the lair of a sinister (is there any other kind?) witch (Marketing, Communications and Psychology graduate cum film producer Neubauer), Robin is mildly surprised to find that he's  been partially restored to life - which is twice as energetic as is usual and in order  to stay alive, he must relinquish his soul to the Devil.

But not for three years so that's OK then.

Robin, being a good guy is shocked by the thought of selling his soul to Satan (tho' obviously wouldn't think twice about selling his arse to sailors for loose change round the back of a supermarket) until that is the witch lets it slip that she has a potion for bringing the dead back to life.

But it will only work within the first 24 hours of death, otherwise the unfortunates will return as flesh eating zombies.

Remember this as it may be important later.

Possibly.

Swallowing his pride - which is much less salty that what he's usually guzzling - Robin takes the deal in order to save his friends and heads back to Nottingham to collect their corpses and bring them back to the witch where they are successfully restored to life.

"Shite in mah holy mooth!"

Back in Sherwood Forest life goes on as normal and Robin and Marian (now back to being played by Kuen), as is the way with the story, fall in love during a soft focus montage scored by the bastard child of Bryan Adam’s and Enya that was unfortunately dropped on it's head during its botched, backstreet birth.

Luckily all this mushy stuff (and ear rape) is interrupted when Robin casually lets slip about his deal with the Devil and Marian, none too happy with this turn of events storms off to the witches lair in order to bargain for Robin’s soul whilst our hero shuffles from foot to foot looking at the ground like a wee boy who's been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin.

Surprisingly enough Marian actually manages to make a deal with the witch which involves giving her a big bag of pennies in order to just buy replacement souls from greedy folk.

Brilliant.

Marion should really be on Dragon's Den, she's wasted in this.

As are most of the cast if I'm honest.

Skipping hand in hand from the witch’s cave and with nary a care in the world, Robin and Marian's happiness is shattered when the discover that the Sheriff’s men (all six of them) have stumbled across Robin's base camp and killed everyone.

To death.

Angrily attacking the evil knights Robin is soon cut down by a swathe of arrows leaving Marian - who by this point is hiding behind a tree - alone and without hope of help.

Or is she?

For out of the woods strides an imposing figure of a man with an infeasibly square head.

It's Little John back from the social and clutching an emergency  Giro.

And not only that but he's being played by Jason Voorhees himself Kane Bloody Hodder!

Obviously Derek Mears was busy.

That's probably not the only thing she blew for this role.

Marian, relieved to finally be sharing a scene with someone who has more than two facial expressions fills John in on the story so far before casually mentioning the witches abundant supply of the resurrection potion and the pair hurriedly head back to the cave, giving Hodder an excuse to beheaded the old crone before stealing it.

Which is nice.

Marian and John return to the camp (it's a wonder there's any grass left seeing as everybody always seems to be walking thru' the same bit of forest) and begin dosing the bodies with the potion before siting down to await the results.

Unfortunately the camp have been dead for longer than a day (see? I told you that was important) and in a howl of almost orgasmic grunting not heard since your dad was caught with the bridesmaid at your uncles wedding the by now even dirtier than normal Merry Men rise again...

as flesh hungry zombies!

"Spice Girls number one for Christmas....MONSTA!"

Realizing - in a bizarrely nonchalant fashion - their mistake Marian and John quickly rifle thru' the stolen magic bag in the hope of finding a spell or potion to aid them in their fight against the undead, first giving themselves "skin of stone" (which wasn't the only think hard at this point) then fighting back by turning rocks into explosives and creating a “rain of rockets” ("You know like the Chinese have." helpfully explains Marian) before finally deciding to trap the zombies in Sherwood Forest by means of a mystic forcefield.

As you would.

With the undead hordes contained the only thing left for Marian to do is deal with the evil Sheriff of Nottingham.

Oh yes and change back into Carolina Grigorov for no reason other than to placate my desires.

Thanks for that.

 As luck would have it he just happens to be passing by with several of his guards in search of his niece (which begs the question as to how long she's been gone....it's seems like months - no really - but must only be a few days which mean for all his faults Robin's a fucking quick worker).

She explains to her uncle that her and John had been verbally abused by some drunken football fans in the woods and that they should go and sort them out,  taunting Little John for being too much of a wuss for not dealing with it himself (and no doubt for appearing in Charlie's Farm) before heading into the woods to kick some arse.

Cue a sexily stifled moan followed by a scream and some top rock guitar (courtesy of Michael Donner) as the titles crash into view over a blurred still of a sunset thru some trees.

Fucking magic.

But no, there's more.

We cut back to Nottingham Castle where an scary witch with an even scarier accent is being questioned by Little John - who appears to have been elected the new Sheriff after Tom Savini went missing in the woods as the French knight from Monty Python And The Holy Grail skulks about in the background.

It appears that the potion supply is running low and he needs a witch to help make some more, agreeing to free her if she offers to help.

Although only being a YTS witch with only basic spell skills she readily agrees rightly thinking that anything is better than spending your days in stocks with your arse on view to all and sundry.

Tho' I'm not too sure

Anyway as John prepares to send a large group of of men bedecked in ill-fitting and mismatched armour into the forest (and possibly certain death) a forlorn  Marian gazes off into the middle distance, no doubt thinking about where it all went wrong after her talent show heyday.

And that's really the end

Honest.

SAVINI! on a horse!

For the first time ever I'm at something of a loss to fully do justice to the experience of viewing this film. Every fibre of my being is screaming out "Burn it now!" yet there's something almost otherworldy about the delights and sheer entertainment value it holds

Like a lobotomised, Disney-fied version of Excalibur violently bumming the best bits of Hawk The Slayer drunkenly filtered thru' the design (and dubbing work) of Burial Ground, Robin Hood: Ghosts Of Sherwood runs the giddying gamut of total shite to utter genius and back again thru' every part of its almost 2 hour running time, everything about it seems to have been roughly plucked directly from the screaming brain of a madman and I for one am very grateful for it.

"Fiona! Where's mah lunch?"

Lazy camera work, inept dubbing, coma-inducing lift music, a cast with all the charisma of a bout of genital warts (with obvious exceptions) with a plot that doesn't as much meander as drag itself painfully across a glass strewn floor and a film so cheap that it manages to make the aforementioned Hawk The Slayer look like Kingdom of Heaven.

However none of this can dull the utter joy derived from the whole experience.

Oliver Krekel, I salute you.

Carolina Grigorov, I love you.

And Martin Thon?

Get a bloody haircut. 

As close to Godliness as cinema will ever get, this is the type of movie I dream of seeing.

And the fact that it was only a pound only adds to the joy.

Buy it now and demand a sequel.

The campaign begins HERE.

 

Thank you Poundland!

*For our American readers this is what we British call irony.

'ave a butchers!

Greetings dear reader(s)!

Been a busy month here at Arena Towers what with dodging angry cosplayers, actually doing some work and helping operation Yewtree with their enquiries (you're marked Ball) so I've been a wee bit worried that there wouldn't be any updates till at least 2023.

How great is it then that a loyal follower has come forward and offered to pen a review himself?

And it's written in English and everything.

Not like the normal shite I get sent.

Anyway, here's what he wrote:

Dear Dr. Lamont,

I like your writings on the films, you funny guy. I like writing on films too. You publish my writings on films and we both get along fine. You not and you be deader than Heath Ledger. When he died I said to my friend "Heath Ledger is died. Let us drink to him and his nights tail".

I say the same to you.

Love 

Jonathan.

So ladies and gentlemen please welcome this months guest reviewer Master Jonathan Butcher, aged 16 from sunny Korea.

Not too sure if it's the good bit or bad bit he's from but hey, beggars can't be choosers.


Fearless Tiger (1991).
Dir: Ron Hulme.
Cast:  Jalal Merhi, Bolo Yeung, Monika Schnarre, Jamie Farr and Lazar Rockwood.

 

Fearless Tiger is Z-grade movie alchemy - it should be steaming great dollop of celluloid turd, but it’s actually a block of screen gold. It's a kung-fu action flick that is astoundingly, perhaps cosmically flawed in every way, but somehow it always manages to keep me coming back, like a scab that won't heal.

The “star” (ahem) of the show is high-kicking short-arse Jalal Merhi, "Beirut's answer to Steven Segal" according to his self-scrawled imdb biography. Mr Merhi owns "Film One Films", and had until 2008 been writing, directing, producing and starring in ultra low-budget stinkers in a quest to keep the world’s bargain buckets filled to the brim. 

 Fearless Tiger was one of his first movies, and its extreme amateurishness combined with the enthusiasm of its cast, including Jamie Farr of Mash fame doing his best “indefinable Middle Eastern” accent, are what make it such a cracking watch.

 

Lyle, daddy and wife-to-be. Platform shoes, perspective and a big hat help to make Lyle appear marginally less tiny.

 

The story follows protagonist Lyle as he struggles with both ruthless drug lords and the English language. 

To explain the entire pothole-ridden plot would take too long, but suffice to say it involves tacky-looking opium-filled Buddha statues being sold as cheap souvenirs (?), police corruption, brutal underground martial arts contests attended by kids and their cardigan-clad mothers, monks, kidnapping, backstabbing prostitutes and sensei masters with ballet dancing sidekicks. 

 

Lyle's opium-peddling nemesis is Salamar, who resembles a crack-smoking Asian hair-metaller and states repeatedly that his kung-fu monk drug gang “The Black Pearls” don’t use guns. 

He demonstrates this by showing how mercilessly he deals with employees who steal from him, when he and his chunky monk assistant Boh do the only thing that ruthless drug lords do to traitors: they push a thief into some shallow water. 

 

The many hideous faces of Salamar, the rumoured offspring of Axl Rose and a bulimic cockroach.

 

 

When Salamar and Boh fly to Canada for a martial arts contest, the lives of Lyle and his even tinier Ronnie Corbett-sized chum Detective Peng are changed forever. 

After getting mashed by Boh, Lyle buys a crappy Buddha statuette from Salamar which inexplicably turns out to be filled with Opium, thus setting him on the path towards chop-socky glory. 

However, because at this point Lyle is completely devoid of kung fu mastery, Peng invites him to Hong Kong to sharpen his piss-weak fighting skills.

 

It's not long before an absolute legend pops into the picture: Mr Stan Channing. 

The Chan-man plays Bailey, a straight-talking, no nonsense, badass police chief who is giving Peng a hard time about the opium-smuggling case he's been working on. 

The only trouble is, Mr Channing looks less like a psycho and more like a frail, 60-year-old maths teacher whose pupils pelt him with spitballs and lock him in cupboards. 

According to Jalal Merhi, this endearingly dithering codger is actually a black belt in real life, but sadly we never get to see him whooping anyone.

The mighty Stan Channing, masterfully chewing out Peng. Cower, mortals!

  Lyle's yuppy brother OD's on the same opium he found in his Poundland Buddha statue, a new street drug known as "fish food", which is apparently "more lethal than guns". This makes me question its long-term selling power, but regardless, it's up to Lyle to abandon his affluent job and towering, long-faced supermodel fiancé to wreak revenge on the purveyors of fish food, by learning the deadly Tiger Claws fighting style in Hong Kong.

  Lyle's first teacher is Do Man, who seems to read his script phonetically and without any grasp of its meaning. After a stretch of thoroughly dull training montages, during which Lyle throws a massive blob-strop and tosses a load of paint over the floor, Lyle decides to compete in the "Beh Moh". 

This totally irrelevant plot distraction is a dangerous underground fighting contest with competitors that include a growling fat fucker with a permed mullet, a scrawny giant with a wobble-head and a balding, unhealthy looking American who looks like he’s accidentally wandered on set while looking for an AA meeting. 

Lyle once again gets his Beirut butt pummelled by Boh, who is coincidentally fighting here too.

 After the patience-testing and totally inconsequential Beh Moh segment, Lyle, Peng, the shortass alcoholic and a cartoonishly tall black fellow team up to take Salamar’s drug-peddling monks down to cripple-town. 

Lyle finally manages to achieve the Tiger Claws technique after having a boogie on top of a mountain with mulleted legend Bolo Yeung and a leotard-clad ballet dancer. 

This sequence is a whole other level of ill-advised drivel, descending into interpretive dance before rising like a shit, inbred phoenix to a sweepingly clichéd shot of Lyle trying to grab a ball out of Bolo’s hand. This, apparently, concludes his training.

When Lyle returns to Canada, his poor bemused fiancé is kidnapped by Salamar’s giggling cronies, a crime seemingly cued by Salamar unnecessarily leaping through a thick glass patio window. 

They’re desperate for a computer disk that Lyle found in his discount Buddha which contains the recipe for Fish Food. 

In one of the most baffling film sequences I’ve ever seen, Lyle meets the drug dealers in an art gallery to exchange his vast wife-to-be for the disk. 

However, the criminals and our would-be-hero are interrupted by an elderly woman who just wants to look at the pretty pictures, and the employees of the gallery who inform them that their dodgy deal is taking place right at closing time.

Somewhere amongst the mishmash of poor editing, pointless flashbacks, over-acting, under-acting and not-at-all-acting there is the greatest "fake limb" sequence in low-budget film history (closely followed by the suicidal dummy in Zombie Holocaust/Dr Butcher MD, whose arm pops off when it hits the ground, only to be miraculously re-attached when we see the corpse in gory close-up). 

 

Our guest reviewer Jonathan in all his Kung Fu glory!

Not to spoil the tension-free story (oh alright, I will), but Salamar and his cronies are in a car chasing Lyle and his lady, who are balanced on the back of a slowly-moving rubbish truck. 

 Salamar foolishly clambers out of the sun roof to get a clear shot at them (using firepower for the second time in the film, despite endlessly wittering on about his gang not needing guns). 

 When the car swerves, Salamar stumbles backwards, somehow managing to land head-first into the car with his legs flailing out the top. 

 The car skids and flips spectacularly with a preposterous-looking pair of dummy-double legs poking out of the sun roof for what must be ten full seconds’ screen time.

After the explosion, Salamar’s henchman Jerome and Lyle have the clumsiest fight of a film consisting solely of clumsy fights, and somehow Jerome ends up vanishing into a pile of garbage. Boh jumps over, clobbers Lyle , grabs the disk and wobbles slowly away, ready for the movie’s mind-blowingly anticlimactic climax during which Lyle lobs a TV at Boh, fails to use any of his training and then wanders gracelessly off into the sunset.

For trash aficionados, Fearless Tiger simply has to be seen. It’s a melting pot of directorial ineptitude, horrendous acting, tension-free storytelling, ludicrous-looking cast-members, and a script with more plotholes than plot. I would encourage any and all to track it down, watch it and then never speak of it again.