Trigger Warnings: (e) all of the above.
I take trigger warning seriously, but putting trigger warnings on an exploitation film seems redundant.
Some triggers: Attempted sexual assault, drug abuse, amputation, blood, gore, and general unpleasantness.
This is a 1978 Filipino exploitation film called They Call Her...Cleopatra Wong and it's about a one-armed executioner.
Sorry, I was looking at the Wong title. This is a 1978 Filipino exploitation film called One-Armed Executioner and it's about a one-armed executioner.
I like how the E is a gun. So far, this is a 10/10 movie and I haven't even gotten past the title.
It starts with a car driving down a dark street. A man named Mouse is talking quite openly on a payphone to a policeman, reporting a drug deal. Another man comes out of the car and walks to the phone booth. He takes a bar, locks the phone booth, and pushes it into the sea. Now he will have to pay extra for the overseas calling.
I would compliment this movie for getting straight to the point, but the executioner clearly had three arms; left, right, and his gun.
Maybe "arm" means "gun" and I'm wasting my time.
A woman and man are at a bar. They have just had a honeymoon and are waiting for the disappointment to begin
They were visiting Ann's family in San Francisco. I'm surprised Ann has a family- she looks like she was manufactured on an assembly line for exploitation movies.
He gets a phone call from the boss. The bartender asks Ann if her husband might leave Interpol. Ann says no, it means too much to him and she knew what she was getting into when she married him. Blind Swordswoman had more subtle exposition.
The boss says that they found the man is in water and want him to come investigate before the police get there.
The killer with the beard enters a bar and talks with his crime boss. He asserts that he killed Mouse before he gave away the information about the drug trade. Good to know.
Mouse is a Rat.
Interpol drag the phone booth out of the water. One of them says "Not much to go on, I'm afraid." Well, you have cause of death pretty much certain.
Back at the office, the head of Interpol says that Mouse gave useless tips, but maybe this one was worth something because, you know, he was sent over the edge of the water in a phone booth.
The man who married Ann is named Ortega. The other man is named Sanchez. The head of Interpol tells Ortega that he has to get on a plane at dawn. Letting work interfere this early in the marriage?
I made a joke about Ann being plastic earlier- but look at her offspring:
Almost ten minutes into this exploitation film, and we've already had a murder, a drug trade, and a betrayal. That means it is time for a sex scene. In the shower. Hitting all the bases.
Ortega is at the airfield waiting for the plane. They are trying to get information about the drug deal tip. Ortega says "Remember, we want information, not dead bodies." They follow this instruction and engage in a shooting battle with the gang.
Someone runs out of bullets and gets shot. Also, the plane blows up. Remember the "information, not dead bodies" thing? The gang gets out of there because "nobody could live through that."
Actually, someone does, but gets shot. Then the camera zooms in a briefcase.
A member of the gang comes out to a gathering and declares:
Another member named Milo calls him out on his ableist language and says "May I suggest 'numbskulls'?"
The ableist member says that Wicks, his corporate assistant, died in the plane. He says it's a disaster, but Milo says "May I suggest 'catastrophe?"
He about the briefcase and, when assured that it was destroyed in the fire, says "you better be right."
Cut to the briefcase at Interpol. Get it? He thought that something wasn't destroyed, but then it cuts to the thing that wasn't destroyed. The movie is great at foreshadowing.
But the insides are destroyed. The diary is burned up. I should stop making assumptions.
Ortega says that the legitimate businessmen don't enter the country in an undercover plane with a secret diary. Really?
Sanchez says Mouse was in touch with Edwards right before he was pushed into the bay. They don't know whether Edwards is involved.
They think the diary would prove Edwards was involved. They want to bluff and threaten Edwards with releasing the contents of the diary, pretending that it wasn't destroyed.
Does the plot even matter? Especially when we can see scantily-clad women massaging a gang member.
Milo is interviewing that member for a press release. The gang member dictates: "State how shocked and stunned that Edwards is that a top member of our management..."
Milo interjects "How about 'most trusted' member of management?"
Edwards approves and continues "...was involved in such a..such a crime'
Milo adds "May I suggest 'heinous'?"
Running jokes only work when they contain humor.
Interpol comes in. They ask if Edwards was waiting for Wicks. Edwards says no, and they inform him that Wicks was killed smuggling drugs. Awkward.
Edwards says he is shocked that his employee was involved in a crime. He also accuses Interpol of spying and harassment, threatening that other members of the gang are upset.
Then he says "You will have my full cooperation in the investigation of this...most heinous crime."
I laughed at a joke in a 1983 Filipino exploitation film. We all have done things in our lives we aren't proud of.
Edwards asks Milo to recover the diary and to attack Ortega.
Ortega enters his house to see Ann tied up. Gang member attack him.
I assume that, at some point, lying to the gang boss about having a vital piece of information that could incriminate his entire operation and then not guarding his house seemed like a good idea. I must have skipped that part of the movie.
A guy with the sword, who was the killer at the beginning of the movie cuts off Ann's dress sleeve.Then he nicks her shoulder. Then he just stabs her through the stomach and laughs.
Well, this is certainly living up to the "exploitation" genre.
Ortega. looks downwards and the camera holds on a ring on one of the gang's fingers. That was too subtle, so the camera zooms in on it.
I'm sure seeing your wife being murdered right before you is traumatizing, but he still takes note of this ring. I'm sure it won't be relevant later.
Now the guy with the sword tells them to hold out Ortega arm. He specifies the right arm for some reason. Then he amputates it and laughs some more.
That scene was, um, interesting, and justified the title. It also justified me putting it on the blog.
I have a bad feeling that, after a few more months of this blog, I'm going to look back at this movie as it if were Care Bears.
At the United Doctor's Medical Center. Ortega wakes up, hooked to an IV. Sanchez and the chief are standing over him. He slowly reaches over, grabs his stump, and screams that he will kill them. They put him under again.
A pair of white shoes enters the room, and the man wearing them sits on Ortega's bed and tells him that his wife is dead. It is in a hospital, the lighting is shadowy and we never see his face. I have always wondered what Eye of the Beholder would look like if it were a Filipino exploitation movie.
Interpol investigates an island where the plane crash occurred. Meanwhile, Edwards is doing some tests on a shipment of drugs. He asks a doctor about his "patient". So a member of the hospital is part of the gang.
Ortega is depressed about his lack of a arm. Wo-Chen, his officer, tries to cheer him up. Also, he calls him Ramon. So it's Ramon Ortega.
I don't like to beat a dead horse, but this 1983 Filipino exploitation film is morally superior to Me Before You.
Ortega swears revenge, but the chief of Interpol tells him to let the police department handle it professionally and:
Okay, that was twice I laughed. Not even sure if that was intentional, but it was funny.
At the graveyard, Ortega cries over his dead wife. He says life is worthless without her and it is hilarious.
The officers talk about what to do with Ortega. They suggest a desk job or a pension. This is known as workplace discrimination.
Orega takes a taxi to a bar. A very sleazy bar. Because exploitation film.
So Ortega walks into a bar.
The bartender asks "How much is your tab here?"
Ortega shrugs and replies "Can't tell you off-hand."
Ortega orders a bourbon double. A woman comes up and hits on him. Because exploitation film. Her name is Maria.
Cut to later that night. Maria has successfully made Ortega drunk and taken all his money. Then she takes him home and lies him down.
This scene is cool because the fan makes shadows across his face and it adds to the atmosphere. Yes, I'm praising the cinematography in a 1978 exploitation film.
Ortega goes to look at rings. Relationship moving that quickly? He walks around and people stare and him. Then he knocks over a fruit stand. The music tells me I'm supposed to be feeling sad about this.
Ortega sits alone in a room, drinking, and tells Ann that he is trying but doesn't know how to begin.
He hears Ann's voice in his head saying they were both looking for happiness and she thinks she has found it. Then there are some flashbacks of the Ortega and Ramon being romantic, clearly on the same level as the romantic flashbacks in Casablanca.
Mr. Wo-Chen and Sanchez talk about Ramon. I'm going to call him Ramon from now on because the characters are. Ramon is missing, and Mr Wo-Chen put out a search party because he is afraid that Ramon will try to seek revenge. Mr Wo-Chen says that Ramon isn't ready. I thought the police discouraged revenge.
Sannchez says this:
That's ableist.
Ramon is in a dark alley, so he gets beat up. And mugged. So he goes back to the bar. He stumbles and asks for a drink. But he doesn't have any money, and the bartender refuses to put it on a tab because he "is no longer one of his best customers."
The man who was sitting next to Ramon dials the phone ominously.
A car drives up and a man grabs Ramon, forcing him into a car. They drive to a location. It looks like a nice resort.
This is the part of the movie where they train the person with the new injury to fight. I've seen it in The Crippled Masters, Crimson Bat, and now The One-Armed Executioner. Every time I see this scene, I think about how Will Trainer killed himself because he couldn't surf.
Mr Wo-Chen summarizes it:
Ramon's first task is to walk across a beam. He walks across the beam the second time he tries it. I don't really get the idea that he achieved something great if he got it on the second try.
He fails at fighting twice.
This is turning into a bad anime.
Actually, it's turning into a bad montage. An extremely bad montage.
I disagree.
Wo-Chen reminds Ramon that a single touch could kill him in real battle, and he trains again.
This fighting isn't interesting to me. I don't know why.
This part is hilarious though. He skips rocks across the water and Ann's face shows up. You would think that her face would shimmer onto the surface of the water. but there is just a still photo of her on the water, the water shimmers away and she starts moving. It's hard to describe, but this is when you first see her photo:
And when the water leaves, she starts moving as if she just remembered to start the flashback.
Wo-Chen comes and gets Ramon away from dead wife visions. Wo-Chen plays armchair psychologist and says he will never stop having nightmares until he lets go of his guilt. He also assures Ramon that it is not his fault that Ann is dead.
Eh, I wouldn't say he is blameless. I'm not passing moral judgement, but Ramon did bluff and tell a crime boss that he had incriminating evidence, and then left his wife alone at home without taking any precautions. Just saying.
Wo-Chen asks Ramon what the men who killed Ann looked like. Ramon says he isn't sure because they were wearing masks.
Stop trying to be philosophical, One-Armed Executioner.
Here is where the Chekov's ring comes back. Ramon says that he saw a ring while witnessing the traumatic slaughter of his wife and somehow managed to remember it. He describes the ring as gold, with a dragon design and a snake surrounding it. Also, the snake was holding a chalice. Let's look at the ring from a previous scene:
Not seeing it.
More training the next day. If he is holding a gun, doesn't he have two arms? Making the title a lie?
Ramon holds the gun between his knees to reload. He goes to target practice. Wo-Chen calls out numbers and Ramon shoots the targets. He is too slow for Wo-Chen. Through the magical teaching powers of a jump cut, he suddenly is fast enough
That was fast.
Wo-Chen says the ring is of Chinese origin, 6th century, with the sign of an apothecary or a healer. This means that the doctor is the person wearing the mask.
Um...seems like valid logic. For a 1983 Filipino exploitation film.
Ramon goes to the doctor's house and says he wants to know about rings. The doctor says "The jeweler is in the next office."
Wait, no, Ramon grabs his hand and asks about the ring. The doctor says that it is only a common ring.
It would be funny if that ring was not a 6th century Chinese ring, but a mass-produced modern ring and Ramon is interrogating an innocent man.
The doctor says Mike Jason killed his wife and that he lives in the penthouse at the Superior Insurance Company. 2/3 of the way through an exploitation film and we are just getting to the penthouse? Ramon slaps the doctor to the ground.
The chief of Interpol tells Sanchez that Doctor Henderson was killed. We didn't get to see the kill. Sanchez says that he was Ortega's doctor and the chief says he was also Edward's physician.
The chief reminds Sanchez how professionally the veins were tied up. A lot of the logic in this seems really, really flimsy. Also, way to discriminate against the medical profession. The chief says he wishes they could find Ortega. Then it cuts to Ortega. This is a masterful piece of directing, not unlike the briefcase shot from before.
Ortega goes into the penthouse and convientally finds Jason immediately, getting a massage. Ortega accuses Jason of brutally slaughtering Ann, and Jason can't really deny it. Especially when Ortega throws him Doctor Henderson's ring. The masseur (thank you, Google) runs and grabs a club while Ortega beats up Jason.
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| Is that an intentional double-meaning of "rod" or am I overthinking this? |
Rod and Jason fight Ortega. Jason uses a sword and Rod a club. The fight scene is...okay. At one point, Jason drops his sword, and then Ortega picks it up and stabs him. So it's like Hamlet. And both works of revenge fiction have equal literary merit.
Ortega goes to the dock, throws a sleeping man off a boat, and rides it across the bay. Two gang members try to fight him when he docks on the other side, but Ortega kills them both. Then he ambushes a few guards on the way to Edwards' hideout.
Milo and Edwards are on the phone and tell us how the drug trade is coming along. They have to get to a refinery by tomorrow to get a shipment out on Thursday. Thank you for the exposition.
They hear Ortega fighting off the guards and decide to address that problem. Edwards shoots twice at Ortega, but he jumps out of the way and Edwards yells at his guards to take care of it as he runs back inside.
In one interesting scene, Ortega holds a guard's gun as the guard is shooting at him and aims it at Milo.
That's about the only part of the fight scene I liked.
Edwards runs towards a boat, turns back, about to shoot, but decides against it and flees
Milo isn't dead because Ortega needs to know where Edwards is going. Milo says he is going to the refinery. Ortega asks where the refinery is, and Milo replies:
That was the pay-off for the running joke.
Actually. I thought it was funny.
At the refinery, Edwards is angry the his men didn't kill Ortega.
Wo-chen, Sanchez, and Ortega fly in a helicopter over Panginay, Bulacan. They find the refinery pretty easily, as it is marked with two guard towers.
Edwards tells his men that after this delivery, they will have to close up shop for awhile. See, it's funny because Interpol is going to kill them.
The guards try to shoot the helicopter down. Ortega throws some explosives and blows up the guard towers and the bridges, isolating the gang.
Ortega jumps down from the helicopter in an exciting shot.
Ortega advances towards the refinery and takes out Edward's men. It's...a fight scene. Nothing special, but nothing awful either.
Jason is smoking a cigar. In case this film hasn't hit enough clichés, Ortega runs out of bullets when he tries to shoot Jason.
Ortega runs through some tall weeks which will make things more difficult.
The helicopter finally lands. Wo-Chen steps out.
Ortega hears the click of a reload. We know this because there is a close-up of an ear.
Wo-chen calls for backup.
Jason and Edwards stumble through the jungle. Jason is wounded, so Edwards leaves him to die.
Ortega stumbles across a body in the mud and shoots at it. A gang member shoots at Ortega and misses. Ortega tries to shoot, but he is out of bullets, so he grabs a sword off of the corpse and throws it at the attacker.
Jason and Edwards find a boat.
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| NAZIS? WHAT? |
Jason helps Edwards start the boat. Edwards thanks him by hitting him with a briefcase and riding away.
Ortega runs back to the helicopter and reveals that Edwards got away. Wo-chen stays behind as Ortega and Sanchez fly after Edwards.
Edwards tries to shoot, but his gun is out of bullets. of course. Luckily, he has another gun.
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| This movies is starting to get ridiculous |
Ortega throws the explosive into the boat and kills Edwards.Then they find Jason, struggling to stay alive on the beach. Ortega jumps out of the helicopter, takes out his gun, points it at Jason. He pulls the trigger, but he is out of bullets.
That's not what happens. Ortega says it is hard to kill Jason and throws him the gun. Ortega walks away, and Jason shoots at him. Ortega lies down, and takes another gun out of his pocket.
Have you forgotten why Ortega wants to kill Jason? Don't worry, the movie give you a flashback of Jason brutally slaughtering Ann.
Ortega shoots Jason, and we immediately cut to Wo-Chen, the chief of Interpol, and Sanchez in the boat. They come onto the beach, and the chief offers him a job back.
Ortega says "No thanks chief. My work is all finished"
Then the movie ends on this shot.
Final thoughts...
I started this movie expecting that, by the time I finished it, I will have seen my first Filipino exploitation film about a one-armed executioner.
At the end of the movie, I can confirm that I have seen my first Filipino exploitation film about a one-armed executioner.
Therefore, I have to give this movie a positive rating.
Q: Why did Ortega pay full price for his equipment?
A: He couldn't buy them second-hand.
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