The Most Terrible Time in My Life, Conquest

    The Most Terrible Time in My Life aka Waga Jinsei Saiaku No Toki (1994) Dir. Kaizo Hayashi. Consisting of equal parts French New Wave, Film Noir, and Yakuza/Nikkatsu action picture, this film consistently goes out of its way to never be stuck in a single milieu. Masatoshi Nagase plays Maiku Hama (a great nod to Mickey Spillane’s hard-boiled Mike Hammer) a P.I. whose office is located in the balcony of a neighborhood movie theatre. The plot is immaculately paced, with innovatively filmed action scenes coming at regular intervals. The blending of comedy, tragedy, melodrama, and revenge films comes together to convince me of the obvious talent of director Hayashi.  The film also features a well-chosen score that in my mind pays homage to the sun-tribe films from Nikkatsu, the jazz elements fit right into the hard-knock life of Maiku Hama.

Apparently part of a series of films that follow the erstwhile Maiku, I can’t wait to see the follow-up at the very least.

Conquest aka La Conquesta (1983). Dir. Lucio Fulci. Maestro Fulci once again delivers a film that literally defies narrative recapping. Visually the film is interesting, flashes of brilliance throughout such as the mask worn my Sabrina Siani as Ocron, as well as the cobweb creatures. And, don’t forget the Zombies, which attack one of the heroes in a swamp. But even with the zombies, I was a tad disappointed. Fulci described this as a ‘for hire’ job, and it shows.

Following one of the least competent heroic leads of all time, this sword & sorcery flick is good, but not great. Better as a film to put on with a group of folks around, just so that the dull parts can be glossed over.  But, it does feature some great gore scenes and frequent appearances by topless ladies, so it’s a guaranteed crowd-pleaser in that regard.