The Lady Assassin (2013)

A bevy of gorgeous women run an isolated coastal tavern/brothel with the sole purpose of killing and robbing corrupt officials in the top-notch, Vietnamese period martial arts flick, The Lady Assassin.

When they free a hostage from a funeral caravan, the leader of the group, Kieu Thi (Thanh Hang) decides to take this new woman, Linh (Tang Thanh Ha), under her wing and train her to become an assassin, like them, so she can seek revenge on the local warlord Quan Do (Le Thai Hoa) who killed her family.

Yes, it's a classic martial arts revenge story that harkens back to the golden age of kung fu movies - but it plays out magnificently, against a background spectacular landscapes and certainly helped by the universal good looks of the central female cast.

Despite some fleeting dodgy CGI, the stunts and wire-fu action is fantastic and the relentless story escalates to a protracted fight around the tavern that takes the entire third act of the movie as Quan Do and his never-ending legions of black-clad, ninja-like soldiers assault the women's base of operations.

Along the way there, we are treated to some great plot twists and character development, a fair degree of family-friendly titillation, a musical number, and a chaste sapphic sub-plot as Linh becomes part of the female family of assassins.

My main gripe about the movie is that although it was Vietnam's first 3D movie and the country's biggest box office hit to date, when I first saw this in 2014, Terracotta Distribution had only released a standard DVD of this movie - despite some very obvious "3D" moments.

I AM THE WARLORD OF MARS!!!

Great White Ape of Barsoom (picture by Nick)

This weekend found Nick and I back at our local wargames' show, Cavalier, at the Angel Centre in Tonbridge.

It was my first time in a couple of years and while I wasn't feeling one hundred percent, I was determined that my excitement would see me through. And, thanks to Nick stepping in as my ad hoc 'carer' (in the absence of Rachel, who was at home with Alice), I managed an impressive (for me) three hours at the show.

The highlight of the day came early, when Nick and I had barely seen a quarter of the displays and traders, as a gentleman from the Maidstone Wargames Society invited us to join in their Labyrinths of Mars participation game.

This was one I'd mentally flagged ahead of time, looking at the list of games on the show's website, because - as I suspected - it was John Carter themed.

The game was a reskinning of the classic family board game Labyrinth, which I'd played with Nick and his son, Alec, several years ago. However, this iteration included fighting and treasure hunting, and was scaled up to feature 28mm miniatures.

My dynamic duo of Barsoomian warriors before battle commenced

The ever-moving Labyrinth of Mars

Nick's team (top) make a strategic withdrawal from my gang (bottom)

As with the boardgame, you always start your turn by sliding a spare tile into the layout - pushing all the other tiles in that row on one space, thus constantly reconfiguring the Martian (Barsoomian) maze, and making planning ahead quite challenging.

There were four of playing and we each had four objectives to find before we could escape the labyrinth, be they treasures, allies, or boosts, and you could earn special cards as well that gave you extra abilities or bonuses.

I'd got three of my objectives (a couple of artifacts and a Barsoomian prince), without making too much of a scene about it, but the last thing I needed for my 'collection' was The Great White Ape (pictured above).

The only problem was The Ape had just joined Nick's team, as Nick had played a "brain transfer" card on it, giving it a Barsoomian brain... rather than a raging great ape's brain!

So, I had to attack Nick's party! Aided by the prince, we overpowered Nick's characters (and with some lucky die rolls) and the ape opted to join my "stronger" team.

Then on my next turn (again more by luck than judgement), I was able to slide the walls of the maze to open a straight avenue to the exit... where I was declared not just the winner, but WARLORD OF MARS.

I suspect Nick is never going to forget how I robbed him of potential victory!

After this, we resumed our patrol of the main hall, and the first person we bumped into - who was demonstrating his grid-based Vietnam War game - was Paul of Pazoot, a wargaming YouTube channel I have recently discovered (thanks to his work with Big Lee of Miniature Adventures).

This was my first - in-person - encounter with an actual YouTuber.

Paul's 'Nam game, which he was putting on with the East Kent Wargames Society, will be the second of his Battle Chronicle range of narrow-focused rules sets across different historical periods. The first is 1812: Retreat from Moscow, which Big Lee is working on.

Here follows a brief selection of some of the other games being played at Cavalier:

Shepway Gamers' The Englishman's Castle: a 28mm Wars of the Roses conflict

The Kent & Sussex Dungeons & Dragons and RPG Club had a glorious set-up...

... their gorgeous 28mm scale ship reminded me that no one was selling Blood & Plunder

Milton Hundred Wargames Club's The Mog '93: Task Force Ranger in Somalia

You can never go wrong with an enormous Star Wars space battle (Friday Night Firefight Club)

Of course, as well as gaming, these events are also for shopping. Both Nick and I, in our own way, were surprisingly restrained this year. While Nick didn't buy anything, I managed to restrict myself to items for my Dead Man's Hand (Wild West) game.

I found myself mainly being drawn towards terrain, as I have enough unpainted gunfighters etc already, waiting to sent off for painting.

Me admiring Beowulf Miniatures Printing 3D printing range of Western buildings
(picture by Nick)

Amazing fantasy terrain at surprisingly affordable prices - I'm impressed I resisted

Pumpernickle Games do some lovely stuff - I hope to get some desert bits from
them at a later date, but, in the meantime, who doesn't want their own Stonehenge?

At the end of the day, I only purchased a Western bank, from Beowulf, with interior fixtures and fittings; a pair of metal cacti and a pair of resin outhouses from Debris of War; and a log cabin.

My haul from Cavalier 2026

It was a great time and I'm glad I persevered. I'd wanted to play at least one participation game, but wasn't sure if I was up to it. So I'm delighted it happened to me one I was looking forward to checking out.

I did have one "funny turn" - after squatting down to look at some items that were being displayed on the floor, then bobbing up again. But Nick kindly offered me his arm and helped me to a chair, where I could rest a while.

Once I got home (Rachel came and picked me up), I was totally zonked out for the rest of the day, then had a rough night of near-continuous coughing. But, you know what, it was so worth it.

I had a fantastic time with one of my oldest friends, we got to play an awesome wargame... which I won, we chatted with a ton of people, and I got myself some more bits for my PROJECT 60 wargame of choice.

And I've already have made a shopping list of future bits and bobs I can order from these traders online.

Below, you will see a 17-minute video by Model Paint Whatever of the sights and sounds of the day, which shows off way more of the games on display than I have:

And here's a piece from Big Lee himself about Cavalier:

THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Boy Reporter

The world-famous "Boy Reporter" Tintin has always been part of my life. I can remember getting Hergé's beautiful comic strip albums from the library as a wee nipper and seeing them displayed in revolving stands in old-timey book stores.

I've long considered Tintin as one the major fictional inspirations (along with Clark Kent) that steered me towards a career in journalism at the tender age of 18.

When Rachel's firm went on a day trip to Bruges (in Belgium) back in 2009 my only request was a Tintin-related gift, and she picked me up an artistic mouse mat (from when they were a thing) decorated with an Hergé sketch.

This nicely complemented my small, but precious, collection of Tintinalia that I've accumulated over the years.

Until recently, I only actually owned a small number of the Tintin albums, including my original 1972 copy of The Crab With The Golden Claws (pictured at the top and bottom of this article), which has been in my possession since I was about six or seven.

To date, this is my favourite story of Tintin and Snowy, also introducing us to Captain Haddock, but I have to confess I know for certain that I've only read a handful of the books... and most of those when I was very young.

Back when I was working as an editor of trade magazines - in the years before going university - one of the 'perks' of being paid to jet around Europe was the ability to hunt for Tintin merch (it was more interesting than the trade shows about plastic extruding machinery that I was actually there to cover). 

Two of my Tintin reference books... one of which I can actually read!

I can't remember exactly where I picked up my French-language guide to Hergé's universe, Tintinolatrie by Albert Algoud, but it was probably the same trip where I found a Tintin shop around the corner from my hotel and snagged a pair of Tintin: Boy Reporter socks (sadly long gone).

Around this time (it must have been the late 1980s to mid-1990s) I also used to drive down to Brighton a lot, to visit friends and go shopping, and there was a lovely little store in The Lanes that sold high-end Tintin ware.

So, over a series of visits, I purchased a small selection of Tintin crockery that, to this day, has pride of place in the French dresser in our dining room.

My small, but beloved, collection of Tintin crockery

About a decade or so back, I also recall one of my friends buying me a Tintin t-shirt during their Asian travels (I think it was a bootleg Tintin in Vietnam design), but that too has sadly gone (again, as old clothes tend to).

A few Christmasses ago (or maybe it was my birthday), Rachel got me Michael Farr's highly regarded Tintin: The Complete Companion, a comprehensive overview of the backgrounds to the stories and a look at Hergé's source material, photos, sketches etc

Unfortunately, I think Tintin has always played second fiddle to my love of American comics primarily because the latter always has new offerings every month, making it feel like a "living hobby" (the longer you leave it, the more there is to catch up on) whereas Hergé's Tintin consists of a set canon, never to be expanded upon, and so remains static and always available. 

Where It All Started: My Childhood Treasure

The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

... or WTF, George?

The infamous Star Wars Holiday Special had been a hole in my Star Wars education - as well as my DVD collection - until the start of 2011 when I finally caved and paid a few pounds on eBay for a bootleg.

Despite the best efforts of Royal Mail to smash the living daylights out of the DVD case, it arrived quickly and I eagerly put the disc in the player and sat back to enjoy...

The conceit is quite straight forward: Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) are racing back to Chewie's homeworld (Kashyyyk) in time for the important celebration of Life Day (it's like our Christmas), but are being pursued and harassed by Imperial stardestroyers.

Meanwhile, on the forest world of  Kashyyyk, Chewbacca's family are nervously awaiting his arrival. It turns out Chewie's home is your average American suburban home of the late '70s - but located hundreds of feet up the side of a giant tree - complete with flat-pack furniture, sink and oven etc as well as knickknacks and framed photos of loved ones on the shelves.

Chewie's wife, Mallotobuck aka Malla (Mickey Morton) even watches cookery programmes on her flat-screen TV (a bit of prophetic set design there) and there's a general sense that this is, somehow, all supposed to be a comedy... only it isn't funny (except in the "laughing at it" sense, rather than the "laughing with it" sense).

The Imperials have established a blockade around the planet for fear of Rebel activity, but human trader Saun Dann (Art Carney) turns up with Life Day presents for the family - delivered with some of the flatest, most lifeless acting I've ever witnessed - which includes a model kit for Chewie's son, Lumpawarrump aka Lumpy (Patty Malone) and what amounts to a porno tape for Chewie's dad, Attichitcuk aka Itchy (Paul Gale).

The tape gets plugged into what appears to be a hairdryer and beams images into Itchy's head of Diahann Carroll as a holographic water creature who 'oohs' and 'ahhs' inappropriately through a prolonged musical number, while the grey-haired wookie gurns like Les Dawson.

A detachment of Imperials then show up, looking for Rebels, which gives Saun Dann the rather random excuse to demonstrate Malla's Life Day present - a music box that plays a hologram of Jefferson Starship (!!!)

The centrepiece of The Holiday Special is a short animation, that looks like a cross between French-style comic strips and Marvel's comic book take on the Star Wars Universe, and marks Boba Fett's debut appearance.

Now this is rather odd if you think about it, because Lumpy is watching this cartoon (secretly) while the Imperials search their house - yet it also features his father, Han Solo, Luke, Princess Leia and the droids. So is it a piece of fiction in the Star Wars Universe? How does that work? It hurts my head just trying to work out the logic of that...

However, that cartoon is easily the best bit of The Holiday Special and probably worth the cost of the DVD on its own.

The home stretch begins with a couple of unfunny sketches featuring Harvey Korman, the second of which, set in a cantina on Tatooine, also stars the gravel-voiced Golden Girl Bea Arthur as bartender Ackmena and devolves into yet another easily fast-forwardable musical number.

After the Imperials leave and Harrison Ford drops off Chewbacca - then bails as quickly as possible - things get truly surreal as the wookie clan are suddenly clothed in red capes and walking towards a glowing sphere while holding snow globes.

The inside of the glowing sphere turns out to be the Top Of The Pops studio, filled with similarly red-cloaked wookies and then - for no readily apparent reason - out comes C-3PO, R2-D2, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and the lovely, but probably stoned, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) who proceeds to deliver some saccharine message about how we're all alike (or something) then bursts into song!

I couldn't believe this bizarre piece of Star Wars history actually lasted an hour and a half, but I can see why George Lucas would rather we all forgot about it... hence the rather cheeky quote, attributed to him, on the DVD cover: "If I had time and a hammer, I'd track down every bootleg copy and smash it..."

Shown only once, as far as I am aware, on November 17, 1978, it seems a shame that Lucas can't take this in good humour and simply release a cleaned-up, official DVD of the show. Sure it was a mistake, but it's done, it's out there and fans will want to see it. The more Lucas tries to deny it, the more bootlegs people will buy because that's the only route available to them.

However, I now also suspect that Colonel Kurtz was not contemplating the Vietnam War but had just watched The Star Wars Holiday Special when he spoke those famous words: "The horror, the horror..."

Child's Play (2019)

Single-mum Karen Barclay (Parks and Recreation's Aubrey Plaza) works on the returns desk of ZedMart in Chicago, and brings home a faulty Buddi doll as an early birthday present for her deaf son Andy (Gabriel Bateman).

The Buddi doll is a robotic companion for children, capable of adapting to their owners, syncing with smart technology etc

Only this Buddi, which says it's name is Chucky (voiced by the legend that is Mark Hamill), has issues.

Once it has bonded with Andy, declaring him his new "bets friend", he becomes psychotically protective, taking punitive measures against anyone, or anything, that it feels has slighted Andy.

Written by Tyler Burton Smith and directed by Lars Klevberg, Child's Play is a brilliant, clever, reworking of the original Child's Play from 1988.

Voodoo possession has been replaced by the vengeance of a pissed engineer in a Vietnamese sweat shop/toy factory, and 2019's Child's Play has great fun with the modern penchant for "smart homes", integrated devices etc

Its resemblance to the original is purely superficial, and that's a great thing because this Child's Play is very much its own thing.

Andy even acquires his own, rather Stranger Things-like, gang of amusing and entertaining young friends, who both help and hinder him in his growing troubles with the overly possessive android (perhaps letting Chucky watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 wasn't the best call?).

As bodies start to drop in the neighbourhood, local police detective Mike Norris (Atlanta's Brian Tyree Henry), whose mum, Doreen (Carlease Burke) lives down the hall from Mike and Karen, gets involved.

Matters come to a head at a midnight launch for the Buddi 2 doll at ZedMart, when Mike thinks he has his culprit.

The climax of the movie is a gruesomely over-the-top splash of Grand Guignol, that skirts Saw-sensibilities to lean more into Evil Dead II (but without any supernatural involvement).

A heady blend of suspense, excitement, creative kills, dark humour and a top-notch cast, Child's Play is one of the strongest new mainstream horror flicks I've seen in ages.

While I love the whole voodoo shtick of the original Child's Play franchise, I think rooting the new movie firmly in the realm of modern technology was a stroke of genius.

Not only is there a tongue-in-cheek lesson here about society's rapid embrace of inter-connected technology, but the pathos Mark Hamill brings to Chucky makes the killer doll almost sympathetic.

He's just responding to societal stimuli to do what he thinks is right to look after his "best friend".

But he doesn't know any better. To paraphrase Brian Conley: "It's just a doll!"

George A Romero's The Crazies (1973)

Watching George A Romero's original 1973 version of The Crazies it's easy to see where the idea for Danny Boyle's "is it a zombie movie or isn't it?" 28 Days Later came from.

After a military plane crash (which happens before the movie even begins), an experimental bio-weapon - codename: Trixie - gets into the water supply of Evans City, Pennsylvania.

Trixie eventually drives those it infects to acts of extreme violence, either against others or themselves.

These aren't the normal mindless zombies we are used to from Romero's oeuvre, they retain any weapon proficiencies they may have had before infection and gain an amoral knack for turning anything they can lay their hands on into a tool of destruction.

The Crazies opens in media res with a farmer having already killed his wife, then torching his house and attacking his two children.

The fire allows us to meet the main protagonists of the film - ex-Vietnam vet and Green Beret turned high school coach and volunteer fireman David (Will MacMillan), his pregnant girlfriend, doctor's secretary Judy (Lane Carroll) and David's old army buddy and fellow firefighter, the neanderthal Clank (Harold Wayne Jones).

The air is thick with Cold War paranoia and general anti-establishment sentiment as the army moves in - all faceless in their gasmasks and white NBC suits - to try to control matters, but their heavy-handed approach quickly rubs the locals the wrong way and brawling and gunplay ensues.

If the metaphors weren't ladled on heavily enough at one point an infected priest sits down in the road, pours gasoline over himself and sets himself alight - mirroring the acts of Buddhist monks' protesting the Vietnam war.

Meanwhile the scientist dragged in to help the military concoct an antidote is continually hampered by bureaucracy and the top brass have their finger twitching over the nuclear button - to blast Evans City off the face of the planet from a bomber circling above, at a moments' notice if matters get too out of hand.

Throw in the increasing number of infected - driven to insane acts of violence as the man-made virus takes hold - and the military's attempts to maintain order break down as quickly as they are put in place.

David and his posse team up with hippy chick Kathy (Lynn Lowry) and her father Artie (Richard Liberty), who are more a liability than a help in David's mission to ensure the safety of his girlfriend and their unborn child.

While indisputably tense, the special effects of The Crazies are rather dated for a modern audience with most gunshot wounds looking like little more than hits with a paintball pellet, but I suspect it is the psychological nihilism of the story, with its pessimistic ending echoing that of Romero's earlier Night Of The Living Dead, that earned it its 18 certificate.

There certainly isn't the harsh language or graphic gore of the 15 certificate Kick-Ass to worry the sensibilities of any Daily Mail readers who may have accidentally slotted this little grindhouse/drive-in cinema gem into their DVD player.