BARBARELLA

1968/Director: Roger Vadim/Producer: Dino De Laurentiis/Writer: Jean-Claude Forest, Roger Vadim, Terry Southern Cast: Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, David Hemming. Marcel Marceau

Barbarella was never a movie I was thrilled with although I’ve seen it a few times simply because Jane Fonda is so blasted sexy in it. While I am not disappointed with the sets and visuals and even the soundtrack, I just never cared for the story line which is based on the character created by French cartoonist Jean-Claude Forest. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and Fonda would marry him during production. Her character was patterned (legend has it) after Vadim’s previous wife Bridgett Bardot. Who is this guy? I would be honored to tie his boot laces though I am not worthy. I assume the story was supposed to be more tongue in cheek than it comes off as and I always felt the movie unintentionally took itself too seriously. It bombed critically and at the box office when it was released but has garnered and maintained a strong following on home video.

The story is not much really and has a comic book feel to it that works enough times to keep you waiting until the next sexy scenes comes up, and they usually involve a young and stunning Jane Fonda before she was demonstrating against the US in Hanoi. A couple of the most famous sequences involve her undressing in zero gravity and being tortured in an orgasm producing machine. John Philip Law ( from Bava’s Danger Diabolik, also a comic book adaptation) is some blind, angel with a broken wing character and Keith Richard’s common law wife Anita Palenberg also appears in the film.

The film has had a substantial influence on pop culture, one of the more famous being the naming after a character from the film of the 80’s MTV band Duran Duran (who I could never stand). Seems a remake is getting nearer to actually beginning and Desperado/Sin City director Richard Rodriguez is slated to over see the project. He is pushing the studios to have his other half Rose McGowen play the lead and is having a slight tug of war with the studios over this, but lets see what happens. But in the end this is one of those roles that can never be matched by anyone but the original star. Imagine someone else playing the Man with No Name other than Clint Eastwood. Jane Fonda IS Barbarella. I welcome a newer version of the film with better effects and some sort of story, but no one can have multiple orgasms the way she did.

FROM THE BARBARELLA COMIC BOOK BY JEAN-CLAUDE FOREST

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CAT’S EYE

1997/Director: Kaizo Hayashi /Writers: Kaizo Hayashi, Tsukasa Hojo (comic book creator)
Cast: Yuki Uchida, Izumi Inamori, Norika Fujiwara, Kenta Harada, Naoko Yamazaki, Kane Kosugi

I just have never been a big fan of Manga though I have tried. God knows I’ve tried. In the end it is not my cup of tea though I typically enjoy Japanese cinema and know a lot of modern action style films from Japan are heavily influenced by Manga comics. Here is a movie that I knew was based on a Manga comic as I had thumbed through the book before at a comic book store in Seattle. I was not expecting too much from the movie but was almost surprised by the first fifteen minutes or so. It really seemed to take off and had a lot of energy and style. The problem is after that first fifteen minutes the film seemed to fizzle and for the most part got pretty sappy with some romance sub-plots that were just soap-operaish.

To be honest the film had a mark against it since the copy I have is not subtitled in English. I live in China and more often than not Japanese or Korean movies are subtitled in Chinese but not English, even if the box says there are English subtitles. I watched it with my wife and she translated the story fro me every few minutes so I could follow it, but there was not much to follow other than the really hot Japanese girls in tight black leather outfits

The comic book by Tsukasa Hojo is supposed to be quite popular and there was an animated TV series based around the story. The film by Kaizo Haiashi has moments and look nice here and there, but is just not that great over all and I wish it had been better. The fight sequences are just so cheesy and lame and the romance aspect becomes maudlin Asian teenage girl fodder that ruined what little hope I held out for. Anyway, if you are a fan of the comic then maybe you will want to check this out. I knew a couple people who liked the comic and were more disappointed with the film than I was. The girls are pretty, but that really is not enough here.

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