Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘All men are dangerous’
We’re looking at Warrior Women, also known as Island warriors and The Country of Beauties.
Which no one will argue with,
This is a rambling tale of pirates, magic, kung fu, buried treasure, graphic castration,
and everyone’s favourite B movie cliché; an island.
‘Ruled completely by women’
Why?
‘After 23 generations their hatred of men became the immutable law of the land’
Interested to learn where these generations came from but we’ll get to that.
Like all your favourite toys, the film was made in Taiwan but looks as if it was shot in the outer Hebrides,
just too windy for the island’s dress code.
The women are plagued by pirates whom they repel with their mastery of the martial arts,
and any who are caught.
‘Take them away and castrate them’
These three men came seeking treasure and are spared mutilation.
‘What is this?’
‘A chastity belt, all men who are not castrated have to wear one.’
because one can build a cannon, one is a doctor, and the other...
‘I got 36 daughters’
Can make himself useful. Should say, the doctor is bluffing, here’s how he deals with childbirth.
#newborn baby cry#
I just don’t think that would work.
‘What’s bothering you?’
Doesn’t seem like the worst fate for the men.
‘Time to propagate again’
but the film applies the Carry on Up Jungle rule so the men don’t get to propagate with the pretty girls…
and if they produce too many boys castration awaits,
leaving them unable to enjoy even the simplest of life’s pleasures.
‘Ever since his castration, the sight of a banana makes him sad’
The film’s decision to make castration kind of a comedy punishment is not one that pays off.
Especially as unwanted male babies are put out to sea,
accompanied by music pilfered from Ennio Morricone.
Some of the babies are rescued by men’s island,
‘That’s good’
populated entirely by the rejected sons who are understandably hostile.
‘If you don’t change your female chauvinist system out chief will attack you’
The women make a good point too
‘Men have oppressed women for centuries’
but, as always in this type of film, they’ve taken it too far, what with the baby-killing,
making the men the reasonable ones.
‘Everybody should live happily together’
What a great vision of equality.
‘I hate violence and fighting’
‘A real woman’
Which they undermine every other sentence.
‘Besides, we’re only women’
Demands are made on the women too, when the cannon maker is injured...
‘Only my kung fu can save him’
one of my favourite lines even if this is the first we’ve heard of healing kung fu.
This is redefining how I imagine kung fu.
It works, but apparently leaves doctor and patient feeling a bit…
and…
What happened?
‘She’s over a hundred years old, she practiced virgin kung fu’
Richard Branson gets everywhere,
‘Now all here work is wasted’
There are so many characters in this, I’m not going to even attempt to unravel the plot
but the basic arc is as you’d expect;
a handful of men teach the women the error of the their ways when, by coincidence, the pirates and the island men arrive at the same time .
‘Coincidence? You think I’ll buy that’
Despite their weaponised statue…
the women seem doomed when...
‘Good men don’t fight women -get the pirates’
A decision he reaches quite a long way into a fight with a pretty high death toll,
but that’s what it takes to teach the women.
‘I told you, women can’t live in harmony without men.’
Couple of things, firstly, the reason the island keeps getting invaded is that their guards are terrible.
Possibly inbreeding has resulted in a lack of peripheral vision because the people escaping are even worse.
‘Comeon’
Secondly, I mentioned the Ennio Morricone music, which I think is from Once Upon time in America,
there’s also some Bond.
and Indiana Jones.
It’s worth watching just to play Name that Tune.
'I see nothing, heard nothing. I k now nothing at all.'
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I spotted 3 pieces of stolen music, there are more, the film’s on Youtube; give it a watch and let us know what you spot.
'I'll go now.'