Zabadoh

This was a breakthrough video for a type of eroticism that hadn't been filmed before. While production values and cinematography are quite poor, its sense of style sticks in your mind.

The plot for this video is a bare minimum of one liners to get the actresses off screen for a costume change and onto the next scene.

What makes this film remarkable is its focus upon the actresses' clothes as erotic objects, which is exactly what its audience of fetishists demands. This really isn't an SM film. There's no flogging, whipping, beating or even vibrator use going on, just a display of strict erotic clothes and the delightful restriction that they place upon their wearer.

Between viewing the photos that came out of this session and this video, one must conclude that the director, Patrick Barnes, was a much better photographer than he was a cameraman.

The images from this film were the first images of fetish clothing for many Americans. They were used extensively by the Centurians catalog company in their marketing. "Silvia Bond"/"Sweet Chastity"'s strangely alluring face is quite memorable.

Produced on a shoestring budget at anonymous locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Contour is a powerhouse of amateur martial artists giving their all for the silver screen.

The writing is great because it doesn't take itself seriously. Our dysfunctional heroes are pitted against a cartoony plot centered around the laughable fictional country of Uruvia.

Cinematography. It's really easy to overlook how important this is to a film like this, but the camera-work is superb, framing the fights perfectly.

Editing. As in all martial arts film, sharp scene cuts with split second timing is crucial, and there's spades of it here.

Kick Ass Martial Arts. Oh yeah, these guys are good! There is a well staged stick fight and a brilliant chain fight at the end of the movie.

Kudos to the guys who almost killed themselves making this film.

THANK YOU!

Director/writer Johnnie To throws down lots of HK movie clichés: The Heist, The Young Challenger, The Fighting, The Master, The Rival, The Gangsters, The Gambling. But all of it's entertaining nonsense used to set up his usual innovative scenes and a little drama.

Give Director To credit for parodying these clichés to a fault.

This movie is challenging. This is not easy to digest chop sockey flash bang action.

So what is this movie about? A lot: Rediscovering relations from happier times, rediscovering oneself, and a director having fun and dropping references to Kurosawa's "Sugata Sanshiro" (1943).