Apparently, Japanese actress Setsuko Hara passed away on September 5th, but it seems we are only hearing about it now. She is probably best known for the films she made with director Yasujirô Ozu, but she worked with other well known Japanese directors as well.
Daily Archives: November 25, 2015
Turkish Film Fest: Kilink: Strip and Kill/Kilink soy ve öldür (1967, dir. Yilmaz Atadeniz)
Wow! This should have been called Kilink: Strip, Kill, and Please Explain This Movie To Me. Well, when this happens, you can turn to somebody else’s plot summary. Let’s see what it says on IMDb:
The 3rd of the long Kilink series picks up exactly where the 2nd film (KILINK UCAN ADAMA KARSI) left off. This time Kilink is between 2 rival gangs and manages to turn one against the other. All of them are after a precious microfilm and a big foreign treasure. Kilink proves to be the most perfect Fantomas of them all, changing disguises more often than he changes socks. At the same time, it’s raining gorgeous ladies all over the place. Most of them rivals….All of them falling for him or off balconies, pushed by him. In a brilliant sequence, he punches a treacherous pussycat, strangles her with his bare hands and chucks her off a balcony. The film features the classic torture-the-tied-woman scenes. In one of them, even a snake is used for a quicker confession. Endless shootouts, car chases, murders, beat ups and plot twists make this sequel one of the best Turkish auctioneers ever. This time, our anti-hero proves to be a real HERO in at least one instance! But above all he proves to be a fine nationalist who loves and supports his country!!
Hmmm…it is the third movie in the series. I know that because I watched Kilink In Istanbul and Kilink vs. The Flying Man. That part is right. Not sure how long running this could be seeing as I can only find one more of these Kilink films, but maybe there are more.
It does pick up where the first one left off. Well, first it tells us this one is “fictional, based on comics and fairytales.” I get the fictional and comic book part, but what messed up fairytales is this based on? Okay, then it does go to the ending of the second film.
At the end of Kilink vs. The Flying Man he did fall off a tower to his death. Or at least as much of a death as a character like Kilink can have. But then he seems to just magically pop up again. They don’t even pull a Hell Up In Harlem (1973) for this. He’s just back.
He’s with a girl of course. I guess Turkish women in the 1960s all had a Zentai fetish. He tells her he needs to go to “a place you cannot even imagine.” And by that, he means “New York, honey”. And by New York, I’m pretty sure he means San Francisco.
I can’t honestly say for sure because I’m no expert on either city, despite living next door to San Francisco, but that doesn’t look like New York to me. There’s also these two shots as well. Even if I did know them better, the stock footage looks so bad that I’d still probably not recognize either city.
Plot summary said Kilink is going to get in between two rival gangs. This is when you know you’ve just starting watching one of the weirdest Kilink movies. Oh, and the movie began with music from Dragnet, and I’m pretty sure that along with the James Bond stuff, they have also lifted music from Forbidden Planet (1956).
Yep, a bunch of guys walk into a room dressed like the KKK with numbers on their hats where one of them proceeds to do the Hitler salute. After that, the fact that Kilink can still somehow put on another man’s face and hands is the least weird thing about the movie. I guess these guys are one of the gangs and Kilink is there to find out what’s going on. They talk about some microfilm “in the safe of the Paragonic Embassy for the launch of the missiles, can affect the world history?” I love subtitles. Also, according to them “Istanbul is the only paradise on earth. The center of international smuggling, with the treasures at Keratius and the diamonds of Topcapi.” They “will steal the microfilm of Turkish radars and missiles and we will sell it back to the embassy for many millions.”
Well, that’s one gang. Where’s the other one?
Ah, there they are. I love how we have a guy wearing an eye patch, a guy in sunglasses, and a third guy who looks like he has a giant spike for his hairstyle. We know these guys are bad.
No, not because they have kidnapped this lady and are holding her kid, but because of this.
Oh, it’s on!
According to the plot summary, it’s “raining gorgeous ladies all over the place”. This person forgot it’s also raining hilarious looking bad guys as well.
However, the person is right that there are gorgeous ladies too. Luckily, this lady is smart cause…
she figures out that’s Kilink, and I’m pretty sure it’s without having sex with him. Not that Kilink hasn’t had sex in the other movies…somehow. But here he’s in disguise. I really don’t wanna know how sex with him works then. Well, the plot summary is right. He does do away with her by choking her, then chucking her off a balcony.
And apparently, he also now leaves “the mark of Kilink”. That is he punches the person in the face to leave an imprint of his ring. Something I couldn’t help but think here is that these guys must be sweating bullets if it’s warm enough for her to be lounging around in a bikini.
Also, let’s throw in Turkish Barbara Streisand while we’re at it.
After Kilink kills a guy, then apologizes for having to take his clothes, we find out just how evil eye patch gang is.
I bet Hakki also likes to give them Pavulon so he can see them chill. But before this goes anywhere, Kilink shows up to stop it.
Skinning grown men so he can wear their skin is just fine for Kilink, but don’t you dare touch the children.
Now people are really starting to catch on that they weren’t prepared for Kilink. Just look.
See! Nobody realized Kilink. Especially this lady.
After more awkward kissing, Kilink tosses something on her face that kills her. With the microfilm in hand he does something that can only be termed as magic in order to invisibly imprint the microfilm on her back, which he can retrieve from her body with “infrared rays” later.
Now those “endless shootouts, car chases, murders, beat ups and plot twists” really kick in. It’s all very confusing. All you really need to know is that Kilink is still a bad guy, is a fan of Yojimbo, and must have suddenly got a conscience with a dose of nationalism by falling off that tower. What else did that plot summary say? Oh yeah, the snake.
Cause blondie apparently knows where Kilink is, so dark haired lady decides to torture her to get the information. And by torture, I mean string her up and threaten to have this snake empty it’s poison into her. Also, they get really slap happy in this movie. A lot of people get slapped. There’s even two times where the sound jumps the gun and makes the slap sound before the person is actually hit.
Kilink decides to pay a visit since it is his movie. He and dark haired lady have sex. At least I’m as sure of that as one can be considering it’s a guy in a skin tight skeleton costume. However, the poor guy can’t get any privacy. A shadow moves across the bottom right hand corner of the screen during this scene.
At least the boom mic didn’t pop in to make the poor guy feel inadequate. What else did that plot summary say?
I guess this is the one time he’s the real hero. He pretends to be on the side of the dark haired lady, but he cuts down blondie on his way out. She says she “should have realized!” As we learned earlier in the movie, “nobody realized Kilink.”
Now we get a lot of Kilink running around. To give you an idea what basically the remainder of this film is like. Take a look at at this longplay of Pepsiman.
It’s like that. Also, for who knows what reason, it’s become a Thanksgiving tradition of mine to watch that longplay. Figure that one out. But we don’t have time for that oddity because Kilink has to go and retrieve the microfilm off the girl he killed earlier in the movie.
He’s there with dark haired lady and of course she betrays him. Lot a good that does her. She tells him “your end has come. Hell awaits you.” Not this time because she is then killed by a magic bullet that somehow goes through her dress and her skin to land inside of her and kill her. Even Kilink seems perplexed.
After confusing Turks just trying to drive to work by running around in a skeleton costume…
Kilink gets some new skin and…and…who cares! It’s just more of the same stuff. All we need to know is this.
Now Kilink has his final showdown with the bad guys, and actually gets captured by the police.
So when did Kilink go from fighting Superman so he can make an ultimate weapon to being a symbol of Turkish nationalism? I buy that he cares about the people of Turkey about as much as I buy that the criminals in M (1931) actually cared that children were being murdered.
I guess we hit all those points in the plot summary, and I still don’t get it. Well, we have one more of these Kilink movies left. Next time he and Django are going to go at it.