For a while now have been leading off these posts with women whose name begins with a certain letter, for about five posts it was with M gals and do I post about a lot of them! But unlike America in Japan so many female names begin with the letter Y, in the previous post had a trio of my huge favorite women whose name begins with Y and will do so for this post too. If you're a youngster you may not know the above woman who is Yui Ichikawa, she was probably my #1 Japanese woman up until 2012 though I did name this blog after someone else. Yui's gravure books and mag spreads from 2001-14 were truly unbeatable, the past two years have reposted the books to put her in the spotlight again. Back in February Yui hit the age of forty, she hasn't done any gravure modeling in a decade but still does many guest appearances on dramas and she was in so many movies and films up until 2016. Then Yui got married and has two young children so of course I haven't been following her as closely but she was in some terrific horror films back in the 2000's. In 2014 she shocked so many of us when she doffed her attire five times(!) in a movie and to this day I'm still utterly speechless.....
But have many more Y women than Yui who did finish in the twelfth spot on the first All Time list done in 2018 but years before would have been number one! One woman that's been climbing my fave's list more than anyone else the past few years is Yuzuha Saeki. About eight months ago anointed Yuzuha as my all time hottest, sexiest, seductive, etc. woman of all time! Up until then the only woman to ever have that honor was Miyuki and in a way she still could be number one of all time, Yuzuha would be #1 for current gals. She's finished in the top ten on the fave's list two out of the last three years and will be appearing on the 2026 list. Plus Yuzuha will be making my All Time list but as of now don't know what position she'll end up at.
One final Y woman and in the next post will have another trio, wonder if I should bring up any more letters after that? So while Yuzuha will be making that upcoming All Time list someone who won't be is close to being number one with you viewers. That's Yuki Yoda and I do like her a lot, perhaps if the list had thirty spots instead of twenty she would have made the cut. Yuki's solo career seems to be going well and she's been mainly busy acting, I've seen her in four dramas and she is a solid actress. But there haven't been activities to post about such as magazine spreads, modeling pics, being at events and other things. Then again will confess I do forget about Yuki at times and that happens often with others who aren't nearly as busy as they once were. Now that her name has been mentioned let me see if I can't create a post for her though of course there won't be any sizzling photos like those below, one month ago Yuki hit the age of 26.
In the beginning did say that leading off would be an American series and that's become the norm here. Been trying to finish off seasons of shows and have been doing a solid job at that so haven't started any new ones recently. Not sure of the exact times but in the next two months will do two special posts and just feature one drama plus a movie series. The drama will be for the fifteenth and final season of "Supernatural" which is one of my all time favorite shows. I started taking about the series with season ten and for its final post besides talking about season fifteen will discuss what happened in the first nine seasons. Will look back at some important characters that fell by the wayside though many do get brought back to life along with a few other things, July seems the best time for that post. The other special post will be for a four movie Japanese series that came out between 1963-65. It's a spy series called "International Secret Police" and this looks to be one terrific set of films. They're all around 95 minutes in length and star many of my faves from that era including Kumi Mizuno 😍 so think July may be the best time for that post too.
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But Harold does care about that 99.9% for those everyday people could be targeted to be killed, robbed, taken hostage, etc. and Harold wanted to prevent those crimes from happening but sometimes those names are of criminals. Harold walks with a limp due to being at a ferry explosion in early 2010 which had killed his business partner Nathan Ingram who we see often in flashbacks. So Harold can't do much field work but even if he could it'd be better for Harold to remain at his computer helping out his associate(s) and the man above on the left is his first and main partner. John Reese is his name and in a fight there's no man I'd want more backing me up. Reese was an ex-Army man who did a lot of spying in the Middle East and then around the world, after leaving the Army Reese joined the CIA. Him and his woman partner Kara made for such an unbeatable team who saved so many lives but after a while the pair knew more than they should have and it was decided that both should execute each other! Which didn't happen but the CIA figured both were dead, that remained a secret for a while and because of that Reese was able to enter America and work with Harold unnoticed for so long. Reese is the 'muscle' of the team but is also very intelligent, not sure if I've ever seen anyone with better fighting skills. Along the way four more became a part of this unnamed team whose goal was to save lives but that still made them the target of so many others including the US government!
Last paragraph and as mentioned it would take a hundred paragraphs to fully explain this show. Of the four groups mentioned the most dangerous was/is Decima who our group of heroes will be battling it out with in the next season. For they've created their own Machine that is so similar to Harold's, this new one is called Samaritan and the leader of this company is an older British man named Greer. At the end of this third season the US government gave the go-ahead to Decima to bring Samaritan online, it's main mission will be to prevent terrorist attacks and this new machine does a good job at that. But Greer has other plans for himself such as eliminating the rogue group Vigilance which happened in the final episode. Decima's main objective is now to destroy Harold, Reese, their associates and The Machine, as the season ended they were well on their way as Harold was forced to flee his HQ which had been an a very large abandoned city library. Will end off there and how I wish this show had lasted for more than five seasons as the longer the series went on the better it became! The final episode of the 23 for season three was titled "Deux Ex Machina" and have a clip of it after these pictures. The Vigilance group had kidnapped Harold, Greer and three others for a 'trial' which their leader thought was being streamed all over the world but unknown to the leader Peter Collier Greer had taken steps for it to be shown to just a small handful of people. That trial was so intense and so wasn't this entire third season, do recommend viewing the video which is just 3:33 in length.
Season two had a pair of recurring characters who became full time ones for this third season. Above is Sarah Shahi as Sameen Shaw, know many of you readers will like her better than the other gal I'll quickly talk about. There's nothing wrong with liking Sarah more as she is one sizzling woman, she had the lead role in the 2021-23 series "Sex Life". I haven't seen any of the episodes but have seen many screenshots from the series, Sarah enjoyed disrobing on a consistent basis and as the first two pics above show Sarah does have a stunning figure. Only the character of Root uses Sameen's first name, Reese uses Shaw while Harold refers to her as Miss Shaw. No matter what name you use she is one tough woman and is often paired with Reese on assignments. They met up in the second season as both Shaw and Reese were hunting for the same man, he saved her life on two occasions. Slowly Shaw ended up getting closer to Reese and in turn was brought onto the team against the wishes of Harold who thought Miss Shaw didn't have enough morals and he was correct with that assumption. But slowly Shaw has changed her ways and has become a key asset to this unnamed heroic team, Shaw had learned her brutal fighting skills as a Marine. Also as an ISA agent for the US government, like Reese she was betrayed and for so long was presumed dead which worked to Shaw's advantage.
In the previous two posts for "Person of Interest" also had a section for Amy Acker who plays Root aka Samantha Groves in this series. I've only given out a 10/10 to four women in my life and Amy is one of them, man does she look so utterly fantastic! She was 37 in age during season three but looked better than she did at 27 in age, Amy had the lead role in the "Gifted" series and I'd like to check that show out. In that last post did refer to Amy as having that 'Minami Umezawa look' and there aren't many higher compliments than that! We had heard of Root in season one but never met her until the final episode, she was in close to half of season two's shows. Now Root is a FT character and by far the most interesting one, Harold is such a computer genius but Root is not far behind him. For so long Root was not to be trusted and had wanted to take down Harold's team but after getting to know him and Reese better Root is now on the side of justice. In the fourth season she may end up being the most important character and while she may not look it Root is one fierce fighter, she's also an ace with a pistol. One other note is that somehow Harold's Machine can 'communicate' with Root and it's almost as she was the Machine's offspring. Because of that Root often knows what dangerous incidents may be on the horizon for the team and that's proved to be so invaluable. Highly recommend checking out the video below which is from the fifth season as Root and Shaw engage in some extracurricular activities.... gulp....
I've had the "Sister Streetfighter' four movie boxset for ten years and watched those too many times to count, to me the first three in the set are must watches! So it's rather shocking that up until two nights ago had never seen any of the "Street Fighter" films, will have a quick look at the first two today. There's a third one and will have that in a future post with another Sonny Chiba movie, he is one of my favorite actors from Japan and did a review of an earlier film of his in the previous post in this series. His real first name is Shinichi but got the nickname of Sunny from some car ads he had done, it was switched to Sonny for American audiences. Japanese movies have had different eras over the years, from 1954 to the early 60's most of the best films were horror or sci-fi ones. Then the spy craze hit and that was a craze for a few years but around 1967 and for the next seven years Yakuza/gangster films outnumbered any other kinds of movies. Then for a few years martial arts and action films were the most popular ones, Chiba was a known actor before then but the films he appeared in during the mid 1970's made him a worldwide star, it's unbelievable how many films he starred in and is it possible to view them all????
Will try to explain as much as possible in two paragraphs as that was the goal for reviews when I began this 'My Current Watches' series. That first paragraph above had nothing to do with the film but think a history of movies and Chiba needed to be done. Martial Arts films in the 1970's all had decent storylines but let's be honest, most theater goes went to see Chiba or some other star beat the bad guys to a pulp!!!! Chiba was an martial arts master and rarely needed doubles to do his stunts. This movie was 87 minutes in length and most of that featured Chiba's character of Takuma Tsuguri teaching the bad guys a lesson though he too did get beat down a few times. So in a small nutshell here's what took place, the first few screenshots below are from the movie's opening when Tsuguri(Chiba) posed as a Buddhist priest to talk with an inmate who was to be executed that day. The man's name was Shikenbaru and was a ruthless gangster/assassin, his brother and sister had hired Tsuguri to save Shikenbaru from the gallows. Which our hero did as he was able to stop Shikenbaru's heart for a few moments, that prevented his hanging and while being taken to a hospital the ambulance was overtaken by Tsuguri's inept assistant Rakuda. Soon after reviving Shikenbaru fled Japan and went to Hong Kong, he'll make another appearance at the end. His siblings didn't fare so well for they were unable to pay Tsuguri the whole fee for their brothers freedom, the brother fell out of a window trying to kick Tsuguri while the sister Nachi was sold to a prostitute ring by Tsuguri! Nachi was played by Etsuko Shihomi, she was only eighteen at the time and was a protege of Chiba's, because this series was so popular she became the star of the "Sister Street Fighter" series and many other martial arts films.
Last paragraph and of course can't get to everything but that's not the point of these mini reviews. Through an odd chain of events Tsuguri became the protector of a young woman named Sarai Hammett, odd last name for a Japanese person and her recently deceased father was the owner of the third largest oil company in the world. Sarai was his only heir so she may have become the richest woman on the planet, of course every goon in Japan wanted her money and in Hong Kong too as that's where her father's company was based. A high ranking Japanese Yakuza boss tried hiring Tsuguri to kidnap Sarai but he turned down the lucrative offer, he does have some morals but not many! Many attempts were made to kidnap Sarai and one near the end did work because of a mishap by Tsuguri's assistant Rakuda who met his fate saving his boss, this assistant was a goofball but did save Tsuguri's life twice. Sarai had been brought to an ocean liner and was being pressured to sign over her vast fortune which she refused to do, she'd rather die than be double crossed! That never happened for arriving on the scene was the hero Tsuguri and there weren't many words spoken in the final ten minutes as it was one brutal and intense fight scene. Tsuguri faced off against Shikenbaru who wanted revenge for his siblings, Tsuguri bested the skilled assassin though he survived and was seen in the sequel. Tsuguri but have faced off against 200 in this film, often he too took a severe beating but in the end he came out on top, Sarai was saved and it was just another day at the office for Tsuguri! Glad I finally viewed this film, not a classic but one I will watch a few more times and of course if you're a Chiba fan will recommend it highly. Even if you're not a fan will still give this a thumbs up, it didn't sound that way in the review but it was one brutal movie as far as violence goes and in America was the first to get an X rating solely because of the violence! Below are some screenshots from the film which is followed by a trailer and then a mini review for the sequel.
"Return of the Streetfighter" was the title of the sequel and only one more was made after this. Bet Chiba didn't want to become typecast and he did quite a few action movies after this series of films but very few were in the martial arts vein. I read that in 1973 Chiba had met Bruce Lee and most thought Chiba was the only actor who could hold his own against Bruce. Some films were planned but never got off the ground for Lee died in 1973 and this trilogy was filmed after his death. This movie was 79 minutes in length and didn't have as much action as the first film but still more than 99.8% of most other action films! I may be in the minority as I did like this film a bit more, thought the story was more interesting but of course that takes a backseat to Chiba's fighting prowess. That bottom pic above was hard to believe, Chiba's character of Takuma Tsuguri hit that man so hard his eyes popped out!!!!
This time around Tsuguri(Chiba) was trying to help an older Karate master out whose name was Masaoka, we saw him often in the first film but didn't have time to discuss him. At first Tsuguri didn't care for the older master at all and the pair even went toe to toe with Masaoka actually besting Tsuguri though he was twenty years older. The pair did respect each other's skills immensely and in this film Tsuguri was trying to help out Masaoka's elite karate club for someone was siphoning off vast amounts of money from it which was supposed to go towards building a massive martial arts academy. The man behind this scheme is in the first screenshot below, his name was Otaguro but at the end of the movie we learned he wasn't the head boss of this gang and instead it was an American hippie! This slightly older karate master Masaoka was quite respected around Asia, he even had training centers in India and Pakistan. The two leaders of those centers visited Masaoka in Japan and relayed the info of Otaguro stealing the money intended to go to the proposed new center, the amount was in the billions of yen! Plus the pair had some evidence and would back Masaoka with their lives, sadly they did so when the Yakuza group rubbed them out at a dinner. Also at that dinner was the man in the sixth screenshot, plus he's in a few more whose name was Yamagami. He was an inspector at the Tokyo PD and also a member of Masaoka's elite karate club, he was also backing his master in the fight against Otaguro's devilish gang but he too was killed at that dinner where the celebration about bringing down the gang was far too premature. You will see a woman below wearing glasses, she was Tsuguri's sidekick in this film. Yoko Ichiji played the part of Kitty and she was no martial arts fighter but was always there when Tsuguri was in a jam.
As it turned out at the end of the film it was revealed that Kitty had been secretly spying on Tsuguri per the orders of Otaguro though to Kitty's surprise Tsuguri knew all about her double life. In this film Tsuguri had more of a 'life', for instance he even slept with a stunning foreign woman! However she too was a spy and after a roll in the hay Tsuguri stabbed her to death! Until now haven't talked much about Tsuguri's battles but the final 25 minutes seemed to be one long fight scene, nothing wrong with that as it was quite exciting and of course the hero Tsuguri came out in top! But very few others made it out alive such as his assistant Kitty, at the bottom of the screenshots you can see her death was by having her eyes torn out.... ouch! The gang leader Otaguro was also slain by the true gang boss whose name was Don Costello, he's the American man with long hair and it felt so good watching Tsuguri pummel this man to death. Like in the first film Tsuguri had to have battled at least two hundred skilled fighters but came out on top though he too had been severely hurt a few times. Making a brief return near the end was Tsuguri's toughest opponent Shikenbaru and they had battled at the end of the first film, it did appear then that Shikenbaru died but like a cat had another life though that was snuffed out here too! So that's the basic story in a nutshell and if action films are ones you enjoy the most highly recommend these two movies, the violence can be quite brutal but in a way Chiba is a likable character in both films. The third film of the trilogy is titled "The Streetfighter's Last Revenge" and will review that soon with another Chiba movie, all three Streetfighter films were released in 1974. Have two more films after this set of screenshots and there's also a trailer for the movie below.
I prefer viewing very old and obscure movies, the above two are kind of well known but not the final pair of movies for today. I also prefer dramas and movies in B&W, these two are in that format and would bet no one reading this had heard of either film nor any of the cast! I'm not up on my sci-fi movie history but this 1953 British film "Spaceways" had to be one of the first ones from the country in that genre though the lead star Howard Duff was an American. However it wasn't a true sci-fi movie as there were many genres mixed in such as it being a spy movie, it also had romance, suspense and featured a murder mystery so while a solid film wish there was more sci-fi in the story. There was in the last ten or so minutes which was the best part of the movie. Most films back then that featured spaceships are of humans going to the moon or even further, many times it's the other way around with Martians visiting our planet! But in this film the British Space Program had been testing ships to only go 200 or so miles above Earth, then the ship would enter the planet's orbit and could be used for many purposes such as spying, sending calls from the UK to America and various other things though this was set well before the Internet and cell phones. There had been seven successful test flights and each one went a bit higher, now it's finally time for the program to launch the first official ship/satellite which should be able to orbit the Earth for at least five years.
The leader of the space program was an older man named Koepler, he's the shorter man in screenshots and also has a mustache. But the main star was an American on loan to the program whose name was Stephen Mitchell, he had come to the UK with his wife Vanessa. Who had grown so frustrated with their lives in this country as the space program has to keep everything a secret from foreign spies such as the USSR so no one is allowed to leave the center which is like a tiny town. Vanessa had been having an affair with her husband's top aide Crenshaw but it was no secret from Mitchell who in turn had been yearning to have an affair with the program's mathematician Lisa Frank. She was played by Eva Bartok and she's the attractive woman in many below screenshots, wish this DVD had subtitles to help you follow the story better. The eighth launch of the spaceship and the one that would circle the Earth for many years was only a partial success, something happened with the final booster rocket and while the satellite still was in space all contact with it was lost. Also lost was Mitchell's wife Vanessa along with the scientist Crenshaw, Mitchell figured they had left together and he was hoping that was the case so he immediately began making moves towards Lisa who didn't refuse any of them! However the Army which has sponsored this program was very suspicious about the pair leaving the base and also of what happened to this latest launch which in a way could be considered a failure. To investigate the situation sent to the camp was an MI agent named Smith who at least had some background with space projects.
Smith unwisely surmised that Mitchell killed his wife Vanessa along with Crenshaw! Then Mitchell hid their dead bodies in the spaceship and had to remove a ton of fuel to do the evil deed which is why the launch wasn't entirely successful! What a story that was but the program's leader Koepler and a few others couldn't think of any other plausible scenario but Mitchell knew it was all a bunch of bull. To prove his innocence Mitchell proposed sending another ship into space to bring the previous spaceship back, Mitchell would be on the ship along with his assistant Toby. While the countdown was going on through a spot of luck Smith found out that Crenshaw was hiding out at a motel along the coast with Vanessa, the traitor was planning to flee East and sell the program's secrets to the Commies!!!! Smith arrived in time to nab Crenshaw but in not in time to save Vanessa who had been shot by the traitor when she refused to leave with him. This did prove to Smith his theory about Mitchell being a killer was wrong and the man was innocent but by the time Smith made it back to the base the spaceship with Mitchell had launched.
Instead of Toby being onboard Lisa had talked him into letting her take his place, because of the helmets Mitchell didn't realize the switch until they were well into space. There was another problem with a rocket booster disconnecting and it appeared the ship would explode! These final ten minutes were easily the most exciting of the movie but Mitchell was able to right the situation, the 76 minute movie ended on that note. Most older movies I view are not classics but almost all have been very entertaining and that's why I watch them. Wish there was more outer space scenes but all in all I enjoyed viewing this and films that use so little CG and/or special effects are my kinds of favorites which is a huge reason why I can't stand 95% of today's movies. Plenty of screenshots below from the movie and it's followed by a new trailer as an enhanced version of the film came out and wish I had that version as the trailer looks so pristine.
Was going to view a second British film but chose this one to be last for today and that ended up being a wise choice as this was one terrific film though could have been a bit better. "The Hypnotic Eye" was a 78 minute 1960 American movie and it wasn't a true horror film but did have a gruesome story to it plus we did see our fair share of mutilated faces. This was another film which I went into blindly knowing zero about it, also had never heard of any of the cast and a huge criteria of mine when choosing these films and dramas is that they don't feature any major stars. Well, Sonny Chiba was a very known star but it's okay if they're from Japan or Korea. Did say we saw our fair share of mutilated faces and check out the first screenshot below, that's how the film opened up with a woman setting her hair on fire when she put her face on a stove! At the time she was the eleventh woman to disfigure herself and what could be driving these women to do such acts of cruelty to themselves?! All eleven were young and attractive, all had been alone when they hurt themselves and the lead detective on the case Dave Kennedy could find nothing that connected any of the eleven. And he didn't until the very end, soon that number of women who disfigured themselves would reach a dozen and there was almost a thirteenth victim who was Dave's girlfriend Marcia.
After that opening scene and a short one at the police station the action switched to the Hayes Theater where a hypnotist named Desmond was performing. He was a talented hypnotist and his shows were packed, at this show was the skeptic Dave, Marcia and her best friend Dodie who was chosen with two other women to join Desmond on stage. His assistant is in the fifth screenshot was named Justine, she's the one who chooses what women should be on stage and she had such a domineering pull on Desmond. After the fifth screenshot you can see two that feature Desmond levitating Dodie and to me that was one of the best scenes of the film, how did he do that???? Before lowering Dodie to the ground Desmond whispered something in her ear which no one in the audience noticed. After the show Marcia was so enthused with what she had witnessed and believed Desmond's hypnosis was for real, Dave remained a skeptic and said what happened to Dodie was faked but those words did come back to haunt Dave. Later that evening at home alone Dodie was victim twelve to mutilate herself as the newspaper headline shows, she did so by burning her face with acid which she thought was water!!!! Every victim has done something very similar and in the case of Dodie she had no acid at home so where could it have come from? Marcia was so shaken up with happened to her best friend and while Dave was working in the case she appeared at another of Desmond's shows, this time Justine chose for Marcia to be on stage. This was the beginning of a long night and also the beginning of the end of Desmond's and Justine's evil ways which were unknown until now. Marcia had gone out after the show with Desmond, she had told Dave of that for she had faked being hypnotized and had wanted to see if her theories were correct.
Dave had followed Marcia to a restaurant, a Beatnik club and back to her apartment where it appeared Desmond may be spending the night!!!! With Dave on the stakeout and by his side for most of the remaining twenty minutes was his close friend Dr. Hecht who was the police psychiatrist and had the office next to Dave. Hecht believes in hypnotism and thought Desmond may be using it for evil purposes, Dave is finally coming around believing the twelve mutilated victims were hypnotized. Desmond didn't spend the evening at Marcia's house as left after twenty minutes and when Dave went to check on her he discovered Justine there, Dave arrived just in time as Marcia was about to go under a scalding shower which Justine said was cool water! Dr. Hecht was so invaluable to this investigation, he suggested re-interviewing some victims for more clues. You can see one near the bottom who had stabbed her eyes out(!), another jammed a knife into her throat and could no longer talk so this may have been a better film in color.
What key evidence the pair discovered was that Desmond planted 'suggestions' into the minds of his victims such as forgetting him when the hypnotism wore off and also to allow Justine into their homes with their mutilation weapons such as acid and knifes. In a quickie finale Dave and Hecht found Marcia backstage after Desmond's show, she was being held captive by Justine and was about to be thrown off a railing forty feet high. But Dave ended up shooting Desmond, a distraught Justine revealed her true face which was also mutilated and she jumped down those forty feet to her death landing right next to Desmond, Marcia was safe and the movie ended on that note. Justine having a mutilated face was why she wanted others to share in her pain but it was never explained how it happened, why she was so consumed with others going through what she did plus what was the connection between Dave and Justine? A lot of questions but all in all this was a decent movie which would have been better with an extra five minutes as that ending was so rushed. But I enjoyed the movie quite a bit so that means it was a winner, couldn't find a good trailer so after these screenshots is the scene where Dodie was levitated and I really thought that was such a cool scene though hard to explain why. Merry Anders was the woman who played Dodie and she was such an attractive woman who was in many more movies in this vein.
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