桃源鄉的娘

　　風間重吉は花田秀次郎との果たし合いで左腕を失った。出所した秀次郎は林田一家の世話になる。樺島一家は採石の入札をめぐって林田と老舗“淺野屋“を圧迫していた。樺島の客人となった風間は、秀次郎に果たし狀を渡すが、女房が兇弾に倒れ、秀次郎とともに死地に向かう。

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

　　在肉品工廠擔任經理的安東尼，與美麗的嬌妻生了三個聰明伶俐的孩子，一家五口住在鄰近海邊的獨棟大房，日子過得愜意又舒適，直到一次意外昏倒，才被醫生診斷出腎臟出了毛病，必須靠洗腎才能維生。　　一向奉公守法的安東尼，深怕自己熬不住排隊等換腎的煎熬，決定偷偷向非法管道求援，在網上找到了一對愿意以腎臟交換大房子的無業情侶，正當他下定決心要砸下重金來拯救自己生命之時，他原本幸福美滿的生活，也隨著器官交易背后的層層危機，漸漸脫序崩毀...

　　故事一開始，我們見到了12歲的扎凡（扎芙林·宰麗扎爾 Zafreen Zairizal 飾），一個叛逆而無憂無慮的女孩。然而，她的身體開始發生可怕的變化，而她卻試圖否認和掩飾這些變化，希望在學校里保持正常的生活。隨著朋友們對扎凡的排擠和攻擊，情節逐漸升級，達到了一個臨界點，整個學校陷入恐慌。　　學校里關于廁所里藏著一個暗影的傳說加劇了恐懼氛圍，而一位自告奮勇的醫療官決定趕走困擾眾人的惡魔。醫療官很快發現扎凡可能是問題的根源，打算為她進行驅魔。扎凡的內心狀態宛如一只被拖出棲息地的受驚老虎，她最終決定向眾人展示真實的本性，包括憤怒、狂暴和美麗。這可能是一個關于接受自己真實面貌的故事，同時也涉及到對于社會標準和期望的反抗。