After the world wide international success
with Ian Fleming's James Bond and the 1962 Dr. No a new genre exploded
unto the film scene
- The EuroSpy genre, and as with so many other genres from the happy
swinging 1960's (the gialli, spaghetti and paella westerns, superhero
movies, spaghetti WW2 films and psychedelic trips) also this The EuroSpy
genre have been added to the Nostalgia Retro Cult.
I admit that i haven't seen that many EuroSpy movies, but a whole series
of Agent OSS 117 were made in the 60's (5 or 6 i think) and this
EuroSpy genre and series has been re-animated in the 2000's with i.a.
OSS 117 - Lost in Rio (OSS 17 - Rio ne répond plus) produced
in France
in 2009, directed by Michel Hazanavicius and with Jean Dujardin as agent
OSS117 in a light-hearted Spy Comedy version of OSS117.
Jess Franco made some EuroSpy trash also and surely many, many other
director's with Eurotrash inclinations.
OSS117: Tokyo Hora cero has Frederick
Stafford as the secret agent and it's NOT a eurospy comedy, but a quasi-serious
even though pretty
lighthearted spy action version of a James Bond movie. This film were
shot beautifully on location in Japan and it looks great but still shot
on a low budget i suppose. This Blu-ray did not have any english subtitles
and as my french is almost non-existing i didn't understand
much about the subtleties of OSS117 secret mission in Japan. Something
about an evil organization wanting to destroy the world i guess?
Secret agent OSS117 is sent on a mission to Japan to
thwart a secret organisation threatening the US and/or the world ...
something.
He works (and lays) with the beautiful Eva (Marina Vlady) and he's chased
and threatened by the Bad Guys.
There's a Fun fight between OSS117 and a gigantic japanese man and clearly
the comedy relief of the latter must've inspired the character
Jaws (Richard Kiel) in the 1977 Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me and
the 1979 Moonraker ?
Marina Vlady (or Marina Catherine de Poliakoff-Baydaroff, born
1938) the great french actress i've seen in the fascinating French-Swedish
1956 drama La Sorcière (read more about this film on my Cult
Classics Page 2) and who i want to see in Robert Hossein's acclaimed
Noir
crime dramas Toi ... le Venin (1958) and 1956 Les Salauds vont en enfer,
but .... no copies with english subtitles are to be found, arrrgh!
Marina Vlady in La Sorcière 1956
The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1
with French audio DD 2.0 WITHOUT any english subtitles, No extras, region
ALL,
and US Koch Lorber have released an expensive 5 film blu-ray collection
of OSS117 (including also i.a. Furia en Bahia)
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OSS 117: Lost in Rio ( OSS
17 - Rio ne répond plus, 2009) Direction: Michel Hazanavicius
with Jean Dujardin, Louise Monot, Rudiger
Vogler, produced in France. An example of how the 60's Eurospy film
genre has been included in the Retrokult.
Thai
DVD edition
Total nonsense fluff, but entertaining and well made
in a cool Retro style and a pastiche on the 1960's Euro Spy genre.
Swinging party music ... A-Ba-Da-Doo-Bi-Dah ... beautiful women, hippie
orgies, smart clothes, old time split screens
and bad backscreen projection with wild steering-wheel movements when
driving a car (ha, ha, ha) and with some cool
Brazilian locations, stupid shoot-outs and finally, the most important
- a sex crazy, male chauvinist, stuck-up and
pompous secret agent. Jean Dujardin is Hubert De La Bath alias agent
OSS 117.
Back home from a vacation in High Society Gstaad he
goes to Rio on a mission to buy a microfilm from the wrestling
manager Octavio Pela Luerdo. The film with information about french
collaborators with the Nazi during WW2.
But, Luerdo really is the Nazi war criminal von Zimmel (Rudiger Vogler)
and the israeli agent Dolores (Louise Monot)
joins OSS117 in the hunt for von Zimmel.
There are armed Luchadores underlings, the busty Carlotta alias fraulein
Frieda (Reem Kherici), hippies taking drugs
and having sex on the Rio beach, and also a failed Crocodile barbeque.
FUN but total fluffy nonsense.
Thai DVD with a widescreen ratio and a 5.1 french audio
with english subtitles, no extras. There has been more OSS117
spy comedies after this one, i think, and i would like to see them.
More smart trash to the people!