Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Other People’s Pulp


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Going through the Second Barrage

A lot of online reviewers were less than kind with Black Lagoon‘s second season – called The Second Barrage. Most lamented the absence of Dutch and Benny from many episodes, the excessive focus on Rock and Revy’s “relationship”, and the less frantic action. So I was rather curious to see what it would look like.
And to me it looks… quite interesting.

To recap, Black Lagoon is an early 2000s anime/manga series set in the ’90s, and focusing on the day-to-day lives of a team of mercenaries, the Black Lagoon Trading Co., operating in the South China Sea. The first season follows four successive narrative arcs, throwing in a lot of firepower and an ample cast of supporting characters – including an organization of gun-running nuns, a Triad’s boss that is obviously Chow Yun Fat from A better tomorrow II, and a formidable unit of former Soviet special forces, known as Hotel Moscow, now working for the Russian Mafia.

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Into the Black Lagoon

It was a very stressful day, the prelude to a week that promises – you guessed it – even more stressful. But not everything was bad, and as a recipe of my own devising was broiling in the slow cooker, I was finally able to get to the bottom of the first season of Black Lagoon.
That’s a good way to wash away some stress.

I found out about Black Lagoon a few years back, as I was doing a research on the classic Universal monster, the Gill Man, aka The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Google searches being what they are, I stumbled on this thing called Black Lagoon…
Japanese anime. Does it feature a Creature? No, it looks like straight action.
Straight action anime, references to a movie I like… let’s check it out.

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Dark Agnes

It’s the 11th of June, Robert E. Howard’s anniversary, and just 36 hours a go I did a post on my Italian blog about sword & sorcery, and mentioned Dark Agnes de Chastillon. And then yesterday, as we were recording our podcast, my friend Lucy and I talked briefly about Robert E. Howard’s women – because he did write a few very interesting women, and Dark Agnes was one of them.

I first met Dark Agnes de Chastillon, also known as Agnes de la Fere (a name that might ring a bell with those that have read Dumas) in the mid-80s. Having broken into the habit of reading in English, a whole world opened up for me, and I raided the shelves of the cheap paperbacks in the Sevagram bookstore. Some books I picked because of the author, others just because of the cover.
Sword Woman was perfect on both counts.

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Hard-Boiled

A few days back, talking about James Garner’s Marlowe, I talked about how I grew up on (among many other things) The Rockford Files. And I said I share the belief hard-boiled fiction can help a lot, when you are a kid in your early teens,and need role models – especially a certain kind of hard-boiled. Hammett rather than Spillane, for instance.

So, in my lunch breaks, I’ve been re-watching the first season of The Rockford Files, because I wanted to see whether the series was really as good and fun and all that, and in general my memories were validated.
Yes, there’s a car chase in every episode (what was this obsession with cars in 1970s America?), but the mysteries are fun, there’s an incredible supporting cast and a roster of guest stars, and James Garner is very good at doing his thing.

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The little sister for breakfast

This morning I woke up at 6 a.m., brew some tea, checked my email, and then went and watched the 1969 movie Marlowe, featuring James Garner in the title role. The movie is based on ray Chandler’s novel The Little Sister, and is a tight neat little neo-noir.
Just what I needed to start my day.

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If this is Thursday, this must be Peking… no, wait, maybe Shanghai…

As I am planning a special podcast episode for my Patrons to celebrate both my birthday and the Feast of Long Shadows, that is, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee’s birthdays, I am re-watching for the umpteenth time the 1972 classic “faux Hammer” movie, Horror Express.

A movie I love, and I have watched thousands of times – one about which I believe I know everything.
And yet, five minutes in, the screen announces…

Peking, Russian Concession

… and my brain does a double flip, and I go…

Hold it. There was no Russian Concession in Peking in 1906. Must be Tientsin, or maybe Shanghai. You guys are playing fast and loose, here…

And then of course I kick myself for a pedantic idiot, because I’m here to enjoy the movie, not to edit it, at least until, exactly one minute later…

Peter Cushing: “Ah, professor Sexton! What brings you to Shanghai?”

There, you unknown Spanish title-writer! I was right! And Peter Cushing knows!
And that’s a little sad about me, right?
But only a little.

Onwards we go – the podcast is going to be a smash.


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Horror movies for families and other wonders

I am going to share a video-essay I just saw on Youtube, because it is really interesting and has a lot to say about writing horror and writing my kind of horror, but before we get to that I’ll have to make a little introduction and give a little explanation.

Back in the mid-80s I started getting really interested in Hong Kong movies. Up to that point I had seen mostly Bruce Lee features (lots of friends from primary school got sent to karate lessons because of that), the occasional kung fu movie and of course Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, the Hammer/Shaw Bros collaboration. In the second part of the ’80s more Hong Kong movies started being distributed more regularly in my country, and we finally got Jacky Chan and his former team, the Lucky Stars.
Then, in the early ’90s movies by Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark and John Woo finally hit the screens.

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