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Released by: Cinema Epoch
Released on: 12/5/2006
Director: Gregory Hatanaka
Cast: Sarah Lassez, James Duval, Devon Odessa, Vic Chao, Walter Koenig
Year: 2006
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The Movie:
Gregory Hatanaka's Mad Cowgirl is nuts. Plain and simple, this movie is completely insane. That's not a bad thing, mind you, but it does need to be said as it's a twisted, messed up, and completely bizarre trip through a woman's psychological changes… or is it? The film leaves a fair bit of that open to interpretation but it's never less than entertaining even when it is as puzzling as they come.
Therese (Quebecois beauty Sarah Lassez) is a divorced health inspector who travels from slaughterhouse to slaughterhouse in and around the Los Angeles area. It's up to her to make sure that these places are up to code and meeting the standards that have been set for them. When Therese isn't working, she's hanging out alone in her apartment watching old school kung-fu films on late night television. She lives by herself, her first marriage to Charlie (Vic Chao) having fallen apart some time ago and a fling with a strange televangelist named Pastor Dylan (Star Trek's Walter Koenig) having blown up in her face.
Soon, however, Therese's life starts to change, and not necessarily for the better. She hasn't been feeling so well as of late, so she goes to visit her doctor (a strange man from Sri Lanka who speaks to her in his native language which she is somehow able to understand) who unfortunately isn't able to do much for her. She goes to visit her mother (Lucy Duval), a Vietnamese woman (Sarah does not appear to be of Asian descent) but again, it doesn't do much. It all starts to tie together when she has her brother Thierry (James Duval of Venice Underground and Donnie Darko) over for dinner one night. He runs a meat packing facility on the sly, trying to keep it distanced from Therese's profession so as not to alarm anyone. Their relationship is definitely a little more romantic than those shared by most siblings.
As Therese's behavior becomes more and more unusual, she decides to check out a local Catholic church where she strikes up a relationship with one of the priests (Christo Dimassis of Inside Irvin) and starts to obsess over the confessional booth. As Therese's relationships with the priest, Pastor Dylan and her brother all spiral, an influx of tainted beef from the North makes it to the area and causes the local authorities much concern. Is this what's been affecting Therese's health lately? If so, why isn't she sick and how has she become so adept at the martial arts she's know practicing without any prior experience?
Mixing together elements of psychological horror, black comedy and kung fu fighting, Mad Cowgirl is quite a hodge-podge of different themes and genres but it works and in fact it all comes together quite nicely even if it shouldn't. Though when the film ends it definitely leaves us with as many (if not more) questions than we had when it started we're at least given enough meat to chew on that we can come up with our own resolutions as to the specifics of it if all if we so choose. What starts off as a drama about a woman coming to terms with the way she's been treated by the men in her life soon turns into an absurdist take on the media and how it spins things and a parody of martial arts movies. Unlikely bedfellows indeed but tight direction and a fantastic performance from Lassez make it much, much better than it sounds on paper. Lassez handles the unusual material very well here. She looks good but isn't so completely over the top in that department that we can't understand her predicament. She's as real as you'd want someone to be in the part, and she brings an understated quirkiness to her performance that suits the eclectic script well.
Not all of the many experiments in the film work perfectly - there are a few too many head scratching moments - but Hatanaka certainly gets enough right in the pacing of the picture and in terms of how it looks and how that look reflects the story that this is one worth watching. The film pushes things from time to time, a masturbation sequence standing out as maybe potentially off putting to some viewers, but by the end of the movie things are so absurd that it somehow makes sense even when it really doesn't and if nothing else, it'll give you plenty to think about once the end credits role. Those who enjoy dissecting and thinking on filmic metaphors are given plenty to digest, from the title to the disease itself to the various relationships Therese deals in - they all do tie together, even if it isn't obvious immediately how.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is pretty solid on this release, even if the reds are just a little murky in some scenes. Detail is fairly strong as are the black levels and there aren't any problems with mpeg compression artifacts to complain about. Color reproduction is decent and flesh tones look lifelike and natural. A couple of spots are a little on the dark side but it's probably a safe guess that they're supposed to look this way. For the most part, Mad Cowgirl looks very nice on this DVD.
Take your pick, you're able to enjoy the film by way of a fancy English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix or a less impressive but still perfectly adequate Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track. The 5.1 mix gets the edge for making good use of the rear channels during a few key scenes and for spreading the music and effects out a little more than the 2.0 counterpart but both tracks benefit from clean and clear dialogue and properly balanced levels. There are no problems with hiss or distortion.
The main extra feature on this disc is a collection of over half an hour's worth of deleted scenes and outtakes that weren't used in the final cut of the movie.
Rounding out the extra features are a decent still gallery, a few text biographies for the key cast and crew members, a trailer for the feature and, best of all, a collection of a few 'Bonus Grindhouse Kung Fu Movie trailers' including Master Of The Flying Guillotine and others.
The Final Word:
There aren't a lot of films in this day and age that really feel original but that's really the best way to describe Mad Cowgirl. It's completely unique even if it does pay homage to old martial arts films and exploitation cinema and Sarah Lassez's performance should put her star on the rise and for fans of surrealism, black humor and flat out weirdness this is one to look out for.