Saturday, March 11, 2017

There's no place like . . . Izmir





Turkish adaptations of classic movies are always particularly bizarre. Well, bizarre to US maybe, though not to the average Turk. 

As with most of these things, there are no subtitles, but we can kind of guess at the action. I mean, if you haven't seen The Wizard of Oz five thousand times - But I guarantee you, you've never seen it quite like this.

Instead of Over the Rainbow, the movie opens with this:





Let it never be said that corners were cut in this production, but the entire storm sequence is done in animation. Calling it animation is stretching a point, as very little moves in it. The figure of Dorothy is dragged across the screen while the credits roll (or blink on and off). 






The actual storm scene is a bit incomprehensible. It collapses 20 minutes or so of film into half a minute of cheap cartoon.





From what I am able to make out, Mama doesn't make much effort to get Dorothy into the storm cellar, which is located INSIDE the house.

Like the original, this is a musical. Sort of. Sometimes the characters just get up and spontaneously dance. The music is so strange, however. Some of it is traditional Turkish stuff, I guess; some sounds like Little House on the Prairie, but then this thing breaks in:






I wouldn't advise watching the whole thing. I didn't. It's more fun to skip through it. You'll find an atrocity at every point.


P. S. The screenshots from this are uniformly hideous, so I must include a few of them.














Chopsocky: the legend and legacy of Bruce Lee







Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah





[Chorus:]

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact, it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timing




There were funky China men from funky Chinatown
They were chopping them up
They were chopping them down
It's an ancient Chinese art
And everybody knew their part
From a feinting, to a slip
And a kickin' from the hip




Everybody was Kung Fu fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timing




There was funky Billie Chin and little Sammy Chong
He said, here comes the big boss, let's get it on
We took the bow and made a stand
Started swaying with the hand
A sudden motion made me skip
Now we're into a brand new trip




Everybody was Kung Fu fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they did it with expert timing




Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh, ha
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh, ha
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh-ha
Keep on, keep on, keep on
Sure enough




Everybody was Kung Fu fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning




In fact it was a little bit frightening
Make sure you have expert timing
Kung Fu fighting, had to be fast as lightning...




Kitten on the keys