Elektra
2005, 1 hr 30 min., Rated PG-13 for action violence. Dir: Rob Bowman. Cast: Jennifer Garner (Elektra), Goran Visnjic (Mark Miller), Kirsten Prout (Abby Miller), Terence Stamp (Stick), Will Yun Lee (Kirigi), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Roshi), Natassia Malthe (Typhoid), Bob Sapp (Stone), Chris Ackerman (Tattoo), Colin Cunningham (McCabe).
House of Flying Daggers
2005, 1 hr 55 min., Rated PG-13 for sequences of stylized martial arts violence, and some sexuality. Dir: Yimou Zhang. Cast: Takeshi Kaneshiro (Jin), Andy Lau (Leo), Ziyi Zhang (Mei).
A Very Long Engagement
2004, 2 hr 5 min., R for violence and sexuality. Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Cast: Audrey Tautou (Mathilde), Gaspard Ullie (Manech).

If you're like me, you're 26, 6'4", 300 lbs., over think every problem and like women to wear blue bikinis, but that's not the point. You also like hot dames. They�re always endearing in movies. Or anytime, really. Remember, this is a Jeff exclusive.

Since you�re a fan of the ladies, you�ll be happy to see the Knight Bus of reviews, a triple-decker not about magic, but Girl Power! Chicks on a mission of duty, revenge, and love. You know, stuff chicks do best. That, and cook. And do laundry. And make babies.

Maybe I should move on. (Can you believe I'm still single?)

In case it matters, and I�m a film snob so I don�t care, two out of three movies are subtitled - Elektra speaks the English - which says something about the lack of quality lead roles for women in Hollywood, but I'll leave that for Gloria Allred to complain about.

	Elektra's Circum-Scissors are big sellers on Amazon.com

So we've got the smokin� Jennifer Garner in revealing leather, Asian temptress Zhang Ziyi battling The Man and French waif Audrey Tautou looking for her man after World War I tore their relationship asunder. The first two get their power through action, the latter through determination and personality.

All three also apparently need to be extra motivated and inspired by maladies. Ziyi is blind and Audrey is hobbled by polio, rendering her left leg as useless as having a log attached to her body, but Garner outdoes both by dying. Show off.

They all need their pain, Kirk style, to grow, right? Would Ziyi be a better fighter with sight? Well, yeah, duh. Stop giving extra weight to people just because of their handicap. It's like how somehow the mentally retarded are wise sages in film. Tell me, do you bring a notebook to Kroger in order to hear the latest philosophical discussion with the mentally challenged bag boy?

Audrey may be hobbled by polio, but she�s mobile and uses a wheelchair only when she wishes to use sympathy as a weapon in order to get information.

The last we saw of Elektra, she was on the wrong end of Colin Farrell�s aim (with her own weapon, too). She�s also still played by alpha female Jennifer Garner, who is some fine eye candy. Me wanna touchy every day and twice on Sunday. I don�t watch "Alias," which proves that I won't watch just anything with a pretty star. Unless it has nudity. Stupid FCC and their �rules.�

Elektra is less like Daredevil and more like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in terms of storytelling and visualization, and director Rob Bowman (Reign of Fire and plenty of episodes of �The X-Files) doesn�t allow any of the typically campy elements of comic book adaptations (which aren�t bad, don�t get me wrong), trying for more of an artsy-fartsy look. I like the change, because even through the Oriental mysticism hokus pokus the plot and style feel authentic.

I know this doesn�t jive with the above sentence, but the way Garner dispensed with the baddies seemed like a fancier Mortal Kombat, but you have to realize that I enjoyed that flick. In order to save a girl named Abby and her dad, Dr. Luka from �ER,� Elektra fights off this guy with tattoos, some dude who balances coins on his fingers, Muscles, a dead sexy chick (emphasis on dead) and a karate guy with a past connected to our heroine.

With Elektra and Abby, it's 13 going on 30, and both could beat me up in one move, and I don�t just mean a hair flip. Elektra also hallucinates and spend a lot of time being mysterious. Using her �powers,� she has an extraordinary sense of surrounding, brief glimpses of future through meditation, speed, awesome fighting skills and a body that could stop traffic. It helps that Elektra has General Zod from Superman (Terence Stamp) as her sensei, though now he's blind. Again with the handicaps? What is it always with these martial arts teachers and Islamofascist leaders that they're always blind? With Stamp, though, Elektra is still looking for The Way, turning into Richard Gere, all, "I have nowhere else to go!"

Elektra the movie has heart and tries real hard, and all of this fits compactly into an hour-and-a-half of solid good vs. evil entertainment, though I appear to be outnumbered by mainstream critics, who are all poopy heads.

Over in the Far East, yummy Zhang Ziyi is fighting the corrupt government from centuries past, plus fighting off a love triangle of which she�s the hinge. What that creates is that unlike Elektra and Engagement, Daggers isn't Ziyi-specific. Ziyi is our chief chick hero, yes, but the two men get as much screen time and attention, though she's clearly the best one to look at.

Even so, a fight near the end between the men is perhaps the most brutal I've ever seen, not in terms of blood but wrath, fueled by pure hate that makes them stronger and more intense. Excellent. This is a fantastically passionate film, and yet I was a little tired by the end and ready for the credits to roll.

Am I Asian Martial-Arted out? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero and House of Daggers are all well done, but I feel like I've seen it all. There aren't enough differences to make it worthwhile by now. Sure, some have sad that about Westerns, but they're idiots and probably starve their grandparents. They don't understand the nuances of a quality Western. The characters, the good vs. evil plots, barbarous action, adventure, man in the elements, Wild West - yeah, yeah, same goes for the Asian flicks, but the former have John Wayne, for which there is no Asian equivalent. Speaking of Westerns, Ziyi has some James Caan in her, like he did in El Dorado she jumps in front of a horse, knowing it will jump over her and the rider won't have a chance to attack. Mega-cool.

	The famed Pepto Bismol dance is known to coat your gurgling soul.

Not cool: The kissy-kissy scenes are extremely unsexy. Seriously, I was like Fred Savage at the start of The Princess Bride. �Again? Ick.� There�s nothing Buttercup-Wesley about the love scenes in Dagger at all. Even when it's actually about love and less about Sir Rapist Johnson. Stop rolling over on one another already and flip a coin for who gets on top.

I mean, sure, the dude tried to rape her, but forgive and forget, right? We've got a Luke-Laura situation, not that I would know anything about soap operas. It was just a popular topic, though not nearly as quality entertainment as "Days of Our Lives" when Marlena was all possessed and stuff. Shut up. I watched it every day in college, and I�m not ashamed. At all.

In short, love's a real bitch, especially when politics are involved. That's why I've remained single for so long. Really. Shut up.

You won't know who to trust, Robbing Hood and the merry fighters or the soldiers. Nobody is what they say. The playas get played. Hate the game, dawgs. That ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times"? Totally in effect here, which is good for us because the twists help, turning the story over into something else after the first hour, keeping the plot fresh and preparing us for the finale.

I appreciate that Daggers goes for the poetry-in-motion action, full of colorful costumes, dance, and music. That still doesn�t excuse that there�s yet another battle up in the bamboo trees. Again. Been there, done that. Tired of the tree fights. We get it. The fight in the field of flowers was better, more real. Style may be more important most of the time, but in this case we can really get a chance to follow the action and appreciate the skills of the actors and the filmmakers.

Among the pluses of the movie being in subtitled is figuring out translations. For instance, does "my fault?" really sound like "Whaaa?" in Mandarin? Sweet. Also, the riders keep giving orders to the horses in Mandarin. Pshaw. Everyone knows horses only understand English, like "whoa" and �Hi-Yo, away!"

	"Hurry up! I have to oui-oui."

There�s nothing supernatural about A Very Long Engagement. It�s all too real, in fact, covering World War I and its aftermath in France, which is fine this once even though they'd just assume fart in your general direction and toss cows at you.

Audrey Tautou's fianc� is one of five men condemned to the front to die (which was almost a certainty in the fierce trench warfare). They are sentenced for self-mutilation, all but one of whom actually did try to get out of the war by shooting themselves in the hand. It�s all very Paths of Glory, and Audrey�s childhood sweetheart is the crazy one saying "I can go home� after the execution. Also think Cold Mountain, a soldier returning home from horrors of war, despite being labeled traitor, to be with those left behind, except that he�s not actually on his way, she is, and now my metaphor is collapsing faster than Ted Kennedy near any bridge.

Everything�s very secretive, being that the French are evil, so Audrey has to finagle information and investigate on her own. She�s just as adorable as when I fell for her in Am�lie, and similarly in Engagement random nuggets about the characters are revealed that don't advance the plot one iota yet entertain and keep some semblance of good spirits nonetheless, like dog farts, and it is a French flick, so unnecessary sexual frankness is to be expected.

Still, Engagement is neither as silly nor free-spirited as Am�lie. Audrey never really believes her man is dead, even when she sees a cross in a soldier cemetery with his name on it. Always testing herself and God, mumbling "if so-and-so happens, he's alive," she doesn't use a blade to get to the truth, but her obsession and insistence at his survival.

Holy sh*t, that's Jodie Foster, and she's doing the nasty!

Yeah, you read that. Teased?

Is the film worth your time? Maybe, maybe not. Beautifully shot, Engagement captures the old-timey look of Paris and France, shot in sepia tones like old photographs. But it�s a Very Long Wait to get to the realizations of the romantic epic, sometimes not entirely compelling, other times overwhelmingly emotional.