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I think I stumbled upon this title randomly upon a search about six hours, and the title "Strong Hawk" caught my eye, because it reminded me of the Hawk Heroines series by Alex Bettinger (which was also the title of his superheroine video website before it was changed to Superheroine World. How come nobody talks about those videos on here, by the way? He's still making them.)
The title card (see below) also looked very powerful, and I knew right away, having linked to Tubi, that I'd found a secret world of recently-produced black superheroine movies. Hey, if you don't see what you want in the mainstream, make it yourself, and that's exactly what producer/director Ramesses T. Head (probably not his government name) did. In fact, I see other similar movies on Tubi that I'll want to check out, too, all made in the past few years, it seems.
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Thus, we have Eva - the mother, who is super-strong and can blast people. She was apparently killed in the beginning of the film along with her brother.
Tammy - the auntie, who has flame powers.
the daughters Liv - who has super strength and invulnerability (like Thunder from the Black Lightning family, except she doesn't take breaths).
Vin (Vengeance) - who can teleport.
Ella (Elegance) - who can read minds, control people's minds, and possibly has some telekinesis ability.
the cousin Keisha - who can talk the languages of computers and re-program them. Plus, there are hints that she is most powerful of them all.
I'm assuming, then, that since some of this content is quite similar to what was presented in Black Panther and Black Lightning, that Mr. Ramesses wanted to go several steps further and present his story with extra aspects that felt those series did not cover. Also, you can easily detect influences from the 1970s and 1990s superhero action shows which we know and love: 1) the segment where the ladies are in the warehouse is rather similar to sequences from Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman, while 2) their training sequence (you gotta have one of those!) soundtrack is a hip-hop reworking of the Six Million Dollar Man theme. And man, that title card looks a lot like Cleopatra 2525, doesn't it?
The writing also doesn't downplay the sexy: there are many lines from the film acknowledging how beautiful the characters are, which is fun to see.
(for example, a lecherous gym member who keeps staring at Liv's tight ass as she's working out, tries to make a pass, and has to be set straight and ejected by the trainer who runs the gym...who of course then asks Liv out on a date.)
There are even a couple of lesbian moments: Ella is clearly in a lesbian relationship with a woman who looks almost exactly like her, and Vin gets a come-on from a girl named Kitty who is always trying to invite her to lesbian dive bars.
Spoiler
Both of these lesbian characters turn out to be traitorous villainesses, which is certainly not PC. Love it.
The three Strong Hawk ladies are hot. You'll enjoy watching them throughout the entire movie, but the best part is of course when they don their tight and shiny Kevlar superheroine outfits with about 15 minutes left in the picture (the sequence of them putting on the outfits is of course another highlight). You don't want to miss any part of the climactic battle in the underground facility (under the corporate headquarters of the evil Brimstone Clan), and you'll probably want to play a few parts several times.
Peril? Yes, there is some. Liv gets pinned down to a bed by her traitorous boyfriend Assad, who is wearing power cuffs that make him super strong.
One of the Brimstone villains has a power which increases everyone's gravity, pinning the Strong Hawks to the floor so they can't get up to fight.
But admittedly, there's a hell of a lot more girl power in this than the peril. And this leads to a couple of my nitpicky complaints about the story.
1) Liv is shown as being so 'strong' that she almost always knocks out any thug with one punch. This leads to mostly simplistic combat situations
where there is hardly any substantial back-and-forth punching exchange in the movie (Vin has the longest one, with a couple punches and kicks).
Ella just usually uses her mind control powers right away, so there's no resistance from her foes. It would have been nice to see a couple of longer
'Kung Fu in a warehouse' style fights like we've seen in Black Lightning, Arrow and other CW shows (it's evident that Ramesses watched them).
2) There's something about Eva that I don't understand
Spoiler
which is what near the end of the movie, she is revealed to be not killed, but actually was held as a prisoner by the Brimstones for 15 years. Not only is it questionable how someone can survive such imprisonment without going crazy, especially if they can't access their powers, but I don't see why it would make sense for Brimstone to keep her rather than just killing her, since everyone thought Eva was long dead.
Spoiler
she'd been made a bit more sexy. All the other Strong Hawk wear tight shiny costumes, and give themselves attractive and fancy heroine makeup. The actress playing Keisha is attractive enough to get gussied up. So Keisha should have done that as well - shed her "nerdy" persona and gone hotter, like a Velma transformation. Maybe she'll get to do that if a sequel is made.
Spoiler
is clearly noted to be the Strong Hawks' 'cousin'. That seems highly unlikely, and is jarring to the plot.
Spoiler
After a ferocious battle sequence, they get to the 'final boss', as it were. But instead of having a few tricks up her sleeve and putting up a fantastic fight to keep her empire, Ms. Brimstone simply rolls over, and the director says cut. Next thing we know, the Strong Hawks are suddenly in charge of everything and masters of their own fate.
Otherwise than that, I'm pretty happy with Strong Hawk" My SIster's Keeper. It shows everything that can be done when you just set your mind to accomplish it. No Marvel, no Warner, no Netflix, no Amazon, no Apple, and no European producer (after what I've heard about the terrible 2nd season of Barbarians, I wouldn't trust anyone from Germany, either). Just a guy from Oakland with grit and determination and about two dozen people, and you've got an epic powerful and sexy superheroine movie that could be the start of a whole franchise. These three lead actresses are all possible stars in the making, especially Sierra Mora (as Vin) with her intense looks and her tight abs.
Good work, Ramesses.
Simple enough to see the movie. Just click here: https://tubitv.com/movies/673963/strong ... r-s-keeper
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