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Thirst (DVD) (US Version)
Song Kang Ho (Actor)
| Park Chan Wook (Director)
| Shin Ha Kyun (Actor)
| Kim Ok Bin (Actor)
After the critical and commercial misstep that was I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, Korean auteur Park Chan-Wook returns to a dark but very familiar place with Thirst. Filled with extreme violence, explicit sex, dark humor, and impressive camerawork (plus a bit of fantasy), Thirst is the return of the Park Chan-Wook that worldwide audiences know and love. Despite the current popularity of the vampire genre, this is a surprisingly risky choice for Hollywood studio Universal's first Korean co-production, as Thirst is too extreme to be considered a commercially viable film anywhere outside of its native land, where Park, star Song Kang-Ho, and the film's Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival... [read more]
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One Million Yen Girl (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Taiwan Version)
Aoi Yu (Actor)
| Moriyama Mirai (Actor)
| Takezai Terunosuke (Actor)
| Tanada Yuki (Director)
Director Yuki Tanada's One Million Yen Girl charms, in no small part due to its star, the wonderful Yu Aoi. As unlikely ex-con Suzuko, Aoi is reserved yet emotionally strong, and possesses a forthright determination - even if what she's determined to do is keep running away. Suzuko's stint in the big house comes after a series of bad circumstances lands her with an awful roommate, their dislike escalating to bad blood before she inadvertently does something that gets her arrested. The letter of the law dictates Suzuko's sentence, but is she really deserving of a criminal record? Not at all, but that's what she receives. Life is not known for being fair. Suzuko was also unlucky at the family... [read more]
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Blood: The Last Vampire (2009) (DVD) (First Press Edition) (Korea Version)
Jeon Ji Hyun
| Koyuki
| Allison Miller
| Corey Yuen (Action Director)
Blood: The Last Vampire is an interesting proposition, not only because it sees Jeon Ji Hyun (My Sassy Girl), one of Korea's most popular actresses, making her English language debut, but also since it represents one of the few Hollywood Japanese anime adaptations to make a real effort to build upon its source material. The film is based upon the 2000 anime from Production I.G of Ghost in the Shell fame, which was directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo (one of the key animators who worked on the classic Akira), and was helmed by Chris Nahon, who previously had cross-cultural cinematic experiences with the French-English outings Empire of the Wolves and Kiss of the Dragon, arguably one of Jet Li's... [read more]
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The Shonen Merikensack (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Taiwan Version)
Miyazaki Aoi (Actor)
| Sato Koichi (Actor)
| Aikawa Sho
| Tanabe Seiichi
As the writer of Takashi Miike's Zebraman, cult hit Maiko Haaan and his own directorial debut Yaji and Kita, The Midnight Ramblers, multi-talented writer-director-actor-musician Kankuro Kudo has become one of the most visible faces for the sort of manic, extreme Japanese comedy that cult film fnas lap up on the festival circuit around the world. But what often gets forgotten is that Kudo is also a hugely acclaimed - and award winning - dramatist as well, his theatrical productions having won some of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, while the scripts he wrote for Ping Pong and Go early in his career also show a sensitivity to character and dramatic tension seemingly at odds with his... [read more]
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Meatball Machine (US Version)
Yamaguchi Yudai (Director)
| Yamamoto Junichi (Director)
Originally released back in 2005, Meatball Machine was one of the films to kick-start the current trend of Japanese ultra violence and sci-fi gore which has resulted in the likes of Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police. The film was co-directed by Yudai Yamaguchi (also responsible for the crazed Battlefield Baseball and more recently the creepy Tamami: The Baby's Curse and Junichi Yamamoto, from whose original short film it was developed. Wild and gruesomely imaginative, the film is a distinctly anything goes affair, mixing demented alien parasites and biomechanical mutation with star struck romance, making for a truly unique and entertaining viewing experience. The film has deservedly built... [read more]
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Love Of Siam (DVD) (3-Disc Director's Cut) (English Subtitled) (Taiwan Version)
Prachya Pinkaew (Producer)
| Aticha Pongsilpipat
| Chukiat Sakveerakul (Director)
| Mario Maurer
A simple gay love story between two childhood friends turns into an epic about grief and infatuation in The Love of Siam, a seemingly unassuming drama that became a sensation in its native Thailand. Even a bigger surprise than its success is that Chookiat Sakveerakul, the writer-director of this gentle film, was the co-writer of the Muay Thai action fest Chocolate, which was…not so gentle. Despite coming dangerously close to being overstuffed, Love of Siam features enough endearing characters and intriguing situations that its 171-minute running time (this review refers to the director's cut) never feels like its length. And even then, the film feels like it has enough to fill in at least... [read more]
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Maiko Haaaan!!! (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Taiwan Version)
Tsutsumi Shinichi (Actor)
| Shibasaki Kou (Actor)
| Kudo Kankuro (Actor)
| Abe Sadao (Actor)
You don't have to be obsessed with geishas to have a good time with Maiko Haaaan!!!, the insane comedy written by hot screenwriter Kankuro Kudo, responsible for the critically-acclaimed Go and the cult favorite Yaji and Kita: The Midnight Pilgrims. Here, Kudo takes a more mainstream route, telling a story about fetishes, male competitiveness, and cup noodles with crowd-pleasing results (and the box office gross to prove it). Even though Maiko Haaan!!! is high-energy, manic, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it's an efficient comedy that delivers on its promised goods. With a subject as traditionally Japanese as geishas (the "maiko" in the title refers to an apprentice geisha), it's... [read more]
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The Haunted Samurai (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Taiwan Version)
Eguchi Yosuke (Actor)
| Tsumabuki Satoshi (Actor)
| Akai Hidekazu (Actor)
| Kagawa Teruyuki (Actor)
Despite making the most money in Asia, Japanese films have some of the least overseas-friendly films. Some of Japan's biggest blockbusters are based on television dramas that are never shown outside of Japan, and local humor can often be difficult to translate, especially when it's in a period film. Based on the 2005 novel by popular novelist Jiro Asada, The Haunted Samurai is such a film. In one of his most mature roles yet, the hunky Satoshi Tsumabuki plays Hikoshiro, a low-level, down-on-his-luck samurai in 1867 Edo (now better known as Tokyo). Hikoshiro is unemployed after getting fired from his employer/father-in-law's house, and he gets no respect as the hardworking second son while... [read more]
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The Machine Girl (DVD) (US Version)
Noboru Asami (Actor)
| Noboru Honoka (Actor)
| Minase Iguchi (Director, Actor, Writer)
The Story College girl Ami lives alone with her younger brother Yu after their parents killed themselves from shame over false murder accusations. Vowing never to lose any more loved ones because of violence, Ami and Yu try to settle any argument they encounter in a civil, peaceful way which gets very difficult to do when Yu and his friend Takeshi are targeted by a vicious gang of bullies, led by the son of a Yakuza-clan leader. The gang's indifferent brutality leads to Yu and Takeshi being killed, and when Ami tries to investigate what happened she gets viciously assaulted by the gang members' parents. Ami snaps, forgoes her peaceful ways and becomes a killing machine out for justice.... [read more]
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Once Upon a Time in China 2 (US Version)
Jet Li (Actor)
| David Chiang (Actor)
| Max Mok (Actor)
| Rosamund Kwan (Actor)
September 1, 1895: a cadaverous little girl stares at the camera. Holding a candle she walks across a pitch black hall, singing: "King of Heaven/Ruler of Hell/Unite with the White Lotus Sect/So your country is safe." Lights up on hundreds of white-clad White Lotus Cultists. There follows a bullet-defying martial arts display and Priest Kung appears. Nothing can kill him. A bonfire is built of Western objects, including a Dalmatian. "Kill all foreigners," the cultists chant, "so we can live in peace." The bonfire is lit. Staring into the roaring flames the little girl smiles. So begins Once Upon a Time in China 2, Tsui Hark's dark continuation of the Wong Fei-hung legend. Far from home, Wong... [read more]
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Once Upon a Time in China 3 (US Version)
Jet Li (Actor)
| Max Mok (Actor)
| Rosamund Kwan (Actor)
| Tsui Hark (Director)
In China, a lion dance is necessary at the start of any business enterprise in order to ensure an auspicious beginning. At the beginning of Jet Li's HKSAR career, director Tsui Hark gives him a lion dance film to end all lion dance films in this, the third installment of the Once Upon a Time in China series. The last word on period pageantry, it's also the installment in which Fei-hung's relationship with his Aunt Yee (Rosamund Kwan, at her most dewey) comes to the fore. Fei-hung, Yee, and servant Leung Foon (Max Mok) travel to Peking to ask Fei-hung's dad (Aunt Yee's brother) for permission for the two of them to get married. In the meantime, the Empress Dowager and President Li stage a... [read more]
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The Protector (Widescreen) (US Version)
Jackie Chan (Actor)
| James Glickenhaus (Director)
Welcome to Hong Kong - that glittering jewel box on the Pacific...glittering jewel box of SIN! Kohl-eyed masseuses use their kneading feet to send you into a stupor so that they may use their flashing knives to send you into hell! Stretching from the Beirut-ian rubble of the South Bronx populated by Road Warrior-esque dwarf gangs who rip off eighteen wheelers, to the diabolical drug labs of the Orient where shapely women stuff innocent melons full of heroin: white dust of death! Jackie Chan, in a reverse Rush Hour(here everyone speaks Cantonese - or Mandarin - rather than Jackie being forced to speak English; and his sidekick is a somnambulant, beefy white man rather than a twitchy, skinny... [read more]
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Once Upon a Time in China (US Version)
Wu Ma (Actor)
| Rosamund Kwan (Actor)
| Yuen Biao (Actor)
| Kent Cheng (Actor)
For 77 films and 32 years Chinese folk hero, herbalist and martial artist supreme, Wong Fei-hung, WAS actor Kwan Tak-hing. Sometimes making 25 Wong Fei-hung films a year, the patriarch carved his image into the brains of generations of Hong Kong audiences as THE film incarnation of the real-life Chinese legend. Kung fu was genre non grata in 1990, replaced by Chow Yun-fat style heroic bloodshed movies. Yet director Tsui Hark took a gamble and announced he was reviving the Wong Fei-hung franchise, starring Jet Li, then living disreputably in San Francisco. Assembling Little Fortune, Yuen Biao, career actress, Rosamund Kwan, Cantopop star, Jacky Cheung, and character actor, Kent Cheng, Tsui... [read more]
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Mushishi (DVD) (English Subtitled) (2-Disc Deluxe Edition) (Taiwan Version)
Esumi Makiko (Actor)
| Odagiri Joe (Actor)
| Aoi Yu (Actor)
| Omori Nao (Actor)
How can a director take an episodic manga with little in the way of origin stories and make a 130-minute feature film out of it? If you're writer/director Katsuhiro Otomo, you would simply take three episodes of the subsequent anime and tape them together in hopes of producing something coherent. However, the edges show quite obviously in Bugmaster, a live-action adaptation of the award-winning manga by Yuki Urushibana about a one-eyed man with silver hair who walks around late 1800's rural Japan getting rid of mystical bugs. Bugmasters such as Ginko (Joe Odagiri as the aforementioned one-eyed man) are some of the only people in the world who can see these mystical bugs because they have... [read more]
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Kill Bill Vol.1 & 2 Twin Pack (Limited Edition)(Japan Version)
Gordon Liu
| Kuriyama Chiaki
| Quentin Tarantino (Director)
| Chiba Shinichi
So, now that this tale of bloody revenge has reached its climax, which 'r' do I feel? Relief, that it met my expectations? Regret, that it's all over? A little of both actually, but mostly I feel Respect. From the opening 'Massacre at Two Pines' to the surreal final chapter 'Face to Face,' this proves to be a brilliant film; one quite different to the first half of The Bride's quest to kill Bill, but certainly no less of a success. Here's the deal. Tarantino's direction and Robert Richardson's cinematography both deserve more time than I'm going to give them here, but it's all good, as they say, and if you've seen Vol. I you'll know what I mean. Instead, I'd rather focus of the performances,... [read more]
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Linda Linda Linda (DVD) (US Version)
Maeda Aki (Actor)
| Kashii Yu (Actor)
| Yamashita Nobuhiro (Director)
Trouble strikes a teen girl band on the eve of their performance at their school's festival. Their lead guitarist has broken her finger and the lead singer has walked away from the band. The remaining band members, Kei, Kyoko and Nozomi, unwilling to call it quits, search for a new lead singer to save their band with three days to go before the concert. In a chance encounter they choose a Korean exchange student, Son, to be their vocalist. Oh, just a couple things to note, Son has never performed in a band and speaks next to no Japanese. With three days to practice and learn their set list, including the insanely catchy Linda Linda Linda by Japanese punk icons The Blue Hearts, where the film... [read more]
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MAGNIFICENT BODYGUARDS Digitally remastered (Japan Version)
Jackie Chan
Magnificent Bodyguards joins Angela Mao's Scorching Sands, Fierce Winds, Wild Fire in the "we stole our score from Star Wars" hall of fame, although Lo Wei is a better crook and steals more freely and continuously. The first kung fu movie in 3-D this is actually an under-rated bit of spastic trash and the 3-D effects are so jarringly inserted and crudely created that seeing it in plain old 2-D is almost as much fun. The subtitles are totally incompetent, and when the Star Wars music finally stops we get a goony slide whistle woogling while Jackie Chan, in an ugly wig, gets pelted with snakes. Something of a fairy tale a drunk uncle would make up for his petrified niece, squirming to escape... [read more]
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THE POLICE STORY 2 Digitally Remastered (Japan Version)
Jackie Chan (Director)
A classic in waiting, Jackie Chan's sequel to the genre-generating Police Story is Jackie at his most cynical and ironic. Focused on hand-to-hand combat the way Police Story 1 was focused on mega-stunts, it's a study in frustration for Chan's supercop Ka-kui. Busted down to traffic cop after demolishing a mall at the end of Police Story 1, he starts the movie as the underdog, then digs deeper. His temper is set on "Broil" and every confrontation ends in disaster, every cathartic moment is undermined by a cataclysmic, accident. He spends the movie in a heightened state of embarrassment, nothing going as planned, conversations overheard, gestures misread, cops becoming hostages and criminals... [read more]
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Danny The Dog AKA: Unleashed (2DVD Special Edition) (Hong Kong Version)
Jet Li (Producer, Actor)
| Phyllida Law
| Morgan Freeman (Actor)
| Bob Hoskins
David and Margaret of The Movie Show didn't really like Unleashed, giving it a good panning, although admitting that they liked the action sequences and some of the performances. This raised my hackles a little - I liked this film, though I can see why some would feel that it's a little cliched and lacking in dramatic depth. Nonetheless, I really think it's the best thing that Jet Li's done in the Western Cinema world and very like several other recent films from the Luc Besson stable (think The Transporter from the same director, maybe even The Fifth Element in some ways). The story is centered around Danny, played by Jet Li, who's a rather unique piece of hired muscle employed by Bart (Bob... [read more]
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Who Am I? (US Version)
Yamamoto Mirai (Actor)
| Michelle Ferre (Actor)
| Jackie Chan (Director, Actor)
The latter half of the nineties have been hard for Jackie Chan. He's watched Stephen Chow gobble up his box office receipts, he got beat at the box office by two movies he loathed: Andrew Lau's Young and Dangerous and Storm Riders, his celebrity became international while hometown audiences treated him as a has-been who fathers illegitimate children, more interested in his latest scandal than his latest film. Who Am I? is Jackie Chan's identity crisis on a global disaster scale. A nameless superagent, he's konked on the head while retrieving a piece of rock (this being a Jackie Chan movie, the konking is that which occurs between a helicopter and a large tree; and the rock is the kind of... [read more]
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