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Reviews
King of the Ants (2003)
"It's about horrible people doing horrible things to each other"
I saw this film introduced by Charlie Higson and the 2003 Leeds Film Festival. When asked where he got his inspiration from, the screenwriter's eyes started nervously darting to and fro as he talked about how he was not sure himself, and how disturbed he was when he re-read his own novel a few years after writing it. He concluded that being young, unemployed and living in London will make you have such sick imaginings as what goes on in the film, and summed the plot up with the phrase "It's about horrible people doing horrible things to each other".
The film did indeed live up to our expectations, ranging from the hilarious to the disturbing to the downright nauseating. It's a measure of how well it's made that you really do sympathize with the "hero", and feel sick at yourself for doing so. It's a brilliant story, brilliantly filmed and brilliantly acted! Highly recommended, but, to quote the festival's disclaimer, "if you're a fan of cuddly Norm from 'Cheers', look away now"!
Red Shadow: Akakage (2001)
So much fun!!!
Yes, granted that historical accuracy is not a priority for this movie, but that's sort of missing the point: this film is a ninja movie that makes fun of many of the ninja movie conventions, to great comic effect, such as when the 3 ninjas giving each other a 1-10 rank on how stylishly they leapt over the wall of the castle they're infiltrating. Nevertheless this film is also a thrilling and quite moving story, with the elegant simplicity of a fairy-tale reinforced by its timeless setting. It also has the obligatory impressive fight scenes, which are not the best I've seen in any film but they are still very well done. This is a great film, not as violent and bloody as other critics suggest, and extremely funny at times!