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Reviews
Gun Crazy: Episode 1 - A Woman from Nowhere (2002)
A Missing Limb, a Rocket-Launcher, and a Smile . . .
Another one for the Babes & Bullets crowd. The story is much edgier than any other musical I have seen: cannons hidden up the missing legs of females, and places each generatively in the other in a way that comes closer to intelligent comment than we might expect for the locale. More effective than contemporary 'drama.' It is hard identify with a woman who keeps a cannon up her pants -- in lue of leggage. Pretty remarkable if you consider the context.
Despite the cannon up the leg thing providing 90% of the surprises, this film also chronicles how greed supersedes all other considerations in the lives of a group of yakuzas who pursue a woman who keeps up her leg a concealed cannon/rocket-launcher (hence no group shower scenes or thongs) The hidden projectile-launcher which is pulled out from the behind the protagonists back, seemingly from nowhere, in miike's Dead or Alive (1999), The torch brought forth out of thin air by the heroine towards the end of the original Tomie (2000), or the harrowing flame-thrower scene in Sunny Gets Blue (1992), all testify to an almost third-world Cantinflas-esquire influence in the contemporary Japanese cinema, of which I am at a loss to explain, but cannot complain.
You won't see good quality movies of this essence made in Hollywood, its all but extinct and with cheap crap they pump out for a cheap thrill, is all but laughable. This is a true film and while its great in its entirety, the ending is a brilliant, if not unblatant rip-off of certain Sergio Leon pictures, involving cannons where legs should be, and certainly is appropriate!
Injeong sajeong bol geot eobtda (1999)
The "Matrix" of the Matrix
Here it is, the much-overlooked film of which the Wachowski Brothers' cultic sci-fi trilogy 'The Matrix' is the remake. In the trilogy's' final installment, the messiah figure, Neo, does battle with the bad-boy sentiments that have imprisoned most of humanity in a world of cyber unreality via a massive computer program known as The Matrix. Watch this film and tell me if it doesn't sound familiar.
The Wachowski brothers, perhaps, could have (shamelessly!) ripped-off this film with a little more style; I find it ashame that so many have come to ignore it's Korean origins. Say, why not let's introduce an alien ET culture who is really the master culture enslaving the machine culture by some similar hallucinatory ruse. Or, have the humans escape by transcending their bodies, as in all the traditional gnostic spiritualities? The possibilities are without end, yet the Wachowski Brothers choose to plagarize without deviating from the Myung-se Lee's original vision.
It goes without saying that the special effects in this film are supior to those found in the Matrix movies (Neo's Trio, as there sometimes referred to as) - given the high-standards set forth by Korean CGI artists, we would expect nothing less - and what we don't get from 'Revolutions' - we do get from NOWHERE TO HIDE - that little something extra in the shape of intelligence and sophistication that makes it more than just the bland, over-produced, assembly-line products which films like the MATRIX have come to typify - and which 'Revolutions' blatantly is. Even the turgid determination of Keanu Reeves can't convince us that there is anything hidden under all those cool gadgets and explosions that can't be traced back to this little gem out of S.Korea.
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Tom Cruise _IS_ the Amercan Alain Delon
An interesting film that portrays the struggles of the idealistic young Mr. Cruise, who is challenged to employ his idealism in the service of the Japanese war effort in WW II. A key aspect of this struggle is the protagonist's struggle within himself. Tom Cruise, the young man, seeks to humanize the brutal conditions at a mining operation in Manchester. Further complicating matters is the profound sense of national prejudice that shapes the relationships between the various characters. To the workers & Welsh prisoners, regardless of his professed ideals, Cruise is America and therefore an oppressor. Although Cruise tries to win their trust, his own frustration enables him to strike a young Welsh helper, reinforcing the image of the brutal America. This weakness is a key underlying theme. Even late in the film, when he takes a very brave stand against some executions, his effort is a bit late and his stand is successful only when the Welsh prisoners take up the protest. He struggles because her fears he cannot live up to the ideals he expresses.
Cruise is also confronted with the another irony. Although he opposes the war, he has chosen a route of avoidance rather than resistance. This is emphasized early in the film during an evening with a friend (Penelopy Cruise) who is about to be inducted. She comments that, although they opposed the war, neither of them was brave enough to face the penalty for resistance of life imprisonment. Shortly thereafter, he takes the mine job to get a military exemption. Yet, if he is successful, the production improvements in the mine only fuel the American War Machine.
A valuable film because it explores areas of the Penelope's bodice(Although smaller in size than, say, Christina Applegate's twin patronizers). Also an interesting observation in the danger of half-measures when taking a moral stance. Cruise is ultimately confronted with the fact that you cannot avoid the war, only oppose it or aid it. I look forward to viewing the next film.
Shiryô no wana 2: Hideki (1992)
A Blisteringly Important Contemporary Masterpiece
Evil Dead Trap 2, the film, is many things. It is a brilliantly crafted series of ultra-violent sequences. It is an engaging story of a fat female projectionist in a sick sick world. It is a mind-blowing statement for the wide range of violent acts that it covers. It is a deceptively abstract story centering on perhaps the some of the most meaningless terrors in all of moviedom. Behind all that, Evil Dead Trap 2 is the apex Japanese new-wave cinema. There is not a major director today who has not been influenced by the genius Izô Hashimoto put forth in this blisteringly important contemporary masterpiece. The filmacts as a spring-board centering around a group of weirdos instigating several serial murders, guts/entrails, freely yanked from the victims vaginal cavities, dangle like bleeding wet noodles on a hot summer's day, and goes from there.
From there on, the viewer is thrown into a gloriously chaotic world of violent acts upon violent acts, in which the viewer slowly learns just about everything about young Aki's enthralling depravities. From her trying childhood to her inexplicable visions of the child-like Christ/Antichrist figure, Hideki; to her difficulties relating to others, the story of fat babe Aki is presented for the viewer in a way that few other movies can offer, in a word: magically. Evil Dead Trap 2, undeniably, is THE triumph of World Cinema, and as such thus exceeds by far -- one of the greatest films every created -- it's predecessor.
Tôkaidô Yotsuya kaidan (1959)
a Pearl in the Crown of Japanese Slasher Flickage
Iemon Tamiya ( Shigeru Amachi, the hero of Jigoku ) is a samouraï without Master ( ronin ) who wishes to marry Iwa, the girl of the Samon lord. One evening, it waits on the property of Samon that this one returns to him, in order to ask him last once the hand of his daughter, but Samon wants nothing to know, and milked Iemon of libertine, doubled of an imbecile. Iemon perhaps, which does not have a row but does not remain about it less one man of honour, carries out Samon and its continuation at once, under the amused glance of its servant, Naosuke, which sees an occasion there to increase its capacity on its Master. The two men decide to make wear the hat in Usaburo, a samouraï of which any Okayama knows hatred towards the late one. Yomoshichi, whose father belonged to the guard of Samon, decides to avenge the death for his/her own father, but also for that which was on the point of becoming his/her father-in-law: indeed, it had obtained the hand of Sode, the sister of Iwa. The two couples in becoming get under way in order to avenge death for Samon, accompanied by Naosuke. Six months later, Naosuke, in love with Sode, decides to make sing Iemon so that it helps it to get rid of Yomoshichi - death that the two men put again on the back of Usaburo. Naosuke and Sode leave to the continuation the "culprit" while Iemon and Iwa, patient, settle in Edo. Two years pass, and the two sisters, from now on separated, still did not satisfy their thirst for revenge: Usaburo always runs. Iemon, married to Iwa, claims more not to have re-examined Naosuke whereas the two men find together means of tapping money with the Ito old man to remain, each one on their side. Iemon sees in EMU, the girl of this last, the possibility of obtaining a honourable position, and it is put consequently at the head to marry it. But for that, it must get rid of Iwa, become cumbersome - as well as faithful Naosuke suggests to him...
Tokaido-Yotsuyakaidan takes again a traditional history of phantoms to the Nakagawa sauce. One finds at the same time elements of Jigoku there , that the realizer would turn one year later, and of Borei-Kaibyoyashiki , filmed one year before. The three films put in scene a murder more or less reflected, made under an access of anger, which involves others of them before taking along the heroes to know the revenge on In addition to world. But the similarities do not stop with the topic. The character of Naosuke precedes that of Tamura in Jigoku , character of background which encourages the hero to make ignominies more and more. The end of the film, during which one rocks in pure film of horror, mixes the hallucinations of the assassin of Borei... and visual hallucinated hell of Jigoku . Moreover, Tokaido... is also a film rather gore for the time: that it is with the make-up of Iwa, properly horrible, or the torn off arm of Takuetsu, friend of Iemon victim of one of his machinations, Nakagawa never underestimates the impact of visual truly bloody.
But principal qualities of Tokaido... are of a visual nature: the realization is once more impeccable, modern for the time in its use of the framework and the out-field ( the scene where Iwa discovers the decomposition of its face in is an excellent example ), and contributes to make mount the trouillometer in a very convincing way for such an old film. The appearances of Iwa, nailed on the board on which it was drowned, show again some many modern "monsters". As for the last image of film, it returns as much to Jigoku as at the end of beyond Fulci ( very adequate comparison definitely for the study of the case Nakagawa ), with its ghostly figure within a monochromatic landscape which one guesses without difficulty infernal. A remarkable film of horror, which more is easily accessible to any fan from cinema from terror ( what is not inevitably the case of all films of the realizer ).
Tao da liang da xian shen wei (1988)
Magic_of_Motherf*cking_Spell, my Friends ...
Forget Taoism Drunkard, forget Fantasy Mission Force, forget Shaolin Drunkard, forget Shaolin Drunkard and forget Young Taoism Fighter. Magic of Spell, AKA "Qumotong", a 1986-89 Tiawanese/Mainland-Chinese production, which to the best of my knowledge, has never been subtitled, and that was directed by a certain Zhao Zhongxing, or, as the boards here at this movie-database would have it, a certain Chung Wu Ching, go out and find this flick --- oh, nevermind, it's not available in the Western Hemisphere.
Subtitles would perhaps serve merely to get in the way, so operatic, so wild, fantastic, visionary is the scenery disentangled before the viewers eyes. The plot: Good VS. Evil. Evil taking the form of a powerful white-haired and wild-maned sorcerer seeking for life-force enough to keep himself from degenerating into a crippled tyrant. which is countered by the chaste good of the heroine, Suichang (Lin Hsiao Lan) whose task it becomes to keep from the wizards clutches a 1,000 year old Ginsing root-child.
At length, she becomes involved with the plight of this ginseng-child-creature when her elderly mother is attacked and killed by two marauding demons, sent by the evil wizard to put young Suichang out of commission. With vengeance foremost on her mind, she and a troop of seedy but able-bodied fighters storm the sorcerer's stronghold. However, in the ensuing mêlée the tyrant is able to power himself up, sucking vital energies from various people and even jewels. (via the mystic blood-red waters of his wading pool). The resultant conflict is full of kinetic and exciting acrobatics and visualFX -- more than enough to satisfy even the most ZU-jaded fan out there. True to form, Evil is vanquished at the cost of almost all cast-members -- even the root-boy sacrifices his Magical abilities (by leaping into the blood-be-dewed mouth of Suichang and settling in her stomach) to destroy the monster.
Although the film ends somewhat ambiguously --as we are left wondering just who did survive and if this evil is actually destroyed as promised, there is still that satisfaxion that True Good has won out, even if it was itself eradicated in process.
Highlights of this obscure flick include: a titanic, demon-clobbering peach, boulder-wielding wind demons; the screwy-looking ginseng-boy trying on some dainty slippers; the zany antics of two scrappy boxing puppetoon skeletons, a living parsnip with a penchant for making toy wind-mills; Suichang being suspend by unseen wires over a rapidly rushing river as she stoops to rescue a trapped infant rabbit; fight-scenes galore, and the patchwork-quilt-like score featuring tracks taken from what must be the most popular source of bootleg HK soundtracks: the score from PHANTASM (1979). 10 stars, already.
Casshern (2004)
Japan's not Working for Peanuts, Van Helsing.
The highly anticipated mega hit film featuring CGI locations from the movie. -- streets and skies of a living, breathing, massively modeled Tokyo-rama, scaling buildings, slinging webs, fighting crime and confronting freaked-out mud-pie facials and way-out villains, including a purple-haired chick. Prepare to go wherever a robot-hunter can as the flick transports you off the silver screen into a larger - than - life adventure all your own. For a movie - like experience.
In addition to the Manga characters featured in the film, additional diabolical villains from some expansive comic character roster make exclusive appearances, including Spectre and Lizard Boy. The city of Tokyotown, which is constructed as a large streaming map populated by cars, pedestrians and humans -- from street level to rooftops.
Also, the dubbing by Tobey Maguire et al. is a nice touch and the dialogue isn't too bad (although they could have chosen a less used line than "He did kill my father, someday I'll get him for it, too." - but hey, let's not nit-pick) and the narrator's snide comments to the viewer are pretty funny and set a good atmosphere.
Think of modern-day Japan as a vast maggot-infested soup-ladel, and Korea, Veit Nam, Thailand, Laos, and yeas, even Cleyon are all getting in on the act. Which might explain the new Thai Gamera flick wherein Gamera himself is portrayed not as a giant Turtle, but, get this, a titan bird.