Stephen Fung’s House of Fury is now available for pre-order!  Hit it here for trailer links and here to order.

That’s the word according to JoBlo ... Apparently Robert Rodriguez will start rolling on two sequels to Sin City, shooting both back to back, starting in February of next year.

Good news for fans of smart comedy on this side of the ocean ... word is that HBO has picked up rights to Extras, the new show from Ricky Gervais best know for his work on The Office.  The Emmy he won for that probably didn’t hurt and neither does the guest list for the new show, a list that includes names like Samuel L Jackson and Ben Stiller.  Check the full article here.

A Korean edition of Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s debut film Maborosi has been announced for a May 10th release and will include English subtitles.  Kore-eda, of course, is the acclaimed director of multi-award winning Nobody Knows, a film that is also coming to Korean DVD on May 10th.  We’ll add an ordering link just as soon as YesAsia gets these added into their system ...

I love it. It harkens back to the days of the brush and tempra paint. Before the days of the digital artist. It has that classic old school horror film feel to it. I love it.

Click here to see a full sized image of the new poster.

The Hollywood News also has three still shots you can see here.

Just a couple days left until I can stop avoiding all reviews of this film for fear of spoilers ... and yet I am not afraid of watching footage.  Strange.  Voila.

We’re Gonna Die
Vogsphere Slaps
Whale Scene
Thanks for the Fish Song
Zaphod’s Election Video

Everybody stand back while Triflic fills his shorts ...

The Japanese DVD of Shinya Tsukamoto’s Vital has got itself a release date of June 24th and is now available for pre-order!  There are two releases, both of which include English subtitles.  The single disc edition appears to be pretty much the film only, with an anamorphic transfer and DTS sound.  The double disc edition comes in specialized packaging - sadly no pictures available that I’ve seen yet - and features a second disc of almost certainly un-subbed special features.  Check the trailer here and hit the links above to pre-order now.

Thanks to Aaron for the heads up ...

Well, sort of.  Maybe.  But not so much.  Here’s Rex’s response to the furor over his comments on Oldboy:

“Finally, a word about Korea. A few weeks ago, in my broadside against the gory Korean movie schlockfest Oldboy, I apparently raised the hackles of several readers who objected to the way I mentioned the Korean film industry and the fermented Korean national dish called kimchi in the same sentence. I’m not an admirer of political correctness in first-person byline opinion writing, but that doesn’t make me a racist, so if I inadvertently offended anyone who misinterpreted my humor, I apologize. I like Koreans. In truth, I have probably spent more time in Korea than any of the irate letter-writers currently bombarding me. I even lived there for several months while making a movie called Inchon! with Laurence Olivier, Jacqueline Bisset, Ben Gazzara, Richard Roundtree and Toshiro Mifune. We had many happy times, admired the lush landscape and liked the friendly people. We all hated the kimchi.”

Way to take the opportunity to name drop, Rex.  Nothing like patting yourself on the back to take the stink off of insulting the culture of an entire nation ...

Thanks to Alison for pointing that out ...

Hurray for Papa Luc!  This hasn’t been officially announced anywhere yet - not that I’m aware of, anyway - so you’re going to have to take my word on this one and trust me when I say the person that told me is in a position to know.  Word on the street is that Citizen Dog - the sophomore film from the director of Tears of the Black Tiger, which I adore - has had its international rights purchased by Luc Besson’s Europa Corp.  So if you, like me, are lamenting the lack of English subs on the Thai DVD, buck up!  Quality western editions are in the future!  Huzzah!

Huzzah! A fourth Batman Begins trailer is online and it kicks serious whoopee cushion hiney! It rules like lords! Don’t believe me, look for yourself. Gosh it’s going to be fun!

Click here to the fourth Batman Begins trailer.

via AICN.

The RikiTakeuchi.com subsites for Masahiro Asao’s Deserted Dogs (Suteinu) and Takeshi Miyasaka’s Hallucination (Genkaku) are now online. As was previously reported here on Twitch, the movies will have limited-tariff theatrical releases in Japan in the next two months. Both were executive produced by Riki Takeuchi. Deserted Dogs stars Takeuchi, Eugene Nomura (a.k.a. Yûjin Nomura), Yûto Nakano, Takamitsu Ôkubo, Akio Kinjô, Masaki Nishimori, Ken’ichi Endô, and Banshô Shinra (a.k.a. Manzô Shinra). It’s scheduled for late-show screenings at Theatre Ikebukuro in Tokyo starting May 28. Hallucination stars Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi, Kimika Yoshino, Hitomi Miwa, Yoshimi Tachi, Tomohiro Katô, Sayumi Yanawa, Shinra, and Takeuchi. It’s scheduled for late-show screenings at Theatre Ikebukuro starting June 11.

The official website for Shion Sono‘s Into a Dream (Yume no naka e) is now online, although there’s no trailer for the movie on the site yet. As was previously reported here on Twitch, the movie’s principal cast is as follows: Tetsushi Tanaka, Yûna Natsuo, Jun Murakami, Jô Odagiri (a.k.a. Joe Odagiri), Miwako Ichikawa, Ryô Iwamatsu, Akaji Maro, Yôichi Nukumizu, Tôru Tezuka, Rena Komine, Asami Usuda, and Nahana.

Sono is perhaps best known as the director of Suicide Circle (Jisatsu sâkuru), a.k.a. “Suicide Club”.

A fifth ‘making of’ (mekingu) short has been added here to the official website for Jun’ya Satô’s Yamato (Otoko-tachi no Yamato). Not to be confused with Shinpei Hayashiya’s monster movie (kaijû eiga) Reigo vs. Yamato (Reigô tai Yamato), Yamato is a World War II blockbuster based on Jun Henmi’s non-fiction books Ketteiban otoko-tachi no Yamato (ue) and Ketteiban otoko-tachi no Yamato (shita). Starring in it are Takashi Sorimachi, Shidô Nakamura (Nakamura Shidou), Jundai Yamada, Ken’ichi Matsuyama, Dai Watanabe, Hiromi Sakimoto, Kenta Uchino, Ryô Hashizume (Hashidume Ryou), Kyôka Suzuki (Suzuki Kyouka), and Tatsuya Nakadai.

For more info on Yamato, see Twitch’s third, second, and first articles on it.

AnimeNewsNetwork is reporting the arrival of a site which represents both the upcoming ‘XXXHolic’ (Director - Tsutomu Mizushima) and ‘Tsubasa Chronicle’ (Director - Itsuro Kawasaki) movies.

Both are in being made by Production I.G and are based on Clamp projects, so it’s interesting to see these two recent and highly-loved series as the become movies from such a high-class animation studio and the amazing creative team at Clamp. They seem to be due this August.

Recently I.G have ramped their production of TV series somewhat, now they may be expanding further to cope with more regular movie work too. Speculation : but I wonder if the production values in these films will match those Directed by Mamoru Oshii.

The dual site is here. Official Clamp site is here.

via AnimeNewsNetwork.

Got money to burn and a lust for all things Pixar?  A limited edition - only 5000 copies - Japan-only box set for The Incredibles is slated for a June 15th release.  It looks as though the DVD content is the same as on the North American release but the box includes an Art of the Incredibles book, a numbered art print and a watch.  With what this’ll retail for I’m guessing that you probably won’t want your kids playing with the extras ...

Link by Logboy®