It’s over! No, I’m not talking about Halloween - although in Europe most people are either dealing with the consequences of a night spent drinking and partying (ahem...), or collapsed at sleep - but the chokehold domestic melodramas forced on the Korean Box Office for 5 weeks. As expected, the focus is starting to move towards romantic comedies or simply other films, which is a nice change of pace after five months of seasonal genre trends. So no more horror films until next Summer, no more comedies until next Chuseok, and no more melodramas until next Autumn? Of course not, but from now until at least mid December - when the big blockbusters from home and abroad will start fighting each other - the success of the films on top will lie solely on good marketing, top stars, and hopefully the quality of the film itself.

Continue Reading "Korean Box Office Report: October 29/30"...

Tomas Milian, a great draw for crowds in Italian cinemas for a good 20 years or so, returns in the legendary ‘Squadra Volante’ - a hard-boiled Police drama with cool characters and beautiful cinematography, that although at a glance appears strangely familiar soon rises above it with ease to bring a fast 90 minute movie that’s superbly cool and entertaining. A chase between bad boy cop Ravelli and a gang of bank robbers, fast cars, gun fights, lovely locations and stylish in almost every respect. Again, a very nice disc from NoShame, and a great selection of films they’re continuing to make for either jaded genre fans, or those looking for a little adventure without the risk it might often feel you’ll take.

Continue Reading "Emergency Squad (aka ‘Squadra Volante’). by Stelvio Massi (1974). R1 USA DVD Review."...

Over the past year I stumbled across my first films from the Phillipines and Malaysia and was reminded very sharply that while the attention paid to established Asian players such as Hong Kong, Japan and Korea may be deserved it often comes at the expense of other smaller but no less established film cultures in Asia.  But the thing is there’s virtually nowhere to get English language information on these films anywhere.  Until now.  I just got a note steering me to Criticine, a new website devoted to to the region - the current issue reviews films from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Phillipines while interviewing Thailand’s Pen-Ek Ratanaruang - and it’s fantastic, meaty stuff.  It’s a young site yet, so there’s no way of knowing if they’ll be able to keep it up, but they’ve certainly started things on the right foot.  Check it out.

Criticine.

Thanks to Joey for the pointer.

In a couple of hours I’ll take my kids trick or treating. In another couple I’ll settle down with a large group of friends to screen Night of the Lepus and Session 9. In short Halloween 2005 is drawing to a close and it’s been one of the best ever. I didn’t get to review everything I wanted. It’s ad to think of The Val Lewton, Bela Lugosi and Hammer Horror Series box sets, Dominion: The Exorcist Prequel and a number of other recent to DVD films I didn’t get to in time. But there was no way I was going to pass up a chance to review this one. It’s a film that has lovers and haters and I’m a firm believer in jumping straight into the fray. High Tension is a film of incredible highs and incredible lows. But is it really what the horror genre needs at this crucial time in film history?

Continue Reading "FINAL HALLOWEEN UPDATE: HIGH TENSION DVD REVIEW"...

The official subsite for Mitsuru Meike’s Bitter Sweet (Bitâ suîto) - a retitled version of his Nôkô furin: torareta onna - is now online, and there’s a trailer for the movie on that site. Shin-Tôhô Eiga K.K. and Kokuei K.K. are scheduled to release Bitter Sweet in the mainstream cinema circuit in Japan on December 10th; they released Nôkô furin: torareta onna in the pink cinema circuit in Japan on October 12, 2004.

The screenplay for Bitter Sweet was written by Naoko Nishida. The movie stars Konatsu, the late Yumika Hayashi (she was in Tamakichi Anaru‘s Mother and Daughter: Spit-Swapping Seduction (Hahako (boshi) no daeki (shizuku)) [viewer discretion is advised]), Kin Ishikawa, Kazuhiro Sano (he was in Daisuke Yamanouchi‘s Girl Hell 1999 (Shôjo jigoku ichi kyû kyû kyû)), Takuya Fukushima, and Minami Aoyama.

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED

Bitter Sweet trailer (streaming, Windows Media)
Bitter Sweet official subsite

Hands down, the most important DVD for me this month. Argento, more than any other Director in my life, touches my subconscious in a way that’s strangely thrilling and always leaves me feeling like I’ve just survived a nightmare : stunningly intuitive representations of truly horrific events and psychologically grounded in reality, but somehow has that little something extra that makes it surreal.

This film is the 1970 re-invention of Thrillers for many, the first of Argentos’ career, and one of the last films of his I got to see in its complete form. Not as successful as his slightly later work; try anything from this film up until ‘Opera’ in the mid-1980s’ and they’re all superb works - all come in and out of favour, and some works following that lengthy period of almost unbroken success are also, to a lesser extent, worthwhile. Unfortunately, no review for this disc will go up on Twitch, but here’s a couple of others for this immaculate Blue Underground edition : DVDTalk, and Mondo Digital.

‘Bird with the Crystal Plumage’ Quicktime Trailer Small (3.0mb), or Large (14.9mb).

Full DVD details at the Blue Underground Official Site.

Based on the Manga by Yuki Urushibara, ‘Mushishi’ has also recently become an Anime series, and now Mr.Otomo hopes to get the live action film ready on a budget of about a billion yen for release Winter 2006. I know nothing more than this (that’s of note anyhow, unless your a fan of the stars Joe Odagiri or Ezumi Makiko), so anyone familiar with the source material care to fill me in? thinking this is the project vaguely revealed recently too, so perhaps no more animation for a while after the disappointment of ‘Steamboy’.

via Anime News Service.

The official subsite for Mitsuru Meike’s The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai (Hanai Sachiko no karei na shôgai) - an extended version of his Horny Home Tutor: Teacher’s Love Juice (Hatsujô kateikyôshi: sensei no aijiru) - is now online, and there’s a trailer (see the bottom of this article) of sorts for the movie on that site. Shin-Tôhô Eiga K.K. and Kokuei K.K. are scheduled to release The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai theatrically in Japan on November 26th; they released Horny Home Tutor: Teacher’s Love Juice theatrically in Japan on October 14, 2003.

As was previously reported here on Twitch, the screenplay for The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai was written by Takao Nakano, who also wrote the screenplay for Minoru Kawasaki‘s Kabuto-O Beetle (Kabuto-Ô Bîtoru). Nakano’s directing credits include Mikosurihan gekijô: namashibori sûpâ DX, Sexual Parasite: Killer Pussy (Kiseichû: kirâ pusshî), Queen Bee Honey (Bikyonyû kosupure senshi: Kuinbî Hanî), Sumo Vixens (Hana no onna sumô), and the ExorSister (Chô-yôma densetsu Uratsuki-dôji) tetralogy.

Continue Reading "Trailer for Mitsuru Meike’s THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI - an extended version of his HORNY H"...

The man himself, another interview that’s reasonably short but none the less very interesting. Primarily this seems to be done because Pulse (aka ‘Kairo’) is making it onto American cinema screens, but there’s always mentions of other things going on. Yes, scanning over it, I can spot they refer to ‘LOFT’ as ‘Lost’ and I have yet to find the time to completely pick through it.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa Interview at ComingSoon.net.

‘Pulse’ American Release Official Site.

‘The Place Promised in Our Early Days’ and ‘Voices of a Distant Star’ in one convenient little collection, so if you never managed to pin these ones down you can do so just in time for Christmas. Great films, extremely colorful and beautifully rich visuals, quite serene and potentially a little sentimental - but Shinkai is certainly a talent to keep watching, and hopefully he will manage to fulfill the potential he not only shows but exudes in these short(ish) science fiction / romance / drama films.

‘Place Promised’ Quicktime Trailer Small (4.1mb), Medium (7.0mb), Large (13.2mb).

‘Voices of a Distant Star’ Quicktime Trailer Small (1.8mb), Medium (3.6mb), Large (6.6mb).

Thanks to Anime News Network, via Twitch’s own logboy, for bringing the following to my attention: Media Blasters Inc. apparently is scheduled to release Hideo Tanaka’s live-action Sukeban Deka: The Movie (Sukeban Deka) on DVD (TSDVD-0611; NTSC, region 1, English subtitles) in the U.S. on February 28th of next year.

The screenplay for Sukeban Deka: The Movie (Sukeban Deka) was written by Izô Hashimoto and Tokio Tsuchiya, based on the eponymous manga series Sukeban Deka by Shinji Wada. The movie apparently starred Yôko Minamino as Yôko Godai (a.k.a. Saki Asamiya II, a.k.a. Sukeban Deka II), Haruko Sagara as Kyôko Nakamura (a.k.a. ‘Okyô’), Akie Yoshizawa as Yukino Yajima, Keizô Kanie as Nishiwaki, Hiroyuki Nagato as Director Kurayami (a.k.a. Dark Director), Yui Asaka as Yui Kazama (a.k.a. Saki Asamiya III, a.k.a. Sukeban Deka III), Shinobu Sakagami as Kazuo Hagiwara, Tetta Sugimoto as Kikuo Katô, Ayako Kobayashi as Megumi Katô, Masatô Ibu as Hattori, Katsumi Muramatsu as Kôsaka, Gorô Kataoka as Kagenuma, Yayoi Tanaka as Yuri Shirai, Yuka Ônishi as Yuka Kazama, Yuma Nakamura as Yuma Kazama, Taketoshi Naitô as some person (aru jinbutsu), and Shinji Wada (see above) as a yo-yo seller.

Sukeban Deka: The Movie was released theatrically in Japan by Tôei K.K. on February 14, 1987. Tôei released a second Sukeban Deka live-action theatrical feature, Sukeban Deka: Kazama san-shimai no gyakushû, on February 11th of the following year. Fuji Television K.K. (K.K. Fuji Terebijon) broadcast three Sukeban Deka live-action TV series - Sukeban Deka (1985), Sukeban Deka II (1985-86), and Sukeban Deka III (1986-87) - as well as a live-action TV movie - Sukeban Deka III: shôjo ninpô-chô denki: san-shimai mottomo kiken na tabi: yattsu no shi no wana (April 23, 1987). JH Project (JH Purojekuto) - JVD K.K. (K.K. Jei Bui Dî) and Harmony K.K. (K.K. Hâmonî) - released a two-volume Sukeban Deka anime - Sukeban Deka: tanjô-hen (April 21, 1991) and Sukeban Deka: gyakushû-hen (July 21, 1991) - directly to video in Japan; the VHS releases were distributed by Pony Canyon K.K. (K.K. Ponî Kyanion), whereas the subsequent laserdisc releases and 2-on-1 DVD release were distributed by JVD. (BTW, A.D. Vision Inc. released English-language versions of the anime on VHS in the U.K., and on both VHS and DVD in the U.S..)

Ah, some genuinely good news on the Uwe Boll front ...

We’ve wondered aloud on more than one occassion on just how exactly it is that Uwe Boll continues to find financing for his films considering that they just flop abysmally, one after the other.  Turns out the answer is simple enough ... Boll has been utilizing a loophole in German tax law that allows private investors a hefty tax write off on funds invested into failed films.  Boll’s films are proven failures, that’s for damn sure, so he has no problems whatsoever attracting savvy German investors looking to turn a tax profit by losing money on his films.

Notice the past tense in ‘has been utilizing’?  That’s because the good German people have seen fit to close that particular tax loophole.  Effective January 2006 German films that lose money will be only that, German films that lose money.  No more incentive to invest in bad films means Boll’s stream of investors has just dried up.  Better learn to make a decent film that turns a profit, Doc, or your career just went up in smoke ...

Thanks to Roraz for pointing out this, which in turn is based on this entry in the Wikipedia.

The observant among you will have noticed a mention or two of the After Dark Film Festival around here in the past little while, but for those who haven’t here’s the skinny.  The After Dark Film Fest is a new genre film festival that will be launching here in Toronto in the autumn of 2006.  The fact that it’s a genre festival in my own back yard virtually guaranteed that you’d be hearing lots about it around here no matter what but it’s worth pointing out that I’ve just been asked to come on board as a programmer.  So, for those who see conspiracy and bias around every corner here’s your warning:  I will be biased when I talk about this.  For the rest of you: the theater’s booked, I’m building a short list of films to look at, and it’s going to kick ass.  And, yes, I absolutely welcome suggestions of quality stuff from around the world ... we’d really like to broaden the envelope here and draw in some quality stuff from countries beyond the usual suspects.

TOP MOVIE NEWS

With the increasing popularity of Korean TV Dramas and films overseas, a new trend is emerging on TV and the big screen: the latest big challenge for actors is trying new languages, or at least the sometimes quite difficult 사투리 (Saturi, Regional Dialect).

Let’s start with Dialect, the most frequent. Jo In-Sung is trying his hand at Jeolla Province Dialect in Yoo Ha’s latest film 비열한 거리 (Mean Streets). For the young star, who doesn’t have much acting talent but is certainly improving (and is one of the hardest workers amongst the younger generation), this is quite a big challenge. He’ll play a third rate gangster in the action noir, opposite Nam Goong-Min and the beautiful Lee Bo-Young.

Then there’s the chameleon of Chungmuro, Hwang Jung-Min, who along with Ryu Seung-Beom will use Busan (Kyungsang Province) Dialect in 사생결단 (死生決斷, Dead or Alive). But Park Hae-Il [Kyungsang Province Dialect in 소년, 천국에 가다 (The Boy Who Went To Heaven)], Jung Jae-Young and Yoo Joon-Sang [Kyungbok Area Dialect in 나의 결혼 원정기 (Wedding Campaign)] are doing the same. Dialect use even extends to Northern Dialects, such as the Pyeongyang Dialect used in North Korea, which Cha Seung-Won will speak in his latest drama 국경의 남쪽 (South of The Border), and Soo Ae used in ‘Wedding Campaign’.

Continue Reading "Korean Weekly News - 10/30"...

The official website for Shinji Aoyama’s Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? (Eri Eri rema sabakutani) is now online, although at present it’s just a home page. The movie premièred at the Cannes Film Festival, in the section Un Certain Regard, on May 18th of this year. Phantom Film K.K. (K.K. Fantomu Firumu) is set to release it theatrically in Japan early next year.

The screenplay for Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? was written by Aoyama. The movie’s principal cast is as follows (listed order corresponds to website order): Tadanobu Asano, Aoi Miyazaki, Masaya Nakahara, Yasutaka Tsutsui, Masahiro Toda, Shingo Tsurumi, Erika, Yûsuke Kawazu (Kawadu Yûsuke), and Mariko Okada.

Below is a synopsis for Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? from this page for the movie on the website of international sales agent Wild Bunch Sales Limited.

My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? - MATTHEW 27:46

AD 2015. The world’s major cities are decimated by a terrible plague, a highly contagious virus that fills those it infects first with unbearable dread, then with overwhelming despair. A fatal disease, without cure. The Lemming Syndrome.

In an isolated country mansion, two musicians - Mizui and Asuhara - live in seclusion, devoting themselves to the creation of pure sound far from the trappings of fame and success they knew in the corrupt and dangerous city. They are visited by an ageing plutocrat, his desperately sick daughter and a detective, who believes that in the music made by Mizui and Asuhara lies the seed of hope that the old man’s daughter can be saved.

In the vast, changeless stillness of nature, the musicians begin to play…

Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? official website
Cannes Film Festival: Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?
Variety: Review of Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?