Inspired by John Woo’s Bullet in the Head, Blood Brothers ventures into the tried and tested boys in the hood gangland story about honour and comradeship, only to find out that there’s a little more to girls, gangs and guns. The movie looks great with beautiful sets, costumes, props, but there was a general sense of being emotionally empty beneath the shiny looking veneer.

Continue Reading "BLOOD BROTHERS Review"...

Things are gearing up for this year’s incantation of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival running October 19th through 25th at the Bloor Cinema in downtown Toronto. After sifting through 700 entries the programmers have chosen 14 features and 36 shorts to make this year’s line-up. Of course Twitch is an official online supporter and I’ll be bringing some advance press later in September. So without delay here are the first seven film features for this year’s line-up.

THE TRIPPER (Toronto Premiere), the debut film from DAVID ARQUETTE (SCREAM), is a psychedelic horror film featuring a star-studded cast (JASON MEWES, PAUL REUBENS, THOMAS JANE, JAIME KING) being stalked by a RONALD REAGAN mask-wearing psycho killer. From Korea comes AACHI & SSIPAK (Toronto Premiere) an eye-popping sci-fi animation that references some of the most beloved genre films of all time including INDIANA JONES and THE TERMINATOR. Look forward to plenty of sword and sorcery action from Russia’s most expensive film ever, the epic fantasy THE WOLFHOUND (Toronto Premiere). On the night of the OFFICIAL TORONTO ZOMBIE WALK the heart-pounding virus outbreak film AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION (Canadian Premiere) will be followed by the side-splitting zombie musical comedy POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD (Toronto Premiere) directed by Troma Studios’ LLOYD KAUFMAN. The gritty New York-set post-apocalyptic horror film MULBERRY STREET (Toronto Premiere) will be Toronto After Dark’s Opening Night Gala feature. And lastly there will be AUDIENCE OF ONE (Canadian Premiere), a hilarious documentary about a priest failing in every way to make a Christian version of STAR WARS will be co-presented at Toronto After Dark by the prestigious HOT DOCS International Documentary Film Festival.

Good stuff. I’ve seen some of these titles already so I know that festival attendees will not go away unhappy. We’ll see you in the dark this October. You can read the full announcement here at the Toronto After Dark Festival site.

We are big fans of Japanese actor Koji Yakusho - best known to western audiences thanks to his role in Babel - around here, enough so that anything he’s involved with is worth at least a mention.  His latest film is Satoshi Isaka’s adaptation of Yusishi Akamoto’s novel The Back of the Elephant, in which Yakusho plays a businessman diagnosed with a fatal illness.

Just for curiosity, a 48-year-old real estate company project department chief, Yukihiro Fujiyama (Koji Yakusho) goes to a hospital for a check- up.  The diagnosis he is given by a doctor there, however, is a stunning one; he has got terminal lung cancer and will die within half a year. Yukihiro declines to get any life enhancing treatment.  Instead, he determines before he dies, to go to see some people he has not met for years, and to write farewell letters to his family, relatives, friends and acquaintances.

The official website is now online and includes a trailer.

Japanese manga artist Urasawa Naoki first drew attention on these shores thanks to the widespread success of Monster, the long running anime series based upon his original manga.  Fans love the man for his ability to craft long, complex story lines that tackle difficult themes, often with some sort of ethical or religious dilemma at the core.  Well, no doubt thanks to the success of Monster another Urasawa series is making the transition, this one titled 20th Century Boys.

The series aims to hit the airwaves in early 2008 with a plot that revolves around a group of friends trying to stop the arrival of Armageddon.  The real life Aum death cult is apparently a major influence on this and the work also fuses 1950’s sci-fi references and a nostalgia-heavy soundtrack.  Do this stuff wrong and it comes off as pretentious twaddle.  Do it right and it’s genius.  Urasawa tends to do it right.

With a rapid fire, completely unvarnished style that invites comparisons to the Dogme 95 movement to say nothing of the shaky cam style of Paul Greengrass, Filipino director Brillante Mendoza is very much a product of the digital age.  Unfettered by the heavy camera crews required by shooting on film Mendoza is free to roam, to throw his camera into the midst of chaos and simply capture what happens around it.  No mistake, Slingshot is a work of fiction but it is one so firmly rooted in the reality of poverty in Manila that it could easily be a documentary.  But while Mendoza succeeds admirably in capturing the tone of his surroundings it’s hard to shake the feeling that Slingshot is, to a great degree, a missed opportunity.

Continue Reading "TIFF Report:  SLINGSHOT (Tirador) Review"...

Danish director Jannik Johansen first drew attention around here thanks to his dark psychological thriller Murk and he has teamed up once again with screen writer Anders Thomas Jensen on his latest, White Night.

A psychological drama about Ulrich, a workaholic whose life takes a drastic turn when he is involved in a fatal accident. As his guilt grows, his life slowly crumbles around him. Next, an unpleasant event from his past rears its unforgiving head.

Jensen’s involvement is more than enough to get my attention but the just released trailer for this would have done so all on it’s own and the presence of veteran character actor Nicholas Bro certainly doesn’t hurt ...

We published an interview with Norway’s Patrik Syversen just yesterday in which we talked at length about his upcoming slasher picture Rovdyr and today we’ve got the very first production still to be released from the film along with a behind the scenes shot of Syversen at work.  Very nice.

Continue on for the stills.

A sly, deceptive gut punch of a picture Gonzalo López-Gallego’s King of the Hill is a brilliant, vicious little piece of work.  It is a fierce piece of social commentary, the sort of picture that could never be made in North America but, by god, does it need to be.  López-Gallego gives you just enough of what you expect, just enough of the familiar, to lull you into a sense of complacency.  He lets you think you know what’s coming next and then, suddenly and shockingly, it all turns in on itself and becomes something entirely other, entirely more.  It is the sort of film that is incredibly difficult to talk about without spoiling the punch but believe this:  people will talk.  And they will do so for all the right reasons.

Continue Reading "TIFF Report:  KING OF THE HILL (El Rey de la Montaña) Review"...

Actor Kim Young-ho (김영호) and actress Park Eun-hye (박은혜), dressed in summer attire for Hong Sang-soo’s (홍상수) latest film, Night and Day (밤과 낮), had to endure unseasonably cold weather in Paris during shooting on August 20th. Between the long takes, their hands wrapped in warm blankets, Kim would do some exercises while singing old songs to fend off the chill. Accustomed to improvisation, the director, who typically comes up with the dialogue for his films as he goes along, simply had one of the actors say, “It’s strange how in Paris it can be cold in summer.” No sun, no problem. The crew is mostly Korean, with several French actors and extras playing smaller roles. The director passes out the dialogue to the actors just a few minutes before their entrance. “Everything is precise, but a large place is given to improvisation”, explains production manager Nam Yoon-seok. Produced for 850,000 euros (US $1.16 million), the film is being made with the aid of numerous volunteers, film students and students of the Korean language, who help with the translations. Hong Sang-soo, taking full advantage of the colorful locations, has filmed at the Musée d’Orsay, the Tuileries Garden, in Montmartre and in an artist’s studio in Issy-les-Moulineaux, in the southwestern suburbs of Paris. He will be shooting in Trouville, a seaside resort, the beginning of September.

[Source: Le Monde]

If I knew how to read Japanese I imagine this would be a fascinating read. An autobiography of Japanese filmmaker Teruyoshi Nakano is being published and will be on store shelves in Japan in September. Tokushu Gijyutsu (Special Techniques) director Teruyoshi Nakano is a legend in Japanese Tokusatsu [特撮] film making. He was one of only four directors to be given the coveted Tokugi title in Toho Studios’ history. His fingerprints are on nearly every Godzilla/Gojira film and we’ve reviewed some films with his work.

Data about Teruyoshi Nakano, The Tokugi Director
Contents:
Chapter 1: Childhood and youth
Chapter 2: Period as an assistant director
Chapter 3: Reminiscences of Tsuburaya Tokusatsu movies
Chapter 4: Reminiscences of own works
Chapter 5: Filmography (Movies, TV series and films for theme parks)
A5 size, 272 pages
¥ 2,940 (approximately $25.25 US)

An impressive roster of filmmakers have been selected to sit on the jury of the the 2007 Pusan International Film Festival. For starters, PIFF named Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui (The Cow) to head the jury of its 12th edition. In addition, the New Currents jury will include Chinese actress Nan Yu (Tuya’s Marriage), Lee Chang-dong (Secret Sunshine), Serbian filmmaker Goran Paskaljevic (The Powder Keg) and Romanian director Christian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days). Leesong Hee-il (No Regrets), producer Kim Il-Kwon and documentary director Choiha Dong-ha (Taxi Blues) will comprise the Sonje Jury, responsible for choosing the best Korean short film and documentary in the Wide Angle section.

[Source: Variety]

Here at Twitch we are always on the lookout for new DVD’s from Hong Kong. There are several reasons for that, the first of which is simple: until 2046 English is assured to be one of the main languages in Hong Kong, and because of that movies released there on DVD almost always have decent subtitles. I’d say always if not for “Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex”, YES I’m looking at YOU Panorama!

The second reason is more basic: they often sport the same quality as Japanese DVD’s but are significantly cheaper. As in: HK R3 is generally about half the price of the JP R2, and sometimes even less!

Third: they’re often quick to the punch, with very early release dates. Many a movie in my bookcase arrived from Hong Kong on DVD prior to its cinema release over here in Europe.

Hong Kong is therefore something like a treasure-trove of Asian cinema for DVD collectors.

So I was a bit surprised about their recent release of Ochiai Masayuki’s “Infection” (original Japanese title: “Kansen"). It’s a Japanese horrorfilm from 2004 and has been out for years on DVD, in several English-friendly versions. Both the UK and the US even have their own dedicated releases already, which can be scored quite cheaply if you know where to look.

Bereft of the abovementioned three reasons (which have all been catered for elsewhere), what does this edition have to offer? A stellar picture but little else, it seems. I’ll discuss the technical merits of this disc below.

And what is it about? With that title, you might expect an “Outbreak” movie, with doctors desperately trying to avert an epidemic. However that’s not the vibe “Infection” is going for, though it flirts a bit with the idea.
Indeed, on top of the setup for a typical Japanese ghost story it introduces a weird contagious disease which is basically Ebola’s angry mother-in-law, able to transform you into a bag of green puss in mere hours.

Read on…

Continue Reading "INFECTION (KANSEN) R3 Hong-Kong DVD Review"...

The duo behind Broken - about to hit DVD in North America - and The Devil’s Chair - about to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival - are already hard at work on their third straight collaboration and Bloody-Disgusting have got the details.  Titled Blood River, it’s a period piece set in Arizona in 1969 but for any more you’ll have to hit the link to B-D’s article.  That said, I had the chance to speak with Mason and Boyes in Cannes and while we didn’t get into this one specifically they both mentioned how they’d like to change things up a bit the next time around and while this will certainly allow for some of their signature moments - read: tense, violent, and squirmingly uncomfortable - it also looks like it’s got the potential to expand their palette a good bit.

The email that brought Craig Zobel’s Great World of Sound to my attention made the near-fatal mistake of reference American Idol, at which point my brain turned off and I reached for the delete key.  People, reality TV does such a good job of parodying itself that there’s no reason for anyone else to try. Thankfully, however, in the time it took to reach said delete key I noticed who said email referenced as a co-producer:  David Gordon Green, director of George Washington and All The Real Girls.  If Green’s involved, there’s got to be something going on, I reasoned, and so I took a closer look.  Good thing.

What the film actually is is a wry look at a real life con known as song sharking.  Here’s how it works.  An unscrupulous company places ads in small towns advertising for open auditions, promising talent scouts and the opportunity to sign a record deal.  People show up and, regardless of how good they are, are given the chance to sign a deal provided they can pay the company a financial retainer.  Yes, the artist pays the company.  The contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, of course, but before the artist can realize this the scouts have already packed up and left town moving on to the next block of auditions, everybody’s cash deep in their pocket.  And to get an authentic feel for his film Zobel actually followed this same pattern, taking his cast and crew from town to town and advertising open auditions, not telling the performers that they were being filmed until after the fact.  The cast is in on it, the would be singers are not.

It’s smart, it’s funny, and the fine people at Magnolia are putting it into theaters September 14th.

When we first linked to Patrik Syversen’s upcoming Norwegian slasher film Rovdyr the response ot the first teaser to the film was immediate.  So, we did what we do and started digging around a little bit until we tracked down the man himself and some of his earlier work.  Rovdyr is Syversen’s debut feature but he has a number of shorts to his name already and production company Sperenza Film is currently hosting a number of his music videos here.  I recommend Jaa9 and OnklP’s Stank Ass Ho.  Because, well, you know ... it’s Norwegian hip hop and it’s called Stank Ass Ho and that’s a combination that just doesn’t come around every day.  But I’m getting off track ...

We managed to track Syversen down and he was more than happy to discuss his upcoming film and his thoughts on horror in general with us.  Our entire email exchange follows.

Continue Reading "Patrik Syversen Talks ROVDYR"...