Oh how we have waited with bated breath for the return of Japanese director Hiroyuki Nakano to return with another film. I am a mighty fan of both Samurai Fiction and Stereo Future. I gave Red Shadow a miss and I haven’t been able to see any of the short film work he has done in recent years so his record is pretty much unblemished in my opinion. And it has been long enough since he last did a feature film perhaps all this short film work in the meantime has put him back on track to deliver us another gem. We hope Tajomaru is that film, Nakano’s adaptation of the short story “In a Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. I’m a bit mixed about the new trailer, some parts seem a bit silly and Jpop gets me every time, but final judgment is reserved for when I can finally see the film sometime in the fall. Tajomaru is scheduled for a September release in Japan.
Naomitsu (Shun Oguri) is the second son of the Hatakeyama family and fiance of Princess Ako (Yuki Shibamoto). When he gets chased away from his home as the result of a conspiracy against him, Naomitsu flees into the mountains with Ako in tow, but they’re soon attacked by a bandit named Tajomaru (Hiroki Matsukata). After managing to kill Tajomaru, Naomitsu takes the bandit’s identity as his own. NipponCinema
Full trailer and teaser after the break!
Continue Reading "Full trailer out for Hiroyuki Nakano’s samurai film ‘Tajomaru’"...
A first time director, but one who’s a long-time veteran from behind the scenes of Hong Kong cinema’s golden age. An up-and-coming star cherry-picked by a living legend. A plot looking back to some of the all-time classic martial arts movies – so why exactly is Xin Xin Xiong’s Coweb still yet to see a release outside mainland China? Read on after the break.
Continue Reading "COWEB review"...
[UPDATE: Two guys also capture the promo at the convention and unloaded on youtube. It has a better view than the last video.]
Imagi Studios has set up a booth at the Anime Expo 2009 in Los Angeles and “Anime3000” has capture on camera the Gatchaman promo being on display on the floor. Of course, the video quality ain’t so great as typical with any cam-job. We have to bear with it until a proper version comes along. Hopefully, more news update on this promising superhero film will emerge soon.
You’ll find the promo after the break.
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It has been fourteen years since writer-director Philip Ridley last made a film. Fourteen very long years. It’s not that he hasn’t been busy in the intervening time, it’s just that he’s been doing his work in live theater but as rewarding as that may be it is no help at all for fans of his work, such as myself, with the misfortune of having an ocean between ourselves and the theaters where these works are actually performed.
Ridley first burst into the public eye in 1990 with arty horror film The Reflecting Skin - which he wrote and directed - and gangster thriller The Krays - which he wrote - films he would follow up with the very Lynchian tale of religious hysteria, The Passion of Darkly Noon, in 1995. But since then? One piece of writing appearing on television and absolutely nothing else, a situation that seems a crime for a director of Ridley’s skills. But he’s back now with Heartless, a new supernatural thriller starring Jim Sturgess about to have its world premiere at the Film4 Frightfest. Here’s how the festival describes it:
From the director of THE REFLECTING SKIN comes HEARTLESS, a menacing and magical tale of Jamie (Jim Sturgess) born with a heart-shaped birthmark on his face. Shunned by those who find him repulsive, the photographer’s son lives in a part of London’s East End notorious for gang violence. When his mother is viciously murdered, Jamie realizes the thugs aren’t wearing disguises at all; they really are demons and hell on earth is beginning to plague the capital city. Yet all is not what it seems in enfant terrible Ridley’s unique horror fantasy landscape ingeniously informed by the current climate of fear running through every strata of modern society.
If Ridley’s past is any indication then expect something truly striking and unusual here and also take the casting of Jim Sturgess (21, 50 Dead Men Walking) as a sign that Sturgess’ star is continuing to rise as Ridley has an unerring eye for casting talent on the rise - his previous features starred Viggo Mortensen, Brendan Fraser and Ashley Judd before any of them had really broken. As for how striking this is going to be? Take a peek at the collection of stills linked below!
While in New York a week or so back I had a friend ask if I’d seen the new French trailer for Tony Jaa’s Ong Bak 2. As with the original Ong Bak Luc Besson’s Europa Corp have gotten their hands on this one and while the rumor is that there has been a mild re-cut of the film to tighten things up a bit - I’m hearing six minutes have been removed - and some changes to the score - though nothing as drastic as the hip hop version done for the original - the new French trailer, I was told, makes Ong Bak 2 look like “the greatest action film ever made”. I hadn’t seen it at the time, but now I have and I have to say I pretty much agree.
What do you say? Was it the argument between Tony Jaa the director and Tony Jaa the actor over whether he really needed to get into that pit of water with a live crocodile that drove Tony to go hide in the jungle for two months? Check the French trailer out below the break along with the extended Thai promo reel!
Continue Reading "It’s Tony Jaa Versus Crocodile In the French Trailer For ONG BAK 2!"...
The Eternal director Justin McConnell just passed along five new teaser posters for his developing vampire flick. He also let us know that at this year’s edition of Rue Morgue’s Festival of Fear they will be in the house and hosting a contest for visitors to their booth that weekend. Things are still at the developing stages for Justin’s film but as soon as things start rolling again I’m sure he’ll have more news for us to pass on to you.
The Eternal will be once again represented at this year’s Rue Morgue Festival of Fear in Toronto (August 28 – 30). We urge all attending to swing by the Unstable Ground booth to grab some free swag, meet the crew and lead actor Adam Kenneth Wilson, preview the entire first issue of the graphic novel The Eternal: Final Dawn, and enter to win one 3 of “The Eternal” prize packs.
First Prize - A “one-of-a-kind” painting by co-creator Kevin Hutchinson (www.secondskincreations.net), a copy of the printed limited edition first issue of “The Eternal: Final Dawn” (only 20 of this version of the pressing will ever be made!), a “Final Dawn” T-shirt, and the short film prequel “Ending the Eternal” on DVD.
Second Prize – A “The Eternal: Final Dawn” T-shirt, copy of the printed limited edition first issue, and the short film prequel on DVD.
Third Prize – A copy of the printed limited edition first issue, and the short film prequel on DVD.
And The Eternal film synopsis…
Samuel Gradius has lived too long. In his 500 years on earth he has seen empires rise and fall, changed the course of history with his bare hands and experienced countless revolutions first hand. Samuel Gradius is a vampire, perhaps the only vampire, and he’s had enough. He wants to die. No longer content with the idea of simple suicide, he makes the decision to go out in the ways of old. He wants a warrior’s death. THE ETERNAL follows Samuel on the pursuit of his own personal oblivion, he hopes, at the hands of someone worthy.
[Udated with fresh trailers]
It aint just America making throwbacks to the blaxploitation era right now, a point well made by French effort Black, a more modern spin on the genre that we’ve been covering here for quite some time. Starring French musician MC Jean Gab’1 - also featured prominently in Banlieue 13 Ultimatum - as a Senegalese-French thief travelling to Africa for a heist where he’ll not only have to deal with local law enforcement but also Russian mercenaries and a flamboyant arms dealer who seems to be slowly turning into a snake, Black had its premiere at SXSW earlier this year. And with the French release right around the corner - July 15th in France for those keeping track, August for Canada - the PR train is rolling full speed. The first proper French teaser was released in mid-June and has since been followed by a second teaser and - just now - a full theatrical trailer.. You’ll find them all along with the earlier sales trailer - English subtitled, no less - below the break.
Continue Reading "No Dynamite, Just BLACK *UPDATE*"...
The man with 30 films somewhere in the production ether has just added another project to his list. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer of the Transformers films and the upcoming G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra feature has dipped his grubby hands once again into the 80s properties pool and won a bidding war- A BIDDING WAR!!! for the rights to make an Asteroids movie. Yes, yes, the game where you, a small triangle, shoot and destroy asteroids of varying shapes and sizes until you are mercilessly crushed by one of them yourself. Insert another quarter and go again!
Now, given that Asteroids was around in the days where back story and characters didn’t matter, we were too caught up in the actual state of the art video game action back then, this gives the script writer Matthew Lopez [Bedtime Stories and Race to Witch Mountain... I know] pretty much free reign to do what he wants and create an exciting world around the simple concept of blowing up Asteroids.
So let’s theorize and make up our own script shall we? Here’s what I can make up off the top of my head. Aliens have redirected asteroids from the belt in orbit around the Sun, that one between Mars and Jupiter, and they are launching them at Earth, hoping to wipe out the human race from a distance. It’s up to the Asteroid Defense Human Defenders [ADHD - get it?], a collection of young, hot, thrill seeking space pilots to intercept these Asteroids before they become Meteorites and plunge into the soft recesses of our fragile Earth. They’ll be doing some plunging into some soft recesses of their own because they are so young and hot and thrill seeking. Either an Asteroid will get through their defenses, kill millions, and one of the pilots will have this big emotional moment where they torture themselves in grief only get their vindication when Earth can finally launch an assault on this Alien race and these pilots will be asked to lead the charge once they arrive at the belt. Or, one of their pilots will die, planting themselves on the front side of a massive Asteroid, and everyone will have a joined emotional moment then everyone can get their vindication when Earth can finally launch an assault on this Alien race and these pilots will be asked to lead the charge once they arrive at the belt. There will be lots of special effects and lots of explosions [which you must have even though there is no sound in the vacuum of space] and I wouldn’t be surprised if it is done in Real 3D. After all, it’s Asteroids damnit!
What say you?
We are mighty big fans of Nimrod Antal‘s 2003 Hungarian subway drama, Kontroll, which at the time, due to its sense of style, humour and intensity, besides being a breath of fresh air in the stuffier Hungarian Cinema circles, also seemed like a Hollywood calling card of sorts. That proved true and resulted in the enjoyable thriller Vacancy and the decidedly more generic-looking Armoured which is on its way to the multiplex presently. But here is the blockbuster big-time moment for Antal, as he is being handed the keys to the Predator franchise. Hmmm, I find this to be pretty exciting. Antal had to beat out some tough competition, namely Neil Marshall, for the gig.
The 1987 original is practically canonized as one of the great 1980s beef-cake action pictures with great action and macho humour and sensibility. And the awesomeness of Predator 2 is often overlooked? I mean that quite seriously, Predator 2 rocks. Can Nimrod Antal and producer Robert Rodriguez stuff lightning in a bottle for a third go-around?
Either way, Robert Rodriguez‘s Troublemaker Studios is aiming for a fall start on Predators with elements of his 1994 screenplay draft and the KNB group practical special effects philosophy. Excited? Ready to wash the bile of the AVP films out of your craw?
We all know how much man love Swarez has for Fred Dekker and his film Night of the Creeps but I think this little contest that Amazon is putting on to choose the cover for the upcoming DVD release might be enough to put him over the edge and send him on a drunken rampage throughout Iceland, drunk on whatever the Icelandic people get toasted on. And given that Swarez has himself designed some really good posters and DVD covers himself I don’t think the nation of Iceland will sleep well tonight. You’re going to have to see for yourselves.
Here’s the deal. Go to the link below and choose one of the three options at the bottom of the page. The cover with the most votes will be the winner and you’ll know what to look for when you go to buy this DVD when it hits store shelves. I think all three are ugly as sin but it looks like it is a matter of choosing the lesser of three evils. Option # 1, the one I think is the least hideous is the one on the left.
And you will buy it because it is an awesome cult film and you don’t want a drunken Swarez showing up at your door in the middle of the night. Do you? DO YOU!?!
Oh Hong Kong you’re so wacky. While a gweilo like me could never fully understand this brand of nonsense comedy there is a certain delirious joy when watching them. They’re just so out there that even without understanding them and all their cultural nuances fully they are no less entertaining. For example we have the trailer for Wong Jing’s upcoming nonsense comedy On His Majesty’s Secret Service. Though quite unlike the James Bond film of the same name from 1969 a quick search couldn’t pick up a lot of details about this film. Thus, I first found what I hoped was a description of the film to the more qualified and sanitary skills of Google Translate and this is what it came up with…
The film story takes place in ancient times, the emperor has to have a direction to 12 named after zodiac ... personal protection. Louis Koo as one of nine days, the representative of the high sign of the Zodiac “dog”, also known as the “灵灵dog,” he indulged in technology will certainly insist that the technology will be better than kung fu, but his inventions are in action on many occasions was busy in doing so out of tune with the other agent, and only his brother, “灵灵Tiger” and fiancee, “Mei hope that” duty-bound to support him. But the face of an infatuated Mei hope, wonder dog灵灵style was unmoved. At this point, the major opponent just Tso ambitious, desire to kill the emperor replaced, but he must first get rid of the dog led to灵灵大内密探. What is unexpected is the father-in-law of conspiracy Cao is only the tip of the iceberg,灵灵dog will have to face more and more powerful enemy, the palace seems to calm potentially dangerous, murderous hidden.
Then a little more digging found this much more coherent synopsis over at Far East Films...
The secret service has been responsible for protecting the Emperor for generations and 12 agents are always assigned to bodyguard duty. Amongst the current group, Zero Zero Dog (Louis Koo) is considered to be the weakest as he shows no interest in the martial arts and spends his time studying technology and creating inventions. When Dog stumbles upon an evil plot to kill the Emperor by the chief eunuch, Cao Yan Chui (Fan Siu Wong), he decides to prove everyone wrong and vanquish the enemy himself.
The film stars stars Louis Koo, Big S Barbie Hsu, Fan Siu Wong, Leung Kar Yan, Liu Yi Wei, Sandra Ng, Law Kar Ying, Chen Jia Jia, and Sang Wei Lin. The trailer is loaded up after the break and I am a tad disappointed that the sound is out of sync but you definitely get the gist of the film. Martial arts, crazy characters and zany comedy are after the break!
Continue Reading "Trailer for zany Chinese comedy ‘On His Majesty’s Secret Service’!"...
[Our thanks to Pat Dahn for the following review.]
QUICK GUN MURUGAN is a blast. Based on a series of shorts made for MTV India in the early 90s, it successfully expands that colorful ‘attitude’ into a feature-length movie. Now, I never watched MTV India and my recollection of the US version is fuzzy at best, but I do remember those strange little animations and station spots were always the most interesting things they programmed.
Quick Gun Murugan is a vegetarian cowboy - a sweet, gentle man of values who shoots many people in the head. An outlandish figure, colorful beyond convention, he seems as out of place in 1982 as he does in modern Mumbai.
Continue Reading "NYAFF 09 Review: QUICK GUN MURUGAN"...
[Our thanks to Bryan from Cinema Suicide for the following review.]
Franklyn caught me off guard. I managed to see the trailer on a site much like this one and it wasn’t clear what the movie is about. The trailer is a testament to misleading advertisement. A studio pays for a movie to be produced and agrees to distribute it. They see the script, of course, and like what they see, but if you’ve ever read the shooting draft of a script and then see the released feature, they often differ in some fundamental ways. It’s a great script but what often looks great on the page sometimes doesn’t translate to the lens well and changes must be made on the fly. The studio then sees the final project and realizes that this is not what they paid for. The marketing machine cranks to life and produces a series of marketing materials that makes their challenging feature look like something it’s not and gets as many asses in seats as it can before everyone leaves the theater and starts texting everyone in their address book to tell them the movie sucks.
Continue Reading "FRANKLYN Review"...
Though he’s been brewing his particular brand of madness for a good long while now it wasn’t until the arrival of Machine Girl that writer-director Noboru Iguchi really made an impression here in North America. But when he did, it was a big one - his fetishized story of a high school girl whose arm is replaced by a giant machine gun becoming a genuine viral phenomenon as it raced through the web. And how has Iguchi followed up the success of Machine Girl? With robotic geishas. Lots of them.
RoboGeisha is the latest collaboration between Iguchi and special effects man Yoshihiro Nishimura - himself the director of Tokyo Gore Police - and it bears all of the now-classic hallmarks of the duo: outrageous special effects, grotesquely hilarious gore and weapons where weapons just should not go. Machine Girl had the mechanized arm. Iguchi’s earlier Sukeban Boy had leg and breast cannons. Nishimura’s Tokyo Gore Police has the infamous penis cannon. RoboGeisha? This one boasts what the trailer graciously describes as hip-katanas, though the swords are actually placed considerably lower and more to the rear. Yes, Iguchi’s latest has ass-swords and women who aren’t afraid to use them. And that’s not even mentioning the giant robot-building, the transforming geisha-tank or the fried shrimp rammed into eye sockets.
The trailer for RoboGeisha is a virtual compendium of the bizarre and hilarious world of Iguchi, all of it narrated in bizarrely dry style. We’re very proud to have been given the world exclusive of the trailer here at Twitch, passed to us directly from production company TO Entertainment, and you can find it below the break!
Continue Reading "Noboru Iguchi Says ‘Geisha Is Beautiful! Geisha is Robot!’ It’s the ROBOGEISHA Trailer!"...
You can do little wrong when you decide to go to Montreal for the Fantasia International Film Festival and this year’s lineup proves to be no exception. Want a taste? David Morley’s MUTANTS, Adam Mason’s BLOOD RIVER, José Mojica Marins’ EMBODIMENT OF EVIL, Tom Shankland’s THE CHILDREN, Park Chan-wook’s THIRST and Satoshi Miki’s INSTANT SWAMP are just some of the titles at this year’s festival.
There is a lengthy announcement after the break. Take your time and we are sure you’ll find some must-sees. Then we’ll see you in Montreal between July 9th and 27th.
Continue Reading "FANTASIA 2009 announces lineup. She be a doozy!!!"...
