[Our thanks to Christopher Bourne for the following review.]
Koki Mitani’s latest film The Magic Hour is an entertaining and beautifully designed tribute to movies and movie-making that revels in its artificiality. Early in the film, Natsuko (Haruka Ayase), a nightclub waitress, remarks that the elements of the story – gangsters, guns, cement overshoes, a boss’ moll – all make the town seem like a movie set. At the film’s outset, nightclub manager Bingo (Satoshi Tsumbuki) has run afoul of yakuza boss Teshio (Toshiyuki Nishida) by having an affair with the boss’ girlfriend Mari (Eri Fukatsu). Bingo saves them both from being the proverbial feed for the fishes by claiming to be an acquaintance of Della Togashi, a famous hit man known as the “Phantom Assassin,” whom Teshio would like to meet. Not actually knowing the assassin at all, and unable to find the real deal, he comes up with the idea of asking Murata (Koichi Sato), a stuntman, bit part actor, and aspiring star player, to stand in for the assassin. Bingo must keep up a double ruse, convincing Teshio that the actor is the hit man, and also making Murata believe he is in a film. The film’s scenario echoes other films such as Bowfinger and, more recently, Tropic Thunder, in which much humor is mined from the idea of tossing actors unknowingly into dangerous real-life situations. All the complications that one would expect, and then some, ensue. All the visual elements of this film – its cinematography, production design, and canny recreations of old movies – are top notch, as are the spirited performances of its cast, especially Koichi Sato, Eri Fukatsu, and Haruka Ayase.
Continue Reading "NYAFF 09 Review: THE MAGIC HOUR"...
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.
Continue Reading "Cam-Job Promo for Imagi’s GATCHAMAN"...
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!"...
[Our thanks to Christopher Bourne for the following review.]
Hajime Kadoi’s contemplative second feature Vacation explores the relationship between Toru (Kaoru Kobayashi), a prison guard at a high-security facility, and Kaneda (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a condemned prisoner soon to be executed for murder, who has spent most of his years in prison appealing to the authorities for clemency. The “vacation” of the title is granted to Toru for volunteering for the traumatic task of assisting in Kaneda’s execution by leading him to the death chamber and holding his legs as he is hanged. Making this much harder for Toru is the fact that he has developed an unexpressed fondness for this quiet prisoner, who spends his days in his immaculately furnished cell drawing in his sketchbook. For his efforts, Toru is given a week off to have a brief honeymoon with his new bride, divorced single mother Mika (Nene Otsuka), accompanied by her young son Tatsuya (Shusei Ito).
Continue Reading "NYAFF 09 Review: VACATION"...
[Our thanks to Christopher Bourne for the following review.]
A very lengthy feature (three hours and fifteen minutes) which, like Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s film All Around Us (also screening as part of Japan Cuts), deals with the criminal justice system in Japan, and that is as deliciously engrossing as it is disturbing, Gen Takahashi’s Confessions of a Dog is perhaps the most devastating indictment of Japan’s police ever committed to film. Following in the great tradition of, and likely inspired by, Sidney Lumet’s stories of police corruption such as Serpico and Prince of the City (which this film is most analogous to), Confessions of a Dog maps out with surgical precision the anatomy of police crimes, and the system which supports and enables them.
Continue Reading "Japan Cuts Review: CONFESSIONS OF A DOG"...
[Our thanks to Christopher Bourne for the following review.]
One of the best selections this year of both the New York Asian Film Festival and the Japan Cuts Festival is Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s All Around Us, a beautifully observed film that examines the vicissitudes of the relationship between a married couple – Kanao (Lily Franky), a courtroom sketch artist, and Shoko (Tae Kimura), an editor at a publishing house – against the backdrop of the larger Japanese society from 1993 to 2001. At the film’s outset, the tone is lightly comic, as Shoko puts Kanao on a strict schedule of sex three times a week, and also a curfew, because of her suspicions that he is cheating on her – which are probably not unfounded, as evidenced by early scenes in which Kanao openly flirts with women at his shoe-repair shop. Kanao is a somewhat isolated person, estranged from his own family and saddled with in-laws who don’t show him much respect. During a family dinner, Shoko’s mother (Mitsuko Baisho) leans toward her daughter and whispers, “You can do better.” Shoko resists her family’s opposition, perhaps sensing that Kanao’s easygoing nature balances out her control-freak tendencies. Soon after, a friend of Kanao’s introduces him to a new line of work, as a courtroom artist for a local television station. At first, this promises to be the latest in a series of jobs Kanao casually drifts into, but he soon takes to the work, and he now spends his days in the courtroom observing trials for some of the most heinous crimes: serial killers, cannibals, cult mass murderers, as well as their victims, fall under his artist’s gaze, as he picks up the telling details that he sketches and presents to the public to satisfy their insatiable curiosity. While Kanao becomes a more responsible, stable person due to his new calling, Shoko begins making an opposite trajectory, unable to cope with the death of their infant daughter and sinking into a deep depression. Kanao, as much as he wants to help her, is ultimately at a loss as to how to do so, and can only observe his wife getting worse, much as he observes the criminals in the courtroom.
Continue Reading "NYAFF 09 Review: ALL AROUND US"...
Once again, Michael Hawley privileges the Twitch readership with his preview of YBCA’s upcoming calendar. Thanks, Michael!
Norwegian Black Metal, Graphic Sexual Horror and a Headless Woman. Jeez, is it Halloween already? No, it’s just this summer’s insouciant film/video line-up at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. But before we dig into what curator Joel Shepard has in store through September, here’s exciting news for YBCA filmgoers. Starting July 6, ticket holders will be allowed FREE admittance into YBCA’s exhibition galleries, whose days and hours of operation have been adjusted to align with evening film and video screenings.
Continue Reading "Michael Hawley Previews YBCA’s Summer 2009 Lineup"...
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’!"...
Ning Hao’s Crazy Stone showed the world China could manage Ocean’s 11 on a shoestring budget, but he was neither the first nor the last to try a caper movie on the mainland. Liu Jiang’s 2008 debut Set Off was another crime comedy also helped to release by a venture capital program specifically designed to help up-and-coming directors – was it less successful for good reason or do genre fans have another reason to celebrate? Find out after the break.
Continue Reading "SET OFF review"...
[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 Joshua Chaplinsky for the following review.]
I’m a sucker for anything Kaufmanesque, that special brand of weirdness with a metaphysical edge. I am not, however, a sucker for Hong Kong style melodrama. How about a Hong Kong Style melodrama with a metaphysical edge? Now you’ve got my attention.
Written By is the most recent directorial offering from Johnnie To collaborator Wai Ka-fai. It is a Russian doll story within a story within a story about a family that loses its patriarch in a tragic car accident. The man’s daughter, now blind, decides to write a story in which the rest of the family died and the father survived. He, in turn, begins to write a story in which his family is reincarnated, they live in the cemetery together, and his daughter is Death’s apprentice. Confused? Don’t feel bad. Even the character of Death (Meng Po) has trouble figuring it all out.
Continue Reading "NYAFF 09 Review: WRITTEN BY"...
[Our thanks to Joshua Chaplinsky for the following review.]
I’m a sucker for anything Lynchian, that special brand of weirdness encompassing the dark and bizarre. Invariably, the eponymous term is slapped on as a selling point, and anything described as such is doomed to disappoint. Fortunately for The Forbidden Door, Lynch isn’t its sole influence (despite some obvious nods.) The film is a tasty amalgamation of Lynch, Hitchcock, Hostel, Videodrome, Takashi Miike, The Usual Suspects
and Shakespeare. That’s right, The Bard himself.
Continue Reading "NYAFF 09 Review: THE FORBIDDEN DOOR"...
A man on the run from the law takes a last desperate journey into the wilderness and there confronts himself and his demons – Yuan Weidong’s Out of Control seems to have gone virtually unnoticed since its Chinese release last year. Is this another mainland attempt at Western genre movie tropes unlikely to win any fans outside the domestic market, or is it a film that deserves more attention? Find out after the break.
Continue Reading "OUT OF CONTROL 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!!!"...
