I’m a couple days late on this but this is great news. JJ Sonny Chiba is going to revive the role that got him his start in acting. At the age of 19 Sonny Chiba took over the title role in the 1959 Japanese television series Nana-Iro Kamen or 7-Color Mask. It was Toei Company’s first super-hero series and lasted for 57 episodes; Chiba starring in the last 18. The hero of this series is a young detective named Kotarô Ran, who, unknown to anyone (even his friends), is a master of disguise, utilizing 7 different personalities. Most of his disguises are odd characters, like a magician and a cigar-smoking Indian, but Kotarô’s 7th disguise is the 2-gun-toting caped, golden-masked superhero - 7-Color Mask!
The creator of this series, Kohan Kawauchi, passed away last month and he met with Chiba before his passing. Kawauchi shared with Chiba that he would have liked to have seen Chiba reprise his heroic role. Spurned on by his dying friend’s request Chiba made the decision to go ahead with a film version remake of the television series. Whether Chiba will aim for a modern envisioning of the series or try to capture some of the colorful [ahem] characters and costumes of the original series we will have to wait and see. Maybe. You see, the film is expected to be completed in a year but reports say that it will privately screened almost a year to the day in the “Super Museum - Time Machine” in Otsu, Shiga, a museum of Chiba’s prized possessions that opens on May 17.
I can’t imagine something like this never being given a formal release. I’ve embedded a couple short videos from YouTube after the break.
Continue Reading "JJ Sonny Chiba will reprise superhero role ‘7-Color Mask/Nana-Iro Kamen’ [七色仮面]"...
The cult of Miike is getting some good news this week. Yesterday it was announced that Miike’s critically acclaimed Crows Zero will be getting a sequel.
The story so far, from Crows Zero… Shun Oguri is Genji, a student freshly transferred to Suzuran high, a school legendary for the out of control violence that dominates social life there. The students are banded into factions, rival gangs openly battling for control in the halls, teachers or any other form of authority absolutely impotent. It’s the sort of school nobody in their right mind would willingly choose to attend but Genji has done just that, transferring to the school with the goal of doing what nobody has every done in the entire history of the place: battle his way to the top of the heap, unite the factions and be recognized as the undisputed king of Suzuran, a feat his yakuza boss father tried and failed to accomplish himself as a student of Suzuran decades before.
Director Takashi Miike is again taking the helm, and popular actor Shun Oguri is reprising his role as the protagonist Genji Takaya. The story is set about 8 months after the first movie. Kyosuji is close to graduation at Suzuran High School, but one last matter must be settled with a rival school… this sequel is reportedly the story’s conclusion. Genke Yabe is also returning, though other cast members from the first movie have not yet been mentioned.
Following on the success of their first foray into production with Pakistani splatter flick Hell’s Ground cult DVD label Mondo Macabro are jumping full bore into the production pool. We brought news last week about Karim Hussain’s upcoming exploiter Filthy and today we got the first word on upcoming Filipino scifi splatter exploiter Killdroid. From director Rico Maria Ilarde the film tells the story of a high school girl who becomes the lover of an abandoned killer android, part of an abandoned military project.
Given that it’s coming from Mondo I expect this one to be every bit as splattery as the recent Fever Dreams productions - Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police - with no opportunity to shock ignored. We’ve got a detailed project announcement below the break and you can check the first images at the link below.
Continue Reading "It’s Filipino Killer Robot Love In KILLDROID!"...
Are the killers lesbian? Are the vampires? Does it matter? We’ve mentioned this one before but upcoming UK horror comedy Lesbian Vampire Killers is back on the radar due to principal photography launching May 19th, which is next week. Hurray!
Surprising news here: Word is out that Fox has pulled the plug on the McG produced American remake of classic UK sitcom Spaced. Hurray! Be a good boy or girl and buy the North American DVD release of the original show when it hits this summer.
The web monkey has been keeping tabs on upcoming comedy Hank And Mike for a good while now. The film is something of a local product, a feature length expansion of a short film by a pair of young Canadian film makers, and the premise is just stellar. Easter bunnies, unemployed and unhappy. The first official teaser has just arrived and it lives up to the premise. You’ll find it in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Bad Bunnies! The HANK AND MIKE Teaser Arrives!"...
In the near future...The Tokyo Police force has been privatized and incorporated. The new force has their hands full with a new type of genetically engineered mutant stalking the streets and brutally taking human lives. Luca, the top level officer at Tokyo Police has special law enforcement skills but her dark past makes her vulnerable. She is determined to hunt the mutant known as “Engineer” until the day she can find and destroy the mysterious “Key-Man”.
We debuted the first footage from upcoming cult flick Tokyo Gore Police here at Twitch a while back, a four minute reel of footage cut together for use at Japan’s Yubari Fantastic Film Festival. True to it’s name it was nasty, gorey stuff, with Audition star Eihi Shiina hacking and slashing her way through a series of bizarre mutants. Only down side to that promo was that it was cut together early enough in the film’s life that it wasn’t entirely through post production yet and was still a little rough around the edges. Well, no more! The official trailer has just been released and the blood has been buffed and polished to a high sheen. There’s not really anything in the way of new footage in this one but things have been tightened up considerably with some of the more bizarre moments - hello, crocodile girl! - moved up front and center ... You’ll find both trailers in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Second TOKYO GORE POLICE Trailer"...
He seems like such a pleasant young man in person but then, that’s what they say about all sorts of deviants, now isn’t it? Canadian writer-director Karim Hussain has just announced his latest project, the aptly titled Filthy, a film revolving around garbage fetishists. And that’s fetish in the true, deriving-sexual-pleasure-from sense, I make sure to point out. Fresh of the success of their Pakistani splatter picture Hell’s Ground, Filthy is the first of a slate of new pictures to be announced from the Mondo Macabro lads and they’ll be touting the picture to prospective investors in Cannes with a nasty little promo teaser in tow. You’ll find details below the break and a larger version of the poster linked below.
Continue Reading "Karim Hussain Has A FILTHY Mind"...
[Twitch-O-Meters will remain at the top of the page during the duration of the day they were published. Please scroll down for today’s film news]
Recently we got a nice mainstream genre (yes, they exist!) surprise in the cinemas with the horror movie “The Ruins”.
Doesn’t automatically sound like the best of movies, does it: obnoxious American students on holiday in Mexico visit an uncharted archaeological dig and encounter something which starts to pick them off one by one.
A rather lame set of trailers didn’t exactly help…
But what made it actually a nice surprise was the amount of detail lavished upon characterization, acting and the general portrayal of how a small group of people (might) react in an extremely stressful situation.
All these things were fleshed out to the extent that, in general, people were shocked to discover that this wasn’t just a funny B-movie but a pretty serious drama.
It might even have been one of my all-time favorites if not for some big issues I had with the “monster”, but I digress.
Anyway, I don’t think it’s a big spoiler when I tell you the big threat in the movie is (beside human nature) a big flesh-eating member of the “flora”, instead of the traditionally popular “fauna”.
Which brings me to my top 5 movies featuring extremely aggressive plants.
Read on!
Continue Reading "When Plants Attack!"...
Coming at your faster than a bolt of lightning, the Wachowski Brothers Speed Racer kicks cinema into the 5th dimension and is 10,000 volts of gooey fun at breakneck racing speeds of visual excitement that the entire family can enjoy. This is an explosion of eye-popping Busby Berkeley meets Stanley Kubrick meets anime styled techno delirium that will leave your eyes and brain feeling like it has just been hit by a tornadic sugar high (view image gallery). In some respects it should have been easy to see the Wachowski Brothers were heading in this direction with very anime influenced scenes from their previous movies and importantly of note here is they pick up their original Matrix magic wand, leaving their Reloaded and Revolutions hats behind.
From retro futuristic designs and its symphonic techno color overdrive, the anime universe of Speed Racer gets translated perfectly to the big screen. Make no mistake the Wachowski Brothers have turned anime into live action visual opera that promises to be the benchmark and standard all other type of adaptations will be judged against for the foreseeable future. Live action anime cinema has been born with this visual feast that rivals anything that has ever come before it in history. I didn’t like the upcoming trailers (absolutely hated them) or anything I had seen for it walking into it, so believe me I was very surprised at how well this movie turned out. Cue your inner disco monkey, it’s time to have some summer movie time fun!
Continue Reading "Speed Racer Review - Live Action Anime Bliss"...
It was less than a week ago that we first posted news of Kamigakari, the new hair cutting comedy from Minoru Kawasaki - the director of cult hits like The Calamari Wrestler, Beetle The Horn King, Everything But Japan Sinks, Executive Koala and the upcoming Guilala revival film. This one’s a good bit different for Kawasaki, the action all revolving around an unorthodox hair stylist and the humor looks a good bit more subdued than in his past work. I’m not all that sure I want a more sedate and mature Kawasaki myself, check out the brand new trailer int he Twitch Player below the break and throw your two cents in ...
Continue Reading "First Trailer For Minoro Kawasaki’s KAMIGAKARI!"...
Okay, kaiju fans, a moment many of you have been waiting for has arrived. Japanese shlock-meister Minoru Kawasaki - he of Calamari Wrestler fame - has gotten a lot of people, ourselves included, with his upcoming revival of Guilala, a giant monster that made it’s only on screen appearance in the cult hit The X From Outer Space. Titled Guilala’s Counter Attack: The Touyaku Summit One-Shot Crisis, the new film is being shot entirely in old school fashion - no CGI effects here, just rubber suits, little models and latex o’plenty, plus Japanese cult icon Takeshi Kitano in a key role. And now the first teaser has arrived. The verdict? It’s very tease-y. Mostly titles and smoke but there is one clear shot of the big rubber guy tucked in towards the end. You can check it out below the break.
Continue Reading "GUILALA Returns! And There’s A Teaser To Prove It!"...
For a low-budget Austrian movie which STILL hasn’t gotten a distribution deal in its home country, Peter Koller’s “Auf Bösem Boden” (On Evil Grounds) has had a remarkable amount of success. So far it has been an audience favorite at every single festival it played at, and it even managed to win some awards for itself.
Not bad for a… for a…
...damn, this one is rather hard to describe. Is “cleverly wicked” a genre?
“Auf Bösem Boden” tells the story of a young couple who stumble into a seemingly vacated factory, only to get caught by a brutal psychopath who imprisons them, then plans to have a long leisurely session of torture, rape and murder. But before you can yell “Hostel rip-off!” it has become apparent that you wouldn’t wish these victims on any psychopath, no matter how deranged…
Double-billing “Auf Bösem Boden” with “The Machine Girl”, the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival had made sure that there weren’t any faint-hearted people in the house during its one and only screening. Maybe this helped create the perfect mood for this picture, because the audience had an absolute blast with it!
Read on after the break.
Continue Reading "AFFF 2008: ON EVIL GROUNDS Review"...
The short subjects in the 2008 IIFF progam “Future Imperfect” touched on a little bit of everything, from the end of life on earth to the re-socialization of an alienated populace to a world teeming with folks literally infected by the omnipresent din of digital noise. Science fiction has always lent itself to short-form treatment, and the subject matter addressed in this year’s selections showcased the genre’s ability to offer pointed commentary amid the fantastic.
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A chilly examination of decaying hope, Zack Parker’s Quench exemplifies the drive and spirit that embodies truly independent filmmaking. Shot for a song in the Midwest, the film infuses its bleak tale of a damaged prodigal’s return home with some much needed black humor and a resonant call for acceptance of its characters’ unconventional attitudes and beliefs. Brimming with the sort of honesty afforded only to pictures made on truly individual terms, the film sticks to its kinky guns throughout to consistently surprising returns.
Continue Reading "IIFF 2008 - QUENCH review"...
