It’s February ‘05. This Month : Tsukamoto, Beauty and Nastiness.

Posted by logboy at 2:03am.

Posted in Film News .

Still battling through the Yakuza Papers Boxset from Homevision which came out in December (amongst other things I’ve got to find the time to watch), and now we have a couple more Fukasaku films this month. Firstly, there’s ‘Fall Guy’ which isn’t on my list, but secondly is my first purchase, ‘Sympathy For The Underdog’ (on the 1st) which stars Tomisabaru Wakayama of ‘Lone Wolf and Cub’ fame.

The first ‘undecided’ of the month is ‘Ebola Syndrome’ in a new HK edition, ‘cos it may just be better than the old and now relatively rare ‘Japan Shock’ edition from a few years back.

Then AnimEigo release “Samurai Assasin’ soon after (8th), swiftly followed by some beautifully done stuff in the shape of ‘Last Life In The Universe’ and ‘All About Lilly Chou-Chou’ (on the 15th). I am sure there’s something else on that day, but it escapes me…

Heading towards the end of the month we get two Shinya Tsukamoto films on the same day (22nd), from different companies : ‘Snake of June’ from Tartan, and ‘Bullet Ballet’ from Artsmagic. Then right at the end, the second volume of Takashi Miikes’ ‘MPD Psycho’ hits the UK (28th), and that’s the only R2 UK disc I will buy this month.

The second ‘undecided’ is ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ (28th in HK), simply because I don’t know (even though i’ve seen the trailer) if I like the dance routines / action mix, though the odd special effects look cool. Anyone else got suggestions for this relatively quiet month?

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Reader Comments

jung 02/01/2005 @ 2:44am

There’s the Korean edition of ‘House of Flying Daggers,’ which comes out in two editions on the 2nd. The dvds that are perhaps escaping logboy that are released on the 15th worth checking out: ‘Taegukgi’ and ‘Donnie Darko Director’s Cut.’

The R1 Ghibli releases for ‘Nausicaa,’ ‘Porco Rosso,’ and ‘The Cat Returns’ are all on the 22nd. Also on that date, a film reviewed on Twitch: ‘I Heart Huckabees.’

Finally, I believe there are UK releases of two Park Chan-Wook films at the end of the month: ‘Oldboy’ and ‘Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,’ both w/ English-subbed extras.
logboy 02/01/2005 @ 3:08am

“taegukgi” was the one that escaped me… thanks : no prize though. all the others i have (except, shock horror, donnie darko and i heart huckabees which doesnt interest me for some reason)…

also this month (well just ordered) the ‘art of howls moving castle’ from japan and ‘the midnight eye guide to contemporary japanese cinema’ ...
Fabool 02/01/2005 @ 6:52am

Your wallet will thank you for a slow month like this!

Can’t really think of anything noteworth except the ones mentioned already. I think I’m going to get the Oldboy R2UK disc although I have the Korean UE - those subtitled extras look really tasty and overweigh the possibly screwed iamge quality.
All about lily chou-chou would be nice to get but I probably won’t have the cash for that.

If there are any Farscape fans around, the miniseries UK dvd is going to be released on the 14th, I heard the US dvd was pretty bad so this is something for fans to look forward to.
Yakuza no Bengoshi 02/01/2005 @ 7:17am

There’s some other titles I’m definitely looking forward to this month especially two Hiroshi Teshigahara titles from Eureka Video’s Masters of Cinema series, “Face of Another” and “Pitfall,” as well as Ming-liang Tsai’s “Dragon Inn” from Wellspring.
logboy 02/01/2005 @ 12:01pm

i had my eye on those… unsure though, £15 each at play and theres other things to catch up on… still havent seen “woman in the dunes” (?) so ...
jim di griz 02/01/2005 @ 2:17pm

Uh, pardon me, but what “dance routines / action mix” are you talking about in reference to Kung Fu Hustle? I’ve seen the movie, and it has one very, very brief sequence (10 seconds or something like that) of dancing. The movie isn’t as entertaining as Shaolin Soccer, but contains a fair amount of action and a few absolutely incredible martial arts shots / sequences. Go for it, mate.
logboy 02/02/2005 @ 10:08am

then the trailer includes a large chunk of those 10 seconds of dance routines… might have just changed my mind… including on list of possible purchases now…
jim di griz 02/02/2005 @ 2:31pm

logboy, that dance bit in the trailer is from the only dance sequence in the movie, and it’s mercifully short. I just watched bits of the movie again, and I need to make a correction to my earlier post. Replace “entertaining” with “funny”. Kung Fu Hustle is very entertaining indeed, but it’s not played for laughs quite as much as SS. Can’t wait to hear your comments about the last 15 minutes of the movie. I don’t want to hype ti too much… but you’ll be blown away