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14 BLADES: DVD Review

Director: Daniel Lee. Review: Adam Wing.

There are two film stars who can guarantee my complete attention when it comes to Hong Kong cinema. The first one is Donnie Yen. Goes without saying really, Donnie seems to be keeping the Hong Kong film industry alive on his own at the moment. The second one is Vicki Zhao, not because she’s particularly kick-ass you understand, mainly because she’s cute as a kitten and I adore her. Which brings us to Daniel Lee’s (Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon) action extravaganza 14 Blades, how can the film possibly fail I hear you cry? Well, lets cut to the chase shall we, it can’t. Not in my eyes anyway. Accomplished filmmaking - up to a point perhaps. Substance, depth and emotion – you’ve got to be kidding me. Donnie Yen kicking ass across your TV screen – that’s more like it. We’re definitely getting warmer here. 14 Blades will never be considered high art, and some might argue that it lives in the shadow of John Woo’s Red Cliff, but Daniel Lee knows a little something about style over substance so lets give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Yen plays fearless assassin Quinlong, top dog in the elite team of Jinyiwei. They are masters of the 14 Blades, eight for torture, five for killing and one for personal sacrifice if you really must know. Quinlong carries them around in a mechanical box on his back, a supercharged CGI gimmick that belongs in a Batman movie, not a period action epic like this, but we’ll let it go for now because it looks really cool when he opens it. Quinlong is betrayed by both evil eunuch Jia (Law Kar-Ying) and fellow Jinyiwei member Xuanwu (Qi Yuwu), who spend the rest of the movie trying to kill him. What they’ve forgotten is that we’re talking about Donnie Yen here so this could take some time. Quinlong escapes into the night and bumps into the ever-infectious Vicki Zhao. Vicky plays Qiao Hua, his accomplice and companion for the rest of the movie. Not that she has a choice in the matter, Quinlong kidnaps her in order to make some ridiculous point to the recently corrupted Jinyiwei, but lets be truthful here, she probably would’ve gone anyway. I would have. Perhaps I should get on with the review now…Continue reading.

14 Blades official site

New York JAPAN CUTS film festival full line-up announced

JAPAN CUTS Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema (July 1-16) is coming to Japan Society for its fourth consecutive year, with its biggest line-up ever. With 24 titles and 30 screenings, this is the largest showcase of contemporary Japanese film outside Japan, with international and U.S. premieres, special guests (filmmakers Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Tomorowo Taguchi, Toshiaki Toyoda, Hitoshi Yazaki, and Isao Yukisada; and actors Tatsuya Fujiwara and Daichi Watanabe), parties (Festival Launch Party on July 1st, SUSHI TYPHOON! on July 3rd and NIGHT OF THE FILMMAKERS on July 10th) and giveaways.

In addition to independent and big budget feature films from the past year and 8 titles co-presented with the New York Asian Film Festival, the 2010 edition caps the decade with the Best of Unreleased Japanese Films of the the "Naughties", a digest of overlooked films from the past ten years which - for whatever reason -have not been treated to U.S. distribution. Highlights include: Alien vs. Ninja (Directed by Seiji Chiba) , Mutant Girls Squad (Directed by Noboru Iguchi), About Her Brother (dir. Yoji Yamada), Blood of Rebirth (dir. Toshiaki Toyoda), Bare Essence of Life: Ultra Miracle Love Story (dir. Satoko Yokohama), Dear Doctor (dir. Miwa Nishikawa), Golden Slumber (dir. Yoshihiro Nakamura), Nightmare Detective II (dir. Shinya Tsukamoto), Parade (dir. Isao Yukisada), and Zero Focus (dir. Isshin Inudo).

More information on the festival, as well as all the events, is available at the fests website here.

THE SHOCK LABYRINTH on English subtitled DVD

You’d have thought with such a big name in Asian horror attached as director, distributors in the US and UK would be falling over each other in the rush to get this on sale!? But after 6+ months of waiting for someone there to get off their behinds and release ‘The Grudge’ helmer, Takashi Shimizu's latest horror flick The Shock Labyrinth on English subtitled DVD, we’ll just have to go elsewhere for it thank you very much. Taiwan is set to drop the movie onto R3 DVD with English subs, and that’s more than good enough to be going on with. The Shock Labyrinth is up to order from tomorrow. Hoo-damn-rah!

Synopsis: Ten years ago Yuki disappeared at the amusement park haunted house. One rainy night she suddenly returns, and faints in front of her shocked friends. Her friends rush her to the hospital, but what awaits them is an endless labyrinth of unspeakable horrors.

 

 

Order your copy here

The Shock Labyrinth website

UK prepare for the horror of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE

UK horror fans who were so far feeling a bit left out and sulky due to the lack of a release date for -Tom Six’s bizarre and let’s be honest here, more than a little bit twisted, body horror - The Human Centipede, can now take heart in the fact that it will indeed soon be arriving on your shores. No word yet on the exact date, but the official site is already (but no content as yet) live, so we reckon it wont be too long at all! More as we get it. 

Synopsis: Two pretty but ditsy American girls are on a road trip through Europe. In Germany, they end up alone at night with a broken car in the woods. They search for help and find an isolated villa. The next day, they awaken to find themselves trapped in a terrifying makeshift basement hospital along with a Japanese man. An older German man identifies himself as a retired surgeon specialized in separating Siamese twins. However, his three "patients" are not about to be separated but joined together in a horrific operation. He plans to be the first person to connect people via their gastric systems. By doing so, he plans to bring to life his sick lifetime fantasy, the human centipede.

 

Human Centipede UK site

Human Centipede trailer

Via BritFilms

Christopher Smith?s - BLACK DEATH: Review

Director: Christopher Smith. Review: Pete Higgins.

You could accuse director Christopher Smith of lots of things, but predictability would not be one of them. After all, this is the man who brought us a collection of films which practically defines the term ‘mixed bag’ (Creep, Severance and Triangle). And now he’s back with his latest low-budget, high-entertainment epic, ‘Black Death’. And, yes, it’s set in the fourteenth century, and, yes, it’s about the Black Death.

Eddie Redmayne plays our hero, a monk with one or two doubts about his faith, who longs for a chance to prove himself in the world outside his monastery. Enter Sean Bean, who just happens to be looking for someone to lead his band of not-very-merry men through some dodgy marsh in a quest for a village where the plague has not taken hold. Right, that’s that out of the way – now let’s get on with it. Cue lots of bloody executions, excellent fight scenes and macho posturing. But then they hook up with Carice Van Houten (dressed impeccably in a collection of items from the 14th Century Boden catalogue) as an apparently benevolent pagan living in the said village. Everything’s going to be fine... right?

Black Death is, as I said, low on budget (it probably cost about as much to make as they spent on catering for ‘Avatar’) but it is very high on edgy, gripping, brutal entertainment. Packed with interesting characters, full of surprises, endlessly gripping, it shows that the British film industry is as healthy as ever: this kind of solid genre thriller is exactly what we should be producing more of. I await Mr. Smith’s next movie with interest, and absolutely no idea what it will be about, when it will be set, or even what planet it will take place on.

Black Death Official site

Yimou?s BLOOD SIMPLE remake to hit the US in September!

Zhang Yimou's wacky remake of the Coen Brothers' first feature Blood Simple will finally hit screens in the US this September 3rd, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classic. The film we be titled A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop in the US and will be given a limited theatrical run. No word on specific cities just yet.

The original film was a noirish thriller set in Texas about a bar owner who hires a private detective to kill his wife and her lover. Yimou's remake, on the other hand is said to be a thriller-comedy set in a noodle shop in a Chinese desert. In addition, the film includes a rap song penned by the director. Yeah, you read that right. A Zhang Yimou rap song.

Check out the trailer and see for yourself.

Thanks to ThePlaylist for the heads up.

Histeria director returns to horror with SINI ADA HANTU

After the success of his 2008 shock gore horror "Histeria," Malaysian filmmaker James Lee has revealed in an interview with local movie site ‘Cinema Online’ that he’s to return to fright flicks, with his latest work entitled "Sini Ada Hantu" (aka Here Is A Ghost). Info on the movie is still thin on the ground, but Lee does let slip some juicy details in the interview on what to expect, and if his earlier work is anything to go by, it’s going to be bloody! Hantu is slated to open at the end of the year. Read the full interview, and check out a trailer for 'Histeria,' at the links.

Synopsis: The movie begins with Rama a supervisor of a delivery & transport company that is looking for driver at the last minute for a delivery at night out of town. Rama manages to get Ah Meng and Bakri to do the tasks with additional overtime and bonuses. The only catch is that they have to deliver a Chinese style large wooden coffin on time. For the extra sum of money, the two men take up the job and travel in the van through the quiet expressway. During their journey, the delivery van's radio player gets busted. So in order to kill time, both men begin to tell ghost stories which they declare genuine. Bakri starts off the ghost stories from his kampung that involves a young man and a banana tree spirit.

James Lee Interview

Histeria trailer

U.S.A rejoice! THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE WEIRD on R1 DVD!

It really should need no introduction. After an age of waiting, Kim Ji-Woon’s madcap Korean, western, crime caper The Good, The Bad, The Weird is finally up for pre-order on R1 DVD and Blu-ray. GBW hits the stores on August 17th, 2010. Go get it, its great!

Synopsis: Set in the 1930s Manchurian desert where lawlessness rules and many different ethnic groups clash, three Korean men fatefully meet each other on a train. The train’s diverse passengers and imminent danger with guns and knives everywhere serves as a microcosm of the turbulent times. Do-won (JUNG Woo-sung) is a bounty hunter who tracks down any criminals with rewards on their heads. Chang-yi (LEE Byung-hun) is the leader of a group of tough-as-nails bandits. He cannot stand to be the second best. Tae-goo (SONG Kang-ho) is a train robber with nine lives. The three strangers engage in a chase across Manchuria to take possession of a map Tae-goo discovers while robbing the train. Also on the hunt for the mysterious map are the Japanese army and Asian bandits. In this unpredictable, escalating battle for the map, who will stand in the end as the winner?

 

Good,Bad,Weird trailer

Concept pics from Jaume Balaguero?s horror SLEEP TIGHT

If you consider yourself a fan of world horror, then the name Jaume Balagueró should be ringing more than a few bells. Whilst busy - with co-director Paco Plaza - dishing up a second dose of hard core horror in [REC]2, he’s has been working away on a solo project the Spanish horror thriller Sleep Tight, and we’ve just dug up some first concept pics for the film. We say “concept” because if these are actual screen shots from the movie then it looks like - this is going to be a tad surreal, and - Balagueró is using some kind of funky colourisation technique on the film. Originally titled “Flatmate” the flick recently underwent a name change (probably to make it more accessible to the U.S market) so expect news on a release in the States soon. Stills at the link.

Synopsis: Cesar works as a doorman in a Barcelona apartment building. Happiness eludes him and he feels the need to reaffirm his reasons for living on a daily basis. He goes about his day to day work mainly unnoticed by the residents of the building, but he pays close attention to them. He knows all the intimate details of their lives, everything about them, especially one of them. Clara is a happy-go-lucky young woman, who always looks on the positive side of things. Her cheery attitude to life makes Cesar’ skin crawl. He won’t be happy until he has wiped that smile of her face once and for all, because Cesar feeds off other people’s pain. He delights in the unhappiness and anguish of others and he loves nothing more than to plant the seed of misery and watch it grow. In Clara he has found the perfect target, and he will go to extreme lengths to make her life miserable. But Cesar is starting to get a bit too cocky, and soon his carefully thought out plans will start to unravel… Luckily for him, he has one last ace up his sleeve.

Sleep Tight stills

KAMUI: THE LONE NINJA on R2 DVD

Deadly Ninja, fierce warrior clans, treacherous pirates and fearless shark hunters? Yoichi Sai’s Kamui: The Lone Ninja (aka Kamui gaiden) is heading for release on UK DVD and Blu-ray. Based on the multi-volume Manga series created by artist Sanpei Shirato in 1964, Lone Ninja comes to the screen as a live-action, effects-laden extravaganza, but don’t go into this expecting guys wearing pitch black Shōzoku, flitting over rooftops. Kamui takes a far grittier look, at the life of a Ninja on the run, and arrives on shelf via Manga Entertainment on 9th August 9th.

 Synopsis: 17th century Japan and from a young age Kamui has been considered something of an outcast, even within his own ninja clan. Disillusioned with the laws and principles, which dictate that he must use his skills to kill others, Kamui chooses to leave his past behind him and go in search of true freedom. But for a ninja liberation comes at a price and the only way to escape the bonds of the ninja brotherhood is to die. Now a fugitive on the run from his clan, who are determined to hunt him down and eliminate him for his betrayal, Kamui finds himself constantly fighting for his life and unable to trust anyone. He eventually finds some solace when he meets an indomitable fisherman who saves his life and invites him to settle with his family. Unexpectedly, the arrangement brings Kamui face to face with a long-forgotten nemesis of his, another renegade ninja with a deadly score to settle. Meanwhile, the ninja army hunting Kamui is setting a trap from which there can be no escape…

Kamui trailer

YATTERMAN: DVD review

Director: Takashi Miike. Review: Adam Wing.

One of Japan’s most prolific directors returns to family friendly territory with his take on Yatterman, the globally popular TV animation from the 70s. It’s nothing new for the so-called Oriental Tarantino; he’s swum in these waters before. The Great Yokai War was a mischievous romp for the whole family to enjoy, far removed from celebrated classics Ichi the Killer and Audition. Miike’s no stranger to superhero movies either, if you haven’t all ready checked out cult oddity Zebraman there’s never been a better time; a sequel has just been released in Japan. Which brings us to Yatterman, a film destined to redefine the robot action adventure genre.

Gan (Sho Sakurai), the only son of a toyshop owner, is inseparable from his close friend Ai (Saki Fukuda). Together they build Yatterwoof, a dog-shaped robot that shares their will. They also build a small robot called Toybotty, and together they transform into Yatterman 1 & 2 to fight for justice, honour and world peace. Doronjo (the ever adorable presence of Kyoko Fukada) is the sexy female boss of the Doronbow Gang, aided by her mechanically minded stalkers Boyacky and Tonzra. A mysterious big bad called Skullobey hoaxes her into finding the Skull Stone, a weapon so powerful it’s said to realise any wish, the stone has been split into four pieces and lost around the world. When Gan and Ai learn about this sinister plot, they take flight to foil the Doronbow Gang’s dastardly plans. Did you get all that? Good, it’s time to step inside Takashi Miike’s deranged mind once again; it’s time to go a little insane. Albeit, in a family friendly, all singing, all dancing kind of way...Continue reading review.

Yatterman trailer

Order your copy here

More DEATH BELL posters, than you can shake a Hammer at

Always the way. No sooner do we mention that the trailer has dropped for upcoming Korean horror Death Bell 2, and then they go and release a ton of new things for us to see. The films official site has just gone live, and there’s a stack of new character posters to check out.

 

 

 

 

Death Bell 2 official site

Teaser poster for the Pang bros horror THE CHILDS EYE 3D

It’s getting closer. The release date for Oxide and Danny Pangs The Childs Eye 3D - the latest instalment in their hugely popular horror series - is fast approaching, and new media is starting to leak onto the net. Our latest find is the films teaser poster, which as far as we can tell, not even the Hong Kong movie sites have gotten hold of yet. The Childs Eye is set to open in Hong Kong late summer, which should mean a trailer soon!

Synopsis: Stranded in Thailand by the political uprising and airport closure, Rainie and her friends were unable to return home. Reluctantly, they decide to stay in an aged and shabby hotel. Among them is Rainie’s almost-breakup boyfriend, Lok, Ling and her brother Rex and Ciwi with her beloved boyfriend, Hei. The moment they check into the hotel…they come across three weird children and a puppy that seems slightly odd. As strange and sinister things start to happen, they begin disappearing one after another………

24frames makes it into THE HIDDEN FORTRESS trailer!

A rather spiffy UK trailer for Higuchi Shinji’s 2008 reboot of Akira Kurosawa's ‘The Hidden Fortress’ has hit the web, and we have two very good reasons for mentioning the fact. One, they’ve done a bang up job with the trail, and resisted the recent UK trend to plaster it with God-awful 'Mr Voiceover' narration. Two, tucked in at around 40 seconds, is the first quote (that we know of) in a movie trailer, crediting a certain Asian, world and cult horror movie news website. Suffice to say we’re well pleased with the recognition, and here’s to many more to come. The Hidden Fortress goes on sale in the UK via 4Digital, on June 28th. Trailer at the link.

 

 

Hidden Fortess UK trail

EXAM: UK DVD review

Director: Stuart Hazeldine. Review:Pete Higgins. Eight candidates. One job. One room. One security guard. No windows. Eighty minutes to work out the answer to one question. Problem: there is no question. Or is there? No. Yes. Maybe. There are definitely lots of rules. Such as: don’t spoil your answer sheet – instant disqualification. Don’t talk to the security guard: instant disqualification. Some other ones that I can’t quite remember right now. Anyway, breaking any of these rules results in, you guessed it, instant disqualification. No prizes for predicting that, pretty soon, we’ll have whittled the eight apprentices down to a more manageable number. And no prize for predicting that things are going to descend into sub-Lord-of-the-flies madness before this is all sorted out.

But what is the actual job that these young, thrusting candidates are all so eager to get? What is the nature of the shadowy organisation that seems to be in control of their destinies? Tantalising clues are dropped throughout so that we slowly build up a picture of the near-future world in which the story takes place. Not an entirely convincing picture, however. There are several problems: firstly, the acting is variable, to say the least. The only “star” in the room is Jimi Mistry, who acquits himself adequately throughout. Colin Salmon is hardly in the film at all, which is a shame, as it could use more of his effortless charisma. The rest of our heroes are cocky and brash but two-dimensional...Continue reading here.

Exam official site

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