Fist of Feat, Touch of Death | Blu-ray (The Film Detective)
RELEASE DATE: May 15, 2020
If you’re one of those (Donnie, Mike, Shannon, China, etc) who think Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood was disrespectful to the legacy of Bruce Lee, then the following news is a must-have in your collection! (read our review for the 40th Anniversary Edition)
A video staple since its Wizard Video VHS release in the early ‘80s, Fist of Fear, Touch of Death is now getting a surprise 4K restoration from The Film Detective, straight from its original camera negative!
The pseudo-documentary’s plotline ostensibly surrounds a martial arts tournament conceived to find the heir to Bruce Lee’s kung fu throne. Along the way several contemporaries, like Fred Williamson and Ron Van Clief, must traverse inquisitive fans and New York muggers to get to the event. Older footage of Lee is repurposed as events from his life, while narrator Adolph Caesar apparently has no idea that Japan and China are different cultures. Grandmaster Bill Louie dresses up like Kato and protects some female joggers from assault. Film from the Madison Square Garden competition is shown, including a match of World Kickboxing Champion Lou Neglia. Williamson condemns the whole idea of replacing Bruce – not that that stopped anyone.
Special Features:
4K Restoration from the original 35mm camera negative
Interviews with producer Terry Levene, scriptwriter Ron Harvey, and actor Ron Van Clief (Black Dragon’s Revenge)
Directer: Mathieu Weschler Cast: Steven Seagal, Fan Siu-Wong, Ting Sue, Vithaya Pansringarm, Yu Kang, Fan Mei-Sheng, Rudy Youngblood, James P. Bennett, Sergey Badyuk, Cha-Lee Yoon, Kat Ingkarat, Bayra Bela, Kang Yu Running Time: 85 min.
By Paul Bramhall
The last time Steven Seagal undertook one of his passion projects we ended up with 1994’s On Deadly Ground, a bombastic environmental action thriller in which Seagal asks us “What does it take to change the essence of a man?” It would take until 2018 for another Seagal magnum opus to grace our screens, during which time we’ve only had to suffer through close to 40 horrendous DTV productions (ok, some of them were kind of fun), but its finally arrived in the form of Attrition. “I’ve written something…which kind of reminds me of a (Akira) Kurosawa movie” Seagal claimed during pre-production, and (according to an interview in the making-of featurette) is based on his “own personal experiences in one way or another.”
Attrition has had a bumpy journey to the screen. One of its producers was Bey Logan, the Hong Kong cinema expert who became embroiled in various allegations when the #metoo movement swept through Hong Kong in 2017, leading to him (according to Logan himself) volunteering to have his name removed off the production. Considering Seagal himself would have similar allegations levelled against him soon after, I’m not sure it was a move which had any benefit. Logan’s stamp is clearly on Attrition when you look a little closer – it’s directed by Mathieu Weschler, who’s last gig was helming the Logan produced The Borderland, Ross W. Clarkson is on camera duties, who directed the Logan produced Vixen the same year, and it co-stars Fan Siu-Wong, who’s friendship with Logan saw him choreograph the action in the fiasco that was ShadowGuard.
Things didn’t get any easier when it came to its actual release, with a bizarre announcement coming in September 2018 that Attrition would only be available to purchase through a new VOD platform called 365 flix. One of the platforms creators was Philippe Martinez, who produced Attrition alongside Logan and Seagal, and now in 2020 it seems to have disappeared without a trace. Echo Bridge Entertainment eventually picked it up and released it in August 2019, leading me to speculate that while Seagal was in the midst of the sexual misconduct allegations (no charges were pressed in the end), likely no distributor wanted to touch it, so the producers attempted to create their own platform to get it out there.
But enough of all that, what about the movie itself? Attrition opens the same way many a Seagal movie has opened in the past 10 years – he plays a Special Ops agent named Axe, decked out in his usual bandana (which I believe first appeared in Half Past Dead), orange sun glasses, and leading his ‘crew’ through a hostile environment. I swear, if someone told me Seagal was fooled into filming a Special Ops movie 10 years ago, only to find its scenes have been broken up and inserted into every movie he’s made since, well, I’d find that easier to buy into than Richard Harrison’s ninja movie woes. Things go wrong, they’re unable to save the female hostage they’d been sent to retrieve (who, in true Seagal movie form, is found gratuitously naked), and after spending 3 years up a mountain Seagal moves to Thailand to do his best impression of Wong Fei Hung and open up his own Po Chi Lam.
At least, it’s clearly Thailand onscreen, although everyone there either speaks Mandarin or English, so perhaps its filmed in the same universe as Triple Threat. For those who found Seagal’s Buddhist themed musings in The Glimmer Man to be heavy handed (and there he at least had Keenen Ivory Wayans to counter-balance), Attrition takes it to the next level. Seagal also penned the script, and if you were to take his 7-minute closing speech from On Deadly Ground, change saving the environment to Buddhist philosophy, and stretch it out over 85 minutes, that may give you some idea of what to expect. Frequently accompanied by slow motion rain, one such sampling of the many nuggets of wisdom Seagal bestows upon us has him explain that “The mind is infinite, but the body is finite.” Indeed, and so is Attrition’s runtime, clocking in at just 85 minutes, which for the most part works to its benefit.
The plot of Attrition was heavily publicised, involving a kidnapped girl with mystical powers that forces Seagal to temporarily put his peaceful ways on hold, and get the old crew back together for a rescue mission. Onscreen though, the girl in question (played by Thai-American actress Ting Sue) shows precisely zero of these so-called mystical powers. Apart from appearing like a floating apparition in Seagal’s dreams (in which she dispenses lines like “Axe, your destiny awaits you”, and sometimes appears topless) and characters mentioning she has mystical powers, it almost feels like needing to show what they are is a part of the script Seagal forgot about. Oh well.
When Seagal isn’t blathering about in his clinic like some kind of God incarnate able to heal anyone he lays a hand on, we do actually get some action. Attrition comes with the best action pedigree of any Seagal movie since Ching Siu-Tung directed him in 2003’s Belly of the Beast. Under the guidance of the German based foursome that make up Reel Deal Action Design, the style of action is more focused on kung-fu (specifically Wing Chun) than it is Seagal’s usual Aikido. Can Aydin, who can be seen in the Jackie Chan vehicles Kung Fu Yoga and Vanguard is on action director duties, with Phong Giang (One Million K(l)icks) handling fight choreography (and also stunt doubling for Seagal), and Tanay Genco Ulgen (Ultimate Justice) on action design. It’s Cha-Lee Yoon (The Girl in the Spider’s Web) who keeps the busiest, pulling triple duty as stunt coordinator, Fan Siu Wong’s double, and playing a character in front of the camera.
The crew’s skills are complemented by a cast that includes the aforementioned Fan Siu-Wong, and Yu Kang shows up as the main villain. Yes, the same Yu Kang who’s featured in almost every Donnie Yen movie for the past 15 years, and most recently threw down against him in the finale of Big Brother. Perhaps the most unexpected aspect of Attrition though, is that it reunites Fan Siu-Wong with his legendary father, Fan Mei-Sheng. The pair haven’t appeared together in a movie since Siu-Wong’s headline debut in 1992’s Story of Ricky, so seeing them share the screen together again is a nice bonus for fans of Hong Kong cinema, even if it is in the clumsy context of Siu-Wong being Seagal’s ‘martial brother’, and Mai-Sheng their master.
I sense that Weschler himself is somewhat of a Hong Kong cinema fan, as the cinematography throws in some subtle nods here and there, none more so than a shot-for-shot recreation of Yuen Qiu’s introduction in Kung Fu Hustle. Despite his relative inexperience, Weschler shows a keen eye for visuals, highlighted in one particular scene where we see someone’s hand go through a meat grinder in reverse. There’re some nice touches in other aspects of Attrition as well, like when it’s revealed that the filling for Yu Kang’s punching bag is one of his (barely alive) victims, and the fact that proceedings end with Seagal taking the stage to belt out a blues number over the credits while the cast dance along. One of those is being sarcastic.
For the finale Seagal gets his old crew back together, complete with onscreen names (Infidel, Yinying, Scarecrow, and Hollywood!). Embarrassingly, one of them is played by Rudy Youngblood, the breakthrough star of Apocalypto. Remember him? I guess no one else does either. The rest are rounded out by Kat Ingkarat (Troy: The Odyssey), James P. Bennett (Black Water), and Sergey Badyuk (because Seagal has Russian citizenship now, so hey, you have to have a Russian in there somewhere!). Despite the effort to reunite them, they’re given surprisingly little to do, with the finale mostly dedicated to Seagal and Siu-Wong doing their thing. Seagal faces off against Yu Kang with a sword, while Siu-Wong goes toe-to-toe with Lee Yoon (yes, his own stunt double) in a fight that pits axes versus Wing Chun knives. Expect chain punches aplenty, terrible CGI blood, and doubling you could spot from a mile away for Mr. Seagal.
Attrition ends (well, before Seagal straps on his electric guitar) with an On Deadly Ground style coda, as Seagal narrates his woes of how traditional martial arts values are being eroded away, and how we all have to find inner-peace. Indeed. In interviews Seagal states that Attrition is the first time he’s been so heavily invested in a production for years, however when the bar you’ve set for yourself is already as low as it can go, it was never going to be difficult to create a moderately entertaining 85 minutes. It may be meant as Seagal’s love letter to kung-fu, but it’s equally his love letter to himself. If you can digest his constant musings and self-love, Attrition is a fun little action flick, it just seems to think its something a whole lot more.
On May 26, 2020, Severin Films is releasing the Blu-ray for Satan’s Slave, a 1980 Indonesian thriller from cult director Sisworo Gautama Putra (The Warrior).
Read the official details below:
In 1980, Indonesian exploitation studio Rapi Films and writer/director Sisworo Gautama Putra (Primitives) unleashed the singular chiller that rocked the Muslim nation, transformed the country’s genre film industry, and remains one of the most influential shockers in Asian horror history!
While mourning the death of his mother, a troubled teen discovers a nightmare world of restless spirits, supernatural vengeance and occult terror with “an intense creepiness that stands the test of time” (The Jakarta Post). Ruth Pelupessy (The Snake Queen) and W.D. Mochtar (Mystics in Bali) star in this “classic from the Golden Age of Indonesian horror” (Monster!) – now scanned from the original negative and packed with all-new special features!
Features include:
Satan’s Box Office: Interview with Producer Gope T. Samtani
Indonesian Atmosphere: Interview with Screenwriter Imam Tantowi
Satan’s Slave Obsession: Audio Interview with Remake Director Joko Anwar
Short Films Inspired By SATAN’S SLAVE By Remake Director Joko Anwar: Jenny (2016)/Don’t Blink (2016)
On May 12, 2020, VCI Entertainment, the U.S. distribution company that recently released 1980’s The Leg Fighters under its kung fu banner The Pearl Collection, will be releasing the Blu-ray for Dynamo.
Check out details from the label’s man-in-charge, Micheal Worth:
The next release in VCI’s imprint The Pearl River Collection will be Dynamo (1978) starring Bruce Li. The transfer will be sourced from a 35MM uncut English print, but also include a 16MM alternate cut sourced from a 2K scan!
Bonus Materials:
NEW 2K RESTORATION OF ORIGINAL UNCUT 35MM ENGLISH PRINT
BONUS 2K SCAN from a 16mm alternate cut
Audio commentary by filmmaker and Kung Fu Film fan Michael Worth (author of The Bruceploitation Bible) and UK radio sensation Iain Lee
The Taiwan Connection – Michael Worth’s Journey to Meet a childhood idol: Bruce Li (15-minute original documentary)
Kung Fu Reborn: Featurette on restoration and preservation of Kung Fu film elements
Drawing Dynamo: featurette on cover artist Ian McEwan
Theatrical Trailer to Dynamo
Film essays by Michael Worth and bulletproof Cinema
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for Law Wing Cheong’s Iceman, starring International martial arts icon Donnie Yen (Special ID). A remake of the 1989 film Iceman Cometh, Yen plays a Ming era warrior who, along with his three traitorous childhood friends, are accidentally buried and kept frozen in time. 400 years later, they are defrosted and continue their battle in modern times where they left off.
Iceman also stars Eva Huang (Kung Fu Hustle), Wang Baoqiang (Lost in Thailand) and Simon Yam (The Thieves). Don’t miss our review!
White Crane Chronicles: Kung Fu Killer Parts 1 and 2 | Blu-ray (Mill Creek Entertainment)
RELEASE DATE: June 9, 2020
On June 9, 2020, Mill Creek Entertainment will release the Blu-ray for 2008’s The White Crane Chronicles, starring the late, cult film icon David Carradine (True Legend). This double feature includes Kung Fu Killer Parts 1 and 2 (not to be confused with the Donnie Yen film of the same name).
This 2-part TV movie follows a monk (Carradine) in Shanghai who infiltrates the underworld to find the killers of his spiritual female Grandmaster.
In 2016 alone, over 1 million drivers across the U.S. got arrested for driving under the influence.
If you fall under this category, you might feel your world has crumbled. However, you can come out of a DUI and get your life back on track.
If you’re not sure what to do when you get a DUI, you came to the right place. Read on to get started.
Write Everything You Remember Down
After you’ve been arrested for a DUI, everything might feel like a blur. It’s normal for you to try to piece everything together so you can make sense of what happened the night before.
As you piece together the night before, make sure you write everything you remember down. Even if you think a detail is too small, it might help you in the future.
Start by writing down everything that happened by the hour. For example:
8:00 p.m. left house to meet friends
8:30 p.m. arrived at the party
11:30 p.m. decided to go home
11:45 p.m. got pulled over by cops
12:15 p.m. got arrested
Making a timeline is helpful because it will allow you to make your case when you show up in court.
Aside from writing down the timeline, you should also write down any relevant information you remember.
Location where you got pulled over
Speed you were driving
Time you got pulled over
Initial conversation with the police
Sobriety tests the police made you perform
Your answers you gave the police
Unusual or unfair treatment
Once you have sobered up and settled down, write as much information as you remember.
Call a DUI Attorney
If you were arrested for a DUI, you will need to call an attorney even if it was your first offense. You might want to contest the charges or help you with your guilty plea, so the right DUI lawyer should be on your side.
While the court might assign you a public defender, it’s advised you get a lawyer who will focus on your case. If you don’t have the funds to pay for an attorney, you might be able to find a pro bono lawyer.
Make Your Information Private
Those convicted of a DUI should set their online profiles as private. The last thing you want is for the state to try to build a case against you by looking at your social media accounts.
If you posted photos of the night you got the DUI, you should delete all of those photos. It’s also a good idea to ask your friends to delete any photos from the night.
Opposing counsel might also use things on your social media to make a case about your character. The last thing you want is for them to use old Twitter posts as a reflection of your character.
If you have questions about whether or not you should delete your social media accounts, your DUI attorney should be able to advise you. Of course, you could also delete all of your social media accounts until everything has been settled.
Get Ready for Your Court Date
As the date of your court date approaches, make sure you’re well prepared for it. Talk to your attorney a few days before if you have any questions about what to say or do.
When you show up in court, you have to look your best. The judge won’t be as sympathetic if you look like you just rolled out of bed.
Don’t wear baggy pants
Women should avoid showing cleavage, legs, and mid-section
Men should wear a button-down shirt, slacks, and tie
Women should wear a nice blouse, slacks, and a professional skirt
Clothes should be clean, well-fitted and wrinkle-free
It’s also important to arrive on time for your court date, so leave your house with plenty of time to spare.
Also, you should remain well-composed and only speak when spoken too. Try to keep a neutral face and avoid smirking, laughing, or anger gestures.
Accept the Consequences
No matter if it was your first offense, you will receive a punishment for driving under the influence.
Although the severity and conditions of a DUI punishment vary by the state, they are generally the same for a first-time DUI offense. You can expect some of the following:
Up to $500 fine
50 hours of community service
Up to six months in jail
Up to one-year probation
Up to 180 days without a license
Driver education course
It’s up to the judge to decide which of the above you will receive. Having a good DUI lawyer will also play a part in you receiving a lesser punishment.
Whatever your punishment is, make sure your punishment is, make sure you begin right away. If you have to complete volunteer hours, make sure you get started right away.
Work on Getting Your License Back
If you get convicted of a DUI, you can expect to lose your license for up to 180 days.
It’s important you carry out your sentence as the court mandates. Failure to do so will only add more time to your punishment.
However, if your need to drive to get to school or work, it could be possible for you to obtain a hardship license. With a hardship license, you will be able to drive under certain conditions.
Get Your Life Back
Once you’re done serving your sentence and got your license back after a DUI, it’s time to move on with your life.
First, you will need to work on getting car insurance back. If your current car insurance drops you, you will have to find a new one. You can expect to have a higher monthly payment and deductible.
Once you deal with all of the paperwork, it’s time you focus on making different decisions, so you don’t end in the same situation twice.
What to Do When You Get a DUI: The Bottom Line
Now that you know what to do when you get a DUI, it’s time you start moving forward with the process.
After you get a DUI, you should write everything down, contact an attorney, appear in court, accept the consequences, get your license back, and move on with your life.
If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more, check out the rest of our blog.
Director: Kim Hong-Sun Cast: Bae Sung-Woo, Sung Dong-Il, Jang Young-Nam, Kim Hye-Jun, Cho Yi-Hyun, Kim Kang-Hoon, Jung Yun-Ha, Baek Yoon-Sik, Kim Lee-Kyung Running Time: 113 min.
By Paul Bramhall
The current South Korean fixation with bad-ass priests continues with Metamorphosis. Capping off the holy trilogy of 2019, following the release of The Divine Fury (MMA priests!) and Svaha: The Sixth Finger (occult detective priests!) earlier in the year, the latest entry is easily the most straightforward of the trio, in that it pits a priest whose struggling with his own demons against, you guessed it, an actual demon. So far, so The Exorcist (or for a more recent example, Korea’s own The Priests).
The fourth movie from director Kim Hong-seon, since his 2012 debut The Traffickers Hong-seon has stuck to what he knows best with the crime genre, helming middling efforts like The Con Artists and The Chase. Known for his gritty aesthetic, it’s not entirely unreasonable to believe that the horror genre could be the one for him to shine. Hong-seon has enlisted Bae Sung-woo as the priest in question this time. Arguably one of the busiest working actors in Korea, Sung-woo is instantly recognizable from the myriad of supporting roles he’s played over the last 10 years, with perhaps his most impactful one being that of an office worker who murders his own family in 2014’s Office.
Metamorphosis opens with Sung-woo performing an exorcism of a girl who’s been possessed. The scene is an effective one, with some welcome usage of practical effects for gore, and in many ways it’s an opening which sets the tone for the remaining duration. As effectively executed as it is, the sight of a girl tied down to the bed and firing off expletives like they’re going out of fashion is one we’ve seen a hundred times before, so if Hong-seon’s latest isn’t looking to break the mould, it better do what it does exceptionally well. Nearing the culmination of the exorcism, a moment of weakness causes proceedings to take a turn for the worse, climaxing in the demon promising it’ll return to tear Sung-woo’s family apart.
It’s a line that shifts the narratives focus to the family in question, as we’re introduced to Sung-woo’s estranged brother (Sung Dong-il, RV: Resurrected Victims), along with his wife (Jang Young-nam, Confidential Assignment) and three kids (Kim Hye-jun, AnotherChild, Jo Yi-hyun, Homme Fatale, and Kim Kang-hoon, Exit). After the families affiliation with Sung-woo sees them need to relocate, they settle into a house purchased through an auction over the other side of town, where they believe a fresh start awaits. Of course, this is a horror movie, so their expectations are dashed pretty quickly. From a mysterious neighbour who keeps them up all night with what sounds like some kind of sawing, to the fact that certain members of the family begin to act in increasingly disturbing ways.
The change in focus proves to be a good move, as Hong-seon displays a deft hand at ramping up the suspense in what’s supposed to be the safety of the new family home. What exactly is the neighbour doing every night that’s so noisy, and why are certain family members acting so out of character. It’s not a spoiler to say that the demon in question manifests itself as a shape shifter, able to take on the form of anyone in the family unit. As a result, the tension the scenario brings is closer to the type found in John Carpenter’s The Thing than it is your typical supernatural horror flick. Both ourselves as the audience and the characters onscreen begin to question if who they’re interacting with really is who they look like, or is it the demon?
In all fairness, when it is the demon it should be rather obvious. From Dong-il’s visit to his daughter’s bedroom in the middle of the night to eye her up and down, to Young-nam’s feral eating habits at the breakfast table, it’s clear that somethings not right. The fear of the unknown, combined with the more traditional visceral shocks, keep Metamorphosis a suitably edgy experience, and one that successfully plays on the fear of those closest to us not being who we think they are. Events eventually lead to the family giving Sung-woo a call, in the hope that he’ll be able to get to the bottom of what’s going on, and have things return to normal.
Ironically it’s Sung-woo’s return that begins to show cracks in the coherency of Metamorphosis. Sung-woo himself puts in an admirable performance, but there are aspects of the plot which raise certain question marks. The best example of this is a scene in which he explains that Hye-jun must be the demon, as he reveals the water he poured for everyone is holy water, and she’s the only one that didn’t touch it. By the logic established so far, then the assumption is that the real Hye-jun is somewhere else, however the implication is that the demon has actually possessed Hye-jun, which up until this point hasn’t been the case.
There are also throwaway lines in the script that indicate deeper meanings, but never come to fruition, such as when Dong-il muses on how lucky they were to secure the house, and how he couldn’t believe no one else bid on it. Presumably that’s because there’s some kind of evil associated with the house itself, but no, the line is never re-visited. I can only guess it really was the case that it just so happened nobody else bid on it. The biggest faux pas in Metamorphosis though comes when a main character is killed off, and not only does it cause literally no impact whatsoever, but nobody even seems to notice they’ve gone! Whether it’s a pacing issue, or that somehow it looked like it was adequately covered in the script, onscreen it comes across as completely bizarre.
Sung-woo’s return also introduces a character played by the legendary Baek Yoon-sik (Inside Men). Both Yoon-sik and Dong-il co-starred in Hong-seon’s previous movie, TheChase, and clearly enjoyed working with him enough to return. Yoon-sik plays a senior priest residing in the Philippines, who’s called upon by Sung-woo to come and assist with exorcising the demon. Yoon-sik’s presence is always a welcome one, and brings a sense of gravitas to proceedings the same way an actor like Ahn Sung-ki does. Tragically the Philippines settings also has him wrestle with a scene that involves a sermon being delivered in English, and a round table discussion that has a group of foreign priests arguing amongst themselves as to what kind of demon it is comes across as unintentionally amusing.
With an effectively tense build-up, Hong-seon ultimately can’t sustain it for the duration, and while the finale of Metamorphosis ticks all the boxes to conclude the tale, it still feels underwhelming in its execution. With such a saturated market for exorcism movies, being able to conclude one effectively in a way that feels fresh must be a challenge for any director, however here there’s no real sense of impact or catharsis. Not for the first time in a Korean production (Train to Busan, I’m looking at you), the elements that deliver the most entertainment – in this case the gory imagery and the uneasy tension – are forsaken in the finale to indulge in some unwarranted melodrama.
Despite this though, Metamorphosis still manages to be an entertaining slice within the exorcism sub-genre (disclaimer: I’m not even sure if that’s a thing, but let’s assume it is). The gory effects work is a highlight, particularly the neighbour’s house and the discoveries that reside inside it, harking back to the likes of early 00’s thrillers like Tell Me Something. My main issue with Hong-seon’s latest is that it should have been so much more.
Metamorphosis is at its best when witnessing the demons effects on the family, as tempers begin to fray and seeds of discord begin to bear fruit, with legitimate scares being wrung from the demons outbursts of violence in the guise of different family members. When these elements are the focus then the tension is palpable and there’s a genuine sense of fear, both of which dissipate once the script decides to play with its own logic, sacrificing the one thing that gave it a unique slant compared to its contemporaries. With the right expectations, or if you’re simply a fan of watching men in dog collars take on the forces of evil, then there’s enough here to warrant a watch.
Indonesian writer/director Ranjeet S. Marwa (Godforsaken) is currently hard-at-work preparing his next film, Blood Rush, which starts filming later this year. Timo Tjahjanto (director of The Night Comes for Us, Killers) will act as the film’s production consultant.
Currently, plot details for Blood Rush are being kept under wraps, but Marwa is describing the action/thriller as “a symphony of chaotic violence…. unlike anything that has come before.”
We’ll keep you updated on Blood Rush as we learn more.
Updates: FCS reports that horror icon Tony Todd (The Crow, Candyman) is in final negotiations to star in Blood Rush. The same source adds that production has since scaled back from plans for a summer shoot, now aiming closer to a Fall season start date due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
On March 24, 2020, Bayview Films is releasing the DVD for Sang-Hoon Ahn’s 2015 thriller, Witness. It stars Yang Mi (Reset) and Lu Han (The Great Wall).
This movie is unique for the fact that both movies were made by the same director, Ahn Sang-hoon. While it’s not the first time for a director to re-make one of their movies for a different territory (notably Takashi Shimizu directed the American remake and its sequel of his early 2000’s J-horror series Ju-on: The Grudge), it is the first time for an Asian director to remake one of their movies within the region.
The story itself is based on the Audrey Hepburn starring 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark, and sees a police trainee who loses her sight become the target of a psychopathic killer, of whom she’s the only witness to one of his murders. While the Korean version progressively heads into darker territory, with a finale that’s more representative of a gory slasher than the thriller it starts out as, the Chinese version goes the opposite direction. How opposite? Well, it ends with a completely misguided pop concert performance by teen idol group member Lu Han. Go figure.
Katsuhiro Otomo’s seminal Anime classic Akira will soon be exploding onto IMAX screens in its full, newly remastered 4K glory.
Akira revolves around a secret military project that endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psionic psychopath that only two kids and a group of psionics can stop.
IMAX and Toho Studios released a poster that has a release date set for April 3rd, but considering the circumstances, our bet is that this re-release has been has been pushed back indefinitely.
For now, check out a recent promotional Trailer for Japan’s 4K Ultra HD blu-ray release:
Director: Kim Byung-Woo Cast: Ha Jung-Woo, Lee Sun-Kyun, Jennifer Ehle, Kevin Durand, Malik Yoba, Spencer Daniels, Shin Hyun-Bin, Ahn Seong-Bong, Kim Sun-Hyuk Running Time: 124 min.
By Paul Bramhall
The Korean film industry has an interesting relationship with the action genre. A mainstay of the countries cinematic output for a long time, it was ultimately an action movie which brought Korean cinema to international attention with 1999’s Shiri. Skips forward 20 years, and the dynamic has changed considerably. Korea consistently cranks out movies containing some of the most innovatively bone crunching action scenes around, however rarely do the productions that such scenes appear in brand themselves as action. Instead, the art of action has become an integral part of a wide range of genres – thrillers, crime, gangster flicks, and police procedurals to name a few.
So where does that leave the action genre itself? There have been a few titles which have fearlessly branded themselves as action movies – in 2006 Ryoo Seung-wan unleashed City of Violence, a stylish but poorly paced fight flick, and in 2013 Won Shin-yun gave us The Suspect, a well-staged action spectacle undone by overly eager editing. In short, it’s a genre that’s struggled to be what it says on the tin, too frequently undone by overly bloated plots, or people in post-production who don’t understand that how action is shot is just as important as how it’s performed. With that being said, we still seem to get a movie out of Korea every few years that proudly labels itself as an action flick, and the latest of those is Take Point.
The third movie from director Kim Byeong-woo, Take Point reunites him with leading man Ha Jung-woo, who anchored his sophomore feature The Terror Live in 2013. The opening credits lay out an intriguing premise through a mix of news clips and phone calls, as we learn that the year is 2024, and the U.S. economy has been plunged into chaos. The cause, as it turns out, began with the U.S. lifting the sanctions off North Korea after a successful meeting between the two countries leaders. Without the political restrictions, North Korea partnered with its economic juggernaut of a neighbour, China, and their combined manufacturing industries come to supply most of the world’s economies, leaving the U.S. trailing behind. Unwilling to leave things as they stand and with an election on the horizon, the U.S. president orders the CIA to orchestrate a change to the North Korean regime, and he doesn’t care how they do it.
It’s a smart premise, and one that plugs directly into current fears on the Korean peninsula, as the power-plays of both the U.S. and China often find South Korea in the crosshairs due to circumstance. As smart as it may be though, as soon as the credits stop rolling, it becomes clear that Take Point is more likely to be described as a glorified action B-movie than it is an intelligent action flick. Taking a leaf from the likes of The Dirty Dozen and Eastern Condors, a cynical CIA operative played by Jennifer Ehle (Zero Dark Thirty, Fifty Shades of Grey) enlists an off-the-radar black-ops unit comprising of illegal aliens residing in the U.S.. With the promise of citizenship as a reward, the crew gather in a sprawling underground bunker that resides between the two Korea’s, where a key meeting will take place between both countries. Their job? Kidnap an important North Korean General, and bring him to the South. Of course, things don’t go to plan.
Led by an ex-paratrooper played by Ha Jung-woo (The Handmaiden, Assassination), the rest of the group comprises of various nationalities, all of which means that for the majority of its runtime, Take Point plays out in English. Thankfully we’re a world away from the foreign ‘talent’ that used to populate HK flicks of old, instead featuring a cast with names like Kevin Durand (Legion, Resident Evil: Retribution) and Malik Yoba (Cool Runnings, Cop Land). Bizarrely, director Byeong-woo has decided to lumber them with a variety of dodgy accents. Despite this though, they’re still more comprehensible than Jung-woo. Jung-woo is one of Korea’s brightest acting talents, and while he does an amicable job, the sheer number of lines he has to get through in his non-native tongue inevitably leads to instances of needing to rely on the subtitles.
Almost identical to Steel Rain which was released the year prior, the plot device of North Korea’s Supreme Leader (amusingly referred to here as ‘King’) showing up where he’s not supposed to is used to crank up the tension, and also like in that movie, he ends up critically injured and in the hands of the South. Onscreen this all plays out via a lot of gratuitous gunfire, with Jung-woo and his crew heavily outnumbered, in a series of entertaining set-pieces which incorporate a number of high impact first-person shots. Much like The Terror Live was restricted to a studio, almost all of Take Point is restricted to the confines of the underground bunker, indicating that director Byeong-woo is a fan of one-location scenarios (and if you also consider Tunnel, Jung-woo is becoming the go-to actor for featuring in them).
For the most part it works, however Byeong-woo’s obvious fondness of ‘Boy’s Own’ style adventures leads to some painfully clichéd scenes. Jung-woo’s smoking habit comes across as more to do with looking cool than it does a genuine character trait, and if you think that’s bad wait until he whips out his whiskey hip flask as they prepare to start the mission. At its worst, when the Mexican member of the team is marked as the guy who’ll bust down the doors and secure the Take Point, we have to sit through Jung-woo giving him a stirring speech about how soon he’ll be able to open that farm he’s been dreaming of, and live a peaceful life with his family. As expected, said character bites the dust a few minutes later.
Thankfully Lee Sun-kyun (Jo Pil-ho: The Dawning Rage, A Hard Day) is on hand as a member of the North Korean entourage that becomes dependant on Sung-woo to survive, and also provides an opportunity for them both to converse in Korean, offering a welcome refrain. It’s when a member of Jung-woo’s team double crosses them that provides a pivotal moment in Take Point’s structure, as after a well-staged shoot-out that displays some great camerawork, Jung-woo finds himself incapacitated and unable to leave the room he’s in. Thanks to the technology available, involving plenty of monitors and hi-tech looking devices, he can still communicate with the rest of the team, however Byeong-soo inexplicably takes the decision to keep the audience in the room with Jung-woo as well. What this means for us is that, for almost half the movie, we’re essentially watching a series of video calls.
Sure, they may be video calls with people running around corridors firing big guns, but at the end of the day, they’re still video calls. The format unfortunately removes some of the impact we should probably be feeling to what unfolds, instead acting to remove the sense of immediacy from the action. As the majority of Jung-woo’s team lack any kind of real characterisation, they also become largely interchangeable. It often feels like the most meaningful time we spend with them is when we see the red cross get stamped across their image on a large monitor, signifying they’ve been killed off. All of this culminates to create an experience where it’s difficult to connect with the blatant crisis at hand. The stakes are sky high, but really, we just want Jung-woo to complete his video call and move onto the next one.
Byeong-woo seems to realise that, and decides to overcompensate with the finale, which ditches the bunker setting and becomes a bombastic sky-diving spectacle. Let’s have the conversation – sky-diving finales are risky. Released in a year when Tom Cruise performed a HALO jump in Mission: Impossible – Fallout (which wasn’t even the finale!), and following on from the likes of Jackie Chan’s own sky-diving finale in 2012’s CZ12, if you’re going to do one, it has to be spectacular. That starts with being done for real, which Take Point’s clearly isn’t, even if the green screen work is stellar. However the real crime here is that the pacing of it is off, and the attempt to connect it to an earlier flashback sequence fails to resonate. In short, it would have been better if they’d stayed in the bunker.
Despite these criticisms, with the right expectations Take Point is a decent enough action flick. What it could really have benefitted from, is spending less time on trying to convince us it’s a big blockbuster, and more time on embracing its B-movie roots. Wedged between Ha Jung-woo’s performance in Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden, and Lee Sun-kyun’s performance in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, if nothing else, it’s an opportunity to see both actors have some fun in an unpretentious slice of mindless action cinema.
The H-Man & Battle in Outer Space: Double Feature | Blu-ray (Mill Creek)
RELEASE DATE: June 9, 2020
On June 9, 2020, Mill Creek Entertainment will release a 2-Disc Double Feature for 1958’s The H-Man and 1959’s Battle in Outer Space – this release marks the Blu-ray debut for both films.
Travel back to the days before CGI, when special effects were real and the results were spectacular! Director Ishiro Honda (Godzilla) and special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya ( Godzilla and Ultra Series) bring these wildly colorful kaiju eiga to life in this high-definition double feature presentation.
In The H-Man: Brought on by hydrogen bomb fallout, H-Man is a slimy green monster that dissolves human tissue and anything else in its path on contact. Scientist must figure out how to stop this creation. Contains both the American and Japanese edits for The H-Man; In Battle in Outer Space: The nations of the Earth unite in a common cause to fight off an invader from outer space.
There are a number of Netflix series that are set to leave while some are set to be concluded. Atypical is set to conclude while Chewing Gum, Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War, The L word and Happy Valley are set to be excluded from the Netflix playlist.
Hence, you will now have plenty of time to focus on your https://www.toponlinecasinos.co.za/ games. Since there will not be that many distractions now.
Atypical
Netflix is set to air the fourth and final season of Atypical. The film which focuses on the Garner family and their tribulations was well received on Netflix.
Their most recent season was released in November last year. However, the date of release of the last season is still set to be announced.
Chewing Gum
The British comedy series which stars Michaela Coel is set to leave Netflix. The season which premiered 2015, is about a 24-year-old shop assistant named Tracy.
Freemantle, who are the owners of the series’ licence, still have a decision to make on whether or not the season streams next.
Happy Valley
Happy Valley is set to leave Netflix this month. The series is about a British police Sergeant who obtains information about a crime that would lead to an old case involving her late daughter.
Both season 1 and 2 are set to exit Netflix on March 16, 2020.Did you know that you can play a slot game that is related to happy Valley at new zealand online casinos and stand a chance to win big.
Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War
Infinity war will leave Netflix in June 2020. It will be aired on its new home, Disney+.
The L Word
The series is set to leave Netflix on the 20th of this month. The L Word currently has six seasons and is about a group of lesbian friends. Among the group, there are lovers also. Netflix’s streaming licence of the show has come to an end.
Dad’s Army
Dad’s Army will be leaving Netflix this month. The series which has nine seasons is about an armed British citizen militia made up of two old and tow young men who fight in the front line of World War 2.
Father Brown
Father Brown is a crime drama about a Catholic priest who solves crimes. The series has nine seasons but only six are available on Netflix. The series will expire from Netflix in March 2020.
Movies are fun, entertaining and therapeutic just like online roulette game. There are different genres to watch depending on what you like. Talking of genres, horror movies are fun. They keep you glued to your screen, entertained and they keep you on the edge of your seat. There are some that are too scary that repeating or watching that movie again you would think twice. We are going to talk about horror movies that are too scary to watch again.
Lake Mungo
This 2008 movie is one of the movies that is difficult to watch again. It is about a family trying to put information together trying to find what led to the drowning and death of their daughter. The images that come up when they recover the phone are not something you can watch twice. They leave chills and unforgettable pictures in our heads. Which is one reason that this movie made it to this list.
The Orphanage
The Orphanage was released in 2007. It is still one of the scariest movies. From the concept, the scenes and the graphics they look and feel so real that you would imagine meeting the ghost in real life. This movie is about when Laura’s son goes missing in her orphanage. There are spirits that she hears, are they there to help her find her son or not?
Whistle And I’ll Come To You
This ghost story was adapted from a story, Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad. After coming across a whistle as he was exploring, an introverted academic’s life changed as the whistle would unleash spirits that would terrorize whoever discovers it. Unlike the book the movie is horrifying. The graphics, the images of the ghosts and supernatural spirits are something you would not enjoy watching twice , just like best sports betting websites.
Black Christmas
This movie was released in 1974 but it still gives chills. Knowing that people are getting killed and going missing every day. You suspect a serial killer but you just have no idea how close he is and how far he can go in killing his victims. That is what this movie is about. The killing scenes, the brutality is so disturbing you would not watch again.
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