Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray set for Criterion Collection’s Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman film collection. This deluxe set features a string of 25 Zatoichi films, made between 1962 and 1973, in one complete package. That’s about $4 a movie.
In addition, you also get a 1978 documentary about Shintaro Katsu, an interview with Asian-film critic Tony Rayns, trailers for all films, new English subtitle translations, plus a book featuring an essays, short stories and 25 new illustrations, not to mention DVD versions of all the films.
Action filmmaker Daniel Zirilli has a pack of films that are currently brewing, including Invincible with Marko Zaror (Savage Dog) and Johnny Strong (Sinners and Saints).
Now, The Asian Connection filmmaker is recruiting martial arts film favorite Gary Daniels (Cold Harvest, City Hunter) for an upcoming actioner titled Bad Reputation.
“Gary and I worked together 10 years ago. I wanted to make a film with him in the lead, and finally have the go. It takes time, but I believe Gary is an under appreciated James Bond!,” says Zirilli (via FB).
We’ll keep you updated on this project as we learn more. Until then, enjoy this classic Trailer to Daniels’ Bloodmoon:
With Netflix’ upcoming Wu Assassins and John Wick 3(not to mention Roger Avary’s Lucky Dayand The Driver), Mark Dacascos (Showdown in Manila, Ultimate Justice) is enjoying a much deserved career resurgence – and now – the martial arts star is getting the ultimate comeback by reuniting with director Christophe Gans for the Live-action adaptation of the swashbuckling comic book Corto Maltese.
Gans directed Dacascos in two movies that – along with Drive – are considered the most-acclaimed of Dacascos career: Crying Freeman and Brotherhood of the Wolf. In the film, the martial arts star will co-star alongside Tom Hughes (Victoria), Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil), James Thierrée (Chocolat) and possibly Michelle Yeoh (Reign of Assassins), who is in-talks to join.
In the film, Corto Maltese has been hired by a Chinese revolutionary group to hijack the armored train of the Russian Emperor Czar Nicolas II that is transporting his gold from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok with multiple schemes to capture this priceless treasure (via Variety).
Keep it here for more updates regarding Corto Maltese.
Dutch kickboxing champion Rico Verhoeven is set to star in, and co-produce The Black Lotus with Tom de Mol and Marcel de Block, the duo responsible for producing The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
According to THR, The Black Lotus — inspired by action classics such as Man on Fire and Taken — will see Verhoeven play an ex-military operative on a revenge mission to save the woman he loves.
Verhoeven recently had a supporting role in the recent Kickboxer: Retaliation, which starred Alain Moussi, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mike Tyson.
Producers are currently seeking a director and writer for a 2019 shoot.
Is this China’s answer to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Ready Player One? Doubtful. Directed by Han Yan (The House That Never Dies), this forthcoming cyber-punk actioner is titled Dream Breaker, and judging from its trailer, one can expect a visual, Blade Runner-ish treat.
According to THR, Dream Breaker stars actress Chen Duling (Namiya) as a young woman who must fight her way through a mysterious, holographic game world designed by her late father to avenge his death. Rising star Song Weilong (Catman) plays the love interest, while the provocative Japanese filmmaker, actor and artist Sion Sono (Tag, Why Don’t You Play in Hell?) executive produces.
Dream Breaker hits domestically on November 9th. Check out the film’s Newest Trailer below:
Despite their doors being shuttered over a decade ago, Tower Records is a place that continues to loom large in many consumers’ nostalgic hearts. Don’t believe me? Just watch 2015’s All Things Must Pass, which –– while not a great documentary –– is admirably devoted to preserving the memory of the once great entertainment franchise. For media fans all over the globe, Tower served as a one-stop shop for vinyl and CDs, magazines, and other wares. Back in the pre-Blu-ray era, my local Tower was also the premiere destination for Asian films on DVD, and I spent countless weekends hoping to find the next mind-melting kung fu or action movie.
In fact, I owe Tower Records for introducing me to perhaps our greatest purveyor of extreme Japanese cinema: the one and only Takashi Miike. In those early Internet days, it was honestly difficult to find information on any Japanese movie that wasn’t called Battle Royale. So imagine my surprise when I wandered through the Foreign Film section at Tower Records and a knowledgeable employee (who I mysterious never saw again) began chatting me up about this director named Miike, whose work was just now finding its way to American shores. I was intrigued by the cover art and descriptions for a bevy of movies that couldn’t have appeared more disparate: the chilling bait-and-switch of Audition, the manga-come-to-life that is Fudoh: The New Generation, and the zombie-comedy-musical Happiness of the Katakuris. Any of those films would have been an ideal starting point for a budding Miike fan, but for some reason my interest was drawn elsewhere.
“Fudoh – The New Generation” Japanese Theatrical Poster
Maybe it was my love of Asian gangster movies; maybe it was the evocative title; or maybe it was the Tower employee assuring me that the film contained the first ever parody of The Matrix’s bullet time. Either way, my introduction to Takashi Miike came with my purchase of City of Lost Souls that afternoon. It’s a Miike effort that is discussed rarely, if ever, these days, but in its own way it worked as a stellar entryway into Miike’s mad, mad world, and in any event, by the time the credits rolled I knew I needed to see more.
On the surface, City of Lost Souls is your standard lovers-on-the-run tale, not so different from the Tarantino-penned True Romance, as the Brazilian-Japanese protagonist Mario and his Chinese girlfriend Kei (played by iconic Nineties Hong Kong actress Michelle Reis) find themselves in the crosshairs of Chinese Triads and Yakuza crime bosses while stranded in a country that would love to see them deported. In Takashi Miike’s hands, however, City of Lost Souls becomes a live-action cartoon, crackling with the kind of manic energy and punk rock attitude that defined the opening ten minutes of his 1999 breakthrough Dead or Alive. Early in the film, we watch as Mario and Kei leap out of a helicopter and land on their feet as unharmed as the Road Runner. Later, the lovers lie asleep in bed as a spider crawls across Kei’s shoulder, only for it seamlessly merge with her skin as a tattoo. I haven’t even mentioned the cockfight where the chickens imitate Keanu Reeves’ gravity-defying kung fu. If it isn’t already clear, we have departed reality and entered Miike land. And it is a terrifying and wonderful place to be.
There’s a touch of social commentary here, as Mario’s heritage speaks to the fact that Brazil is home to the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan, and many of those Japanese have faced discrimination when migrating back to their homeland. That said, City of Lost Souls is not a film concerned with realism –– realism would only get in the way of the fun Miike has in store, like two crime bosses engaging in a deadly game of ping-pong. This is a film defined by Miike’s go-for-broke lunacy, making it an exemplary work of this period of his career, when he was just beginning to carve out a niche for himself away from the Direct-to-Video market.
“The City of Lost Souls” International Theatrical Poster
By selecting both Time & Tide and City of Lost Souls as influential films in my life, it’s obvious to me that my teenage self was most impressed by visual inventiveness and kinetic action. Saying a movie resembles a music video carries something of a stigma these days, but there was a time when filmmakers as diverse as Wong Kar-wai and Takashi Miike were adopting the fluid camera work, surreal lighting, and rapid-fire editing regularly found on MTV in the Nineties, and using it to innovate global cinema. There’s a certain roughness around the edges to City of Lost Souls, and one senses that Miike’s heart may not have been in it the way it was for his more esteemed works, but its devil may care stance and irreverent humor earn it a place in the Miike canon. It’s also one of the few Japanese action movies I can think of that reflects the ethnic diversity of modern Tokyo.
My sense is that City of Lost Souls is not a film that immediately springs to mind when considering the work of Takashi Miike. I myself am actually due for a rewatch –– it’s been years. But there are sequences and moments peppered throughout the movie that have stayed with me in the decade since, and, much like Time & Tide, it was a film that transformed me from casual viewer to full-fledged connoisseur. Little did I know when I plucked City of Lost Souls from the shelves at Tower Records, but I was taking another early step into the world of collecting (and obsessing) over Asian action cinema. Directors like Takashi Miike have ensured it’s been as wild as a helicopter ride with Mario and Kei.
An upcoming documentary, titled Femme Fatales: Seen & Unheard, is in-the-works from actress, martial artist, producer and director, Maria Tran (Truy Sát, Tiger Cops). The full press release follows…
For the past decade of her life, Fairfield-based filmmaker Maria Tran has devoted her life in making Hong Kong cinema homage action films in her backyard. She and her female led film production company Phoenix Eye will soon be embarking internationally across South East Asia investigating the role of Asian action cinema and the role of women for her self-funded independent documentary titled Femme Fatales: Seen & Unheard.
Traveling from Hong Kong to Vietnam and then finally the Philippines, they will be interviewing and interacting with former and current female action stars, emerging actors, martial artists, film directors, producers and academics who will share their insights and experiences.
“If there’s one thing I would like to add to Australian cinemas, is female-led stories in the martial arts action genre. This project will allow me to connect with some of the world’s most talented, showcase their plight and allow the film industry to see the often-unspoken contributions of women in this male-dominated genre,” says Maria.
Mike Leeder, who has worked with action megastars such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen and Jean Claude Van Damme and is known as an expert in Asian action cinema is on board this project as associate producer.
“Australia used to have its own brand of genre cinema, action, horror, martial arts and more! Action is international, it doesn’t need you to understand the language, the culture or the politics, it’s the cinema of the underdog! We all need a hero or a heroine!,” adds Mike.
We’ll keep you updated on Femme Fatales as more updates are available. For now, don’t miss the production Trailer below:
Warner has enlisted Andy Muschietti to direct an English language, Live-action adaptation of the popular manga series, Attack on Titan. Muschietti is best known for 2013’s Mama and the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s It.
Written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama, Attack on Titan is set in a world overrun by giant, man-eating creatures known as Titans (via Collider).
Director: Kim Sung-Hoon Writer: Won Shin-yun Cast: Hyun-Bin, Jang Dong-Gun, Jo Woo-Jin, Kim Eui-Sung, Jeong Man-Sik, Lee Sun-Bin Running Time: 129 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Less than 3 years ago Korea spawned one of its most unlikely breakout hits, with the zombie action thriller Train to Busan. While personally I didn’t find the concept of zombies on a train to be executed as entertainingly as it could have been, there’s no doubt that many did, and there’s already been a US remake announced as being in development. Surprisingly, on local soil zombie mania didn’t take hold the way many expected it to, and it wasn’t until the beginning of 2018 that rumbles of another Korean zombie flick began to appear on the net. When I first heard there was going to be a production featuring zombies in a Joseon era setting, I’d hoped that it meant Ryoo Seung-wan’s long gesticulating period zombie movie Yacha had finally secured funding.
Alas my hopes were unfounded, however I figured a Joeson era zombie movie is still a mighty cool concept, regardless of who’s in the director’s chair. It’s one of those ideas that’s more difficult to get wrong than it is to get right – I mean, zombies running around in ancient Korea, why did Seung-wan have such a hard time getting his idea off the ground 10 years ago!? In any case, in 2018 the idea has come to fruition in the form of Rampant, helmed by director Kim Seong-hoon and scripted by Won Shin-yun (director and writer of Memoir of a Murderer). It’s been 2 years since Seong-hoon’s sophomore feature, the entertaining action comedy Confidential Assignment, and Rampant reunites him with leading man Hyun Bin, who’s kept himself busy in-between with starring roles in The Swindlers and The Negotiation.
Sure enough, Rampant hits the ground running with an assured opening. After some arms dealing with the Dutch on a merchant fleet sees one of the Korean ensemble get bitten by a rabid Dutchman (sounds like the name of a pub), the bitten victim soon finds himself back on home soil with an unquenchable appetite for meat. When his wife returns to their abode to find him feasting on their child (note: this sounds much more graphic than it is, which is to say, not at all), it kicks off the beginning of a zombie outbreak in the small port town. Naturally, this should be the part when all hell breaks loose, but as it turns out Rampant has other ideas. Instead, the plot quickly changes its focus to provide the audience with a dose of palace intrigue, as we’re introduced to a paranoid emperor convinced members of the palace are planning an uprising against him.
Paranoid emperors, so sure of the conspiracies being plotted against them, are to palace intrigue what vengeful students seeking to avenge their master’s death are to kung fu movies. We’ve seen it 1000 times before, so it better be done well. The emperor in question is played by Kim Eui-sung (the selfish businessman from Train to Busan), and there is indeed a plot being hatched against him, but it’s by his trusted Minister of War, played by Jang Dong-gun (Seven Years of Night), rather than those he suspects. When the pure hearted son of the emperor (played by Kim Tae-woo in a special appearance) commits suicide in front of his father, in order to spare the lives of his wrongly accused colleagues, it prompts his brother (Hyun Bin) to return to Joseon from Qing to find out exactly what’s going on.
If you’re wondering why a whole paragraph of zombie movie plot description has gone by with no mention of any zombies, then you’re not alone. Seong-hoon’s movie is a strange one, and more than once it feel like the zombies are a distraction rather than the main attraction. The tone veers wildly all over the place, from the horror of the initial scenes, to the heavy handed seriousness within the palace, to the comedic hijinks of Hyun Bin. Indeed, Hyun’s character of the crown prince is more interested in checking out if Korean women are as beautiful as the Chinese, rather than indulging in any royal duties. Together with his bumbling sidekick, played by Jung Man-sik (Asura: City of Madness), it’s Hyun who stumbles across the zombie outbreak, upon arriving at the same port town where it started, only to find it deserted.
What follows the discovery leads into the first zombie attack, in which we learn the undead of Rampant also share some vampire like characteristics. While their appearance may be distinctly zombie like, they also suffer from being exposed to sunlight, meaning they can only come out at night. Admittedly watching Hyun slash through zombie hordes with his oversized sword is a lot of fun (and a zombie death involving him thrusting said sword while one is biting down on its blade is a standout), however the first scene also serves to highlight everything that’s wrong with Rampant’s zombie concept.
First up – they’re just not that scary. A zombie should have you living in mortal fear that one bite could turn you into an undead cannibal like them. However the zombies here seem more likely to run into the edge of a sword than have any real chance of mauling someone. Their blatant lack of intelligence is another factor, and never get their numbers up to a level where you legitimately feel a sense of danger. In a depressing trend, all of the complaints I had against Train to Busan are likewise applicable here – there’s no imaginative zombie deaths (with the exception of the one mentioned in the previous paragraph), and nothing that could truly be described as horrific ever actually happens. Much like in Train to Busan, here being overwhelmed by a group of rabid zombies has never looked so bloodless.
Speaking of blood, it’s another issue, as almost all of the blood on display is for the most part CGI, and 2005 looking CGI at that. The hacking and slashing has very little impact, when the blood you’re witnessing has so clearly been added in post-production. Any level of realism is further damaged by the fact that, despite Hyun wading through several waves of undead attackers, his white costume has barely a stain on it in comparison to how many he’s killed. If you’re afraid of making a zombie movie too bloody, then maybe it’s time to rethink if you should be making one at all. Rampant needed to take a page out of Japan’s I Am a Hero, but instead it seems to have looked towards the latest palace set K-drama for its inspiration, with the inclusion of the zombies too often feeling like a novelty rather than a threat.
Even within its own bland set of rules, Rampant strays from its own logic. By the time the inevitable happens, which sees Hyun (who’s now accepted his destiny and rekindled his love for Korea) versus Dong-gun (who’s now become a super-zombie human hybrid), most of the audience will be too busy questioning what’s going on rather than paying attention to the lacklustre sword clanging. Indeed it’s never clearly addressed exactly why Dong-gun manages to avoid fully turning into a zombie, and instead opts for looking like he has a hangover from hell paired with anger management issues. However even less convincing is Hyun’s apparent turn-around from the responsibility shunning, skirt chasing Qing dweller, to Joseon loving king of the people, full of compassion and bravery.
It’s fair to say that Rampant has a bizarre undercurrent of not so subtle patriotism running through it, one which feels more like it belongs in a Park Geun-hye era production than something out of 2018. The final scenes make it clear that a love for one’s country is far more important than any zombie outbreak, a tone which stretches to supporting characters death scenes as well. There are a number of minor character deaths which are inappropriately given swathes of melodramatic screen time, despite us not really knowing much about them, or really caring that they’re dead. It’s a zombie movie, characters are supposed to bite the dust, stirring music and emotional final speeches aren’t required every time.
I said at the beginning that a Joseon set zombie movie would be almost impossible to get wrong, so if anything, Rampant proves that nothing is impossible. What should have been an entertaining zombie romp, combining hanboks and horror, has somehow come out as a dull and lifeless (no pun intended) exercise in monotony. When you have hordes of the undead that don’t feel like a threat, you have a movie that’s destined to fail, and that’s the biggest problem here. Just like the zombies are missing a pulse, although it pains me to say it, so is Seong-hoon’s latest.
Renny Harlin, noted Hollywood film director known for his 90’s blockbusters Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger, is preparing to helm Operation Wild, which we believe is a totally different film than Operation Somalia (Harlin’s other ‘operation’ film that’s also in-the-works).
The upcoming thriller will be Harlin’s fourth (or fifth, if Somalia is still happening) Chinese film, following Jackie Chan’s Skiptrace and the upcoming Bodies at Rest and Legend of the Ancient Sword.
According to AFS, Operation Wild involves two elite combat warriors from China and India who lead covert forces to shut down a global, wildlife poaching, criminal organization.
That’s all we know folks – but keep it here for more updates.
On March 5, 2019, Well Go USA will release the Blu-ray/DVD for Burning (read our review), from director Lee Chang-Dong (Green Fish, Oasis, Secret Sunshine). This 2018 Cannes winner stars Steven Yuen (The Walking Dead) and Yoo Ah-In (Veteran) and Jun Jong-Seo (via THR).
Jong-soo, a part-time worker, bumps into Hae-mi while delivering, who used to live in the same neighborhood. Hae-mi asks him to look after her cat while she’s on a trip to Africa. When Hae-mi comes back, she introduces Ben, a mysterious guy she met in Africa, to Jong-soo. One day, Ben visits Jong-soo’s with Hae-mi and confesses his own secret hobby.
Director: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire Cast: Joe Cole, Vithaya Pansringarm, Panya Yimmumphai, Somluck Kamsing, Billy Moore, Nicolas Shake, Sura Sirmalai, Sakda Niamhom, Komsan Polsan Running Time: 117 min.
By Kelly Warner
We first meet British boxer Billy Moore preparing for a small kickboxing match in Thailand. The fight doesn’t go well for Billy. After the bout, he surrenders to his drug of choice, yaba (known as the ‘madness drug’). We don’t get to know much more about Billy before the cops kick down his door and lock bracelets over his wrists, but it’s clear that he is a lost soul in a foreign land. Whether he wanted this – maybe he purposefully lost himself in drugs and violence – is never really addressed. Billy barely understands Thai and the film does not allow the audience to understand much more than he does. Most the dialogue in the film goes untranslated. The result is that we, like Billy, feel a bit lost and lonely, too.
Billy is thrown in prison for his use of narcotics. He’s suffering from withdrawal, a lack of understanding, and overwhelming despair. On his first night, Billy is locked up with the general population, who all share one big floor as a bed. Rolling back and forth on the floor in pain, Billy hugs his nearest sleeping neighbor. A transwoman in the cell tells him to stop that; he’s not sleeping, he’s dead. And this is the good part of the prison. But after an altercation over spilled water, Billy is thrown out of gen pop and in with the harder criminals. Gangsters, all of whom are covered with tattoos, taunt and threaten Billy as soon as he steps into his new cell block. That first night there is a gang rape, the next morning there is a suicide.
A Prayer Before Dawn is a grueling, brutal true story about human suffering and devastating loneliness. When a prisoner steps out of line and lies to the guards, they drag him off and beat him, with his cries playing over loud speakers for all to hear. Desperate for his numbing drug, Billy takes jobs beating up prisoners that the guards don’t like in exchange for the yaba. But this only fuels his self-loathing, leading him spiraling down into the abyss. I was occasionally reminded of Midnight Express, the classic 1978 prison film from Alan Parker that shook me up with its portrayal of hell behind bars.
Billy is played by up-and-comer Joe Cole (Green Room), who brings the goods whether he’s raging against a prison population that doesn’t understand him or silently absorbing the mental torment of loneliness in hell. Most the cast is made up ex-inmates from the Thailand prison system. I cannot comment on their line readings in Thai but I always thought them an authentic, powerful force on camera. The only other actor of note is Vithaya Pansringarm (Only God Forgives), who plays the rarely seen prison warden. The real Billy Moore, who wrote the memoir on which the film is based, also has a cameo appearance.
At the heart of A Prayer Before Dawn is a story about overcoming your obstacles and overcoming yourself. Billy finds reason to wake up in the morning when he joins the prison’s boxing team and starts taking lessons from a tough to please coach. Billy also begins a relationship with a transwoman prisoner named Fame, one of the only people in the prison to show him compassion without asking for anything in return. Good days mix with the bad as he has to fight off his addiction while also fighting to improve his boxing skills. Eventually he gets a match that earns him both fans and enemies in the prison.
A Prayer Before Dawn is a pretty good movie – well acted, authentic in a way that you forget you’re watching a dramatization, and it refuses to pull its punches – but it lacks a certain narrative drive. It’s a slow film. And the suffering on top of suffering makes it feel like a long one, too. I wish we had gotten to know Billy more before he got arrested, so that we could’ve known him before he started to lose himself. Was even a good boxer? The only match we saw on the outside was a loss, so I don’t know. He has one Thai friend on the outside that comes to visit him once, but their conversation offer little new information and I do not think we even learn the kid’s name.
Before an all-important bout, Billy begins vomiting blood. He’s told by a doctor that he cannot fight, that his condition is very serious. Of course he ignores this and continues with the boxing match anyway because he needs to win. Maybe this is how it unfolded in real life. But for the movie, it feels like engineered drama rather than earned drama; just one more thing to throw into the mix to make the final fight that much more important and dangerous.
Considering how brutal the drama is, the fights are surprisingly more reserved. Though Joe Cole looks convincing as a kickboxer, the filming style for the matches is to hug the camera so close to the fighters that we barely see the punches and kicks. I guess director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (Johnny Mad Dog) was simply more interested in Cole’s face than he was his fists. But the result is that none of the fights are very special, except for what they mean to Billy.
A Prayer Before Dawn is a dreary, mean, ugly film. But it achieves a sort of realism that’s not easy to dismiss in cinema. You kinda can’t take your eyes off it. I just wish the film had offered us more reason to get behind Billy as a character. We feel for him – I guess the same way that we feel for a number of the other prisoners who were punished too severely for their crimes – but we never really get to know him beyond his struggles. I won’t dissuade anyone from seeing the film for themselves and making up their own minds, though, because there is something special at work here. It’s just not enough for me to give it my full endorsement.
The first film saw the story of a firefighter (Cha Tae-Hyun) who is taken to the afterlife by three guardians. Once there, he completes in seven trials before he can be reincarnated.
Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days stars Ha Jung-woo (The Handmaiden), Ju Ji-hoon (Asura: The City of Madness), Kim Hyang-gi (A Werewolf Boy), Lee Jung-jae (Operation Chromite), Ma Dong-Seok (Train to Busan), Kim Dong-Wook (Take Off) and Doh Kyung-soo (My Annoying Brother).
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