Veteran Hong Kong director/writer Jeff Lau (Treasure Hunt) is currently putting finishing touches on Assassins and the Missing Gold (aka Heavyweight Assassin), a martial arts film starring Max Zhang (SPL 2), Ada Choi (Fist of Legend), Andy On (Outcast) and Hung Yan Yan (Double Team), who is also handling the film’s action choreography.
Assassins and the Missing Gold is about a group of assassins attempting to track down a stash of hidden gold, according to SD.
Black Eagle: Special Edition | Blu-ray & DVD (MVD Rewind)
RELEASE DATE: February 27, 2018
The MVD Rewind Collection have announced an upcoming 2-Disc Blu-ray/DVD release for Black Eagle, a 1988 actioner starring Sho Kosugi (9 Deaths of the Ninja) and Jean-Claude Van Damme (Kill ’em All). The film is directed by cult director Eric Karson, who helmed Chuck Norris’ The Octagon and Olivier Gruner’s Angel Town.
One of the US Air Force’s most modern tactical aircrafts, a F-100 with a new laser guidance system, crashes into the sea near Malta – a region where the Soviet forces are highly present, too. The CIA immediately sends out their best secret agent Ken Tami (Kosugi) to salvage the system before it falls into enemy hands. To ensure his loyalty, they bring his two young sons to a nearby hotel on the island. Ken Tami’s tough opponent is KGB agent Andrei (Van Damme).
The film also stars Kane Kosugi (Zero Tolerance), Shane Kosugi (Pray for Death), Doran Clark (The Warriors), Bruce French (Mission: Impossible III), Vladimir Skomarovsky (Martial Outlaw) and William Bassett (Black Dynamite).
Special Features:
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations of the main feature
Original 2.0 Stereo Audio (Uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray) and Dolby Digital 5.1
Includes 93 minute theatrical version + 104 minute uncut extended version of the film
Sho Kosugi: Martial Arts Legend (HD, 21:26) (featuring new 2017 interviews with Sho Kosugi and Shane Kosugi and more)
The Making of Black Eagle (HD, 35:50) (featuring new 2017 interviews with Director / Producer Eric Karson, Screenwriter Michael Gonzalez and stars Sho Kosugi, Doran Clark, Shane Kosugi and Dorota Puzio)
Tales of Jean-Claude Van Damme (HD, 19:20) (Brand new 2017 interviews with cast and crew tell stories about working with the legendary action star)
The Script and the Screenwriters (HD, 27:14) (new 2017 interviews featuring Michael Gonzales, Eric Karson and more)
Asian Horror has become a popular sub-genre for horror fiends in recent years with the arrival of directors like Takashi Miike, Chan-wook Park, and the Pang Brothers. With a few notable exceptions, the horror cinema from Hong Kong and China has some difficulty attracting world audiences, partly due to censorship in their own film industry and also due to the tendency to rely upon comedy and folktales that don’t always translate so well to audiences overseas. By comparison, South Korea’s horror cinema is almost instantly relatable to foreign audiences, because it often focuses on universal character traits like grief, revenge, and madness. South Korea’s horror films even manage to sneak their way into high art film festivals, places that would usually snub their noses at the genre if it came from almost anywhere else. But South Korea’s booming film industry is young. As a Westerner, it’s difficult to track South Korea’s horror cinema to before the late 90’s with any kind of helpful insight. Japan, however, is another story. And that’s the story I’m going to attempt to tell today.
Teinosuke Kinugasa’s A Page of Madness (1926)
Japan’s film industry dates back to the silent era. There was at least one year in the Golden Age of Japanese Film (1950s-60s) where Japanese studios outdid their Hollywood equals in terms of film output. And many of these films (but by no means all) made their way to foreign shores for audiences to discover over the years. Today, the Japanese film industry has slowed down, but that’s not to say that the country is lacking in master filmmakers. And more than a few of those filmmakers cut their teeth in the horror genre.
There are three types of film that Japan has always produced with regularity and skill; the family drama (think Ozu, Naruse, and more recently Koreeda), the sci-fi spectacles (think Godzila, Ultraman, and Gamera), and the horror film (think creepy dead girls with black hair crawling out of television sets). I’m going to be focusing on the essential horror films to come out of Japan over the years, starting with the silent era and then working our way up to modern film.
My goal in writing this piece is to share some of the best and most influential Japanese horror movies with the crowd. Your list of movies and your observations may be different from mine, and that’s cool. If I overlooked any horror classic, then please join in on the discussion by leaving a comment.
“A Page of Madness” Japanese Theatrical Poster
A PAGE OF MADNESS(1926 – Teinosuke Kinugasa)
A low-budget silent film from former kabuki onnagata actor Teinsokue Kinugasa, A Page of Madness is a stylish trip into insanity that could be considered Japan’s answer to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).
A man takes a job as a janitor in a gloomy insane asylum so that he may be close to his wife, who is now an inmate. It’s his past treatment of her that edged her towards madness and compels his guilty conscience to watch over her now.
With no intertitles, it’s not an easy film to follow. Originally silent films in Japan had a live narrator in the theatre, but the narrator’s text has been lost. Actually, we’re lucky we can see any of the film at all. Originally thought lost for forty years, director Kinugasa eventually discovered the film in a shed’s can of rice. However, even that discovery was incomplete, as there are many minutes of the film that will likely be lost forever. What survives is a surreal, impressionistic art film that’s both somber and disturbing. Whether the film was originally easier to follow and gave audiences clearer answers, we can only guess.
The film was a big box office success, though, and proved that audiences were open to more avant-garde pictures at the cinema. In the years after A Page of Madness, director Kinugusa would win a foreign film Oscar and Grand Prize at Cannes for his dark historical drama, Gate of Hell. Writer Yasunari Kawabata would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. And assistant cameraman Eiji Tsuburaya would become the godfather of Japanese special effects.
“Godzilla” Japanese Theatrical Poster
GODZILLA (1954 – Ishiro Honda)
I hesitated to add Godzilla to this list because it’s more of a sci-fi film. But take a moment to watch the original film and maybe you’ll see why I considered it essential when discussing Japanese horror.
Less than a decade after the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Toho studios created a monster that was the living embodiment of nuclear holocaust and unleashed it upon Tokyo. The result is a dark, somber story of survival in the face of radioactive oblivion. Additional subplots, like the tragedy of the Lucky Dragon fishing boat that strayed too close to an American nuclear test and the ‘radioactive tuna’, add to the paranoia of the time.
The original Godzillamay not scare audiences like it once did, but consider the anxious audiences watching it so shortly after WWII and you can imagine how it scared theatregoers in 1954.
“The Ghost of Yotsuya” Japanese Theatrical Poster
THE GHOST OF YOTSUYA (1959 – Nobuo Nakagawa)
There’s something comforting about seeing favorite horror tales remade again and again through the ages. We love our many variations of Dracula, Frankenstein, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, etc. In Japanese film, they return to the ghost story Yotsuya Kaidan over and over again. As the story goes, the samurai Iemon wants to marry the lovely Oiwa.
However, Oiwa’s father doesn’t approve, so Iemon kills him. Much to Iemon’s chagrin, this marriage doesn’t bring him the money and stature he was imagining for himself, so he decides to poison his wife and pick a new bride. In the end, the ghosts return to haunt Iemon for his murderous, greedy ways.
It’s an old-fashioned ghost story with no extra filler. Others may have a different favorite adaptation of the tale but I always come back to Nakagawa’s film. It’s a creepy, beautifully filmed horror drama. Nakagawa would return to the horror genre frequently during his career with other similar tales about curses and damnation, with films like Jigoku, Snake Woman’s Curse, and Black Cat Mansion.
Other Yotsuya Kaidan adaptations include Keisuke Kinoshita’s two-part The Yotsuda Phantom (1949) with Kinuyo Tanaka, Shiro Toyoda’s Illusion of Blood (1965) starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Kinji Fukasaku’s Crest of Betrayal (1994) with Saki Takaoka, Takashi Miike’s Over Your Dead Body (2014) featuring Ko Shibasaki, and there is even apparently an anime adaptation.
“Jigoku” Japanese Theatrical Poster
JIGOKU (1960 – Nobuo Nakagawa)
Also known as The Sinners of Hell, Jigoku provides viewers with just about the most pitiless depiction of Hell that cinema has ever seen.
The film begins a little slow with an ensemble cast of characters engaging in murder, adultery, and vengeance. Things get more interesting after our characters start to die. Shiro, the closest thing we have to a hero, goes to Hell where he finds out that he has a daughter who is drifting down a river to the underworld depths. It becomes the father’s quest to navigate Hell and save his daughter’s spirit from a terrible, never-ending fate.
Films don’t get much bleaker than Jigoku. While the storytelling on the mortal plane is occasionally uninteresting, the film has achieved classic status thanks to its bizarre horror visuals. You won’t soon forget this vision of Hell.
Jigoku is also remembered as the film that killed the Shintoho studio with its big budget and lackluster box office. In truth, Shintoho was going out of business and Jigoku was something of a last hurrah. That the film didn’t make much money certainly added to its legacy as a studio killer, though.
“Matango” Japanese Theatrical Poster
MATANGO (1963 – Ishiro Honda)
A professor, a skipper, a singer, a student, a writer, and a playboy on a pleasure cruise get battered by a storm and shipwrecked on a deserted island. There is no animal life on the island to sustain their hunger. Birds fly towards the island but then quickly avert course. The only things to eat are the giant mushrooms that grow near the center of the island. Eating the mushrooms ensures survival but it also surrenders your humanity. Fungus begins to grow inside you, making you monstrous.
In Matango, you are what you eat. Paranoia and madness kick in as the survivors turn on each other in a desperate attempt to survive. With the cast of character types and the paranoia mixed with body-horror, Matango is like Gilligan’s Island meets The Thing. The English title of Attack of the Mushroom People suggests a campier story, but it’s actually quite dark and sinister, complete with ambiguous unanswered questions.
The film caused some controversy in Japan upon its release because the mushroom infected people were said to resemble the radiation burns on survivors of the atomic bombs.
“Onibaba” Japanese Theatrical Poster
ONIBABA (1964 – Kaneto Shindo)
The literal translation of ‘Onibaba’ to English is ‘Demon Hag’ and if that doesn’t get you interested in the movie, then perhaps nothing will.
Onibaba is a film about abandoning your humanity and becoming a demon. Set in Feudal Japan, two women stalk and murder wounded samurai so that they can sell their armor to survive the war. When a man joins the women, greed and jealousy begin to fester, fracturing the unit. Later, the older of the two women (a brilliant Nobuko Otowa) dons a dead samurai’s demon mask to frighten the younger woman. But once the scare is over, the mask won’t come off.
Onibaba is an interesting mix of samurai drama and erotic horror. Kaneto Shindo, the writer of over a hundred productions and director of forty-five, was one of Japan’s most challenging and original filmmakers. Onibaba is one of Shindo’s only horror films but he shows a great understanding for the genre.
“Kwaidan” Japanese Theatrical Poster
KWAIDAN (1965 – Masaki Kobayashi)
A horror anthology set in Japan’s past from the country’s angriest political filmmaker, Masaki Kobayashi (The Human Condition).
The first story, featuring Rentaro Mikuni, has shades of Ugetsu and Yotsuya Kaidan as a samurai abandons his wife to marry a rich woman. When he returns to his wife, he finds things changed in unexpectedly dark ways.
The second story is a visually vibrant tale about a woodcutter played by Tatsuya Nakadai who is lost in a blizzard and is saved by a spirit who asks him to make a deal.
The third and best story has Katsuo Nakamura as a blind monk unknowingly spending time with ghosts every evening. Kwaidan is worth watching for the third story alone. And the anthology ends with a short about a samurai who sees a ghostly reflection in his cup of tea.
Kwaidan may not appeal to horror hounds who demand a fast-pace, gore, or bunches of scares, but as an arthouse anthology it’s tough to beat. Beautiful to look at and with lots to think about, Kwaidan is one of the best examples of classic Japanese cinema, and highly recommend it to those in the mood for something stylish and eerie.
“Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell” Japanese Theatrical Poster
GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL(1968 – Hajime Sato)
An airplane hijacking gets interrupted when a UFO flies over the plane, killing electrical systems. The pilots manage a crash landing on an uncharted desert island. From there, the passengers attempt to find supplies to survive until a rescue team can find them. But then they discover the hijacker, now with a gross cut down the center of his head. Inside the cut, the hijacker hides an alien parasite that is now controlling his mind. What follows is a survival horror story mixing in alien vampirism and some downbeat twists right out of The Twilight Zone.
Some of the film is heavy-handed – for example, the nervy American, Mrs. Neal, always has Vietnam on her mind – but it’s pretty good fun. A fine mix of science fiction and horror. The epilogue, which I shall not spoil, has one helluva twist.
“Blind Beast” Japanese Theatrical Poster
BLIND BEAST (1969 – Yasuzo Masumura)
One of Japan’s most famous authors of all time was Edogawa Rampo (it’s a pen name meant to sound like Edgar Allen Poe). His work has been made into many memorable films like Gemini, Rampo Noir, and Horrors of Malformed Men.
Blind Beast is Rampo’s tale of a blind sculptor and his mother who abduct a beautiful woman so that the artist may sculpt her. The sculpture soon grows to gigantic size.
Directed by master filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura (Giants & Toys), the film is sleazy, uncomfortable, and visually impressive. Unforgettable horror.
A sequel, directed by Teruo Ishii, was filmed in 2001 titled Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf. It was to be the final film made by Ishii and many friends and students of his work appeared in it, including Shinya Tsukamoto, Tatsuro Tamba, Sion Sono, and Lily Franky. However, cheap production values (it was filmed on video and supposedly shot at Ishii’s home) hurt the final product.
“Horrors of Malformed Men” Japanese Theatrical Poster
HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN (1969 – Teruo Ishii)
Controversial and bizarre, this fever dream of a film was banned in its native Japan because of the country’s rules against showcasing deformity in film. It’s the rare case where more people in the West may have easier access to a Japanese film than the Japanese do.
In the film, a medical student escapes from an insane asylum, adopts the identity of his doppelganger, and searches for a mysterious island that’s run by a mad scientist and his malformed men. Like a Japanese exploitation film version of Island of Dr. Moreau. It’s not always an easy film to like but you kind of have to admire the absolute craziness that’s captured on screen.
Teruo Ishii would make another noteworthy horror effort the very next year with Blind Woman’s Curse, which is similarly macabre and delirious. Both films feature Tatsumi Hijikata, who was not an actor but a dancer, and he moved his body in strange ways that Ishii used to create a feeling of unease in the audience.
“Portrait of Hell” Japanese Theatrical Poster
PORTRAIT OF HELL (1969 – Shiro Toyoda)
Portrait of Hell exists in the strange, rarely traveled territory between the prestige picture and the horror movie.
A headstrong Korean painter (Tastuya Nakadai) is hired by a samurai lord (Kinnosuke Nakamura) to paint a portrait of Hell. Our painter accepts the challenge, partly because he knows it will be controversial but mostly because of a rivalry with the samurai lord. Problem is, the Korean artist can only paint what he sees, so he must first inflict great suffering on those around him in order to properly depict the torments of Hell. He tortures his assistant, he terrifies his loved ones, and he pushes himself to the edge of madness to create his masterpiece.
It’s dark and unsavory but there’s a theatricality to it that prevents us from tumbling down into that well of despair with the characters. Nakadai and Nakamura are both excellent and director Toyoda’s visuals create disturbing wonder.
“House” Japanese Theatrical Poster
HOUSE (1977 – Nobuhiko Obayashi)
Absolutely bonkers, hilarious, and endlessly creative, House is definitely in the running for the strangest movie of all time. Telling the story of schoolgirl Gorgeous and her classmates who decide to spend some time at Gorgeous’ aunt’s country home. The aunt is very welcoming, but things quickly start to get weird. We soon learn that the aunt is actually dead, her cat is evil, the house is haunted, and they all want to eat the girls alive.
Carnivorous pianos, man-eating lamps, blood surfing tatami mats, and flying heads are just a few of the batshit crazy sights that Househas in store for you. Whether or not you’ll like the film is impossible to guarantee. But I do think it’s a movie that all serious film buffs need to seek out. You will never forget the first time you saw House.
“Evil Dead Trap” Japanese Theatrical Poster
EVIL DEAD TRAP (1988 – Toshiharu Ikeda)
Evil Dead Trap is a slasher film with a real nasty streak. A late night TV show host receives a snuff film in the mail, apparently filmed at a nearby abandoned facility. The TV host takes a film crew to investigate. It’s not long before the crew starts getting killed off one by one. Soon, our host is the only one left, and it’s up to her to unravel the mystery in a hope of making it out alive.
Slashers were beginning to grow stale in the States around this time but Evil Dead Trap plays fresh and inventive. The film spawned two sequels, neither of which quite measure up to the original.
Director Toshiharu Ikeda continued to dabble in the extreme both on the big screen and in V-Cinema, with pink revenge films in the Angel Guts series as well as the dark thriller The Man Behind the Scissors before his untimely, mysterious death in 2010. Evil Dead Trap’s writer, Takashi Ishii, would go onto create the Gonin series of action films.
“Tetsuo” Japanese Theatrical Poster
TETSUO: THE IRON MAN (1989 – Shinya Tsukamoto)
You won’t find many cooler, stranger horror films than this. Tetsuo, a cyberpunk nightmare that I’m sure made Lynch and Cronenberg proud, is independent writer / director / editor / producer / cinematographer / star Shinya Tsukamoto’s big arrival on the world stage.
In the film, a salaryman (Tomorowo Taguchi) accidentally strikes a ‘metal fetishist’ (Shinya Tsukamoto) with his car. The salaryman dumps the body but the victim survives and comes back for revenge, forcing small bits of metal into the salaryman’s body. Soon, the metal begins to grow, taking over the salaryman and making him into something monstrous.
This film influenced animation, music videos, horror movies, and sci-fi but interestingly did not necessarily predict what kind of director Tsukamoto was going to be. He is remembered as a cyberpunk filmmaker because Tetsuo remains his most popular film but there is no hint of cyberpunk influence in other later, unrelated films.
Tsukamoto would return to the Tetsuo universe of metal in sequels, though. Neither Tetsuo II: Body Hammer or Tetsuo: The Bullet Man are quite the film that the original was, but they’re both interesting, weird movies in their own right.
Other Tsukamoto horror films worth exploring include the Rampo adaptation Gemini, the Sam Raimi-esque Hiroku the Goblin, the disturbing character drama Kotoko, and the dream diving Nightmare Detective films (Nightmare Detective 2 is actually superior to the original, if you ask me).
“Battle Heater” Japanese Theatrical Poster
BATTLE HEATER (1989 – George Iida)
A hilarious horror comedy, Battle Heater (aka Electric Kotatsu Horror) asks the immortal question of what would happen if a household appliance became sentient and tried to eat people? It’s like an abandoned Stephen King idea, but funnier.
The item in question is a Kotatsu, which is a Japanese heating blanket/table for sitting on the floor, having a meal, and/or taking a nap. In the film, a lovable loser takes the haunted heater home, plugs it in, and unknowingly unleashes a hungry horror upon his apartment complex.
The film is filled with a colorful cast of characters, like the cute girl next door, the murderers upstairs, the punk rock band who practice at all hours, and the Akira Emoto engineer who takes on the heater like Ripley squaring off against the Xenomorph Queen. Add in a cool rock & roll soundtrack and you’ve got yourself an unforgettable late night movie.
Battle Heater was the first theatrical film for writer/director George Iida. He would return to horror themes again with underrated serial killer thriller Another Heaven, the apocalyptic Dragon Head, and the much maligned original sequel to Ringu, Rasen.
Before we go any further, I want to add some honorable mention for films from the 50s-80s.
Kenji Mizoguchi’s UGETSU (1953) is an absolutely beautiful supernatural drama about the tragedy of man’s ambitions and can be considered one of the best films of all time. It’s a ghost story, but I just can’t consider it a horror film, so I did not originally think to include it. Still, you should definitely seek it out. Mizoguchi was one of the titans of Japanese film and Ugetsu might be his masterpiece.
Hiroshi Teshigahara’s THE FACE OF ANOTHER (1966) stars Tatsuya Nakadai as a businessman who is horribly scarred in a workplace accident. The businessman is then given a lifelike face of another man, and the mask begins to change his personality, altering his moral code in unsettling ways.
Kaneto Shindo’s KURONEKO (1968) is a ghost story filmed with dream-like black & white cinematography about two women who are murdered by samurai and return as vengeful spirits.
If you’re in the mood for something strange, check out the YOKAI MONSTERS trilogy (1968-69). Yokai are creatures that exist in Japanese folklore (the most well-known of which is likely the Kappa). In this trilogy of films, the Yokai haunt and occasionally help mankind. The second film, subtitled 100 MONSTERS, is my favorite of the trilogy.
Masahiro Shinoda’s UNDER THE BLOSSOMING CHERRY TREES (1975) is a slow descent into hell as a wild bandit captures a woman to be his wife, and then must murder and behead strangers in order to meet her needs. There is a moment at the end that is fricking terrifying.
I struggle to label Seijun Suzuki’s ZIGEUNERWIESEN (1980) a horror film, but others do consider it such so I feel the need to bring it up here. Zigeunerweisen may be the maverick filmmaker’s masterpiece, a weirdo art film about strange friends and the mystery of a German music recording. It’s almost impossible to describe the madness and the wonder found in Suzuki’s movie. After being effectively blacklisted following 1967’s Branded to Kill, Zigeunerweisen was Suzuki’s triumphant return to form and set the tone for the interesting, more artsy final stage of his career. Zigeunerweisen is also remembered as the first truly independent Japanese feature film.
Also worth mentioning are Kihachi Okamoto’s THE SWORD OF DOOM (1966) and Toshio Matsumoto’s DEMONS (1971), two pitch black samurai dramas that double as depictions of Hell on Earth. Both films feature despicable villains in the lead roles (Tatsuya Nakadai in Sword of Doom and Katsuo Nakamura in Demons), and we watch, horrified, as their violent rage takes them on a decent into madness.
“Cure” Japanese Theatrical Poster
CURE (1997 – Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The film that made international film buffs sit up and take notice of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a director who would soon be known as one of the leading voices in the late 90s – early 00s ‘J-Horror’ craze.
A brooding, slow-burn serial killer horror movie, Cure is about an incomplete man who is able to will people into committing murders. The murderers have no memory of their crimes, just like the stranger has no memory of who he is, where he’s from, or why he’s doing what he’s doing. Koji Yakusho plays the cop who must sort through the unthinkable crimes and determine the identity of the killer behind it all.
Filmed with Kurosawa’s trademark sense of creeping dread, Cure is one of the most disquieting and memorable serial killer thrillers ever made. Some are going to argue that Cure is not a horror film; I say to hell with that. This film is disturbing, unnerving, and strange enough to qualify as horror any day of the week. An ambiguous finale, which would come to be the norm for Kiyoshi Kurosawa, leaves viewers asking all new questions as the credits begin to roll. Cure is a masterwork.
“The Ring” Japanese Theatrical Poster
RINGU (1998 – Hideo Nakata)
Based on a Koji Suzuki novel and directed by Hideo Nakata, Ringu is probably best remembered as crafting the formula on which many J-Horror imitators would be based. It also spawned sequels, crossover events, and remakes in Hollywood, South Korea, and as a TV mini-series. Some of these follow-ups were awful, some were legitimately solid films. But let’s take a step back and look at the film that started it all; Ringu is a good movie, guys.
Telling the tale of a cursed video tape that summons a ghost girl to kill the viewer seven days after watching it, it’s the sort of urban legend-type story that was made for the movies. Weirder and warmer than the Gore Verbinski remake (the best J-Horror remake of the period, by far), the original Ringu is a slow-burn horror story about trying to outlast a curse. It’s not a terrifying film, however I imagine that it may elicit a jump if the phone were to ring during the movie.
Ringu’s original sequel was Rasen, a strange story based on Suzuki’s text and directed by George Iida. Rasen was not a success at the box office or with critics, however. It was essentially erased when the studio decided to make Ringu 2 with Nakata and ignore all that happened in Rasen. Ringu 2 was better received by all, despite not actually being based on the original author’s story. The studio Toho then continued the series without Nakata. The best of which is the prequel, Ringu 0: Birthday, from horror director Norio Tsuruta (Premonition). Later films like Sadako 3D and the Ju-on crossover Sadako vs. Kayakoare fun but lack the creepy atmosphere of the original films.
The original Ringu remains the best of the long series. It’s an interesting story crafted by talented artists in a respectful way.
“Wild Zero” Movie Poster
WILD ZERO (1999 – Tetsuro Takeuchi)
Aliens invade earth, turning their human victims into ravenous zombies. Only one thing stands between mankind and total annihilation: Japanese rock band Guitar Wolf!
Directed and co-written by music video director Tetsuro Takeuchi, Wild Zero is a loud and crazy zombie movie that’s perfect for the midnight crowd. Other than the band members Guitar Wolf, Drum Wolf, and Bass Wolf, most the cast are unknowns. Our hero, Ace, must protect the girl with the help of the band as the zombies take over the town. Ace’s relationship with the girl is an unexpectedly strong part of the film.
A music fueled horror comedy isn’t the place you’d expect to find a poignant message of acceptance, but Wild Zero is not your typical movie. ROCK ‘N’ ROLL!!!
“Audition” Japanese Theatrical Poster
AUDITION (2000 – Takashi Miike)
The first Miike film to make my list is also the director’s best.Audition is a horror masterpiece, an unnerving, sick piece of work that will stick with you weeks after watching it.
A widower (Ryo Ishibashi) sets up a fake audition process with his film producer friend so that he may survey an assortment of lovely ladies with the idea of asking the right woman on a date. The widower’s plan works as he meets Asami (Eihi Shiina), an enchanting woman that seems perfect for him. They date and we see glimpses into Asami’s life that aren’t clear at first but tell the viewer enough to be wary. After pledging their love for each other, Asami promptly disappears. The love-struck widower tries to track her down, but most contacts lead to dead ends. The clues that do pan out lead to a mystery involving severed body parts and sadism. It all comes together with an unforgettable climax that ranks among the most shocking in the history of horror cinema.
Audition has fans—and detractors—the world over who have attempted to decipher the film’s intentions and meanings. It’s seen as both a feminist revenge film and a misogynist piece of trash (accusations of misogyny are common in the filmography of Miike). For my part, I think it’s a bit of both—and neither? The widower is a sleaze who went woman shopping and got more than he bargained for in the deal. But the film seems aware of this. The widower says, “I feel like a criminal,” and other parts have men complaining about the growing roles of women in the workplace. Asami operating on her own initiative is feminist but her motives and methods are monstrous. Can she really be called an avenger? Her past makes it clear that she became evil after being abused, but this does not necessarily excuse her actions (not all of them, at least).
As far as the director’s intent goes, Miike says that we’re all reading too much into it. Miike doesn’t even consider Audition to be a horror film or Asami to be a monster. In a Midnight Eye interview, Miike is quoted as saying, “She doesn’t commit a big crime, she just cuts the guy’s foot off.” Haha, that Miike. More than a decade since its release, the debate about Audition continues. In the meantime, if you’ve got the stomach for extreme horror, you should see it for yourself. It’s a horror masterwork.
“Versus” Korean Theatrical Poster
VERSUS (2000 – Ryuhei Kitamura)
Versus is what you get when you mix The Matrix with The Evil Dead, a crazy genre mash that shouldn’t work but manages to surprise you with its anything goes sense of entertainment.
Yakuza, samurai, and the undead collide in The Forest of Resurrection as a hero (Tak Sakaguchi) attempts to save a girl from the supernatural with his badass fighting skills. It’s rough around the edges – and has been called ‘so bad it’s good’ on more than one occasion – but if you can tap into its particular wavelength, you’re in for a treat.
Kitamura puts all his influences on screen in his most unfettered and honest film production. Versus reminds one of an early Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson horror film. And though it’s fair to say that Kitamura’s career did not entirely deliver on the promise shown in Versus, he remains an interesting filmmaker when given the right material (Godzilla: Final Wars was not the right material).
Kitamura frequently returns to horror genre both in his native Japan and in American film. Other notable horror works include the Clive Barker adaptation Midnight Meat Train, the dark fantasy samurai tale Aragami, and the 2017 thriller Downrange.
“Battle Royale” Japanese Movie Poster
BATTLE ROYALE (2000 – Kinji Fukasaku)
Is Battle Royale a horror film? I’m not sure if ‘horror’ is the first genre that comes to mind when I think of Battle Royale. However, I feel that a movie can’t massacre schoolkids for a dystopian government operated game without a bit of horror in there somewhere. So, onto the list it goes.
By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Battle Royale. A classroom of high school kids is dropped onto an island, given weapons, and instructed by their teacher (Takeshi Kitano) to kill each other or be executed. It’s Lord of the Flies with a machine gun.
Interpretations on what the film was attempting to say vary but the anxiety and the rage are always evident. The violent madness that Fukasaku used in his yakuza pictures is made even more disturbing when it’s children wielding the weapons. Battle Royale is, understandably, a controversial film. It received a rare R-15 rating in Japan and went without an official home video release in the United States for many years. Now, with The Hunger Games a genuine phenomenon (a series which people are quick to point out shares much in common with Battle Royale), Fukasaku’s film is being discovered by a new wave of fans around the world.
Fukasaku began filming Battle Royale II: Requiem but died from cancer after just one day of shooting, effectively making the first Battle Royale his final film. The sequel was completed by Kenta Fukasaku, Kinji’s son. Battle Royale II may be bold but it’s not very good — its intentions are muddy at best and gross at worst. Best to stick with the original film and the book on which it was based.
“Visitor Q” Japanese Theatrical Poster
VISITOR Q (2001 – Takashi Miike)
Visitor Q is Takashi Miike unplugged. A lurid, bizarre, NSFW piece of madness that perhaps best represents the sort of crazy shit that runs through the director’s head when he’s stuck filming a kid’s movie. Miike, who got his start in direct-to-video V-Cinema, filmed Visitor Q on digital video which served to make the film appear more real and intimate.
Visitor Q is about a father (Kenichi Endo) who’s failed as a reporter that decides to film a documentary about sex and troubled youth. Um, it gets pretty weird. He has sex with his daughter (a prostitute), films his son getting bullied (the son then bullies his mother), and welcomes a complete stranger (“Q”) into his home.
It’s a film about a family coming together via the most unthinkable means. And it’s quite possibly the most disturbing film of Miike’s career, which is really saying something. Thankfully, Visitor Q is blessed with a bizarre sense of humor, so at least we’re able to laugh while we squirm in our seats.
“The Happiness of the Katakuris” Japanese Theatrical Poster
THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (2001 – Takashi Miike)
A macabre tale about a family running a bed and breakfast with the bad luck of having their guests repeatedly die on them. Fearing that the deaths will ruin their struggling business, they take it upon themselves to bury the bodies in the forest, which only leads to future sticky situations.
A remake of the South Korean thriller The Quiet Family by Kim Jee-woon, Miike’s Katakuris changes things up by telling the story as a musical comedy. Miike made The Happiness of the Katakurisat the most interesting point in his career where he was transitioning from Japan’s bad boy director to one of Japan’s most popular mainstream filmmakers. As such, the film has the same madness and energy we recognize from his earlier films, while also being mainstream enough for general audiences without ever feeling like a company product.
Despite its status as a remake, The Happiness of the Katakuris is a one-of-a-kind film. In a 25+ year career with 100 films to his name, The Happiness of the Katakuris ranks among Miike’s very best. Miike’s other horror credits worth watching include the J-Horror cell phone ghost story One Missed Call, the Asian horror anthology piece Three… Extremes, and the miniseries MPD Psycho.
Many other Miike films, though not specifically horror films, are nonetheless obviously the work of a horror filmmaker. The dark fantasy Izo, the cyborg actioner Full Metal Yakuza, the Lynchian crime pic Gozu, and the extreme superhero film Ichi the Killer show Miike using horror film sensibilities in other unusual genres.
“Suicide Club” Japanese Theatrical Poster
SUICIDE CLUB (2002 – Sion Sono)
54 high school schoolgirls hold hands, smile, and jump in front of an incoming train. That senseless loss of life is only the start. Boys jump off the roof of their school, nurses jump out the window, and there are whispers of a “Suicide Club” online cheering each other on. And somehow this all seems to be linked to pop’s newest girl group, Desert.It should sound absurd but we live in the real world and we know it’s more believable than we’d like to admit.
In the hands of Sono (one of the only directors who could make Takashi Miike look “normal” by comparison), Suicide Club is a shocking, nasty movie with a tough nut of a mystery at its center. What it all means and whether it achieves all it sets out to do is debatable. But you won’t soon forget the smiling, happy children jumping to their deaths or the detective’s quest to figure it all out.
Sion Sono directed a companion piece titled Noriko’s Dinner Table which takes place during the events of Suicide Club and ties up some of the loose threads of the original film.
“Dark Water” Japanese Theatrical Poster
DARK WATER (2002 – Hideo Nakata)
After Ringu became a huge hit — wherein director Hideo Nakata adapted a horror novel by Koji Suzuki — it must’ve made sense to repeat that formula for success.
Nakata returns to direct the adaptation of another Suzuki ghost story, Dark Water, a tale about a divorcee and her child moving into a creepy apartment with a leak upstairs. After investigating further, the mother uncovers a mystery about a missing child in the building. Then, her own child goes missing, and the search inevitably brings the mother to the vacant leaking apartment upstairs. More grounded and not as scary as Ringu, Dark Water is nonetheless an expertly made horror film. One moment in the finale is positively spine-chilling.
Dark Water, like Ringu and so many other J-Horror films, was remade by Hollywood. The remake was directed by Walter Salles and starred Jennifer Connelly. Salles’ Dark Water doesn’t quite measure up to Nakata’s film but it’s still a competent little horror movie.
Following Dark Water, Nakata’s star fell off a bit. He went to Hollywood to direct the sequel to Gore Verbinski’s The Ring, but The Ring Two didn’t have the same soul as Nakata’s originals or the style of Verbinski’s remake. His other works include the internet thriller Chatroom, the Death Note spinoff L: Change the World, and the horror films Kaidan, The Incite Mill, The Complex, and Ghost Theater.
Despite being pigeonholed as a horror filmmaker, Nakata never had any intention for his career to go that way. His next film is said to be a romantic comedy.
“Ju-On” Japanese DVD Cover
JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (2002 – Takashi Shimizu)
At the turn of the new millennium, the J-Horror craze was at its zenith. Ringu might be the first and most influential J-Horror film people think of, but Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on is right behind it.
Unlike most haunted house stories where you can escape the horrors by escaping the house, Ju-on’s ghosts put a curse on all those who enter their home. The ghosts follow and torment their victims wherever they go, making them a bit like ghostly stalkers.
Ju-on features a familiar creaky ghost woman with long black hair, a villainous spirit that is a common sight in various J-Horror entries. But Ju-on’s more memorable ghostly apparition is the spirit of the young boy who screams like a cat and hangs out where you least expect him.
Time, imitations, and spoofs have weakened some of Ju-on’s scares, but the film remains an effective chiller today. The movie would spark sequels and remakes with a catalog that rivals some of the biggest horror icons – and a few of the movies are pretty dang entertaining. Ju-on: The Grudge 2 (2003) has some scares that outdo the original. Shimizu even directed the American remake, simply titled The Grudge (2004), which acts both as a remake and a sort of continuation of the original films. Further Ju-on and Grudge films were made without Shimizu’s involvement and failed to capture the style and the scares that the creator first brought to life.
Since Ju-on, director Takashi Shimizu’s career has had its ups and downs. His other horror works worth checking out include Marebito, Reincarnation, and Tormented.
“Noroi: The Curse” Japanese Theatrical Poster
NOROI: THE CURSE (2005 – Koji Shiraishi)
Found footage (or ‘first person,’ if you prefer) horror films inspire strong reactions from film fans. I’m of the opinion that what found footage lacks in cinematic flourishes it can sometimes make up for with visceral thrills. And while found footage horror remains pretty popular in the West, for whatever reason Japanese found footage films haven’t gotten many official domestic releases over here. That’s a shame because Japan’s found footage output is just as scary and, from what I have seen, generally more interesting than the vast majority of what we see in the US.
America’s found footage horror often depicts a family video gone horribly wrong, whereas Japan’s found footage horror is more often along the lines of an unaired broadcast, a fake documentary, or some recently uncovered creepypasta. (And it seems to me that Japanese filmmakers come up with better excuses for why their characters are equipped with cameras in the first place.)
Japan’s leading voice in the found footage horror scene is writer/director Koji Shiraishi, and Noroi: The Curse is commonly thought to be his best work. Noroi is the story of supernatural investigator who goes missing while tracking the clues about a mysterious curse surrounding a strange woman with a dark past. We begin the story, like The Blair Witch Project, already knowing that many of the characters we’ll soon meet are ultimately doomed from the start. Despite this, Shiraishi’s story remains endlessly thrilling because the characters are likable and the mystery is difficult to pin down.
Noroi, beyond being found footage and a ‘mockumentary’, is difficult to label without giving too much away. It plays like a special episode of Unsolved Mysteries, that creepy TV show which was responsible for more than a few nightmares in our youths.
When he’s not doing found footage horror (other notable films include Occult, Shirome, and Cult), you can find Shiraishi grossing people out with bodily dismemberment in films like Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman, Grotesque, and Teke Teke. For my part, I prefer Shiraishi’s found footage work to his gore horror.
Teke Teke and Carved could be the work of any number of other filmmakers ranging between Takashi Shimizu and Eli Roth, but Noroi and Occult are the distinct works of a particular filmmaker. Noroi, in particular, is chilling and unforgettable.
“Pulse” Japanese Theatrical Poster
PULSE (2006 – Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
A ghost story on an epic scale, Pulse is about the angry spirits of the dead finding a way into our world and overloading our reality. A story that might’ve been about personal life in death is instead made apocalyptic in the hands of Kurosawa, a director who by now was widely recognized as one of the finest horror filmmakers around.
Pulse is a creeping terror, mixing technological fears that were common in J-Horror with Kurosawa’s own anxieties about connection/disconnection. The way Kurosawa builds dread in Pulse is masterful.
Like many of Japan’s finest horror films, Pulse was remade for Hollywood audiences. Unfortunately, despite being co-written by horror master Wes Craven, America’s Pulse is a laughable impostor of the wonderfully creepy original.
For Kurosawa’s part, he would continue to make horror films throughout his career and to use his signature slow-burn style that he perfected in horror for other genres of film. Other fine Kiyoshi Kurosawa horror films include the strange saga about a tree called Charisma, the serial killer thriller Creepy, the slasher movie The Guard from Underground, and the ghost stories Séance and Retribution.
Cold Fish DVD (Salient)
COLD FISH (2010 – Sion Sono)
After she shoplifts from a pet store, a family man (Mitsuru Fukikoshi) forces his daughter take a job at the store to make it up to the friendly couple who own of the place. But the more he learns about the couple, the more he’s concerned about letting his girl work so close to them. Soon, the father gets dragged into a web of murder and intimidation. Seems the friendly pet shop owners are a pair of serial killers who chop up and dispose of corpses in the woods.
Cold Fish loses a little something in the final act when it departs from its true crime roots and goes into straight up horror territory. Uneven though it may be, Cold Fish is a film you simply cannot look away from.
Supporting actor Denden gives horror one of its most chilling performances as the pet shop’s co-owner. It’s among the best, most disturbing dramas about serial killers and human savagery ever filmed.
Let’s close things out with a few more honorable mentions spanning between the 90s and today.
TOMIE (1999-2011) is a J-Horror series about a high school girl named Tomie who drives her obsessive admirers insane.
Tetsuo Shinohara’s KARAOKE TERROR (2003) is a fun horror comedy about a rivalry between young punks and middle-aged women. Both groups take their karaoke very seriously and a misunderstanding leads to murder which in turn leads to a karaoke turf war. Best part is Yoshio Harada who wants to help the young punks defeat the ladies because he views middle-aged women as some kind of unbeatable threat to mankind. “People say that only cockroaches will survive when the Earth perishes. That’s a lie. It’s middle-aged women!”
Norio Tsuruta’s PREMONITION (2004) is about a man who finds newspaper clippings from the future which accurately predict tragedies to come. A solid supernatural thriller.
Masayuki Ochiai’s INFECTION (2004) is a gross little piece of body horror set in a hospital that’s dealing with a deadly contagion.
Sion Sono’s EXTE (2007) is a movie about killer hair extensions. It’s insane. It’s also really, really good. I don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes the universe just doesn’t make sense. A good movie about haunted hair extensions is proof of that.
Though it remains difficult to see in the US, Tetsuya Nakashima’s CONFESSIONS (2010) is thought to be one of the best and most influential horror dramas to come out of Japan in recent years. Confessions is about a school teacher who plots revenge against the students responsible for her daughter’s death. The film led a new wave of dramas about school horror and violence, including Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Penance and Takashi Miike’s Lesson of the Evil. Because of the unfortunate truth that America has a real problem with violence in our schools, these films would be viewed as extra controversial here, and so any official release seems like a far away possibility.
And Norio Tsuruta’s POV: A CURSED FILM (2012) is an enjoyable little found footage horror movie about a talk show that’s laughing their way through videos of ghosts until things start to get too real and the videos start to change after watching them.
Stretching from the silent era into the age of CGI and found footage, Japanese horror cinema always had something surprising to shock and delight us with. Japan’s horror movies remain some of the most influential on international cinema. From ghost girls and giant monsters, to psycho killers and mushroom people, there is something for everyone on this list.
And I know I’ve left some out. So, if you think I’ve overlooked some essential horror classic, join the discussion in the comments below.
“Vampire Cleanup Department” Chinese Theatrical Poster
Director: Chiu Sin-Hang Co-director: Yan Pak-Wing Cast: BabyJohn Choi, Chin Siu-Ho, Lin Min-Chen, Richard Ng, Lo Meng, Yuen Cheung-Yan, Siu Yam-Yam, Bonnie Chiu, Jiro Lee, Eric Tsang, Jim Chim Sui-Man, Stephen Au Kam-Tong, Hana Tam Hang-Lam Running Time: 93 min.
By Paul Bramhall
In 2017 the hopping vampire genre continues to hang on by a thread. After being a mainstay of Hong Kong cinema during the 80’s, when you never had to look too far to find a Taoist priest (usually Lam Ching-Ying) dealing with a member of the undead, by the time the 90’s came around it was a genre in the process of fading away. Like the hopping vampires themselves though, it didn’t stay dead forever, with director Juno Mak’s 2013 movie Rigor Mortis providing a surprisingly effective more serious approach to proceedings. It wasn’t an approach that would catch on though, and only a year later the genre was dragged back to the realms of banal comedy, with the release of the Yuen Biao starring Sifu vs. Vampire.
Which brings us to the latest entry, that comes in the form of Vampire Cleanup Department, the directorial debut of screenwriters Chiu Sin-Hang and Yan Pak-Wing. The pair deserve credit for crafting a tale which at least offers a new slant on the usual hopping vampire shenanigans, as we learn that Hong Kong has a secret government department who are solely responsible for removing vampires from society. The guide for our journey is a character played by BabyJohn Choi (who I’m assured is no relation to AngelaBaby), here in his first starring role after supporting turns in the likes of Shock Wave and SPL 2: A Time for Consequences. After surviving being bitten by a vampire, his apparent immunity leads him to being recruited by the VCD.
Much like Rigor Mortis used its casting choices to trade on the nostalgia of hopping vampire movies gone by, Vampire Cleanup Department opts for the same approach. Both Chin Siu-Ho and Richard Ng are brought back, this time as members of the same team, accompanied by the likes of Lo Meng, Yuen Cheung-Yan, and Bonnie Chiu. When you have a vampire busting team that contains members of the Venoms crew, the Yuen clan, the Lucky Stars gang, and Lam Ching-Ying’s apprentice, then the expectation for some old school yellow talisman paper waving goodness is understandably set high. However it soon becomes clear that Sin-Hang and Pak-Wing have other ideas in mind, and while the threat of a super vampire (who thought Sifu vs. Vampire would be influential!?) acts as a reason for Vampire Cleanup Department to exist, the reality is that it’s a love story.
The love story in question forms between Choi and a rare species of human vampire, played by Malaysian pop idol Lin Min-Chen, here making her movie debut. Human vampires, it’s explained, have the ability in some instances to still display human characteristics, but more importantly for the sake of aesthetics, also resemble their human form rather than a rotting corpse. After a series of events culminate in Choi secretly taking Min-Chen into his care, soon he’s teaching her how to walk instead of hop, and indulging in that old HK cinema trope of bringing her along for a family dinner. For many this will most likely seem like an insipid proposition, however onscreen the relationship, as manufactured as it is, maintains a degree of charm thanks to the pair having a likable chemistry between them.
There’s a running joke throughout involving the fact Min-Chen has swallowed Choi’s smart phone, which works even when it shouldn’t (both the joke and the smart phone), and watching Choi’s grandmother, played by Shaw Brothers starlet Siu Yam-Yam, interrogate the pair over their love life draws the desired laughs. In between scenes of the budding relationship is Choi’s training regime to become a member of the VCD, which sees him being taken under the wing of each respective member of the team. Apart from seeing Lo Meng prancing about in vampire makeup, and Yuen Cheung-Yan’s lectures on talisman use, the highlight of these are the sparring sessions he has with Chin Siu-Ho. Or as they’re referred to in the movie, vampire defence training. These scenes give some brief but welcome flashes of Siu-Ho’s kung fu skills, and are enough to make one wish he’d be given more of an opportunity to show them off.
However the influence of several Hollywood movies tends to intrude rather than entertain, with the whole VCD setup being reminiscent of Ghostbusters, right down to the sassy secretary. The introduction of a potion which also wipes people’s memories of the immediate past is also blatantly derived from Men in Black, even if it has been given a distinctly Chinese slant. The most obvious one though is the parallel between Choi’s character and Blade. It’s revealed that his mother died shortly after giving birth, having been attacked by a vampire, which is the result of his immunity to vampire bites, and also gives his blood the power to give life. While it’s true to say Choi’s personality is a world away from the brooding tax evader’s vampire hunter, the character traits are ripped straight from the same page.
Despite these similarities, Sin-Hang and Pak-Wing deserve credit for the variation they come up with in regards to the origin of the vampires. Both the super vampire and Min-Chen are resurrected from the bottom of a lake, and the belief is explained that in Chinese mythology water always conquers earth, so the fact that our villainous blood sucker came from the water to begin with doesn’t bode well. Choi’s stereotypical millennial laziness is also utilised in a comedic manner, such as instead of following his order to copy the vampire talismans, he takes photos of them with his smart phone. When the team suddenly find themselves in short supply during a confrontation, his failure to put brush to paper results in him asking if it’s possible to send them to the team via an app, with understandably disastrous results.
The lack of imagination on display in the super vampire’s design though is a disappointment, essentially looking no different to the one from Sifu vs. Vampire. Once more CGI black swirls are the order of the day, and while its appearance is suitably gruesome, the fact that it’s mostly achieved via CG makes me long for the days when being covered in factor 100 sun cream was considered a suitably vampiric look (Mr. Vampire 2, I’m looking at you). It’s a shame, as Vampire Cleanup Department heads towards a finale that pits some of the favorite faces from HK cinemas golden days against a member of the undead, but its generic appearance fails to generate any excitement for the showdown.
The action in Vampire Cleanup Department is handled by Tang Shui-Wa, and while he’s worked in the capacity of assistant action director on several movies, this is only the fifth time for him to go it solo, with none of his previous credits being particularly action orientated. The lack of experience sadly shows, as while the one-on-one sparring sessions between Choi and Siu-Ho are mildly diverting, the final confrontation that pits the whole gang against the super vampire is a distinctly uninspiring affair. To top it all off, one part of it is lifted wholesale from Blade 2, which only serves as a reminder that the finale of Guillermo del Toro’s sequel delivered a much more satisfying throwdown. I never thought I’d say a Hollywood movie is superior to a Hong Kong one when it comes to action, but it seems that day is here.
With that being said, it’s perhaps not a surprise that the most enjoyable aspects of Vampire Cleanup Department don’t involve the villainous vampire at all. A special appearance by Eric Tsang, playing a police officer, leads to a hilarious conversation with Richard Ng as they argue over who has the biggest head, and simply seeing the likes of Ng, Lo Meng, and Cheung-Yan share the screen together is a welcome sight. However coasting along on the good will of Hong Kong cinema fans can only get you so far, and clocking in at just over 90 minutes, the end product is ultimately so slight that it’s impossible to be too negative (or positive) towards it. Simply put, as a directorial debut Vampire Cleanup Department is equal parts pleasant and instantly forgettable, which probably explains why it was so difficult to review.
Director: Tony Liu Chun-Ku Producer: Chui Fat Cast: Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima, Sibelle Hu, Ben Lam Kwok Bun, Eddie Ko, Hsu Hsia, Lee Ho Kwan Running Time: 102 min.
By Paul Bramhall
The years spanning 1991 – 1993 burned the brightest for the Girls with Guns genre, a 3-year period in which an almost countless number of butt kicking femme fatales graced the screen. Names like Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima, Cynthia Khan, Sibelle Hu, and Michiko Nishiwaki became almost inseparable from the genre, one which could be argued wouldn’t exist without them. While the wave of hard hitting ladies had gained popularity with entries like Yes, Madam! and In the Line of Duty III from the previous decade, there was something in the air during the early 90’s that saw the genre explode.
One of the best things to come out of this era was the pairing of Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima. A Chinese ballerina and a Japanese action actress, the pair first appeared onscreen together as heroine and villain in the 1986 classic Iron Angels. The deadly duo would go on to co-star in a further 8 movies together, although interestingly their sophomore pairing wouldn’t come until a whole 5 years later, with all 8 of the subsequent features they’d appear in being made between 1991 – 1993. Their second time to grace the screen as a duo saw them on the same side, in the form of 1991’s Dreaming the Reality, helmed by director Tony Liu Chun-Ku.
One of the most consistent directors working in the genre, Chun-ku helmed everything from early classics such as Hell’s Windstaff and Tiger Over Wall, to zany 80’s Shaw Brothers efforts like the Bastard Swordsman flicks and Secret Service of the Imperial Court. By the time it was the 90’s, he’d become somewhat of a Girls with Guns aficionado, and sat in the director’s chair for half of the 8 Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima pairings from the period. In addition to Lee and Oshima, Dreaming the Reality also throws Sibelle Hu into the mix, an actress who came to embody the Girls with Guns genre, ever since she appeared as the commanding sergeant in 1988’s The Inspector Wears Skirts.
All three of the actresses, and director, would constantly be within each other’s orbits in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Both Sibelle Hu and Moon Lee starred in Chun-Ku’s Devil Hunters in 1989, in which Hu suffered serious burn injuries, when an explosion went off early before she could jump out of a window. In Dreaming the Reality you can see the scars she suffered on her hand, a reminder of just how dangerous stuntwork can be. The trio of ladies also featured in Chen-Ku’s The Big Deal and Angel Terminators 2.
Dreaming the Reality plays out as two separate storylines for almost half the runtime, each of which has a tone that varies wildly from the other, somewhat to the detriment of the production. The main storyline concerns Lee and Oshima as a pair of orphans, who have been raised as assassins by Eddie Ko, along with another orphan played by Anthony Cho. When a cop who’s been using Ko’s services reveals that his dealings have been exposed, and an Interpol agent is enroute to Hong Kong with a floppy disk containing all their transactions, Ko sends Lee and Oshima to intercept the disk and kill the agent, who’s transferring in Thailand.
Meanwhile, in Thailand, Hu plays a beer guzzling cigarette smoking bar owner (who naturally happens to be an ex-cop). Kind of a female prototype for Chow Yun Fat’s Tequila character in Hard Boiled if you will, which would come a year later. Hu has a brother played by Ben Lam, a talented martial artist who never quite hit it big the way he should of, who wants to be a Thai boxer. When Lam’s ambitions lead him to fall under the management of a Triad, played by Hsu Hsia (director of the likes of Kid from Kwangtung and Crystal Hunt), his change of heart to no longer fight doesn’t go down too well, and the usual chaos ensues.
For those familiar with the genre, it should come as no surprise that proceedings relocate to Thailand. Despite its popularity, the Girls with Guns flicks that populated the early 90’s landscape all came with cheap and cheerful budgets, and Thailand became a popular location that allowed the crew to get more bang for their buck, usually in a literal sense. Unfortunately the Thai setting also tended to result in one of two scenarios used to pad out the time – either extended travelogue sequences, or overly long Muay Thai matches.
Admittedly, the Lee/Oshima vehicle Kickboxers Tears also falls into the latter category, despite not having a Thai setting, however in Dreaming the Reality it’s particularly prevalent. Lam’s main match goes on for a whopping 4 rounds, which is about 2 too many. In many ways Thai kickboxing matches were to HK cinema in the early 90’s, what MMA is to modern day action flicks. Yes when it’s the real deal they’re pretty exciting to see, but as choreographed bouts, regardless of how authentic the techniques may be, they don’t lend themselves well to screen fighting, and are usually pretty dull to watch.
Thankfully the main plot of Lee and Oshima as the pair of assassins compensates for the slightly grating pairing of Sibelle Hu and Ben Lam as the quarrelling siblings. The movie kicks off with the characters still as children, learning to shoot despite their young age. Hilariously, the child version of Cho’s character then turns up and shoots the girls rabbit, which sends it flying into the air like a spring-loaded rocket bunny. It’s refreshing to see the deadly duo in such atypical roles, and there’s something undeniably cool about their Mark Gor inspired wardrobe and slow motion strutting, as they riddle their surroundings (and targets) with bullets. Naturally, a series of brief but hard hitting scuffles are scattered through the runtime, including a botched restaurant hit that has Lee and Oshima showing off their physical prowess, and a training sequence in which they face off against each other.
There’s an interesting subtext going on in the relationship between the pair, with Lee cast as the distinctly feminine, more sensitive femme fatale, and Oshima as the shorthaired straight talking tomboy. It’s never directly stated they’re in a relationship (it’s an early 90’s Girls with Guns flick after all, not The Handmaiden), however they sleep in the same bed, and when Lee states she wants to leave the world of bloodshed behind later on, Oshima’s reaction is one of a scorned lover. The influence of Dreaming the Reality’s blurred relationship dynamics can be seen in similar movies, such as Ching Siu-Tung’s Naked Weapon, however unlike Siu-Tung’s 2002 feature, don’t expect any shower scenes here.
It’s during the attempt to intercept the agent with the floppy disk in Bangkok that Dreaming the Reality picks up its pace. It’s a suitably cool scene, that features such brutality as Lee shooting off the arm of the agent who the briefcase is handcuffed too (and subsequently has Oshima running around with said briefcase, complete with the dangling limb). It’s during the escape on motorbikes that Lee is knocked down, and finds herself washed up on a riverbank with memory loss. She stumbles across Hu and Lam, mercifully bringing the plot threads together at just short of an hour, and they take her in as a worker at the bar Hu runs. Despite Lee suffering from dream sequences that see her on the run from the Thai police (hence the movie’s title), she still finds herself falling for Lam’s aspiring boxer.
As is par for the course for these movies, her memory does eventually come back, just in time for everything to go to hell. Action choreographers Lung Sang and Fan Chin-Hung, who also worked together on the likes of Fire Phoenix and Holy Virgin Versus the Evil Dead, construct a fitting finale for the genre, providing plenty of Girls with Guns. Lee and Eddie Ko get a satisfyingly impact heavy throwdown against each other, that eventually spills over into an area filled with explosive trip wires, adding a significant sense of tension to their exchange. Despite the strength of the action though, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that the extended sequences with Hu and Lam’s bickering siblings, knock Dreaming the Reality down a few notches from its full potential. Proof that a dream cast doesn’t necessarily mean a dream movie, for those that have already exhausted the best that the Girls with Guns genre has to offer, Dreaming the Reality is definitely worth a look.
After decades of muscle-bound mayhem, Arnold Schwarzenegger still continues to pump out the goods in a consistent manner. Although he may not be the box office sensation he once was in the 80s and 90s, he’s still giving the fans what they desire most: Action.
After a couple of serious outings (Aftermath, Maggie) – and fresh off his recent announcement to reunite with James Cameron for a future Terminator movie – Schwarzenegger gets back to blowin’ stuff up in Killing Gunther, an action/comedy that Lionsgate is releasing to Blu-ray & DVD on December 26, 2017.
Killing Gunther tells the story of Gunther (Schwarzenegger), the world’s greatest hitman. There are plenty of reasons to want to kill him: he’s arrogant, he’s a show-off, and he steals jobs. The assassin community is tired of it. Determined to retire Gunther for good, a group of eccentric killers from across the globe come together to set the perfect trap. But their master plan quickly turns into a series of embarrassing fails as Gunther always appears one step ahead.
Killing Gunther marks the directorial debut of Taran Killam (writer/producer of Brother Nature). The film also stars Cobie Smulders, Hannah Simone, Allison Tolman, Steve Bacic, Aaron Yoo, Bobby Moynihan, Peter Kelamis and the director himself.
Killing Gunther definitely isn’t the typical, straight action film you’d expect from Schwarzenegger, but it’s proof that he shows no signs of slowing down.
Director: Tsui Hark Cast: Kris Wu, Kenny Lin, Yao Chen, Lin Yun, Mengke Bateer, Wang Likun, Yang Yiwei, Wang Duo, Bao Bei-Er, Cheng Si-Han, Da Peng, Yeung Lun, Shu Qi, Zhang Mei-E, Xu Cai-Xiang, Lai Kai-Keung, Anthony Wong, Zuo Jing-Bo Running Time: 108 min.
By Paul Bramhall
It’s only been 4 years since Stephen Chow helmed 2013’s Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, the first movie in which he stayed completely behind the camera. Despite it being a relatively short period, it’s been more than enough time for the Chinese film industry to completely saturate the market with stories of the iconic Monkey King. Soi Cheang brought us The Monkey King and its sequel in 2014 and 2016 respectively, Jeff Lau delivered a third instalment of A Chinese Odyssey, and Derek Kwok (who co-directed Conquering the Demons) gave us Wu Kong. That’s not even touching on the animated versions. While audiences have likely become fatigued with the seemingly endless supply of adaptations, that thankfully hasn’t stopped Chow from going ahead with the intended sequel to his 2013 hit, and in 2017 it arrived in the form of Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back.
For those who thought a lot of changes were made in Soi Cheang’s The Monkey King 2 (which notably replaced Donnie Yen with Aaron Kwok as the title character, even though Kwok himself played a major role in the original), then JTTW: TDSB (as I’ll refer to it from here on in) will make them look minor in comparison. Chow remains on-board as both the writer and producer, but has taken the decision to hand over the directorial reigns to Hong Kong auteur Tsui Hark. On top of this, the cast has had a complete overhaul. Out is Wen Zhang as the monk, and in is Kris Wu, fresh from his stint in xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. Also out is Huang Bo as the Monkey King, replaced by Kenny Lin, who comes directly from playing the lead in Sword Master. Various other returning characters are re-cast, however to list every one of them would be superfluous.
The mention of The Monkey King 2 is intentional, as while Conquering the Demons adapted a rarely used chapter of the Journey to the West tale, the sequel puts us in distinctly familiar territory. Essentially it’s another spin on the same ground that’s covered in Soi Cheang’s 2016 sequel, which has the monk and his trio of demon disciples, one of which is the Monkey King, heading west to find the sutra’s they’ve been tasked with seeking out. Along the way they have to deal with a steady stream of demons that cross their path, as well as dealing with their own inter-personal relationships, which frequently border on murderous. In the hands of anyone else it would likely be a needless re-tread, however lest we forget JTTW: TDSB marks the first time for Hong Kong legends Stephen Chow and Tsui Hark to work together, automatically making it a milestone of Chinese cinema.
The simplest way to describe JTTW: TDSB would be to say that it’s The Monkey King 2 on steroids, a lot of them. Hark treats the screen like a canvas to go wild on, bombarding literally every frame with colour and motion, latching onto the fantastical elements of the story and cranking them up to 11. As an audio visual experience it’s a sight to behold, even more so in 3D, a medium Hark has embraced since first utilising it in 2011’s Flying Swords of Dragon Gate. I’m willing to say that Hark is the world’s best director at utilising 3D technology, and he’s stated himself in interviews that if a movie is shot in 3D, then it should be considered a 3D movie, not a 2D one. It makes sense when you look at his filmography, as he’s always been an early adopter of new technologies, and parts of JTTW: TDSB recall the CGI excess of his 2001 sequel The Legend of Zu.
With such an influential force of creativity behind the camera though, you can’t help but feel that Chow’s writing is often drowned out by the sheer volume of activity on screen. Chow might have stepped behind the camera for Conquering the Demons, but there was never any doubt that it was a Stephen Chow movie. The distinctive humour, the visual gags, and the perfect comedic pacing were all present and accounted for, and these elements are missing from Hark’s handling of the material. In a way it’s to be expected, JTTW: TDSB marks the first time for Chow to allow someone else to direct his own script with complete control, and the organic way he’s able to orchestrate laughs out of the most unlikely of situations is very much his own unique talent. However the end result is that it feels like more of a Tsui Hark movie than it does a Stephen Chow one, when most will have been hoping for the latter.
The changes in cast also aren’t favourable. Comedian Wen Zhang was the perfect fit for the nursery rhyme muttering monk from Conquering the Demons, and while Kris Wu delivers a performance that’s perfectly serviceable, he fails to bring the same offbeat goofy demeanour that Zhang did so effortlessly. The same goes for the Monkey King himself, and while in Conquering the Demons Huang Bo’s screen time is limited to the finale, he certainly left a memorable impression. Here Kenny Lin drops any primate like characteristics, and instead plays the human form of the Monkey King as a kind of brooding, twig chewing Man with No Name styled take on the character. Say what you want about how faithful his depiction is, but it can’t be argued that he’s probably the coolest Monkey King to grace the screen.
The presence which is missed the most in JTTW: TDSB though is Shu Qi’s short tempered demon hunter. In Conquering the Demons the relationship between Zhang and Qi provided the emotional core of the story, along with several of its most laugh out loud moments, and arguably Qi stole the show whenever she was onscreen. While she does appear in a handful of brief cameos (as a memory from the first instalment), the female characters in the sequel, played by Yao Chen and Chow’s latest muse, Jelly Lin, fail to bring the same level of spunk and charm. Instead it’s the relationship between Wu and Lin, as the monk and Monkey King respectively, which the focus is turned to, as both wrestle with an underlying need to inflict pain on the other. The dynamic is handled well, however there’s the inescapable feeling that the same relationship was explored in The Monkey King 2.
The fact remains though that if you’re able to put aside the fact that Chow’s influence has been significantly dampened, then there’s a lot to enjoy JTTW: TDSB. The sheer scope and scale of the various battles that take place are often jaw dropping, orchestrated by the pairing of Yuen Tak as action choreographer, and frequent Hark collaborator Yuen Bun as action director. Together the Yuen clan luminaries have taken the chaos of Hark’s imagination, and crafted it into a visual assault of action creativity. Much like League of the Gods, applying old school action talent to orchestrate new school digital action proves to be a winning combination, and the combat on display in JTTW: TDSB sets a new bar for just how breathtaking these scenes can be if handled correctly.
If Hark is to continue to be involved in the series, it would be great to see him co-direct with Chow. There are brief flashes of Chow’s trademark humour on display, which draw the desired laughs, however there are also moments that are easy to feel would be hilarious in Chow’s hands, but Hark seems unsure how to deliver the punchline. The perfect melding of the two would have Chow’s comedic timing, accompanied by Hark’s flair for visuals, which here peak in a finale that sees the Monkey King transform into a full blown King Kong style kaiju made of rock. While it might be missing the emotional connection of Conquering the Demons, what can’t be denied is that as a feat of pure spectacle, JTTW: TDSB more than delivers. For some that’ll be enough, for others, there’s always the sight of a pig demon and spider demon getting it on.
In The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful, Madame Tang (Hui) colludes and mediates between the government and the private businesses for the benefits of her all-female family. One case does not go according to plan, and an entire family close to Madame Tang fall victim to a gruesome murder. Ambition, desire and lust eventually change Tang’s relationships with her own family forever.
The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful is directed by Yang Ya-che (Orz Boyz) and also stars Ke-Xi Wu (The Road to Mandalay) and Vicky Chen (Liquidator).
The film opens on November 24, 2017. Don’t miss its Trailer below (via AFS):
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for Jackie Chan’s Skiptrace, an action comedy directed by Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2).
For years, by-the-book Hong Kong detective Benny Chan (Chan) has tried to avenge his partner’s murder at the hands of a drug lord. When Benny learns that freewheeling American gambler Connor Watts (Johnny Knoxville) has the evidence he needs, he teams with Connor to get justice. Now all Benny and Connor have to do is survive the fight of their lives—and each other!
Director: Fletcher Poon Co-director: Alan Mak Cast: Huang Xuan, Duan Yi-Hong, Zu Feng, Lang Yue-Ting, David Wang Yao-Qing, Xing Jia-Dong, Wang Yan-Hui, Ding Yongdai, Xiao Cong, Li Xiaochuan Running Time: 122 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Extraordinary Mission suffered extraordinarily bad timing in terms of when it was released. Hitting screens within months of popular director Dante Lam’s big budget spectacular Operation Mekong, many (including myself) glanced over the awkwardly titled production, in part due to its marketing making it look like a poor man’s version of Lam’s latest. Both movies involve undercover agents working to take down a drug ring in the Golden Triangle, and for those that did check out the bombastic Operation Mekong, it left little appetite to return to the land of opium poppies quite so soon after the last visit.
It’s unfortunate, as the reality is that Extraordinary Mission delivers one of the most entertaining movies to come out of both China and Hong Kong in the last 10 years. Part thriller, part action movie, it becomes apparent when you take a look at the names behind the production as to where the quality comes from. Written by the Infernal Affairs trilogy scribes Felix Chong and Alan Mak, the latter of which also directs along with regular Benny Chan cinematographer Fletcher Poon, here making his directorial debut, the combination of the trio’s talents proves to be a winning one.
Huang Xuan, last seen in The Great Wall, plays a cop deep undercover as a drug trafficker in China. When a deal goes wrong, he ends up rescuing a member of the rival gang his crew were making a deal with, played by David Wang. Far from being grateful though, instead he’s thanked with a gun to the head, and taken to the gang’s headquarters deep in the jungles of Thailand. It’s there that he meets the facially scarred leader, played by Duan Yi-Hong (who’s character Eagle, ironically has more than a passing resemblance to Korean star Eagle Han Ying), and realizing it’s an opportunity to take down an even bigger fish, takes the risk of proposing a business partnership with Yi-Hong.
While the undercover plot has been done plenty of times before, and shades of Infernal Affairs sometimes resonate in the script, thanks to the gritty locales and solid performances here it still succeeds at feeling fresh. Xuan makes for an engaging lead, and has the same ability as Tony Leung Chiu-Wai to express a lot of emotion with just a facial expression. As he treads the fine line between bluffing his way into Yi-Hong’s trusted circle, and relaying the intel he’s gathering back to his superior (played by Zu Feng, last seen in League of the Gods), there’s hardly a scene that goes by in which the sense of danger from being exposed is absent. As a result there’s a constant feel of being on a knife edge throughout Extraordinary Mission, as it’s never made clear if Xuan’s identity is still safe, or if his cover has been blown and he’s simply being played with.
Despite the abundance of similar Chinese genre movies using Thailand as a setting in recent years, including SPL II: A Time for Consequences and The White Storm, the locales used in Extraordinary Mission set it apart in terms of the look and feel. This is most likely due to having an established cinematographer like Fletcher Poon in the director’s chair, as the lensing is top quality throughout. Whether it be capturing the grimy streets of the Chinese towns were the traffickers operate, the claustrophobic nature of the container yards the deals take place in, or the vastness of the drug den in Thailand, the camerawork does a fantastic job at conveying a sense of scale and depth.
At 2 hours, Extraordinary Mission covers a lot of ground, however it succeeds were Operation Mekong fails by making it about the characters rather than the circumstances. The trio of Xuang, Zu Feng, and Yi-Hong are all fleshed out with backstories, and the fact that the villain is given as much attention as the good guy provides a welcome depth, one which recent movies like Wolf Warrior 2 arguably missed the mark on. Yi-Hong, despite his status as the leader of a drug cartel, is given a relatable reason for having the motives that he does, while Xuang’s haunted by the memory of a mother that overdosed when he was a child.
For 90 minutes the plot keeps things sizzling along at a steady pace, and maintains a constant undercurrent of tension. The regular beatings, brief bursts of gunplay, and sudden outbreaks of violence ensure proceedings never get dull, with the style and tone at times almost feeling more like a Korean production than a Chinese one (I say that in the most complimentary was possible.) However Mak and Poon know when to turn up the heat, and events eventually culminate in an all-out finale that’s sustained for a lengthy 25 minutes.
While some may possibly find fault with the movies switch from a brooding undercover thriller to a Heat influenced urban warfare shoot ‘em up, the transition is handled well, and it feels like a natural payoff to what’s been building up. Just like in SPL II: A Time for Consequences, the way the lives of the main characters interconnect to each other is slightly contrived, however by the time such revelations are revealed, as a viewer you’re already too invested in them to dwell on it too much. When the execution is this good, such details are largely extraneous.
The action is handled by another regular Benny Chan collaborator in the form of Nicky Li. However unlike Chan, who tends to do little to reign in Li’s wire-work heavy action tendencies (or any other aspects of his movies), here Mak and Poon have kept the action directors wild side firmly in check. The finale sees a whole town under siege, and the principle behind the action seems to be one of minimum CGI and maximum realism. With CGI becoming so dominant in action movies of late, I’d almost convinced myself I can no longer tell the difference, that was until I saw the bombardment of practical effect muzzle flashes and vehicular destruction on display here.
If Wolf Warrior 2 was all about how bombastic the action scenes could be, then Extraordinary Mission is all about the realism. There’s plenty of neat little touches on display, such as when Xuang shoots the tyres of a stationery car, so that it becomes safer to take cover behind by being lower to the ground. Admittedly Li allows himself some extravagances once Xuang mounts a motorcycle, like jumping it from one building to another, and even dodging an RPG, but these elements entertain rather than detract. Poon’s cinematography compliments Li’s action well, here working in Thailand together for a 2nd time after The White Storm, with the camera capturing falls, head shots, and bullet trajectories in a way that perfectly understands the relationship between space and distance. In short, the finale is a joy to watch.
If any gripes could be picked with Extraordinary Mission, it’s that some of the relationships outside of the main characters could have been given a little more attention. The flashbacks to Xuang’s childhood with his mother are there in purely a perfunctory role, and a relationship is sometimes hinted at between Xuang and Yi-Hong’s daughter, played with a mostly silent intensity by Lang Yue-Ting, however ultimately amounts to nothing. These are minor gripes though in a movie that consistently entertains from start to finish. In an era when reviewing mainstream Chinese movies can often be a chore, Extraordinary Mission is the first time since Johnnie To’s Drug War when I’ve felt a sense of hope regarding things to come. The closing scene hints at a sequel, which I personally hope will be called Phenomenal Mission, but whatever title it ends up with, I’ll be first in line to check it out.
On December 26, 2017, Image Entertainment will be releasing the Blu-ray & DVD for Mayhem, a thriller that may serve as the perfect companion piece to the recent The Belko Experiment, a Battle Royale-esque tale where blood-soaked survival makes its way into an office environment.
Joe Lynch, the director of the underrated action flick, Everly, returns with the story of a virus that infects a corporate law office on the day attorney Derek Cho (The Walking Dead’s and Okja’sSteven Yeun) is fired after being framed by a co-worker. The infection is capable of making people act out their wildest impulses. Trapped in the quarantined office building, Derek is forced to savagely fight for not only his job, but also his life.
Mayhem also stars Samara Weaving, Dallas Roberts, Claire Dellamar, Kerry Fox, Caroline Chikezie and Steven Brand.
Last year, Amazon’s original pilot for Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Jean Claude Van Johnson, an action/comedy that’s along the lines of Van Damme’s semi-reality themed JCVD(2008), was picked up as a full season by Amazon. Now, a newly released Full Trailer for its continuation has made its way online.
JCVD (Kill ’em All) is a global martial arts and film sensation…and, operating under the simple alias of ‘Johnson,” the most dangerous undercover operative in the world. Unhappily retired, he’s now whiling away his days in superficial Hollywood… until a chance encounter with a lost love lures him back into the game, eventually forcing him to confront the greatest enemy he’s ever faced: a Bulgarian drug cartel. Just kidding it’s himself.
Jean-Claude Van Johnson also stars Kat Foster (Your Family or Mine), Moises Arias (The Middle), and Phylicia Rashad (Creed).
This isn’t the first time Van Damme is visiting television and comedy. In 2011 came Jean-Claude Van Damme: Behind Closed Doors, a 2011 fly on the wall-style reality show that aired on United Kingdom’s ITV4. In 2013, the martial arts star successfully showcased his comedy chops in Welcome to the Jungle.
Don’t miss the Trailer for Jean Claude Van Johnson below. The series premieres December 15th on Amazon Prime.
Updates: Unfortunately, Jean-Claude Van Johnson has been cancelled only a month after the satire was released (via Deadline).
The Wailing (read our review) involves a local cop investigating a series of violent unexplained murders. When his own daughter falls ill and shows signs of possession, a shaman is called in to assist with the investigation.
Director: Gregory Hatanaka Cast: Mathew Karedas, Mark Frazer, Bai Ling, Kayden Kross, Tommy Wiseau, Janis Farley, Cranston Komuro, Laurene Landon, Mel Novak, Gerald Okamura, Kristine DeBell, Melissa Moore, Joe Estevez, Lexi Belle, Melissa Moore, Nicole Bailey, Mindy Robinson, Thomas J. Churchill Running Time: 93 min.
By Paul Bramhall
The expression “so bad it’s good” gets thrown around a lot more than it deserves when it comes to cinema. In truth, many of the productions I’ve seen it applied to were just a whole lot of bad, regardless of how outlandish their premise or awful the acting. The reality is, there are very few movies able to reach that elevated level of being so impossibly bad, they become a work of accidental comedic genius. It takes a certain type of alchemy that can never be intentionally manufactured, and hence the true examples of “so bad it’s good” movies are few and far between. Iranian director Amir Shervan’s 1991 production Samurai Cop is one such example, an almost unfathomable mix of spiteful acting, bad wigs, one take only action scenes, and dialogue that has to be heard to be believed. In short, it’s so bad it’s good.
Its status as a revered work of cult cinema was further cemented by the fact many considered the productions star, Matt Hannon, to be dead. So it was a surprise to everyone (well, at least fans of the movie) when, in 2013, Hannon appeared on YouTube (going by the name Mathew Karedas) in a video explaining that he was very much alive and well. For fans of cult cinema, it was the equivalent of the second coming. A year later distributor Cinema Epoch had given Samurai Cop the treatment it arguably didn’t deserve (but we were nonetheless thankful for), releasing it on Blu-ray, and bringing the movie to the attention of a whole new audience – myself included. What wasn’t expected though, was for Cinema Epoch founder, Gregory Hatanaka, to announce plans to make a sequel to Samurai Cop, almost 25 years after the originals release.
Hatanaka is a director himself, with a handful of movies with titles like Mad Cowgirl and Violent Blue to his name, and he’d be stepping into Shervan’s shoes for the sequel. Not only did he secure a whole host of Samurai Cop’s original cast to return for the sequel, but he also roped in a cast of B-movie names that would make even Lloyd Kaufman jealous. Cue two successful crowdfunding campaigns later, and Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance was born. The question is of course, how do you intentionally make a bad movie? It’s not an easy one to answer, and the very point of a sequel existing to such a unique piece of celluloid obscurity is one that doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny.
The cast list of Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance reads like an attempt to provide an answer. Hatanaka went intentionally out of his way to fill it with a who’s who of bad cinema – we get Tommy Wiseau from The Room as a screaming man-child, Bai Ling being, well, Bai Ling, Mel Novak who looks like he’s already half embalmed, and Joe Estevez as the constantly infuriated police captain. Throw in porn stars Lexi Belle, Kayden Kross, and Zoey Monroe (here credited as Nicole Bailey – not fooling anyone), and the approach seems to be one of throw everyone onscreen together, and wait for the magic to happen.
As expected, that magic fails to show itself. Instead, we get a sequel which involves a bunch of bad actors frequently yelling over each other, and hamming up their already bad acting credentials (something that’s clear from the BTS clips was encouraged by Hatanaka) like there’s no tomorrow. Everyone is aware of what they’re doing, seemingly of the belief that the more OTT they go, the more cult status is a given. However it’s that exact level of self-awareness that makes Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance such a chore, and often embarrassing, spectacle to watch. The amateur moments from the original, which saw Mark Frazer delivering reaction shots directly to camera, are now done intentionally, and more than once. Unless you’re George Lazenby (who was originally part of the cast, but had to drop out due to illness – a blessing in disguise), don’t try that stuff.
Even more ridiculous is the fact that the sequel delivers an inexplicably confusing plot, one which even now I’m not entirely sure what was going on (and I have no intention of re-watching it to clarify). From what I could make out, it amounts to two rival yakuza gangs battling for territory, but regardless of the intricacies, so much time is spent on it that, aside from a brief pre-credits sequence, Karedas himself doesn’t even show up until the 20 minute mark. Considering his constantly befuddled and (in his own words) disgusted performance is what makes Samurai Cop such a joy to watch, that’s a long time to make the audience wait. Someone needs to remind Hatanaka that he’s not making a Superman or Batman movie here.
It’s ironic then, that it’s the performance of Karedas that seems most out of place in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance. Think about it, the guy hasn’t acted since the original, he innocently posts a YouTube clip to clarify he’s still alive, and next thing you know he’s roped into making a sequel to a movie he’s embarrassed of starring in from almost 25 years ago. Suddenly finding yourself in the starring role of a production such as this one must have been a bewildering experience, and there are various moments when it visibly shows on his expression (a sign that his acting obviously hasn’t improved in the time passed). Whether it be getting it on with an adult movie star, partaking in a fight in front of the worse green screen ever witnessed, or riffing on certain lines from the original, he frequently feels like a lost tourist in his own movie.
Instead it’s Mark Frazer, as the Samurai Cop’s faithful partner, that seems to be having the best time out of everyone. He clocks a significant amount of screen-time, and can’t quite seem to believe he’s managed to appear in a movie again after nearly a quarter of a century off the radar. If only the good time he’s having could be transferred to the audience. Likewise for Lexi Belle, who happily rampages around with a machine gun, and even indulges in a naked katana duel, which invokes the spirit of Reiko Ike for all the right reasons. I’d make a joke about her handling a different type of sword than she’s used to, but that would be in bad taste. As for Tommy Wiseau though, the less said about the self-styled actor/writer/director the better. Despite only appearing in a handful of scenes, his completely over the top performance as an incomprehensible screaming man child is painful to watch, even more so to listen to.
The smattering of action throughout is also guilty of utilizing some of the most low budget CGI blood in recent memory. It’s the type of CGI blood that makes the Z-grade Japanese splatter flicks from recent years look like they’ve been created by Industrial Light & Magic. This is supposed to be low budget fun, and I’d rather have seen someone squeezing a bottle of ketchup than the lame effects that have ended up onscreen. It’s decisions like this that really highlight the fact that nobody involved truly understands the charm of Samurai Cop, at least not those who are directly responsible for this sequels creation. Nobody is watching Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance to see a midriff baring Japanese assassin stand in front of the camera while CGI blood spurts from a slash in her chest.
Considering how much of an ill-advised idea making a sequel to a movie like Samurai Cop was from the very beginning, it was the fact it still got made that saw me drawn to checking it out, in part due to sheer morbid curiosity. Surely if it managed to get green lit, then the filmmakers must have had something up their sleeve that none of us could have expected. This sadly isn’t the case, and Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance is just as bad and misguided as you expect it to be, maybe even a little more.
Director: Wong Jing Co-director: Jason Kwan Cast: Donnie Yen Ji-Dan, Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Kent Cheng, Phillip Keung, Wilfred Lau, Yu Kang, Kent Tong, Michelle Hu, Xu Dong-Dong, Felix Wong, Bryan Larkin, Philip Ng, Jonathan Lee, Lawrence Chou, Wang Qian-Yu, Kenneth Tsang, Chan Wai-Man, Terence Yin Chi Wai, Chun Wong Running Time: 112 min.
By Martin Sandison
By the age of 14 my appetite for martial arts movies was voracious, so every visit to the local video shop resulted in a new find. One day I came across the movie In the Line of Duty (aka In the Line of Duty 4: Key Witness). This was my first exposure to the legend that is Donnie Yen. From this point on, I was hooked.
Yen’s raw physical ability in many different styles of martial arts, coupled with his head for choreography, resulted in some of the all time classics. Some of my favourites are the Ip Man Trilogy, Once Upon a Time in China 2, Iron Monkey, Tiger Cage 2, SPL and Flashpoint. Now with the success of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the man can do as he pleases, and many fans were pleased to see his return to Hong Kong cinema with a new interpretation of the legendary Hong Kong gangster Crippled Ho in Chasing the Dragon. So, does the movie live up to its first class billing? The answer is a mixed bag.
The movie begins with the struggling Crippled Ho and his friends arriving in Hong Kong in the early 60’s from Mainland China. When a mass brawl breaks out between gangs, Ho proves his fighting skills and is taken under the wing of Lee Rock (Andy Lau, The Great Wall), a corrupt policeman. Soon, Ho rises through the ranks to become a powerful drug overlord, making many enemies, not least a British policeman called Hunter (Bryan Larkin, Outpost 3). This sets in motion a plot full of twists, turns, action and melodrama.
I’ve followed director Wong Jing’s career for a long time, and obviously he is known for low brow cinema. However, despite absolute misfires like From Vegas to Macau 3, recently he has proved his worth as a director with The Last Tycoon – to my mind this is the best-directed film from Wong I have ever seen. In that vein, the first half of Chasing the Dragon is superbly immersive, with a grimy, but stylish aesthetic. One long take shot in a reconstruction of the Kowloon Walled City – set to the classic funk song The Ghetto, as Ho walks around – is the highlight of the movie. Ho’s rise is depicted with a lot of narrative and visual panache, and Yen brings a swaggering bravado, yet humanistic, quality to the role.
Andy Lau reprises his role as Lee Rock (he starred in a pair of movies as the character in the early 90’s) and reinvents him as a suave, sophisticated, multi-layered cop. It’s a typical Lau performance that brings pathos and charisma to the role, and the scenes between him and Yen are electrifying. Kent Cheng has a cameo part as a go-between cop, looking no different from his heyday in films such as Jackie Chan’s Crime Story. Unfortunately, Bryan Larkin (despite coming from East Kilbride in Scotland, just around the corner from where I type) as Hunter, the antagonist, is only decent at best, and suffers from an underwritten character, but he succeeds in conveying the nasty side of his character well. A highlight for me was seeing the legendary Chan Wai Man (The Club) in a cameo role – I wish he was in the movie more.
A problem, come the second half of the movie, is that peripheral characters who have been given no screen time or dialogue to speak of, are killed off. These scenes are typically melodramatic and sentimental, which in the golden age was part of the charm, but now they fail to convince. A lot has changed in Hong Kong cinema since then, and the time when hundreds of movies were released per year with low budgets now translate to bigger budgets and less films being made. These aspects, now smack of bad writing, hint that there may be a lot of stuff cut out. I would hope there is a director’s or extended cut, and I could reappraise the film.
Those seeking to see Yen in martial arts action mode will be disappointed, with only a few fights taking place, which are choreographed as brawls. Of course this fits in with the subject matter and style of the film, so there should be no complaining. However, it is disappointing to see Yen take on Phillip Ng (Birth of the Dragon) in a fight that lasts less than a minute and features no martial arts. A mid-film chase/gunplay scene is the action highlight, with Lau negotiating the Kowloon Walled City with gangsters on his tail and Yen coming to his rescue. The tension, release and seamless editing proves Wong still has what it takes when it comes to fashioning a good action scene. Gunplay on the whole is handled well, despite some dodgy CGI – I just wish there was more of it. Some of the violence on display is pretty extreme, with a highlight being Yen cutting off the ear of a rival gansgter and nonchalantly chucking it away.
A lot has been made of Chasing the Dragon getting passed the Chinese censors by painting the British as the villains of the piece. Personally, being British, I didn’t find this aspect particularly stuck in my craw. My knowledge of the time and subject matter in Hong Kong isn’t great, and it’s to the film’s credit that now I want to find out more about it. Actually. I have still yet to see Poon Man Kit’s To Be Number One, the 90’s movie made about Crippled Ho which won the Hong Kong Film Award for best picture in 1992, so I can’t compare the two.
Chasing the Dragon succeeds for the most part, it’s just a shame the second half does not match up to the first.
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