Colonel Panics (Cho Jinseok, Yoshihiro Nishimura) (2016)

[HungFist]

Not much info about this yet, supposed to be a Japanese cyber punk film by a Korean director, with Yoshihiro Nishimura on board as special effects director.

More info:
http://twitchfilm.com/2016/04/watch-the ... anics.html

Trailer:
https://vimeo.com/161274078

Website:
http://www.colonelpanics.com/

[HungFist]

New trailer came out last year
https://youtu.be/TEyoRAQHRrw

Screens in Yubari in March.

[HungFist]

This was by far the best thing I saw at Yubari this year! If Ghost in the Shell ends up sucking, have no worries, your cyberpunk fix is here.

While the film's trailer hints of the violence and graphic sex, it does not prepare you for how ambitious and political the film is. It's almost impossible to digest everything with just one viewing. Let me just give you the basic premise:

The film is set in the future. A man is hired to test run a new virtual reality game, which is set in the past (our present day). It is said that the game is plagued by some kind of virus, but we don't know exactly what. The game, which seems even more realistic than the reality itself, features a stressed office worker who is secretly harbouring extreme right wing ideologies and apparent hatred towards women.

This one takes a lot of brainwork. What is the connection between the film's two storylines? What is the relationship between actual reality and manufactured reality, and which one is influencing which more?

The film looks very stylish throughout and sounds even better. The cast is entirely Japanese, as is most of the crew, including Yoshihiro Nishimura who contributed the blood effects. Director Cho Jinseok has Korean and Australian nationalities, and perhaps its due to the former that the film bites modern Japanese political atmosphere in the ass. He joked prime minister Abe should see the film, and dedicated the movie to Nagisa Oshima.

The film's English title is Colonel Panics, but in Japanese it's "Kernel Panic". Different meanings, although both make sense in the film's context.

[HungFist]

Interview with the director:
http://asianmoviepulse.com/2017/03/inte ... -interact/

[HungFist]

JP DVD coming 2018/03/02
- http://www.allcinema.net/prog/show_dvd. ... id=1015677

and according to Allcinema it should have English subs.

[Guro Taku]

Excellent news but it's pretty annoying that Japan seems to have not yet fully embraced the Blu-ray format. Lower budget and smaller films keep getting DVD only releases

[HungFist]

True.

I thought I read long time ago that a French (?) BD was being prepared, but I couldn't find anything with a quick search now...

Or perhaps it was German? It's the kind of film that you could imagine hitting BD in Germany. A lot of these lower budget Japanese genre films seem to come out there...

[Guro Taku]

Yes, it was Germany and I will probably hold out for that. Midori Impuls is handling the release there. They're a fairly new label but are already buying up a lot of the same films we're discussing here. For 2018 they have already announced as dual DVD/BD releases:

- Dream of Eyeball (Sato)
- Meatball Machine (Junichi Yamamoto + Yudai Yamaguchi)
- Kodoku Meatball Machine (Yoshihiro Nishimura)
- The Ninja War of Tarakage (Yoshihiro Nishimura)
- Brutal (dir. Takashi Hirose, starring Asami)
- Nowhere Girl (Mamoru Oshii)
- Creepy Hide and Seek (Kaoru Adachi)
- Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell (Shinichi Fukazawa)
- Sapphire (Toshinari Yonishi)
- Toxic Insects (Kayoko Asakura)
- Re:Born (Yuji Shimomura)

And I'm probably missing a couple.

They already did a bunch of excellent releases in 2017 as well.

Their website, which is in both German and Japanese (!) is here: http://www.midori-impuls.com
Their Facebook page is also worth keeping an eye on: https://www.facebook.com/MidoriImpuls

They even include English subtitles on some of their releases but of course, with them being a German label, that tends to only be possible/affordable for smaller films.

[HungFist]

[Guro Taku]

I thought I read long time ago that a French (?) BD was being prepared, but I couldn't find anything with a quick search now...

Actually, you were right about the French release, as that came out two weeks ago. The German release, which may or may not be a DVD/BD combo, has still not even been dated.

[HungFist]

I assume you've seen the film by now? What did you think?

[Guro Taku]

It's the kind of film that lingers in your mind and actually gets better the more you think about it.