What Have You Just Seen... Marks Out of 5

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 25 Mar 2006, 00:25

Derailed - 2/5
Christ, this movie was terrible! An entirely contrived situation; bad thriller cliche after bad thriller cliche; and the acting was truly dire - especially Clive Owen.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 25 Mar 2006, 00:28

brooce-leroy wrote:Shall We Dance? (Original Japanese version)

I've only seen "Shall We Dansu?", the first real Japanese drama I ever saw and I quite enjoyed it. Have no real desire to see the Hollywood remake though, for one it has J.Lo in it.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 25 Mar 2006, 08:02

The White Dragon - 3.5/5
Some bad scenes here and there, but otherwise a very nice film. Good humour, beautiful visuals, decent action and some nice romatic stuff. Not a memorable film, but very entertaining nevertheless.

Keung · Post by **Keung** » 25 Mar 2006, 22:43

Infernal Affairs II
4/5

Thought this was amazing, my eyes were glued to the TV all the way through, didn't even stop for a toilet break.

This is the best of the trilogy IMO.

Levi

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 25 Mar 2006, 23:45

Hey Keung!

Finally someone agrees with me on that IA2 is the best of thr trilogy.

American History X - 4/5
First time I ever watched this and it is a damn awesome film. The last monologue fucked up the ending in my opinion as it was so Hollywoodish. Just like the final monologue in "Road to Perdition" for example.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 26 Mar 2006, 09:46

Jozee, the Tiger and the Fish - 4.5/5
One of the best japanese dramas I've seen for a long, long time. A beautiful and romantic film, which also has some certain feel of realism. It feels like the story takes place in real world, and not in any movie universe. The film also manages to avoid most clichés. Not only storywise, but also the way this movie is made. In some movies you can pretty much guess every camera angle and music cue they're gonna use, but not here. It's not that the director is trying to surprise you, but the whole film feel somehow "fresh" and "uncalculated".

Shogun's Ninja - 4/5
I had seen this film before, and hated it back then. But now I decided to give it another chance with the new remastered Adness dvd. The version I used to own was the old Brentwood disc, which was dubbed and double cropped (2.35-->1.33:1-->1-85:1) meaning over 60% of the image was missing. Needless to say that this totally ruined the film and made the action scenes impossible to enjoy (most action was taking place off-screen). With Adness' presentation Shogun's Ninja turned into a very entertaining ninja flick with a great action choreography. One of the best films in the genre.
Adness vs. Brentwood comparison: http://www.10kbullets.com/reviews/shogu ... arison.htm

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 26 Mar 2006, 09:50

Argh I'm itching ti see Jozee now Hung. Thanks for that review.

Did you know that the director has a new film out just now? JPN DVD has English subs. Can't remember the title though.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 26 Mar 2006, 10:04

BiscLimpkit wrote: Did you know that the director has a new film out just now? JPN DVD has English subs. Can't remember the title though.

yeah, Maison de Himiho. I got interested in that film yesterday

I recommed getting the Korean LE of Jozee. It's a 3 disc set with great picture quality. I'm 99% sure it's a port of the japanese release. The best thing: it costs only 24$ at dvdfromkorea. But it's very limited and will probably go OOP soon.

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 26 Mar 2006, 10:38

Damn you Hung. It's usually me that persuades others to give up their money, not the other way round....

........must resist............... :x

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 26 Mar 2006, 12:44

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance - 4/5

Great movie. Love the OTT blood

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 26 Mar 2006, 13:42

Go (2001) 4/5

I was most impressed by Isao Yukisada's commentry on identity crisis. The film's protagonist, Sugihara, is a Japanese born Korean who struggles to receive acceptance in Japan but at the same time rebels against the North Korean education system. Furthermore, he also finds love with a Japanese girl, who has grown up believing that the Chinese and Koreans are inferior. Surrounded by constant prejudice, Sugihara finds hilarious ways to release is frustration out on the world. There are some touching moments and good character development.

The ever popular Yosuke Kubozuka devliers a sincerely heart-felt performance as Sugihara. His love interest, played by Kou Shibasaki (who also acted in Yukisada's Crying out Love) appears a tad hollow but is cute to look at regardless.

Go is remarkably stylish and is best watched after viewing Yukisada's short film Justice (on the Jam Films DVD), which is almost a teaser of what's to come. The filmmaker handles energetic editing, upbeat music and comedy with incredible confidence. To be honest, I was quite surprised and expected Go to be more melodramatic (like Crying out Love).

Interestingly, I noticed a scene where a schoolboy taps on Sugihara's shoulder and extends his index finger, so that once Sugihara turns his head, his cheek will come into contact with the schoolboy's finger. This was done a lot in Crying out Love the TV series - wonder if this is a reference to Yukisada or whether it is common practise amongst Japanese kids?

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 26 Mar 2006, 16:39

Heaven's Bookstore 2/5

I was quite disappointed by this, especially as every review I read praised this film quite highly. This makes me wonder whether I am missing something. Heaven's Bookstore is an adaptation of two novels (Heaven's Book Service and Loving Fireworks), which are books 1 and 3 of a series. We basically have two separate stories linked together. It would take me ages to summarise the premise but the bulk of the story takes place in heaven (which looks kind of small, perhaps everyone else went to hell?).

The only other film I've seen by director Tetsuo Shinohara is the short film Kendama (on Jam Films), which I enjoyed a lot. He has a gift for picturesque visuals and subtle colours but in my opinion, has failed to provide any substance. The characters get overly sentimental for a purpose that feels redundant. The piano music was lovely but gets sickly after a while. Heaven's Bookstore consists of long, slow chapters without any build up, making it a frightfully dull experience. It is an interesting concept but is in desperate need of improvement.

The fireworks scene sounds awesome on a surround sound setup though.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 26 Mar 2006, 16:41

Yep, my thoughts exactly. Booooring.

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 26 Mar 2006, 16:52

You serious? Wonder what other films we both dislike?

dragonhero005 · Post by **dragonhero005** » 26 Mar 2006, 17:41

Hostage

Wow, this one was much better than I had expected it. Although it seems to me that I have seen every single facial expression of Bruce Willis hundreds of times, this one is definitly another good Willis.

4/5

Fight back to school

If you´re sick and tired and you feel bad, watch a Chow Sing-chi movie! There are better ones than this, but it was very entertaining though. Especially the great Ng Man Tat was awesome.

4/5

Fight back to school 2

Just average if you ask me...

2,5/5

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 27 Mar 2006, 00:17

Go - 4.5/5
Had this DVD lying around here since *checks DVD profiler* 23rd of March, 2004. Damn it! Almost exactly 2 years was it put on my DVD player waiting to get watched. Well, I'm glad I did. That's what I want movies to be like. Thanks, Bisc, for reminding me that I still had to watch this. I have the IVL disc by the way.

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 27 Mar 2006, 07:51

Aye same! Good on you man. I only bought it recently but was always curious about Yukisada's works.

The IVL disc is nice, a lot better than I expected (considering its age). Good to have a DTS mix too. 8)

brooce-leroy · Post by **brooce-leroy** » 27 Mar 2006, 18:07

Millionaires Express HKL 4/5

This is a brilliant movie. It's got a bit of everything. Love all the slapstick moments.

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 27 Mar 2006, 18:51

I love the double agent sketch. Top stuff.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 28 Mar 2006, 08:41

Lone Wolf and Cub: Babycart at the River Styx: 4/5 - just as good as the first film IMO

The Adventures of TinTin - The Blue Lotus: 4/5 - a fine episode, its annoying I cant watch this in French with English subs though. However, I have at times thought Mistuhirato (one of the bad guys in this) is dangerously close to being a Japanese stereotype.
It also talks about an "occupation" of Shanghai by the Japanese, so maybe its set around the early years of the 20th century.

Tom/Bisc what do you think?

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 28 Mar 2006, 09:46

House of 9 [2005] - 3.5 / 5

Hmmm a fun british/amercian film. It has Kelly Brook (who is okay in the movie) and Dennis Hooper. Think of a british made Saw production. But instead of Jigsaw being the killer, it is your fear inside which is the killer. I really liked it. Although it also had Ashley D from So Solid Crew who was just sooooo annoying. That turned me off. Also I love Dennis Hooper as an actor, but here he was playing an Irish Priest, and the accent was just sooo

It is a fun b movie - worth a rental and it has a good ending to the movie as well.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 28 Mar 2006, 10:02

Have you seen TMNT: S1 and 2 yet Slasher?

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 28 Mar 2006, 11:10

grim_tales wrote:Have you seen TMNT: S1 and 2 yet Slasher?

Only season 1 on the first esp, where April meets the turtles for the first time. The A/V is pretty cool, not as bad as i thought it would be. The opening scene is vastly different from the UK one. Would like to see the UK opening included on the dvd though

it is a great show, and floods of memories where coming back to me when i was watching this

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 28 Mar 2006, 11:20

OK, LMK when you get/see S2 and what you think of the rest of S1.
Yeah, seeing how different the uncut opening sequence was surprised me, all shots of the nanchuku are replaced with something else, like a shot of a spaceship falling to Earth, or Krang talking.
Would have been cool to have the UK opening as an extra as you say, to release the DVDs without extras is a disgrace IMO, there must be a ton of promo stuff around.

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 28 Mar 2006, 12:06

Yeah def, by the way, here is a link for the uk opening

Def a lot of change