Bullets 'n' Babes

Interesting article here - though I suspect this doesnt tell us much we don't know. It goes into much more detail about the Mandarin cut though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bo ... ndarin_cut

Karate Bullfighter (Japan, 1975) – 3,5/5
The first film in the Masutatsu Oyama trilogy (the karate legend himself appears in the opening credits), based on a successful manga series. This is something not to be misunderstood. While the comic books had a young readership, and director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi claims he was careful not to offend Mr. Oyama, it does not mean the film lacks graphic violence. It has also not prevented the filmmakers from presenting Oyama as a rapist. His more heroic acts include killing bulls with bare hands (this scene is also included in the film, and features Shininchi Chiba fighting a real bull rather than a man in animal suit). Chiba, who also made a film about Oyama’s real life rival Doshin So (The Killing Machine, 1975), is in top form as a martial artist. Unfortunately the cinematographer doesn’t fare as well, often being missplaced between the fighters. Having to dodge kicks and hits while trying to capture the action on celluloid is never a good thing. Storywise the film is above average and easily entertains even between the action pieces. Quentin Tarantino later used some of Shunsuke Kikuchi’s music in Kill Bill Vol. 1.

Great US trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT-B3EjjBgk

Charisma (Japan, 1999) – 2/5
A policeman (Koji Yakusho) meets several people in forest, some of them trying to protect an old tree and some of them trying to destroy it. None of them have very clear motives. Director Kurosawa gives little explanations and avoids genre classifications. It works for some time as it challenges the viewer to come up with his own answers. Placing the film almost entirely in the woods also works to the benefit of it as Kurosawa’s forest is not a shiny bamboo collection. The film is endlessly metaphoric – in fact there is very little else, and this is a problem. Charisma is not nearly as much about characters – mainly drawing allegoric caricatures – as it is about different forces affecting the world. But is there any reason to spend over 100 minutes to make dry societal and environmental observations and present them inside a bottle? Kurosawa’s approach is not entirely serious, though. There’s plenty of humour included, which makes makes the film more obviously fun, but doesn’t really improve it. It’s a bit difficult to say exactly how much Kurosawa intended to emphazise the humoristic aspect. Some scenes and characters, such as a senile elderly woman raving in her bed, could be meant as humour, another allegory, or intentional weirdness/originality/pretentiousness, or all that at once.

Hazard (Japan, 2005) – 3,5/5
https://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/ ... =19&t=5227

grim_tales wrote:Interesting article here - though I suspect this doesnt tell us much we don't know. It goes into much more detail about the Mandarin cut though.

No offence but please give it a rest. You bring this up every few months and unless I'm mistaken ALL DVDs still use an IDENTICAL cut.

What's next? Tomorrows Never Dies/Goldeneye? .

I was trying to find the right link but I couldn't find it. I'm SURE I read somewhere the original HKL CE is missing frames from the 'Cantonese print' - OK so its mere frames but still.

Fair enough then, my mistake.

No worries Maybe Mark or someone would know.

bradavon wrote:

grim_tales wrote:Interesting article here - though I suspect this doesnt tell us much we don't know. It goes into much more detail about the Mandarin cut though.

No offence but please give it a rest. You bring this up every few months and unless I'm mistaken ALL DVDs still use an IDENTICAL cut.

Shut up Brad.

Grim, every major DVD in the Chinese language is the same edit. However the old English language US DVDs have a few extra frames showing the guys running into the factory, and a different title sequence. Given the poor picture and sound quality, its not really worth chasing after.

Welcome back Ivan :thumbup:

Thanks Ivan I didnt know that. For some reason I thought some shots in the PE were longer than in the CE, eg longer shots of the bodies in the ice, etc.

Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal (Japan, 1970) - 4/5
The fourth and best Stray Cat Rock film deals with drugs and freedom. Two Japanese men help a Vietnam war runaway to flee from Japan. Their plan is to sell LSD pills to finance their trip to Sweden, but as word spreads different gangs become interested in gaining possession of the drugs, preferably without paying. Director Hasebe’s previous film Sex Hunter strongly criticized racism in Japan. Machine Animal also deals with foreign people in Japan, but this time the approach is almost entirely positive. When the American runaway (played by Japanese actor Toshiya Yamano) arrives Yokohama he’s immediately welcomed and taken to bowling alley to have fun. Even the villains treat him as human being rather than gaijin garbage. This same positive spirit applies to the entire film. The soundtrack is perhaps the best in the series – or at least most even. Zoo Nee Voo’s Hitori no kanashimi – on which Ozaki Kiyohiko’s beloved classic Until We Meet Again (Mata au hi made) was based on – is featured in one of the film’s numerous, psychedelic club scenes. The main star Meiko Kaji also gets to do a little bit of singing, but her main task is to look endlessly cool (or silly, depending on your taste) wearing a white dress and black hat. The supporting roles star Bunjaku Han as the Dragon Gang leader, Eiji Go as evil motorcycle villain, and Tatsuya Fuji as a quiet, spectacled good guy – an exact opposite from his vicious bad guy role in Sex Hunter. Rival studio Toei followed Nikkatsu’s example some months later; their Delinquent Girl Boss: Ballad of Yokohama Hoods (1971) borrows heavily from Machine Animal. Although Toei ultimately won the girl gang battle, they were still a step behind Nikkatsu in 1970 when it came to youthful action films.

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

Great film Love the OTT blood

The Challenger 2/5

Another in joysales legendary collection,this 1979 effort offers plenty of action,a decent finale but marred in between by some truly lame comedy.shockingly bad english subtitles on this one.

Stray Cat Rock: Beat ’71 (Japan, 1971) – 4/5
Toshiya Fujita brings the Stray Cat Rock series to a highly enjoyable end. Like his previous instalment, Wild Jumbo, Beat ’71 is an easy going youth drama that does not follow Yasuharu Hasebe’s wild gang film path. Instead Fujita deals with social issues. The film follows a hippie community lead by Yoshitaro (Yoshio Harada). They decide to leave their trailer in Shinjuku and travel to countryside by bicycle to save their friend Furiko (Meiko Kaji) who has been falsely accused for murder. The real killer – although it was mainly self defense – is Furiko’s boyfried Takaaki (Takeo Chii) who is being controlled by his politician father. Takaaki would rather live free as a hippie, but his father is forcing him to become a businessman. When Furiko’s friends arrive the small town the concervative villagers try to run them away. They only get sympathy from a traveling rock band (The Mops). The conflict eventually takes them to an old mine that has been turned into a Wild West theme park. A fitting and symbolic conclusion to a sries of films that was one of Nikkatsu’s last iconic products before their financial crash and transition from youthful action films to pink cinema.

New Tokyo Decadence: The Slave (Japan, 2007) – 2,5/5
Japanese pink cinema auteurs can be roughly divided into two categories. One consists of talentless studio workers that direct soft erotica because they can’t do anything else. In the other group there are gifted directors that either use the genre as springboard to mainstream success (Japan’s movie history is full of famous examples from Death Note director Shusuke Kaneko to Academy Award winner Yojiro Takita) or have decided to stick with the genre because of the artistic freedom it provides. There are late 90’s Takashi Miike type of director’s working in the pink film industry, as well as arthouse drama directors. Judging by New Tokyo Decadence: The Slave, Osamu Sato might come closer to the second category. Thematically similar but storywise unrelated to Ryu Murakami’s powerful 1992 film Tokyo Decadence, Sato’s movie is a character driven drama about a young woman who’s into masochism, and how it affects on her life and relationships all around. Approximately of the movie consists of ”erotic scenes”, but it’s mostly justified as many of them are more about characterization than anything else. Osamu applies different visual styles to different parts of the film, giving some sequences a faded videotape look that goes in hand to hand with the characters’ feelings. But the director, screenwriter (or possibly editor) and leading actress all come slightly short in terms of talent. The story moves a bit too fast and the cinematography comes with more good ideas than understanding for how to realize them in most effective manner. The film is based on main actress Rinako Hirasawa's own experiences. Her acting isn’t entirely bad, but like the rest of the film, lacks detail. New Tokyo Decadence is an interesting film, but it doesn’t quite live up to the potential it shows.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Babycart at the River Styx (1972): 4/5

Great film I'd love to see these on BD.

grim_tales wrote:Lone Wolf and Cub: Babycart at the River Styx (1972): 4/5

Great film I'd love to see these on BD.

I knew it. Grim is a sick bastard who wants to see tits sliced in HD

Eureka is coming up with new releases later this year. If we're lucky, they will release BD's using the new Toho remasters (assuming they are good). If we're unlucky, we'll end up ntsc to pal conversions of the Animeigo discs.

I have the Thai ports of the Animego discs at the moment, what I'm hoping is Eureka retain Animego's excellent subtitles/explanations of difficult words, etc.
I didnt know new releases were due, thanks
If theyre BD NTSC-PAL won't matter

Grim have you won the lottery? as the way you are talking about so many discs you will be spending thousands upgrading vast amounts of films to Blu Ray.

Upgrading so many is not possible unless you are a lottery winner, decide long and hard which films need a HD disc and how much I am willing to pay to buy a film again. Or at least sell on your old discs before making a thought about getting the HD version, thats what I try to do that way at least you are not stuck with a crappy standard dvd and a HD disc. Sell Sell Sell if you want lots of HD discs.

I have countless discs for sale and I will not go near the Blu Rays until I sell the standard discs. That way you know you are not tossing cash down the drain.

Calm down dude, I havent even bought my equipment yet. Theres no way I can afford to upgrade all my collection to BD, thats way too expensive. And of course I'll see what reviews are like before I buy

Hey Hung,
I noticed on HK Flix there's a recently released 5 disc set of the Shogun Assassin movies, so maybe new BDs/DVDs of LW+C aren't far away.
If Eureka got these (LW+C Japanese versions) on the Masters of Cinema label that'd be brilliant.

grim_tales wrote:If theyre BD NTSC-PAL won't matter

Huh?

grim_tales wrote:Hey Hung,
I noticed on HK Flix there's a recently released 5 disc set of the Shogun Assassin movies, so maybe new BDs/DVDs of LW+C aren't far away.

You do realise that box set is just the redubbed english versions right? http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.547 ... etails.htm

I know, thats why I said "Shogun Assasin" which I'm aware are dubbed I was just thinking if Animego can restore/reconstruct those they can do a LW+C (Japanese) BD

grim_tales wrote: I was just thinking if Animego can restore/reconstruct those they can do a LW+C (Japanese) BD

creating an english dub for their already existing masters hardly classes as a restore/reconstruct effort and certainly wouldn't give me the idea they are heading to BD any time soon.these are cult titles and i wouldn't think a blu-ray set of these would be a huge moneyspinner...would love to be wrong though.i have the animego versions of all these.FGrim if you like these films you should check out the tv series.it's excellent.

Wasn't Shogun Assassin restored though? The DVD says "Animego reconstructed version" or something like that, maybe they just took the relevant video they already had of the Japanese versions of Sword of Vengeance and River Styx and then put the English soundtrack on.
Hung said Toho created new masters so who knows I'm not sure Sword of Vengeance would be uncut over here, previously it was cut for sexual violence/rape (?)

Thanks BTW, I may check out the TV show I have the Thai box with all 6 films

Hey,

There's a picture of the forthcoming Eureka set here - its not on the Masters of Cinema label but it includes all 6 Lone Wolf and Cub films (I'm assuming the Japanese versions) AND Shogun Assassin so who knows what the quality will be like.

http://www.theimportforums.com/viewtopi ... &start=435