Bullets 'n' Babes

Bah, I liked Who Am I and Accidental Spy (and The Myth was good too) so there!

I thought Who Am I was horrible, apart from the last half hour, which was shot in Holland and action-packed...
Horrible acting by all involved. Horrible story. Horrible pacing the first hour or so (I watched the HK version btw), etc etc.

It was just a huge uninteresting drag for the first hour, and after that it picked up, only to finish with an idiotic ending on the bridge, with the whole army involved...(!)

The acting's abysmal but then it is in much of Jackie's English language films.

i liked Accidental Spy-far better than garbage like Medallion...

saltysam wrote:i liked Accidental Spy-far better than garbage like Medallion...

Agreed!

Yi-Long wrote:I thought Who Am I was horrible, apart from the last half hour, which was shot in Holland and action-packed...

Yeah, like that had anything to do with it...

Accidental Spy was average.
Unlike some I didn't think The Medallion was "garbage". It was just very mediocre.
The Myth I didn't care for... but again didn't think was horrible.
Jackie's movies are never bad enough to 'hate' as such.
Although I must confess Rob-B-Hood really rubbed me up the wrong way and I gave it a very harsh review.

Markgway wrote:

Yi-Long wrote:I thought Who Am I was horrible, apart from the last half hour, which was shot in Holland and action-packed...

Yeah, like that had anything to do with it...

Well... I'm always pretty negative about Holland, so I doubt it had

Nah, the last half hour just had lots of stuff going on that was fun to watch. Car chase, chase on wooden clogs, rooftop fight, and that's pretty much it I guess.

I think the movies from the middle to late 90's from Jackie that I liked most (DM2 is his best movie ever), were probably Gorgeous and Thunderbolt. Not because they were great Jackie Chan movies, but just because they were 'good'. With 'good', I mean they had a good cast, a nice story, and it all just feels 'right'. Like a proper movie.

Many of Jackie's movies just seem like Jackie had 2-3 ideas for some action-scenes, and they come up with a crappy story to stick in between all those scenes, quickly shoot it with some bad actors, and basically just releasing a shitty movie with nice action-scenes.

Gorgeous was a nice change of pace for Jackie...

But Thunderbolt was one of his poorer movies of that era. A rushed production with more directors than fight sequences. Also Jackie was badly doubled due to injury and time constraints. The acting isn't up to much (the best actor in the film, Anita Yuen, is given bugger all to do) and the plot is ludicrous. But I guess it's apples and oranges if I prefer Who Am I?

Markgway wrote:Gorgeous was a nice change of pace for Jackie...

Take out the incredibly forced action and agreed. It's a nice enough film but really didn't need the action.

bradavon wrote:

Markgway wrote:Gorgeous was a nice change of pace for Jackie...

Take out the incredibly forced action and agreed. It's a nice enough film but really didn't need the action.

Maybe it didn't 'need' it, but both fights with Brad Allen were very nicely done.

They didn't fit with Jackie's character or the story at all. Sure he's known for it but artistically they just hurt the film.

I thought the scene where Emil Chau pours petrol on his head was out of place.

Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance (Japan, 2009) – 3.5/5
The second remake movie takes a more independent path, including adding a new character to the story. For an Evangelion fan it no doubt makes a more rewarding film, although newcomers may still be puzzled. With more than 10 episodes fitted into one movie, the pace is quite dazzling at times. After the action packed and somewhat uninteresting opening the film does slow down quite nicely. It’s the quiet moments that are Evangelion’s strength. The second film doesn’t quite reach the epic hights of the first film, though, and the humor feels mostly repetition. Nevertheless, 2.0 is a very solid viewing that leaves the audience look forward to the next film. And, the scene showing Tokyo waking up to yet another (deceiving) beautiful sunrise – next to the music borrowed from The Man Who Stole the Sun (1979) – that is pure perfection.

Accident (Hong Kong, 2008) – 3.5/5
Dog Bite Dog director Soi Cheang’s much praised thriller is a Hong Kong flavored combination of Brian DePalma and Francis Ford Coppola. Louis Koo leads a team of assassins who disguise their kills as innocent looking accidents. Each hit takes enormous planning – and luck. The latter is the film’s obvious flaw. While the kills are superbly stylish and exciting, they do lack all credibility. Even with perfectly planned set up too much is left on assumption that the target plays his role and outsiders will not interfere, which almost never works in real life. In fact, the film improves notably once it gets over the killings and moves on to paranoia phase – the part that plays out like a loving homage to The Conversation (1972). The ending doesn’t quite hit the target – once again playing with coincidences, and later even taking an easy moral route out, but if you can ignore the flaws Accident is indeed one of the better Hong Kong thrillers of the recent years.

Mother (South-Korea, 2009) – 4/5
Bong Joon-ho’s (Memories of Murder, The Host) new film is a brilliant and darkly humoristic thriller-drama. The film’s central character, as suggested by the title, is a mother whose grown up son is arrested as a murder suspect. Convinced that her son has been framed, the mother starts her own investigation to find the real killer. Unlike many other Korean directors Bong Joon-ho makes more old fashioned cinema. Mother doesn’t excel with ultra-stylized visuals or fast moving plot, but allows plenty of time for characters and storyline. This is why its excitement curve also resembles typical cinema from half a century ago: the film gets more involving little by little as it builds on good screenplay and takes its time to do so. The main character is never given a name in the film – she’s the anonymous woman resembling all loving mothers in the world.

Crows Zero II (Japan, 2010) – 3.5/5
Following his sub-par manga adaptation Crows Zero Takashi Miike surprises with a solid sequel. The second film in the high school action saga improves on all areas: the dullish back story is now wrapped, the punk-rock soundtrack is more effective, and most importantly, the strange flashiness that plagued many of the first film’s action sequences is gone. Simply put, Crows Zero II works like an oiled engine despite its longish, 133 minute running time and zero-surprise storyline. Meisa Kuroki’s odd R&B numbers are included, too, but even these parts are relatively catchy. The focus, however, is on the (near-openly homosexual) male struggle: good looking male idols beating the hell out of each other. The high school war finale alone is 27 minutes of non-stop fist fighting action, some of it surprisingly masochistic fist-in-the-face beating. If it wasn’t already done by the original manga by Hiroshi Takahashi, Miike’s film would define the modern Japanese high school delinquent gang. This is true beat em up punk cinema!

I take it these films have nothing to do with the American Crow films?

Unless the American Crow films were high school action movies based on Hiroshi Takahashi's manga, no, I don't think so

Perfect introduction for Crows Zero II. Very gay, very cool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78Q7ZaX2Ja4

Dream Home (Hong Kong, 2010) – 3.5/5
Titles can be deceiving yet accurate at the same time, proves Pang Ho Cheung’s Category III thriller. While flawed, Dream Home is easily one of the most exiting finds in recent Hong Kong cinema. Lead actress / producer Josie Ho stars as a young woman obsessed with purchasing a flat she’s been dreaming since childhood. The money is there, now she only needs to get rid of the current tenants. A refreshing mix of social commentary, Hong Kong city landscapes, and unusually inventive splatter, Dream Home is a rare beast to come out of today’s Hong Kong. It’s decently well acted, technically competent, and allows plenty of time for storytelling, even characterization. The somewhat slow moving back story, which forms the majority of the film, is played next to the current moment – the lovable Josie Ho butchering people in ways that are as stylish as they are graphic. Some of the gore and gratuitous sex turn into successful black humor. Dream Home is a modern flashback from the golden years of Hong Kong Category III cinema. And no, it won’t be shown in Mainland China.

Summer Wars (Japan, 2009) – 1/5
Mamoro Hosoda’s unbearable anime hit mixes countryside setting and IT-commentary – of course not managing the latter without brain-dead, mecha-style action mayhem in computer drawn virtual world. The storyline follows a shy school boy following a girl to the countryside to meet her family – an appalling inbred community where family decides for the lives of its members. Not entirely rare even in today’s Japan, it’s sad having to witness Hododa’s non-critical and narrow minded philosophies on cinema screen. The film’s “go abroad, become devil” side-message would be ignorable in any other context, but here one can only wonder if it was intentional after all. Family politics aside Summer Wars still has its healthy load of universally embarrassing bits and pieces from a heroic grandmother to the teary scenes with the daughter overcoming herself. The potentially accurate social commentary – a virtual community taking over people’s lives – drowns itself in noisy action sequences that do not even allow the poor viewer to fall asleep. The few humoristic and romantic bits between the main characters are the film’s only redeeming qualities.

DREAM HOME is due out in Nov in the UK from Sound & Media(?) with an uncut '18' cert for "frequent strong bloody violence".

RoboGeisha (Japan, 2009) - 2/5
Re-watch. Nothing to add to my old review really. A load of crazy imagination and hilarious jokes can't make a film when the overall tone is anemic with most actors fail to be funny despite trying hard. Sister-melodrama is a pace killer, and the little gore there is, is mostly CGI. It was enough for 18 rathing in the UK, the Japanese gave it 12. Naoto Takenaka and Demo Tanaka save the little there is to save. I do wish the lovely actress/poledancer Cay Izumi would finally get a role where her face was fully visible. In RoboGeisha she's wearing a tengu mask, in Tokyo Gore Police gas mask covered her face, and in Vampire Girl she was unreconizable under heavy ganguro make-up. At least she gets on a pole for a moment during the ass-sword-fighting scene.

Geisha Cop (Japan, 2010) - 2.5/5
If there's something positive to say about RoboGeisha's 17 minute spin off Geisha Cop, that would be one good performance and a satisfying finale. Relative to its running time, that's more than the main feature had to offer. The short film stars Yui Murata as an undercover cop facing an evil geisha army. Special effects are modest - Yoshihiro Nishimura's name in the credits counts for nothing here - and Murata's ass alone isn't quite enough to top the entertainment value. AV star Asami provides the biggest surprise as an evil girl resurrecting the dead with her kisses. Going strictly againts her habits, she doesn't sink the film but instead saves it. Asami's kissing scene with Murata is, quite simply, one of the grand moments in movie history. Watch it five times and forgive the rest of the film its shortcomings.

The Man from Hong Kong (AU / HK, 1975) – 3/5
An enjoyable “Chinese Dirty Harry Goes Australia” film with Wang Yu (reportedly a total asshole) in the title role. Rather brutal although not unforgettable fights, some good car wrecking, and a great soundtrack. George Lazenby plays the main villain, soon to be HK superstars Sammo Hung, Corey Yuen, Lam Ching-Ying, and Yuen Biao his henchmen.

Anatomia Extincion (Japan, 1995) – 4/5
Yoshihiro Nishimura’s early independent film is an ignored masterwork of Japanese underground cinema. The 55 minute piece depicts the future Tokyo where the police force has been privatized and murderous engineer-mutants patrol the streets. A lonely businessman’s journey through the desolated metro tunnels turns into a body horror nightmare. An obvious variation of Tetsuo, with heavy influences from Akira, David Cronenberg, and even Roger Corman, Nishimura understands the genre so flawlessly he cannot be accused for copying but genuinely understanding the spirit of his role models. Some of the images are a carbon copy of Tsukamoto’s Tokyo Fist (1995), except that Nishimura completed his film months before Tsukamoto did! Gore effects are not as gruesome as in the director’s later works, but in return the film scarier and more atmospheric than any of the new wave Nippon splatters. Nishimura himself remade Anatomia Extincion as Tokyo Gore Police in 2008. The original is superior.

10 Nights of Dream (Japan, 2006) – 2.5/5
10-part omnibus movie loosely based on century old fantasy stories by Soseki Natsume. The level varies from miserable to brilliant. Takashi Shimizu’s blind-baby –horror delivers the atmosphere, while Yudai Yamaguchi’s slapstick horror ride ends the film with the ever so cute Ken’ichi Matsuyama getting to taste Yoshihiro Nishimura special effects work. Downwards since Linda Linda Linda director Nobuhiro Yamashita in turn doesn’t catch the fire with his practically unrecognizable episode. The stand out story is Vampire Hunter D –director Yoshikata Amano mesmerizing goth-anime. The single most impressive bravura is nevertheless the Suzuki Matsuo directed dance sequence that is crying out loud: “Give this man a cyberpunk scrip and a budget right now, he’s doing it even in period setting! Kon Ichikawa’s silent story is technically solid, Akio Jissoji’s isn’t on any other area. A few other directors contribute as well, with some of them displaying minor skill.

Hypertrophy Genitals Girl (Japan, 2009) – WTF/5
This is gotta have been the strangest call special effects director Yoshihiro Nishimura ever received. “Hey, Yoshi, it’s your buddy Noboru. Look, I need a 50 inch penis and a few buckets of fake sperm. Can you do that for me”? And yes, Nishimura’s company did do all that. The Machine Girl director Noboru Iguchi’s weird-as-fuck AV film is a story of a girl who’s knocked out by an alien and who then she wakes up with the biggest dick the mankind has ever seen. It’s surreal fun for 20 minutes, but the film still continues for more than 80 minutes after that and has little else new to offer than hardcore sex. The film’s making of documentary is an ace, though. Certainly none of cast or crew members ever have or ever will go through anything as strange again.
Screenshot (not entirely SFW)

HungFist wrote:RoboGeisha (Japan, 2009) - 2/5
Re-watch. Nothing to add to my old review really. A load of crazy imagination and hilarious jokes can't make a film when the overall tone is anemic with most actors fail to be funny despite trying hard.

What a disappointment. Was very hyped for this movie when the trailer came out but when they announced that the movie will for the audiences of 12 year olds I though to myself "this can't be good". Dropped the movie after 20 minutes or so - the comedy felt forced and the "action" looked pathetic and didn't even have any gore to back it up. I always finish the movie no matter how bad it, so I think that says a lot. Tokyo Gore Police this was not.

Iguchi has never been a good director. I saw him live when he presented Robo-Geisha in Sapporo and he's a cool guy, just can't make good films.

Nishimura is a different story. Have you seen Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl? Now, that's a brilliant mix of comedy, romance, over the top satire, and gore.

Mermaid Legend (Japan, 1984) – 3/5
Toshiharu Ikeda’s career went from visually aggressive pink films to the cult slasher Evil Dead Trap (1988). He left his former employer Nikkatsu in the early 1980’s because of censorship disagreements – only to direct an equally graphic and censorship ridden art house film at his new one-time home, Art Theatre Guild. A fascinating and beautiful yet flawed film, Mermaid Legend follows pearl diver girl Migiwa whose husband is murdered by crooks hired by politicians and businessmen. Migiwa’s husband and other villagers symbolize the traditional Japanese way of life and stand in the way of rotten industrialization Ikeda’s real focus, however, is on a revenge tale that comes with moments of magic but eventually drifts beyond all believability. The film doesn’t quite find the balance between realism and fantasy, art house and exploitation, ending up being a little bit of everything and not too much of anything. Nevertheless, unbalanced genre blending is captivating even if sometimes frustrating, and the film’s somewhat overused theme music is stunningly beautiful, only topped by even more breathtaking cinematography.

Speakerman – The Boo (Japan, 2004) – 3.5/5
Tokyo Gore Police director Yoshihiro Nishimura’s adorable fantasy-drama-comedy is a tale of a small red mutant who has a loudspeaker in the place of mouth. He works as a warning siren in a coal mine. After the mine is closed, it’s time for Speakerman to find new friends and discover the true intentions of a mysterious sushi chef. Free of all gore although featuring slightly darkish murder side plot, Speakerman is a lovable piece of cinema. It was made as Yubari International Fantastic Film Fest production – the film fest which was founded in the early 1990’s to spark life to the town economy after the closing of Yubari’s last coal mine, and which awarded Nishimura in 1995 for Anatomia Extinction. Nishimura brought in many of his buddies for supporting roles, including Noboru Iguchi, and Demo Tanaka (the “nail head” from The Machine Girl) who also gets to perform for some guitar karaoke. This is the film to quiet down those who think Nishimura is nothing but a gore geek.



Excellent trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrD-s1wQeHw
And for contrast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCuupnw_EOs

Ong Bak 3 2.5/5 Crazy sequel makes little sense ,is very confusing but ultimately Jaa is always worth watching and the fight scenes are pretty decent though isn't really a stand out one.the blu-ray looks quite lice and the HD audio is immense.