Beginning in 1965, actor Jimmy Wang Yu worked making films for the famous Shaw Brothers Studio operated by Run Run Shaw, making films like One-Armed Swordsman (1967) and Come Drink with Me (1966) sequel Golden Swallow (1968). It wasn’t until… Read More ›
There’s a strange thing that happens when machines that are capable of destroying are set in motion but aren’t stopped — they just continue to destroy with almost unfettered access. We can try to prevent or redirect, but there’s rarely… Read More ›
Given the recent news of accomplished actor Bruce Willis’s failing cognitive health, watching a film like 12 Monkeys is a tad bittersweet. On the one hand, we’ll never get a stirring performance like this again; on the other, his works,… Read More ›
In 1966, director King Hu (Dragon Inn) released Da zui xia, also known as The Great Drunken Hero and Come Drink with Me, a martial arts tale that’s equal parts swordplay and drama. The film starred Cheng Pei-pei (Crouching Tiger,… Read More ›
With its opening shots of war-torn landscapes, skulls absent flesh and sinew, and other indicators of lifelessness, Yasuzô Masumura’s 赤い天使 (Red Angel) is quickly determined to be anti-war, the bleakness on display never softening from the beginning to the ending…. Read More ›
There are some films that one sees in their youth and then remembers nothing about them (save for a few pieces here and there) in their adulthood. It could be a film they saw on home video or cable. It… Read More ›
Sailor Suit and Machine Gun is a film built on dichotomy. The lead character, Izumi (Hiroko Yakushimaru), is a high school teen, suggesting innocence or, at the least, a touch of naiveté. She’s not old enough to have been touched… Read More ›
As with previously reviewed films Giants and Toys (1958) and Irezumi (1966), Arrow Video is restoring and offering up to audiences outside of Japan another Yasuzô Masumura film: Blind Beast. Arrow Video provides an opportunity to expand what viewers may… Read More ›
In the opening moments of Yasuzô Masumura’s Irezumi (1966), we witness a man drug a woman, then design and ink a spider tattoo on her back. As he works on the floor, bent over her, her only reaction is to… Read More ›
The question as to whether or not the future can influence the past has plagued many a writer, and probably a few physicists, too. It’s a notion explored in a variety of films, most recently with Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (2020),… Read More ›
Death Has Blue Eyes (To koritsi vomva) is an easy film to summarize but a difficult one to describe. It’s a science fiction thriller in a sexploitation package. Beyond this, though, is where the film gets tricky due to a… Read More ›
“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heaves, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and… Read More ›
By director Ryûhei Kitamura’s own admission, labels are reductive and restrictive. Though they may help audiences to know where to look on the shelf for something or programmers to know where to schedule, labels imply as much the absence of… Read More ›
You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Kodan Armada. These seemingly innocuous words displayed across an arcade cabinet as an unseen voice declares them are, in fact, a glorious call to… Read More ›
Sometimes a movie drops that you know is intended for the widest audience possible. These often take the form of a drama like 2019’s Astronaut, a romance like 2019’s Ode to Joy, or a comedy like 2020’s Palm Springs. There’s… Read More ›