Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Dating A Vampire (Hong Kong, 2006)

Hong Kong version of Fright Night, only not so good. Netflix recently added a ton of Hong Kong movies to their streaming service and most of them are not that good. I had the chance to buy many of them when they first came out on dvd or vhs and passed on them, but since they are streaming it only costs me my time. I picked Dating A Vampire because it is directed by Clarence Fok (or Ford) and features Yuen Wah and Andy On so I hoped there would be some decent action. There wasn't much, but the movie was not so bad. Recommended for Hong Kong fanatics only.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Black Lightning (Russia, 2009)

Black Lightning is a remake of Spiderman except instead of the hero getting bit by a radioactive spider, he gets a flying car. The special effects are pretty decent. Co directed by Dimitriy Kiselev and Aleksandr Voytinskiy. It is produced by Timur Bekmambetov, the director of Nightwatch and Wanted.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

No Mercy (South Korea, 2010)

One of the amazing things about South Korean cinema is how many great movies are made by first time directors. Kim Hyeong-Joon's No Mercy is a great crime drama with an involving plot that I don't want to give anything away about. It stars Sol Kyung-Gu as a University Professor who helps the police force with autopsies and forensic evidence. Just as he is about to retire (you always know something bad is going to happen when a cop or someone related to law enforcement nears retirement) he drawn into one last case. While the autopsies are not bloody, they are pretty graphic. Netflix has it streaming. Here is the unsub trailer (so you don't understand the spoilers unless you speak Korean). For those of you with out Netflix, the movie is up on youtube.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

New mix from Caribou

Nice mix from Caribou of artists playing the next ATP, ignore the title as thankfully there is no Xmas music in the mix. Found on dangerousminds.net

Caribou - Nightmare Before Christmas Mix by All Tomorrows Parties

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Trailer for Tsui Hark's Flying Swords Of Dragon Gate.

Here is the trailer for Flying Swords Of Dragon Gate, a 3D film by Tsui Hark and starring Jet Li. It gets the idea of 3D right, you should be throwing stuff at the screen. I saw Immortals in 3D and you would think a movie with a magic bow would fire at least one arrow at the audience.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Failan (South Korea, 2001)

Choi Min Sik is one of the world's best actors and if you disagree you should watch "Oldboy" and then "Failan". They are completely different and show an actor at his prime. In Failan, Choi is a low level gangster who is asked to take the fall for the murder that his boss has committed. The movie jumps between the present and the past when Choi agreed to have a fake marriage so that Cecilia Cheung could get a work permit in order to stay in South Korea. We follow Cheung's life as she works hard and is taken advantage of and the only joy she has is writing letters to her husband. Since it is a South Korean film you know that things probably won't end well for each character. Failan is one of the Korean films from 10 years ago that caught viewer's attention and has only been available on a region coded disc for many years. Finally it is available from Netflix with good subtitles. Here is an unsubtitled trailer.

Flaming Brothers (Hong Kong, 1987)

Flaming Brothers is written by Wong Kar Wai and stars Chow Yun Fat. 1987 was a good year for Chow Yun Fat, he was a the top of the box office after the success of A Better Tomorrow. Chow was in 11 movies released in '87 including City On Fire, Prison On Fire and A Better Tomorrow II. But the real star of Flaming Brothers is Alan Tang and Chow has more of a supporting role. Wong Kar Wai's script is not that special, the plot is the standard Triad partners breaking up as one of them falls in love and tries to go straight only to be pulled back in ala Al Pacino's lines in Godfather 3. Still any big budget Hong Kong action film from 1987 is worth seeing. The final shoot out is good. The bad guy in the film is Patrick Tse, father of current Hong Kong star Nicolas Tse, and you might recognize him as the bad guy in Shaolin Soccer. Netflix has it streaming with good subtitles. Here's the trailer but it is unsubbed.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Secret Of The Urn (Japan, 1966)

Hideo Gosha is a great Japanese samurai movie director that more people should know, fortunately more of his films are finally being released in America. 1966's The Secret Of The Urn is about a disfigured ex samurai who gets caught up in a plot to steal an urn that holds the secret to saving the Yagyu clan. Lots of good swordfights, one on one and one against many. The plot resembles a Raymond Chandler novel. Gosha's camera work is impressive, some nice tracking shots. Animego's subtitling is as good as ever, they take the time to color the subtitles for different voices and they caption and translate street signs. A recommended samurai film for someone looking for something past the Kurasawa classics. On netflix streaming.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Tiger Cage 2 (Hong Kong, 1990)

Having nothing to do with Tiger Cage, other than a plot with drug dealers and corrupt police, Yuen Wo Ping's Tiger Cage is an action fest. Close to 80 minutes of it's 90 minute running time is filled with the best fights and chases that Hong Kong actors and stuntmen can offer. This is the type of film that Hong Kong used to crank out on a weekly basis, and when it works, such as in this film, it really works. Donnie Yen is Dragon Yau and he teams up with David Wu and Rosamund Kwan to fight Robin Shou (from the Mortal Kombat films). Note that I said fight and not defeat as a lot of films from this era could kill the hero and or the heroine. You never knew. A lot of the time in late 80's/ early 90's Hong Kong action films the heroes and heroines represent Hong Kong and they get caught up between the United Kingdom abandoning them and the fear of a mainland Chinese takeover. A fair amount of filmmakers, and actors were planning on moving to Hollywood or Canada over fear of what might of happened in the 1997 handover. But check this movie out if you want to see some action, much better than any hollywood film. The netflix streaming version has good subtitles.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

The Magicians -for fans of Peep Show

If you've ever watched Peep Show on Hulu and you should as it is incredibly funny you should check out The Magicians, a movie that Mitchell and Webb made. No US release but it is on youtube. Their co-star is one of the creators of "Spaced". No embedding so click on the link