Savior Of The Soul (Hong Kong, 1991)

Savior Of The Soul starts out with an amazing sci-fi prison break, has a couple of good action scenes in the middle and ends with an innovative fight sequence but it is also full of bad low brow, not funny comedy scenes, that I would only recommend it to die hard Hong Kong film fans. Some Hong Kong films try to appeal to everyone. In the 80's and 90's it was common for entire families to go to the cinema together so film makers would have scenes for every member. Intense action for adult males, tear jerk romance for adult females, broad comedy to appeal to grandparents, and potty humor for the kids. One way to make films this way is to have multiple directors. In Savior Of The Soul you have Corey Yuen to oversee the intense action (with martial arts direction by Yuen Tak), Jeff Lau to direct the comedy and David Lai to do the rest. This can lead to schizophrenic movies. Sometimes very good schizophrenic movies. Savior of the Soul does not hold together as a whole film. Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, Anita Mui, Carina Lau and Kenny Bee round out the cast. It is streaming on netflix. Here is the opening sequence on youtube.

New George Pelecanos novel for 99 cents

I prefer to read books, mostly from the library but amazon's kindle price the new Pelecanos book is too low to pass up. "What It Was" is due out on Jan 23, but if you preorder it, the price is 99 cents. And remember with amazon, they don't charge you until it is released. The hardcover is $22. You could add your name to your library's wait list, but 99 cents is hard to beat.

http://www.amazon.com/What-It-Was-ebook/dp/B005HFO072/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1325298864&sr=1-3

Best TV show of 2010 now on Netflix streaming

As everyone is posting their 2011 best of lists I want to talk about the best show I saw in 2010. Ted Griffin's Terriers was an FX series staring Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James as unlicensed PIs in San Diego. They eke out a living solving small crimes, dog-napping, lost money, nothing dangerous. But things change in the course of the series and the PIs are in a fight for their lives. The writing, acting, and directing in this series is excellent. It is my favorite FX show, above The Shield, Justified, American Horror Story, and even It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. If you are looking for a tv series to watch over the holidays you should watch Terriers.



Ted Griffin was a writer on The Shield and he wrote the screenplay for Ravenous. He is also the writer for the Ashton Kutcher movie Killers, and the Ben Stiller Eddie Murphy movie Tower Heist. Griffin's involvement in these films is enough for me to add them to my queue.

Michel Gondry's remake of Taxi Driver

Michel Gondry's Be Kind, Rewind had Jack Black and Mos Def remake classic films in an extremely low budget style called Sweded. Here is Michel Gondry's newest Sweded remake, Taxi Driver.

Michelle Yeoh in Fearless

I heard a review of the new Luc Besson film The Lady staring Michelle Yeoh as Aung San Suu Kyi and it reminded me that I had never seen her segment from the Chinese version of Jet Li's Fearless. Michelle Yeoh is featured in a framing sequence that explains why Wu Shu should be an Olympic sport. Here is the opening clip from youtube.



There is also a fight sequence that did not make the US version. Why a studio would cut a fight sequence from a Jet Li film does not make sense to me.



Obviously the original version does not have a linkin park soundtrack.

Sonny Sharrock on Space Ghost

I never watched the show in the 1990's so I was surprised to learn that Sonny Sharrock did the music to Space Ghost. Here's a 12 minute clip with Thurston Moore as the guest. Seen on WFMU's blog.

Space Ghost C2C - 26 - Sharrock by SpaceGhostC2Cfan0224

2000 A.D. (Hong Kong, 2000)

Directed by Gordan Chan (Fist Of Legend), this big budget espionage film co-produced by Singapore's Raintree Films, takes about 30 minutes for the action to start but then you have a high powered rifle sniper, bloody shootouts, car chases, and fights on top of skyscrapers. Many Hong Kong and Singaporean stars are in the film. Aaron Kwok, Francis Ng, Daniel Wu, Ray Lui and Andrew Lin round out the Hong Kong stars. The sniper is played by Ken Lo, who is famous for being Jackie Chan's bodyguard and final opponent in Drunken Master 2 (Legend Of The Drunken Master in the US). Definitely worth watch, Francis Ng gives a great performance as weary Hong Kong police detective. The netflix streaming has easy to read yellow English subtitles. Normally I put a link to the film's trailer but this time I'm linking to the sniper action scene. It does spoil a character's death.

Free Buddha Machine app

Free Buddha Machine app for iPads. I used to sell a lot of these and so I fihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgured I would let you know that the app is free for the next couple of days. Originally found on boingboing.net