they live

we sleep...



nada (roddy piper) has lost his job and drifts into los angeles, trying to find work. instead, he finds a pair of sunglasses which give him a different view of the world; a world that is filled with suppression from a group of aliens who live among us...

yet another classic from john carpenter's back catalogue; exploring class, homelessness, advertising, slavery, selfishness and television. a simple, clever idea, executed with the flair, style and fun that you'd expect. roddy piper (always a wwf favourite of mine) delivers a great performance and, along with keith david, craft one of film's greatest ever fight sequences; it's not complex choreography, it's just all about the atmosphere. then, there's the now iconic line;

"i have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass; and i'm all out of bubblegum."

the carpenter / piper commentary is also an par with the great carpenter / russell commentaries...

great stuff.

the dvd is £3.99 from hmv.co.uk

my neighbour totoro

i want...



satsuki and mei move to a house in the country, with their father, to be closer to the hospital where their mother is convalescing. whilst exploring the woods that surround their new home, the girls befriend the totoros; the magical creatures who live there...

i love this film. the animation is absolutely beautiful, joe hisaishi's music is great, mei is hilarious and the totoros are lovely. i want to make friends with totoros and ride the cat bus...

great stuff.

the dvd is £7.99 from hmv.co.uk

the big heat

blood and bones...



wong (waise lee) is about to hand in his resignation and settle down with maggie (betty mak); a spinal defect has been causing the deterioration of the nerves in his hand and wong wants to call it quits, before he can no longer pull a trigger. however, when wong hears about the murder of his old partner, he postpones his retirement from the hong kong police.

it seems as if wong's old partner was involved with in a plot to blackmail a successful business man, ho ka-nin (stuart ong), who is connected to han ching (paul chu), a powerful and ruthless smuggler. wong, lun (matthew wong), kam (philip kwok) and ong (lo ging-wa) set out to investigate ho and han, but soon find that they are being investigated as well...

produced by tsui hark, written by gordon chan and co-directed by johnnie to, 'the big heat' sits in the middle of late-eighties, ballistic heavy, hong kong cop actioners. it is, in essence, another example of a gritty drama, where the criminals seem bigger than the law and the cops seem to be restricted by it. still, it's particularly full on approach, packed with broken bones, buckets of blood and a barrage of bullets, make it highly entertaining viewing.

a good, solid, genuinely exciting, action thriller.

the dvd is hk$36 from buyoyo.com

escape from new york

call me snake...



manhattan island has been transformed into a maximum security prison, there are no guards, only inmates. the president's plane, en route to an important conference, has been hijacked and crash landed in the city. time is precious and the authorities turn to a recently captured, dangerous criminal; snake plissken (kurt russell). snake has twenty-four hours to get into the city, find the president and get out...

the first time i saw this film, in my early teens, it instantly became the coolest thing i'd ever seen in my life. after more years than i care to mention, it's still up there with the best of them. this is probably due to the carpenter / russell factor; when these two get together, the results are, invariably, golden! think 'elvis the movie', 'the thing' and 'big trouble in little china'...

kurt russell's snake is a total badass, john carpenter's direction and score are both outstanding, the look and feel of the film is totally original and, apart from the use of an audio cassette (what's one of those, i hear you cry?), it's remained timeless. besides russell; ernest borgnine, isaac hayes, harry-dean stanton, adrienne barbeau, donald pleasence and lee van cleef flesh out a wonderful cast. the look of new york (actually it's st louis and l.a.) is amazing in its bleak, run-down, desolation, there's some excellent matte painting (by james cameron), some nice animation and a glut of inventive visual effects.

needless to say, the dvd features another excellent carpenter / russell commentary and a host of special features, which i have yet to watch.

cool...

the dvd is $20.66 from dvdpacific.com

the twins effect

they're not really twins...



kazaf (edison chen), a vampire prince, has recently relocated to hong kong, along with his right-hand man, prada (anthony wong). gypsy (gillian cheung) has also come to hong kong, she is reeve's (ekin cheng) new partner; they are vampire hunters. trouble is on the horizon, though, as kazaf and helen (charlene choi), reeve's sister, are falling in love. this pales next to the trouble that duke dekotes (micky hardt), an evil euro-vampire, is about to cause; he's after a vampire bible, which has the power to make him immune to the sun's, otherwise deadly, rays...

first things first: gillian, she's cuter, has supreme fighting ability and better hair.

this was never going to be the new 'citizen kane' but, thanks to dante lam's direction and donnie yen's choreography, it is a lot of fun. it is a pretty silly film, which is a good thing, although the narrative slowly comes together and holds one's attention. the twins do a reasonable job, ekin and edison seem to slot nicely into their roles and with support from anthony wong and a scene stealing cameos from jackie chan and karen mok, the cast ain't too shabby.

fluff, but fun fluff...

the dvd is hk$35 from buyoyo.com

the host

with the most...



park gang-du (song kang-ho) works with his father, hie-bong (byeong hie-bong), in his snack bar, beside the han river. one afternoon, people notice a strange object hanging from one of the bridges that span that river when, suddenly, it drops into the water and swims to the shore; it is a large creature, which proceeds to attack the crowd that has gathered. in the chaos that follows, the creature snatches gang-du's daughter, hyun-seo (ko ah-sung), and swims off.

gang-du and hie-bong are joined at a memorial, for all those killed by the creature, by nam-il (park hae-il)and nam-joo (bae ju-na), gang-du's brother and sister. the family are distraught and their relationship is more strained than usual; that is, until gang-du receives a phone call from hyun-seo, who is trapped in the creature's lair. the park family set out to find her...

this is bong joon-ho's third film, following on from 'barking dogs never bite' and 'memories of murder' (both of which are excellent). bong, once again, shows that he is a master at combining the darkly comic, with solid drama. 'the host' follows on from the great tradition of films such as 'gojira' (that's 'godzilla', to you and i); focussing on a monster, created by mankind's irresponsibility, to craft a film which contains a social and political commentary, behind a character driven narrative.

the cast are fantastic; does song kang-ho ever let you down? the creature is also great and the cgi, apart from a little bit of suspect looking fire towards the end of the film, is outstanding. lee byeong-woo also adds another quality soundtrack to his, already impressive, body of work. apart from a very minor quibble with the execution of the film's climax (and it is only very minor), it's very hard to find anything wrong with this at all.

great stuff. highly recommended...

i went for the cheap, bare-bones, hong kong release (hk$83 from buyoyo.com), although there are plenty of other releases out there, if you're interested in seeing some special features.

pedicab driver

sammo's hidden gem...



tung (sammo hung), malted candy (max mok), san cha cake (lowell lo) and rice pudding (mang hoi) are four friends who live in macau and drive pedicabs. whilst rice pudding has a family to take care of, and san sha cake spends his time in the local brothel, tung and malted candy are falling in love. tung has fallen for ping (nina li), one of the girls who works at his auntie's bakery, malted candy for siu chui (fennie yuen), after accidentally running her down with his pedicab. things seem to be going pretty well for the four friends, but a run in with master 5 (an exceptionally vile john shum), the local triad boss, leads to tragedy and revenge...

this is a quality slice of sammo; his direction, choreography and performance are all tight. a relatively sedate start to the film allows for some character development before things really kick off, both dramatically and action-wise. some of sammo's other films have had darker elements, but this is easily the darkest; the comic relief is kept to a minimum and themes such as social responsibility and morality punctuate the drama.

as for the action, well, it is pretty full on and every punch, kick and fall looks like they hurt. there's a grand tea-shop fight to open proceedings, followed by a pedicab chase, which ends up with sammo fighting liu chia-liang, and a string of fights between sammo, max mok, mang hoi and master 5's men, who include corey yuen, eddie maher and a hard-kicking billy chow.

the cast are universally great and the film is littered with cameos from the likes of alfred cheung, maria cordero, lam ching-ying, dick wei and eric tsang. all of which adds up to be pretty damn good.

it's a shame that there is no official dvd of this film available (i watched a bootleg, mastered from an old vcd release, with burnt in subs); the sooner someone releases one, the better...

at the earth's core

you cannot mesmerise me, i'm british!



when a victorian scientist, dr perry (peter cushing), and his partner, david innes (doug mcclure), attempt to dig through a welsh mountain, using their invention 'the iron mole', things go awry and they find themselves lost at in the earth's core. they are in the world of pellucidor, where the humanoid inhabitants are enslaved by the mahars; an ugly bunch of creatures who are ruled over by telepathic bird people. looks like dr perry and david have a regime to overthrow, before they return to the surface of the earth...

sitting between 'the land that time forgot' and 'warlords of atlantis', 'at the earth's core' is one of four collaborations between director kevin conner and star doug mcclure, the other being 'the people that time forgot'. if you've seen any of those films, then you know what to expect; a daft adventure, with questionable performances and suspect special effects. i love these films...

doug mcclure is exactly the same as you'd expect, only this time he has a doddering (xenophobic) peter cushing as a side-kick but, in a casting boon, caroline munro is his love interest. the sets all look like sets, the monsters all look like men in rubber suits, although they have used real fire...

this is a very poor film, filled with silliness, but that's what i love about it; daft fun. the only aspect that i can praise, because of genuine greatness, is mike vickers' excellent electronic soundtrack.

smashing!

the dvd is £4.99 from

the defiant ones

bowlin' green, sowin' machine...



on a rainy night in the late fifties, a truck is transporting members of a chain gang back to prison when it crashes. noah (sidney poitier) and joker (tony curtis) are thrown from the truck and start running. bound together by a seemingly unbreakable iron chain, the two men must put aside their differences and prejudices in order to have any hope of survival and escape...

this has always been one of my favourite films and i thoroughly enjoyed watching it yet again. poitier and curtis are simply magnificent and richly deserved the accolades, awards and nominations that they received for these roles. it is, however, stanley kramer's direction that really makes this film for me; less is most definitely more. it delivers without descending into melodrama or preaching at you.

there's just so many great things about 'the defiant ones'; it's beautiful cinematography, it's lack of a score (the only music comes from one of the deputy's radios), charles mcgraw's voice. i wonder how it would've turned out if elvis had got his wish; elvis as joker, sammy davis jnr as noah?

great stuff...

the dvd is £5.99 from play.com

the cat returns

he is a cat, but he's cool!



despite a slight clumsiness and a penchant for over-sleeping, haru is an ordinary girl, with a pretty ordinary life. until, one day, she saves a cat from being run over; to her amazement the cat thanks her, before dashing off. late that night, haru is visited by a delegation from the kingdom of the cats, who wish to thank haru for saving their prince. and so, haru's adventure begins...

now, i loved this. it is everything you could possibly want; a great selection of characters, lots of fun, drama and adventure, beautiful animation, plenty of humour and talking cats. studio ghibli; they know where it's at!

tip-top!

the dvd is £5.99 from hmv.co.uk

monty python and the holy grail

an african or european swallow?



i felt i'd left it long enough, since over-watching this film as a child, and i was right. the monty python team show that, with enough imagination and effort, you can pretty much cobble together a funny film with very little money. even if it plays out like a series of python sketches, it still works; clever, very silly and funny.

good stuff.

the dvd is £12.99 from play.com

the wild, wild rose

from seville to wanchai...



'carmen' is bizet's most famous opera; telling the story of a fiery gypsy girl, who seduces don jose, causing him to rebel against his superiors in the spanish army and join a band of smugglers, which carmen belongs to. carmen soon becomes bored and focusses her attentions on the bullfighter, escamillo. don jose descends into madness, eventually killing carmen...

'the wild, wild rose' takes the premise of bizet's opera and relocates it to the smoke-filled nightclubs of hong kong's wanchai district. carmen becomes deng 'wild rose' sijia (grace chang); a feisty, strong-willed singer, who often hides a kind heart beneath bravado. her weakness is men; falling in love with each one she meets, only to spurn them when a new one arrives on the scene. the latest target, for her affections, is liang hanhua (zhang yang); hanhua is a teacher, who has lost his job during the economic struggles of the late 1950's, and takes a job playing piano for sijia.

despite the fact that hanhua is a good, honest man, who is engaged to be married, sijia claims that she will have him for herself within only ten days. initially nervous and intimidated, hanhua rejects sijia's advances but, as he catches glimpses of the kind heart that she keeps well-hidden, he falls for her. as their passion reaches it's peak, cyclops (tong dik); a dangerous ganster and sijia's former husband, is released from prison and comes looking for her. after escaping from his clutches, sijia and hanhua find themselves isolated from their friends and family, without work and threatened by cyclop's desire for revenge...

when i bought this dvd, i thought that it would be another of 'cathay films' campy productions, especially as wong tin-lam (who directed 'mad, mad, mad swords', which i watched recently) was attached to it. i was wrong. which, in this case, was a good thing...

'the wild, wild rose' adapts 'carmen' in an inventive and original way; it doesn't simply transpose its source material, it re-invents it. from the opening tiles, to the final, tragic climax, you know you are watching a production that oozes class. grace chang is simply stunning as the eponymous 'wild rose'; torn between her generous heart and her selfish passions. whilst zhang yang is completely convincing as a corrupted innocent, who is all consumed by a desire, which ultimately destroys him. wong tin-lam handles this journey perfectly, making each change in the films tone seamless and natural.

visually, the film is equal to the noirs which it emulates; the set design is fantastic and the shadow-heavy cinematography is a superb compliment to shady world of wanchai's nightclubs. now, for the songs. ryoichi hattori manages to adapt bizet's music to suit the nightclub bands of 1960; it's spanish influences are perfect for a world which had recently been flooded with bossa nova.

an unexpected gem.

the dvd is hk$39 from buyoyo.com

dragon lord

young, but not masterful...



lung (jackie chan) and chin (mars) have been friends since childhood, but find their friendship tested when they fall for the same girl, lai (suet lee). still, their fall out doesn't last too long when they take on a gang who are trying to smuggle priceless treasures out of china...

this is often thought of as a sequel to 'young master', on occasion it even bears the title 'young master in love', and it has an almost identical cast: a sequel it is not. the film loses a lot of the raw energy that made 'young master' so great, even whang in-shik's appearance as the leader of the smugglers cannot boost it to the levels that 'young master' reached. the narrative is extremely messy and starts sub-plots with no interest in following them through and just ends up being a string of scenes, with no sensation of a rounded piece.

what is also a let down, is the action; where successfully mixed 'young master' mixed comic and brutal confrontations, which were executed in fine style, 'dragon lord' has a couple of low standard (comparatively) fights and a couple of choreographed set pieces. it's highlight is the game of shuttlecock football, which is excellent.

on the whole, it is a pretty weak piece.

the dvd is £4.99 from play.com

the world sinks except japan

"i don't like japanese movies, they look so cheap"



the year is 2014, it is three years since massive geological disasters caused a radical shift in the world's tectonic plates, resulting in every continent and country, except japan, sinking into the oceans. the population of japan has multiplied by five, many of the refugees have lost everything, those who have money find it is now worthless (against the yen). the japanese, sick of the gaijin multitudes, become increasingly xenophobic, but another disaster may be on the horizon...

minoru kawasaki, known for satirical genre parodies such as 'the calamari wrestler' and 'executive koala', has adapted yasutaka tsutsui's novel, of the same name, to the screen. tsutsui's novel is, itself, a parody of sakyo komatsu's 'nippon chinbotsu' ('japan sinks' aka 'the submersion of japan') which has also been adapted for the screen, both in 1973 and 2006. komatsu's novel tells of a string of geological disasters, which result in the islands of japan sinking into the ocean and the subsequent resettlement of its population across the globe.

'the world sinks except japan' flips this idea on its head, with style. there's no flashy effects, just a funny look at an improbable situation. the premiere's of america, korea and china, as well as the head of the former u.n., hand around with the japanese prime minister, hollywood actors struggle to make a buck, with the actresses turning to porn. the japanese people find themselves eating whale meat, without the usual condemnation and so on...

good stuff.

the dvd is hk$81 from buyoyo.com

confession of pain

one hundred and ten minutes of pain...



bong (takeshi kaneshiro) is an ex-cop, an alcoholic and private investigator; he quit the force after arriving home to find his girlfriend had killed herself, but he still keeps in touch with chief (tony leung chui-wai), his ex-boss. when chief's father-in-law is murdered, his wife susan (xu jing-lei) asks bong to investigate; she believes the murder is more complex than it appears. chief can't get involved, as he's a suspect, but his influence allows bong to tag along with the investigating officer, tsui (chapman to), to see if he can come up with anything. bong soon begins to agree with susan...

following on from 2005's 'initial d', after milking their 'infernal affairs' films for all they were worth (andrew lau was even taking credit for scorsese's oscar win), andrew lau and alan mak have returned to narrative twists and turns. 'confession of pain' is a who-done-it thriller with a difference; we get to know who did it after only a few scenes, leaving us to watch takeshi kaneshiro as he tries to find out, whilst we wait for the motives to be disclosed. in my opinion, this just doesn't work and, ultimately, i just didn't care.

thankfully, kaneshiro is extremely watchable; sure he's a smouldering hunk of man-flesh, but his portrayal of bong's escapist alcoholism is one of very few reasons to endure this film. tony leung is completely out-smouldered, delivering a dull performance, of an already dull character. if it wasn't for kaneshiro i'd probably have stopped watching the film, although i did enjoy the supporting turns, from a bumbling chapman to and a breezy shu qi.

unfortunately, kaneshi's performance and the slick look of the film can't save it from its narrative issues; after a messy, exposition rich, introduction, closely followed by the reveal, the narrative clunks along until it reaches a distinctly unsatisfying conclusion.

kaneshiro good, film bad.

the dvd is hk$94 from buyoyo.com