What Asian Films Have You Been Watching Recently?

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

A triple bill before i head off for bed. First up was PYROKINESIS aka CROSSFIRE. Shusuke Kaneko of Gamera fame is helming this one and it's alright as a straight J-horror film but nothing special. One can draw parallels to Stephen King material from the obvious homage to FIRESTARTER & to a lesser extent, CARRIE. Watch it once and forget about it.













Next up was Akihisa Okamoto's VIOLENT CLASSROOM aka CLASSROOM OF TERROR starring Yusaku Matsuda. Imagine Blackboard Jungle set in Japan with bosozoku replacing inner city youth but of course much more violent, sleaze filled and more entertaining by at least tenfold. Matsuda with one of his usual crazed performances.



















The last was probably my favorite of the trio and it was Terry Tong's 1982 debut, the HK actioner COOLIE KILLER. Lot of neat action set pieces like a roller derby gang of killers trying to off Charlie Chin in a high rise office complex, a sexy siren using a shard of broken wine glass to severe her victim's carotid artery in a jacuzzi, motorcycle gang using BBQ tongs as their weapon of choice, etc. I have the letterboxed Mei Ah DVD with the crime doesn't pay ending but apparently the VCD copy has the better ending and the original opening/ending credits as well. I'm gonna have to get a copy of the VCD.

[sukebanboy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sukebanboy]

KILLER TOON was pretty bad....saw it on cable tv for free and STILL felt cheated...not a good sign!!!

K-Horror I have almoat given up on....tame, flatly directed /acted and predictable they are mostly made for young teen audience....and blur into one another with thei sameness....I DID catch the Argento-esque TEACHER'S DAY again on cable the other night..which almost redeemed my hope that K Horror could be great again......ALMOST

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

KILLER TOON was pretty bad....saw it on cable tv for free and STILL felt cheated...not a good sign!!!

K-Horror I have almoat given up on....tame, flatly directed /acted and predictable they are mostly made for young teen audience....and blur into one another with thei sameness....I DID catch the Argento-esque TEACHER'S DAY again on cable the other night..which almost redeemed my hope that K Horror could be great again......ALMOST

I forget you're in the UK. I wish my local cable channel would show Korean movies on a regular basis. Yeah, I haven't watched it in years but that movie was alright. I have the DVD somewhere but it was released as BLOODY REUNION on R1.

[AngelGuts Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close AngelGuts]

Love VIOLENT CLASSROOM, and nice to see you post about COOLIE KILLER. A quiet fave of mine.

CHRONICLE OF FUGITIVE DAYS AJND SEX I've never seen. Is there a Japanese DVD?

SUBURB MURDER reminded me tonally of BLOODY BEAST mixed with UNTOLD STORY. Danny Lee had a nice little repertory of actors he bumped up the totem poll through various movies.

[Keeth Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Keeth]

Terrifying Girls High School: Lynch Law Classroom and Kichiku Dai Enkai: Banquet of the Beast

Kichiku could have used some editing. 100-something odd minutes is way too long!

[sukebanboy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sukebanboy]

Danny Lee had a nice little repertory of actors he bumped up the totem poll through various movies.

Haha..yeah, for a while there it was pretty common to see Danny Lee's cop and his assistants turn up in HK films

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

Love VIOLENT CLASSROOM, and nice to see you post about COOLIE KILLER. A quiet fave of mine.

CHRONICLE OF FUGITIVE DAYS AJND SEX I've never seen. Is there a Japanese DVD?

SUBURB MURDER reminded me tonally of BLOODY BEAST mixed with UNTOLD STORY. Danny Lee had a nice little repertory of actors he bumped up the totem poll through various movies.

Yes, a Japanese DVD was recently released & is available from Amazon.jp.

Yup, just look at how Nick Cheung has blown up to be a full fledged star in his own right as a director now. yeah, COOLIE KILLER has a lot of the thematic elements of the action revenge film that were later popularized by John Woo & Ringo Lam among others.

I got the latest Johnnie To/Milkyway movie, TRIVISA on my queue next. I'll give it a go tonight and see if warrants the positive reviews.

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

I did see TRIVISA but unfortunately it was with shitty google subs. That really marred my impression of it. I'm going to have to hunt down some better subs before I pass judgment. Speaking of Johnnie To/Milkyway, I'm going to check out his other one, THREE tonight with some buddies. Well Go has the rights and is distributing it theatrically starting today in select cities.

Until then, I pulled out my crap blu ray of GODZILLA vs MEGALON. Not a huge fan of the movie but I decided to re-watch it in anticipation of my latest vinyl collectible. I should be receiving an X-Plus Ric Shounen exclusive JET JAGUAR reissue with light up gimmick in a couple weeks. So excited! :woot:

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

I caught Johnnie To's latest, THREE the other night and it's very average to mediocre. I didn't get involved with any the characters and the armed robber (portrayed by Wallace Chung) with a bullet lodged in his skull, who seemingly has an encyclopedic knowledge of everything, started to annoy me more as the movie progressed with his incessant name dropping. The single slo-mo take during the hospital shootout finale really sapped any enthusiasm I had up to that point. It was anti-climatic at best and just made me numb when it was finally over. It's not a good sign when I started to visualize the COLD WAR 2 trailer they showed during the previews and thinking that would be much more entertaining than this film.

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

Some accurate perfectly synched subs came out for TRIVISA the other day, so I'll give it another go tonight. In the meantime, I caught a couple other HK flicks. The first was Bowie Lau's 1999 CAT IIB horror movie, THE DEADLY CAMP. This was a total POS from the start to the end. Just parroting every well known slasher flick from the US (as well as Dennis Yu's far superior flick, THE BEASTS) which wouldn't be half bad if the payoff was good but nope. Certainly not deserving of its rating as there is not much in the way of gore or nudity either. The best scene (it wasn't much of a search) was Anthony Wong teaching that retarded offspring of the killer how to screw a chick in exchange for sparing his life and then jerking the kid off himself.









Followed up with Bruce Law's 1998, EXTREME CRISIS. I haven't seen this one in years. Yes, this movie isn't very good but it's entertaining at least. Just a DIE HARD in HK clone with the added backstory exploiting the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attacks to create a multi-national hero cop action picture. My fave scene is the Japanese terrorists blitzing the SDU with flamethrowers. That was cool knowing it wasn't CGI and you can see the blood squibs exploding while the stuntmen were on fire.

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

Really enjoyed TRIVISA. It's at least tenfold better than THREE. I thought the ending was perfect too. Of the three main characters, I got into Richie Jen's the most - you can feel the inner tension ratcheting up as he went from hardened armed robber to "business man" & having to lower himself by constantly ingratiating himself to the various corrupt Mainland officials. But Jordan Chan and Gordon Lam played their roles with aplomb as well. I'd be remiss if I failed to mention the 3 young directors who collaborated on this film. Johnnie To set out to find some emerging talent and he's hit the nail on the proverbial head with these 3 if this film is any indication.

Other HK movies that are on my "watch" list is the Herman Yau triad film, THE MOBFATHERS, the Aaron Kwok crime thriller, PORT OF CALL and after watching TRIVISA, I want to seek out Jevons Au's contribution to the dystopian anthology, TEN YEARS.

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

On a whim, decided to rewatch BRINGING GODZILLA DOWN TO SIZE: THE ART OF JAPANESE SPECIAL EFFECTS. It's included as a bonus feature on one of the Classic Media DVDs but forget off hand which one? anyway, the best documentary in the English language on the subject. Not surprising when you have guys like Ed Godziszewski & Steve Ryfle behind it. Btw, if anyone wants to sell me a copy of Godziszewski's OOP The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Godzilla, please PM me. Also, looking for a copy of the late Guy Tucker's Age of the Gods: A History of Japanese Fantasy Film.

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

Been on a Charlie Chin kick of late with COOLIE KILLER & today I re-watched Alfred Cheung's 1988 neo-noir action thriller ON THE RUN starring Yuen Biao. But the real star of this one is Pat Ha. She's totally bad ass as the calculating hit woman for hire with the penchant for accurately placed head shots. Yuen Biao doesn't do his usual clowning around and one barely catches any glimpse of his kung fu acrobatics but he puts forth one of his more impressive acting performances. The movie from the start is very dark and filled with a sense of despair but the gritty action and brutal gun play kept me glued until the blood soaked finale.

Then I decided to pull out my OOP Joy sales dvd of Lar Kau-wing's 1987 bizarre comedy/thriller SCARED STIFF. Hard to describe this one as it starts off a buddy sex comedy then slowly morphs into a supernatural sci-fi crime thriller. I had a hard time digesting this one early on (never been a fan of Eric Tsang & his annoying buffoonery is taken up a notch here) but the final 20 minutes or so completely changed my opinion. Michael Miu goes all THE FURY/CHRISTINE on Chow Yun-fat and his sadistic cronies & watching them get their comeuppance made it all worth it.

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Caught Felix Chong's 2010 directorial flick, ONCE A GANGSTER. It's a parody of all the Johnnie To triad power struggle movies like Infernal Affairs & Election and of course, with the two leads (renowned for the Young & dangerous series) playing against type. It's hilarious in some parts & had me guffawing during certain scenes. I'd imagine it be even funnier to native Canto speakers, as it plays like one big inside joke but some of the dialogue doesn't appear to translate well into English from the subs. I also imagine some of the the more subtle scenes satirizing triad films would also be lost on casual viewers. Not essential viewing but worth a watch for HK film fans.

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

I only had time to catch one flick today with my busy schedule and it was a re-watch of a martial arts period flick whodunit directed by Wu Ma. THE MASSIVE aka MURDER OF MURDERS aka JADE DRAGONFLY has an impressive list of actors featuring Chi Kuan Chun, Lo Lieh, Kam Kong & Yueh Hua but it was more solid than spectacular from a story line and action perspective.