What Asian Films Have You Been Watching Recently?

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

Crest of the Wolf (狼の紋章) (1973)

This was the first one of the two live action films based on Kazumasa Hirai's Wolfguy manga franchise. There were two Wolfguy mangas being published simultaneously: "Wolfguy" and " Adult Wolfguy", aimed at youth and adult readers respectively. This movie, produced by Toho, was based on the former, which followed its werewolf hero as a bullied high school boy. It's a quite an imaginative and often atmospheric, if sometimes cheesy story that suffers from a couple of slow patches despite the wonderfully short 77 minute running time. Young Yusaku Matsuda does his feature film debut as a villain. Although the material was aimed at younger readers, the films is quite bloody and features copious amounts of nudity, especially by the hero's kind teacher (Yoko Ichiji). As enjoyable as it is, the film however pales in comparison to the incredible Toei adaptation Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope (1975), which was based on the "Adult Wolfguy" manga and upped the sex and violence to a whole new level.

I viewed the VoD version on Amazon (JP) Video, but the movie is also available on Toho DVD. The DVD first came out in 2006, but there has been a number of re-issues and the latest one from 2015 should be quite affordable. The screencaps below are from the VoD version.





Yoko Ichiji as the teacher


Matsuda












DVD

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

Caught a thoroughly enjoyable pinku nunsploitation flick by Yuji Makiguchi. A young lady on the run thinks she finds solace at a convent but things just get bad to worse with a whole bunch of bizarre thrown in the mix. :up:

That movie looks pretty awesome!

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

That movie looks pretty awesome!

It's a good time all around. If you PM me, I'll send you the link where you can download the DVDRip with English subtitles and you can see for yourself.

I saw that some years ago. Pretty enjoyable film indeed, although it didn't quite live up to its false reputation. For decades it was only available on video as a version running about 30 minutes. A lot of people were speculating on what had been cut out; what was so terrifying that Toei wouldn't let us see it? It turned out the short version was actually a kind of gore and madness compilation, with most of the story scenes cut out. So, the film didn't get any more violent when the uncut version finally came out - somewhat the opposite.

I wonder if the short version was Toei's answer to the likes of Guinea Pig that were making a lot of money in the mid 80s?

Interesting backstory -- had no idea it was that heavily edited for the video release? Can't even begin to imagine what I would have thought if I had watched that severely truncated version first.

Yes, I have seen CREST OF THE WOLF (sans subs of course) & was kind of surprised that it was a Toho release considering the sleaze factor. yeah, the Sonny Chiba version is the one that is "must see" for fans of the manga. The print I have is from a TV version and hilariously it has all the commercials intact but fortunately all the blood, nudity and gore effects are there too.

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

I watched Soi Cheang's 2012 flick, MOTORWAY starring Shawn Yue and Anthony Wong. Nothing special as far as HK action movies go & the plot is very thin but the car scenes were realistically filmed and made for some good viewing. Some of the driving action had me feeling a bit too much of Initial D at times but overall, it was nice to see a car chase movie not go the FAST AND FURIOUS route with the over the top explosions and comical CGI.

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

Soi Cheang...seriously one of the most over rated HK directors...I dont know how people rate his films positively at all...nothing great..

PROJECT A 2: Jackie's golden age..just fin to watch even after all these years..

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

What a coincidence because I just re-watched PROJECT A the other day after receiving a custom fan blu ray utilizing the Japanese uncut blu ray with the original lossless Cantonese audio from the laserdisc and they even translated the theme song at the end credits & NG takes. :up:

I caught the CATIII thriller, THREE DAYS OF A BLIND GIRL earlier. Loves me some Anthony Wong in these crazed roles and Veronica Yip isn't bad either. The shower scene is classic. :p

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

Got around to catching Shogoro Nishimura's 1982 roman porno, MADAM SCANDAL: LET ME DIE FOR 10 SECONDS...the title sounds a lot better than this crapfest. At least the director took advantage of shooting in LA to get in some mild drug use, interracial rape, attempted rape by black thugs and some nice Sierra Nevada winter scenery. ^_^

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

Oh man, I watched a bit of the shower scene and it looked awesome. Too bad the Joy Sales dvd is OOP.

Shogoro Nishimura... Chris D says he made great action films for Nikkatsu in the 60s. I've never seen any of them. Instead I've seen a dozen of his Roman Pornos; Gypsy Rose: A Docu-Drama (1974) was the only one that didn't suck, and it wasn't that special either.

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

Caught a Dante Lam twin bill with HIT TEAM & HEAT TEAM. The former is by far the superior film, very dark and realistic in terms of gun play. The latter is a sequel in name only as it plays off the typical buddy cop tropes and is pushes the comedy aspect too far IMO. It would've been better played straight. I'm partial to Dante Lam and I try to see every thing he comes out with but I haven't watched his latest cycling one. But I harbor a guess if anyone in HK can make a cycling film entertaining it would be Dante.

[Maito Guy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maito Guy]

11.25: The Day He Chose His Own Fate (11.25 Jiketsu no hi: Mishima Yukio to wakamono-tachi; 2012, Koji Wakamatsu)
A cinema nearby is having a general retrospective on politics in cinema and was showing this late work from Wakamatsu. I generally like Wakamatsu's early pink films up until his peak in the early 1970ies but haven't really seen much of his later output. This particular one was one of the most boring movies I've had to sit through in a long time. It basically just consists of scenes of people talking followed by even more scenes of people talking. Obviously Wakamatsu's budget was not very high and the use of digital film doesn't help either. Even out of the later work I've seen from him this one was by far the worst. I somehow liked “Caterpillar” which he made two years before this one. I did not really get the enthusiasm with which is comeback film “United Red Army” was welcomed though. “The Day He Chose His Own Fate” could easily be described as “United Red Army” with all the boring parts only.

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

Got up early to get a nice hearty Filipino breakfast of garlic fried rice, tomato, longanisa & then sat down to a Filipino double bill of Brilliante Mendoza's KINATAY and Khavn's MONDOMANILA. I've seen a few of Mendoza's films but KINATAY is by far my fave and the same with Khavn. Not really a fan of his shorts but his documentaries are worth checking out. The scene in KINATAY where they viciously sexually assault the prostitute before hacking her up with a bolo is a real gut punch every time I see it. MONDO is just a some crazy shit all around.

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

Caught Mr. Pink's TOKYO STRANGLER. His take on Hithcock's FRENZY and a very pedestrian effort to boot even by the standards of these quickies. Certainly not up there with his other works released by Pink Eiga.

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

Caught Fire Lee's debut, ROBBERY. It's one of those throwback black comedies full of quirky characters and an even more implausible and ridiculous storyline. It oddly comes together though for the most part but the supernatural twist at the end to tie everything together was a letdown. I'll have to keep an eye on this Fire Lee because his debut, while not without its faults; was quite entertaining.

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

Saw Mamoru Watanabe's roman porno, LUSTY DISCIPLINE IN UNIFORM aka SAILOR UNIFORM EROTIC TRAINING. Watched it mainly for Kazumi Kawai - guess she's more infamous for her untimely death than her actual roman porno output. She's not even mentioned once nor is this movie in BEHIND THE PINK CURTAIN. I can't find her listed in another movie besides Sera-fuku shikijo shiiku. I have an old VHS rip of this somewhere but upgraded to this nice DVD rip. She had a certain demure innocence that came across to the viewer. This actual movie is nothing worthy of note. A horny obsessed teacher using the age old tactic of starting a romantic relationship with the single mother of his intended 'target' in order to gain her confidence (& her panties) and you know the payoff at the end. But hey, who can blame him for wanting to "lick her love juice." :p

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

Got back from the movies this afternoon and what did I do but throw on another movie! This time a CATIII thriller titled HORRIBLE HIGH HEELS -- well, they got part of the title right. It actually started out promising with the darkly sinister abbattoir montage during the opening credits and the bloody dismemberment within the first 10 minutes but damn, did this movie go south in a hurry. It's like two entirely different scripts hastily edited together (not in a Godfrey Ho IFD way either) to make some semblance of a triad/slasher film.

It was totally nonsensical why they even had to have the secondary plot about the cop on a mission (Dick Wei) hellbent on bringing down a notorious Triad boss (Dai Sor) dealing in the human flesh/skin trade. Well, no one really watches a CATIII flick for the plot anyway but even the gore, violence and sex was another letdown. I mean the actual killings were plenty grisly enough & even though it was obviously hampered by the low budget, one still got a sense of dread at watching the lopped off body parts being flung with abandon by the killer but they would ruin the atmosphere with some corny ass scene right after.

Well it wasn't a complete waste as this film gave me a few chuckles along the way. The first was the horribly out of sync sound effects during all the fight scenes & secondly, the scene where the obsessed killer fantasizes about raping his victim but then flashes back to his improvised sex toy (he taped a photo of the object of this affections on the rear end of a duck). You can just imagine what happens to the poor duck post coitus.