Blog Archives

Leave it to Japanese auteur Iwai Shunji to find a way around the ongoing moony-eyed romantic vampire craze as it’s defined by Twilight. Simply titled Vampire, the vampirism of Iwai’s English-language debut exists in its own world as it were, one that’s rooted in reality more than the fantasy tropes of stakes through the heart, aversion to garlic and turning into the undead if bitten — and of course sparkling! Vampire hinges on a 28-year-old high school biology … (read more)

13 Assassins begins with a man committing seppuku. He preformed this act to bring attention to Lord Naritsugu a somewhat vile and sadistic man. This will not be the only bloody death before this tale ends. Continue reading →

The tagline for this one is “Blades, Bikinis, and a Fistful of Zombies”, and I can tell you that these guys believe in truth in advertising. True, there’s only one bikini, worn rather fetchingly under a poncho and hat à la Clint Eastwood, although the bikini-wearer doesn’t have the grimy toughness of Clint, and I have no intention of imagining Clint in a bikini.

There are also only two blades – one wielded by Bikini Girl, and one wielded by … (read more)

What sort of Asian film geek could resist a title like Alien Vs Ninja? It would take a better geek than me.

The story is a simple one: a group of ninjas get sent out to investigate a fireball that falls near their village, only to be attacked by a tremendously fast and brutal alien that’s unfazed by their weapons. One by one they fall victim to the beast, eventually killing it only to discover that oops, there’s another … (read more)

The Chasing World was a surprise. I was expecting something more predictable, a day-glo world of gory creature effects and shouting, perhaps something like Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl. What I got was an efficiently-constructed, fun little film which runs somewhat like a mashup of modern Doctor Who, Fukasaku’s Battle Royale and that nightmare where you’re somewhere familiar, running from hundreds of identical masked assailants, and you don’t know why. You know the one.

Our lead character … (read more)

Genre is a funny thing. On the one hand, it gives you a ballpark for your expectations. Science fiction? Space ships and aliens. Horror? Dark scary places and the liberal splashing about of blood. Gundam? Bloody big robots. But on the other hand, genre can also confine and confuse in the face of reality, and looking at genre definitions across cultures can make things even harder. Black Butler (known to the early uptakers as Kuroshitsuji) originally ran in a … (read more)

It’s a less then well-known fact that reviewers sometimes don’t get to choose what they are to review. More often than not it’s a curse, having to watch such terrible fare as Space Adventure Cobra. But every so often there is a surprise like Air Gear, Elemental Gelade or in this case Paradise Kiss.

Paradise Kiss follows Yukari Hayasaka, a young high school student who is floating through high school and life; not striving to be the … (read more)

There is a history in anime of the adaptation of TV series to movies. Often these films are new stories in the same world, like the Cowboy Bebop movie. Other films closely adapt the plot of the original, taking out a lot of the filler that sometimes creeps in during a series like the Evangelion movies. And then there is Eureka Seven.

Renton is the pilot of a mecha called Nirvash, named after a childhood pet, aboard … (read more)