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Sigh (2000)
If Feng Xiao Gang is supposedly China’s most successful commercial film director then by all means, bring it on I say!
Unlike Chinese arthouse directors like Chen Kaige and Zhang Yi Mou, Feng is barely known here and that’s almost criminal considering what a solid piece of work Sigh is.
This is my first exposure to Feng’s work too and I was completely taken by surprise by this doomed affair of a married scriptwriter and his assistant. Narrated by the … (read more)
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Sex is Zero (2002)
A college movie that distills and transfers moments from US films like American Pie, Bring it On, Road Movie, this is an unashamedly juvenile boobs and, gasp, jism fest that features some of the zaniest characters yet to grace Seoul’s downtown multiplexes. Brimming with self-confidence in the deployment of its gags, it works well as a gross out comedy but the simple love story that is supposedly at its core scores less than zero.
Written and directed … (read more)
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Saathiya (2002)
My experience of Bollywood is pretty limited up to the point of this movie, I’m going to be honest here: Lagaan, Heart’s Desire and the one that SBS keeps showing where a woman in thrown into a river of ferocious crocodiles by her evil scheming rat of a husband. She comes back after astonishing plastic surgery and wreaks revenge on said rat. Tis rather a tragic number I know but I’m working hard to rectify my meagre Bollywood consumption. My … (read more)
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Same Bed, Different Dreams (2005)
Man, this DVD has great packaging. I have never seen DVD packaging quite this impressive.
To explain, this is a three DVD set consisting of three standard Amaray-style cases in a cardboard slipcase. Not just any cardboard slipcase, but the most gorgeous cardboard slipcase you’ve ever seen. And it doesn’t just look good, it feels good. It has a tactile quality much like the slipcase on the original region 4 release of Fight Club: some kind of finish that … (read more)
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R-Point (2004)
Leave your preconceptions at the door: R-Point is no ordinary ghost film. Nor is it an ordinary war film. Instead of assaulting viewers with creaky long-haired girl ghosts or green-clad grunts firing at anything that moves, Kong Su-chang gives us a thoughtful, eerie, and moving indictment of Korean involvement in other people’s wars.
This is a film that recreates the atmosphere of ghost stories told around a campfire: that sense of being out of place, and hearing things that might … (read more)
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Ring 2 (1999)
Don’t you just love it when you’re watching a bone-chilling horror movie [eg. Ring or The Shining] and you can feel your blood starting to congeal and you lose sensation in your legs because you’re concentrating so hard on what’s going to happen?
Well, Ring 2 isn’t one of those films. Instead it’s a horror film that is creepy like its predecessor, but only gives you a mild tingling sensation, kind of like if your cat unexpectedly brushes against … (read more)
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Story of Ricky (1993)
This schlock horror classic, based on a manga called Ricky-oh, will delight fans of extreme violence. Our eponymous hero Ricky (Fan Siu Wong) is banged up in prison for killing heroin traffickers responsible for the death of his girlfriend (the giggling Gloria Yip), and meets a variety of brutal killers all bent on extracting various parts of his well-muscled body, probably to use as decoration. Fortunately, Ricky has super-strength, and fights his way through a roster of bad guys. Quite … (read more)
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Police Story (1985)
Police Story has been called the greatest action film of all time. That’s making a big claim, and I’m not certain it’s true, but I am certain that this film is a fine example of Jackie doing what Jackie does best: taking a beating from bad guys, good guys, cars, furniture, and assorted household items.
The film opens with a stakeout leading to a spectacular chase down the side of a mountain, smashing through a shanty town on the slope. … (read more)
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