Samson’s Favourites List of 2010!

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Samson

 

I have finally got some spare time to write about my favourites amongst the films that I saw for the first time in 2010. Yes, I know it’s already the end of January and that in just 11 months’ time, we’ll have another new year to celebrate, but I’ve seen some great movies last year and so please let me tell you about them!

My Favourite Asian Films of 2010

(As I start putting the list together, I come to … (read more)

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Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings (2009)

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Posted on January 23, 2011 by Deni

For anyone who’s played even five minutes of the long-running Koei title Dynasty Warriors, the concepts driving the Capcom franchise Sengoku Basara won’t be all that alien. Basically, they’re what’s quaintly titled a ‘crowd fighting game’. If body count stats are your thing, if you like watching that ticker go up too fast to count, it’s the game for you. Games of this kind I’ve found involve a lot of dramatic posturing, a lot of powering up, and more … (read more)

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Shaolin (2011)

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Posted on January 23, 2011 by Justin

Our first Chinese film release in Australian cinemas this year is Benny Chan’s Shaolin, a big-budget action film packed full of stars and showcasing Shaolin kungfu and philosophy with an official seal of approval from the Shaolin Temple itself.

Straight off the back of his starring role in Detective Dee, Andy Lau stars as warlord Hao Jie, a calculating general who delights in ravaging across the countryside, capturing cities and amassing a serious retirement nest-egg. His most recent … (read more)

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Shaolin comes to Australian cinemas

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Justin

For those of you out there that haven’t been following Dream Movie Australia’s website/twitter/facebook, we’ve got some exciting news.

Benny Chan (New Police Story) has directed this decade’s first Shaolin-themed kungfu film film — snappily called Shaolin — and DMA have it in Australian cinemas from this Thursday. It boasts some fairly serious HK star power, too: Andy Lau, Jackie Chan, Nicholas Tse, Wu Jing, Fan Bingbing, Xiong Xinxin, and more. Corey Yuen’s handling the action, so … (read more)

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Raging Phoenix (2009)

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Posted on January 17, 2011 by Justin

I spun up the disc for Raging Phoenix with some reservations. I’d seen the trailer and formed a number of assumptions: martial arts film, female lead, some sort of custom mixture of Muay Thai and hip-hop dancing. The latter sounds like something thrown into the mix by a marketing executive early in production: we’ve got to appeal to a younger crowd, people, so you’re gonna add some b-boy stylings and perhaps chuck a music video or two in there … (read more)

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Eden of the East (2009)

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Posted on January 15, 2011 by Samson

If you ask me what my absolute favourite anime series from the last decade was, I will answer with a high level of certainty: ‘Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex‘. The handsomely drawn, brilliantly scripted and amazingly entertaining series is quite simply a modern anime masterpiece. The genius behind Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex was director Kenji Kamiyama, and from this man now comes a new anime series, Eden of the East, which I … (read more)

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Sumo Do, Sumo Don’t (1992)

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Posted on January 8, 2011 by Samson

I like sports movies, and I love Japanese sports movies. They are often touching, usually inspiring, and almost always entertaining. Sumo Do Sumo Don’t was one of the first sports movies that I have ever seen, and what a fine example of the genre it still is. I have had the joy of seeing this film again with its release on DVD in Australia, and here are my thoughts some 15 years on from the time I first saw it … (read more)

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20th Century Boys (2008)

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Posted on January 6, 2011 by Deni

A little while ago, this reviewer was seen complaining about a certain live action film’s failure to translate coherently from its source material. And admittedly, it’s possibly an unfair criticism. After all, a feature film is a limited frame of time and a manga series – particularly a long running manga series – has years to tell its story (and in film’s defense, some manga reads like the author doesn’t know where the hell it’s going, either).

The makers of … (read more)

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