Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 19th, 2005
Synopsis
A championship wrestling match is disrupted when the winner is challenged by a giant squid. The squid wins by using a move that was the distinctive trademark of a vanished former champion. Could there be a connection? The girlfriend of the current champ, old flame of the former, certainly wonders. There is something about the squid that draws her... Meanwhile, the wrestling bosses want a rematch, but also want the squid to throw the match. He refuses. Can he beat the corruption in the sport ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 18th, 2005
Until the Night is a "fly under the radar" movie. You haven't heard of it, but then you watch it. And you're quite taken with it. Until the Night is in the tradition of those relationship/talkie movies (indy god Cassavetes comes to mind). Night also has shades of Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Characters talk to a camcorder, and there are some Soderbergh moments of time fracture.
The plot (to call it one) revolves around a pair of relationships. Elizabeth (played wonderfully by ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 27th, 2005
Synopsis
Jimmy Wang Yu is trying to scrape together the cash for his sister’s eye operation, but hekeeps getting involved in fights, and the need to pay fines and whatnot is actually pushing thefamily towards bankruptcy. Meanwhile, in Japan, a ferocious grandmother has been training herthree grandsons their entire life to be killing machines intent on taking revenge on the man sheblames for her wartime suicides of her daughter and son-in-law. That man is Jimmy’s father. Thestage is ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 9th, 2005
Synopsis
The Date crime family is unwillingly drawn into a mob war with the much more powerfulTendo group. This war disrupts the happy existence of one small sub-family, consisting of Muto,the boss more interested in his model planes than in crime, and his two loyal soldiers Seiji andYoshifumi. Muto promises to kill a high-ranking Tendo member to prove his worth, but Seijiknows he isn’t up to it. He arranges for Muto to be packed safely off to jail instead, and thenstages an attack ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 8th, 2005
Synopsis
Teenagers Mai and Yu have just become girlfriend and boyfriend when Mai is killed in atraffic accident. Her distraught father uses her digitized physical characteristics and memoriesto create an AI resurrection. The new Mai gradually becomes more and more human and fullysentient (think a digital Pinocchio), and she winds up in the Yu’s laptop. A megalomaniacal CEOwants the technology in order to download his own consciousness into the Net and thereby rulethe world. His mini...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 8th, 2005
Synopsis
China is under the rule of the Ching dynasty, who send out assassins to kill anyone whochallenges the regime. Greatest of these assassins is the blind master of the flying guillotine. Hesets out to kill the One-Armed Boxer (don’t ask me why all these guys have disabilities). Thecharacters come together at a huge martial arts tournament (this is where Mortal Kombatcomes from, kiddies). The plot is no more developed than that of a typical porno. The film’sreason for be...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 4th, 2004
Synopsis
A yakuza is charged with eliminating his violently unstable mentor. On the drive to do thedeed, said mentor is (apparently) accidentally killed. But then his body vanishes from the car ofour hero, who is then charged with finding the corpse and making absolutely sure the man isdead, or else. His search takes place in a town populated entirely of grotesques, from a man whohas the same repetitive phone conversation day after day, to another whose face half plaster-white, to a...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2004
Synopsis
The focus of this documentary is a small mountain village in Morocco, in an area known asthe Rif. Long a centre of hashish cultivation, the region has recently seen that industry take overeverything. We follow the lives of the villagers, and see the cultivation, preparation and selling ofthe drug. There is no narration, and the camera makes no overt judgment about what we areseeing, but the to-the-camera monologues by the villagers leave one with plenty to thinkabout.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 25th, 2004
Synopsis
Pity poor Daniel Hong (Chin Han), a mild-mannered eye surgeon who is buffeted at homeby the war between his wife Natalie (Vivian Wu) and blind mother Mrs. Hong (Lisa Lu). His lifeisn’t going to get any easier, however. This night, while he is called away to the hospital, his oldfriend Patrick (Joe Lando) descends on the house. Patrick has spent the last ten years in prison forthe murder of his parents. He has escaped from custody, and he arrives at the Hong residence,hungry...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 16th, 2004
Synopsis
Welcome to the French Riviera, 1962. The youth are beautiful, aimless, and amoral.Searching for meaning in his life, whiny mope Olivier meets the sweet Barbara. These two mighthave something together, but Olivier must take a wide detour on the way to true love, as he firstfalls in with a pack led by Philippe and Elke (played be, you guessed it, Elke Sommer).
All sorts of hilarious stabs at decadence ensue, as imagined by director/co-scripter MaxPécas, a very conserv...
