What asian film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

[luckystars]

Joey and Maggie can play with my snake anytime...

Friends & The Simpsons?

[Markgway]

Joey and Maggie can play with my snake anytime...

Friends & The Simpsons?

You dirty ba--

[gasteropod]

Wishing Stairs: Better than the last two in the series, had a couple of creepy bits, but I was getting bored by the end.

[oldeschool17]

To Kill a Mastermind: 4/5
Great Sun Chung flick. Nice balance of action, mystery, intrigue, betryal, sabotage, and revenge. My only gripe is the video quality.
Dont get me wrong, this is miles better than the 4th gen boots that floated about prior, but a shitty compressed FLV stream blown up for DVD viewing looks like ass(even more so if you are watching on a HD screen). At least we had some custom/removable subs. Would love for a legit release but this will do for now.

[Markgway]

I'd like to see 'Mastermind' but am not paying for a bootleg.

[oldeschool17]

There are things called trading ya know.
I do find it comical that they are charging $10 for this though.

I'd like to see 'Mastermind' but am not paying for a bootleg.

[Markgway]

Yeah, but the guys at Fu Subs don't do trades (at least not until sales are exhausted). I had an argument with one of them (the head of the group I think) about it. They're after the money. Not big money granted - but money that's in my opinion unearned. Nothing I can do or say about it. The subs belong to them. If it was really all about what's best for the fans then they would've put up a downloadable .srt file. But like I said... nothing to do with me.

[saltysam]

To Kill A Mastermind 2/5

To echo oldeschool17 the quality on this release is quite poor,blocky and frequently pixellating.certainly watchable though and the subs are excellent.The film itself i didn't think was that great,an ok actioner but Shaws have done many,many better films.Still i'm glad i've seen this one and would get a decent release if it became available.

[oldeschool17]

Yeah, but the guys at Fu Subs don't do trades (at least not until sales are exhausted). I had an argument with one of them (the head of the group I think) about it. They're after the money. Not big money granted - but money that's in my opinion unearned. Nothing I can do or say about it. The subs belong to them. If it was really all about what's best for the fans then they would've put up a downloadable .srt file. But like I said... nothing to do with me.

Next time I see something on your list i'll trade you a copy of this. People cant stop the internets. Hell, if i ever get around to it, i might be able to extract a srt of this and u can just match it up with the youku links that was posted. it's been along time since i messed with subs and im a bit tied up in other affairs right now but i'll keep that in mind when i have some downtime.

Yeah as mentioned, i think its comical that they are charging $10 for a blocky muddy print. Even more funny is that they have a disclaimer on their site asking people not to boot there work when they are bootleggers themselves. Hell that Big Rogie guy is on ebay selling bootlegs of other bootleggers work. Hypocrisy at its capitalistic finest.

[gasteropod]

A Million: A step down from his last film Les Formidables, this is a more commercial and watered down affair, reminiscent of films like Battle Royale and Saw. It was OK, nothing special, but not bad either.

[HungFist]

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Japan, 1995-1996) - 4/5
Poor start and admittedly the high point comes already in episode 4, but the series is still fantastic and a classic for a reason.

The End of Evangelion (Japan, 1997) – 3.5/5
Anno’s alternative, slightly inferior ending for the TV series (which left dumb fans angry with its action-free mind trip ending). Anno’s counter-attack is indeed more action packed and incredibly violent – for the first half at least. The final 30 minutes is an art house apocalypse to leave casual viewers scratching their head. Sadly, the fantastic live action ending that Anno shot was not used in the final product. Anno’s true talent is, without a doubt, in live action as his best works Love & Pop (1998) and Ritual (2000) prove.

Scars of the Sun (Japan, 2006) – 3/5
Takashi Miike’s thriller drama is a feel good movie à la Harry Brown. Sho Aikawa stars as a peaceful family man who gets on a crash course with a violent youth gang and discovers the law and media are always against an honest man. Miike never sets his protagonist in Death Wish mode, opting for a more realistic path. It starts out like a TV-drama but raises the caliber towards the end and holds quite well for its two hour running time. The visual outlook is as depressing as the storyline, shifting between grayscales and black & while.

[gasteropod]

Love Exposure: Very good, but it lost its momentum in the second half. The Third Window DVD has annoying blurry motion.

[Yi-Long]

Love Exposure: Very good, but it lost its momentum in the second half. The Third Window DVD has annoying blurry motion.

Damn, I have that DVD. I hope the blurry motion doesn't ruin the whole movie...

[Xenon]

Another Public Enemy (aka Gonggongui jeog 2) - a watchable sequel, but they changed the protagonist too much and instead of an asshole cop they decided to make him a justice warrior of sorts. Also they forgot to include comedy. 5/10

Public Enemy Returns (aka Kang Chul-jung: Gonggongui jeog 1-1) - much better than the second installment. Comedy in some parts is laugh out loud funny and the protagonist's "in your face" attitude is back. It was hard for me to believe that this movie is over 2 hours as it just sorta flew past me. 7/10

Masked Prosecutor (aka Ye cha) - laughable acting, horrible dialogue, fail at comedy, pointless scenes and atrocious chinglish subtitles on the DVD made this one hell of a ride. The idea behind the movie was good but the execution is pathetic. 3/10

[gasteropod]

Hausu: Very annoying, the best thing was Kung Fu's arse.

[HungFist]

Hausu: Very annoying, the best thing was Kung Fu's arse.

Kung fu's patsu was a stand out, the film actually got better on second viewing. Hugely over-rated, yes, but lovely soundtrack and entertaining enough as a whole.

It's a far cry from Obayashi great movies like Tenkousei. And I still haven't watched Sabishinbou.

[gasteropod]

Yeah I watched it again today because I was very tired last night, I enjoyed it more this time but it's definitely overrated. I don't like the music by Godiego.

[HungFist]

I don't like the music by Godiego.

They did such a great soundtrack for The Youth Killer... although that's also an over-rated film (always appearing on Kinema Junpo's top 100 list). Kazuhiko Hasegawa's other film (he only ever directed two movies), The Man Who Stole the Sun, on the other hand is perhaps the most interesting Asian of the 70's. A high school teacher starts building his own atomic bomb...

[gasteropod]

I didn't like their music because it made it all '70s 'Monkey' and 'Banana Splits' esque, especially with the teacher's fucking sideburns and slapstick antics. Kung Fu, though She reminded me of Chingmy Yau I think, one of the girls from City Hunter anyway.

[HungFist]

How old was that actress again? 14?

[gasteropod]

17 it seems, she looks older though.

[HungFist]

17 it seems, she looks older though.

possibly 16, depending on how long the film was in production. The film opened in late July, her birthday is in early June.

Anyway, I thought she was younger, but I can't really remember how she looked like anymore. It's been year since I last saw the film.

[HungFist]

Crazy Lips (Japan, 2000) – 1/5
Horror, martial arts, and musical. The tagline for Hirohisa Sasaki’s Gore From Outer space, a follow up seemingly utilizing the same characters as Crazy Lips, went about like that. All the fore mentioned elements, and much more, can also be found in this predecessor. Crazy Lips is a wanna-be cult fare of exceptionally bad quality. It throws just about anything from psychics to transvestites into its murder mystery plot with hopes that someone will eventually declare it as cult classic. The tiresome mayhem only manages to provoke a random laugh here and there.

Perfect Education (Japan, 1999) – 3.5/5
Japanese cinema’s old crap genre receives a post modern touch in the first Perfect Education film. Much has changed since the days Naomi Tami was trained by sleaze balls in the mid and late 70’s Nikkatsu movies. In Perfect Education a middle aged loser psycho (hugely underrated actor Naoto Takenaka) kidnaps an 18 year old school girl (Hijiri Kojima) with the purpose of training her for true love. To his misfortune, the spicy little student girl is a tougher personality than the naive kidnapper himself. Sometimes drifting too far in the comedic side, the film nevertheless finds a good balance between parody and the real deal. The psychological game between Takenaka and the slightly irritating but stunningly beautiful Hijiri Kojima remains interesting enough despite overdoses of sex. Shinya Tsukamoto co-stars.

[HungFist]

Haze (Long Version) (Japan, 2005) – 3.5/5
Originally produced as a part of the Jeonju Digital Short Film Project, Tsukamoto’s entry, just like many others in the series, was also releases as a full length (49 min) version. Tsukamoto’s film is a horror thriller taking claustrophobia to the next level. The protagonist (Tsukamoto himself) wakes up in a dark maze cramped enough not to allow him to turn his head at most times... and full of traps. Somewhat poorly acted but unsettling and bringing the storyline to a very interesting conclusion, it’s a rewarding little film. Tsukamoto’s regular composer Chu Ishikawa delivers the soundtrack.

Perfect Education 2: 40 Days of Love (Japan, 2001) – 2.5/5
The first sequel takes a few steps back in intellectual terms, which, however, isn’t entirely bad considering the first film was already balancing on the dangerous borders of post-modern. Nevertheless, the kidnap-educate -scenario now lacks the more interesting psychological game, and Takenaka’s replacement Yasuhito Hida isn’t much of an actor. That being said, Perfect Education 2 is an average at least thriller with relatively good soundtrack and some stylish cinematography. The protagonist’s motivation is easily understood with his victim being as burning hot as Rie Fukami is. Naoto Takenaka co-stars in a small supporting role.

[HungFist]

Baumkuchen (Japan, 2006) – 1.5/5
Nobuhiro Yamashita makes cracking minimalist comedies about ordinary losers. Yamashita’s regular guy Hiroshi Yamamoto stars in Kensaku Kakimoto’s somewhat similarly themed drama-comedy Baumkuchen, which is a tiresome attempt to be funny. Acting, writing and directing are off; the film is neither funny nor intimate or clever. It improves a bit towards the end, partly thanks to the introduction of a charming nice guy gaijin actor (handsome, cool, speaks good Japanese with a slight cute accent, I wanna be just like him!). He can’t save the film, but does provide a bit of a reward for surviving a heavily over-long film.

Perfect Education 3 (Hong Kong, Japan, 2002) – 1/5
The third Education, a co-production leaning towards Hong Kong, takes a promising start: Hong Kong, dead pig, and a busload of Japanese school girls. The concept is the same old, only this time kidnapper and victim lack a common language. Dumb move, as it eliminates most of the interaction between the two lead characters. Not that out anti-hero would even need much verbal skills; the abducted Kana Ito is set on such auto-drive she essentially educates on her own. Absolutely gorgeous she is – shame about the film being such a dud. Towards the end the whole story turns into unintentional comedy – unfortunately, not any earlier. Lam Suet co-stars as a retard.