Dead Leaves (2004) Movie Review

“Over the top’ is an expression loosely thrown about by film critics to describe anything a little too far out of the ordinary in terms of violence, sexual content or any other thematic material of a transgressive nature. However, in the case of the Japanese animated film “Dead Leaves,”...

December 13th, 2005 | Read More

Chunhyang (2000) Movie Review

Based on an 18th century folk song, the Korean period drama “Chunhyang” tells a familiar story even for non-Koreans: a forbidden love between two people separated by class, family and duty; a secret wedding; the meddling of unwanted interlopers; and finally, a heroic reunion. So universal...

December 5th, 2005 | Read More

Jarhead (2005) Movie Review

War is hell, and it’s probably never looked and felt the part more than in the scorching deserts of the Middle East . This is the ultimate destination of Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal, “Donnie Darko”), whom we first meet as a bright eyed 19 year old fresh off the bus at Camp Pendleton....

November 15th, 2005 | Read More

Bomb the System (2002) Movie Review

Graffiti emerged in the 1970s in New York City and quickly made the transition from vandalism to street art, perhaps by sheer volume alone. It became semi-legitimized as an art form in the 1980s, as graffiti styles began showing up in art galleries in the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat and others....

October 26th, 2005 | Read More

Cronicas (2004) Movie Review

In today’s world of around the clock global news coverage, one gets the sense that all too often the news media has been growing desperate for material to fill airtime, and that this has given rise to an increasingly graphic and questionable predatory style of journalism. And as much as we, the...

October 25th, 2005 | Read More

Blood and Bones (2004) Movie Review

Takeshi Kitano is Japan ’s true ‘King of All Media.’ A cultural icon in his home country as an actor, director, poet, comedian, painter and newspaper journalist, Kitano is best known to the rest of the world as a minimalist craftsman of gritty, nihilistic gangster films. In “Blood...

October 17th, 2005 | Read More

A History of Violence (2005) Movie Review

David Cronenberg has been an iconic director in the horror genre for close to three decades now, and is generally considered to be one of the more intellectual directors in the genre. More often than not, his films present the destruction/reconstruction of the human body in a highly sexualized manner....

October 3rd, 2005 | Read More

Beyond the Wall of Sleep (2004) Movie Review

Set at the turn of the 20th century in backwoods Appalachia, “Beyond The Wall Of Sleep” tells the story of the frightening happenings at a decrepit mental asylum. It’s here that under the less than watchful eye of the asylum’s director, Dr. Fenton (Marco St. John, speaking with...

September 18th, 2005 | Read More

Red Eye (2005) Movie Review

Airport check-in. Perhaps the greatest horror of the modern transport age. Dealing with long lines, heavy luggage, rude travelers and incessant delays are just some of the exhausting trials contemporary America goes through to get to our destination. It is against this familiar backdrop that we enter...

September 7th, 2005 | Read More

Bang Rajan (2000) Movie Review

While originally made in 2000, the Thai war epic “Bang Rajan” didn’t get much exposure outside of Asia despite being the most successful film in Thai history at the time. That is, until maverick U.S. director Oliver Stone (”Natural Born Killers”) championed its distribution...

August 10th, 2005 | Read More

The Echo (2004) Movie Review

Filipino director Yam Laranas’ new film “The Echo” is yet another entry into the ever expanding genre of Asian atmospheric horror films. It uses most of the standard visual and thematic cues of its more famous Japanese forbearers, but does it effectively, and as a result creates an...

July 19th, 2005 | Read More

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) Movie Review

Although comparisons are inevitable, Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” really shouldn’t be put up against the 1971 Gene Wilder children’s classic “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” While based on the same source material, the two films are...

July 17th, 2005 | Read More

Hana to Hebi (aka Flower and Snake, 2004) Movie Review

Japan has always had a long running tradition of extreme cinema. Be it gangster films, period dramas, or horror, there has always been a renegade group of filmmakers that have relentlessly pushed the boundaries of taste and decency. One only need look at Nobuo Nakagawa’s “Jigoku”, or...

June 27th, 2005 | Read More

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) Movie Review

With Disney and Pixar firmly entrenched on the side of CGI for their animated efforts, it looks like Japan and the FOX Network are the last bastions of hand drawn animation. Perhaps the most revered name from this old school is Hayao Miyazaki, best known in the US for “Princess Mononoke”...

June 17th, 2005 | Read More

Unleashed aka Danny the Dog (2005) Movie Review

Generally speaking, Jet Li’s western films have been hampered by indecision on the part of the filmmakers as to how to handle his onscreen persona. Since English is not Li’s first language, he is typically relegated to playing a stone-faced killer required only to beat the crap out of everyone...

May 15th, 2005 | Read More

Unhuman (2004) Movie Review

Science fiction is a dangerous genre. It takes a degree of thought and subtlety to pull off a good film. However, the genre is so ripe with ideas that any Tom, Dick and Harry who get their hands on a camera and a chunk of cash can subject an unwitting audience to their take on ‘Sci-Fi’ cinema....

May 11th, 2005 | Read More

Tears of the Black Tiger (2000) Movie Review

There has been a long established two-way street between Hollywood and Asian cinema. The venerable Akira Kurosawa took the inspiration for many of his films from the epic features of John Ford, and Hollywood filmmakers from Clint Eastwood to George Lucas have studied hard at the school of Kurosawa. The...

May 9th, 2005 | Read More

Tiger on the Beat (1988) Movie Review

One of the staples of action cinema is the buddy cop films, and the Hong Kong film industry is as inundated with them as Hollywood. Whether it’s John Woo behind the camera or Jackie Chan, Mel Gibson, or Eddie Murphy in front of it, the formula remains the same. A particularly enjoyable entry is...

May 3rd, 2005 | Read More

Men Behind the Sun 4: Black Sun – The Nanking Massacre (1996) Movie Review

From the Crusades to the Nazis, the various atrocities committed during wars have been covered fairly well by most high school and college history classes. However, one event that rarely gets much international exposure is Japan’s conquest of China in the late 1930s. The accounts of Japan’s...

May 2nd, 2005 | Read More

Unstable (2005) Movie Review

Despite the strides made in America over the past 50 years towards acceptance and equality amongst the many different types of people that make up our population, prejudice and hate are still very real parts of society. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, they affect all of us on one level...

April 15th, 2005 | Read More