Reviews

The movie is a comedy centered around a young Welsh guy who comes to London to became a band manager. Despite of his bad luck, the band will encounter an unexpected success. The story itself is not particularly original and we aren't faced with a masterpiece of cinema, but I found this movie brilliant. It made me laugh several times and found it absolutely amusing. The soundtrack is astonishing, there are a lot of British bands that I love. Martin Freeman, a real Mod in life, in the role of ....a real Mod is ingenious! Also Alan McGee who plays himself it's a fantastic idea. I repeat: the movie is not a masterpiece, but it's just a fun comedy that those who are familiar with British music and culture will appreciate. Personally, I loved it.

A less known movie by Teruo Ishii from his golden period ( end of sixties / beginning of seventies). The formula is the same of his other productions of that time: sex and violence. Ishii was the most rappresentative director of Japanese exploitation cinema and some of his movies, intended to be provocative, are still disturbing nowadays due to their torture and violence scenes, their misogyny and their gore effects, usually very well done for those years. This one not rappresents Ishii at his best, probably 'cause of the poorly written screenplay that may result confused due to its fragmentation in episodes. The film opens with an autopsy scene; the surgeon, operating the corpse of his suicidal wife, meditates on cases of violence involving women. This is the pretext to introduce some short stories of violence and murders committed by women. The best known is Abe Sada's one: she is remembered for erotically asphyxiating her lover in 1936, and then cutting off his penis and carrying it with her. The story of Abe Sada was brought on screen other two times: in a film with the same name in 1975 by Noboru Tanaka and in the famous "In the Realm of Senses" by Nagisa Oshima in 1976. Teruo Ishii not just advance them of some years, but let Abe Sada herself tell her story in a 1969 interview included in the movie. I don't know if the other stories are based on true facts, they seem just an excuse to show pretty naked girls and gory scenes, anyway for exploitation fans these are reasons good enough to look this film.

Following the success of Diabolik, comes Satanik. Taken from a comic by Max Bunker and Magnus, it's an Italian-Spanish low budget production that tries to re-propose the atmosphere of Bava's film. Unfortunately Piero Vivarelli is not Mario Bava: camera work is bad, acting is bad and the characters are not developed well. The story is enough suspenseful, but this is due more to the comic origin than to Eduardo Brochero's screenplay. It is considered a precursor of the sexy-horror genre of the seventies. It's a sort of female version of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde: Dr. Marnie Bannister, a disfigured old woman, drinks a substance that has the power to regenerate the cells and becomes a beautiful young woman, but gets more evil too. Besides killing people to keep her secret, she gets involved with some international mobs. It's a fact that the movie itself is not very good, but if you're into 6T's movies or 6T's stuff in general, you have more than one reason to watch this. There is a good period atmosphere with amazing 6Ts clothes and wonderful interiors of houses. Then the music by Roberto Pregadio is fantastic, especially the strip track performed by the Italian band "Gepy & Gepy". But if someone is not interested in the period can't definitely like this film

"Seom" is definitely not a film for everybody but surely is a film that will not leave anyone untouched. It's calm and cruel at the same time. The movie is mostly known for its disturbing scenes: you can see, among the others, fishing hooks stuck into a man's throat or in a woman's vagina, or a fish partially eaten alive, but you can also admire some of the most poetic images ever filmed. The film is photographed in a beautiful way (Kim Ki-duk was a painter before being a director), some shots of the lake are stunning and anticipate the ones of "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring". The plot is about an apparently mute girl who works in a fishing resorts, she rents floating houses to fishermen, sell food and provides prostitutes for them, occasionally she sells her body too. A man arrives at the resort, he is a fugitive running from police. A strange bond starts between the man and the girl. After some suicide attempts and some murders the couple will leave the resort on a floating cabin. The narration is slow, but are the images and symbolism to be eloquent The film is superbly acted, especially by Jung Suh who carries on his role credibly without speaking a word. "Seom" is the movie that made me know Kim Ki-duk and I consider it a masterpiece.

A lot of epic movies has been made in China in the last years, some good and some forgettable. This one falls into the second category. The story is about a strategist disputed between two Chinese kingdoms. Although intelligent, he is very naive. In one reign he falls in love with a girl, general of the army and destined to marry the emperor, in the other he is betrayed and imprisoned by his old friend, also a military strategist and in love with the same girl too. He succeeds to escape and lead the first reign to victory, but in the end he will kill himself. The movie seems to have been done in a hurry, sometimes things happen too fast and you feel like you're missing something in the plot. There's a lot of computer effects but they're not so good. The fighting scenes are intended to be epic but they often result confused and so not exciting. It's not a good movie, but not the worst of its kind. There's a plenty of better Chinese movies, so it remains a mystery why it was distributed in the West. Anyway, if you like the genre, you can take a look: surely you'll forget it soon after.

I was in Saigon ten years ago when they had just finished filming this movie and some friends of mine, who permanently lived there at the time, had a small role in it. It was 2001, but the movie didn't came out that year 'cause, after 9/11, the production decided to delay the release of the film. Someone thought that it was anti-American since it could be seen as a criticism of American policy. I still don't understand why since the Iraq war wasn't begun yet and Graham Greene's original novel was written long before America decided to intervene in the Vietnam conflict. Greene's and movie's criticisms on American foreign policy are very general, besides the plot is more of a love story. It's settled in 1952 in Vietnam: Caine is an English journalist who looks for new stories to ensure he can continue his job in Saigon and his living there with a young mistress. He has no intention to come back to London and to his wife. It's the time of the French-communist fighting in the north of the country. A young American doctor arrives as a part of a medical team and falls in love with the journalist's mistress. The two men discuss about what would be better for the girl, but in love, as in war, everything is permitted and someone will meet a tragic end. Phillip Noyce does a good job and his adaptation is faithful to Greene's story. There isn't much action and the movie runs slowly, but never boring. The film's strength is the cast: Brendan Fraser and Do Thi Hai Yen are pretty good, but Michael Caine is simply terrific, he is perfect in his part, it seems his role was written especially for him. It's worth seeing the movie just for his performance. Caine is one of my favorite actors and since I was there at the time, my regret was I couldn't go on the set to meet him. After this movie The Quiet American became one of the most sold books by Saigon's street vendors.

Three generations of misfits live under a bridge on the Han river in Seul, an old man, a boy and a violent guy who seems to hate everybody: Crocodile. He waits for suicides just to rob their belongings from the corpses. One day Crocodile saves a beautiful girl who tries to kill herself, then he rapes her repeatedly and keeps her with him just to use her for his sexual needs. The girl, who was abandoned by her former lover, resigned to stay with him. The four characters form a sort of strange family. Crocodile is the first movie by Kim Ki Duc. At that time he had just concluded his life in Paris as a painter and, back in Korea, he reinvented himself as a movie director. Kim Ki Duk said he had not seen many films and he ignored the basic rules of film language at his debut. Hard to believe it when you're watching the movie, but it's so: he just transfers beautiful static scenes from a pictorial language to the less static celluloid. Watch the water scenes to get an idea of his pictorial visions. The way he portraits the main character then remind me of another great film debut: "Accattone" by Pasolini. Crocodile and Accatone are similar in their suburban romance of decay, in their hopeless lives at the margins of society. Is likely that Kim Ki Duk did not know the work of Pasolini, but the similarities are the result of the same artistic sensibility.

I bought the DVD in a shop in Bui Vein during an afternoon spent looking for some Vietnamese movie; except some co-production I couldn't find anything. Anyway this is an American-Vietnamese co-production following the success that Asian horrors had in western countries in the last years. It can be divided into three different parts. In the first: a writer arrives in a house where a girl seems to live alone, he falls in love with the girl but discovers she's a ghost. In the second: he's sick, shocked by his experience, but with the help of his nurse, he will win the sickness, write his story and became a successful writer; then he will marry the nurse. In the third: the house of the couple is haunted and a false diviner is called in help, she has a scaring meeting with the ghost but her son not believe her until he will discover the terrible truth about the writer. I don't know how it's possible make a Vietnamese low budget movie with American money but this is a low budget with no special effects and few changing of locations. Anyway the photography is good and the director can manage to carry on the plot. Not for gore-horror fans, but for those who like ghost stories.

Cyclo is a French-Vietnamese movie filmed by Tran Anh Hung, the same director of "The Scent of Green Papaya" . The story, settled in Saigon (or HCMC), it's about a boy who earn money driving the bicycle-taxi he rent. From his job comes his name: Cyclo ( or better Xich-Lo) . When the bicycle is stolen, he has to work for a gang of criminals to repay it. The boss of the gang, the Poet ( a surprising Vietnamese-speaking Tony Leung) will introduce Cyclo's sister ( played by Tran Nu Yên-Khê, the director's wife) to prostitution, provoking Cyclo desire for revenge. The story is characterized by explosions of violence in which the protagonists, if not at first hand involved, seem just to pass by with indifference, cause violence is an element of their everyday life. Tran Anh Hung camera work is excellent and so is photography. There's no doubt on the director's ability; what I not liked is his dark vision of Saigon, maybe influenced by his life experiences. Tran Anh Hung, born in south Vietnam, emigrated in Paris at the end of the war when he was 12 and became a French citizen. The Saigon he portrays is a gloomy and violent city, too similar to the Hong Kong of Kar Wai's Fallen Angels. I've lived in HCMC and I can recognize the streets, the squares, the citizens' way of speaking, what I do not recognize is the sad atmosphere of urban blight and some unmotivated violence. I saw this movie for the first time with my Vietnamese girlfriend (from Saigon of course), and she not liked it for these reasons. But apart these personal considerations on its verisimilitude, Cyclo is a great movie, maybe a little bit difficult for a mainstream public, but my advice is to take a look. It won the Golden Lion in Venice Festival in 1995

I've always watched Asian movies, especially horror and thrillers, long before they became a fashion here. In particular I payed attention to Thai cinema that really grew up in the last 10 years, so i'm not surprised when I can see some solid product like this one. 13 Beloved is a strong thriller, based on a comic, that begins as a dark comedy, pass through some shocking scenes on the edge of gory horror to turn into a critic of (thai) contemporary society. The Cinematography is realistic and so are the special effects, acting is good, the director knows his job and the suspense is kept high for all the film. Maybe you could expect something more in the end. The only bad note is the English subtitles in the version I saw that took too much liberty in the translation and changed the MBK center into e-bay or a "farang" into a bastard and so on...

I enjoyed the comic because of Templesmith's illustrations and also because of Steve Niles' original idea of an Alaskan town hunted by vampires for 30days of endless night. After some not so good sequels to the original book, I really wanted to see the movie based on the first story, but maybe I expected too much from it and I had to realize that one thing is a graphic novel and another is a movie. The comic origins are evident both for the vampire look and for the Niles scrip. The settings is good and so are the visual effects, especially in the scene of a head chopped off. Some scenes, especially in the beginning are not so bad and scare. But as the plot goes on it turns in some nonsense. The weak point is the screenplay by Niles himself. Deplorable, illogical, sometime ridiculous. You spend almost all the time asking why all characters do just what they are not supposed to do. And the end is really stupid, an insult to anyone's intelligence. Besides I just don't like the recent way of filming horror and thriller with a fast editing and many confused close ups in the action scenes. I don't recommend this film, but if you are an horror fan or you liked the comics, you can see it with the risk of being disappointed at the end.

Not such a terrific experience as some wrote. I watched with my girl and she wasn't scared at all. It's not shocking or gory more than many other movies I've seen. OK, there's violence, there's blood, there's all you can expect from a slasher movie, but it all looks like something already seen. When you're watching this, you have the sensation you already know what's about to happen: in fact the plot is a patchwork of many others slasher/torture movies, from the Texas Chaisaw Massacre to Hostel. Also the idea of using Nazis instead of rednecks is not so original. Good the opening during the riots that follows political election; if someone knows France recent history, it gives a sense of realism to the plot. Good the acting too and some scenes have the right suspense (for example the one in the tunnel), gore scenes are really well done, but some others are hard to follow 'cause photography is too dark or the editing is too fast and messy. Sure it is not a masterpiece, but if you like horror-slashers you can watch it.