bugsonglass said:

I also thought it weird when the "evil step-brother" came back all done up with body armour and pasty white face but I thought it was kind of in keeping with the old school kung-fu vibe the whole film was permeating.  Make him look almost inhuman and pure evil.  I liked almost every fight scene.  Really loved the fights with the "iron twins".

Yes, it was very much like a Volume 1 and Volume 2 put together.  The last 35 minutes or so with the Drunken Style birth was completely independent of the original story.

I think the one thing that kind of peeved me off a little bit was Caradyne's cameo.  I cringed every time he opened his mouth.  But even that I guess was a kind of nod to the kung-fu films of yesteryear.  Another very minor gripe was that they didn't make more of the "five-venoms-style" of the bad guy.

Sad to hear it didn't do so well.  Yes, Vincent Zhao was totally awesome in it.

Generally I don't like that kind of old style make up laden bad guy or those kind of super accentuated fight scenes, but in Detective Dee I loved it. Wuxia has a pretty special fighting style I think I talked about in my impressions in that it's perfectly balanced. I liked David Caradine but I knew about his auto-afixiated death with a prostitute so it was weird seeing him there.

Zhaos performance in the movie got him the part in the new Donnie Yen film, but from the wrangling it appears he was kicked out because they wanted to significantly downplay his part, I guess to pump Yen up as the hero and according to the contract both actors had to agree to it. Zhao didn't.

It could have been an awesome pairing. I was quite bummed about the news. I think the movie is called the Icemath Cometh or something, it's a remake.

bugsonglass said:

Saw Fearless (Director's).  It was as awesome as everyone had said, and as I expected.  Very moving.  The great masterpiece Jet Li always threatened to make.

Yeah, Jet Li can actually act? He won a few awards for Fearless. Some really awesome fight scenes too. I showed it to a friend and he couldn't believe it was a Chinese production as it was so polished and the effects etc. I think if avoid foreign movies you won't know the leaps and bounds they have made in movie production. They can match Hollywood now in effects and glossy visuals, even with vastly smaller budgets.

Red Cliff is a case in point, it does everything Lord of the Rings does in battlefield scale, minus the minatures.

bugsonglass said:

I also watched Ong-Bak last night with some friends (which I'd seen before several years ago).  The fight scenes are still extremely impressive, and reportedly with very little (if any) wire or CG stuff.  I read the sequels are not very good though.  Shame to see such a great talent as Tony Jaa wasted.

It features no wirework or CGI whatsoever from what I can remember. Love when he just walked on peoples heads. Ong Bak 2 is all right (considering how reviews trashed it), totally different to the first film and barely any plot but the visuals are nice and the fighting great. The third film is a massive f*** up.

bugsonglass said:

Think I will check Ong-Bak 2 at some point if as you say the fighting is good.  I read that The Protector/Warrior King with Tony Jaa is quite good.  Also read a lot of good things about another Thai film called Chocolate starring a girl martial artist which sounds worth checking as well.  You've probably seen it.

Hate having to go back to work on Monday.  Wish I had another week I could just lounge around, drink tea and watch great movies.

I think I described Ong Bak 2 as virtually a silent movie. There is like 2/3rds fighting 1/3rd dialogue. It's basically a series of martial arts demonstrations and to be fair the martial arts are as good as anything in Ong Bak 1 but the film isn't as entertaining and doesn't have a great narrative. But you know, it was heavily trashed in some reviews and I do no think it is that bad at all.

The Warrior King is good, that is more like what an Ong Bak 2 following on from the first film would be like. It has one awesome steadcam fight scene, in one continuous take it looks like.

Chocolate was a let down for me, it has this little girl as the main character and though she is fairly proficient it does not seem like any of her moves would actually do any damage. The story is a little meh too, she is a mentally challenged person who learns martial arts from watching TV and when she gets angry she beats people up, it's really stupid. However, there is this 30 minute fight scene at the end which is great stuff, it's set on the side exterior of buildings and has some really inventive and impressive stuff to watch.

bugsonglass said:

Watched several films over the summer which I haven't mention (some are not really worth mentioning) so I'll say a few words about a few of them in case anyone has seen them or may want to do so.

I saw a 2001 J-Horror called Kairo (Pulse)

It's about ghosts invading our realm through the internet ... I guess.  For the first 20 minutes or so I thought it was crap and was tempted to stop it but I got into it eventually and I was glad to have stuck with it for the whole two hours.  There isn't much by means of a plot.  And there is no character development what-so-ever.  What the viewer gets is a desolate, bleak and harrowing version of Tokyo and by extension the whole world, where characters are asked to come to terms with their loneliness and despair in life.  It's not great, but it's not too bad either.  Glad to have seen it.

__

Watched another Japanese film called Kichiku Dai Enkai (Banquet of the Beasts) - 1997

This is some seriously disturbing shit.  If you had to turn away watching something like I Saw the Devil, you shouldn't even get near this.  It was apparently a student project.  The plot follows a group of radical communist students, the leader of whom has been put in jail and left his girlfriend in charge until his release.  Meanwhile a friend of his is released before him and he is asked by the leader to check on how his merry band are doing.  It doesn't take long after that for all hell to break loose in a bloody mix of violence, paranoia and outright madness the likes of which I have very seldom seen before.  Approach with caution, but well worth it if you can stomach this sort of thing.

I love Kairo, it's just an absolutely fascinating look into isolation and the effect it causes on people. It's pretty scary as well IMHO.

Anyways, just how intense is Kichiku? After watching the Guinea Pig films (Damn it Charlie Sheen for sparking my interest! I hated the first 2 since they are like the "Broken" Nine Inch Nails tape without Nine Inch Nails and I liked He Never Dies, Mermaid In A Manhole and the one with the drag queen) I'm not sure I want to watch another disturbing and controversial Japanese movie.

Killerjuan77 said:

BTW How come we never get cool stuff like this here in Mexico?

It must be amazing to see this in a packed theatre!

It's decent and entertaining but honestly you're not missing much. I thought it would be great coming off Detective Dee and it's decently entertaining but not much more.

bugsonglass said:

If you don't want to watch another disturbing and controversial Japanese movie then you sort of answer your question yourself.  If you did though, or when you do, Kitchiku I'd say is a bloody good one.

I'm downloading it right now. Apparently there's a spot involving rape and a shotgun. I have no words but I'm giving it a shot since it's always cool to see what people can make with a minimal budget.

Watched Caligula last night on TV. What a waste of 2 and a half hours. Also, oral sex.

So weird, though. Its main theme sounded like something lifted out of a regular romance epic, not a movie about dick and clit sucking.

Right on, . Golden EDGE. "Donde vives quién sabe qué chingaos".

What is this 9 songs you talk of? Now I wanna know.