Tag Archives: film

film, Reviews

Film Review: The Yakuza Papers Pt. 3 – Proxy War

Proxy War, along with the second film in the series, Hiroshima Deathmatch, are really where the Yakuza Papers series really kicks into high gear with showing the real nature of the Yakuza life. Where the sophomore film in the series introduced a new character, followed him through his induction into the yakuza, until his ultimate death, Proxy War returns us to following Bunta Sugawara’s character, Shozo Hirono, as factions within the old guard start playing the new generation of yakuza against each other, while Hirono himself tries to reconcile this current chain of events with the yakuza code of honor. Continue reading →

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film, Reviews

Film Review – A Christmas Carol (1999)

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is probably the work of literature that has been most frequently adapted to the screen that wasn’t written by William Shakespeare. With so many adaptations, it’s probably hard to pick the best. I’d probably put the Muppet version at the top of my list, but aside from that, the 1999 made-for-TV version starring Patrick Stewart as Ebenezer Scrooge is my number two pick. Continue reading →

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film, Uncategorized

Film Review: The Yakuza Papers Pt. 2 – Deadly Fight in Hiroshima

After the original The Yakuza Papers came out and did incredibly well at the box office, a sequel came out with a relatively fast turnaround. Unlike the first film, the sequel, Deadly Fight in Hiroshima, bypasses Bunta Sugawara’s character, Shozo Hirono (who does appear in this film as a cameo appearance), for a new character, and new story of induction into the world of the Yakuza.
Continue reading →

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film, Samurai film

Film Review – Rashomon

It’s weird watching Rashomon after seeing multiple films and episodes of TV shows that used the central narrative device of Rashomon after the film came out. On the one hand, it’s a film that did a lot of this stuff first, but on the other hand, it is still, in a way, somewhat old hat.

Probably what makes Rashomon work as well as it does is how the lies in the story are presented. We have the initial witness testimony, showing the discovery of the body. Continue reading →

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film, Reviews

Movie Review – The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 1: Battles Without Honor and Humanity

Due to the copyright strike on my Youtube channel, I’m going to hold off on doing film video reviews for the immediate future, aside from works from companies with a proven track record as being forgiving when it comes to film criticism (such as the Criterion Collection). However, I still want to keep talking about film so, for now, I’m going to do those review as prose reviews. If there is an interest from my Patreon Backers (which you can be one of), once the copyright strike is up, I’ll go back to re-do some or all these reviews as video reviews (depending on what films they’d like to see reviewed).

These reviews are also being posted on my Letterboxd page. I’m cross posting them here because I remember what happened to Screened, and I’d like to make sure I don’t lose any of my reviews.

With that out of the way, I’m taking a look at a Japanese Yakuza film from the 1970s – and the first part of the Yakuza Papers/Battles Without Honor Or Humanity series of films. Continue reading →

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Ryunosuke's wake
film, Samurai film

Movie Review – Sword of Doom

Ryunosuke's wake

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It’s been a while since I put a film review together, for something outside of a genre film for Bureau42. However, what better place to get back into the swing of things than the 1960s jidaigeki film Sword of Doom.

The film stars Tatsuya Nakadai as samurai Ryunosuke Tsukue, a sociopathic-at-best samurai, who cares for nothing but the improvement of his skill. The film follows Tsukue over the course of two years, as his violent tendencies slowly get the better of him .

The script does an excellent job of making it perfectly clear that while Tsukue is certainly the main character of the film, he is not a protagonist. Literally, the first thing he does in the film is to kill a defenseless old man in cold blood, and he proceeds through the film with a sense of clinical, cold detachment similar to later anime and manga characters like Duke Togo of Golgo 13 and Ogami Itt? of Lone Wolf and Cub, which likely took a certain degree of inspiration from novel this film was based on.

However, the sense of detachment is where the similarities end. While Itt? and Togo are certainly remorseless, compassionless killers, their opponents are often even more vile creatures then they are, to keep the audience on their side. On the other hand, as the film progresses, Tsukue never improves as a person. By the end of the film, guilt and fear have come to get the better of him, but even then they are unleashed in a psychotic episode comparable, in terms of violence, with the climax of Scarface. All of this is executed wonderfully by the writers and the director, as we see Tsukue’s sanity slip further, further and further.

The film is not without its faults. Originally intended as part of a trilogy, based on the absurdly long novel (about 1,533 chapters long) of the same approximate title as the film, several sub-plots are introduced that go just about nowhere. While they do intersect with the main plot in several points, they otherwise introduce what seem to be Chekov’s guns that turn out to be little more than display pieces. These side plots are significant enough that dramatically trimming them down could easily cut the film down from its current 2 hour run-time to closer to 90 minutes. These side plots could have been resolved in a sequel – however, we didn’t particularly get a sequel to this film.

All that said, the film is extremely well done, and a wonderful example of what this genre of cinema is capable of. If you consider yourself a fan of samurai films, you owe it to yourself to see this film.

Ogami Itt?
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film, Reviews

Movie Review – The Crimson Cult

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Occasionally a horror film comes about where the premise might be unimpressive, but the film’s cast commands attention. The Crimson Cult, originally titled “The Curse of the Crimson Altar” in the UK, is one of such films.

The film follows Robert Manning, an antique dealer who has come to the town of Graymarsh, in search of his brother – another dealer who has failed to return from an antique buying expedition. In the town he arrives in time for a festival celebrating the burning of a witch 300 years earlier, and he finds himself suffering from horrific and vivid nightmares that are more real than they seem.

The plot itself is nothing special. It allegedly takes its plot incredibly loosely from the HP Lovecraft story “The Dreams in the Witch House”, however it’s little more than a standard Satanic/Occult Horror film. What makes the film special is the film’s two co-stars – Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff. Both characters are similar. The script has Lee and Karloff both playing warm, welcoming, landed gentry, with each seeming to have sinister undertones. This, combined with Lee and Karloff’s history in horror films playing dark and sinister villains leaves the audience wondering who the villain is. Is Lee’s character, J. D. Morley who our hero is staying with, the villain. Is Karloff’s Professor Marshe, who collects torture instruments and studies the history of witchcraft the villain. Or are they in cahoots?

The rest of the cast’s performances are fair, and Manning’s nightmares of a “Witch’s Sabbath” are bizarrely surreal – with the witch wearing green body paint and wearing leather nipple covers, and attended by a large hooded man in an almost-too-tight loincloth. The series of sequences feel far too much like something out of a bad horror comic than anything else, and make the film more laughable than sinister.

Fortunately, Lee and Karloff’s genteel menace really help to carry the film, and help get across the audience’s confusion on who our hero can trust. I can definitely recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys older horror films, particularly those which focus a little less on the gore effects, and more on building a sense of dread and the supernatural.

Note: This film is not in print on DVD, so if you want to get it, you’ll have to go to eBay.

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film, Reviews

Movie Review – A Brief History of Time

The movie poster for A Brief History of Time

No affiliate link this time, so click on the poster to see it bigger.

I love physics. To be more accurate, I love all the space sciences. This ties in to my enjoyment of science fiction series like Star Trek and Star Wars, and from watching documentary series like Nova on Public Broadcasting as a kid. Plus, like most people, I love underdog stories. So, when I learned about Professor Stephen Hawkings, a physicist from the UK who helped to expand our knowledge of how the universe works in spite of the disease that was slowly destroying him – Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. So, when I learned there was a film based on his book “A Brief History of Time”, where he explained the basics of quantum mechanics to a mass audience. I leaped at the chance to watch it. Continue reading →

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film, Reviews

Movie Review – Three Days of the Condor

Movie Poster for Three Days of the Condor

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I enjoy spy thrillers. Marathon Man, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley’s People, Sneakers, Spy Game, etc, have all stuff I’ve enjoyed. I bring up Spy Game, because it was my first exposure to Redford in a spy film, which in turn leads me to this week’s review – Three Days of the Condor, which features Redford acting alongside Max Von Sydow in a spy thriller set in the US.

The plot follows Joseph Turner, code name “Condor,” an analyst for the CIA. When assassins kill everyone at his station except for him when he’s out getting lunch, he finds himself on the run, and trying to find out why he and his station were targeted. He seeks help from a Kathy Hale, a civilian he comes across while evading pursuit in a sporting goods store. Continue reading →

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film, Reviews

Movie Review – No Country for Old Men

Movie Poster for No Country for Old Men

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I came in to this movie knowing nothing about Cormac McCarthy. I hadn’t read the book this movie was based on. I hadn’t read The Road, nor had I seen the movie that was adapted from the book. What I did have, however, is knowledge of the Coen Brothers from seeing Fargo and O Brother, Where Art Thou. I can justifiably say that after seeing this movie, I couldn’t see anyone else doing this film. I don’t have this reaction with all films. Sometimes, when watching an film, I can sort of get ideas about how the film might look with another director – how John Carpenter might do the original Friday the 13th instead of Sean S. Cunningham for example. This, though, is a film only the Coen Brothers could do.

The film follows three characters, hunter Llewellyn Moss, sheriff Ed Tom Bell, and hitman Anton Chigurh (rhymes with “Sugar”). While hunting in west Texas, Moss comes across a drug deal that turned into a bloodbath. Among the carnage he finds a satchel carrying 2 Million dollars. Chigurh has been hired by the owner of the money to get it back. Finally, Sheriff Bell finds himself following in the wake of blood left by Chigurh’s passage in search of the money. Continue reading →

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film, Reviews

Movie Review – Live Free or Die Hard

Movie Poster for Live Free or Die Hard

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As someone who intends to become a network security professional, I know a little something about hacking. Not how to penetrate people’s systems or anything like that, but I know about security flaws, I know about ways a possible attacker might come at your system, and I know that the visual for these attacks would be pretty boring. After I learned that the premise of Live Free or Die Hard would involve cyber-crime, I developed a lot of reservations about how this film could turn out. However, after much deliberation, I decided to give the film a watch.

The movie brings back Detective John McClane of the NYPD. Now formally divorced from his wife and estranged from his daughter, he’s ordered to take a computer hacker from New Jersey to Washington DC for questioning related to an attack on the FBI’s computer system, as well as the deaths of several other hackers. After he arrives at the house of the hacker, Matt Farrell (played by Justin Long), some assassins attempt to kill Farrell, ringing alarm bells for McClaine. As John and Matt make their way down to DC, a series of hacker attacks, masterminded by former NSA hacker Thomas Gabriel (played by Timothy Olyphant), bring the US infrastructure to it’s knees. It’s up to McLane and Farrell to stop Gabriel’s plot before millions of lives are lost. Continue reading →

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film, Reviews

Movie Review – In The Electric Mist

Movie Poster for The Electric Mist

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As a quick note – I’m reviewing the US release of the film. The European Union cut of the film is several minutes longer and is the director’s vision for how the film would turn out.

The way that crime thrillers and mysteries have been adapted to the big screen has kind of changed over the years, more or less. While TV series like Peter Gunn and Bones try (and succeed) to provide a “knowledge chain” sort of like a chain of custody, where the audience has access to the same pieces of evidence that the people investigating the crime(s) has, and they see how the conclusions are drawn, and they usually figure out who solved the crime around the same time the detective does. Films, and in particular In the Electric Mist, don’t do it that way. Continue reading →

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