I have spent the last 2 weeks ripping through Asian movies in my Netflix queue and that I have DLed. A couple have been DLed so long that they now have US releases. Whoops?

Bodyguards and Assassins (China): Set in 1905, this is about a group of people, many with no previous ties, working to stop a group of assassins during a trip of Sun Wen’s ( Read more... )

I just watched the jmovie, Ballad, which is about a modern day kid who travels to the Sengoku era (late 16th century) and basically gets involved in your standard epic tragedy where the princess (Aragaki Yui looking startlingly like Nakama Yukie) of a small territory is in love with the super-swordsman samurai, but THEIR LOVE CANNOT BE because he's ( Read more... )

Briefly:

You may recall that I read and adored the book this movie is based on not long ago.  ( Read it!  Readitreaditreadit!)  The movie changes some things up, but leaves the base intact.  Unfortunately, a large part of the book's appeal is how incredibly strong and engaging Momoko's voice is, and that doesn't carry over as well to a visual medium ( Read more... )

So, it took me a while, but I realized that the dramatic and white clad assassin with a rose fetish was Odagiri Joe.  In my defense, he isn't very recognizable, aside from the chin.

Anyway, aside from one near-massive misstep about 2/3 through, Azumi is a pretty solid bit of martial arts cheese.  It's well shot and has pretty good fight sequences, ( Read more... )

 The makers of Azumi decided that falling sakura petals were passe in conveying angst.  Instead, our assassins are showered with dead leaves as they embark upon their bloodstained path.

It's beautiful.

Oh, the shounen angsty crack, let me show it to you:

When realizing the nice man she's discussing fishing with is her target, Azumi covers him with a ( Read more... )

So, I am 20 minutes into the jmovie Azumi and have officially added Azumi to the shortlist of Supremely Awesome Angsty origins.

So, Azumi is found on the beach as a little girl with her mother's corpse.  The guy who found her was collecting kids to raise to be assassins.  Apparently one of the Tokugawa shoguns (ah...uhm...I was lazy and didn't note ( Read more... )

Ah, Japan...you and your "just like manga"(because it's based on one) insane samurai-ish shonen action movies whose sole purpose is to make everyone who sees it run around screaming "CCCCRRRRRAAAAACCCCCCKKKKKK!!!  SWORD WEILDING MONSTER FIGHTING EMOTASTIC CCCCCCCRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!"

In this case, our emotastic hero is Hyakki-maru, ( Read more... )

 I just finished(well, half an hour ago...)  Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood.  Starring Toshiro Mifune (just like every other Kurosawa move I've seen, which is coincidence, not deliberate) ToB is based on Shakespeare's MacBeth.  MacBeth is my favorite of Shakespeare's plays (blame Gargoyles...which actually has a MacBeth based on the actual ( Read more... )

Like the other Kurosawa films I've seen Seven Samurai more than lives up to it's classic  status. The plot, in case there's actually someone not familiar with it, revolves around a village hiring seven samurai to protect them from bandits.  The samurai, most of whom have never met before, are gathered by a slightly older samurai named Kambei, and ( Read more... )

 *ahem*

THIS WAS POSSIBLY THE MOST VASTLY ENTERTAINING THING I HAVE SEEN THIS YEAR!

*hem*


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