Tag: action

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Features Live Action Movies

Throne Of Blood
(Kumonosu-jo,
蜘蛛巣城,
lit. Castle
Of The Spider Web)

Director – Akira Kurosawa – 1957 – Japan – Cert. 12 – 110m

*****

Out on BFI UHD & Blu-ray on Monday, May 19th 2025.

Currently streaming on BFI Player alongside many other Kurosawa films together with a much wider selection of Japanese movies.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most familiar plays. In 1957, Kurosawa reworked it against the backdrop of feudal, 16th Century Japan. Ascendant samurai Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) and Miki (Minoru Chiaki) hear from an old crone at a spinning wheel in the forest that Washizu will become Lord of Cobweb Castle, later to be succeeded by Miki’s son. Washizu’s wife Asaji (Isuzu Yamada, her face rigidly fixed in Noh mask poses) preys on his insecurities to convince Washizu to murder his way to the top. Slayings, ghost sightings, hand washing and his demise duly ensue.

Not only does Kurosawa jettison all Shakespeare’s dialogue, he also makes the material thoroughly his own even while remaining true to its essence. For instance, when Washizu, eating in public, sees Miki’s ghost, Mifune with the camera following him starts running around like a man possessed, slashing wildly at an unseen apparition. Watching this, it’s hard to imagine it ever being shot on film (let alone performed on a stage) any other way.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Stuntman
(Mou Tai Do,
武替道)

Directors – Albert & Herbart Leung – 2024 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 114m

****

20 years after a stuntman on his team was hospitalised when a stunt went wrong, an action choreographer takes on his first stunt job since the tragic incident – out on digital from Monday, 12 May 2025

This opens with a terrific cops and robbers fight in a shopping mall at the top of an escalator bearing remarkable resemblance to (and just as exciting as) the one towards the end of Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985). However, while this might be an obvious homage to that film specifically and 1980s Hong Kong action cinema generally, it’s far from a mere attempt to retread the same ground: we suddenly cut from the cops and robbers scenario to reveal a film crew of that period shooting an action movie.

There is a particularly dangerous stunt coming up. A (stunt)man must jump off a bridge onto a lorry as it passes below, with a car immediately behind. (Again, this is remarkably similar to the stunt in Police Story II (Jackie Chan, 1988) where Chan leaps off a balcony onto a lorry passing in the street.) In the current film, for the stunt to come off, the stuntman must jump at exactly the moment the action choreographer Sam Lee (Lam Yiu Sing from The Goldfinger, Felix Chong, 2023; Where the Wind Blows, Philip Yung, 2022; Memories to Choke on, Drinks to Wash Them Down, Leung Ming Kai, Kate Reilly, 2019; Dream Home, Cheung Pang-ho, 2010) tells him; to wait until he can see the truck would be too late and cause considerable, possibly fatal, injury.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Before We Vanish
(Sanpo Suru Shinryakusha,
散歩する侵略者,
lit. Strolling Invaders)

Director – Kiyoshi Kurosawa – 2017 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 129m

***

Three humans claiming to be aliens steal ideas from people’s heads as they prepare for their race’s forthcoming invasion – from LEAFF, the London East Asia Film Festival 2017

This review is of a first viewing of this film. It really doesn’t happen often, but I can imagine liking this film more second time round. It’s a very strange movie.

Hands take a goldfish from a group in a white bathtub and transfer it into a metal pan. A sailor suited schoolgirl carries the fish in a bag to another house. Inside the latter, on its floor, the fish struggles to breathe as it lies on the ground out of water.

Spattered with blood, the girl (Yuri Tsunematsu) walks happily along the middle of a busy road. As she strolls without a care, swerving to avoid her, a lorry crashes headlong into an oncoming car.

Elsewhere, something is wrong with Shinji Kase (Ryuhei Matsuda from The Raid 2, Gareth Evans, 2014). His behaviour alarms his wife Narumi (Masami Nagasawa from Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2015, and playing in LEAFF this Saturday 28/10).… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Ne Zha 2
(Nezha:
Mo Tong Nao Hai,
lit. Nezha:
The Demon Child
Churns the Sea,
哪吒之魔童闹海)

Director – Yang Yu aka Jiaozi – 2025 – China – Cert. 12a – 143m

***1/2

Two supernatural, child warriors battle a plethora of marmots, dragons and immortals – action-packed, animated, spectacular, Chinese box office juggernaut is out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, March 21st

All but destroyed by the events in Ne Zha (Yang Yu, 2019), supernatural, child warriors Ne Zha (voice: Lu Yanting) and his companion Ao Bing (voice: Han Mo) are reconstituted thanks to the giant lotus of deity Taiyi Zhenren (voice: Zhang Jiaming). Their new bodies, however, are unstable.

Mistakenly believing Ao Bing dead, his father Ao Guang, the Dragon King of the East Sea (one of four dragon monarchs for each of the seas of the four compass points who live in a vast underground cavern) gives demon Shen Gongbao (voice: Yang Wei) a severed dragon’s claw capable of ripping the sky, and sends him off to the town of Chentang Pass to slash the heavens and cause them to leak lava upon it. A fiery battle ensues.

Meanwhile, after a series of adventures elsewhere including a fight with a hoard of marmots, Ne Zha goes to help heavenly immortal Wuliang (voice: Wang Deshun) as he traps Shen’s forces in a giant cauldron at what is left of Chengtang Pass.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Chang’an
(Chang’an San Wan Li,
长安三万里,
lit. 3 000 Miles from Chang’an)

Directors – Xie Junwei, Zou Jing – 2023 – China – Cert. 12a – 168m

****

General Gao Shi of the Tang dynasty recounts his life, his struggle to become a poet and his friendship with Li Bai, a more renowned poet – animated epic is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 28th

Set roughly halfway through the Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.), this lengthy, animated epic starts off like an historical war movie in the vein of the live action Red Cliff (John Woo, 2008, 2009) but swiftly morphs into something else entirely as this initial narrative about the capture and interrogation of an enemy soldier turns into a frame story – which is rather more than that, popping up repeatedly throughout the narrative with the frame story’s resolution taking centre stage towards the end of the proceedings. Even this is deceptive; while military strategy and conflict is covered, the narrative is far less interested in that than in the overall life of main protagonist and minor poet Gao Shi, his meetings and friendship through the years with secondary character and major poet Li Bai, and the wider poetry of the period.

Believing himself about to be punished for the failure of his well planned and fought military campaign against the Tubos (the Tibetans, their ethnic identity never clarified within the film itself – at least, not in the English subtitles, presumably because the film is aimed at a Chinese audience who would already know this ethnic, historical; background), the ageing General Gao Shi (voice: Wu Junquan) falls neck first on his spear before receiving the Emperor’s emissary who wants to question him, it turns out, about not his military campaign but, rather, Li Bai.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Blood
The Last Vampire
(2000)

Director – Hiroyuki Kitakubo – 2000 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 48m

****

Part English, Part Japanese with English Subtitles, Widescreen (1.85)

REG 2 DVD / PAL VHS review from Starburst (UK Edition), 2001.

The animation weighs in at a mere 46 minutes on home video formats, although on both you also get an informative, 20 minute Making Of documentary which goes into a lot of fascinating detail about the project’s innovative production processes via interviews with most of the animation staff involved.

Set largely on an American Air Base in Japan in 1966’s early stages of the Vietnam War, Blood’s tale cleverly employs both American English for the US military and Japanese (here subtitled in English) for the indigenous population. Sometimes, of course, the Japanese speak English to Americans and on one occasion, an American schoolgirl is told by Japanese heroine Saya (voice: Youki Kudoh from Heaven’s Burning, Craig Lahiff, 1997; Mystery Train, Jim Jarmusch, 1989; Typhoon Club, Shinji Somai, 1985; The Crazy Family, Sogo Ishii, 1984) to back off in American English after attempting to greet Saya in the Japanese tongue.

Language wise, there’s therefore no need for a separate track, but the DVD includes two sound mixes of which the 5.1 scores hands down since every implement dropping to a stone floor or every bullet flying into a wall springs to life in the 5.1 mix, but sounds comparatively flat in the stereo.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Face/Off

Director – John Woo – 1997 – US – Cert. 18 – 138m

*****

John Woo’s third US film, his strongest to date, has FBI agent John Travolta switching faces with villain Nic Cage – part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK October-November 2024

When screenwriters Mike Werb and Michael Colleary collaborated on original screenplay Face/Off, they had in mind such classic films as post-war gangster tale White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949)and identity change outing Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966). Only after completing an initial draft did Colleary see a John Woo movie – The Killer (1989) – at which point he immediately knew the pair had found the perfect director for their material.

This was clearly reciprocal – if Woo had already astounded Hong Kong audiences with A Better Tomorrow (1986) and crossed over internationally with The Killer and Hard Boiled (1992), he had yet to win comparable critical acclaim in America, even though his modest budget American debut Hard Target (1993) had had its admirers and his first blockbusting actioner Broken Arrow (1996) had impressed Hollywood with its box office.

These films both felt like the work of a director for hire not an auteur, and while Woo, like numerous Hollywood immigrants before him, could probably have continued in similar vein, the Face/Off script contained exactly the elements the director needed to take up in Hollywood where he’d left off in Hong Kong.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Broken Arrow
(1996)

Director – John Woo – 1996 – US – Cert. 15 – 108m

***

Woo’s second US outing pits Christian Slater against nuclear stealth bomber co-pilot turned bad John Travolta in the Arizona desert – part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK October-November 2024

The first project to see the light of day from WCG Entertainment, whose initials stand for Woo Chang Godsick. This triumvirate of names belongs to respectively the director of A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989), and Hard Boiled (1992), his longstanding Hong Kong producer Terence Chang, and former agent Christopher Godsick – whose William Morris client list had included Woo himself and the director’s onscreen alter-ego Chow Yun‑fat.

Like his earlier successful action blockbuster Speed (Jan de Bont, 1991), Graham Yost’s script was initially written for producer Mark Gordon. After Woo’s more modestly budgeted US debut Hard Target (1993) was followed by disappointing setbacks on other American projects; Yost’s screenplay was exactly the entry into the US blockbuster market Woo needed. While the resultant film may be ultimately less satisfying than Woo’s best work, it quickly established him as a top Hollywood A-list director.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Hard Target

Director – John Woo – 1993 – US – Cert. 18 – 100m (UK version), 86m (US version)

****

John Woo’s US debut is a New Orleans remake of The Most Dangerous Game with action star Jean-Claude Van Damme – part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK October-November 2024

Essentially the first of two remakes of The Most Dangerous Game / The Hounds Of Zaroff (Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel, 1932, shot using the same cast, crew and jungle sets as King Kong, (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933) – the second being Surviving The Game (Ernest R. Dickinson, 1994) – this updates the original’s remote island to the urban jungle of and countryside surrounding New Orleans, making its mad game hunter (Lance Henriksen taking on the role originally played by Leslie Banks) prey not on lost seafarers but unemployed down and outs on dry land.

In true New Right nineties spirit, the hunter of humans has now graduated from being merely a gratifying personal sport for deranged psychopaths to a lucrative business attracting high rolling, thrill-seeking clients who get to pull the trigger themselves.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Alienoid
Return to the Future
(Oegye+in 2bu,
외계+인 2부)

Director – Choi Dong-hoon – 2024 – South Korea – LKFF Cert.12 – 122m

*****

In Part Two of the double feature, aliens once again incarcerate prisoners in human brains and travel through time between present day and fourteenth century Korea; mayhem ensues – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2024 which runs in cinemas from Friday, November 1st to Wednesday, November 13th

Second part of Alienoid, director Choi’s to-die-for mash-up of fourteenth century historical mayhem and twenty-first century alien invasion action delivers more of the same, opening with a brief summation of the previous movie. In Korean, the movies are helpfully called Part One and Part Two, and the second is the last one, so rather than finishing on an unexpected, irritating “to be continued” note, the second one does bring the whole thing to a conclusion, and a satisfying conclusion at that.

The whole thing is effectively a five-hour movie split into two parts, although like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001-3), each movie is paced so that it works as an experience in itself. That said, no-one I know wants to sit down and watch the second of three movies on its own, and what Alienoid really needs is for both parts to be shown close together or in a double bill, as happens all the time with all-nighter reruns of the three-part LOTR and as the BFI’s Art of Action Season recently did with the two-part historical war epic Red Cliff (John Woo, 2008-9).… Read the rest