Tag: chase

Burst City
(Bakuretsu Toshi
Burst City,
爆裂都市
BURST CITY)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 12 June 2022
No Comments on Burst City
(Bakuretsu Toshi
Burst City,
爆裂都市
BURST CITY)
Sticky post

Director – Sogo Ishii – 1982 – Japan – Cert. 18 – 115m

Film ****

Cultural significance *****

Arguably the lynchpin film that brought Japanese cinema back from the brink of extinction in the early 1980s and paved the way for much of what was to follow – on Blu-ray from Monday, November 20th 2020

Looked at today through Western eyes, the opening with its breakneck, speeded up race through (presumably) Tokyo cutting between nighttime and daytime POV shots, with motorbike noises, anticipates the more demented pixillated chase scenes of Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989), shots of bikers recall the anti-establishment feel of Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) and patterns caused by moving lights burning into film emulsion recall Norman McClaren and Len Lye’s early animation experiments drawing and painting direct onto film. Then it seems to turn into Mad Max (George Miller, 1979) by way of a gangster film elements (two men in a car wearing a suit and a leather jacket respectively) who avoid a near collision with two punks on a motorcycle and sidecar.

How many of these precedents Ishii had in mind (or even had seen) when he made this is impossible to say.… Read the rest

Tags 16mm, abandoned factory, aesthetic, amateur, anti-establishment, bands, battle, bike, bike noise, bikers, bondage, box office, breakneck, burning into film emulsion, car, Cell Number 8, chase, cinema, cops, daytime, direct onto film, drawing, drawing and painting direct onto film, early animation experiments, engine noise, fight, film industry, frantic, Gakuryu Ishii, gangster, Hollywood aesthetic, hyperkinetic, inaccessible, independent, indigenous, James Cameron, Japan, Japanese punk, Japanese punk bands, Japanese punk rock, Japanese punk rock bands, Japanese rock, Japanese rock bands, Jasper Sharp, Jishu Eiga, leather jacket, Len Lye, lynchpin, Midnight Eye, motorbike, motorbike noise, motorcycle and sidecar, moving lights, music, near collision, nighttime, Nihon University, no pay, noise, Norman McClaren, nudity, outlandish, painting, Pink Cinema, Pinku Eiga, pixillation, porn, POV, pubic hair, punk bands, Punk Rock, punk rock bands, punks, race, restless, rock, rock bands, Shinya Tsukamoto, Sogo Ishii, song, speeded up, suit, Super 8, The Rockers, The Roosters, The Stalin, The Terminator, Tokyo, Tom Mes, UK, UK punk, UK punk rock, unpaid, whore

Features Live Action Movies

The Lost City

Directors – Aaron Nee, Adam Nee – 2021 – US – Cert. 12a – 112m

***

A jaded woman’s romantic adventure novelist and her cover model find themselves in a real life jungle straight out of one of her books – out in cinemas on Wednesday, April 13th

Ever since her archaeologist husband died five years ago, novelist of trashy, erotic women’s adventure fiction Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) has had writer’s block. Her publishers love her books because they sell in huge volume, but she’s really an archaeology nerd who hates the novels she’s written. A friendly nudge from her editor Beth (Da’vine Joy Randolph), however, helps her complete another one, so it’s on to the promotional tour, something else Loretta hates.

She’s told exactly what to do by Beth and new social media manager Allison (Patti Harrison) This time round Loretta is required to wear a one-piece, cleavage-revealing, purple sequinned outfit that she (understandably) really doesn’t like as she is interviewed once again before fan audiences by male model Alan (Channing Tatum), whose appearance alongside her on the front cover of her books has helped propel her (and him) to stardom, effectively casting them as her heroine Angela and sidekick Dash.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Barking Dogs
Never Bite
(Flandersui Gae,
플란다스의 개)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 19 September 2020
No Comments on Barking Dogs
Never Bite
(Flandersui Gae,
플란다스의 개)

Director – Bong Joon Ho – 2000 – South Korea – 110m

****1/2

Available exclusively on Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, September 18th.

Lecturer Yun-ju (Lee Sun-jae) is looking out the window of his apartment in a block of flats and having been recently passed over for a professorship is on the phone to a colleague, but can’t concentrate because of a persistent dog barking. He resolves to do something about it. Chancing later upon a dog without an owner near his front door, he takes it up to the roof but then, unable to drop it off the balcony, takes it down to a basement corridor and traps it in an old wardrobe.

Maintenance office worker Park Hyun-nam (Doona Bae) is visited by a little girl in a yellow waterproof to get her missing dog posters officially stamped so that they won’t get taken down.

Hen-pecked by his working, pregnant wife Eun-sil (Kim Ho-jung), Yun-ju learns from a colleague that the person who got the professorship has died so the position should now be his – for a $10 000 bribe. And the barking hasn’t stopped – he got the wrong dog because the little girl’s posters mention that the missing dog can’t bark following a throat op.… Read the rest

Tags apartment, balcony, bank, barking, basement, binoculars, block of flats, Bong Joon Ho, burial, chase, colleague, cooking, corridor, dogs, Doona Bae, ghost, haves and have-nots, homeless, janitor, Korea, news report, posters, professor, repair, rooftop, South Korea, urban

Animation Features Movies

The Castle
Of Cagliostro
(Rupan Sansei:
Kariosutoro
No Shiro,
ルパン三世
カリオストロの城)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 20 July 2005
No Comments on The Castle
Of Cagliostro
(Rupan Sansei:
Kariosutoro
No Shiro,
ルパン三世
カリオストロの城)

DVD review originally published in Starlog, UK edition.

TO CATCH A THIEF

ANIME OF THE MONTH

THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO

(REG 2 DVD: ENGLISH / JAPANESE DUBBED, OPTIONAL ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

£19.99, Widescreen (1.85:1), Dolby Digital 2.0 (Manga)

One of Manga Video’s best kept secrets arrives on UK DVD. Arsene Lupin III is manga artist Monkey Punch’s descendant to Frenchman Maurice LeBlanc’s noted thief Arsene Lupin and the subject of copyright controversy in the US where the character had to be renamed Wolf or Rupan. Strong though the character may be, the factor that raises this particular film above much anime is the pedigree of writer-director Hayao Miyazaki.

A superb piece of genre film-making, Cagliostro allows Miyazaki to try out lots of ideas he’d rework later. Monkey Punch’s quasi‑European trappings, evidenced both here and in other Lupin III movies, are perfectly in tune with Miyazaki’s sensibilities. Fairytale plot elements concern a princess (a dead ringer for one of Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind’s characters) trapped in a tower by the evil Count Cagliostro and a castle with a 500-year-old secret (shades of Laputa‘s decaying castle in the sky). Then, for a film about a thief, there’s a surprising nod towards goodness; yet the film never becomes too lofty for its own good, being filled with such detours as banknote forgery, lethal security systems, unexpected trap doors and an impressive autogyro (Miyazaki has a reputation for strikingly designed aircraft and other flying objects).… Read the rest