Japanese

Yakuza Deka: The Assassin

Given that I know a fair bit about horror and thrillers (especially the lowbudget 70s European attempts!), they’re not that difficult to write about or evaluate in some form. I do, after all, have plenty else to compare them with. This becomes a sort of self-sustaining reason for me not really writing about much else on this blog. You see the word ‘Western’ in the banner above? Not once have I written about a Western (although I have watched loads…). The same with Noir. And, for that matter, Slashers flicks too.

2LDK - Stop pushing boundaries!

Let’s look at modern films. With a few notable exceptions, cinema seems hellbent on the bizarre (and frankly WRONG) notion that more = better. From Lord of the Rings (MOAR FIGHTING PEOPLE!), to Avatar (MOAR DIMENSIONS!, MOAR MONEY), to Inception (MOAR LAYERS OF REALITY!) there is a definite trend towards the idea of giving you “more bang for your buck”. As cinema prices skyrocket, some bright spark seems to have formulated an idea:

Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (Gojira VS Supesugojira )

Chopping Mall Video: Watch SpaceGodzilla arrive on Earth and bully poor little baby Godzilla. See below or CLICK HERE! [Video deleted by request from Toho (Godzilla copyright owners). You’d have thought a single teaser scene, linking to a positive review would be free marketing for them, right? No, as we move into 2010, it seems big money studios are still too technology-illiterate to imagine the internet might actually help them]

Ebira, Horror of the Deep / Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster

Now with added VIDEO. See below! ChoppingMall brings you handpicked scenes from reviewed films!

Now, I can’t pretend to know a lot about Godzilla. Nor, for that matter, Japanese cinema in general. Or even Asian cinema. In fact, as far-east film culture goes, I am mostly ignorant. This has always seemed a shame - I know I should really make more of an effort - but for once I was thankful of the fact; my ignorance of the Gojira/Godzilla series meant that I was entirely unprepared for what this 1966 film threw at me.

Mini Moni the Movie: the Great Cake Adventure

This is, without doubt, one of the strangest things I have ever seen. Too weird for IMDb to even list it, Mini Moni the Movie: the Great Cake Adventure is just too damn odd to be true.

From film diary

It clocks in at a little less than an hour and is mostly animation with some live scenes. So far, so good. It’s entirely set in a café that serves the most fantastic cakes and, er… as you might (or might not) expect, this involves a rogue, body-image obsessed queen who hates cakes, fairie minions who turn the cakes into stone, a talking fridge, legions of asexually reproducing gingerbread men….

Tokyo Gore Police

‘Ruka always shows no mercy’

IMDb

From director Yoshihiro Nishimura comes a completely bonkers but very fun tale of genetic mutation, police brutality and (of course) heaps of bloodshed. The story is entirely silly and the characters aren’t exactly deep and well-crafted but… does that really matter?

This is a film which very much does what it sets out to do. We get dismembered torsos, severed limbs, crazy animal-claw mutations and a heap of body parts just begging for someone to ram at high speed with a police car. So what does Ruka do? Why, she rams them of course, sending arms, legs and other body bits scattering across the roads of Japan.