I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013)

Director: Steven R. Monroe

Notable Cast: Jemma Dallender, Yavor Baharov, Joe Absolom, Aleksandar Aleksiev, Mary Stockley, Valentine Pelka, Georgi Zlaterev, Peter Silverleaf

There is a lot of love for the original I Spit on Your Grave (aka Day of the Woman) within the realms of cult cinema and it deserves a lot of respect. However, the film is flawed. As of the writing of this little review, I have taken a lot of flak from various fans, critics, and horror hounds for stating that Steven R. Monroe’s remake of I Spit on Your Grave is a better film than the original. I still stand by that. While it took me far too long to get to it, I finally was able to watch Monroe’s sequel I Spit on Your Grave 2 and now I’m prepared to take another round of abuse from fans because this sequel is even better than his remake. I know, I know. I must have gone mad. I liked a remake better than the original? Then I liked its sequel better than that?! Yet, as the credits rolled on I Spit on Your Grave 2, it was hard not to think this. Not only does this one pull away further from the cheesy moments that hindered its predecessor, but it throws in a variety of solid narrative shifts that expand on the themes and formula to make it feel fresher, leaner, and meaner.

Ley Lines (1999)

Director: Takashi Miike

Notable Cast: Kazuki Kitamura, Michisuke Kashiwaya, Tomorowo Taguchi, Dan Li, Show Aikawa, Naoto Takenaka, Samuel Pop Aning, Oh Far-long

To finalize his thematically connected Black Society Trilogy, Takashi Miike goes for a combination of the first two (Shinjuku Triad Society and Rainy Dog) for the third entry Ley Lines. While this idea seems very promising at its conception, the resulting mix that arrives in Ley Lines is a tad underwhelming particularly when the expectations are so high. The film is still an ambitious and artistic venture into the world of outsiders and their connection to organized crime and certainly deserves a lot of praise thrown its way, but it’s not nearly as entertaining in its grit nor is it as stylized in its characterizations as the previous entries. On its own, it’s still an accomplished work showing Miike’s directorial pizzazz at being able to weave exploitative elements with dramatic heft and thoughtful exploration of its themes, but at the same time the film tends to fall off balance with a few sequences that undercut the whole.

Mr. Six (2015)

Director: Guan Hu

Notable Cast: Feng Xiaogang, Kris Wu, Hanyu Zhang, Li Yi Feng, Xu Qing, Liu Hua

I typically don't go into a film expecting anything, but when a film is advertised heavily as an action / gangster film, I sort of believe I know what I am at least sitting down to watch and getting myself into. No. Not her... not with Mr. Six. Instead of a gangster flick or even action, what we get is the build up to said type of genre and then it is pulled from us to reveal a melodrama, and a pretty solid one at that.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017)

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Notable Cast: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Ruby Rose, Eoin Macken, William Levy, Iain Glen, Lee Joon-gi, Rola, Ever Gabo Anderson, Fraser James

For the record, I have never been a huge Resident Evil fan. The video games, yes, but the movie franchise has always left me feeling a bit perplexed and often underwhelmed (to put it mildly.) By the time that the fourth and fifth entries had rolled around, I was feeling almost irritated by Paul W.S. Anderson’s nonsensical writing and overzealous Matrix inspired bullshit action set pieces. Needless to say, going into Resident Evil: The Final Chapter I was feeling a bit down on the whole thing.

Perhaps this why I didn’t think it was all that terrible.

Don’t mistake this surprise enjoyment of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter as a statement that this film is good. It’s not. It’s just better than the last few entries into this series. It fixes some of the issues I had with the series previously, but it also adds some new problems into the mix that cannot be overlooked. However, in the end, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is at least a fun and energetic action film ride that’s worth the watch for fans…even if it’s still kind of an overarching mess.

Re:Action - Top 5 Liu Chia-Liang Films for the Shaw Brothers

Picture courtesy of Celestial Pictures social media.

Each year around the time of the Lunar New Year, I try to come up with a new Shaw Brothers list for readers and fans. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s easy. It depends on the topic. Last year I covered the ten Shaw Brothers box sets I would like to see get a physical release for collectors, but this year I wanted to cover a topic that I see asked about (and have been asked about) a million times or more, “what are the best Liu Chia-Liang [aka Lau Kar Leung] films?” As a Shaw Brothers director, he didn’t fully direct as many films as some of his peers like Chang Cheh or Chor Yuen did and yet his work with the studio can be felt in films today that have nothing to do with martial arts or even Hong Kong cinema. The way that he was able to balance heart, complex choreography, drama, entertainment, humor, and thematic threads is something that makes his films stand out even in the robust Shaw Brothers catalog and it has been a significant influence on all of action cinema. His cinematic material is, quite simply, that good.

Destruction Babies (2016)

Director: Tetsuya Mariko
Notable Cast: Yuya Yagira, Masaki Suda, Nana Komatsu, Nijiro Murakami, Denden

Destruction (Distraction) Babies is officially one of the most nihilistic pieces of work I've ever witnessed! Taira (Yuya Yagira) is a young man on a swift path of desctruction. The opening features him beating and being beaten to a pulp. He gets up, brushes off, and goes at it again. Rinse and repeat over the next 108 minutes and you have this film done. I could essentially say nothing further, and just recommend the film, but that defeats the purpose of a review.

Taira has a brother named Shota (Nijiro Murikami) who spends the movie in search of his violent brother after he leaves their small hometown, to set the world ablaze. The movie never really develops a plot, nor are there any likable characters, whatsoever. That is what works about this film so well. Everything is so cold, so heinous, and absolutely disgusting, that you can't help but be pulled in. It's the whole "I shouldn't have scene that", but for an entire movie. It's exhausting, and honestly a tough watch, but it is so well made, and so intense, that the movie demands your attention.

Rainy Dog (1997)

Director: Takashi Miike

Notable Cast: Show Aikawa, Tomorowo Taguchi, Gao Mingjun, Chen Xianmei, He Jianxian, Li Lijun, Zhang Shi, Billy Ching Sau-yat, Doze Niu, Vicky Wei, Blackie Ko Shouliang, Zhang Liwei

Takashi Miike is a diverse director. His iconic style might include outsider characters defined by unique traits or his use of very intense violence, but that doesn’t stop him from journeying into a slew of different styles and genres. This even goes back as far as his early career. Shinjuku Triad Society, the first of three films included in this Black Society Trilogy set from Arrow Video, displayed his ability to inject his own style into a Kinji Fukasaku style yakuza. The second film in this set, Rainy Dog, takes the yakuza genre into a different direction though. It's one that uses many of the same themes and focuses, but strips them down to the essentials. It delivers a film that still pushes its audience into some uncomfortable areas, but uses its suffocating atmosphere, disconnect, and ultra-vague character and world building to accomplish it. If Shinjuku Triad Society was Miike taking his V-cinema ideas to the next level, Rainy Dog is taking that level and spinning it into a much more artistic and wholly different tone…to some very impressive results.

9 Souls (2003)

Director: Toshiaki Toyoda

Notable Cast: Ryuhei Matsuda, Koji Chihara, Yoshio Harada, Asami Imajuku, Jun Inoue, Itsuji Itao, Misaki Ito, Jun Kunimura, Kotomi Kyono, Akaji Maro, Onimaru

I admit, until Third Window Films had announced their Toshiaki Toyoda boxset, I knew nothing of the man except that he had directed the very low-budget, ultra-violent Pornostar, which apparently had nothing to do with porn. I wasn't sure what to expect or if I would even like his works, but film by film, I think he gets stronger and more confident in his craft.

9 Souls initially was off-putting and I didn't care for it, so much so that I actually didn't get through it all on my first watch. A couple of weeks passed and I returned to this depressing yet goofy world and, I must say, this time around I was completely won over. The plot is fairly thin, but sets up a most interesting road movie. A young man is sent to prison, accompanied by nine other cellmates. One cell mate is offed after speaking nonsense about 'holes'. Quickly the nine remaining inmates find this hole, and breakout of their prison.

Violent Cop (1989)

Director: Takeshi Kitano

Notable Cast: Takeshi Kitano, Maiko Kawakami, Makoto Ashikawa, Shiro Sano, Sei Hiraizumi

Kitano's debut comes out of the gate swinging with this fast-paced bloodbath of a gangster film. It doesn't really focus on the aspect of gang members, like his latter works, but he (Kitano) as the cop, is just as, if not more crazy than any gangster in the entire story. Mixing this violence with Kitano's trademark dark humor, you easily get one of Kitano's very best works to date.

Initially I thought the film was sort of lacking, despite the strong opening, as the scenes that unfold are pretty mundane and repetitive, but quickly realized we were just on the beat with Kitano's character, no pun intended. It's designed to show that even in the most simple situations, his handling of crime doers is far above and beyond the law, making his extremes later on very believable. How he hadn't been fired before is beyond me, but I just went with it.

xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017)

Director: DJ Caruso

Notable Cast: Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Kris Wu, Ruby Rose, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Toni Collette, Samuel L Jackson, Nicky Jam, Rory McCann, Michael Bisping, Ariadna Gutierrez, Hermione Corfield, Tony Gonzalez, Neymar Jr.

Fifteen years is a long time. In the grand spectrum of things it’s not a super long time, but for a franchise like xXx, it’s long enough to create a James Bond meets X-games knock off, lose your key star who refuses to return, try and replace him in an inferior sequel, die, become a footnote in the history of the action films, allow said original star to revitalize two of his other franchises, and then recruit a series of new talent and the original star back for a surprise third entry. A third entry that, in all seriousness, is easily the best of the franchise. “How can this be,” you ask. “How can xXx: Return of Xander Cage exist?” Considering that Vin Diesel has elevated two of his other franchises (The Fast and the Furious and Riddick) from the bowels of hell, is it that odd? What does make it odd is that Return of Xander Cage is so much fun. While the first two entries have their merits as B-movie entertainment, they leave a lot to be desired, but Vin Diesel has learned a lot from the re-emergence of his other two franchises and takes those lessons to heart for this third entry. It’s not as good as either of those series, just in principal it lacks a sense of grounded seriousness, but Return of Xander Cage is outrageously entertaining. What can I say except that, despite some very distinct eye rolling at the first third of the film, I had a blast.