The Chronicles of Evil (2015)

 Director: Baek Woon-hok
Notable Cast: Son Hyeon-joo, Ma Dong-seok, Choi Daniel, Park Seo-joon, Jeong Won-joon

Let's kick off my Korean movie experience of 2016 with one of the biggest letdowns in recent memory, with Chronicles of Evil, which tells the story of a detective squad chief, who is soon to be promoted in his field of work, when suddenly, and I mean suddenly, things come crashing down around him, when he finds himself involved in a murder case. What follows is tons of close-ups, and a bunch of characters you won't care about.

Red Pier (1958)

PART OF THE NIKKATSU DIAMOND GUYS VOL. 1 RELEASE

Director: Toshio Masuda

Notable Cast: Jujiro Ishihara, Mie Kitahara, Yukiko Todoroki, Shiro Osaka

Working through the Nikkatsu Diamond Guys Vol. 1 set from Arrow Video has already been a treat. After the surprisingly toned down Seijun Suzuki film Voice Without a Shadow shocked me, I was shocked once again by the quality of Red Pier. Again, this is a director with whom I am not all that familiar with and a crew that is essentially new to me too, but Red Pier takes a rather by the numbers young gangster story and adds a ton of depth and heart to the matter. It’s not a film that’s super stylistic or even all that aggressive with some of its themes, but it’s a well-rounded and thoughtful take on what could have been a formulaic film. It's one that has enough surprises in its sleeves that fans ought to be excited for it.

Voice Without a Shadow (1958)

PART OF THE NIKKATSU DIAMOND GUYS VOL. 1 RELEASE

Director: Seijun Suzuki

Notable Cast: Yoko Minamida, Hideaki Nitani, Nobuo Kaneko, Toshio Takahara, Shinsuke Ashida, Jo Shishido

One of my cinema resolutions for the year is to explore classic cult directors that I may have given a shot to, but didn’t really dive into their filmography for various reasons. One of these directors is Seijun Suzuki. I had seen Branded to Kill a few years ago and was somewhat off put by its outrageous style and off beat elements so I skirted my way around Suzuki’s other films. With my new resolution however, it’s time to revisit some of his other films and explore why he has garnered such a cult audience. Much to my excitement, the first volume of Nikkatsu Diamond Guys from Arrow Video features an early film by Suzuki and I was eager to jump in. Voice Without a Shadow is nowhere near as eclectic as what I’ve read about the wild director and the style is very much in tone with the more traditional thrillers that Nikkatsu was working on in the 50s. While seeing a Suzuki film that’s toned down is certainly a welcome relief, it’s also a film that wholly plays it too safe at times.

One Missed Call (2003)

Director: Takashi Miike
Notable Cast: Kou Shibasaki, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Kazue Fukiishi, Shimizu Seinami, Anna Nagata, Renji Ishibashi

The J-horror explosion of the 2000s was a big key to my exploration of foreign film markets. Films like Ju-On and Ringu paved the way for me to start exploring a lot of different styles of film in my teenage years and so I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the genre as a whole. Yet, one of the strangest and most challenging films from this boom is Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call. The American remake couldn’t possibly try and translate its often odd story for American audiences and even to this day I find this film’s social commentary and strange twists to be off setting at times. Leave it to Miike to take a fairly formulaic and popular horror style and throw his own spin on it to develop a rather silly concept to make an impactful film. A film that shockingly holds its own to this day.

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)

Director: Gregory Plotkin

Notable Cast: Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Dan Gill, Ivy George, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Michael Krawic

The Paranormal Activity franchise was definitely one of those “hit it while it’s still hot” franchises that exploded onto the scene and would, like most of these kinds of series, go out with a whimper. The quality of each entry varies to a very great degree (hitting a series low with the fourth entry and somewhat redeemed by the oddity of its spin off The Marked Ones) and the weird theatrical release hiccup for this latest entry The Ghost Dimension kept me hesitant going into the film. This hesitation was deemed mostly justified though as The Ghost Dimension tries to keep things fresh for this quickly decaying franchise with some new elements, but it still feels stale as it goes about pounding the formula home for its audience. It simply can’t override the issues that have plagued all of the entries since the beginning and it can’t jump them with quality execution.

Proxy War (1973)

Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Notable Cast: Bunta Sugawara, Akira Kobayashi, Tsunehiko Watase, Shingo Yamashiro, Kunie Tanaka, Tetsuro Tanba, Tatsuo Umemiya, Nobuo Kaneko, Takeshi Kato

The continued evolution of the Battles Without Honor and Humanity franchise is something impressive to behold. Director Kinji Fukasaku and writer Kazuo Kasahara have continued to not only mine their gold mine of yakuza stories, but they have really told an overarching tale that interweaves into a spider’s web of deceit, loyalty, and death. This move is taken to the next level in the third film of the series, Proxy War, and while the style is familiar, this film is a fairly effective departure from some of the key elements that made the first two films so impressive. The results are not a lessening of the franchise, but a new direction that follows the growth of the characters and plotting.

Blood and Black Lace (1964)

Director: Mario Bava

Notable Cast: Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok, Thomas Reiner, Ariana Gorini, Dante DiPaolo, Mary Arden, Franco Ressel, Lea Krugher, Claude Dantes

The influence of Mario Bava can be felt in a lot of ways. His style, his approach to visuals, and even his writing has been one of those forces that modern cinema rarely acknowledges, but owes a massive debt to. In an effort to expand my own horizons this year within the realms of cinema, I wanted to leap into the catalog of this Italian cult film director. For starters, I decided to go with the recent Blu Ray release of his early horror mystery flick Blood and Black Lace. It was one hell of a place to start. Littered with all kinds of layers (both visually and in the performances), Blood and Black Lace takes a rather hum drum plot and makes it a riveting. It’s a film that takes a mainstream cinema approach and injects a healthy dose of art into it, fleshing out what might have otherwise been a sparse ‘whodunit’ thriller.

Yakuza Apocalypse (2015)

Director: Takashi Miike

Notable Cast:Hayato Ichihara, Yayan Ruhian, Riko Narumi, Lily Franky, Reiko Takashima

Takashi Miike remains one of the most ambitious, if not insane, directors working today. The man puts out two movies a year (I think that might be his minimum) and the sheer eclectic nature of his films, whether it’s style, genre, or approach, makes each one a rather riveting experience no matter if the quality is great or not. Going into Yakuza Apocalypse, I expected a rather serious mix of horror and dramatic action with perhaps a bit of the exploitative elements that Miike used on the yakuza films of his early career. However, Yakuza Apocalypse is not held back by genre as it goes for broke on insane set pieces and awkward bits. It’s a very in-cohesive film that suffers from its leaping genre bends and hanging plot threads, but I have to admit – this still might be one of the most entertaining and vicious film experiences that I’ve had with his material.

Top 20 Action Films of 2015

We love action films here at Blood Brothers. All kinds of them. While we certainly use the term 'cult' in loose definitions to what we cover when it comes to genre films, just looking at what eventually made my top 20 action films of the year certainly seems a bit scattered and all over the place. Not only are their films that debuted as straight to home video releases (or VOD/streaming), but there are massive tent pole blockbusters too. Action knows no bounds when it comes to being entertaining or well executed no matter what the style or approach. So here is the Top 20 Action Films of 2015:

Hateful Eight, The (2015)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Notable Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Walton Goggins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Demian Bichir, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, James Parks, Channing Tatum, Zoe Bell

As a cult fan, I love the idea of what Tarantino brings to his films. The guy has created his own niche of borrowed ideas, style, and cinema love for a new generation of film fans from an era of overlooked gems. I love that idea. However, the last handful of films has seen Tarantino generally lose himself in his own influences. While Inglorious Basterds made it work in some brilliant ways, Django Unchained started to crumble a bit as he catered to his own cinema arrogance. His films were getting too long, too wordy, and felt unfocused as he jams in too many concepts, plots, and characters. This is where The Hateful Eight comes along. A more stripped down premise, this cold western would seem like an antidote to Tarantino’s long winded and jumpy film aspects that were becoming cumbersome in his films. A weird blend of spaghetti western and Agatha Christie mystery, The Hateful Eight has massive potential and in its bare bones idea is perhaps the most wounded by Tarantino’s own elements. This film is too long, too wordy, and too jumpy for its own good despite its glorious moments.