For fans of Ryuhei Kitamura‘s work who see the DVD cover art for The Spear of Longinus and upon reading its description (particularly the part about vampires being involved) you think this is going to be a movie where some badass vampire hunter spends the duration of the film whooping up on vampires with a spear I’m sorry to say that your assessment is almost completely wrong. You’re not alone though - I thought the same thing. What it turns out to be is a far more thoughtful story about humanity’s propensity for violence and how we consistently use any power we acquire to destroy ourselves. Because of that there’s far more talking than action so as not to detract from the overall message.

continue reading »

Permalink      1 Comments

In 1996 Ryuhei Kitamura, 27 at the time, decided to make a movie with a few friends called Down to Hell, the precursor to Kitamura’s later film: Versus. I’m hesitant to call it a prequel because the two movies really have nothing to do with each other aside from the general idea of the dead coming back to life in a forest. Versus was originally going to be called Down to Hell 2 but after they began filming they realized they might have something a little too good to be directly associated with the original Down to Hell. That’s not to say it’s a horrible movie. Considering the circumstances it was filmed under it’s actually kind of remarkable. It was filmed entirely on Hi8 with a crew about 1/5th the size needed for Versus, and like Versus most of the crew pulled double duty as cast members. The budget was around $2,600. Compare that to the $300,000 or so Versus cost and you can see why they might be hesitant to call it Down to Hell 2. To put that difference in further perspective consider that grainy overrated snore-fest, The Blair Witch Project had a budget of $35,000.

continue reading »

Permalink      0 Comments

Fanboy review time! I decided that since this is a new site I’m going to eventually have to go back and review movies I first watched years ago. No better time than the present and no better example than Versus. I’ll be honest right off the bat - I love this movie and it’s one of the first Japanese movies I watched when I was first becoming interested in Asian cinema. I’ve seen it somewhere between 5-10 times. I’ve listened to all the commentary tracks and watched all the special features. I practically know all the dialogue even though I don’t actually speak Japanese so there’s no way I can hope to review it with an ounce of impartiality. That being said, having seen it so many time I do have some perspective on where and why some aspects of Versus could be considered sub-par at best, so think of this more as an overview/analysis than an actual review.

continue reading »

Permalink      1 Comments

In 1994, during the prime of his directorial career, Takeshi Kitano was in a near-fatal motorcycle accident which rendered the left side of his body paralyzed. Through extensive therapy he was able to recover from the accident, which he later admitted was a suicide attempt. His first project after the crash was Kids Return, and understandably it represented a more introspective departure for him from his earlier, more stylistically violent work. Although there is some violence throughout, it in no way seems like it’s injected in for shock value. It just is what it is because the storyline happens to arrive there, and it’s through Kitano’s minimalist approach to directing that this film seems to have a life of its own in that way. There are no messages being beaten over our heads or crazy plot twists. There are just lives being lived.

continue reading »

Permalink      0 Comments

Here we go—another popular manga adapted to live action for all the fanboys to scrutinize and rip apart ad nauseum. I think in this case, however, director Yudai Yamaguchi had enough love for the source material to keep it generally loyal to the original even though he obviously couldn’t fit it all into one movie. Instead of coming up with an entirely unique script specific gags from the manga were strung together loosely and—much like the anime—once a scene reaches its punch-line it just cuts to a new scene with the same characters in the middle of a completely different scenario whether that be days or months later. This really works out well as there are plenty of good jokes to use and for the most part they did a pretty good job of picking out the stuff that translated well without needing much animated embellishment.

continue reading »

Permalink      0 Comments