DIRTY HO is one of the comedic Shaw Brothers pictures. And yeah, I know, the title is funny. It sounds like it would be about, I don’t know, a Manchurian prince who has to get to a certain ceremony but one of his thirteen brothers is scheming to have him killed and meanwhile him and another guy named Ho keep playing dirty tricks on each other so that’s why he’s a Dirty Ho. That’s what it sounds like it would be about, but really the tricks are not dirty per se. In my opinion he’s a Sneaky Ho at worst. The movie should be called HE’S UP, HO’S DOWN. (read the rest of this shit…)
Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Dirty Ho
Sunday, November 6th, 2011Bunraku
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011
BUNRAKU is a weird combination of elements. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where swords have replaced guns. It has fights choreographed by Larnell Stovall (UNDISPUTED III, NEVER BACK DOWN 2). It stars Josh Hartnett and a Japanese pop star named Gackt (so you know, like, lay off McG for a while) plus Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore. It takes place in a highly stylized, DICK TRACY-esque city – I think built on sound stages more than digital – designed to look like origami or miniature models, or maybe a puppet theater stage, since the title comes from a Japanese form of puppet theater. Anyway it’s all angles and solid colors, no curves or decay or complex shapes. (read the rest of this shit…)
Flooding With Love For the Kid
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
FLOODING WITH LOVE FOR THE KID is the new low budget adaptation of the book First Blood by David Morrell. It’s a very different take than Stallone’s version and in some ways more faithful to the book.
In 1970, in Madison, Kentucky, a scruffy young man named John Rambo stands drinking a bottle of Coke. Sheriff Will Teasle, recognizing Rambo as an outsider and not liking his appearance, picks him up and drops him outside of town. He seems satisfied that it’s a fair and reasonable way to discard the riff-raff. But Rambo just turns around and walks right back into town. Thus begins the batrtle of wills between two men too stubborn to back down, too hung up on personal issues to see things clearly, too set in their ways to let things turn out reasonably. The thing escalates from disagreement to arrest to escape to manhunt to bloodbath.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Setup
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
From the director that brought you BEATDOWN and the letters that brought you STEP UP comes SETUP, Bruce Willis’s first DTV action movie. (I’m not gonna count ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT). So I raise a glass to you, Bruce, on this historic occasion. They might’ve meant it to be a theatrical release, but if so they should’ve told that to the guy writing the script (Mike Behrman, GHOST RIDER: INSIDE THE ACTION). Doesn’t seem like he was expecting that level of scrutiny. (read the rest of this shit…)
Young Warriors
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
YOUNG WARRIORS is a crazy fuckin movie released by Cannon in 1983. The description on the back of the VHS box begins like this:
“What do you get if you cross ‘Animal House’ with ‘Death Wish’? Young Warriors– a unique combination of fraternity hijinks, high-speed action, wildly imaginative animation, and hard-drivin’ rock!” (read the rest of this shit…)
Drive
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011
Remember how the driver in Walter Hill’s THE DRIVER didn’t get a name, he was just “The Driver”? The driver in Nicolas Winding Refn’s DRIVE is so minimalistic he doesn’t even get a ‘the.’ Or an ‘r’. Ryan Gosling plays said driver, a mysterious toothpick-chewing dude who’s a masterful getaway driver and does stunt driving for the movies. He also works at a garage for Brian Cranston, who helps set up his jobs and prepare his getaway cars. When not working Drive is sparking up a relationship with his neighbor, Carey Mulligan and her son. He’s better with the kid than you might think – even offers him a toothpick. (read the rest of this shit…)
early review: Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
Two years ago give or take a couple days I wrote about NEVER BACK DOWN as part of some back-to-school themed reviews. To commemorate the historic second anniversary of that review they have decided to make a part 2.
If you never saw the first one I forgive you. And I think you’re gonna be okay without it. Of the many mixed martial arts/underground fighting movies of the last few years it’s the slickest and most Hollywood. It’s the standard teen subculture movie but with MMA instead of breakdancing or BMX bikes or whatever. Troubled new kid in town wants girl, she belongs to popular rich bully who also is the king of a notorious underground fighting tournament. I can’t recommend it when BLOOD AND BONE, DAMAGE, UNDISPUTED II–III and FIGHTING have all come out in recent years, but I did sort of enjoy the absurdity of these allegedly high school age dudes having their own Kumite Lite.
NEVER BACK DOWN 2 is the DTV sequel and it happens to be directed by the star of two of the above-mentioned better underground fight movies, Mr. Michael Jai White. (read the rest of this shit…)
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011
DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME is the latest directorial work from Mr. Tsui Hark. Yeah, admittedly I still mainly love him for the Van Damme/Rodman/Rourke picture DOUBLE TEAM, but he’s actually a respectable director too. This was nominated for best picture in last year’s Hong Kong Film Awards. It lost to GALLANTS but #1 I personally liked this better than GALLANTS and #2 Tsui won best director anyway. Like Soderbergh over Ridley Scott. Take that, GALLANTS.
DETECTIVE DEE is playing in American theaters now so check it out, but it’s also come out on legit UK blu-ray so that’s how I saw it.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Gallants
Monday, September 5th, 2011
Months ago over on kungfucinema.net I read a post about the Hong Kong Film Awards nominees for best picture. They were all some sort of action movies – now there’s a country that has its cinematic priorities straight. (Plus I did some reading and found out that in 2005 the HKFAs made a list of the 100 greatest Chinese movies of all time and A BETTER TOMORROW was #2. I can get behind that.)
The only nominee I’d seen already was IP MAN 2, but there were two nominees I’d been planning to see: John Woo’s REIGN OF ASSASSINS and Tsui Hark’s DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME. Then the other two were STOOL PIGEON and GALLANTS. (read the rest of this shit…)
Priest (2011)
Monday, August 29th, 2011
Have you guys noticed that Paul Bettany looks like Peter Weller? I noticed that while watching this. Bettany plays an unnamed priest. This is a new one based on some Japanese comic book, it’s not that Miramax movie about the child molester. I don’t know if that’s a big problem in the world this takes place in, ’cause these priests probly don’t work with kids that much. See, an animated prologue (a much better one than in JONAH HEX) explains that humans have always been at war with vampires, not the Dracula kind but naked CGI monsters with no eyes that jump around on all fours. So the church created an order of “priests,” vampire hunters recognizable by the cross tattoos on their faces. (read the rest of this shit…)
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