Archive for the ‘Fantasy/Swords’ Category
Wednesday, June 18th, 2025
THE UGLY STEPSISTER (Den Stygge Stesøsteren) is a 2025 movie from Norway, available on Shudder. If I’d seen it somewhere else I don’t know if I’d think of it as a horror movie exactly – more like a dark period drama with some magic, some blood, and some puke. But I’ve seen people call it “body horror,” and it’s the rare movie I’ve seen described that way that isn’t very Cronenbergian, so I support that. I read in Fangoria that the director calls it “beauty horror.” It has also been compared quite a bit to THE SUBSTANCE, and that’s nice because the similarities are all thematic. Otherwise they’re very different movies.
Confession: it took me embarrassingly long to put together that this is literally a retelling of Cinderella and not just making an allusion to it with that title. Let me say this: this ain’t your grandpa’s Cinderella! But it’s cool that your grandpa has his own version of Cinderella that he likes, I respect that.
The story centers on Elvira (Lea Myren), oldest daughter of Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp, DEAD SNOW), who is about to remarry to older widower Otto (Ralph Carlsson), but during the wedding celebration he suddenly drops dead. While trying to comfort Otto’s daughter Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss, THE LAST KING), Elvira learns that both partners thought the other was rich and were trying to marry for the money. Since younger sister Alma (Flo Fagerli) hasn’t had her period yet it now falls upon Elvira to save the family by marrying a prince. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ane Dahl Torp, Emilie Blichfeldt, fairy tales, Flo Fagerli, Lea Myren, Malte Gardinger, Thea Sofie Loch Naess
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Horror | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 10th, 2025
June 10, 2005
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE is the ninth film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. He’s only done three more in the twenty years since, so I guess it counts as late Miyazaki. When I saw it back then I went to a subtitled screening, so this time I tried it with English dialogue, and that worked well too.
It’s a story about Sophie (Emily Mortimer, THE 51st STATE), a young woman who makes hats in a shop founded by her late father. When her sister Lettie (Jena Malone, FOR LOVE OF THE GAME), a baker, encourages her to find something she loves rather than staying shackled to the family business she swears she’s content doing this.
Then one night after close this terribly rude rich lady (Lauren Bacall, THE BIG SLEEP) comes into the shop and starts saying the hats are tacky. To quote THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE, “we’re a business with posted hours,” so get the fuck out. But this lady is actually the Witch of the Waste, who has come not to look for headwear, but to curse Sophie by turning her 90 years old. Then she’s out of there in a palanquin carried by her henchmen, oily black blob people with nice coats and masquerade masks. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Crystal, Blythe Danner, Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Hayao Miyazaki, Jean Simmons, Jena Malone, Josh Hutcherson, Lauren Bacall, Studio Ghibli
Posted in Reviews, Cartoons and Shit, Fantasy/Swords | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
RETURN OF THE BASTARD SWORDSMAN (1984) is indeed about the Bastard Swordsman returning. It’s not like BATMAN RETURNS where the title character hasn’t actually gone anywhere and is only returning to the screen – at the very end of BASTARD SWORDSMAN our guy Yun Fei Yang (Norman Chui, LEGEND OF THE LIQUID SWORD) had overcome his fate as a bullied servant of Wudang by mastering Silkworm Skill and defeating the prick who framed him for the murder of the chief and took over the clan. So he becomes their de facto leader but instead of letting them give him a parade or something he immediately walks away with his crush Lun Wan Er (Leanne Liu, WHITE HAIR DEVIL LADY).
Honestly the returning is kind of a bummer, I liked the idea of him traveling around having adventures. Instead this continues the story of Wudang and their feud with Invincible Clan. If you remember, the maniacal Invincible Clan leader Dugu Wu Di (Alex Man, CHINA WHITE) had left for two years of seclusion to further advance his use of the clan’s secret technique Fatal Skill after defeating Wudang in three consecutive duels over 20 years. In this one he comes home and it’s like he woke up out of a coma, he has to hear all this shit that went on in the last act of part 1 with Yun Fei Yang coming out of a cocoon and shit. So Dugu goes to Wudang to demand a duel with our bastard and they don’t want to admit that their chief ghosted them so they act like he just went out for smokes or something, which gets them a week’s reprieve to try to find him. But oh by the way if anyone leaves Wudang during that time they will be killed on sight. That Dugu always has some hardcore stipulations to his offers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Man, Chen Kuan-tai, Lau Siu-Kwan, Leanne Liu, ninjas, Norman Chui, Shaw Brothers
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 5 Comments »
Thursday, May 1st, 2025
THE LEGEND OF OCHI is a beautiful and imaginative PG-rated fantasy from A24. Since the number of friends I recommended it to this week that had never heard of it is higher than the number of people at the Saturday matinee I went to, I’m thinking there are limits to that company’s marketing powers. But future adults who remember seeing it in a theater will know they had cool parents. This one is special.
It was filmed “on location in the remote mountain villages of Transylvania” and other parts of Romania, set on the fictional island of Carpathia. Apparently it’s the early ‘90s, though the time doesn’t matter that much. Maxim (Willem Dafoe, LIGHT SLEEPER), who lives in a small village on the north side of the island, is obsessed with fighting off furry, ape-like creatures called Ochi, who live in the nearby mountains. He trains the local adolescent boys in riflery and leads them into the woods on night time hunts. This is not a situation where he’s the lone true believer and everybody else thinks he’s crazy – Ochi are a fact of Carpathian life. In the opening scene the troop encounters a group of them, gets attacked, shoots some of them, but not fatally. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A24, David Longstreth, Emily Watson, Finn Wolfhard, Helena Zengel, Isaiah Saxon, Willem Dafoe
Posted in Reviews, Family, Fantasy/Swords | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025
I don’t want to fairy-tale-reimagining-sequel you guys out, but the truth is right after I watched THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR I decided it was a good time to knock out MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL too. I almost didn’t want to post about it, because there is no dignity in being a “not all Disney live action remakes are bad” person, but the truth is I remembered liking the first MALEFICENT when it came out in 2014, so I always meant to see the sequel.
I suppose there’s a distinction that it wasn’t a straight remake of SLEEPING BEAUTY, but a WICKED-inspired revisionist spin-off where it turns out those jerks got the iconic villainess all wrong, she’s another woman who got screwed over and demonized and she’s actually pretty cool if you get to know her. As crazy as it may sound I remember it being structured like a rape-revenge movie, with Maleficent’s prince cutting off her wings as the violation to be avenged. (Yes, in live action she has wings. Also horns. I always thought that was just a weird hat.)
Well, now Maleficent has her origin, the king is dead, the beauty is awake, and I’m kind of surprised how much mileage they get out of “what’s next?” After the not-your-mother’s-Snow-White of THE HUNTSMAN it’s nice to see some yes-this-is-like-the-old-Disney-movies enthusiasm for bright colors, fanciful creatures and shit. There’s more of that in the opening ten minutes of MISTRESS OF EVIL than in all of THE HUNTSMAN. After a prologue about people in the woods at night trying to capture a toadstool-headed fairy (Fantasyland truffle hunters), we’re reintroduced to Aurora (Elle Fanning, SOMEWHERE), now “Queen of the Moors,” convening a meeting of all the magical pixies, talking animals and walking trees of the forest.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angelina Jolie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Disney remakes, Ed Skrein, Elle Fanning, Harris Dickinson, Jenn Murray, Jochim Ronning, Linda Woolverton, live action remake of cartoon, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Michelle Pfeiffer, Noah Harpster, Robert Lindsay, Sam Riley, Warwick Davis
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 1st, 2025
I knew right away that LEGEND OF THE EIGHT SAMURAI (1983) was gonna be interesting because the cosmic opening credits are backed by an English language rock song that would feel right at home in NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER. It’s called “White Light” and it was recorded specifically for the movie by John O’Banion, lead singer of Doc Severinsen’s band Today’s Children and winner on the pilot episode of Star Search.
The guitar solo starts over the director credit for Kinji Fukasaku (BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY), then abruptly fades out and we get this beautiful matte shot of an army, a castle and a red sky…
…with a big orchestra playing something more like you’d expect in a period samurai movie. The music is credited to six different people and veers between styles, mostly to my taste except when it resorts to keyboard horn sounds vaguely mimicking themes from STAR WARS, which seems pretty cheap. Mostly this is an extravagant affair, though, a lushly produced fantasy epic with colorful costumes, huge crowds of armored extras carrying spears and banners, atmospheric sets built on four giant soundstages, and a wicked queen to put the one from SNOW WHITE to shame. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Akira Shioji, Etsuko Shihomi, Hakkenden, Hiroko Yakushimaru, Hiroyuki Sanada, John O'Banion, Kinji Fukasaku, Mari Natsuki, Masaki Kyomoto, Nagare Hagiwara, Sonny Chiba, Toshio Kamata, Yuki Meguro
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords | 17 Comments »
Monday, March 24th, 2025
Like I’ve been saying, I’ve been jonesing for the low-falutin 21st century studio fantasy movies lately. Disney has that new live action remake of SNOW WHITE that just came out, and that’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about, but it reminded me that I always kinda wanted to see HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR, the 2016 sequel to the 2012 non-Disney SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN. What I remembered about that one is mainly that it was kinda boring but looked really great and that Charlize Theron (BATTLE IN SEATTLE) was fun as the evil queen. I don’t remember anyone liking it even as much as me, but it was a hit and they made a sequel that I also don’t remember anyone liking. But I’m here to report that it’s okay! I sorta enjoyed it.
It’s a little bit like a 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE approach of doing both a prequel and a sequel. It opens with a long prologue set “long before happily ever after,” according to the voice of Qui Gonn Jinn, who thoroughly narrates the movie from within the force. One historic moment we see is part 1’s wicked stepmother Queen Ravenna (Theron, YOUNG ADULT) poison her husband (Robert Portal, PAINTBALL MASSACRE), and honestly you gotta respect the showmanship of timing it so he dies right after queen takes king in their chess game. He could’ve died in the middle of the game, or she could’ve been stuck having to win with a knight or a rook, or lost altogether… there are just so many ways she could’ve blundered, but she took the risk and she executed it all flawlessly. Hats off. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexandra Roach, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Colin Morgan, Conrad Khan, Craig Mazin, Emily Blunt, Evan Spiliotopoulos, fairy tales, Frank Darabont, Fred Tatasciore, Jessica Chastain, Liam Neeson, Nick Frost, Rob Brydon, Robert Portal, Sam Claflin, Sheridan Smith, Sope Dirisu
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, March 12th, 2025
This is just me but when I found out there was
1) a new Milla Jovovich picture directed by her partner in life and filmmaking Paul Warm Sweater Anderson that
2) co-stars Dave Bautista and
(bonus points) is a post-apocalyptic western fantasy, I transported myself to the next matinee. It’s called IN THE LOST LANDS and the advertising hook (to the extent that they’re advertising it) is that it’s based on a short story by Game of Thrones creator George Ruff Ryders Martin. So it’s worth watching for the middle initials alone.
It takes place in the far future, after a nuclear war. Much of the earth is now “The Lost Lands,” where people don’t generally go on account of monsters ’n shit. Most humans live in one tall but small city built around a cool skull face, sometimes but not always speaking in florid language. It’s a monarchy ruled by a Queen (Amara Okereke) and I guess her husband the Overlord (Jacek Dzisewicz), but he’s bedridden, and anyway the real power seems to be a Christian order who make giant crosses out of machinery and spread the word of Jesus by terrorizing and behaving in ways that could not possibly be further from anything that dude ever represented. So, pretty similar to what we’re dealing with now. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arly Jover, Dave Bautista, George R.R. Martin, Milla Jovovich, Paul Haslinger, Paul W.S. Anderson, post-apocalypse, Simon Loof, witches
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Western | 10 Comments »
Monday, March 10th, 2025
LEGENDS OF THE CONDOR HEROES: THE GALLANTS is the unwieldily titled new Tsui Hark joint, which I was grateful to be able to see in a theater. (This puts my lifetime Tsui Hark theatrical screenings at four, after DOUBLE TEAM, KNOCK OFF and FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE 3D IMAX). Based on a famous story by Jin Yong (whose books also inspired the SWORDSMAN trilogy), it’s the type of thing I hope for from Tsui these days: a wild and extravagant wuxia epic, expertly put together at a swaggering blockbuster scale. A great time at the movies.
It opens with narration by a guy talking about witnessing many famous battles of Genghis Khan (Baya’ertu, CREATION OF THE GODS I: KINGDOM OF STORMS) and the Mongol army. As you watch these enormous conflicts on screen you wonder how the fuck a guy was witnessing it without getting chopped to bits, and then you find out: he was perched above on a cliff. When the Mongols spot him they shoot arrows at him, but he seems to repel them with some sort of energy shield trick. Okay, good, we got a real one here. This is our protagonist Guo Jing (Xiao Zhan, THE ROOKIES), a martial artist who aspires to greatness and has an interestingly convoluted backstory. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ada Choi, Alan Aruna, Baya'ertu, Hu Jun, Jin Yong, Tony Leung Kai-fai, Tsui Hark, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Wenxin, Zhuang Dafei
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, February 5th, 2025
WICKED: PART I starts near the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ. The Wicked Witch of the West is dead, felled by a well-aimed bucket of water. The celebration commences. Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande, DON’T LOOK UP) arrives in her bubble to address the crowd, and somebody asks her if she knew that dead lady. So she tells us (part one of) the story of her days as the college roommate of the would-be wicked witch.
I’m gonna start this review with a flash forward too. I thought this movie was okay. I didn’t hate it. I don’t really get it. Stay tuned for details.
I sometimes say I’m not a musicals guy, but really I’m just not a Broadway guy. It’s not as much the “I’m gonna start singing now” format as it is the specific modern Broadway style of storytelling, tone of melodrama, sense of humor, and especially musical styles that don’t appeal to me. Case in point: huge crossover hit and cultural phenomenon Hamilton (Disney+ version). I swear I tried to watch it with an open mind, but I just don’t know how to stop wincing. It sets off all my too-corny defense systems.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Dana Fox, Ethan Slater, Gregory Maguire, Jeff Goldblum, John Powell, Jon M. Chu, Jonathan Bailey, L. Frank Baum, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Musical | 36 Comments »
