SAKRA is Donnie Yen’s 2023 passion project, which he stars in and co-directed (with Kam Ka-Wai, second assistant director of IP MAN 1 and 2). It’s a wuxia story based on a famous novel with the tough-sounding title Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils by Jin Yong.
Yen stars as Qiao Feng, an orphan raised by a couple in the Song Empire. He grows up to become the leader of the powerful Beggar Gang, whose legendary badassness is introduced in one of those classic scenes where somebody is being an asshole in public and our guy is quietly listening for a while and then gets inolved (see also: Blue Eye Samurai). A monk (Tsui Siu-Ming, KUNG FU KILLER) comes to this restaurant dragging a cage he says contains an “unruly” person he’s going to sacrifice, and Qiao Feng is sitting at a table on the balcony of a whole different establishment across the way when he starts loudly talking shit without even looking at him. The monk is like “What the fuck – is that guy talking to me?” (read the rest of this shit…)
I take any chance I can to tell people about the show Reservation Dogs. If you get Hulu it’s on there – just 3 seasons, a total of 28 half hour episodes, not heavy on continuity, not a huge time commitment. In a way it’s comparable to my other favorite recent show, Atlanta, in that it’s just this incredible cast where every character is really hilarious to me in a different way, and also because the writers and directors are narratively playful and free. They’re willing to leave their teenage protagonists to do an episode all about the elders, then later one all about the elders when they were teenagers, then an episode where one of today’s teenagers meets a weirdo recluse who we start to realize was one of the kids in that flashback episode who has become estranged from the others. Things like that. But also it’s a very potent show about friendship and dealing with loss, so it’s the funniest show that I always find myself trying not to cry at.
As I promised before Halloween, I’ve continued scouring Tubi for potential Slasher Search material. It’s been a struggle so far. Most of the things I’ve clicked on turn out to be hard to get through and easy to give up on. For example I tried to watch one called HAUNTED TRAIL because it was directed by 
So for now here’s one that I actually found on DVD, and it’s not available streaming, but it’s an obscurity from the aughts that seems very Tubi-appropriate to me. HACK! (2007) fits squarely and stupidly into the meta-slasher tradition even though it’s a full eleven years after 
Throughout the 16 (!) years since 
Yeah, I know, I agree – John Woo’s 
TIKTIK: THE ASWANG CHRONICLES is a Filipino monster movie I came across on the medium of digital video disc. The box also calls it THE MONSTER CHRONICLES: TIKTIK. I had to watch it because I noticed it was written and directed by Erik Matti, whose 2018 action movie 
MEG 2: THE TRENCH is the silly followup to 
I think it’s safe to say that Olga Kurylenko is one of our reigning Queens of Action. She’s been in the trenches for many years, in many different sizes of roles and films (
As a movie viewer and person interested in the topic of Elvis Presley, I feel spoiled that within a year and a half we’ve gotten two really good Elvis movies from two very distinct directors. Sofia Coppola’s PRISCILLA doesn’t feel at all redundant coming after Baz Luhrmann’s 
BABY ASSASSINS is a 2021 Japanese film that I really enjoyed on Hi-Yah! a while ago and it has a sequel coming out soon (it already played at Fantastic Fest), so I figured I better get off my ass and finish writing the review. This is a movie that has some really well-executed fighting and bloody violence, but it’s really not focused on action. It’s mostly a very dry comedy about the lives of two freshly-graduated-from-high-school roommates, Mahiro (Saori Izawa, stunt double in the last two 
