Posts Tagged ‘Dan Southworth’
Thursday, February 23rd, 2023
Watching Ryuhei Kitamura’s latest THE PRICE WE PAY this week reminded me to finally catch up with his previous one, THE DOORMAN (2020). I remember I was excited that he did a Ruby Rose action vehicle, but I heard some negative things and it scared me off. I shouldn’t listen to that stuff, because I like so many movies that normal humans hate, but I’m susceptible to rumors of poor action scenes.
That criticism is fair. Many of the action scenes are pretty choppy, they’re certainly not up to the state of the art in the 87Eleven era. And I do think this is a movie that could go over really well if it had a couple knockout fights. So that’s too bad. But I still enjoyed it on a story and character level like I would, say, a Liam Neeson movie where you’d have way less of the real shit than this. So if you’re okay with that, I recommend it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aksel Hennie, Dan Southworth, David Sakurai, Delianne Forget, Die Hard on a ____, Easter, George Gallo, Hideaki Ito, Jean Reno, Juju Journey Brener, Julian Feder, Kila Lord Cassidy, Louis Mandylor, Morgan Freeman, Nick Vallelonga, Patrick Muldoon, Petre Moraru, Philip Whitchurch, Ruby Rose, Rupert Evans, Ryuhei Kitamura, Simon Rhee
Posted in Reviews, Action | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, January 24th, 2023
You know me – I’ve always been fascinated with DTV sequels. One of their endearing qualities is that their modest budgets allow for a different type of crass commercialism than regular Hollywood – they try to cash in on familiar (or even unfamiliar) titles that would never fly on the big screen. That gave us the miracle of the UNDISPUTED sequels, but mostly just stuff where it was funny that it existed – loosely connected followups or branded rehashes of CRUEL INTENTIONS, WILD THINGS, ROAD HOUSE and HOLLOW MAN, for example, many of which I reviewed for The Ain’t It Cool News at the time.
Thanks to Universal’s direct-to-video division, 1440 Entertainment, that tradition is still going strong, and arguably making a comeback. Back in the aughts they brought us SCORPION KING and DEATH RACE sequels, they revived Chucky in the great CURSE OF CHUCKY, they started making JARHEAD sequels for some reason, and brought to life such unlikely part 2s as THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS 2, KINDERGARTEN COP 2 and HARD TARGET 2. In 2018 they even made a DTV sequel to UNBROKEN, that war drama directed by Angelie Jolie, and in 2019 they did BACKDRAFT 2, INSIDE MAN: MOST WANTED, DOOM: ANNIHILATION and UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2. That last one I tried to watch because Michael Jai White is in it, but I gave up when his character went into a coma near the beginning. Still, I appreciate its existence because it keeps me on my toes. It reminds me that any movie, no matter how old, no matter how forgotten, no matter how how-the-fuck-would-you-make-a-sequel-to-that, could suddenly have a DTV sequel. And it would already be filmed and have cover art by the time I found out they were doing it. You gotta be aware at all times. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A.J. Mendez, Aimee Garcia, Alec Puro, Anna Akana, Chris Pang, Dai Tabuchi, Dan Southworth, DTV, DTV sequels, Dustin Nguyen, Eniko Fulop, Joe Hahn, John Swetnam, Mark Dacascos, Mike Moh, Nino Furuhata, Ron Yuan, Teresa Ting, Yoshi Sudarso
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 13 Comments »
Thursday, March 11th, 2021
There’s a new MORTAL KOMBAT movie about to enter our realm, and it’s crazy to think they’ve been developing this thing for over a decade! It made me want to journey back to the beginning of that process and revisit what happened when director Kevin Tancharoen tried to reimagine the fighting tournament game turned movie series.
Tancharoen was on the mixing stage at Warner Brothers when he heard talk about hopes to restart the series. He thought there was a way to put a new, gritty spin on it, and wanted to try. One problem: the only movie he’d directed was a glossy musical, the 2009 version of FAME. He was much more established as a choreographer for Britney Spears than as a filmmaker. He knew they weren’t gonna fuckin believe he was the guy to bring back MORTAL KOMBAT unless he showed them. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Tee, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Casper Van Dien, Dan Southworth, Darren Shahlavi, Eric Steinberg, fighting tournament, Garrett Warren, Harry Shum Jr., Ian Anthony Dale, James Lew, Jeri Ryan, Johnson Phan, Jolene Tran, Kevin Ohtsji, Kevin Tancharoen, Kim DO Nguyen, Larnell Stovall, Lateef Crowder, Mark Dacascos, Matt Mullins, Michael Jai White, Michelle Lee, ninjas, Oren Uziel, Peter Shinkoda, Richard Dorton, Ryan Robbins, Samantha Jo, Shane Warren Jones
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews, Videogame | 20 Comments »
Thursday, November 7th, 2019
BROKEN PATH (2008) is a humble but impressive low budget production, simple in story and filmmaking, but with a high volume of work put into its virtually non-stop action scenes. A little like last year’s NIGHTSHOOTERS, it has the feel of an indie horror movie, but its attraction is high quality fight choreography. It’s what happens when some passionate people get together a little money to make a violent home invasion movie, but those passionate people happen to be a star, director/choreographer and stunt team (Alpha Stunts) from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
I had a hard time getting a hold of this obscure footnote in the history of western martial arts movies of the oughts. I’m not sure I can call it under the radar, because I’ve had it recommended to me a few times over the years and seen it on an underrated action movies list. It never got American distribution though, so when I looked for it years ago I couldn’t find it. But it’s directed by GUYVER 2 and DRIVE choreographer Koichi Sakamoto, so Jack Thursby (and possibly another person on Facebook – sorry that I can’t find your comment) reminded me of it when I did Steve Wang Week earlier this year. This time I was able to order it on a German DVD under the title ATTACK OF THE YAKUZA. I think there’s also a UK release as BROKEN FIST. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alpha Stunts, Dan Southworth, home invasion, Johnny Yong Bosch, Koichi Sakamoto, Lanie Taylor, Michael G. Cooney, Pamela Walworth, Power Rangers, Sonny Sison
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 5 Comments »
