NINJA II: SHADOW OF A TEAR is the kind of action movie I always want more of: a pretty simple story about a badass in a personal conflict, stubbornly entrenched in the distinct values of a warrior subculture, with some absurdity but no joking around, and designed to deliver a whole bunch of great fight scenes done by real martial artists with lots of long takes, the camera always carefully composed and steady, moving in ways that always emphasize action and never obscure it. In other words it’s the long-awaited new Isaac Florentine/Scott Adkins joint. (read the rest of this shit…)
Posts Tagged ‘revenge’
Ninja II: Shadow of a Tear
Tuesday, December 31st, 2013Oldboy (2013 remake)
Tuesday, December 17th, 2013
Before I talk about the remake of OLDBOY it’s important that I say I liked the original but only saw it one time 8 years ago. Here’s what I wrote about it then.
In the remake directed by Spike Lee and written by Mark Protosevich (THE CELL, I AM LEGEND), Josh Brolin (THRASHIN’) plays a Nick Nolte character named Joe Doucett. He’s an alcoholic, sexually harassing deadbeat dad and advertising asshole who after a long night of drinking, puking and crying in 1993 meets a woman who takes him to a hotel and when he wakes up he realizes she’s not there and there are no windows or doorknobs. One of those hotel conundrums, you know. And this was before Yelp and shit like that so he couldn’t even give them a bad review. Turns out this is not a normal hotel in that you can’t leave. Someone, for some reason, has locked him in this weird prison. Every day they stick a plate of dumplings and a bottle of vodka through a hatch in the door, but they don’t tell him why he’s here.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Dead Man Down
Friday, August 9th, 2013
Nothing has changed since yesterday. I’m still against WWE Studios flying their prestigious banner above movies starring non-wrestlers. But I gotta admit that DEAD MAN DOWN is probly the best movie they’ve had their initials on so far. It stars Crusher Colin Farrell, Notorious Noomi Rapace and Terrence Dastructshon Howard in a moody revenge romance. (The token actual wrester is somebody named Wade Barrett as some character called “Kilroy.”) I think the movie it reminded me of most is LEON, but it’s a little more downbeat, and no uncomfortable underage business. But that’s a pretty abstract comparison, I don’t even know what it is that connects them. This is the rare movie that feels like it doesn’t really follow an existing template. Or if it does it’s a bunch of different templates collaged together in a weird way that’s hard to recognize. (read the rest of this shit…)
Taken 2
Tuesday, January 15th, 2013
TAKEN 2 is another Liam Neeson post-action thriller where he gets to be smart and tough and wear a leather jacket and then the camera wiggles around while he cracks some bones or whatever. I tend to like these disposable Luc Besson productions for their absurd gimmicks and shameless lowbrowness, but they were more fun when they also had good action sequences. This one’s from Besson’s acolyte of the moment, Olivier Megaton, who did the joyless TRANSPORTER 3 and the more enjoyable COLOMBIANA. Neither of those have action scenes half as good as the ones in previous Besson joints like LEON, TAXI, TRANSPORTER 1-2, UNLEASHED, KISS OF THE DRAGON or DISTRICT B13.
I didn’t love the first TAKEN. Of course it’s funny to see Neeson as a wrist-snapping black-ops know-it-all, and I love a simple plot about a guy like this saving his daughter from kidnappers, and it was funny how his overprotective father paranoia seemed to become a reality, with her getting kidnapped by white slavers about 5 minutes into her European vacation. But then there’s the wobbly action scenes (a shame coming from the director of DISTRICT B13) and it doesn’t exactly have the momentum that makes this type of premise sing. It’s fun, but should be better.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Revenge
Tuesday, September 11th, 2012
REVENGE is a 1990 film directed by the late Tony Scott. REVENGE is called REVENGE because it’s based on a novella called Revenge (by Jim Harrison) and because both are partly about revenge. But don’t let the stripped down title lead you to expect a pure revenge tale. Or at least not one that’s in a hurry to get to the revenge part.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Mandrill
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
“You must be Mandrill. Who else would be so fearless as to kiss my woman in my pool?”
MANDRILL is Chilean vehicle #3 for martial artist Marko Zaror, and in my opinion his best so far. In KILTRO he played an overgrown man-teen with dyed hair and baggy pants, in MIRAGEMAN he was an emotionally-stunted wannabe super hero who barely talked, so it’s surprising to see how well he fits the more standard super-suave badass role. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Thursday, January 12th, 2012
I haven’t read the Stieg Larsson DRAGON TATTOO books, but I liked the Swedish movies. Or at least the first two. Lisbeth Salander is a cool pulpy heroine, a unique type of badass with an interesting, complex relationship with this reporter dude she’s fucking/investigating with. I enjoyed (if you can call it that) her adventures and hoped things would turn out well for her and her dragon. (read the rest of this shit…)
Colombiana
Saturday, December 31st, 2011
I can’t claim COLOMBIANA is anything special, because I’m not a fuckin liar. But I enjoyed it as a solid Luc Besson production, a retelling of the good ol’ cliches about elite assassins and avenging the deaths of parents, but with the novelty of an up and coming star we haven’t seen in this type of role before.
It’s a hitwoman movie, but not the post-Tarantino type where you see they’re just like us and watch TV and stuff. It’s the opposite. The one where she’s so driven that she has no real life. Her man friend (Michael Vartan from ROGUE) has to quiz her just to try to get her to say where she’s from. And she won’t say. All we really see about this Cataleya lady outside of her job is that she enjoys dancing by herself and sucking on lollipops. Those are her hobbies. By sheer coincidence those are also the type of things Luc Besson would like to see an attractive actress doing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Black Santa’s Revenge
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
I thought BLACK SANTA’S REVENGE was gonna be a real (but super low budget I’m sure) movie. Turns out it’s a 20 minute short (“mini epic” the credits say) shot by some dudes in Portland, Oregon. The writer/director David Walker is the guy that started the zine-turned-websight BadAzz MoFo, which I’m sure some of you are familiar with because of their coverage of blaxploitation and spaghetti westerns. (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…)
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