Kent Cheng (Run And Kill—93) stars as 'Hair Sticker', a fat man that works part time as a merkin applicator in a strip joint. Tired of being bullied and beaten down by harsh bosses and life, he, his friends Tony Leung (Dragon Inn—92) and Chang Shan get drunk and decide to organise a hasty kidnap which quickly goes wrong.
A movie featuring an entire class getting STD's from a teacher—and each other—sounds like it would be a grim fable or a shocking attempt at humor. Dasepo Naughty Girls (based on a Korean web comic) manages to avoid being either by incorporating some of both. Add in some very entertaining and cute song & dance numbers and you get a film that is sometimes poignant, frequently hilarious, and hugely enjoyable. Dasepo Naughty Girls is a wickedly funny high school romp. If you're going to watch one high school musical, I strongly recommend this one.
Call Quentin Tarantino a hack molester of beloved exploitation films if you want but you can’t deny the guy’s style has been hugely influential, or at the very least, often imitated. And no one churns out weird mutations of film that poorly imitate the originals like those wacky Asians. Veteran actor Stephen Yip, best known for his roles in a veritable scad of chop socky movies (not the least of which is the inept gross out flick Centipede Horror), directed the bizarre Mad Stylist which nods to and perverts several well-known films from QT’s oeuvre.
Tropa de Elite is an amazingly good film; by turns brutally real, disturbing, and horrifyingly funny.
It claims to be based on a true story (which occurred around 1997) and I find that sadly believable. The main plot revolves around the captain of an elite police unit trying to find a replacement for himself. At the same time he's also dealing with the imminent birth of his first child, the horrendous stress of his job, and a mission to clear out a dangerously violent slum so that the Pope can stay there overnight.
Musa Rami is a legendary Turkish police detective. After 17 years of hunting down a local mob boss, he captures the boss's son and is forced to shoot him in self defense. The police captain warns him that this is not going to go over well with the local mafia, but he takes the warning in stride. Rami is a larger than life figure, running his investigations his own way, coloring outside the lines of the law when he sees fit. He's not opposed to using violence to make a point or get what he wants, yet he's also charming and well-spoken.
In Bruges is a black comedy that takes the time to develop its characters and get the viewer emotionally involved in the story. I've never been a fan of Colin Farrel but if he did more work like this things could change. Brendan Gleeson, on the other hand, is merely great as usual.
After the success of Calamari Wrestler, director Minoru Kawasaki has made a seemingly similar film—Executive Koala. What a great title. Executive Koala, however, is much different than his previous film. The fact that the main character is a koala is generally ignored and isn't a usually the source of humor or something that drives the story.
Low-budget, cheesy, and gory as hell, The Machine Girl surprised me and exceeded even the high hopes I had for it. Ass-kicking, machine-gun wielding Japanese schoolgirls. Ninjas. Chainsaws. Gratuitous maimings. What more could you want out of an exploitive revenge flick? Buckets and buckets of fake blood, maybe? Good, because you're going to get those too.
