Asian Film
V-cinema icon Hitoshi Ozawa, who has been a regular fixture in the films of Takashi Miike, plays grizzled detective Torada who has just been released from prison in order to head an investigation into a corrupt businessman turned politician, Gojo. With his small team, Torada cracks down on Gojo and the Korean gang executing the
Whilst Wong is a very common name in Singapore and China, Cleopatra certainly isn’t! The name actually reveals the main inspiration for this film: the blaxploitation heroine – CIA agent Cleopatra Jones. In a glut of murky blaxploitation films, where, despite their roles as the heroines, female characters were often victimised and objectified, Cleopatra Jones
While the 1980s was a fairly lacklustre era for Japanese genre cinema on the major studio front, it was quite an exciting time on the independent scene. A whole new generation of filmmakers — emboldened by available 16mm cameras (the novel home video distribution format) and a robust economy — burst onto the scene, pushing
Guzoo: The Thing Forsaken by God – Part 1 is a 1986 Japanese monster horror film written and directed by Kazuo Komizu with additional writing from Hitoshi Matsuyama and Junzô Takagi. Kazuo is most notable for directing the gore films Entrails of a Virgin (1986), Entrails of a Beautiful Woman (1986), and Rusted Body: Guts
Ceroboh (aka The Screaming Sky) is a 2022 Malaysian sci-fi thriller, directed by Feisal Azizuddin. Mostly known for directing shorts, Feisal made his move into feature-length directing the drama thriller Kabus as well as Ceroboh in the same year. Written by Chong Keng Fatt, the script was the winning entry out of hundreds entered in
New Religion is a 2022 Japanese surrealist horror, written and directed by Keishi Kondo in his feature-length debut. Kenshi is also known as the writer/director/cinematographer behind the drama short See You Again (2020). “After her daughter’s death, divorced Miyabi works as a call-girl. One day, she meets a strange customer who wants to take a
Whilst manga in Japan was certainly nothing new by the 1950s, the efforts of artists such as Osamu Tezuka led to the medium becoming more popular than ever, especially with children. With the extreme popularity of this childrens’ manga only ever growing, the term “manga” itself was quickly becoming synonymous purely with childrens’ manga. Artists
Veteran fans of Japanese horror are familiar with the name Takashi Shimizu, there’s no doubt about it. Having gained attention from horror fans all around the world with his Ju-On franchise, Shimizu-san has been a continuous contributor to the genre with varying reception from his audience. Admittedly, I haven’t been a good audience for some
Dr. Lamb is a 1992 Hong Kong CAT III horror film, written by Kam-Fai Law and directed by Danny Lee and Billy Hin-Shing Tang. The production is based on the unscrupulous crimes of Hong Kong serial killer Lam Kor-wan, who was arrested in 1982 after murdering four women. A mentally disturbed taxi driver, Lin Gwao-Yu
Strike of the Tortured Angels is a fairly obscure, though not totally unknown film; appearing in the 1980s as part of a wave of Asian films brought over to the west to satisfy the lucrative direct-to-video market of martial arts and exploitation films. However, until recently the actual origins had effectively been lost to time.