The Yurei
Despite being one of Japan’s biggest film studios throughout the late 40s and 50s during the golden age of Japanese cinema, Daiei were struggling by the mid-60s and had to slash budgets for their productions. This eventually led to a merger with Nikkatsu in 1970, followed by bankruptcy in 1971. Somewhat overlooked is Daiei’s 1968-1969
“Four people intent on killing themselves meet through the suicide website Black Paradox: Maruso, a nurse who despairs about the future; Taburo, a man who is tortured by his doppelganger; Pii-tan, an engineer with his own robot clone; and Baracchi, a woman who agonizes about the birthmark on her face. They wander together in search
Day Zero is a 2022 Filipino zombie action horror, written by Ays De Guzman and directed by Joey De Guzman. Both are fairly active in Filipino cinema, Ays has spent a decade writing for long-running TV shows such as May bukas pa as well as screenwriting a number of feature-length films, on the other hand,
Whenever Mako Higari comes in contact with something she perceives as dirty, she gets a massive nosebleed. Brought on by severe childhood trauma from her mother’s distrust of men and fear of germs, Mako grows into an adult desperate to find a partner who will not trigger her violently excessive nosebleeds. However, her obsession with
Fairly popular in the anime community, Mezzo Forte (2000) is an adult-oriented action thriller OVA from the mind of the infamous creator and director of the anime Kite, Yasuomi Umetsu. Originally released in Japan as a two-episode OVA, the anime was edited into a single animated movie when released in the West around 2005 (including
Indonesian comic creator/artist Azam Raharjo takes a look at the cosmic evil behind a company’s quick rise as their new venture in the restaurant industry sees uncanny success. While the team members celebrate, one employee, Ferdi, becomes perturbed after a coworker points out the odd employee photo where ‘the consultant’ hovers ominously over him. Ferdi
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
From time to time, you’ll see an article chronicling the various examples of times Western monsters crossed the Pacific and got starring roles in Asian cinema, such as Frankenstein Conquers the World, Vampire Effect, Bio Zombie, Werewolf Boy, and the like. It would then reason that this would be a two-way street, so surely there
While the 1980s were 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 the availability of 16mm cameras (the novel home video distribution format) and a robust economy — burst onto the