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AICN & Twitch Present International Eye Candy: YATTERMAN, GREETINGS TO THE DEVIL, DEAD IN THREE DAYS 2 And Much More!!
Yes, you loyal few who actually seem to read this thing and give a damn about what it has to say, the time has come. Two weeks have passed since the last time we did this, which means today is the day where I cull the pages of Twitch for the latest and greatest in cinema from around the globe. It is, once again, time for International Eye Candy. This week we have Donnie Yen demonstrating exactly how many times it is possible to punch a falling man before he hits the ground, Swedish vampires, Russian hit men, and legendary maverick Takashi Miike directing a great big pile of Japanese school girls. But it’s not exploitation. Oh, no. This is ART! Onwards!
What the hell, I think we actually will start with the school girls and, sadly, it actually isn’t as exploitative as you may hope. The latest from Takashi Miike – at least, the latest we know of at the moment, with this guy there’s a fighting chance he’s shot four or five others nobody’s heard about yet – is his big budget adaptation of classic anime series YATTERMAN. They’re still very much in tease mode on this one but they’ve just released a second teaser for the film, wherein the school girls are to be found.
If you check out only one of the films included in the column this time around, make it this one.
The second film from the Colombian film making duo who had a big time festival hit with their horror picture AT THE END OF THE SPECTRUM – currently being remade with Nicole Kidman in the lead – GREETINGS TO THE DEVIL has just been blessed with just about the closest thing to a perfect teaser that I have ever seen. Ever. Anywhere. I love this thing immeasurably and consider it crime-noir at its absolute very best. It really is that good.
‘Slasher films’ and ‘Austria’ just don’t seem to go together, the alpine nation not conjuring up images of masked killers nearly as easily as it does bodybuilders-turned-governors or little, neatly moustached dictators, but there you have it. Austria can now claim to be home to all three.
A couple years back the original DEAD IN THREE DAYS was a surprise hit both at home and abroad and now, following the universal laws that govern all slasher movies everywhere in the galaxy, the original team has gotten back together to make a sequel. And it’s looking like a surprisingly effective one, at that. The key to these movies is that they don’t try to reinvent anything, they just figure out what they want to do and then do it very well.
And now for something completely different, this one coming from the lens of Alexi Tan, the Taiwanese film maker who made his John Woo-produced debut a little over a year ago with BLOOD BROTHERS. Tan is prepping a couple of new features right now but, in the meantime, clothing company Diesel threw some money his way to put together a short film to commemorate some anniversary or another. The result was A FORBIDDEN LOVE STORY, a short that Tan describes as a trial run for one of his new features, and one that features a who’s who of local talent – such as Oscar winning designer Tim Yip – so it’s no surprise that it’s looking mighty pretty.
Right, so, I’ve just returned from jury duty at the Sitges Festival in Spain – pretty much the Cannes of genre fests – and have been hard at work digging up little nuggets from things that I saw there. The first to turn up – and surely one of the best – is the teaser for animated short MONSIEUR COK. Yes, yes, go ahead and snicker about the title. Get it out of your system. But once you’re done make sure to go check out the film, because this is one sweet little bit of work, kind of like a series of Lane Smith drawings if Lane were to ingest a fair amount of acid. Very cool.
And off in an entirely different direction once again for this, a period set action-drama from Korea titled ONCE UPON A TIME IN SEOUL. Yes, the last couple years have not been kind to Korean film but things are on the rebound and this is definitely looking like one of the better recent offerings. This one tracks two young friends scratching out a life for themselves in the hard years immediately following the Korean War and it looks like perfect material for the Korean spin on things, a neat balance of action, drama and the weepy melodrama that they love – and do – so very well over there.
Alright, okay. You want the Donnie Yen, I’ll give you the Donnie Yen. The film is IP MAN, in which Yen stars as the legendary martial arts master who trained Bruce Lee – a role made in heaven for the Lee-worshiping Yen. At the helm is SPL – I refuse to call it KILL ZONE – director Wilson Yip, handling the martial arts choreography is the legendary Sammo Hung and THE STORY OF RICKY’s Fan Siu-Wong gets a major role in the proceedings as well. Not as major a role as Donnie Yen’s fists, but pretty major nonetheless.
Martial arts movie of the year? It’s either going to be this or ONG BAK 2.
No, he’s no Donnie Yen but yes, I like Jason Statham anyway. Ol’ bullet-head’s always good for a fun time and he’s back for a third go-round of the TRANSPORTER franchise, which now boasts a nifty French trailer. Vroom, vroom, bang, crash. T-Bag’s the bad guy and that’s okay by me.
And, no, he’s no Donnie Yen either but Nicholas Tse has got to be the hardest working guy in Hong Kong action films and he’s gone from being just another pretty young face to building up an impressive resume and earning a lot of respect for both his acting and his willingness to lay it all out there, old school style. His latest Hong Kong action flick is titled THE BEAST STALKER and you can pretty much work out what it’s about from the title alone. Rogue cop, really nasty bad guy, car crashes, gun play, people getting slapped around a good bit. All been done before but still a lot of fun when done right.
Okay, if you’re looking for a late 80’s style action fix it doesn’t get a whole lot better than this. Hailing from Russia, the literal translation of the title is INVINCIBLE – the far inferior official English title is MAN OF THE EAST – and it’s a knock ‘em down, drag ‘em out, blow ‘em up, then have sex with their women in the shower sort of movie. And, as if that’s not enough, it’s got style to burn, a hugely charismatic leading man and it looks to be very funny without screwing up the action. We’ve included this one in the column before but it’s got two brand new – and HUGELY superior – trailers available now.
I’m willing to wager that right about now there are at least a handful of people staring at their computer screens and asking themselves where they’ve seen an image that looks like this before. And the answer, of course, is in GHOST IN THE SHELL director Mamoru Oshii’s live action film AVALON. And the similarity, of course, comes because the image is from Oshii’s segment of a new anthology film titled KIRU ~ KILL in which four directors – including BATTLE ROYALE II’s Kenta Fukasaku - shoot the climactic final action sequences to imaginary films. The VERY observant among you may even have picked out that one of those lovely ladies is Rinko Kikuchi from BABEL and THE BROTHERS BLOOM.
I don’t really know how to explain Olivier Asselin’s UN CAPITALISME SENTIMENTAL other than to say that the French Canadian film rips through film styles and movements so quickly that it’s dizzying, and giddily so. Where else can you see classic expressionism cuddle up to noir and 70’s style verite? Nowhere, that’s where.
I think in the case of SMASH TRASH WRESTLING BASH the title very nearly says everything that needs to be said. It’s from Germany. I’m reasonably confident that it’s a mock-doc though it is remotely possible that this is all real. And it’s got a guy in a cardboard robot suit with giant foam hammers for hands. I’m sold.
Okay, SPECIAL is a bit of an older one for those who have been paying attention but it’s been lost in distribution hell for the last couple of years and the fact that it is finally hitting theaters in November is cause for celebration.
Michael Rapaport stars as a clinically depressed meter maid who enrolls in a clinical drug trial only to have an adverse reaction to his mood enhancers. An adverse reaction that convinces him that he is developing super powers. This movie needs some love. Give it.
A fan of Asian horror? Fostering fond memories of recent Thai efforts ALONE and SHUTTER while trying to wash all remaining memories of the bad US SHUTTER remake out of your mind? Well then, whether you know it or not, you are also a fan of Sophon Sakdaphisit who co-wrote both of those films, each of which is considered a high-water mark in the Asian horror world.
Sakdaphisit is stepping away from his desk now, and trading in his pen for a camera, and the result is COMING SOON. Yes, it is once again a horror film but it seems a little more light hearted than his earlier efforts, this one telling the story of people being stalked and killed in a manner identical to the killings in horror movies they have just watched. An English subtitled trailer has just arrived.
And, finally, we conclude with the new red-band trailer for Swedish vampire picture LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, a film that has been sweeping up awards all around the world and is soon to arrive on local shores. Believe the hype on this one, it is a simply spectacular film – one that CLOVERFIELD’s Matt Reeves is currently prepping a remake of. But don’t wait for that, it’s perfect as it is.
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