THE PROGRAM

Wong Kar-Wai's late 80's feature film debut "As Tears Go By" was a solid, gritty Chinese crime story that showed early signs of the famed director's visual flair. Running strong on two amazing and polar opposite performances from Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung, the film would prove to be a hit for all parties. Around 15 years later, Andy Lau would further his star in the critically acclaimed "Infernal Affairs" series. Ching-Po Wong's 2004 film "Triad Underworld" looked to take the talents of a reunited Cheung and Lau, as well as teaming them up with some of Lau's co-stars from the latter two "Infernal Affairs" films, Shawn Yue, Edison Chen and Eric Tsang. At a very lean 85 minutes though, "Triad Underworld" finds itself in rare company, serving up a meal of mediocrity that tastes worse than it actually ...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Christine (Sylvie Testud, La Vie en Rose) is an ordinary young woman whose very standard, uncomplicated desires--a boyfriend, a career, some fun, maybe children--are placed a bit further away from her reach than usual by her multiple sclerosis, which leaves her confined to a wheelchair. When we first see her, she has just arrived on her yearly guided-tour pilgrimage to Lourdes, the French mountain town important to Catholics and well-known to the world at large for being specially regarded by St. Mary, who is believed to effect miraculous healings from time to time for those afflicted and suffering souls that make their hopeful way to the village. Somewhat stoical a...Read the entire review

The Film:

The Movie:

Olivier Marchal's 2004 film The 36th Precinct (or, as it was released in France, 36 Quai Des Orfevres, or as it was released in the UK simply 36) follows two French police officers, Leo Vrinks (Daniel Auteuil) and Denis Klein (Gerard Depardieu) as they set out to stop a group of ruthless thieves who have been preying on the people of Paris for some time now. The cops, lead by commanding officer Robert Mancini (Andre Dussollier), have been powerless to stop them as they are continually outsmarted at pretty much every turn. Mancini tells his men that whoever can bring the hoods in will get his job - and so Vrinks and Klein soon find themselves in the running for the top spot on the force.

Though Vrinks and Klein have been friends a long time, tensions mount between the two men as they set out to catch the crooks. This affects their personal lives, wit...Read the entire review

The Movie:

For better or worse, Korean director Park Chan-Wook's three films with vengeance as the motif are going to be his legacy for cinematic audiences. They have been a benefit on several levels; they've introduced audiences to Korean cinema and specifically to Park's style of storytelling. And what began as a novel idea has grown into a massive fan following for the director, and it's great to see all three films arrive on Blu-ray. So why not take a stroll down memory lane?

Lee Jae-Sun and Lee Jong-Yong co-wrote the screen that Park directs. The film looks at revenge from two slightly different perspectives, almost splitting the movie in half. In the first half, Ryu (Shin Ha-Kyun) is a deaf factory worker who is desperately trying to scrounge up money for a kidney transplant for his dying sister. He even agrees to donate a kidney to a...Read the entire review

You, the Living is an existential, fourth-wall-breaking Swedish comedy movie that jovially meditates on things like debt and the electric chair, before peaking with an equally contradictory ending that is dizzyingly effective. I have a hard time buying it as an experience that demanded a feature-length movie; the experience feels almost better suited to be a series of unconnected vignettes, or the kind of television show where an "episode" may only be around ten minutes, but it's definitely worth a look for anyone interested in a unique filmgoing experience.

Saying that You, the Living has no plot is true in the most literal sense of the word: while some of the scenes in the film connect, giving way to other scenes with recurring characters, the film has no narrative. It simply spotlights random people throughout Sweden during an unidentified period of time (probably decades ago, but it...Read the entire review

I am a fan of neorealism and minimalist cinema. I'm sure that to a lot of people, these kinds of movies just look boring. Who'd want to watch a bunch of people standing around, accomplishing minimal things at a realistic pace? I think for myself, the answer is comedy. Observational humor is my kind of humor, and almost all of the minimalist, realist movies that I've seen incorporate humor because most people don't lead completely humorless lives. One of my favorite examples of this is Stranger Than Paradise, which is hilarious, if you have the will to let it meander along, doing what it's going to do, without getting impatient.

Of course, there are limits to everything, but what they are exactly is harder to pin down. I am presented with Ulrich Seidl's Import/Export, and ...Read the entire review

Princess is, at the very least, a visual feast; a fairly unique, if not one-of-a-kind little movie. Making is his feature-length debut, Danish writer/director Anders Morgenthaler has cooked up a bizarre blend of animation and live-action that certainly provides plenty of eye candy for the audience to devour, and his concept of a little girl warped by her mother's porn career and the ex-priest uncle looking to exact a little revenge after the mother dies is pretty gangbusters regardless of the direction -- definitely a potent combination at work. But Morgenthaler's ability to bringing these elements together in a cohesive, satisfying fashion isn't decisive enough, and the movie crumbles like a sandcastle in the wake of a wave.

The majority of Princess is the animated portion, focused on August (Thure Lindhardt) and his relationship with Mia (Mira Hilli Møller Hallund), the little girl h...Read the entire review

It took British wit to come up with a cleverly straightforward exploitation title like Lesbian Vampire Killers, and it took the morons that run American movie studios to ruin it. Admittedly, the title never made me want to see the film (and based on its reviews and some of the footage, I probably won't), but at the very least, "Lesbian Vampire Killers" gets the viewer's attention, whereas "Vampire Killers", our dull-as-dirt Stateside substitute, does not. The reason I bring this up is that I have just viewed a Thai horror/probably-comedy movie that includes sleaze like the corruption of the innocent (young girls turned go-go dancers turned prostitutes), blood-spewing deaths, grizzled psychics, vindictive witchcraft, and its own set of lesbians -- one that has been sitting on my shelf for months on end waiting for me to review it -- because nobody thought they needed to come up with...Read the entire review

Terror Pack Volume 1:
This box set of three previous Tartan Video international horror releases needn't confound your alphabetized DVD collection. The movies come in their original keepcases, wrapped by a plain old thick paper library-style sleeve with uninspiring graphics. Ditch the slipcover and put these movies in proper alphabetical order. Speaking of slotting these DVDs on your shelf, this 40-dollar (MSRP) set will have you checking your pocketbook and judging your need for international horror, as the movies featured range from definitely skip-able to highly recommended.

Sheitan:
For your standard anti-hipster, the public face of Sheitan displays some significant red flags. Vincent Cassel's capriciously grinning mug, complete with awful facial hair, graces the DVD cover. It's really hard to draw a bead on what the dang thing is about based on reading the back cover, a...Read the entire review

The Movie:
It's rare that a horror film that will simultaneously explore demonic possession and the sordid lives of Bangkok go go dancers, but P does, and pretty well. The first Thai language film to be filmed by a westerner, Brit Paul Spurrier, P glides along at its own pace, taking its time and foregoing over the top splatter, and delivering a much more nuanced horror experience.

Dau (Suangporn Jaturaphut) is a rural Thai girl, trained in magic from her youth by her grandmother. She is lured to Bangkok when grandmother takes ill and they don't have enough money for medicine. Unknown to Dau, whose real name is Aaw, which is considered too difficult for foreigners to pronounce thus the name change, her job is in a go go bar. At first, she is shy and awkward, comforted by her friend Pookie (Opal) after her first sexual experience with a bar patron, learning to dance seductively...Read the entire review

The Movie:
In my mind, Japan is at the center of a cinematic revolution. Directors such as Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and Hideo Nakata are turning the medium on its head, displaying a sense of creativity and invention that is rarely seen in American film anymore. Hideo Nakata's Ring (incorrectly translated as Ringu here in the States) began a horror revolution. Aside from the obligatory Western remake, the picture sparked imitators all around the world. Many of its Japanese offspring have made it to our shores (the abysmal Ju-on being a high profile example), but that's nothing compared to what's going on in Korea.

The Korean film scene, never seen as a particularly vibrant spot on the cinematic map, dove headfirst into the waters Nakata treaded in Ring, making wave after wave of "ghost with a vengeance" pictures. I have, in my attempts to find unex...Read the entire review

Election (Hak Se Wui) threw me for a loop, as I really didn't know what to make of it after my primary screening. Initially, director Johnnie To's triad film left me entertained and compelled with its solid concept, but only to meager degrees - and I felt like there was potentially more lying underneath. A subsequent trip into this wrestle of testosterone and power revealed more of the nuances and attention to detail I was looking for, but it still seemed oddly balanced between exaggerated action and potentially intricate thought. Still a solid entry, To's Election serves up a ample helping of engaging crime-based convolution with a few dashes of intelligence and humor to spice up the flow.


The Film:

Ever wake up from a hangover and not remember what happened the day before? 11:59, this independent mindscrew from director Jamin Winans, takes that tricky matter both a step forward ... and a step behind. Dancing across the fabric of tangible space and chronological sense, Winans' film throws media corruption, political scandal, and the stigma of "accused" individuals into the mix of a spiraling mystery. Though it lightly touches on these subjects to add dramatic anxiety, 11:59 suffers from its own label as a vehicle assembled purely for the absorption of this marginally above-average brainteaser.

The Film:

The Movie:
At first the Japanese ghost story flicks were an exciting (and welcome) departure from the stale horror products that the U.S. was churning out. However, after countless clones and re-makes started to make their way to theaters and DVD, the fad started to wear thin. Need proof? Look no further than "Apartment 1303."

The plot: After a young girl named Sayaka leaps to her death, her sister Mariko begins to investigate her death. Mariko begins to uncover secrets about the apartment (number 1303) her sister lived and finds that several murders took place there. Even worse, she discovers a disturbing and tragic story of a mother and daughter living there. Is it possible the ghosts of the mother or daughter continue to haunt the apartment? Will anyone be able to escape the wrath of these ghosts? Is this a "Ju-On" and "Dark Water" rip-off?

Simply put, "Apartment 1303" is not the fin...Read the entire review

The Film:
The debut feature of Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu is an often-times quiet, always casually paced examination of life in a small town just east of Bucharest. With a sense of humor that is as dry as it is sharp, 12:08 East of Bucharest is a finely crafted character study that has been compared to the films of Jim Jarmusch, as well as the work of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. And while Porumboiu has no doubt studied and been inspired by those filmmakers--which clearly shows in this poignant political satire--his real inspirations come from his native Romania.

Set in contemporary Romania just before the Christmas 2005, the film takes place on December 22, a date that marks the anniversary of the fall of communism. Sixteen years earlier, at 12:08 in the afternoon, with much of Romania watching on television, dictator Nicolae Ceausescu fled for his life in a helicop...Read the entire review

The 2006 Thai horror film The Victim is the tale of two movies. Though I'm usually loathe to divulge a films twists, there is a big one, roughly halfway through the film, that so alters the landscape of the film there is no way I can review the movie without discussing it. So, consider yourself warned.

Ting is a novice actress, a nobody, still in school taking acting classes and learning her craft. By chance she lucks into her first job as a reenactor for the police department. As an investigative aide and public relations boost, the police regularly parade out a suspect to reenact their crimes at the scene in front of onlookers and the press. A funny montage of failed attempts displays why they like to use serious actors to fulfill the role of the victim. As if in a trance, Ting falls into her roles and proves to be so convincing observers are moved by her performance.

Pinchanart Sakakorn,...Read the entire review

There's a reason that we as humans shouldn't individually play judge, jury, and executioner for villains. Through the looking glass of surveillance video, the compulsion to physically dabble in the wrongdoings of humanity can begin to seem quite logical, though. Red Road, the Scottish suspense film from director Andrea Arnold, displays the reasons why individual humans are separate from such acts. Through this tense and difficult story, we see the causal bridge between oversight and action fall apart through the eyes of one woman bent on wreaking vengeance.


The Film:

Triad Election is Election 2, director Johnny To's 2006 sequel to the massively popular, 2005, crime film Election. Apparently, though they were the distributors for the first film on US DVD, the folks over at Tartan think consumers are less apt to buy a sequel film, thus the odd retitling. Here is my review of the first film, link, which amusingly didn't want to provide any plot spoilers which this linear sequel obviously gives away.

The second film picks up two years after the first, naturally, just in time for another election within the Wo Sing Triad group. Current chairman Lok (Simon Yam) has designs on a second consecutive term, a move that would be unprecedented and heavily fought against, but considering how he got the position (see first film) he is ...Read the entire review

In terms of the international cinema scene, one doesn't think of Portugal as a hotbed of horror. Bad Blood (Coisa Ruim, 2006) attempts to change that with a mix of religious, supernatural, and rural frights. It is a good trio of horror themes, the catholic, devil among us scares of The Exorcist, the spook house chills of The Haunting and The Shining, and the backwoods eeriness of Calvaire or Shietan. Instead of being a potent mix of the three, it becomes a diluted melange.

Academic professor Xavier moves his family from the bustling city to the countryside after he inherits a house from a distant relative. Relatives before him in the family line cast off the house, probably his first clue that something was amiss with this small village manor. His family consists of his wife, young son, an older son, his middle child daughter and her born out of wedlo...Read the entire review

Combining one of Mainland China's most successful filmmakers with one of Asia's most popular movie stars, "A World Without Thieves" was a smash success in China upon its release in 2004, yet only now arrives on video Stateside.

The filmmaker is Feng Xiaogang, director of "Big Shot's Funeral" and "Cell Phone." The star is Andy Lau, the magestar of "Infernal Affairs" and "House of Flying Daggers." Also on hand are Rene Liu ("The Personals"), Wang Baoqiang ("Blind Shaft"), and Ge You ("To Live"). A hit was inevitable - but the film never quite earns it. It's a muddled, scattershot affair, never quite reaching the heights its inventive premise implies.

Considering the acting is solid and the cinematography is drop dead gorgeous, I'm tempted to place the blame entirely on Xiaogang, who steps away from his familiar world of bitter satire to deliver something straightforward, unironic, and serio...Read the entire review

The Movie:
One of the joys of childhood was first hearing scary urban legends. I vividly recall being told the tales of Bloody Mary and the hook man. As I watched "Carved," I became completely wrapped up in the urban legend of the slit-mouthed woman, much I like I would have as a child.

The story: A popular urban legend about a severely scarred woman wearing a face mask (dubbed the slit-mouthed woman) begins to become a reality as the she sporadically appears around a Japanese town kidnapping young kids. Trying to save the children and uncover the truth, Ms. Yamashita and Mr. Matsuzaki begin to discover a series of clues. Does the deadly slit-mouthed woman have a connection with Mr. Matsuzaki and does her spirit infect mothers? Time will tell.

"Carved" finally delivers what few horror films do- widespread panic. In 90% of horror films, whenever a killer or monster is on the loose in a t...Read the entire review

The Film:

Ten-year-old Melanie is an aspiring pianist (Deborah Francois, L'enfant) whose dreams are crushed when an important audition goes terribly wrong because of a senseless jury member. Years later, with plans for a prosperous career in music abandoned, the young girl takes an internship at a prestigious law firm whose top attorney (Pascal Gregory, Gabrielle) is the husband of the juror responsible for the traumatic final. Melanie quickly becomes part of the attorney's family and agrees to assist Madame Fouchecourt (Catherine Frot, Cavale) as a "page turner".

Perhaps because I spent most of my life performing on stage, solo and as a member of a wind quintet, Denis Dercourt's La Tourneuse de Pages a.k.a The Page Turner (2006) struck a familiar chord with me. Pic's quiet examination of fears only musicians can ...Read the entire review

The Movie:

More of a supernatural thriller than a flat out horror movie, Dorm is an interesting mix of Thai culture and stereotypical American spook show ideas and set pieces. The end result is surprisingly effective, putting this film on the growing list of good horror movies to have come out of Thailand over the last few years.

The story follows a twelve year old boy named Chatree who is forced to go to an all boy's boarding school despite the fact that it's really the last place he'd prefer to get his education. Once he gets settled in, not only does he have to deal with getting adjusted to his new surroundings but he's also got some obnoxious bully types to deal with, the kind that exist only to make the poor kid's life misterable. On top of all that, the teacher in charge, Ms. Pranee, of the school doesn't seem to care much for pour Chatree, and before you know it, the ki...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

South Korean director Kim Ki-Duk has a thing for morally ambiguous situations. Many of his films are built around characters or relationships that openly chafe against accepted social mores. His provocative tales challenge his audience to either accept what they are watching or to look away from it. There is little in between.

2005's The Bow (Hwal) isn't as harsh as some of his other movies. There is no squirm-inducing self-immolation a la The Isle or repugnant thugs like in Bad Guy, but for some, this may make The Bow even more uncomfortable. Especially as the movie starts rather quietly, taking us deeper into the damaged psychological construct without the shocking flashpoints that might warn us of what's to come...Read the entire review

Sometimes when you try and do two things at once, you fumble each activity and end up doing both an injustice. Guisi aka Silk, a Chinese action / horror flick from director Chao-Pin Su, suffers from such a deficiency. Instead of running far away from the pack with originality in breadth and storyline originality, Silk stumbles over its own attempts at overachievement a bit and suffers from a degrading case of identity confusion.


The Film:

Tung (Chen Chang) struggles to juggle many obstacles at once. He stretches himself thin worrying stringently about his dying mother and a relationship with an attractive florist - all the while trying to keep up with his specialized lip-reading law enforcement job. Contemplating death and absolutism plagues his mind, though he doesn't make his thoughts heard. His strife with death comes out when he visits his aging mo...Read the entire review

The Movie

In my recent review for The Ghost I mentioned that I'd noticed several South Korean films which mirror the basic premise of I Know What You Did Last Summer. So, was I surprised when I popped in another South Korean film, Arang, and discovered that it to shared this central plot? Honestly, no. What did surprise me was how the film took the typical The Ring-type vengeful ghost antics and put a new slant on them.

Arang opens with violent crimes detective So-yeong (Song Yoon-ha) and her new partner Hygeon-gi (Lee Dong-Wook) investigating a series of murders. One victim is found burned in his home, while another died of an apparent heart attack. Following the autopsies, So-yeong and Hygeon-gi realize that the murders were connected and that the victims knew one another. They had b...Read the entire review

The Movie

For some reason, many American filmgoers think that Hollywood product is unoriginal and saccharine, while foreign films are intellectual and far superior. (I blame snobby critics for this.) Sure, there are plenty of foreign films which are very poignant, artsy, and have a more serious tone than American films. But, there are also foreign films which are just as derivative as anything made in Tinseltown. The Korean film The Ghost is a good example of this, as even the bland title tells us to not expect anything overly unique.

The Ghost centers on Min Ji-won (Ha-Neul Kim), a young college student who enjoys swimming and spending time with her friend, Park Jun-ho (Jin Ryu). But, Min's life isn't as care-free as it seems. She was involved in an accident and suffers from amnesia. She can't remember what her life was like before the accident and doesn't re...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Cinderella is an interesting 'horror' movie that's being marketed as a more extreme looking piece than it really is. While the packaging would have you believe that this is a film very much in the same vein as popular Asian imports like the Ju-On or Ring series', the fact of the matter is that this is more of a psychological thriller with some supernatural elements mixed in as much as it's about long haired creepy Asian ghost girls popping out and yelling 'boo.'

Hyoon-su is a teenage high school who enjoys the popularity afforded to her by the fact that her mother is a well to do and prominent plastic surgeon. Hyoon-su doesn't think twice about having her mom help out her friends now and then, say if they aren't happy with their appearance and what a little nip and tuck action done on the sly. Unfortunately, for the ladies that Hyoon-su hooks up with d...Read the entire review

Some movies like to hit you across the face with their revelations and make you jump out of your seat. Others like to slowly tease out the information, letting details get under you skin by insinuation rather than busting through your skull.

Andrea Arnold's Red Road is just such a movie. I hesitate to call it a thriller, because there aren't really shocks or frights lurking around any of the tower block corners where the film takes place. Yet, there is a mystery here, and the more you learn, the more the story will surprise and haunt you.

Jackie (Kate Dickie) works as a CCTV operator, watching a bank of television sets that pick up signals from the cameras placed all around the Scottish neighborhood she lives in. One of a cadre of such officers, she calls in any trouble she sees so policemen can be dispatched to take care of it. We are told very little about Jackie. Arnold avoids scenes of...Read the entire review

The Product:
When one contemplates international horror, certain countries immediately come to mind. Perhaps primary among them is Italy, with its love of blood and affinity for the gory and grotesque. Of course, we can't forget the Germans, another nation that doesn't mind spilling a few pints for the creepy cause. The Japanese were responsible for starting an entire fright fad – the ghost driven dynamic of the superstition and tradition fueled J-Horror, and nations like Spain, Mexico and Australia have all become known names in the forging of fear factors. But one place that's rather low on the list – usually somewhere around the Lesser Antilles – is the Netherlands. With its reputation for lax drug laws and available 'love' for sale, this liberal land is not renowned as makers of meaningful macabre. All of that might change, however, if Slaughter Night finds its fanbase. A dec...Read the entire review

In the world of Asian horror, ghastly apparitions in the form of skinny, black-haired girls are dime a dozen. Done to death is a more appropriate phrase. Granted, it is a creepy visual that can deliver some spine-tingling chills if done properly. However, as reincarnation after reincarnation of horror films feature this same ideal, the potency is whittled down like a dry piece of wood.

Does Shutter, a Thai horror conception from directors Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, stray far from this formula? Not really. But that shouldn't deter interest from this sharp horror creation in the slightest. Instead, it fluently utilizes this familiar recipe, adds a heaping dash of traditional scare tactics here and there, and creates a rich story that is both simple and quite potent. Something frighteningly wonderful arises amidst this new concoction. Though it leans on premises set...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Some interesting horror films have been coming out of South Korea over the last couple of years and Tartan Video have been bringing quite a few of them to North American audiences. One of the latest entries from Tartan's Asia Extreme line is Bloody Reunion, (known in its homeland as To Sir, With Love) a somewhat low budget slasher film that delivers the gore you'd expect but which also contains an unexpectedly intelligent plot that helps it rise above the restrictions sometimes associated with the sub-genre.

The movie tells the story of a group of adults in their early twenties who used to be in the same class together where they were taught by Mrs. Park (Mi-hee Oh). Now suffering from a terminal illness that has her confined to a wheelchair and in need of constant help from a caregiver, Mrs. Park wants nothing more than to meet with the children she taught fo...Read the entire review

The Film:
The fact that filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia has yet to become one of the hottest directors in the world remains one of cinema's great mysteries. In Spain, de la Iglesia has steadily built a cult following since making the transition from cartoonist to filmmaker over fifteen years ago. But here in the United States, the only two films of the director's that have managed to gather any sort of following have been Acción Mutante (a.k.a. Mutant Action) and El Día de la Bestia (a.k.a. The Day of the Beast), and neither film has managed to catapult de la Iglesia to the ranks of directors like Guillermo del Toro or Peter Jackson, which is where he belongs. In 2005 de la Iglesia's El Crimen Ferpecto (a.k.a. The Perfect Crime, or The Ferpect Crime--depending on who you ask), made its way across the U.S. playing film festivals and arthouses, br...Read the entire review

Even in today's ever-shrinking world, cinema still plays a mighty role in bringing us closer together, introducing us to cultures far away, reminding us all of our collective humanity. How wonderful it is to encounter a film like "The Cave of the Yellow Dog," with its sweet simplicities and its quiet observations on the life of a family of nomads in West Mongolia.

The film comes from writer/director Byambasuren Davaa, whose previous film, "The Story of the Weeping Camel," blended documentary and drama as it followed a nomadic family through a season in the Gobi Desert. Here, she repeats herself in style and subject, while improving on the results: "Yellow Dog" has at its center another real-life family, sometimes acting, often just being themselves. It's a style that's not as complicated as it may appear, as these movies are basically portraits of a culture, snapshots of a way of life most of us...Read the entire review