Youth of the Beast
July 31, 2005
Youth of the Beast (1963) starts off in sobering black and white film stock as serious-looking police detectives investigate a double suicide. Cut suddenly to colour film stock of two girls laughing hysterically with frenetic jazz music crashing in. We’ve...
6ixtynin9
July 28, 2005
6ixtynin9 (1999) concerns the misadventures of a woman by the name of Tum (Panyopas) who is having, to put it mildly, a bad day. In a cruel twist of fate, she is randomly fired from her job. She gets home to find that the elevator in her building is out...
M
July 22, 2005
Based on a series of gruesome murder cases that occurred in Berlin, Germany, M (1931) is one of the earliest serial killer movies. A city is terrorized by a man (Lorre) who kills children. The latest victim is a little girl named Elsie (Landgut). Director...
Walking Tall
July 16, 2005
Now before I start, don’t think I’m one of those people who just wants to bash the Rock; analy spouting how he has no part in film and should have stuck to his spandex wearing, ring prancing antics. Quite the opposite in fact, I’m a...
Infernal Affairs
July 2, 2005
Infernal Affairs (2002) is an Asian cinema fan’s dream with a powerhouse cast the features the likes of Tony Leung (Chungking Express), Andy Lau (House of Flying Daggers), Anthony Wong (Hard-Boiled), and Eric Tsang (The Accidental Spy)—all internationally...
The Yakuza Papers
July 2, 2005
Kinji Fukasaku’s series of films known as The Yakuza Papers is largely seen as the veteran filmmaker’s answer to The Godfather (1972). Grouped together, these five films are a towering achievement of visceral B-moviemaking at its finest. The very...
Collateral
June 27, 2005
Cabbie Jamie Foxx is having a very bad day thanks to hitman Tom Cruise, who hijacks his car and takes him on a killing spree through Los Angeles. Michael Mann, some time after inventing trashy cop shows and bungling Nazi horror movies, has become an American...
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead
June 5, 2005
At first glance, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2003) seems like a very conventional film noir story but it is in fact told in a very unconventional way as director Mike Hodges refuses to spell things out. Will Graham (Owen) is a retired gangster brought...
Mulholland Falls
May 31, 2005
They say timing is everything and this certainly applies to the release and reception of movies. Case in point: Mulholland Falls (1996). Released a year before the very similar L.A. Confidential (1997), Falls was also a retro-noir set in 1950s Los Angeles...
Graveyard of Honor
May 25, 2005
Instead of resting on his laurels with the hugely successful Battles Without Honors series, Kinji Fukasaku took one of Japan’s biggest movie stars, Tetsuya Watari, and had him play a cruel junkie gangster protagonist. Graveyard of Honor (1975) is based...
