2023 Asian Cinema Challenge
Week 36 Theme: Wuxia
Current Progress: 03/52
"Winning is not a blessing; losing is not a curse."
This was one of the very first films that I watched when I started in my cinematic journey and although, I enjoyed it tremendously, I really did not fully appreciate what an accomplishment Duel to the Death is, until today. A re-invention of the Wuxia genre while still sticking to its core elements.
A basic Martial Arts premise about…
2023 Asian Cinema Challenge
Week 35 Theme: Kaidan
Current Progress: 02/52
This one hits hard! At first I thought I picked the wrong title for this theme but it ended up that A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse has the perfect blend of revenge, sexploitation, pinku violence and horror that I have ever seen. It's all filmed in bright, vivid colours with lots and lots of nudity. The last 20 minutes is a gorefest which seemed fitting.
Hideo Murota, Naomi Tani, Ohara…
This Basher, martial arts film has a convoluted plot with a soundtrack that seems so eerily familiar that I'm sure that it was lifted from a popular film or tv show. Unfortunately, I couldn't recognize it.
Watched in Mandarin with English subtitles.
2021 Asian Cinema Challenge
Week 47 Theme: Made by Shaw Brothers Studios
Current Progress: 13/52
The Boxer's Omen is one of the more renown Shaw Brothers Studios Horror films partly due to the fact that the uncut version of the film was unavailable legally in the West for the longest time. It was somewhat of a holy grail to find and watch this uncut version as it was only found in bootlegs of a VHS source.
Fortunately, that's no longer…
This starts off with so much promise that unfortunately fizzles out in the bizarre third act and ends up limping towards the end.
The casting is the strongest aspect of this film. Too bad that there's not enough of Aubrey Plaza and a bit too much of Molly Shannon. I enjoyed seeing Debby Ryan in a non Disney role plus you got Zach Woods at his best.
I do agree that it seems that they went to Italy to make a movie and have a vacation at the same time. I would have done the same thing too though...
