Category Archives: Uncategorized

1. Gankutsuo: An exotic passion-play with a sci-fi twist; Albert is the perfect sacrificial victim and the Count is the perfect flawed monster. The classics never looked so good!

2. Election 2: And I thought Election was good! Louis Koo made me change my mind about him (good). And minced meat (bad).

3. Starfish Hotel: Dark and dreamlike, all its elements part of a deeper whole. Gorgeous and fascinating.

4. Hold up Down/Dead Run: … (read more)

Now I know Heroic-Cinema covers Asian films but I hope you will grant me the liberty to digress a little about two bone-chilling Spanish films: The Devil’s Backbone (“El Espinaza Del Diablo”) and Thesis (“Tesis”)

Endless similarities could be drawn between these two and Hideo Nakata’s Ring – it did make me wonder if the directors have been secretly talking. I shudder to think if they ever got together! (but the sadistic part of me is saying “yes, … (read more)

Forty Years Ago Today
November 10, 1965; it is almost exactly forty years since the pilot to the first colour anime, Kimba the White Lion, was completed. To celebrate his anniversary, Madman has released a deluxe box set featuring fully restored versions of the first fifty-two episodes. The journey of this white lion cub to the West is a intriguing one. At ground zero was Fred Ladd who was the US producer on Kimba as well as his boy … (read more)

From 30 October to 9 November 2003, ACMI in Melbourne will pay tribute to Leslie Cheung with Rouge and more – many for only a single screening, and possibly your only chance to see them screened in Australia. As part of the program, a special commemorative book is being published, with articles by Philippa Hawker, Clare Stewart and Audrey Yue, as well as tributes from Tsui Hark, Chen Kaige, Adrian Martin, Mike Walsh and others. It will be on sale … (read more)

Well, Prachya Pinkaew and Tony Jaa, the director and star of Ong Bak (the best Muay Thai film out of Thailand, well ever really) were in Sydney to shoot scenes for their next film Tom Yum Goong and guess who managed to score an interview? Well, OK, yes THAT person, oh and yes THAT person as well… look for the sake of relevancy, it was me OK? That’s right, I get to interview the guy who made you wince with … (read more)

Best film: Infernal Affairs
Runner-up: Sympathy For Mr Vengeance
Honourable mentions: PTU, Running on Karma, Save the Green Planet

Read on for the complete mini-reviews, as each teamster looks back on their cinematic highlights for 2003…

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Alison:

Golden Chicken
Just way too much fun to resist. Sandra Ng is impossibly endearing, the large collection of cameos are amusing, and this was probably my only chance to see Andy having a good moan. In fact, I think I need to … (read more)

Being bend-y was never my thing. My sense of self-worth was in no way related to whether or not I could do the splits (probably a good thing, considering that I even find touching my toes a bit of a stretch), and my lack of gymnastic ability had never really bothered me…until, that is, I had the good fortune to see the Hebei Acrobatic Troupe, when it had me near suicidal.

These guys are incredible. They even put the lead-footed … (read more)

Plenty of folks dig the stuff I dig. If I say “I saw a rocking Hong Kong action film!”, or “I checked out this outta control anime!”, or “I watched a kickass Korean flick!”, then people wanna hear about it. If they hear there’s a cool new one, they’re queuing around the block quicker than you can say Melbourne International Film Festival.

But, if I drop the words “I saw a funky Bollywood flick!” into the conversation, suddenly people get … (read more)