Blog Archives

Space Battleship Yamato (2010)

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Posted on November 6, 2011 by Deni

You get what you pay for and in cinematic terms the currency, as everyone should know, is genre. If you go to see a big budget action movie, you should probably expect a big budget action movie and all that entails, and you really shouldn’t complain if you get it. In my opinion, it’s important to be clear on this concept; that way you don’t end up sitting behind me in the cinema making annoying pseudo-intellectual comments about a) the … (read more)

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Life Without Principle (2011)

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Posted on November 6, 2011 by Justin

Looking through our archives, it seems like almost everyone who’s ever written for Heroic Cinema has sat down at a keyboard to bash out a review of a Johnnie To film at one time or another. Ching Yee compared films from Milkyway Image to comfort food in her review of My Left Eye Sees Ghosts, and she’s right — To’s films have developed a distinctive style and consistently high level of quality over the years, and I always look … (read more)

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Vampire (2010)

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Posted on October 31, 2011 by Elizabeth Kerr

Leave it to Japanese auteur Iwai Shunji to find a way around the ongoing moony-eyed romantic vampire craze as it’s defined by Twilight. Simply titled Vampire, the vampirism of Iwai’s English-language debut exists in its own world as it were, one that’s rooted in reality more than the fantasy tropes of stakes through the heart, aversion to garlic and turning into the undead if bitten — and of course sparkling! Vampire hinges on a 28-year-old high school biology … (read more)

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13 Assassins (2010)

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Posted on September 8, 2011 by Tom
13 Assassins begins with a man committing seppuku. He preformed this act to bring attention to Lord Naritsugu a somewhat vile and sadistic man. This will not be the only bloody death before this tale ends.
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No Blood No Tears (2002)

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Posted on August 30, 2011 by Justin

This year’s KOFFIA festival opened with a bang, with director Ryoo Seung-wan presenting his huge hit from last year, The Unjust — an action thriller in which policemen, prosecutors and property developers are caught in an endless cycle of corruption. A couple of days into the festival, as part of their Bloody Friday match-up, the KOFFIA team programmed another Ryoo film: 2002’s No Blood No Tears.

As with the opening film, director Ryoo himself got up on stage and … (read more)

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Bedevilled (2010)

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Posted on August 26, 2011 by Alan

It is always interesting when folks see a film and call it ‘hard to classify’. Such was some of the pre-buzz I had heard about Jang Chul-soo’s debut film Bedevilled. Of course, not all films present themselves as classifiable genre flicks. But while some do so awkwardly (Cowboys and Aliens, anyone?), others deliberately skirt with and deconstruct genre conventions, and Bedevilled certainly does that. In fact, while the title resonates throughout the plot, it could be seen to … (read more)

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Shim’s Family (2007)

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Posted on August 22, 2011 by Justin

Screening in both Sydney and Melbourne at this year’s KOFFIA festival, Shim’s Family is a character drama with bits of ensemble comedy sticking out. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. South Korean director Jeong Yoon-Chul presents us with a darkly funny look at the chaotic life of a small family (the film’s other English title is Skeletons in the Closet), shot through with the occasional rapid shifts in mood that I’ve come to love from Korean cinema.

Yong-sun … (read more)

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Chanbara Beauty (2008)

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Posted on August 20, 2011 by Alison

The tagline for this one is “Blades, Bikinis, and a Fistful of Zombies”, and I can tell you that these guys believe in truth in advertising. True, there’s only one bikini, worn rather fetchingly under a poncho and hat à la Clint Eastwood, although the bikini-wearer doesn’t have the grimy toughness of Clint, and I have no intention of imagining Clint in a bikini.

There are also only two blades – one wielded by Bikini Girl, and one wielded by … (read more)

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