Reviews

Another great Ryuhei Matsuda flick. Everything he does turns to gold, quality-wise any way. It is a coming of age/gang/high school movie with a little bit of everything for everyone. The movie begins with Kujo (Ryuhei Matsuda) going to the roof of the school and beating out everyone else to be the leader of the gang. How they decide who is by playing "The Clapping Game," they hang off the banister and see how many times they can clap without falling to their deaths. It goes through trials and tribulations, threats to his leadership, 2 deaths, one of which is a murder. A room being painted entirely black by someone who has gone insane? A midget Gardner teaching them important lessons on life, one of their friends quitting school to become a professional baseball player? Not to mention feces, there are few good Japanese movies that do not have feces? And a motorcycle that's almost as cool as the one from Wild Zero. Despite the violence, murder, feces, face smashing, and all that, the movie really leaves you (well me at least) with a warm fuzzy feeling inside. It shows how these two now enemies became at one time the best of friends. I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys Japanese cinema, if you don't have a taste for it, you probably wouldn't get it.

I did not expect much from this film. All I knew was when I first got it I saw a scene where he beat a bunch of people up and thought at least that section would be entertaining. The fact of the matter is I ended up loving this movie.

This movie deals with a number of things, one of the main topics being racial tensions between Japanese and Koreans. Sugihara is a Japanese born Korean whose father and mother were both from North Korea.

He attends a North Korean school in Japan because apparently (I was unaware of this) Japan is quite segregated between the Koreans and Japanese. Their teacher is quite the Nazi and punishes people for speaking Japanese. One of his classmates was caught purchasing a porno magazine and asking for it in Japanese the student asks "How was I supposed to say 'I want a porno mag'?" and it is quite humorous when the teacher responds, "I would please like an adult magazine" in Korean.

One of his peers reveals that Sugihara is attending a Japanese Language school. The teacher goes to punch him and he evades it. He basically then denounces North Korea and takes up a "Life of Crime" which doesn't last long when he's caught by the police after trying to "out run a subway"? Either way this part was very entertaining. They take him back to the police station whereas when his dad comes to get him he beats the shit out of him then and there.

The tension between Sugihara and his father builds up to the point where Sugihara challenges his father to a boxing match where his father once again beats the shit out of him.

At some point, maybe earlier then this he is playing basket ball at his new Japanese school and they make fun of him for being Korean, and then using a style I've never seen before (using soft of a throw your whole body (both) feet first into their chest) he single handedly takes out the entire basketball team, and some of the teachers.

Sugihara goes to a party for his best friend, who was there for the subway out-running. At which he meats a girl with whom he falls pretty much instantly in love.

His best (and pretty much only) friend, who is somewhat of a nerd, is getting on the subway when a girl is un-wantingly being hit on, he goes and tells the guy to leave her alone and he accidentally stabs him (you'd have to see it to understand, its hard to explain how it happened) Well long story shot he dies.

Sugihara is crushed, and he seeks comfort in his newfound girl friend. They are about to do the nasty when he decides its best to be honest with her and tell her he is Korean. She gets all pissy and leaves because she does not want to do the nasty with a mud blood or something like that.

He realizes he has nothing left, he cannot go back to his family because he has shamed them, he cannot go to his friend because he is dead, and he cannot go to his girl friend because she does not want a mud blood. He walks past a police officer who wants to talk to him, and since he realizes he left his Foreigner ID (all non-Japanese, even those born in Japan are required to carry a special ID) at his girl friends house and he could be thrown in jail for not having it, he knocks out the police officer and runs away. Then feeling bad about what he has done he goes and helps the police officer up, and they talk. He apologizes to the police officer, and the police officer tells him he was just going to ask for directions.

His girl friend comes to her senses and decides to accept him even if he is Korean. He goes back to his parents and his mom hits him and his father with the broom for being so dumb.

In the end it is revealed that his father, by claiming to be of South Korean heritage instead of North Korean in order to go on vacation to Hawaii, he has lost his ability to return to North Korea and will never see his family again. This explains some of his grumpiness.

One night when I had nothing to do, found this movie lying around and decided to watch it. I came into it with very low expectations but those expectations were wrong.

The movie begins with a boy contemplating suicide on a bridge, and a cop is trying to talk him down. The cop tells him to be careful but the boy says “I can fly” and the police officer thinking he’s giving him positive reinforcement yells “You can fly!” and the boy jumps into the river.

The movie then goes through how that boy (Peko), and another boy (Smile) got to be friends, how another boy got to be Peko’s sworn enemy, and how both Peko and Smile leaned the way of Ping Pong.

Its years later, Smile, and Peko’s team have just lost badly in the year’s championship. Peko gets depressed, quits the team and tries to kill him self (beginning of movie). He washes up on shore, goes back to the woman who taught him Ping Pong, and practices his ass off to fulfill his dreams of going pro.

While this is happening Smile is challenged by Peko’s enemy (can?t remember his name) because he saw Smile beat Peko, and because of team rules, if there is a non-organized challenge as such and you lose you are kicked off the team. Smile kicks his ass, and whatshisface is kicked off his team, wanders around pissed, and beats some guy up.

Championships come around again, and whoever wins has the chance to go pro. Smile and Peko both fight their way to the top, and in the end Smile lets Peko win though Smile is actually the much better player because Smile doesn’t really like ping pong and knows that its Peko’s dream to go pro. Smile has only played to be around Peko.

The movie had great cinematography, oh and there were some VERY AWESOME metaphorical scenes that I do not want to get into. Overall, it was an excellent movie.

I recently saw “Saw.” I went in with rather low expectations, and still came out disappointed. The plot was not to blame; the sets were not to blame... Even the director was not completely to blame (though somewhat), I lay most of the blame on the low quality of the actors.

The movie is based around these people being locked in a room chained to pipes. They?re supposed to work there way out, and the room is like a giant riddle. There are numerous flash backs, and lots of forced looking crying. And then everyone dies (spoiler).

I would compare the actors to the soap actor “Calculon” from Futurama. “I am feeling a wide array of EMOTIONS!?” The Doctor from the movie had a strong Irish accent he tried his best to keep hidden but there were parts where he was trying to show “emotion” and he let it slip, and I laughed at very inappropriate times. In addition, there was this hilarious car chase. They show no road, no nothing, just cut back and forth from one guy wiggling a steering wheel to the other guy wiggling the steering wheel.

The movie did have a number of scary parts, the thing that rips a persons head open made me fidget in my seat. Also, I am quite sure most of the budget went for the awesome masks/puppets the guy had.

Overall, the movie was Ok. The dialog was awful, but seriously, who sees a horror movie for the dialog. Had some fear, much unintentional humor, and the stupidest car chase ever.

Ma Vie En Rose is a beautiful movie about a little boy (Ludovic) who wants to be a little girl.

Beginning of the movie they had just moved in to a new neighborhood and his father is introducing his family. When his dad stats asking, “Where’s Ludovic?” he walks out all dressed up in makeup and a dress. His father, looking for words says, “This is my son Ludovic, the Joker”

The conflict starts when he thinks he is in “love” with his father’s boss’s son, and is caught by his father’s boss’s wife wearing their dead daughter’s clothes. Then after much arguing, and the father's anger, Ludovic is forced into therapy.

During a school production of Snow White, Ludovic locks the girl to play Snow White in the bathroom, and takes her place so he can get a kiss from the boss’s son. The boss’s son does not go through with it, and the family is shunned out of the theatre.

Then the boy loses the support of his mother and father, both becoming much angered at him and he leaves to live with his grandmother. While he is gone his father loses his job (for obvious reasons), and they are forced to move. The son decides to go with them rather then staying with the grandmother.

Ludovic goes to a girl’s birthday party at the new house and she forces him to switch from his pirate costume into her dress. Then his mother sees him and chases after him yelling. She loses him, and in some kind of hallucination (there were also many other cool dream sequences I forgot to mention thus far) she decides to climb up a sign for his favorite TV show/doll and has a beautiful hallucination where he is running off with the doll. She falls off the sign, and in the end accepts her son, though he seems, to me at least, to be growing out of it.

I found this movie actually looking for a movie by the same title made in the United Kingdom, I was rather disappointed to find that I had actually found a Japanese one as I have watched many a japanese film as of late.

This movie starts as most Japanese things do, with suicide. But this isn't your ordinary suicide; this is 54 happy Japanese school girls holding hands jumping in front of a train. Probably one of the goriest scenes I've ever seen in a film. Here and at later suicides a sports bag with a reel of human skin is found. After this some kids start joking around about the suicides on a roof, they decide it would be funny to stand on the edge of the roof and pretend like there going to

jump, but in fact they do jump, all but 2 women and a man, the one woman walks over to the man and pushes him off with her, the a bunch of people come up the stairs and the remaining woman says "We are the suicide club" before jumping. Following this police investigate, there are more single suicides, and a person who wasn't right in the head tries to take credit for the suicides so he can go down in history, although he is not the one responsible. It ends up that a band of 12 year old girls singing what appear to be happy songs are actually promoting subliminal messages to kill your self, and have formed a cult of somewhat brainwashed children. They are never apprehended and the film pretty much ends here which is very disappointing. Oh, and did I mention the main character commits suicide about half way through the film. (Which leads to much chaos because you have no idea who to root for, and it turns into just a series of events)

I wouldn't watch it again, but I don't regret watching it. If your in the mood for something kind of scary (not really) and Japanese give it a try.

Oh Bill, we hardly knew thee. I was expecting much better from this film, I expected better from Tarantino, I expected wrong.

Here is my summary of the movie, chick gets shot, goes in a coma, comes out of the comma, decapitates like 90 people, the end. This movie was just non-stop blood squirting and decapitation. There was the occasional laugh, but other then that, blood and heads.

I will admit to it being somewhat neat how it switched between genres. There were parts of the film that seemed Western, 70?s, Anime, and B&W Kung Fu. The switching of genre?s was one of the few parts I enjoyed about the movie.

I will also admit that the sound track was bitchen, though it hardly makes up for the lack of artistic styling and the blatant over use of blood. I do understand though that that was what he was going for. My friend Andrew had this awesome theory that Kill Bill was just Tarintino testing his audience to see if they would love anything he put out, be it shit or otherwise. If this is true, it is quite obvious the American public has failed.

Even with how much it sounds like I hate the movie, I still am going to need to see Volume 2.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

In the world we live in today, it’s comforting to know that there is still a little place where senseless violence can continue to pollute or enrich (your call) the minds of America's young and middle aged. Thus, the friendly people at Rock Star and Rock Star North created Vice City. Retaining the go anywhere ability that made its predecessor GTA3 famous, Vice City rises as the undoubted symbol of mindless destruction. GTA3 set the bar pretty high with one of the largest go anywhere maps ever, and a realistic assortment of vehicles, people, and criminal activity. Vice City is truly in a league of its own. With a go anywhere world that is a full 50% larger that GTA3, the welcome addition of helicopters and a plane that is capable of sustained flight (GTA3's DODO plane was notoriously hard to fly), motorcycles, a greater assortment of automobiles, and more gangs, innocent civilians, and a better police AI, Vice City is a must buy if you have yourself a PS2. Vice City reminds us that you can kill as many innocent civilians as you want so long as you have enough money to get your car resprayed to lose your wanted level.