Moebius review
Kim Ki-duk’s life took an unexpected diversion in 2008 after an incident on the set of his film Dream almost led to the hanging of one of the actresses. The director retreated to a remote location to work through his feelings about the incident, and this led to his part-documentary feature Arirang, an occasionally fascinating, but also torturous, experience. … Read more
The Expendables 3 review
What began as the somewhat amusing high-concept premise of teaming up affectionately remembered, older action stars, and perhaps not much more, has now spawned two sequels and will soon, I have no doubt, be a wider franchise with further sequels and a number of spin offs. The Expendables 3, which is hardly exceptional but by far the best of … Read more
Blu-ray essentials: Re-Animator
Rather surprisingly Stuart Gordon‘s début feature, Re-Animator, was originally conceived as a television series for PBS. The source material, H.P. Lovecraft‘s Herbert West-Reanimator, would have lent the project a certain amount of in-built respectability but it’s hard to imagine the small screen version would have been quite so splatter filled and delightfully boundary pushing. But, oh … Read more
The brilliance of Panna Rittikrai’s inspirational action cinema
Filmmaker, action choreographer and martial artist Panna Rittikrai sadly passed away on July 20th. He was just 53 years old. One of my favourite memories of his work is from his 1984 directorial debut, Born to Fight. There’s a scene where Rittikrai is teaching two kids how to fight, and he gives a demonstration of his own skills as a martial … Read more