Deadly Outlaw: Rekka (2002)

Yakuza movies are very macho, often mainly about male gangsters either meeting in board rooms or fighting each other in the street. The best Yakuza movies interrogate the codes of honour and loyalty that are merely lip service to the criminal drive to make money and grab power. Takashi Miike has a hundred plus movies […]

Kaili Blues (2015)

When it comes to slow cinema, there can sometimes be a split inside myself during the experience. Like in Kaili Blues (2015), there’s a beautiful long take of the camera watching Chen Shen (Yongzhong Chen) on the back of a motorbike as it winds around mountain roads, greenery and mist in the landscape behind them. […]

Fascination (1979)

There’s something prototypical about a Jean Rollin film, in that it can be classified as what people would think of when it comes to ‘Euro-horror’ (nude women, vampires, castles). And yet, there’s something distinct, which probably helps when you’ve seen a few other 1970s exploitation movies. That there’s something slow and atmospheric, which feels very […]

Golden Queen’s Commando (1983)

As a Taiwanese action film, Golden Queen’s Commando (1983) aka Seven Black Heroines is an explosion at the cliche factory, producing a very entertaining smash-up of World War II mission movies and spaghetti westerns. This was such a fun time, that I could forgive the pan and scan VHS rip version available on Tubi (I think there’s […]

Dudes (1987)

Memories of the Dudes (1987) VHS cover in the Comedy aisle of a video store, Jon Cryer and Daniel Roebuck with their hands up next to a cactus, promising fish-out-of-water laughs with two punkers in a western, radiating Bill and Ted comparisons, or even Wayne’s World (not knowing as a kid that they were from the same director, Penelope […]