Author: VHS Tracking

  • Seven Days In May (1964)

    Seven Days In May (1964)

    , , , , ,

    After experiencing the fantastic WW2 action thriller The Train, I was keen to see more of the movies that director John Frankenheimer and actor Burt Lancaster made together. Seven Days In May (1964) was filmed in 1963 before The Train was made, but experienced a delayed release after the assassination of JFK. A political thriller… Read.

  • Deadly Fight In Hiroshima (1973)

    Another Lewis Rice O’Donnell recommendation, The Yakuza Papers are a five film series of gangster movies directed by Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) based on news stories and journalists covering the post-war era. Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight In Hiroshima (1973) aka Hiroshima Death Match is the second movie in the series, and our… Read.

  • Orpheus (1950)

    Orpheus (1950)

    I knew little of Jean Cocteau (what a cultural barbarian I am!), mainly that he was a poet and an artist, and I’d always heard about his version of Beauty And The Beast with Jean Marais. When Mubi had Cocteau’s Orpheus (1950; aka Orphee) in their library as part of their French Cinema spotlight, also… Read.

  • The Sword Of Doom (1966)

    The Sword Of Doom (1966)

    All I knew about the Japanese movie The Sword Of Doom (1966) was the iconic image of a samurai in the middle distance of a forest, submerged in fog and surrounded by bodies felled by his sword. I didn’t realise that the film’s main character was an embodiment of evil. Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai) is… Read.

  • Knock Off (1998)

    Knock Off (1998)

    Director Tsui Hark’s gift to cinema: a POV shot of a foot going into a shoe. A knock off shoe that we receive extreme close ups of the wear and tear suffered as Jean Claude Van Damme pulls Rob Schneider on a cart in a competitive race through the streets of Hong Kong. And this… Read.