Vanya On 42nd Street (1994)

My main knowledge of the Anton Chekov play Uncle Vanya is through its rehearsal and performance in the Japanese film, Drive My Car, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. I have always been aware of Vanya On 42nd Street (1994), a film adaptation of Vanya that reunited actors and playwrights Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, with the […]

Round About Midnight (1999)

Hiroyuki Sanada is a recognisable Japanese actor from Hollywood productions like The Last Samurai and John Wick 4, always giving a sense of dignity and substance to even mainstream action cinema clearly beneath his talents (Bullet Train, Mortal Kombat remake). In previous decades, there were leading roles in Japanese cinemas throughout the 1980s onwards. Round […]

Mean Guns (1997)

“The original Mambo king… makes you want to dance…” On video store shelves, I confused the cover of Mean Guns (1997) with another direct-to-video Christopher Lambert action movie, Gun Men, though the former would have been released during the transition to DVD. Becoming more and more part of the auteurist following to director Albert Pyun, […]

Hologram Man (1995)

Slash Gallagher. That’s the name of the bad guy in Hologram Man (1995), a sci-fi action techno-thriller from PM Entertainment Group. No doubt direct-to-video upon its release, watching it on a YouTube rip now, the film looks like television, yet has enough budget for multiple explosions and equipment to launch stunt people into the air […]

Rats In The Ranks (1996)

“You know what politics is? It’s not if you’re a bum, but if you’re a smaller bum than someone else.” I remember seeing Rats In The Ranks (1996) reviewed glowingly by Margaret and David on The Movie Show when it was on SBS, and then eventually this Australian documentary was screened on ABC. Revisiting it through a YouTube upload (it’s […]