Tai-Chi Master (1993)

Yuen Woo-ping is the legendary Hong Kong action choreographer, who Hollywood eventually took notice of, working on films like The Matrix and Kill Bill. Wire work was one of his signature techniques, delivering beyond the athletic prowess of the actors and stunt people to depict them flying through the air. In Tai-Chi Master (1993; also […]

Before We Vanish (2017)

Yusuke Hayashi’s score for Before We Vanish (2017) – directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa – brings to mind memories of Amblin Entertainment productions. There’s something about the orchestral sweep, its eerie tension and yet a little twinkle-in-the-eye feeling. The sound of an alien invasion movie, and with Kurosawa’s genius for creating tension and unease through blocking, framing and […]

Bloody Moon (1981)

Must a film be coherent? Eurohorror has so much to teach us. The American slasher genre filtered through Spanish director Jess Franco in gun-for-hire mode. Accentuated by watching the English dub where the voiceover artists are rushing through dialogue at a speedy clip, another layer to what is already alien onscreen behaviour. A group of […]

Venus In Furs (1969)

The meeting point between exploitation demands and arthouse pretensions is ideal cinematic terrain to my mind. Base pleasures that Venus In Furs (1969) – directed by Jess Franco – offers is nudity and sex (well, what accounts for it late 1960s international cinema) with Maria Rohm nude in a fur coat with stockings and a […]

Kamikaze Hearts (1986)

One of the first scenes in Kamikaze Hearts (1986) I couldn’t get enough of. Sharon Mitchell sitting in the back of an open top convertible, driving through San Francisco, as she plays to the camera in her leather jacket and sunglasses. If you didn’t know Sharon Mitchell as an adult film star, in this moment, […]