Lone Wolf And Cub: Baby Cart To Hades (1972)

There’s something about Tomisaburo Wakayama’s portly stature and sullen demeanour as Ogami Itto, the wandering ronin, at the centre of the Lone Wolf And Cub series. A highly skilled and almost invincible assassin, Wakayama grounds everything with his grumpy stoicism and physicality, particularly in the face of enemy hordes and gushing blood sprays. Or in […]

Blastfighter (1984)

One golden rule about Italian genre flicks if you can’t get Franco Nero as the lead, then get a guy who looks him. Maurizio Merli was busy, so for the motion picture titled Blastfighter (1984) Michael Sopkiw steps in with an effective moustache, playing the role of “Tiger” Sharp, an ex-cop released from prison for […]

The Grandmaster (2013)

I can’t remember much of a cinema release for Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster (2013); it felt like its mixed reception resulted in an underwhelming reputation. Unexpectedly a martial arts movie for fans of Wong Kar-wai’s arthouse melodramas, it might have been too much of an arthouse melodrama for fans of martial arts movies. I was […]

Drunken Master II (1994)

Over the closing credits of Drunken Master II (1994; aka The Legend Of Drunken Master), as tradition with a lot of Jackie Chan movies, we see out-takes of the stunts and action sequences. And it helpfully confirms that Jackie Chan did indeed throw himself onto an actual bed of fiery coals in the factory climax, […]

The Hidden (1987)

Somewhere between The Thing and The Terminator lies… The Hidden (1987). I have a strong memory of the VHS in my local video store being adorned with a “Recommended” sticker, which always jumped out at me, particularly for movies that I’d never heard of or felt had received a cinema release, and getting that extra […]