Four Of The Apocalypse (1975)

Four Of The Apocalypse (1975) is a late-period spaghetti western, as the Italian genre was on the decline in the 1970s, directed by Lucio Fulci. Even though this before Fulci’s ‘Gates of Hell’ trilogy, and some of the more gnarlier movies that would make his name as a horror filmmaker (Zombi 2, The New York […]

Exiled (2006)

Exiled (2006) is Hong Kong director Johnnie To’s tribute to the spaghetti western embedded within a contemporary gangster film. The opening sequence sets the tone. An apartment where a woman, Jin (Josie Ho) feeds a baby, waiting for her partner, Wo (Nick Cheung). She is visited by two sets of men. One duo – Blaze […]

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 […]

Lone Wolf And Cub: Baby Cart At The River Styx (1972)

I had a VHS copy of Lone Wolf And Cub: Baby Cart At The River Styx (1972), the second film in the wandering samurai and son series from Japan, taped on a VCR during a SBS Cult Movie night. I’ve always remembered it vividly because the bad guys are a group of highly skilled assassins, […]

Ghost Of Mars (2001)

John Carpenter is one of my all time favourite directors. When I first saw John Carpenter’s Ghosts Of Mars (2001) on DVD when it came out, I was pretty disappointed. Then, later, when I found out it was originally intended as another Escape movie that was rewritten after Escape From LA’s lack of success, it […]