When a Samurai Seek an Honorable End in Hara-kiri Way

Takashi Miike’s “Thirteen Assassins” remake has widely considered as one of Japan’s best films of 2010, therefore, the director is back with another effort to remake another classic in Japan’s movie history. This time, Miike’s target is the 1963 Cannes Film Festival’s Special Jury Award winner “Harakiri” (Japanese: Seppuku) directed by acclaimed filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi. Miike’s new film originally titled “Ichimei” in Japan language that loosely translated as “A Life”, a complete contradictory to the international release title “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai”, right? The 1962 film itself was actually an adaptation of “Ibun rônin-ki” novel written by Yasuhiko Takiguchi about an out of work samurai who wants to commit seppuku

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Summer Reviews: June Movie Recaps

Transformers: Dark of the MoonA little bit better than the ‘messier than all messy stuffs’ previous film but this latest (and one hopes final) effort of Michael Bay to destroy every city in United States with his robotic battalions is still a carnival of metallic special effects on top of everything else. Audiences will likely have enough fun time with the $200 million-dollar tagged full FX action sequences, and in addition to the positive side, this

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Review Mix: Norwegian Wood, Bangkok Knockout, Scream 4

Norwegian Wood
Score: 7/10

Some have thought that most novels of one of Japanese great writers, Haruki Murakami, are unfilmable. It because not only much of the content of his books were based on the characters’ observation and their state of emotion, or even the writer’s observation on the world he creates, but they also have complex themes and heavily poetic prose. However, unlike his former stories, Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood” is one of the most down to earth of his works, setting in a real world with a realistic tone, which made it quite a good entrant to be adapted into a film. And in the hands of Vietnam-born director whose past works include the award winning “Cyclo” (1995) and “The Scent of Green Papaya” (1993), Tran Anh Hung, Murakami’s bestselling 1987 novel has indeed successfully turned into a feature film. Set in late 1960s Tokyo, the story focuses on Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama), a student who begins a relationship with beautiful but

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2011 Asian Packed Summer Tentpole Movies: Episode 1

Summer is almost here. We can feel the heat of the sun again. But this season is now more than beaches and barbecues. It's also when Hollywood studios releases some of their biggest motion pictures, star-studded and full of sequels, also ranging from good to not-so-good to downright embarrassing. Though not as extravagance as Hollywood blockbuster, Asian also have their tradition to release some of the most anticipated films in summertime. They can be nice choices for some moviegoers who might want a different taste of Summer movies, or just getting a bit bored with those Hollywood dishes. Saying that, what do we have in store for 2011? Here are our choices for Asian summer films that should be entertaining enough to be worthy of your time driving off the beach and heading to the theater.

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Review Mix: Sucker Punch, Let The Bullets Fly, Space Battleship Yamato

Sucker Punch
Score: 5,5/10

Zack Snyder is a filmmaker who never goes low-priced when it comes to the visualization of a film. I’ll even come clean to giving him a pass on story because he gets premium marks for a great looking work, but there aren’t adequate bonus points in the universe to excuse all of the malfunctions, of which there are scores of, in this particular picture. The film indeed doesn’t start off badly. It shows the main character, Babydoll, driven from her home to a house for the insane in a brilliantly revealed title on the rain-splashed window of the 1960s car that’s transporting her to her new nightmare. Later, as its 109 minutes tick away, the film plunging us into Babydoll’s imagination as it echoes the idea popularized by “Inception” that dreams exist within dreams, showcases with Snyder’s evident love of digitally enhanced, over-the-top ultra-violence in super slo-mo style. Yes, there’s arresting imagination and visuals sprinkled throughout this one, like a video

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Romantic Movies You May Have Never Heard Of

Valentine's Day falls on a Monday this year, probably the least romantic day of the week. But whenever it's, Valentine always the most special time to expressing your love for your someone special, and there can be no better romantic idea than to spend quality time with your partner watching good valentine movies. You can easily find

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Café’s 2010 Best of Eastern Cinema

Before the clock struck midnight, and we all screamed "Happy New Year" and gave each other best wishes, we've finalized our list of the 20 best movies of year. But let me be perfectly clear first. The list that follows may not represent the best movies of 2010 in everyone’s mind, but they certainly were our favorite. And coming foremost below in no particular order are the 10 Best of Eastern Cinema. By the way, since tomorrow is Christmas so I want to Wish you all a special Merry Christmas day and above is our sweet Merlion whishing card. Enjoy.

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Goemon: Modernized The Fantasy With Astonishing Visual

Kaz Kiriya is a Japanese video music director who began attracted some movie observers by his potentiality as a visionary filmmaker, with the live action rendition of futuristic anime “Casshern.” Through his undeniable gift for visuals, Kiriya brought to life an illustration that we once thought could only exist plausibly in the world of animation. From the luscious green trees of the “forest” to the industrial wasteland, each backdrop is brought to life with elegance and beauty. Everything we see in his film evokes a sense of nostalgia for a past that has never existed. Taking the influences of early sci-fi elements ranging from “War of the Worlds” to “Metropolis,” his “Casshern” crafts a familiar world in which we’ve taken the pleasure in escaping to for the better part of the 20th century. Even Casshern's most vehement detractors will admit that the film's groundbreaking visuals are truly something special. Now, the director is back with his new creation that already stunned many movie freaks with its trailer only,

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Let’s Celebrate The Season of Love

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
- Sam Keen, from To Love and Be LovedFebruary is the month for love. With Valentine's Day just right around the corner make it’s so traditional to celebrate love this month. But for me Valentine is not just a day to show the love I have for my better half but to show my appreciation, affection and good feelings I carry for my friends, family and the special people around me. Although I do not need a special day to remind me of that, but having a specific day is a perfect opportunity to celebrate these feelings. The images of love we start to see everywhere are ones of diamonds, chocolates and flowers. These things are easy to associate with affection, aren't they? But somehow,

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Nightmare Detective On Tokyo Street Return

October is Halloween month, so, I’m gonna starting this month with talking about a horror film. You can blame me but I just really can’t help my self to not intriguing by this genre. Ok, now my study is fall upon Japanese chiller “Nightmare Detective 2,” which is a highly anticipated sequel in a planned trilogy to one of the few Japan horrors that able to hoarded critical praise and positive reviews nowadays. The first film “Nightmare Detective” was release in 2007 and soon became one of the most popular and highly rated Japanese horror films, noted for its haunting atmosphere, complex characters, dark and gritty story, intense visuals and

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Fall And Holiday Asian Dishes Menu Peek

This is a continuance article to “Fall And Holiday Movie Menu Peeks”. Now I’ll give some peeks to many new flavors from the Asian dishes which you can consume on this fall and holiday season. Primarily, Asian cinema will coloring with numerous historical epic again this time, they are including the second part of Asian most ambitious project to date, “Red Cliff,” Thai postponement sea epic “Queen of Langkasuka,” Korean

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Upcoming 20th Century Boys Prophecy

If Hollywood is trade on their popular comic books to quarrying fresh idea as the way to make new summer moneymakers, Japan as a manga hometown also have their own tactic which is absolutely utilizing their comics that were infamous as manga to become a big screen blockbuster. One and recently success of this movie based on manga is “Death Note,” which then its big screen appearance was extended with two sequels, “The Last Name” and “L Change the World.” This summer, once again another popular manga will have its turn to experiencing the movie lavishness form. The title is

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The Ring of L Will Change The World

Japan director who’s famous with his worldly phenomenal J-horror “Ringu”, Hideo Nakata will return this year with his latest work “L: Change The World”. This movie is a spin off to the popular Japan fantasy which based on an anime series “Death Note”. L story will more focus on the early life of the eccentric detective L when he was in the U.S, and also about his life after the events of the previous two “Death Note” films, and it was an original material which is not based on the story of the manga or anime. Kenichi Matsuyama will reprise his role as the odd guy

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Upcoming Asian Vision on Science Fiction

2007 seems like a little unkind year for Sci-fi movies, none of this theme of movie that could become a blockbuster this year. Titles like “Next”, “Sunshine”, or “The Invasion”, all were thumbed down by the fever of sequel movies which conquered the year (Except “Transformer” which I think more to an action fantasy than a science fiction). Every year, the genre seems keep reduced by the quantities even the qualities, it’s kind of missing about when will Hollywood could repeat it glorious with Sci-fi movies just like the time when films such as, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Alien”, “E.T” or “Blade Runner” topped with its magic charm on the audiences. Asian tries to fill the quietness of sci-fi world in Hollywood by create their own style of the genre, and how about the result? For sure, we don’t know until these films out for

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