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Re:Born (2016)
Japanese fighting like FIlipinos
Casting and story is good. And the main characters can actually do martial arts, so nothing looks bad. But they look uncoordinated and there's a lot of digital help. It's more action than anything else, but it's like Ninja Kali/Eskrima and it looks off. And the protagonist has ninja pyschic powers. It's just a really weird mix of Fantasy Japanese with WWII Filipino guerilla. Not bad at all. And techniques were real. It was way better than the Jason Bourn stuff. Just weird for me seeing Japanese fighting like Filipinos. And mixing psychic powers with practical killing techniques. Better than Hollywood anyday, though.
Mulan (2020)
Funny Film
Chinese people faking a Chinese accent is hilarious! On top, this is the first Hollywood film ever to have macho Asians with bass in their voice. These guys are manlier than all the non-Asian men in Hollywood film. As usual with Hollywood, leading roles are miscast. Mulan doesn't look boyish. Honghui looks like Korea's 'Rain' before a Captain America mutation. If you are a martial arts lover, the goofy digi-fight scenes are fun. This 2020 Mulan is good a good comedy. I recommend if you like Rifftrax and MST3K.
Supurigan (1998)
Excellent--Not for the Religious
Frankly, Spriggan will be offensive to those who literally perceive Western holy books and/or who are pro-America. It is best if they avoid this film. It is no wonder that the movie seems to be censored in America. Spriggan is not produced in the United States and vendors from Amazon UK will not even ship to the U.S. Real collectors will want a copy just because of its rarity.
Pacing is great and action is superb. The good-guys are the standard boring but the villains are fun. The animation has a personal style and is fluid.
Anyone who thinks Spriggan is a poor film is a person with very specific expectations.
Society (1989)
Not Lovecraftian--Literally, Down to Earth
Lovecraft's stories focused on the unknown and extra-terrestrial. Society, on the other hand, makes all its terrestrial elements gruesomely known. This is the only film I've seen whose aliens are not an immediate threat to the world because they have been with humans since the beginning, quietly shepherding man.
Society's core story trumps every conspiracy theory you'll ever find. One could actually play with the core story and be able to explain the depredations of society, just as the old White Wolf Studios were able to do with the original Vampire: The Masquerade. Silly folk like David Icke with his reptilian theory should hire able writers, or at least, get some inspiration from literature.
Society's pacing is good. The acting is good. The special effects are superb. The film is a part of my top ten best horror movies list.
The Blob (1988)
Very Well-Written, Pay Attention!
Nothing on screen in The Blob is ever independent: it always relates to some other part of the film. The best example is of the priest who is judgmental of others. Particular attention is paid to him walking home and dropping his bottle of alcohol, a show of him being hypocritical. He is shown, early on, the take a sample of the crystal blob. At The Blob's end, the priest has embraced his evil nature, taking advantage of the weak-minded through religion and at the same time holding the key to the apocalypse. The Blob's ending, then, is provided for: not some curve ball out of nowhere intended to shock the viewer. There is even another subtle detail. The priest is one of the first characters shown in the film, standing in the bleachers of the football game.
The method of defeating the blob is introduced in the first few minutes of the film: the snow machine. Deaths are even hinted at through dialogue before they occur: Flagg asks if he is a 'broken man' to Deputy Briggs; forty minutes later, Briggs is broken in half. Nothing in The Blob goes to waste.
Why is The Blob's rating only 6.3? Because people don't pay attention to good writing. The rating is only that high because people cannot ignore the film's groundbreaking special effects (which have yet to be outdone, twenty years later).
Give The Blob another chance, preferably with the subtitles on! You will be pleasantly surprised at just how good it really is! And lament! For the up and coming remake is bound to be half-assedly written and the digi-blob will look like stiff puke.
Silent Running (1972)
A Thoroughly Consumerized America
Silent Running is based on the very real possibility that there will be no more 'right' to life in the United States because its citizens would not be allowed to grow food. Forty years after the film's release, the the current advance of 'right to farm' laws champions corporate domination over all food sources.
Little did the creators of Silent Running know that the majority of Americans forty years later would, indeed, reject real food, favoring processed food instead, just as in their film.
Silent Running even covers why Americans would find the situation perfectly acceptable: because a thoroughly 'democratized' nation would ideally be able to provide labor opportunities to the entirety of its marginalized proletariat.
The film's intelligence is subtle and carried through by an effort of pure-heartedness, hindered only by very poor pacing. If one's patience can last until the development of the lovable Drone's personalities, finishing the film won't be any problem.
Shi cheng (2014)
A blight on the Zombie Apocalypse
Films without plots can be done well given good direction and acting. Well-written films can be good despite bad directors and actors. Zombie Fight Club has no good element in its production.
"So bad it's good" doesn't even fly with this film. The more-American-than-American accents provide the bulk of the humor. The film's focus on the innate evil of humanity (its only constant) oozes away any value a good riffing might redeem it with.
Zombie Fight Club directly takes elements of The Raid and The Walking Dead and removes the elements of 'Redemption'. Instead, the martial arts police are dirty cops and the civilians are plagued by a distinctly East Asian pathology. The crux of Zombie Fight Club is the argument that humankind is innately evil, and, pushed to the limit, will gleefully discard its visage of goodness. Even the two protagonists, who bear a transparent semblance of morality, lack any dignity.
Romero's legacy is dismantled and digitally spit on by Zombie Fight Club. If you want to enjoy a poor zombie movie, stick to films like Redneck Zombies. In the very least, the garage special effects will be more entertaining than Zombie Fight Club's digital massacre.