I didn’t know anything about this movie until I was well seated in the cinema chair. As soon as I saw that the movie was directed by Takeshi Kitano I knew I was in for a treat.
The movie is set in a small Japanese rural town run by two rivalling gangs. Zatoichi who is a blind masseur but in secret is a master swordsman stumbles into this town.
Quickly he meets up with a female farmer and two beautiful dancing and singing sister. Their goal becomes to fight the two gangs that are ruling the village and bothering the farmers.
Zatoichi’s nemesis is a ronin (Samurai with no owner) who as well is a master swords man. He is hired as bodyguard by one of the gang’s bosses and thus is put against Zatoichi.
Humour plays a big part in the movie, often serving as a relieve from violence and graphic scenes. The humour was sometime bit too childish from time to time but overall generated a nice atmosphere.
So, what does Stomp have to do anything with this? You’ll have to watch the movie, especially the ending, to find out.
Category: Films
Charlie (2004)
I was not impressed with this movie, not at all. The cheap production was very noticeable and the movie gave an impression of a TV documentary. Possibly something from National Geographic.
The only reason I went to see this movie was because of an user on IMDB. He/she compared this movie with my all time favourites ‘Lock Stock…’ and ‘Snatch’. Don’t be fooled though, ‘Charlie’ cannot be compared with the said movies in any way whatsoever.
The only thing worth seeing in this movie was Luke Goss performance as Charlie Richardson. Very realistic and performed with a lot of passion.
The lingering images in my mind are the gory and realistic torture scenes of various individuals.
I would not recommend this movie to my worst enemies;even less to my friends.
Looks like there is some controversy surrounding the movie. Looks like it might have been a movie about gangsters made by gangsters.
Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King
There has been a multitude of sequels and prequels during the last two years and in my opinion most of them have failed (no names). While the first movies were entertaining and fun to watch, the sequels were often a repetition or rehash of the first movie and sometimes just relied on a bigger budget and more action scenes (no names).
LOTR triology has been different. It is based on a fantastic triology which evolves very naturally. The director (Peter Jack) has been true to the story and the third and last episode (Return of the King) delivers 100%.
One thing that was bugging me while reading the third part was the constant jumping between the various parties and adventures; just when it was getting interesting on one side of Middle Earth, the story would jump to another part to start building up yet another tension.
In the movie however, this created a dramatic effect. Every now and then I looked around at the rest of the audience and there were many dropped jaws; that’s how gripping the movie was.
The scenery in the movie was stunning, probably the best scenery in any movie so far. Changing between green hills, wast prairies, snow covered mountain tops and not least volcanic ground.
Spun
Fasten your seat belt because this is a fast paced movie with quick dialogs and even quicker drug habits.
The movie follows the deranged and drug dependant lives of a group of people. Being either the producers or the consumers, they all have one thing in common; methamphetamine (speed). The high-light is a 3 days long drug odyssey for the main character Ross (Jason Schwartzman) where time seizes to exist.
The movie was directed by the Swede Jonas Akerlund and you will find several Swedish oddities in the movie if you look for them. An old brown Volvo 240 plays a central role, one song by Vikingarna (a Swedish folk band) is on the soundtrack and I suspect that the two blond toy-boys lounging with Cook’s gay patron are Swedes as well.
One might say that Mickey Rourke (The cook) puts on a great performance but I have my suspicions that he was just being him self. In my opinion Spider (John Leguizamo), Nikki (Brittany Murphy) and Ross put on the best performances. They act out their emotions very well.
The movie tries hard making an impact on the viewer but in the end it just comes across as offensive and bit shallow.
Love Actually (2003)
What a sweet, sweet movie from the writer of such classics like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary and more.
The main theme of Love Actually is that love is actually all around us despite all the negative vibes lately (wars, terrorism, natural catastrophes). We follow a group of people in their search for love.
There is the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) who falls in love with one of his staff. At first he is confused because of this but later he succumbs to love.
Funniest character is definitely the old rocker Billy Mack (Bill Nighy). He is determined to get a #1 with his song “xmas is around…” despite admitting how crap it is.
All these characters have seemingly one thing common, which is the search for love. Later it turns out that all character are somehow related
Of all the character, I could relate the most with Jamie (Colin Firth). He falls in love with a Portuguese woman (Sienna Guillory Lucia Moniz) without speaking a word with each other. Later he learns to speak Portuguese in evening class just to be able to ask her father for her hand. His charming words include the phrase: “I would like you to inhabit England with me”.
All in all a feel-good movie that I am looking forward to seeing again.
“When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love.”
Matrix: Revolutions
Well this was a bit pants. The kick ass action did not manage to salvage a questionable script.
It feels as if there never was a script or even a story for all three parts of Matrix. It feels as if there was a fantastic idea and great script for the first part. When it turned out to be a success, a rather rushed script was put together for the two sequels.
One noticeable thing in the Revolutions is that most of the movie is set out side of Matrix, i.e. in the real world. This is in contrast to the first Matrix were most of the action was inside the Matrix.
Still, the conclusion of the Matrix trilogy just has to be seen. Everyone has to make up their own mind because 4 years ago the Watchowski brothers started something revolutionary with the original Matrix.
Kill Bill, Vol. 1
Well this must be the most violent movie in a very, VERY long time. It’s not one of those psychologically violent movies where the scary images are in your mind. It is instead a movie filled with blood, spraying blood and congealed blood. It is not a movie for the fainthearted.
Nevertheless, it is a very captivating film mostly due to its chic soundtrack and heavy Japanese influence. Is it just me or is everything Japanese bizarrely cool.
The movie has the standard Tarantino-style irregular time line in which you are thrown in at the middle of the movie and only later you are revealed details about how things started. This time it is bit easier to follow since we are shown chapters and the number of next victim to be killed.
Apparently, making a two part movie started of as a joke when the movie running time was closing in to 3 hours but later it was not so funny anymore and the decision was made. To me it just seems to follow this years trend of sequels and sequels to sequels.
Kill Bill at IMDB
Werewolfs, vampires and a cute clown fish
“Underworld” was a very dark movie indeed. You are thrown into a battle between werewolves and vampires and it is hard to tell who is who. During the course of the movie you change your opinion about who is bad and who is good; several times.
The music and the dresses were very much inspired by The Matrix. Tight leather suits and sunglasses dominated the movie; as did the large amount of firearms.
The characters dreams and hallucinations used the same technique as was used in the Lord of The Rings when the ring was worn.
Movie buffs like us are not satisfied by one movie alone so we went straight to the next performance which turned out to be Finding Nemo.
The contrast between the two movies was surreal to say the least. From blodspitting and carnage in Underworld to cute animations and lovable characters in Finding Nemo.
Turtastic movie duuuuude.
Spooks: Season 1 DVD
Spooks is a British drama series about Series B, a counter terrorist section of MI5. This is the best drama series I have seen in a long time and the DVD presents it very well. The series uses suspense, intense music, split screens and realistic scenes to hold it’s viewers in a grip (or in the sofa).
The episodes were no surprise as I have seen most of them on TV but the added bonus on the DVD I would like to rave about.
First of all, the standard (boring) menu system has been replaced with an interactive movie of an intruder to the Section B office. You steer him to select audio options, scene index and cut scenes. First time I watched the DVD I actually thought the menu system was the first episode 😉
5.1 sounds makes the episodes even more dramatic than the TV version. Shame no sub-titles were put on as the dialogs tend to get complicated, especially with the addition of various British and American dialects.
Get the DVD here.
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
A glowing golden globe has been stolen. This globe is told to have a map inscribed on it that will leads it’s owner to the mythical Pandora’s Box.
Of course some baddie gets hold of the globe and plans to find Pandora’s box to unleash it’s content. Lara Croft is sent out to retrieve the globe and her adventure leads her to a secret place called the Cradle of Life.
Not bad at all. The movie is fast paced and the action scenes are entertaining. Lara Croft is as superior as ever and fun to watch. As long you don’t get annoyed by unrealistic story lines (it’s a movie) you should be ok.
More on the Internet Movie Database
[Listening to: Coming Of Age – Breaking Point — CD * – (04:09)]