In China They Eat Dogs

	Rating: 3 out of 5 Original Title: I Kina spiser de hunde Release Date: 1999 Director: Lasse Spang Olsen Netflix Link IMDb Link

I do love a good heist movie, and In China They Eat Dogs has one of the most interesting capers I’ve seen. It also has one of the dumbest resolutions ever. If not for the ending, I definitely would have given it 4 stars, but no, they had to go and ruin it. I have no choice but to drop a whole star off of my rating because of the ending and it’s lucky to get that.

In China They Eat Dogs definitely had potential. It has a good cast, some moments of humor, and even some really big explosions and lots of gushing blood. It also has an an interesting snowball-effect plot where the every-man protagonist attempts to change his life and seeks help from his violent, criminal brother setting off a downward slide deeper into the hole they dug for themselves. Again, I say, if it hadn’t been for the atrocious resolution that, quite frankly, pissed me off, this would have been a good film, but as it is, it’s a fail. It is worth watching up until the last five to ten minutes though. I’d recommend just making up your own ending.

No. 3

	Rating: 3 out of 5 Release Date: 1997 Director: Neung-han Song Netflix Link IMDb Link

If you've been paying attention, you know that I'm quite taken with a lot of the Korean crime dramas I've seen lately. The problem with No. 3 is that there's nothing "lately" about it. It is yet another curious example of a late 90's film looking and feeling like a late 80's film. Matters are not helped any by the magical mullet sported by the lead actor (it's on the cover). Instead of a tense, edge of your seat thriller, it ends up being just another Korean gangster dramazzzzzzzzz. This film probably came out before they knew what the hell they were doing. Min-Sik Choi, who's one of my favorite Korean actors and most likely the reason I bothered watching this in the first place, has a relatively small part. For what it's worth, it's been about a week since I saw this one, and already, I've pretty much forgotten the plot. There are a lot of good Korean gangster dramas out there, but this is not necessarily one of them.  I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're really desperate for something to watch. No. 3 gets my ho-hum rating of 3 stars. In fact, to cleanse my Min-sik Choi pallet, after watching this, I watched Thirst again.

Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay

	Rating: 2 out of 5 Original Title: Tokyo crisis wars Release Date: 1991 Director: Kazuo ‘Gaira’ Komizu Netflix Link IMDb Link

Meteor crashes, toxic clouds, zombies, battle girls… what could go wrong? Everything. I am all for cheese and Japan does some of the best cheese I’ve ever seen, especially the creative and gushing blood varieties, but this one goes beyond cheesy. This was a new release so I figured it was a new film. Once again, reading comprehension FAIL on my part. It was made in 1991, but it looks like it was made in 1981 with all the terrible special effects and new wave costumes. The only thing worse than a cheesy American 80′s movie is a cheesy Japanese 80′s movie. There wasn’t enough cheese to make it a good-bad movie; it just winds up being bad. Battle Girl isn’t really worth anyone’s time unless you want to see how terrible a movie can be in all quantifiable categories of terrible. Watch Hard Revenge, Milly instead.

47 Ronin

	Rating: 3 out of 5 Original Title: Shijushichinin No Shikaku Japanese: 四十七人の刺客 Release Date: 1994 Director: Kon Ichikawa Netflix Link IMDb Link

47 Ronin features one of the most commonly-used historical plots in all of samurai cinema. You see this in everything from Mizoguchi’s 47 Ronin to Inagaki’s Chushingura to Fukasaku’s Swords Of Vengeance, which are all far superior films. This version was made on the 100th anniversary of the play, Chushingura, and it seems as if it was made specifically as a marketing ploy. 47 Ronin distinguishes itself from the pack by casting a rather unsympathetic light on the ronin. There are no heroes here, only samurai doing what they think is right according to the Bushido code. Whether they are righteous or not is debatable. While this version is not a bad film and worth watching if you are familiar with and like the story, I would recommend the aforementioned versions instead.

Pom Poko

	Rating: 4 out of 5 Original Title: Heisei-era tanuki war Japanese: 平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ Release Date: 1994 Director: Isao Takahata Netflix Link IMDb Link

Yet again, an American distributor fails to give an accurate description of the Tanuki. While tanuki is the Japanese words for raccoon, the raccoons depicted in this film are mischievous woodland spirits that have been a part of Japanese folklore since ancient times, rather than raccoons like Americans know them. They talk, they shape-shift, they play tricks on humans like they have for generations. Tanuki are known, even renown, for their big, swinging… balls. They transform them into parachutes, they sing songs about swinging them, and all the male Tanukis in this film literally have a set.

I’ve been going through the Studio Ghibli catalog, most of which are released by Disney. Annoyingly, especially when you’re watching a bunch of them in a row, John Lasseter from Pixar pops up at the beginning of each of the films to fawn all over Hiyao Miyazaki and talk about how he’d like to have love child (not literally). But in this release, when they really could have used some sort of disclaimer or explanation of what a tanuki actually is, there is none. On the one film that could really use it, it’s absent. I can only imagine how upset some puritan parents must have been when they sat their child down to watch a bunch of swinging testicles, but children don’t typically notice these things I guess.

Pom Poko is a heartrending tale of man versus nature with not a few moments of sadness tempered with a general feeling of frivolity and humor. You feel for the Tanuki and their plight and almost feel envious of their freedom. It is worth watching for any fan of Japanese animation.

Sex and Zen

	Rating: 2 out of 5 Original Title: Yu pu tuan zhi: Tou qing bao jian Chinese: 玉蒲團之偷情寶鑑 Release Date: 1991 Director: Michael Mak Netflix Link IMDb Link

Sex and Zen is supposedly a comedy, but I couldn’t find the funny no matter how hard I looked. I couldn’t get past the horrible acting. I watched this in Cantonese with subtitles, and even in the actors’ native tongue, they’re terrible. And the plot isn’t much better than the acting. It’s like the director wanted an excuse to have lots and lots of softcore sex scenes, and tried to add the funny on top of it, rather than having comedy be an intrinsic part of the film. It’s not that I didn’t “get” it. Oh, I got it, but I just didn’t find it all that funny. If you like really stupid comedies with tons of unusual soft sex scenes, you might like this better than I did.

Green Fish

	Rating: 3 out of 5 Original Title: Chorok mulkogi Release Date: 1997 Director: Chang-dong Lee Netflix Link IMDb Link

Green Fish flips back and forth from gangster film to family drama, from deadly dull to fairly interesting. It looks older than it is – like it was made in the late 80′s rather than the late 90′s. The story is implausible, the acting is fair, and the direction is nothing special. This movie is billed as a thriller, which I would say is a bit of a stretch. A thriller implies some sort of thrills, of which there are few, if any, on display in Green Fish. In fact, the synopsis is actually way more interesting than the film. The dvd cover seems confused as well since, judging by it’s appearance, it looks like some sort of a romance. I wouldn’t say Green Fish is unwatchable, but there are far better Korean thrillers/gangster movies/family dramas out there.

Fist of Legend

	Rating: 4 out of 5 Original Title: Jing wu ying xiong / Cheung miu ying hung Release Date: 1994 Director: Gordon Chan Netflix Link IMDb Link

Directed by Gordon Chan and choreographed by the masterful Yuen Woo-ping, Fist of Legend is one of Jet Li’s finest films. There aren’t as many high-flying wire stunts as there are in other Li films, but it truly shows his power as a martial artist. Playing against Li are some excellent masters in their own right including the long-lived Yasuaki Kurata, who was a contemporary of Bruce Lee, and Siu-hou Chin. The new Dragon Dynasty release has excellent picture quality and subtitles. Yet, strangely, it’s still missing the deleted scenes (apparently only ever available in the Thai version), where the son is shown to be an opium addict with his prostitute girlfriend. I don’t know why they would still choose not to include those scenes in this new fancy version since, once you know that, it makes a whole lot more sense as to why the son of the legendary kung fu master and the new head of the school is off his game. Regardless, Fist of Legend is essential viewing if you’re a fan of Jet Li. 4 stars with a star deducted for the continued lack of the deleted scenes.

Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn

	Rating: 2 out of 5 Original Title: Uzel Release Date: 1999 Director: Aleksandr Sokurov Netflix Link IMDb Link

If you’re interested in watching a documentary featuring multiple views of the back of the director’s head, voyeuristic segments where nothing happens and uncomfortably close closeups, this is the documentary for you. There is nearly as much commentary and face time with the director as the subject and Sokurov even goes so far as to interrupt Solzhenitsyn while he is speaking. Solzhenitsyn’s past is merely glossed over in an opening montage, focusing more on his time spent in Vermont and his return to Russia after exile. Even at its egregious three-hour run time, you would get a better and more thorough impression of the author and his experiences simply by reading one of his books. Recommended only if you are incredibly curious as to what Solzhenitsyn looks like while walking and/or talking.

Brother

	Rating: 3 out of 5 Original Title: Brat Release Date: 1997 Director: Aleksey Balabanov Netflix Link IMDb Link

Perhaps I’ve watched too many violent movies about hitmen, but this film didn’t seem all that vicious, brutal or shocking to me. For a film about Russian contract killers in the post-Soviet era described as “in the shocking style of Quentin Tarantino and Lars von Trier”, it seemed rather tame. I suppose I was expecting more from this film than what I received. I’m willing to cut it some slack since, at the time, this was cutting edge stuff for Russian cinema, but watching it now, it seems uninspired and even dated. Although I found Brother to be mildly disappointing, it is definitely watchable and it’s still was better, or at least different, than your average Hollywood schlock in the same vein.