Review of Speed Grapher: Vol. 3 (Review)
Introduction If you`ve been following the exploits of Saiga, Kagura and the Tennouzu Group as the previous volumes have been released in the UK, you`ll probably be looking forward to this volume (and the others to follow) as the show is really rather good. This third release from the series continues the tale of the former war journalist and the heiress on the run from the ultra-powerful...

Review of Nuri Bilge Ceylan: The Early Works (2 Discs) (Review)
Introduction Despite being a huge fan of European and world cinema, particularly the utter contrast with modern Hollyweird and the diversity of films being made in our lovely little (big) continent, there are still some incredibly talented artists within this slice of the film industry that haven`t even hit this reviewer`s deep-space radar. Nuri Bilge Ceylan was one of those, at least until a...

Review of Gun X Sword: Vol. 3 - Separate Ways (Review)
Introduction MVM are busting out volumes of `Gun X Sword` faster than an LA County Sheriff can throw a spoilt and rich amateur porn star out of jail; the review for volume 2 had barely any time to bask in all its haphazardly-written glory when volume 3 landed on the doormat. So we`re now halfway through the series, episodes 9 through 12 to be precise, and by either sheer coinkydink or clever pre-t...

Review of New Fist of Fury (Review)
Introduction Wei Lo`s `New Fist of Fury` is a remake-of-sorts of his Bruce Lee starring - and not to mention influential - 1972 martial arts picture `Fist of Fury`, where, like Robert Rodriguez`s `Desperado` and John Carpenter`s `Escape From LA`, the director has taken a hamfisted approach to canon by moulding similar plot points and scenarios into a story rehash, while acknowledging within the...

Review of Speed Grapher: Vol. 2 (Review)
Introduction The second volume of GONZO`s `Speed Grapher` is now upon us, hastily on the heels of the first. MVM seem to be making a point of getting these out fairly quickly, and for such a story-driven series with a real sense of urgency, this is most welcome. As mentioned in the first volume review, it`s quite a bonus to MVM`s catalogue to have picked up such an interesting series, especially...

Review of Commissar, The (2-Disc Edition) (Review)
Introduction Few films can boast a history as troubled as that of Aleksandr Askoldov`s `The Commissar`. The 1967 feature was made in one of the techiest periods of Soviet censorship, shortly after the Khrushchev Thaw, and the Goskino (the USSR`s iron-fisted equivalent of a film board, albeit with supreme governmental decree) were angered by the portrayal of Jewish oppression and anti-Semitism in...

Review of Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (Review)
Introduction Zatoichi is one of Japanese cinema`s most iconic and enduring characters. A nomadic blind swordsman, he featured in 25 films from 1962 to 1973, followed by a television series which ran between 1974 and 1979, and the character became synonymous with the actor who played him, Shintaro Katsu. After a 10-year hiatus from the character and 15-years since the last movie entry, Katsu would...

Review of Cousin Cousine (Review)
Introduction If anyone was going to make a light-hearted tale about the relatively taboo subject of family members knocking boots, it was going to be the French. In 1976`s `Cousin Cousine`, Victor Lanoux and Marie-Christine Barrault play Ludovic and Marthe, disillusioned thirty-somethings who meet at the wedding of Ludovic`s uncle and Marthe`s mother. Step-cousins of sorts, when they discover...

Review of Looking for a Grail Legend (Review)
Introduction Dan Brown has a lot to answer for. Not content with recycling old theories and quite content to have them hailed as new and edgy in response to his novel `The Da Vinci Code`, the popular legitimacy of the Grail legend as a clandestine Catholic conspiracy as opposed to discredited psuedohistorical gubbins - all his doing - has turned the endearing ancient myth of the Grail as a...

Review of For Catherine (Review)
Introduction There was once a time outside Hollyweird when indie films were automatically cool and popular, simply because they were indie films. Low budget, underground flicks mired in the counter-culture of the post-baby boomers and the thirty year `Generation X` era, their lack of financing from the large corporate entities and the studio system appealed to the cynicism and nihilism of a...

Review of Co/Ma (Review)
Introduction Here`s the scoop. Esteemed British director Mike Figgis (`Leaving Las Vegas`) holds a seven day workshop for a selection of young European directors, actors, editors and writers in, of all places, Slovenia. Tasked with making a feature film on a tight budget by working as a team - with the resulting product to be screened for the public - `Co/Ma` is a documentary that follows the...

Review of Prestige, The (Review)
Introduction Brit director Christopher Nolan is the true golden child of Hollywood. After bursting onto the scene with the masterfully told `Memento`, he proved he was no one trick pony by turning in a high-end refashion of Norwegian thriller `Insomnia`, and then sealed his reputation as an A1 talent with the fantastic `Batman Begins`, meddling in a little necromancy in raising the festering...

Review of Secret Lives of Dentists, The (Review)
Introduction A budget re-release of Tartan stock from Prism Leisure, `The Secret Lives of Dentists` - based on the novella, `The Age of Grief` by Jane Smiley - is the story of mild-mannered dentist (like there`s any other kind!) David (Campbell Scott), who, through an act of happenstance, sees events which lead him to believe his wife Dana (Hope Davis), also a dentist, is having an affair with...

Review of Weeds: Season One (Review)
Introduction If HBO is the popular, cool kid of US pay-per-view subscription cable, with the swearing and the sex and the ra-ra-ra, then Showtime is its dirty little minx of a cousin - just that little bit edgier, likely to do the kinky stuff, with word of mouth notoriety and a proclivity to go just that little bit further... for a premium. Both channels go above basic cable expectations by...

Review of Gun X Sword: Vol. 1 - Endless Illusion (Review)
Introduction As someone probably never once said, "Why choose between and gun and a sword when you can have them both?" `Gun X Sword` (or `GUNxSWORD`, `Gun Sword` or simply `GXS` depending on who you listen to) takes this non-quote and runs with it. Although it isn`t particularly prevalent thematically to the series, it sure is a damn fine weapon. It`s found on the arm of wandering vagabond Van,...

Review of Egypt Mania (Review)
Introduction In Cairo`s Tahir Square stands the beautiful Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, colloquially the Egypt Museum. Established in the early 19th century with the purpose of preserving and protecting national artefacts and to reduce theft from historical sites around the country, the jewel in the museum`s crown are the objects found in the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, discovered during...

Review of Northern Exposure: Season 5 (Review)
Introduction `Northern Exposure`, originally broadcast by Channel 4 as part of the their US TV stable, was an offbeat, almost cultish show that seemed to resonate well with a significant British fanbase. Running from 1990 to 1995, and set in the fictional Alaskan town of Cicely, Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) was the fractious New York doctor forced to repay the state for putting him through school...

Review of Koffee with Karan: Volume 1 (Review)
Introduction Not being big fans of Bollywood cinema here, it was impossible to know whether Karan Johar is the Parky or the Graham Norton of Indian pop interviewers. So when Reviewer received 3 volumes of his hit English-speaking chat show `Koffee With Karan`, split among three reviewers like three unloveably ugly triplets separated at birth, each of us was forced to fend for ourselves on a topic...

Review of Right At Your Door (Review)
Introduction Fans of Fox`s still-good-but-losing-steam-after-five-seasons anti-terrorist smash `24` will find themselves in familiar territory with the metropolitan meltdown first-time writer/director Chris Gorak paints in `Right At Your Door`, known as `Deliver Us From Evil` in the US. On a seemingly average, uneventful morning, at some point between waking to make a fresh pot of coffee and...

Review of Unborn But Forgotten (Tartan Asia Extreme) (Review)
Introduction Tartan`s A-horror, or more precisely, K-horror release sees the lovely Sun-jin making a documentary by following around South Korean detective Lee Seok going about his daily business. But when he investigates a recent death, Sun-jin finds herself drawn into a web of supernatural mystery involving an enigmatic website, which once visited, spells imminent doom and a rather grisly death....

Review of Inner Senses (Tartan Asia Extreme) (Review)
Introduction Featuring the Chinese mega star Leslie Cheung in his last role before his tragic suicide in 2003, `Inner Senses` is the story of Jim Law, a pretentious and unsociable psychologist, who is referred a patient by a colleague at the hospital. The patient is the lovely young Yan and she claims to see ghosts. Jim, a natural skeptic and man of science, steadfastly refutes her tales of the...

Review of Outside Edge: Series 3 (Review)
Introduction `Outside Edge` is fine, and so it should be, considering that`s the series` name. But happen this show come up in conversation, you`re far more likely to get someone`s little gray cells firing if you simply call it `The ITV comedy with all the cricket`. Most folks will know what you`re on about then. Cricket seems an odd `sit` for a `sitcom`, and considering it ran during the...

Review of Marlene Dietrich: The Movie Collection (Review)
Introduction Marlene Dietrich may not have been the number one actress of her generation, but she was certainly in the running as one of the most charismatic of the film idols. An American-German, she had a movie career that lasted 6 decades, and was one of only a handful of screen stars who possessed eyes that with youth emblazoned beauty across her face, and with age became globes of wizened...

Review of Requiem From The Darkness: Vol.2 - Human Atrocity (Review)
Introduction The second volume of this ambitious anime, based on a novel by Natsuniko Kyogoku, is now thrust upon the great British anime buying public. A thirteen-part series split over four volumes, the second, titled `Human Atrocity` brings us into the era of the series` short-change volumes. Even if you skipped your school maths lessons for a smoke round the back of the bike shed or a spot of...

Review of World of Lee Evans, The (Review)
Introduction Forget the Edinburgh Fringe`s Perrier award. If Lee Evans deserves a water-themed recognition, surely it`s got to be as Britain`s official sweatiest person. Forget pop-flop Rik Waller and Pete "better off dead" Doherty`s publicist, no-one sheds the wet stuff like Lee Evans. A proponent of hi-octane physical comedy, the guy gets up on stage, bandies about like a lunatic and drenches...

Review of LovecraCked! The Movie (Review)
Introduction Ah, Howard Philip Lovecraft - where would the world of modern literature be without your grandiose, sci-fi tinged works of horror most macabre? Well, there`d be less hacks like Stephen King, that`s for bloody sure. And Rod Serling`s imagination may not have been half as active as it was to create `The Twilight Zone`. You see, old HP (as he was known to his chums) is probably the...

Review of Ikki Tousen (Battle Vixens): Complete Box Set (Review)
Introduction Boobs and knickers for everyone! Yup, Ikki Tousen is all about the boobs and knickers, particularly those which belong to Hakufu. The naive youngster moves to Tokyo at the behest of her mother and finds herself caught up in the rivalry between the various schools in the area. The students at these schools are `fighters`, blessed with sacred gemstones handed down over generations,...

Review of Boo (Review)
Introduction Teenagers - they never bloody learn. If they`re not playing their rubbish music far too loud, turning the bathroom into an dirty cesspool and blaming the dog or sneaking out of the house with a packet of dad`s ciggies for an illicit underage smoke, they`re breaking into haunted houses for a midnight thrill and a spot of heavy petting. The thing is, these spook shacks are generally...

Review of Night Gallery: Season 1 (Box Set) (Review)
Introduction Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Night Gallery... After five years, 156 episodes and many a childhood nightmare, the original series of `The Twilight Zone` ended in 1964. Although never a massive ratings success, it had a large hand in introducing hard science fiction concepts to the masses, and its morality tales hidden behind the facade of fantastic stories of the...

Review of Ninja Scroll: Box Set (Review)
Introduction Non-stop, rollercoaster anime doesn`t get much better than Yoshiaki Kawajiri`s samurai action feature, `Ninja Scroll`. While the 1993 feature boasted a smooth blend of frenetic swordplay, imaginative characters, black humour and a smidge of classic Japanese folklore, it`s remembered most for its graphic scenes of sex and violence that were greeted by cheers from teenage boys...