Full of tension and spellbinding action, Escape from Mogadishu is another killer South Korean modern actioner.
Escape from Mogadishu is a South Korean Action/Drama/Thriller from director Ryoo Seung-wan that tells the true story of the efforts of both North & South Korea’s involvement in the Somali Civil War and their combined efforts to escape the city alive.
This film was such a riveting experience from beginning to end. With heart pounding action, hard hitting drama, and fantastic performances, this is without a doubt one of the best films to be released this year.
Director Ryoo, who also helmed the outstanding The City of Violence and the gripping The Berlin File, infuses the proceedings with so much suspense it almost becomes unbearable at times. He is aided greatly by a first rate cast, who all turn in excellent performances.
It’s worth noting that the conflict that begins in this film is also the same conflict at the heart of Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down. This would make a great double feature bill, if your heart could withstand it all.
And the action sequences are all absolutely spellbinding. The film is a slow burn affair, so you have to wait a bit for things to begin. But when it does, it becomes an absolute spectacle of nail biting tension.
So if you have the chance, do check out Escape from Mogadishu. It’s a thoroughly enthralling tale that I highly recommend.
BLADE: TRINITY, Wesley Snipes, 2004, (c) New Line/courtesy Everett Collection
A look back at the best — and most ultimate — of the original Blade movies.
Action fans love Wesley Snipes for his roles in Demolition Man and some minor classics such as Passenger 57, but his by far most iconic role was as the vampire hunter Blade. No one played a stone-cold killing machine for the forces of good better than Snipes.
The crusade of the Daywalker against vampires and other abominations is one of the few R-rated takes on a Marvel comic book series, and to this day still the best adaptation of any of their comics. In this short ranking, we’ll have a look at the three films this awesome franchise has produced. So let’s grab our Katana and Uzi and venture into the night!
The closure of the trilogy fizzled out instead of going out with a bang. Plagued by a feud between director David S. Goyer and Wesley Snipers on the set, Blade: Trinity was the death blow for the franchise on the big screen. And instead of Norrington’s visual extravaganza of the first film and Del Toro’s dark genre-bending take on the series, Goyer delivers uninspired action fare. A vampire expedition to the Middle East exhumes Dracula from his tomb, who makes it his mission to defeat Blade once and for all. Blade has more problems with the police than with vampires, but finds new allies in a group of high-tech vampire hunters, The Nightstalkers, for his battle against Dracula.
The plot is fragmented and rarely interesting, the characters, both heroes and villains are rather bland this time around either, even Dracula is not the terrifying villain he should be. The action keeps coming at a good rate, but it falls into the trappings of the hectic video clip editing was still a thing in the mid-2000s. The visuals are extremely sober and flat, some scenes feel more like a cable TV series than a blockbuster action flick. The film tries to progress with the world-building by introducing the Nightstalkers as a novel faction, but everything gets lost in the muddled plot. Even Blade gets relegated to just one of the many characters in the ensemble cast.
Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds as leaders of the Nightstalkers do what they can with their roles, but can’t really convey what is needed to be a bad-ass vampire hunter. Reynolds gets to do his trademark foul-mouthed and cheeky style of humor, and at times his performance feels like a showreel for his later Deadpool character. Blade: Trinity misses the mark big time. It is mildly entertaining, but you’re really not missing anything if you skip this one.
Guillermo Del Toro became a favorite of movie critics with Pan’s Labyrinth, but when he helmed the sequel to Blade four years earlier, he also showed his incredible talent for creating spectacular action films. The vampires are threatened by the Reapers, a new breed of blood-thirsty monsters led by the tormented Nomak. Blade is persuaded to team up with a group of elite vampire warriors, the Bloodpack, to annihilate Nomak and his Reaper army.
Del Toro came with the recommendation of having revived the Gothic Horror movie genre with his first films. In Blade 2, darkness and shadows replace the glossy and sometimes glaring visuals of the first Blade. The martial arts sequences are even better than in the first part, and captured spectacularly by the camera. Del Toro delivers everything with a masterful timing, there’s never a single dull second. The action is relentless, there’s vampire ninjas and Lovecraftian monsters everywhere!
Snipes is just as awesome as in the original film as cold and charismatic avenger. Del Toro also makes him shine in the fight scenes by having him whirling, slashing and gunning through hordes of enemies. Snipes is joined by a terrific cast, most notably the great Ron Perlman, who just nails it as arrogant and sadistic Bloodpack berserker Reinhardt. Frenetic fights, a healthy campy attitude and stunning visuals make Blade 2 another genre masterpiece!
If a movie would ever be used to define the word coolness in a dictionary, it would be Blade! The Matrix coolness, John Wick coolness, it all goes back to Blade. Blade is the Daywalker, a vampire hunter who is a vampire himself, but suffers from none of their weaknesses. After assaulting a vampire night club, he gets into a feud with vampire yuppie Deacon Frost. Frost is conducting research on an ancient prophecy that promises infinite power, and when Blade finds out about it, all hell breaks loose.
The Blood Rave, an epic vampire party with an ecstatic brutality, sets the stage as opening sequence, and radically disposes of the old vampire flick cliches. Infused with techno music, martial arts and an overkill of 1990s party fashion director Stephen Norrington created something entirely new. Norrington landed a small hit with his debut Death Machine, and with Blade he stepped up his game another gear. The Matrix came out a year later, and was applauded for its distinctive visual style, but Blade did it all before.
Neo-noir and techno nightclub aesthetics are blended seamlessly, and the flashy visuals will get your blood pumping. The action is slick, fast and violent with some spectacular set pieces. And despite all the insanity and extravaganza, Norrington manages to create a deep immersion into this strange world by delivering an engaging story and effective world-building.
Blade would have never worked they way it did if it wasn’t for coolness incarnate, Wesley Snipes. It’s hard to imagine anyone else than Snipes being able to play his character. He owns every scene with an almost arrogant ruthlessness, and never leaves the slightest doubt that any vampires he comes across deserve to be wiped off the face of the planet. An expert martial artist himself, Snipes shows some serious fighting skills and mixes it up with some impressive swordplay and kung fu.
There was never a hero more stone-cold as Blade, and never a sidekick as bad-ass as Kris Kristofferson’s Whistler. Stephen Dorff as Frost is a fashionable , decadent sadist, the perfect villain, who leads the sexiest vampires ever to make it into a movie. Blade set a standard for high-octane comic book adaptations that has not yet been surpassed. It’s simply is the greatest superhero flick ever made, and one of the ultimate classics of 1990s action!
A look into the creative action filmmaking of the Indonesian action film Preman.
In this brisk world it’s rare that we get not just an action film but one with a deaf-mute protagonist. Preman works as home grown action flick working on a perfunctory level as world-building, but missing the mark. Preman tries so hard to replicate other action movie inspirations but it shines most in its basic narrative and absurdist dream sequences and fails in some of its basic action style.
In Preman a deaf criminal with a traumatic past and his son must fight their way out of their village after witnessing the murder of a prominent community leader by the local mafia. This movie wants so badly to bed John Wick in many ways. Lots of movies with deep world building succeed on that level specifically because of the way it makes the audience feel in on something. That “cool” aesthetic sticks around long after the movie ends and tends to be what filmmakers try to replicate. Instead it drags out dialogue scenes, typifies characters, and often convolutes the story for the sake of “showing something cool.”
Preman employs this world-building in its center. The beginning introduces us to the world of Sandi and his life as a “Preman” (a gangster henchman.) His life is in shambles and his abilities as a gangster run against the profound empathy he displays for his villagers. The early setup holds up as some of the early violence feels earned.
The middle section employs one long chase sequence that works in some sections. Mostly it serves to introduce other gangsters and prop antagonists. They work as gags but really the detours it costs us outweighs the joy they bring to the screen.
The home grown action of this movie troubles me. While the sense for dramatic plotting works well, the beats just don’t quite land. The fight choreography, while thorough, manages to display some of the little tricks stunt people use. In the way our protagonist ‘punches’ other stuntmen the camera doesn’t cut and it doesn’t really sell. Instead this Uber-violence works best when it’s abstracted in the final scene. I’m told it helps escape Indonesian censors on violence and if that’s true it’s a clever workaround. Still Sandi spends most of the movie getting his butt kicked, and not quite selling it.
I’m confident this film excels in many ways but the brisk 92 minutes drags at times. Preman wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants to build a fun world of barber assassins and mafia dons while carrying our protagonist on an emotional journey for a trauma that doesn’t fully connect to where he is today. It’s a fun film if you can look past some of the more obvious action beats!
Before there was a Blade, there had to be a Death Machine!
By the early 1990s, all the masterpieces of modern Sci-fi action cinema were already made, and a wave of copycats was unleashed onto video stores. Only a tiny amount of them was actually able to do justice to their source material, and Death Machine takes the pole position as far as medleys to the 1980s classics go. Stephen Norrington crashed into the scene with his debut, and he must have impressed some people with it.
Four years later he was handed directing duties for Blade, which became an instant classic, and for better or worse also relaunched the Marvel cinematic universe into modern times. His career crashed hard, though, after the seemingly frustrating experience of shooting The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But with Death Machine (and Blade) Norrington left a terrific legacy for action movie fans, and in this article we will have a look at this manifestation of the creative raw energy of an aspiring film-maker.
A cyborg super soldier engineered by the Chaank Armaments corporation malfunctions and goes rogue during a mission. Hayden Cale is the new CEO of the company, and is tasked to handle the aftermath of the disaster and restore the reputation of the company. One of her first orders is to get rid of Jack Dante, a deranged engineer who led the cyborg program “Hard Man”. After Hayden rejects his sexual advances, he locks her, the executive board and two human rights activists up in the corporate tower, and unleashes his latest creation onto them.
In the near future, everything looks hazy and a corporate tower becomes hell on earth, just like in real life for many people. Death Machine assembles its plot and characters from all the classics we love. It is a 6 Million USD fan film of sorts, but never falls into the usual trappings of this type of movies. The list of building blocks that are inserted from other works is long, very long indeed, but the film carries this stigma proudly.
The cyborgs are taken from Universal Soldier, the cyberpunk aesthetic from Blade Runner, and the monster looks like a hybrid of Robocop’s ED-209 and the Alien. The names of almost all characters are also fairly self-explanatory (among them Cameron, Carpenter, Ridley, and Raimi). And main protagonist Hayden strongly resembles that of Ellen Ripley, a woman who is forced to take up the desperate fight against a seemingly invincible creature, after all her testosteron-soaked male macho peers have failed and died.
Death Machine also nicely implements many moments of corporate satire that are never subtle, but then what is subtle about the often chaotic and ego-driven inner workings of a corporation? The film’s visuals perfectly transport the often exaggerated sterility and inherent gloominess of a corporate office. Watching the executive board meeting will make you crave for these thugs to be disposed of in a most bloody manner. And Dante, despite being a total psychopath, is actually a rebel within the corporate system, and jokes about his well-deserved climb up the corporate ladder every time he or his monster kill off one of his superiors.
All the actors contribute their share to the cheerful hysteria, and speak their dialogues as if every sentence in the script ended with three exclamation marks. From all the characters, Brad Dourif stands out the most, in what is his easily his most entertaining role as a human (second-best if we include killer dolls). His Dante is a manic maniac with an outfit and hairstyle that would have made Kurt Cobain proud, who simultaneously watches cartoons and porn in his lair while playing with action figures, who wouldn’t want to live like this! The nerd happiness stops when he turns out to be a psycho killer with a very unhealthy crush on Hayden.
Apart from Dourif, the real star of the film is the monster, of course! Norrington worked as special effects creator for a bunch of popular genre movies in the 1980s and early 1990s, such as Aliens and Gremlins, and this expertise served him well to conceive a superb design for his “frontline morale destroyer”. Imbued with grotesquely oversized claws and jaws, it’s a thoroughly uncanny and absurd creation. The robot killcam is an LSD-infused nod to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead attack cam, and the visual extravaganza is complemented by total terror on the audio track whenever the metal monster shows up. A clanging cacophony of whirring, beeping and grinding is guaranteed to drive you nuts.
And it’s not only the monster that looks awesome, the quality of the whole film is of a level that makes it hard to believe that this is a debut movie. Norrington spent every penny he had available very well, and delivered a stunningly coherent production with top notch set design, cinematography and editing. He also endowed the film with a big portion of cheese, awesome one-liners are forced into every scene without remorse. And just like in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead classics, horror and comedy form a perfect symbiosis glued together by total hysteria.
We’re Just a Caring, Humane Attack Squad!
Dante’s creation gets to do its fair share of bloody killing, even though we’re more than halfway into the film before all brakes come completely loose. Norrington stages the odyssey of Hayden and her unlikely allies through the building with suspense and plenty of jumpscares. The big finale is an action-packed stroboscopic nightmare, when the killbot sets out to shred the remaining humans, one of them who has volunteered to get transformed into a super soldier for the greater good. One set after another is torn down by explosions and gunfire with an almost blinding and deafening intensity.
Gloomy visuals, hysterical horror action, and cheesy jokes give us a spectacle that surpasses most A-list productions of its time in terms of entertainment value and atmosphere. With Death Machine, Stephen Norrington achieved nothing less than perfection in low-budget film-making.
With some genuine fighting which is fantastically done, Baby Assassins shows promise but leaves us ultimately wanting more!
Roommates can be hard. There’s all the idiosyncrasies of living with them that cause tension to boil up. What’s worse is living with your best friend, realizing they’re total slobs, and ruining a friendship over living together. It’s even harder being roommate assassins. The main premise of Baby Assassins follows two teenage girls who are forced to live together after finishing their training in assassin academy. While the film promises action it leans more on the roommate drama in long spells holding us down hoping for more violence.
Chisato and Mahilo are about to graduate from their killer high school. As part of their new arrangement they must live together, get side jobs, and “fit in with society” before they get weaned off the school’s program. Naturally the jovial Chisato succeeds in almost every mark instantly. The more mercurial Mahilo can’t sit through a job interview long enough before wanting to stab somebody. After Chisato takes out a yakuza member on a contract the Yakuza’s daughter hunts down the assassin demolishing everyone in her path.
Baby Assassins feels like a comedy in every turn. The two girls bounce off each other with comic proportions. The bright eyed Chisato chastises Mahilo for not applying herself to get a side job. Mahilo bemoans Chisato’s lazy approach to murder. As Chisato succeeds in her job as a café maid Mahilo envies her, splitting the two further and further apart. The friendship between the two leads feels real and honest with personalities steam rolling each other in rapid succession. The casual way Mahilo cleans a gun feeds into the delicious meals Chisato prepares. Neither can agree on chores.
Baby Assassins feels like anime brought to life. The pacing of the film matches the incredible action stilted by long dialogue sequences. Director Yugo Sakamoto drags out scenes of domesticity in long takes from a massive wide-angle. Even the villainous Yakuza figures spend minutes debating a female-led business with each other in seeming no relation other than character-building. The hard turns into what little action there is are heavily foreshadowed. Thankfully Sakamoto gives us what we came for.
Mostly the movie’s bookmarked with honest-to-god fight sequences. The camera shudders and jolts with powerful hits and Saori Izawa (our Mahilo) carries most of the team on her back with incredible fighting performances. She slithers and snakes around her enemies with a balletic precision. Plenty of times demonstrate the film’s commitment to beautiful action choreography but the few minutes that do exist feel tiny in comparison to the rest of the film. It almost directly demonstrates the movie’s budget went entirely to those two main action sequences.
Not wholly terrible, not particularly great Baby Assassins rests contentedly in that section that over-promises and under-delivers. Its lead’s chemistry maintains enough comedy to keep the premise alive but without more genuine fighting (of which the little we see is fantastically done) it drags on. While exaggerated for effect not even the hyperbole of a café maid who addresses a Yakuza gangster as “master” can prevent the stalling out of this film.
In this gritty crime thriller/supernatural haunting plenty of people will die.
The first thing out of my mouth when it comes to Saloum is “Damn.” Whether it’s a crime drama, supernatural thriller, or frontier western this movie does not disappoint whatsoever. It follows three mercenaries extracting a cartel druglord out of Guinea-Bissau. When their extraction plane runs out of fuel they pull over for a quick stop in the titular region for supplies and ammo.
From there the whole story goes balls-to-the-wall all out in nonstop suspense, only stopping to pay respects to African spirituality. This Senegalese movie loads up with plenty of gunfights, street brawls, and all out carnage while also telling a tautly wound story of childhood trauma revenge.
Yann Gael plays Chaka, the leader of the Hyenas. Alongside his mates Rafa (Roger Shallah) and Minuit (Mentor Ba) they carry a drug lord into an idyllic resort near the Saloum Delta – a river delta finally fruitful after years of scarcity. While recovering at the lodge the three men fight to keep their identities secret as police surround the encampment and a deaf-mute woman threatens to derail their entire day. Then there’s the evil spirits that get unleashed after someone dies…
This movie bounces wildly through genres in an impressive format I can only be awed at. Starting as a crime drama before transforming into a gunslinger western and then a powderkeg dinner and finally a supernatural thriller sounds like a lot to handle but Saloum can have it’s cake and eat it too. The three leads thread the needle perfectly with complimentary chemistry. They wield just enough brutality to be dangerous and just enough conscience to be likable. It’s an impressive combination as their guns-for-hire fame catches up to them.
In Saloum not a moment is wasted. Whether it’s new plot developments or the trippy flashback memories every second builds out the world in unique and exciting ways. Minuit’s quiet shaman character hints doom from the very beginning. You watch the walls close in on these men, and wonder how they’ll escape. The film threads the needle from it’s opening monologue showing us the adage: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
The cinematography lends itself to the immediacy of the film often cavorting from character to character. It never quite sits still, always jostling slightly pushing the dramatic momentum often by sheer will alone. The few moments of respite are dotted with beautifully crafted drone shots rising above the sandy riverside. Practical green and red lights promote color in the darker sections of the film. About halfway through the movie everything shifts and the bright white light of daytime (a sign of demonic presence) unnerves the characters. A slight acid-wash keeps the whole film contrasting between softened bleach white and gritty colored darkness, two extremes.
The film works well on all fronts. Even the special effects of it’s ghostly monsters stands up to the test of time. By the end of watching I counted four languages: French, Wolof, Spanish, and Sign language. Saloum gripped me from the very beginning and thrust me into a dark world full of shifting moral allegiances only a gunshot can affirm who’s a hero and who’s a villain. By the film’s end the catharsis feels earned, but still saddening. Take note: In this gritty crime thriller/supernatural haunting plenty of people will die.
Help, I’m a Korean action thriller star—get me out of here!
While not a new movie to an astute ultimate action movie fan, Hostage: Missing Celebrity is a nice genre treat at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.
While theatrically released on August 18, 2021, this Korean action thriller stars Hwang Jung-min as a fictional version of himself as it plays out what would happen if he were to be kidnapped and taken hostage. So, Hostage: Missing Celebrity – get it?
And while this Korean adaption its source Chinese film Saving Mr. Wu might lean more thriller at times, it definitely has more than a fair share of classic action contained within its simple, but tightly controlled premise. Let’s check it out!
UAMC Reviews Hostage: Missing Celebrity (2021)
For a Fantastic Fest viewing, you can expect lots of blood and carnage, and ultimately Hostage does not disappoint. It doesn’t have much horror or cringe at all, which either a plus or minus depending on how you look at it. But for an ultimate action movie fan, I’d say it’s actually about as ultimate as a modern action can be.
Hwang (as himself) is a great action star as the movie really lives and breathes off of his capture and subsequent escape attempts and battles. I like the premise a lot too and think this film is ripe for an American adaption as well which could be rife with opportunity for a seasoned but affable action star (like Keanu Reeves, maybe?) to play the same role.
Hostage is well-paced and hits as many of the notes as possible to keep the plot moving, the characters developing and the stakes rising. It’s a testament to writer and director Pil Kam-sung’s genre-craft and a solid film through and through.
Meta-Action Movie Tropes
It’s also quite a refreshing movie to watch in a way. There’s been meta-action done before (anyone remember Traxx), but Hostage conceptually feels better fleshed out than most. Besides a few gags at the beginning and end, it doesn’t really rely on the gimmick at all — instead just throwing its actor character into a tough situation and letting the story speak for itself.
I’ve admittedly not seen my fair share of Korean action or am super familiar with Hwang’s work, but I’m a big fan of his performance in this role as it really gives him tons of space to be both brutal as well as affectionate. He handles both quite well and the film really feels like it’s outperforming its budget.
But, How Ultimate is it?
Indeed, how ultimate is Hostage: Missing Celebrity? Like I mentioned above, a lot of these Fantastic Fest films incorporate a lot of other genre elements like horror, thriller and sci-fi. But while Hostage has by-the-numbers thriller elements, I definitely did not skimp out on the action!
There’s some great chase sequences, a variety of fights and even some shootouts (which as you can see from an American lens watching a native Korean movie, don’t happen too often IRL).
Hwang himself sustains a massive amount of damage as he and his captors trade blows throughout until they’re all left either bloody, bruised or dead. There’s even a great final showdown as Hwang faces off against his main captor in a pretty epic showdown in the rain a la Van Damme vs Vincent Klyn in Albert Pyun’s Cyborg.
So yeah, quite ultimate, quite good, very thriller and a great Fantastic Fest find!
The ultimate action movie club ranks the best – and most ultimate – action films directed by the great Isaac Florentine!
Isaac Florentine has established himself as a master of modern action cinema during a career that spans more than two decades by now. A karate master himself, he left his dojo in his home country Israel, and moved to the US where he embarked on a career in the film industry. His first assignment led him to work as action choreographer and director for the Power Rangers TV franchise. It seems that this was a good starting point, as he could collect plenty of practical experience in staging energetic and over-the-top action.
His talent enabled him to develop a unique style for filming and editing some of the most spectacular fight scenes that were ever created in the Western World. He also brought the best out of many talented martial artists, most prominently Scott Adkins with whom he created many instant classics. So let’s get started, and have a look at the ten best films from action mastermind Isaac Florentine!
Bridge of Dragons marked Florentine’s first of many journeys to Bulgaria, a paradise for action movie productions on a budget. The film made the interesting attempt to cross a medieval fairy tale with a modern action flick. In a far away land, the ruthless general Ruechang kills the king, and intends to crown himself by marrying the late king’s daughter Halo. Halo manages to flee, and Ruechang sends his best warrior Warchild (Dolph Lundgren) to capture her.
The movie is a bit of a mess with stiff acting and dialogues that sound like they were literally taken from a children’s night-time reading book. Florentine also still seemed to be under the influence of his Power Rangers period, as there’s an overabundance of swooshing sounds on the audio track. The action is all rather generic, there’s not much martial arts on display, but we’re compensated with an overdose of gunfights and explosions, and stuntmen frequently being catapulted across the screen. Dolph Lundgren as Warchild gets to do a couple of nice fights and stoically endures any absurdities the script throws at him. Bridge of Dragons is worth a watch for anyone who has a taken a liking to low-budget action flicks.
A film with a decent bar fight rarely is a bad one, and on top of that The Shepherd gave actions fans the first clash between action legend Jean-Claude Van Damme and rising star Scott Adkins. New Orleans cop Jack Robideaux (Van Damme) joins the Border Patrol in a small town close to the Mexican border. He arrives not a day too late, as a crew of ex-Navy Seals is running an immigrant and drug smuggling operation (among them Adkins’ character Karp), and the over-strained police department is in dire need of a couple of extra fists for Lady Justice.
The US-Mexican border with its many troubles has always been a popular location for violent clashes in action movies. Florentine gives Van Damme and Adkins plenty of opportunity to do their share of roundhousing, and Van Damme shows that he can still kick some serious ass. Adkins steals the show from him more than once, though, jumping twice as high and kicking three times as fast than everyone else around him. As usual, Florentine only needs a camera and some space to stage his trademark kinetic fight sequences, and that alone already makes The Shepherd a satisfying DTV actioner.
An action film that features a book by Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius as a key element with life-changing insights not only for the main character, but also for the audience? Bring it on! Cocky lawyer Frank loses his wife and daughter in a murder. He drifts into alcoholism, and eventually finds a way to deal with his grief by becoming an MMA fighter with a vow of silence. When he finds a new lead on why his family was killed, he puts his newly acquired skills to good use. Every director can consider himself lucky to work with a legend like Antonio Banderas. Florentine makes him look good as a brawler in a couple of nicely staged fights, where he messes up everyone real badly who dares to go up against him.
The film also features a cool cameo by Florentine himself as martial arts instructor who is bringing Frank into proper vigilante shape. A slick direction, good pacing and Banderas’ intense performance are able to conceal some weaker elements of the film, especially in the plot department. With Acts of Vengeance, Florentine convincingly demonstrated that he can also make more traditional action movie material shine.
Action films often feature somewhat far-fetched plots, but the premise of U.S. Seals 2 is probably what a screenwriter would be forced to write for eternity when being locked into the deepest circle of hell. Ex-Navy seal commander Ratliff goes rogue and hides on an island with a nuclear warhead. The island is covered in a cloud of natural gas which prevents the use of firearms. Lieutenant Casey Sheppard assembles a ragtag group of martial arts specialists and takes the fight yo Ratliff. Everything about the story and its characters is so outlandish, that U.S. Seals 2 better have some good action, and boy, does it deliver!
Gravity-defying jumps, flips and flying kicks give us fights of the highest quality with an obvious nod to classic Hong Kong action cinema. Florentine still drew some inspiration from his work on Power Rangers with fast zooms and pans (and another overkill of swooshing sounds), but his unique vision for shooting hi-octane martial arts sequences was already very much developed here. Spectacular action combined with complete embarrassment in every other department make U.S. Seals 2 a totally strange, but highly entertaining action flick!
Close Range is another fine example of Isaac Florentine and Scott Adkins pushing each other to greatness. Just like in Florentine’s The Shepherd, there’s trouble at the US-Mexican border. Ex-soldier Colt Macready crosses into Mexico to rescue his niece Hailey from cartel boss Garcia. He also retrieves a flash drive that the cartel wants to get back at any cost. Garcia sends a small army of hitmen to the farm where Macready, his sister Angela and Hailey are hiding out. The film moves along a thin plot thread, but that’s no problem, the story is not an embarrassment, and effectively paves the way for the action sequences.
In addition, the bare-boned setting offers no distractions to the non-stop carnage and brutality Florentine unleashes. He also nicely mixes up the fight scenes with a couple of shootouts and an extended car chase. Adkins pulls off some insane kicks and jumps, and he set the bar so high in his previous movies that we almost came to expect nothing less from him. Close Range is another great testimony to Florentine’s talent for turning even the most mundane templates into kick-ass action flicks.
Florentine’s collaboration with the uncrowned king of spinning kicks Gary Daniels was another slam dunk for him in the low-budget action arena. A mysterious plague devastated humanity, and civilization lies in ruins. Bounty hunter Roland rescues Christine, the wife of his deceased brother, from the grips of lunatic bandit lord Little Ray, who has some a sinister plan for her. Roland takes up the fight to protect Christine from Little Ray’s goons. Blending a Western with a post-apocalyptic setting is never a bad idea in my book, and if a healthy dose of Gun Fu is added, and an unhealthy overdose of martial arts, it becomes the perfect mix!
Florentine goes all in from the beginning with a crazy tempo and intensity that makes the film occasionally feel as if it’s played on triple speed! Daniels is pretty awesome in his fights, and Florentine gives him plenty of opportunity to showcase his talent, every five minutes he shoots someone or kicks them through a window. The film features the complete suite of explosions, fights and shootouts, all the way to up a finale that is pure carnage captured on celluloid. Cold Harvest is DTV gold of the highest purity!
Yuri Boyka, “the most complete fighter in the world”, made a spectacular comeback in Florentine’s second sequel of the Undisputed series.After getting crippled by his rival Chambers (in Undisputed 2), Yuri Boyka spends his prison days on cleaning duty. After hearing about a tournament with the world’s best fighters in another prison that earns the winner his freedom, he gets back in shape and has his transfer arranged. We can all guess what happens next. With Undisputed 3, it seems Florentine went back to his early years, and threw anything resembling a plot or halfway meaningful dialogues out the window. Instead he went all in on the action, and created fight scenes of a quality unseen before in Western action cinema.
Scott Adkins is at the peak of his physical prowess here in a role that demands everything from him. Florentine captures each showdown perfectly with an almost uncanny symbiosis between the camera and the actor’s movements. A clean cinematography with long, unedited shots show us the skills and discipline of every fighter in all their glory. Undisputed 3 is one of the best fight flicks ever created outside of Asia, and if you’re a martial arts fanatic, it will probably be your number one Florentine movie.
With the sequel to Ninja, Florentine and Adkins continued in the vein of Undisputed 3, by giving us some of the most spectacular fight sequences ever created, and a plot thinner than a human hair. Casey’s pregnant wife Namiko is murdered. Filled with grief and anger, he tracks down her killers and puts them to death. He then joins the dojo of his friend Nakabara in Thailand, hoping to find some inner peace. His past keeps haunting him, however, and he slowly realizes that the murder of his wife was part of a much bigger scheme.
There’s hardly any ninja stuff in the film, but all is forgiven, as we’re treated with a dozen or so fight scenes. Each one of them is an absolute highlight, and they are certainly more refined than in the first part. As opposed to the first installment, Florentine also cuts back on the cheese factor. He delivers a rather mundane revenge plot, and another slight detriment is that Adkins is missing a charismatic antagonist that we love to hate. Despite this, Ninja: Shadow of a Tear is another eternal Florentine masterpiece with Scott Adkins in the form of his life.
The fact that no one really talks about the first Undisputed anymore (and that one was directed by the legendary Walter Hill!), is already a hint at Florentine’s extraordinary achievement with the DTV sequels. Ex-boxing champion “Iceman” Chambers goes to Russia to participate in a prize fight, but is framed for possession of illegal drugs instead and imprisoned. He is forced to participate in a martial arts tournament between the inmates, among them the ruthless master fighter Boyka who takes a personal interest in making Chambers’ life a living hell.
Good production values and more than solid acting performances help to create a good sense of immersion and identification with the characters, something Undisputed 3 was severely lacking. Both White and Adkins have an incredible screen presence, great fighting skills and are good actors, the perfect package for modern action movie stars! Florentine takes no prisoners in the fight scenes as always, even though they are admittedly a tad less spectacular than the ones from the third part. All the Undisputed sequels are pretty awesome, but the second part is the most complete action film of them all, and for that reason it ranks highest on our list.
Who needs an American Ninja when you can get a British one instead? The top four movies on this list are all so good that one could make a case for each of them being number one, but we’ll argue in favor of Florentine’s first entry to his Ninja duology. Casey lives and trains in the Japanese dojo of sensei Takeda. His fanatic rival Masazuka gets expelled from the school, and eventually returns as an assassin for a secret cult. Casey is sent on a dangerous quest to fight for his life and that of everyone he cares about. Florentine’s Ninja is the true successor to Cannon’s ninja films, and Scott Adkins the true heir to the legendary Sho Kosugi. The film came out in the same year as it’s big-budget peer Ninja Assassin, and jump-kicks that one straight out of the window!
Scott Adkins in his first lead role ever gives a stellar performance, Tsuyoshi Ihara makes for a fantastic villain, and these two one-man armies are kicking and slashing their way through hordes of enemies on opposing sides. With Ninja, Florentine created a perfect action film, filled to the brim with spectacular combat sequences. Sure, it is a bit corny at times, but it delivers spectacle at a level that is not often achieved anymore in contemporary action cinema.
Remembering the cheesy humor and ultimate action of this nearly-forgotten buddy action classic!
Some of the greatest action flicks blended light-hearted silliness with kick-ass action sequences, and this can be an irresistible combination if done right. Schwarzenegger’s Commando is a prime example, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s the formula was successfully applied to films such as Rapid Fire, Showdown in Little Tokyo and Tango and Cash.
The Taking of Beverly Hills did not reach the popularity of these classics. This may have been due to the absence of an established action star or martial arts expert in the main cast, and the bankruptcy of its original distribution company Orion pictures also did not help, as it led to a delayed release without much promotion. Thanks to digital media it’s not been forgotten, and in this article we’ll have a closer look at this awesome piece of old-school action cinema.
A truck spills a chemical on a street in Beverly Hills, and the entire neighborhood is evacuated. The supposed accident is the beginning of an elaborately staged heist by a bunch of disgruntled ex-cops to rob the houses of the town’s rich inhabitants. Only football star Boomer misses the call for evacuation and stays behind. Together with the slightly deranged cop Kelvin he takes on the small army of robbers.
Let’s take a deep breath and meditate away all disbelief about the setup of a heist organized around the evacuation of a complete town without anyone else from the outside noticing. It’s an unlikely scenario, but as all action movie fans know, if the plot isn’t set up in an outlandish way, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy all the mayhem that follows. What works well in the benefit of the film is that doesn’t really give you even a minute to think about any of the abundant oddities of the story, as we are either marveling at the corny jokes or the massive display of urban destruction director Sidney J. Furie puts on display.
The scenario of robbing Beverly Hills may sound like the film sticks it to the decadent rich folks, and the old rallying call “Peace to the hovels! Death to the palaces!” is taken quite literally when a couple of luxury mansions are turned inside out during the course of the film. But it’s probably not going to become your new favorite Socialist action movie, as the people behind the robberies are all a bunch of sleazy villains who just want their share of the pie, and all aspects related to social tensions are treated rather superficially to not ruin the upbeat vibe of the film.
Ken Wahl as Boomer and Matt Frewer as Kelvin are not the most famous buddy couple in action movie history, but they make a good team with a solid on-screen chemistry. Wahl, who was mostly known for the TV series Wise Guy at the time, is not given a very demanding role but makes the best out of it, and delivers a charming portrayal of fearless macho quarterback Boomer with the mullet of the decade. Wahl suffered a serious injury in 1992 which forced him to retire from acting, and this made The Taking of Beverly Hills his last big moment in the movie spotlight.
Matt Frewer of Max Headroom fame plays Boomer’s sidekick Kelvin with his trademark crazy hair. In the beginning of the film he comes across a bit like that uncle where you’re never sure if he’s funny or creepy, but ultimately he turns out to be a decent guy with his heart at the right place. The bad guys also pack a serious punch, most prominently the great Robert Davi and Branscombe Richmond (who people may remember from the Renegade TV series).
Davi plays football club owner and Boomer’s boss Masterson with his trademark mix of sleaziness and elegance. He keeps hitting on Boomer’s love interest Laura on multiple occasions, who defies him every time (“You’re just a genital obsessive.” “Aren’t we all?”). He also starts to sing randomly in one scene, and picks a crossbow as weapon of choice for the finale, it’s Davi in top form! Hitman Benitez (Branscombe), who seems to engage in a mullet contest with Boomer, does the field work for Masterson. I really liked that his character is not introduced in any way or given even a single line of meaningful dialogue, he just shows up with a SWAT tank and angrily starts destroying things.
After the exposition, the film settles into a rhythm where every two minutes something is on fire or explodes to light up the night. Half of the movie is a relentless pursuit through the houses, streets and parking garages of Beverly Hills. All the action scenes are delightfully over the top, everything explodes rather easily, and car crashes and flips are abundant, as it should be.
The SWAT tank is at the centerpiece of the mayhem in many sequences. Benitez takes diabolical pleasure in destroying a couple of city blocks all by himself while plowing over luxury front yards, tennis courts and even entire mansions during his frantic chase after Boomer and Kelvin. Later in the film he goes for a more compact tool of annihilation and chases after them with a flamethrower mounted on the back of a pick-up truck.
Frewer and Wahl are not your typical action heroes, in fact they couldn’t be further from the usual trigger-happy buddy couple. Both realize that they’re outnumbered and outgunned all the time, and decide the only sensible choice is not to become a two-man army, but to run! They sure do a lot of running in this film, and when Boomer realizes that he has no clue how to fire a gun, he decides to rely exclusively on his throwing skills as a star quarterback to engage with his adversaries. This gives us many awesome and slightly absurd moments when rocks, Molotov cocktails made from 200 $ bourbon bottles and Shurikens are reliably hitting their targets.
The Taking of Beverly Hills gives us a healthy overdose of classic action tropes and cheesy humor. If you’re looking for easy-going R-rated fun without seeing the usual faces in the lead role of an action flick, you’ve found it!
A look at the best (and most ultimate) looking action titles at this year’s Fantastic Fest!
Fantastic Fest is back baby! OK, maybe it’s going to be a little different than the last time the fest happened in-person in 2019. But after an online-only year in 2020, it’ll be nice to see a few films in theatre.
Fantastic Fest 2021 is also going to be open to anyone online this year with its own virtual badge offering which comes in at a very reasonable price point. You can check it out here!
For anyone interested in looking at any of the upcoming ACTION movies at this year’s fest, we have you covered as well. Here are some of our top UAMC-selections for the most ultimate looking actioners at this year’s fest!
2021, DIR. HANNES THÓR HALLDÓRSSON, 98 MIN., ICELAND
BRIEF SUMMARY
Bussi is the best and most reckless cop in the Reykjavik police force. When, after thwarting a bank heist, he’s paired up with Hördur, the best and sexiest cop in Gardabaer, sparks start to fly. Professionally and personally.
FULL DESCRIPTION
Bussi is a Supercop in Reykjavik. Although his methods go against all the rules, his arrest count is the highest in town. His superior officer looks the other way and always finds excuses for his actions. But Bussi quickly finds a competitor in Hördur: a multi-millionaire, multilingual ex-model genius-turned-cop who’s the best in the county of Gardabaer. After they join forces to thwart a bank heist in Reykjavik, a round of drinking at the local bar leads them to have a wild night together. With no clues about what the robbers were after at the bank, Bussi and Hördur are paired up to solve the case.
If Michael Bay directed a gay comedic version of LETHAL WEAPON, COP SECRET would be the result. Never taking itself seriously, its violence and action sequences are offset by strong dramatic moments. Both Bussi and Hördur are believably flawed characters that evoke empathy supported by a solid backbone of a plot, crafting a film where the drama, comedy, and action are perfectly balanced.
Believe it or not, director Hannes Thór Halldórsson is actually a professional Icelandic football player. And not just any footballer: He’s the goalkeeper named “man of the match” in the 2018 World Cup game against Argentina for saving a penalty kick and ending the match in a draw. COP SECRET is his directorial debut and should the football family ever forsake him, his film family will be more than happy to welcome him on a full-time basis. (ANNICK MAHNERT)
1976, DIR. CHI-HWA CHEN, 90 MIN., TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA, HONG KONG
BRIEF SUMMARY
At the nexus point where Jackie Chan’s star began to rise and Angela Mao’s (ENTER THE DRAGON) was waning, they collaborated on this wild, rarely seen gem. Channeling Chan’s own acrobatic style, Mao avenges the defeat of her teachers using a powerful “dancing girl” kung fu style inspired by the gyrations of brothel attendants.
FULL DESCRIPTION
Though she’s best known today for playing Bruce Lee’s doomed sister in ENTER THE DRAGON, Angela Mao was also a movie star in the early 70s with her own string of hits from Golden Harvest Films. Among the top-level talent she worked with on films like HAPKIDO and THE HIMALAYAN was a young up-and-coming actor and stunt performer by the name of Jackie Chan. In the latter half of the decade, as Chan’s career began its ascension and Mao’s went into decline, the two wound up working together on an wacky kung fu comedy called DANCE OF DEATH in which Chan handled the direction of the fight scenes and let Mao take the lead in a part you’ll swear was intended for Chan.
In fact, it’s Chan’s imaginative fight choreography and the stunt casting of Mao as a very Jackie-like leading man (?!) that make DANCE OF DEATH ripe for rediscovery. After her/his teachers and schoolmates are wiped out by a white-haired “crazy horse”-style practitioner, goofball student Fei Fei (Mao) encounters two wacky old kung fu masters who teach her/him several strange new fighting techniques for revenge, including one they refer to as “dancing girl” that is based on a performance they witnessed in a brothel. The humor rarely rises above the level of crossed eyes, flatulence and cartoonish sound effects, but for Mao fans it’s a delight to watch her working so closely with Chan (to the point of mimicry) and proving herself as adept at broad comedy and slapstick as she is at martial arts. (GRADY HENDRIX)
1977, DIR. CHANG MEI-CHUNG, 92 MIN., TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA, HONG KONG
BRIEF SUMMARY
Now! DYNASTY! On the surface it looks like just another indie kung fu flick from Taiwan, but within minutes this crazy train has picked up a full head of steam and is on its way to a Never Never Land of wild weapons, mass mutilation, and major mayhem … all in 3-D!!!
FULL DESCRIPTION
Now! DYNASTY! On the surface it looks like just another indie kung fu flick from Taiwan, but within minutes this crazy train has picked up a full head of steam and is on its way to a Never Never Land of wild weapons, mass mutilation, and major mayhem…all in 3-D!!! Superkicker Dorian Tan Tao-liang would go on to train an army of talent, like leg fighter John Liu as well as Jonathan Ke Quan who would play Short Round in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and Data in THE GOONIES. Here he plays the emperor’s son who flees a rebellion staged by a super-evil general (Chin Kang, who played the sinister blind monk in MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE the previous year).
This basic setup is all the framework the movie needs to unleash a series of rollicking fight scenes staged by Han Ying-chieh who choreographed a bunch of early Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, so you know he’s going to bring the pain. Studded with bizarro weapons, the action is spiced up by a super-sophisticated use of 3-D which plops every severed limb in the audience’s lap and gives every running battle extra depth. Fun fact: the 3-D used here was the beta testing for Super Depth, a brand new portable system developed by American porn director, Michael Findlay. He was thrilled to see his new system put to such creative use and was on his way to the Cannes film festival six weeks after DYNASTY opened to introduce it to the world when a helicopter accident on the roof of New York’s Pan Am building sent the chopper’s 28-foot-rotor scything through the crowd of boarding passengers, killing Findlay instantly.
2021, DIR. GAM-SUNG PIL, 94 MIN., KOREA, REPUBLIC OF
BRIEF SUMMARY
Hwang Jung-min’s action film credentials are put to the test in HOSTAGE: MISSING CELEBRITY, a no-holds-barred thriller in which the Korean star plays himself.
FULL DESCRIPTION
After selling over 100 million cinema tickets, winning every major award, and capturing the hearts of the nation time and again, what is there left to do for Hwang Jung-min? Getting kidnapped, of course. Korean superstar Hwang lends his star wattage to the punchy action-thriller HOSTAGE: MISSING CELEBRITY, in which he plays himself, a box office star who has to prove his action credentials in the real world when he’s held for ransom by a gang of demented thugs.
From debut filmmaker Pil Gam-sung under the watchful tutelage of action maestro Ryoo Seung-wan, serving here as producer, HOSTAGE: MISSING CELEBRITY kicks off with Hwang attending a press event for his latest action film in which he shares the screen with his NEW WORLD co-star Park Sung-woong, also playing himself. Hwang returns home after the event but when he drops by a local convenience store, he’s recognized by people on the street — but these are no ordinary fans. Before he knows it, he finds himself stuffed into a van and wakes up tied to a chair in a dank room in the countryside, sharing the room with another kidnapped young woman and an assortment of scraggly criminals.
This remake of the Chinese thriller SAVING MR. WU differs from the original by casting the lead as himself. Fans of Hwang and Korean cinema will delight in the many references to ace K-thrillers, not least because Pil’s film stands shoulder-to-shoulder with them. The film sees a chained-up Hwang being put through the wringer and learning stunt work the hard way through a daring escape, but these are just a handful of highlights in a Korean summer discovery that also features breathtaking car chases, bone-cracking dust-ups, and explosive surprises. (PIERCE CONRAN)
A young man’s ability to surreally “be one” with cars sparks a revolution that could save transport in his community. When his invention inadvertently accelerates the underlying problems, our hero’s quest must grow bigger than his own personal ambitions.
FULL DESCRIPTION
Ninho is that everyteen whose personal dreams and goals clash with his stern father’s own unwritten rule that he will follow in the family taxi business footsteps. You’d think a career with cars would be Ninho’s divine purpose since he can talk to cars, even making friends with the car that saved him from an accident as a child. But Ninho’s heart is drawn to Brazil’s ecological preservation, working to save the land and help the community living there. Since losing his mother at a young age, Ninho has been considering what his legacy will be, and driving a taxi and fixing cars just isn’t enough to satiate his ambition.
When his eccentric Uncle Zé Macaco (Matheus Nachtergaele) figures out how to upgrade old cars, circumventing the law that bans cars over fifteen years old from the roads, Ninho’s two worlds meet: sustainability and his community’s survival. But the unintended costs echo imagery you’ve surely seen in works such as HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH.
KING CAR is a bit off the beaten path in regards to sci-fi as it leans much more into magical realism. Its genre-blending journey has an endearing energy that doubles as a glimpse into how local policies can ultimately suppress and embolden a community’s working class. It is an engaging political sci-fi thriller with appeal for a variety of palettes. (ASHLEE BLACKWELL)
A hard-won truce between rival yakuza gangs threatens to erupt into bloody violence when a psychopathic hoodlum is released from prison and vows to avenge the death of his boss.
FULL DESCRIPTION
Set three years after the events of THE BLOOD OF WOLVES (2018), and the death of corrupt cop Shōgo Ōgami (Koji Yakusho), we find his fresh-faced subordinate Shuichi Hioka (Tori Matsuzaka) now equally embroiled in Hiroshima’s seedy underworld of organized crime. From his unique vantage point, Hioka has succeeded in implementing Ōgami’s plan: a tentative truce between the city’s rival yakuza gangs. This fragile equilibrium is thrown into disarray by the release of Ryohei Suzuki’s Japanese-Korean enforcer, a pathological hoodlum who bulldozes his way back into town, seizes control of his old gang, and carves a bloody path of wanton carnage through the immigrant neighborhood of his old stomping ground. Determined to avenge his boss’s murder, this uncontrollable force of nature threatens to destabilize the entire city and trigger a renaissance of old-school yakuza violence.
Writer-director Kazuya Shiraishi brilliantly recaptures the swagger of Japan’s crime thriller heyday, evoking the incendiary, socially-conscious style of filmmakers such as Kinji Fukasaku and Takashi Miike with his complex web of intertwining characters, betrayals, double crosses, and underhanded power plays. Tori Matsuzaka’s transformation from buttoned-down rookie to amoral wheeler dealer propels us through this fast-paced labyrinthine thriller with the deadly precision of a whetted sashimi blade. Ryohei Suzuki, known to Fantastic Fest regulars as TOKYO TRIBE’s bleach-blond gang-banger, is truly terrifying as the fly in Hioka’s ointment, a drug-addled dervish of destruction who refuses to abide by the laws of the land or his yakuza elders. What Shiraishi has unleashed is both refreshing and reverent, a blast of fresh air that carries with it the textured, alluring scent of a rich cinematic legacy. (JAMES MARSH)
A burnt-out cop and a by-the-book young detective team up to catch a vicious serial killer lurking in the garbage-filled alleys of Hong Kong in Soi Cheang’s grimy monochrome masterpiece.
FULL DESCRIPTION
Following a trilogy of chart-topping, effects-heavy MONKEY KING blockbusters, Hong Kong director Soi Cheang returns to the squalid, trash-strewn underworld where he forged his career with doom-laden gutter greats like DOG BITE DOG and ACCIDENT. Away from the shimmering skyscrapers and aspirational affluence of the city centre lies a festering, grime-smeared underbelly. Amidst the choking stench of garbage and detritus, the severed hand of a young woman surfaces, wrapped in two-year-old newspaper, discarded like a half-eaten burrito. This grim discovery sets grieving city cop Cham Lau (Gordon Lam) on the trail of a particularly nasty killer, a mysterious figure who wanders Kowloon’s labyrinthine back streets with a mutilated, drug-addled waif in tow.
But Cham will not be alone on his crusade. Freshly promoted detective Will Ren (Mason Lee, son of Oscar-winning director Ang Lee) is also assigned to the case, and is immediately skeptical of Cham’s physical and mental well-being. These concerns are exacerbated further after he witnesses his partner’s unrelenting violence towards a young woman, Wong To (Yase Liu in a performance of formidable physicality). But she owes Cham a debt that can never be repaid and when she volunteers for a potentially life-threatening assignment, the stage is set for a terrifying game of cat and mouse.
Filmed before the 2019 protests, which derailed Hong Kong’s stability and provoked Beijing to inflict a wave of crippling restrictions effectively muzzling the city’s right to free speech, LIMBO nevertheless presents a woefully nihilistic vision that renders Hong Kong almost unrecognizable even to those living there today. The result is an experience of unrelenting intensity, a cop procedural in existential freefall, a descent into the bowels of human existence where the hope of redemption is torturously untenable. (JAMES MARSH)
1975, DIR. JIMMY WANG YU, 93 MIN., TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA, HONG KONG
BRIEF SUMMARY
A blind assassin armed with a vicious flying guillotine is out to kill the legendary one-armed boxer (martial arts superstar Jimmy Wang Yu). 36 Cinema presents MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE with live commentary by RZA!
FULL DESCRIPTION
36 Cinema presents MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE with live commentary by RZA!
A blind assassin armed with a vicious flying guillotine is out to kill the legendary one-armed boxer (martial arts superstar Jimmy Wang Yu). Along the way, he interrupts a bizarre kung fu tournament and heads start to roll. It’s now up to the one-armed boxer, with his skull shattering punch and his ability to walk on walls, to defeat the ferocious flying guillotine assassin. This is one of the greatest kung fu movies of all time, and truly must be seen to be believed. Live commentary by RZA (founder of the Wu Tang Clan) and Dan Halsted (film archivist, and programmer for 36 Cinema).
About 36 Cinema: 36 Cinema is a first-of-its-kind online experience that brings together film screening with live in-depth commentary with directors, actors, critics and super fans. The intent of 36 Cinema is to provide viewers with a deeper understanding and appreciation of the films that have inspired and influenced generations of cinephiles. 36 Cinema is distinguished from the VOD/streaming market in that the screenings are live events.
Previous guests of 36 Cinema screenings include RZA (founder of the Wu Tang Clan), director Jim Jarmusch (GHOST DOG, COFFEE AND CIGARETTES), director Alex Cox (REPO MAN), director Charlie Ahearn (WILD STYLE), and stunt actress Shaina West, among others. The platform has also partnered with key cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in DC and the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.
