Plus, there were 6 brand-new film reviews...
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999)
enough cool costumes and bursts of ultra-violence to cut together a trailer that looks like a kinda-typical anime action-fest, but that’s really hiding a thoughtful, complicated (oh so complicated) drama about an unlikely romance and military conspiracies. If that sounds like a bizarre mix… well, it is. This is a film that likes to pull tricks on its audience, and one of the tricks it plays is to constantly wrongfoot you about what kind of movie it’s meant to be.Read more here.
Mary and Max (2009)
It has an empathy for people who are disadvantaged and troubled, and for the importance of finding some measure of happiness in life, however small or awkward, that is quite touching. The heavily stylised designs, desaturated colour scheme, and stop-motion animation method suit the material well — there’s a lot of bleakness here, as both Mary and Max are battered by life, which juxtaposes effectively with the “kids’ picture book” visual aesthetic.Read more here.
The Night Comes for Us (2018)
The whole storyline is quite perfunctory and rather something-and-nothing (and, considering that, gets a bit too much screen time), but it’s a sideshow because the real star is, of course, the action choreography. That’s as relentless and barmy as you’d expect given the pedigree of the cast and crewRead more here.
Rocky V (1990)
I don’t quite see why Rocky V gets so reviled. It’s certainly not the best movie in the series — indeed, it’s probably the lowest point, lacking the realism of the early films, the entertaining ridiculousness of its immediate predecessors, and the feel-good zero-to-hero arc seen in all of those — but it’s a passable-enough drama in its own right.Read more here.
Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin (1970)
The third official Sartana movie is to this series what On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is to the Bond films: its one-shot leading man isn’t as good as the regular fella, but the film around him is a cut above.Read more here.
Zatoichi's Vengeance (1966)
the action is the lesser element here, with some of it feeling almost perfunctory alongside the interesting ideas presented by the plot. It engages on multiple fronts. Firstly, there’s the young boy Taichi and Ichi’s potential influence on him. [...] Connected to this is the blind priest, a wise man who seems to see into Ichi’s very soul, and advises him on his interactions with the boy and, well, his lifestyle in general. [...] While both of these characters and their associated views of Ichi’s methods provide food for thought, perhaps my favourite part of the film is the subplot about a prostitute, Ocho, a kindhearted woman who’s revealed to have a tragic backstoryRead more here.
More next Sunday.
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