Fantasia 2025: 'Blazing Fists' Movie Review

Blazing Fists is a much more manageable title for prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike’s new film, which is also known as Blue Fight: The Breaking Down of Young Blue Warriors. That’s a mouthful. Whatever you call it, this is a fairly straightforward action drama about young men using sports, mixed martial arts in this case, to rise above meager circumstances. But don’t worry, this is still Miike, so it also has biker gangs, violence, oddball flourishes, and a sardonic crime boss bored with the world in a casual, terrifying way.

'Ghost Killer' (2024) Movie Review

Fumika (Akari Takaishi, Baby Assassins) is your average college student. She has a crappy job, constantly fends off creepy men pestering her, and she’s very clumsy. Seriously, she falls down. A lot. Things change a wee bit, however, when she meets the ghost of a vicious hitman, Kudo (Masanori Mimoto, First Love), who occasionally possesses her and takes control of her body. It’s like Upgrade or even Venom at times as the two consciousnesses occupy the same space. (Or All of Me with fisticuffs?) After some coaxing, she agrees to help him exact revenge against the people who killed him. So goes the plot of Kensuke Sonomura’s new action-oriented ghost story Ghost Killer. 

'Demon City' (2025) Movie Review

Have you seen Seiji Tanaka’s Demon City, or a close approximation of it before? Yes, many times. Among other comparable titles, it’s almost beat-for-beat Hard to Kill. Does it have much in the way of nuance, depth, or character development? No. It’s extremely sparse on those fronts. What it does have, however, are plenty of bonkers, bloody fight scenes and awesome action choreography.

'Mad Cats' (2023) Movie Review

A lazy, layabout slacker, a missing brother, and a pack of anthropomorphized cats bent on executing sketchy pet shop owners. That’s the basic premise of writer/director Reiki Tsuno’s Mad Cats. This inherently strange tale mixes banger martial arts throwdowns, kinetic gun play, a weirdo mystery, and “forbidden catnip from ancient times.” The result is chaotic and odd, with an off-kilter approach that balances comedy, melodrama, action, and ambition.

'Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes' Movie Review

When coffee shop owner/aspiring musician Kato (Kazunari Tosa) heads to his upstairs apartment after close, he’s shocked to get a message on the TV. From himself. From two minutes in the future. This kicks off director Junta Yamaguchi’s Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, a cascading series of sci-fi time travel antics with a crew of oddballs, like Megumi (Aki Asakura) and Ozawa (Yoshifumi Sakai), among others. They try to decipher the mystery, maybe get Kato a date, and quickly find themselves in way over their heads.

'Hydra' (2021) Movie Review

Hydra begins with every man’s worst nightmare, being killed at a urinal. Okay, maybe not, but it’s a definite concern and something to think about in the bathroom. It’s a hell of a way to kick off a movie, even if most of what follows fails to live up to the opening. Until the very end.

Fantasia 2020: 'Monster SeaFood Wars' Movie Review

Minoru Kawasaki’s Monster SeaFood Wars is a kaiju movie about a giant crab, squid, and octopus rampaging through Tokyo. And it’s as ludicrous and off-the-wall as that sounds. It’s strange and silly and upholds the Japanese dudes-in-rubber-monster-suits-wreaking-havoc tradition. There’s also the added bonus that it may well make you very, very hungry.

'First Love' (2019) Movie Review

If you didn’t know you were watching a Takashi Miike movie, the severed head rolling down the street, coming to a stop, and blinking at you with an opened-mouthed silent scream less than three minutes into First Love should be a tip off. True to form, and the uber-prolific Japanese director works in maybe his truest form here, First Love is down and dirty, violent, and weird as all hell. Wouldn’t have a Takashi Miike movie any other way. But he also delivers his version of a dark, twisted, mean-spirited romantic comedy. Which means, of course, it’s the most badass rom-com you’ve ever seen.

Fantasia 2019: 'The Legendary Stardust Brothers' Movie Review

This is an updated version of an earlier review.

Dear The Legend of the Stardust Brothers, where have you been all my life? Seriously, this lost Japanese musical oddity from 1985 fills a gaping chasm in my soul I didn’t even know was there. It also has maybe the most WTF twist I’ve ever seen, and this is a movie that’s basically non-stop WTF moments from one end to the other.

Fantasia 2019: 'Sadako' Movie Review

(C)2019 "Sadako" Film Partners

In 1998, with Ringu, Hideo Nakata helped kick off an American obsession with Japanese horror that continued to wield a heavy influence through the 2000s. Now, two decades, multiple sequels and remakes, and countless knock-offs down the line, the director returns to that well yet again. The latest chapter, Sadako, maintains the standard creepy, atmospheric vibe at the same time it updates the franchise mythology for a YouTube, anything-for-clicks generation. I mean, it’s hard to make a killer VHS tape scary in a day and age when no one even has a VCR, right?

SIFF 2019: 'The Legend Of The Stardust Brothers' Movie Review

Dear The Legend of the Stardust Brothers, where have you been all my life? Seriously, this lost Japanese musical oddity from 1985 fills a gaping chasm in my soul I didn’t even know was there. It also has maybe the most WTF twist I’ve ever seen, and this is a movie that’s basically non-stop WTF moments from one end to the other.

This 'Re: Born' Trailer Is The Most Badass Thing You'll Watch Today

It’s understandable to be skeptical of movies billed as “The New Movie X!” or “The Movie X from Blank!” By and large, those comparisons to movies you love don’t measure up. But while I haven’t seen Yuji Shimomura’s Re: Born, from the look of this U.K. trailer, the “Japanese John Wick” hype may well be warranted.

'Blade Of The Immortal' Trailer: Takashi Miike's 100th Movie Looks Appropriately Nuts

Does Takeshi Miike sleep? He must as some point, but it can’t be all that much, the guy is busy. The gonzo Japanese auteur of the outrageous has directed 100 movies. That’s insane. His hundredth, Blade of the Immortal, screens at Fantastic Fest next month and just dropped an appropriately loony new trailer.

'Karate Kill' (2016) Movie Review

Kurando Mitsutake’s Karate Kill may not have much in the way of plot, but it certainly has an excess of violent martial arts fights, blood, and gratuitous nudity. So that’s something for the Gun Woman director to hang his hat on.

'Outrage Coda' Trailer: Beat Takeshi Returns To Shoot Gangsters...And A Fish

“Beat” Takeshi Kitano’s 2010 Yakuza opus, Outrage, is one of the prolific writer/director/actor’s (and comedian and author and painter so on) greatest feats. A grim gangster tale of honor, respect, loyalty, betrayal, intrigue, and corruption, it’s also darkly witty and bleakly comic. All of which plays through in the new trailer for the latest follow up, Outrage Coda. Check it out below.

'Creepy' (2016) Movie Review

It’s a bold choice to title a horror thriller Creepy. But with that overt wink to the audience, Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Cure, Tokyo Sonata) dives right into a Hitchcockian tale of psychopaths and serial killers.

'Silence' (2016) Movie Review

Martin Scorsese is one of those filmmakers who’s reached such a status he can do whatever the hell he wants. And with good reason. It’s been in the works since 1990, but the Goodfellas mastermind finally ushered his adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel, Silence (previously adapted by Masahiro Shinoda in 1971), to the big screen. The result of this passion project is bloated, plodding, overindulgent, and 161 minutes of 17th century Japanese peasants being tortured so a white dude can learn a lesson about his faith. Though I’m not entirely certain he learns anything at all.

'Kodoku Meatball Machine' Trailer: Heavy Metal, Blood, And Machine Gun Boobs...And Blood

A certain level of utter chaos and mayhem from the guy behind Tokyo Gore Police and Mutant Girl Squad is to be expected, and the trailer for Japanese director Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Kodoku Meatball Machine does not disappoint on that front. Check it out below, it’ll be the most insane two minutes of your day. If it isn’t, holy shit, you’re having a weird one.

'Silence' Trailer: Martin Scorsese Makes Andrew Garfield Look Like Jesus

Any Martin Scorsese movie is going to be an automatic awards contender; that’s just a fact. And we’re talking biggies here, too, like Oscar, not just some random Seattle film asshole’s end of the year top ten list. Such is the case with his latest, Silence, though it’s been a tight race to see if it would squeak in under the deadline and make the cut for 2016. This has now been decided with a resounding yes, and there’s a tense new trailer just in case you need extra motivation to get up for a Martin Scorsese movie. Check it out after the jump.

SIFF 2016: 'Tag' (2015) Movie Review

Under normal circumstances, a river full of school girl corpses, ones that have been cut in half no less, shouldn’t be funny. But when this scenario is in the hands of manic madman Sion Sono, as it is in his latest wingnut opus, Tag, it certainly elicits a chuckle, even if it’s an uncomfortable one.