Each armed with half of a wooden key, two criminals (played by Siu-Tung Ching and Chiu-Sing Hau respectively) escape from jail in search of a treasure left behind by a kung-fu master. The treasure is not gold, silver, or bitcoins. In fact, it’s an old manuscript on the monkey style of martial arts. Before they…
The Alienist: Angel of Darkness Blu-ray review
Based on the novel of the same name by Caleb Carr, The Alienist: Angel of Darkness is the second season of The Alienist television series that takes place in the late 1800s, 1896 and 1897 respectively. The series is directed by David Caffrey and Claire Kilner and features the same core cast in Dakota Fanning,…
Blu-ray Review – Le Cercle Rouge – Criterion
Review—Le Cercle Rouge (Criterion, UHD) Author: Palo Sionoplia Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge is impossible to review; instead, one speaks of it in hallowed terms. Filmed on the heels of the Le Samourai and Army of Shadows, brilliant films in their own right, Melville’s penultimate film is the work of an artist at the peak…
Blu-ray Review – Lies and Deceit – The Films of Claude Chabrol
Review—Lies and Deceit: Five Films by Claude Chabrol (Arrow Video) Author: Palo Sionoplia Films: Cop au Vin, Inspecteur Lavardin, Madame Bovary, Betty, Torment While Arrow’s first foray into the vast catalogue of Chabrol films focuses on late-career works helmed by the auteur in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the dueling motifs of lies and…
Blu-ray Review – Infinite Stratos – Complete Collection – Sentai Filmworks
Infinite Stratos is a 2011 anime series that has already had a Blu-ray release about a decade ago, followed by a sequel series. A third series is now on the horizon (8 years after the 2nd), and I assume that is the reason for this timely re-release. Infinite Stratos is based off a light novel…
Blu-ray Review – Somali and the Forest Spirits
Somali and the Forest Spirit is a series that I had some minor expectations for having heard somethings over the last year or so from friends. But I try not to be swayed by the court of public opinion (although everything I heard was very positive), so I went into this not viewing a frame….
Blu-ray Review – The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter – Arrow Video
The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter is a stone-cold classic of the Shaw Brothers studios. It was directed in 1984 by master director Lau Kar-Leung (the 36th Chamber of Shaolin). It was made under a tragic circumstance, in that original leading man (who footage was shot with) Alexander Fu Sheng died in a car accident. The…
Blu-ray Review – Human Lanterns – 88 Films
Human Lanterns is the 1982 Swordplay/Martial Arts/Horror hybrid film by Sun Chung who in the prior year began dabbing in horror and martial arts with his film Revenge of the Corpse. The film follows Master’s Tan Fu and Lung who are ultra competitive with one another. Right now it is the yearly “Lantern” festival, and…
Blu-ray Review – Living Dead at Manchester Morgue – Synapse
Zombie cinema is an interesting thing. In the last few decades it seems the living dead have been everywhere on TV, in the movies, but for years after cinema began you would be lucky to see a long zombie on screens. Sure, throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s you would get an occasional White Zombie, King…
Blu-ray Review – Premutos – The Fallen Angel (Unearthed)
Reflection of a horror junkie, I remember as a kid, or what felt like I was a kid being obsessed with getting my next horror hit. I would troll video stores throughout my just South of Tampa/St. Petersburg hometown trying to find horror films, I hadn’t seen, the most shocking, and weird I could find,…