Agreement:90% of 10 voters agree with DG65588(DON)'s reviews Gender: Male Location: Belfast,N.Ireland,UK Lists:WISH LIST (10) / OWNED LIST (23)
Bio: Born in New Zealand ages back.Left age 16 for Brighton,England.Thrown outta my Uncle's place within 6months.Spent next 10-15 years Travelling,doing the likes of Stonehenge,getting batoned by the police for my efforts.Squatting and living with what the press called'the Convoy'.near death(bad living)blacked out in Liverpool,found myself in Belfast.No idea 2 this day how I got here.Cleaned up,had Daughter,settled. Much happier now!Sing While You May-Don.
Just a quick review,as I want to watch this again tonight.I remember being quite impressed by the general similiarity ti "Letters from Iwo-Jima",but mostly just conceptually..The film it brought more to mind was Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron"-one of my favourite war films;if not my ACTUAL favourite.The whole futility-having to hold the line,when there is to all intents and purposes,no line left-rings true.Anyway-good stuff.-Also,wanted to use this opportunity to say Hi to anyone who's commented on my reviews in the past-I HOPE I'm getting the hang of it a bit more,now! (Adam? you were right-giving park Chan-Wook's Vengeance trilogy straight 5's across the board,was silly-completely avoids the fact that I prefer Oldboy to the other 2,and Lady.V to S.F.Mr.V! I'll try not to do such daft things in future-I'm just usually short of time,not owning a computer.
Assembly? Well I thought it was Cracking!mate I lent it to agreed/
Don.SWYM!
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ive been on this site for a few yrs and it took awhile to get done a rating system and still post reviews ppl disagree with. you cant please everyone so dont try and keep posting. ive never seen this film but it sounds interesting and on my radar now.
Could've sworn I reviewed this before? Just as well if I'm wrong-because watching it again the other night gave me one of the best layghs I had all week!
While watching adverts for other'3rd Window' films on another disc,I noticed the name 'Min-Soo Choi' in it,and had to do a double -take,thinking that Choi Min-Sik had been in it and I'd not noticed him.Thought "nah-hallucinating!"+ forgot about it.UNTIL-before watching it the othernight,I put the 'Interviews' section on(UK edition)-and when we got to the 3rd actoe(4th?)the first thing he mentioned was that his characters name was a joke-as he ws trying to 'act the hard-man',and had chosen "Min-Soo Choi" as his nickname,after the actor Min-Su Choi! Which IS the actor we know here as Choi Min-Sik-OLDBOY!(I have also seen his name spelt in at least one alternate,depending on the background of the film.
I was REAL happy with myself for having noticed the joke-and been RIGHT about it-in the film itself,the character even makes a film reference to a Choi min-sik film I'm not familiar with ("Terrorist"?) when trying to tell his 'gang' how they should behave!
Anyway-Another great moment in an extremely entertaining film!i also love the fact that the guy who plays "Bulldog",in interview,state's that his only model for the character was Robert DeNiro's "Jake LaMotta" from scorcese's "Raging Bull".watching the film again with that in mind-you can really see it-My respect for the actor went way up.
And of course,the two leading Ladies do an excellent job.
If you haven't seen it yet,do yourself a favour-you'll love it!
Tom Yum Goong (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure only reason Im only giving this 4.5 is by way of comparison to Ong Bak,and Ong Bak2-this one has the Australian side to balance it downwards-(half the film takes place in Aus)-the comedy relief guy from Ong Bak (George?) plays an officer of the Asian region Police force in this one if you aint seen it! Still no wire work!
I may well have given this 5 stars, but I think at least some points are lost simply through Tony Jaa's first use of CGI. I think they have done a great job with it overall, and given the semi-mythological, almost supernatural, setting, I think it was inevitable. The same goes for wirework.
I have noticed on a couple of sites where this film was mentioned that a lot of the people reviewing it who DIDN'T like it seemed to not like it for what I would call rather small-minded reasons. Personally, I thought the story was fine--I think I saw it called "simplistic" or "childish" or some such. From what I could gather (keep in mind I have a version with no subtitles!), the story was a rather poetic adult fairy-tale affair, great for losing yourself in--something along the same lines as "The Company of Wolves". Most other folk seemed to have nothing else on their minds but the fights--and if you can find anything to complain about in those, even (or perhaps especially!) WITH the CGI and wires, then you ain't watching the same Tony Jaa film as me!
One of the best martial arts films I've seen in ages, made all the better by the storytelling element lifting it out of the "brainless thump and crash" fodder that too many people are happy to settle for.
Full Metal Yakuza (product link) Crime / Action/Adventure this is Miike doing his tongue in cheek bit again,I think! doing what he does best-shocking the proverbial outta your gran,but also tipping his hat to all the 'Yakuza/gangster' flix that have become a genre unto themselves...nobody does it better.
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i havent seen this in awhile n prolly wouldnt go that high in the rating but i need to see it again. miike is one of the best at recreating the yakuza genre which he loves and adding his own sadistical spin to it. i love the punting of the severed head.
Ichi The Killer Live Action & Anime [UK LE 3-Disc Set] (product link) Crime / Action/Adventure It gets 5 stars coz' its "Ichi"...BUT- I ended up buying another copy,from Belgium to make up the 5 or so minutes missing from this edition!
dont know if this violates the "technical comments2 review rule-,but its not often I have to buy a film twice at the same time.
However,Takashi Miike is one of my favourite directors-and this could well be his best film-certainly MY favourite! showed it to a mate recently,and he hasn't shut up about Kakihara's blowing smoke out through his lip slits scene since! Now THATS what you call making an impression!
this has,in the space of opne viewing,gone straight into the top of my all time favourite films list.I have never seen anything quite like it in terms of sheer visceral impact. At the end of the film,when the two 'wild dogs' finally get to fight,the HKFlix overview has neglected to mention that Yue,is still with Pang in cambodia,and just about to give birth.wai has onl;y ended up as this 'Wild Dog' due to total mess up of his life in HongKong,his father having been a corrupt cop-the finale of th film,I wont go into too much detail-leaves only 1 survivor-Yue's child,which Pang has to cut from her belly with 1 of the knives the dying Wai has stuck into him-.whether the child will survive we can only hope,as the film fade's to sil3ence,over a whiteout of the child's hand,and a quote I wont repeat-Because ANYONE reading this should buy this film.And as you read the final quote, you feel like you have just been kicked in the stomach,-I had my jaw on my chest,and tears soaking my face.The heaviest wake-up call of a film I have seen in memory-A wake up to the fact that mankind is it's own worst enemy,and that within all black,there is a small bit of white,+ vice versa-think of your yin+yang.
I cannot rate a film higher.
A Better Tomorrow (product link) Action/Adventure / Bullet Ballet just thought Id throw in a review and I often find myself surprised that this ISN't the edition that seekms to be most available-coz I think its the best!
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i dont see how anyone could go less than 5 stars and ill take any version of this classic!
Oldboy (product link) Thriller / Action/Adventure The BEST of Park Chan Wook's vengeance trilogy,Im surprised to find this unrated as well as the other two-Sympathy for Lady Vengeance,and S.F.MR.Vengeance!
Classic stuff,and possibly Min-Suk Chin s best...Love it
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Great film! Like BS and AH stated check the comments section, this one has been reviewed numerous times.
Dude, check the comments section for other reviews. For some reason only pompous chumps that have web sites get their reviews put in the review section.
Sympathy For Lady Vengeance (product link) Thriller / Crime As I stated for S.F.MR.Vengeance,this should have been rated already! With the aforementioned,and Oldboy-Classic stuff!
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personally, i think this is the second best one in the trilogy, but 5 stars is a small stretch and over 15 ppl rated this
Casshern (product link) Action/Adventure / Science Fiction wasn't at all what top expect drom this,as I only bought it because it was going cheap on main street and looked.'interesting'...wasn't at all expecting what turned out to be a really clever mix of live action,anime,cgi,and an overall feeling of a Ketamine trip! recommend it to anyone who likes their mind played with!
I'll try and keep this brief,as it is a film I always include in my "all time best" list.Briefly,then-it is probably Jodorowsky's most accessible film-as compared to say,"The holy Mountain" oe "El Topo"-However,that just allows it to hit you even harder-following one mans mental breakdown and probable eventual redemption,with two of the Directors' sons playing him as child and adult.The effects are surprisingly effective for a film that doesn't have a massive budget-My own take on that is that the heavily color-saturated,almost psychedelic look of the film itself,leaves you too taken aback by, say,the mother having both her arms severed,to actually allow you to look for faults!
it is a film you wont soon forget-and gfrom experience,i recommend extreme care be taken when watching it on hallucinogens!.The ending itself is beautifuly handled,as the 'Hero' emerges from psychosis into the consensual reality around him,what could have been squalid,becomes beautiful-leaving the viewer questioning his own interpretation of the world around him.
Not for the squeemish..
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