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Battle League Horumo
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Battle League Horumo (Review)

August 31, 2010By

Battle League Horumo

aka Kamogawa Horumo

2009
Directed by Katsuhide Motoki
Based on the novel by Manabu Makime

All of us who have been to college know the excitement of the day where all the clubs get to set up tables and try to convince people to join up. Chess Club, Young Democrats, Free Tibet, that club that build a solar car, and the club where you command armies of demons to battle other demons. What, your school didn’t have a Horumo Club? They’re the greatest thing ever if you like CGI demon sprites (called Oni) beating each other with clubs while the human controllers make weird gestures commanding the troops. I commanded a Horumo squad back in my days at Mizzou and we won all sorts of battles: the Battle of the University Bookstore, the Battle of the 7-11 near campus, the Battle of Jesse Hall, the Battle of Stop Raising Our Damn Tuition, the last one being more of a riot than a battle and demons in riot gear had to be bussed in from East Hades.

But, still, Horumo battling was the fourth best time of my life, behind only my marriage, writing for this site, and the time I found a green ring and became a lantern or something.

Battle League Horumo is from Japan, because Japan specializes in stories about humans controlling various tiny things in battle with each other. That and cartoon seizure robots. BLH (as I’ll call it from now on because laziness rules) is based on a book by Manabu Makime that I haven’t read because I can only read Japanese children’s books.

BLH suffers from one major flaw – it is totally slow. The plot drags on and on. I am not sure how they got it to drag so slowly as Japan seems to specialize in films clocking in at barely over an hour. But BLH manages to be two hours long! Looks like Korea is influencing cinema again. So if you got a movie where people control CGI demon sprites, shouldn’t you show the freaking sprites before 50 minutes into the movie? But don’t let me complaining in the intro satisfy your urge, let’s complain as the movie unfolds!

Akira Abe (Takayuki Yamada) – Akira Abe is just a college freshman who gets dragged into the world of Horumo due to his stomach and his wang. And while his stomach gets full, his wang never gets the satisfaction of being inside Kyoko Sawara like it wants to. But as he ends up with Chiaki Kuriyama, he can’t complain. SPOILERS!
Fumi Kusunoki (Chiaki Kuriyama) – I find Chiaki Kuriyama more fitting for the hot babe role played by Sei Ashina, even with the glasses and wig, but Japan seems to be suffering from “girl with glasses = ugly” syndrome so popular in the US. They explain her look as that of some 80’s comedienne referred to as the “licking lady.” I have no idea if this is a real person or just a joke from the book that made it into the movie. It probably doesn’t really matter, but maybe at some point five years from now someone will read this review and leave a comment with the answer. And minds will be blown. In any event, if you don’t know who Chiaki Kuriyama is, then you probably don’t belong on the internet because this is nerd knowledge of the most basic degree.
Koichi Takamura (Gaku Hamada) – Akira’s buddy from America who gets dragged into this Horumo business despite being the kind of person who cracks under pressure. Getting punished by the gods is just another Thursday for Takamura.
Kyoko Sawara (Sei Ashina) – Kyoko Sawara is the hot babe of the group. She’s Akira’s crush, but then he finds out her terrifying secret – she’s dating a jerk. Maybe he should have asked her out in the year or so he had where they were just friends. You might have seen Sei Ashina in the movie Silk, but then again, no one saw that movie.
Mitsuru Ashiya (Takuya Ishida) – The bad boy of the group because he is angry. I didn’t even know he was supposed to be a main character until 2/3rds of the way into the film. And thats with all the extra padding they put in that was supposed to add flavor and characterization.
Makoto Sugawara (YosiYosi Arakawa) – The current head of the club, 499th president. He takes charge of everything and is in a lot of the movie, but we don’t really get a feel for just who Makoto Sugawara is. Someone who writes songs about rainbows? A lover? A dreamer? Me?

Future X-Cops movie
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Future X-Cops (Review)

August 27, 2010By

Future X-Cops

aka Mei loi ging chaat

2010
Directed and written by Wong Jing

The background spinning enrages me!

Future X-Cops is a mixed bag, a film that is part-action, part-comedy, part-drama, part-romance. We got robot guys, time travel, yelling kids, loved ones dying, weird slapstick, a dude with a microwave on his head, a guy who is trapped in a TV, an insect cyborg gang, a giant industrial machine, a cyborg cat lady, and hundreds of cops murdered. It’s all part of Wong Jing’s strategy of throwing the whole buffet against the wall and hoping it turns into a Monet painting. But instead we get more of a Thomas Kinkade.

When Future X-Cops was first announced, it was announced as the title Future Cops, which instantly made everyone think it was a remake of Wong Jing’s Future Cops, especially since Wong Jing was writing and directing this one. But as more details came out, suddenly the film was titled Future X-Cops and bared little resemblance to Future Cops except ripping off the basic plot of cops from the future being sent back in time to protect someone from being killed by bad guys.

In the future, gas shortages lead to go-kart madness!

It has been nice seeing Hong Kong start to pump out some more SciFi movies, but between this and Kung Fu Cyborg we have a ways to go before Hong Kong becomes a SciFi action mainstay. But some day they’ll produce things on par with I Love Maria again!

Like recent movie Beauty on Duty, there are a bajillion production companies and a bajillion producers for this flick. At this point, anyone with a spare $5 can be a Hong Kong producer and you can just have your named added to the wall of text during the opening credits.

Originally I was going to write a short version of this review, but the more I kept watching, the more I kept getting confused and angry and weirdly entertained, but not at the parts I should be entertained at. Thus, the review now is pretty long. Feel free to skip reading it and just look at the pictures, I’m under no delusions that 90% of you don’t do just that anyway. This text is just for us cool 10%ers. You know, the ones who are awesome.

Every one of these characters miss

Kidd Zhao (Andy Lau Tak-Wah) – He’s a cop, he’s from the future, and he’s an x. Whatever that means. But it does mean he’s a Future X-Cop! He’s also a robot, which sorts of makes up for his awful name. Andy Lau was in Future Cops besides being in Future X-Cops, making him the expert of Wong Jing films involving cops and futures.
Holly Wang (Barbie Hsu Hsi-Yuan) – Holly Wang is a cop from the present who likes Kidd Zhao, but he can’t like her back because then history will change and JFK will marry Hitler or something. So instead Holly Wang has to just be sad and look pale. So, so pale.
Kalon (Fan Siu-Wong) – Kalon is a evil cyborg guy who used to have a whole gang of cyborgs until Kidd Zhao killed most of them. Kalon’s crab claw cyborg stuff are upgraded to wings, snake arms, and other goofy stuff. Fan Siu-Wong was just on TarsTarkas.NET in Beauty On Duty, but he just couldn’t stay away!
Fiona (Tang Yi-Fei) – Kalon’s girl is a cyborg cat lady! She also goes back in time with her man so when they’re defeated by Kidd Zhao they’ll die together. Tang Yi-Fei is having so much fun being an evil cyborg cat lady it’s awesome. Just enjoy her over-acting cat moves and ridiculous smile as she does her moves.
Kiki Zhao (Xu Jiao) – Hey, that boy from CJ7 is a girl now! Kidd Zhao brings his daughter back in time with him for some reason because I guess they don’t have laws against bringing your relatives into harm’s way in the future.
Millie (Fan Bing-Bing) – Speaking of relatives in harm’s way, Kidd Zhao’s wife was also a x-cop in the future. Notice how I used the past tense? That’s because she won’t make it past the 20 minute mark!
After The Dark Knight, there was nowhere for the franchise to go but down
InMovie News

3D Sex and Zen begins shooting

August 27, 2010By

We got some 3D Sex and Zen up in the hizzouse! Actually, you probably will have to settle for the 2D version at home unless you buy one of those super-expensive TVs and enjoy sitting around the house wearing goofy glasses. 3D sucks, but 3D Hong Kong Cat III movies…maybe that won’t suck…as much. Stephen Shiu’s previously announced 3D Sex and Zen remake/not-really-as-the-source-material-is-public-domain (now titled 3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy) is shooting now and it has plenty of Japanese actresses. In this Hong Kong film. Oh, you didn’t know that Japanese actresses is how most of the nudity in Hong Kong film is done? Well, it is! You see, the Hong Kong entertainment industry has some sort of bias against actresses that appear naked, and it is hard for women who have been nude to go on to legitimate film careers. That’s why certain actresses will appear almost nude but with certain things strategically covered in film after film after film. Because that extra quarter of an inch is the end of their careers. The whole thing is hilarious when contrasted with the Edison Chen scandal that revealed all these famous people are humping like rabbits, just like in America and everywhere else.

But enough about that, let’s see who’s in this thing! Cast photos shamelessly stolen from the HKMDB News:

3d-sex-and-zen-press-1.jpg
Tony Ho Wah-Chiu

3d-sex-and-zen-press-2.jpg
Yukiko Suo

3d-sex-and-zen-press-3.jpg
Hayama Go

3d-sex-and-zen-press-4.jpg
Saori Haro

3d-sex-and-zen-press-5.jpg
Vonnie Lui Hoi-Yan (Hey, lady, maybe you didn’t notice, but you’re not Japanese!)

3d-sex-and-zen-press-6.jpg
Tony Ho Wah-Chiu, Chen Chau-Ping, Hayama Hiro, Lan Yu

We’ll be sure to catch this on DVD where the 3D effects will look weird and awkward in 2D!

InMovie News

Sandy Frank has lost his meat

August 27, 2010By

Seriously, he looks dreadful now! And his former model wife also looks just awful. They look like they stretched like 1 square inch of skin to cover their entire bodies. You might remember that producer Sandy Frank was the American distributor of a lot of the MST3K films that were from Japan, including the Gamera films, Time of the Apes, the forklift one, and that one with some guy named Atari in it. But, because they were mean to poor Mr. Frank, Sandy Frank won’t release the rights of the American prints so the episodes can be released. So we just download them and watch them for free instead. Suck on that, Mr. Frank. Uh…I totally never did that, officer!

In any event, the 81 year old Sandy Frank was cheating on his 57 year old current wife Brenda Frank (that’s an image I did not want to picture) and the resulting fight meant the Franks were tossing drinking glasses at each other. It looks like Brenda Frank caught one upon her forehead. Domestic violence is never the answer, folks! In any event, it is now divorce city for the Franks, maybe that will be what is needed for Mr. Frank to finally give in and let us have the MST3K episodes we so desperately want. Here’s hoping the prenup gets tossed!

The most flattering images I could find...

InSite News

TarsTarkas.NET gets another reason to act all smug!

August 24, 2010By

So this site called Nmap made a graph of the 300,000 or so most popular websites using their favicons (those little pictures up in the web browser address area for those of you wondering) and then sized them by popularity. Blah, blah, Google’s the biggest, but the important thing is TarsTarkas.NET’s favicon is there! That’s right, some site we’ve never heard of used our badly compressed favicon to make an art project! JEALOUS??? Of course you are!

A large-scale scan of the top million web sites (per Alexa traffic data) was performed in early 2010 using the Nmap Security Scanner and its scripting engine.

We retrieved each site’s icon by first parsing the HTML for a link tag and then falling back to /favicon.ico if that failed. 328,427 unique icons were collected, of which 288,945 were proper images. The remaining 39,482 were error strings and other non-image files. Our original goal was just to improve our http-favicon.nse script, but we had enough fun browsing so many icons that we used them to create the visualization below.

The area of each icon is proportional to the sum of the reach of all sites using that icon. When both a bare domain name and its “www.” counterpart used the same icon, only one of them was counted. The smallest icons–those corresponding to sites with approximately 0.0001% reach–are scaled to 16×16 pixels. The largest icon (Google) is 11,936 x 11,936 pixels, and the whole diagram is 37,440 x 37,440. Since your web browser would choke on that, we have created the interactive viewer below (click and drag to pan, double-click to zoom, or type in a site name to go right to it).

http://tarstarkas.net 10000 bytes in 0.00 seconds.
http://tarstarkas.net/favicon.ico 1406 bytes in 0.01 seconds.

Online lookup : The icon is at (16.760, 16.653) and is 32 × 32 pixels.

We've finally arrived!

InRiffTrax

RiffTrax Trip Report – Reefer Madness Live Show

August 20, 2010By

So on August 19th there was a RiffTrax Live Show of Reefer Madness broadcast to hundreds of theaters nationwide as a special event. It was the third such RiffTrax special event, but the first that I saw (I missed the two prior movies due to being broke, but I have also seen the three guys live twice in SF) The RiffTrax guys are Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett, who you might remember from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Now they essentially do the same thing, except as downloadable mp3 commentaries you listen to as you watch the films.

I was a little wary of the Reefer Madness film, as I already own the Legend colorized DVD version with Mike Nelson commentary, and the Three-Riffers version that has commentary by Mike, Kevin, and Bill. So I was hoping for some new content.

Getting there early paid off, as instead of the normal lame “movie trivia” cards there were special RiffTrax movie trivia cards. Those were awesome. The soundtrack playing was also songs done by Mike, Kevin, and Bill (available as the RiffTones album on RiffTrax.com)

Before the flick there was
3 shorts:
More Dangerous Than Dynamite – a 1930s join that educated me that women used to use GASOLINE to wash clothes and do dry cleaning! Luckily, this awful short educated those women as to how they should have their clothes professionally washed in gasoline so they aren’t horribly burned by badly animated fire.

At Your Fingertips: Grasses – a 1970s educational short about how grass is totally neat. Grass grass, not marijuana grass. But being on marijuana might help you get through this mess. Did you know you can weave grass together and make headdresses? Because you can. And they’ll spend many many minutes making headdresses. And also horrific clay creatures that are the embodiment of Satan.

Some Cartoon – a 1930s cartoon about two dog-things (father and son) going to the north pole, complete with lots of side “jokes” of various arctic animals doing things. Eventually, the child dies and the father dog-thing robs his son, but quickly puts the money back when the child comes back to life, only to be murdered by what I think is a bear. The father abandoned his son again to hump the north pole or something, then the bear thing kills him. The end!

There was also two quick shorts done by Lowtax from SomethingAwful and his five year old daughter, which were pretty cute.

Finally, Reefer Madness begins. The story of an old creepy dude who lectures the audience. He tells a story that is the real story that is about some innocent kids who get drug into the world of Reefer and Madness. Smoking reefer will cause you to hit and run, uncontrollably laugh, have sex, get away with murder, go insane, get stds, be a forty-year-old high school student, fall in a fountain, get your girlfriend almost raped and then murdered, be framed for murder, and have an old judge yell at you. Then the old creepy dude returns to yell at the audience again.

As for the Riffs, sadly, some of the jokes I remembered from the other versions I saw. There were new jokes, including some related to a contest sponsored at RiffTrax.com. I was hoping for more newer jokes, but at least seeing them with an audience helped me enjoy the reruns better. RiffTrax also announced the next show will be a Halloween show on October 28 – House on Haunted Hill (Vincent Price Version) As this is another film that I have both the Mike only and Three-Riffers edition, I am not sure if I’ll go to this one. But possibly as I am seeing less films in the theater and it’s easier to justify special events like this than some random film that will be on DVD in a few months. I do hope they do some more original content for the special events in the futures.
Reefer Madness RiffTrax Live

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