Here is something awesome that I stumbled across on YouTube, filled with puppets kung fuing the living crap out of each other. This has the highest bodycount of a puppet show I’ve ever seen. Basically, it’s like The Lost Crystal meets Chinese Opera meets kung fu. What is below is clips of episodes 39 and 40 (the latest two, I believe), but there are plenty of full episodes online at this tudou account. This is Pili Bing Xian:Conquest of the Middle Land (問鼎天下) The blog pilicreateworld has a ton of information about this series. In Chinese.
Do you want Search?
Random Post
Search
Search
Zebraman 2 (Review)
Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City
aka Zeburaman: Zebura Shiti no gyakushu aka ゼブラーマン ゼブラシティの逆襲
2010
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Kankuro Kudo
Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City is Miike’s followup to the 2004 film Zebraman, and like Zebraman before it, the sequel takes what could have been a straight story about a guy dressing up as a tokusatsu hero to find himself and takes it in unexpected directions. Zebraman 2 goes far beyond its predecessor, and has so many things going on it that you will be blown away by the result. Miike takes inspiration from the black and white stripes of the zebra and spins it into a yarn about the duality of man, good and evil, but sets it in a futuristic dystopia with fascist imagery and an MTV sensibility. The film is just frakking crazy. And brilliant. Brilliantly crazy.
Miike has a lot of fun inverting color schemes while still keeping up the black and white dichotomy. Governor Aihara Kouzo dresses in an all-black version of Alex the droog’s costume from A Clockwork Orange, his footsoldiers wear mostly black (with a stylized white zebra face on their masks – both showing their zebra origins and showing where George Lucas got the design for General Grievous!) as they stomp their way through town. In contrast, the hospital that serves the victims of the Zebra Police is the White Horse at white horse, all white, everyone dresses in white. Zebraman becomes whiter and whiter, beginning with his hair, while ZebraQueen becomes increasingly blacker in costume as the film commences, even commenting on how she wants more black. As their powers develop and they become more of a threat to each other, the characters are threatened with becoming more striped, a sign of weakness as they strive for their more purified forms.
The video direction is great, the pop star videos of ZebraQueen are indistinguishable from the stuff that should be playing on MTV (if garbage like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom wasn’t polluting the airwaves and forcing us to retreat to YouTube to watch actual videos!) Zebraman 2 is like a hyperactive music video at times. The songs aide you in throwing you right into the crazy world of the future, making you just as disoriented as Ichikawa as he wakes up in a world he doesn’t know. The violent imagery of the video matches the violence he encounters in the street.
|
Zebraman (Review)
Zebraman
aka Zeburaman aka ゼブラーマン
2004
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Kankuro Kudo
If you know anything about cult cinema, you know Takashi Miike is awesome. Miike is always firing with all cylinders, and even on his weaker efforts he never does a half-assed job or sleepwalks through a film. Miike hops genres like Q*bert down a pyramid, able to make the most disgustingly violent film you’ve ever seen and follow that up with a kiddie flick. Zebraman is a love letter to tokusatsu heroes, particularly those from the 70s and 80s on Japanese television. Miike takes a fictitious hero and series and turn it into much more than just a simple tokusatsu film. It becomes a tale of finding yourself, of destiny, of belief, and about doing what’s right because you’re a hero. And it also has a guy riding a flying zebra while battling a giant goo monster. Zebraman takes these conventions and has fun with them, turning some deadly serious and others into more ridiculous fare than they’re treated by the real tokusatsu shows.
The fun with Zebraman is how all these different conventions and story bits add up to create a good story, despite the difference in tone and style. It’s a testament to Miike’s talent that he can take so many differently shaped parts and put together the puzzle with no missing pieces. My biggest fault with Zebraman is that the sequel outshines it at every turn. But I’ll worry about that when the review of the sequel goes up. For now, let’s learn about the man, the myth, the hero, Zebraman!
|
John Carter of TV Spots
Two new tv spots for John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) One is just as bland as the trailers, one is more exciting than the trailers.
The more boring commercial:
The far less boring commercial:
Time will tell if John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) can break free of the stigma of looking too much like boring films that ripped it off that past 100 years and become a hit. But if it is more like the second commercial than the first, then a chance is had.
Rob Lowe is Untouchable, Bitch!
Coming to Lifetime, the most evil MAN who ever MANNED, Drew Peterson, will be brought to life by Rob Lowe in the most ridiculous Lifetime movie trailer I’ve seen in years. Just FYI, Drew Peterson himself finds the trailer hilarious. Drew Peterson: Untouchable drops in January.
Bikini Chain Gang (Review)
Bikini Chain Gang
2005
Directed by Fred Olen Ray (as Nicholas Medina)
Yep, it’s another crazy Bikini movie! This time, Bikini Chain Gang takes us into the seedy world of women in prison, a sexploitaton genre that is used so often it has its own tropes and subgenres! Starring the usual cast from the 2005-2009 era Fred Olen Ray films, and featuring the usual songs, locations, and props. The only thing unusual is the nudity in the title screen shot, which I had to edit with the magic of free alternatives to Photoshop. We got a respectable family friendly website about bikini prison sex movies here, Bub!
Previous TarsTarkas.NET reviews of Fred Olen Ray Bikini films include: Bewitched Housewives, Super Ninja Doll, Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet, Girl with the Sex-Ray Eyes, Tarzeena: Jiggle in the Jungle, Ghost in a Teeny Bikini, Voodoo Dollz: Lust Potion #9, Bikini Airways, Bikini Royale. Bikini Frankenstein. and Twilight Vamps Lust At First Bite. Most of the crew below show up in one or more of the previous titles.
|
