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The Merciful Buddha (Review)
The Merciful Buddha
aka A mi de dao
1979
Directed by Tyrone Hsu Tien-Yung
Merciful Buddha is a Taiwanese fantasy film with a lot of crazy effects that aren’t like anything you have seen recently. Unless you are the kind of guy who watches a lot of these films. Crazy fantasy effects, fairy girls, immortal dudes, horses with human heads, giant monkeys, shape changing, earthquakes, and
This is a pretty confusing film with a bunch of wacky, crazy, goofy stuff going on. So the summary is filled with best guesses at times, but unless you are an expert in the film Merciful Buddha you will probably be just as confused as we are. Just my luck and some guy who wrote a doctoral thesis on Merciful Buddha will soon write complaining of the film’s representation on TarsTarkas.NET. Well, screw ’em!
This copy of the film is from a VHS tape (because there is no way this will be on remastered DVD because the world hates people like me.) It is also dubbed into Thai, but it has subtitles! Subtitles that are cut off because the movie is fullscreen while it was filmed in widescreen. And often the subtitles are white on white background so they are even more unreadable. But this is a common complaint, as regular readers and regular watchers of random foreign junk are well aware. Tyrone Hsu Tien-Yung directed several other Taiwanese fantasy films including Golden Nun and The Demons in the Flame Mountain, which I am namedropping because I have copies lying around somewhere.
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Tracing Shadow Review
The new review is Tracing Shadow, modern wuxia meets comedy meets look-alike. Yes. Enjoy the cinematography, sort of enjoy the plot, wonder at the look-alikes. Then go back to enjoying the cinematography, because that is the best part of the film. Oh, well. Read it today!
Will Risk be a risk?
So I was thinking I should start doing goofy puns as story headlines because all the big movie sites do that, but then they are never funny and sometimes very stupid, so I probably won’t any more. If you’re like me (and I know I am) than you fondly remember your college days of playing Risk until 5 am with the other people in the dorm who never studied. Oh, should we do the Australian strategy? Or try for South America? Maybe become a bigger target with North America but enjoy the massive army production? How about bad luck getting stuck in Asia? Anyone have a Battle of Britain, where dozens of armies fell to three troops just never losing a dice roll? Anyway, now you can relive all that as a movie. Or not, as the movie will probably be actual war and stuff. No one has ever done a war movie before, so this is groundbreaking material here. Will Risk battle Battleship for board game movie supremacy? No one will ever beat Clue, so it doesn’t matter.
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Shattered Union the latest video game to become a film
Because we all love video game films. So this one might not suck so much, as Jerry Bruckheimer is producing and J. Michael Straczynski is writing. Through the Disney production house, so expect it to feel like Pirates of the Caribbean meets Babylon 5. That’s what I say, and I am always right. The story of the Shattered Union video game involves a huge civil war in the US after DC gets nuked and the country fractures. Just like in Pirates of the Caribbean. Or not. Also Straczynski is doing a Silver Surfer film, because everyone loved the Silver Surfer from Fantastic Four 2: Bland Harder.
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Nagira
Nagira is an upcoming German Kaiju film directed by Florian Schröder.
Nagira is brought to life with top motion effects, the creature Nagira is a mix of a piranha, a crab, and a snake. This is a full length feature film that will clock in at 80 minutes, which is long enough to be good but not so long it will drag out. The budget was an astronomical €3400 (~ $5000.) November 14 is the world premier, and the DVD will get released in 2010.
We all know the drill, Nagira shows up smashes things, and the army is useless. Eventually a giant robot is created to challenge Nagira and his destroying things philosophy of life. Okay, how about a bit more of specifics:
1986 — A mysterious meteorite crashes on Earth. High-level scientists find traces of extraterrestrial life on the rocks and set about deciphering the genetic material. Years later, the breakthrough occurs — and the lab burns down to its foundations. The leader of the team is murdered shortly afterwards in hospital. Investigators set their sights on a billionaire arms mogul after a towering monster appears, leaving an entire neighborhood in rubble. Even the Army with its tanks and missiles doesn’t stand a chance. But rescue comes from faraway Japan in the form of a professor who arrives in Germany with his assistant to work with the Crisis Team toward finding a solution to the monstrous problem. It turns out, however, that there is a traitor in the ranks of the Crisis Staff. Someone seems to be putting the destructive force of the monster to profitable use for themselves … With a budget of only 3400€ director and screenwriter Florian Schröder has produced an affectionate homage to B movies and the Japanese monster films of the 70s.
Official site
The trailer
Interview with Florian Schröder by Avery at Undead Backbrain
cast
Kruder: Christian Peters
Frenz: Henry Braun
Oberst Schöndorf: Dirk Linke
Gefreiter Becker: Sven Clos
Von Klünkin: Janina Fahrner
Professor Kurosawa: Günther Lü-Matheis
Osato: Paul Magiera
Maranzano: Gun Aydemir
Philipp La Croix: Christian Hageleit
Thanks to Avery for the link!