Zatoichi Reviewed! (Well, Almost..)

I'm supposed to be sleeping. There's a meeting I'm supposed to be at early tomorrow morning, but for some reason the bed's just not where I want to be yet. It's been a long but fruitful day at work, capped off with a surprise during dinner: my brother managed to sniff out a bootleg VCD of Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi.

We rushed home, slid the disc out of the wrapper and gingerly inserted it into the player. Lo and behold! Instead of the isometric captured "in-cinema" footage I was expecting, it was a clear, pristine transfer from what I can only guess is a master DVD. Murphy's Law still prevailed however: there were no subtitles.

So it was left to me and my brother to gingerly piece together the story from what we already knew from the net, and through our rudimentary Japanese (although he caught more words than I did). It'd be an injustice to post a review this early, since I don't have the complete story yet, but trust me, Kitano's latest masterpiece already does well without the subs. Think Kill Bill, but with a return to the samurai roots. Oh, and there's lots of blood, too.

Watch out for my review as soon as I can get my grubby hands on a suitably subtitled DVD. I may decide to post a double feature along with Kitano's earlier 97 hit, Hana-bi (Fireworks).

DVD9 releases this month that may be of interest:

Big Fish: Good story, a nice transfer and subtitles that actually make sense await you if you decide to bag this one. No extras though, but worth it just for the amazing story.

Kill Bill Vol 1: Forget the earlier shoddy D5 release. Several manus (manufacturers) have come up with differing versions of the real thing. You get mostly the same stuff, but with better quality picture/sound, and excellent subtitles. Get this now!

The Rundown: The Rock shows he can be an action hero, with heart. A not too bad outing and a must for action comedy fans. Extras are so-so depending on the manu, but better get this than spend your hard earned cash on what you KNOW will be a shoddy release of Walking Tall in KinoScope.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003): This remake is one of the better ones, and worth picking up if you're a fan of slasher/horror films. Now if only they'll release the Dawn of The Dead remake..

Foreign releases:

Thesis (Spanish): Spanish students investigating snuff movies. Haven't had the chance to see this yet, due to budgetary concerns. But am working on it as we speak.

Fireworks: Kitano deals out more than just violence in this touching tale of revenge and redemption. Extras: next to zilch, but the movie itself is worth the price of admission.

Katsuhiro Otomo Presents Memories: A trio of short anime flicks, each barely over 30 minutes long, but together tells us why the Disney and other western animated features still fall short of our Asian magic. Otomo's next anticipated release, Steamboy, has reached near vapourware status.

Well, I'm off. Have a good week!