Action

Summary from the Film Society of Lincoln Center website:
Shooting on location in China, Tomotaka Tasaka presents a low-key but stirring account of the day-to-day travails and camaraderie of Japanese soldiers, swapping individual heroics for devotion to the group spirit. Tasaka’s typically clear-eyed treatment, which includes an extraordinary battle scene and an assault on a farmhouse, was so documentary-like in its feel for detail that when Americans later captured a print of the film, it was edited into a training reel for U.S. troops.Read More »

Secret courier Matt Considine accepts the mission to escort chief witness Dvorak and his wife from San Francisco to a trial in New York. They have to cover 3,000 dangerous miles, because the drug mob wants to kill them at any price.Read More »

Wandering gambler movie filled with humor and compassion. An odd couple of a gangster and a masterless samurai becomes involved in a variety of events as they travel.

Rare film from Tai Kato, one of the all-time greats.Read More »

The film concerns the police force of a small fictional Swedish village, Högboträsk. The village is so peaceful that crime has become nonexistent. The police spend their shifts drinking coffee, eating hot dogs and chasing down runaway cows. This is all well and good for the village’s own police, but then comes the news: The police management board has decided that as there is no crime, there is no need for a Police Station i.e. the local police or… “The Kopps”. This would mean the loss of income for the policemen and this gets those police folks a bit fired up; – something needs to be done; something so drastic. So they begin to stage crimes in order to preserve their jobs. This includes burning down the local hotdog stand, hiring a drunk to steal a packet of sausages, thrashing a local car, faking a shootout and staging a kidnapping using their friends as actors. But somehow their plans don’t quite go the way they’ve planned. A gentle and funny comedy from the maker of Jalla Jalla starring 4 Kopps, a bit of love interest and a diminutive police dog.Read More »

Quote:
John Woo displays the crucial distinction in the magnificently told Red Cliff, the Hong Kong director’s triumphant return to Chinese film after 16 years in Hollywood” and “with Red Cliff, Woo shows he’s still a masterful director to be reckoned with.Read More »

Plot summary:
Charles Stewart was unable to accept that his brother Rich had died in Vietnam, so he started to investigate what he believed to be a government cover-up.
A journalist shows Charles a captured video film of a recent attempted political assassination, amongst the assailants Charles recognises his brother. He also recognises Spacek, his former commanding officer in Vietnam, a sadistic, evil man.Read More »

1580. Ninja Kotaro gets killed by the evil Hattori Hanzo after he discovers that the local shogun and his son aren’t related. It’s up to Kotaro’s nubile and innocent virginal daughter Kaede to exact revenge on Hanzo for bumping off her dad. Kaede learns various lethal sexual martial arts techniques in order to accomplish this particular goal.Read More »

As powerful and energetic as ever, 78-year old director Seijun Suzuki creates a stunningly lurid, extreme tale of a woman assassin’s (new sensation Makiko Esumi) surreal rise in the criminal underworld. Thirty-three years later, this master of the pulp thriller reworks his own Branded To Kill into a totally new, jaw-dropping experience! The original Branded To Kill (1976, Koroshi No Rakun starring Jo Shishido. Mariko Ogawa, Anne Mari) is the stylish action movie that has been the subject of homage from world-class directors such as John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, and Jim Jarmusch. Its eccentric, eye-popping images and extreme action is fast earning Pistol Opera a worldwide cult following.Read More »

From original nfo file:
Another pre-war Columbia serial, made before Sam Katzman could get his grubby hands on it, and as such is pretty good. Amateur magicians wil be interested in the magic show near the beginning of Chapter One. Among the routines performed by Mandrake is the Cup and Sponge Balls. This is a very old routine, but some magicians are better than others with hand magic.
Whoever is doing the cups and balls is very good.
I have no idea who is doing the actual hand magic. Certainly not Warren Hull. You can slow it down, play it backwards, and never see him make a slip.
The rest of the magic show is pretty ho-hum.Read More »