Sadao Nakajima had made his name with Toei’s particular brand of violent action movie, but by the early seventies, the classic yakuza flick was going out of fashion. Datsugoku Hiroshima Satsujinshu (脱獄広島殺人囚, AKA The Rapacious Jailbreaker) follows in the wake of seminal genre buster, Battles Without Honour and Humanity, but also honours the classic Toei ganger movie past in its exploitation leaning, cynically humorous tale of a serial escapee and his ever more convoluted schemes to avoid the bumbling police force’s noose.Read More »

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Based on novel by MATSUMOTO Seicho
The year is 1926. Unhappy with his drunken father and the constant bickering, 15-year-old Takichi runs away from home to Mt. Amagi. During his lonely escapade, he meets interesting characters, including a beautiful prostitute named Hana. They stumble upon a drifter who is later found dead. Hana is implicated in the murder, but she is released for the lack of evidence. Thirty years later, they’ve gone on with their separate lives. Takichi hears of Hana’s whereabouts from a retired police investigator. He embarks on yet another journey to find her…Read More »

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coming-out, coming-of-age tale (from a novel by Jaime Bayly) set within a predominantly homophobic religious Peruvian society, this is by turns sensitive, touching, funny, alarming and, for the most part, very enjoyable. For just under two hours, we witness all the ups and downs of a young man, Joaquin (Magill), struggling to come to terms with his sexuality in a country where being gay is akin to being a leper, and violence towards gays is an almost daily occurrence. Joaquin’s mother is over-bearingly protective and very religious, while his father just wants to see his lad grow up to be a huntin’, shootin’, drinkin’ type. Joaquin, though, is unsure of whether he’s gay or het, and this dilemma stays with him right from the moment he leaves home, through his off-the-rails period as a coked-out dope fiend right up to the – admittedly, mostly unfulfilling – final reel.Read More »

From his childhood in Valparaiso to his death during the Pinochet military coup on September 11, 1973, the life and works of Chilean president Salvador Allende.Read More »

The same year the The Beatles? second film, HELP!, premiered,
John Lennon?s future soul mate, avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, made her
acting debut in the twisted sickie SATAN’S BED. Ono, in a kimono, plays
the Japanese bride-to-be of a drug smuggling immigration agent who
wants to abandon crime crime for life with Yoko. But Lou, a small-time
drug dealer, doesn’t want to lose his main supplier so he cancels the
wedding by kidnapping Ono. And when he also hires three psychos –
Snake, Dip, and Angel – to rough her up, they create a mini-crimewave
that culminates in a wild attack upon… the wrong woman. Oy. So join
Yoko for a typical day in Sin City that starts when you climb under the
sheets of SATAN?S BED!Read More »

A crime writer believes that a man imprisoned for committing the notorious “Flower Shop Murder” is innocent of the crime. He believes he knows who the actual culprit is, and sets out to befriend the man and get enough evidence to prove that he is the real killer.Read More »

A suicide attempt is investigated by a pair of female police rookies.

Peggy Knudsen … Dale Kent
Lynne Roberts … Madge Walker
Charles Russell … Lt. Rod Brooks
Paul Langton … Ed PoRead More »

Two gamblers must leave New York City after one loses a lot of money. Doing what all gamblers in trouble would do, they hurry to the gambling capital Las Vegas to turn their luck around.

Unlike his previous film (ugly, awful Second-Hand Hearts), this is an interesting one from Hal Ashby, where he successfully does a Cassavetes-style direction. A number of scenes look more like bloopers that usually get cut out, but that’s where improvisation can take you every now and then, and Ashby was willing to take that road, especially considering the fact that extended version is the one that probably saved all those bloopers. A successful mess that owes most of its charm to Burt Young, who is just amazing and swims in this mess like a fish.Read More »

After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, convinced by the discourse of an adoption association, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a baby boy. A few years later, their parenthood is shaken by a threatening unknown girl, Hikari, who pretends to be the child’s biological mother. Satoko decides to confront Hikari directly.Read More »