AMP Movie Rating

The cloaking fog whispers away from the huffing mechanical shaped bullfrog, making its way up an alpine pasture on a set of sanguine chicken clawed legs; it’s the type of organic-hydraulic design that is apt of Hayao Miyazaki. Freely adapted from British author Diana Wynne Jones’, Howl’s Moving Castle is another masterpiece in the Studio Ghibli collection.

Meet Sophie Hatter, a teenage girl who resigns herself to her dull fate as a hat maker, until she is literally swept off her feet by a handsome-yet-mysterious blue eyed wizard named Howl (voiced by Christian Bale). Unbeknown to Sophie (voiced by Emily Mortimer), her tedious hat maker life is about to be turned on its head by the self-couture-conscious Witch of the Waste (voiced by Lauren Bacall), who transforms her into a 90 year old woman (voiced by Jean Simmons). Spellbound and sworn to supernatural secrecy she embarks on an incredible journey to lift the curse, and finds refuge in Howl’s enchanted moving castle. It is here she befriends Howl’s spirited apprentice Markl (voiced by Josh Hutcherson) and the combusting castle carrier Calcifer (voiced by Billy Crystal). Sophie’s presence transforms Howl, sometimes literally, helping him overcome his self-absorption and loneliness. However, while Sophie is content playing house, the burgeoning war of wizards looms ever closer on the horizon and it isn’t long before she is fighting for more than her youth, but her life.

Miyazaki’s distinct interpretation on classical fantasy creates a neo fantasia version of the Wizard of OZ, complete with its own scarecrow, cowardly ‘roaring lion’ and impetuous illusions. The bulky citadel that houses Howl is junk, even the inside is not impressive. Yet, it is a piece of meticulous magical machinery, mobilised instantaneously by the whizzing pipes and strained bolts that are strewn across its body-how it stays together is a complete wonder- which is incidentally apart of its charm. Arousing the curious child within you Miyazaki interchanges worlds through a simple doorway of mystical brilliance, the setting offers a multitude of numinous enthral from the detailed high court industrialised towns; that favour nineteenth century Europe to the open vistas that will beguile minds young and old alike.

In an industry so rapidly expanding his loyalty to hand drawn animation is testament to the talent once revered so highly and is often richly forgotten in exchange for PIXAR rendered fairytales. Miyazaki stamps his definite mark on this fantastical story and highlights social complexities in his characters which symbolise how you can be overcome by narcissism, greed, beauty, and age. Sophie triumphs over this through endurance, humour and humane sincerity, maturing as she switches between old and young. On the other hand, the story falls short of the epic narrative you may expect from his previous works ‘Princess Mononoke,’ nevertheless the visual wonder in this fable of the struggle for identity and the impulsive tangle between love and war, is a journey worth taking.

Imagine my surprise when I find a movie that not only has multiple connotations with Harry Potter but also the Kung-Fu Teen Titans themselves. If you combine that together with the fact that most of the movie is done with computer graphics, crayons, streamers, and firecrackers made out of pop rocks while the remaining one percent involves flesh and blood people, then you have, in my mind, a work of cinematic art.

Just to be sure that you’re aware of all the similarities from now on I will scream out, both cyberly and in real life, either ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Power Rangers’, whenever a likeness is mentioned from the movie.

In 2006 the Japanese remake of the manga Warau Mikaeru was released and, subsequently, injected a coma inducing amount of ‘taste-the-rainbow’ happiness into my eyeballs with a heroine needle (Power Rangers). The Americans, of which I am one, dubbed the film Arch-Angels and I will tell you exactly why watching this film was the most fun I’ve had while watching a movie in a long time.

Fumio Shijo, played by Juri Ueno, has just lost her mother and has been taken in by an elder brother that she never knew existed. Kazuomi Shijo is rich, lonely, and has developed a sister complex in a surprisingly short amount of time. He takes Fumio on dates with him, gets her the best food, the best clothes, and ultimately, into the best school. St. Michaels Academy is a catholic school that is dedicated to the archangel Michael.

According to the history of the school, three nuns were running from a demon and after praying to the archangel for assistance Michael appeared down from heaven and engaged in a mighty battle and blah, blah, blah, the monster died. The school was then erected on the spot in which the story was said to have occurred and ever since, it has been an elite private school for girls.

While Fumio is grateful for the change in status and her brother’s dedication to her, she isn’t exactly fitting in with her new classmates. Because this movie is part comedy her epic failure as a social butterfly has more to do with her own discomfort with her new wealth rather than any animosity the girls in the school may have been showing her (reverse Harry potter).

It’s this discomfort that has Fumio seeking out poor people food like ramen soup not even a week into her new surroundings. It’s while she’s cooking the soup over an open flame in the forest that two of her fellow classmates walk up on her and the entire thing, for whatever reason, explodes. In some weird interpretation of every comic book hero ever the ramen soup explosion transforms them into a catholic school girl triad of pink power ranger kick assedness. One of the girls, Kazine Saiki who is played by Dragonball Evolution’s Megumi Seki, happens to be an idol throughout the school for her ‘handsome’ face and kind heart. The idol title is one that’s shared by the both Fumio and the final Power Ranger Yuzuko Sarashina, who’s played by Airi Taira.

After their powers manifest, which somehow always results in the physical harm of any male adults involved in each of the girls’ lives. But their new superpowers aren’t all they have to worry about. Girls from influential families have been going missing and when the day comes when Fumio, Yuzuko, and Kazine’s happen to know the ones being snatched then it’s long past time to put their powers to good use.

When it comes to electrocuting unsuspecting bystanders no one does it better than Yuzuko. If she can’t get the job done then there’s always the freakishly strong Fumio and Kazine the tornado girl. If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who ya gonna call? Well obviously not Ghostbusters if you plan on getting the kidnappees away from the kidnappers before they’re turned into sex addicts and prostitutes. A consequence that is never explicitly mentioned, but one that I assume exists either way since the kidnappers repeatedly mention what good prices girls of impressive upbringings can pull in.

I liked pretty much everything this movie had to offer, creepy black dog (HARRY POTTER!) included. The school which is on an island (HARRY POTTER) and which you can only get to by train (HARRY POTTER) is a boarding school for some of the finest families in the country (umm…) which makes it the perfect place for those in the trafficking business to make a good bit of cash.

The fact that they have a ‘guy on the inside’ doesn’t hurt their chances much either. Filled to the brim with amazing graphics, unbelievable stunts, and flying Japanese chicks this movie is one of my favorites.

It has everything you need. A lesbian nun, faint stirrings of incest, invisible animals no one but the main characters can see, and most of all outrageous costumes, hair, and ramen noodles (HARRYPOTTER! HARRYPOTTER! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY HARRY POTTER).

Looking back on all my psychotic ramblings it’s obvious that but for the awesome fight scenes and much more tolerable plotline, and unannoying main character, this movie is a lot more similar to Harry Potter than it is to Power Rangers. All the pointless pink explosions must have confused me.

Oh well.

Arch Angels is a wacky pile CG skittle vomit just waiting to be enjoyed by all of you lovely boys and girls out there today and this particular gal spent about an hour and a half doing just that. Most critics weren’t too terribly impressed but I always think they over analyze movies just a bit too much. A movie should be fun and Arch Angels delivers just that.The cast was great together and other than some weird brother sister moments between Fumio and Kazuomi their dynamic works beautifully as well. And hell, even the incestuous undertones work out towards the end. What’s a little inbreeding between thespians right?

Arch Angels was written by Isumi Kawahara and written and directed by Issei Oda

Lately, it seems that live action adaptations are being planned right and left. While many of the projects have been met with dubious skepticism, anime fans will be interested in knowing that a live action retelling of the 2006  animated film,“The Girl Who Leapt Through Time,  is currently set for release in March 2010 with the teaser trailer available online.

Watch live action trailer here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The 2006 original (trailer below) was considered a continuation to Yasutaka Tsutsui’s 1972 novel about a young girl, Kazuko, who discovers her ability to time travel. The character of Makoto Konno was introduced as the niece of the novel’s protagonist, and the film followed her own specific adventures with time travel. Upon it’s release, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was praised for its whimsical premise and emotional depth. Even though it was released less than 5 years ago, the film seems ripe for an adaptation of its own.

Trailer for original anime version:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The lovely Riisa Naka

The story has been reimaged to follow a new character named Akari (played by the voice of Konno, Riisa Naka),who is the daughter of the original novel’s protagonist. Her mother Kazuko has fallen into a coma after a car accident and Akari decides to makes the time travel leap back in order to find Kazuko’s lost love. It’s an interesting premise and I’m excited by the direct plot tie to Kazuko, especially because the original anime mainly focuses on Konno.

It’s also a good sign that the movie trailer seems to  matches the winsome quality of the anime. While the story definitely has potential for some emotional highs, it’s still too soon to gauge its possible success. Live action remakes have the difficult job of  recreating an already existing vision within a different medium. What is possible with a few lines in animation may not ever be recreated with the same effect on screen. The anime was visually soaring and while the movie trailer was full of well shot scenes, it‘s missing a vitality that was crucial to the anime‘s success. One thing that is certain is that with the influx of disappointing live action films being churned out by studios, ( I.e, Blood: The Last Vampire which really broke my heart) director Masaaki Taniguchi has his hands full in making sure his version lives up to the quality associated with the series.

Source: Nippon Cinema

British martial artist and actor Gary Daniels started appearing in movies in the late 1980s. By the mid 1990s, he had moved on to playing the lead in a string of entertaining actioners from the legendary but now defunct PM Entertainment, and he was the hero in 1995′s FIST OF THE NORTH STAR; his break through.

Gary kept on making movies; he played against Pam Grier in NO TOMORROW, Dolph Lundgren in RETROGRADE, he was killed by Steven Seagal in SUBMERGED, the list of movies goes on, and several new ones are in pre- and post-production.

One movie in post-production, is the long-awaited TEKKEN, an American-Japanese co-production, directed by Dwight H. Little and based on the extremely popular video game from Namco.

TEKKEN is about a guy seeking revenge for the murder of his mother, and to find the killer, he has to participate in the “King of the Iron Fist” tournament, where he gets to kick the asses of the world’s best fighters.
Gary Daniels, the nicest guy working in the action movie biz, plays Bryan Fury in TEKKEN.

So, Gary: Who is Bryan Fury?

“Bryan Fury is a powerful fighter that is a psychotic half man, half machine. Nothing fancy about this guy’s fighting as he is a power kickboxer.”

What’s your relation to video games? Do you play games?

“I personally do not play video games, so when offered the role I went online to do my character research, there are so many clips on YouTube from the game.”

I kinda like the RESIDENT EVIL movies and I have a soft spot for the first MORTAL KOMBAT movie, but most movies based on video games absolutely suck. Especially the ones directed by Uwe Boll… On the other hand, Boll directed the amazing POSTAL, based on a game…!

In what way does TEKKEN differ from other games movies?

“I haven’t seen TEKKEN yet (it’s screening at the American Film Market on November 5th), but we used all real fighters instead of trying to train actors to fight, or using doubles, so I think it will have a different level of authenticity to the characters.”

The movie is an American Japanese co-production. Does this mean TEKKEN will get an Asian feel more than a Hollywood one?

“I think it will have more of a Hollywood feel, with the special f/x and the way it is shot.”

One character in TEKKEN; Steve Fox, is played by Luke Goss. To me, Goss is that kid in Bros. However, I realize that A) the guy is as old as I am, and B) he’s made quite a few action movies. What’s he like as a martial artist?

“Luke is not a martial artist on the level of the other martial artists in the film, but his character does not have to fight much in this film.”

How’s Dwight Little to work with? The guy has after all made Seagal’s best/funniest movie; MARKED FOR DEATH, and the Brandon Lee starrer RAPID FIRE, which contains several really great action/martial arts sequences.

“Dwight is a great guy and very easy to work with. I think he had a good vision for this film, very dark, shot to be R-rated, but I think it was edited to be PG. Shame!”

The very first time I met you, you talked about your own character called Union Jack, I think – he was on your business card. What ever happened to him?!

“Union Jack was never made, but funnily enough, there has been some interest shown lately for that project.”

Does TEKKEN have a release date yet? IMDb just says “2009″.

“No, there is no release date yet, but as I mentioned earlier, it will be screening at the AFM on November 5th. I would imagine it will have a spring 2010 release, but thats just my opinion.”

TEKKEN isn’t the only big action movie featuring Gary Daniels, opening sometime next spring. He’s also in a far bigger, more explosive actioner, namely Sylvester Stallone’s THE EXPENDABLES, in which he plays “The Brit”.

“Sly needed actors that could do their own fighting and action without being doubled, so I was recommended. I met with him and he offerered me the part. Filming was great for me, Sly just kept adding scenes for me and made my role bigger and bigger. Dolph Lundgren was cool, and my last scene was with him, Eric Roberts and Stone Cold Steve Austin. They were a great bunch of guys on this film, everyone was so cool. I hope it’s gonna be a good film, it’s got a great cast and Sly is a good director, he is very inspirational to be around.”
THE EXPENDABLES is the movie everybody’s looking forward to, so we all hope it’s gonna be a good film…

Thanks to LiveActionAnime for reporting the following news:

News of an American Death Note LAA has been kicking about for a while, and now it appears that a draft of the movie’s script, penned by Charley and Vlas Parlapanides, has been leaked online. You can check it out at this link:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/g3rwun

It’s labelled “First Draft”, dated April 7th, 2009, and copyrighted to Warner Bros. This is, obviously unofficial, but judging by the presentation and general quality, it certainly appears to be genuine. Apart from transposing the action to America and removing Ryuk from the proceedings, it’s also remarkably faithful in spirit to the original source material. Watch this space.

The rights to an American adaption are held by Warners Brothers. Several other popular anime are in talks or confirmed to be going ahead with a US live-action remake, including the classic series Neon Genesis Evangelion and also Bubblegum Crisis, and a live-action remake of Dragonball was released this April.

Death Note is an extremely popular anime series that has also had three live-action films in its native Japan which were box-office hits. The story revolves around a genius high-school aged boy, Light Yagami, who finds a notebook dropped by a Shinigami (God of Death) in which anybody whose name he writes will die.

At first he uses it to write the names of criminals, and as he finds himself being hunted down by his nemesis L for playing God and taking the law into his own hands, he begins to use this power for more… Death Note boasts a deeply philosophical storyline that questions capital punishment and the concept of right-and-wrong, but also has its comedic moments (provided by Ryuk, the apple-loving God of Death) and provides plenty of focus for intellectual conversations between its fans – it’s always surprising to find who supports Light and who supports L! A definite recommendation for anime fans, and it will certainly be interesting to see how the US handles its entry in this series.

Anna Tsuchiya is a beautiful, talented Japanese actress (born to a Japanese mother and a Russian-American father) whose interesting roles in out-of-the-box films, combined with a successful music career, have gained her a huge cult following in Japan. You may know and love her as the bad-ass Yankee girl Ichigo from the popular, award-winning Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma Monogatari), but you may not have seen her as the (bad-ass!) courtesan in the artistically beautiful period drama Sakuran (and if you haven’t seen this movie, go out and get it now!), nor some of her other roles in critically-acclaimed lesser-known Japanese movies such as Memories of Matsuko (Kiraware Matsuko no Issho) and The Taste of Tea (Cha no Aji). She also plays Ayu in Legend of Kamui (Kamui Densetsu), which was released in Japan on September 9th.

Anna was born in Tokyo, and started her career as a model. Her unique mixed-race looks and individual style quickly gained her a popular following. As well as performing with (Japanese rock band) Oblivion Dust’s guitarist K.A.Z in the band Spin Aqua,she has also released several singles and albums, to critical acclaim and packed-out tour audiences, and provided the singing voice of Nana Ozaki for the NANA Anime (and released an album for this as well) – a role that certainly suits Anna’s image perfectly.

Anna was married to Joshua Niimura between 2004-2006. Joshua died of heart failure in May 2008, aged only 25. She is the mother of Sky, born in 2004, and has announced on her blog this month that she is 3 months pregnant and planning to marry.

Anna has surpassed the labels “model”, “actress” and “singer”, to become an icon of her generation and a role model to many young Japanese women. This star is shining bright and many fans are looking forward to where her career will take her next.

Sources:

http://anna-t.com/en/profile.html

www.tokyograph.com/news/id-5279

Kung fu fanatics would love to see another action packed movie like the Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. Now here’s another version of these films produced by Stephen Chow, “Shaolin Girl.” It is a Japanese film released on April, 2008 and was directed by Katsuyuki Motohori. It recounts a story of a girl named Rin Sakurazawa who was played by Ko Shibasaki who is also from Battle Royale and Dororo fame.

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Rin is a student of the Shaolin temple. She has to return to her little Japanese town to take over her late grandfather’s Dojo (a school for training Japanese arts of self-defense). However, the school has been abandoned by its students including her former mentor who was played by Yosuke Eguchi.

Rin, who have endured many years of training at the Shaolin Martial arts, would like to share what she learned to everyone. Unfortunately no one wants to join in her quest to spread the philosophy of Kung fu except for Minmin Ryu (played by Kitty Zhang Yuqi) who is a lacrosse player. Here, there was an agreement between the two lovely girls. Rin would teach Minmin, but in the condition that Rin would become a player of their team. Now we encounter the difficult side of Rin, who wants only to showcase her Kung fu talent in playing Lacrosse. She doesn’t know and understand the meaning of teamwork. In their first game together, they lost because of Rin’s shortcoming. But in time, Rin learned to control her emotions and eventually became the team’s string of victories. In return her team helped her restore the dojo. Just as when everything seems to be on her side, the real action began when Rin met her adversary from a dark incident in the past that she knew nothing about.

Though Shaolin Girl was produced by Stephen Chow of Shaolin Soccer it didn’t turned out to be as expected. The fighting scene was slow and the sequences are incomparable to the animation of the latter movie and Kung fu Hustle. Also if you’ll notice there was even a part were some fighters fell in the pool but remained dry when they got up and continued fighting. Is this a magic pool or what?

With their attempt to make something different, Shaolin Girl movie became direction less. First is the use of sports that has no connection to the ending of the story. Second is the part where she found the other dojo students (some casts of Shaolin Soccer), but this scene doesn’t even matter because they too were gone not even giving use to their character. Unlike the casts of Shaolin Soccer team who were there from start until the end and you’ll know why they should be part of the movie. Last but not the least is Rin’s adversaries who lack the credibility to be real villains.

The british board of film classification have refused to give the new Japanese horror flick “Grotesque” an 18 which now means it will be banned from our cinemas. According to the Daily Mail Newspaper said the reason behind this was also the fact that they felt the movie would “do harm to viewers” and had “sexual sadism fir its own sake”.

The board said the majority of the film focused on the assault, humiliation and torture of two victims. The main character takes them prisoner abducts, restrains, strips and sexually assaults them before inflicting horrific injuries until they die. This is what they had to say on the matter.

Mr Cooke said: ”Unlike other recent ‘torture’-themed horror works, such as the Saw and Hostel series, Grotesque features minimal narrative or character development and presents the audience with little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism. The chief pleasure on offer seems to be in the spectacle of sadism (including sexual sadism) for its own sake.

”Rejecting a work outright is a serious matter and the board considered whether the issue could be dealt with through cuts. However, given the unacceptable content featured throughout cutting the work is not a viable option in this case and the work is therefore refused a classification.”

So if you manage to get hold of a copy,please let us know your thoughts on the movie.