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Reviews
Matango (1963)
Check it if you can
I'm not sure about the availability of this film to the public, i know it occasionally does the rounds on laser disc, but you may have trouble finding it. But still, to the other reviewer for this, its not very cool to give such blatant spoilers whilst saying so little about the film itself. Anyhow.... If you have seen any of the classic and atmospheric 1960s Japanese fantasy horrors such as damaijin, jigoku, yokai monsters, the living skeleton, and goke, you will probably appreciate just how downbeat and gloomy these films can be (without wallowing in self pity)and how this era in Japanese cinema has a distinct flavour to anything else that has happened since. Matango summons an incredible atmosphere of uncertainty and oppression from human weakness. It is as much a critique of the human condition and the thin veneer of civilization as it is a genre film. The translated title 'attack of the mushroom people', whilst great fun doesn't really do the film justice and may go some way as to explaining the fact that it is widely overlooked in the annals of Japanese cinema of this period. If your looking for godzilla style escapades look elsewhere, if you want something dark challenging, but rewarding, start hunting for a copy.
Yan pei go jang haai (1996)
incoherent category 3 fun
This is a thoroughly perverse and gore addled category 3 film from Hong Kong. For those who don't know, category 3 basically means 'rated as containing nudity and/or hardcore violence', and if thats what your looking for, this totally incoherent film delivers. I'm not too sure if the lack of linear structure is down to bad subtitles, s****y cuts or a godard fetish or even an excess of drugs, but this does deliver on important scores of bezerk originality, up front nastiness, and frothing insanity. If you manage to track a copy of this increasingly rare film down you will see what i mean; human skin is turned into ladies leather shoes at a luckless shoe factory, a maniac does something very very odd with a duck and a photo of a co-worker, cute asian girls are hassled in pretty bizarre ways by the killer of the title....... Well its a sleazy piece of schlock. Its very good but make sure you've got a 6 pack and you aint expecting Kurosawa, if you get my drift. L8R