| movies a to z | |||||||
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Movie Reviews A To Z Index
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
These are not the reviews themselves! Click on the picture or the title to take you to the full review. Or, pick a letter above and click it to take you to the titles for that letter.
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964 Pinocchio "One man's grotesque spiral as a result of someone else's God complex. That, and gratuitous lesbian sex scenes" |
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Another Heaven "Still, if it's brainless entertainment you're after, you may enjoy Another Heaven" |
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Another Lonely Hitman "A striking, edgy, shocking, ultraviolent and magnificently unpredictable tour de force" |
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Audition "Boy meets girl, boy dates girl, boy discovers girl’s shady secrets, girl turns into psychotic S & M torturer…brings tears to your eyes, doesn’t it?" |
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Battle Heater "Battle Heater is a great Saturday evening popcorn flick - it's hilarious, cartoony, daft as a brush, endearingly silly and delightfully awful - all at the same time" |
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Battle Royale "You're only vaguely aware that a few years ago, the Japanese parliament passed a law which means one class of your age group must engage in a bizarre survivalist exercise on which involves blowing away all your classmates" |
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Battle Royale 2 "At best, BR2 is a car crash of a movie, full of under-developed plotlines and deus ex machina resolutions. At worst, it's pantomime..." |
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Bimil "A beautiful, moving, poetic psychodrama with supernatural and suspense elements" |
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Bio Zombie "It all becomes a battle of the zany living against the even zanier dead" |
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Bitter Sweet "A stunning, affecting film of flawless simplicity and maturity" |
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Blue Spring "Blue Spring, despite some shortcomings, is entertaining, with a valid social commentary and strong performances" |
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Bullet Ballet "Incredibly stylish, dark and subtly violent" |
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Casshern "A glittering yet flawed live action anime" |
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Cello "A disjointed crap-o-rama" |
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Chakushin Ari / One Missed Call "Good popcorn fun" |
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Chaos "Chaos completely misses the point - but it's not outright bad" |
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Cure "If you enjoy deep, dark, traumatic, thoughtful psychological drama at its most heavy, tense and serious, I guarantee you will love this film" |
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Dark Water "Dark Water is an indispensable work of art" |
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Dark Water (USA remake) "Despite what you might have read elsewhere, Dark Water USA is damn good. Here's why" |
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Death Note "I found myself screaming "Move on already!" at the TV every few minutes" |
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Death Note: The Last Name "Sometimes bottom shelf service station wine will always just be bottom shelf service station wine" |
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Death Note: L Change The World "The overall arc of the story has so much more to offer than the face-value story" |
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Despite All That "If you've got an hour spare and a taste for a slightly thoughtful pink film, keep Despite All That in mind" |
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Dirty
Maria "A beautiful, difficult and disturbing piece with much to say about sex, jealousy, empathy, mortality and the fragility of life" |
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Double Vision "Not so much a scare-you-out-of-your-pants-a-minute flick, but a thought-provoking character study between two clashing cultures, religions, and beliefs" |
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Ebola Syndrome "Crazy, gross, nasty, and infinitely enjoyable" |
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Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness "A perfect exercise in Asian gothic horror" |
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Electric Dragon 80,000V "Beautiful on the eyes, exciting, totally silly and deliriously funny" |
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EM-Embalming "A curious, morbid and macabre gem...brilliantly weird, inspired and innovative" |
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Evil Dead Trap "You'd be wise to save your money and the precious extra 102 minutes of your life you would otherwise have wasted on this rubbish..." |
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The Eye "If you enjoy updated modern ghost tales with a great story behind them, you’ll love The Eye" |
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The Eye 10 "Aside from some bangin' eighties electro-pop there is very little to be gained from this experience" |
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Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion: Beast Stable "A heady mix of murderess, Yakuza, prostitutes, brutal cops and some really, really sharp knives" |
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Focus "Even Tadanobu Asano's august and lordly presence cannot save this rubbish snoozefest" |
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A Frightful School Horror "Overall, I genuinely would not recommend this film to anyone, even my worst enemy..." |
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Frog Song "A fascinatingly innovative and complex piece, full of heart." |
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Full Metal Yakuza "Full Metal Yakuza is a trashy extravaganza and, it has to be said, one of the better Miike films we've seen in a while" |
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Gawi / Nightmare "A film that could go either way – love or hate" |
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Ghost System "Makes you want to gouge your own eyes out" |
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Godspeed You! Black Emperor "A movie about young guys riding motorcycles, no more, no less" |
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Gozu "Prepare to have your preconceptions pretty much blown out of the water" |
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The Great Yokai War "Weird and slightly scary but still thoroughly accessible. Just don't let your hamster watch" |
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Guard from the Underground "A remarkable slasher from Japan's master of the weird" |
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Guinea Pig Series Overview "Without the shadow of a doubt, the most infamous, notorious, gruesome and reviled horror films ever produced" |
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Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood "Horror in its purest form" |
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Guinea Pig 3: He Never Dies "He Never Dies is possibly the most bizarre film ever made" |
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Guinea Pig 4: Mermaid In A Manhole "There's enough gross-out moments in here to give you wormy nightmares for hours" |
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Guinea Pig 5: Android of Notre Dame "As pretty much everything about Android Of Notre Dame stinks, you'll just go and do something much less boring. Like watching golf. Or going to the dentist" |
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Guinea Pig 6: Devil Woman Doctor "There's good movies, bad movies, and guilty pleasures. And then there's Devil Woman Doctor" |
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The Happiness of the Katakuris "Who can resist the dancing undead?" |
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The Heirloom "Spooky doin's abound" |
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The
Host "Within The Host beats a heart as black as the waters of the Han river" |
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Human Pork
Chop "Low-brow as hell, but in a positive way. " |
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Hypnosis "Hypnosis is a slick, stylish, great-looking, highly entertaining film, bags of fun with some truly gruesome death scenes" |
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Ichi The Killer "Totally insane; hilarious, stylish and grotesque, all at the same time" |
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I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK "I have never fallen in love with a film so instantly as I have with this" |
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Imprint "Miike's Masters of Horror episode could have been a lot better, rather than an Audition retread in period costume" |
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Infection "A fun mixture of rather silly medical and supernatural fluff" |
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Infernal Affairs "Infernal Affairs is, remarkably, rather more than the sum of its constituent parts" |
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Inner Senses "Our fears are only there to remind us of what we’re capable of overcoming..." |
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Into The Mirror "Shiny, slick and sophisticated, but its fundamental lack of focus is a huge disappointment" |
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Inugami "If you're looking for shocks, don't come looking for it in Inugami. It is a perfectly competent piece of mystical soap opera..." |
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The Isle "A sheep in wolf's clothing" |
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Jigoku "Frightening, and inviting, shocking, and subtle; it is an undefined film, pure and simple." |
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Junk "It’s a film for those who enjoy zombie movies, plain and simple" |
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Ju-on (V-cinema version) "The original Ju-on movie, despite its technical shortcomings and incredibly slow pace, is a total corker" |
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Ju-on 2 (V-cinema version) "Out of 76 minutes' worth of Ju-on 2, you, the purchaser, will end up paying around £20 GBP for 40 minutes of original material. Yep, you heard me right. 40 stinking minutes" |
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Ju-on: The Grudge "Ju-on: The Grudge tries to recapture that essence of apocalyptic doom, but ends up being a sort of Calvin Klein ad from a Mapplethorpe photograph" |
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Ju-on: The Grudge 2 "Shimizu has found a way to take all these familiar elements and still be able to turn it on its head" |
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Kairo / Pulse "Kaïro is a true masterpiece... an awesome, totally essential film" |
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Pulse (US remake of Kairo) "Truly a disaster of a film " |
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Kakashi "Why doesn’t this film work better?" |
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Kekko Kamen "As cheesy and hammy as a cheese and ham sandwich" |
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Kichiku dai Enkai "The most hardcore-gore, sickening, stomach-turning, sadistic and downright extreme movie, possibly of all time" |
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Kourei "Kourei is a great place to start if you're only just discovering the atmospheric, aesthetic, deep, weird psychological world of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's horror movies" |
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Kuchu Teien (aka Hanging Garden) "Despite lacking the verve of previous Toyoda efforts, it's a visually gob-smacking and thought-provoking film" |
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Lady Snowblood (Blizzard from the Netherworld) "Cool, gory and visually stunning; quite simply, a must-see movie" |
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Ley Lines "On the sliding scale of human experiences, I'd put watching Ley Lines between drinking an average cup of tea, and being poked in the eye..." |
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Lovesick Dead (aka Love Ghost) "One of the best school ghost story movies I've seen - beautiful, atmospheric, sweet, often unsettling and highly charming" |
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Memento Mori "An interesting and worthwhile insight into the closed world of trips on the hormone rollercoaster" |
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Mirrors "Yet another disposable horror flick to stock video store shelves with" |
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Mobsters' Confessions "A rather bland noir melodrama" |
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Moon Child "Has about as much going for it as a congealing pile of dog vomit" |
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Muzan
E "Makes some of the later Guinea Pig titles look like a teddy bear's picnic" |
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Nine Souls "Beautifully shot, flawlessly measured, Nine Souls is about as close to perfection as you could want" |
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Noroi: The Curse "An essential and perfectly constructed essay on how to make a fantastic modern Asian horror movie" |
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Oldboy "The maxim 'if you've seen one, you've seen them all' could well be applied to Oldboy – there's little to distinguish this from other revenge movies..." |
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Onibaba "A tragedy of sexual politics gone horribly wrong" |
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Pulse (US remake of Kairo) "Truly a disaster of a film " |
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R-Point "Make no mistake, R-Point is a horror movie first, and a war film second" |
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Raigyo "Powerful, beautiful, and intensely hard to watch" |
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Rainy Dog "A well-crafted gangster thriller with intelligence and depth" |
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Red Room "An eye-watering, nasty, entertaining, thoroughly dumb bit of gross-out fun" |
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Ring Cycle Overview An overview of all the movies in the Ring cycle |
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Ring Movies - Visual Comparison A comparison of shots from Ringu, The Ring Virus and The Ring |
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Ring - A DVD Comparison A comparison of three different versions of Nakata's original Ring. WARNING: it's a very image heavy page, will take ages to load, and contains many, many spoilers |
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Ring / Ringu "If you like your horror psychological, creepy, emotionally-charged and resonant, Ring is the film for you" |
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Rasen "It's a vital missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle" |
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Ring 2 "There are quite a few scenes that are genuinely affecting and downright disturbing" |
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Ring 0 "More of a Shakespearian-style tragedy than a horror film" |
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The Ring Virus "The entire film is a total mystery, and one which probably isn't worth solving" |
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The Ring "It's as if it were designed for people with low attention spans..." |
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Rings "Whisper this - this short film is actually quite good" |
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The Ring Two "In The Ring Two Hideo Nakata's created a fascinating mess of a movie, unsure of its own identity" |
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Rinne / Reincarnation "It's not reinventing the wheel" |
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Rubber's Lover "A weird update of Frankenstein, with deviant sexual violence and unrealised psychic power - shocking, but perversely rewarding" |
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Ryeong "Truly derivative of every Asian horror movie made in the last few years" |
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Sabu "A perfect Sunday afternoon film" |
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Samurai Monogatari "A hauntingly poetic circular tale of retribution and consequence" |
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Shikoku "Quite a well-crafted if somewhat anodyne ghost story" |
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Shinjuku Triad Society: Chinese Mafia War "A taut, if over-complicated thriller" |
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Shutter "Truly puts the 'meh' into mediocre" |
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Sky High "A very good addition to the supernatural action movie genre" |
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A Snake Of June "An absolute treasure of modern cinema" |
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Sorum "Like a two-hour joke without a punchline" |
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St John's Wort "More of a mystery than an all-out horror movie" |
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Stacy "Pure, stupid, mindless Fun with a capital F-*ck me what a mess" |
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Strange
Circus "A serious work of art; challenging in the way the best art should be, gorgeous to look at, and deeply peculiar" |
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Suicide
Circle "Mesmerising, profound, meaningful and deeply depressing, Suicide Circle is an absolutely incredible piece of film-making" |
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Sympathy for Lady Vengeance "Bum-numbing" |
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Sympathy for Mr Vengeance "Magnificently acted and directed, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance is a thought-provoking (and sometimes stomach-churning) examination of what makes the human psyche tick" |
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A Tale Of Two Sisters "Violent and unnerving, at the same time beautiful and touching, this is perhaps a horror movie unlike any other" |
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Temegotchi "Everything is just too safe. Not interesting safe, but boring safe" |
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Tetsuo: The Iron Man "if you don't mind... eye-watering close-ups of jaggedy metal thingies being inserted into places where jaggedy metal thingies don't normally go, you'll probably love Tetsuo" |
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There Is
A Secret In My Soup "Will sit on my shelf and collect dust for eternity, provoking my ire every time I pass it and sending me into a memory-induced rage" |
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Three (aka Three... Extremes 2) "A taste of Asian filmmaking at its best" |
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Three... Extremes "A near-perfect introduction to the strengths (and even the weaknesses) of this region's artistic talent" |
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Tokyo 10+01 "Appreciate Tokyo 10+01 for what it is – a riotous romp through pop culture, best approached with tongue in cheek and beer in hand" |
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Tokyo X Erotica "One hell of a pinku ride" |
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Tomie "Considering this film not only boasts a storyline taken straight from the hands of Junji Ito but also a pretty damn good cast, you would expect this film to be totally awesome, right? Wrong." |
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Tomie: Re-birth "Far and away the best of what could be generously called a mixed bunch" |
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Versus "Versus stands out mainly because it's something we haven't seen before – in one movie" |
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Visitor Q "Rape, murder, incest, necrophilia, intraveneous drug use - is this a social commentary? Or just a dark, dark comedy?" |
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Whispering Corridors "A fascinating psychological ghost-mystery-whodunnit-thriller-suspense story" |
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Wild Life "Brave, mad, idiosyncratic and bewildering - but ultimately unsatisfying" |
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Wild Zero "Wild Zero drips with attitude, takes no prisoners, and, if you ever wanted a movie to sum up the essence of rock'n'roll, this is it" |
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A Yakuza In Love "Touching, stylish and funny, a bittersweet, lyrical, comical romance conducted on the knife-edge between life and death" |
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Yesterday "A fascinating study in contrasts, and a rare glimpse into the psyche of an evolving people" |
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Coming one day, not necessarily very soon (but we're doing our best)...
In strictly alphabetical order, here's what's on our reviews to-do list of late, and it's not getting any shorter ;-): |
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