Amazing turnout last night at the JapanLA / Sweet Streets Art Fundraiser! Thanks to everyone who came — Seba and I enjoyed meeting you.

We’ll post LA photos soon, and more updates about our fundraising for Japan. Til then, here are some movie reviews I’ve been meaning to post…

My friends and I are fanatical about Asian horror-gore films. Japan has a bloody arsenal — Tokyo Gore Police, Audition, Ju-on, and so on. But I think Korean movie-makers take the cake for making your stomach churn.
I’ve been twiddling my thumbs for Jee-won Kim’s latest film, I Saw The Devil (his Tale of Two Sisters spooked the daylights out of me). The distributor invited me to the advance screening, so that I can bring you this review.

A pregnant woman is chopped up by a serial sicko – played by Min-sik Choi, the wild-haired star of Oldboy (one of my favorite films). Her fiancé tracks him down, maims and releases him. Over, and over. But the prey steps up the stakes, and the tracks get bloodier as they are locked in a monstrous game of revenge.

I Saw The Devil is well-paced, with plenty of flesh-eating, chopping and puncturing to keep us gore-heads entertained. The actors turn in tense performances, and the story keeps you thinking: is the agent creating greater horrors for himself and those around him, by enacting revenge in this fashion? Decide for yourself. I Saw The Devil is now in North American theatres.

My friend John Skeleton reviews Helldriver, Yoshihiro Nishimura’s latest splatter-gore film… featuring zombies. Below is an excerpt; the full article is on his blog (a must-read for Japanese horror film fans).

Helldriver is Nishimura’s self-professed bid to create the ultimate Japanese zombie film, and in many ways, I believe that he succeeded. High school girl Kika (Yumiko Hara) is tormented by her deranged uncle (Kentaro Kishi) and murderous mother, Rikka (Eihi Shiina, star of Tokyo Gore Police and Audition). After a meteor blasts a gaping hole in Rikka’s chest, she tears the still-beating heart from her daughter’s chest and grafts it into her own body… eventually being taken over by a starfish-shaped alien in the meteor, and used to spread a mysterious ash that turns everyone who inhales it into mindless flesh-eating zombies.

Nishimura took great pains to ensure each of his rotting corpses was shocking and memorable, down to minute differences in their antennae. Antennae? Yes, that’s right. One of the side effects of the plague is that victims sprout a T-shaped horn from the center of their foreheads.

[While Mr. Skeleton loved the intensely visual cinematography, he had some reservations about the continuity and rushed editing, at the expense of good pacing. You can read the entire dissection here.]

Recent films by Yoshihiro Nishimura, Noboru Iguchi and others have truly established a “brand”. The crew forms a creative network from which unprecedented works are spawned. These people enjoy doing what they do, and that comes through in a film like Helldriver. If you are expecting to see massive eruptions of gore, blood by the bucketful, and more decapitations, eviscerations, and general mayhem than you can shake a severed limb at, then you certainly won’t be disappointed.

Are you a fan of Asia Extreme horror films? Which ones are your favorites?

PS… Shop clerk: “How can I help you ladies?” Sebastiano: “Ehyy! Maybe not quite…” (The third time in 24 hours that he was mistaken for a girl!)

Japanese Word of the Day: Mabuta ga basabasa – Fake eyelashes
Song of the Day: Deathgaze – Genocide And Mass Murder