HCF Review - Turf Wars

BROTHER (2000)

There are a lot of Japanese gangster films out there for those looking for a particular blend of loyalty and bloodshed. Directors like Kinji Fukasaku and Seijun Suzuki will be an essential part of any Yakuza fan’s movie night rotation, as will images of seedy hostess clubs and severed fingers. It’s a path worth taking for both the staple ingredients and those elements which make one film-maker’s style distinct from another. Which brings us to this thriller from Takeshi Kitano. Released a decade into his directing career it’s more a ‘greatest hits’ movie rather than something fresh. Does it have more style and character than the typical stories in this genre?

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Review Roundup - Danse Macabre

28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE (2026)

While the previous instalment of 28 Years Later was very experimental in a technical sense (and subsequently had some swings and misses) there was always a feeling that a sequel might fill some of the narrative gaps. This sort of expectation can be a mistake of course, and often in the horror genre it's a case of diminishing returns. Fortunately in this case, even if the title is rubbish, there are less plot conveniences and child in peril elements. In fact almost all of the story about a boy and his father is absent. Instead things go in another direction while keeping to the family dynamics in a different way.

HCF Review - Selling Out

CLOUD (2024)

It’s time to head back into the woods for another strange tale of ambition and chaos. However, unlike it’s partner in this set, Charisma, this is less of a philosophical tale and more a straightforward crime drama. Which is to say it’s about as straightforward as you might expect from Kiyoshi Kurosawa by now. There are still many darkly comedic moments and surreal images, but the overall genre is more definitive. Coming more than twenty years later does the story have similar musings on the nature of obsession? Let’s examine how this release, an exclusive to this set, stacks up as an eclectic double feature.

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HCF Review - Into the Wild

CHARISMA (1999)

Since certain ventures into the realm of Japanese cinema have been an assault on the senses recently, it’s time to take a look at something on the other end of the spectrum. While there are moments of both dark comedy and creeping dread, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Charisma is more of a mood movie than a thriller; a strange and contemplative affair, often picturesque and often slow moving. Still, in terms of a narrative there’s still plenty of bizarre and enigmatic events to consider. It’s an intriguing experience to say the least but is it a crime story, an ecological drama, or just a mushroom fuelled trip into the wilderness?

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HCF Review - PIN...

964 PINOCCHIO (1991)

The realm of extreme cinema can pose of lot of unusual questions, but in the case of 964 Pinocchio it’s mainly ‘how much is too much?’ How much convulsing and puking does it take to compete with Zulawski’s Possession? How many weird metaphors will it take to top the work of Shinya Tsukamoto? The director, Shozin Fukui, worked on the latter in the late 1980s and clearly had these references in mind when putting together this gruelling mixture of guerilla film-making and cyberpunk nightmare fuel. Clearly his instinct was that more is more, so let’s take a look at how much of the final product works as a story.

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