Criterion really spoiled us with that Modern Times blu-ray. I watched the Modern Times blu-ray before watching The Circus blu-ray, and there is a huge difference in video quality. The video quality on The Circus is better than previous DVD versions, but it’s not an eye-opening, impressive-looking blu-ray as Modern Times is. The Circus has a vertical scratch in the middle for the majority of the film, which comes and goes. I guess it was too hard to remove? I don’t know. The video quality is very bright, but not as 3-dimensional as the Modern Times blu-ray. I know it may be unfair to compare the two, but I just connect all the Chaplin movies together, so I would assume that if Modern Times can be restored to perfection on blu-ray, then why not his other films? I watched a little bit of The Circus DVD that comes with this blu-ray too. Even though the blu-ray is better than the DVD, I was more impressed with what they did with the DVD than what they did with the blu-ray. I’ll still watch the blu-ray over the DVD though. The DTS-HD on the Circus blu-ray is just amazing. I’m happy that was pretty flawless.
The extras are photo gallery, introduction by some critic, outtakes, and interesting featurettes about the controversy surrounding the movie (Chaplin never writes about The Circus in his autobiography because the movie revolved around his difficult lawsuit divorce. Also, the movie went through a lot of Terry Gilliam-type filming obstacles). It’s amazing that he was able to complete the film and release a perfect film as well. There is also an interesting featurette with Emir Kusturica (my favorite director of all time) on how he’s influenced by Chaplin too.
The Circus is a laugh-out-loud funny movie and totally worth buying on blu-ray. But if Criterion ever releases this film, I probably would upgrade though.
I’m glad I ignored all those people who criticized The Sorcerer and the White Snake for having poor CGI special effects. I got excited for this movie when I watched the trailer and was pretty amazed by the special effects. It’s a good thing I reminded myself that a lot of people grade CGI special effects on the effects themselves, regardless how they mix with the movie as a whole. I care about the final product – how everything merges together well. I don’t remember anyone criticizing the Star Wars prequels due to poor special effects. But the Star Wars prequels are the worst kind of awkward mix of CGI special effects and live actors I’ve ever seen. Those movies have three levels – live actors, CGI characters, and green screen backgrounds. None of them work together well and none of them even work well with each other at their own levels – the live actors can’t act with the other live actors. The CGI characters have no chemistry with the other CGI characters. The live actors don’t have any connection to their CGI green screen backgrounds. Make any combination you want – the Star Wars prequels are the best example of awful CGI special effects not working in harmony. To name a few more, think of Sky Captain, The Spirit, or the Spy Kids sequels. The Sorcerer and the White Snake not only has beautiful special effects (I’ll get to the “quality” of them soon in this review), but it’s another good example of CGI-galore movie that has all those parts – the live actors, the CGI special effects, and the green-screen backgrounds – all working together in harmony, just as in films like Sin City, 300, and Immortals.
Regarding the “quality” of the special effects is something to talk about. The director, Tony Ching Siu-Tung, made this epic fantasy film for twenty-five million dollars. Give the guy a break. Polished special effects for the kind of epic visuals shown in this film would cost over hundred million dollars. He did a fantastic job with the budget he was given. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jet Li got most of the money from that budget. Either way, The Sorcerer and the White Snake has various degrees of CGI quality. It ranges all over the place from excellent to almost cartoonish. But that’s the charm of the movie. The director put most of the money into more visually important scenes. When the two female leads play green and white snakes slithering in a graceful and dreamlike way like mermaids, the effects look good. But when they transform into total creatures, the snakes do tend to look cartoonish. It’s not a big deal. It’s not a distraction. Remember that everything works well together. All the actors are excellent. The CGI characters have great chemistry with the live actors. And the CGI backgrounds seem real to all the characters. Even though I thought some of the CGI special effects looked cartoonish, I was not thinking to myself, “oh, they are just acting in front of a green screen” (which is all I could think of when watching the Star Wars prequels). The CGI special effects also are creatively done. I cherish creativity more than polish.
The Sorcerer and the White Snake is a totally visually creative and mesmerizing fantasy film based on a famous Chinese folklore. As CGI special effects get better, I’m so happy that China can now make more impressive visually epic fairytale films. For anyone that’s ever read a Chinese fairytale book, they all need to be made into movies. For example, Monkey King is the most famous Chinese fairytale (with tons of movie and tv adaptations the past fifty years). The Sorcerer and the White Snake has three interesting stories going on – a duo of demon busters preventing and catching demons from roaming the Earth, one snake-demon sister who falls in love with a human, and the other snake-demon sister who questions one of the demon busters to why he is even capturing demons at all. The story is exciting, has good acting by all the leads (Jet Li, Shengyi Huang, Raymond Lam, Charlene Choi, and Zhang Wen). The movie definitely belongs to Shengyi Huang, the hot actress who plays the white snake-demon. Although she isn’t the next Zhang Ziyi, her acting skills are quite impressive and she has great chemistry with all the actors she plays off of. It’s a simply fairytale story. It would be a shame to criticize the film for not having depth or substance. First of all, there aren’t too many fantasy films with serious substance from any country. There’s Lord of the Rings and that’s about it. People looking for substance in fantasy films are in denial that most of the highly entertaining fantasy films that have existed for so many years usually have more style and creativity than substance.
I have always loved this director, Tony Ching. He’s my second favorite Hong Kong director after Yimou Zhang. He not only directs entertaining Hong Kong films, he’s also one of the best action choreographers. I prefer his style over Woo Ping Yeun, Tsui Hark, John Woo, Corey Yeun (whom I all like as well).
The K & R Region A blu-ray does not disappoint in the video and audio department. As expected for a Chinese fairytale flick, the video quality is a beautiful tapestry of crisp, bright colors which is clear and sharp. As I said earlier, the CGI effects blend nicely with the live actors – the video quality of this blu-ray shows off how everything merges together nicely. Blacks and contrast come out with impressive results as well. The DTS-HD 7.1 is just about perfect for this type of film. Surrounds are incredibly active, with one of the most impressive audio mixes from a Hong Kong blu-ray this year. The musical score (which at times reminded me a bit of the awesome score from The Fountain) sounds great on this blu-ray too. The English subtitles were practically perfect except for one spelling mistake. The translation was surprisingly good for a Hong Kong blu-ray. I wish K & R used the translators for their older films released on blu (K & R or Fortune Star stick with the old Chinglish subtitles when it comes to their older films released on blu). The only extras were a trailer (English-subtitled and 1080p) and an 18-minute making-of-the-film (also English subtitled).
I’ve been pleased with the few Hong Kong movies I’ve seen in 2011 – if I had to rank them from great to good, I would say, “Detective Dee, Gallants, The Sorcerer and the White Snake, and then Reign of Assassins.” The Sorcerer and the White Snake is a totally entertaining fantasy film with very creative special effects (with varying degrees of quality). The movie is sexy, exciting, and even a bit touching. I needed to see a highly satisfying fantasy film after seeing crap like the new Conan the Barbarian and Priest.
Chico & Rita is the best animated film (for adults) I’ve seen in 2011. I loved Puss ‘N Boots too but that’s just your typical Hollywood CGI animated film for kids (and I know I will love the upcoming Tintin animated film). Chico & Rita is a unique animated films for adults, so it will not win Best Animated film at the Oscars, but it will also most likely not even get nominated at all. I don’t think the Oscars have nominated an R-rated animated film yet and I think they will stick with “G and PG rated ones” for now with their closed-minded selections.
Chico & Rita, directed by the respectable Spanish director Fernando Trueba (he directed Belle Epoque) is a simple story of two lovers from Cuba. Chico is a piano player. Rita is a singer. They play in jazz clubs in 1948 Cuba and New York, They meet, have sex, fall in love, break up, meet up, have sex (full female nudity), and so on. It’s a simple and touching story because it’s well-written and the movie is full of exciting music with animated cameos of famous musicians such as Chucho Valdes, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Chano Pozo, Tito Puente, Ben Webster, and Thelonious Monk. The movie is also very exciting – it’s not just a bunch of characters playing music all the time. There’s an impressive filmed car chase and, even more impressive, is a catfight with Rita being totally nude. I think it’s the first animated cat fight I have ever seen.
The animation is the star of the film. This is one of the few animated movies I’ve seen that captures the most realistic movement of a woman. There have been tons of animated movies that have tried, but something was always off. The secret to what was done in Chico & Rita was that they actually filmed the movie with real actors and the animators just captured all those realistic movements and expressions – a really amazing job. Another amazing point about the animation is that this movie literally renovated Cuba to its peak times of the late 40s. The filmmakers traveled to Cuba and took tons of photographs of areas of Cuba that were falling apart. In the movie, they renovate all those pictures to the way those areas used to be in the late 1940s. It’s as if the filmmakers totally restored Cuba.
The UK blu-ray is totally satisfying. Colors pop. Detail stands out – the image is as crisp and detailed as the animation can be when put onto the blu-ray format. The Spanish DTS-HD 5.1 (with some English dialogue when the characters go to New York) is practically perfect as well. Dialogue is clear and the music sounds amazing. You will want to play this movie loud! The English subtitles are perfect as well.
The extras are just the ones that we would want – a commentary, a trailer, and an in-depth making of the film. I don’t know what else they could have added? I guess some people would want an English dub for the film but this movie isn’t for kids, so just pretend this film is an R-rated foreign film.
Chico & Rita is not only an original-looking animated film, it’s also a really touching love story with great music. I highly recommend this film!
(UPDATE: Wow, the movie actually got nominated for an Oscar. This was an unexpected surprise!)
Police Story 3 aka Supercop is not only a Jackie Chan classic but also a Michelle Yeoh classic. The third film in the trilogy is the most entertaining and the most well-balanced one. Even though the previous two are good, Police Story 3 is the most rewatchable one. This film is a perfect example of Hong Kong film stunt madness in the 1990s.
Skip the USA blu-ray and choose this superior Hong Kong blu-ray version. The USA blu-ray is cropped from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1 and only has a dubbed English audio. This Hong Kong blu-ray has the original language, is uncut, has the original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and has English subtitles – the blu-ray is worth it just for that! I didn’t have any of the previous DVDs of this film but I was happy with the video and audio quality of this blu-ray. I read the negative reviews of the first Police Story and I assumed it got the same transfer, which maybe it did, but all I can say that this blu-ray looks and sounds good. I had just watched the Iron Monkey blu-ray beforehand and I thought that the video quality was better on this blu-ray than the USA blu-ray of Iron Monkey, so for a 1992 Hong Kong film getting released by a sketchy HK blu-ray company, they did a fine job. The Cantonese: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 was decent as well, with explosions, punching, shooting giving off quite a kick from the subwoofer. But don’t forget to lower your expectations. People say that these blu-rays from this Hong Kong company KAM & RONSON are just upconverted DVDs. Maybe so, but they still look and sound better than previous DVDs even if it’s just a slight upgrade. If you love any of the movies that KAM & RONSON are making blu-rays into, then buy them. Just expect them to be better than your previous DVDs. Don’t expect them to be reference quality blu-rays that have gone through some sort of restoration.
The extras are just a trailer, images, some outtakes, and an English-subtitled interview with the director.
The English subtitles had a bunch of grammar mistakes, but they were good enough to not throw off the film.
I grew up reading French-Belgian comic books such as Tintin, Asterix, Lucky Luke, and Spike & Suzy (aka “Bob et Bobette” in French and “Willy & Wanda” in the U.S.), so I was pretty excited to hear that a movie was made into the comic book. It’s sort of weird that they changed the names to Luke and Lucy – they could have just gone with the usual English versions of Spike and Suzy or Willy and Wanda. But either way, no big deal – the movie distributor is trying to get this out there, so if they researched that those names would sell better, then what the hell. As long as it’s released in USA with an English dub, I’m happy.
This cinematic adaptation of the famous European artist, Willy Vandersteen, is not that bad. It’s as good as all the other movie adaptations of famous European comic books, which all basically range in the fair category. The movie characters are excellently done – just as they were in the comic books. Lambick (aka Ambrose) the clumsy uncle is just as awesome in this movie as he is in the books. He kicks ass, he loves whisky, and he’s just lovable goofy. The kids sound a bit older than how I pictured them, but they were done well. And the aunt and Jethro were just perfect as well. The filmmakers certainly did a great job translating those characters onto screen.
The story is just like one of their usual adventures – nothing amazing about the story, but entertaining and exciting for a kids-oriented animated film. What I loved about the original comic book were the characters more than the actual adventures. There is no comparison to this comic book to a comic book like Tintin which had both amazing stories and characters. While the Spike & Suzy adventures are fun, I see each of their adventures being a great animated tv episode. While each Tintin adventure could be made into a movie.
The blu-ray video quality is very good, but not perfect – there’s some banding here and there – but overall, a very bright, eye-popping visual presentation.
There are four audio choices with this blu-ray: English DTS-HD 5.1, 2.0 Stereo or French DTS-HD 5.1, 2.0 Stereo. I watched the movie with the English DTS-HD 5.1, which is a very active mix and not problematic whatsoever.
There are no subtitles anywhere on this disk. I would have liked to check out the original French language with English subtitles, but it’s no big deal since I like my animated films dubbed.
The only extra is a trailer.
Luke and Lucy is worth watching for fans of the Spike and Suzy comic book from Europe. If you have never heard of the comic book, then it’s just an entertaining cowboy animated film for kids or for anyone that enjoys a decent CGI-animated film.
South American soap operas, Rocky, Kill Bill, Martial Arts, Spaghetti Westerns? If you like this combo, then you’ll like Chile’s KILTRO. This was not only my first Chilean martial-arts film I’ve ever seen, but it was also my first Chilean movie that I’ve seen. After reading many praising reviews of this film, I kept my expectations in check and expected the film to be decent – and it is. KILTRO isn’t an amazing or original film, but the film is worth watching. If this was an American film, I would probably just rent it. But this is a “Chilean Martial-arts flick!” So, it’s worth buying the DVD just on that alone. The direction and acting are pretty top-notch for this type of genre. The main actor, Marko Zaror, is an okay actor, certainly not as charismatic as his movie body double – The Rock. Marko reminds me of a cross between Sly Stallone and an ogre. It’s amazing how fast he can move. He has some fight scenes in the film (about three to four exciting ones), but they are very nicely choreographed and not cut too quickly. During fight scenes, there’s some CGI blood splattered all over the place, which could be annoying to some. Since the story is good – Marko stalking/awkwardly trying to get the main actress to fall in love with him (she looks like Jessica Alba) and also the soap opera love triangle involving a woman involved with two different martial arts school masters – the movie moves along at a swift pace. The soundtrack is pretty interesting too – it rotates between cheesy 1980s love songs to good Ennio Morricone-type spaghetti western music. And the cinematography is great too, with some nice shots of Chile – looks like an exciting place to visit.
The Region 1 NTSC DVD, produced by Magnet, is not bad considering how long people have waited for an English-subtitled DVD. The anamorphic video ranges from eye-popping to looking like ass. Sunny day scenes look razor-sharp, while some indoor/dark scenes look like a tiny step up from a VHS tape – very grainy and blurry. Furthermore, the video quality looks like it’s shot on HD, while other times, it looks like it’s shot with a home video camera from the 1980s. The audio, on the other hand, is pretty decent sounding – DD 5.1/2.0 Spanish or English, with optional English subtitles. The extras include two pointless deleted scenes, funny bloopers (but not too many), a 7-minute behind the scenes, and the most interesting – storyboards and fight training. Marko Zaror certainly pushes himself to be the best athlete. He’s so bulky, but he moves very fast.
KILTRO is worth seeing, especially for its Chilean flavor. One of these days, I want to do a movie marathon of countries which just made their first martial-arts film, such as: The Challenge (Germany), Divine Intervention (Palestine, well there is one cool ninja scene in the flick), Jade Warrior (Finland), Anniyan (India), and Tongan Ninja (New Zealand).
Since the majority of Bollywood movies suck due to repetitiveness, lack of originality, amateur production, cheesy dialogue, overacting, adolescent representation of male & female relationships, I was happy to see KRRISH, the second superhero movie made in India (the first Indian superhero movie was called MR. INDIA made in 1987).
KRRISH is pretty satisfying and did live up to its hype when it was released in 2006. From 2006 until now, Indian special effects and action choreography has slightly improved so KRRISH feels a bit dated watching it now. If you’ve seen your fair share of Bollywood flicks, this movie is not only a good superhero movie, but for Bollywood standards, it was a huge step up in the technical production, CGI, special effects, and fight choreography. KRRISH raised the standards for other Bollywood action films. Although Bollywood action movie standards will most likely not change as much as THE MATRIX caused a huge change for Hollywood action film standards, there is no reason for other Bollywood action movie filmmakers to keep on releasing half-assed movie productions with straight-to-video quality.
KRRISH is a sequel to 2003’s Bollywood E.T.-influenced sci-fi movie called KOI MIL GAYA. I was happy to see that KOI MIL GAYA was Bollywood’s stab at sci-fi, which is much appreciated, but that movie was simply awful. It got a lot of respect and good reviews, but it’s a painful movie to watch, unless you think a mentally retarded dude meeting an alien is entertainment. Even when the mentally retarded dude gets powers from the alien and stops acting retarded, he still seems retarded. In KRRISH, that mentally retarded person is the father to the main hero in KRRISH. That father-son connection is the only thing that connects these two movies. At first, I thought it’s a cheap way of connecting the two movies so that the director can make some trilogy out of these movies, but after watching KRRISH, the unrelatedness does make some wacky sense, so now I would be curious to watch KOI MIL GAYA again, but I sold it used for $4 to a DVD store and I ain’t buying that movie again, even if these movies, along with a definite KRISSH 2, will become a trilogy.
KRISSH is a very solid superhero movie. Since Bollywood is usually a decade behind, I was expecting a 1990s style superhero movie – Batman Forever, The Crow, The Punisher, The Shadow. But surprisingly, KRISSH follows in the same successful pattern as in current superhero trends – origin/back story and more drama than action. The first half of KRISSH is all character development and origin story of the superhero named Krissh (his alter ego first name is Krishna). This superhero character has as much or even more development than in Spiderman, Hulk or Batman Begins. The tone throughout the movie is a mixture of drama and very funny humor (I hate Bollywood comedy, but this movie has universal humor), unlike the dry Superman Returns. KRRISH is ten times more entertaining than Superman Returns by the way. Both movies have the drama factor and maybe twenty minutes worth of action, but KRRISH is just so much more entertaining. The action, choreographed by the great Tony Ching Siu Tung of HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, HERO, SHAOLIN SOCCER fame, is pretty tame in this movie, but for a Bollywood movie or even a non-Hong Kong film, the action is still entertaining. The superhero, Krissh, is mainly a fast runner and big leaper, so the wire work is mainly the focus. Hrithik Roshan, starring as Krissh, did an amazing job with the action choreography and wirework – very graceful and not awkward. He trained like mad for this role and it shows. The action is a little bit more than in Superman Returns, but at least in KRISSH, most of the action scenes are memorable, because they are all creatively done even if they have been influenced or knocked-off of other Hollywood movies (Spiderman, Tarzan, Zorro, The Incredibles, Paycheck, The Matrix). Although there is more melodrama than action, the CGI/special effects are still used all throughout the movie in positive subtle ways, and not in a negative in-your-face George Lucas way.
For a superhero movie, it’s even a bit touching. You will really enjoy this movie if the following things don’t bug you:
1. The wind machine is always used in the presence of the superhero and the lead female.
2. Hrithik Roshan has a thumb that breaks off into two mini claw thumbs, which is very distracting to me, but I still think he’s one of Bollywood’s best screen presence. Since he is a superhero, they should have some super beam of light that shoots out his double claw thumb – sort of like a Green Thumb Lantern, instead of a ring.
3. Slow motion action – I personally love it, especially in superhero movies. It just works better. When you have characters dressed in costumes moving at real-time, it just looks silly.
4. I love songs in Bollywood movies, but the songs are just forgettable in this movie – nothing special and the movie would have been better (and a bit shorter) without the three to four songs in this flick.
The NTSC ALL REGION 2-disk DVD is a pretty sweet package. KRISSH is produced by a DVD company called ADLABS, a company known to make top-quality DVDs. The movie is on one disk and the plentiful extras are on the other. The anamorphic video is of excellent quality, especially for a Bollywood DVD – the colors are very vivid and three-dimensional, flattering the film’s excellent cinematography. The DD 5.1 Hindi and DD 2.0 Hindi are very nice as well. Your surrounds and subwoofer get a workout since this is a superhero action movie. There are tons of subtitles options on this DVD – you get English, Arabic, Dutch, French, Hebrew, Malay, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayan. Strangely, the Germans are left out. That’s weird because Germans love Bollywood. The English subtitles are good enough, with grammar mistakes here and there. There are some really good extras – although not subtitled, the main actors interviewed are all speaking English. There are about four 20-minute “making-of-the-film” clips. The best one is the training that Hrithik Roshan went through. It looked like the same heavy training as the actors in The Matrix went through. During Hrithik Roshan’s training, he wraps up his double claw thumb. I’m curious to why he does that. Is it painful or does it get in the way? There are also a bunch of trailers of bad Bollywood films and there is some “save-the-people” clip about some current genocide in India that the media never talks about. Overall, an excellent DVD package with really nice packaging as well. There is also a blu-ray version available, but I hear it’s a DNR mess, so I’m going to stick with my DVD.
If you like good superhero movies or if you are disappointed with most Bollywood movies, then I totally recommend KRRISH. I hope there will be sequels for this Indian superhero. If the director and producers were smart, they should also market this character into comic books, toys, etc. They should not only financially take advantage of creating a good Bollywood movie, but they should create a whole Indian pop culture out of the character. At least check out the movie for the India’s Monica Bellucci actress – Priyanka Chopra – winner of the Miss India and Miss World beauty pageants in 2000.
If Fortune Star’s DVD video/audio quality is considered a C, then this supposedly remastered blu-ray of Tsui Hark’s Peking Opera Blues is like a B-.
Here’s how I would grade the individual parts of this blu-ray (with the grading curve of course, as many people should be aware that it’s a bit tricky for Hong Kong home video companies to make beautiful blu-ray remasters of Hong Kong films from the 1980s-1990s):
A: The blu-ray video is totally clean, spotless, and scratch-free.
A-: The Dolby TrueHD 7.1 is actually surprisingly very impressive if you accept it as a Dolby TrueHD 1.1 audio. It’s one of the best Fortune Star blu-ray audios of an old Hong Kong film that I’ve heard so far. Dialogue is clear, no hissing, not claustrophobic sounding, well-balanced, and action/gun-firing scenes have subwoofer whoomph – basically, a totally solid audio experience.
A-: The film’s video quality is a consistent and pleasurable viewing experience.
B-: The blu-ray video is better-looking, brighter, and has more detail than the Fortune Star DVD.
B-: Close up shots look good, maintaining original grain but don’t be surprised from slightly pasty faces.
C: English subtitles are fair with typical Chinglish. I had an idea what was going on, but those subtitles just don’t make sense as a whole. Watching this blu-ray reminded me of how I perceive watching a movie in my dreams – I think I know what’s going on but I have no idea what’s going on. These companies need to hire normal translators. Those English subtitles make the movie worse! For me, the Chinglish subtitles were the only distraction watching this movie.
C-: Medium shots and long shots of people’s faces and objects sometimes look poor – ranging from slight interlaced lines, fuzziness, and blurriness.
C-: Night/dark shots don’t look that hot. Pretend you are watching a DVD and you won’t get too upset.
D+: Just one extra (the trailer), when the Fortune Star DVD had a few more extras.
Overall:
1. If you don’t have the Fortune Star DVD and if you want to own this movie, buy the blu-ray.
2. If you own the Fortune Star DVD and you don’t have some mega-sized 40+ HDTV or projector, then stick with the DVD.
I knew this was going to be an Indian masterpiece when I saw the trailer for this crazy, live-action, political, cartoon movie. Kollywood movies usually suck ass, but if there is one Tamil movie to see, go see SIVAJI THE BOSS! The character Sivaji is played by India Tamil’s biggest star Rajini (equivalent to Jackie Chan of China or Sharuhk Khan of India Hindi), who does one movie once every 2 years (extremely impressive for Bollywood actors whom usually do one movie every week) and he just whoops ass throughout the whole flick. Like all flamboyant Bollywood actors, who think they are cool just because they are aware of current western trends, speak some English, and act like they are so hot, watching Rajini is like watching a serious version of Austin Powers. You can’t help but like him. SAVAJI: THE BOSS can be interpreted as a perfect spoof of a Bollywood film or as a perfect update of the 70s/80s Bollywood action movies which star old, not-so-sexy, hairy moustached Indian dudes in the lead. This totally entertaining three-hour film is about a rich American Software Systems Architect who returns to his homeland India to try to open up free hospitals and free colleges for the people. All he wants to do is to do good, but he is prevented from doing so by corrupt dirty officials. After unsuccessfully struggling to get things done the lawful way, he takes matters in his own hands and kicks the crap out of the corrupt officials to do his good deeds for the nation of India. Along the way, he stalks a 20-year old hot Tamil girl hopefully to become his wife. (wow, “courting a girl” is so passe, but “stalking a girl” really works in India – such slick Cassanovas). The film is also riddled with some great songs created by the famous A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire, Bombay Dreams).
Shankar, the director of SIVAJI, is one of the most ballsy Bollywood directors for consistently criticizing the corrupt Indian government in most of his films (Deepha Mehta and Mira Nair are controversial Indian directors as well, but they ain’t Bollywood). Shankar is also famous for making the biggest budget Bollywood flicks and using the most current special effects that are found in other Western action movies. He made the first Indian martial-arts film – ANNIYAN, as well as the best Indian sci-fi action film ROBO, which I both recommend. He’s still a bit obsessed with the Matrix movies, as many of the action scenes are inspired by those flicks as well as Robert Rodriguez. For a Bollywood film, his movies have pretty sweet action scenes (no comparison to a western film, but he’s getting close). SIVAJI: THE BOSS has tons of well-choreographed action scenes, martial arts scenes, and one pretty damn original and intense car demolition derby scene. The movie is worth it alone just to see this goofy nerdy leading man transform into a goofy version of Matrix’s Morpheus in the climax. Rajini has a stunt double, sometimes obvious in some of the action scenes, but overall Rajini seems to move pretty damn well for a 50-year old.
SIVAJI: THE BOSS is a great film for anyone who has fantasized of a really honest politician or philanthropist taking the law in his own hands to help one’s own nation. It’s sort of like Charles Bronson’s Death Wish only on a more epic scale. It’s a wacky cheesy film of course, so you should know what to expect for anyone who has ever seen a Bollywood flick.
This is one of the best video and audio quality blu-rays I have ever seen. The video looks practically three-dimensional with colors and depth pooping as if this was a three-dimensional film. The LPCM 5.1 audio just rocks – dialogue was clear and the action in this movie used all the speakers and subwoofer perfectly as one would expect from an awesome surround sound movie! No extras on this blu-ray!
Highly entertaining film – two of the best Tamil films are on blu-ray, ROBO and SIVAJI, both starring Rajini too!
What a surprise, RoboGeisha is a good film (good for a genre film with geishas that have machine gun breasts and ass swords)!
I can’t stand these recent crop of cheaply-made Japanese action films with a bunch of bad actors running around the forest trying to kill each other in the most demented way and with a non-existent screenplay – all with a cool trailer and packaged in a tempting looking blu-ray/dvd with an attractive looking Japanese actress on the cover. These films are just boring and disappointing with their overkill action.
Besides Takashi Miike (Dead or Alives, Ichi the Killer, The Great Yokai War), there are aren’t too many other good Japanese over-the-top action directors. There are Kitamura (Versus, Azumi) and Kiriya (Casshern, Goemon) whom are somewhat satisfying, but the rest seem to fall into the painfully amateurish genre even too amateurish for their over-the-top action genre. RoboGeisha’s director, Noboru Iguchi, who also did the highly entertaining The Machine Girl is now two for two with me (I haven’t seen any of his other films), but he’s nowhere at the same level as Takashi Miike yet.
I thought that the trailer would exactly represent the film – I had expected RoboGeisha to have a brief five-minute story and then the rest of the film would have non-stop action (such as Versus) showcasing millions of different killer geishas. Thankfully, that was not so, and there was surprisingly a well-developed story about two sisters, was well paced, and had great action. The special effects are cheesy but in a charming way (not in a bad Troma way). The director balances out the drama and humor perfectly in which the movie is similar to one of Sam Raimi’s comedy horror films (sort of like Army of Darkness or Drag Me To Hell). The characters are two-dimensional of course and the whole movie is just wacky, but there is order to this film’s wackiness. Thankfully, the movie ends when it is supposed to. I wonder if any other critics that gave this film bad reviews have watched all the other over-the-top action movies from Japan with awful young actors running around forests and having yo-yo’s popping out of their swords. I could understand finding more faults in this film if no one else has ever seen these other over-the-top ultra-violent action films, but I’m so used to crap coming out of Japan nowadays, RoboGeisha was extremely satisfying.
The blu-ray quality is excellent. Even though the Japanese soundtrack is only Dolby TrueHD 2.0, it’s a very active soundtrack and their certainly was subwoofer action. I didn’t watch the movie with the Dolby Tru 5.1 English because I don’t like dubs. The video quality was extremely solid as well too. The only extras are a whole bunch of trailers and a little mini movie, which is a continuation of the movie – it’s okay, but you can tell that the director was just having fun with the props and costumes (it had good special effects though).
RoboGeisha is a fun, over-the-top, ultra-violent action movie with a solid-enough story. I hate to say it, but it’s also one of the best geisha movies I’ve seen – better than Memoirs of a Geisha and better than Sakuran.
couchpotatofarm 