Dr. Black at Red Demon Temple

I sold this story to Wheatland Press, for their Polyphony 7 anthology.

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Chugyeogja (2008)

The English title of this movie is The Chaser. If you like Korean films and like thrillers, then this is one you have to see. Inept police, pimp as detective. What more do you want?

Unfortunately, this is already slated for a Hollywood remake.

 

Three For the Road

Original Title: Yajikita dôchû Teresuko

Year: 2007

Director: Hideyuki Hirayama

Though a bit slow to get going, this one does eventually take off.

Their really isn’t much of a plot. An over-the-hill prostitute, an actor and another man hit the road in feudal Japan. They stay at inns and have various adventures (a bit like the book Shank’s Mare). A racoon turns into a child. Dried sea monster for lunch. Full of subtle and not so subtle humour. Amusing acting. Several absurd scenes (the recipe for racoon hot-pot being especially interesting).

Anyhow, definitely worth a watch.

The soundtrack seems to have been gleaned from some spaghetti western, but I can’t figure out which.

La Fille de cire

My story La Fille de cire is out  in the latest edition of Le Calepin Jaune. The original title of this story is The Girl of Wax. It was actually slated to be published in English three different times, but each time disaster struck the book/publication.

Anyhow, now it is out in French, translated by Estelle Valls de Gomis.

 

The Tongue in Spanish

My story The Tongue has been translated into Spanish, as La Lengua, and is up at La Idea Fija.

Bakumatsu (1970)

This is a sort of strange film.

With a brilliant opening scene, I was soon convinced it was going to be great. Unfortunately, due to a plot that I had a hard time figuring out, whether because to my own lack of Japanese history or inadequately translated subtitles, and long stretches of dramatic dialogue, I ended up being let down.

That doesn’t mean of course that it is a bad film, because it isn’t. The one real fight sequence is truly brilliant. The director,, Daisuke Itô, also ads a number of touches, in the way he brought out the narrative, that were very interesting. Stills. The screen going completely red when a head is cut off. Etc.

The story revolves around a country samurai set on transforming Japan, getting rid of the Emperor and introducing a parliamentary system of government.

Toshiro Mijune is billed in this, but his appearance is brief and not very noteworthy. The real stars here are Kinnosuke Nakamura and Tatsuya Nakadai. The latter is of course always brilliant. As for the former, my only real previous knowledge of him was from the Lone Wolf TV series, in which he seemed somewhat bland to me. Here he does a much better job and his character (as the country samurai previously mentioned) is relatively interesting.

Here is a clip:

Why I won’t be voting for McCain come November

When he says he doesn’t like war, he sounds insincere. Very, very insincere.