The Vampire Cleanup Department is a task force that deals with Goeng Si, Chinese vampires, while being disguised as a regular trash and cleanup department. Not long after Tim Cheung joins his uncle on the force, he meets with a sweet vampire named Summer who changes how he wants to do things.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Broken Sword Hero (Thong Dee Fun Khao) (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]
A young fighter goes on a quest to learn as much as he can to perfect his fighting skills following a hard loss. He travels his province in search of many masters to learn from and makes friends along the way.
Written by Suwan Takongkaew and Preayaporn Boonpa and directed by Bin Bunluerit, Broken Sword Hero is an action film with a quest at it center and a philosophical angle to how it approaches some of the fights and the learning the lead does during his travels. The way this is approached is interesting here but ultimately feels a bit long. The story around the fights makes this a film about more than just the fights, but also about the different techniques and the human element. Unfortunately, the film feels a bit uneven between the fighting being very strong and entertaining and the story parts feeling a bit slow and a lot less entertaining. This leads to the whole of the film feeling a touch long with some pacing issues.
Teen Wolf (1985): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
Before it became a homoerotic horror series on MTV, “Teen Wolf” was the epitome of eighties cheese that mixed a teen coming of age comedy with horror tropes. The idea of being a werewolf is of course a metaphor for puberty, as Michael J. Fox takes a baffling but oddly fun turn in his career after the success of “Back to the Future.” The 1985 “Teen Wolf” hasn’t aged very well, but it’s still a fun novelty of the decade where almost nothing was off limits it meant possibly drawing a laugh. Surely, the idea of a werewolf becoming a star basketball player is absurd, but not offensive as a comedy based around a corpse, or a college student wearing black face. But I digress.
The Shorts of Fantasia International Film Festival 2017 – Part 1 [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]
Each year Fantasia showcases a ton, almost a literal ton, of shorts films. Reviewing them can be a bit demanding, so it has been decided to review them in groupings. The following shorts were attached to feature films that played the fest and were viewed on the big screen.
Savage Dog (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]
In 1959 Indochina, a legend is born. A man fights his way out of jail and to make money until he is forced to fight for revenge. Through this, he learns a lot about himself and what he is ready to do.
Written and directed by Jesse V. Johnson, Savage Dog is a decent fight film with a bit of story created with the purpose of setting up fights for star Scott Adkins and co-star Marko Zaror. The story is decent enough but not exactly fascinating, something that should not bother fans of fight films as this one has a few very good fights and some side ones that are also interesting. The dialogue is decent while the setting is interesting, but not used to its full potential. The characters are almost all created with a purpose relating to Adkins’ character, making him the center of just about everything. The story is not bad as it develops in ways that keep the attention and introduces fights in a manner that makes sense.
It’s Alive (1974) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]
A family expecting their second born is surprised to have a mutant child as it arrives in this world and kills all in its path when scared. As a baby, being scared is something that happens quite a bit, creating a mounting body count for this tiny tot.
Written and directed by Larry Cohen, It’s Alive is a tale inspired by pollution and environmental effects on humans’ reproductive systems, eventually leading to a damaged progeny trying to survive when it’s scared and ready to kill for survival. The film takes this and turns it into an easy to watch horror film about a newborn mutant monster that can easily be taken as just that, a monster film, but is much more once one delves into the environmental message. Here Cohen creates a tale that is deeper than it seems and works with monster film tropes to pass along its message and entertain at the same time.
Footnotes (Sur quel pied danser) (2016)
A young woman begins working in an old school shoe factory as it is under closure threat from the company trying to save a buck and move the production to a less expensive country. Through the fight to save the factory and the jobs, she and her co-workers learn a lot about themselves, each other, and life in general.