Part of an occasional series in which Spank The Monkey travels to foreign countries, watches films in unfamiliar languages, and then complains about not understanding them. This episode: Hong Kong and Japan, May 2017. Additional photography by The Belated Birthday Girl.
Continue reading Monoglot Movie Club: Tales Of Asian Vengeance
Spank The Monkey reviews a Hong Kong action movie which benefits hugely from the contributions of the man they call The Portly Kicker. (It’s true, look it up.)
By Spank The Monkey
I love the work that Terracotta Distribution do to support Far Eastern movies in the UK. But they can’t write hashtags for toffee. Last year, I reported on their campaign to #keepasiancinemainukcinemas in the wake of indifference from exhibitors, media and audiences. A noble cause, but accompanied by a hard-to-remember Twitter hashtag. The same could be said about the one they’re currently trying to promote. It’s such an unwieldy combination of characters, it could almost be the title of a Richard Herring podcast. AIOTM! RHLSTP! TFEFF13!
It’s actually easier to remember the full-length version: because this is the hashtag for tweets relating to the Terracotta Far East Film Festival 2013, which runs in London from June 6th to 15th. It’s the fifth year of the event, and previously – in 2011 and 2012 – Mostly Film has provided you with exhaustive post-fest reviews. This year, for a change, I’m going to give you an advance preview of the programme, so you can plan that whole 26-films-in-ten-days experience for yourself.
By Spank The Monkey
You may be familiar with the cinema technology known as D-Box – a small number of screens in the UK have already been fitted with it. It’s one more way of reducing the film experience to a theme park ride: a cinema rigged with motion control seats that shake, tilt and vibrate in ways defined by the movement on screen. Generally, it’s used to add realism to action movies, wobbling the viewer as things crash and explode in front of them.
Later this year, a Hong Kong studio is set to release the first 3D pornographic film using the D-Box process. This should tell you everything you need to know about the territory’s attitude to sex on screen. Even more so when you discover that the film in question is 4D Sex & Zen, the latest entry in a franchise previously discussed in these pages. As I suggested back then, you get the feeling that erotic film in Hong Kong hasn’t really grown up yet. So when you discover that one of the biggest local hits of the past few years has been a bawdy comedy called Vulgaria (just released on home video in the UK), you begin to fear the worst. But you shouldn’t. Continue reading Vulgaria
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