Thanks to David Grizzard for this chilling comparison.

Is this the new generation’s answer to old cult favorites like TETSUO THE IRON MAN? Simple answer: Yes. ELECTRIC DRAGON 8000oV is a stylish, hyperkinetic film that we can easily categorize as an instant cult hit.

Just what the hell is this movie is about? Tadanobu Asano (ZATOICHI) and Masatoshi Nagase (THE HIDDEN BLADE) play energetic superheroes who are trying to destroy each other. Simple, right? But just how do they get their superpowers? They freaking charge up their powers by anything electric, like a wall socket, an electric chair and a power plant. Isn’t that alone good enough to merit a watch? Of course!

There isn’t much to ELECTRIC DRAGON – heck, DOLEMITE might have a better storyline – because the film is all about style. And that’s okay, especially considering its running time (the film runs a little shorter than an hour). Director Sogo ishii’s style is outrageous and extreme. Yes it is somewhat very much an experimental film than anything. Sometimes it feels that is has more style than required, but we overlook it, and simply enjoy it for its insanity: a 100-percent visually oriented film that doesn’t bother getting hampered down with story. There is also a cool Buddha mask in the vein of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, not to mention a funky punk-electric guitar noise and a kick-ass fight scene at the end.

In other words, ELECTRIC DRAGON 80000V is the opposite of the ultimate chick film! It’s one loud hour that brings a new meaning to the word “madness.” –Shogo

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Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film, LADY IN THE WATER, opens today and – with any luck – will tank. Because if there’s anyone in this world who needs an ego check, it is this intensely overrated and self-absorbed filmmaker.

“Night,” as he goes by, hit it big with THE SIXTH SENSE, which landed on the all-time top 10 grossing movies list and garnered a few Academy Award nominations. But is it that good a movie? Watch it once to see the twist, watch it twice to see if all the clues are there, and there’s no need to ever watch it again. (And actually, I stopped at one viewing, since the post-twist flashback montage shows you that all the clues were there, thus sparing you another two hours.)

His follow-up, UNBREAKABLE, was better. But that’s when Night’s giant ego really took flight. Because UNBREAKABLE was the first of a planned trilogy until its “failure” made Night rethink his plans and tell the press, “I didn’t feel the love.” Translation: “It didn’t break box-office records and I didn’t get an Oscar nod.” Things have gone downhill ever since, because he fails to realize that he’s a good director, but not necessarily a good writer, and definitely not a good actor, yet he insists on doing all three. And these films, plus the subsequent SIGNS and THE VILLAGE, all made money.

Why? SEX MACHINE director Chris Sharpe once told me the single-best theory I’ve yet heard on Night’s baffling popularity (though waning it may be), and I paraphrase: “His films are so slow that when something finally happens in them, people are just so glad something happened that they trick themselves into thinking the movies are brilliant.” (Hell, Night has tricked himself into the same thing!)

SIGNS is an excellent example of this. Lots of buildup with no real payoff. There’s a genuinely freaky scene in the middle of film, but the whole third act proved Night wrote himself into a corner and couldn’t find a way out. We don’t even need to recount how execrable THE VILLAGE was, because everyone knows it by now, and gave Night a deserving “one-trick pony” rep.

He’s got a lot riding on LADY IN THE WATER, and it’s going to be a rough fall. He brags in the latest issue of Time how even if it fails, he’ll still be shooting at 80 percent, suggesting that his “four” other films have been hits. Actually, Night, if it fails, you’ll be shooting at 60 percent, because you continue to rewrite your filmography to deny the existence of WIDE AWAKE, your pre-SIXTH SENSE film starring Rosie O’Donnell. And 60 percent is a failing grade. (And I’m being kind, because I didn’t even count his first film, PRAYING WITH ANGER, which few people outside of India have even seen.)

WIDE AWAKE was a huge bomb, deemed unworthy of wide release by Miramax. It made $258,212 nationwide on a budget of $7 million. Yet Night has been quoted as saying, “All of my movies have made money.” But even all the DVD-hungry lesbians in the world aren’t going to make up that $6,741,788.

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And congratulations on reaching a full 55 years of NOT BEING FUNNY!

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Yoji Yamada’s THE HIDDEN BLADE – the second installment in his samurai trilogy containing THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI and the forthcoming BUSHI NO INCHIBUN) – is once again quite low-key but full of humanity. This isn’t a samurai film in a vein of SHOGUN ASSASSIN, nor a glorious bloodshed swashbuckling like most would think when they hear the word “samurai,” nor an Eastern period drama like HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS or HERO. This is more like a simple period drama that happens to have samurai in it since it takes place in old Japan. Just like in TWILIGHT SAMURAI, Yamada explores the people of that period and how they responsd to the social changes around them. You don’t get hooked in the first five minutes like some Jerry Bruckheimer film. As gorgeous as those films are, this film is very subtle and demands your attention.

Kie (Takako Matsu) is married into an abusive family, only to be rescued by Katagiri (Nagase). Kie shows her gratitude and devotion by staying in Katagiri’s home and be his servant. You can guess where it basically leads from there. Yes, this is a love story. And why not? Samurais don’t just swing swords – they fall in love as well. And the result is beautiful and heartbreaking. The characters we follow are not beautiful or cool characters like Tom Cruise. They are just people. And Yamada’s careful effort in direction to make them believable is what really sells the film. The entire cast is superbly strong, with the leads absolutely conveying this hopeless romance to the level that we heartachingly feel.

Also, Yamada’s attention to details makes the film visually gracious. It is as big of a production as THE LAST SAMURAI, but this certainly has more realistic look and feel to the history of Japan we know or have heard. Yes, there are swordfights. But that is what Yamada also did brilliantly. Because he concentrates the entire film on character study and hints at the existence of a forbidden technique, and we wait for it. And when it comes, the impact is just magnificent.

THE HIDDEN BLADE is a film that can be viewed universally by anyone and enjoyed thoroughly. With all the hypertense films out there these days, it is nice to be able to view one that touches your emotions. –Shogo

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People forget how good of a director Richard Donner was (SUPERMAN, THE OMEN) before he just started chasing paychecks with the LETHAL WEAPON franchise. But that’s primarily his fault for spending the last decades making turds like CONSPIRACY THEORY, TIMELINE and, now, 16 BLOCKS. And actually, he’s still a good, no-nonsense director; the scripts just suck.

Maybe “turd” is too strong a word for this one since it’s not a total failure, but it’s a failure nonetheless. Firmly planted in “I’m getting too old for this shit” mode, Bruce Willis is a sleepy, mustached NYPD cop who’s given up on his life and lives solely for the bottle. Even his fellow officers on the force consider him persona non grata and give him both lousy assignments and no respect. One morning, Willis is given a “nothing job” of transporting a grand jury witness from jail to the courthouse. He has two hours to go 16 blocks (hence the title), which is doable even in Big Apple traffic.

But what Willis and his prisoner (Mos Def) don’t count on is that they’ll be hunted all the way by people who want that witness dead. And some of them will be other cops.

Willis is a good actor, and this kind of role suggests he could be still be turning them in Eastwood-style as he continues to age, if only he can get his career back on track. Mos Def is also a good actor (I defy anyone to deny his immense likability in THE ITALIAN JOB), but what the fuck is he doing with his character’s voice here? It’s so bizarre, it’s inexplicable. But it’s distracting and wrong.

More distracting, however, is David Morse’s constant gum-chewing, and more wrong is how this semi-intelligent action-thriller just simply runs out of steam by midpoint and spins its wheels. I wanted to like it as much as I did in the opening scenes – kinda gritty, kinda low-key – but I wish it were called 9 BLOCKS, because that’s how far they got by the time I got bored with it all. –Rod Lott

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I don’t care who knows it: I love horror movies. I’m willing to overlook story problems, amateurish performances and heavy-metal soundtracks because I simply find them to be a load of fun – 90-minute doses of catharsis. I especially enjoy them if they don’t wuss out and go all PG-13 and WB on us; the harder the R – SAW II, HOSTEL, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, FINAL DESTINATION 3 – the better. That’s why I actually looked forward with genuine glee to SEE NO EVIL, despite being a World Wrestling Entertainment production.

But all the chaos in my life for the past couple of months prevented me from seeing it (as well as everything else; I’ve seen a grand total of three movies this summer in theaters), until the heavens opened last night and I made it to the second-run cinema to catch it for a mere 50 cents. My verdict: SEE NO EVIL has lots of evil, so it’s worth a whole roll of quarters to me, warts and all.

I know zip about wrestling, but WWE star Kane is the bald, hulking, mostly mute killer of this formula thriller. But geez, what a formula! Lock eight annoying juvenile delinquents in an abandoned, labyrinthian hotel for the night, and let the bloodletting begin from He Who Lurks Within Its Walls. Kane likes to pop out of mirrors and drywall, and swing his hooked chains around and stuff cellphones down blond bitches’ throats, and it’s no-brain fun from start to finish. The screenplay is by-the-numbers, but effective for what this is (and strangely, the screenwriter’s own novel of his script is a great trash read in my opinion and much better than the movie).

Former porn auteur Gregory Dark (he of numerous hardcore titles and softcore Shannon Whirry vehicles) makes his mainstream debut, with the occasional misguided angle and choppy visuals. But he’s not a bad director; in fact, I’ve seen his Whirry-led ANIMAL INSTINCTS about 24 times. (Well, one two-minute scene of it, anyway.) But this is low-budget horror, and I can forgive all that because of all the gore; it certainly doesn’t skimp on the horror. And that’s the way I like it: not over easy.

Fun fact: My wife asked, “Are they going to make it a trilogy and call the others HEAR NO EVIL and SMELL NO EVIL?”
Me: “If they did, the third one would be called SPEAK NO EVIL. That’s how the saying goes.”
My wife: “Oh, yeah.”

Although I would pay to see SMELL NO EVIL, too. –Rod Lott

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BONUS! 5 THINGS UTTERED DURING THE FILM BY THE WOMAN SITTING BEHIND ME
• “Ooh, ooh, he done met his match!”
• “Why you goin’ in there? Damn, girl!”
• “This sucker don’t die!”
• ”This shit crazy!”
• ”Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!”

BCI Eclipse – the company formerly known as Brentwood – continues to step up in the DVD marketplace with an array of interesting releases, like Sept. 19’s two-disc special edition of SPIRITED KILLER. This Thai martial-arts actioner stars Tony Jaa, following up his out-of-nowhere smash ONG BAK: THE THAI WARRIOR.

If you’ve read the current issue of HITCH, you know how nuts we are for that one, so word of more Jaa – a truly worthy successor to Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li – gets our bloodstream flowing faster. Special features will include a documentary on Jaa and a featurette on Thai action cinema. That’s awesome in any language.

And so is BCI’s new “Ronin Entertainment” division. This brand will focus on films and TV series from Japan licensed directly from studios like Toei and Kadokawa. Initial titles include the legendary Akira Kurosawa’s THE QUIET DUEL on Sept. 5, the story of syphilitic army surgeon.

Less prestigious but by no means less important is the SONNY CHIBA ACTION PACK. Due Aug. 22, this box set collects the assassin manga adaptation GOLGO 13 and two disaster films (VIRUS and BULLET TRAIN), all starring the man we all know and love as THE STREETFIGHTER.

And speaking of, in November, Ronin will unleash Chiba’s SHADOW WARRIORS television series of fighting Shogun. And Sept. 5 brings even more Chiba in SISTER STREET FIGHTER COLLECTION, featuring the uncut, widescreen version of SISTER STREET FIGHTER (our review here), the unofficial fourth film in the STREETFIGHTER franchise.

He’s not to be found in the SISTER sequels HANGING BY A THREAD, RETURN OF SISTER STREET FIGHTER and FIFTH LEVEL FIST, but Sue Shihomi is every bit as ass-kickin’ cool in her own right. Plus, these three flicks have never been released to the states, so I’m positively pumped.

Finally, though having nothing to do with Asian films but everything to do with my childhood, BCI continues bringing out Filmation cartoons with a complete series set of GROOVIE GOOLIES on Oct. 24. I don’t remember a whole lot about them other than the show involved monsters, music and bad jokes (and rotated with several other cartoons), but I’ll be checking it out nonetheless.

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It’s about time other channels besides Cartoon Network and Comedy Central delve into bizarro animation for adults. Tomorrow night Sci-Fi is showing the pilot for THE AMAZING SCREW-ON HEAD, based upon HELLBOY creator Mike Mignola’s graphic novel. Screw-on Head is a secret agent for Abe Lincoln and is voiced by Paul Giamatti. What more do you need to know?

After much hype, I gave in to trying out Spike TV’s THE DUDESONS, which is Finland’s answer to JACKASS (even though they were doing stupid stuff before Crew Knoxville). Now that I’ve seen it, I’d like to retitle it THE DUDSONS, because for all the ankle-breaking and ass-landings, it was a startlingly pedestrian 30 minutes. (Speaking of Spike TV, I still haven’t made it beyond the first 30 minutes of the BLADE pilot, and now I’m like four episodes behind. Anybody watching this?)

TNT is now in week two of four for NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES, the anthology miniseries based on Stephen King short stories. Last week’s two-part premiere was halfway satisfying, with William Hurt battling toy army men making me smile, but Claire Forlani making her way through another dimension containing a one-eyed cat made me yawn. Here’s hoping they’re saving the gold in the eps to come.

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UNDERWORLD was a surprise hit in 2003, no doubt thanks in part to the trailer and commercials focusing on star Kate Beckinsale’s finely leathered behind. It “told” the “story” of a feud between modern-day vampires and werewolves. I put quotes around those words because I remember being completely baffled by trying to keep track of who was who and what was what, but the visuals and the action were cool enough to make me like it overall.

UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION, then, is everything a sequel should be: shorter, gorier, sexier and much less complicated. (Okay, so meathead costar Scott Speedman spends inordinate amounts of time without a shirt on, but since Kate matches him in one scene, I’ll consider it a wash.)

As you’d expect, the vampire-vs.-werewolf war rages on. Kate’s character Selene is a vampire betrayed by her race, whose leader she killed at the end of the first film, so she’s on the run with her vamp/wolf hybrid loverboy (played with almost zero screen presence by Speedman). They’re chased by the new lead vampire guy, who is seen mostly as this bad-ass flying demon who likes to puncture people’s torsos with his razor-sharp wing tips. So maybe I don’t have all the details down pat – who cares? It’s vampires fighting werewolves. And many more scenes of Beckinsale’s aforementioned finely leathered behind.

I love the look of these UNDERWORLD films, and I think they’re fun. Yes, they take themselves a little too seriously, but the action in this one (plus the added lucidity) more than redeems its flaws. Chunk the brain and enjoy the ride. And since Kate and Scotty bump in this one, I’m ready for UNDERWORLD: BABIES next. –Rod Lott

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Hey, mateys! Time for an obligatory PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST post!

McDonald’s is currently ass-deep embroiled in a PIRATES promotion, with their Happy Meals containing all sorts of cheap, chintzy PIRATES toys (if one can call a red pirate skullcap a “toy”). All McDonald’s locations from coast to coast have marquees that read “PIRATES BE HERE.” Except at the one by my house, where a letter is broken, and it reads “PIRATES BF HERE.”

Which, I recently read, was supposedly quite commonplace.

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All the people who criticized ULTRAVIOLET during its brief theatrical release earlier this year took it to task for sometimes resembling a video game, a comic book and/or a cartoon.

But that’s total B.S. The movie always resembles a video game, a comic book and/or a cartoon.

Still in ass-kickin’ RESIDENT EVIL mode, Milla Jovovich stars as Violet, a pawn in the “blood wars” between humans and hemophages, the latter being those infected by a virus that made them supercharged and gave them vampire teeth. There’s not much story here, beyond Violet having to protect a creepy boy who’s wanted by both sides for his amazing voodoo powers. It’s all an excuse for high-octane, gravity-defying, techno-scored fightin’ and chasin’ with Red Bull-infused pacing.

The movie looks pretty cool with all its curve-huggin’ costumes, huge weapons and candy-coated color scheme, but it’s all so artificial and green-screened to death. Even the actors – one of the very few real things not added in post – have a glazed-donut look to them that makes them look like they were in FINAL FANTASY. Writer/director Kurt Wimmer – who made the decent 2001 cult fave EQUILIBRIUM with, ironically, too much story – tries so gosh-darned hard to make ULTRAVIOLET be the Coolest Movie Ever that he ends up making Not Even the Coolest Movie I’ve Seen This Week.

In other words, it verges on becoming a parody of itself. Wait, scratch that. Within the first 10 minutes, it does become a parody of itself. I think it’s the point where CGI fairy dust twinkled across a closeup of Milla’s eyes when she removes her sunglasses. To be honest, I had to call it quits after 30 minutes; the pain was just too much to bear. What’s it say about a movie’s quality when I can’t sit through its full 90 minutes, but I can spend about twice the time reading its novelization in its entirety? –Rod Lott

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The French film CACHÉ boasts a surefire premise for generating creepy suspense: A well-to-do married couple (Juliette Binoche and some French guy who sleeps in the nude) receive a mysterious, anonymous videotape consisting of two hours of surveillance footage of the exterior of their house. Before too long, another tape arrives, this one accompanied by a childlike drawing of someone spitting blood. The string continues. Who is sending these tapes? What do they mean?

I hope you don’t want any of those questions answered, because CACHÉ isn’t going to give them to you. Its ending is, according to the bearded director on the special features, open to your interpretation. So all the high-and-mighty cinesnobs praise it accordingly for its bold statements and daringness. But they’re giving it a pass because it’s French; if it were American, they’d cry foul. Seriously, imagine if PSYCHO ended before Vera Miles’ character went into the basement, and you never found out the secret of Norman Bates and his mother. You’d be pissed! The director can talk all he wants about it being whatever you want it to be; I think it’s about him unable to write himself out of a corner.

Don’t get me wrong; this is a strong film all across the board, but its inability to offer any closure is a cheat. –Rod Lott

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Elwes to Molest Lohan in ‘Georgia’

Available on the bargain-priced WOMEN WHO KICK BUTT 10-movie DVD set, HIGH KICKS is the ultimate shot-on-video karate-aerobics rape-revenge movie. What, too narrow of a genre? Screw you!

Sandy Thomas (played by Tara Lee-Anne Roth, who looks and acts like Elisabeth Shue’s less-talented sister) owns a tiny aerobics studio in L.A. named, stupidly, High Kicks. Just minutes after she hires a new handyman named Sam (Dennis Swarthout, channeling a mix of Parker Stevenson and Kato Kaelin), she is raped by a gang of five neighborhood thugs, who introduce themselves with straight faces as T.C., Rico, Mackie, Bo Man and Choots. (I find it highly amusing that they cast a lisping, flabby, tubby guy – Louis Lombardi, aka Edgar from TV’s 24 – as the gang leader, as he looks like a threat to no one but the poor schmoe who refills the mashed potatoes bin at Hometown Buffet.)

Thankfully, they don’t show the rape, but they do give us two minutes of Sandy dramatically washing her face afterwards. The next day, she seems to have bounced back from this disturbing sexual trauma pretty quickly, giggling and biking in the park with Sam, who introduces her to his best friends, two karate experts named Jonas and Crazy Maurice. They all agree to teach Sandy to defend herself. She concurs, not even batting an eyelash at meeting someone who has the gall to call himself Crazy Maurice. Sam mentions that he himself was raped, which is no surprise; given his total girlie hair, even I mistook him for a chick several times. They also agree to help her get back at the hoodlums one by one. (But how do they know how to find the bad guys individually? Is directory assistance readily familiar with this “Choots” character?)

“Who are you? Where did you come from? And why are you doing this?” asks Sandy, to which Sam replies, “Those are a lot of questions.” Apparently, she doesn’t have the heart to tell him it’s only three, but that doesn’t seem like a concept any guy who wears a sailor hat and pink, acid-washed tank tops could grasp. Their revenge plan involves lots of kicking and, in one case, sticking a bunch of cigarettes in one guy’s nose and ears. Ha ha! Won’t he be in for a surprise when he wakes up! Cigarettes in the nose! Does it get any better?

Well, no. But the gang members don’t cotton to getting their asses kicked by a couple of girls – I mean, one girl and Sam – so they send her a note that reads, “YOU’RE TAGGED BITCH.” I’m actually impressed that guys so quick to utter the phrase “Yeah, man, slap dat shit!” knew to use the contraction “YOU’RE” instead of the possessive “YOUR.” I mean, even my wife makes that mistake on occasion and she went to college.

You know how it ends, but do you know how it ends ends? If you said, “On a freeze-frame of Sandy doing a high kick after dissing a ho-bag,” you win a prize. Let’s not mince words: Best. Final. Shot. EVER.

When I first saw HIGH KICKS, I didn’t want to have anything to do with again; but its inept charms have hooked into my heart, four viewings later and all. Everything about the 1993 movie screams 1985, even though it was filmed – er, I mean taped – nearly a decade later, as Rico’s stylin’ T2 shirt would attest. Roth and Swarthout never made any films before or since – where are you people? –Rod Lott

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Michael J. Nelson, you slay me.

The latest in Legend Films’ string of public-domain flicks skewered by the commentary of the erstwhile MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 host is THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, the 1960 Roger Corman classic that is legendary for three reasons: a reported two-day shoot, an early supporting role for Jack Nicholson and for being the basis of a long-running off-Broadway musical that eventually spawned 1986’s twice-Oscar-nominated comedy with Rick Moranis, Steve Martin and Bill Murray.

I’ve always had a little soft spot for Corman’s original; despite – or perhaps because of – its flaws, it has a low-rent, goofy charm that is genuine and a premise that’s appealing, even if the performances are terrible and the jokes flat as day-old Dr Pepper. A shrimpy, ever-scarved Jonathan Haze stars as Seymour, the nebbish, prone-to-pratfalls employee of Mushnik’s Flower Shop, a struggling establishment located on Skid Row. Its fortunes reverse as Seymour cross-breeds a couple of plants in his spare time and accidentally creates Audrey Junior, a talking Venus flytrap-type flora which, unfortunately, requires human blood in order to grow. Because he likes the attention lavished on him by his boss and the ladies, Seymour resorts to rounding up bums and hookers to feed to his demanding, insatiable creation.

Whereas the remake sported considerable polish, this original film is dirt-cheap. Thus, Nelson’s commentary is ripe with many references to its shortcomings, particulary the killer plant, which looks like paper maché. As he points out, even if the prop guy worked for free, “he was overpaid.” He also questions the film’s seemingly random use of its “wacky music,” berates its 10-minute dentist scene just for the sake of a stupid punchline of a toothless Nicholson, and asks you – the viewer – to decide for yourself whether a gag is “funny or soul-crushing.” Though Nelson’s commentary is short on actual facts on the film itself (in contrast, his NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and CARNIVAL OF SOULS commentaries were chock full, whatever “chock” means), it’s full of MST-type jabs and references, hitting targets as recent as Kevin Federline to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.

As with the other Nelson releases, Legend Films has colorized LITTLE SHOP, and done a magnificent job of it; just take a look at the film’s illustrated opening credit sequence. (But cry foul not, purists; they’ve included the option of watching it in black-and-white as well.) As far as extras go, do you need any with that Nelson commentary already in place? Well, then, there are a few trailers for the Legend/Nelson line, a text feature on killer plants and the shocking “man eating plants” clip. (Warning: It’s quite literal.)

Also as with the others, this LITTLE SHOP release is a must for fans of both MST3K and B-movies in general. Though there are countless versions of Corman’s film out there from just about every DVD company in existence, the commentary and the clean-up job make this the only one you need. –Rod Lott

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