Bereavement 2010

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man A
I love tittays, I really do.

I think they're the best thing since the existence of Chuck Norris. A large, well-formed, perfectly supple pair of tittays are able to start wars and bring forth chaos. An example in mind is the lead actress for this thriller, Bereavement. No thriller had create such ruckus on a pair of tittays since the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre's scene of Jessica Biel running in slo-mo after an explosion or something (can't remember, was staring at that pair of puppies throughout to actually remember what's the movie about). I figured the casting directors for this movie shares the same sentiments as I do,"Hey, it worked for Texas Chainsaw! It might work for this as well!". 

The movie starts with a child being kidnapped from his swing back in the 80's, his whereabouts then unknown. The kidnapper decides to groom the child to take on his legacy as a serial killer as he's forced to bear witness to some of the killer's murderous acts. Fast forward to the present we have our lead actress, Alison shifting to her uncle's place after the death of her parents, some backwater, podunk countryside. She's an athlete in her previous school, so its natural she's into some sort of sports right? And what she does to maintain her fitness levels? She jogs. I love it, we have ample scenes of her jogging, with that pair of awesome, mind-blowing tittays heaving up and down as she goes (thank God for gravity). Along the way she manages to befriend some guy with an alcoholic dad and somehow the guy serves as a companion to her adjusting to new surroundings and town. One day jogging, she manage to stumble upon a dilapidated farmhouse unbeknownst to her, housed the killer and the child, now a kid with bad communication skills. 

My take on the movie is, character development. The lead actress, totally devoid of any facial expression, struggles with acting in this thriller, her only saving grace is her pair of tittays, which I can say, have more expression than herself. I also do not understand why they have to include the young boy, since he's the premise for the entire plot of the movie, I feel that he should have bigger role with in-depth character development, instead on just focusing on a pair of tittays, we're horror/thriller/gore fans, not pervy buffoons. Watch this if you have nothing to do on a lazy afternoon, i cannot guarantee the gore and thrills, if a nice pair of heaving bosoms is your thing, this movie have AMPLES of it.

Ciggies if you like well-formed tittays! 

Ciggy if you're a woman, in that case you can stare at your own all day. Not fair.

Cold Fish (2011)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man A

I've always had fascination with serial killer movies. The trill of detective giving chase, solving clues and eventually leading to the final showdown. It all started with Seven, the thriller starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt. Ever since then I've tried scourging through the net for serial killer movies, good or bad. In my opinion, America and Korea produce the best serial killer movies, stuff of legends such as the aforementioned Seven, From Hell, Zodiac and gritty stuff from Korea, Memories of Murder, Chaser or I Saw the Devil. Though most of them are not based on true events, its polished and entertaining enough to keep you at the edge of your seats.

So when I heard that they are doing a movie based on Gen Sekine and wife, two of Japan's most prolific killers, I was frantically searching for it, also because its directed by Shion Sono, the director who did suicide Circle and Strange Circus. Gen Sekine first came into my attention when I was reading Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein, a fuckin fantastic book by this jewish guy who works as a journalist covering homicide and yakuza activity in Japan. Do get the book asap. Gen Sekine was a dog breeder and a damn fine one at that. He sells the breeds for an exorbitant sum of money and had ties with the yakuza. He also managed to introduce the Alaskan Malamute to Japan which still maintains at the top 19 as one of the best canine breeds. But sadly, behind his dedication to his profession lies a much dangerous individual that's hellbent on eliminating anyone who stands against him.

The movie is loosely based Gen Sekine but he's not the main focus, its the accomplice. Why it is the way it is, I do not know, but somehow everything sorta feels right with the accomplice as the main character. Instead of rearing and breeding dogs, its fishes instead. The director was going against using dogs, as most japanese will spent time cooing over images of dogs, what with their intense fascination with all things cute and cuddly. So now its fishes, plus they can still apply the concept of breeding and high prices with a different subject. The story starts with the introduction of meek and gentle Shamoto, who also breeds and sells fishes but on a very small scale. Somehow he's unhappy with his life because his daughter couldn't accept him remarrying a younger wife after the first wife died. We see Shamoto as a depressed individual who gave up on trying to make things right with his family. His daughter ignores him, his own wife ain't giving him pussy. Its really not that difficult to understand why he is the way he is. Then later we are introduced to Murata, who somehow helps them with their current predicament by enlisting Shamoto's daughter to work in his larger and more impressive fish chain store. In due time, Shamoto is progressively included in Murata's affairs, as a business partner, then a conspirator and finally a murder accomplice. Denden's portrayal as Murata is frighteningly real, like an individual suffering from bipolar disorder, he can be excruciatingly jovial and aggressive the next. One can never expect what this individual will do next and thats extremely frightening. 

There are gore/sex scenes here and there but you never felt that its a gory movie as the main intention here is a play on human emotions, how one struggles from family issues and about suppressed emotional pain. The only gripe I have with this movie is that it runs 2 1/2 hours. This is one of the reasons why I stop watching japanese movies. The pacing is just too damn slow. On several parts they could've speed up the storyline. I won't disclose what happens at the end, its just different and not expected at all. But what I can say is that the ending is very satisfying. Watch it for the superb acting and storyline eventhough it stretches 2 1/2 hours. You won't be disappointed. Download here

4 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES

A Serbian Film / Sprski (2010)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man A

How do I start reviewing this? The infamous film that got so many within the gore porn industry talking? This movie is what separates the true gore fan from the wannabes. This movie is pure gore porn in its truest form, it doesn't shy away from restrictions nor prohibitions. Every kill or rape scene is thrown in your face with ample blood splash everywhere. At one point, I don't even remember seeing the movie in color, it's just blood everywhere. And thats not even the hardest part to stomach. The ONLY highlight of the movie is that every women in the movie is hot as fuck and the men all look like middle-age italian GQ models, the only ugly fucker is the main actor himself. The movie is highly polished, with high production values, one wonders what were they thinking when producing this movie. We have the screener copy, so everything is uncensored.

It starts with a happily married, has-been porn star, Milos, who relish in watching his own videos from his heydays, who wanted that one last hit to support his family financially. So when an ex-colleague happens to come by with a proposal, at first hesitant, but then knowing that his have mouths to feed, agreed on acting in his last porn flick with his wife's consent. But the catch is, he will be kept in the dark on how the movie goes until the day he starts work. Its supposed to be a so-called art film funded by this wealthy pornographer, Vukmir. On the first day of shooting, he was appalled at why they were using a child as a spectator for his sex scene. At first he was apprehensive, but soon forced to continue while the little girl watched on. It was after when the director/pornographer shows his "vision" (you will have to watch the movie to find out his vision) to Milos that he refuses to partake in any of his projects, including the one he's in now. Soon, Milos was approached by the Director's assistant, a seductive woman in a nurse uniform who managed to drugged him. He woke up 3 days later, not remembering what had happened. From there we are guided from what he did before to the current situation he is now. I will stop here because I will be spoiling the entire show for you. All I can say is the rest of the movie involves corpse-fucking, decapitation, sodomy and many more gruesome acts that I will not describe. There's a twist at the end which I will not revealed but given the whole content of the movie to be so gruesome, I don't think it will make any difference at that time.

This movie which is masked as an arthouse film, had been banned in most countries, and even if screening is permitted, it will run for only a few days in arthouse cinemas. This movie is to test your personal limit to gore. There's minimal CG in this movie, if any, only a few miniscule scenes. Most violent scenes are achieved with prosthetic limbs and a bunch of extremely highly-skilled makeup artists for the realism. If you can stomach this with a slight grin in your face, congratulations, you iz a sick fuck. We managed to pull through the movie with our minds and mental stability intact, but only barely. I believe if you want to punish people you hate, sit them in front of the screen with hands tied behind, and put this movie on repeat. Cigarette Smoking Man B swears he won't watch the second round for the review, he, the one who got me into gore movies. Come to think of it, he talks and acts funny nowadays. Download here

We won't rate this movie as we believe there will be people who love it for the gore or some who hated this movie because its a sick excuse for torture porn. There's no middle ground to this.

Invitation only (2009)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man A

I'll be frank. I used to love Maria Ozawa's porn. Back in the days when she still do amateur-ish porn, not the filth that involves golden showers, face-altering bukakke shots, bondage and the rest of the other extreme stuff she does with her punani nowadays. After being toppled by Rio on the JAV charts, another Eurasian that looks even more beautiful than Maria (Hey, AV idols can be beautiful too, you obnoxious jackass) she resorts to doing really hardcore stuff to appeal to a specific porn niche, the extreme type. Not extreme by American standards, but by japanese standards. So when I heard she's appearing in mainstream movies, the old ones being an Indonesian movie Menculik Miyabi, I was pretty curious to see how she fare without exposing her jiggly bits and only relying on her acting skills. So when watching the movie with her scene in it, oh silly me, why would I even consider her to have sufficient acting skills when the scenes involves her fucking another guy??! Again!? Fuck, I might as well stop watching this movie and put on her porn instead. But I digress.

This movie, aside from having Maria Ozawa, have plentiful of really hot women in it. From the start we are introduced to a sorry-ass loser Wade (Jerry Huang) who works as a chauffeur to a rich CEO, Yang (Jerry Huang). While taking a break, he accidently stumbled upon his boss banging Maria Ozawa (Again!) at the backseat of the car. Days later, after much awkwardness, his boss invited him to go to a party of the rich and famous on his behalf since he might be busy, fully aware of loser's financial capability and non-existing fashion sense, he offered him money and suit to go to the party. In the party, everything is permitted, gambling, hot women, the whole works, so you can imagine our boy's surprise when he was told he can have anything he ever wanted. All he needs to do is write on a card provided. Moments later, sure enough, our loser gets laid with Maria (Again!!) and got a new sportscar in return! Wow. Only in the movies, mate. Only in movies.

Not long, our loser realized there's a price to be paid for obtaining all these luxury when they are suddenly stalked by a masked murderer. Not only he thats being targeted, a bunch of other were as well. Then it dawn upon them that this party was planned with them as the main event, and torturing them one by one is the highlight of the evening. The mood and feel of the movie pretty much emulates American teen slasher movies. You have the dilapidated warehouse, you have the masked psycho, you have a bunch of incompetent git who gets themselves killed all the time. Its like a rehash of all American slashers, mix together with a dab of asian production and the result is a half-ass Taiwanese slasher that copies all slasher movies. The only upside of the movie is that its the first torture porn movie in its country, but to the rest of us, mehh..I would give them kudos for trying out something new for the taiwanese film industry but the movie is such a mix-mash of American slashers without a tinge of originality, you just sort of feel disappointed they had a chance to introduce something new for their country but didn't fully utilize it. Download here.

3 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES

(because of all the hot women, minus 1 if you are a woman)

Kidnapped (2011)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man A

It took me awhile to finally find this movie. It received rave recommendations even before it was out so I was really anxious to watch it. I went into the movie without much anticipation or expectations as I didn't want to read the review knowing what to expect, so I will keep this review as spoiler-free as possible. I can say that what makes this movie so successful is all down to editing and the director Miguel Angel Vivas's vision on how a powerful kidnap movie should be. From the start of the movie viewers will notice the way the movie was shot, almost handy cam-like with tight cropping to bring viewers into the movie instead of just being the person sitting in front of the TV screen. It works brilliantly as every single scene is further intensified as you are forced to absorb everything that happens in the movie, good or bad.

The movie starts off innocently enough with an ordinary well-to-do family moving into a new house. From there we are introduce to the characters one by one. The hardworking dad yearning for a better life for his family, the nagging mom getting into little squabbles with the young teenage daughter. How the story flows is that the director plans to make the start of the movie as mundane or as ordinary as any normal household, therefore viewers can immediately identify themselves with the family mentioned. Then what the director did later was to positioned them in a world of clusterfuck with the kidnappers breaking into their home thus throwing the viewers off-guard with how any normal father/husband would've react if their family is in danger. The movie doesn't throw blood around for cheap thrills, the violent scenes are there because its a necessity to progress through the movie. There are some scene that will definitely leave viewers mouth agape, thanks to the tight cropping technique they incorporated into the movie. Its not that its anything that we gore fans haven't seen, but with that editing technique, that particular scene was extremely powerful and violent.

The movie is gripping with flawless acting, especially from the teenage daughter, Isa (Manuelle Velles) who surprising didn't have much experience in acting in Spain nor was she that famous to begin with. There's this one scene, I'm guessing, was a homage to Irreversible, the french triller starring Monica Belucci. Kidnapped is, in some ways similar to Irreversible. But I can tell you both are quality movies that excels at what they are trying to achieve, that is, a damn good thriller that will have you gripping the seat until the movie ends. Download here for the Spanish version with english hardsub instead of the fucktup dubbed version.

4 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES

Dream Home (2010)

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Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking man A

I have seen some of Director Pang Ho Cheung Films. Most of his movies are dark with slight undertones of humor interlaced in between. Well, dark comedy as you may. His most prominent movie in this case, is Men Suddenly in Black, Pang's spoof of the highly-acclaimed Infernal Affairs. But his latest effort, Dream Home or known in Cantonese as Wai Dor Lei Ar Yat Hou (Victoria No.1) is definitely an extreme contrast to what HongKong cinemas are producing these days. Hongkong cinema had always rely on a steady staple of romance, comedy, sometimes horror and mostly tvb dramas, all which are poorly executed and extremely lacklustre. Before you chuck the mouse through the monitor in disagreement, I was expressing how I view Hongkong cinema these days. Back in the days in the 90's when Stephen Chow reigned supreme, we had almost no visual effects, but the storyline is solid and the overall movie is funny as hell. Back when Lam Ching Ying in the 1980's in his slew of hopping vampire series, they all had almost zero CG, but rely mostly on wiring an actual stunts. Yes, yes, we now have movies like Red Cliff and a plethora of martial arts movies like Ip man, but all these good movies are few and far in between.

Then you have Dream Home.

This is Pang's take on Hongkong fast-paced, ever-changing lifestyle, where society conforms to a certain standard, where Hongkies wanted only the best to suit their extravagant lifestyle. And for those average working wage-slaves like us, all these are mere unachievable dreams. The movies starts off violently, with the main actress, Cheung Lai Sheung (Josie Ho) killing off one of the guards in an apartment building. Next scene we are shifted to character development, as we are introduced to our killer, a meek gentle office lady who works 2 jobs just to make ends meet while supporting her younger brother. It seems that she is saving to purchase a house overlooking Victoria Harbour, providing a better life for her family. The movie then alternates between time frames, when Cheung was young and then back to present, explaining why Cheung went off to a murdering spree. I rather enjoyed the movie in this pacing. It must seem confusing, with the alternating time frames, but it plays a crucial role in spacing between the violent scenes and the history scenes, so its balances itself out, rather than have half of the entire movie is slasher-mode and the second half story-mode.

I can assure you that this movie plays like a western slasher movie. Its extremely refreshing to watch Hongkong cinema steering out of its direction and into something different. It also helps that Josie ho, daughter of Macau casino magnate Stanley Ho, PRODUCES this movie. Absolute freedom in creative process and direction made this film into one of the best, if not, the most brutal in HongKong cinema. We are served with a plethora of killing methods, from stabbings to decapitation, from ice picks to axes. This is borderline gore with extra helpings of bloodletting, as some of the scenes are surprisingly shock-worthy. I wouldn't have expected in my life, Hongkong to so daringly produce movies like this. At first glance, its a slasher flick, but if you watch further, you will understand that its basically a movie on how an individual deals with the pressure and stress of a modern, fast-paced society such as HongKong. Get the uncut version, not the version they release for foreign viewers under Fortissimo films. For this movie, I will lit up another as a celebratory smoke to one of hongKong's finest films in 2010. Download here

4.5 Ciggies out of 5

I Saw The Devil (2010)

* Flick... hisss...... puff..... Now we are ready for the review.

Reviewed by Cigarette Smoking Man A

Korean cinema has come far than just sappy love dramas. Throughout my observation, Korea first came to attention with dramas like Winter Sonata that gain immediate international recognition with popular korean actors and cute-as-buttons korean actresses. On the other spectrum, Korea had also release thrillers such as Old boy, Chaser and Memories of Murder, all of which is high quality, extremely well-made movies that also established korean cinema as a powerhouse to be reckon with in the industry. To compare, I preferred Korean movies to Japanese ones, mainly because the pacing is much faster.

Then they came out with I saw the devil. Old boy, Sympathy for lady vengeance and Sympathy for Mr. vengeance is a trilogy of quality revenge movies by director Chan-wook Park and I thoroughly enjoyed all three for its art style and direction, not to mention rock-solid, gripping storyline. That being said, I saw the Devil runs in the same veins as a revenge flick but even better than the revenge trilogy. That's right. Director Kim Ji-Woon had succeeded in surpassing korea's best and most gripping revenge flick ever.

The premise of the movie is very simple. Fuck the complicated storyline with twist and turns. This movie is very, very straightforward and that's what makes it so damn enjoyable. A serial killer happens to kill a top secret agents fiancee and its up to the agent to avenge her. Simple as that. But the meat of the movie is the entire process on how the agent chased the killer and his method on inflicting pain to the killer. Expect superb acting by veterans Lee Byung-Hun and Choi Min Sik, both who are exceptional in their own movies and even better when they are working together. There's this one scene in the movie (I won't reveal much) that involves the inside of a cab and 3 murderers. That scene, you will have to see to believe, awesome camera work and action choreography. The movie is violent and gory, but not something that we gore-fans can't handle. Each gore scenes and violent altercations are there because it needs to be there, not to be there to satisfy gore fans. It's 2 hours long but because its so damn good, you won't feel it. Foreign release of the movie will have theaterical cuts, get the uncut blu-ray version. You will thank me.

For me to review any further would be me spoiling the movie for you. What I can suggest is watch the movie (like fuckin' NOW), cos' if you don't, you will be missing out on one of Korea's best thrillers. Download here

5 OUT OF 5 CIGGIES