Nextflix Reviews - The Outsider

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This film stars Jared Leto of not so popular Joker in Suicide Squad fame as Nick, The Outsider a westerner or gaijin, in the world of Japanese mobsters set in a post WWII era. He starts out in prison, we never get to find out how he came to be in the prison or much about his past at all really, apart from one small scene later in the movie. Whilst there he does a favour for a Yakuza member, Kiyoshi and is welcomed into the fold upon release. It soon becomes apparent he has a violent streak in him which makes him fit right in with his new associates, although as an American in post-war Japan and not having a vested interest in the Shirumatso family many of them do not really appreciate his presence. Kiyoshi perhaps feels an obligation towards him as he helped him in prison.

The pace of the movie is pretty slow in the main and the dialogue is quite minimal but it is far from boring. The movie charts his progress trying to gain acceptance, with mixed success, into his new family life among his new brothers learning their harsh rules and customs. The 4 watch words being honour, respect, loyalty and obedience all to the backdrop of a long running animosity with another family which slowly builds to a head where that code is tested.

Much of the dialogue is in Japanese so prepare for a lot of reading and they also do a lot of talking with their fists, knives, swords & guns too so expect a lot of blood and violence. I really thought it was a good film, two hours well spent.

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Nextflix Reviews - The Babysitter

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My initial thoughts upon looking at this were that this would be a bit rubbish, I even switched it off after 2 minutes the 1st time I started to watch it but I eventually gave it a chance and actually really enjoyed it.

12 year old Cole Johnson is a timid pre-teen, his parents are a little overprotective, he's a tad wimpy, he gets bullied and he still has a babysitter. That last part is no bad thing though as his sitter Bee is a beautiful, vivacious and lovely young lady. She follows his love for geeky things, she's like a best friend, she sticks up for him, she believes in him and treats him like a beloved little brother almost. She is like the perfect girl and he is smitten. 

One night he sneaks out to spy on her and her friends when he is supposed to be asleep and that's when his ideas of the sort of person she is are shattered. 

She has far more sinister plans in store for him other than just looking after him and making sure he goes to bed on time. Plans that involve his blood, satanic rituals, sacrifices and demonic pacts. The rest of the night is spent with Cole battling to survive against Bee and her coven in a bloody series of confrontations. There is humour of the sick, daft kind especially in the always entertaining inventive death scenes. 

In summary a good entertaining little film, not necessarily a memorable classic but fun enough to be worth a watch, as long as you don't take your horror too seriously.

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Nextflix Reviews - Happy!

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So many people have been telling me to watch this or posting up encouraging comments about it on Facebook that I had to check it out. It's based on comics by Grant Morrison who I have to admit I'm not a massive fan of. I know he's very popular and lots of people think his work is marvellous but I never really got on with his stuff that greatly. I don't hate it at all I just don't find it as fantastic as many people seem to. Thinking about it, I think I find his non-superhero comics to be pretty cool but when he does super hero comics I find his plots convoluted. I've not read the original source comics of this show at all but knowing how comics to movie/TV show conversions normally go I wouldn't be surprised if they are twice as mental as this is.

So Nick is a washed up, alcoholic ex-cop turned hitman, he's a total mess but he's still a smart-mouthed bad arse. He gets on the wrong side of the local mob guys as they think he has a password they want. Also his daughter Hailey, that he never knew existed, is abducted by a mad Santa. Lucky for her she has an imaginary friend a blue flying Unicorn called Happy. Happy finds Nick at just the right point, he's had the right amount of drugs that night or his dodgy ticker and getting shot has put him close enough to death to be able to see an imaginary being. The science (?) doesn't matter, it happens deal with it! What follows is a violent, funny, whacky journey as Happy persuades Nick to help him and they fight through mobsters whilst trying to track down Hailey in a world of strange and disturbing kinky weirdness. Along the way he meets up again with his ex-wife Amanda and his ex-partner and also ex-lover Meredith.

This is essentially a buddy cop drama, with two parties with wildly different approaches and it could also have been done as a programme for kids. This is NOT aimed for kids though nope, not at all. Nick has a lot of enemies and he seems to be always outnumbered but manages to fight his way through them in very hands on bloody ways. 

The original comics are just a 4 issue run, this series is 8 episodes long and a 2nd season has been commissioned. There were pointers as to where the series will be going in the 2nd season and it could be interesting. This 1st season was a fun watch, but I wonder if it really has enough legs for a 2nd run. I think they covered all the possible jokes about imaginary friends in this one but I will definitely check it out when it arrives and I hope they'll be able to prove me wrong.

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Nextflix Reviews - He Never Died

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Well I gotta say this is an interesting film, not what I expected and not similar to any other film I can think of, just very unique. In this film we have Jack who is an anti-social loner it seems. From the beginning of the film he comes off as being on the autistic spectrum with traits of Asperger's being mainly monosyllabic and very blunt and matter of fact in his limited interactions. I am not sure if he is having memories or audible hallucinations or just on the cusp of dreaming but you keep hearing sounds that seem to suggest a very violent history, with sounds of torment and war. Does he suffer from mental illness or is he about to have a breakdown?

He seems to spend his days sleeping, playing some bingo, going to the diner and meeting up with a guy in a carpark to buy mysterious packages from him. He gets disturbed from his routine by a daughter he never knew he had popping up in his life and also the guy he buys stuff from is in trouble with some others he owes money to who get Jack involved in their business. Without this guy to supply him with his stuff he gets a bit antsy and unpredictable which can be bad for those around him. He also has a waitress in the diner who seems inexplicably interested in him.

I don't want to give any spoilers, in fact I'd say don't read the film blurb as I think it gives away a fact of the film it'd be better to have revealed through watching. Damn even the cover of it gives it away slightly but I suppose they need something intriguing to pull the viewers in.

As well as these things going on in his life he also has a strange elderly man popping up now and again who he seems to be concerned about. Things escalate massively with the thugs and at 1st he seems to be trying to ignore them but things are forced upon him and he has to act. The whole time doing crazy stuff in an almost emotionless manner. It's a really dark, interesting, sometimes almost funny and certainly pretty unique film, I really enjoyed it but wouldn't know how to classify it exactly. Is it a horror? A thriller? An action movie? I dunno give it a watch and see what you think.

It stars Henry Rollins of Black Flag fame, he also did some solo music stuff, some other acting and some TV show presenting too as I recall. I just got into reading his bio on Wikipedia actually and he's done quite a lot of movie work, including the voices of Mad Stan in Batman Beyond, Benjamin Knox/Bonk in Batman Beyond: Return of Joker and Kilowog in Green Lantern: Emerald Knights!!

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Other movies with Henry Rollins

   

Nextflix Reviews - Game Over, Man!

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3 slackers, Alexxx, Darren & Joel, with airhead ideas but big dreams work as cleaners in a hotel. They get overtime for the evening in the hotel roof bar to cater at the party of a massive millionaire internet celebrity Bae Awadi and use the chance to pitch their idea for an interactive VR gaming suit to him. Things are looking good, Bae likes the idea and orders a cheque written. It's just a shame that a gang of criminals choose this evening to strike, intent in extorting Bae's father's cash. Things go awry and it ends up being a hostage situation but the trio manage to evade capture and set about taking back the building and claiming their investment.

The trio of protagonists are played by Adam DeVine, Anders Holm and Blake Anderson respectively and apparently are all from a comedy show called Workaholics? I've never heard of it at all, so either it never came to the UK or it just went under my radar. This film was cool for a quick late night mindless viewing but I'm not sure I'd bother seeking out the cast's previous work though.

The humour is pretty vulgar and gross out and very silly too and the trio aren't exactly loveable but I actually quite enjoyed the film. It certainly won't make my top film list ever but it had enough laughs and gross out groans to make me think that I hadn't totally wasted my 101 minutes. It's been very badly reviewed on sites like Rotten Tomatoes with a 9% approval rating but I'd say watch it for yourselves and judge it. Personally I thought it had some good unique ideas for some of the situations and some of the violent scenes were surprisingly dark I thought.

I wanted to say that it's like Die Hard mixed with.. but then I couldn't think of a gross-out, daft comedy to compare it to and I'm not sure if it's because I haven't watched enough modern comedies to find a comparison or if it's just unique. I suspect it's the former.

I did a little research into the actors backgrounds to see if I'd seen them on anything previously and found that DeVine was the voice of The Flash in The Lego Batman Movie and Anderson has a small part in Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse which I reviewed recently HERE.

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Nextflix Reviews - The Villainess

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So I'm going to start reviewing any interesting films and/or TV series that I discover on Netflix as so many people are always asking, "Hey what shall I watch next on Netflix,?" and I normally forget what cool things I've watched. So if I make posts about it from now on I can remind myself can't I? 

So 1st up is the film The Villainess which is a high action, violent martial arts rampage of a movie. The opening protracted ultraviolent sequence plays a bit like Hardcore Henry meets Oldboy. In 1st person mode our heroine, (at least I think she's more of a heroine than a villainess to be honest, although she certainly is conflicted), plows her bloody way through a multitude of gangster looking types with guns and blades. We (or she) switch from this perspective after she gets her head smashed into a mirror. The rest of the bloodbath (and the film) then ensues in 3rd person mode. 

In the aftermath of this slaughter she is caught by a shadowy organisation, perhaps government sanctioned and trained by them as an undercover operative. A spy/assassin kind of akin to the film Nikita. She is found to be pregnant and has a baby daughter which she raises inside the organisations prison like training camp. She makes friends and enemies there and she eventually gets let out, the idea is she has to give the organisation 10 years of her life then she'll get her freedom. 

From then we see how she deals with life once she is released into the world and she tries to create a semblance of a normality for herself and her daughter whilst doing the agency's bidding and also being the focus of their machinations. Throughout we are shown flashbacks of her history and what led up to the initial bloodbath the movie started with and things from her past begin to catch up with her resulting in a clash between her new alliances and her old ones which doesn't leave very many survivors.

The action is fast and nasty and there were a couple of points that had me exclaim, "Ooh steady on there film, that was a bit much!"

All in all a very enjoyable, bloody, violent, action packed hit as far as I am concerned. It's a South Korean film, released in 2017 and has subtitles so if you're one of those people who don't like them it may not be for you. 

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Also starring Kim Ok-Bin

   

Also directed by Byung-gil Jung

DVD review - Kung Fu Hustle

Kung Fu movies, I love them, I maybe don't watch them so much nowadays and maybe I'm out of the loop but there don't seem to be as many coming out any more. At least not in the west, I am sure they are just as plentiful as they ever were in Asian cinema but I am just not seeing them advertised at the cinema here anymore or in DVD rentals at all. They are kind of like the 80's style action blockbusters, I just don't seem to see quality examples of the genre much around lately.


Now historically I am sure that Bruce Lee was the original martial artist that made it into the movies in Hollywood. He had to work hard to get what he could from the business but had a hard time trying to popularise Kung Fu movies and getting roles. I remember the TV series Kung Fu, I enjoyed it as a kid and I am sure I had a Kung Fu annual at some point. However that was a prime example of Lee being held down by the TV Execs. He came up with the idea for the show and they chose the non-Asian David Carradine to play the role of the half Chinese "Grasshopper" Kwai Chang Caine. 

David has a few more geeky claims to fame, he played Frankenstein in Death Race 2000 and Bill in the, Tarantino written and directed, Kill Bill movies. He actually learned martial arts later in life inspired by his role in Kung Fu. I'm just glad that inspired him and not his driving in Death Race 2000 😏 



  

Lee played the role of Kato in The Green Hornet. I never saw that at all as a kid, I don't know if the UK TV networks ever bought it. I don't recall it from the time but Green Hornet & Kato popped their heads out of the window in one of the Batman TV shows from the 60's. They also appeared as guests in one show solving a crime together. I only know this as an old customer of mine ripped me the whole series onto DVD-Rs for me but I left them at work when I was made redundant. Needless to say as the Batman series is now out on DVD it's on my to-buy list. I may well look into getting the Green Hornet series too, it only ran for one season though with 26 episodes running from September 9, 1966,  through to March 17, 1967. I am not sure if this series is even available now though. All I could find were a couple of movies, The Green Hornet and Fury of The Dragon cobbled together to cash in after Lee died 😢 I did discover that Kevin Smith had written a Batman/Green Hornet comic that followed up from the TV show story!! And there was a 1940's TV series of the Green Hornet where the master from Kung Fu plays Kato!

    

 I have the movie from 2011 and that was pretty cool. Hey another thing, off tangent, but did you know that Britt Reid aka the Green Hornet is a relative of The Lone Ranger?? He shares the same family name as Britt's father was the Lone Ranger's nephew. True story! 


As far as movies go the only one I really recall of Lee's was Enter The Dragon. (It was sadly practically his last, he died during filming of his next movie The Game of Death). It's a classic of the genre, no nonsense, no jokes just serious action. If you want this movie with jokes and silliness check out The Kentucky Fried Movie, it has a parody called A Fistful of Yen which is hilarious.

So Lee was historically first I think but for me I am sure that I was aware of Jackie Chan before I knew of him. I could be mistaken of course, my memory is naff as heck. I recall he was in a movie called Battle Creek Brawl (1980) that was on in the cinemas in the UK and I was too young to go and see it. This was the age of the video rental shops though and I did watch a ton of Chan movies over the years. Some I can recall are of course Drunken Master, Armour of God, Wheels on Meals and Police Story. His films were different from Lee's with the added element of humour, lots of fart jokes and terrible dubbing and sound effects. Also insane stunts, remember the crazy out takes scenes at the end of each film? It's surprising Jackie is still going with all the crazy bumps he's taken over the years. He's still making good films too. Check out my review of The Foreigner, it's got no humour in it at all but it's a cool serious film and Jackie is great in it.

    

Sho Kosugi is a name I remember too, with a number of "Ninja" movies from the early 80's being pretty good viewing at the time.

Of the 80's/90's action heroes Jean-Claude Van Damme was the most martial arts focused, with films like Blood Sport, Kickboxer, A.W.O.L, Double Impact and Street Fighter but his movies branched out from that with gun fights so I don't think of him as a total martial arts hero really. 



Fun fact: I found out he studied ballet for 5 years!! Well I never!!

Played Colonel Guile in Street Fighter and was the inspiration for Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat too!

A more recent series of films I liked were Ong Bak with Tony Jaa.

 The knees and elbows thrown in those are insane, it just looks damned painful watching it!! Those fight stuntmen earn every penny of their money and they probably deserve more really I reckon! I've not seen any other films by him though and there doesn't seem to be any martial arts action star that I know of bringing out a succession of great movies.  There are a few one-offs like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Ip Man series, both of which are pretty entertaining. 

This film Kung Fu Hustle starring Stephen Chow who also did Shaolin Soccer is pretty huge though, looking it up I found out it was the highest-grossing Chinese-language film in the history of Hong Kong until it was surpassed in 2011. It came out in 2004!! Wow, time files huh? 

Nextflix Reviews - The Foreigner

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Jackie Chan has been entertaining me for decades and he's never failed to deliver the action that's for sure. I was 9 when Drunken Master came out in 1978 and I remember watching that and play kung-fuing around the house with my mates afterwards. I gotta say he is looking old now but he ain't lost it. This feels a hell of a lot grittier and real than his normally over the top outings for sure. His age adds real pathos to his acting too, you can feel his sadness at the loss of his last remaining family member and he feels believable as a devastated, quiet man seeking vengeance and the truth about the killers. He's a man with a tragic past but also a violent one with training that he hasn't forgotten. 

The Chan half of the action is just the tip of the iceberg really with the real story being multi-layered political intrigue. There is all kinds of secret phone calls and wranglings and machinations within the IRA and British government that keep the story deep and interesting. The man he has targeted to get the truth from Politician Liam Hennessey (Pierce Brosnan) seemingly doesn't actually know who did it and is himself trying to find out. Brosnan is great, his character is an ex-IRA man, now a politician dedicated to maintaining the peace accord and he wants to find the rogue cell who are breaking the peace and 'deal' with them. So Chan in his desperation seems to be attacking the wrong guy and in all honesty hindering Brosnan's chances to find the truth. There are levels within levels though and things are not simply black and white by any stretch of the imagination and there are lies and tricks and schemes interweaving with each other. 

This is a great movie, it has action it has a great story and superb acting and it's free to watch on Netflix, so get on it. And check out all Jackie's other movies too cos they are bloody great :)
Ooooooh and I just found out the director was Martin Campbell who did the 'flop' (that should never have been a flop cos it's a great movie), Green Lantern. Awesome!!

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Nextflix Reviews - Don't Kill It (2016)

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Dolph Lundgren - The Punisher, Drago, He-Man!

Wow, I just started watching this film on Netflix I put it on in the background whilst doing some other reviews and I gotta say I am hooked now. It's got a great opening 10 minutes with about 5 murders a bar brawl and a sex scene that turns into a nightmare dream then Dolph Lundgren this films star and star of seemingly hundreds of B-movies wakes up in bed with his boots on!! 

So in a nutshell, something is possessing people in the Mississippi town of Chickory Creek and making them kill indiscriminately. If you protect yourself using lethal force then the possession passes on to you and you start killing everyone in sight! Hence the title of the movie Don't Kill It. Dolph plays Jebediah Woodley a demon hunter tracking the demon doing the possessing and in typical fashion is marked down as a lunatic by the local police Chief Dunham (Tony Bentley) and FBI investigator Evelyn Pierce (Kristina Klebe). When his story is shown to tally up with the facts they start to trust him and the hunt for the demon begins. The film doesn't take itself too seriously and although not an outright comedy there are a few moments, like the protracted murder spree where the demon passes around from one would be saviour turned demon to another. All to a soundtrack that is too up-tempo and rocking to be suitable for a serious film. Throw in a subplot of an angel, some religious zealots and some interfering FBI and it's a fun hour and twenty minutes.

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Other cool Dolph Lundgren films