ANATOMIE (2000) - gutsy German thriller

ANATOMY
(2000, Germany, Anatomie)

Go up the lab, and see what's on the slab...

Franka Potente is reason enough to watch this slick slasher from Germany. The actress scored an international success with Run Lola Run (1998), then starred in Antomie before a short run of Hollywood parts - in Blow (2001) opposite Johnny Depp, The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004). She also starred in another horror, Creep (2004) in the UK.

Paula and Gretchen are two medical students who get the chance to study anatomy at an old revered college in picturesque Heidelburg. But while they dissect dead bodies during the day, two masked maniacs are using the same high-tech facility at night to carefully cut up victims while they're still alive.


(These scenes reminded me of the unfortunate runner in Scream and Scream Again (1970) who wakes up without a leg, then another leg, then his arms).

As the two roommates start to get popular with the male students, Paula starts to suspect that something nasty is going on in the college...


This is gripping and enjoyable while it lasts, but the climax arrives a little too quickly, leaving enough loose ends for a sequel (in 2003).

The special effects all look exactly like the squishy nastiness, though it's far less bloody than I anticipated. Plasticised bodies that look like those made famous by Dr Gunther Von Hagens, are used as exhibits in the research wing of the college. I felt they were under-used by the director and would have liked a closer look at these extremely creepy replicas. For instance, a huge set of shelves decked out with skulls deserved far more attention.


To ease the tension, and almost dissipate it, there are one too many scenes of upbeat college life, with an intrusive pop soundtrack - indeed Paula’s roommate Gretchen is played my German singer Anna Loos, who gets an unlikely sex scene on a metal dissection table.

Franka Potente ensures the character of Paula is as realistic as the medical mayhem around her. Benno Fürmann is also impressive as the self-obsessed muscle-boy, Hein. Fürmann has a long list of credits in Germany, but recently appeared as Inspector Detector in Speed Racer.


Anatomie avoids most of the cliches of modern horror, using more Hitchcockian suspense and a steadily-unfolding story, which is all the more creepy for remaining in the realm of the very possible.

What makes it different from American horror is the mixture of nudity, sex and death. Most of the corpses are young and good-looking, adding a necrophilic edge to the flesh on display.


The UK DVD from Columbia Tristar is presented in anamorphic 2.35 widescreen, and has plenty of extras (including an Anna Loos pop video and interesting interviews).

OTOSHIMONO (2006) a creepy Japanese GHOST TRAIN

GHOST TRAIN

(2006, Japan, Otoshimono)

Even after 10 years of Asian horror films riffing on the scary elements of the original Ring (1998), I really don't mind yet more ghosts with long black hair, as long as they are scary. Besides, the ghost in this one is wearing a black dress - that's completely different!

Ghost Train delivers the chills, and attempts to add a new dimension of its own, enough to set it apart from the rest. I'm very partial to movies set in subway systems, and I've actually had nightmares about London's Underground stations. This film taps into scares that I didn't feel during horrors filmed down there, like Death Line (1972) or Creep (2004).

Otoshimono has been retitled several ways in other countries, but it's not to be confused with the South Korean 'ghosts on a train' movie, Red Eye.


The story starts in the busy Tokyo subway system, when little Takashi picks up a train pass off a platform, only to be told to "give it back" or he will die. He later tells a schoolfriend Noriko, and her older sister Nana, of the warning from a woman in black. He soon disappears off the face of the Earth, and the train pass re-appears on the platform. This time Noriko unwittingly picks it up...

On the same line, train driver Shunichi sees a bloodless mangled corpse lying on the tracks in the tunnel ahead. But when he stops and looks underneath the train, the body has disappeared. His boss is concerned that he's not only seeing things, but that he keeps making emergency stops. On another subway train, Kaeru gets a cursed bracelet that she can't remove. What is going on?


This story has its roots in the Japanese custom of leaving lost objects precisely where they were lost, so that the owner can find them if they retrace their steps. In Japan, I even heard stories that wallets will be respectfully left alone, wherever they were dropped, until claimed again by their owners.

The creeping camerawork and carefully orchestrated sound mix help keep the film constantly and effortlessly scary, right from the start. Though some of the shock moments are needlessly cranked-up by repeat edits and zoom-ins, for anyone who missed them the first time. But for once, the scares are all for genuine reasons, and not false starts. The pace is kept rolling by the constant intercutting between the parallel hauntings - Nana and the train pass, Kaeru and the bracelet, Shunichi and the train company.

Early in the story, Nana is trying to decide on her higher education and is reading a brochure from the Miskatonic University - a hint at where the story could be heading - a startlingly different ending to other long-haired ghost movies. I even detected a slight trace of the Underground station horror Quatermass and the Pit (1968). Writer/director Takeshi Furusawa previously worked on the influential Kairo (Pulse), but this film is a far more straightforward chiller than anything by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.


The cast are engaging, with Erika Sawajiri (from Shinobi) as Nana, and Chinatsu Wakatsuki (from Ju-rei) as Kaeru. Shun Oguri as Shinuchi the train driver is a familiar face from Azumi, Azumi 2, Takeshi Shimizu's Reincarnation, and (a possible in-joke) the Train Man TV series (a romantic drama about a manga geek defending a 'normal' woman from bullying on the subway).


Ghost Train isn't very gory, and uses a few cliches, but it's an enjoyable story packed with scares, in a setting ripe with possibilities. I watched it on DVD from IVL in Hong Kong, and it's currently available on DVD in the US from ADV.

KAKASHI (2001) - everyone's got a creepy SCARECROW

KAKASHI
(2001, Japan, Scarecrow)

Not as scary as it should have been

Junji Ito’s many horror manga have also inspired the Tomie series and the wonderful Uzumaki, but this film is less well known, and I’ve not had the chance to see his original comic book version either.


In it, Kaoru travels to the remote Kozukata Village high in the mountains. She’s trying to find her brother, who in turn went there looking for his girlfriend, Izumi. Approaching the village, Kaoru turns off the main road, up a dirt-track and through a long and daunting tunnel.

(This is very similar to the start of Spirited Away, and I’m sure that in Japan a tunnel can symbolise a passage to the afterlife.)

Beyond the tunnel is a little farming village nestled in a deep valley. Even though Kaoru is missing a close relative, the local people are unfriendly, unhelpful and obsessed with an upcoming festival. They are all building scarecrows, and planting them around a huge windmill.


Kaoru visits Izumi’s parents, where she think she sees a woman in a red dress, but they warn her to leave immediately or "she won't want to leave". As the local policeman helps her investigate, she discovers that some of these scarecrows are not what they seem...

There’s a long, slow, atmospheric build-up, that's eventful but with no really effective scares for until near the end. Creepy characters in red are more usual in European horror, and there’s also a moment directly lifted from the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But this is still an unusual piece, reminiscent of, but more successful than, the similarly situated Kidan.

Director Norio Tsuruta went on to direct the third Japanese Ring, Ring 0: Birthday, which I’m very fond of, especially for the humanisation of Sadako’s character. But his more recent Premonition (Yogen) wasn't as successful.


The cast were largely unfamiliar, though the policeman had a familiar face - Yoji Tanaka also appeared as the boy's father in The Great Yokai War and Ju-On: The Grudge.

I watched Kakashi on a Hong Kong DVD (from Universe Video, cover pictured at top), and while it's still not been released in the US or UK, the HK region 3 disc can still be found here on HK Flix, for instance.

PRINCESS AURORA (2005) - more vengeance from Korea

PRINCESS AURORA
(2005, South Korea, Orora gongju)

If you’re getting withdrawal symptoms from not getting any more Vengeance movies, and I’m A Cyborg didn’t work for you, here’s another tale of revenge from South Korea…

As a scenario, this is superficially similar to Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, as it certainly doesn’t pull any punches revenge-wise. But unlike the Vengeance trilogy, rather than analyse the nature of revenge and the resulting cycle of violence, Princess Aurora has a more one-sided viewpoint as a film, and more single-minded than Dirty Harry as a character.


From the very start, we get the full brunt of the raw violence of the central character, as she mercilessly murders a step-mother for beating her little girl. Then she snuffs out another young woman who has been verbally cruel to a pizza delivery woman. This is extremely rough justice for the respective crimes, but the police are immediately on the case.


Little does one of the detectives know, just how involved in the case he already is. As the killing spree continues, the police are still clueless about her motive or identity, except for a Princess Aurora sticker left at each crime. Though it’s not shown in much detail, it looks like the Disney cartoon character from the animated classic Sleeping Beauty (1959).


This is a compelling thriller from the start, and just as it looks more like a typical cat-and-mouse detective story, the plot starts twisting. It’s not a whodunnit, but her motivation is more of a mystery - not a shallow Friday the 13th explanation, but the core of the film. This is a slickly-made, bloody thriller, with intelligent well-rounded characters. The plot gets a little far-fetched towards the end, but it doesn’t spoil the intensity of story.


Jeong-hwa Eom has the toughest role, showing the turmoil of her character, and having to play-act various other roles to infiltrate her way into her victims’ lives. Sung-keun Moon plays the Detective on the case, while he’s trying to study to be a Pastor!


Gorgeously shot in 2.35 widescreen, Princess Aurora is being released on DVD in the UK by Tartan at the end of June.

Same site, new look

As 100,000 rolled round on the hit counter, it was time for another revamp of the look of Black Hole DVD Reviews.

There's finally a banner, which goes partway to explaining one of the reasons this is called Black Hole in the first place - an image of the well from Ring (1998), the movie that turned me onto J-horror in the first place. Japan and South Korea keep rewarding me with fresh and masterly offbeat cinema, just when I thought I'd seen it all.

The Black Hole is also a favourite movie of mine from the seventies, a decade I can't stop delving into for movies to recommend. The scientific phenomenon of the inexorable gravity of a black hole also represents my appetite for film.

It may look different, but I'll still be reviewing the same mix of movies, I just wanted to try and make it look a little smarter.

TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL (1935) - not on DVD

THE TUNNEL(UK, 1935)

Big-budget British sci-fi from 1935!

Also known as Transatlantic Tunnel, this 70 year-old movie predicted there'd be a tunnel under the English Channel by 1940, followed by another under the Atlantic Ocean!

While huge feats of engineering could one day be possible, the question is why bother? Only a British film would flatter itself that a tunnel between Britain and America is a good idea, let alone a way to bring World peace! There are scenes of both the British Prime Minister (George Arliss) and the US President (Walter Huston) selling it as a good idea, instead of anyone actually explaining what the point is. If anything, a tunnel link between USA and continental Europe would surely be a better idea.

This was based on a German novel, but the script was written by Kurt Siodmak, who also wrote the original story of The Wolfman (1941), which is currently being remade with Benicio Del Toro for 2009.

There weren't many serious sci-fi films made in the UK before the 1950's. Things to Come (1936) was the most famous, but was more of a hypothetical history lesson, than a drama.


The Tunnel is far more engaging and packed with melodrama. Above ground it's centred on a four-sided love triangle, underground there's a battle against the odds - trying to keep up the progress of the drilling, despite the financiers wheeler-dealing the project.

Like any engineering work on this scale, there's likely to be a loss of lives - but at least the designer and manager of the project (Richard Dix) gets his hands dirty, and when the going gets rough, he doesn't talk to the workers through a layer of middle-management. But will his marriage survive?

The acting may be stilted, even for the time, but the story is unpredictable and occasionally touching. I also enjoyed the 1930's vision of the future, especially the spectacular and colossal radium drill. The subway cars in the tunnel look retro cool too.

The cars and planes (a vertical takeoff bi-plane!) are not-so-futuristic looking. The 'new' inventions include the 'enunciator' (a loudspeaker), and the 'televisor' - a telephone with a video screen.

A 1970s article in T

he Sunday Times Magazine about 

sci-fi movies declared the film lost!

The large scale miniature work makes the drill look very convincing, though there's an extensive use of back-projection to try and integrate it with the actors. The impressively huge sets use hanging miniatures and matte paintings to look even larger. Some sources reckon that the special effects shots are from the 1933 French and German versions of the same story.


Fans of classic horror may recognise the star Richard Dix, as the stalwart chief engineer. He later starred in the classic Val Lewton RKO thriller The Ghost Ship (1943). His co-star is Leslie Banks, who played the sadistic Count Zaroff in The Most Dangerous Game (1932). Though the one-sided camera coverage, constantly avoiding the scarred side of his face, is very obvious. Here he plays a more jovial best-friend character, attempting to escape typecasting as two-faced villains. He later starred in the excellent adaption of Went the Day Well? (1942).

The Tunnel was last available on VHS in the USA (see artwork at top), but isn't currently on DVD anywhere. It should run at just over 90 minutes.

YESTERDAY (2002) - future cops

YESTERDAY
(2002, South Korea)

Korea seems very keen on action/sci-fi in the Blade Runner vein. Though this movie isn’t as ambitious or as futuristic as Natural City (2003), the airborne overhead advertising pods and incessant rain are pointers to their main visual inspiration.

Yesterday isn’t set too far in the future (2020), but the police are using robot insects to look around a hostage situation. When the storming of the siege goes sour, a detective called Seok can’t get over the tragic results, and he continues to search for a priest involved in the case.

This is a new re-unified Korea, but where the border used to be, a top secret experiment from the past now leads to a series of high-level assassinations. When the Police Chief is kidnapped, another hunt begins and Seok teams up with the Chief’s daughter to investigate, not realising how close to home the mission will get.


While the plot is twisty enough, and the setting has some futuristic embellishment, the story seems to take second place to a long series of furious high calibre gunfights. Beside the two leads, the secondary characters are reduced to little more than a collection of brightly coloured hair-styles, so we can tell who the good guys are. Seon-a Kim as May (pictured top left in the poster, top right on the DVD), is the only one who stands out from the back-up team, a kickass female special op who gets a lions share of the gunplay.

The Police Chief’s daughter is also a serial killer profiler, who is also handy with a gun. Played by Yun-jin Kim, she demonstrates a convincing command of English in one scene, and was soon afterwards snapped up as a regular character in Lost, where she plays a far meeker role. Kim had previously played a gun-toting action woman in Shiri (1999).

Yesterday is slickly made and fast-moving, though I was hoping for a few more inventive alternatives to armed response in the future of law enforcement. It’s now available in the UK on DVD from Tartan, and is also out in the US.

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FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD (1965) - sort of

FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD

(1965, Japan, Frankenstein tai Baragon)

Here's a plot you don’t see very often. In WW2, the Nazis seize what's left of Frankenstein's monster (a living heart), and ship him to their allies in Japan. As the scientists are on the verge of using the heart to create indestructible soldiers (to presumably win the war), the lab is nuked, as it was located in Hiroshima. Unlucky!

15 years later, a strange boy appears in the forest. The heart has survived the blast and completely regenerated the Frankenstein monster – which explains the secret of it surviving so many Universal horror films in the forties. Somehow, the script is allowed to confuse the name of the Doctor with the monster, and it’s refered to as Frankenstein.

There's then some blunt deductive work and trifling medical moral dilemmas as one scientist regards the boy as being as disposable as a laboratory guinea pig. He uses the logic that if the arm is cut off and then regenerates, that'll prove it's Frankenstein!

Then, following the time-honoured Ultraman rulebook, (if it's a monster, it'll automatically grow 5 storeys high), Frankie goes large. This special effect is realised by the actor pacing around amongst model sets, without the use of slow-motion, which makes it look even more like an actor pacing around model sets.


So Toho, you've got a new monster, what are you going to do with him? Well, he's going to have to meet another monster - talk about yin and yang. Suddenly, a non-extinct dinosaur appears who's ducked the ice age by living underground. Baragon is good at burrowing, he has a big horn, big ears, a heat ray, and can leap toy tanks in a single bound. Is it possible it's a kind of dinosaur, professor? "Highly improbable." You said it, prof.

As Frankie's story gets bogged down with a long manhunt, we eventually get some good monster fights, a spectacular miniature forest fire, and a double climax. After the main event is over, someone says, "Look a giant octopus", and round two begins.


The title alone meant I wanted to see this thirty years before I got the chance. The photos in Famous Monsters of Filmland made the wait feel even longer. It’s not all monsters either, because the sparks are flying between American import Nick Adams (also the star of Die Monster Die) and the alluring Kumi Mizuno (of Godzilla: Final Wars 2004, Matango - Fungus of Terror 1963, and the essential Godzilla flick, Invasion of the Astro-Monsters 1965).

While America is still waiting for a complete set of Godzilla DVDs, it's good to see the other Toho monsters also being released.

Disc 1 in the superb Media Blasters 2-disc set of Frankenstein Conquers the World has the Japanese Version with two possible endings (choose the ‘international’ option for the rare alternate octopus ending). Disc 2 has the English dubbed US version and more extras. All three versions have been presented in 2.35 widescreen for the first time in an English video release. Thank you Media Blasters, you're forgiven for Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds…

If you want to see more pix, there's some screengrabs from at DVD Beaver, and a complete list of extras at SciFi Japan...

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ROUGE (1987) - a very different Chinese ghost story

ROUGE
(1987, Hong Kong, Yin ji kau)

Highly recommended and unique drama from Hong Kong

Rouge is an impeccably made film, starring two superstars of Hong Kong cinema. While it’s not a typical Black Hole horror film, it’s worth recommending to lovers of unusual Chinese cinema. It’s easier to say what genres it doesn’t belong to – not the usual wire-work action-comedy ghost story that Hong Kong is famous for. Nor a scary Japanese ghost tale either. It’s a straightforward drama, told as if ghosts could exist among us today…

I first saw Rouge around 1990, when there was a sudden upsurge of interest in Hong Kong cinema in England. Just as Ring and Battle Royale drew the world’s attention to Japan, the films of Jackie Chan and Tsui Hark started to appear in art cinemas and even on TV – causing a flurry of interest in Hong Kong fantasy and action films. At the time, I was lucky enough to see Tsui Hark’s Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain and The Heroic Trio on a big screen, and Channel 4 ran an important season of Chinese Ghost stories over a couple of Christmases. Among them was Rouge, a gentle ghost story – no blood, no screaming skulls, but an unforgettable quality film from a country that I’d formerly only expected badly dubbed Kung Fu films from.


The story starts as a great romance begins in 1930’s Hong Kong. A rich storeowner’s son falls for a prostitute and he wants to spend his life with her. He seems as addicted to seeing her in her ornate ‘boarding house’ as he is to smoking opium. His family however have other ideas...

Coincidentally perhaps, Rouge was also the name of the first dramatic Cantonese feature film ever filmed, back in 1924. Director Stanley Kwan is keen to contrast the two time-frames, the guilty pleasures of 1934 with todays sexual freedoms. He carefully recreates a sumptuous atmosphere for old Hong Kong, betraying a sense of loss for the style and etiquette of the period.



Then suddenly, we’re in modern day Hong Kong (well, 1987) and Fleur is now a ghost, waiting in limbo, trying to find her lost love. She meets a pair of journalists when she tries to place an ad in the paper. They learn about her life, and she learns about how Hong Kong has changed over fifty years. Then we learn more about her tragic love story, and the bargain she made with Chan.

Anita Mui is ethereal as Fleur as a ghost, as well as convincing us she used to be the a sought-after concubine, despite the actress’ unconventional beauty. The film has since become all the more poignant by the tragic deaths of both actors who played the star-crossed lovers. Anita Mui had mastered every type of role – as a stunt-heavy stooge in Jackie Chan movies, performing wire-work with grace in The Heroic Trio (alongside Maggie Cheung and Michelle Yeoh), and even broad physical comedy as the two sisters in Saviour of the Soul (opposite Andrew Lau). She was also a hugely popular singer, like Leslie Cheung.


Leslie, who plays her lover Chan, also excelled in the wide range of typical Hong Kong roles, starring in everything from high-flying period fantasy in A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) and it’s sequel, through gangster dramas like A Better Tomorrow (with Chow Yun Fat), to arthouse cinema like Farewell My Concubine. He also dared to make controversial low-budget independent movies, like Happy Together (for Wong Kar Wai). Almost as beautiful as Anita Mui, they make a perfectly matched handsome couple on screen.

Rouge is clever and involving, tragic and dramatic – a very unusual Chinese ghost story.


Though it’s not on DVD in the US or UK, there are several editions out around Asia. I got the HK Contemporary Collection remastered edition from Fortune Star in South Korea, which has beautiful picture quality and DTS sound, but the aspect ratio is inexplicably cropped at the top, often obscuring the tops of actors heads! I want to see faces, not feet! It doesn’t spoil the action too much, but it’s hardly considerate framing. There are good English subtitles, except for a couple of instances of signs and headlines not being translated. There’s also a small book full of colour photographs from the film, some looking like blurry frame blow-ups.

You can see more images from the film, here on Hong Kong Cinemagic.

THE EYE 3 (2005) - the third Eye is the weakest

THE EYE 10
THE EYE INFINITY
THE EYE 3
(2005, Hong Kong/Thailand, Gin Gwai 10)

How many second sequels can you name that are better than the first?

I love The Eye (2002) and was surprised at how good The Eye 2 (2004) was. Now I'm surprised at how bad The Eye 3 is - an unfunny comedy-horror from the Pang Brothers (who directed the first two films) is sneaking around under several titles, usually as The Eye 10 and The Eye Infinity, and is finally being released on DVD in the USA, under the more accurate title The Eye 3.


So beware – the cover art may look like a horror film, but it’s really trying hard to get laughs, with the directors aiming to spoofing their own films. They only get it half right – some of the scares work, but the humour doesn’t. For instance, the opening scene of a Buddhist exorcism. Inside a circle of monks, a young girl begins to levitate and act like a Linda Blair possessed. Her tongue begins to loll out of her mouth… But they take it a step too far and have the tongue slap the monks around, Three Stooges style! The scene was working fine until the gags crept in. Guess they haven’t seen Repossessed.

Another problem with the film is its completely disjointed nature, with a far less focussed plot than the first two films. Four friends on holiday in Thailand are telling ghost stories, and their Thai friend convinces them there are actually 10 ways to see real ghosts. The first two ways having been explored in the first two films - “yeah, we heard about them”.


As they work their way through the next 8 ways, there’s an uneven cross between Thai horror and broad Chinese comedy. The film works in places, like one scene when they are sitting in a deserted street at night trying to lure ghosts out with food.

But rather than a series of spoofs, this looks more like leftover, under-developed ideas. There’s also a constant assumption that seeing ghosts means danger. Surely, the ghosts are around all the time – they are only in trouble if the ghosts have a motive to do the characters harm.

By far, the worst scene is when a possessed human gets mistaken for a body-popper by two B-boys, who then try and engage in a challenge dance. No, no, no.


The cinematography is colourful, moody and predictably green for ghostly scenes. But unlike The Eye 2 where the editing was calm, the cutting style here is fast and random. The special effects start off well with some ghastly make-up effects, but then there’s an over-reliance on an easy electronic ripple effect over many of the ghosts – obscuring their features.

The whole mess certainly explains why there haven’t been any more Eye sequels since…


The Eye 3 is getting released in the US at the end of June, with that misleadingly scary cover… It’s already out in the UK and around Europe.

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'Comic book' movie season in London in July

Here’s advance warning that there’s going to be a two-month season of films based on comic books coming to London’s BFI Southbank (previously the National Film Theatre).

It starts in July and will be a rare chance to see these on the big screen. I’d recommend the following selection…

SUPERMAN – THE MOVIE (1978)

Christopher Reeve's first Super-film featured Marlon Brando as his Jor-El and Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. The Director’s Cut of the seventies blockbuster will be shown, that includes a recently added eight minutes of footage.

BATMAN – MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1992)

The first animated Bat-movie puts the Joel Schumacher films to shame, with a downbeat plot, adult drama, suitably dark production design and Shirley Walker’s moving soundtrack. The mysterious Phantasm embarks on a killing spree, forcing Bruce Wayne to face demons from his past.

MODESTY BLAISE (1966)

Very mad, very mod, very sixties mish-mash which certainly looks great, but I wish Joseph Losey had taken comics slightly more seriously. Full review and more pix here.

FLASH GORDON (1980)

Max Von Sydow as Emperor Ming, what are you waiting for? This colourful remake of the thirties cliffhanger serials sticks its tongue in its cheek and attempts to outcamp Barbarella. From the director of Get Carter! Take your own deadly bore-worms...

AKIRA (1988)

The adult cyber-punk epic that kick-started anime to international fame. I can only hope that Leonardo Di Caprio's remake does it justice. This is the original, set in Neo-Tokyo, where the government have supressed all knowledge of a secret project that threatens to destroy the entire city. One boy and his bike tries to save both his best friend, and the city.

THE ROCKETEER (1991)

A completely under-rated, two-fisted, action fantasy. A good pick-me-up for anyone missing the oldschool Indiana Jones movies. Our hero dons a rocket-pack to thwart Nazi hi-jinks in 1930's Hollywood. Stars Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly and Timothy Dalton.

DANGER: DIABOLIK (1968)

Mario Bava directs the late John Phillip Law in this delirious comic strip movie. It’s good to be bad (maniacal cackling…), Diabolik robs from the rich, and keeps it! Will the police ever catch him?



More from this season will be screened in August, concentrating on graphic novels, including GHOST WORLD, SIN CITY and A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. For details, and to book tickets, see the BFI website.

Akira, Batman, Rocketeer, Superman, Flash Gordon posters from the IMP Awards.

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I'M A CYBORG (2006) - a lighter shade of OLDBOY

I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK

(2006, South Korea, Saibogujiman kwenchana)

After the huge international stir caused by his legendary 'Vengeance trilogy', Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance - director Chan-Wook Park has confounded expectations with this eccentric comedy set in a psychiatric hospital.

Working in a huge electronics factory, Young-goon (Su-jeong Lim) is happily talking to the overhead lights. Electrical things are her friends, because she thinks she is a cyborg. Voices talk back to her through a radio. They tell her to stick power leads into her veins to repower herself. She does. It looks like a suicide attempt, so off to hospital she goes.

She gets introduced to a circle of inmates, each with wildly different delusions, caused by pivotal events in their pasts. Il-sun (played by pop idol Rain) thinks he’s a giant rabbit who can steal anything. As Young-Goon’s mental and physical state deteriorates, can he use his skills to help her?


The narrative of the film gets completely lost for a while as the various other patients are introduced. There’s some black comedy as these characters bounce off each other, as long as you’ve memorised all their neuroses and backstories. But it's hard work when you realise that they have little bearing on the central relationship. The crux is whether Young-goon really is a cyborg or not, and we’re teased by the director that what we see is all in her mind - are there really power-up lights in her toes?

I was mindful that surreal movies about madness often indicate that we're in the mind of one of the patients - a movie premise used as far back as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920).

But the story failed to grab me until an hour in, when some spectacular scenes reminded me of classic Oldboy, rather than the early dawdling comedy, like the prison scenes in Lady Vengeance. Cyborg starts off whimsically amusing, but the long wait for the plot may turn the fans off. Similarly confusing is the ending, a distinct difference from the tight narratives of the Vengeance films.


The production design delivers a colourful and stylish asylum, with vibrant green padded cells, modern art in the gardens and very 'now' wallpaper in the canteen. I thought it was supposed to be either a hugely expensive hospital, or another inmate’s delusional take on the usual drab décor of these institutions.

This is closer to a fantasy world, especially the Willy Wonka factory where she worked. So I shouldn’t have been too troubled about the simplistic, surreal version of mental illness - where the medical research for the script seems to start and end with the completely outdated One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975).


Actress Su-jeong Lim, one of the sisters in the haunting A Tale of Two Sisters, is again quite excellent in a unique and unprecedented role. Rain helps her to carry the film, and he may be hoping to go west with future films, already appearing in the new Speed Racer.

I think the gentle pace and humour of I’m A Cyborg will appeal to a new audience who enjoy 'World Cinema' and haven’t seen the director’s earlier ultra-violent black comedies. But for his fans, this must come as a big disappointment.


I watched the Hong Kong region 3 release. But this will be on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK (from Tartan) by the end of May, under the simple title I’m A Cyborg. Non-English DVD releases are already out in France and Germany.

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