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Horror movies typically rely on their premise alone, but some great films have successfully abandoned their original premises to subvert audience expectations. Movies like "Audition," "The Tall Man," and "Hereditary" take unexpected turns midway through the story, delivering unforgettable and genre-defying twists. "Psycho" and "Malignant" are prime examples of films that dismiss their initial plotlines to reveal more shocking and horrifying narratives, ultimately enhancing the overall viewing experience.

Some horror movies take a wild left turn at the midpoint, suddenly becoming scarier, funnier, and sometimes more original. Traditionally, horror movies live or die based on their premise alone. Wes Craven’s A Nightmare On Elm Street, for instance, may have benefited from superb performances from Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, and a young Johnny Depp, but the idea of a serial killer who can attack his victims in their dreams was the movie’s real selling point. Before viewers got to...

At one point in “Dead Or Alive 2: Birds,” two childhood friends who have reunited after decades of separation put on a wacky school play for a classroom of young students. They do silly voices and dance around in animal costumes. The children laugh, even as the performers make obscene gestures and simulate sex acts. The inappropriateness of it all doesn't seem to bother anyone–they're all having too much fun. As this is happening, a Yakuza-Triad gang war is breaking out in the city. Gangsters shoot and slash and brutalize one another. Killers defile their dead victims and bleeding men cry out for mercy.

This montage, like so much of “Birds,” is an encapsulation of Takashi Miike's many modes. It runs the gamut from wacky and tender to perverse and vicious, and this melding of styles makes it maybe the best entry point into an infamously scattershot filmography.

As was the case with many of Wakamatsu’s works, “Secrets Behind the Wall” was surrounded by intense controversy. Being the first release of his own production company, Wakamatsu Pro, it was backed financially by Kokuei, whose people though, received a completely different script than what the cunning director ended up with, in a rather risky move, which paid off completely though. The movie was a commercial success and became one of the first pinku films to screen outside of Japan, on the 15th Berlinale. However, the Japanese authorities, the majority of the critics and in general a number of people who watched the movie reacted quite intently, particularly due to the introductory scene, where a woman has sex with a communist man, who carries an atrocious scar caused by the atomic bombing, with the whole scene taking place under the portrait of Stalin. Even more so, she mutters to him,...

While the German film industry is certainly proud of its past with big names such as Fritz Lang and Rainer Werner Fassbinder being named as two examples of filmmakers who have earned international success, it also has a troubled present when it comes to funding those projects which actually challenge the way people look at certain issues, both content-wise and aesthetically. When Mongolian-German filmmaker Uisenma Borchu decided to make her first feature and applied for financial support, German cultural institutions would reject her project titled “Don’t Look At Me That Way”, resulting in her making the film with a minimal budget, provided by the University of Television and Film Munich, where she had studied documentary filmmaking. In the end, “Don’t Look At Me That Way” was only awarded with awards such as The Fipresci Film Critics Prize in 2015, but is also a thought-provoking and intelligent feature challenging traditional gender roles...

Another Decade with Takashi Miike is a series of essays on the 2010s films of the Japanese maverick, following Notebook's earlier survey of Miike's first decade of the 21st century.As the Gods Will (2014) picks up where Lesson of the Evil (2012) left off, with a massacre at a high school. Again, Takashi Miike is considering the unspeakable—namely, the wholesale slaughter of children in the place we most expect them to be safe—but there are some critical differences this time. Lesson of the Evil followed the perpetrator of an atrocity for months (and about an hour of screen time) before he shot up a high school, thereby acclimating viewers to how terrible he could be; the massacre didn’t seem to come out of nowhere. As the Gods Will, on the other hand, presents a scene of multiple homicide mere minutes after the title cards appear. It’s as...

Mubi also reveals ’Portrait Of A Lady On Fire’ has become its most-viewed film in the UK to date.

Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Whistlers topped UK streaming platform Curzon Home Cinema’s (Chc) most-watched films over the weekend, after bypassing a theatrical release due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The Romanian crime thriller, which debuted in competition at Cannes last year, was originally due to receive a UK day-and-date release on June 26 via Curzon. But ongoing cinema closures meant the film launched exclusively on Chc on May 8, seven weeks early, and performed strongly as audiences look to streaming platforms for new titles during lockdown.

When someone talks about the Japanese movie industry in the 00s, inevitably the discussion goes towards anime, which, in the specific decade, accounted for 60% of the local film production. With films like Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away” and the rest of Studio Ghibli’s productions, along with masterpieces from Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Oshii, Katsuhiro Otomo and other great filmmakers, there is no wonder why the 00s were considered “Japanese Cinema’s Second Golden Age”, particularly for the penetration of local films in cinemas around the world.

However, anime were not the only story Japanese cinema had to tell in this decade. Yojiro Takita also won an Oscar, Shinji Aoyama and Naomi Kawase won at Cannes, Hirokazu Koreeda continued his successful festival run, Yoji Yamada made an exceptional trilogy of samurai films, Shunji Iwai directed one of the most critically acclaimed film of the decade, Kinji Fukasaku released his last film and Takeshi Kitano his most successful.

2019, the centennial of South Korean cinema, proved to be an interesting year for the country’s film industry. Where mainstream cinema saw great commercial and critical success with films like “Parasite”, “Extreme Job” and “Exit”, independent and arthouse cinema also thrived, with several films winning important awards at film festivals around the world. This last aspect is probably the most hopeful for Korean cinema, whose independent part has been suffering for years, but through a number of initiatives, mostly coming from Busan International Film Festival, seems to start picking up again. The success of those films is still festival-driven and not distribution-driven, but the fact remains that something seems to be changing in the Korean movie industry, as the people “running the show” begin to realize that they cannot continue in the exactly same path that kickstarted the success of local cinema more than twenty years ago.

Without further ado,...

“He admires you. That’s why he entered the Yakuza world.”

On the DVD release of “Full Metal Yakuza” by Artsmagic, the Japanese director addresses the origin story of the film, a tale which could be seen as one of the high time of Asian economy before it collapsed, according to Miike. As he was waiting in an office of a production company for V-cinema releases which went straight to VHS, Miike was aware of a couple of pages from a script which had the title Full Metal Yakuza written on top of them. He quickly read through the pages and decided he would make the film one of his projects, one which he finally realized in 1997.

Considering the genesis of the project as well as the narrative and technical aspects of many of Miike’s films, it is perhaps all too easy to label his film...

Because of the rising amount of felonies, the number of trials has also increased all over Japan, resulting in a drastic change of the judicial system. Instead of a traditional trial in the new bench trail system, prosecution and defense face each other in an open trail and have three days to present evidence as well as cross-examine witnesses before on the last day a sentence is made. Young attorney Phoenix Wright (Hiroki Narimiya) is a very ambitious, but inexperienced attorney when he takes over his second case: the defense of Maya Fey (Mirei Kiritani) who is the prime suspect for the murder of her sister Mia (Rei Dan). During the trail, Phoenix also has to face his childhood friend Miles Edgeworth (Takumi Saito) who is the prosecutor, an infamous figure among his colleagues since he has never lost a case in court.

However, as the trial proceeds, Wright finds...

If you don't know the name Takashi Miike, then perhaps you're not a true film fan. The auteur made a name for himself in the 2000s pumping out one crazy movie after the next, continually raising the insanity level in each one. Now, he is back with the high-energy blast of shock and awe, tenderly called First Love. But make no mistake, this is not a romantic comedy.

Well Go USA Entertainment is proud to unveil the teaser trailer for Takashi Miike's crowd pleasing action crime drama First Love. The first look footage actually made its debut this past weekend at Comic-Con during the big 'Superhero Kung Fu Extravaganza'. The Japanese title for the movie is Hatsukoi, and it made its world premiere during the Director's Fortnight during Cannes 2019.&#160

Critics are praising First Love with an intensity usually reserved for the most insane pieces of cinematic art. Jessica Kiang of Variety called it,...

After finishing the first movie, Takashi Miike did not hesitate to throw Bodyguard Kiba into a second round of high kicks and low-level storytelling.

This time the plot takes some turns and churns up a narrative of vengeance. Kiba has to protect Natsuki, who has some business in Taipei. Little does he know that he walks right into a trap. Aiming to overtake Kiba’s Daito Karate school, a Chinese Karate teacher named Mr. Wong is pulling the strings behind the scenes.

As the story discloses, “Bodyguard Kiba 2: Apocalypse of Carnage” focuses much more on the rivalry of the different Dojos. Miike fills the backstory holes that gapped open after the first part and we get to know about Kiba’s past and the origin of his Karate school. Nevertheless, the script, written again by Hisao Maki, includes varies continuity flaws and does not even bother...

So, Japanese filmmaker and cult fave Takashi Miike, after more than 60 features that have included over-the-edge stuff like "Ichi The Killer," "Visitor Q," "Audition," "Gozu" and more (and by more, we mean that he's done everything from bloodbath gangster flicks to mainstream comedies to musicals to surreal mindfucks), he's coming to Hollywood. Well, sort of. Deadline reports that Miike will make his English-language debut with "The Outsider," with none other than Tom Hardy to star. If the movie sounds familiar, then you have a good memory, because last year the project was at Warner Bros. where it was being eyed by director Daniel Espinosa ("Safe House") and star Michael Fassbender. That iteration didn't work out, and now the movie is in the hands of Joel Silver's Silver Pictures and has independent financing to go with it. So what's this one all about?  Based on a story by father-son producers Art and John Linson,...