Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Alka, of purple eyes and silver hair, is marked out by an off-pink butterfly on her arm, and as the last surviving member of the assassin group, the Clan of the Sword. She wanders the earth, her heart a void, desperately searching for the one who offed her master and to exact her revenge. It’s an arena usually reserved for men, but Blade and Soul is a tapestry of women struggling to satisfy their vengeance and the folly and horror they encounter along the way.

Based on the Korean MMORPG of the same name, the anime adaption penned by Atsuhiro Tomioka – who’s scripted episodes of Berserk and Fairy Tail, among others – ditches the lore for a political footnote, and blows up the rich environments to magnificent heights. The character designs are drawn straight from the game, with both the good and the bad aspects in balance. Characters’ faces are beautifully crafted, with elven features in the upturned eyes and the soft light playing off every dainty nose. The animation style is a patchwork of the bright blue and greens of rich fantasy, and the dark and umber tones of the genre’s bloodier tendencies, with grimdark flecks throughout. No character is truly safe, and this in itself is shocking when we’re so used to seeing characters take a beating and keep on going. But with the series’ many shortcomings, even the promising points are overshadowed.

While the women and their vengeance make the up the strata of Blade and Soul, it’s below the neckline where the prospects of the setup are well and truly ousted. Most possess preposterously proportioned bosoms and the kind of clothing that only a lad of fourteen could think was fair game for an assassin or warrior to wear. If it seems trite, it’s only because of the source material it was drawn from, and condensing a whole MMORPG into a four and a half hour series makes it feel congested at best. That is, until it opens out into desert with every bit of the vastness of Lawrence of Arabia. This attention to setting, along with the orchestral score, adds to the sense that this is a world in motion, even when the viewer isn’t watching.

Within Alka’s journey are nested tales of revenge, some fuelled by great pain, with others stale and reminiscent of storytelling methods tried, tested and found wanting. When the plot stops following the omnipresent MMO structure of loot this, kill that and repeat to focus on a character with tragic intrigue, you get a glimpse of the poignant story that could have been.

Special Features: Clean opening and closing / Also available

BLADE AND SOUL: COMPLETE SEASON COLLECTION / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: HIROSHI TAKEUCHI, HIROSHI HAMASAKI / SCREENPLAY: ATSUHIRO TOMIOKA / STARRING: YUKI TAKAO, AYAHI TAKAGAKI, SAYAKA OHARA, AOI YUUKI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

On paper, The Killing is a bleak no-holds-barred police procedural based very closely upon the Danish television series Forbrydelsen. For those who have already seen the Danish original, the similarities – especially during the first season – may be so jarring they quickly become irritating (or ‘imitating’ because the US version often feels like a direct shot-for-shot copy of its European counterpart. In fact, the first season of The Killing sometimes feels as if it was made solely for people who do not like reading subtitles).

Stick with it, though. A few episodes in and you will be so engrossed in the story that nothing else will matter.

So what is the story? The Killing’s main character is Seattle detective Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos), whose last day at work is slammed into reverse when a teenage girl goes missing, eventually to be found dead in the back of an up-and-coming politician’s car.

Suddenly, Linden’s plans for a new life in California are put on hold as she and detective Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman), the renegade bad-boy cop who was brought in as her replacement, try to unravel the truth behind ‘Who Killed Rosie Larsen?’ There are, not surprisingly, a lot of possibilities.

Season Two continues the Larsen investigation and uncovers even more dirt along the way, including some revelations that quickly spin out some of the details we thought we knew from the previous season (this isn’t cheating though, it is extremely good screenwriting). Season Three is a completely new story, when Linden discovers that a series of murders is linked to one of her previous investigations, a case she long thought buried. Season Four involves the brutal murder of a family and the only survivor of the massacre may be the chief suspect. It doesn’t help that the boy attends a military academy. Meanwhile, Linden is still weathering the storm whipped up by the season three finale, and her already tenuous relationship with Holder is becoming even more strained.

The Killing is a wonderful series, although probably the most unsexy thriller ever committed to film. It is also constantly cold, grey and wet so viewers with really serious cases of seasonal affective disorder should probably watch this while sitting very close to a ridiculously big heat lamp. But, unlike many similar TV shows, The Killing rewards careful viewing and always keeps the audience guessing. The performances are solid as well; Mireille Enos gives an acting masterclass as Linden, especially during Seasons Three and Four.

As for this Blu-ray and DVD release, it looks and sounds great. A few more special features would have been nice, but the quality of The Killing itself more than makes up for the lack of extras.

THE KILLING – THE COMPLETE SERIES / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: ED BIANCHI, NICOLE KASSELL, PHIL ABRAHAM / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: MIREILEE ENOS, JOEL KINNAMAN, BILLY CAMPBELL, MICHELLE FORBES, BRENT SAXTON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

One of the great joys of DVD is that we are finally able to watch wonderful-but-little-known foreign language movies which, without this medium, would probably have disappeared completely out of sight.

Dragon’s Return is one of those films.

Written and directed by Eduard Grecner, Dragon’s Return tells the deceptively simple story of a potter nicknamed Dragon (Radovan Lukavsky) who returns to the village that exiled him only to be met by fear and hostility and discovers that Eva (Emilia Vasaryova), the woman he loves who he has harboured the hope of returning to, is now married to his arch rival Simon (Gustav Valach).

When a fire breaks out in the neighbouring forest, Dragon seizes the opportunity to redeem himself in the eyes of Eva and the villagers by volunteering to rescue the town’s cattle before they are destroyed by the blaze.

The villagers agree, but they are suspicious of Dragon’s motives. Also, if Dragon fails in his quest the penalty will be harsh – the villagers will burn Dragon’s cottage to the ground. But worse than that, Simon will accompany Dragon on the mission, and Simon is privately determined that Dragon will never return to the village again.

We cannot praise this film highly enough. It is the jewel in the crown of Czech/Slovak cinema, a beautifully photographed and richly textured ‘free-verse’ fairytale which, although the story is contemporary at its heart, appears to be set in its own indefinable universe, a medieval otherworld within which all of the characters strain beneath the harness of peasant superstition and belief in witchcraft.

Although it seems wrong to compare Dragon’s Return to another director’s work, the pacing and gorgeous monochrome imagery are strongly reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Both films also share the same sense of quasi-mystical darkness, the unsettling knowledge that although we can pretend we have control over our destiny, at any moment the fates may step in and tear apart everything. But, for this viewer, what makes Dragon’s Return even greater than Bergman’s famous opus are the base and visceral emotions churning at the centre of the story, the primitive questions about love, desire and revenge that, despite the olde worlde setting, make this 1968 production feel incredibly relevant and modern. At times, Dragon’s Return is like watching a dream that we know is sending us an important message about the way we live our own lives.

Second Run’s DVD is an excellent presentation and includes a video introduction to the film which, for those who haven’t seen the film already, should probably be watched after the main feature. The cinematography looks fantastic and Ilja Zeljenka’s eerie choral soundtrack sends chills down the spine. There is also a booklet crammed with fascinating information and anecdotes about the film’s production and its tortuous development from a novella to the big screen.

Do not miss Dragon’s Return. It is, in every sense of the word, a masterpiece.

DRAGON’S RETURN / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: EDUARD GRECNER / STARRING: RADOVAN LUKAVSKY, GUSTAV VALACH, EMILIA VASARYOVA, VILIAM POLONYI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

If we were to be so bold as to suggest Jesús Franco might just be Germany’s greatest living auteur, you could be forgiven for finding this view somewhat contentious. At the very least, you’d point out he was Spanish. You might also point out that he’s been dead for two years. They’re pertinent points so who could blame you? But you might also pause for breath and say, “Wasn’t he the bloke who made about two million zero-budget sexploitation movies with vampires in? Wasn’t he, if you’ll forgive me, a bit rubbish?” It’s certainly a valid point of view.

But consider the shattered continuity of his oeuvre: She Killed in Ecstasy was made within weeks of Vampyros Lesbos with much of the same cast and what appears, to the untrained eye, to be the same locations. But Jesús is the tricksy one for much of his vision is subtlety altered. While there are still lesbians, vampires are always more noticeable by their absence and our expectation is being cleverly subverted. Instead, his then-muse, Soledad Miranda portrays the widow of a medical genius whose experiments with human embryos cause difficulties for the neo-orthodox medical establishment. Their cruel rejection leads to him taking his own life and his wife’s obsession to kill the four doctors responsible. Four doctors? Jesús, you old rascal . Right from the off, Jesús wrong foots us like a five-legged fox by repeatedly showing us those tragic human foetuses in jars while we are treated to the staggeringly inappropriate funk soundtrack. The genius of that groove is repeated throughout: whenever we should not be hearing funk, Jesús punctuates the mise-en-scène by defiantly giving us funk. As Miranda removes the penis from her mercifully dead yet masochistic first victim? Yes, get down because it’s time for more red-hot funk.

But the continuous continuity is preserved as Miranda continues the previous film’s seemingly doomed lesbian relationship with Ewa Strömberg. While Strömberg was only seemingly stalked before, this time she really is the prey as Miranda kills her at the height of passion with a transparent inflatable cushion. Savour that image. As Strömberg gurns through the suffocating plastic of fashionable soft furnishing, it is impossible not to raise a smile. The grotesque is being destroyed by merciless modernity. We are celebrating the arrival of the new decade and yet it is killing her just as the monstrous architecture and unspeakable interior design of the ‘70s is slowly eating our souls. What kind of hell is this?

But Jesús tops it all by casting himself as another masochist in the climatic murder that sees them both in ecstasy by duel means as he is tortured and butchered in pleasure and pain. He seems almost to be screaming “I’ve worked with Christopher Lee, dammit! Why won’t anyone give me a decent budget?!” We cannot help but reach out to poor Jesús who is, like Eleanor of Aquitaine, pitiful and yet pitied by no one.

We are left with a single question: this is tosh, but what kind of tosh is this?

Special Features: Four interviews (Jesús Franco, Paul Muller, Stephen Thrower, and Soledad Miranda historian Amy Brown) / German trailer

SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY (1971) / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JESÚS FRANCO / STARRING: SOLEDAD MIRANDA, FRED WILLIAMS, EWA STRÖMBERG, PAUL MULLER, HOWARD VERNON, HORST TAPPERT, JESÚS FRANCO / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 
 

Lava is an extraordinarily in-yer-face British revenge thriller which, whilst critically well-regarded when it was released way back in 2001, pretty much sailed right under the radar of popular taste and sank without trace. Dusted down and resurrected on DVD nearly fifteen years later it remains a curious and welcome antidote to all those sub-Lock Stock British gangster yarns which were a tiresome vogue for what seemed like an inordinately long time. Lava is a tough, brutal foul-mouthed movie – lock Granny in a cupboard – yet it’s also shot through with pitch black gallows humour and occasionally a warm and warped sense of family and responsibility. It’s gloriously violent too.

Writer/director Joe Tucker plays the somewhat delusional Smiggy, an ex-soldier who sets off with the autistic Phillip (James Holmes) to mete out their own form of justice on vicious thug Darrel (Graeme Fox), just released from a pitifully-short prison sentence for crippling Phillip’s brother and turning him into little more than a drooling cabbage. Darrel, however, is involved in a deal with some ruthless Yardy drug-dealers, and when Smiggy and Phillip arrive at Darrel’s flat a continuous case of mistaken identity spirals out of control into an orgy of violence, blood-letting and sometimes eye-watering profanity. Lava is, as you might have gathered, strictly for adults only. It’s also remarkably assured for a low-budget Brit-flick and irresistibly watchable despite the grubby low-life nature of its entire ensemble cast of characters.

Set against the backdrop of the Notting Hill Festival (footage is laced throughout the movie as a counterpoint to the raw and sometimes matter-of-fact violence of the narrative), Lava depicts early 21st century London with rather more pinpoint accuracy than the sweetness-and-light (and largely white-faced) version depicted in the likes of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill. This is clearly Tucker’s film from beginning to end, and Smiggy is a complex and convoluted presence, part reluctant psychopath, part puritan – he dispatches violence casually and almost accidentally and he can’t abide a swearing woman (and former EastEnder Nicola Stapleton’s Julie’s cussing would make a trooper blush) and he’s nicely counterpointed by the naive and slow-witted Phillip, wracked with guilt because he stood by and watched as his brother was brutalised. Tucker and Holmes are – fittingly for a film called Lava – scorchingly good in their roles (bearing in mind there’s not a duff performance in sight) and one of the many frustrations of the movie’s low profile is the fact that neither have yet gone on to become major players in a British film and TV industry that need all the talent and charisma it can get.

Lava may be a bit strong for some stomachs, but if you’re in the mood for some distinctly Tarantino-esque Grand Guignol violence and a richly-drawn story full of characters you can’t help but feel some sympathy for set in London’s greasy underbelly of crime, drugs, poverty and violence, it’s a weird and wonderful cult title you’d be advised to track down. Lava is, quite simply (and we were never going to resist this one) hot stuff.

Special Features: Behind the scenes

LAVA / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JOE TUCKER / STARRING: JOE TUCKER, JAMES HOLMES, NICOLA STAPLETON, GRAEME FOX, TOM BELL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

The recent Blu-ray release of Charlie Chaplin’s filmography has given film buffs plenty of opportunity to wax lyrical on the work of Chaplin. His influence on modern movie-making is easy to underestimate; he is still seen as many as a funny little clown whose humour seems quaint and restrained by today’s standards.

Limelight is a good example of the serious side of the classic clown. Though it isn’t quite his final movie, it is certainly his farewell. Chaplin plays an ageing clown called Calvero who is long past his best. Set during the eve of World War I, Limelight is a rather sombre piece. The old clown (Calvero, not Chaplin) has become a washed-up drunk and has-been. At an all-time low, Calvero attempts suicide only to be rescued in every conceivable way by a young ballet dancer.

The result is a heart-warming journey about recovery, friendship, failure and the crucial message that you’re never too old to be happy, and you should never stop trying to discover who you are. As you may suspect, Limelight isn’t a comedy. It’s a self-indulgent look at the things that motivated and inspired Chaplin throughout his life. It also features Buster Keaton (and is the only movie that features both of these icons of comedy). There are many, many set-pieces throughout this, and in many ways the lead is showing off his range and skill. It’s compelling viewing, even after all these years.

From a pop-culture point of view, it’s impossible to watch this movie without thinking of the way Chaplin shaped comedy. For a start, watching Limelight suddenly makes every single episode of The Simpsons that features Krusty the Clown all the more poignant. Limelight is the ultimate sad clown movie, and if that’s your thing then it deserves a place in your movie collection.

LIMELIGHT / CERT: U / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CHARLIE CHAPLIN / STARRING: CHARLIE CHAPLIN, CLAIRE BLOOM, NIGEL BRUCE, BUSTER KEATON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW