A detective, a zebra and revenge! What more could you ask for when seeking out Japanese films newly-released on DVD? I've been hearing terrific things about Nightmare Detective since it came out in Japan early last year. Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, who also made Tetsuo, the Iron Man and A Snake of June, among other wonderfully weird and twisted concoctions, the film was described by Mark Schilling of The Japan Times as probably "too dark and disturbing for the average punter expecting, from the title, something in the X Files line. ... Be prepared for not just the usual goosebumps, but a viral infection of your dream life." The DVD from Dimension Extreme includes a documentary by the director and a "making of" feature.

Originally released in Japan three years ago, Takashi Miike's Zebraman finally sees the light of digital day in Region 1. This is the lighter side of the notoriously edgy Miike, a comic fantasy about a schoolteacher who pretends that he's a superhero, only to discover he is "fated to become the real-life protector against an alien invasion," wrote Aaron Hillis for The Village Voice. "Miike's most accessible exploit to date ... is still deliciously insane." The DVD from Tokyo Shock includes a motley collection of extras, such as a look at the singer of the theme song and TV spots, according to SciFi Japan.

Asian monster flick D-War tore up the box office in its native South Korea this past summer. Slightly retitled to Dragon Wars by distributor Freestyle Releasing, the film did surprisingly well in the US, grossing more than $10 million, making it the most successful Korean picture released in America. (Total worldwide box office was $66 million, according to Box Office Mojo). It didn't screen for critics, but I saw it anyway, propelled by a childhood love for Godzilla and his monstrous friends.

Director Shim Hyung-Rae's film is incredibly cheesy and nonsensical, but strangely satisfying if you're a fan of monster movies in general and keep your expectations just barely above zero. Unfortunately, the lead characters, played by Jason Behr and Amanda Brooks, are wan and colorless, in part because their roles are so thinly written. Happily, B-movie greats Robert Forster and Chris Mulkey are on hand to juice things up. Most of the production budget was evidently spent on the special effects, which would have been state of the art ten years ago. It's the kind of movie that made me roll my eyes and mutter to myself throughout. Yet days later I found myself quoting some of the more outrageous lines and scenes to others. The DVD includes a featurette entitled "5,000 Years in the Making," storyboard to screen "animatics" and conceptual art gallery.

Japanese auteur Takashi Miike has made dozens of films in almost every conceivable genre (the remake of his horror flick One Missed Call was just released this weekend), but Big Bang Love -- Juvenile A is, I believe, his first foray into the homoerotic prison drama genre. Mark Schilling of The Japan Times noted that it "differs from much of his previous work (especially his recent commercial outings) in its theatrically stylized sets, complex narrative strategies and basic tone." The DVD includes an interview with Miike, "behind the scenes special," an image gallery, trailers and program notes.

It seems like an odd choice to hire a Frenchman to remake a film by Japanese master Takashi Miike. I've only seen half a dozen Miike features to date, which isn't many considering that he makes at least that number in any given year. But I can say that his style ranges from utterly insane to completely cracked, and few French filmmakers -- who generally specialize in intelligence and austerity -- could match him. But director Eric Valette brings something interesting to the new remake of One Missed Call. Most horror remakes come complete with an undisguised sense of callousness, and almost flat-out disdain, for their intended customers. But One Missed Call has a kind of effective low-key tone. Perhaps it was confusion or sheer laziness, but it worked for me far better than some other junky remakes I've seen.

Sure, the story is unbelievably stupid, and the film doesn't do much to justify its silly logic. Both this and Miike's film were adapted from a novel by Yasushi Akimoto, and I'd like to believe that the novel made a far better argument for its plot. A med student, Shelley (Meagan Good), dies after receiving a mysterious phone call. After her death, her phone mysteriously dials a friend, and that friend dies. And so on. The calls come in dated and timed to some point in the near future, and the recipient of the call hears his or her own voice at the moment of their death. So they know exactly what day and time they're going to die and they know what they're going to say, but that information can't help some of the dumber characters from saving their own lives. One character sits at a café with only one minute to go to his impending death. Instead of sitting there safe one minute longer, he decides to get up and cross a busy street.

I don't have a subscription to ScreenDaily.com, so I can only read the headlines, but those headlines sure are handy. Here are three that caught my eye, all deals taking place in and around the American Film Market (AFM) in Santa Monica, California.

• Carlos Reygadas' challenging drama Silent Light sharply divided critics when it debuted at Cannes earlier this year, though everyone seemed to agree that certain scenes were indelibly beautiful. Tartan Films has picked up distribution rights in the US; they previously released the director's Battle in Heaven. Expect a limited theatrical engagement. It plays at AFI Fest in Hollywood next week (November 7 and 9).
  

• Blood Brothers (pictured), on the other hand, has united critics: no one seems to like it. Alexei Tan's reimagining of John Woo's A Bullet in the Head has been criticized for being too glossy and lacking substance -- none of which discourages me from wanting to see it. First Look Studios has acquired US distribution rights. First Look has handled genre titles before, often sending them straight to DVD, so a theatrical release is not assured, especially in view of its lukewarm reception so far.
  

• Sukiyaki Western Django, Takashi Miike's English-language Spaghetti Western, apparently confused everybody. Some were disappointed that it not as outrageous as from the versatile and prolific director. First Look has picked up US rights for this one as well, but it's a new, edited version that is 25 minutes shorter than what was previously screened at the Venice and Toronto film festivals. Given Miike's name recognition, this has a shot at a limited theatrical release before heading to DVD.
  

AFM runs through November 7. AFI Fest, which opened last night with a gala screening of Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs, runs through November 11.

[ Via ScreenDaily ]

If you're a film geek like me, you're sitting on pins and needles waiting for the full Toronto International Film Festival schedule to be announced. I'm skipping out on the fest this year because I just put my kids through a 2,000 mile move (though I will be at Telluride giving you all the coverage you can handle from there), but that doesn't mean I'm not pumped up about Cinematical's TIFF coverage, which will be extensive.

The start of the fest seems ages away, and the full schedule isn't even announced for six more days -- stop teasing us already! (Yes, as a kid I did try to scope out the hidden locations of Christmas gifts well before the big day -- I've never liked surprises. What can I say, I'm a control freak.) In the meantime, here's something to whet your appetite: The TIFF Blogs are up and running at full steam. A little sampling of what you can find there:

The Full Frame Documentary Film Fest programmer Phoebe Brush shares her picks from the Real to Reel section with the group. Since docs are one of my own fave genres, I was especially interested in what Phoebe has to say about the TIFF selections. Phoebe's picks are The Dictator Hunter by Klaartje Quirijns (about the brutal regime of Hissène Habré, the former dictator of Chad) Weijun Chen's Please Vote for Me, which played Silverdocs in June, where it won the Sterling Feature competition, and Encounters at the End of the World, which Werner Herzog fans and fanatics will no doubt be lining up to see in droves.

Other TIFF docs that we're especially interested in include Darfur Now, Hollywood Chinese, A Jihad for Love, and My Enemy's Enemy. Scott Weinberg and I saw My Kid Could Paint That at Sundance, and I'd recommend that one for a great doc to see and then talk about over late-night ales at a pub or a 2AM pizza slice.

Midnight Madness is always one of the most fun parts of TIFF, and Scott Weinberg will once again be Cinematical's Man at Midnight, bringing you all the hottest horror reviews and on-the-scene action from those always-zany midnight crowds. Over on the Midnight Madness Blog, MM programmer Colin Geddes gives you a sneak pick at one of the most-anticpated films in the Midnight section, Fumihiko Sori's Vexille. Geddes points all you anime fans to the film's official website, which is streaming the first 12 minutes of the film. Vexille premieres at TIFF on Sunday, September 9 at Midnight Madness.

Other Midnight Madness coverage we're itching to bring you: Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, The Diary of the Dead, Mother of Tears, and Stuck.

TIFF is one of the few places where you can really sink your teeth into some Canadian film, and there are some hot films from Canada in this year's lineup, including David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, which stars one of my other secret movie star boyfriends, Viggo Mortenson. I stood about 10 feet away from The Viggo at last year's TIFF while waiting to interview Laura Linney, and I can attest that he is even better-looking in person -- the man just radiates "movie star" -- but I must confess that I prefer him all dirty and bearded as Aragorn to golden and glowing for press interviews. Other notable Canadian offerings that we'll try to cover: Francois Girard's Silk, Bruce Sweeney's American Venus, Ernie Barbarash's They Wait, and Martin Gero's Young People F*cking (that one just because ... well, because the title alone intrigues us).

That's enough to get us excited for the fest, now we just need to see the full lineup and start counting down the days. Let us know what you're hot to see us cover at Toronto. And hey, indie filmmakers -- if you have a film at TIFF you'd like us to check out, let us know. Some of my own fave fest finds would've gotten lost in the shuffle if a filmmaker hadn't contacted me to let me know about it. Also, please get your film listed on IMDb and get an easy-to-find official website up! The more we can find out about your film, the more likely it will be to stand out from the slew of films we have to sort through to decide what to cover, so help us out a little here, will ya?

Men are stupid. We grab hold of a romantic notion and won't let go. We become instantly enraptured by someone's face, body, voice or written words and move forward in rabid pursuit, ignoring evidence that the other person is already involved in a relationship, wants nothing to do with us -- or is a total psycho. Audition helped make Takashi Miike known to a wider international audience in 2000, though he'd been making films for television and the direct to video market in Japan since 1991. His prolific output, and especially his sometimes sensationalist subject matter, influenced a raft of younger filmmakers, including Eli Roth, who gave him a cameo in Hostel. But don't blame torture porn on Miike.

Though I missed Audition when it played in theaters, I picked up the unrated director's cut as soon it became available on DVD. A recent viewing reaffirmed its capacity to shock. Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) sits in a hospital room and helplessly watches his beloved wife die. Seven years pass and he is nothing but a hollow shell of a middle-aged man, lonely to his core, rotely performing his duties at a video production company. Even his teenage son Shigehiko (Tetsu Sawaki) can see that he "looks old" and encourages him to remarry. While having drinks with his producer friend Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), he listens to Yoshikawa bemoan the sad state of the film industry and expresses his own desire to find a nice girl to marry. With the mind of a producer, always seeking to solve problems, Yoshikawa quickly decides that they should hold an audition.

Looks like the mad genius known as Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) is just now finishing up on his very first western. Yes, I said western. And if that's not enticingly strange enough, get this: Quentin Tarantino is the only American face amidst an entirely Japanese cast ... and the movie was made in English! What the...

According to Screen Daily, production has now wrapped on Miike's Sukiyaki Western: Django, which (according to the IMDb) takes place in the 1100s -- yet is still a western. The plot sounds a lot like the Yojimbo / A Fistful of Dollars tale, but hell. If Takashi Miike says he wants to make a western, then I'll be more than happy to sit down and watch it. In addition to Quentin Tarantino as "Ringo," the movie will also star Hideaki Ito, Koichi Sato and Kaori Momoi. The film's title is a reference to a movie character played by Franco Nero in a 1966 flick called ... Django!

Looks like Django will be hitting Japan in September. No word on a North American release date or distributor, but we'll be sure to let you know when something comes up. I mean ... Miike and Tarantino collaborating on a western? Sounds like fun to me.

According to a report in Screen Daily, the unpredictable, prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike has two new surprises in store: he is directing his first film in English, and he is directing what is considered to be Japan's first Western. Miike had previously expressed his interest in making a Western, and now his dream has come true with a remake of Sergio Corbucci's classic Django (1966). Rather than the old West, however, the new film will be set during the Genpei clan wars of the 12th century.

The cast members, including Hideaki Ito (Onmyoji), Koichi Sato (Gonin), Kaori Momoi (Memoirs of a Geisha), Yusuke Iseya (After Life) and Masanobu Ando (Battle Royale), took an intensive two-month English classes to prepare for their roles. Last year, Miike directed the one-hour, made-for-TV movie Imprint in English, but Django will be his first English-language theatrical release. Miike began his directing career in the early 1990s, pumping out dozens of straight-to-video films, sometimes up to five or six in a given year. In 1996, he broke through to another level with his film Fudoh, and followed that up with the international cult classics Audition (1999), Dead or Alive (1999), Ichi the Killer (2001) and Visitor Q (2001). Miike is also known for his ability to jump genres, making horror, action, sci-fi, family movies and musicals on the turn of a dime.

"I want to make a film that will make audiences think 'Japanese are cool!'," Miike told the press on Sunday, an ironic statement coming from one of the coolest filmmakers in the world. It's likely that Quentin Tarantino had something to do with inspiring this unique new project; Tarantino has long championed Miike's films, and Miike made a cameo appearance in Hostel, which was executive produced by Tarantino. Now Tarantino will return the favor by playing a part in Django.

The movie is will shoot in Yamagata Prefecture and is scheduled to wrap by the end of November.

Hey, I have a great idea! Let's find a (somewhat) cool Japanese horror movie and then remake it in English! It'll be great, we'll ... What? You say it's been done to freakin' death by now? Well then why are Edward Burns and Shannyn Sossamon starring in a remake of Takashi Miike's One Missed Call? (Yes, folks, comedy this lame can only be inspired by trends this endless. My apologies.)

Anyway, Miike's film has to do with a young girl whose friends receive some decidedly deadly cell-phone calls, only to wind up (you guessed it) dead. But when Main Girl gets a call of her own, she turns to Detective Guy to help save the day. (I'll leave it to you to decide who plays Main Girl and who plays Detective Guy.) The new version comes from novelist Andrew Klavan (Don't Say a Word) and Eric Valette, a Frenchman making his English-language debut. Production's already underway, Warner Bros. will be distributing, and Miike's version is presently available on DVD.

Notice how you see very few Japanese remakes of American horror films ...

A lot of people have taken to calling the Masters of Horror series a Showtime production, but the truth is that the experiment was born over at Anchor Bay. Series creator Mick Garris had the idea to snag a bunch of the finest horror-makers under the sun, have each one direct an hour-long mini-movie, and then let the Gorehounds devour the goods through the magic of DVD. But then Showtime got involved, and they aired 12 of the 13 episodes between last December and March of this year. (The 13th episode, Takashi Miike's Imprint, was deemed too harsh by the Showtime folks, which means you won't be able to see it till the DVD hits shelves.)

Unfortunately, Anchor Bay has taken a fairly money-hungry approach to releasing Masters on DVD: Two episodes hit stores yesterday, available individually or as part of a 2-pack. But with a list price of $16.98 apiece (which means a retail cost of about 11 bucks each), it seems that the horror faithful are expected to dole out about $150 if they want the entire season. (By comparison, my 13-episode collection of the brilliant Firefly set me back only about 40 bucks!) But hey, nobody's saying you have to buy 'em all, right? We horror geeks aren't ravenous completists and ferocious collectors ... are we? (To be fair, if the first 2 DVDs are any indication, each release promises to come stocked with loads of extra goodies, so at least we're getting some value for our money.)

Anyway, to commemorate the DVD debut of the series (well, the first two episodes) I thought it might be helpful to give our readers a Masters Guide -- despite the fact that I've seen precisely ONE episode of the show so far! Click below for a list of all the actors, the Masters, the release dates, all 13 plot synopses, and a variety of trivial hoo-hah intended mainly for the hardcore horror freaks.