Kung Fu Fridays in April 2013

March ends on a Kurosawa film, and already I'm looking forward to April. What kind of Asian cinema fare will I be showing Friday nights? Read on...

Triangle - Ever since one of my Hong Kong Action Theater RPG players started using Louis Koo as his character's avatar (under the name Tommy Chu), I've been looking for a good Louis Koo movie to put on the schedule (KFF had already shown all the better, most available ones). Triangle is a heist movie directed in half-hour chunks by three of Hong Kong's best directors: Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To. It's also got three leads: Louis Koo (our poster star this month), Simon Yam and Sun Hong Lei. It already sounds like one of our role-playing sessions...

Shaolin Rescuers - Is it me, or has it been a little while since I showed a Shaw Brothers classic? Shaolin Rescuers should be fun because it features the popular character of Pai Mei (yes, from Kill Bill), and if you know your Chang Cheh (it's a "Venom" film), should be violent, bloody, accidentally homo-erotic, and inventive in regards to martial arts and weapons.

Ichi the Killer
- Takashi Miike's controversial Yakuza thriller was banned in a number of countries and condemned in others for its portrayal of violence and cruelty. The DVD even comes with a "Collector's Blood Bag". Uhm, ok. If I'd read the film's description and it had been made by anyone other than Miike (13 Assassins, Sukiyaki Western Django), I probably would have skipped it. But given the director's other work, I'm going to say this will be amazing.

Vampire Effect - Oh North American packaging... This is really The Twins Effect, a movie I've heard a lot more about, a crazy vampire hunting movie starring the Cantopop sensation known as The Twins. Edison Chen also features, as does Jackie Chan in a "special guest appearance". Donnie Yen directs the action, so that right there is enough for me to put this on the "to watch" list. Let's kill some vamps!

And that's April! Those who can't find my house can at least expect to read capsule reviews of each film on the following Geekly roundup. Cheers!

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