Life Gamble - We haven't watched a Shaw Brothers flick in a while, and a Chang Cheh film in a while longer still, so 1979's Life Gamble (AKA Life Combat) will be the one. It stars some of the Venoms, My Young Auntie's Kara Hui (a woman in a Chang Cheh film? that's rare!), and Brave Archer's Fu Sheng. Expect a complex/complicated story, inventive weapons and action, accidental homoerotica, and sadistic violence with splashes of orange blood aplenty.
The Thieves - A Korean heist movie from last year? That's a country whose cinema I like matched to a genre I like! Oh and the Koreans team up with a Hong Kong crew? Double the like! A huge success in Korea, I expect it to be pretty swell in my living room too.
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx - Well, we liked Sword of Vengeance, the first film in the Lone Wolf and Cub series, so I'm going ahead and putting a chapter on the schedule every month until we've gone through all six. And with a title like that, how could I not?
Dragon - This 2011 martial arts noir starring Donnie Yen, one of our very favorites, was described in the press as "channeling David Cronenberg's A History of Violence by way of 1917 China" and as a "clever, if over-amped thriller". Sounds cool. The movie also holds a Guiness World Record for biggest billboard advertizement at 3591 square metres, finally defeating Michael Jackson. So there's that.
A bit of the old, a bit of the new, three countries represented and a variety of genres. Sounds like a good package. Some excitement before October's Halloween-themed horror.
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