Battle Royal review by the Director

 

What the fuck kind of school field trip is this?

In this fantasy world a fascist government deals with juvenile disobedience by passing the BR Act. 42 ninth graders are taken to a remote island where their sadistic teacher and the military force them to engage in the ‘Battle Royal’. They have 3 days to kill each other until one stands as the victor.

How the BR works:

Each student has a collar put around their neck. If they refuse to kill each other or there is no winner in three days this happens:

Asian exploding blood, awesome I know.

The kids are of course shocked and terrified but they have little choice. Forced at gun point and terrified from that little demonstration each student is given a bag containing some food and water and a weapon or some item that they may find useful. Some of the kids get a machine gun, others get a fucking useless paper fan or a frying pan, though most get something deadly including poison, a knife, sword, hand gun, sickle, as so on.

Sex:

These are minors so there is no sex or nudity. The girls are wearing semi-short skirts if you are a into statutory rape.

Gore:

Welcome to a gorehound buffet. We get a brutal death every few minutes. It never lets up and it’s explicit. Chopped off heads, multiple shootings, stabbings, and fountains of blood. You won’t be disappointed.

Even though the movie is shocking in nature, kids killing each other and over the top gore, it’s actually a really good movie. Some of the students form alliances, some commit suicide, some go Rambo, some alliances break down.

There is teen romance, there is a constant feeling of innocents coming from these kids. I found them all, though at times stereotypical, engaging. I felt bad for some and I found myself rooting for them to survive.

Two ‘transfer students’ are thrown in the mix. One is a total psychopath and elected to be a part of this BR insanity.

The other was last year’s previous winner. He has experience and seems like the obvious favorite, being older and toughened from his previous BR experience. I won’t spoil how things unfold for him.

Acting:

All the kids do a great job. I couldn’t find anything to be critical of.

The teacher oozed psychosis, well played sir, well played.

Directing:

As with nearly all Asian films I watch their is a clear feeling of perfectionism. Great attention is paid to everything so the film looks great and is comfortable to follow. Of course this flick isn’t overly predictable, you’ll just have to see what happens.

Final Grade:

This is one of the best movies I’ve ever scene. It has heart, terror, visceral gore, a great plot, and an engaging story. Sometimes the teen romance get’s a little over the top but the movie always gets quickly back to the savage battle to prevent it from being cheesy. Some of the kids back stories are hardcore. The villainous kids are scary. The story has a believable feel even though the plot is realistically ridiculous. This is a great flick you will have a fun time watching. It’s pure horror entertainment. If you haven’t seen it, get to it now!

I give it an +A

-The class Director

Dumplings (2004) reviewed by the Director

Dumplings, 2004

The lowdown shame:

Women will do anything to look younger, painful surgery, liposuction, implants, Botox injections, whatever. Insecurities about growing old must be a bitch. Dumplings is about trying to look young, in a stomach churning way.

Dinner is served:

Aunt Mai is 64 and looks like she is in her twenties.

She credits this magical rejuvenation to eating aborted babies.

This is a special male in the fifth month, very rare and potent!

See, in China you are only allowed one child. Most men prefer to have a boy so their family name Wong, which everyone else has, can be passed on. This results in a lot of abortions. Aunt Mai has worked out some black market deal with an abortion clinic to keep a steady supply of fetuses coming. Yum Yum, right? Aunt Mai is a weird bird. Her main customer is an aging actress named Mrs. Li. Mister Li, like all Asian men, if you watch many Asian films, is totally banging all the hot young twat he can find. He is a rich man and in Asia it’s socially acceptable to have a mistress or several I guess. Mrs Li wants her husband to be in lust with her, have her friends envy her looks again, and be over all desirable physically. I had to deduce this because she has about 25 lines in the flick. Dumplings was supposed to be an ultra disturbing gory and upsetting movie. That is what I heard. I was majorly disappointed.

Sex:

3 Sex scenes, Mr Li’s ass (yuck) boring. Thrusting and moaning, cuming and groaning. Nil female nudity.

Gore:

DIY abortions, not recommended 

Little fetuses, a placenta, some implied induced pregnancies. Not gory and not really gross.

Aunt Mai working her magic.

Directing:

Like most Asian films I’ve scene in the 2000s they are gorgeously shot and quite artistic.  It’s not great, but it looks great.

Acting:

Aunt Mai is the only interesting character. She is ultra self-confident, talking non-stop, cooking, singing, and a raging cannibal. The movie gets very tedious because of the lack of dialogue.  Mrs. Li is obsessing over the horror of cannibalism and makes  facial expressions to tell the story. It doesn’t work.

Final Thought:

This was supposed to be a shocker. The most disturbing thing about Dumplings was the amazing sound effects. Squishing aborted babies being eaten sounds, chopping, boiling, and cooking. These were the parts that were supposed to make the viewer nauseated. I was not.

Shocking! Yawn….

I was bored, waiting for something to happen, for everything to go horribly wrong. The ending is amped up a little, but it’s not by much.
I would recommend you skip this movie. There are lots of better options. Even if someone recommends it, trust me, it ain’t worth your time.

Being stabbed in the head is how I felt after viewing Dumplings. 

-Your young looking Director.

Dream Home (2010) review by the Director

The Market:

In the USA the housing market was blasting off like a soviet rocket. It was giving real-estate agents wet dreams and home owners felt like they were going to be equiety millions. Experts called it a bubble. It couldn’t last. It was going to pop like a zit. No one listened. Across the planet, Hong Kong was experiencing the same explosion. The city was not a home buyers market. Unless you are one determined buyer.

The Motive:

All Cheng Lai Sheung wanted was house on the water front. She works two jobs. Putting money in the bank and promising herself one day she would have her dream home. Though Cheng grew up poor moving around in the slums of Hong Kong and disappointed in her father for what he couldn’t do for their family, it wouldn’t be her fate.

Cheng shops around. She looks into buying a condo on the water, but she just doesn’t have enough money. She finds her situation intolerable. The more she slaves away the more the housing bubble expands. She will never succeed.

One top of that conundrum, it seems like every man living in Hong Kong is banging a mistress while his guliable wife and kids believe his lies about being in yet another overtime meeting. Cheng is dating an asshole who is cheating on his wife. He likes to get drunk and fuck Cheng in fancy hotels. She puts up with him. He has money. Maybe he can be her ticket to a new life. At some point, Cheng is tired of slaving, waiting, and fucking affluent adulterers. The housing bubble hasn’t popped. Cheng has concocted a plan to drive prices down in one particularly appealing high rise…

Sex:

Naked girls, tits, butts, some fairly explicit simulated sex. Unfortunately the setting hardly makes any of it erotic.

Gore:

It’s a gorehounds buffet. High body count. Ruthless murders, disemboweled, brains blown out, stabbings, stranglings, suffocation, death by jagged wood, eye popped out, a chopped off penis with cum dripping out of it, glass bong death, it’s nasty and very bloody. The effects are 80% practical and look amazing. The attention to detail is excellent. There is some CGI touch ups only the most sensitive palates will notice. Sure I wish all the gore had all been old school but the CGI allowed for some creative kills. 

Acting: 

All the characters performed well. The main character Cheng was attractive and captivating. She was a great lead. She doesn’t seem capable of what she does, but once she is committed she doesn’t give up. I bought it.

There are plenty of city shots and lingering establishing shots. It’s as if the buildings themselves are a character in the film. I am a sexy building, you want me, you want me bad don’t you. 

Directing: 

Dream Home was directed and written by Ho Cheng Pang. He did an amazing job. Home run.

It’s a beautifully shot film. Some creative camera work but not too much so it becomes distracting. The story is told in flash backs of Cheng’s life while jumping to the present as she enacts her psychotic plan. I am always impressed with the precision of Asian films. Their movies look flawless, expert attention is paid to details. Everyone involved works hard to make the movie look great. Dream Home is a gruesome film, unsettling. The erie lack of music during some of the violent parts of the movie add to the brutality. Prepare to be freaked out.

Closing the sale: 

Dream Home is an absolute must see for horror fans. It’s brutal and never lets up.

You will love it right from the start. I enjoyed the way the story unfolded. I was scared of Cheng, her subtle, and not so subtle, determination and psychopathic nature is horror candy. This film even boasts a great ending. How many horror movies start on a high note and end on one? It tests your gag reflex the whole way as it batters you with its nihilistic delivery. Dream Home is coated with feminine materialism grotesquely and uninhibitedly displayed like a crack whore’s spread eagle gash caked with smegma and oozing herpes sores.

See Dream Home immediately, anyway you can. Put forth the effort just like Cheng would do, to get what she wants.

5 out of 5 !!!!!

-The Director