For years Kungfuzombie was a Dutch B Movie / Horror / Cult review site covering everything from Zombie '90: Extreme pestilence to A Chinese ghoststory. Due to the lack off time the site died a slow death, although it seemed that way because now we are back, in English and with a little different setup.
Kungfuzombie will still be about Cult en Horror movies, but now we will look at the movies that borrow just al little to much, stole some ideas or scenes or are just shameless rip offs from other well known movies!
We all know them and we've probably all seen some of them, some of them terribly bad and some of them lots of fun! Just take a look at some these covers and you'll know what to expect from this site in the future. I will also take a look at some unrelated sequels, movies that were renamed to make people believe it is a sequel to succesfull movie.
But it won't be only rip offs and sequels, I will use the Blog function to post short reviews of other movies that I see and that will fit the sites theme.
I'm trying to make a list of movies that I consider Rip Offs, if you would like to contribute to that list or to the site just sign up and become a member. And I could also use some moviefreaks who can post some movienews so now and then and maybee post a review in the blog sometimes. Just contact me!
Friday 25 January 2008
Lady Snowblood (Japan, 1973)
On a site dedicated to movie Rip offs it’s only logical you’ll cross the name Tarantino a lot. Because this man made millions by stealing from other movies (he did it mostly by making great movies, so I really don’t mind he did). Especially when it comes to the Kill Bill movies, you could write complete essays about what he used for which parts or scenes, and these writings will probably be around the net everywhere. I don’t have the urge to write another piece about that though, I just watched Lady Snowblood the other day again and I didn’t remember it was so obvious that this movie was the main influence for Kill Bill. And it’s not only that he used the theme song, there are some training scenes that look familiar, the movie is divided into four chapters and in the beginning there are flashbacks within flashbacks, characters are announced on screen, and sometimes pieces of the story are told by animé style drawings (something tarantino would take a step further by having a complete animé animation). And overall I think Tarantino did a great job by capturing the same feeling as is present in Lady Snowblood, and that’s the feeling of well styled Manga/Comic made into a movie.
For so far the nerdy Tarantino talk, on with the movie.
When Sayo and her husband are attacked by bandits he is brutally killed and she is captured by one of the bandits and gets raped and enslaved. Eventually she manage to kill the bastard and is send to jail for life. Once in jail she has sex with every man she can, just to get pregnant. Since she's sentenced for life the only way for her to get her revenge is by giving birth to a child who’s only purpose in life is to track down the bandits and killing them. Sayo dies when she's in labour but just before that she makes sure one of the other prisoners takes her child (Yuki) out of jail. The next twenty years Yuki is trained by a priest so she can get her revenge, why a priest would do such a thin puzzles me a bit, but hey, what do I know of ancient Japanese priests! Once old enough Yuki goes on her way for revenge and then the blood really starts to flow!
Lady Snowblood is a fast paced (for Japanese standards) revenge flick with gallons of blood and lots of nice shots (which emphasize that this is a Manga turned to a movie). It’s quite violent but because of the comic feel it has to it that violence isn’t all that shocking. Like most period martial arts films it uses beautiful locations but also some obvious studio sets, these aren't very convincing but actually help creating the right atmosphere.
Besides the theme song there are some scene which are accompanied by some kick ass funk tracks! That may seem a little out of place to some viewers but these kind of Japanese movies used that a lot in the 70's.
If you haven't seen this one yet and you liked Kill Bill you just have to give this a try, it's a great movie. I'm going to watch part 2 soon!
Seen any good trailers lately? Well I did, check this out!
I think this one is great, makes me realy curious! Is it sort of a Godzilla movie, or maybee Alien, or could it be an Independence day (hope not!). I'm guessing it's an american go on The Host.
The trailer works, I want to see it! Great poster also by the way.
I must say that I’m not really a big fan of the original Hill have eyes, I always thought that was sort of a different go on the Texas chainsaw massacre. Maybee not everyone will share that thoughts but it’s funny that the main reason that The Hills have eyes got a remake is that the TCM remake was a succes.
I don’t think that I’ll have to tell something about the story do I? It’s survival horror, so some people want to go somewhere, get lost and get hunted by inbreds or in this case mutated inbreds.
I think one of the most important things with such simple stories are the main characters, they have to be believable and somewhat likable. And although they are quite believable in this movie it’s hard to root for our victims because they are a bunch of irritating losers.
So if you don’t care that your victims are getting killed they better do it in a gory fashion! And I must say, for a big budget movie it’s pretty bloody and gory (I saw the unrated version, don’t know if it’s a lot stronger then the rated one). There are some nasty scenes including one in wich someone blows it’s own head off with a riffle, and unlike a lot of other movies they don’t just move the camera away and show some blood splatting agains the wall, it’s shown in full glory here!
Despite some good blood ‘n’ gore the Hills have eyes didn’t do much with me, probably because I’ve seen it all before. Victims that get pushed a little to far by their attackers, a lot of screeming and crying, dirty inbreed mutants… I’m just a bit survival horror tired.
So, nothing special but gorehounds will have a descent time with this one.
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