Once again I feel the need to point out that - with regards to the upcoming Dragonball film adaptation - I have no dog in the race. Never been a Dragonball fan, and probably never will be - that said, word has it that Glenn Wong’s film is undergoing a little plastic surgery - perhaps as a result of the resounding yawn uttered by internet fandom in response to the recently-leaked preview.

I’m not sure if this is a cause for hope, or a hopless cause - either way I will probably be doing something else the day this hits theaters.

As I’ve often told my friends, I’m pretty awful about filtering the stuff my kids see. I don’t really think it’s laziness per se (although I’m definitely lazy…). Rather, I think it’s a function of the way I was raised. I have pretty fond memories of my father taking me to the Playboy club in downtown Cincinnati (yes, there was one) to catch a showing of Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu when I was about ten-years-old. And at the age of 14, it was Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (in 3D!). So yeah - my dad was pretty bad about sheltering us from some pretty mondo wierdness, as well. And I think I turned out okay…

But there was the other stuff my dad introduced me to, as well. I remember seeing Yojimbo in the early 80’s, and pretty much any time a new Kurosawa movie came out my dad was sure to drag me to the nearest art cinema. Not to leave my mom out of the equation, any time there was a Godzilla movie on at night (again, this was in the 70’s before the advent of infomercials) she would drag me out of bed to watch it - no matter the hour, and irrespective of my school schedule.

Anyway, bizarro parenting tips aside - I was amused to read this article about Vietnamese parents freaking about the wave of Japanese comics washing up on their shores. It all sounds very Frederic Wertham, to be honest.

Recent articles on local newspapers and television reports on this issue have shocked parents.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when looking at those comic books. These images were too awful for children,” says Nguyen Van Dau, a resident of Dong Mai Commune of Ha Dong City.

“Even I myself and many other adults feel embarrassed when seeing such images,” says Nguyen Thanh Que, a resident at Kham Thien Street in Ha Noi.

They blame publishing houses for selling such books, but don’t blame themselves for not making the effort to spend more time with their children to explain sexual issues.

There has been no research about the connection between such comics and the development of a child, and experts are divided over whether these comics are harmful to children. Many studies have shown parents should be more worried about the harmful affects of violent comics on children, and not about erotic comics.

Yep, Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii has signed up to make a movie about our very own Musashi! And he’ going to star as himself! In an anime. Somehow.

Musashi Film

I am all about this. I love Oshii, I love Production I.G.’s style and I love sword fighting. Of course, being an Oshii movie, Miyamoto Musashi is going to spend 40% of his screen time thinking about the nature of his existence and quoting shit. But the other 60% of the time he will be kicking ass. And it will be very beautifully animated.

In other Bruce Lee related news - here’s a trailer for the upcoming Sammo Hung biopic about Bruce Lee’s mentor, Yip Man, starring Donnie Yen.

I have no words to describe this. Okay - one word.

smeg·ma /ˈsmɛgmə/ Pronunciation Key - [smeg-muh]
–noun
a thick, cheeselike, sebaceous secretion that collects beneath the foreskin or around the clitoris.

Yeah, that sums it up.

I think if you ask most people whom they regard as Japan’s greatest filmmaker, the consensus would undoubtedly be Seven Samurai director Akira Kurosawa. A recent article at the Japan times, aptly titled ‘Hayao Miyazaki - Japan’s Greatest Director’, wonders if that august title might not fit their greatest animator…oh and, um - sorry about the picture…I couldn’t resist.

Most praise his works. Haruhiko Kamijima, a novelist who authored a book about Miyazaki’s movies, said no Japanese director — including Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu or Takeshi Kitano — has had a bigger impact on the worldwide movie industry than Miyazaki. That is partly because his movies are animated, an area in which Japanese artists shine, he said. He favors Miyazaki’s recent works, and “Ponyo” is Miyazaki’s best, he said.

Miyazaki is an excellent animator, Kamijima said. He is good at drawing. “Ponyo” was done without using computer graphics, which means Miyazaki and his staff drew all the pictures needed to produce the movie, Kamijima said.

“Miyazaki goes against the current trend by not using a computer,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kaoru Kumi, who wrote a book critical of Miyazaki’s movies, dismisses him as a mere animator and says his scripts are of low quality. Miyazaki does not begin with a script. Rather, in many cases he first comes up with a visual idea, and then thinks of a story to back up the visual, resulting in strange and arbitrarily made-up plots, Kumi said. He also complains that Studio Ghibli has not turned out a great director because Miyazaki cannot teach scriptwriting.

Manila-born director and producer Cirio Santiago died of lung cancer on Friday. Santiago directed and produced dozens of films both here and in his native Philippines. Among his efforts were T.N.T. Jackson, Bloodfist 1 and 2 (starring Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson’) and the drive-in classic She-Devils in Chains. Not surprisingly, Quentin Tarantino counted Santiago among his many influences.

Here are a few samples of Santiago’s work:

Final Mission (1984)

Wheels of Fire (1985)

Savage (1973)

While Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling is ensconced in some evil lair, reclining naked on piles of cash wrenched from the pockets of millions of impressionable children (or, rather, the parents of millions of impressionable children), Warner Brothers is rubbing their backsides after losing a court case to block the release of a Bollywood film bearing a suspiciously similar monicker.

Though Hari Puttar - A Comedy of Terrors sounds like a sleazy ripoff, in truth the film’s name is -allegedly - simply an odd coincidence.

The court said in its ruling Monday that people who have watched the Harry Potter movies and read the books would know the difference between that and an Indian Punjabi film called “Hari Puttar — A Comedy of Terrors. ”

The producers, Mirchi Movies, said the Puttar movie bore no resemblance to the famous boy wizard franchise. Hari is a common name in India and Hindi for God, while “puttar” is Punjabi for son.

“It’s clearly great to have won this case,” Munish Purii, Mirchi’s chief executive told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “We are hoping for a good release although the timing of the Warner case distracted us from marketing.”

Don’t get yer panties in a bunch - this has nothing to do with Stephen Spielberg’s proposed Ghost in the Shell film…but last night I was lying on the couch like a beached whale watching Neil Marshall’s Doomsday on Time Warner Pay-per-View, and it struck me how similar Rhona Mitra’s character was to our favorite cyborg spec-ops hottie, Major Kusanagi.

Mitra’s character, though she has a proper name, is referred to simply as ‘Major’ for the entirety of the film, and has nearly the exact haircut as Kusanagi, minus the purple tint. Add a minor cybernetic enhancement (a removeable right eye which she can use as a surveillance camera) and some serious military hardware - and I think you know where I’m going with this. If they go with caucasian actors for the GitS film (and let’s face it - they probably will), I think they could certainly do far worse than Ms. Mitra.

As for the film itself, it is stupendously retarded - and yet incredibly entertaining. I may actually spring for the DVD…

Our comrade AnaKhouri already gave this a mention, but since Variety has provided some meagre details, I thought I’d jump in on the fun.

YES - the setting is moving from Japan to modern-day America…which I’m rather meh about. I mean, if you were to attempt a remake and set it in ancient Japan, what would be the point of remaking it? Why not just watch the original?

That said…

Action will be moved from ancient Japan to contempo America, where a court must decide the facts about the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband.

…so my question is - how is this different from just about every crappy, grade-z courtroom drama ever made?