Sensei Sensibility

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian horror cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. Rosemary's Baby meets Joko Anwar in Netflix's latest Indonesian release The Womb . ( Inang in Indonesian) Papa Don't Preach, Wulan is in trouble deep!  Poor, young Wulan, sympathetically played by Naysila Mirdad , has found herself landed with an unexpected pregnancy, a job loss and an impending eviction.  The charming young gent who put her in the family way wants nothing to do with Wulan and the baby -  unless it's to pay for an abortion. Financial assistance and compassion are  not to be found in her sleazy manager's office at the local supermarket where she works - unless she's succumbs willingly to his moustachioed, sexual advances. And the animal print shirt wearing landlord of the grotty slums where Wulan lives has had enough of waitin...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. If the plot of Netflix's new K-thriller Unlocked is anything to go by, it looks like I'm not the only one who's been bingeing the hit show You . The gorgeous Lee Na-mi (Chun Woo-hee) is a carefree, and careless, twenty-something student who, like most twenty-something-year-olds, charges through life with her phone firmly glued to her hand, relying on it for every conceivable thing.  After a night of wild partying, the unthinkable happens and Na-mi wakes to find her phone missing! Fear not, gentle Na-mi, for a kindly voiced woman has just rung saying she found your phone on the night-bus, with its screen cracked, and has helpfully left it in for you to be repaired at Woo's Phone Repair.  Crisis averted!  Thoughts and prayers of gratitude for this good...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian horror cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. I recently stumbled across   Lee Chung-hyun's 2020 South Korean thriller The Call . With such a generic title, I had vague expectations of a knock-off of  Ahn Byeong-ki's 2002  top-notch horror  Phone .  Whilst I do always like to be right , when it comes to Asian Cinema, I love it when a movie proves me wrong . Little did I know that The Call was one of the most hotly anticipated movies of 2020. How to define its genre? Thriller, crime drama, horror and, surprisingly, science fiction time travel roller-coaster – The Call is an absolute powerhouse knock out cinematic experience. The main action of the movie is set in 2019, where mopey millennial Kim Seo-yeon (Park Shin-hye) is dealing with more baggage than a concierge for a Kardashian. De...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. "Joy and despair on an endless cycle..." If you like non-linear storytelling, oddly-disjointed but still loosely connected overlapping vignettes, based on a cult manga then Zokki from  Third Window Films  should definitely be next on your watch list!  Based on the manga  "ZOKKI A" and "ZOKKI B" by Hiroyuki Ohashi's and directed by not one, not two, but THREE top-notch Japanese directors - Naoto Takenaka, Takayaki Yamada, and Takumi Saitoh; Zokki is a quirky comedy that draws its laughs from the toilet, and its characters from the heart. Starting off Road Movie style, the film sees thirty-something Fujimura (Matsuda Ryuhei) cycling away from his ramshackle apartment, and travelling "aimlessly" around the picturesque rural roads out of Sakamoto To...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. "The dragon lives in the human heart..." Every now and then, a movie comes along that reminds you exactly why you want to spend all your spare time thinking, talking and writing about Asian cinema. Sogo (now Gakuryu ) Ishii's 2000 cult classic Electric Dragon 80.000 V is one such film. Move Over Detective Pikachu... Highly reminiscent  of the works of Shinya Tsukamoto,  Electric Dragon  is an  electrifying , punk renegade sci-fi, that draws on an exquisite B-Movie aesthetic. Shot entirely in black and white and set in a vaguely dystopian future/alternate reality Tokyo, we meet "Dragon Eye" Morrison, the great reptile detective. Trawling the backstreets and side-alleys of the city, Dragon Eye makes his living tirelessly searching for lost or mis...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian horror cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. As someone whose first introduction to the legendary Shinya Tsukamoto was through his off-beat, disturbed acting roles in cult classics such as  Ichi the Killer  and  Marebito , I was apprehensive as to how he would fare behind the camera, as well as in front.  However, having recently seen his iconic oeuvre “Tetsuo Iron Man 1” for the first time, I was expecting a similar, shocking and experimental outing when watching the Third Window Films' edition of Tsukamoto's Gemini . I stood corrected. Tsukamoto's 1999 movie Gemini, set during Japan's Meiji period, is an exquisitely designed and elaborately accurate period piece inspired by author Edogawa Ranpo's short story “The Twins.  Shot with low lighting, off-kilter sepia colouring - gone is the...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. "Time is a lot less forgiving than you think..." If my ever increasing grey hairs and deepening crow's feet are anything to go by, truer words were never spoken. However, if you're looking for absolute cinematic escapism, it doesn't come much richer than in Katsuyuki Matsohiro's 2005 sci-fi comedy  Summer Time Machine Blues.  If you like hilarious, heart-warming coming of age films that perfectly encapsulate the quintessential Japanese summer - then Summer Time Machine Blues from  Third Window Films  will not disappoint. Directed by Katsuyuki Motohiri, written by Makoto Ueda - and adapted from Ueda's original play of the same name -  STMB takes place on a rural college campus during an intense summer heatwave. The boisterous boys of the sc...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian crime cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. Brothers in Harm: Time and time again, cinema has confronted the black and white morals and ideals of its audience. From Park Hoon-jung's underworld masterpiece New World (2013), to (yes, even) Point Break  (1991) - we have been presented with the fact that the crime equation doesn't always follow as: Cops = Good Bad Guys = Bad.  The honour and unswerving solidarity amongst big screen murderers and thieves often results in some of the most unflinchingly emotional, beautiful pieces of cinema.  Think I'm wrong? Ask yourself: How many times have you mysteriously gotten something in your eye whilst watching an Undercover Cop Posing As Gangster, on his knees in the rain, screaming at the sky, holding his slain comrade in crime, as said comrade bleeds out p...